Hellsinger 01 - Fish and Ghosts (P) (MM) (7 page)

“And as for what is going to happen to Hoxne Grange? I don’t know.” Tristan’s teeth worried at his plump lower lip. “Marriage is out. I don’t like women. Not like that. So, unless another man can get me pregnant, I’m going to be in the same boat Uncle Mortimer paddled up the river without a paddle… hoping one of my relatives has a child as screwed up as I am.”

Great, Wolf thought. Not only was he on the job with a hot crazy man who thought he talked to ghosts but the guy was gay and available. If Wolf ever wondered whether God had a sense of humor, he now had proof. Like the platypus wasn’t enough evidence of that.

Chapter 4

T
HE
TEAM
’
S
dinner was a hurried shovel of roast beef sandwiches and chips washed down with coffee and Diet Coke. Fueled by Tristan’s permission to set up cameras, Wolf declined a sit-down meal in exchange for something quick. Within half an hour, someone from the housekeeping staff set up a banquet-style platter of sourdough bread and rare thinly sliced beef, served with homegrown tomatoes and a horseradish mayonnaise Gidget loved so much she swore she’d knife anyone who stood between her and the jar. Armed with full bellies and an array of beeping machines, Hellsinger Investigations plowed through the house and laid down their ghost-imaging traps.

At three in the morning, the team checked their camera feeds and did a final walkthrough, then collapsed in their respective rooms, exhausted from the long day.

At three forty-five, the noises began.

There was no escalation. No simmering ease into the hammering knocks on the ceilings above them or the squeaking of service carts being wheeled through the hallway. The din began immediately, a raucous shriek of noise with no discernible origin.

A din that stopped immediately whenever Wolf, Gidget, or Matt opened the doors to their rooms.

“I’m going to head down and see what the monitors are picking up,” Matt grumbled, rubbing at his eyes.

“I’ll go down with you.” Wolf grabbed a T-shirt and tugged it over his head. “There’s got to be a trigger or something on the doors. This kind of activity is too concentrated… too concise. It’s got scam peed all over it.”

“But why?” Gidget mumbled, shuffling along behind them. Her nighttime apparel ran to a pajama set printed with smiling dinosaurs and a pair of fluffy shark slippers whose mouths opened and closed with each step. “He’s not running an actual inn. There’s nothing to gain here. Shit, he doesn’t even want a reality show or something.”

“Maybe that’s it.” Matt punched the lift button, and the birdcage cab rattled back up from the ground floor. “He wants to be on one of
those
shows. Make this the next Winchester.”

“My question is, why isn’t the elevator up on this floor?” Wolf tapped at the elaborately worked elevator screen blocking access to the empty shaft. “We were the last ones to use it. It should have stayed up here.”

“So someone’s down there?” Gidget yawned. “Fuck. I’d hate it to be him doing this shit. He’s hot.”

“I’m standing right here,” her lover complained as he pulled the screen back when the cab settled in.

Gidget leaned over and rubbed at his slight potbelly. “I love my furry teddy bear, but I’m not blind. That Pryce guy is hot but way out of my league. And like Kincaid here, he worships the peen. I’d be more worried about Pryce lusting after you than you have to worry about me lusting after him.”

“Screw this, you guys take that thing. I’ll meet you downstairs.” Wolf nodded at the steps. “Maybe we can catch who decided to start shit.”

He beat the birdcage by a few seconds. As Wolf rounded the second-floor landing, he could hear Matt complaining about the rapid descent, a note of hysteria hitting his voice after Gidget suggested they were free-falling to the first floor. Leaving the pair to follow him, Wolf headed to the ballroom and flicked on its bank of lights.

Only to stand speechless with shock at the sight of the equipment they’d left on the tables.

“Holy shit.” Matt’s normally boisterous voice dropped to a low, shaky whisper. “God fucking damn it.”

“Okay, we’re screwed.” Gidget gulped. “Kincaid, I’m going to ask for combat pay on this one because damn… we are
so
screwed.”

