Psychic Storm: Ten Dangerously Sexy Tales of Psychic Witches, Vampires, Mediums, Empaths and Seers

by Deanna Chase

  She shrugged one shoulder, a disinterested expression on her face. “Marco was contacted about hiring strippers to entertain some VIP guests.”

  This was too fucking perfect. “Are you gonna do it?”

  “Hell no! Marco asked me, but I turned it down. I hate doing private parties. The men always expect you to put out for them. I prefer the club where there are rules and big security guards.”

  In the back of my mind, I’d heard her. I probably even agreed with her. But my brain was already off running the possibilities.

  “No, Marley. I need you to work this party.”

  “What for?”

  “It’s not an ordinary party. This is an El Caos meeting.”

  “Then I’m definitely not working it! Are you nuts?”

  I set my beer on the counter with shaky hands. My gut churned in a battle between rescuing Lucas from Nico and an odd desire to keep Marley safe. I crossed the kitchenette and clutched her hands between my palms.

  “You don’t understand. After Gomez died, my case hit a stone wall. This party is the break I need to finish this thing.”

  She yanked her hands out from mine. “Are you forgetting these El Caos psychos are looking for me? I have half a mind to flee the state in the morning.”

  “You can’t do that! I’ll keep you safe. I promise. Didn’t I do that tonight?”

  “Should’ve just called 911,” she grumbled.

  “But you didn’t. You called me. That means on some level you must trust me.”

  She snorted. “More like I was desperate.”

  “This case...it’s personal. I need your help, Marley. And...I think maybe we met each other for a reason.”

  “Oh, don’t give me that Touched By An Angel crap. I’m an atheist. I’d bet my mama’s velvet Elvis painting collection that you are, too.”

  “Marley, I promise you’ll be safe. I’ll bring in a makeup expert. She can fix it up so your own mother won’t recognize you. And I’ll have you wired so I can monitor everything going on. The first sign of any trouble, and I’ll be there to get you out.”

  “How can I wear a wire? I wouldn’t have hardly any clothes on.”

  “That was just a figure of speech. Bugs don’t have wires anymore.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I’m not doing it.”

  I studied her with narrowed eyes, and trying to think of a way to convince her to help me. Finally, I grinned. “What? Don’t tell me you’re scared. Don’t you think you can handle it?”

  “Ha! Daring me is not gonna get me to do what you want. That trick only works on men who are too stupid to know better.”

  My grin faded into a glare. “Fine. I’ll make you a deal. You do this tiny favor for me, and I’ll get you off El Caos’s radar for good.”

  She studied me with one brow cocked. “I’m not saying I’ll do it, but what exactly do you have in mind?”

  I scrubbed my hand over my jaw, willing the tumblers of an idea fall into place.

  “Okay. We need to get you in and out without any special notice. You go in with two bugs. They’re sticky on the one side, so all you have to do is plant them on the undersides of furniture. A table, a chair, in a potted plant... whatever’s convenient. The second one, you will plant on a guy named Nico Diaz.”

  “And how do you suggest I do that?”

  “You’re a stripper. Guys are dying to get close to you. Give him a lap dance or something. Then when he’s all distracted and horny, plant the bug on his clothes. I’ll show you how to do it.”

  Marley scooted off the stool and moved to the couch. It put distance between us.

  “Jace, there is no way on in hell I’m going to jeopardize my life doing something that dangerous so you can collect a paycheck. Sorry. Not gonna do it.”

  I moved to sit on the coffee table in front of her, trapping her knees between mine and hoping the pre-fab furniture would hold my weight.

  “This isn’t about money. I told you, it’s personal. There’s a kid involved. Lucas Banda. One of the local dealers for El Caos has him. I promised to get him out.” Her eyes softened at the mention of the boy, so I continued. “Lucas is thirteen. He was orphaned when he was just a boy and grew up on the streets of Monterrey. I met him about a year ago when I was working undercover in Mexico. He’s...he’s a medium too. And I made arrangements for him to go live somewhere safe. He was so excited about it. He hates dealing drugs to other kids. But I screwed it all up. My cover was blown, and I got pulled out. Now I suspect he’s here in the States with a dealer named Nico Diaz. I have to find Diaz in order to find Lucas.”

