Boston Avant-Garde 6: Chiaroscuro (28 page)

Owen settled on his back and stacked his hands beneath his head. In the dim moonlight, Lars could just make out the barest details of his beautiful face. Owen stared right at him. “Have I ever steered you wrong?”

It was a tough question. Not because Lars didn’t know the answer, but because he knew where Owen was leading them with this line of thought. Lars said a few choice words beneath his breath. “I trust you. I do. But this is Mattie, you, and me. It’s not some nameless, faceless group of people. If we guess wrong on this, Hyde will probably be there with your half brother and his goons ready to skin us alive. The guy is a complete nut job, and he’s willing to commit rape for some supernatural payoff.”

Owen sat up and cupped Lars’s face. “This is the right thing to do.” Owen picked up Lars’s hand and pressed it against his heart. “I know it here.”

Lars had never hoped so fervently to keep the words,
I told you so
out of his vocabulary. “If you’re wrong, we’re going to wind up facing off with Hyde holding nothing but our dicks.”

Mattie’s giggle was lighthearted enough to brighten even this tense moment. “At least you two will be holding some pretty impressive artillery.”

Owen grabbed them both and drew them close. “I love you two more than my own life. This is the right thing to do. I know it is.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Mattie felt as though she was truly the wild heathen some of the other little girls in her primary school had accused her of being. She was tramping through the woods in her bare feet wearing nothing but Owen’s black T-shirt. Even better, she was accompanied by two men who were nearly as naked as she was.

Lars wore nothing but his black slacks, and his feet were bare. The fading light of a four-o’clock crescent moon kissed his chest. It lightened his gold skin, painting him in a stark contrast of pale skin and tousled hair. With the shadow stubble on his jaw, he appeared almost as dangerous as Owen, who resembled an ancient warrior come to life.

If the colonials had been faced with a legion of men like Owen, it was no wonder they’d been overwhelmed. He’d left his hair loose. It flowed down his back, swinging side to side as he led the way with fluid strides. His skin was burnished in the moonlight, dark and delectably exotic. He moved as though he’d been born to walk these woods with the animals. His jeans rode low on his hips, dimples christening the taut flesh above each butt cheek. He carried his knife in one hand. He was mouthwateringly gorgeous and sexier than any dream come to life.

And these two are all mine.

Mattie couldn’t hold back the gleeful thought. She was almost giddy with the knowledge that she had a lifetime to love these two men and bask in their love in return. She wanted to dance through the forest, except she would’ve sounded like a baby elephant, and they were supposed to be traveling quietly.

Owen led them on a confusing zigzagging track through the woods. Mattie was hopelessly turned around by the time she saw the crumbling chimneypiece of the old house peeking through the trees. Owen slowed as they approached. Had he been an animal, his ears would’ve been pricked to catch every little sound. As it was, he looked more wild than tame there in the dawning light.

Mattie carried a small bag. She’d gathered up some sage and other items from her garden before they’d left, plus she’d also brought an entire container of raw sea salt. She hoped it would be enough. She’d never attempted to hijack someone’s altar before.

Behind her, Mattie could feel Lars’s tension. She had to give him credit where it was due. How many guys would sign up for this sort of thing when he had no understanding of it and even less in the way of belief?

“It’s clear,” Owen murmured. “Nobody here but us and the birds.”

Mattie stopped when she hit an aura that felt like an invisible wall around the foundation. The sensation of evil crawled up her spine, and she backed off, her body coming up against Lars’s chest.

She swallowed the bile that rose in her throat. “Owen, I can’t make myself go in there.”

“He can.” Owen gestured to Lars. “He’s never sensitized himself to this sort of thing.”

Mattie turned and gazed up at Lars. “Can you feel that?”

“It’s like being too close to an electromagnet, or the feeling I get when lightning is about to strike close by.” Lars gently drew her behind his back. “You guys are the ones who believe in this shit. Shouldn’t that mean you get to boss it around or bend it to your will or something?”

“Power doesn’t work like that. Not believing is what keeps you from being affected by the intent behind it.” Mattie shuddered. “Your strength is in your practical nature. In your mind.”

