He met us at the office door and ushered us back into the kitchen. I tripped just before I reached the chair, and he caught me by the arm then pulled me in close. I leaned against him, and he put his arms around me. "Poor Courtland. You always give it all, don’t you?" he whispered into my ear.
Goosebumps broke out down my neck and arm, but this wasn’t the paranormal warning kind. I clung to him, allowing him to hold me up. He nuzzled into my neck, and I warmed slowly as if he shared some of his energy with me.
And maybe he did, organic witch that he was. "Thanks," I muttered.
He turned and lowered me into a chair carefully. "Well you made it in here on your own feet, so that’s better than last time."
"He was a trooper. How do you feel about tearing up the south end of your parking lot?" Elise asked.
"Uh…"
"Steven’s under it," I managed. My mouth might as well have been stuffed full of wool. I folded my arms on the table and let my forehead rest on them. It felt so heavy.
"Oh shit. Yeah, okay. We can do that."
Elise recounted everything we’d discovered as Adam made tea. I barely listened, just focused on the light, sweet sound of her voice tripping through words, more rhythm than meaning, and the smell of floral green tea. I thought of that sensation, of warmth bleeding into me from him. Like the opposite of how it had felt when Steven died as if he was having the spirit sucked from his body.
A demon might explain that too, but that was for the witches to decide. No demonic presence here, though. Just one real fuckin angry ghost and a bunch of residual haunts. Could clear that out without too much…
A hand on my shoulder woke me, and I jerked upright in my chair. "You should sleep," Adam said softly. My shoulder warmed under his touch.
"You’re trying to heal me," I told him, though my mouth felt even drier. I reached for a cup of tea that had been poured for me. It was cool.
"I should get him home," Elise said quietly.
"Adam’s protecting me," I said before I even finished the thought in my mind. He was, though, and that was why no ghosts ever scared him. It was easy for him. So easy.
"Am I? Shit. I talked to Harley and she gave me some tips," he said.
"Good. Though I’m not sure about this coven. They were up to some weird shit."
"Sounds like it."
"Finish your tea and let’s go home." Elise stood.
"Will he be okay?" Adam asked.
"I’ll stay with him tonight," she promised.
Adam helped me stand, then hugged me again. "You were amazing," he whispered this time.
"So were you." I didn’t want to leave his arms. I wanted to stay here, let him hold me. Let him protect me. Ride to my rescue again.
I stood up straight and stepped away, trying not to sway on my feet. "I’ll be back tomorrow."
"It’s a hell of a drive…" he said.
"I’ll be back."
***
It wasn’t easy to haul myself out of bed the following afternoon, but Elise made me coffee and that helped. I drove myself to Cross Lake, intending to get a room at a different hotel that night so I could see this through to the end. When I arrived at the Moonlight, a backhoe was already working at the North end of the parking lot, and Harley, Priestess of Isis, and George, ex-lover of my angry ghost, were standing with Adam on the sidewalk, observing.
George came toward me, his hands out as if he meant to beg me for money. My mind was still groggy, so I asked, "What the hell?"
George said, "I’m so sorry. Please tell him I’m sorry. Dana told me something went wrong with the summoning spell and it was an accident…"
And then I saw he held something red in one of his hands. Another Isis knot, though he still had his own around his neck. I knew immediately, "Steven’s."
"She gave it to me to keep," he admitted, holding it out to me.
"You knew he was dead," I said, slow and stupid. "You fucking knew this whole time?"
"I’m so sorry!"
"Don’t tell me, you asshole, fucking tell Steven." I pointed to room 106.
George’s eyes went wide. He shook his head.
"Go." I put a hand on his shoulder and gave a shove in the right direction. "Go and fucking apologize, you piece of shit. And if you want your letters back, you ask him, or I’ll keep them myself."
I turned my back on him. Harley and Adam watched me approach them. Adam shot a dirty look in George’s direction. "With friends like that…"
"Seriously." I sighed. "Harley, did he tell you what happened?"
