Lost Souls (A Caitlyn O’Connell Novel) Read online

  Back at her apartment, Cait listened to the sound of the shower starting in the distance before moving a chair to the closet and climbing up to root into the top shelf. She pulled down the leather-bound book and carried it to the kitchen table where she had her ingredients spread before her.

  Rubbing a finger across the engraving of a pentagram on the front cover, she drew a deep, calming breath. The book was hers now. Not her mama’s. Not any of the witches in its long past.

  Just like the rose quartz ball handed down the generations, the book came with mystical energy that transferred ownership to the next with a touch. The first time she’d sat at this table and read through the spells and stories her predecessors shared, she’d felt as though a part of their souls mingled with her own.

  Not that she was suddenly as wise as Yoda. She was still herself, but with knowledge that was inborn and unawakened until she’d accepted the gift.

  It was sudden knowledge she hadn’t mentioned to Sam because he wouldn’t understand. At times like these, when she was feeling reflective, she wished she had a friend in the magical world to talk to. Morin would have been the perfect choice if he hadn’t turned out to be no friend at all.

  Maybe she was being harsh and more than a little bitter about how things had gone down. But the fact was her mother died because she’d wanted to sever both of their unnatural attractions for the man. Both she and Lorene had been seduced.

  He’d played the soulful mentor, the reluctant lover, all in hopes of drawing her into his life and teaching her just enough to free him. Cait felt shame over falling for his act.

  Her mother had figured out Morin’s motives but really should have told her. Lorene had forbidden a lust-addled seventeen-year-old girl from seeing a man Cait believed was her romantic destiny. Then Lorene had attempted a spell to break the bonds, only to accidentally poison herself in the process.

  Out of grief and guilt, Cait had shunned Morin and magic. Turned her back on Celeste as well, because she’d wanted nothing of her old life. Instead, she’d submersed herself in her father’s, becoming a cop. Something she’d been good at until the voices got the best of her and she’d begun to drink to quiet them. Maybe they’d driven her a little crazy.

  But she was back now. Ready to embrace the part of herself she’d so long denied.

  She turned the pages until she found the summoning spell her mother had recorded all those years ago, after she’d attempted one last reunion with Cait’s father.

  On this day, I summoned my husband from the dead. This spell is one I read about in Morin’s Book, but some of the ingredients had to be substituted because they are no longer commonly found.

  Steep three strands of saffron in boiling water and set the strands and water aside to cool.

  Add a tablespoon of gum arabic for thickening.

  Pour a jigger of alcohol into the mixture and stir…

  Alcohol, hell.

  Cait bit the side of her lip and eyed the bathroom door, heard the water still trickling down, and hurried to the broom closet. At the bottom, behind the mop pail, she pulled out a small bottle of Glenfiddich scotch. One Sam had never found when he’d cleaned out all the booze.

  She rushed to the table and tipped the bottle, splashing good scotch into her mother’s conjuring chalice. Back to the closet, she quickly hid the bottle, stopped to light incense on the counter to mask the odor, and then added the other ingredients.

  The smell that rose as she swirled her mother’s athamé nearly had Cait bending to put her nose against the rim to breathe it in. The scent was beyond enticing.

  Delicious. Bracing. Pulling memories from the farthest corners of her mind of a time when her mother had sat quietly beside her father, watching the television, while he’d sipped from an old Waterford highball glass he’d inherited from his Irish mother.

  Scotch had been her drink because it had been her father’s.

  The bathroom door opened and closed. Cait braced herself, wondering whether he’d detect the smell, and then feeling guilty as hell for trying to conceal the alcohol.

  She closed her eyes for a moment. Then she set aside the blade and gripped the edge of the table with both hands. “Sam,” she called out.

  He padded to the kitchen door, a towel around his lean hips. “Need something, Cait?”

  His gaze resting on her was so calm, so steady, she couldn’t stand the suspense a moment longer.

  “I have a bottle of scotch in the broom closet,” she blurted. “I needed a jigger for the spell.”

