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  “Every raid I’ve made, every world I’ve plundered, every bit of treasure I have ever brought to you is a measure of my devotion.” He has not yet kissed her mouth, but oh, how she longs for him there.

  As she has always done, the regent thinks as she pushes her scout away and walks to the window to look outside at the night. Since she was old enough to understand desire, she has wanted this man. Never admitting it, never allowing herself to believe he could be hers. Because of course he cannot be.

  At least not for longer than this single night. Turning, she loosens the ties at the front of her gown and allows it to fall away. Naked, she draws in a breath, lifting her chin, refusing to let herself look away from his face.

  “You are beautiful,” her scout says, and in that moment, the regent has no doubt that she is.

  He’s across the room in the time it takes for her to breathe in and out. Then at last he is kissing her, mouth on mouth. Her gasp draws him into her. His tongue strokes hers.

  The marble windowsill is cool on her bare skin as he pushes her back to sit, her thighs parted. He kneels between them. With a reverent sound of worship, her scout kisses her again. Not her mouth this time. The pleasure of it, the heat and warmth of his lips against her most private flesh, tips her head back so the fall of her hair tickles her back.

  His mouth moves on her. Tongue stroking. Lips tugging the tender pearl of her body, until she cannot stop herself from crying out. When his fingers slide inside her, stretching, she is sent shuddering over the edge.

  Without time for the pleasure to fade, her scout stands. He’s pulled himself free of his trousers and is inside her, so deep the sweet sting of his entry sends another shiver of pleasure through her. Her body clutches him; he groans, thrusting, lifting her legs to wrap around his lean hips.

  He kisses her again, harder this time. There’s the tangy taste of blood on her tongue, and she loves it, she loves him, she is toppling again into the maelstrom of desire. No holding back.

  They might have only this one night, this one time, but it will have to be enough to last for the rest of her life.

  * * *

  Sweet feminine flavor flooded Jase’s tongue. He groaned aloud, blinking into the darkness as his orgasm rushed through him. He came so hard he bit his tongue, tasting blood. Shuddering, he let his stroking hand slow until, panting, he let it rest on the sticky heat puddling on his belly.

  “Fuck,” he whispered aloud. “What the...”

  Still blinking, he shook himself and pushed up on one elbow. He’d been back in the dream, only this time, he’d been awake, he was sure of it. He’d been between her legs, lapping her sweetness, making her come. Even now, the memory made his cock twitch, though he was nowhere near capable of getting hard again, not after that explosion.

  Something glittered in the air around him.

  He sat up so fast his head spun. The edges of his vision sparkled, sort of like if he’d pressed his thumbs to his closed eyelids. Only, this faded and renewed when he tried to focus. Jase hopped out of bed, grabbing a stray T-shirt and swiping at his belly as he did. His black-light wand was in his bag, and he fumbled for it as the glittering lights faded again.

  He flashed it around the room and let out a long, slow breath of wonder. The entire room lit up like the night sky. The glow faded even as he watched, leaving behind a few traces here and there, identical to what he and Reg had found on the gorilla guy’s front porch.

  Shit.

  Whatever had happened to those other guys had just happened to him.

  CHAPTER 6

  With a short, sharp breath, Chelle lifted her fingers from the keys. Blinking, she sipped in another breath, this one slower. Every part of her still pulsed from the pleasure that had rocked through her while she wrote.

  Whoa.

  It usually felt good to write...but it had never felt that good. Yes, she’d been turned on in the past by something she’d written, but never to the point of an actual orgasm. Chelle sat back in her chair. The first hint of sunlight had started pinking the window over her kitchen sink. She’d been writing for hours. Pages of words...not a full story, but definitely the good start to one, she thought with a rueful shake of her head. Way better than that stupid one about the giant gorilla.

  Making sure to save her file, Chelle stared at her computer screen for a few more seconds. GOLEM was more than a word processing program. Grant had designed it as a true writer’s dream. She took the time to type a few notes for future plot points. Then she saved again and closed her laptop.

