by Kat Turner
In an efficient show of self-preservation, Brian’s defenses kicked in and stashed unpleasant memories into their lock box. He didn’t need to subject Helen to his past woes, for she had enough on her docket without having to deal with his baggage about spending his teen years feeling unloved.
Besides, he was doing well now. He had a healthy, thriving child. No addictions or fights or other drama plagued his band. Brian lived a great life, wealthy and successful and full of travel and music. He had no right to complain. No right.
“I suppose,” he said.
She answered with no words and a small smirk made enormous by the wisdom it held.
Their little push and pull, their dance of advance and retreat, ended in a tie. And in that draw was parity, equanimity, and respect. Her Mona Lisa smile rendered their feelings into a touché they could share like an appetizer over candlelight.
He pointed to her computer and patted the hefty text splayed over his lap. Reminiscing time had ended. Helen and he communicated well on the unspoken plane. “Shall we review what we have so far?”
“Yes. So, based on what you’ve told me, we’ve got your manager Joe, a mystical neophyte who’s into remote viewing and nightmare fuel parties involving masks. You’ve heard rumors of a secret society cutting people open and saw a woman with the evidence of such an atrocity branded on her body. On my end, I dabbled in witchcraft in a desperate attempt to save my business and unleashed something bad. The clear crystal I gave you went missing the day we met, and this implicates Joe.”
“Apt summary.”
“We have a lot of dots, but we need through lines to connect them. I can’t get to a definitive reason why Joe wants the crystal, what he’s doing, and how his agenda ties in to what I did. I’m hoping once I get back home on Sunday I can clear some of that up, but for now do you have anything else we might be able to use? Any more dots?”
It embarrassed Brian that he fixated, with disappointment, on her comment about leaving.
A relevant memory, though, saved him from sinking into a brooding and unproductive crush on her. He took off his watch and brought up the photo of the party guest unmasked.
“Okay, good. Do you know who this is?” Her pretty eyes sparkled with engagement.
A ridiculous amount of pride in his accomplishment buoyed him. He’d found a solution she sought. He’d pleased her.
“I think he’s a record executive. Aries, probably, though I can’t be certain.” Brian squinted at the photo. Despite a film of blurriness clouding the image, a few of the man’s features jumped out. His long nose, sallow complexion, and a cluster of moles beneath one eye all dinged bells. He’d seen this bloke around Los Angeles in recent months, working the scene.
“It’s a start.” Helen unfolded her computer and plugged keywords into the search engine. After a few tries, she landed on a sleek page of thumbnail photos arranged in symmetrical rows and pointed at a headshot of an unsmiling middle-aged man. “That’s him, right?”
Brian compared his picture to the one onscreen, getting distracted by the shape of Helen’s full lips. “Look at you, Lois Lane.”
“Well, I didn’t have to sleuth too hard. The executive ranks of Hollywood are small. They don’t refer to the elites, the one-percent, because their legions are many.” She scrolled to the top of the page, paused and mouthed a few words, then backtracked to the search results and clicked on a link. “So our guy is James Elwell, the new chief financial officer of a record label who merged with yours a few years ago.”
The most significant takeaway from this was a connection to Aries. All roads led there. “We have a name. Let’s see what else he’s in to.”
“I have a guess.” Stretching out her response in a dry drawl, Helen keyed in the man’s name alongside “dark cult” and pressed enter.
Dozens of links to Elwell populated the screen. Hovering a finger over the track pad, Helen cringed. He didn’t want to know the gory details either, but they needed them.
With a lift of his chin, he signaled her to go on.
Helen selected pages. Brian’s breath hitched every time a site loaded. She surfed, and they read, words and meaning sucking oxygen out of the room and filling the hole with awfulness.
Brian wrapped a hand around his throat like an invisible devil stood poised to rip out his jugular. “It’s all in the realm of conspiracy theory and speculation. So we can’t be sure what’s real.” Yet he croaked the words out as if he spoke through a mouthful of sand, relinquishing any remaining claim to skepticism.
