Grim Shadows (Roaring Twenties)

by Jenn Bennett

  “Oh, joy.”

  She placed flattened palms on his chest and tilted her face up to his. “Grumpy.”

  “Frustrated.” But now that he caught the scent of her hair, a part of him relaxed. He dipped his head to press his forehead against hers for a moment, and then kissed the tip of her nose.

  “I’m so happy you’re here,” she whispered. “I had trouble sleeping without you last night.”

  “I hate being away from you. It makes me physically ill,” he whispered back. “I want this hunt to be over, so we can stop hiding and lying.”

  “I thought you lived for lying,” she teased.

  “You’re ruining me, Miss Bacall,” he said against her lips.

  “I don’t believe I’ve ever ruined anyone before.”

  “Best make it good, because I don’t want you ruining anyone else ever again.”

  She arched into him, smiling a delightfully silly smile that he promptly kissed away. And just when he was warming up, she broke the kiss and wound her fingers through his. “We can hear Mr. Hill’s car in the antiquities wing. And there’s something there I want you to see.”

  Feeling a little less anxious and a lot more motivated, he followed her past the ticketing windows and an army of silent statues lining the walls. The high ceilings and tiled marble floor seemed to simultaneously magnify and swallow their footfalls as they strolled by framed paintings worth more than any one of the Magnusson’s luxury cars.

  Past the Pacific Art collection, an arched entrance was marked with a hand-painted sign that read: TREASURES OF ANCIENT EGYPT—MUMMIFICATION, MAGIC, AND RITUAL. He’d seen this exhibit many times over the years, even when most of it was housed in the old Midwinter building. As a boy, it held enormous fascination for him and was one of the main catalysts that spurred him into pursing an archaeology degree. Strange to think that the objects his ten-year-old self gazed upon with delight would later be placed under Hadley’s stewardship.

  He stopped in front of a case that held a female mummy. Sprigs of hair were still attached to her preserved skin. Most of her teeth were still intact, but she was missing a leg; half the museum’s mummies were damaged or crushed to shards in the earthquake. But the thing that made her such a crowd-pleaser sat in the adjoining case: a tightly wrapped mummified cat, which was found in the same tomb.

  “The best feline specimen on the West Coast,” Hadley bragged. “Excellent example of geometric patterned wrapping from the Ptolemaic Period.”

  “Is this what you’ll do for Number Four when the time comes?”

  She clasped her hands behind her back and gazed at the case with a satisfied smile, head tilted. “I think he’d like that. A tiny sarcophagus might be nice, too. Who knows—perhaps one day we’ll both end up on display. People will study our preserved corpses and call me the Cat Lady.”

  “You’re a morbid woman, min kära.”

  A mischievous smile hoisted her cheeks. “I do love the way you flirt, Mr. Magnusson.” Gaze locked with his, hands still clasped behind her back, she took a couple of backward steps. Lowe might as well have been mummified himself, for it felt like she could tug on his wrappings and wind him toward her with a single look.

  If she wanted her preserved body to be on display, he wanted to be the one lying beside her.

  “Over here,” she said, beckoning him with excited eyes. “This is what I wanted you to see.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  LOWE WATCHED HADLEY AS she turned on a heel and led him to a waist-high glass case that sat against a square pillar in the middle of the hall. Inside was a small collection of personal items found in the Cat Lady’s tomb: perfume jars, a comb, jewelry. And in the middle of the case sat three canopic jars; the fourth one had been lost in the earthquake.

  She leaned over the case to peer down into it. “My parents found this tomb at the necropolis near Thebes in 1895. Only three years before I was born. I wondered if my mother used these as inspiration when she decided to hide the crossbars.”

  “Different era design than the ones she had made,” he noted.

  “Yes. Still, I imagine her walking in here, angry with my father for wanting to kill Noel. Desperate to keep the peace between the two of them so that she could selfishly hang on to both husband and lover. And she sees these.” Hadley tapped on the glass with one nail.