  On still-trembling legs, she went to the sink to get herself another glass of water. This one she gulped down, refilled and drank again. She should’ve been exhausted, but every nerve still jangled. She’d never get to sleep.

  Still, she had to try. Not having a day job to go to had to be good for something, even if it meant working all night and sleeping until noon. She took a hot shower first, letting the water beat away some of the stress and tension she still carried with her from being hit by the bike and from the hours she’d spent hunched over the computer.

  Cupping her breasts, she let her thumbs pass over her still-sensitive nipples. They tightened at once, and there was an answering pull of arousal between her legs. Chelle laughed a little and tipped her face into the shower’s spray, taking in a mouthful of water she spit out in a stream in an attempt at getting her mind off the slickness in her pussy.

  She’d had an orgasm while writing.

  She wanted to have another one now.

  She was no stranger to self-pleasure—that was part of not having a lover, taking care of her own needs. Lately it had seemed her self-gratification had become fairly utilitarian, though. Fast, steady, she got off within minutes as a way to ease the buildup of arousal, though she hadn’t found herself particularly turned on. When you were bored fucking yourself, she thought as she turned to let the hot water pound her back, that was bad.

  She was turned on now, though. The story. It had filled her head as if she were watching a movie. She’d been immersed. The words, flowing the way her blood pumped now, swift and fierce.

  Chelle let out a small groan as she slipped a hand between her legs to stroke her clit. Despite the water from the showerhead, she still found herself so wet that her fingers slipped easily against her folds. Then inside. One, then two. She put her other hand on the shower wall to keep herself steady as she fucked into herself, slowly. Her thumb pressed her clit.

  God, it felt good.

  How long had it been since she’d really felt this way? Months? Shit, had it been years?

  Nipples tight, pussy clenching, breath coming fast. Her belly muscles leaped and jumped as her hips pumped forward. She circled her clit, then tweaked it. Her entire body convulsed with the first twinges of pleasure, building, unbelievable and delightful and yet also somehow desperate.

  Her mind filled with the images from the story. The stoic regent, yearning for the touch of the man she loved. The steadfast and inappropriate lover who risked everything for a night with her.

  She thought of the man she’d seen in the bar, the one whose face she’d appropriated for her hero. With another small groan, Chelle tried to turn her thoughts to someone else. A celebrity, a mishmash of features, something, anything but that real man who had turned back to look at her. It was useless. Her body had already started the inevitable journey to climax, and she couldn’t hold it back any more than she could’ve stood up against a tsunami.

  She gave in, letting the pleasure take her. So good, so fucking good, maybe even better because of that twisted twinge of guilt. Her fingers slipped on the wet tile as she pressed her forehead to the wall. Her body shook, racked with desire. Her pussy throbbed against her fingers and she gave her clit another slow circling tweak before cupping herself.

  The water was starting to get cold, but C
helle stayed under the spray for another minute or so, relishing the chilly sting on her overheated skin. When she started shivering, she turned off the water and got out, toweling off and wrapping the towel around her hair to walk naked from the bathroom into her bedroom, where she fell down onto the bed and spread out her arms and legs to stare up at the ceiling fan taking its slow and inevitable journey round and round. Hypnotic.

  She let it seduce her into sleep, which was jumbled and fraught with strange dreams, but when she woke, the sun hadn’t yet angled into afternoon, and she was ravenous. Over a sandwich and iced tea, she typed some more notes into GOLEM. Nothing seemed as if it would spill into a full-length novel, but she thought she had the kernel for a few short stories, maybe.

  On her front deck, she stretched out in the sunshine and let herself drift for a bit. Part of the creative process was refilling the well. Downtime. Grant had teased her that most people couldn’t write off napping or daydreaming as part of their job, but he’d never been the sort to take a break. Grant had two speeds: on and off.

