by Eden Bradley
“The Christians called it the number of sin,” he reported to his mother when the nuns in the private school his parents had sent him to mentioned it to him. Mainly, when he wasn’t following their rules. Which was practically all the time.
“Nonsense,” his mother would sniff. “Pythagoreans know that six is considered the perfect number.”
Brenna cocked one eyebrow. “Your parents named you after a sin?”
“My mother was a math professor; my dad, science. They had a love of numbers and practicality.” He stretched, testing his muscles, the punch-drunk feeling lessening slightly. “But the sex part does come in handy, most of the time.”
“Yes, I can see that.” She smiled, and then it faded. “What was happening back there—the mark, on your wrist…” She trailed off as she picked up his arm and studied it, but the burn was already gone. At least on the surface. His nerve endings were still sensitive where the marking had appeared, a mark that was always going to be there, hovering beneath the skin, waiting for the right moment to resurface and try to push him over the edge.
Malachi’s gone. You banished him for good. Anything else was merely left over, an imprint, something that couldn’t hurt him beyond the physical pain.
“It’s left over, from Malachi’s possession. I told you that before Malachi, I did see ghosts everywhere, the whole I-see-dead-people thing. And I could always capture them on film as well, but I realized early on that it was easier not to tell people about that.”
“They wouldn’t have understood. They didn’t understand my mother.” She stroked his hair softly.
“People are always going to be scared of what they don’t see, so they’ll scoff at what others do see in order to ease their own fears. It’s human nature. The only way most of us survive.”
“How are you surviving, then? Because this has to take a terrible toll on you.”
It would, more so now than ever. “No more than your job takes on you,” he countered, and watched her recoil slightly.
“My mother always went out of her way to tell me I could be normal, that I would never have to be bothered by the visions and voices that woke her up at night from a sound sleep,” she explained, and he got that. Passing on that particular set of gifts was a heavy burden to bear for both giver and receiver, a calling that could force a life of isolation and pain.
“You’ve suffered because of what you can see,” she continued.
Had he? Or had he merely been surviving all these years instead of living, roaming from place to place like the ghosts who sought his help, ghosts who were constantly searching for something, someone, to make it all mean something?
Was Brenna that someone?
He pushed that thought from his mind as Brenna stroked his bare shoulders, first with the washcloth and then with her hands, massaging his sore muscles.
“Feels good.” He shifted slightly, burrowing his cheek against the pillow as his skin tingled under her touch.
“I’m going to make you feel even better.” And from the glint in her eye, he knew exactly what she was thinking. Normally, he’d be all over that idea. Literally all over it. But he was still far too helpless for comfort.
“Brenna, I can barely move,” he told her, but she wasn’t listening, had moved her body on top of his. The way she watched him made his heart tug, and he realized he had no choice once again but to trust her.
“Let me help you,” she was murmuring. Most of his body was still in recovery mode, but his cock came to life the instant Brenna’s mouth suckled gently on his neck.
Now she seemed to be working on bringing the rest of him back around. His nipples hardened as she worked them with her tongue, alternately sucking and nipping, then blowing on them so the cool air mingled with the taut flesh, and fuck, yes, he didn’t want her to stop. Ever.
“I won’t,” she said, even though he hadn’t spoken the words aloud.
She was straddling his prone form, looking down at him. She was still naked, beautifully so, with the morning light leaking through the curtains throwing shadows on her form.
“I’d love to photograph you right now…like a tigress stretching out in the sun.”
“Like a tigress about to take advantage of her mate,” she murmured, and raised her arms to lift the hair from her neck, posing for him for a second. Her breasts tilted up slightly, her belly was already pulled taut and her sex was moist where it rested near his thighs. “But really, you’d stop me now to take a picture?”
“If I could lift a camera.”
She moved off his thighs in order to pull down his already loosened jeans. “Maybe I’ll take a picture of you like this—helpless and spread out and so devastatingly handsome.”
He flushed, felt the heat spread from his cheeks to his neck, and yes, he’d been called handsome before, but none of those women had ever looked at him the way Brenna did now. “Go for it,” he whispered.
His cock was fully erect, pointing up toward his belly, engorged and ready. Brenna ran a single finger around the head, smearing the moisture and causing his hips to raise slightly.
He wanted to grab her, flip her—take her. But her warm mouth circled his cock, worked him slowly with her tongue the way she had in his dreams last night, and this was it, the place he needed to be.
He hissed as she slid his shaft in and out of her mouth, working it slowly with her hand in the same rhythm.
“Fuck, Brenna,” he groaned, even as she urged his legs farther apart—he could barely comply, but when he did, she worked her way down, licking his cock and then focusing her attention on his balls. She suckled one, then the other, until his hands fisted the sheets, his head rolling from side to side on the pillow as she worked the sensitive thin skin.
“Fuck me, Brenna—come up here and fuck me,” he heard himself say.
Slowly, so slowly, she released his cock from her mouth. “You taste so good, Hex…I could taste you all day.”
She moved up his body and hovered over his erection. He tried to lift his arms to yank her down, to impale her on his cock, but they still felt heavier than lead. “Don’t tease, not now.”