“It checks out, though. With our preexisting suspicions.” Helen used the zoom tool, and text swelled when the page magnified.
Plain as day, in lurid yellow font against black background, allegations from an amateur webpage hurtled at Brian’s eyeballs. He forced himself to read and reread, though the words pierced like arrows. And Helen was correct, it all lined up. A secret society of Hollywood elites supposedly dealt in demonology and human sacrifice. Projects included turning celebrities into vampires in efforts to create cash machines of eternal youth and hollowing people out as part of a demonic possession ritual.
Talismans and other types of magical objects facilitated the transfer of energy, allowing the summoned entity to slide into and inhabit the host body. In the lower left-hand corner of the page sat a symbol. The sigil matched the brand etched on the party guest’s stomach.
Brian rubbed his face. “I suppose the end game has to be mind control, or appeasing the whims of their demon master in hopes it will bring them money and power. Christ, this all sounds so preposterous.”
“It’s insane. And scary. Insanely scary.”
“How are you implicated in this?” he asked without expecting much.
If she hid anything, she wouldn’t say. And though Helen didn’t wear everything about herself on the surface, he’d ceased suspecting her.
A theory of her as a spy or crony for this cult didn’t make sense. Not one shred of evidence pointed to Helen having aligned goals with Joe. Except the near-universal motive of money. At one point, Helen faced bankruptcy. He ought to keep all options on the table.
She tapped the cursor, bookmarking pages. “They must be casting energy transfer spells to move the crystals. Look, I have to get home and touch base with this witch. I’ll call you when I have more.”
A flurry of taps, and Hotwire appeared on the screen. A rock formed in Brian’s gut. He touched her busy fingers, halting her motions before she selected a late flight from Denver to Minneapolis. “Stay. Please. Just for the night. We’ll figure out more in the morning.”
She turned away from the screen, forehead bunched in puzzlement. “Why? I’m no use to you here.”
He let his hand stay on hers for longer than he should have, stroking silken skin over delicate veins. “You mentioned desire, in a roundabout way.”
What was he doing? Brian hadn’t felt this awkward around a woman since his teen years, spent strumming his guitar behind the prestigious secondary school in another ill-fated, pathetic effort to show off to the girls.
Those bored, elegant, London society princesses had tendered a clear verdict. Brian the imposter would never be enough. Never rich enough, refined enough, posh enough, princely enough. Still he’d tried, as hard as he could, to prove them wrong. Prove to them his worth, his talent, his merit. He’d never ceased his quest to prove himself.
Though Helen pulled a face, she rubbed the inside of his index finger in two playful strokes. “I guess I did, yes. I thought for a minute that the curse fed on something inside of me, maybe my emotions. But again, I’m not sure how that links in with your manager and this demon cult agenda or stolen crystals. But, like I said, I’m hoping the witch in Minneapolis might be able to help.”
Brian swallowed, stuffing down his old stuttering habit with a gulp. Good grief. Get him around a woman he liked, and he regressed to a gawky schoolboy. “You brought up being a fan of my music, so I had an idea. Sort of like a test, or an experiment if you
prefer.”
“Yes, I am a fan. True statement. But I’m not sure I get what you’re driving at here.”
Bringing a closed fist to his face, Brian cleared his throat, noticing after the fact how overloud and comical the gesture sounded. A meteor was welcome to plummet from outer space and strike him dead.
“I thought if I played you some songs we could monitor your reactions and responses. Watch for curse activity and chart progress. Kind of like testing your hypothesis. About desire. Or emotions. Or things inside of you.”
Things inside of you? What a sodding idiot he was. Where was his rock-star cool when he needed it?
Helen pressed her lips together, a muffled, airy giggle slipping from her sealed mouth. “An appeal to my scientific side? Bold move there, Brian.”
He figured himself to be the color of tourmaline, or perhaps even persimmon, at the moment. “Never mind. At least let me buy your ticket home.”
“I’m joking. Sorry, I have a bad habit of using humor and sarcasm to mask emotions. You had a good idea, made a sound point. And a private show from Brian Shepherd? Amazing. Count me in.”