Lars took a hesitant step forward. “Okay, so I
don’t
believe in fairies. I don’t. I don’t.”

Mattie had never been more grateful for his attempt to lighten a scary situation with his own brand of humor. “I’ll keep that in mind when I pick my next Halloween costume.”

Ignoring their teasing, Owen toed the unseen line and gestured to the offerings inside. “There’s something on the altar harboring the evil. You have to walk in and get rid of it.”

“What, like touch it?” The revulsion on Lars’s face told Mattie he sensed the evil on a primal level he didn’t quite understand.

Owen crossed the clearing and approached a hawthorn tree. Mattie heard him murmur something low and unintelligible before he drew his knife and cut two slender branches. He returned his knife to its sheath and then handed Lars the makeshift tongs. “These should work.”

LARS SHIVERED IN the cool fall morning. The mist settled on his skin and hair, feeling more as if it seeped into his bones. He didn’t like this place. He might not feel the evil the same way Owen and Mattie obviously did, but something deep inside his soul recoiled at the thought of going into the building. Still, if this was what would get rid of Hyde and this stupid Halloween ritual, Lars was willing to get singed in the process.

He took a steadying breath and clutched the two slim pieces of wood in one hand as he moved past his partners and stepped into what was left of the tiny house. He suspected the only thing that remained was the main room. The tumbledown remains suggested there had been other rooms once upon a time. In fact it was most likely the stone fireplace that had encouraged this portion to remain as long as it had.

Thoughts of the previous occupants kept his mind from dwelling on the unpleasant sensation of live electricity crawling over his skin as he moved through the space. He didn’t believe in the supernatural. He didn’t buy in to the idea of innate power and nature and the sort of crap his mother would’ve called “New Age.” Yet he could not stand here on this tiny sliver of land and deny the existence of
something
. It was old and malevolent, angry even. Lars could sense it acutely. He began saying prayers in his head, stuff he’d learned as a kid. To his utter shock, he felt the presence in the cottage pause as though it were actually listening. This was starting to feel like an episode of some ghost-chasing reality television show.

Spooked but unwilling to give in, Lars moved around the chalked circle and reached for the altar. A bone-white skull stared sightlessly back at him. He didn’t have Owen’s heritage or Mattie’s Wiccan sensibilities, but he knew that skull was what he was after.

Sucking in a deep breath, Lars used the hawthorn branches to carefully lift the skull from the altar. When he turned away, he sensed the ghost watching as though it was waiting to see what he intended.

Lars exited through what had once been the front door. He found Mattie and Owen had been busy in his absence. Feeling antsy, he didn’t even try to excise the tension from his tone. “If the two of you are done digging for earthworms, can we get a move on here?”

Mattie reached for the bag she’d brought and poured the salt into the hole she’d dug. “No worms here, I hope. They’d really hate us for burying this thing in their homes. I had to line it with salt to neutralize it.”

Lars wondered ridiculously if that had anything to do with the old adage about throwing salt over your shoulder to ward off evil. “Can I put it down? Please? I’m getting creeped out here.”

Owen grabbed Mattie’s hand and drew her away. “Go ahead.”

Lars put the skull in the ground and began using the branches to push and pull the dirt back into the hole. The deeper he buried it, the more the feeling of malice abated. When the little mound of dirt was gone Lars stamped it down with his bare foot. It was oddly satisfying.

“Move aside,” Owen directed. “I’m going to burn some sage and sprinkle the ashes over the top.”

“I’m totally going to pretend that’s all normal, and we’re just out here making s’mores or something at five in the morning,” Lars said conversationally.

Mattie giggled and nudged him, wrapping her arm around his waist. She had dirt under her nails and smudges on her face, but she’d never looked more beautiful to Lars. He leaned down to brush a kiss over her full lips as Owen lit the dried sage on fire and set it on top of their little grave. The tension in the clearing began to ease as the sage curled up and flaked to ash.

“Now what?” Lars asked.

Owen lifted his brows. “We fuck.”

“I could get into that,” Lars teased. He’d done a lot of crazy shit on Halloween in his lifetime, but it had always involved Halloween night, not morning, and it had never included making love in some burned out house in the woods.

