by HK Carlton
“Get back to work,” Salem said, in no uncertain terms.
After a round of ‘yes sirs,’ they did as commanded.
“They are an amazing group of men, Salem,” Kaylah said, hugging him.
“I know it. But did you say annoying? ’Cause I heard ‘annoying,’” he tried to joke and lighten her mood.
Even through lessening tears, she giggled. The sound reverberated in his chest.
“Ya need any help putting all this stuff away?”
“No, thank you. I’ve got it.”
“Then I’ll get back at it, too.”
Salem went to retrieve his tape measure.
“Piq, did you steal my fuckin’ tape measure again?” With the noise, no one heard him. “I was sure I left it on the sideboard,” he grumbled.
As he limped back up the stairs, he wondered about Kay and Autumn’s relationship. The more he hung around, the more he wondered if things were not as rosy between the two of them as Kaylah wished him to believe. So, Autumn had plans with friends for Thanksgiving. He could accept that, he supposed. But, he’d also suggested Kay take a week and go up and visit her, if she missed her daughter so much. There had always seemed to be an excuse. Next time he had that girl on the phone, he was determined to get to the bottom of it. Yet even her phone calls were becoming fewer and farther between.
As soon as he entered Autumn’s room, he spied his measuring tape on the new window sill.
He sighed and picked it up. Most of the other paranormal activity had calmed, as Tagg had advised. No more banging doors at six a.m. or popping bulbs or disembodied footfalls. The lost or moving objects were another matter altogether. The men were forever misplacing tools and, as Kaylah had mentioned, finding them in the most confounding places.
“It’s gettin’ old,” he mumbled to no one in particular.
* * * *
Later, as he hammered in some finishing nails around the window trim, Kaylah looked in on him. “How’s it going? “Ohhh…” She paused. Her gaze traveled over his bare chest and back up. By now, he knew that look. His cock tugged with interest.
“Now, Kay…”
Slowly, she stalked him.
“I’m trying to work,” he said, sternly.
Though when she reached him and kissed his shoulder, his will dwindled while his dick lengthened.
“Mmm, you taste kinda salty,” she murmured, brushing her lips over his collarbone. This wasn’t the first time she’d interrupted his work.
She unbuckled his tool belt then lowered it to the floor. She palmed his burgeoning erection.
“We’re never going to finish this house if you keep disturbing me.”
With her lower lip jutting, she took a step away. “I’m sorry. I’ll leave you to it, then.”
Of course, the minute she turned around to exit, his attention went straight to her fine ass, accentuated in a pair of form-fitting shorts. Man, that walk… Those legs… She could be a fuckin’ runway model. Salem fisted his hands in an attempt to rein in his galloping desire as she disappeared from sight. But, before he could do so, she tossed those tiny shorts in the open doorway. An image of her strutting down the hallway in nothing but her panties and T-shirt flashed through his dirty little mind.
In a rush, he took the largest, and likely the fastest, steps he’d taken in a long time, trying to catch up.
“Damn it, woman,” he growled, as he neared the bedroom they’d been sharing on the odd night they were too tired to return to his place. Poor Kaylah’d been displaced several times to escape the construction. “You can’t be running around like that in front of my men.”
The rest of his tirade died on his tongue.
With her back to him, Kaylah stood in front of the large trunk at the end of the bed. Naked now from the waist down, she’d bent over, her elbows on top of the trunk, her legs spread at a wide stance. Her scrumptious ass jutted out invitingly. A hint of her inner labia peeked out at him. His mouth watered. His cock pulsed.
“What took you so long?” she asked in a low, sexy voice.
Quickly, he shut the door behind him. As he neared the bed, he unfastened his pants. The minute he reached her, he let them fall to his ankles, along with his boxers.
He smoothed his palms over the roundness of her ass.
“I should spank you for stripping while this house is full of workers.” He lifted his right hand then brought it down and patted her backside several times, playfully.
