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

by Deanna Chase

  “Oh, lord...” I moaned, as shivers from his breath on my neck sent a zing all the way down to my toes. My breath raced. I ran my hands up over the muscles of his back, and then on the way back down, I switched to fingernails, dragging them lightly down his skin.

  Goose bumps rose on his flesh, and before I could move my hands to do it again, JC hopped off me and crossed the room to shut the music off.

  “What’re you doing?” I gasped.

  He kept his back to me, pretending to mess with the MP3 player. “I’m done. It’s on you. Check yourself.”

  I ran my hands around my body, feeling for anything out of place. It took a full thirty seconds, but I finally located the bug stuck on the inside of the t-shirt. A good five inches up my hip from the bottom hem.

  “How’d you get it all the way up there?”

  He walked over to retrieve his shirt from the floor, not meeting my eyes. “Distraction. I drew your attention to your neck when I leaned down. You didn’t notice my fingers slipping under your shirt.”

  “Oh, that’s devious.”

  “Yep.” He scooped up the items from the coffee table. “Now I’m going to bed. Make yourself comfortable. We’ll talk more in the morning.” And with that, he escaped into the bedroom and closed the door behind him.

  My mood faded from arousal to confusion then to a low-level frustration. That’s it? How dare the man work me up and then abandon me? I knew for a damn fact he was just as excited as I was. WTF!

  I swallowed my annoyance and retrieved my phone from where I’d left it on the kitchen counter and brought it over to my make-shift bed on the couch. I really needed to respond to my mama’s doctor, but I didn’t want to actually talk to him. Maybe if I called the home now, I could leave a message on his voice mail. It was almost two in the morning, but the night nurses were used to my late night calls.

  “Shady Pines Home.”

  “Hi, this is Marley Sexton. I’m calling to leave a message for Dr. Brewer. Can you put me into his voice mail?”

  “Dr. Brewer is actually here tonight. We had a bit of an emergency with one of the other patients, and he’s in his office doing paperwork right now. Let me transfer you.”

  A Muzak version of an old Led Zeppelin song came on, and I had to stifle a groan. The last thing I wanted to do right now was talk to Dr. Brewer. He meant well and all, but the man had no concept of what it meant to be broke.

  “Miss Sexton, hello. I’ve been trying to reach you all week.”

  “I know, sorry. I just work such weird hours. It’s been tough to get back to you. I thought I’d leave you a message. How’s Mama doing?”

  “She’s doing as well as she can. The staff here at Shady Pines is good, but they are limited.”

  All I wanted to know was how she doing today. I didn’t call to be lectured. “I know, but you know I just can’t afford anything better. Medicaid only covers so much. And I’m still keeping up on all the bills at her house so she’ll have something to come home to one day.”

  “I’m not criticizing you, Marley. You’ve done a remarkable job. But the fact is, without a more in-depth physical therapy program specifically designed for stroke patients, your mother may not get much better than she is already.”

  I swiped an angry tear from my eye. “So you’re saying that if I don’t find some way to come up with five grand a month, I might as well save myself some trouble and let the park owner sell her trailer for the lot rent owed?”

  “I know it seems like a lot of money—”

  “It is a lot of money to me!”

  “—but there are programs—”

  “I’ve already talked to the social worker. And the Medicaid people. Hell, I even went to her church! I’ve maxed out all of my resources here, doc. Isn’t there some kind of experimental program I can get her in or something? Aren’t medical schools always looking for people to work with?”

  “I’ve already been in contact with UT and Baylor medical schools. Nothing. Sorry.”

  “I fucking hate being poor.” My tears were flowing in earnest now. Dr. Brewer had the tact to stay silent and let me have a moment for my pity party. Mad at myself for breaking down I sniffed, wiped my tears away and said, “Sorry, doc. I’m just tired. It’s been a long week. I’ll call the social worker tomorrow and see if there’s something we can come up with.”

  “Marley—”

  “Good night, Doctor.”