  Sam’s expression remained unchanged. “Thanks for letting me know, sweetheart.” He turned and made his way back into the bedroom.

  Her shoulders slumped. “That’s it?” she whispered to herself.

  “I have to give trust to earn it, Cait,” he called from the other room.

  She shook her head, oddly disappointed at the fact he seemed to be taking this all in stride. “You really are Superman if you heard that,” she muttered.

  “Capes are for pansies.”

  A gust of laughter surprised her. “Want to help me with the butterfly?”

  “Sure. Let me get on some pants.”

  “Don’t bother. Magic works best when you’re naked.”

  “I’m not the one casting, Cait,” he said, wry humor roughening his voice.

  “Oh, right.”

  He appeared in the doorway again, sans towel. “But it would sure save time for when you finish.”

  Cait grinned, surprised when his frame shimmered. She blinked and realized her eyes had filled. She swallowed hard against a dry throat.

  “Dammit,” he said under his breath, then strode toward her, his arms opening.

  She snuggled against his chest. “I’m sorry I hid it.”

  “I know.” His hand cupped the back of her head. “But you told me. That’s something, Cait.”

  She wrapped her arms around his back and rubbed her hands on his naked skin. “I love you. I’m trying.”

  “I know.”

  A kiss landed on her temple, and she turned her head toward his mouth, which gently pressed against hers. Arousal swirled in her belly, but she pushed it aside.

  He growled. “Better get on with whatever it is you’re making.”

  The reason for his surliness was trapped between their bodies, nudging at her belly. She smiled and leaned away. “Won’t take long. There’s a bell jar in the cabinet above the stove.”

  “A bell jar?”

  “A domed thingie with a handle on top. Need it for the butterfly.”

  “That poor thing’s still in the cup?”

  “He’ll be fine. The jar?”

  With his cock fully erect and bobbing, he padded to the cupboard, which afforded her a very nice view of his back and bottom. Sam’s frame didn’t have an ounce of pudge. Everything was hard, ladders of muscles rippling between his shoulders and down his back as he reached for the jar. His ass made her sigh. Hard, round…

  Hard, hard, hard kept repeating in her mind.

  He turned and caught her ogling. A dark brow arched over wicked blue eyes. “Thought you were supposed to be naked.”

  Well, that specification wasn’t written in her mama’s book, but Cait wasn’t above a little fibbing if it meant Sam would look at her the way she did at him. Her clothes melted away, and she kicked them to a corner. Laundry, she’d worry about later.

  Naked as he, she held out her hands for the crystal, then nodded toward the cup. “Uncap the lid, but don’t let him out. Then hold it under the jar.”

  She slid the jar across the tabletop, leaving a gap beneath where he held the cup, and slowly slid off the lid. The butterfly flew upward, and she slid the jar to close it against the wooden surface.

  “What’s next?” Sam asked.

  She quickly combined the saffron and the thickener with the alcohol, stirring with her fingers. The liquid turned a warm honey color.

  Then she tilted the jar, slipped her hand beneath the edge, and held her fingers sti
ll.

  The butterfly landed on a fingertip.

  She smiled and glanced at Sam, who was smiling too, but whose furrowed brows indicated he didn’t understand the point of what she was doing.

  She fluttered her fingers and the butterfly took flight, wings brushing against her wet fingers. Small specks of green dust were left behind. “That should do it,” she said, easing out her hand and lowering the rim to the table again.

  Returning to the chalice, she stirred and stirred, imagining Sylvia Reyes as she’d looked, flicking back her hair and smacking her lips before entering the hotel. The horror in her face as she faded against the yellowed walls of the hallway.

  When she finished, she poured the liquid into a vial.

  “That’s it?” Sam asked, coming behind her and resting a hand on her shoulder. “No words?”

  “The words are meant to be written at the time of summoning the spirit.”

  “The butterfly?”

  She produced a twig with blossoms she’d snapped off at the butterfly farm. “It’ll be fine until you hand it off to a uniform to deliver.”

  “Then you’re done.”

