by Ally Blue
“‘Night. Sleep well. See you in the morning.” With a quick smile, Bo turned and headed into the old nursery. Sam allowed himself a brief second to watch the way Bo’s body moved, then opened the door to his room.
Bare skin, hot and smooth, slick with sweat. Blunt fingers digging into his chest, strong thighs pressing against his hips.
Sam couldn’t see the man who straddled him in the humid darkness, but he could feel him. He could hear his grunts, smell the musk of his arousal. The man’s ass contracted around his cock, burning hot and almost painfully tight. Semen spurted onto Sam’s chest and he came with a shout…
His own soft cry woke him. He lay gasping in a tangled nest of damp sheets, trying to blink away the lingering shreds of the dream.
“Christ,” he whispered. He’d had erotic dreams before, but none this vivid. A faint scent of sweat and sex still perfumed the air and he could almost feel the man’s hands on him, the fierce heat clutching his cock.
His hand wandered beneath the waistband of his boxers before he realized what he was doing. He gave in to the inevitable without a fight.
Sam stared at the ceiling as he slowly caressed himself. Motes of dust turned lazily in the morning light, hazy forms swirling tantalizingly in and out of existence. If he let his vision blur just a little, Sam imagined he could see his dream man taking shape in the soft glow. Tall and slender, dusky skin and dark liquid eyes, black hair falling like a silky cloud over one broad shoulder.
Sam wasn’t surprised. Whether or not Bo been the dream man, he could certainly star in Sam’s waking fantasies. Sam came after a few hard pulls, picturing his prick in Bo’s mouth.
The table was already set and Bo was just bringing a plate of biscuits and a bowl of gravy out of the kitchen when Sam came down to breakfast. “Hey, Sam.” Bo smiled as he set the dishes of food on the table. “Sleep okay?”
“I did, yeah.” Sam managed to meet Bo’s eyes without blushing, but he couldn’t help letting his gaze slide down Bo’s body. “Looks good. The biscuits, I mean,” he added hastily.
“They are,” David said, wandering in from the kitchen with a large blue mug in his hand. “Coffee’s on, if y’all want some.”
“Did someone mention coffee?” Amy came through the dining-room door, Andre yawning behind her. “Mmm, biscuits and gravy.”
“Good.” Andre patted his stomach. “I’m hungry.”
Bo laughed. “Everybody sit down and dig in. I’ll get the coffee.”
“I’ll help you,” Sam offered.
He followed Bo into the kitchen, looking around him to keep himself from staring at Bo. “Wow, the kitchen’s smaller than I would’ve thought.”
Bo nodded as he started filling coffee mugs. “Back when Oleander House was built, the cooking was done outside, in a separate building. The kitchen was added during renovations in 1902. They didn’t place quite the same importance on a big kitchen as we do now. Grab the cream out of the fridge, would you please?”
“Sure.” Sam opened the small portable refrigerator they’d brought with them and took out the pint of half-and-half. “There anything about this place you don’t know?”
“Probably. But it wouldn’t be for lack of trying, I’ll tell you that.” Bo handed Sam two fragrantly steaming mugs. Sam took them, tucking the carton of half-and-half under his arm. “Thanks for helping with the coffee. I appreciate it.”
Sam had to look away from Bo’s face. It was too easy to imagine he saw things that he knew couldn’t be there. “No problem.”
In the dining room, Sam handed a mug to Andre and set the carton in the middle of the table. He sat down and took a sip from his own mug. “Where’s Cecile?”
Amy wrinkled her nose. “Still sleeping, I guess.”
“No, I’m up.” Cecile swept into the room, narrow nose in the air. She eyed the table with undisguised disdain. “Isn’t there anything else to eat?”
“There’s some granola and fruit in the kitchen,” Andre said, reaching for another biscuit, “but you don’t know what you’re missing if you don’t have some of this.”
Cecile smiled a tight, little smile. “Oh, I’m sure I do. Excuse me.”
David shook his head at Cecile’s back as she went into the kitchen. “Christ almighty, that woman’s enough to put you off your feed.” He turned and fixed Bo with a serious look. “We’re doing the outbuildings today, right?”
