by Josh Lanyon
I stepped out on the landing and had a look around. There was no one to be seen. The hotel seemed almost eerily quiet, but then this wing always felt cut off from the main part of the hotel. Because it was.
Sally said Rose had questioned Alison about that, about why our rooms were separate from the rest of the group, and Alison said there had been a mix-up with the reservations. The hotel had squeezed us into the wing that was generally only used during the height of tourist season—which this was not.
It was a plausible explanation, but standing there in the faded light, watching the dust motes floating through the air, I wondered.
On the other hand, it was really hard to believe the staff at the Ben Wyvis Manor House Hotel were obligingly going along with some nefarious scheme of Alison’s.
The grandfather clock in the passage below loudly, slowly ticked out the minutes.
Nothing happened.
Well, of course nothing happened. If something was going to happen, I would have to do it. That was the whole point.
And if I was doing this, I would probably never have a better opportunity than right now. The hotel staff was busy with the after-dinner cleanup and the hotel guests were either settling down for the evening or trudging along on the ghost walk.
I moved down the landing to Rose’s former room, and gently tried the handle.
The door was locked. As expected.
I had joked to John that a good hard wiggle would unlock the door, but several wiggles—and a couple of yanks—later, I was still on the outside of Rose’s room.
I stared at the door for a few more minutes, but that didn’t do the trick either.
I could always try breaking in with a credit card. These old slanted latch mechanisms were perfect—er, vulnerable—to that. Or at least, it always worked in books. Books. It occurred to me that in The Cure for Wellness QC Michael Patterson had had to get into one of the rooms in this very hotel, and he’d done it by finding a safety key hidden in a pot of artificial flowers in one of the hallways.
That was fiction for you. In real life that would be way too convenient.
Right?
I went down the stairs to the little glassed-in passageway that connected the annex from the main part of the hotel, and sure enough there was a large white pitcher of silk flowers sitting on a spindly antique table propped against the bottom of the staircase.
I emptied the silk flowers out and heard the chime as something metallic hit wood. I bent down and picked up the tarnished, silver key that had landed on the Oriental carpet.
I almost laughed. That was too easy. Suspiciously easy, really. This couldn’t really be a working master key.
Only one way to find out. Heart thumping in guilty excitement, I stuffed the flowers back in the pitcher and returned upstairs. A couple of twists and turns of the key, and the door to Rose’s room swung open with a creaky yawn.
I stepped into the room, closed the door and turned on the light.
The scene before me was almost suspiciously ordinary. The beds were tidily made, the armoire stood empty. The room smelled comfortingly of wood polish and lemons. I looked in the closet-sized bathroom. Gleaming white tub, white tile, white toilet. The fixtures shone brightly, but the hot water tap didn’t work and the toilet did not flush. In other words, everything perfectly normal for the Ben Wyvis Manor House Hotel.
It took less than two minutes to verify there was nowhere in the bath or bedroom to hide anything. No conveniently loose floorboards or secret panels in the wainscoting. The nightstand and dresser drawers were empty—there was not so much as a Bible or out-of-date guidebook.
I remembered Sally’s theory about the armoire, and dragged the room’s only chair over to have a look. There was nothing but a colony of dust bunnies on top of the armoire—Sally was right about one thing: it had never been dusted.
I climbed down and had another look under the beds, and then under the mattresses.
Nothing.
Rising, I studied the room one final time. Was I missing something?
I didn’t think so. There was not so much as a cotton ball to show Rose had ever been in this room. In fact, the room was so pristine it was as if the cleanup crew in a spy novel had been through there.
Or...as if Rose had never spent the night.
I considered that uneasily. I didn’t actually remember seeing Rose check in, let alone go into her room. I didn’t remember seeing her leave the bus.
Okay. Stop. I had seen her at dinner. I had seen her at the ceilidh. She had certainly been present and accounted for up until the ceilidh had ended.
After that...? I hadn’t been paying attention to Rose. There were so many people on the tour. Twenty moving parts is a lot to keep track of. I couldn’t swear to seeing all of them at any given moment.
I turned to leave, then froze at the faint sound of the French doors downstairs closing.
Shit.
I cautiously inched open the door, sidled out through the opening, and started back to my own room.
The sight of John, already at the top of the stairs, halted me in my tracks.
“Should I ask?” he said.
Chapter Fourteen
“Hey, you’re back,” I said.
“Hey, you’re sneaking out of Rose’s room,” he returned.
I looked around, making frantic shushing motions. His eyebrows rose.
“Rhymes with gurgleyme?” he suggested.
“No! Of course not.” I was both charmed that he played charades and irritated that he thought I was the world’s worst burglar. “Can we discuss this elsewhere?”
He turned the doorknob to our room and made an after you gesture. I slipped inside our room and turned to face him. “Sally told me Rose’s journal wasn’t found among her personal effects. She suggested I have a look for it just in case Rose might have hidden it.”
“If Sally suggested you jump off a bridge, would y—”
“Funny. No. I wouldn’t. And I wouldn’t have done this either except...”
