"Fantastic." Gregg clapped the man on the shoulder. "You won't even know we're here."
The butler pointedly stepped back. "A word of caution, if I may."
"Hit me."
"Do not go up to the third floor."
Well, wasn't that an invitation... and a line right out of a Scream movie. "Absolutely not. I swear to it."
The butler went off down the hall and Gregg leaned out of the front door, motioning for his crew. As Holly got out, her double-Ds bounced under the black T-shirt she was wearing, and her Sevens were so low-cut her flat, tanned belly flashed. He'd hired her not for her brains, but for her Barbie dimensions, and yet she'd proven to be more than he'd expected. Like a lot of dummies, she wasn't completely stupid, just largely so, and she had an eerie ability to position herself where it would most suit her advancement.
Stan slid the van's side panel back and stepped out, blinking hard and shoving his long, straggly hair out of the way. Perpetually stoned, he was the perfect person for this kind of work: technically adept, but mellow to the point where he took orders well.
Last thing Gregg wanted was an artiste running the camera lenses.
"Get the luggage," Gregg called over to them. Which was code for, Bring not only your overnight bags but the small-scale equipment.
This wasn't the first site he'd had to talk his way into.
As he ducked back inside, the couple who had departed were driving past in their Sebring convertible, the guy watching Holly bend into the van instead of where he was going.
She tended to have that effect on men. Another reason to keep her around.
Well, that and she had no problem with casual sex.
Gregg walked into the drawing room and did a slow around-the- world. The oil paintings were museum quality, the rugs were Persian, the walls were hand-painted with a pastoral scene. Sterling-silver candlesticks were on every surface and not one piece of furniture had been made in the twenty-first or twentieth... or maybe even nineteenth century.
The journalist in him sat up and hollered. B and Bs, even first- rate ones, weren't kitted out like this. So there was something going on here.
Either that or the Eliahu legend was putting a helluva lot of heads on those pillows every night.
Gregg went over to one of the smaller portraits. It was of a young man in his mid-twenties, and painted in another time, another place. The subject was seated in a stiff-backed chair, his legs crossed at the knees, his elegant hands off to one side. Dark hair was pulled back and tied with a ribbon, revealing a face that was a stunner. The clothes were... Well, Gregg was no historian, so who the f**k knew, but they sure as hell looked like what George Washington and his ilk wore.
This was Eliahu Rathboone, Gregg thought. The secret abolitionist who had always left a light on to encourage those who needed to escape to come his way... the man who had died to protect a cause before it even took root up in the North... the hero who had saved so many, only to be cut down in the prime of his life.
This was their ghost.
Gregg made a frame with his hand and panned around the room before zeroing in on that face.
"Is that him?" Holly's voice came from behind. "Is that really him?"
Gregg beamed over his shoulder, his body positively tingling. "And I thought the pictures on the Internet were good."
"He's, like... gorgeous."
And so were his backstory and his house and all of those people who left here talking about hauntings.
Fuck the Atlanta trip to that asylum. This was their next live special.
"I want you to work on the butler," Gregg said softly. "You know what I mean. I want access to everything."
"I'm not sleeping with him. I draw the line at necrophilia and that one is older than God."
"Did I ask you to get on your back? There are other ways. And you have tonight and tomorrow. I want to do the special here."
"You mean..."
"We're broadcasting live from here in ten days." He walked over to the windows that faced out toward the alley of trees, and with every step he took, the floorboards creaked.
Daytime Emmys, here we come, Gregg thought.
Fucking perfect.
Chapter Ten
John Matthew woke up with his hand on his cock. Or rather, he semi woke up. What he had his palm on was fully ready to go, however.
In his foggy mind, images of him and Xhex were lighting him up from the inside out.... He saw them on her bed in that basement place of hers and there was a whole lot of naked going on, her straddling his hips, him reaching up to touch her br**sts. She felt good and solid on top of him, her core hot and wet against his erection, her powerful body arching and releasing as she rubbed herself on what ached to penetrate her.
He needed to get in her. Needed to leave something of himself behind.
Needed to mark her.
The instinct was overwhelming to the point of compulsion... and yet his conscience prickled as he sat up and took one of her ni**les into his mouth. As he drew her flesh between his lips, sucking on it, tonguing it, nipping it ever so gently, on some level, he knew this was not really happening--and that even in a fantasy, it was wrong. It wasn't fair to her memory, and yet the visions had too much momentum and his palm as he worked himself had too much grip... and the moment was too undeniable and electric to turn away from.
There was no going back.
John imagined that he rolled her over onto her back and loomed above her, looking down into her gunmetal gray eyes. Her thighs were split on either side of his hips, her lush sex ready for what he wanted to give her, her scent burrowing into his nose until all he knew was her. Running his palms over her br**sts and down her stomach, he marveled at how similar their bodies were. She was smaller compared to him, but their muscles were all the same, hard and toned, ready for use, tight as bone when they were engaged. He loved how unyielding she was beneath her soft, smooth skin, loved how strong, how tough...
He wanted her like crazy.
Except suddenly he could go no further.
It was as if the fantasy jammed up, the tape breaking, the DVD scratched, the digital file corrupted. And all he had left was his attraction and this wrenching, on-the-brink ecstasy that was going to drive him insane--
Xhex reached up to his face and cupped it, and with the gentle contact, she abruptly commanded all of him, his head and his body and his soul: She owned him and everything he was from his eyes to his thighs. He was hers.
"Come to me," she said, tilting her head to the side.
Tears turned his vision wavy. Finally, they were going to kiss. Finally, what she had denied him was going to happen--
When he leaned down... she guided his mouth back to her nipple.
He felt a momentary sting of rejection, but then this weird elation hit him. The deflection was so true to her, he figured that maybe it wasn't a dream. Maybe this was actually happening. Pushing aside his sadness, he concentrated on what she was willing to give him.
"Mark me," she said in a deep voice.
Baring his fangs, he ran one sharp white tip around her areola, circling, stroking. He wanted to ask her if she was sure, but she answered that question herself. In a quick move, she jacked off the mattress and held his head down to her skin so that he struck her and a sliver of blood was drawn.
John jerked back, afraid he'd hurt her... but he hadn't, and as she arched in an erotic wave, the glistening wellspring of her life made him orgasm.
"Take from me," she commanded as his c**k jerked and hot pulses poured out over her thighs. "Do it, John. Now."
She didn't have to ask him twice. He was captivated by the bead of deep red that bloomed up, and with slow grace eased down the pale side of her breast. Leading with his tongue, he caught the trail and swept it back home with a flick that ended with her nipple--
His whole body shimmered at the taste of her, another release shuddering out of him and marking her skin as he fell into the throes of another release. Xhex's blood was bold and heady in his mouth, an addiction fully formed on the first try, a destination he didn't want to ever leave now that he was there. As he savored what he'd taken, he thought he heard her laugh in satisfaction, but then he was lost to what she gave him.
His tongue dragged over both her nipple and the cut and then his lips formed a seal and he suckled on her, taking her dark flavor down his throat and into his gut. The communion with her was all he'd ever wanted, and now that he was feeding from her, joy overtook him along with the nuclear energy that came to him from her blood.