Affairs of the Dead (4 page)

Chapter Three

Micah wasn’t lurking around as far as I could see. I hoped he was out with a client because I didn’t care for another snarky confrontation with him.

People gave me sidelong glances as I headed to my desk, and no one made an effort to strike up a conversation. I was sure they all knew about my demotion. I mean, if Larry the ghost could hint at it, then I’m sure the people who actually worked here knew, and they were keeping their distance so as not to set off my lit fuse. Smart people.

There weren’t enough words in the English language to express how much I detested my reassignment. Newbies usually maintained track and retrieval. You started there and worked your way up to handling ghost clients, so for me to be on track duty meant I had sunk to the lowest rung.

The folder Andrew had given me instructed me to head to the midtown Leech House to collect rune stones. The only plus side of having to do this was the fact that I could get out of the office. I shoved the folder into my bag and headed out, not bothering to get my car since the Leech House was only about twelve blocks away. As I walked, I amused myself by counting how many ghosts I saw floating toward the office building. Over a dozen. But I wouldn’t be helping any of them. Boo-hoo.

The Leech House was a two-story building nestled in between a couple skyscrapers, so it stood out among the midtown architecture, but not only because it was only two stories. It was a rather rustic-looking establishment. Ivy crawled up the front, and runes covered the building, but they weren’t runes to draw ghosts in, like those at the office building. These runes kept ghosts out, since ghosts getting tangled up with what the dead witches did at the Leech Houses could be annoying for them.

I headed in, went through security, then was instructed on where I should go to pick up the stones for my office.

Leech Houses were for the express purpose of infusing rune stones with energy, but not just any energy—living energy. Necromancers could touch ghosts and make them tangible, like I’d done with Julia, but the side effects of extreme exhaustion and the heightened risk of incurring the Rot meant it wasn’t the ideal method. Rune stones full of energy from living matter did the job fantastically.

The dead witches who worked at Leech Houses spent their days drawing energy from nature. Central Park was the primary place in the city where the witches could be found drawing energy from plants and trees. Not enough to wither them though. But green, leafy things weren’t the only things energy could be taken from. It could also be taken from the living.

I started across the main atrium of the house, which was a large, open space full of little stations where people sat with dead witches. Giving up energy was voluntary, but there was never a shortage of volunteers from the average-Joe public. We called them Leech Babies. I’d heard it was something of a high to have your energy drawn, then of course there were the free cookies, brownies, and energy drinks you got afterward.

It wasn’t as simple as easy come, easy go, though; potential Leech Babies had to be rigorously screened since the energy human donors gave off could reflect their own emotions. It wasn’t ideal to use energy laced with anger or depression, so it wasn’t always easy to find humans whose emotions were stable enough not to affect the energy they gave off. Also, there were people who’d become junkies and were forbidden from volunteering their energy. Their names were put on a list that was passed around to all the Leech Houses. Imagine that.

I wove in and out of Leech Babies, heading for the offices that lined the back wall, when I spotted someone I recognized. She looked up and saw me almost at the same moment and mustered up a weak smile as I drifted over to her.

She was a petite, small-boned woman with stringy brown hair crying for a wash and heavy-lidded brown eyes. Her clothes seemed to swallow her up; her jeans were too baggy, and her T-shirt hung off her. She seemed to be done with her energy giving, because the dead witch sitting opposite her was packing away her rune stones.

“Hey, Leslie,” I said. I wanted to peg her as a Leech Baby junkie because, well, she had that look, but she could also just be a run-down, tired woman who didn’t take care of herself.

“Hi, Selene,” she said timidly. She looked around as though she thought my being here meant someone else was also here. Her eyes finally landed on me again. “How are you? How’s Larry? I’m fine…”

Man, she was a nervous woman. It was a wonder she managed to make it out here to give energy. Oh, and did I mention she was the widow of the late Larry of the never-ending affairs to settle? She was five years a widow, and it seemed like she had never really moved on after the death of her husband. Then again, she couldn’t be too depressed over it or else she wouldn’t be allowed to give energy.