She lowered herself, her sex taking him in, inch by excruciatingly pleasurable inch, until she’d completely sheathed him.
His body trembled, the earlier shock combined with the intensity of his pleasure nearly too much for all his senses. He closed his eyes in an attempt to block out some of the stimuli, to just give his body the chance to integrate his senses as a whole again.
“So hot, Brenna,” he murmured. “Hot and tight.”
“I’m going to take you, Hex. Make you all mine.”
Brenna was rocking against him, arcing her body and moaning as he throbbed inside her. She moved a hand up his chest, alternated pinching and caressing a nipple with one hand, while her other hand reached back to stroke his balls, and oh, man, this was good—made his nerve endings shock back to life, eased the ache in his muscles, even as the urge to come was fast overtaking him.
He opened his eyes and managed to prop himself first onto his elbows and then finally all the way to sitting. She settled back in, her feet locking behind him, her hands on his shoulders.
He braced himself with his arms behind him at first, but he was meeting her, thrust for thrust. And after a few minutes, he was able to throw one arm around her waist, to pull her tighter to him, so he could get deeper inside of her hot, slick sex, which contracted around him with each arch of her body.
She’d thrown back her head, rode him with her eyes closed and her mouth curved in an open bow of pleasure, until he came, his orgasm even more intense than it had been earlier. He cried out her name, and her entire body shook with the force from his.
He eased back slowly—she remained pressed to his chest as she uncurled her legs. For a few moments, they lay against each other in silence.
Brenna’s next words hit him squarely between the eyes.
“You’ve done so much for me, Hex,” she whispered. “I’ll never forge
t you or what you’re doing to help me get my career back. To help me finally be done with this paranormal crap.”
I’ll never forget you.
Her words brought home the enormity of what he’d just done, what he’d allowed to happen. He saw dead people, would be able to see them all the time, without barriers.
He would never rest.
He pushed back and away from her. “I’m so fucking tired of being everyone’s pawn—living and dead.”
“Hex, wait. Please. I know this has been a lot for you to deal with.”
“You have no idea what I’m dealing with. You think you know, think you understand what it’s like to live with ghosts. But you have no idea what it’s like to see them, night and day. To have them begging for your help. To not be able to get any kind of relief. But don’t worry, we’ll get rid of Arlen, and then you can go back to forgetting all about this paranormal crap and get on with your life.”
She recoiled as if he’d slapped her.
He struggled off the bed and into the bathroom, away from Brenna, and knew he wouldn’t find relief anytime soon.
CHAPTER
Seven
Brenna stared at the closed bathroom door, unsure what to say or do. A few months ago her first instinct would have been to throw a tantrum—and maybe a lamp—but something had changed since she’d been away from the world of glitz and glamour.
Something had definitely changed since meeting Hex, because strangely, she wanted to talk this out instead of stomping off in a huff.
She crossed the room and tapped on the bathroom door. “Hex?”
“Give me a minute.”
Ignoring him, she reached for the doorknob. She hesitated when her hand closed around the antique handle.
I’m an intensely private person.
She had to respect that, no matter how badly she wanted to barge in and make him listen to her.
“Look,” she began, propping her forehead against the door, “you’re right. I don’t know what it’s like to have ghosts bugging me night and day. But I watched my mom go through it. She did it alone because she refused to bring a man into our lives until I was old enough to defend myself.” She paused, unsure if she really wanted to go there, to the place where her father had been an abusive scumbag her mom left when Brenna was three.
No, she definitely didn’t want to go there.
“What I’m trying to say is that I hated what she went through. I hate all of it. I didn’t want to be around it, and I found a life that kept me as far away as possible.”
Hex said nothing. She was making things worse, obviously.
“Okay, I’m tired of talking to a door. When you decide to quit hiding, I’ll be here to talk.”
Keeping a tight rein on her temper, she threw on a gauzy sundress, even though she was exhausted enough to fall into bed and stay there for days. But there was no way she could sleep, and something she’d seen in one of Arlen’s flashbacks lingered in her mind, a puzzle that needed to be solved.
Downstairs, she snared a Popsicle from the freezer, grabbed her shoulder bag and slipped on her sandals.
“Where are you going?” Hex’s voice startled her, nearly made her drop her purse.
“To find Mattie,” she said, knowing that sounded insane. Then again, everything about the last couple of days had been insane.
Barefoot, and wearing only fresh, dry jeans, Hex sauntered into the kitchen, halting five feet from her, looking tired but gloriously fired up. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“I’ve got to do something. I can’t just sit around here and do nothing but have sex.” Not that having sex with him had been a hardship, but she wasn’t about to hang around and wait for Arlen to try to possess him again.
He hooked his thumbs in his pockets and watched her with that intense, whiskey gaze. “Why have you been having sex with me, Brenna? Because you feel like you owe me? Because of the anything clause?”
Unbelievable. She crossed her arms over her chest, realizing too late she looked ridiculous with the Popsicle in her hand.
“Yes, Hex. There has to be a reason, because it’s simply not possible that I like you.” He snorted, and her tenuous hold on her temper finally snapped. “You’d think someone who can see ghosts wouldn’t be so damned blind when it comes to the living.”
