Tall, Dark and Paranormal: 10 Thrilling Tales of Sexy Alpha Bad Boys

by Opal Carew

“Can you help me?” he asked.

  She regarded him in silence for what seemed like ages before slowly circling him. When she came to a stop in front of him again, her eyes were filled with sadness.

  “I can’t help you, boy,” she said. “Only you can do tha’. Who you wronged so bad, anyway?”

  Drake was taken aback by the question. “I haven’t wronged anyone.”

  The old shopkeeper lifted a brow. “No?” Grabbing a shiny, black box from the counter beside her, she opened it and shoved it under his nose. “You ever smell tha’ before, dead boy?”

  He started to push her hand away, only to stop when an odor caught his nose. The powder smelled exactly like the dirt that crazy old bat had thrown at him in his office. That was one smell he would never forget.

  “No need to be sayin’ yes, boy. Old Bijou be seein’ it in your eyes.”

  She didn’t wait for him to confirm or deny it, but shambled over to the door and flipped the sign on it from Come In, We’re Open! to Sorry, We’re Closed, then slowly made her way to the far side of the shop.

  “Come with me, boy. Come with me.”

  Drake hesitated, but in the end, his need for answers outweighed his trepidation and he followed her into a small room off the main part of the shop. There was a tiny table with two chairs inside and she gestured for him to sit. As she closed the door behind them, he looked around the room and saw that it was lined floor to ceiling with shelves filled with hundreds of boxes similar to the one she held.

  Once seated across from him, the old woman set down the small box on the table between them.

  “I’ve smelled that powder before,” he said. “What is it, poison of some kind?”

  The old woman shook her head. “No, boy, tha’ no be poison. Though there be poison in it. Tha’ be the ashes from a dead man’s grave. And not just any man—a man hung by the neck until dead. Tha’ be powerful Voodoo magic, dead boy.”

  He stiffened. “Voodoo magic? You’re kidding, right? And why do you keep calling me ‘dead boy’?”

  She shrugged. “It’s wha’ you be, boy. Dead, black and rotting. Not everyone can see it right now, but old Bijou can see it. Can’t nobody hide nothin’ from me.”

  Drake felt as if he’d just been punched in the gut. Dead, black and rotting. Some of the doctors at the hospital had used those same words to describe him when they’d thought he couldn’t hear them. Even though his skin wasn’t that sickly grayish black color at that precise moment, somehow the old shopkeeper knew.

  “What’s happening to me?” he asked.

  “You be cursed, boy. A bokor put a powerful strong curse on you, stronger than even old Bijou could be puttin’ on ya.”

  “A bokor?”

  “A Voodoo priest who practices both good and dark magic.”

  Drake almost laughed at how insane it sounded. A curse. Voodoo magic. It had to be a joke. But then the old shopkeeper went into great detail about what had been happening to him and she was correct about all of it, right down to the decaying skin. Though he wasn’t sure whether to believe her about the curse or not, he found himself telling her about the crazy woman who had come to his office.

  When he was finished, the old shopkeeper nodded. “Female bokors are few, but this one gotcha good, didn’t she, boy? You must have done somethin’ dreadful bad.”

  He clenched his jaw. The bitch had gotten him good, all right. “Can you make it stop? Can you cure me?”

  The old woman shook her head. “A curse like the one put on you is a punishment for wha’ you did, boy. Only the bokor who pu’ it on you can take it off. You will have to find her if you want to be normal again. Perhaps she will remove the curse for the right price.”

  Drake let out a snort. If the old bat had gone to all the trouble to punish him for what he’d done to Cia, he seriously doubted she would remove the curse just because he gave her some money. Even if he could find her.

  Thanking the old woman for her help, Drake got up to leave. At the door, however, he stopped to give the shopkeeper a curious look.

  “Is there a name for what she turned me into?”

  “Does it matter what the name is, boy?”

  He had his suspicions since she told him about the curse the bokor had put on him, but he needed her to confirm it. He needed to be sure. “Yes. I don’t know why, but it does. What am I?”