All of their equipment was cleared from the table, and from looks of the cases and bins lined up against the wall. Every single bit of their gear’d been packed up and put away as if they’d not spent the entire afternoon setting up.

Rows of systematic, precise loops of cables lined the open blue bins the team used for site transport, their curls zip-tied and so tightly arranged, Wolf seriously wondered if he’d somehow stumbled down in a sleepwalking stupor and done it himself. A closer inspection of the cases confirmed Matt’s grumbling terror. Everything they’d put up and connected was neatly in its cushioned case or stacked in the plastic containers they’d come in, including three floors worth of cameras and sound detectors.

“Fuck me sideways and call me a snake.” Gidget ran her hands over an EM reader. “There wasn’t enough damned time for someone to do this. I mean, come on… it took us all fucking night to get shit up!”

“Not if you’ve got the money to hire a bunch of people,” Wolf growled. “You two start to unpack. If Pryce thinks he’s dealing with some pack of amateurs, he’s fucking mistaken.”

“Wait, really?” Matt’s slack eyes widened. “Come on, Kincaid, we’re dead here.”

“And what do you mean
you two
?” Gidget faced him, squaring her shoulders, hands on her hips. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

“I’m going to beard the lion in his den,” Wolf replied sharply. “Tristan Pryce isn’t going to know what hit him.”

T
HE
POUNDING
on the other side of the house had stopped long enough for Tristan to finally fall back asleep when it migrated over to his wing. Lying in the dark with the covers pulled up over his head, he groggily wondered if it would be worth it to haul himself out of bed and yell at Wolf and his crew when the hammering quieted, leaving behind a still silence.

Even buried under the covers, Tristan saw the lights come on in his room, and he groaned.

Now it looked like the ghosts were in on the dance. Flinging back the blankets, Tristan grumbled loudly at the ceiling. “Look, can you all just let me get some sleep?”

Unlike any other time when he’d shouted at the unknown, the lights remained on and he found himself staring a large, snarling ghost hunter dressed only in a tight white undershirt and a pair of black cotton board shorts. If he’d been handsome dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, he was devastating when half-naked.

Tristan didn’t think he’d survive if ever he saw the man nude.

Even under the man’s fleece, Wolf’s sensual power was evident in his muscular chest and arms. His thighs weren’t bad either, thickly formed and clenched tight with strength, a light dusting of black hair coating them. The shadowy line Tristan saw when Kincaid’s shirt slid up while he walked toward Tristan’s bed promised more soft fur. If there was any question of Wolf Kincaid sporting underwear beneath those loose shorts, it was answered when the man placed his hands on the mattress and leaned over to bring his face close to Tristan’s before he could speak.

Anything that came out of the man’s full, sensual mouth was lost under the press of heavy flesh brushing against Tristan’s bare thigh, the swing of Wolf’s blood-warmed, cotton-encased cock searing a path onto Tristan’s skin.

The whole experience was like a damned romance novel so badly written the person who bought it left it half-finished and in the sticky mess of a bus stop bathroom.

His nipples felt hot under his T-shirt, and a curious tightening was starting along his belly. A heat flushed through Tristan, thin fires creeping under his skin and spreading out until his fingers and toes tingled and burned. If he’d had time… and realized how fucking sexy Wolf Kincaid would look bent over him, Tristan would have shoved a pillow over his crotch so the man didn’t see Tristan’s cock beginning to thicken with lust.

He’d never been so close to wanting another man. The times he’d spent down in the city sliding into clubs and bars, hoping someone would see him… needing someone to show him exactly what the fuck his damned, contrary body wanted… left him with a sense he’d been wrong about preferring men. He’d slunk back to the woods to lick his wounds and ponder what drove him down the hills to seek out something to answer the questions he had inside him.

Because in the dead of the night, when he was surrounded by ghosts and the sounds of an old house settling down on her bones, Tristan anguished over the lonely coldness inside of him. Nothing seemed to affect it. Nothing he did or said chipped that core of chill away. Until the moment when Wolf Kincaid’s mouth was nearly touching his and the man’s ocean-tinted eyes were stormy with a passionate fury, Tristan often wondered if he was as dead as the spirits he’d opened his house to.

