Body Temperature and Rising - Book One of the Lakeland Heatwave Trilogy (6 page)

Tim woke with a raging, nearly painful, hard-on. He groaned and fumbled with the sticky towel that half tented his erection beneath the duvet. The night’s wank fest with Lisette came back to him in a rush of guilt. Stupid really. There was nothing to feel guilty about. It didn’t happen often, and what did the taunting and the egging on of someone long-dead have to do with him, anyway? He never asked for any of this. None of it was his fault. He shuddered as he gripped his cock, and his whole body tensed with the weight of arousal way too heavy for someone who had just come so hard such a short time ago. He opened one eye and squinted around the darkened room. Lisette was nowhere to be found and neither were any of the usuals who were likely to be hanging about his room after dark hoping to catch him masturbating. Bunch of voyeuristic bastards, he thought. Still it was strange that no one was there. 

The thought was barely formed before the scent of sex shoved in around him from all sides with  oppressive intensity. OK, he’d always had a vivid imagination, but the clarity with which the vision struck him was startling. Marie lay writhing on a bed of cushions and the Elementals were touching her, exploring her, eating her out. But then she was back in her own bed dreaming sex just like he was dreaming sex. He gasped and pressed his thumb to the underside of his cock to keep from coming. Jesus, they were all over her in his imagination! And it was so real! And it was the hottest thing he’d ever seen. He more than saw it, he felt it, almost like he was there, almost like his hands were on her, on them, kneading rounded breasts, teasing gaping slick pussy lips apart, raking stiff nipples and clits with impatient fingers.

And there was someone else, a man. He was surely imagining the man Marie had described to him earlier, the ghost, though he didn’t look very ghostly. He was in a cave, half dressed with his fly open, and Marie was on his lap naked, positioning herself, lowering herself so that her gaping pussy was right above the man’s cock. He lifted her effortlessly and with a grunt slipped up inside her. Tim could feel her tight grip, as surely as if she were mounting him. He could feel her skin, glistening with the heat of lust, he could feel the grudging yield of her hole to the man’s thickness, which felt like his own thickness. 

Then the smell of sex surrounded him again, closed in on him, and my God, he’d never had such a vivid fantasy! They were all over each other, all over him. He could nearly feel heated flesh against his own fevered skin. He, like the man in his fantasy, struggled to hold back just a little longer, just a tiny bit more, knowing that the orgasm they were all about to have would be shattering, wanting it to be, wanting it to build until it blew him apart into ecstatic little pieces tiny enough to float away on the night breeze off over Robinson and High Spy, out across Derwent Water, dissipating onto the breeze above the Sharp Edge of Blencathera and vanishing deliciously, blissfully, like he’d never been. 

Then he was back in his body and his cock would be controlled no more. He arched up, heels digging into the mattress, spine bowing, buttocks clenching, flooding the towel with his lust. Behind his tightly closed eyelids pinpricks of light burst into a photo-negative image of the space where Marie and the witches and the dark haired man writhed out their own lust, then he was in Marie’s room watching her rise from her bed, practically floating to the window. And just before he slipped into unconsciousness, he could have sworn that in the mirror standing at the foot of her bed he saw the image of a deep-chested man with a bullwhip curled in his hand. 

Chapter 6

Marie was surprised at just how close Elemental Cottage was to Lacewing Farm. It was only a quarter of a mile up the main road, then off down a narrow tree-lined lane. The night had cleared and the moon was bright. She found herself in front of a lovely farm cottage, which was considerably larger than either hers or Tim’s. Even in the moonlight she could see that the front garden was beautifully done with climbing roses and wisteria in bloom early because of this spring’s heat. The whole garden grew in managed wild profusion, creating a shield of privacy from the outside world. It was an appropriate home for witches specialising in sex magic, she thought.

Anderson didn’t knock. He simply opened the door and stepped aside for her. She was instantly engulfed in Tara’s embrace. ‘Oh thank Goddess you’re safe, Marie!’ She gave Anderson an affectionate kiss on the mouth, then returned her gaze to Marie. Her eyes were darker than Marie remembered them and Marie couldn’t keep from feeling that they were hiding something, in spite of her warm smile. Her skin was as pale as porcelain, and the bright patches of colour on her cheeks along with the moist glow caressing her face told Marie whatever the woman had been doing, it was enough for her to break a sweat. She wore a black robe of raw silk tied carelessly about her waist. 

‘Come on. We’re all in the kitchen making something to eat.’ She grabbed Marie’s hand and practically dragged her through the Victorian parlour. ‘Fiori and Sky are dying to meet you after all they’ve heard. We were planning to invite you over for dinner, but after what happened, now seemed like a better time. Fiori, Sky, look who’s here.’ 

