Body Temperature and Rising - Book One of the Lakeland Heatwave Trilogy (4 page)

The man behind, pulled out his cock, spat on his hand and rubbed saliva the full length of his erection, then he spat into the man’s gaping hole and shoved back in. ‘You see? It’s good, isn’t it?’

‘It won’t be enough,’ the man bent over in front said, caressing his balls and pressing back hard against the thrusts. ‘It’s never enough. Damn it, why won’t he help us?’

‘Stop whining. It’ll be all right. You want to come in my mouth? I’ll let you when I’m done. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’ 

There was another loud crash, and a shout. ‘How many times have I told you, stay away from here. I don’t want you here. Now get out!’

Marie quickly stepped away from the window, heart pounding in her chest. She recognized Tim Meriwether’s voice. She would have never thought Tim to be gay, nor could she figure why two strange men would be going at it in his stable yard. Clearly Tim wasn’t happy. What the hell was going on?

‘Look what you’ve done. Get out of here before you cause more trouble.’ Then things went quiet, except for the nervous whickering of the mare and Tim speaking soothingly to her.

Cautiously, Marie stepped out on the porch. In the paddock in front of the stable, there was now no sign of anyone but Tim trying to calm the skittish mare. The stable door gave a hard slam on its hinges in a sudden chilled gust of wind that caused them both to jump and the horse to shy sideways. Tim cursed under his breath, then everything went still again.

‘Need a hand?’ she called out before she had a chance to think that she might be catching him at a bad time.

He looked up with a start and offered her a pained smile. ‘You OK around horses?’

‘Don’t know. Never tried. But I’m not scared of them, if that’s what you mean.’

‘Close enough. Can you open the stable door for me? As you can see I got my hands full. The mare’s pretty spooked.’ He nodded to the stable.

From her first day on Lacewing Farm, Marie had taken comfort in the earthy smells of horseflesh and hay. Even the pungent bite of animal dung, which sometimes made her eyes water, reminded her that she no longer lived in a world sanitized of everything that didn’t involve money and greed. No, horses didn’t frighten her at all, not after what she’d lived through in the business world. She slipped in behind the man and the mare and opened the door then stood aside while Tim led the now calming animal into her stall. In no time, he had her quietly munching grain. 

‘There, that’s better, isn’t it?’ He scratched the mare behind an ear and the horse whickered softly. Then he turned his attention to Marie. ‘Thanks for your help. She was really spooked. She’s never been this bad before when … She’s usually very calm.’

‘Not a problem. What were those guys doing in your paddock anyway? I mean really, that’s pretty nervy, isn’t it? Maybe you should call the police.’

Even in the dim light of the stable she could see the colour had drained from his face. With fingers suddenly unsteady, he fumbled with the lead he’d taken from the mare’s halter and dropped it on the floor. He didn’t bother to pick it up as he turned to hold her gaze. 

‘What? What’s the matter? I mean I don’t mind, or anything. It’s none of my business if there are men having sex in your paddock, or even if you’re – ‘

‘I’m not! Gay. If that’s what you mean. And they’re not my friends.’

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you.’

‘You saw them?’

‘Of course I saw them. It was impossible not to. They didn’t seem to mind at all having a shag right in front of my kitchen window.’

He shoved a hand through sun-bleached brown hair, badly in need of a trim, and shifted from foot to foot. ‘Come here.’ He motioned for her to follow him out into the paddock. ‘Where did you see them?’

She moved to the edge of the stable wall, where it was closest to her window. ‘They were standing right here. They were scuffling around and arguing, something about it wasn’t their fault, but you’d be mad – at least I assume they were talking about you.’

Tim grunted. ‘Oh they were talking about me all right.’ 

She continued. ‘Then the one pushed the other one up against this wall, and the next thing I know they’re under my kitchen window and … Hold on. Something’s not right.’

He said nothing, only watched her.

‘There are no foot prints, no sign of scuffling. Look.’ She lifted her feet and set them down a couple of times as though she were doing a strange rain dance. ‘The paddock isn’t muddy, but it’s soft. Look, you can see my foot prints, and I can see yours even from here. But …’

He came to her side. ‘But you can’t see anyone else’s footprints, right?’