With that single accidental lean of a cock on his thigh—that man’s cock—Tristan’s chilled soul melted, and he was left exposed, vulnerable to Wolf’s heat and wanting so much more.

“It’s like I’m a damned teenaged girl,” Tristan muttered under his breath. Or how he imagined one would act. He had about as much knowledge of women as he did about being gay. Rubbing his eyes, he tried to concentrate more on what was coming out of Wolf’s mouth rather than the mouth itself. “I’m sorry, what? Can you repeat that?”

Wolf took a shuddering breath and looked away, composing himself before he spoke again. “If you didn’t want us here, you could have just said no.”

“I did say no.” Tristan blinked, confused. “You came anyway. ’Sides, it was either you or someone else.
That’s
why you woke me up?”

“I woke you up because your little gremlins packed away all of the stuff we spent the whole night setting up.” Wolf’s smile bordered on violent, and despite the heat Tristan felt a chill run down his spine. “How many people did you hire? Thirty? More? Because damn, they worked fast.”

“I didn’t hire anyone. What the hell are you talking about?”

“Not more than an hour after we went to bed, your crew not only took everything apart but packed it all up so we’d be ready to leave in the morning.” The growl in Wolf’s voice grew deeper. “Is this some kind of joke to you? I don’t give a shit if you hate my guts, but fucking with my equipment? My crew? That’s crossing a fucking line you don’t want to cross.”

A flickering realization of what Wolf was talking about finally sunk in past the erotic images Tristan’s mind played at. Shaking his head, he replied, “It wasn’t me. It probably was the ghosts. Maybe they don’t want you here?”

“Really? Because they’re really going to give a shit about being filmed?”

“It’s kind of intrusive.” Tristan shrugged. “And they get curious. Especially if they’re from a time when there wasn’t a lot of technology. Hell, you should see what they do to my studio sometimes.”

“You expect me to swallow that?”

“I don’t care what you expect,” he sighed. “It’s what happens here at Hoxne Grange. Just ask them to leave your stuff alone. They’re pretty good about it once you tell them.”

“Just leave my stuff alone?” It was less of a question and more of a mocking repeat, much like a five-year-old mimicking another. “So, what? I just go to the ballroom and what? Ask nicely? Light some candles? Burn some incense?”

“Probably just not being a dick would be enough,” Tristan ground out from between his teeth. “Maybe a please?”

Wolf straightened, lifting his weight from the bed. Cool air rushed between them, and Tristan was thankful for the slight chill, hoping its touch would get his unruly cock under control. He waited for the other man to speak, but it seemed like Wolf was more interested in studying him, as if he were something strange the man came across on the sidewalk.

After a long few seconds, Wolf said, “You really believe that shit, don’t you?”

“What? That please works?” Tristan nodded, confused. “Usually people like it when you’re nice. Even dead people. Here, we can try it. Can you please get out so I can go back to sleep? I actually
do
have to get some work done tomorrow… today. Whatever.”

Kincaid opened his mouth, then closed it again, all the while staring down at Tristan. Finally, throwing his hands up in the air, he turned on his heel and headed back to the bedroom door. Tristan groaned, burying his face in his pillow when Wolf’s tight ass flexed as he walked.

“God, I just want to get some sleep,” he mumbled into the feathers and fine cotton. “Why are you doing this to me? First the noise and now… him?”

“You know what?” Wolf’s voice broke through Tristan’s quiet, desperate prayers, and he pulled the pillow away from his face, only to realize Wolf had crossed back over to him. Staring up Wolf’s long torso, Tristan inhaled sharply, accidentally sucking the tang of the man’s skin into his lungs.

It was bad enough Wolf looked good enough to eat. Did he have to smell of lemon curd and male?

If he wasn’t certain of it before, Tristan was now convinced. He’d done something to piss God off, and he’d been put in his own special circle of hell, trapped to care for ghosts and embroiled in a sexual ambiguity that could only be breached by a roughly gorgeous man who thought he was crazy.