“Don’t forget the tail,” he said.
“Ohh…”
“Keep your legs crossed around my waist.”
His tail let go of my feet and with a teensy bit of terror, my leg muscles tightened hard around him as I held on for dear life. The flight took us higher, over the shining river that wove through the forests. I saw crows settling on the trees.
Eep. Crows. I liked crows in real life, but they were creatures of Sinistral.
And in the distance, I saw what might have been a castle and some smaller stone buildings surrounding it, a whole settlement’s worth, and they looked sophisticated. I thought I saw a bell tower and tall glass windows, but it was all too distant whizzing by my eyes.
This isn’t just my dream, I thought.
I couldn’t think about crows or magical realms or really anything analytical for more than a second before his tail slipped in between our bodies and started flicking against my clit just long enough that I think I drooled a little.
“Oh, shit…” I let go of his neck to wipe off my mouth and then freaked out and held on again.
He licked my cheek, the tip of his tongue giving my skin a delicious tickling sensation. “It’s my goal to make you lose control,” he said.
“Uh…good job, I guess.”
“I’m hardly done.”
His hands were still caressing me, up and down my curves, and with the tail involved… I’d never really thought about why a demon’s tail had that sort of arrowhead shape. Like, evolution-wise, I guess. Now I wondered if it was just for this purpose. Because it was hard and soft at once, and it had a tip that could tease at my most sensitive spots as precisely as a finger, or blunter sides that could…flutter.
“Oh fuuuck…,” I said, before realizing I had drooled again.
“You’re just wet everywhere,” he said. “At this point. It’s so satisfying to make you happy, angel. I can tell how much you needed this…and I believe I am a lucky man to be the one to give it to you.”
As he spoke, his tail, soaked with my own juices, circled around my nether hole teasingly and penetrated just a tip, as he soared higher into the clouds, thrusting so deep inside me that I could hardly imagine we were not just one being.
At this point I felt like my nerves just exploded, and I shattered into an orgasm where I let out the most uncontrolled screams of joy because who cared but the wind? And this sex god of a man who clearly knew what he was doing.
“Ohh, Byron! Ohh…ohh…!” I woke up abruptly and realized I was just screaming into the half-finished parlor and bouncing my hips on the air mattress.
The sun was just starting to rise and my alarm was beeping.
“Shit. Oh, shit.”
The room seemed so cold and empty. My body was aglow but also completely exhausted. I didn’t feel rested at all.
I rolled onto my side and hugged myself, as it suddenly hit me hard just how lonely my life could be sometimes.
“I’m here,” Byron said, appearing beside me. “I feel so much better now. Helena…” His hand stroked my face. “That was wonderful. Your dreams are something else. I could never do that in real life.”
“Oh, er…thank you? Or is ‘you’re welcome’ the appropriate response?” I chewed my lip.
“I know I have probably sapped the life right out of you today,” he said. “But I hope it was worth it.”
“It was wonderful, I just wish—“ I cut myself off.
“I know,” he said, in a voice so low and ragged it was barely a whisper. “I certainly know.”
I wish…you were alive.
Chapter Twenty
Helena
I had a few days that were actually normal. Thank goodness. I needed to get some stuff done. I had to toughen up. Every girl who got banged by an incubus got bedazzled. Sure, sometimes the love was real, but…
He’s a ghost. You knew that going in.
There are certain moments in my life when I realize that it might be a little creepy how good I am at turning off my emotions. But I also had the sort of mom that locked us in the closet for discipline and would actually put coal in our stockings, topped with all those years of boarding schools.
The highlight was making some calls and getting a lead at a local salvage place on a new-old clawfoot tub. It passed the lead test and it was even prettier than the one we had to get rid of. It needed a good scrub and nothing more. I loved shining up an old tub and seeing it placed in a new home. The tiles were delivered on Monday, and the brickwork was almost done.
At night I would start to feel just a tiny bit freaked out. Byron sat and read to me every night, although I worried that this was more intimate, and almost more dangerous, than the sex.