  She didn’t complete a nod before he swung her up into his arms and marched to the bedroom.

  Laughing, she clung to his broad shoulders. “Did I ever tell you I love it when you go all caveman on me?”

  His lips twisted into a smug smile. Then he tossed her onto the sheets.

  “You’ve been a busy boy,” she murmured, noting he’d already pulled back the covers to the end of the bed. Two pillows were stacked in the center beside her hips. “Should I be worried?”

  Sam shook his head, then leaned over her, grabbing her wrists and then wrapping her fingers around the wooden spokes of her Mission headboard.

  His expression, so tight and dark, sent a thrill through her. She tightened her fingers and stretched out her body, ready to let him arrange her any way he wanted.

  Sam knelt on the mattress and grabbed the pillows, sliding them closer to her hips.

  Without a word, she lifted them, giving a little helpless moan as he quickly gripped her and centered her just so.

  Then his hands glided over the tops of her thighs, stopping at her knees. He spread them and looked down, his smoldering gaze locking on her intimate flesh. His chest rose with a deep inhalation. His eyelids dipped before he speared her with a challenging glance.

  Cait swallowed hard, her body tensing, liquid seeping from inside her. She tried to close her thighs to squeeze away the ache, but his hands settled on her knees and pushed them farther apart.

  She opened, cool air brushing her warm, wet sex. An exquisite tension caused her belly and thighs to quiver, intensifying when a ripple tensed Sam’s square jaw as he stared down.

  Everything slowed. Her breaths. Her heart. Her thoughts. Like the times when she tossed up crushed herbs and waited with an eagerness that burned through her for the murder of crows to explode into the air.

  She waited. At his mercy. Her damp fingers slipping on the spokes.

  And then his large palms glided from her knees up her inner thighs. His thumbs parted her. His head bent.

  Before his mouth touched her, she rolled her hips and let loose a moan. “Oh God, Sam.”

  The tip of his hardened tongue dove inside her, swirling in her depths before slicking upward to flick her burgeoning clit.

  Her back bowed, and the tips of her breasts tightened. Deciding his silent command to grip the headboard was more of a suggestion not to interfere with what he was doing, she cupped her small mounds, massaging, giving herself comfort as his clever tongue lapped and spanked and his teeth nibbled away.

  “Sam… Sam…”

  Two thick fingers entered her, and she squeezed her inner muscles to trap them. Fluid gushed and coated them as they began to plunge inside her, and he continued to torture her clitoris.

  Her orgasm erupted, an explosion of painful pleasure—so quickly, she arched and screamed. Her eyelids drifted shut.

  His body shifted, climbing over her, his knees bumping her thighs in his haste to be inside her. The moment he thrust forward, her eyes shot open and their gazes locked.

  Sam tsked and shook his head, pushing up her hands to rest beside her head. “Can’t seem to obey the rules, sweetheart.”

  She’d have answered, but her throat was thick, her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. Her heart outpaced her thoughts, thudding strong against her chest. “Just fuck me, please,” she managed to grit out.

  His torso lowered, his hands slipped beneath her, cupping her ass, and he ground into her, deep, barreling thrusts that shook the bed and her to the very core.

  Lord, how he filled her. In every way a woman could ask. His size dwarfed her, sinking her body deep into the mattress. His cock stretched her walls, his girth enough all by itself to incite another orgasm, which was quickly overtaking her. He understood her. Loved her despite the fact she thwarted him, lied to him, kept secrets. Despite her many weaknesses.

  His face burrowing into her neck, Sam grunted, deep masculine gusts as his chest and belly rubbed against her skin, the fine dark hairs abrading her pebbled nipples.

  The fingers cupping her, dug into her fleshy bottom, massaging her, nails dragging on her sensitive skin. She’d have bruises, scrapes, but she didn’t care. His passion was earthy, ardent—an extension of his overwhelming masculinity.

  Cait lifted her legs and hugged them around his waist, pushing up her hips to grind against his strokes, heat building inside her as he continued to churn and thrust.