  “The solution to her problem,” Lowe agreed, stepping behind her to peer over her shoulder as he gingerly wrapped one arm around her waist, testing. “Hide them in something that people would keep safe and treasure.”

  “Exactly.” She snaked a hand around the arm that held her, quietly voicing her approval. “And I thought if we looked at them in the right way, maybe we’d see something that would help us decipher the last two pictograms.”

  How he hated those unsolvable pictograms. Both them and her mother be damned. He inhaled the clean scent of her skin, smelling soap and the bright note of her shampoo and beneath it all, Hadley. Intoxicating. He felt powerless to stop himself from nuzzling below the sharp line of her bob to kiss the fine hairs that veed at the nape of her neck.

  She shuddered ever so slightly, but continued with her train of thought, albeit in a breathier voice. “You know, I think Father’s decision to gift the Cat Lady to the museum was tied to the caveat that he be appointed director of this department.”

  “Mmm.” Lowe trailed two more kisses down her spine, stopping where the top button of her oh-so-serious black dress prevented him from going further. “Maybe that’s why he thought I’d be champing at the bit for a chance to be his successor.”

  Two slim fingers slid beneath the cuff of his shirtsleeve, stroking the skin over his wrist. The barest of touches, but the shiver it coaxed jumped straight to his cock.

  “You haven’t changed your mind, have you?” she murmured. “Because you should be warned, if you break our agreement, I will bury you under ten chandeliers.”

  “I love it when you’re romantic,” he said, holding her tighter as he nudged himself into the cleft of her ass.

  She jumped and made a little noise. “Oh, dear.”

  “Oh, yes.” He opened his mouth to nip the skin below her ear.

  “What a big clock you have, Mr. Magnusson.”

  He laughed against her hair. “I nearly fell on my face when that slipped out of your mouth in your father’s office that morning. For a Stanford-educated mind, you’re a terrible speller.”

  Her snorted chuckle was quickly broken by a hissed intake of air. “My office . . .”

  “I thought you wanted me to look at the canopic jars.” He released her waist and urged her forward. “Bend over the case with your hands there,” he instructed.

  “Right here? We might be seen.”

  “I damn well hope we are,” he said—partly agitated, partly thrilled. “Then maybe we can stop sneaking around like we’re doing something wrong. Nuh-uh, no you don’t,” he scolded, pushing her down on the glass. “Hands right there and don’t move unless I say so.”

  “Or what?”

  “Or I’ll yell for the guards and tell them you’ve gone mad and are trying to steal the Cat Lady’s eternal companion. Stay still.” He held her down with one hand on the small of her back while his free hand pulled up the hem of her dress to expose her beautiful backside. “What do we have here?” Bright cobalt blue tap pants strewn with golden stars, and in the center, back to back, two intertwined crescent moons. “Your adventurous taste in lingerie never ceases to amaze me. You look like an erotic Van Gogh painting.”

  She chuckled once, twisting to look back at him, then sucked in a breath and wilted atop the display glass when he slid a hand beneath the loose embroidered fabric. Christ, she had the softest skin. He reverently kneaded one plump cheek, then the other, tugging the silk until it wedged between both cheeks and bared the lower half of her pale ass. A beautiful sight. He especially liked the
way she was squirming beneath his hand. Like waving a red flag at a bull. His cock was definitely paying attention.

  He pulled down the starry-starry tap pants. Slowly, slowly. From this angle, her ass looked like an upside-down heart. But it was space between that drew his attention. “Foot up,” he said in a hoarse voice, kicking the tap pants aside after she stepped out of them. Then he nudged her legs apart. “Wider.”

  “Lowe . . .”

  “Hush.” He sank to his knees behind her and kissed the tops of her stockings. Licked along the shadowed crevice beneath each ample buttock. She made small, breathy noises. And when she fidgeted, shifting her weight from one leg to the other, he spread her open with both hands. “My God,” he murmured. So slick and swollen, her flushed pink flesh was framed by damp, dark curls.