“I’m fine, and Larry is Larry,” I said. “Still being passed around us with all the things he has to get done. Do you want me to arrange for you to see him?”

“Oh, no, no,” she said, a little too quickly. “That’s quite all right, I’ve…I’ve made my peace with losing him, so I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

“Okay,” I said. Though in my opinion, if your husband’s ghost was still hanging around, you should want to see and talk to him once in a while, even if you had made your peace with his death or whatever.

“So…when do you think he’ll be ready to, you know, move on?”

“Well, you probably know better than anyone else how many things he left unsettled when he died,” I said.

“Yes, well, I hope he can soon…find his peace.” She stood up and made like she was leaving. “Bye, Selene.”

“Don’t you miss your husband?” I blurted, making her stop and slowly turn back around. I hadn’t planned to throw that at her, but I swear my brain acted on its own sometimes. I wondered if Andrew would buy that as the reason why I did all those rule-breaking things.

“I…I would just like to see him find peace,” was all Leslie said before turning around and scurrying away. I watched her go for a moment, then shrugged. The mousy woman and her issues with the ghost of her dead husband weren’t really my problem. Eventually, Larry would have all his ducks in a row, and he would “find his peace.”

I continued on to the offices, where I endured mindless small talk from the overly friendly dead witch in charge of rune distribution before I could escape with my runes. By now it was past lunch, so I grabbed a sandwich at Au Bon Pain before heading back to the office. I would have liked to wander off into Bryant Park and sit in the sun for a while, but the rune stones were heavy, and I knew people were waiting for me to return with them.

Once I dropped off the rune stones with the dead witches, I headed back to the tenth floor, where I was greeted with a mostly empty suite since people liked to take advantage of a nice day and have lunch outdoors.

“Selene, Andrew wanted to see you once you got back,” Amy, the office receptionist, said. She was the only non-necromancer who worked on this floor. She was just human.

I sighed, wondering if Andrew had another chunk to take out of my ass, and headed to his office, once again entering without knocking. This time, Andrew looked up from his computer as soon as I came through the door, and he came around his desk with a smile on his lips. Before I could ask what he wanted, he grabbed me around the waist, pulled me tight against his body, and kissed me.

His mouth was rough against mine, but I opened my mouth willingly, and the kiss went from PG to X-rated in two seconds flat. His hands dropped to grab my ass, and he backed me up until I was pressed against the door. I made a pained noise and strained against him, not because I wanted him off me, but because the doorknob was digging into my back. Andrew eased to the side but kept me against the door.

“I wanted to apologize for earlier,” he said when he broke the kiss, his voice thick and throaty as he nibbled my ear, then trailed kisses down my neck.

My breath came quick and shallow, and I was more than ready to respond to the hard press I felt against my stomach.

“I didn’t like doing it,” Andrew continued. One of his hands made quick work of undoing my vest buttons, then my shirt buttons. “But God, you look fucking sexy today.” He lifted me up, and I wrapped my legs around his waist. He walked back over to his desk, used one hand to sweep everything to the ground, and dropped me on top of it, pressing his body over mine until I was almost lying flat. He propped his hands on either side of me, and I found the smile he gave me irresistibly sexy.

“Please accept my apology,” he whispered, before my last button was undone. Andrew wasted no time yanking down my bra so my breasts were free for the attention of his mouth and hands, which caused my back to bow. I moaned and wrapped my legs tighter around him, pressing against his erection and being rewarded with a moan from him. He raised his head and crushed his lips to mine again, then trailed his hand down my body to my thigh, slid under my skirt, and pulled my underwear off.

Being so completely at Andrew’s will always drove me wild. Moments later, his fingers were stroking that most intimate part of me.

“So…wet…” His voice was so tight with need, he almost couldn’t form the words.

I didn’t bother with speech. All I was capable of producing right now were gasps and moans. I fumbled at his waist, trying to get his belt and zipper undone, but he moved my hand away and did it himself. He was so dominating. And it was so hot.

