Psychic for Sale [Rent to Own]

by Amie Gibbons

  “Here we go,” Carvi said. “Focus on magic. We need to see it to trace it.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “Think magic, think about the anger, think about the passion earlier. The spell hit us too, but I think we were on the periphery of it, just enough to get us upset.”

  “I wasn’t,” I said.

  “No, you were turned on though. You’re not an easily angered person.”

  “Ehhhhh, sometimes. But are you?”

  “Lea, we don’t have time for you to psychoanalyze me. Focus.”

  “Right. Magic.”

  I closed my eyes in the vision and Carvi snorted.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said. “I get that I don’t need to close my eyes in here, but it helps me think, okay?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Take a deep breath, focus on the anger. Remember that feeling when Grant was staring at you. When the spell got him for a just a moment. Take that, ride it.”

  The picture of Grant lookin’ at me like I was a woman, not an agent, or an overgrown child, like he sometimes treated me, but like I was something he wanted, and wanted right then, flashed across my closed eyelids.

  I licked my lips and opened my eyes.

  Red lit up the room with streaks. The vamps glowed with dark light from their hearts, the humans were either normal or had different colors around them.

  “Are you seein’ this?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Carvi said. “See here?”

  He pointed to the chest area around Claude.

  Who wasn’t moving.

  “Why is the vision frozen?” I asked.

  “I froze it.”

  “That is nifty!”

  “I know.”

  The red swirled through the room like a silk ribbon. To my eyes, it looked to be about as wide as a scarf, but ran forever, twisting through the room and caressing people with no end in sight either direction.

  “How do we follow it?” I asked.

  “Grab one side and go,” Carvi said. “It wouldn’t be able to sustain itself without going back in a loop so either direction we go should take us there.”

  “Oh wow. Okay. After you.”

  Carvi walked across the ballroom, out into the hall and down. Took me a moment to realize this was the same hall we’d taken to go to the kitchen.

  Sure enough, the ribbon wound through the giant double doors and into the kitchen.

  My jaw dropped.

  There we were, Carvi down, the dead body near the front of the freezer, me against the long metal prep table with my mouth hangin’ open. And Grant pulling out his gun.

  “Is there any way for me to test him while we’re in this vision walk thing?” I asked, circling the frozen Grant.

  “Possibly, but we don’t have time, lea.”

  “Right.”

  The ribbon went back the way it came through the kitchen but down a different hall. We followed it to the foyer and out the front doors.

  The Miami night looked just like it had when we got here. Lights on the big buildings holding the sky at bay, no stars to be seen through the blanket of civilization.

  The streets teamed with people and the smell of salt water rode the air just under the usual scents of crowded humanity.

  “I just realized something,” I said as we walked down the street.

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t like the smell of this city. It reminds me of New York, just a little… er, spicier? If that makes sense.”

  He laughed. “You sound like a vampire when you say stuff like that.”

  “So you can smell it?”

  “Oh yes. All places have a smell. It’s a part of them. Cities live and breathe, just in a different way than humans, but they are alive as any institution. Take government, it may be made of millions to billions of individual pieces, but it functions as one giant organism.”

  “It wants to live, to grow, to spread,” I said. “Yeah. So why do you like it here if you smell what I do?”

  He laughed again. “You’re assuming I don’t like the smell. I love it. It smells like humans of all races, a little extra in the spicier region, which I like.”

  So he thought it smelled spicy too? Huh. Interesting.

  “And there’s asphalt on the hot night, the smell of steel and glass. It’s all the modern day and speaks of mankind’s conquering of the greatest organism of all, the earth. It’s beautiful and powerful.”

  He looked down at me. “It’s reality in a way this world has never seen it.”

  “What does that-”

  Carvi slammed to a stop, holdin’ up a hand.

  “What?” I asked.

  The building in front of us was a bright, tacky restaurant. Mexican, or since it was Miami, maybe Cuban, but with the same usual markers Mexican restaurants had trademarked.

  “Fuck!” Carvi said.

  “What?” I asked, looking around.

  “We need to get out of here.”

  “Why? I thought you said-”

  “They can see us, lea.”

  My breath caught in my throat and I stared at the building.

  Giant bright blue eyes fluttered open across it like a hologram.

  Chapter five

  My eyes opened in the real world.

  “What the hell was that?” I yelled.

  Carvi shook his head and Claude jumped away from my touch.

  “Sorry guys,” I said. “I’m just… shaken.”

  “Gentlemen, go home,” Carvi said. “The party is over for you tonight.”

  “Yes, sir,” Patrick said, scramblin’ away before I could protest.

  “I didn’t even get a chance to read him,” I said after Claude left.

  Something told me snapping at Carvi in front of his underlings would not have gone over well.

  “You can tomorrow, lea, we have bigger problems.”

  “Still, for all we know, he knew something.”

  “He wasn’t the one affected. Claude was.”

  He rubbed his forehead, saying something in another language.

  “What language is that?” I asked, putting my hands on his head and rubbing his temples.

  “It’s long dead, but let’s say Latin to satisfy your curiosity,” he said, smiling at me.