  I hung up before I could make a bigger fool of myself. I had to be strong, dammit. Crying never did anybody any good. I reached up to shut off the lamp and sunk down under the covers. I fell asleep thinking about how much Mama’s Grand Ole Opry collector plates might fetch at the pawn shop.

  Chapter 8

  JC

  Fuck. I needed coffee, but Betty and several others, including a hugely pregnant woman, were parked in front of the break room coffee pot, talking about back labor. I didn’t know what back labor was, but I wasn’t in any mood to have it explained to me. So I just stomped off to my cube muttering.

  I’d barely slept the night before. I hadn’t meant for that lap dance to get me so worked up. Like an idiot, I’d assumed if I was giving it, I’d be in control. But when Marley grabbed my ass and pulled me to her...it was like she’d flipped a table on me that I hadn’t even known was there. Nothing is sexier than a woman taking what she wants. It’d been a long time since I’d been with a woman who dominated in the bedroom. Hell, it’d been a while for me, period. Then when Marley scratched her nails down my back, I thought I’d cream in my jeans like a teenager.

  So yeah, trying to sleep with a raging boner wasn’t fun, but then I popped that surveillance speaker in my ear and overheard Marley’s late-night phone call, finally answering my question of why her finances were such a disaster. A sick mother in a home somewhere and trying to pay the bills on two places? That was a lot for any twenty-two year old. But long after Marley’s sniffles turned into purr-like snores, I stared at the ceiling, chewing over her mess.

  My parents immigrated to the States when I was in college and now had a comfortable life in San Antonio. We were close enough. I called every Sunday and stopped down to see them when I could. I tried to imagine what I’d do if my mom was sick and the treatment she needed wasn’t covered by insurance. The answer? I’d do just about anything. So could I judge Marley for taking her clothes off and nudging men out of their cash? No. I couldn’t. And that made all my do-gooder instincts kick in. I’d burst in the doors of work this morning on a mission to help Marley.

  When I reached my desk, there were three passive/aggressive post-its stuck to my monitor. I crumpled them up without reading and tossed them into the wastebasket.

  “You look like shit, Moreno.”

  I glanced up to see Tom leaning on the flimsy cubicle wall, coffee cup in hand. The boss from Office Space came immediately to mind, but I shoved it down. That movie hit a little too close to home right now for me to find it funny.

  “Thanks. I love you, too. You wouldn’t want to run into the break room and get me a cup of that, would you?”

  “And break up the hen party in there?” he chuckled. “I’m not getting in the middle of that. Hey, I hear you went golfing with Frazier yesterday.”

  I pressed the button to boot up my computer. “How’d you hear that?”

  “We’re spies, remember?”

  “Well, it was four hours of my life I’ll never get back. Hey, when you were researching Marley Sexton for me, what did you learn about the mother?”

  “Not much. Her name’s Rita Sexton. She lives in McCamey, Texas. She wasn’t young when she had Marley. She’s in her early sixties now. I think I remember seeing she retired from WalMart. Why? Need me to dig further?”

  People retire from WalMart? Seemed like one of those kind of places that kids worked in as a first job. Or when I did see someone older working, I assumed they’d already retired from their real career and just worked in the retail store to get out of the house a few hours a week.
>
  “I hear she’s been in a nursing home for a while, Shady Pines. Think you can hack into her medical records and give me an update on her condition?”

  Tom nodded gravely. “Yeah, I can do it. You know, without a court order, you can’t use it as evidence. And if this is personal, and Marley finds out you invaded her mother’s privacy like that, she won’t be happy.”

  More like she’d kick my balls up into my throat. But if I was going to help her, I needed more information, and Marley didn’t strike me as the confiding type. I rubbed the back of my neck. “Yeah, get me what you can. I’ll deal with Marley.”

  “All right. I’ll email you what I find out.”

  When Tom walked away, I reviewed the work in my planner. Frazier had sent me more financial records to review, so I set to tackling them first. If I got them out of the way in the morning, I’d have all afternoon to work on setting things up for Marley bugging Nico. When we’d parted ways at the hotel, she’d said she would call her boss and agree to work the party. She didn’t think it’d be too difficult to get permission. She’d nudge him if she had to.

