A Haunted Romance (6 page)

“Sure. It’ll take a while, but it can be done.”

Chelsea climbed up the rest of the way and gave the boxes an experimental tug. They were definitely too heavy for her to handle, although she could shove a box once it was down.

“Don’t worry,” said Trent. “I can lift them down.”

She barely heard the knock when it came, several boxes later. Dalton’s car was already heading down the driveway by the time she got there, but he had left two bags of groceries. She’d wanted to pay him, but as she looked through the bags, she saw he hadn’t even left her the receipt. Why hadn’t he stayed to talk? Was it because Trent was with her?

She put the groceries away properly while Trent got the last two boxes, and he had a chest in his arms when she got back.

“I left one of the chests up there,” Trent explained. “Unless you have a key, we’re not getting into them today. They’re locked.”

She shook her head. “The only keys I have are the one to the house and the one to the shed. There’s a bag in the bedroom closet, maybe the keys to the chests are in there? It was a nice-looking thing, looked like it held things someone valued.”

“Worth checking out.” Trent followed her to the bedroom, carrying the chest in his arms. She liked the look of his muscles as they bulged under the strain. She imagined those strong arms around her, pressing her against his hard chest.

With Dalton’s impending arrival no longer a reason for chastity, Chelsea realized the bedroom was a dangerous place to be. Trent set the chest down on the floor, and as she stretched up to reach the bag, his hands settled on her hips. She got the bag, which didn’t seem too very heavy, although it definitely had a few things in it that rustled as she pulled it down. There was even a metallic sound, like a couple keys might make. Despite her curiosity about the chests, she took a moment to lean back against him. His hands slid upward, along her sides and slightly to the front, dipping down again to brush his thumbs against her breasts.

“Mmmm.”

“You’re so sexy,” Trent told her, his voice barely more than a whisper.

She wanted to see where his hands were going to go next, but the
clink
in the bag had made her far too eager to see what the chests might hold. “The keys, remember?”

“Yeah.” He stepped back, withdrawing his hands.

Hopefully she’d be able to get him back in that mood once they had the chests open. She knelt on the floor and dumped the contents of the bag out on the sleeping bag. Then she turned bright red.

There wasn’t a key. A small silver chain with clamps on each end had probably made the
clink
. Besides that, there was a large vibrating massager and a panoply of clear plastic objects. Some of them were recognizably phallic. Some she had no idea what they were for.

“I don’t think we’re going to unlock the chests with any of those,” Trent said drily.

“I don’t even know what half of these things are.”

Trent picked up one, a sort of curved plastic cylinder, rounded on the end, with another protrusion at the base that was thinner and shorter, at an angle to the cylinder. “Third-party attachments for the vibrator, I’d imagine.”

“Third-party?” Did her aunt and Joann and Trent ever…?

“As in not made by the same manufacturer as the vibrator.” Trent eyed her speculatively.

“Oh.”

“I’m sure I could show you what they’re for, though.”

“Aren’t we supposed to be looking for a key?”

Trent shrugged. “Sure, if you have any more ideas of where to look. Otherwise, I can bring a bolt cutter by tomorrow afternoon, or you can cart that thing to a locksmith. There’s not one in Selby, but there’s one in New Market.”

“I’ll go to New Market.” She didn’t want to break the chest itself if she could avoid it.

A look of disappointment crossed Trent’s face. Maybe he liked being the one who solved the problem, or maybe he just wanted to be around when she opened it. Or possibly he was just looking for an excuse to come over again and get into her pants. She wouldn’t mind providing him with one, come to think about it.

He reached down, looking over one of the pieces of plastic, one that looked sort of like a series of successively smaller spheres, each intersecting the one before it, none of them thick enough to really fill a girl.

“So what’s that one for?”

“Nothing you’d want to do without lube,” Trent said, tossing it back on the mattress.

Oh
. She was sure her face was finding new shades of red to turn into, but she pressed on. “And the one before that?”

For answer he reached down and undid the button on her jeans. I should tell him to stop, she thought. He didn’t even ask first. But she didn’t say anything at all.