Andrew drew his finger out of me and continued to ravage my body with his hands and mouth, dragging me to the edge of the desk where he pushed up my skirt. His tongue was deep inside my mouth the moment he thrust inside me, and the sensation of the hard length of him sliding into my body along with his tongue damn near thrusting down my throat would have had me screaming in pleasure if his mouth hadn’t been locked around mine.

This was no leisurely love making; we didn’t have time for that. It was a quick, hard fuck, and it trumped sweet love making any day, in my opinion. Andrew didn’t waste time with starting slow then trying to find a rhythm. As soon as he was in, he stroked hard and fast, his sturdy desk shaking with the movement while my hands slid through his hair then down his shoulders to cling to him as he controlled the heart-pounding rhythm. He slid me forward even further until I was almost completely off the desk, and held me firmly against his body until his movements became less controlled, which meant he was almost done.

With one final thrust, we both orgasmed, and once again, only his mouth on mine kept me from screaming my pleasure, because I was likely to forget that we were in an office, not a bedroom.

When we were done, a slick sheen of sweat covered us both, and we breathed heavily, our foreheads pressed together and Andrew still deep inside my body. After a few moments, he slowly pulled out and zipped himself back up. He then braced his hands on either side of me and kissed me.

“You’re an amazing fuck, have I ever told you that?” he said, biting my lip, then pulling back, giving me that disarming smile of his.

“You have, but hearing it never gets old,” I said, my voice sounding shaky and thick.

He chuckled, then moved away so he could see about his clothes. His shirt was wrinkled beyond what smoothing hands could do, but Andrew kept an identical change of clothes here for expressly this reason.

I, however, had not yet managed to be so forward thinking, even though I’d been having sex with my boss and dealing with rumpled clothing for almost eight months. I slid off the desk, grabbed my underwear, then headed to Andrew’s private, attached bathroom to clean myself up and straighten out my clothes and hair. I didn’t want to admit that secretly having raunchy sex with my boss had contributed to me cutting my hair so it barely brushed my shoulders, but all right, it had been a factor. Short hair was easier to rein back in after an impromptu romp.

Fifteen minutes later, I came back out, clothes looking as good as they were going to look. Andrew was already back at his desk, crisp new shirt on, looking over some reports.

“First you screw me figuratively, then you screw me literally,” I said lightly, standing in front of his desk.

Andrew sighed and gave me a pleading look. “Come on, Selene, I think that was a rather good apology.”

“You would think so,” I said, shaking my head. I wasn’t really upset though. Andrew’s alpha male persona was too much of a turn-on for me to have regrets about what we did. I looked at my watch. “Well, tracking time is in a few hours. I’d better go sit on the edge of my seat in anticipation.”

I headed for the door, but Andrew came and wrapped his arms around me. He nuzzled my neck.

“You don’t make it easy for me,” he said, his breath hot against my skin. I was starting to get turned on again. “Just be a good girl, and I won’t have to punish you.”

Good girl?

“Fuck you,” I said. Our secret, sordid relationship made me feel okay about saying that to my boss.

I wiggled out of his embrace and walked over to where a picture frame lay on the floor, which Andrew had missed when he’d straightened up his desk. I handed him the picture.

“Better put Cecelia’s picture back where it belongs,” I said before exiting his office.

As much as I would have liked to bring forth some guilt in him since he had ruined my day, I knew my little jab wouldn’t have any effect since he’d never shown any remorse over cheating on his wife with me. Truth be told, that actually made it easier for me not to sweat it. I guess that said something about me, but since no one knew about our affair, there was no one to judge me, so I had no reason to feel bad.

I slid back into my cubicle, feeling languid and a little sore, but there was never time to lay wrapped in each other’s arms and enjoy the afterglow. This wasn’t that type of affair. Andrew didn’t wine or dine me, he didn’t send me love letters or tell me he was going to leave his wife for me, and we’d never had sex outside his office. It was actually a pretty perfect relationship, if you asked me. I enjoyed getting all the sex I wanted without having to deal with the emotional crap that came with relationships.