“I don’t want to be a nuisance,” I said. “I’m not afraid of the dark or anything. I don’t need to be read to like a kid.”
“I enjoy it. Fiore’s eyes were bad near the end of his life so I sometimes read him his novels when I visited. It’s nothing,” he said.
“And when you weren’t ‘visiting’…you were in the realm of the dead? Purgatory? Where do you go?”
“Well, I have my own home to haunt,” he said, a little dryly. “Back in Sinistral.”
“Oh. Huh.”
“I just haunted Fiore out of respect for our friendship.”
“That was nice of you. It must be sad to see your friends grow old when you’re a ghost.”
“I was glad to help him. He was too stubborn to ask anyone else for help. And he was a tough old man. You would liked him, and he would have liked you,” he said decisively. “I think his spirit must rest easy with you here.”
Still, my sleep was so bad that I often stole a nap while the work crews were around, because I knew magical folk wouldn’t attack me with humans around.
I had no dreams of the garden during that time. Byron seemed to be giving me space so I could recuperate. Since incubi gained power through sex, it took a lot out of me. That was the reason vampires and incubi would never be welcome in Etherium, no matter how decent they might be otherwise.
But it was still me curled up under my warm blanket and a hot incubus reading to me in a low sexy voice. It was only a matter of time before I started wishing he was under the blanket with me.
In the dream world, he is alive…so very alive. How could he be dead?
Nope. Nope. First rule of magical house flipping. No falling for ghosts. Even Caleb knows that.
I had to admit, I was relieved to see Graham’s BMW pull up on the promised Saturday, because he was equally attractive but also more alive. Even though I knew I didn’t want to get involved with any guy in his position, so if we ended up getting flirtatious, I had to shut it down fast.
If nothing else, because Byron could be lurking in the wall. See how complicated things get when you mess around with ghosts?
“Hey! Perfect timing!” I went out to meet him as he peeled out of his car from a long ride, whipping off his sunglasses and sliding them in a pocket to meet my eyes. “The parlor is really taking shape! I hope you don’t feel like your childhood was betrayed when you see the shag carpeting ripped up.”
“I’m sure I’ll survive,” he said, grabbing a stapled paper grocery bag from his passenger seat. “The food out here is terrible, so I brought Italian subs. If you don’t like them, I’ll eat them both. Just so you know that I’m not a total health nut.”
“I never met an Italian sub I wouldn’t eat.”
Then he handed me a bottle of red wine. “Can’t forget that either.”
“Oh, thank you. Wow, this is good stuff too.”
“You know your wine, do you?”
“It’s not me so much as my parents had—an interest.” To be specific, one of my great uncles bought a vineyard so our summer vacations in a valley by the Danube. I heard a lot of dinner talk about soil and weather and there was never any question that children should drink wine too, in moderation.
“Have you fixed up the garden yet?” Graham was looking around.
He seemed antsy. In all seriousness, I hoped he didn’t hate what I’d done. Or was he sorry he came, for some reason? I wondered if he was also feeling some attraction between us and trying to resist.
“I’m saving it for last. I wish it was earlier in the year. Only so much I can do in the fall when everything’s dead.” I proudly opened the double front doors of Lockwood House. In just a few weeks, the ground floor was well on its way to a stunning transformation. I had cleared out all the junk and spent the last two days cleaning and polishing the wooden floors until they glowed. My arms were still aching.
“Wow,” Graham said, walking into the parlor. “Holy crap. It doesn’t look like an old man den anymore. Are these the original floors?”
“You bet. See, they match the rest of the house. Nice wide boards. You just can’t get those anymore.”
“I can’t believe the floors were in such good shape and Grandpa covered them with that carpet.”
“Happens all the time.”
“And no more wood paneling. It’s so much brighter in here.”
“I had to drywall it. The plaster was too far gone. I really really wish I could do wainscoting on the walls. But…that’s just out of budget.” I shrugged.
