“Give in, Legs.”
Ben.
Allegra’s lashes flickered as she focused on her handsome friend. He was licking his lower lip, his eyes on Rousseau’s fingers as they slipped beneath the flimsy fabric to tangle in her strawberry curls.
“I can’t deny how much I’m looking forward to seeing you two together.” He undid the top button of his jeans, then the next, and Allegra couldn’t contain her whimper at the hint of his impressive erection straining against the denim.
“I see he’s gotten to you,” Rousseau sounded jealous and amused at the same time. “He’s determined to join in, I have to give him that. And effective, since you’re now thinking of all of us together, aren’t you?”
“How do you know?”
Rousseau laughed against her temple without answering. “Did he tell you we’ve shared women before? Not for a while now and never one like you, but I remember how thoroughly they enjoyed themselves. He’s got skills, for being so young.”
Ben’s smile beckoned her, but she saw sadness in his eyes. Yearning for something else. Someone else.
How did she know that?
“You want to know, so you do. And you’ve always seen that his heart can’t be yours, haven’t you, cher? But that’s not what we want from him, is it? His body is willing enough. Tell me you want that, want me, and I can have him come closer and join us right now.”
The words penetrated the sensual fog surrounding her, but she still couldn’t make herself pull away. How often did they do this? Pick a woman to share like this? Was she a game to them?
“Don’t diminish your worth, Allegra. You aren’t just another woman to any of us. To me. All you have to do is tell me what you want, and it’s yours.”
“I want...” Why did Ben look so sad?
She no sooner thought the question when Michelle suddenly appeared on her knees at Ben’s feet, taking his cock in her mouth.
“Michelle?”
Where had she come from? What the fuck was happening? This couldn’t be real, could it? She didn’t even like him.
Ben moaned loud and long, his hands fisting in Michelle’s curls, hips thrusting helplessly against her mouth as she took him deep. “Yes,” he groaned, tilting his head back. “Please, Mimi.”
Oh God, that shouldn’t be turning her on, should it?
Rousseau pinched her clit between rough fingers, regaining her attention with a jolt of pleasure so intense it nearly blinded her. “Now that you know what they want, you can stop distracting me and admit what you want. Who do you want, Allegra? Tell me now.”
“You. I want you, Rousseau.” All at once she was out of her mind with the need to come. The air around her was an aphrodisiac, filled with groans and cries of carnal delight. Rousseau’s body felt like a furnace behind her, and she turned in his arms, rubbing her breasts against his chest, her nipples scraping the cool metal of his piercings as she licked his neck. Salty. Delicious. Male.
She’d do anything to have him.
“Please, Rousseau. I want you now.”
He jerked in her arms, jarring her with the strength of his reaction. He pulled back, his jaw tight, golden eyes nearly glowing with lust and barely restrained power. “Call me by my other name. You want Bone Daddy. Say it out loud, and I can fulfill your every desire. I’ll give you everything. I’ll fuck you so hard you’ll beg for mercy. You’ll think you might die from the pleasure. Just do it now. I want you, Bone Daddy. Say it.”
“I see you, spirit.”
Was that Michelle? Wasn’t she busy with Ben?
Rousseau let out a warning snarl that made Allegra flinch in surprise.
“I said I see you, spirit. Now back the fuck off.”
She said something in what sounded like another language and a wave of dizziness washed over Allegra. She heard the crash of the cymbals, and then the music and overloud buzz of the crowd resumed, forcing her to cover her ears protectively.
She looked around the room, growing more rattled with every passing second. The two young men were still dancing awkwardly on the floor, smiling proudly at each other through their blushes. But they weren’t having sex.
The woman in her crisp pencil skirt sat at the table with her coworkers, no sign of what they’d been up to only moments before.
Had she imagined the whole thing?
She glanced down at herself but nothing was uncovered. Nothing out of place.
“But something happened.”
“Allegra.”