  The phone on my desk rang. I groaned seeing it was Frazier’s extension. I answered pretending I didn’t recognize the number. “Records, this is JC. May I help you?” We all answered the phone as if it were a records department, on the off chance a wayward caller made it through the switchboard screening.

  “Moreno, my office,” Frazier barked out before hanging up. A-hole.

  Why the hell couldn’t he just say what he needed to say on the phone? I guessed Frazier’s constant calling people in was his way of proving he could lead us around like puppets on strings. I debated making him wait, but then, like a good little minion, I locked my computer and ambled to the office. Maybe if I played nice, he’d give in and let me go back out to the field.

  “Yes, sir?” I said, poking my head in Frazier’s door.

  “Have a seat.”

  I did as directed, hoping it wouldn’t take long.

  “Deputy Director Chesley was impressed with you yesterday. I know you weren’t thrilled with the game, but you soldiered through it well.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “So Chesley asked me to invite you to a dinner party tonight. It’s a family event, so you’ll need to bring a date.”

  “Family event” was code for any social gathering that included unsuspecting spouses. The agents would pretend to be colleagues in some generic profession for the purposes of keeping up appearances. I guessed significant others liked getting to know the co-workers, and they tend to get suspicious if the day job was too secretive. No actual business was ever discussed at these events, and given I had no spouse to appease, these parties were a colossal waste of my time. So while my gut twisted at the thought of making small talk all evening with people who thought I was some sort of pencil pusher, maybe if I played along, I’d get sprung from this joint sooner.

  I plastered on my most pleasant smile and nodded. “Thank you. I appreciate the invitation. But I don’t know about the date. I’m not really seeing anyone right now.”

  “Come on now, Moreno. I’m sure you’ll be able to come up with someone appropriate. I’ll have my girl get you the details.”

  Did he seriously just call his assistant his girl? This wasn’t an episode of Mad Men. How the hell this douchebag worked his way into middle management at one of the most powerful organizations on earth, I’d never understand.

  “Thank you, sir. I’ll see you and your wife tonight.” I started to stand, then decided now might be the time to capitalize on this recent attention from the Deputy Director. “Uh, before I get back to reviewing those reports, I was wondering if you had a chance to review my request to return to field work.”

  Frazier rubbed the back of his neck as if my question just caused it to cramp up. “Uh, not yet. I’ll get to it soon.”

  An acidic taste filled the back of my mouth, and I had to blink to keep my vision from going red. He’d given me the same answer the last three times I asked. I wanted to yell and hurl Frazier’s signed Yu Darvish baseball at his head. But I couldn’t do that. Like it or not, this fuckhead had my career by the proverbial balls. If he didn’t file my transfer paperwork, I was stuck. What other choice did I have? People just didn’t quit the CIA. It was like trying to quit the mafia, or El Caos. That was not how it worked. You might get old and useless and gradually put out to pasture, but no way did they let an officer with my skills and knowledge of the organization walk out the door. So rather than telling Frazier to shove his job up his ass sideways, I mumbled an excuse and left the room.

  Instead of returning to my desk, I headed to the men’s room. I took a leak and stopped to splash water on my face. Miller was right, I did look like shit. Like a man who was wasting his youth and talent away. But what other choice did I have? Of course, I’d heard of agents going rogue. They were no better than hired mercenaries who sold their services to foreign governments and criminals. Those guys had to spend the rest of their (usually short) lives looking over their shoulder for the CIA to catch them. I’d worked too hard to become a United States citizen to throw it away out of boredom.

  I needed Frazier to file that transfer paperwork for me, but how could I get him to get off his ass and do it?

  Marley.

  I sucked in a deep breath and let it out with a laugh. Marley could nudge Frazier. She’d help me, right? I did drop what I’d been doing last night to go rescue her. Okay, so all I was doing was watching a Spurs game at the sports pub down the street from her club, but still. I could get her to do it. All I had to do was get her and Frazier in a room together. And wouldn’t you know? I suddenly knew who ask to be my plus-one for the shindig tonight.