“Right…,” he said.
“What? You think I should?” Oh boy, I would love someone to validate my desire to add the wainscoting.
“No, I’m just…thinking about how much all this costs…never mind. I can’t wait to see what you did with the kitchen.”
“Ohh…nothing. The kitchen didn’t need anything but a good cleaning.”
“What about that range from the last century!? The old cabinets? The linoleum?”
“Oh! That’s right. I did take up the linoleum. The original wood floors were still under it. As for the oven, wizards actually love those. At least, the kind of wizard who would buy a house out here.”
“I’m glad I lived a human life, then…”
“The first thing they teach warlocks to do is generate fire,” I said. “That helps.”
“And witches?”
“Oh, yeah, witches are not encouraged to shoot flames. God forbid the ladies can shoot fire back. We do learn to light and regulate the fire in a range in high school, though. But look! New bathroom!” I converted part of the hallway under the stairs into a cute bathroom with a pale gray tiled shower, a pedestal sink and a cool gold antique mirror I’d found in the attic. The bathroom also happened to have the diamond-shaped window now. It was placed high enough in the wall that privacy was maintained. I painted the wall navy blue.
“The subway tile looks fantastic,” he said.
“It did work, yes. I actually wish I’d made the shower white too.” I sighed. Sometimes, I still made mistakes and kicked myself the whole time I was putting up the tiles.
“Very nice,” he said, lifting a brow. “How over budget are you?”
“Shut your mouth.”
He lifted the bag of subs and nodded at the wine. “Let’s talk over a little of this.”
I already had noticed a corkscrew in a drawer as I was cleaning out the kitchen, and since the kitchen utensils were mostly vintage and nice, I left them all in place. I popped the cork, noticing just how naughty popping a cork seemed when a handsome incubus was watching you do it, looking like he was about to offer to do it himself.
I poured the glasses full and eagerly unwrapped the layers of paper encasing an enticing smell of cured meat, olive, pepperoncini, red wine vinegar and dried herbs.
“They got pretty soggy,” Graham said.
“At this point it’s the tastiest looking thing I’ve had all week. So what do you want to talk to me about? I can tell something’s eating at you.”
“Well…,” he said. “I just made a handshake deal to buy a house. And…it’s not this one. It’s a plantation in Louisiana, and…you’d better talk me out of it.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Helena
I listened to Graham’s story in intrigued silence.
“As far as I knew, only one of the Sons of Pandora had died. That was Byron, and—“
“Oh, what do you know about this, uh, Byron?”
“Uh, Not much, actually. He was a librarian, at a college, I think I heard? But in light of what I know now…” He shrugged. “I tried to track down the other two, and as it turns out, Deveraux died the day we were buying the tile. He has no family in the US. I was seized with this feeling similar to the night I buried Grandpa’s books. Like I knew what I had to do. I needed to buy the house. So I finally got ahold of his granddaughter, and I made her an offer for the house, sight unseen. She told me it’s really run down.”
“Oh, Graham!”
“I know—“ he said, sounding embarrassed.
I slapped the table. “No. This is awesome! I’m sure your gut is correct. We need that house.”
“‘We’?”
“I mean…” I sat back in my chair again. “What would you do with it by yourself?”
“I can’t buy this fucking mansion in Louisiana!” he cried. “I’m in the middle of the campaign of my life in Pennsylvania! This whole thing isn’t a lock, you know, it’s a swing district!”
“What do you want me to do about it? I can’t buy it unless I sell this place for a good profit! Your swing district isn’t my problem!”
“Damnit. I don’t know why I did this, but I’m sure it’s some…wizard thing that I shouldn’t be dealing with.”
“I guess if it’s still for sale in a few months and everything goes well, I can take a look,” I said. “But for now, I’m stuck here.”
Graham looked at me like he knew I couldn’t let it go.
“I’ll show you,” he said, “where I buried the books.”
“Yesss. Thank you!”