She looked up at Rousseau’s pained expression. His eyes were hazel again, full of knowledge, regret and frustrated desire. Whatever she’d just experienced, his look said she hadn’t gone through it alone. “What was that, Rousseau?”
“I’m so sorry, Allegra. I didn’t know it was going to happen. It usually doesn’t. I would never—”
He broke off when Michelle grabbed her arm, a dangerous expression on her face. “Fine. Perfect. We’re all sorry. We need to go, Allegra. I brought your things from the table, so don’t even think about arguing.”
Where was Ben? Hadn’t she just seen Ben? Allegra was still confused when Michelle took her hand, nearly dragging her away from the solemn café owner, who was standing silent and still as a statue amid the mass of writhing bodies.
She wanted to talk to him. She didn’t want to leave him when he looked so lost.
It wasn’t until they’d left the club that she stumbled, sharp needles of pain stabbing her from knee to hip. She forced them to a stop at the corner, her knuckles turning white as she gripped her cane hard. “It didn’t hurt when I was dancing with Rousseau. How did I not notice that?” She’d lived with the pain for so long, it was hard to imagine that she wouldn’t be aware of its absence. “Are you going to tell me what just happened, Chelle?”
Michelle kept looking over her shoulder, watching the door to the club as though she were worried they might be followed. “I told you, Allegra. How many times? I warned you that Rousseau was trouble. But you decided to follow Adair’s advice instead.”
She sounded incredibly put out about that last bit.
“You didn’t seem that upset with him a few minutes ago,” she muttered mulishly, limping behind her.
She thought she saw Michelle’s shoulders tighten, but she couldn’t be sure. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Allegra limped behind her, mind racing. She would suspect someone of slipping something in her drink if she’d had a chance to order one.
Maybe Rousseau’s big secret with women had to do with hypnotism. That might explain the illusory orgy she’d just witnessed. Participated in.
Would it explain why his eyes were glowing? How he read your mind? Or the fact that no one has ever been able to hypnotize you before?
There weren’t that many logical explanations, but there had to be one, damn it. And if there was, she needed to find it before she lost her mind.
“Define trouble for me. Be specific. No more beating around this bush.”
Michelle swore under her breath. “I’ll try, but you’re not going to like it and you’ll probably think I’m crazy.”
“I promise I won’t think you’re crazy.” How could she after what just happened?
“Not even if I tell you that the guy feeling you up in the club was not the same guy you’ve been crushing on for weeks?” She paused. “No, that’s not entirely accurate. He was mostly Rousseau.”
“Mostly?”
“If you don’t count the spirit currently riding his ass, then yes. Mostly.”
She stumbled and Michelle slid an arm around her waist with a sigh. “Let’s at least get you home and off your feet before I tell you any more ghost stories.”
People’s secret desires are often surprising, even after all these centuries.
Centuries. He’d really said centuries, hadn’t he?
“Let’s do that,” Allegra said weakly, feeling decidedly off balance. “You know I love a good ghost story.”
Chapter
3
“Possessed? Like The Exorcist possessed?”
“More like Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost possessed. Sort of. Look, voodoo is my family’s religion, not mine. It’s hard to explain, which is why I gave you that book last night.”
Michelle had her feet propped on the desk by the window, blocking the morning view of Rousseau’s apartment. She was twirling a letter opener in her hand, an old habit that gave away her nerves. She definitely didn’t like having this conversation. Maybe that was why she’d found a way to delay it until after breakfast.
But Allegra hadn’t been able to sleep for thinking about it.
She sat on the fat, soft daybed in the living room, the book open in her lap while she tried to take it all in. If this was a joke, Michelle had pulled out all the stops to make it especially convincing.
“I’m just covering all the bases here. First you tell me he sleeps around too much because he’s a manwhore, and now he does it because he’s possessed. Be honest, do you two have a history I don’t know about?”
“No.”