  The old woman regarded him in silence before letting out a heavy sigh. “In my home of Haiti, you would be called les morts qui marchent, the dead tha’ walk.”

  His brow furrowed. “You mean like a…zombie?”

  She nodded sadly. “Yes, I think tha’ is what they would call you here.”

  Drake swallowed hard, suddenly unable to take a breath. A zombie. How the hell was he supposed to live the rest of his life as a zombie?

  Chapter One

  Eight Years Later

  “Do you think he wears boxers or briefs?”

  Simone Kent looked up from the salad she was absently pushing around on the plate to see her friend pursing her lips thoughtfully as she eyed their good-looking waiter.

  “Then again,” the other woman added, “as tight as those jeans are, he probably has to go commando. And with a body like his, isn’t that a damn fine visual?”

  Simone took a closer look at the blond-haired man standing on the other side of the restaurant, letting her gaze run over his long legs and tight butt as he wrote something down on his order pad. He did have a great body and normally she would love debating his choice of underwear with Megan, but right now she was too preoccupied with other things.

  When Simone didn’t say anything, her friend turned to her in exasperation. “You haven’t been listening to a word I’ve said, have you? Don’t bother to deny it because I can see it on your face. What’s wrong? Spill it.”

  Simone chewed on her lower lip as she tried to decide whether to confide in the other woman. With her blonde hair pulled up in a ponytail and a sprinkling of sun-drenched freckles across her nose, Megan Elliott looked more like a California surfer woman than one of New York’s top literary agents. Simone had been damn lucky to get someone so sought after to represent her when she was first starting out as a writer and the two of them had been friends ever since. If Simone couldn’t talk to Megan about her problems, whom could she talk to?

  She set down her fork with a sigh. “I’ve sort of hit a snag with this new book I’m working on.”

  Megan looked at Simone over her glass of iced tea, her eyes narrowing. “What kind of snag?”

  She gave Megan a sheepish look. “The I-don’t-know-where-to-go-next-with-the-story kind of snag.”

  Her friend set down the glass on the table so hard some of the iced tea splashed onto her hand. “Please tell me you’re joking. You’re supposed to get the rough draft to Carrington in a few weeks.”

  “I know, I know,” Simone muttered. “But I haven’t written more than a page in over a month. Actually, that’s not true. I’ve written twenty or thirty pages, but they were such crap that I deleted them.”

  Megan covered her face with her hands. “Oh, God. How can this be happening? You’ve had eight books on the bestseller list. Writer’s block doesn’t happen to authors like you.”

  Simone slumped back in her seat and folded her arms. She never thought it would happen to her, either. Writing had always come easily. In fact, she’d been knocking out two books a year for the past five years like some sort of machine. She usually had a dozen different story lines running through her head at any one time. Now there was nothing. It was as if she had run out of ideas.

  “Well, it’s happening to me now,” she mumbled.

  Megan lifted her head to fix Simone with a determined look. “Okay, let’s just relax. We can work through this. First, tell me exactly what’s going on. Where are you in the book?”

  Simone picked up her fork again and distractedly pushed a cherry tomato around on the plate. “I’m stuck in the middle of chapter two. The hero and heroine have bum
ped into each other at a coffee shop a couple of times, and while there’s some obvious chemistry between them, I can’t figure out where to go from there. Should he ask her out on a date? Should she ask him? Or should they show up at a crowded restaurant at the same time and decide to share a table because the place is full?”

  Just talking about how stuck she was made her blood pressure rise and she stabbed viciously at the cherry tomato. Damn, this was so frustrating.

  “Wait a minute. I’m missing something here,” Megan said. “How can you have a problem figuring out where to go when you’re working from an outline?”

  Simone popped the tomato in her mouth instead of answering. She’d been hoping Megan wouldn’t bring up the outline. She really didn’t want to admit she’d scrapped it. From the way her friend was looking at her, though, Simone knew there was no way around it. She could keep shoving salad in her face all day, but sooner or later, she was going to have to answer Megan’s question.