He managed to stop himself from grinning like a besotted fool.
An odd silence passed. They looked at each other for a little to long. Helen played with her hair, batted her eyelashes. Another second dragged. She rubbed her thighs with many vigorous strokes.
Brian couldn’t read her signals, the confounding way they collided, so he doubled back to an area where he’d achieved success. Being straightforward, no games, was proven a strategy when faced with uncertainty.
“Fantastic. I’ll get the equipment and bring it out here. My best guitars and amplifiers are in the bedroom.”
Helen’s eyes darkened to the hue of the chocolate that spilled from a lava cake. She closed the space between them and kissed him until the focus of all thought narrowed to his greedy dick and her luscious, supple curves and pockets of wet heat.
Breaking the kiss with a nip to his bottom lip, Helen whispered in hot, minty breath, “Show me this bedroom of which you speak, Brian Shepherd.”
Eleven
“What hypothesis are we testing again?” Though she asked an earnest question, Helen ached for a break from curse talk. She could lose herself in the body and attentions of a sexy, smart man and forget the things in her life that sucked. Selfish? Sure. Heavenly? Hell yes.
And Brian was making it damn easy to forget the suckage. She arched beneath him, pressing their smooth bellies together. Her back sank into the firm mattress, scents of detergent and his personal fragrance swirling through the room.
His erection pressed into the juncture of her spread legs, his hot breath quick against the side of her neck. “The effects of desire, I think. Except you’re so fucking sexy I can’t think.”
The first f-bomb Brian uttered, a roughness taboo in his sleek, polished accent, shot a dose of lighter fluid through her system. Her sex clenched, hungry to be filled, every nerve in her body awakening.
She wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him closer and urging the hem of his T-shirt to the middle of his back. “Checks out.”
With an eager, two-handed pull, he tugged his shirt over the back of his head and threw the garment to the floor, a gesture of assuredness steeped in erotic potency.
She ran her hands up and down his torso, making a tactile study of chest muscles and firm biceps, those strong male arms caging her in their sensual fort.
An epic black tattoo painted a path of swirling Celtic knots from hip to pectoral to collarbone, covering the majority of his left side. “Stunning. There a story here?”
“Yes.” He trailed a row of kisses down her neck and peeled off her top. She pushed her chest up, affording him access to her bra. He undid the clasp in a single, one-handed maneuver.
No bumbling or fumbling in his experienced, practiced fingers. This distilled sip of arousal, fine as wine, warmed her inner spaces.
She danced her fingertips through the maze of his ink latticework, stroking his lightly tanned skin. His warm flesh brushed her bare breasts, skin-on-skin intimacy for both of them.
In an unhurried, claiming motion, she traced a trimmed nail through the black pathways. His nipple stiffened beneath her touch. “That feel good?”
“Quite.” He cupped the sides of her breasts and curved slow hands down the sides of her waist. Under his nimble motions, the button and zipper of her jeans yielded.
“So what’s the story with your tattoo?” Matching her actions to his, keeping up, she attacked the fastener of his pants until the fly opened.
Tandem wiggles of synchronized bodies shed two pairs of jeans. She smiled, nibbling his earlobe. Their sexual compatibility so far was stellar. A good sign. Egad. She shouldn’t be watching for signs. This was a one-time thing. At least she figured.
Toeing his socks over ankles and feet, Brian pushed up on his palms and gazed into her eyes. Though primal lust darkened his irises, soft affection offset that hard glare of male desire.
“I wanted to make my body into a living diary of sorts. Every swirl and line in the gathering of knots represents something meaningful that happened on a tour. Someone I met, a landmark, an experience. It’s my reminder to appreciate my life in all of the peaks and valleys, to live in gratitude for the journey.”
Right then, Helen’s surroundings overpowered her. She slipped beside herself, awash in strangeness. Strange city, aiming a glitter blast of skyline lights through the chic window of a swank penthouse bedroom. A man, mega-famous and all over television, on top of her. Someone adored by everyone was hers for a bit, telling her a personal story about his tattoo.
