Unleashing the Storm (22 page)

She
nodded, unsure how she’d be able to make it a few feet, let alone a few miles. Tom
took away the question, though, and after he gathered his bag and her backpack,
he loaded her over his shoulder and headed downriver.

THURSDAY
9 P.M. PST

“Your
mother’s here,” Oz said. He stared directly at the beautiful blonde who sat
across the table from him, her big blue eyes wide and transfixed on his.

“She’s
here? In this room?” Her voice had a slight shake to it, her lip quivered and
it was time for him to bring it home.

“She’s
standing right behind you. Her hand is on your right shoulder. Can you feel
it?” he asked, and after a second she nodded. Because the power of suggestion
was a wonderful thing and ninety-nine percent of people couldn’t feel a ghost
touching them at all unless it really wanted them to. And if that kind of
contact happened between the living and the dead, the living person was in big
trouble.

“I
feel it,” she whispered dramatically, and he fought the urge to roll his eyes.

Kiki
Karlson was one of Hollywood’s most notable and well-paid actresses, living in
a house high in the Hollywood Hills, and she was shelling out thousands of
dollars for this parlor-trick shit. Even if she discovered what he was telling
her wasn’t the exact truth, she wouldn’t care. Everything about this woman was
fake—hair, breasts, nails. So yeah, he’d tell her what she wanted to hear.

People
in general did not want to hear the truth—that most entities who hadn’t crossed
over were not good-natured, I’ll-be-on-your-shoulder-forever, fucking Casper
the friendly ghost coming for a sweet visit. No, in his experience, most ghosts
or shades or haints wanted revenge. Wanted to be alive instead of caught in the
shadowy realm between life and the Other Side. And they’d do anything to make
the living feel their pain.

Of
course, this was only his legacy—he wasn’t sure if other psychics who saw the
white-robed, beautiful figures were lying or not, but for some reason he’d been
given the gift to see the worst of the worst. It hadn’t instilled a whole lot
of faith for mankind in him.

So
instead of truths, he gave his clients this circus-freak shit. Traveling from
house to house whoring his wares. He guessed it was better than whoring, but
whoring had felt a hell of a lot better.

Kiki
would let him screw her if he played his cards right.

“She
said she loves you. That she’s always watching over you,” he said.

“Is
she all right? Happy? Does she look beautiful?”

“She’s
very happy. And she looks beautiful.”

“She
doesn’t look the way she did when I found her?” Kiki asked, the tears beginning
to run down her face. “I hate thinking about that night…”

“The
murder is behind her, Kiki,” he said. “She’s dressed all in white. No scars.”

“Is
it all right if I put my hand over hers?” she asked. Oz looked up over Kiki’s
shoulder at the ghost with the long, snarled, white hair, a constant grimace
pulling her lips back to reveal rotting teeth. Her eyes held that inhuman look
Oz knew well, and he watched the blood drip from the gaping hole in the
spirit’s neck onto Kiki’s beautiful white shirt. The hand that grasped Kiki’s
shoulder was a claw, withered and bony and just waiting for Kiki to touch her.
The thing nodded at Oz, begged,
Let her do it, let her open the door,
and Kiki looked at him just as expectantly.

“It’s
better that you don’t,” he said.

Bastard,
the spirit mouthed.

Tell
me something I don’t know,
he
answered, watched it disappear through the mirror it came from and knew he had
to get out of there.

“She’s
gone,” he said. He stood abruptly, because he sensed another disturbance in
energy, a human, not a ghost, and he knew he had to get home.

He
took the shortest route to his house, his motorcycle echoing in the hills,
calling to the ghosts that haunted the witching hours. Some of them would
follow him home and get pissed when he told them they couldn’t stay. But that
wasn’t his concern right now.

Dev
was. As always, even though he hadn’t seen the man in three full years and
counting. Now that was about to change. He’d be getting a call soon—most likely
from Creed, not Devlin.

Oz
and Dev had gotten together when Dev was seventeen and Oz was nineteen, broke
up when Dev left for the Air Force Academy at eighteen. Oz worked at ACRO
before and after Dev took the reins at twenty-eight, and the two had
reconciled. Five years later, Oz left the agency after helping Dev put down the
ghost that had been bothering the man since Dev had been a teenager. A ghost
that neither Oz nor his spirit posse could get through to—a ghost that only
wanted Dev and would do anything to control him fully.

At
the time Oz left Dev, he’d told Dev that he would not come back to help him
with the spirit again, that if Dev brought it out again, it was his to deal
with.

There
was no way Oz could stick to that promise…not when he knew Dev was in trouble.
Oz didn’t know who the man behind the ghost was, but this time, he would make
sure he found out—and that he banished the ghost once and for all.

FRIDAY
2 P.M. MST

Kira
woke, her stomach slightly queasy, her head throbbing. Last night had been a
close call. So close that when the sun came up and Tom had let them stop for
sleep, she’d wakened him for sex three times, even though her need hadn’t been
that great.

He’d
taken it like a trooper, though, had given her what she needed, even doing all
the work because she’d still been too weak to do much besides lie there in the
little tent like a blow-up sex doll. The poor guy had to be exhausted; she knew
he’d spent half the day prowling the area to make sure they were safe.

A
blast of desire robbed her of her breath at the memory of how he’d start off
sleeping as far from her as the tent walls would allow, but then, in his sleep,
he’d rolled against her and grown hard, setting her on fire inside and out.

Her
body trembled at the sudden fierce need that gripped her. She reached behind
her, but her hand came down on the thin canvas floor. She rolled over. Tom was
gone.

An
instant, terrifying band of pressure tightened around her chest.
He’s
probably just watching out for bad guys.
She repeated the words in her head
as she pushed to her hands and knees. Her thighs and arms felt watery, barely
able to carry her weight.

