by Kat Parrish
Kyle used to say my name sounded like I was the senior partner in a law firm, “Vetiver, Vetiver, Vetiver, and Quinn.”
Like Kyle could talk. He had a brother named “Cody” and his sister is named “Dakota.”
“Vetiver” is a name I can live with.
“What’s your name?” I asked my driver.
“Rae,” she said, “with an E.”
“Like the Star Wars heroine,” I said.
“More like Ray Lewis,” she said. “My dad was from Baltimore and a big fan of the Ravens.” I nodded, still not quite sure who Ray Lewis was.
“Dad wanted a boy, but he got me, so….”
I smiled at her, hearing the hurt in that statement and wanting to make it go away. I told her she should come by the shop.
“I give discounts,” I said. And freebies.”
“Thanks,” she said in that way people say “thanks” when they have no intention of taking you up on whatever offer you’ve just made. But she was intrigued. She slid her eyes toward me. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure,” I said, already knowing the question she was going to ask.
“This thing you do—”
“My father calls it ‘Smello-vision,’” I said.
“You smell things and then you see things like you’re watching a movie?” she said. “Yes,” I said, “more or less.”
“That must be ... overwhelming.”
I looked at Rae in appreciation. Most people say they think it sounds cool.
“I’ve learned how to manage it,” I said. “And it makes some things easier.”
“Like what?”
I decided to go with light-hearted. “I always know when a man wants to sleep with me.”
“Really?” she said.
And then I smelled a delicate flower scent, like violets buried in hay. Agent Rae was a romantic and had been working so hard to be the son her father wanted that everyone treated her like one of the boys. And there was one boy in particular she very much wanted to think of her as something more than one of the boys.
Agent Wilson, I realized. I saw a softball game. I saw Agent Rae sliding into second as Agent Wilson tagged her out. I watched as their eyes locked as she lay sprawled at his feet laughing. I could smell the pheromones dancing in the air between them. And then he’d pulled her up because it was the last out of the game and he’d slung his arm around her slender shoulders, and they’d walked off the field like siblings. That had been a month ago and since then, they’d both been too shy to act on that sizzling moment of sports connectivity.
I grabbed my bag from beside me and casually rooted around until I located the little blue vial of Tanith’s Dream I always carried with me for occasions just like this. What can I say? I’m a romantic too. “Can you do me a favor?” I asked.
She flicked her eyes at me. “Sure,” she said warily.
I pulled out the stopper and held the vial under her nose.
“What do you think of this?” I asked her.
“It smells nice” she said tentatively, as if asking a question.
“It’s something new I’ve been testing,” I said. “I’d love to get your feedback.”
“Oh, that’s okay Vetiver,” she said. “I don’t really wear perfume.”
And that’s part of the problem, I thought. You say “perfume” around most millennials, and they think you’re talking about the stinky stuff their great aunts wear to church, something that smells like a bouquet of gardenias that’s been left out in the sun until they rot.
“Rae,” I said. “You really want to wear this perfume.”
“I do?”
“There’s about two weeks’ worth here. Put it on every morning when you wake up so that by the time you get to work, it’s all nice and blended with your skin so you smell really good but you’re not leaving a taste in anyone’s mouth when you pass them.”
“I hate that,” she said, “when perfume is too strong.”
“Use it up and then come see me at the shop. Tell me what your experience was.” She still looked dubious.
“I’d really appreciate it,” I said.
“Okay,” she said.
I waved goodbye as she drove away. I really hoped Agent Rae would do as I’d told her because if she did, she and Agent Wilson would be an item before the month was out. Tanith’s Dream was laced with sex pheromones and it worked like a charm, which was why it wasn’t for sale at any price. You can’t let people loose with something that powerful.
I’d first made it for my friend Sylvie’s mother when she was going through menopause and had lost her sex drive. A month after I gave it to her she started dating her accountant, a silver fox who’d bought a winery in Arizona and whisked her away to Sedona to live happily ever after. She posted a lot of photos of the red rocks on Instagram.