She shook her head and felt a tremor run up her spine.

‘Bless you, Marie Warren!’ He surprised her by scooping her off her feet into a bear hug. When he sat her back down, she grabbed for the wall to keep from losing her balance. 

‘What?’

‘God, I thought I was losing my mind.’ He began to pace back and forth in front of her. ‘I mean those crazy women told me that this would happen. They told me they could help me, but they wouldn’t let me do anything, and I told them to sod off because they’re all completely mad and I thought I was getting that way too. This is such a relief. I mean if you can see them too, then I’m not the only one, and maybe it’s not as bad as they say.’

‘Tim, what on earth are you talking about?’

He turned to face her, his blue eyes glinting silver in the intense morning sunlight. Then he took a step closer, the smile disappearing from his face. ‘You did see them, two men. Two men … having sex.’

‘Of course I saw them. Like I said, how could I not?’

He moved another cautious step closer, approaching her as he had the spooked mare only minutes before. ‘Marie, no one else has ever seen them.’

The warm morning suddenly felt icy. ‘What do you mean no one else has ever seen them?’

‘No foot prints, no sign of them, one second they’re here then they’re gone. Think about it.’ He took another step closer. ‘They’re ghosts.’

‘Ghosts?’ She found herself pressed back against the wall, suddenly cold, suddenly trembling. 

‘Come on.’ He folded her hand into his and gently guided her back to her house. ‘I’ll explain everything, or at least as much as I can -- over a cup of tea, maybe?’

Inside her kitchen, no one said anything until the kettle had steamed and they were both seated across from each other staring into their respective cups. The remains of Marie’s breakfast sat untouched, forgotten with the morning’s events and Tim’s revelation.

‘How can they be ghosts,’ she asked at last. Her voice sounded thin and wispy. 

‘What do you mean how can they be ghosts. They’re dead, that’s how.’

‘But I’ve never seen ghosts before. I’ve never even had any déjà vu or anything like that let alone seen ghosts. Have you always seen ghosts?’ She would have preferred to sound a little less hysterical, but she couldn’t quite manage it.

‘No. I haven’t always seen ghosts.’ He held her gaze, then he released his breath slowly. ‘It all started a little over three months ago. I had taken the mare out for a ride and I had just put her back in the stable when I heard a commotion behind the barn. When I went to check it out, I found two people … two people shagging under a tree. Later, the woman approached me and gave me this.’ He dug in his pocket for his wallet and pulled out a battered card identical to the one Tara had given her last night, but the name on it was Fiori Numan. ‘She told me if I’d seen what she was sure I had, then I would be needing the help of the Elementals soon. 

‘For the next three nights, I had what I thought were incredibly arousing dreams. I’d wake up and there’d be people in my room, people … masturbating,’ he spoke the word through barely parted lips. ‘And they’d want to watch me masturbate.’ He forced a laugh, ‘something I was more than willing to do.’ He took a large gulp of tea and looked down at the card laying on the table. ‘When I started seeing them while I was awake, I realised something wasn’t right. They were always either masturbating or having sex with each other, like the two blokes in the stable yard. They always seemed to be frustrated. They were always asking me for help.’

She leaned closer, heart pounding in her chest at the thought of her own real-as-life dream. ‘Did you go to the Elementals?’

He nodded. ‘They explained to me that I was seeing ghosts, ghosts who knew I could help them, ghosts who needed my help.’

With trembling fingers, she pushed the card Tara had given her across the kitchen table toward him. She held his gaze. ‘Yesterday I had a similar experience.’ She didn’t tell him about her sexy encounter with Anderson afterward. 

‘From Tara? That’s a surprise.’ he said, looking at the card. ‘And she wants you to go and see her?’

‘Why?’

The muscles along his jaw tightened and relaxed, and he avoided her gaze. ‘I don’t know. She just never seemed very social, like she never wanted me around.’ 

‘She seemed fine to me,’ Marie said. ‘You said they told you that the ghosts needed your help. Just what exactly did they want you to do?’