  Deciding it was better to just get it over with, Simone took a sip of water and swallowed the last of the tomato. “I couldn’t make the outline work, so I junked it. I figured I’d just wing it on this one.”

  Megan stared at her as if she had announced she was going to give up writing romance books and become a nun. “Okay, who are you and what have you done with my writer? Simone Kent has worked from a detailed outline for every single book she’s ever written. Why would she change now?”

  Simone shrugged. “Because the outline was crap. I read it over when I got done with it and realized it looked exactly like the last book I wrote. I tried to change it up, but then it stopped making any sense at all, so I just went ahead and scrapped it. I figured as long as I’ve been writing, I’d be able to come up with a story on the fly, but it isn’t working. I’m thinking maybe I should just forget about what I’ve got and start from scratch.”

  Megan held up her hand. “Whoa, wait a minute. Don’t you think that’s kind of extreme? Especially since you have a deadline coming up. Have you talked to your editor about this? Surely she can give you one or two hints to get you back on track.”

  Simone absently fingered the design on her water glass. “I’m not sure if one or two hints are going to be enough. Not that it matters because Rebecca just went on maternity leave. And before you ask, yes, they did assign me to another editor, but I really don’t want our first conversation to be, Hello, I’m Simone Kent and I’ve forgotten how to write. Nothing like coming across as an incompetent idiot to someone you don’t even know.”

  “Hmm, good point.” Megan regarded Simone thoughtfully. “Maybe you just need to focus on something else for a while.”

  Simone eyed her warily. She was almost afraid to ask what her agent meant. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m saying you need a distraction. Something to relax you and get those writing pathways cleared.”

  Simone was really worried now. God, she hoped Megan didn’t suggest something really strange, like going to one of those fancy spas in California and getting a seaweed wrap or something equally freaky because that wasn’t happening.

  “What kind of distraction?” she asked hesitantly.

  “A tall, dark and handsome one.” Her friend grinned. “Or a tall, blond and handsome one. Like our waiter.”

  She should have known. Megan couldn’t go half an hour without thinking, saying or doing something sexual. Sometimes Simone thought the other woman should be a romance writer instead of a literary agent. But at least Megan hadn’t suggested she get a seaweed wrap. Her answer was still the same, though.

  “No.”

  Megan frowned. “Why not? He’s cute and he’s not wearing a wedding ring.” She glanced over at him, then back at Simone. “Oh, by the way, he’s coming over here. Now’s your chance.”

  Simone looked up just as their waiter appeared beside the table. He grinned, flashing her a pair of sexy dimples. He was awfully cute. And he was eyeing her as if he might be interested. Any other day, she would have flirted right back at him, but she was too hung up on her book to even consider jumping in the sack with some guy.

  “Anything else I can get for you ladies this afternoon?” he asked.

  Across from Simone, Megan lifted a brow, her dark eyes teasing.

  Simone smiled up at the waiter. “Just the check, thanks.”

  He winked at her. “Sure thing.”

  Megan looked at her incredulously as he walked away. “Why didn’t you ask for his phone number? He’s obviously into you.”

  “If he can’t help me with my book, I’m not interested in him or his phone number.” Simone sighed. “I know you’re just trying to help, Megan, but the only guy I want to get to know better right now is the hero in my story. So, unless you have his number, you can just forget about hooking me up with anyone.”

  Megan drummed her fingers on the table thoughtfully before finally picking up her handbag. Unzipping it, she dug through it for a moment before coming up with a metal business card holder. She opened the lid and pulled out a card, then held it out to Simone.

  “Normally, I’d never even consider suggesting this to you unless it was an emergency, but I think this definitely qualifies.”

  Simone took the card and eyed it curiously.

  Drake Parrish

  Consulting Editor

  Drake312@yahoo.com

  She frowned. “A consulting editor? What the heck is that?”

  The other woman blinked. “I can’t believe you’ve been writing for five years and you don’t know what a consulting editor is. It’s an independent editor who helps writers polish their manuscripts for publication.”