  She didn’t want to think about Grant now. It never led to anyplace good. She supposed one day she’d be able to just put all the memories of him aside, or at least face them with more dignity, but for now, it required a lot of wrestling with herself not to dissolve into grief at the thought of him.

  So, she put it away.

  She scribbled a few more notes, mostly junk, then went inside to grab her phone. She dialed her best friend, Angie. “Hey, you. What’s up?”

  “Ugh. Just finishing up this stupid database. What’s going on?”

  “Trying to write.”

  Angie was silent for a second. “How’s it going?”

  “Bad.” Chelle laughed. “Not sure what made me think I could do this.”

  “You can do it. You’ve been writing stories since you could write. You’ll get it. Anything from the editor?”

  They talked for a while about work, family, television, shoes, gossip about a couple former classmates. Best-friend talk. It ended with an agreement to meet for drinks and dinner.

  “I need this like you wouldn’t believe,” Angie said. “I want to make out with some random cute guy and just...ugh.”

  “Ugh, indeed,” Chelle said with a laugh, already looking in her wardrobe. “It’s the off-season. We’ll be lucky to find a cute guy.”

  “It’s the big sports-show weekend. There will be guys there. Cute, I don’t know about. That’s what vodka’s for!”

  Chelle paused. “Oh Lord. That kind of night?”

  “If you’re lucky,” her friend said. “I’ll pay for the cab, too. Don’t argue with me about it.”

  Chelle wasn’t going to argue. There wasn’t any use in it—her friend would simply refuse to take any cash. Besides, it all worked out in the end between picking up the tab for drinks or dinner or any of the other things they did together—they’d been friends for so long that neither of them was ever going to be up on the other.

  She spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning her house and taking care of some errands. Another few hours...yes, hours...getting ready for what was not promising to be a particularly “lucky” night out. She’d shaved her legs, after all. That was almost a guarantee that she wasn’t going to hook up with someone.

  Oh, the thought of it, though. A small shiver sent a tickling tremor up and down her spine when she remembered the new project she’d started. Her time in the shower. The guy from the bar... He’d been cute, Chelle admitted to herself as she pulled out dress after dress and put them all away before taking them out again. And if there was one cute guy around, she supposed there’d be more at Oceanside, especially, as Angie had said, since the sports show was going on in Ocean City.

  The two of them hadn’t gone out in forever, so it was more than past time, but damn if her wardrobe wasn’t reflecting just how long it had been. Chelle held up a dress, finally, with a shake of her head. It would have to do.

  “Pretty as a peach.”

  The voice, warm and sugary, nudged her ear and sent her a step toward the mirror. Eyes wide. Mouth open.

  She turned, but of course there was nobody behind her. She was alone, the way she’d been since moving into this house, nobody to share this space. This bed. Her bedroom, all her own, decorated to her style and nobody else’s.

  Chelle closed her eyes for a moment, taking a long, deep breath. She’d imagined the voice. Grant’s words, the compliment he’d always paid her. When she opened them, she lifted her chin and gave her reflection a long, hard look.

  “You’re going out tonight,” she told herself. “You’re going to have fun. And you’re going to make out with a cute guy, if it kills you.”

  CHAPTER 7

  “Why so...cereal?” Reg pointed at the bowl of frosted wheats in front of Jase.

  Jase dug his spoon into the mess of milk and soggy mush. “Nice one.”

  “Seriously, man. You’ve been in a shitty mood all day.” Reg pulled up one of the bar stools and gave Jase a long, steady look that wasn’t going to be easy to ignore.

  Jase shrugged, not wanting to admit that he’d had a... Well, shit. What had happened anyway? A weird kind of dream? An out-of-body experience? Whatever it had been, it might be tied to the rest of this case or it might not, but either way, it had happened to him, damn it, not some random asshole who probably deserved a little roughing up from an imaginary monkey. He didn’t want to compare himself to guys like that, but the truth was, that weirdly fantastic dream and the aftershocks of glittering color had made him more than an investigator in this case. They had made him a victim.