‘Because I can see them, supposedly I can be taught some sort of spell that will give them …’ He blushed hard. ‘… will give them sort of temporary bodies so they can have sex.’

‘Have sex?’

‘Yeah you know.’ He paid an unwarranted amount of attention to arranging and rearranging the two cards on the table. ‘A physical body is necessary for sex, and that’s the only way they ever get any satisfaction.’

‘Then they have sex with each other?’ she nodded to her kitchen window to indicate the two ghosts going at it earlier.’ 

He shook his head, still refusing to look at her, but pointed a callused finger at the two business cards lying next to each other on the table. ‘Sex magic, Marie. They’re practitioners of sex magic.’ 

‘Jesus,’ she whispered. ‘You mean those two wanted you to …’

‘To have sex with them.’ He heaved a shaky sigh. ‘Them and any other horny spirit who shows up at my door.’

‘Jesus,’ she whispered again. ‘But you have to learn the spell, don’t you?’

‘Among other things, yes. Until I do that, until I’m properly trained, I can’t give them what they need.’ His jaw set tight as he picked up the card, and she noticed his knuckles were white. ‘And Tara, who was she with?’

‘She was with this guy … but he couldn’t have been a ghost because I … Because he …’ The room suddenly felt icy, but the heat below her belly flared and burned up through her, crackling along her spine. She could hear her own startled yelp at the feel of it, but it seemed a long way away. She set her teacup down hard, sloshing the contents onto the saucer, suddenly feeling as though all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room. Her pulse went into overdrive and began to flutter in her chest. Anderson had no scent. Anderson’s clothes were old fashioned and they never got wet. Why hadn’t she thought that strange? She shoved back the chair, nearly upsetting it in making space to lower her head between her knees as the world began to spin.

‘Bloody hell, Marie, what’s the matter?’ Tim was immediately on his knees by her side. She could barely hear him over the harsh flutter of wings in her ears. Anderson appeared out of the mist as if by magic. Anderson needed no compass to navigate the fog. Anderson spoke like someone from a Jane Austin novel. ‘I can’t breathe,’ she gasped. 

Tim sprung to his feet and disappeared out the door of her cottage in a flash. Great, now she’d frightened him away right when she really didn’t want to be alone. She could feel the cold sweat break out on her forehead and the back of her neck. She knew it was a panic attack, she knew it! She wasn’t going to die, but for fuck sake, it always felt like it! Maybe she was going to die, maybe she was already dead, maybe that’s how come Anderson could take her, how come she was so desperate to have him. 

She heard the crash of footsteps up the porch and from her position between her knees she saw Tim’s jeaned legs before he dropped into a squat and held a paper bag to her nose and mouth. 

‘Breathe into this. Just breathe, Marie. It’ll be OK. Relax now. Just relax. Breathe.’

For ages it seemed that her world was reduced to breathing in and breathing out. At some point, Tim had placed a cool cloth across the back of her neck. When at long last she sat up, he handed her a glass of water. She took it gratefully and offered a weak smile. 

His face was pale, lips set in a tight thin line. The muscles along his jaw looked tense enough to bite steel. ‘This ghost Tara was with,’ his throat rose and fell as though he were attempting to swallow something vile. ‘Did he … Did he hurt her?’

She shook her head.

He dropped to his knees in front of her and grabbed both her hands in a suicide grip. ‘Did he hurt you?’

‘No! No. He didn’t hurt anyone.’ She pulled her hands free. ‘He, he fucked her. And then …’

He nodded expectantly. 

She took a heavy breath as though she were about to dive into deep water. ‘And then he fucked me.’

Chapter 4

‘What do you mean he fucked you? Didn’t you know? I mean how could you not know? And you don’t have the spell. He couldn’t have been a ghost. How could he have been a ghost?’ Tim, who had been so calm until now, suddenly seemed on the edge of hysteria himself. ‘Bloody hell! What did he look like? Was he big? Thick chested like a body builder? Did he carry a bullwhip?’

‘No! He was tall, slender. He wore a black suit and looked quite, well rakish. No bullwhip.’ She shoved him away. ‘And he was as real as you are.’ And as sexy. She felt that thought in places nowhere close her head. ‘At the time, I had no reason to suspect anything unusual.’