  “You’re a little tall to do this easily,” I said.

  “Not something I get often. Too big, I get all the time.” He winked.

  I rolled my eyes. “And I’m ignoring that.”

  He walked to the chaise laying against one wall and sat down, patting the spot next to him.

  I sat and he turned around to give me better access.

  I dug my fingers into his hair, feeling the strands crunch under them.

  “Doesn’t all this product hurt your hair?” I asked. “The dyes and all the gel and stuff?”

  “If you dye it a lot, it can, but I don’t. And it’s higher quality than most people use. As for the gel, no.”

  His voice dropped mid-sentence, makin’ my stomach lurch.

  I rubbed his temples with small circles and ran my hands up into his hair again, teasing and pulling, digging my fingers in to massage his scalp.

  “That feels incredible,” he half whispered.

  “Is it helping?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “I didn’t know vamps could get headaches.”

  “We get them just like humans. It’s just easier for us to get rid of them.”

  “Super healing. Nice.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  His tone made me pull my hands back and he turn to look at me.

  “I do like you, lea. I know you don’t always believe that.”

  “You don’t always act like it.”

  “Well, I do.”

  He met my eyes and slid his hand around my waist, slow, like he wanted me to know I could run.

  I pressed my lips together to keep from licking them.

  “Carvi, I can’t.”

  “I’m not asking you to. I want a taste.”

  I nod
ded, blood thunderin’ through me, pounding in my groin and ears so hard, I half thought I’d come right now.

  Carvi moved, putting me on the ground faster than I could blink, and was on top of me.

  He braced himself on either side of my head and pinned my bottom half with his, thrusting against me.

  “Carvi,” I tried to scold, voice coming out breathy.

  “Don’t. Don’t resist. Don’t say no. I won’t enter you with anything but my teeth, but say yes.”

  “What would I be sayin’ yes to?”

  I raised my arms. To push him away, maybe, I’m not sure.

  He pinned my arms above my head and I gasped as arousal flushed through me.

  “I won’t fuck you. I won’t kiss your lips,” Carvi said.

  “No mouth or hands stuff either,” I said. “This already feels like cheatin’.”

  “I’m allowed to bite you. Touching is part of that.”

  “I can’t say yes, Carvi. You can bite me, but anything else…”

  He rode into me, putting his arms down so his chest pinned mine, half smothering me.

  He grabbed my skirt, pulling it up with a hard motion that made me jerk up into him.

  I moaned as he grabbed my thigh.

  He pressed the bulge in his pants against my front, rubbing me through the thin panties.

  “Carvi!” I grabbed his arms.

  “Be honest,” he whispered. “You want this. I can smell it, feel the desire pumping through your blood.”

  “Of course I want you. But I can’t cheat. I can’t betray.”

  “Quil said it was okay.”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “He’s not possessive. He understands desire can not be tied up. He said, ‘If she wants, if she’s willing, I will not stand in the way, but when she comes back, hands off.’”

  “He wouldn’t.” I gasped as Carvi pressed harder, moving faster, my hips moving in time with his.

  I wanted him. Wanted to keep doing this.

  “He did,” Carvi said, voice nearly as breathy as mine. “Call him. Right now. Ask him.”

  “I can’t. I can’t ask my boyfriend if it’s okay for me to be with someone else, Carvi.”

  “This isn’t.”

  “It’s close.”

  He growled, pausing and pulling his phone out of his jacket, keeping himself up on one arm above me.

  “What are you doing?” I demanded.

  “Calling Quil.”

  “What! No!” Fear shot through me and I wiggled like a caught fish, making Carvi grunt.

  “Quil, hello,” Carvi said. My stomach dropped out. “Yes, I told Ariana what you said and she does not believe me. Could you tell her?”

  He handed me the phone, keeping me pinned with his bottom half.

  I couldn’t talk to Quil while I was like this with another man!

  “Hi,” I said, voice soft like it knew this was going to be bad.

  “Sweets, is Carvi trying anything against your will?” Quil asked, sounding so normal.

  “Ugh, I ugh, was not expecting that question.”

  “So no?”

  He sounded so calm, reasonable, like we were discussing a contract.

  “Um, not really, but Quil, I’m not going to…”

  “Ariana,” he said, still so reasonable, “I swear, it’s fine. What happens down there can stay down there. When you get back up here, I will not ask, you and I will still be okay. I do not own you, and I want you to do whatever makes you happy.”

  “But… but, we… you’re really okay with this?”

  “I’m not happy about it. But I understand. And if it’s my consent you’re waiting for, you have it. You can.”

  He paused.

  “Sweets, I have to go. If Carvi does do anything you do not want to do, then there will be an issue, but not until then. Good-bye.”

  “Bye.”

  He hung up.

  I handed the phone back to Carvi.

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “At all.”

  “Yes, but he did give permission, so.” He grabbed my thigh, pushing against me fast enough to make me gasp. “Where were we?”

  “I’m not sayin’ yes to sex. I can’t do that.”

  “What about to me biting you while I move very fast on you like this so you come?”

