Sinister Sanctuary: A Ghost Story Romance & Mystery (Wicks Hollow Book 4)

by Colleen Gleason

  Right. Like she wanted to discuss bathroom procedures with the guy whose bones she wanted to jump…

  “So, you came back.” She decided to take charge of the conversation, and to forget how she suddenly had to pee.

  No toilet? Really?

  There went her idea of a romantic, candlelit interlude while a storm raged outside.

  “First, before I explain all of that… Teddy, how’s the book going? I realized after the fact that you were—um—exaggerating or maybe even—um—lying when you told me you’d finished it this morning.”

  “It’s done now. I sent it off at precisely four twenty-five today. For real. My agent even called to say she received it.”

  He smiled, and to her amazement, he seemed genuinely relieved as he gave her arm a gentle squeeze. “I’m so glad. Now you can really relax.”

  “Yes. I’m definitely looking forward to all the benefits of finishing.” She gave him a very warm, very deliberate smile, and his eyes widened. Then they narrowed, and when he gave her the same hot smile full of promise, Teddy’s knees nearly gave out.

  She’d better sit down.

  “Happy to oblige,” he murmured, still looking at her in the candlelight. “Anytime. That is part of the reason I came back.”

  “Only part?” she teased.

  “Well, I had to return the key.”

  Her gaze shot to his in indignation before she realized he was teasing her. “Right.”

  “Teddy,” he said a moment later, “why do you have the sofa in front of the connecting door over there?”

  She explained about the door hidden behind the rosebush and how she couldn’t figure out where it connected to the rest of the cottage. “And I didn’t even look in the plastic bins,” she added with distaste. “I was a big old scaredy-cat.”

  “Anyone would have been. Especially being here alone, with all the stuff that’s been going on.” He looked as if he wanted to say something, then thought better of it. “We can look tomorrow. I don’t think we have to worry about anyone getting there in the meantime. No one’s going to be out in this storm, breaking in or coming from the lake. It would be impossible.”

  She was silent for a moment, considering a whole lot of things. Mostly that he was right, but…

  “You’re thinking about how Sargent Blue could get somewhere underwater during a thunderstorm, aren’t you?” Oscar said after a moment.

  She grinned. “How did you know?”

  He merely looked at her, and the soft expression in his eyes made her heart go very mushy.

  He understands me. How did he get to know me so well in only a few days?

  “There’s no safe way,” he said, and sipped the wine, then looked approvingly at the glass. “Hm. Not bad.”

  “Well, scuba divers are underwater,” Teddy said, pointing at him with a crust of pizza. “They’re protected from the storm while they’re way down there, aren’t they? And they wear rubber flippers. They’d be grounded if they came onto the sand.”

  “And what about their big metal oxygen tanks when they’re walking across the sand?” he replied with a quirked eyebrow.

  “I’m sure Sargent Blue—or anyone who might be doing nefarious things—can get rubber-wrapped oxygen tanks,” she retorted. “And everything else.”

  “Hmm. I don’t know. I think it’d be pretty risky. Even for Blue.”

  “Risky is Blue’s middle name,” she replied, then got up. “I’m still hungry—that pizza was barely enough for one, and you ate half of it.”

  “We can still use the gas stove even though the power’s out—by lighting it with a match.”

  “S’mores!” she exclaimed. “I deserve Celebration S’mores for finishing my book. We can toast the marshmallows right over the gas flame. And of course I have the ingredients. I’m on summer vacation, aren’t I? S’mores are a requirement for summer vacation.”

  Oscar looked as if he were about to say something—probably a reminder that until today she technically hadn’t been on summer vacation—but he didn’t. She gave him a smug smile as she rummaged through the kitchen drawers.

  It didn’t take long to get everything together. She found a long, two-pronged meat fork that worked perfectly for toasting the marshmallows, and Oscar laid out the graham crackers and chocolate bars in a little assembly line.

  “You have peanut butter cups here, too,” he said, looking at her with adorable confusion.