Well that was adamant. Sincere. But adamant.
“Okay then, is this some kind of NOLA hazing for new residents I wasn’t aware of? I’m not saying you aren’t the right person for the job if it is. You’re the only one I know who could come up with something this twisted.”
“Thanks.”
Allegra’s lips quirked at her sarcasm. “You’re welcome. Were the paintings you’ve been filling the place up with lately a part of it? All those graveyards and grabby demons meant to get me in the right frame of mind?”
“Grabby demons?” Michelle made a face. “I’m glad you’re not the local art critic, but no. No joke. No hazing. No jealous secret plan to keep you away from the golden penis of happiness.”
Allegra snorted, but Michelle was no longer in the mood to laugh. “Mama knows about Rousseau’s case. He even came to her once, but she told him she couldn’t help him. She’s also the one who gave me that book, if that makes a difference.”
Oddly enough, it did. Allegra sat up straighter, her hopeful smile disappearing. Michelle’s mother was a genuine voodoo priestess who ran a small shop on Royal, selling charms and special oils as well as giving the occasional reading.
Mambo Toussaint was the genuine article. The oil she’d given Allegra to put in her bath worked better than all the expensive liniments and lotions her therapists had given her for the pain in her knee and hip. And she knew things. Not in the same way Ben seemed to, but she was still uncanny.
She knew about Rousseau?
Did Michelle and her mother really believe that the hot guy who owned the coffee shop was hosting a spirit called a—she looked down at the book—a Loa?
Call me by my other name.
“Rousseau believes this, doesn’t he? That he’s possessed? So the nickname people call him around town is actually...”
“The name of the Loa, yes.”
“A sex Loa named Bone Daddy. You realize how that sounds, right?”
“Of course I do.” Michelle shifted, getting up from the chair and nudging her workout bag with her foot. “I ran away from this once, ignored it, and there isn’t a day that goes by that I wish I didn’t know any of this existed. Believe me. But it does and I do. And now so do you.”
“Where are you going?”
She’d picked the bag up and taken a step toward the door. “I have a kickboxing lesson to get to.”
“I thought we were going to talk about this.”
There was a pain in Michelle’s expression Allegra didn’t understand. “I can’t right now. Just read the book and don’t leave the apartment until I get back, okay? And pay attention to the notes Mama put in the margins.”
“Michelle?” Allegra tilted her head to study her roommate. “Are you okay? I mean other than being stressed about my recent crush on Whoopi Goldberg and the golden penis of happiness.”
Her expression softened. “I’ll be fine. Read that book, especially chapter eleven.”
She walked out the door as if her ass were on fire, and Allegra fell back onto the pillows with a gusty sigh.
She didn’t say she was fine, just that she would be. This incident had Michelle more on edge than ever, and she’d already been walking the line.
When Allegra had first met her, Michelle admitted she’d only gone away to college to escape from a town full of interfering family and bead-craving tourists while she worked on creating the perfect masterpiece. Now she was a leader in the education community of the very town she’d run away from. Allegra couldn’t be prouder of all she’d accomplished. But it didn’t seem to satisfy or center her.
Nothing did.
All those defense classes. Kickboxing. Karate. She’d even been learning capoeira, a Brazilian form of martial arts that looked like dancing. She envied Michelle’s energy, but she barely saw her.
She studied the wall lined with Michelle’s canvasses. The nearest and most recent was disturbing. Three men, their features distorted and grotesque, their faces covered in blood. All three had ghostly figures behind them, figures whose arms thrust inside the men’s bodies, as if guiding them toward the screaming woman curled up against the alley wall.
It was a dark piece. A scary piece. Especially since the woman with the dark silky curls, brown skin and stunningly fearful eyes looked an awful lot like Michelle.
Now that she thought about it, what was happening to the men looked a lot like possession to Allegra.
Rousseau.