She propelled Marie into the kitchen straight into the arms of the red-head, the one whose neck had been snapped in her dream. And suddenly the heat in Marie’s pelvic girdle felt like a blast from a kiln, too hot to be contained. It crackled up her spine to the base of her skull, taking her breath away as it went. She cried out and stumbled backward, nearly knocking a coffee mug off the counter. The blonde, who scurried around sorting cutlery and pouring juice, stepped forward to steady her. At her touch, the sensation leapt as though someone had poured petrol on the flames. Marie yelped and pushed her away, shoving back until the edge of the granite island in the middle of the kitchen bit into her hip. Dark spots danced in front of her eyes. The dream flashed through her head, the snapping of Fiori’s neck, the tossing of the ship, the fire, the man with the bullwhip. It was as though the bottom had dropped out of the universe. 

‘You’re ghosts,’ she managed. Goose flesh erupted up her arms and cold sweat broke on her forehead and between her breasts. ‘You’re both ghosts.’ She forced the words up through her constricted throat, words she barely heard over the pounding of her pulse in her ears.

It was Anderson who stepped forward and offered her his calm dark gaze. ‘You must relax into the sensation, my love. Relax into their presence as you did mine and the feeling will dissipate, will even become rather pleasant, if you allow it.’ 

She dropped onto a stool and waited for the usual heart palpitations and the shortness of breath while the three ghosts and Tara watched her. Nothing happened. Tara moved between the frozen tableau that could have passed as a sculpture in its stillness. She handed Marie one of the glasses of juice that Sky had poured. Marie took it and sipped. No panic attack, even though if there was ever a time for one she would have thought this would be it. She handed the glass back to Tara. ‘You’re the only one who’s not a ghost?’

Tara nodded.

‘Does Tim know?’ She asked Fiori. 

‘No,’ the redhead said. ‘I wasn’t dead when Tim Meriwether and I had sex.’

‘You had sex with him? He didn’t tell me that.’

Fiori offered a wry smile. ‘You can hardly expect him to talk about the woman he fucked with the woman he hopes to fuck. Besides,’ colour rose up her pale cheeks, ‘I’m not welcome at Lacewing Farm any more. None of us is.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Marie said, ‘Really, I am, but I need an explanation.’

‘And you’ll get one,’ Tara said, ‘after you eat. After we all eat.’ Before Marie could protest, Tara raised her hand. ‘Magic demands a lot of energy; therefore it’s always followed by food. It’s not optional, especially not after what you’ve been through. End of discussion.’

As much as Marie wanted to be stubborn about it, her stomach growled, and her mouth watered as Sky began cooking bacon. 

By the time everyone had eaten their fill and Fiori had topped off coffee and teacups again, all the polite questions about how Marie liked the Lake District had been asked, and all of the suggestions for great fell walks she wouldn’t want to miss had been made. She had been assured that yes, ghosts in the flesh did enjoy a good fry-up now and then. She had been given a full description of the herbal shop the Elementals ran in town, even though Sky and Fiori were both dead, a fact Marie couldn’t quite get her head around. 

‘Tim says that ghosts have no flesh without the Love Spell, and yet here you all are.’

Fiori smiled. ‘Sky and I were both riders in life. We knew the spell. It’s no more effort for us to do on ourselves.’

‘Riders? That’s what you call yourselves?’

Sky sniggered over her teacup. ‘Ghost riders. It’s Fiori’s little joke about what we do, and well, it stuck.’

‘And Anderson?’

‘I’m a bit of an exception.’ He offered a self-deprecating smile.

‘Anderson came by enfleshment a different route, a route most ghosts can’t access,’ Tara said. ‘He comes from a long line of witches who walked in the Ether. The Ether is neither the place for the living or the dead, so to them, it didn’t much matter.’

Marie shifted on the camelback sofa, suddenly feeling the weight of a reality that logically shouldn’t exist, and yet did. ‘I don’t understand how any of this could happen. Why me?’

Anderson moved to take her hand, but she pulled it away. ‘Don’t touch me. I don’t trust you. I don’t trust any of you at the moment.’

‘But you’re scared,’ Tara said. ‘And there’s no one else you can turn to but us.’

The area below her navel burned and tingled and made her feel wrong-footed. When Sky refilled her teacup, a particularly strong burn had her grabbing her belly.

‘If you let us we can teach you to control the power surges and channel them,’ Fiori said.

Anderson shot her a warning glance.

‘Who was the man in the mirror?’ Marie asked still clutching at her stomach, wondering about the nasty knot that tightened in her chest when she thought of him. ‘In the dream, he killed you,’ she said to Fiori, fighting a sudden wave of vertigo at the memory.

Fiori nodded. ‘Sadly that bit wasn’t a dream, and he takes great pleasure in reminding us all of it. He wheedled his way into our dream magic, just like you did, and then, he decided to visit you too.’

‘We hadn’t counted on this,’ Tara said. ‘We didn’t suspect, though I suppose we should have.’ 

‘What should you have suspected?’ Marie asked.

‘You. After what you did to Anderson, it should have been obvious. It was you. You unleashed him. You unleashed Deacon on us,’ Tara said, holding her gaze.