“Yes,” Bo confirmed, pouring gravy over a third biscuit.
David nodded. “Pair me up with Cecile.”
Amy’s eyebrows shot up. “Funny, I’d gotten the feeling you didn’t much like her.”
“I don’t. Thing is, I want to keep an eye on her. I’m not sure she’s for real.”
“No kidding.” Andre leaned over the table and lowered his voice. “Carl Gentry must be nuts if he really believes she’s psychic.”
“Maybe,” Bo said. “But we have to work with her, whether anyone likes it or not. You know that was Mr. Gentry’s condition for letting us do the investigation rather than someone else. He wanted his own psychic present.”
“Psychic, my ass,” David grumbled. “She’s no more psychic than this damn table.”
Cecile’s emergence from the kitchen stopped the conversation from going any further. She sat as far as she could from everyone else and started nibbling at the banana and small bowl of granola cereal she’d brought.
“So,” Bo said after a couple of uncomfortably silent minutes. “How’d everyone sleep?”
“Terrible,” Cecile complained. “All night long, spirits were trying to communicate with me. I’d like to find a way to make them speak to me when I’m awake and better able to understand them.”
“That’s, um, interesting.” Bo shot an amused glance at Sam, who stifled a laugh. “We should set up video and audio in your room and see what we get.”
Cecile’s pale cheeks flushed. “I’d rather you didn’t.”
“I’ll just bet,” David muttered. Sam lifted his mug to cover the grin he couldn’t stop.
“I would’ve slept okay,” Amy said, “but Andre kept waking me up.”
“It was just a couple of bad dreams,” Andre insisted. “Sorry I woke you.”
Amy laid a hand on his arm and kissed his cheek. “Honey, you know I don’t mind about that. But I think it’s significant that you’re having these dreams here, in this house. You don’t normally have nightmares.”
Bo leaned his elbows on the table and gave Andre a considering look. “Want to tell us what you dreamed?”
“I don’t remember it all that well. All I can remember for sure is feeling like there was something waiting in the house, and it scared me.”
Sam frowned. Andre was lying, he was sure of it, but he couldn’t figure out why. It made him more eager than ever to find a few minutes alone with Andre to compare notes.
Bo sipped his coffee, dark eyes thoughtful. “Anyone else have strange dreams, or any other experiences during the night?”
“Not me.” David scooped the last bit of gravy off his plate with his finger. “Slept like a rock.”
Sam just smiled when Bo glanced questioningly his way. The thought of telling everyone what he’d dreamed made his guts clench. The dream he remembered, anyway. Vague memories and scattered images floating on the surface of his mind told him that the dream that had woken him hadn’t been the only one.
“Okay.” Bo’s gaze lingered on Sam’s face just long enough to make Sam squirm. “Only Cecile and Andre experienced anything unusual during the night, right?”
Everyone nodded. Sam ignored the way Bo’s eyes narrowed at him. “All right. Any strange experiences—dreams, seeing or hearing things, anything at all—please report it to me or Amy.”
Noises of affirmation echoed around the table. Amy shot one last worried look at Andre, then turned to the rest of the group with a smile. “If everyone’s done eating, let’s get the dishes cleaned up then meet back in the library to go over last night’s tapes.”
“Sounds good.” David jumped to his feet and started collecting dirty dishes. “Great breakfast, as usual, Bo. You’re gonna make us all fat. I don’t know how Janine stays so hot, with you doing all the cooking.”
Bo laughed. “Hey, I try to keep my family healthy.”
“Yeah,” Amy chimed in. “He saves the artery clogging for us.”
Bo shook his head. “Okay, let me get the dishes cleaned up, then we’ll meet back in the library and get everything set up for today.”
“Aye-aye, cap’n,” David said, grinning. “Sam, why don’t you go on ahead with Andre. Y’all can get the equipment set up and he can show you the procedures we use to screen several hours’ worth of video. I’ll help Bo get the cleaning done, won’t take us ten minutes.”
“Okay, sure.” Sam resisted the urge to turn and look at Bo as he followed Andre out of the dining room.