  Drugged by the scent of her sex, he leaned in and took a long, lazy taste from front to back, until she whimpered and her knees bent. Then he did it again, dipping into the warm liquid that pooled at her center. So wet. All for him.

  “Please,” she murmured.

  Oh, how he loved it when she begged. If he could hear her repeat that one word every day for the rest of his life, he’d die happy. And he tried to hold out, to coax it from her again, but at the moment, he was just as greedy for her pleasure as she was.

  He pressed his face closer and found the small bud with the tip of his tongue, flicking it from side to side several times to gauge her reaction. And when she cried out and tilted her ass up to give him better access, he gave in completely and gave her what she wanted: Steady licks with the flat of his tongue. Up and down, down and up, sucking and flicking. Circling this way, and then the other. As long as he gave her a steady rhythm, she gave him the most glorious noises in return.

  And for a time, he almost thought he could go on like this, giving and not taking, but the insistent ache in his balls was too much to bear. Christ, she turned him into a ravenous animal, unable to control himself. No one else had ever had this unrelenting pull on him. Her scent, taste, shape. Her laugh. Her icy stare. Her posh accent. The way she squinted one eye when solving a problem. Every bit of it made him hard. Thank God he hadn’t met her when he was seventeen and barely able to make it through a few hours at school without a release—he might never have graduated.

  Holding her open to him with one hand, he struggled to unbutton his fly, fingers shaking. His cock sprang into his palm, heavy and hard as steel. A shuddering relief passed through him as he stroked himself. Goddammit, he just couldn’t wait.

  Ignoring her vocal protest, he stood, spread her wide, and, guiding himself with one hand, sank into her wet heat with a unsteady groan. She tensed, shouting as her body arched off the glass.

  “Whoa,” he cautioned, and put a firm hand on her back to force her down as he began moving. Fast. Hard. No inhibition or restraint. Just a manic rush toward oblivion and an unyielding drive to push her further than he ever had. To conquer and claim her.

  And if some quiet voice inside him was warning him to be careful and consider the ghosts from her past as he held her down, thrusting into her wildly, then a much louder voice extinguished his doubts.

  “Yes, yes, yes,” she cried. “Thank you, God, yes, thank you . . .” Holding on to the edge of the case, she turned her head to the side, one cheek against the glass and an openmouthed look of rapture on her face.

  Not fragile. Not broken. Not haunted.

  Her cries echoed around the shadowed room, bouncing off the display cases and pillars. They truly might be caught after all. But damned if he was going to reel her in. He just shifted his grip, grabbing hold of her fleshy hips in both hands, and rode her until sweat trickled down his neck. Until they were nothing but two parts of a machine, each fueling the other’s pleasure. Until her punctuated moans and prayers grew desperate and she clenched around him.

  “That’s it,” he murmured. “Come for me.”

  He slipped his hand around her hip, to plunder her damp curls. His middle finger grazed the tight bud once, twice . . . She gasped for a breath. Jerked. Clutched around his cock until he groaned and thrust harder. And then . . .

  Yes.

  There it was: the bewildered, broken wail. He pushed her through the orgasm, hips pumping, finger rubbing her clitoris until her cries calmed and she pulsed around him. Thrust her hand over his to signal that she couldn’t take any more.

  A possessive joy rang inside his chest as warmth gathered at the base of his spine. Christ, his balls were ready to explode. Picking up speed, he drove into her with hellbent purpose, ready to join her. And, oh, God—no.

  No wonder it felt so good. He’d forgotten the goddamn condom.

  How didn’t matter. He just had to pull out. Now.

  Acting on some crazed, feral impulse, he groaned and jerked himself out of her wet heat—a fucking saint, he was—and grabbed her arm. He vaguely heard a surprised moan as he urged her onto her knees, one hand on the back of her head. Christ, she had every right to hate him for this, but he just couldn’t stop as he took himself in hand and prodded the tip of his cock against her mouth.

  “Hadley,” he begged. He was a dog, and he knew it, but please just . . .