"Dana summoned Egyn, one of the cardinal demons," she said.
"King of the North. Of course," I said as I realized.
"She told George she was trying to show Steven how to do it, but I’m pretty sure she put him in the circle before Egyn even appeared."
"And Egyn drained his life in seconds." I shuddered. "That’s what I felt. Goddammit, what a way to go."
"If it makes you feel any better, Dana did not die pleasantly," Harley said bitterly. "It was a sudden death, unexpected, and they weren’t even sure what to call it. Said it was as if she’d been drained."
Adam and I shared a look. It wasn’t enough, exactly, but it was something to know the demon had probably gotten her in the end, too. They usually did.
Harley went on, "If we get Steven’s bones and put them with his amulet, we can put him to rest properly. And we’ll call his parents."
"Just need to get him tested," Adam said. "Police will want to check DNA."
"Did you find him already?" I asked.
They shook their heads, but at that very moment, the backhoe operator shouted. "Found something!"
Adam pulled his phone out of his back pocket. "I’ll call the cops."
By the time we saw the skeleton for ourselves, the police had arrived.
***
Adam drove me to another hotel nearby, then brought my bag into the room. "I know you’re not in a place for a hookup, but--can I stay with you? You look like shit, and I’m worried."
Normally I wanted to be alone when this happened. But not tonight, for some reason. I kept thinking of how warm he made me with his hugs yesterday. I collapsed onto the bed and waved him over.
He hopped on and kicked off his boots, then helped me with mine. I curled into a ball on my side, focusing on my breath. I was going to sleep for twenty-four hours now, I was sure of it. I heard him taking off his jacket, then felt him curl into my back, fitting himself into me. He snaked an arm around my waist. I covered his hand with mine.
Again, he radiated warmth, like a golden glow. It soaked into my back, my thighs, my calves like sunshine on a hot day. I sighed. "Did Harley tell you how to do that?"
"Maybe." I heard the smile in his voice.
"Thanks," I said.
He kissed the back of my neck. "Thank you. You did it. You figured it out, and now my family has their home back."
"Not yet." My throat didn’t want to work, but I made it. "You should get Harley to talk to Steven, show him how to leave if he doesn’t go on his own once he’s buried. Which can’t even happen until the police are done with the body. And it’d be nice if they managed to posthumously convict Dana. Plus you need to clean out all that residual--"
"Shh. We’ll get to that. Just sleep, now, Court. Relax and sleep."
I wanted to argue, but I passed out before I got to.
***
"It’s so charming, how you do what you do even though it takes everything out of you." Adam took a bite of his sandwich. He’d retrieved food from Panera for us when I finally woke and texted him the next day. The Moonlight was closed for repairs to the lot. He had nowhere to be, for once.
"It sucks," I said. I wasn’t even hungry, but I knew I had to eat something. "But not like I can get rid of it, so I might as well make it useful."
"Don’t do that."
I frowned. "What?"
"Don’t act like it’s not amazing. Like it’s not a sacrifice for you. You could shut i
t out more than you do, and you’d have an easier life, and you don’t."
I flushed. "You could have ditched your parents and gone off to be a supermodel, but you didn’t."
He looked pleased but still argued. "They’re my parents. I love them. You do this for total strangers who are dead people. And living, even though you won’t admit it. That’s amazing."
"I’d have a harder time helping out my parents," I joked.
He smiled but shook his head. "You’re an asshole."
"You’re a handsome asshole." I half-lied. He was handsome, but he was not an asshole. He was too good for me. But him sitting on my hotel med telling me I was a good person was weirdly aphrodisiac, and I couldn’t stop watching his throat work under that ever-present collar as he swallowed his lunch.
"I know." The smile turned to a smirk "And you love it."
"I love your ass," I half-lied again. I did love his ass. There was way more to my interest than that, though.
"At first I just wanted to blow you," he admitted. "But I think I want to let you keep me."
"I like the way you phrased that."