  “Yes, of course. I like them better than just plain chocolate. Smoosh it between the graham crackers and the hot marshmallow—see how the peanut butter and chocolate gets all soft and gooey?” She demonstrated, then offered him the first s’more.

  “I’m sold,” he said, after devouring it in one bite.

  While the storm raged around them, rattling the windows and sending tree branches tumbling to the ground, they sat in companionable silence, eating s’mores and drinking wine in the candlelight.

  “I’ve gotta say, this is pretty damned perfect,” Oscar said after finishing his fourth s’more. “And much as I’d like to finish out the evening in a more comfortable place as soon as possible—like, right now”—the look in his eyes made her insides go as hot and gooey as the marshmallows—“I should do something more difficult first.”

  Her gooey insides solidified into stone. “What’s that?”

  He drew in a breath, then exhaled. “I need to give you an explanation, and then I need to—um—answer a few text messages.” He set his phone on the table, and she saw that he had a lot of unread notifications on it. “And after that, if you’re still speaking to me, I want…you.”

  Fifteen

  The look in Teddy’s eyes made Oscar’s stomach do a slow flip, and he immediately regretted even suggesting that he do the difficult things first.

  Why had he even brought it up? He should have just pulled her in his arms and finished where that hello-I’m-back kiss had been going…

  Finished.

  Oh, he couldn’t wait to finish her off. To hear her soft sighs and moans, to see her eyes glaze with passion, to feel her writhe and shudder beneath him…

  “Uh,” he said, mainly to jolt himself from the very delicious fantasy into which he’d slid. Dammit. Why was he so damned anal retentive?

  “Because that’s who you are,” Teddy said.

  “What?” Had he said that aloud? Christ.

  “I could see you regretting that you were going to get the difficult things out of the way first, and wondering why you’d said so out loud—it’s because of who you are. And that’s one of the things I really like about you, Oscar. You’re a good person. Nice. Thoughtful. Empathetic. I’m guessing—I might be wrong—that you changed your plans, and so you feel it necessary to let other people who might be affected by that change know about the change, so they don’t worry. Or whatever. Am I right?”

  Somehow he followed her long, convoluted string of words. “Yes. You’re right. But—”

  “I think it’s always better to clear the air first. Besides, then you won’t have any distractions,” she teased. “Because, Oscar, the last thing I want is for you to be distracted when you have your hands on my very sexy butt.”

  Now his belly dropped to his knees and his hearing went dead. The look in her eyes made him want to toss his phone out into the storm and forget about everything else.

  But that wasn’t the kind of guy he was. And she knew it. And, apparently, she accepted it. Maybe even found it attractive—though that might be going a little too far. Who’d find anal retentiveness attractive?

  “So, lay it on me,” she said, her pretty mouth quirking in that curling smile. “And I don’t mean your lips—at least, right now.”

  He gave a pained laugh. “You know, you’re quite a package, Teddy Mack.”

  “Well, to be honest, part of it is the wild exuberance of sending off my book. But only part of it,” she added firmly.

  “Right. All right. So. I’m guessing, based on the way you—uh—sent me off this morning,
that you might possibly have heard my phone conversation last night.” He gave her a grim smile.

  “Oh. Well, I couldn’t exactly help it—you were pretty much outside my window.” She shrugged, looking abashed. “I didn’t mean to listen—really.”

  He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t care. So, yeah—you must have gotten that Marcie didn’t get married after all. She contacted me out of the blue and wanted to talk, and that’s when I found out she’d called off the wedding. Before I realized it, I told her I’d come back to Princeton so we could talk.

  “It was a stupid thing to do—for a lot of reasons. I realized it the minute I agreed to do it. But I guess I was being too…what did you call me? Empathetic? Nice?”

  “In this case, I’d say you were just being an idiot male, but that’s just me,” she said with a mischievous grin.