“I was pretty sure we were the only ones up here,” she replied, wiggling her ass.
Salem slid his hand between her legs and waggled his fingers through her folds. He groaned. “You’re wet.”
“Mmm-hmm. You can’t run around half-dressed either with that fine sheen of sweat coating your chest. See what it does to me?” She bore down on his hand.
“What do you want, baby?”
“Hard and fast, Salem. Fuck me hard and fast.”
His breath rushed from his lungs.
Eager now, he fisted his taut shaft and guided it to her entrance. He could feel her luscious heat beckoning before he even touched her.
The second he entered her, she shoved backward, impaling herself. The mewling sound that followed only heightened his need.
“Keep that up and I’m only going to come fast, without the hard part.”
“Uhh, Salem, give me what you can. I need—” At that moment she reached for her clit. Even from behind, he could feel her working it. Her inner walls became charged, pulsing and gripping him, dappling his cock from base to tip with the most exquisite currents.
Holding her hips, Salem thrust in and out. Their frantic panting filled the air. His hips made a slapping sound every time he connected with her ass.
“Uhh, Salem, harder!”
By increments, as Mikaylah rose onto her tiptoes, the more excited and demanding she became.
He couldn’t reach her the way he wanted, to give her what they both needed.
“Relax. Put your feet down,” he said. “You’re making it more difficult for me.”
To punctuate it, once more, he smacked her ass, with a little more force than he’d intended, but it had the most incredible effect. Her insides clenched, hugging him tightly. She cried out. The entire house likely heard.
The thought brought a smug grin to his face but only for a split second.
His balls pulled tight, hips jerked and he exploded, only moments behind her.
“Ohh, Salem. Oh, God, that’s good,” she mewled, as she continued to back up on him, as if trying to savor every last inch before he lost all substance.
As he calmed, he noticed he’d left a red handprint, the perfect image of his big paw, on her pale skin. He rubbed his palm over the mark, soothing the pinkened area, though it gave him a weird sense of pride and ownership. He wanted Mikaylah, not merely in his bed. He craved something more permanent. But he was well aware, when the house was finished, she would leave to be with her daughter. Where did that leave him? Did she expect they’d try a long-distance thing? He wasn’t up for that, especially after practically living together for the duration of the reno. Going backward wasn’t an option. Besides, his home was here. Or was she simply going to pack up and go and not give him a second thought?
Mikaylah moved and dislodged him from her sweet cunt. She turned in his direction and hugged him. Her eyes looked dreamy and sexy as all fuck. When she looked at him that way, he was pretty certain she might kinda love him, too, though neither of them had been brave enough to say it.
“Thank you. I needed that,” she murmured against his neck. The feathery touch of her lips gave him goosebumps.
“My pleasure. I’m here to serve.”
Her throaty chuckle reverberated through his chest.
“But now you’ve gone and done it. I don’t wanna go back to work,” he complained, cupping her bottom.
She peered over her shoulder at the bed. “We could curl up and take a nap?” she offered. “And when we wake up, we could do tha
t again.” She winked as she looked back at him.
“Now, how would I explain that to the crew?”
“Well, it’s not like they don’t already know we’ve been carrying on for weeks now. Kraft nearly caught us fooling around in the storage container in the yard.”
There was no ‘almost’ about it. Kraft had gotten an eyeful and informed the entire crew, who had then good-naturedly razzed him about it unmercifully for a week, though it didn’t bother him in the slightest. They could eat their lonely hearts out. Kaylah was his. Now he just had to figure out a way to keep her.
* * * *
Later, after a catnap, Salem set back to work on Autumn’s window. He’d left Kay tearing off more wallpaper in the spare bedroom. The place was overrun with the ancient, gaudy stuff. They’d certainly known how to spread glue back in the day.
“Ahh, fer fuck, where is that goddamn level?” Once again, he searched the room, only to find it tucked inside the closet door, as if holding it open.
