by MJ Fredrick
A keening sounded outside the door when Mal joined her on the bed. Maddy froze and stared at the door.
“Mal.”
“She’s not coming in.”
“How do you know?”
“I know. Trust me.” He skimmed a hand down her belly. “Show me your tattoo.”
She cast an apprehensive glance at the door, then rolled onto her stomach. He stared at the circular mazelike pattern on her lower back, a cross between Celtic and Chinese. He’d never seen anything like it. He traced it with his fingertips then with his tongue. She whimpered, burying her face in the pillow, lifting her ass toward him.
He sat back. “Turn over. I want to see you.”
When she did, he reached across for a condom. She watched him roll it on himself and the keening in the hallway grew louder. Mal could see the trepidation in Maddy’s eyes and smoothed her hair back.
“Are you okay?”
In answer, she reached between them and guided him to her. He shut his eyes, fighting for control as her hand closed around him and brought him to the center of her heat. Then her hand fell away, and he pushed inside her, swallowed by her heat. Her slick muscles gripped him, brought him deeper, resisted releasing him as he pulled out to plunge in, again and again.
He opened his eyes, looking into her blue ones, seeing his own aroused madness, his own mindlessness need reflected there. He whispered her name and braced her hips in his hands, lifting her, stilling her, driving into her.
He wanted to touch her, kiss her everywhere, wanted to feel her hands all over his skin, he just didn’t think he could make it last. His orgasm was already building. If he came, too soon what would she think of him? He had to stop and regroup.
But when he tried to pull out, she caught his hips with her heels.
“I’m too close,” he murmured.
“So am I.” She glided her hands down his slick back, from his shoulders to his ass, lifting herself against him until they were both breathless, sweaty, edgy. “Take me over.”
He cradled her hips in his hands, holding her steady for deep strokes. He was on the verge when she tensed around him, then dissolved in tremors, her muscles convulsing around him.
As he surrendered to the pleasure that damn near killed him, he could hear the bride breaking things against the bedroom door.
Chapter Five
Mal was still shaking from his orgasm—hell, he was still inside Maddy when the pounding started. God, he didn’t want to leave this little cocoon, didn’t want to break away from her.
“If that’s Justin, I’m going to kick his ass,” he muttered, pulling back, his slick body sliding along hers. “Hold on,” he shouted, and headed into the bathroom.
Behind him, Maddy shook himself from her languor and rolled off the bed to snatch her robe from the mirror.
The pounding continued. Mal came out of the bathroom trying to wrap a towel around his waist, but it was too small. He gave up with a growl, dropped it to the floor and snatched up his jeans. Behind him, Maddy twitched the covers back over the bed as if that would disguise the fact they’d had sex.
He was still shaking with it. He still smelled her on his skin. Nothing to do about that. He dragged a hand over his face and opened the door.
Justin and the others stood in the hallway, which had been completely trashed. Mal quirked a brow at his partner, then looked at the Groupies, who did not miss the significance of his state of undress.
“Somebody throw a tantrum out here?” he asked, then cleared his throat. He kept the door pulled closed so they couldn’t look past him to Maddy.
Only they didn’t seem all that interested. In fact, they looked pretty freaked out.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“It was the bride, Mal, and she was pissed,” Justin said. “We need to talk.”
Mal glanced over his shoulder to ensure Maddy was dressed, then opened the door to let Justin in. Still, the guests from his tour hovered, uncertain, in the hallway. “It’s okay, folks, you can go back to bed. She won’t be making any more racket tonight.”
Joyce moved closer, arms wrapped around herself. Then her nostrils flared and her gaze lifted to his, full of betrayal. Mal’s throat clutched in a moment of guilt. He’d clearly angered the ghost by making love to Maddy, and the ghost scared the hell out of these people.
And he’d pissed off the Ghost Groupies, on top of everything.
“You don’t know that, Mal,” Sonia said sharply. “It’s not like you control her, is it?”