‘Damn them!’ He pounded his hand against the table and the teapot rattled. ‘I know they’re all barking, but I can’t believe they’d do this to you.’

‘It’s the only explanation.’

He plopped back in the chair next to her and folded his arms across his chest with such force Marie was certain it must have hurt. ‘Why? Tell me why you think you had sex with a ghost.’ He blushed hard even as he said it. ‘I mean was he so hot you just couldn’t resist? Did he hypnotise you into shagging him? What?’ He caught his breath and straightened his shoulders. ‘I’m sorry. That was rude and out of line. I’m sorry.’ 

He stood and paced once or twice. In a gesture that was surely pure nerves, he topped off the teacups with now tepid tea. ‘It’s just, well you have to understand, my experience with ghosts wasn’t ... well it wasn’t nearly as pleasant as yours seems to have been. I mean I obviously didn’t know the bloke Fiori was with was a ghost until later. He’s a local ghost. I see him around here all the time now. But he wasn’t the problem. He wasn’t …’ His voice drifted off as though he had lost his train of thought. He sat down again, this time calmer, and slugged back his tea. ‘Tell me why you think the man you were with was a ghost?’

Marie relaxed into her chair and told Tim about the experience of Anderson, minus the sexy bits. ‘And I dreamed. It was so real.’

‘And sexy?’

She nodded, feeling the heat crawl up her face.

‘But there was no … I mean you didn’t actually …’

‘We didn’t fuck, no.’ She stared into her tea avoiding his gaze. ‘There was just masturbation.’

‘Marie,’ he leaned forward and laid his hand on hers. ‘Marie, it wasn’t a dream.’

She jerked her hand away. ‘I know that now, Tim. I know that.’ She forced the chair back with a loud screech and grabbed up Tara’s card and her cell phone from where it lay on the credenza.

Instantly he was at her side. ‘What are you doing?’ 

‘What does it look like I’m doing? I’m calling Tara. She’d got a helluva lot to answer for, and I want to hear it.’

He grabbed the phone away from her. ‘Please don’t. Please don’t do that.’ He laid it down where it had been and guided her back to her chair, where she glared at him expectantly.

He ran a hand through his hair and blew out a sharp breath. ‘Marie. They’re all mad over there. Trust me when I say it’s best you don’t get mixed up with them.’

‘But they can explain what’s going on, and they bloody well need to, I think.’

He raised a hand. ‘They’ll only tell you a load of rubbish, and nothing will change, and they’ll make excuses …’ His voice drifted off again, then he looked up as though suddenly remembering where he was. ‘Please, Marie. Wait. Just give it a little time. Give it till tomorrow, then …’ He offered a smile and forced enthusiasm into his voice. ‘I reckon tomorrow we’ll both just be laughing about it all, and anyway, they’re only ghosts. A bit troublesome sometime, perhaps, but harmless.’ His voice wasn’t very convincing.

‘It’s freezing in here,’ Sky breathed as she ducked into the cave chafing her arms. ‘Really Fiori, couldn’t we have just done this in the suite. It would have been so much more comfy.’

Fiori looked up from lighting candles around the perimeter of the chamber. ‘The magic will be stronger outside and even stronger underground like this. You know that. Besides if Tara can handle it, you and I surely can.’

Sky joined Fiori in the preparations. ‘And you really think we need stronger magic for this? Sounds like a done deal to me from what Anderson said.’ 

Fiori shot Sky a warning glance and half whispered, ‘You know why we need stronger magic.’ She threw a quick glance over her shoulder at Tara who sat on bare rock at the far side of the chamber, legs folded beneath her, her breathing that of deep meditation. ‘If Anderson is right, then we’ll have to protect Marie. We’ll have to protect both of them now.’ She worried her bottom lip with her teeth as she finished her task, and the two women sat down on the cushions spread over ruined slate. 

‘But if it’s true, then maybe we won’t need to protect her at all maybe she’s –’

‘I know, but she doesn’t know that yet, does she, and you know how Tara feels about risking someone else.’