  “Right. An idiot male.” He rolled his eyes a little, and to his delight, she laughed. “Anyway, because I always follow through”—he gave her a meaningful look, and was even more delighted when she blushed—“on my commitments”—another meaningful look—“I felt obligated to drive to Princeton, even though I regretted saying I would. I figured I owed it to her—well, and to me—to at least, I don’t know, review the situation? So I went.

  “But about five minutes outside of Wicks Hollow, I realized that was bullshit. But I kept going because…well, you’d told me to look you up through your publisher, and maybe I’d misread everything—” He stopped because she snorted and rolled her eyes.

  “Damned straight,” Teddy said, stabbing the table with her finger. “You run off like that, you were going to have to hunt me down via my publisher if you ever wanted to see me again.”

  “Yeah, that’s kind of what Dina said. That you were giving me a big eff-you.”

  She seemed surprised when he mentioned talking to Dina, but, uncharacteristically, she didn’t comment.

  “It was three hours of misery in the car, driving east, Teddy. I just want you to know that. It would have been less than fifteen minutes before I turned around if you hadn’t mentioned looking you up through your publisher. That was one hell of a kiss you planted on me.”

  She preened a little. “That was my intention. I’m glad it worked.”

  “Oh, it worked.”

  “So. What about that phone call or text you have to return?” She glanced at his phone, which he’d turned on silent for his drive (since he was a conscientious driver). He hadn’t even done more than glance at the display since he hung up with Dina.

  “I—uh—sort of left things hanging with Marcie. Told her I’d be there later today.”

  “I think you’re going to be late,” Teddy said, stifling a giggle.

  “No, I don’t think I’m going to get there at all,” he said, looking at her seriously. “Hell, Teddy, I hadn’t thought about Marcie in days—I’d even forgotten the day she was supposed to get married. That should have told me something right away.”

  He picked up the phone and finally looked. Eight texts. Two missed calls. Plus two texts from Dina. Ugh.

  “I’ve got to do this.”

  “I’ll clean up in here. You can go in the other room.”

  He appreciated that she offered privacy, but he saw no reason to take it. He looked down at the phone, read the increasingly hysterical texts from Marcie, and decided it was best to ignore the voicemails that had accompanied her calls.

  Oscar considered texting her back. It would be easier. But cowardly.

  Instead, he girded his loins and called his former fiancée.

  “Oh my God, where have you been? Are you all right, Oscar? I’ve been worried sick!”

  “I’m fine. I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch—you know I turn off my ringer when I’m driving—”

  “I know, I know. You haven’t changed a bit!” Her voice became warmer, but it was still a little tense. “I shouldn’t have worried. Are you almost home?”

  He swallowed, refusing to look at Teddy, who could surely hear Marcie’s voice through the phone as she wiped off the few dishes they’d used with some paper towels. “No, actually, I’m not. That’s why I’m calling. I’m not coming back to Princeton right now.”

  “You’re not? But you said— Oscar, we need to talk.”

  “Right. Well, we can definitely do that”—he’d already decided some sort of conversation was going to have to happen—“but not till I get back. Which probably won’t be for a week”—he paused when Teddy wagged her fingers in front of him—“I mean two weeks. At least two weeks.” Teddy gave him a grin and a thumbs-up.

  And that was when he realized he was a goner. He was one hundred percent nuts about thriller writer and über-chatterer T.J. Mack.

  He didn’t pay much attention to the rest of what Marcie was going on about; he just kept saying variations of “I’m not coming back right now. I’ll let you know when I’m back in town.” Finally, he cut her off mid-sentence (because she was starting to get a little mean) and said, “Gotta go, Marcie. Talk to you later.”

  Teddy began to applaud, but he held up a hand. “One more,” he said. “Then…I’m turning the phone off. Because I’ve got other things to attend to.”

  “To which I must attend,” she muttered. He flipped her off for ostensibly correcting his grammar, then used the same extended finger to text Dina.

  The message to her was short and simple: Back in Wicks Hollow. No need to go through publisher.

  Nosy Teddy was reading over his shoulder, and she burst out laughing. “Nice,” she said. Then she removed the phone from his hands. “With your permission, Professor?”

