by Anne Brooke
“Never you mind. Just stop being a wimp and do what you have to do. Whether you get another date with Aaron or whether you don’t, you’ll know how things stand. It might help you concentrate on your business a little more.”
She was right. Since the Aaron debacle, I’d nearly messed up two hauntings by not paying attention to what the ghosts were trying to tell me in one poltergeist scenario and nearly setting free a psychic barrel of fire spirits in a separate domestic visitation. Miranda had saved the day twice, and she was probably getting sick of it. I knew I was. I’d been far too busy keeping up with the story slowly coming out in the local press and worrying about Aaron having to deal with the police and media interest. Murders didn’t often happen around here, though, of course, there was plenty of death.
I should stop worrying and try some action for a change. It worked with the dead, and it might work with the living, too. You never knew. I put down the copy of the local paper I’d been clutching, took another slurp of my coffee and stood. At my sudden movement, the chair almost toppled over, but I grabbed it as I swung around the desk before heading to the door. I didn’t want anything to stop me and certainly not my own furniture.
“All right,” I said, as I reached for my jacket and the travelling cleansing equipment. Just in case I had the chance. “For once in your life, Miranda, I might actually do something you tell me, so please remember this moment. It might not come by again for a while.”
I thought my aunt might say something equally light-hearted in reply. I needed it to take my mind off the way my heart was pounding, half in dread and half in hope. She didn’t. As I reached the door, Miranda touched me lightly on the arm and kissed my cheek.
“Good luck, my dear,” she said. “I really hope it works out for you this time.”
She wasn’t the only one. Twenty minutes later, I was outside Aaron’s home for the first time since I’d discovered the skeleton. It was surprising how everyday the house looked, even with the builders’ rubble still piled up outside. What had I expected? The winds of hell and some strange demons of the night? I needed to get a grip.
Part of me had hoped Aaron might not even be there, so I could hold on to some kind of excuse not to stay. But his car was parked at the side of the road, and all the saving-face barriers I might have erected were gone. Not even a water-imp to drive me away. Not that I could have gone back because Aunt Miranda would always hold it against me, rightly so.
As she’d said, I needed to man up. So I did. I tumbled out of the car, almost tripping on the pavement in my enthusiasm, and strode as manfully as possible up to Aaron’s front door. The second after I’d rung the bell, the door was flung wide open, and Aaron himself reached out, grabbed my arm and pulled me into the hallway.
The water-imp on his shoulder took one look at me, decided it wasn’t the time to interfere with the living and scooted away out of sight. I only had a heartbeat to appreciate its presence in Aaron’s home, which surely indicated beyond all else how much more peaceful the house was now, before the man in question shoved me against the wall. He then gave me the kind of hard stare that could put the fear of God into a monk and kissed me. Which wasn’t monk-like at all…absolutely not.
I kissed him back, with just as much enthusiasm as he was showing. All the words I’d stored up in explanation vanished, and I couldn’t make sense of them any more.
Aaron was the first to break the kiss, pulling his lips away from mine and capturing my head with his hands. He was breathing heavily and so was I. We were gazing at each other as if we might do it forever.
“I missed you,” he said. “Which is crazy as we’ve only just met.”
“So d-did I,” I stammered. “I missed you, I mean. I didn’t miss me. I’m here. I brought some water and salt for a cleansing ceremony. I thought it might help.”
“Does it? It helps seeing you, too,” he said, his fingers stroking my cheek. “I’m sorry for shouting at you. I know it’s not your fault.”
“It’s okay. And I’m sorry it had to be me bringing you the bad news about your family. I’m not good with the living.”
He smiled, and I swallowed. I had nothing else to say, and my eyes filled with tears. Stupidly.
“That’s okay, too,” he whispered. “Come to bed, Jack. Can we do any cleansing ceremony later?”
Oh heavens, yes. When he touched me, I was no professional. I was just a man who desperately wanted to be with him because it felt so right.
In the bedroom, I took off his shirt, folded it and laid it on the floor beside the bed. Aaron laughed.
“You don’t have to be neat. I just want you. If you’re going to do the same with all my clothes, I might explode, and I couldn’t bear it.”
“Neither could I,” I whispered.
I took off the rest of his clothes and my own with a speed I could only admire, if I’d stopped to think at all. Then I began to kiss every part of his delicious body I could find. He smelt of herbs and sweat. I started with his tattoo, tracing its shape once more with my tongue. I swore I could taste oriental spices on his skin. Maybe that was my imagination or maybe something more? I couldn’t tell, and with Aaron’s body laid open for my attention, I had no time for exploring any other subject beyond him.