  “And you want me to plant a device on Diaz so he’ll lead you to the boy,” she sighed.

  I nodded and waited for her to process.

  “Jesus, Jace. I don’t know...”

  “What don’t you know?”

  “Anything! I know nothing about you. You say you’re an investigator, but you won’t tell me who you work for. You live in this temporary hotel room with mass-market art on the walls. You could be anyone for all I know.”

  I tunneled my hands in my hair and groaned. In the time I’d been with the CIA, I’d never come clean with a civilian. It wasn’t safe for them. Look at Tom Miller. He’d been working for the Agency for almost twenty years, and every morning, his wife kissed him goodbye and wished him a good day stock brokering. But damn, sometimes it got so hard not having anyone really know me. Just once, I wanted to hear someone call me by my real name.

  “I’ll tell you some things about me. But I can’t tell you everything. My job...it’s dangerous. It’s probably better if we don’t talk about that. But I promise you, I’m one of the good guys.”

  Marley swallowed, her eyes growing wider. “Okay. I won’t push. I’m not nosy. I just need to know I can trust you.”

  “Then I’ll tell you something I don’t normally tell anybody. My name isn’t Jace Martin. Like you, I sort of use a stage name when I’m working.”

  Her face paled, and she looked at the door as if weighing her chances of bolting.

  “My name is JC Moreno. It’s short for Juan Carlos. I’m from a small town on the edge of Monterrey, Mexico. When I was in my early teens, I moved to Chicago.”

  “JC...” she said, testing my name out on her tongue. “What about the ID you showed me?”

  “Fake. Sorry.”

  “You don’t sound like you’re from Mexico.”

  “I worked hard over the years to ditch the accent. When I speak Spanish, I have a perfect Monterrey accent. I’m also fluent in Brazilian Portuguese.”

  “So now that I know your name, I’m just supposed to trust you enough to watch out for me if I go to that party and all hell busts loose?”

  “You have my word. And it won’t just be me. I’ll get some backup. Not that I expect we’ll need it, but just for an added layer of protection for you.”

  I waited for her reply for what felt like hours. Any other time, I would have commended her for taking her time deciding before jumping into something dangerous and half-cocked. But now wasn’t one of those times.

  “Show me what you want me to do,” she said with a tone of defeat.

  “Be right back.”

  I headed back to my bedroom closet to my box of surveillance equipment and rooted around for what I needed. The bug had to be small and unobtrusive, so it’d be easy to plant on clothes.

  Once I gathered my supplies, I returned to the living room. Marley remained on the couch looking pale and slightly terrified. She’d drawn the comforter over her bare legs, thankfully, a move sure to improve my concentration.

  I spread the items on the coffee table and knelt down to explain it all to her.

  “I have two types of bugs on hand that’ll work. This one—” I held up a chip as small as a dime but about half as thin and bendable. “—only works as a microphone. It sends data through an encrypted signal to a satellite so the signal can be monitored from anywhere in the world. This works fine for bugging the room, but for Nico, the bug
also has to give off a GPS signal so he can lead me to Lucas.” I held the second bug out to her. “And this one has both microphone and GPS capabilities.”

  She picked up the tiny chip and squinted to look closely.

  “Not gonna lie. I’m slightly freaked out that you keep shit like this in your bedroom.”

  Unable to stop myself, I sent her my best sexy leer.

  Marley let out a nervous laugh at my flirtation. “Don’t be ridiculous. Show me how this stuff works.”

  I held up one of the small cloth sleeves. “The bug goes in here like this. There’s a tiny strip of Velcro on the end, so you just have to pinch it closed and it won’t fall out.” I passed a sleeve to her to look at as I opened a glue stick. “This glue is some made of some crazy space-aged shit that one of the chemical companies developed. It is incredibly strong and long lasting, but it also lets you peel and stick it several times.”

  I coated one side of a cloth sleeve with the glue and stuck it to the table top. Then I peeled it off and stuck it to the material of my jeans. “See?” I peeled it off my leg and handed it to her.

  She touched her finger to the glue and pulled it off several times. Then she rubbed her fingers together and held the fabric up to her nose to sniff.