“I just keep thinking, what if my grandfather’s death and Deveraux’s death weren’t accidents?”
“They were one hundred years old plus,” I said softly. But Byron’s death didn’t seem like it was an accident. And the Sullivan brothers said the floor upstairs was caving in because of a magical attack, not termites. And I was still infuriated and more than a little concerned that Caleb broke into my house because of a suggestion from the Ethereal warlock council.
It was all pointing at something.
“Follow me,” Graham said. “If you’re ready for a bit of a walk.”
We trudged out through grasses that came up almost to my knees to one of the out buildings and he grabbed a shovel from just inside the creaking door.
Wherever we were going, it was a place he knew. I could imagine the kid in him, and I knew just how it felt, because I had grown up on a rambling property myself, and I knew how it was when you were a kid. The summer vacation days that seemed to last forever, roaming acres that seemed like miles, and finding spots that seemed magical in a way no spell book could tell you.
He followed an overgrown path into the woods. I liked seeing him like this. Maybe I misjudged him when I pinned him as merely a condo-owning watch-wearing elitist. Because I could tell he liked the outdoors too, and there was also something sexy about the way he was striding along, not caring too much if his nice shoes got dirty, with that old shovel in hand. I mean, that could be serial killer vibes in the wrong hands, but he had the right hands. Did he ever.
He stopped at a ridge where some wild roses were growing and plunged the shovel in a patch of soft dirt. It was obvious now, but it would have taken me forever to find this spot.
“I put it here,” he said. “I thought over time the roses would keep growing and no one would poke around. Probably overthinking it, but…”
“That’s smart,” I said. Besides that, incubi and succubi loved roses, as an amusing side note.
I watched him dig, which was a good deal for me. It was hard not to compare him to Byron and think that they were equally matched in their dark-haired good looks and beautiful bodies. When a man’s shirt could barely contain his shoulders…and his rolled-up sleeves and forearms were mor
e mesmerizing than anything on TV… They were different, though. Graham had more heavy-lidded eyes, more haughtiness in his gaze. His life had been all ladder climbing so far and you could see it in his confidence.
Byron had more of a romantic air, like a doomed artist, longer hair, a fuller mouth. And he was dead, so that had to have affected him.
Every flex of Graham’s arms, every time his shoe pounded the shovel into the ground, and every time he grunted with exertion as he lifted the dirt away, I was reminded that he was very much alive and also, of my own generation. Not that we had the same kind of life anyway.
“Phew. Buried it deeper than I thought.” He crouched and lifted out a tarp. I could see the weight of the books in it, and as he started to unwrap them, I chewed chapped skin off my lip nervously.
“Wow…,” I breathed as I saw the ancient leather-bound tomes with their thick browning pages. The books seemed to be a set of three, all bound in the same rich brown leather with gold letters. The real deal. They looked Medieval.
ARCANA SINISTRA, the title read.
I got chills down my spine. But maybe also some thrills. I could see why they affected Graham. The magic radiating off of them was so powerful, no one could have ignored it.
Then I considered what had just happened. “You buried Medieval manuscripts in the dirt!?” I cried.
“I didn’t know what else to do, Helena,” he said sternly. “I had this feeling that if I tried to do anything with them I might…unleash something.”
I reached for the book, my fingertips tingling as I unfolded the pages. Graham was watching me, lips tight, eyes intent on my hand. I think a part of him wanted to stop me, but he didn’t. A part of me wanted to stop myself too. Unleash something? It was possible.
“Errr…,” I said, groaning as I saw the old magical language on pages transcribed by hand. It was a true illuminated manuscript, every letter written by hand, complete with a few tiny paintings here and there, depicting…who knew? Some fighting, a band of faeries, a dragon breathing fire on a warlock… “This is an old warlock script so I’m not sure how much I’ll get out of it. It has some words from Latin and Middle English but others I don’t know at all…”
Demons in the Bedroom (Paranormal House Flippers Book 1) Page 12