Chapter Four
Since Sam was already familiar with most of the equipment, it didn’t take long for Andre to instruct him in the video review procedure. By the time Bo and David returned from the kitchen, Sam and Andre already had everything set up.
“Okay,” Bo said. “What say we divide up into teams now and get started?”
“How do you want to handle it?” Amy asked from the armchair in the corner, where she was fiddling with one of the EMF detectors. “We have the washhouse, the barn and the old outdoor kitchen to look at. Plus we have several hours of tape to review from last night.”
“Hm. Let’s see.” Bo tucked a stray lock of glossy black hair behind one ear. Sam swallowed and forced himself to look away. “Why don’t we divide into three teams, with two teams starting on the outbuildings while the third stays behind to start going over the tapes?”
“I absolutely refuse to waste my time staring at videotapes,” Cecile declared. Sam turned, startled. He hadn’t realized she’d come into the room. Her sharp features were set in a scowl. “I need to be in the field where I can communicate with the spirit world, not stuck in front of a television set.”
“What if the spirits are in here, not out there?” David asked, absolutely straight-faced.
Cecile’s pale cheeks went pink. “Well… Well, I suppose…” she trailed off, clearly flustered.
“We’ll just have to chance it.” Bo raised an eyebrow at David, who grinned unrepentantly. “David, you and Cecile take the washhouse. Amy and Andre, you take the barn. Sam and I will stay here and get started on those tapes. Everybody keep your radios on channel two. I’ll leave one on in here as well, so if there’s an emergency Sam and I will hear you.”
Amy gave Bo a sharp look. She opened her mouth as if to say something, then stopped, frowning.
“Sam might as well go ahead and get some hands-on experience with tape review,” Bo said, as if in answer to an unspoken question in Amy’s eyes.
His answer didn’t seem to satisfy her, but she kept quiet. Sam glanced from one to the other, wondering what was going on.
Pushing up out of his chair, Andre held a hand down to Amy. “Come on, babe. Let’s get going before he changes his mind.”
Amy let Andre pull her to her feet. They gathered their equipment and went into the hall, headed for the outbuildings behind the house. As they left, Amy shot Bo a look heavy with things unsaid. David and Cecile were close behind, and in a few moments Sam and Bo were alone.
Sam wanted to ask what was going on with Amy, but something about the way Bo’s eyes sparked warned him off. Probably some private thing anyway, he told himself.
He cleared his throat. “Okay. So. Which tape you want me to take?”
“What about the nursery tape from overnight? Would that be okay with you? And I’ll take the one from the servants’ quarters. We’ll start on the others if we have time after that.”
“Sure, that’s fine.” Sam picked up the tape from the nursery and put it in the video camera, which was already hooked up to one of the portable televisions. “Remind me why we can’t just use digital?”
“Too easy to manipulate. Anyone with the right software and the skill can fake a very convincing ghost or other phenomenon on digital. Tape’s harder to fake things on. An expert can usually spot even the best fake on tape. We use regular thirty-five mm and Polaroid cameras for the same reason.”
“Makes sense.”
Sam started the tape rolling. The nursery flared to life on the screen, strange and unsettling in the faintly greenish glow of the night-vision filter. His hands trembled a little, remembering the night before. He jumped when a warm hand covered his, fingers curling around to brush his palm. He turned to meet Bo’s concerned gaze.
“You okay?” Bo asked, his voice soft. “You’re shaking.”
Those big, dark eyes were so close. Sam licked his lips. “Um. Yeah. I was just thinking of last night. It was…” Terrifying. Exhilarating. So close… “It was exciting.”
Bo nodded. His hand didn’t move. “What did you see?”
“I don’t… I mean, we didn’t really see anything.”
“Maybe not. But something happened that you’re not telling me.” Bo stopped the tape without looking, sharp gaze fixed on Sam’s face. “I’ve known Andre for years. He doesn’t rattle easily, but last night he was more shaken up than I’ve ever seen him. And I may not know you yet, but my gut tells me that whatever he experienced, you experienced the same thing. Am I right?”
Part of Sam still wanted to deny it, if only because Andre clearly didn’t want anyone to know. But Bo was his boss now. He figured he owed him the truth.