For a sweet, eternal second of surrender, she forgot the malevolent thread uniting them.
With nothing to say, awareness of her maleficent connection to Brian returning in a loathsome creep, she looped her arms around his shoulders and let his sea-candy eyes spirit her to a distant universe far away from the self-created prison of her own meddling.
He kissed her forehead. “Are you alright, Helen? You got a little tense there. Did you want to stop?”
“No, I’m just thinking.”
“About what?” He skated the pad of his thumb over her cheek in a reassuring touch.
“The circumstances that brought us together.” How her existence, hell, her proximity in and of itself, threatened to ruin him. How little sense it made to deepen their entanglement, yet how right and good it felt.
“Perhaps this is how we help each other, and we don’t know it yet.” Honeyed wisdom floated his comment, a magical river she longed to drift down on an unhurried voyage.
Tenderness swelled to high tide, filling her dark crevices with gold. For that alone, she cherished Brian. The words he spoke enhanced his tragic aura and artistic allure.
“You said help each other, and here I was thinking I was the one helping you,” she said.
His eye contact, fiery with passion and conviction, held her steady. “The energy here isn’t going in one direction, and I believe you know that as much as I do.”
She nuzzled his shoulder. The busted disaster of gory clumps making up what remained of her heart gathered together, fusing into one center mass. A lost memory of wholeness, nostalgia for a place that perhaps never was, made her hurt with a yearning ache.
“What are we doing?” She swallowed the threat of more words before they tumbled from her in inappropriate declarations of feelings or expressions of gratitude involving the repair of her ruined heart. Not okay to feel big emotions for Brian. Even less okay to heap them at his feet.
Brian searched behind her eyes. A precision in his look let her know he’d found what he was looking for. And the scariest part? She should have been afraid, entering retreat mode.
But instead she longed to open for him, unfold her petals like a flower starved for sun.
“I see you. I do see you.” In his whisper lived sensitivity she’d long since deemed impossible for a man to possess. “Looking for someon
e to care for you.”
But before she gave up and gave in, succumbed to the temptation to give her entire self to him, Helen closed her battered blossom. Too risky, too dangerous to bloom. Best to hold back, for even she didn’t suffer complete awareness of the gangrenous ugliness haunting the depths of her soul. Not safe to flaunt her scars.
She shut her eyelids, snipping the tie of their communion and retreating from a fright he guided them toward. He led the dance with supreme skill, though, a fearlessness that coaxed her to melt into his arms and weep.
She owed him some attempt at honesty. “I have a really hard time being vulnerable. Being one-hundred percent there with another person.”
A lifetime of residue shoved into her breastplate, pressurized and ready to burst as she spoke more. “So basically what I’m saying is that there are things I can’t give to you. I’m not saying you want those things from me. I suppose I’m warning you is all. When you say you see me, I’m warning you that there is a lot of garbage you don’t see.”
“Nothing about you is garbage.” In dim light approaching darkness, he spoke a lullaby, everything she hadn’t known she needed. Or didn’t want to need. “But if any part of you, physically or emotionally, isn’t comfortable, we can stop. I promise I won’t be upset or act sulky or passive-aggressive. If you’ve had enough, just say the words. Please don’t feel like you owe me sex.”
Helen opened her eyes, avoiding locking his for fear she’d cry. Instead of surfing a wavelength with Brian, travelling to a place where she might find herself raw, she fixed a hard stare on the tin-stamped Fleur de Lis tiles gridding the ceiling. Metal plates, arranged in neat rows and columns. Oh, to be as tidy and ordered as that stupid ceiling pattern.
But she was chaos, not order. This man, this wonderful person, she’d put him at risk with her reckless choice. If she ruined him, she would never forgive herself.
She refused to pull the plug on their impending intimacy, though, for a not-inconsequential part of her burned to follow him to the precipice of her abyss, her secrets. Helen couldn’t give him much beyond the physical union of bodies tangled in bed, but lovemaking represented a small gift of care.