“No, but—” He held out a pleading hand. “We’re going to work out a way to settle her down, all right? So all of you just go back to your rooms, I’m pretty sure she won’t bother you anymore tonight.”
“What are you going to do?” Rosemarie asked, her face drawn.
“We’ll figure something out. I promise. Good night.”
Aware of Mick, Rosemarie’s husband, glaring at him, Mal shut the door and turned to face Justin and Maddy, who already had Maddy’s laptop open.
“I thought these people wanted to be scared,” he grumbled. “Do they think taking a ghost tour is like going to Disneyland?”
“It was, until this trip,” Justin replied, his attention on the screen.
“What the hell are you looking for?” Mal grabbed his shirt from the floor as he crossed the room.
“Ways to stop a ghost.”
Mal glanced at Maddy, then back at his partner. “You saw her out there? The ghost? It wasn’t just one of the girls pissed because I was in here with Maddy?”
“Nope, it was Bridget, in full-on tantrum. I think we can forget about leaving her be. She could have hurt someone out there.”
“So what do we do?” Maddy asked.
Mal glanced at her. “We?”
“We could get in touch with your sister,” Justin said.
Mal shot his friend a glare. He was not dragging Kayla into this. “Why?”
“Your sister?” Maddy asked at the same time. “She owned a New Age shop here on the island.
It’s why we started doing tours here, to boost her business,” Justin said.
“Call her! Don’t you think she would know what to do?” Maddy sat on the bed with a bounce.
“It’s not that simple,” Mal muttered, avoiding her gaze.
“Why not? I know it’s late, but if she can help—”
“She can’t,” Mal snapped. God, he did not want to open this up for discussion. He was aware of Maddy’s focus on him but couldn’t face her.
“Well, where’s her stuff? You stored it here, didn’t you?” Justin asked.
“Yeah, her friend Cindi has everything stored in her garage.”
Maddy pushed to her feet and snatched her jeans out of the pile of clothes Mal had dumped on the dresser. “Do you think anything she had might help us? Like what? Books?”
Mal dragged his hands over his hair, frustrated. “It’s after midnight.”
She strode to the bathroom door and closed it enough for privacy, leaving a crack to continue the conversation. “We have to do something. We can’t just leave this like it is.”
Just the sound of fabric being shed and then pulled on distracted him. Justin kicked him from the chair. “Right. All right.” He stood as Maddy opened the door again, pulling her hair free of her t-shirt. “You don’t need to go.”
“No? You’re going to be looking through books and stuff by yourself?”
“I can read.”
“Did you take a speed reading course? Don’t be an ass, Mal. I can help. What else am I going to do, sit up here and twiddle my thumbs?”
“You can help Justin with the online research.”
“Which has been so helpful so far. Shut up and show me where we’re going.”
“You know, it says here,” Justin interrupted, his focus on the screen, “that we can tell the ghost firmly to leave.”
Maddy cocked her head at Mal. “Think that’ll work?”
He snorted. “No.”
“You do it,” Maddy told Mal.
The glint in her eyes when she looked at him was a challenge. He liked challenges. Hell, he wouldn’t have this job if he didn’t. He rubbed his hands together. “So what do I need to do?”
“Says here you need to tell her firmly that she is dead and not wanted here. Don’t show fear,” Justin read.
“No fear. Got it.” He strode to the door and rested his hand on the knob, looking over his shoulder when he heard Maddy follow. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Going with you.”
“It’s not going to work if you’re going to make fun,” Justin chided.
“I’m not. I just want to watch.”
“And make fun.”
She squared her shoulders. “Last time I checked, neither of you could see her.”
Mal looked past her to Justin. “I thought you saw her throwing stuff.”
Justin shook his head. “I saw the stuff flying. I didn’t see her.”
Mal turned back to Maddy, who flicked her eyebrows in an I-told-you-so way.
“All right. Stay behind me.”