‘I hate dream magic,’ Sky said. ‘Even when it’s not me doing the dreaming. It’s just all so nebulous, isn’t it? And this time, we already know the answer, don’t we?’

Fiori shushed her and glanced back over her shoulder to see if Tara had overheard. ‘Her mind’s made up about it, and surely you can see why.’ 

Sky released a long, shaky breath. ‘Of course I can see why, and I’m as afraid to hope as she is, but we have to. Hope I mean.’ She looked around the chamber again. ‘Where’s Anderson? He was inside Marie Warren. He felt her essence. We can’t do this without him.’

The words were barely out of her mouth before the ghost materialised in the chamber and sat down across from the two of them. ‘I’m here.’ He offered that dark, delicious smile that Sky was always happy to lap off his face when he gave her a chance. Sadly she wouldn’t get the chance tonight. There’d be plenty of sex and she’d no doubt have a blistering orgasm, but it wouldn’t be due to Anderson’s delicious cock. Once again, Tara would have that privilege. Since he was the only bloke in the coven, he always had his work cut out for him, but then it didn’t really matter because the only bloke in the coven just happened to be a ghost and was deliciously tireless and always at the ready for any ritual that required an erect penis. 

‘There now. I think we’re ready.’ Tara roused herself from her meditation, plopped down next to Anderson, and offered everyone a distant smile. She rubbed her hands together slowly then fondled the pentacle resting between her breasts. She was already naked and, even in the constant 63 degrees of the cave, her body glowed, and a soft dew of perspiration caressed her upper lip and the valley between her pale breasts. Sky knew that for Tara, the ritual had begun hours ago, and her smile was not the only thing about her that was distant. She had been in the Ether preparing. She was only partially in the waking world, and in her altered state, she was as close to a ghost as she could be and still draw living breath.

Tara carefully released the red ribbon that held back an eruption of wild dark hair, which she shook back over her well-muscled shoulders. Sky felt her heart clench at the sight of her coven sister so vulnerable. She knew how hard it was for her to allow such vulnerability after all that had happened. Then the power that Tara wore like armour, and wore so well, settled back around her, and she looked at the members of her coven with dark eyes, pupils dilated from her spell work and meditation. ‘We can begin then.’

Oblivious to the cold or the discomfort, Fiori positioned herself on a flat slab of bare rock that slightly overhung the soft sea of heavily-stuffed pillows and cushions so incongruous with the rest of the surroundings. It was her job to witness and be prepared to bring the dreamers back from the dream world if need be. 

When they were ready, Anderson rose and slid out of the dove grey robe he always wore in ritual. Sky slipped free of her pale blue one and both she and Anderson reached for Tara at the same time. As the magic progressed, Tara would become the chalice for Anderson’s filling. It would be for her to dream the dream. If it were true, if Marie Warren really was a ghost rider, and anywhere nearly as powerful as Anderson believed her to be, then Sky could barely allow herself to imagine what that might mean. It was Sky’s task to help the two into the dream and assist them as needed.

She eased Tara down into the cushions and kissed and caressed her breasts until her nipples felt like stalagmites rising up from the cave, a thought that, under the circumstances, didn’t really seem all that strange. Sky knew that the herbs Tara had taken in the mulled wine earlier were already thinning the veil between the physical world and the Dream World, while heightening her senses at the same time. She had never known her coven leader to call upon so much powerful magic for something that should have been a simple dream encounter, and that made her more than a little nervous. Sky could hear Tara’s breath like a wind in the cave as she kissed down her belly and opened her legs, which she no longer had the will to do for herself. 

In her peripheral vision, Sky could see Anderson kneeling at Tara’s feet, one hand resting on his thick erection, the athame in flesh, ready to enter the chalice and bless it. Sky pushed Tara’s knees wide apart, and in her mind’s eye, she knew that Anderson now viewed Tara as the Gateway, the chalice into which he would pour his experience of Marie Warren and release the magic that would begin the dream. 