I had been quite pleased with myself. My mother was not a fan of the scent, which was heavy with ylang-ylang and wondered why Sylvie’s mother had been so infatuated with it. I finally confessed to lacing it with the sex pheromones. She’d just looked at me for a long time. “Well,” she said finally, ‘I’m glad you use your powers for good.”
I had burst out laughing but she hadn’t been kidding. My mother is convinced that what she calls my “fourth sense” is a version of whatever extrasensory perception allows her to be so good with growing things. She feels responsible when I put a little something...extra...into my products. I only do it with the one perfume and I also keep an antidote on hand in case I need it. Sometimes there’s a reason why people aren’t together. But I had a good feeling about Agent Rae and Agent Wilson. I wondered what his first name was.
CHAPTER 4: A taste of wild honey and lemon
The good feeling I’d had talking to Rae gave way to mild depression as I entered my apartment and felt how empty it was. At least Kyle isn’t here, I thought, but that thought didn’t cheer me up as much as I wanted it to. We were still going to have to have “the talk.” Or maybe we wouldn’t. I’ve had relationships that just melted away like dew on a hot morning. Maybe it would be as simple as me rolling up the dirty T-shirts he’d left in my laundry room and dropping them off in a paper grocery sack next time I was in the vicinity of his apartment. Maybe I’d throw in a few bars of the almond scented oatmeal soap he liked as a going away present.
I couldn’t settle. The buzzing in my nerve ends hadn’t stopped. I was restless. I called my mother and got voice mail. I started to call my father’s cell too, but then dropped the phone. It wasn’t like I could say, “Hey dad, guess what I did today?” I clicked on CNN and the story Disney was putting out was that a small electrical fire had closed down “It’s a Small World” and that patrons had been evacuated for safety. The ride, they said, was already back in operation.
Not a bad cover story, I thought. I took a shower to get rid of the radioactive smell that was trapped in my hair and on my skin and wished there was some way I could rinse it out of my memory. I wondered how much radiation I’d absorbed standing so close to the nuke. I couldn’t remember how radiation was measured. In roentgens? In curies? I had never taken physics in school. I’d have to google it later. Or maybe not. Peter and I had both been given doses of potassium iodide and a list of symptoms to watch out for. The medic who’d examined us seemed confident we’d be fine.
I tried not to think about what would happen if she was wrong.
I was hungry, but my stomach felt iffy. I nuked some leftover pasta and ate that, washing it down with half a glass of red wine. I was still hungry but decided not to push my luck.
Someone tried to blow up the city. There hadn’t been any NDAs to sign or exit interviews to impress on me the importance of secrecy, but I had gotten the message. It was a heavy secret to keep, but I was just going to have to live with it. Being privy to secret knowledge filled me with a sense of panic. What else is going on that we don’t know about? I found my mind going int a million different directions as I played out dozens of worst-case scenarios. I couldn’t turn it off.
So, I did what I always do to relax. I started pulling out my bottles of essential oils and began to play.
I really needed to replenish my supply of Thieves’ Oil. It had been a bad flu season and I’d sold the last of my spray bottles the previous weekend. I could also have used some more of the lavender bath salts that were a perennial best-seller.
But I was in the mood to do something more creative.
I started picking up bottles at random, letting my subconscious work, trusting it would lead me to something interesting.
And then the doorbell rang. I looked through the peephole. Peter Eliades was at my door. This time he hadn’t come to save the world. He had come to see me, almost as if I’d conjured him.
I opened the door and let him in. He sniffed at he entered.
“Something smells good,” he said.
“Tell me what you smell,” I demanded.
And I realized what my subconscious had been doing.
Distilling the essence of his aura, extrapolating from that scrap of scent I’d gotten back in the canyon.
“Citrus,” he said. “Lemon, for sure.”
He sniffed it again and I could tell that though he couldn’t identify all of the components, the scent was pleasing to him. Finally, he shook his head in surrender. “Not a clue,” he said. I shot him a mischievous look. Why should he be the only one allowed to keep secrets?