Promising herself to have a serious conversation with Michelle about her concerns as soon as she got home, Allegra picked the book up and rolled onto her right side, propping a pillow beneath her arm so she could read. It was a well-loved book, the cover lined with ragged threads and so worn she could barely make out the title, but inside was everything she could ever want to know about voodoo.
An idea for a lifestyle article came to mind, and she pushed it aside. She couldn’t think about her old job now, her old life. She was too distracted by the people in her new one.
She flipped the yellowing pages until she found the right chapter and read. The researcher in her was fascinated with all the information. Some of it new, some eerily familiar.
Voodoo was a merging of Catholicism and tribal ancestor worship. Loas appeared to be similar to saints or angels, intermediaries with the divine, but unlike the winged cousins that lacked free will, these all had their own unique personalities and some less-than-angelic cravings and desires.
During rituals, the priests and priestesses of the religion—houngans and mambos—were “ridden” by a Loa. Possessed for a short time, giving body to the spirit and allowing them to revel in the joys of the flesh. Food. Drink. Sex. In return the Loa would heal, advise, and carry prayers with them when they returned to the other world.
Allegra sat up, wincing at the pain that ran like a current down her leg. How did any of this connect with Rousseau or what happened to her last night? She turned another page and saw writing in the margin beside a long list of Loa names and descriptions.
Bone Daddy.
First arrived at peristyle, the ritual space, in the eighteen hundreds.
Associated with sexual satisfaction and desire.
Origin: Unknown.
Family: Unknown
Mischievous and magnetic. But based on his questionable behavior and
uncertain loyalties, wariness is recommended.
Bone Daddy. There it was. Seeing it written in Mambo Toussaint’s hand gave it weight and the ring of truth. At the very least, Michelle’s mother believed this being existed. She wouldn’t have gone to this trouble if she didn’t.
Despite all she’d witnessed in her travels and what she’d experienced last night, Allegra couldn’t allow herself to fall down that rabbit hole. She believed in what she could see. What she could prove.
You saw his eyes change. You felt the difference in him.
What she’d seen and felt was Rousseau turning the tables on
her after months of hesitation. He’d been the aggressor, and the new approach had thrown her.
That was all.
Her nipples scraped against her tank top as she remembered what she’d seen last night. Real or imagined, the erotic experience had revealed aspects of herself she hadn’t been aware of. Cravings she hadn’t known she had. Voyeurism, exhibitionism, even a small streak of masochism. It wasn’t like her, but she couldn’t deny she’d been tantalized by the visuals before her guilty conscience—in the form of Michelle—had ripped her away.
That look into the inner fantasies of others had been one fantasy she’d always been aware of. And some part of her must have known, subconsciously, that the tension between Michelle and Ben was sexual in nature. She’d seen enough romantic comedies to fill in those blanks. It wasn’t like Rousseau had read her mind and given her what she wanted.
Not Rousseau. Bone Daddy.
The air in the apartment grew warm and heavy, her skin tingling with sensitivity. Sexual frustration, she recognized. Thankfully it was something she could easily fix.
One glance at the locked door and then she was pulling off her shirt, rifling through the box under the bed that held her vibrator. She angled her pillow to face the window, knowing he couldn’t see her from here, but still perversely enjoying the idea that she was giving him a show.
She should be reading. She should be focusing on logic or worrying about the sanity of her friends, but instead she pushed her shorts and pink panties down to her knees, one hand cupping her small, aching breast, while the other switched on the vibrator and let it slide along her already swollen clit.
“Rousseau,” she moaned softly, closing her eyes, unsurprised when an image of the man in question immediately appeared. He was watching her with eyes that flickered between gold and hazel, and he was smiling. He knew she wanted him to see. She tugged hard on her nipples, biting her lip at the sharp sensation.
Maybe she should get them pierced.
She’d put on the pink underwear he’d mentioned seeing her in when he’d admitted to watching her. Had he touched himself, imagining her taking them off for him?
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