Without a word, Anderson positioned himself between her legs, lowering his face to kiss her heavy clit and tease open the pout of her labia, reverencing the Gate, before he covered her with his body, taking his weight onto his arms as he shifted and rocked until his cock found her slick path and slipped inside as though it were as anxious to find shelter as Sky had been when she entered the cave. 

Sky heard herself groan as though she were a long way away. She felt the drag of memories that weren’t hers slide and shimmer at the edge of her consciousness until she grasped onto them. She heard Anderson’s breath catch as Tara gripped him. Lovely that, a ghost’s breath, so much more precious than anything the living could imagine. Sky pinched Tara’s nipples hard knowing the pain would help focus her. Then she felt a flood of sensation that coursed through Tara, and the harder Anderson thrust, the clearer the images of Marie Warren on the fells became. And the harder Tara rode him, the further away from consciousness he took both of them until only Sky remained fully alert to witness the events that had taken place on the fells. 

Sky watched as Anderson, consciousness only, reached out to touch the woman huddled down on the path in the rain. And both Sky and Tara felt the jolt of his shock as clearly as if it had been their own. The very touch of this woman made Anderson hard all over. But it wasn’t sex, it was flesh. And it was instantaneous, without the Love Spell. Her touch alone had enfleshed him, even without her knowing it, even without him willing it so. That couldn’t be right. 

But there was no time to dwell on it. The memories rushed forward like fast moving water, and then Sky and Tara were in the cave watching Anderson lift the woman onto his lap lest she catch a chill from the cold stone. And the woman took his mouth, holding him there in the flesh as easily as she breathed her own breath. The passion she generated sizzled and danced along the walls of the cave like fireworks, and she didn’t even know it. Sky had never seen Anderson so open to anyone. 

With a little tremor of her heart, she realised how vulnerable he was now making himself to his coven. They were the ones closest to him and yet even they had never seen him as he was with Marie Warren. Sky felt the acceleration of Anderson’s heartbeat, the excitement of his thoughts as this woman held him so perfectly, so exquisitely. She held him inside her when he entered her, she held him there in the container of flesh and bone that, without her knowledge, she had created for him, so perfect, so tight fitting that the heat of him radiated like life itself. And he spilled his semen in her in great heavy splashes steaming like fire into the chalice that held him tight.

Then he lifted her on top of him, holding her close to the pounding of his heart, wanting to keep her awake so he could feel the flesh she had given him just a little longer. But knowing her exhaustion and knowing his own rawness at rubbing up against such power, he had let her drift into unconsciousness. And as she did so, he had allowed himself to evaporate like the mist on the fells when the sun came out.

For Tim, sleep didn’t come easily, even after an endless scouring of Raven Crag with  Keswick Mountain Rescue for the lost tourist who just hadn’t bothered to tell anyone she’d changed her mind and gone shopping in Windermere instead. She seemed dazed and confused, not at all sure why she’d made such a silly decision. She had wondered mindlessly into a pub at closing time and announced that she was lost. The whole thing had made Tim nervous. Maybe the woman was on something, maybe she had some mental problems no one wanted to talk about. He didn’t know, and in the end they had all nervously laughed it off. 

To Tim’s disappointment all the lights at Marie’s cottage had been out when he got home. He had planned to invite her over for dinner that evening, to help her get her mind off the ghosts, and admittedly, maybe on to something a little more amicable. He hadn’t planned on a call-out from Mountain Rescue. Several of the volunteers were away on holiday, and he was close to Raven Crag, so in spite of an uneasy feeling about leaving Marie after such an unnerving revelation – especially after he had convinced her not to call the Elementals – he’d felt he had to go. And now it was late, and her house was dark, and he’d had to eat the lamb stew in the slow cooker alone. 

Her car was out front so he could only assume she was sleeping soundly, the morning’s ghost incident happily forgotten. He was relieved about that, at least. He was afraid she wouldn’t let it go that easily, and he had worked hard to disentangle himself from the nasty mess of three months ago and to learn to cope with the constant comings and goings of ghosts. The ghosts he could live with. He just didn’t want anything to do with the Elementals and especially not with whatever it was that seemed to have attached itself to them. They’d tried to convince him the man was just another ghost, but in his gut, he knew better. Could they really think him that naïve?