“Because that’s going to protect me from the ghost? Please.” But once they were in the hall she hung back, just behind his shoulder.
He took a deep breath. “Tell me when you see her.” Then, to the empty hall, he said, “Bridget. Bridget, I need you.” God, he felt like an idiot, talking to the air. “Bridget. I need to talk to you.” He glanced at Maddy and lifted his eyebrows. She shook her head. Nothing. He opened his mouth to try again but Maddy closed her hand over his arm and stepped forward.
“Let me try.” She lifted her chin and stepped forward. “Bridget, you have something to say to me?” Mal saw Maddy blanche, draw back her head as if she’d just walked into a spider web. He reached for her arm but she moved away, shaking him off.
“You need to go,” Maddy said, her voice firm. “You can’t be here anymore. You don’t belong here.” Then Maddy’s head snapped sideways and four scratch marks appeared on her face. Mal caught her shoulders and pulled her around behind him, pulse thundering.
“You need to go,” he said to the space in front of where Maddy had been. “You’re not wanted here.”
A deafening keen rose, filling the hall, Mal hunched his shoulders, unwilling to take his hands off Maddy even to cover his ears. She hunched her own shoulders, hands over her ears, and pushed around Mal to face where the bride must be standing.
“Stop it, you whiny child!” she shouted over the noise that was bringing people out of their rooms again. “ No one wants you here. Go away.”
The keening stopped abruptly. Mal stared at Maddy. “Is she gone?”
Maddy straightened. “She is.”
Christ, he’d never seen a woman like her. Brave as hell, even as she swore she didn’t believe. “You did it!” He turned her toward him and planted a kiss on her mouth.
Behind them, a woman screamed. Mal released Maddy and spun as a middle-aged woman in a sleep shirt ran out of her room.
“There’s a man in my bathroom!”
“Stay here,” Mal told Maddy, knowing even as he said it that she wouldn’t. “Where is he?” he asked the woman.
“On my toilet!”
Mal tried not to show surprise, and hoped to hell he didn’t walk in on the woman’s husband taking a dump. He moved past the woman, yes, with Maddy on his heels, and peered into the woman’s bathroom.
Where a large man sat on the toilet reading the newspaper. Except where his feet should be was nothing but air.
“Holy Christ,” Mal muttered, backing up when the ghost lowered his paper to scowl at him.
“You see him?” Maddy asked.
“And wish I didn’t.”
“Get him out!” the woman demanded from the hallway.
“How?” He turned to Maddy. “What the hell is going on here?”
More screams sounded from the street. Mal eased to the window to see people running out of buildings, followed by misty figures.
Ghosts, everywhere. He turned to Maddy, who had joined him by the window, her face drawn, tense. “We need to go find those books and see if there’s something that will tell us what to do.”
“What are you going to do about that man?” the woman in the sleep shirt asked as Mal and Maddy slipped out of the room.
“Nothing I can do, ma’am. He’s not really there.”
“But I see him!” she protested at his back.
Mal ignored her and led Maddy toward the stairs.
The scene downstairs was chaotic. Guests milled about in their nightclothes, eyes baggy with exhaustion. Many crowded around the bar, ordering drinks. Most seemed intent on being as far from the windows as possible, or on being as close to other people as possible. Mal caught sight of Vivian pressed up against one of the bartenders.
All attention turned to him when Stacy called out to him.
“What are we going to do, Mal? How do we stop it?”
Well, hell, of course he was supposed to know about this stuff. Of course everyone was going to be looking at him to fix it. The responsibility choked him as tight as making the decision about Kayla had done.
“We have a lead,” Maddy spoke for him when he didn’t. “We’re going to check it out, all right? Just stay calm.”
Stacy stepped forward, head cocked to the side in confusion. “You mean you don’t know what to do?”
“I don’t even believe this shit,” Mal muttered, but by the snap in Maddy’s neck, he knew she heard him. “This is all new to me,” he said, putting on his charming mode. “We’ve never dealt with multiple apparitions like this. We think we know how to find out what caused it and how to stop it. You just stay inside.”