He unzipped the jeans and slid his hands inside, one on each hip, between her panties and her skin. His hands were calloused and rough against her smooth flesh.

“You have alcohol in the bathroom?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Take your boots off,” he told her, taking his hands away. “I’ll be back after I wash these.” He gathered up some of the toys and walked out of the room, leaving her shaking her head.

Her heart pounded as she sat down on the sleeping bag and unlaced her boots.

He returned after she’d removed them and picked up where he’d left off. “Now your jeans and your panties.”

“You’re still wearing everything.”

Trent smiled but didn’t move a muscle. Damn him. She wanted to say no, that fair was fair, but the look in his eyes was all dominant male, turning her insides liquid.

She hurriedly pulled her jeans off. They were pretty tight even unzipped, and it felt good to get them off. He was watching her, eyes on her crotch as she fingered the waistband of her panties.

“Take your clothes off,” she told him.

“Sure.” But he didn’t move. “Tomorrow. Let’s say two o’clock in the afternoon.”

Then again, maybe he didn’t need the chest as an excuse to come over and make love to her. To fuck me, she told herself. It wasn’t about love with him; she was just another girl. It’d be silly to take it more personally than that. The problem was, she was feeling pretty silly. It was silly to get the feeling she’d do almost anything for him too, but she knew that right at that moment, she would.

She slipped off her panties. Her pussy sure didn’t seem to care it wasn’t about love. It was wet, sopping wet. He could probably slide that strange bumpy probe up her ass if he stuck it in her pussy to get it lubed up first. She wasn’t about to suggest it though.

He knelt down next to her and nudged her legs apart. The fact that he still had his clothes on, and clearly had no intention of taking them off, accentuated her nakedness. She reached out to undo a button, but he gently seized her wrist, moved it away and then nudged her to lie down.

He attached the toy to the head of the massager and plugged the massager into a wall outlet. She bit her lip. He slid the curved cylinder into her…and the other part just naturally nestled right against her clit. The first part didn’t fill her, but it did rub against her G-spot just right.

He flicked the switch, and the thing buzzed and shook against her. All at once, it was almost too much. She gasped. He turned it off, watching her. She caught her breath. It had felt good; she just hadn’t been prepared for the sudden intensity of it. The smile on his face indicated that he wasn’t surprised by her reaction.

“Turning it back on.” His voice was soft, and he waited a second before acting on his words. She was ready for it this time. She arched her back, pushing her hips forward against the vibrator, trying to get even more of the sensation on her clit—and then she backed off when it was too much again. He sensed her need, angling it back and forth as the sensations coursed through her whole body, every nerve ending tingling.

She reached up again to unzip his jeans and free the cock that was making a noticeable bulge. He moved her hand away again but put it on the vibrator instead. He let go as she took hold of it. She wished she hadn’t. For a moment she thought he was just going to watch her masturbate, and she was sure she’d die of embarrassment before coming. She just couldn’t. But he wasn’t just watching—he was unbuttoning her shirt, pushing it to the side. He kissed her belly button, his tongue swirling around inside it. If she hadn’t had the vibe against her, she would have started giggling, but as it was she just moaned.

He kissed her stomach and the tops of her breasts. He nibbled on her nipples through the fabric of her bra until they were stiff and aching and sending jolts straight to her pussy.

She pushed the vibe against her, harder, mashing it against her clit. She wanted release, and she wanted it now. She wasn’t used to getting it this way—she wanted something sliding inside her too, something big, but he probably didn’t carry more than the one rubber and she was too close to the edge to want to change attachments. She jiggled the plastic until it angled just right, sending shudders against her G-spot and ripples through her clit. That pushed her over the edge.

He leaned back and watched her as she moaned and shuddered. “You’re beautiful,” he said.

“I’m a mess,” she retorted.

“I’ll see you tomorrow at two,” he said. He kissed her and got up.

“You can’t just leave,” she protested.

“I’ll be back soon.”

She stared after him as he left but didn’t move until she’d heard him shutting the door behind him downstairs. Maybe he had another date or something. Her hands balled up with anger and jealousy, although she didn’t even have any particular person to be jealous of. He had a lot of nerve, leaving her naked and sated while he was all calm.