Salem walked over and looked down at it. “Now I know I didn’t put it there.” He bent to retrieve it. “Are ya having fun, ya naughty little ’geist?”
He stilled when he thought he heard a couple of small knocks on the ceiling right above his head.
Quickly, he shut the door.
The phone rang and he jumped a mile.
“Jesus!” After all this time, the supernatural shit still gave him the willies.
With one hand over his chest, he answered. “MacDonough residence.”
“Salem?”
“Autumn? I can hardly hear ya, hon.” Crackling static squelched in Salem’s ear, causing him to hold the earpiece slightly away. “Where are you? You sound so far away. This connection is crap.”
Another round of interference made her voice cut in and out. “In my closet, Salem…”
It was the only sentence he could make out.
“The closet? More plans that I don’t know about, Autumn?”
A blaring dial tone ended the static.
He stared at the cordless phone for a second then placed it back into its dock.
“What have you two ladies got planned now. A balcony? Skylight? A second freakin’ floor for the absent princess?” he grumbled as he limped to the closet.
Inside, the cubby was empty except for a well-worn leather purse on top of an old newspaper.
“Hey, Kay? Did you know this was here?”
There was no answer.
“As usual, no one can hear me in this big, old house,” he shouted to no one. Between the buzzing of saws, the incessant hammering and swish-bang of the nail gun, it was near impossible to communicate.
In one hand, he picked up the bag, along with the newspaper, then set them on the three-quarter table, the only piece of furniture in the room besides the infamous royal purple futon.
The zipper on the bag gapped open. The purse was full of photographs. Salem grabbed a handful and leafed through them. Each one was of Autumn, he presumed, though he’d never seen a picture of her. She was the spitting image of her lovely mama. Several were of the two of them, commemorating birthdays, Christmases, dance recitals, graduation. It certainly seemed as if they were best friends. But Kay’s eyes… God, how they sparkled. He’d never seen her that happy.
As Salem was about to return the pictures to the purse, he spotted several other miscellaneous objects in the bottom. He set the images down and reached in. At first he came up with several pill bottles, each about half full—painkillers and antidepressants, if he was up on his drug names. That was normal after any kind of surgery. He’d been on his own regimen for a while after his amputation, too. But it was the other two bottles that gave him pause. The labels were in somebody else’s name and, again, he was no expert, but he was pretty sure they were heavy narcotics.
He set them aside and peered into the bag once more. His stomach twisted when he pulled out the next item.
It was a handgun. A nine-millimeter Ruger.
“What the fuck?” A cold tingle raced up his spine.
He upended the sack and found an unopened box of ammunition and three straight razors. “No, no, no.” This contingency pack could only be one thing.
His memory jogged to the first day he’d seen Mikaylah, on the bridge. “Oh my God!” he murmured, wiping his forehead.
Angry and scared, he tossed the purse to the floor, and that’s when he saw the front page of the newspaper that had been hidden underneath the handbag in the closet.
Local Teen Tragically Killed en Route to Freshman Year
Autumn’s smiling young face stared out at him from the black-and-white newsprint from Mikaylah’s hometown.
Salem staggered backward and slumped down heavily on the futon. Tears filled his eyes. Sweat beaded his brow. “How can this be? We talked on the fucking phone.” Am I losing my mind? What the fuck is going on?
Through a blur, he attempted to read the article.
Autumn and her friend had set off to go to school, but they’d never quite reached their destination. On the freeway, right outside the city limits, the car they were riding in had blown a tire. The vehicle had veered into the passing lane and into the path of an eighteen-wheeler.
It wasn’t until Salem unfolded the newspaper that the full impact of what had happened that day hit him. Another more familiar image, farther down the page, caught his attention.
The room began to spin as the godawful realization dawned on him. His brother had been at the accident scene with Autumn and her friend.
“Oh, dear God,” he choked, unsure if he might throw up.
Snippets of conversations he’d had with Kay filtered through his mind.