“You read too many mysteries?”
“That’s not possible. And no.” I admitted grudgingly, “I know it’s a crazy thing to have done. I’m not sure why I gave in to temptation.”
He looked taken aback. “This is your idea of temptation?”
“The opportunity arose, that’s a lot of it.”
“Other opportunities have arisen. I didn’t see you jump at those.”
At first, I didn’t understand what he meant, but as I gazed into his solemn—too solemn?—brown eyes, I remembered the night before and that very casual suggestion we strip naked and share a sleeping bag. Not even a suggestion. A joke.
Or maybe not.
Judging by the faint twinkle in the back of his eyes, it seemed not.
I felt a totally unexpected—and probably inappropriate—rush of elation. I’d figured after he’d blown me off that morning, I’d misread John’s invitation of the night before. I’d been, well, disappointed. And now I was...not.
I did my best to tamp down my revived, um, interest. “Ben confirmed at lunch that there was a mysterious death on the last tour. A woman drowned in the bath.”
The twinkle in John’s eyes pinched out. He scowled. “There’s hardly anything mysterious about it. It might interest you to know that deaths from drowning in bathtubs have gone up seventy percent in the last decade. Someone in the US drowns in a bathtub, hot tub or spa Every Single Day.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No. I’m not kidding.”
“But surely most of those are little kids?”
He said severely, “The point is, drowning in a bathtub is not as mysterious or suspicious as you seem to think. Bathtub drownings are one of the most common causes of accidental death.”
It seemed he really did work for an insurance compa
ny. Not that I had actively doubted it, but I had started to wonder after the morning’s cloak-and-daggery.
“Did you find the journal?” he asked.
“No.”
He studied me for a moment. His disapproving expression relaxed. He seemed amused. “Do you really think Rose found some incriminating piece of evidence, and that piece of evidence got her killed?”
“No. Not exactly. I was curious though. The weird coincidences seem to be piling up. I feel like something is going on. I can’t put my finger on it, but... If I may say so, your own behavior is a little sketchy.”
“Mine?” There it was again. The wary look. “How so?”
“Let’s start with the midnight rambles. Insomnia or not, that’s not normal behavior. Most people read a book or have a glass of warm milk. I take half a sleeping pill when I can’t sleep.”
His face took on a bland look. “I do have a preferred method of dealing with it. However, you weren’t interested last night.”
I guess he’d given up on innuendo.
I’m too old to blush, but there’s something undeniably warming about flattery. I studied his face. Yeah, I did find him attractive. No question. I liked him. I wasn’t sure if I trusted him, but I didn’t have to trust him. This was the equivalent of a summer romance. Minus the romance.
I flipped the lock on our door, and said, “That was last night.”
* * *
“I can taste your smile,” John whispered, and I opened to his kiss.
Once upon a time, when I was a library science grad student, I had sex with a fellow student on a library table in the special collections room at UCLA. Until I was sitting half naked on the ice-cold radiator in a hotel room at the Ben Wyvis Manor House Hotel—with John Knight’s hot tongue pushing against my own—that after-hours library fuck was pretty much my sole claim to sexual adventure. Not that I wouldn’t have been open to a little more experimentation, but Trevor was surprisingly conservative when it came to sex. Or at least the sex act. He preferred a firm mattress, no lights and preassigned roles.
I just liked having sex—and as often as possible—so it wasn’t like I objected, but it made a nice change to be taken off-guard with a flattering show of energy and enthusiasm. John backed me into the wall like he was afraid I might change my mind, and when the radiator got in the way, he lifted me onto it with a casually impressive show of upper body strength.
Sex was never a laughing matter with Trevor, but I was laughing when John kissed me the first time, and still smiling when he touched his mouth a second lingering time to mine. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to kiss him. So natural that I wondered if it hadn’t been in the back of my mind from that first night. When the hard, slick press of his tongue met mine, I felt excited sensation zip up and down my spine.
“Zing,” I breathed, and John huffed a sound of amusement.
He was leaning into the V of my legs, and I could feel his erection—and knew he could feel mine.
“This is the craziest timing.” He sounded rueful.
“I know,” I said.
He pulled back, gazing into my eyes. He seemed about to say something, but then changed his mind—and I was glad of that because I didn’t want conversation, didn’t want to think at all.
Our mouths latched on again and John’s arms locked around me. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, instinctively hooking my knee over his hip. I arched into him—not a move I’d ever made before, and when he hoisted me up, I had a moment’s alarm we would crash into the wall or topple over. But no. We clutched each other, hips moving in awkward, desperate rhythm.
“My God. All these clothes,” I got out. “We should try this in the summer.”
John gasped out a laugh, and we somehow half fell, half sidestepped to the nearest twin bed. It was more crash landing than a skilled maneuver. John landed half on top. My breath whooshed out with a sound like someone stepping on a set of bagpipes.
“I like you, Carter,” he said. “A lot.”
“I like you too. Even if you did just puncture my lung.”
He laughed and kissed me. “I didn’t plan on this.”