Suddenly Marie realised they were all staring at her. ‘What? I don’t understand? I haven’t done anything. What are you talking about?’

For a long time the darkness was like warm velvet against cool flesh, and Tim could almost feel his bare feet slipping along it as he walked, walked with no destination, no intention, no forethought. 

At some point, he really couldn’t remember when it happened, he noticed there were shadows swaying in the darkness. Strange that before he noticed the shadows were actually people, he could hear their breath, at first just barely, then like a ragged wind beating a rocky coast. That was the moment he realised just how many of them there were. That was the moment he felt his skin prickle, felt his stomach lurch. Then the people became sharply defined, and he wondered how he could have possibly walked all this way and not seen the horror of them. A woman reached out to him. Her eyes were bruised, her nose was bloodied. She clutched a torn dress over her breasts. There were deep, raw gashes along her bare back. Opposite her a woman writhed in a circle of leaping flames. Her terrified eyes bulged from raw sockets; her teeth gleamed from a lipless mouth. The stench of smoke and burning flesh filled the air.

Tim would have turned to run, but it was as though he were suddenly rooted to the ground. Shards of ice ran up his spine as the smoky shadows parted and Deacon stood before him, arms folded across his chest, bullwhip curled in his hand. 

‘You did this.’ Tim choked out the words. 

But the man shook his head and smiled sadly. ‘No, my dear boy I did not do this. Tara Stone did this. She is responsible for all of this, as was her mother before her. She is a witch, deception in the frail flesh of a woman.’ He took a step closer, and Tim stepped back. ‘She’s the one who killed your dear Fiori, though I am sure she blamed it on me, did she not?’

‘That’s a lie! You broke her neck. I saw it. I see it in my dreams over and over again. Did you think I didn’t know? Did you think I wouldn’t see?’ Tim’s throat burned from the acrid smoke, but the tightness he felt there had nothing to do with the flames. 

The man took another step closer, and Tim forced himself to hold his ground even as everything in him burned with the urge to run. 

‘She has power over the dream world, Mr Meriwether. Guardian of the North our Tara is. She knows the dark places of the soul, and she knows how to use them to her advantage. Do you really think she couldn’t wheedle her way into your dreams and make you see what she wants you to see?’ He chuckled. ‘Oh, my dear Mr Meriwether, you are naïve.’ He took another step forward.

This time Tim did step back. ‘You snapped her neck. I saw it. And the next time I saw her she was dead. She thinks I don’t know. They all think I don’t know.’

Deacon grabbed Tim by the shoulder with an enormous hand and Tim’s whole body felt as though it would explode from the touch. ‘Watch, Mr Meriwether. Watch what really happened.’ 

With an upward sweep of his hand, the flames erupted around them. In front of him through the haze of smoke, he saw the scene he’d watched a hundred times before, Fiori kneeling naked and Deacon looming over her, a heavy hand on her cheek, another moving over her body. Tim couldn’t hear what he was saying because it was Tara’s voice he now heard. Chanting something about life may flee but the flesh will return at will and the power will be retained. Then with a wave of her hand, for the briefest of seconds, it was she who stood behind Fiori. And it was her hands that closed around the woman’s face giving the sharp quick twist, snapping the connection, that delicate wisp of a connection that animates the flesh to live and move and breathe. Instantly, Fiori’s breath caught and her eyes went dark. Then Deacon erupted in almost the same space Tara occupied and with a powerful backhand sent her flying across the dark expanse of the dreamscape.

Fear prickled up Tim’s spine and the urge to run was both overwhelming and useless. He couldn’t move. Deacon, once again, stood next to him, so close Tim could feel his hot breath against his cheek. ‘I didn’t want Fiori dead. Fiori was nothing but kind to me. I still dream of how she made love to me, how she took care of me. And that is the very thing our Tara could not tolerate.’ 

‘It’s a lie,’ Tim whispered, feeling as though he wanted to vomit, but not even being afforded that luxury in his paralysed state. 

‘No, Mr Meriwether. It is the absolute truth. It was Tara, not I who snapped our beloved Fiori’s neck, who took the life from one so lovely, so delightful.’ He stepped forward until his face filled Tim’s field of vision. ‘Your sweet Marie is with Tara Stone and her minions even now, and in who knows how much danger.’

Tim struggled with all his might, but he couldn’t move even one single muscle. ‘It’s a lie, it’s a filthy lie!’

Deacon spoke against his ear. ‘Ask her. Ask Tara to tell you the truth.’ His voice trailed off in a hiss of icy wind. 

Tim shoved his way out from under the duvet. He was halfway to the window before he was fully back in the waking world. He threw open the curtains and the bottom dropped out of his stomach. Marie’s car was gone. Her house was dark. He was still shoving his way into his clothes, as he grabbed the keys to the Land Rover and dashed out the door, heart racing, skin slicked with the sweat of fear.