‘Now I’m here and she isn’t. And, honestly, I know in my heart, she isn’t coming back. I really can’t see myself renting to a bunch of college kids. I’m just not up for it without her. I think I’d just like to fix it up, sell it and go where she is.’
And, ‘Maybe we should just do a quick patch up and be done with it. I’m running out of time.’
Even when they’d talked about Autumn’s living arrangement, she hadn’t lied to him, at first.
‘Ah, so she’s tucked away on campus,’ he’d asked.
‘Well…not exactly.’
Then she’d told him a whopper.
‘Though she’d already committed to the program here, it was something she simply couldn’t pass up. A once in a lifetime…’
‘Wow, I’ve never heard of that happening. What short notice.’
‘It was totally unexpected.’
‘So, you moved here to be with her and she’s—’
‘She may as well be a million miles away.’
“A million miles away,” he repeated, but this time, a shiver of unease worked its way up his spine. She’d even kept up the false pretense about Autumn’s plans over Thanksgiving.
Kaylah popped in, as she often did. “Salem, I put the kettle on and—” She took one look at him holding the newspaper. Her gaze darted to the empty purse, then to all the paraphernalia strewn about.
It all finally made sense. Autumn was dead and Kaylah, at some point, had contemplated suicide. Hell, maybe she still did.
“Oh, God!” She choked.
“Kay…” Salem struggled to his feet. But Kaylah turned and bolted down the stairs, her heavy footfalls rapid.
There was no way he could catch her with his bum leg but he tried his best. He had to stop her. Fear made his chest hurt.
“Kaylah, stop.”
A sob reached him, but she kept right on running.
“Mikaylah! Please. Don’t go!”
Halfway down the stairs, he realized she was almost to the door and he had no way of knowing what she might do if she left. Drastic times called for drastic measures. Two steps from the bottom, he threw himself down in an exaggerated fall. He let out a pathetic bellow, and it was enough to stop her in her tracks.
“Salem?” The fear in her voice gave him a slim strand of hope. She cared enough to sto
p. He remained absolutely still.
“Salem! Oh, God, no. Salem?”
Thankfully, she ran back to help.
Salem moaned and moved so she’d know he wasn’t hurt too bad, as she knelt at his side.
Kaylah ran her hands over him. “Where does it hurt?”
He looked up at her. The concern in her eyes had replaced the earlier terror.
Salem held on to her arms and pulled himself to a sitting position. She wasn’t getting away. “I’m fine. I’m okay. Help me up.”
Once he was on his feet and face-to-face, her expression turned to bewilderment. She tried to yank away from him but he held tight.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, quietly.
Her lovely eyes brimmed with tears. “Tell you what? That I’m crazy? That I talk to my…my…” Her lips trembled.
“Say it,” he demanded.
Tears coursed down her cheeks. She shook her head.
“Say it, Kaylah. Have you ever even said it out loud?”
“No,” she replied, tremulously.
“She’s gone, love. Autumn’s gone.” Salem gathered her closer.
Her features crumbled. “No, no, no,” she wailed into his chest.
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” he crooned as he rubbed her back.
“I don’t want to say it. I don’t want this to be real. I should have driven her. It was my job to keep her safe and I—”
“It wasn’t your fault.” If Kay had been driving that day, he never would have met her. She might have died, too.
Another sob burst from the back of her throat. Her body convulsed as she cried, deep down soul-rending grief coursed through her and into him.
He didn’t know how long they stood there—long enough his shoulder felt damp, but hers had to be, too.
Finally, Kaylah eased back. Her nose was red, her eyes swollen and haunted.
“I didn’t… I never meant to lie to you.” More tears leaked down her face. He’d opened the floodgates. “I… I concocted this whole other realm for myself, an alternate reality where my baby is alive and well. She’s off at school, living her dreams, taking the next steps for the rest of her long, wonderful life. It’s the only way I can cope, Salem.”