  Sam withdrew his hands and leaned on one elbow. Without slowing the rocking of his hips, he slipped the other between their sweat-slicked bodies and burrowed one finger into the top of her folds. “Again.”

  Not a question as to whether she could, but a command.

  She stared upward, her mouth open as she panted. Her eyelids fluttered, and then she was there, writhing beneath him, coming undone. The pleasure overtook her slowly this time, radiating outward from where he rubbed and circled to shiver through her belly and limbs.

  When her agonized cry echoed against the walls, he cursed, rising on his hands to power into her, unrelenting, stretching her orgasm into a glorious explosion of light and sizzling nerve endings.

  When at last he shouted and slowed, she hugged him close, wrapping herself around him, squeezing to keep him there inside her, to make the moment last and last.

  A kiss grazed her cheek. “You okay?” he murmured softly.

  Tired, replete, she smiled, letting her head fall back as her hands roamed his sturdy body. “You killed me.”

  “Twice, I think.” His grin was boyish. Beautiful against his strong, harshly etched features.

  She bracketed his face with her hands and reached up to kiss his mouth, nuzzling his nose afterward. The scent of her arousal filled her nose. “I’ve never had better, you know.” And that fact was true. As luxuriously sensual as lovemaking with Morin had been, the raw intensity Sam brought to her bed made her tremble.

  “You are not thinking about him in this bed,” he growled, lifting himself on one stiff arm.

  “Jealous?” A thrill shot through her at his tone. “You shouldn’t be. I chose you.”

  Sam gave a sharp shake of his head. “Better sleep. You and I both have to hit the ground running in the morning.”

  She hadn’t wanted a reminder of the difficulties ahead, and made a face. “You had to kill the moment.”

  His grin was roguish. “I could make you forget again…”

  The wicked gleam in his eyes made her laugh. And then his cock twitched inside her, and she knew he wasn’t exaggerating one little bit. She blew a breath into his ear, then whispered, “Round two?”

  “Someone should have paid closer attention in math class. The lady can’t count.”

  Cait laughed. Her mother wouldn’t have agreed.

  Cait wasn’t sure what woke her just before dawn. A tingling feeling that made her want to scratch her
skin, but not really a physical thing.

  She glanced beside her and smiled. Sam lay on his side, his shoulders broad and as high as a mountain. The urge to rake her fingers through his chest hair was strong, but the tingling persisted. Not that she thought something was wrong—the hairs on the back of her neck didn’t prickle—but something was definitely up.

  As quietly as she could manage, she slipped out of the bed, dragged Sam’s white T-shirt over her head, and pulled on a pair of sweatpants. Then she tiptoed from the bedroom, through the living room, her gaze scanning the rooms. Nothing caught her attention. She opened her front door and stepped outside.

  Already the sun was rising, with not a cloud in the sky. The air was balmy and would be hot as hell today. She sat on the stoop, her legs stretched out straight to watch the first cars whiz by.

  “Finally!”

  Cait’s head swiveled toward the voice. Her eyes widened. Beside her, a woman stood with blonde chin-length hair and dressed in a slim gray skirt and gray silk shell. Cait recognized her instantly. Gray-girl had been her first encounter with a ghost when Cait had accidentally barreled right through her on the sidewalk in front of her apartment.

  “You do see me!” the woman exclaimed.

  “No, I don’t,” Cait said, her voice flat. She didn’t have time for a conversation with a ghost who’d inevitably want something. And just because Cait could see her didn’t mean she owed gray-girl a thing.

  “I’m Evelyn.”

  “And I’m busy.”

  The woman drew closer, eyeing her clothes. “You don’t look like you’re in a hurry to be anywhere.”

  “And you do,” Cait said, giving the other woman’s business attire a similar sweep.

  “I always do. I wake up, and I’m walking.” She shook her head. “I don’t know where. But I’m always on this street, heading to the trolley.”

  Cait sighed. Chatty Cathy wasn’t going away.

  “You see me.”

  “Do you always repeat yourself?”