"I saw how your eyes lit up when I said I didn’t have a leash--yet."
"Busted."
He set aside his sandwich and crawled toward me. He still wore his tight jeans, but just a tank top, collar, and belt apart from that. The muscles in his shoulders slid and flexed beautifully as they worked. I put my sandwich on the end table, then reached out to brush my fingers over the collar lightly. It was soft, supple leather, and it made my hands tingle with excitement.
"Go ahead," he whispered into my ear.
Goosebumps everywhere. I was still tired, but I craved his warmth, too. That witchy healing touch he was cultivating promised to fill up my empty tank in a way no other human ever had. No double entendre intended, but hey, it worked.
I pulled at the buckle and undid it. The collar fell away in my hand, revealing his delicate, pale neck. I ran my thumb over the exposed flesh of his throat. He shivered and moved nearer eagerly. I paused just above his collar bone at a scar. "What’s this?"
"Neck surgery a few years ago. I started wearing the collar then, but now I just wear it because it’s cute."
"So no one’s ever had a leash for it," I guessed.
"Not yet," he whispered, then leaned forward and caught my mouth with his.
I’d been dying to taste those lips since the first time I’d seen him. Since he’d ridden to my rescue in that goddamn parking lot. He was slightly wet and slid against me divinely, the faint lubrication and friction on my sensitive lips waking my body up all at once. His tongue swept over the connection between us and I reached for him, pulling him closer.
He crawled into my lap. "It’s okay if you just want to make out a little," he said. "I know you’re still tired."
"Can you do that thing? With the warmth?" I asked.
"Yeah. I’m practicing it on you now."
I could tell. Every place our bodies touched, even through our clothes, he shed that sunlight sensation onto me. "You’re pure light," I whispered.
"And you just came out of the dark," he replied.
"Fuck me," I said.
He laughed and settled his ass on my thighs, then rocked forward into me. I slid my hand up his tight leg, the other one moving around to grab his ass.
"Is that an exclamation of disbelief, or an invitation?" he asked, pressing his forehead to mine.
"Yes," was the perfect answer.
He kissed me again, this time hungrily, leaning forward and pushing me down on the bed. When he had me flattened, like a tiger on his prey, he nipped at my lower lip. Then rocked his hips against mine.
His prick was hard in his jeans, pressing into my thigh, inviting, teasing. I wrapped my legs around him and angled myself so I could feel him between them, pressing into my clit through our pants. As we kissed, we rocked against each other, building a frenzy of sensation that was never quite enough. I wanted to get him naked but couldn’t stand the thought of losing that pressure against my sex for even a second. I kissed him, explored his mouth for long moments, tasted the exposed skin of his neck and bit at his ear until he moaned into mine.
The sound, low and hungry, made me shudder.
He sat up all of a sudden, and I shivered with cold. He was so golden and warm, and without him--
He whipped off his shirt, leaving him bare-chested on top of him. His abs and pecs weren’t well defined, but they were hard, and his brown nipples were pulled tight and hard. I reached up and popped the button on his jeans, and he unzipped and rolled over to get them off. In a frenzy, I got rid of my own clothes, glad I’d remembered to bring extra underwear and had time to get a shower before he’d come over with the food.
We crashed back together, rolling over on the bed and laughing delightedly. He slid his hand inside my underwear and dipped downward. I rocked against his fingers, and he crooked them, found wetness inside, and moaned into my ear again. "Don’t work too hard," he whispered. "I’ll take care of you tonight. You just relax and feel me, okay?"
I’d always had the urge to dirty him up. To take him and make him mine. To literally get him a leash for that collar--and to give him all the care and affection that deserved. But right then, I was weak and stupid, and he knew it, and he wanted to take care of me.
No one ever did that--no one I wasn’t paying, like Elise, anyhow--so I nodded. My eyes burned as a sensation of gratefulness took me.