When I touched his neck, he groaned and stretched upward to allow me easier access. The gesture made my already hard cock even harder, pushing against his own where I lay on top of him. I wanted to feel the heat and tightness of his body, but I knew the need would be better fulfilled in the waiting, for us both. So I kept on kissing him, moving slowly downward.
By the time I reached his cock, he was begging.
“Wait,” I murmured, though I wasn’t sure he understood what I was saying. “Wait for me.”
I took his beautiful cock in my hands. Only the second time I’d held it, but it felt like the most natural thing in the world. I didn’t suck him or take him into my mouth. He was panting hard, and anyway, I had other plans.
“Turn over,” I told him. “It’s my turn now. Have you got condoms here?”
“Yes. I’ve got everything you need,” he whispered, as he did what I’d asked of him.
I sheathed myself and prepped him carefully. He gasped when my fingers entered his arsehole and gripped down on me as if he’d never let me go. He would have to, though, soon enough, as I needed to be inside him. By the sound of his moaning, he needed it just as much.
It wasn’t long before I withdrew my fingers and opened his arse cheeks wider. My cock, ramrod hard, nudged against his hole. Before I could plunge myself inside, Aaron had already pushed himself back against me. This time I was the one who cried out. The grip of his muscles against my cock and the sheer pressured heat of him all but took me over the edge.
“Wait…wait,” I commanded him. “If you keep doing that, I’m so over.”
He answered with a throaty chuckle, which took me so near the edge I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to clamber back. However, with a determined mental focus on my upcoming auditor meeting and the frankly appalling state of my garden, I was able to hold onto my dignity, or its nearest equivalent.
At the same time, I grabbed his hips and slowed things down until we were both roughly in the same rhythm. Then I pulled out of him and pushed back in as slowly as I could. He moaned and writhed on the bed as I brushed over his sweet spot. He moaned even harder when I did it again, and kept on doing it.
“I’m coming,” he said, then his arse gripped me even tighter as he shot his load over the sheets.
Burning heat fired through me, and a second later, I was coming, too. Over and over again, with the kind of intensity I couldn’t ever remember experiencing in my life. Somehow, it felt even more right than it had before, if this was possible.
We both collapsed on the bed without speaking as my spent cock slipped out of his body. Still wordless, not to mention boneless, we cuddled closely together, Aaron nestling back into me as my arms wrapped around him. Strangely, this felt the most ri
ght of all.
After a while, the words came back. Aaron spoke first.
“So,” he said, almost as if he were musing to himself, “this month, I’ve discovered I live in a haunted house, my grandmother had an illegitimate child, my great grandfather murdered the boy, and I met a man who’s a paranormal detective. That’s one hell of a month. Even you have to admit it.”
I licked my lips and squeezed his fingers where they lay in mine. I didn’t suppose now was the time to say I wasn’t a paranormal detective, but a detective dealing with paranormal cases. Even I could see this. “Yes, it’s been one hell of a month. How are you coping with it? Are you okay?”
He murmured something I couldn’t understand, but his body nestled even closer to mine. So whatever he said, it probably wasn’t too bad. Still, I needed to hear it. “I’m sorry?”
He sighed and spoke again. “I don’t know if I’m okay, but I hope I will be. I don’t know what I think about things right now, but I’m glad you’re here. Is it enough?”
I wasn’t sure, but I didn’t have the right to argue. “I hope so, but I’m not sure either. Is it okay to want to find out if it is together, rather than apart?”
A long silence and I didn’t have to be a psychic to understand how deeply Aaron was thinking it through.
“Yes,” he said at last. “I’d like that.”
It sounded exactly what I wanted. It sounded like a beginning.
“Thank you,” I replied and smiled.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The Paranormal Detection Agency
Cover design by GoOnWrite.com
Copyright © 2016 by Anne Brooke
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, and where permitted by law. Reviewers may quote brief passages in a review. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Anne Brooke at [email protected].
Second edition
June 2016
With thanks to Amber Quill Press, where this book was previously published.
About Anne Brooke
Anne has been writing contemporary fiction and fantasy for over twenty years. She is the bestselling author of gay thrillers Maloney’s Law and The Bones of Summer, both available at Amazon. Her websites can be found at www.annebrooke.com, www.gayreads.co.uk, www.gathandria.com (for gay fantasy fiction) and www.biblicalfiction.co.uk.
More Books from Anne Brooke
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Anne Brooke