  “Turn it off,” he said as he pulled her down into his lap.

  The candles flickered on the table, the flames low and guttering in their puddles of wax, but he didn’t need any light to find her mouth and settle his hands at her waist.

  She dropped the dark phone onto the table and turned to straddle him on the chair, shoving her hands into his hair as she settled herself right over his hips. Pressing down hard with a soft little grunt.

  Oh God, he thought, and closed his eyes as she kissed the hell out of him.

  He couldn’t keep his hands still; they slid up beneath the loose tee she was wearing, feeling her soft, warm skin as she nibbled her way along his neck while pressing down into where she straddled him. Stifling a soft moan, he unhooked her bra and slid his hands around to fill them with her breasts—the gloriously full, soft ones that had taunted him from the first morning she’d bent over in a tank top.

  Teddy arched back when he found her nipples, giving a little sigh of pleasure as he teased and stroked them with the pads of his fingers. She shivered as those sexy points tightened beneath his touch, making him need more. Now.

  “Mmm,” she said, grinding herself down harder against him as she grabbed his shirt to pull him close for a deep kiss. “Dr. London, all buttoned up as usual,” she purred as she swiftly unfastened each button, then pushed the shirt up and off his shoulders as his hands slid to her hips.

  She bit his shoulder gently, settling her hands over the planes of his chest, then eased in for a long, slow, sensual kiss where her tongue stroked the inside of his mouth like he wanted to do inside of her. He felt the soft swell of her breasts pushing against his bare chest and thought, That’s not enough.

  With firm hands, he eased her away and pulled her shirt off. After tossing it to the floor, he took a moment to feast his eyes on the way the candlelight played over her bare torso as she leaned back against the edge of the table.

  “Beautiful,” he said, cupping her rosy-tipped breasts. They were splashed with golden light from the little flames, and looked like honey—so of course he had to taste.

  Teddy gave a soft squeak of pleasure when he closed his mouth over one of her breasts, and she gripped his shoulders as he took his time tasting and teasing until she was shivering and gasping with pleasure. He could see her pulse throbbing in her throat, and in one delicate vein in a breast he w
as enjoying.

  “That’s right,” he muttered, loving her responsiveness as he sucked and licked more deliberately while using his fingers to play with her other breast.

  When she arched suddenly with a shot of pleasure and breathed a short, “Oh, crap, Oscar!” he smiled to himself. Surprised you, did I? And then he turned his attention to the other breast.

  “You taste so good,” he murmured after she came a second time just from his teasing her nipples. She sounded just as surprised this time around. “Teddy, love, I could do this all night, but my jeans are getting a little tight.”

  “Then I guess we’d better change location,” she said with that husky laugh he loved. “Soon.”

  “How about now,” he said, and scooped her up into his arms as he stood.

  “Why, Rhett, whatevah are you doing?” she said in a falsetto Southern accent as she plunged her hand down the front of his jeans. And closed her hand around him.

  Holy shit.

  He nearly lost his balance—and his wad—right then, but managed to save himself. “I’m going to carry you up that sweep of stairs and have my way with you,” he managed to say, thankful there weren’t actually any stairs to climb.

  “I sure as hell hope you don’t trip,” she said in his ear as he strode out of the kitchen. He stumbled a little when she stroked the head of his erection down behind the close quarters of his zipper, but was able to stay upright until he fumbled his way into the bedroom he’d used.

  Then he tumbled them both onto the mattress and fresh sheets he’d left behind that morning, pulling her warm, sexy torso up against his as he slid on top of her. That meant her hand slipped out from his very tight jeans—which was a good thing, considering the situation—and also gave him the opportunity to slide his hand down the front of her stretchy pants.

  “Very convenient,” he murmured as he found her hot and wet and very ready. She shivered and arched a little against him, and he found he loved those soft moans she made as he took his time playing with her while nuzzling that warm, damp place where neck met shoulder.