  I dried my hands and face on a handful of paper towels and jogged back to my desk. As I picked up my cell phone to call Marley, I saw several missed calls and voice messages from her number. I hit the button to ring her back.

  “JC? Thank god! I don’t know what to do.”

  “What’s going on? I didn’t listen to the messages.”

  Marley sniffled. “El Caos trashed my apartment!”

  Chapter 9

  Marley

  I’d known something was wrong when I pulled up out front. After leaving JC’s place, I’d had a cab run me back to the club so I could get my car. While there, I collected the cash from my locker and left a note for Marco telling him I’d work the rave party. He’d let me. I was already scheduled off the next two nights, so he wouldn’t have to flip-flop anyone around. When I’d gotten to my house, I’d barely taken the key out of my ignition when the old man who lived in one of the lower units of the building came out yelling in Spanish at me. My Spanish was rusty at best, and with his words running faster than a scared jackrabbit, I didn’t understand one thing he was trying to tell me. When he pointed up to my place I got a sick feeling in my gut. I ran up the steps two at a time but skidded to a stop in front of the broken door.

  Memories of every cop show I’d ever watched filled my head. I knew if you had a break-in you weren’t supposed to enter the home. I could hear Mama’s voice in my head, telling me to go back downstairs and call the police. I almost did it too, but with the cops being in El Caos’s pocket, 911 didn’t seem like the best option. I looked around for something to use as a weapon. Nothing, not even a fire extinguisher in the rusty In Case of Emergency box hanging on the wall. On the floor, I spotted a thick shard of wood from my broken door. It was about ten inches long and pointy enough to take out an eye, so I picked it up held it at the ready. Then, with a deep breath, I hiked up the waist of JC’s borrowed jeans and pushed open the door.

  “Holy cow, Marley! Who’d you piss off?”

  I glanced up from where I knelt studying a pile of junk on the floor to see my neighbor, April, standing in the open doorway. Didn’t seem much sense to close the door, considering it had been kicked in so hard the wood looked like the byproduct of a redneck toothpick spitting contest. I knew who I’d pissed
off, but the less I told April, the better.

  April picked her way through the room, seeing it for the rubbish strewn heap it was.

  “I’m sure it looks worse than it is,” I mumbled, not sure of any such thing.

  “You shouldn’t be here! What if the person who did this is still lurking around?” April’s big eyes darted about.

  I shoved at a broken lamp with the toe of my shoe. “Nowhere for anyone to hide in here besides the bathroom, and I already checked it.”

  April stepped in gingerly, trying to avoid the shards of broken dishes. “I heard something going on up here last night, then the stereo came on real loud. I was just going to ask you to turn it down when everything went quiet again.”

  I sighed. “They must have turned music on to cover up what they were doing here.” I picked up a quilt that had been on my bed. My grandmother who’d died before I was born had made it. It was torn now. It might be fixable, but hell, now that Mama was out of commission, who did I know who could sew? And how would I ever be able to pay to replace this stuff? I swiped angrily at my stupid leaking eyes. “Fuck, April! This is my life! It might just be Goodwill furniture and dime store keepsakes, but it’s all I got.”

  April wrapped her arms around me, and I allowed myself a moment to accept the comfort she offered before pulling back and willing my inner steel to fill my bones. When I first saw the state of my apartment, I’d had the urge to drop everything and run back to Mama’s trailer in McCamey. I wanted to wake up in my childhood bedroom, with its posters of my tween idols on the walls, and start my adult life over from scratch. But there was less money to be made in McCamey than I could shake out of my panties in Austin, so I didn’t have much choice. No, I needed to move forward, and the only way to do that was to get El Caos off my back. As much as I hated to admit it, I needed JC’s help to do it. I still didn’t know for sure what he was about, but I reckoned he was some sort of law enforcement. My guess was FBI or one of those other super secret squirrel groups. That made him one of the good guys. At least I hoped so.