OWEN GAZED AT his lovers and felt a rush of emotion that left him almost invincible in its wake. He’d never experienced anything like it before in his life. This was right. This was what they were supposed to be doing. He felt it all the way to the marrow of his bones.

Mattie hesitantly approached the ruined cottage. “I think the negative energy is gone.”

“It is,” Lars said, surprising Owen with his certainty. “I felt it leave with me. There’s still something in there, though.”

“Whatever spirit resides in this place is neutral,” Owen hypothesized. “Whatever Meecham and Hyde brought with them pushed it over the line to evil.”

Mattie stepped inside and gazed at the altar. “And whatever we do has to push it back toward the good.”

“Not death but life,” Owen agreed.

Lars paused outside the circle, apparently fascinated with the designs chalked onto the floor. “Should we get rid of this?”

Mattie frowned. “No, it’s just a binding circle. Pretty simple. Meecham isn’t any good with complex stuff, not that I am either, but even I recognize this.”

“What about that altar?” Lars wanted to know. “Do we just stick our stuff on it and then—do what we came to do?”

Owen wanted to laugh. Lars was having a tough time, but he was being a damn good sport.

Mattie opened the bag and drew out her herbs, a few vegetables, and some apples. She gave Owen a shy smile. “I always think of my grandmother and my aunts on Samhain. I think of them passing through and wonder if they can see me.”

Owen stroked the softness of her cheek, loving her even more for each and every kindhearted thought in her pretty head. “I’m sure they can.”

She arranged her things on the altar and then took a deep breath. When she pulled Owen’s T-shirt over her head and tossed it and the empty bag aside, he realized he was already desperate to join with his lovers in this place. His cock was standing at full attention, pushing in vain against the fly of his jeans.

Lars unfastened his slacks and boldly stepped out of them. He gazed hungrily at Mattie and then at Owen. “This was your idea. You going to man up or run home?”

Owen closed his eyes, sinking into the stillness at his core. Somehow it was easier to reach it from there in the cottage. He wondered what sort of power lurked inside. Had it always been in the land, or was the cottage its origin?

He couldn’t sense anything in the woods surrounding them. No noises other than the soft morning chirrups of the birds and the rustling of the forest animals as they went about their business. Inside the ruins, the presence was still, anticipating what was to come as if it too held its breath.

Owen unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans. He stepped clear and pushed them back. Extending his hands to his lovers, he drew them both into the circle with him. Electricity fizzled over their skin. It was no longer angry and vengeful. The touch was light, tickling almost. It melded them together, snapping with life everywhere their bodies touched.

Owen kissed Mattie with every single ounce of the passion he felt in his soul. She flung herself at him, pushing her tongue into his mouth and teasing him mercilessly. Owen felt Lars’s hands on his body, skimming down his torso, spanning his belly, and wrapping around his cock. Owen reached around Mattie and enjoyed Lars’s warm skin the same way. It was as though every sensation was amplified in this place.

Owen sank to the stone floor, dragging his lovers with him. “We’re both going to come in your pussy at the same time, Mattie. Two cocks at once. Will you let us share that with you?”

“Yes!” Her eyes fluttered closed, and she wrapped one arm around each of them, pulling them closer.

Owen focused on the right side of her body, knowing Lars would pleasure the other with equal fervor. Mattie was on her knees, legs spread and head thrown back in abandon. Owen feasted on her tight nipple. He sucked and licked the pebbled bud until he could feel it pulsing against his tongue.

His hands sought her thigh. He stroked the inside of her leg with one palm and used the other to reach in from behind. Lars had the same idea, the two of them spreading her already damp slit wide as they enjoyed the silky texture of her soft skin.

Their fingers meshed within Mattie’s swollen pussy. They circled her clit and delved into her wet folds as if their actions had been choreographed by nature herself. They each slid one index finger into her tight sheath. She arched her back and ground down on the penetrating digits. It wasn’t enough. If her cunt was going to take both of them, they had to stretch her wider.

Owen played and teased, working with Lars to make her hotter and wetter. He kept expecting her to come, to climax like the insatiable lover they knew so well, but she never did. He could feel her orgasm hovering just beyond reach. It was as if something else held it back and denied her the release she wanted.