  “I think I have a long way to go before I have to worry about polishing my book.”

  “I know that. But sometimes they do more than just polish a manuscript. They do everything from a simple grammar edit all the way up to a complete rewrite when the author isn’t proficient at writing—like an actor or an athlete.”

  Simone looked at her aghast. “You’re kidding, right? Why would someone do all that work and not want any of the credit?”

  “The usual reason—money. We keep Drake on retainer for situations just like yours. He’s an expert at getting writers out of tight spots.”

  “He? You want a man to help me write a romance book?”

  “Why not? Don’t be so sexist. He’s helped a lot of other romance authors I work with. Not only can he repair plotlines and revamp screwed-up characters, but I’ve even had writers ask him to add some fire to a sex scene when there’s just no heat there.” She pressed her hand to her heart and sighed theatrically. “And woman, let me tell you, he’s so romantic, he’ll make you cry.”

  “A guy who’s romantic?” Simone laughed. “Isn’t that an oxymoron?”

  Megan scowled at her. “I’m serious. Drake is without a doubt the best consulting editor in the business. You’re damn lucky Hewitt has him under an exclusive contract. We have to beat the other agencies off with a stick sometimes. I’m telling you, he can work absolute magic with a romance story. Your little problem will be a piece of cake for him.”

  Simone’s brow furrowed. “Megan, it sounds to me as if these consulting editors are for writers who don’t know how to write. I know how to write. I’m just having a little problem doing it at the moment.”

  “I know you can write. You’re a great writer. But right now, you’re in a funk and the best way to get yourself out of it is to ask for help from someone who specializes in getting writers back on track. There’s no shame in asking for help now and then, you know.”

  Simone chewed on her lower lip as she considered that. She didn’t mind asking for help when it came to other things, but asking for help with her writing was like admitting she was a failure. She was so desperate right now, though, she’d be willing to try almost anything.

  She glanced down at the business card, then back at Megan. “So, what’s this consulting editor of yours like?”

  The blonde sipped her iced tea.
“I’ve only spoken to him through email, but he seems very nice.”

  Simone didn’t like the sound of that. “You want me to pour out my literary soul to a guy you’ve never even met?”

  “No one at Hewitt has met him,” Megan protested. “But from what the other writers have told me, he’s very easy to work with.”

  Simone’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, no one’s met him?”

  Megan shrugged. “A lot of consulting editors work from home. For all I know, he lives in Montana. Besides, what do you care what he’s like? It’s not as if you’re going to hook up with him.”

  That was true, but she still didn’t know if she’d be comfortable talking to a complete stranger about her book. “I know you’re trying to help, Megan, but I’m just not sure if a consulting editor is for me. I’d feel as if I was cheating my readers somehow.”

  Megan looked as if she wanted to press the issue, but to Simone’s relief, she nodded. “Okay. I suppose I can understand. I’m not going to force you into working with Drake if you don’t want to. But at least hold onto his card. That way, you can email him if you need to. Just keep in mind that no one at your publisher ever has to know he helped you.”

  But she would know, Simone thought. Before she could say as much to Megan, however, the waiter came by with their check. Grabbing her purse from the chair next to hers, she pulled out her wallet and tucked Drake Parrish’s business card inside, then pulled out her credit card.

  Megan shook her head. “You paid for lunch last time we went out. My turn to pick up the tab. Besides, this was a working lunch.”

  Simone wanted to protest, especially since she only ate half the salad she’d ordered, but after years of going out to restaurants and nightclubs with the other woman, she knew it would be useless. In the end, Megan would insist on paying anyway.

  “Want to share a cab?” her friend asked as they stepped out onto the busy sidewalk a few minutes later.

  Simone reached up to tuck her long, dark hair behind her ear as the afternoon breeze swirled it around her face. The warm spring weather was a welcome change after the bitterly cold, snowy winter the city had seen. Squinting in the bright sunlight, she took her sunglasses off the top of her head and slipped them on.