“You said you hate the paranormal, that you want nothing to do with it.” He closed the distance between them in two strides, filling her personal space with his rampant masculinity, stopping just short of touching her. “But, baby, I’m about as paranormal as it gets. It’s part of me, and it ain’t going away. So yeah, I have a hard time believing that you want anything to do with me.”
“Believe what you want,” she snapped. “I’m leaving.”
“I’ll go with you.” He grasped her wrist as though to stop her, but his grip was gentle, soothing, and her anger melted like the ice pop in her hand.
“I can handle this by myself. You should stay and get some rest.”
“Do you have a car?” he asked, ignoring everything she’d just said.
She hefted her purse onto her shoulder, avoiding his eyes. “I was going to take the bus.” She’d had to sell her Mercedes a month ago.
Releasing her, he snagged his cell phone off the table. “We’re taking a cab.”
She huffed, but he merely dialed the taxi company, whose number he must have programmed into his directory. After he hung up, he silently took the stairs and left her to wait, but just as the cab pulled up to the front of the house, Hex came downstairs, freshly shaved and wearing a forest green short-sleeved button-down shirt that made his eyes glow.
“Where to?” the driver asked once they were inside the air-conditioned cab. The icy interior felt like heaven after so many weeks in a house cooled only by fans and nighttime breezes.
Brenna slipped on sunglasses as Hex did the same. “Metairie Cemetery.”
“Have you been there before?” Hex asked.
“I’ve never been to any cemetery,” she said quietly. Her mom had warned against it, saying that the spiritual energy could be too intense. It had been out of concern for Brenna that she’d been cremated instead of buried. “You?”
He nodded. “It’s one of the city’s most prestigious graveyards, and since Katrina, paranormal activity has been off the charts. I’ve gotten some great pictures there.”
The drive was short, silent, and once they arrived, Hex paid the fare while Brenna wandered around the main entrance. The monuments were stained by Katrina floodlines, and many of the statues had been damaged, but the sense of familiarity couldn’t be washed away by a storm surge. She’d seen all of this through Arlen’s eyes.
The morning heat bore down on her, scorching her bare shoulders as she moved with purpose down Avenue Bell, ignoring Hex’s curse far behind her.
Her heart began to thump with the force of a horse’s hooves on pavement. Her blood pounded in her ears. She broke out in a cold sweat and even her vision started swimming. So many tombs, all aboveground because of the low water tables in New Orleans. A city of the dead.
Her mom had been right; the spiritual energy fairly vibrated in the air, bounced off her skin, closed in on her like a tunnel that grew smaller as she walked.
Statuettes of praying angels guided her way past plots surrounded by black ironwork fences, and giant effigies of weeping women pointed her in a direction she somehow knew well.
“Brenna!”
Hex’s footsteps grew louder, spurring her faster. She was close. Her throat tightened, so much that her breath felt like it was being funneled through a straw.
There.
She stumbled to a stop in movie-slow-motion. In front of her, the tomb loomed, dull white stained by time and storms, chipped and worn by the elements. Four stone pillars rose out of the ground, lending a grand, mansionlike quality to the tomb, and between them, two names had been carved into a marble plaque.
MADELYN “MATTIE” ROUSSEAU, 1903–1923.
ARLEN ROUSSEAU, 1895–1923.
“Oh, God,” she whispered. “It’s all true.”
Hex’s hands came down on her shoulders, his comforting presence holding her steady. “You knew it was.”
Yes, she had. But to be confronted with the evidence shook her. Literally, because she had to clench her fists to keep them from trembling.
“Hex…” Her legs gave out, but he caught her, hauled her up against him so she thought she’d never fall again.
“It’s okay, Brenna.”
She stood there for a moment, folded into Hex’s strong arms. “I want this to be over.”
“You know what to do.”
She closed her eyes, hating the truth in his words. She remembered how her mom would contact the spirits of those who had crossed over, and she knew she had to open herself up the same way. But if she did that, there might be no turning back. She might be hounded day in and day out by spirits who wanted her to communicate with their loved ones.
“I’m afraid.” Taking a deep breath, she took his male essence into her, as though his strength would transfer to her through his scent. “That probably sounds so lame to you, after all you’ve done.” And after she’d called him a coward for not facing his own gift. God, she was the biggest coward of all.
He pushed back from her, just enough that he could look directly into her eyes. “Brenna, I’ve hid from the full power of my gift for a long time, so I’m the last person on earth to think less of you for being afraid to use yours.” He feathered his fingers over her cheek in an unbelievably comforting gesture. “You’re strong. You can do this. And when it’s over, I won’t leave you alone to deal with the fallout.” His throat worked on a hard swallow. “I’ll be there for you.”
She didn’t know what to say. He’d already done so much for her. How could she ask for more once this was over?
Stepping away from him, she closed her eyes again and concentrated. In her mind, she called out to Mattie. Over and over. Gradually, voices began to invade her thoughts…a jumble of them, hundreds, perhaps, but she couldn’t pick out a single one. Wincing, she covered her ears, but that only made the noise inside her head grow louder.