“Well, no. Me neither,” I said.
“But I think it’s a great idea.”
That, of course, struck me as funny, and he kissed me again and said, almost wonderingly, “It feels so right with you.”
It felt right to me too. Maybe that meant something. Maybe it just meant we were both horny at the same time. I didn’t know, and I didn’t want to know. Was afraid to know, really.
His boots thumped as they hit the floorboards. I pulled my sweater over my head, and heard his belt buckle knock wood. He was out of his jeans and undoing the buttons of his shirt as I dragged my T-shirt off. I slipped off my tennis shoes, humped out of my Levi’s and shorts, dropping them over the side of the bed. John landed beside me once more, and the narrow bed creaked in warning.
“It just occurred to me. Did you...?” He paused delicately.
“Did I what? Remember to put the cat out?” It took me a moment to decipher the earnestness of his expression. “Oh. Bring protection? Yeah. I did.”
His smile was wry. “Of course. Hope on, hope ever.”
That gave me pause. “If you mean was I hoping that I’d be doing this with Trevor, no. I wasn’t.”
John shrugged. “Whatever you hoped, it’s me here now.”
No lie.
Maybe, just maybe, in a weak moment I had thought to be prepared for every eventuality. Just in case, right? But that would have been a very weak moment—and a very long time ago. We might only have been touring for a couple of days, but my emotions had traveled light-years since I’d arrived in Scotland. I could no longer picture any scenario where I ended up in bed with Trevor—let alone one which included laughter and playful kisses.
Even if I had been that feeble, John was second best to nobody. I realized that in the first five seconds.
He caressed me quietly, gaze serious, lips gentle as he brushed the final amused quiver from my own.
“Do you know what you want?” he asked softly. His eyes looked almost golden in the time-worn lamplight, his firm mouth had an almost tender curve. His touch was all knowing. I’d forgotten what a light and joyful thing sex could be when no one was keeping score.
“A little of this, a little of that.” I was out of the habit of asking, let alone receiving.
John chuckled, a naughty, sexy sound. “Oh yeah? That sounds promising.”
I ducked my head, kissed him, tasting my way down his jaw, Adam’s apple, collarbone...licking the salty point of each nipple. John shivered. Soft brown hair dusted his pecs and elegantly scrolled its way to his groin.
He sighed pleasurably, feeling for and pulling the coverlet over us. The room felt as cold as an icebox, but the bed was warm and smelled of sex and naked skin—with maybe a hint of vintage dust. I leaned against him, feeling the muscular resistance of thigh and shoulder, the sudden yield of belly.
He made a soft oof. His cock thrust up like a friendly animal looking for a caress.
“Hold on,” I said, sliding out of bed and sifting through my things for the necessary.
He shivered again as I smoothed the creamy white lube into his hole, trying to make this part an end in itself, a slow, sensual delight. “That’s good,” John whispered. “I like that.”
I liked it too, and I hoped we would do this again so I could have a turn.
John’s thighs spread, creating a welcoming cradle, and he pulled me close. I wriggled and shifted, trying to find the right approach, my cock grazing the entrance to his body. Our cocks fenced in heavy, clumsy strokes—last clash of the claymores—but even that friction felt so good.
He caught my chin, kissing me roughly, wetly as I pierced him. The sweetness of it throbbed through my body. I was filling him, but someho
w, I was the one feeling like my heart was crowding my ribcage. Whole. Complete.
John’s eyelashes batted against my face, his breath was warm. He half rolled and I was beneath him, pushed into the lumpy softness of the bed, thrusting up into John. In theory the one in control, in practice also along for the ride.
It was crazy to me that this was John, who I’d known all of two days, and yet I wanted him, wanted this moment so much—it felt like I’d always wanted it. I dug my fingers into his shoulders and came in huge, beautiful straining pulses. John’s eyes shone, holding my own.
The opening of his body closed and eased and clamped tight again. We were sweating and spent as we held each other, panting beneath the dusty coverlet. I kissed the side of his face, but he turned so that our mouths touched one final time.
* * *
Maybe John rose during the night—I assumed he did—but if so, I slept through his nocturnal wanderings. Slept warmly, deeply, contentedly for the first time in a very long time.
Chapter Fifteen
“Have you seen Sally yet?” I asked Laurel when I sat down across from her in the dining room the next morning.
John had still been sleeping when I’d rolled my luggage onto the landing and headed down to breakfast. The night before had been great, and I had zero regrets, but I did feel sort of...cautious now that we had been there and done that. Sex can take a friendship to the next level. But it can also—even terrific sex—send everything spinning out of control.
I was usually more discreet in my extra-curricular activities. In fact, Trevor and I had gone out several times before we actually slept together. While I was okay with the recent turn of events, I didn’t know John well enough to know how he’d be this morning. I didn’t want sex to mess things up.
For one thing, I was going to be disappointed as hell if things were so messed up we didn’t have sex again.
“No, I haven’t.” Laurel looked at Jim. He shook his head.
“Maybe she already had breakfast and went up to finish packing.”