  Her lips parted. Wide brown eyes locked with his as she closed her mouth around him and sucked.

  His mind emptied. Head tipped back. Ecstasy rushed forward. He thrust into her mouth and came.

  And came.

  Gods above, it felt like he was spilling his very soul into her. He shuddered, nearly losing his footing as he swayed over her, hand fisted in her hair. Christ! He could barely breathe. But as heady gratification pulsed in his veins, the outer edges of his world bled back into view. And with that, a slow, heavy shame moved into his chest.

  Any second she’d push him away and tell him to go to hell. Any second. He was sure of it. So when she extracted him from her lips, he didn’t expect the loose, tender strokes from her hand. Or the light kiss on the tip of his cock that sent frantic tremors through his legs, intense enough to make him rock forward on his toes.

  And when she finally released him, and pushed herself to her feet, he definitely did not expect the playful smile. Gods above, that smile! Wicked and shy, all at once. It bowled him over. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her head, repeating her name like a sacrament as they swayed together on unsteady legs.

  “I don’t know what I was thinking. I forgot the condom,” he mumbled against the citrusy perfume of her hair. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m not.”

  He lifted her face to his and said, in wonder, “You really aren’t.”

  She shook her head.

  He exhaled heavily, a stupid grin spreading across his face as he tucked himself into his pants and buttoned back up.

  She tucked his shirt a little tighter. “And what’s more, it jostled a thought out of my brain.”

  “Eh?” It jostled a lot of things in him, but thoughts weren’t one of them.

  She explained. “When I was, well, bent over the glass, I kept thinking that there was something wrong with the third name.”

  “And here I was, thinking I was transporting you to euphoric bliss.”

  “Oh, you did. Believe me,” she said dreamily, a lusty satisfaction weighing down her eyelids. “But after, when you pulled me off the glass like some kind of violent marauder—”

  He groaned.

  “No need to be sorry. I rather enjoyed it. Quite a lot, actually,” she said with one brow cocked and a brief, sheepish smile. “But—”

  “But?”

  “I guess I had ‘clock’ on the brain, and your teasing me about my poor spelling skills, and I realized the problem with the name. Our interpretation of the pictograms wasn’t wrong. My mother misspelled the name.”

  “She did?”

  Hadley gripped the lapels of his jacket and spoke in an excited voice. “Lowe, I know exact
ly where the third canopic jar is, and it’s not anywhere near a grave.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  “IT’S NOT L-E-V-I-N-E. IT’S L-E-V-I-N. Five letters, not six.”

  “Levin?” He studied her face, still a little dazed and stupid from the massive orgasm. “I don’t remember a Levin on the list.”

  “That’s because there wasn’t one. But I was just reading an article in the Chronicle yesterday about all the movie theaters being built around San Francisco. Quite a few of them have been financed by the Levin brothers. Including the one in the Richmond District. The Alexandria. Pet project for Sammy Levin.”

  “Why does that name ring a bell?”

  “Because he shares an obsession.” She straightened the knot on his necktie. “We have one mojo bag left?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll need it. The newspaper mentioned a gala being held Sunday night. The owner’s trying to court Hollywood to film more pictures in San Francisco, and he’s putting his personal collection on display. Bet you anything we’ll find the Qebehsenuef jar there.”

  Definitely worth a try.

  And try, they did . . .

  Early Sunday evening, Lowe held open the silver Packard’s passenger door and helped Hadley onto the curb, where other well-heeled gala attendees were gathered in front of the Alexandria Theater. Walking through lotus-topped columns, they stepped beneath the Egyptian-revival entrance and got in line near a ticket booth that was closed for the night—a tuxedoed man collected private invitations at the door. Nearby, reporters snapped photographs of a handsome couple—motion-picture stars, according to the buzzing chatter. But even the minor Hollywood dazzle couldn’t distract Lowe from the strange, prickling sensation that they were being watched. He’d used Velma’s last mojo bag, so they should be safely hidden. But he just couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.