  “I… ugh.” I licked my lips. “That’s still. I mean…”

  “I get to bite you, lea. It’s part of the deal. May as well make it so you enjoy it.”

  “I’m scared.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of falling for you. That would hurt Quil. And… you’d break me.”

  “Breaking people is my specialty.” He put his weight back on me, thumping into me as his lips traced my neck.

  I moaned, grabbin’ onto him and he pinned my hands down again.

  “You like being dominated, my lea. You’re so wet I could slip in you right now with no more prep. I can tell you’re small, it’d be a tight fit. We’d both enjoy it.”

  He kissed my neck, sucking on the small part that always makes my eyes roll back, and his hand traveled up my thigh.

  He slid off me, inching down.

  “Carvi!” I gasped.

  “No sex, lea.”

  “Are we talkin’ the Bill Clinton definition of that?”

  He grinned before disappeared under the wide ball skirt. “Yes.”

  I leaned up on my arms and he pulled my legs more open.

  Oh God, were we going to do this?

  He traced the front of me with a gentle finger and I whimpered.

  Yep.

  I grabbed the chaise leg with both hands.

  Carvi looked up, grinning wide enough to fit five canaries in there.

  “After the party, we’ll finish this at my place,” he said. “I have much better things for you to hang onto there.”

  He met my eyes and sighed.

  I couldn’t even ask what before he said, “This skirt has to go. I want to look at you while I’m doing you.”

  He grabbed my hips and turned me over, forcing me to let go of the chair.

  Carvi undid the corset strings, runnin’ feather-light fingertips across my back.

  My breath caught and he rolled me over again. I stood up and he pulled the skirt down, revealing my pretty white panties and bustier.

  “Back down,” Carvi said.

  I did as he said.

  He grabbed my panties and pulled them off in one quick motion and I grunted.

  “I’m going to have so much fun with you,” he said, pulling my legs apart and putting them on his shoulders.

  He met my eyes and rolled into my brain.

  “Helps me feel your reactions,” he whispered through my mind.

  I grabbed the chaise leg again and closed my eyes.

  Givin’ in had never felt so good… and dirty. Like I was one of those girls Mama always warned me about.

  Carvi sucked my clit and I gasped, jerking up into him.

  He swished his tongue over it and I screamed yes in my head.

  Too dangerous to say it out loud.

  “I heard that, lea,” he said, still inside me. “I heard the yes.”

  “Please don’t stop,” I gasped out loud.

  He switched his tongue faster and I thrust up into him.

  So close.

  A finger slid inside me and I squeezed around it.

  “You are so small,” he said, still mentally as his mouth was occupied with me. “I really will barely fit.”

  An image of him inside me filled my head and I didn’t know if it was from me or him intruding.

  He moved his finger in, pressing up as his tongue went faster.

  “Not so fast, lea,” he said, going slower.

  “No!” I practically growled, straining up into his mouth. “I can go again. Go faster.”

  “Say please.”

  “Carvi, please.”

  “Do you want me inside you?”

  “Yes.”

 
“Do you want to fuck me?”

  “Yes! God, yes!”

  His tongue went fast as a vibrator and his finger helped from within. The pressure built and I pushed up, squeezing as tight as I could, everything in my body holdin’ on until…

  I screamed as the pleasure crested, squeezing it out to hold as long as I could.

  And sagged against the floor, shaking more than a newborn lamb.

  Carvi kissed my thigh, looking up at me.

  “Lea, look at me, watch me bite you.”

  I nodded and leaned up on my arms. They could barely keep me up.

  Carvi stared at me as he lowered his mouth to my thigh and sunk his teeth in.

  Pain shot through me, cutting off the pleasure of the last few minutes.

  A new wave of desire flowed through me. I’d felt this with Quil. The vamp bite had the power to make it seem pleasurable.

  The better to eat you with, my dear.

  I closed my eyes but still watched Carvi.

  Holy crap. I was in a vision.

  A spectral form of Carvi rose out of the real one.

  “Am I seeing a vision over the real world?” I asked.

  I could still feel him sucking on my thigh, feel his hands on my leg.

  “Something like that,” the mental Carvi said.

  He reached me and became solid as he grabbed my arms, pulling me into him and kissing me.

  It was as real and powerful as the first time and I kissed him back.

  He picked me up and held me against the wall, suddenly naked.

  I broke the kiss. “Carvi!”

  “It’s not real, lea. It’s a fantasy. We’ll start small, me inside you in here, and then go to the real world.”

  “It’d feel real though,” I said. “And I still can’t. Even with permission. I couldn’t go that far.”

  He kept his eyes on mine and took my hand, wrapping it around his thick, ready penis, gravity apparently not an issue in vision land as I stayed up as easily as though I was sitting on a chair.

  “Feel me,” he said. “I’m inside you now, and that’s a far bigger deal than intercourse.”

  Pleasure ripped through my body and I moaned.

  Carvi used my hand to guide him to my opening.

  I rested my forehead against his, stilling against him.

  All it’d take was one little push.

  “It’s not real, lea,” he whispered. “Feel my teeth in you, feel the vampire song in your blood.”

  I gasped as I tightened again.