  “So I’m thinking one of the microphones can be planted in the room. That will be the easy part. It can go just about anywhere as long as it’s out of the way.”

  I placed a bug in the sticky sleeve. I held my hand up so she could see the way I held the bug with an edge tucked between my fingers. Then I feigned leaning down to adjust my shoe and wrapped my fingers around the bottom edge of the sofa. When I displayed my hand again, the bug was gone.

  Marley’s mouth was open, an expression bordering between awe and fear. “Tell me you didn’t bug my apartment.”

  “No, I didn’t. Promise. Despite what this must look like, I’m really not in the habit of planting surveillance without a court order.”

  “You don’t have a court order for this Nico guy, do you?”

  I twisted my neck until it cracked, a bad habit to relieve tension. “No, I don’t have a court order for this, but I’m not planning to make an arrest either. My only goal here is to find Lucas and get him to safety.”

  “So if you capture evidence of illegal activity, you aren’t gonna act on it?”

  I pressed my lips together in a hard line. No, I couldn’t act on it, and while that would royally suck, I couldn’t dwell on it. “Lucas is my top priority. There are other members of law enforcement tracking these guys. Trust me. I need to let them do their job and do my best to not interfere. If I end up capturing anything serious, I’ll turn it over to the proper authorities, and let them do with it what they can.”

  “Okay,” she nodded. “So I think I can handle planting a bug on a piece of furniture. I’ll practice some, but it shouldn’t be too tough. But how would I plant one on Nico?”

  I crossed to the bedroom and returned with my now empty flak jacket. “Under the hem of Nico’s coat would be perfect. People don’t wash their coats as much as the rest of their clothes, so the bug can potentially continue giving off signals for several weeks if the battery holds out. Nights should remain cool enough for a jacket for at least another month. And Nico isn’t the type to regularly wear more than one or two jackets. He isn’t exactly a fashion whore.”

  “What if he isn’t wearing a jacket?”

  “Then under his pant leg or beneath the bottom edge of his shirt would be the next best places. You can’t stick it under his sleeve. The skin on the wrist is sensitive, and people tend to fiddle with their sleeves a lot. Same goes for under his collar. Something rubbing on the neck would be obvious.”

  Marley twisted her lips to the side in thought. She didn’t look entirely convinced she could pull this off.

  I took her hand and pulled her to her feet. “Come on. Let’s practice.”

  A lap dance was the easiest way for her to get close to Nico. I swallowed the lump in my throat formed by the image of Marley seducing the bastard. Even if the seduction was staged and fake, the idea made me sick. I looked around the room and spotted the armless chair sitting in front of the small desk. I dragged the chair to the middle of the room and sat down.

  “Okay, give me a lap dance.”

  She folded her arms across her chest and slowly raised one skeptical eyebrow. “You got fifty dollars?”

  “Fine!” I stood with my hands in mock surrender. “You have a seat. I’ll demonstrate.”

  Marley burst out laughing. “You? You’re going to give me a lap dance?”

  “Sure. Why not? Can’t be that hard.”

  She sunk down on the chair. “Oh, this I’m dying to see!”

  “You mock now...”

  I turned on the lamp beside the couch and switched off the overhead lights.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she drawled.

  “Creating atmosphere. My first lap dance is going to be magical.”

  Ignoring Marley’s snort, I went to the docking station for my MP3 player and set about finding some mood music. I ended up choosing a Maroon 5 song with a slow beat, because for some reason, chicks always dropped their panties at the sound of Adam Levine’s voice.

  Marley gave a slow nod, a playful smirk on her face. The sight of her sitting on the chair expectantly, wearing nothing but my T-shirt, sent tingles of heat rushing through me. I turned away to shuck my boots and empty my pockets of keys and wallet. I’d done plenty of awkward things in my life. This couldn’t be any worse than the time Neil had me dress in drag to pose as his girlfriend in Buenos Aries. And I knew I could dance. Hell, I wouldn’t be a real Latino if I couldn’t rock out a passable salsa. I’d just have to break out some of those moves now. I shed my socks and stuck them in the tops of my boots. Then, with a deep breath, I turned toward Marley.