  Jase had not been a victim for a long damned time.

  “The dream I had last night,” he began and stopped.

  Reg looked curious. “Yeah? What about it?”

  “I don’t think it was a dream. It was something else. Like a hallucination. But with physical results.” Jase grimaced, remembering the exact nature of those results. He’d had to put the evidence in the laundry this morning.

  “Like a giant gorilla beating on some douche bag?”

  Jase nodded. “Yeah, but...”

  “Not a gorilla,” Reg said. “Please tell me you didn’t have sex with a gorilla, dude. I mean, you’ve been with some ugly girls, but...”

  Jase snorted. “Fuck you.”

  Reg crowed a little more about it, teasing him. That was his way, to make light of serious things. It was why they made such good partners. Jase took everything too seriously, Reg sometimes not enough.

  “But seriously. It was like a sex...thing?”

  “Yeah. But hard to describe. I mean, it was so real, but it wasn’t.” Jase shook his head. “Messed up, man.”

  “Too long between lays?” Reg offered, not even joking. “And you’re sure it wasn’t something in the Ephemeros? Dreams can feel really real.”

  “It wasn’t. And there was all that glittery sort of...”

  “Spooge,” offered Reg.

  Jase grimaced again. “Gross.”

  “So, we’re definitely dealing with something related to the other cases. Spiritual, maybe? It’s not ectoplasm. Something like it, maybe.”

  Jase got up to put his dishes in the dishwasher, then leaned on the counter. “No. But it felt like something close to that. Like...while it was going on, I couldn’t have told you for sure it wasn’t real, but when I came out of it, I could remember everything that happened but almost like it happened to someone else. Like I’d been watching it in a movie. Or maybe...more like reading it in a book.”

  “I don’t read books,” Reg said.

  Jase hadn’t read a book in a long time, though not because he didn’t like to. “When you read a really good one, you sort of get immersed in it. Like whatever’s happening to the characters is happening to you. You’re still aware that
you’re, say, sitting in your chair, but you’re in it, whatever it is. That’s what it was like.”

  “Freaky. Remind me not to read a book.”

  “Like playing a really great video game,” Jase said.

  Reg grinned. “Okay, now I got it. So I guess the question is, why you and not me? And can we make it happen again?”

  “I don’t want it to happen again,” Jase said at once.

  “Sounds like it was a good time...” Reg began, then stopped himself at Jase’s look. “Okay, sorry. I get it.”

  He didn’t, really. Jase wasn’t sure he did, either. Except that he worked cases. He didn’t want to become one. Jase never again wanted to experience something like what had happened that long-ago summer when he’d nearly lost his mind and his life.

  Not ever.

  CHAPTER 8

  Okay, so finding a cute guy to make out with wasn’t going to kill her, Chelle thought with a look around the crowded dance club. But it very well might break something. She sipped her vodka Collins so she didn’t have to make conversation with the guy who’d been trying hard to catch her attention for the past five minutes.

  “C’mon,” Angie said and put her empty glass on the bar. She glanced over Chelle’s shoulder at the would-be paramour. “No.”

  Chelle didn’t dare look behind her to see his reaction, just set her glass down next to Angie’s and let her friend pull her onto the dance floor. The music was thumping, the entire floor shaking, and for a weekend in the off-season, the place was full to overflowing.

  “Sausage party,” Angie shouted into Chelle’s ear with a grin. “We’re outnumbered four to one!”

  Chelle, being rump-humped from behind by a guy in a pink polo shirt, could only laugh. “May the odds be ever in your favor!”

  Boy, were they ever. Angie’s goal had been to make out with a random cute guy? Before another hour had passed, she’d successfully been smooched up on by three guys who appeared to be in a bachelor party. The fourth guy in their group, a little shorter, a little less drunk, though that was relative at this point in the night, hung back laughing. He caught Chelle’s eye.