“Tom?”
She swept aside the door flap and crawled outside. Panic made her gut clench.
“Tommy?” Oh, God, where was he? She came to her feet, swayed like a baby taking
its first steps.
“Tommy!”

Then
he was there, from out of nowhere, and she was in his arms. “I’m here, Kira.
I’m here.”

She
wrapped herself around him, tried to hide her tremors. “I wasn’t worried,” she
said, knowing he didn’t believe her, but wanting to convince herself. She felt
like such an idiot. A clingy, demanding idiot.

She
hated being so dependent on anyone, especially when her life was at stake and
she had no control over whether she lived or died.

But
Tom had controlled things pretty well. He’d put his life on the line to save
hers, and he’d done it without flinching. The knowledge stripped her to the
bone, flayed her emotions wide open, so everything else he’d done to infuriate
her didn’t matter. She’d always been more a creature of emotion than logic, and
his saving her life had opened her up to feelings she needed to tamp down.

She
could fall for this man.

His
hand caressed her back in slow, soothing circles as he nuzzled her hair,
pressing tender kisses against her scalp. He was so funny that way, how he
could be gentle and attentive, and then at other times freeze her out with
indifference.

“I
know you weren’t.” He tightened his arms around her, and she melted against
him. “Do you need me again?”

She
nodded, despite the fact that they’d mated just two hours ago. He swept her up,
crouched low, and carried her into the tent.

He
laid her carefully on the floor and unbuttoned his pants as she stripped off
hers. They’d slept in their clothes; Tom had told her to stay as fully clothed
as possible at all times, in the event that they had to move out quickly.

Kneeling
between her legs, he mounted her.

“Wait,”
she said, even as he slid home. “Could we…maybe…?”

“Take
it slow?”

“Mix
it up.”

He
cocked an eyebrow at her, and her cheeks burned. She shouldn’t have asked.
Sometimes he was willing to add foreplay, but afterward he was always much more
distant than after the times when he took her quickly just to give her what she
needed to survive.

“You
mean, like, handcuffs?”

A
pleasant flush broke out over her body at the memory of what he’d done with the
cuffs the night he’d tackled her in the field. But she’d also had too close a
call with death last night to want to be helpless in any way.

“No…never
mind. Forget I asked.”

Still
sheathed inside her, he reached for his bag. He rummaged through it, and when
he nodded to himself, she knew she was in trouble. “Perfect.”

He
pulled the riding crop from his bag, and she gasped. “I can’t believe you kept
that.”

“You
never know when one could come in handy.”

Excitement
shot through her, because for all the sex she’d had in her life, most of it had
been about feeding her body. Never her mind. She’d never taken the time to
play.

Tom
eased out of her and scooted back, still on his knees. When she tried to sit
up, he pushed the tip of the crop against her sternum and forced her to lie
back.

“Stay.”

Breathless
with anticipation, she did as he’d ordered, and then kept an eye on his face as
he trailed the leather flap down her abdomen. He hesitated when he reached her
mound, but when she cut her gaze away to watch what he was doing, he slipped it
lower, between her dewy folds.

He
began a leisurely exploration with the leather flap, coaxing a moan from her.

“You
like that, Kira?”

“Oh,
yes.”

“Has
anyone ever used a whip on you this way?”

She
looked up; his gaze slammed into hers, and somehow, she knew her answer was
more important to him than he’d ever let on. “Never.”

She
caught the subtle softening in his eyes before he looked back down to what he
was doing with the crop. “Good. That’s good.”

The
rub of the soft leather grew firmer, faster, and blood began to roar in her
ears. Her clit throbbed, but each pass he made through her slit barely skimmed
the aching nub. When he withdrew the thing, she whimpered—until he moved
closer, turned the crop around, and used the hard, leather-wrapped handle to
stroke her instead.

“Spread
your legs wider,” he commanded, one palm putting pressure against her inner
thigh until she let her knees fall open. A low sound of approval came from him,
and he licked his lips as he moved even closer. She thought he would put his
mouth where the crop was, but instead, he drew the handle down to her entrance.
Her breath jammed in her throat. Would he—

“You’re
soaked,” he murmured. “Dripping.”

Oh,
God, she knew that, could feel moisture flooding her sex, right there where he
was rotating the tip of the crop, caressing the sensitive circle of nerves at
her core. Pleasure streaked through her, and it nearly peaked when he plunged
the handle inside her.

“Tom!”

“Do
you want me to stop?” Tom began an easy, sensual rhythm,
in, out, twist.
“You’ve fucked my cock, my hand, my mouth, now this…do you think you can come?”

The
thrill of what he was doing was too much to allow for an answer. Instead, she
ground her hips to meet his thrusts, mindless at the feel of the slick
friction, the erotic pleasure that sliced through her clit and made her clamp
down on the tool she’d always thought of, and despised, as a means of
delivering pain.

She
squeezed her eyes shut, concentrating on the sound of Tom’s breathing, rapid,
ragged, concentrating on the exquisite sensation of being penetrated with a
weapon wielded by a man who knew the best way to use it.

“Let
go, baby,” he whispered. “Let me see you come.”

As
though she’d needed his permission, her nerve endings exploded, and her orgasm
surged through her like she’d been set aflame. Tom did something—angled the
handle just right—and before the first climax had waned, another caught her by
surprise, tackled her and didn’t let her go.

He
withdrew the crop, and while she still pulsed, he entered her with his
rock-hard cock. The delicious stretch of her tissue had her coming yet again,
and on his third stroke he released inside her with a groan.

Worn
out, sated and feeling like a pampered cat, she prepared for him to pull out
immediately, as always. But this time he lay on top of her until they stopped
panting, and then he rolled to his side and took her with him, his cock
twitching inside her.