  Chapter 7

  Marley

  The soulful voice of Adam Levine washed over me, soothing my tension. I’d given dozens of lap dances in my time. I’d even had other girls grind up on me a bunch of times for the lesbian fetishists. But I’d never had a guy do it to me.

  In general, I thought lap dances were about as interesting as trimming my finger-nails. Rubbing on a stranger with his clothes on was more awkward and weird than sexy. But Jace—JC—wasn’t really a stranger. And if I was honest with myself, he was somewhat attractive. Okay, fine, more like smokin’ hot. Standing in front of me wearing a black T-shirt and well-worn jeans was nice, but when he took his socks off, revealing his bare feet, my pulse took off like a mustang stampede. Who would’ve thought I had a thing for men’s feet?

  “Ready?” he asked, his voice slightly unsteady.

  “You ever done this kind of thing before?”

  He shook his head no. “And I’d appreciate it if we never mentioned this again. I don’t think the hotel would be happy with the herd of women lining up for their turn.”

  “Pretty cocky there, buddy.”

  JC grinned wickedly, then closed his eyes and started rocking his hips to the 4/4 time of the music. As he found his rhythm, his fingers absently played with the hem of his shirt, giving me a peek of nicely tanned abs. Wonder if he’s that color all over...

  “All right,” he said strolling up to me while rolling his hips deliciously. “You’re not going to have a lot of clothes on, right?”

  “Uh, no. Probably just what you saw me in earlier.”

  He knocked my knee with his to spread my legs before straddling one of my thighs. “Then you can keep the bug tucked in the top of your stocking. Don’t put it in your panties or the cups of your bra. If he’s going to put his hands anywhere, it will be there.”

  JC rolled his hips in slow, delicious circles, then lifted my hands and placed them on his sides. I tried to pull back, but he stopped me. “No. You have to touch me. You’re Nico now. Do what he’d do.”

  I flattened my palms lightly on his waist, careful not to let my hands venture too far in any direction. Damn
, he smelled good, like leather and cedar soap.

  JC pressed a fingertip to my jaw, tilting my head up to look him in the eye. The brown was so dark, I couldn’t see his pupils. Heat rose to my cheeks, and I remembered how little clothes I wore.

  Not breaking eye contact, JC crossed his arms, grasped the bottom of his shirt to draw it up over his head and dropped it to the floor. I took in his hard, lean body, and before I could stop myself, I ran my hands up over his chest. Male strippers who performed on the monthly ladies nights were bulked out with steroids, their veiny skin all waxed and oiled. Touching them was like running your hands along the plastic chest of a Ken doll. JC was nothing like that. He was more...real. His skin felt warm and soft. A sudden craving to lick the divots between his muscles struck me the gut, and I was thankful he wasn’t a mind-reader. He didn’t have much body hair aside from a light dusting across his pecs that trailed down to dip beneath his waistband. I let one fingertip graze over his pebbled nipple, and he sucked in a sharp breath.

  “Sorry!” I yanked my hands back.

  “No,” he whispered, rocking his hips closer so the strained front of his jeans brushed me with the movement. “Touch me. Make it real.”

  That was the problem, I wasn’t pretending. And seeing this sexy man standing over me, modesty no longer seemed that important. I reached around and grasped his tight ass, drawing him closer. He closed his eyes and groaned. My lips were only a couple inches from his body. I wondered what he’d do if I leaned in to nuzzle. It’d been a while since I’d been with a man. I worked too much to bother with dating. What would be the harm in releasing some of my pent-up sexual tension with JC? The erection pushing on his jeans made it pretty clear he was interested. But I wasn’t so sure I trusted him yet. He was still holding on to a lot of secrets.

  I cleared my throat. “Maybe you should just show me how to get the bug on Nico, so we can call it a night.”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  He shifted so my legs were together and he was hovering over on my lap. He flexed his powerful thighs to bounce a couple of times before moving in to rub our hips together. I couldn’t help the gasp that escaped when his bulge ground on my belly. With no conscious thought on my part, my hips rocked up into him. A rumble of a groan escaped his chest, and he bent down so his lips just barely brushed my ear. “I like it when you’re not too shy to touch me.”