He smiled and rubbed at my clit gently but firmly. I arched and moaned, and he kissed my neck, my shoulders, my nips, my scars as his hand worked in my underwear. His prick pressed into my leg, his hips rocking now and then with a barely-controlled need that upped my own. I grabbed for his shoulders and pulled him on top of me. He fumbled for his discarded pants, pulled out a wallet, retrieved a condom. "Already?"
Between my legs was a wet mess, throbbing with need. If I let him play with me much more, I was going to come--and I wanted to know what it felt like to come with him inside me. It was a ridiculous idea, that he might also have magical healing cock like some bad romance novel trope…
But hey, fucking a witch had to have some perks, right?
"Do it," I said. I tugged at his underpants, and he scurried to get them off, then mine.
I opened my legs and wrapped them around him again. He knelt and rolled the condom down over his length; it bobbed eagerly, promising good things.
He pushed into me smoothly, and I gasped with the first pinching, then the warm, full sensation that followed. I realized belatedly that I wasn’t sure if he’d ever been with anyone possessing a vagina, so I took his hand and put his fingers against my clit.
He smiled and rolled into me, his hips working in a dancer’s circle.
Maybe he had done this before, then, because goddamn.
I grabbed his bare ass with one hand, fingertips clutching hard enough to bruise, and he groaned then said, "Fuck, yeah, man." God, I was going to have so much fun with him when I had the energy to do more than get fucked…
There was no time to think about it then, though. The warmth still radiated from him like a heat lamp, but now it made me tingle. Maybe because part of him was in me, condom or not? It was a nice cock, filled me right up but didn’t hurt, juuuust right. My whole body throbbed now, not just my clit, as he worked me inside and out. I rocked with him, clenching when he went in balls deep to make him cry out.
We were all sweat and huffed breaths for long, drawn-out moments. Nothing but sensation and energy, and didn’t even try to fight it when he pushed me over the edge hard and fast. I yelled and clutched at him, and he moaned and told me I was amazing.
The initial orgasm lasted a while, but then as he kept working, small hits of pleasure made me shudder and gasp. "Don’t stop. Just fuck the hell out of me, Adam," I instructed.
He grunted and did as he was told, speeding up and going in harder and harder, until he squeezed his eyes shut and said, "Oh, fuck--" and then shuddered. "Fuck, Cour
t!" His voice was broken, his body alight with energy.
Eventually, he pulled out, causing us both to groan, and then collapsed beside me. For a moment he just laid there, his cock deflating slowly, condom still in place. Finally, he took a deep breath and took it off, then tied it and flicked it into the wastebasket. "Fuck, man, that was worth the wait."
I laughed. "It’ll be even more worth it, once I can actually do the shit I’ve been thinking up to you."
"God, yes…."
I felt good, though, and it wasn’t just the orgasm. It was definitely his witchiness. How I hadn’t discovered a witch could do this for me, post mediumship, years ago… Well, I had now. And I had the perfect witch to do it, too.
***
The bones were Steven McGuffy’s, of course. George gave his statement and the Isis knot to the police, and the case was marked closed at long last. George was expelled from the coven and branded a traitor for covering up what he must’ve known to be a murder, which was the most satisfying part of it all. A month later, when the Cross Lake PD was satisfied they’d gotten all the could from it, the Coven of Isis and Steven’s family convened at a local graveyard to put him to rest, amulet and all.
Elise, Adam, and I were there, too. Adam held my hand as we listened to Steven’s sister talk about him. She was middle-aged now, retired with two grown kids who’d never gotten to know their uncle. They stood with her, tears in their eyes. Steven’s mother hugged Harley, apologizing for past prejudices that had taken her son from her long before a demon had.
Not that they knew about the demon, but it was better that way. People who didn’t have the paranormal in their everyday life tended to freak out about stuff like that. They had their closure, they knew who’d killed him, and so did the world, now.
Steven could rest.
After the funeral, Elise went home to cry and Adam and I went out to lunch. "Parents moved the last of their stuff back in, today," he said.
Witchy Boys: The Complete Collection Page 15