“What do you call it?” he asked.
I gave him a slow smile.
“Eliades,” I said.
He smiled back. “That really is my name,” he said. And then he bent and kissed me as if it was the most natural thing to do. The first kiss was gentle, exploratory. It wasn’t tentative—there was nothing tentative about Peter Eliades—but it left me room. The last thing I wanted was space between us. I stepped closer to him. This time I kissed him, and I swear, his mouth was so hot it felt like our lips were heat-sealed to each other. His tongue darted into my mouth and I tasted it like a succulent piece of fruit. I reached down to unzip his jeans. There was a satisfying bulge at his crotch, proof of his arousal.
I had pegged Peter for a guy who went commando, but he was wearing boxer briefs that could barely contain his erection. I drew him out, and as my hand slid down the length of his cock, he moaned.
His excitement excited me and in seconds we were tearing at each other’s clothes. I’d changed out of the scrubs after my second shower and was wearing only a loose gauze top and yoga pants. My nerve endings were so sensitive that just the light touch of fabric against my nipples sent exquisite sensations all through me. And when he cupped my breast, and gently tugged, I felt my knees go weak.
I don’t do this, I thought. I don’t sleep with someone I just met.
Sleep? Another part of my brain answered. I don’t think there’s going to be any sleeping involved any time soon. What happened next was urgent and fierce and messy. There was no foreplay, only a brief moment of shared complicity in which we acknowledged that yes, we were going to do this thing. And right now.
It was only as I was braced against the refrigerator, my naked ass smacking up against it with every stroke, that I realized my kitchen windows and blinds were open. I really hoped my neighbors weren’t home.
Later—minutes? hours? days? —we peeled ourselves apart. He made a chair of his body and I leaned back against him, utterly content.
There were no words and just then, we didn’t need them. We had saved the world together. And we had bonded body and soul. That was enough for one day.
I could sense his contentment. It smelled like lemon and honey.
* * *
Vetiver Quinn and Peter Eliades will return in The Oldest Sense: Vetiver Quinn #2.
Vetiver Quinn’s Recipe for Thieves’ Oil
According to legend, during the time of the Black Plague, thieves who robbed the dead would first anoint themselves with a mixture of aromatic oils to protect themselves against contagion. Various recipes for this mixture, which became known as “Thieves’ Oil,” survive to this day. The basic recipe calls for oils of cinnamon, clove, rosemary, lemon, and eucalyptus. Vetiver adds a touch of lavender and tea tree oil for extra anti-bacterial potency. Use pure, undiluted, organic essential oils for best results.
60 drops oil of cloves
50 drops cinnamon bark oil
50 drops Lemon oil
30 drops lavender oil
30 drops oil of rosemary
30 drops eucalyptus oil
10 drops Tea Tree Oil
Mix together and store in a dark glass bottle.
Makes approximately 15 ml oil (roughly half an ounce).
Add a few drops of this blend to water and use as a disinfectant, antibacterial spray.
Dilute with a carrier oil (jojoba, sweet almond, coconut oil, olive oil) before applying to skin as undiluted essential oils can cause irritation.
About the Author:
International bestselling author Kat Parrish is a former reporter who prefers making things up. Born into a military family, she has lived in seven states and two European countries and would sign up to colonize Mars if she weren’t so fond of summer. She is the author of the Shadow Palace Trilogy, the Bruja Roja series, and the upcoming Brotherhood of Stone and Artifacts of Chaos series. She lives in the Pacific Northwest near a haunted cemetery and several waterfalls.
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Also by Kat Parrish
Magic in the Blood: La Bruja Roja #1
Tears of Idrissa
The Summer Garden
The Howl
Bloodsport: Z Sisters #1
L.A. Nocturne Collection: Tales of the Misbegotten
The Midnight Palace Trilogy:
Bride of the Midnight King
Daughter of the Midnight King
The Midnight Queen