She sighed. The problem was she liked the fact that he had nerve in the bedroom. His confidence was an incredible turn-on. Her ex-husband had been all nerve everywhere
but
the bedroom, and that had gotten old fast.

She turned the vibrator off and unplugged it from the wall. Her fingers ran over the various attachments, feeling their shapes and textures—some hard plastic, some soft and rubbery. All perfectly clean. She placed everything carefully back in the bag, except for the toy she had just used. She buttoned a button on her blouse and pulled a fresh pair of panties from her suitcase.

She carried the clit and G-spot stimulator to the bathroom and washed it carefully. Once she had it dried and in the bag, she put the bag back in the closet. Maybe she’d explore the other toys later. She hadn’t gotten any writing done all day.

It was too cold to sit out on the porch, so she went to the study to work. She finally closed her laptop a little after midnight, went back to her bedroom, and lay in her sleeping bag for a while, not quite asleep. Images of Trent, naked, flipped through her mind. He might be a keeper.

In your dreams.

Trent would be tired of her in a few days, if she knew the type. There was still a ton to do to make the house more livable. She’d have to drive back to Falls Church and pick up more stuff soon. She was here in the country to stay. Once she had everything fixed up, it was going to be a great place to work.

She heard a whistling that sounded like it came from the attic. It’s just the wind, she told herself. A few minutes later, she was less convinced. The wind had picked up, but this was a higher sound, almost like a flute playing tunelessly. She shrugged. No sense in letting herself get carried away by her imagination.

Then she heard moaning. It was a low, mournful sound. It couldn’t be the wind, could it? She got up to investigate.

Chapter Four

She flicked lights on and then peered about. It seemed to be coming from the room where she’d set up her laptop. She stepped toward the sound slowly, trying to stay quiet. The closer she got, the more convinced she was that it was a human sound. Maybe she should call Trent or Dalton, but it made no sense for a burglar to just moan like that. She pushed the door open and flicked on the light.

The room was empty, and the moaning stopped.

She looked around but didn’t see anything disturbed or out of place. On a whim, she shut down her laptop, although it shouldn’t have been making any noise in sleep mode. Each book was where she'd put it on the shelves. It was all as it should be. She turned off the light and went back to bed.

The moaning woke her up again at three thirty. She tried to sleep through it, but she couldn’t. It wasn’t just moaning; it was words now. She couldn’t quite make them out. Maybe they were foreign words or poorly pronounced and too quiet. The flute sound had continued off and on throughout the night. She could explain that away. A flute wasn’t anything but someone blowing through a tube, after all, and if there was something shaped the right way while it was windy out, it would make a similar noise.

She went back to her study and turned the light on. Just as it had before, the moaning stopped when she opened the door although the whistling continued.

She sat down at her desk and opened her laptop, waiting for the moaning to start up again. There had to be a natural explanation. There always was. Cat wouldn’t let something like this bother her. She wasn’t Cat, but she had her own ways of shutting out the world, and writing was sometimes one of them. She made herself focus and put words down on the page, ready to get up if the moaning resumed.

It didn’t. She stumbled back into bed an hour later and managed to sleep.

She woke up late in the morning. She pulled on sweats before she went downstairs for breakfast, although she’d always gotten dressed after eating in her Falls Church condo. She didn’t feel entirely safe in the house, and she wasn’t going to wander around in just her panties and a nightshirt. At least she was awake enough to pour milk on her cereal and orange juice in her glass rather than the other way around. She stood in the kitchen, taking a spoonful of Cheerios before deciding it would be more civilized to eat in the dining room.

She carried the bowl of cereal in one hand and the glass of juice in the other, setting them down carefully on the butcher-block table before she noticed what was already there. On the table was an old brass skeleton key, its color a deep brown from oxidation. She turned it over in her hands. Even where the little notches would rub against the lock, it wasn’t shiny. She’d had Cat solve a case that way once, finding signs that a key had been recently used, but this key hadn’t been. It also hadn’t been on her table yesterday, so where had it come from?