“Yeah,” Sam said finally. “At least, I know what I felt, and I think Andre felt the same thing, but I don’t know for sure because I haven’t had a chance to talk with him about it.”
“What was it?” Bo leaned forward, thick braid swinging over one shoulder. “Tell me.”
Sam wondered if Bo knew he was still holding Sam’s hand. “The temperature dropped, and then I had this sudden sense that there was something near. Something not friendly.”
“And you didn’t see anything?”
“Not a thing. For a second there, I really thought something was going to manifest. But it didn’t. The feeling went away just as suddenly as it appeared.”
“Andre felt the same thing?”
“I think so.”
Bo sat back, letting his fingers slide away from Sam’s as if he hadn’t noticed they’d ever been there. Sam wished he didn’t feel the loss quite so keenly.
“Why didn’t you want to tell us last night?” Bo asked after a moment. “You and Andre both.”
“I can’t speak for Andre, but I didn’t say anything because I didn’t quite know what to think of it. I just needed a little time to process it.” Sam stared at his lap, feeling guilty now. “I should’ve told you. Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it. The first time I had a paranormal experience, I didn’t tell anyone for a week.”
Sam looked up again, surprised. “Really?”
“Yep. It’s just such a profound experience the first time, I guess part of me wanted to keep it to myself. You know?”
“I know exactly what you mean.”
Sam didn’t mention his first experience with paranormal phenomena. He’d been thirteen, getting his first kiss under the bleachers at school. Shirts and jeans had easily covered the bruises and long, shallow scratches that had appeared on the body of the boy he’d been kissing, so there was no need for explanations to anyone. Not a word had been spoken by either of them, and there’d been no more kisses.
If Bo could read the pain of that memory on Sam’s face, he didn’t let on. “How about we start the tapes now?”
Sam returned Bo’s smile. “Good idea.”
By noon, they’d gotten halfway through the tapes, Bo watching the servants’ quarters tape, Sam watching the one from the nursery. Sam felt like he’d been staring at the TV screen for days instead of hours. Not a damn thing had shown up so far. He sighed and rubbed his eyes.
“Dull, huh?” Bo g
lanced over at him, grinning.
Sam laughed. “Deadly. Please tell me it’s not always this boring.”
“Nope. Wait ‘til you see a mist form right in front of your eyes, or a door opening by itself. That’ll make up for all the times you stare at the same patch of wall for hours on end.”
As if to lend credence to Bo’s words, a faint grunt of nearly subterranean depth sounded on the nursery tape. The back of Sam’s neck prickled.
“Bo,” he said softly. “Listen.”
Bo stopped his own tape and leaned over. The grunt came again, followed by a strange, undulating hiss, so faint that Sam wasn’t even sure he heard it. Bo’s eyes went wide. “Wow.”
“No kidding.”
They watched for a moment more, but nothing else happened. Sam turned off the tape and swiveled around to face Bo. “Okay, what the fuck was that?”
Bo shook his head. “No idea. I’ve never heard anything quite like that before.”
“It sounded liked it was coming from outside the room. Maybe…”
“Maybe what?” Bo asked.
Sam barely heard him, the words drowned out by the memory surfacing with shocking suddenness in his mind. Half-waking from a dream of heat and sex to a cold, writhing blackness, thick with malevolence. A spike of fear, the unnatural dark dissolving into silver moonlight. Sinking back into warm, welcoming sleep.
Dreaming again. Heat, sweat, hands and skin and whispered pleas and Christ it was so good…
“Sam? Sam!”
Sam gasped, jerked, and found himself staring into Bo’s wide, worried eyes. “What? What happened?”
“You tell me. You blanked out for a minute. Wouldn’t answer me.” Bo regarded Sam cautiously. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah. Fine.” Sam took a deep breath and let it out, feeling his racing pulse slow. “Just, um…just give me a minute.”
Bo didn’t look away from Sam’s face. “Feel like telling me what just happened?”
“I thought I remembered something. From last night.” Sam leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, more to escape Bo’s sharp gaze than anything else. “A dream, that’s all. Just a dream.”