“Will we be safe?” Vivian asked.
How was he supposed to answer that? So he didn’t. “Just stay inside, stay together.” He turned and Maddy followed.
“What do you mean, you don’t believe this shit?” she hissed as she trotted beside him.
He glanced around the lobby. “Not now.” Too many people could overhear and ruin his business. If it wasn’t already shot to hell.
“We are going to talk,” she warned as they walked out onto the sidewalk.
“Yeah, but—”Mal stopped short, pushing her behind him as a man in colonial garb ran past, the end of a noose dangling from around his neck. “Holy hell, are they getting stronger? I could feel the breeze from him.”
He glanced back to see Maddy staring past him. Half a dozen ghosts roamed the street, wearing clothing from various time periods. A woman in a wide skirt reached out to an unseen person, a man in sea-faring garb staggered through a wall onto the sidewalk, grasping a bottle. Another man, looking confused, wandered the center of the street in a Sunday suit that appeared modern.
“How many people died on this island?” he muttered. He grasped Maddy’s hand and pulled her down the street.
They rounded the block and stopped in front of Cindi’s two story Cape Cod, with a widow’s walk on the roof. Mal recalled that she had a great view of the ocean from her bedroom.
Yes, another reason he hadn’t wanted Maddy to come. He rang the doorbell and swore. Not the first time he’d been here after midnight, he knew Cindi was bound to be cranky when she realized he wasn’t here for that.
If she was still speaking to him after last time.
“Mal, look at this.” Maddy released his hand to trace a finger over the historical marker plaque above Cindi’s address.
“Yeah, her family has owned this place for a long time. She does a good job keeping it up.”
“No, I mean this symbol.” She tapped the round, Celtic-looking twisty symbol with her nail. Then she pulled her charm bracelet out of her pocket and showed him an identical symbol on it.
“Where did you get that?”
“A friend in St. Augustine found it in
her antique shop. She said it was from McDavid Island. A symbol of the McDavid family.”
Mal didn’t have time to do more than lift his shoulders in a shrug when the door swung open. Cindi stood there, long and lean and wearing a silky robe that fell open to reveal lots of creamy olive skin and shiny red panties.
“Mal. I’d been hoping you’d come by.”
Maddy stepped in front of him like a damn bodyguard and thrust her hand out. “Hi, I’m Maddy Saunders. We need your help.”
Cindi tilted her head, her gaze not shifting from Mal’s. He could see the reproach in her eyes, but he made no move. So she folded her robe closed and opened the door wider. Finally, she glanced at Maddy.
“What can I do for you?”
“We need to look through Kayla’s inventory,” Mal said.
“But first.” Maddy held up her bracelet, the charm between her thumb and forefinger. “What can you tell me about this charm?”
Dark eyebrows winged up. “Where did you get that?”
“An antique store in Florida.”
“Florida.” Cindi reached out to touch the charm, then shot her gaze to Maddy’s. “Perhaps you two should come in.”
“We’re kind of under the gun here, Cindi. All hell is breaking loose out there. We need to see Kayla’s stuff.”
“Okay, but don’t you want to know why all hell is breaking loose? Don’t you recognize this symbol, Mal?”
“Should I?”
“Other than it being on every historical building on the island, your sister has a tattoo of it.”
“My sister has a tattoo?”
Cindi tapped the back of her shoulder. “Right there.”
“So it is a protective symbol?” Maddy asked. “Hardly. It’s a summoning one.”
Chapter Six
Cindi invited them into the cozy living room and turned on a table lamp. She waited until they sat, together on an overstuffed blue-and-white checked couch, then she tucked her robe about her and sat in a lush arm chair. Maddy didn’t miss Mal’s discomfort or Cindi’s frustration, and once again she found herself battling back jealousy. Weird. She’d never been jealous before, certainly not of something that had happened before she even met the guy.
