Body Temperature and Rising - Book One of the Lakeland Heatwave Trilogy Read online

  Marie relaxed into her chair and told Tim about the experience of Anderson, minus the sexy bits. ‘And I dreamed. It was so real.’

  ‘And sexy?’

  She nodded, feeling the heat crawl up her face.

  ‘But there was no … I mean you didn’t actually …’

  ‘We didn’t fuck, no.’ She stared into her tea avoiding his gaze. ‘There was just masturbation.’

  ‘Marie,’ he leaned forward and laid his hand on hers. ‘Marie, it wasn’t a dream.’

  She jerked her hand away. ‘I know that now, Tim. I know that.’ She forced the chair back with a loud screech and grabbed up Tara’s card and her cell phone from where it lay on the credenza.

  Instantly he was at her side. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘What does it look like I’m doing? I’m calling Tara. She’d got a helluva lot to answer for, and I want to hear it.’

  He grabbed the phone away from her. ‘Please don’t. Please don’t do that.’ He laid it down where it had been and guided her back to her chair, where she glared at him expectantly.

  He ran a hand through his hair and blew out a sharp breath. ‘Marie. They’re all mad over there. Trust me when I say it’s best you don’t get mixed up with them.’

  ‘But they can explain what’s going on, and they bloody well need to, I think.’

  He raised a hand. ‘They’ll only tell you a load of rubbish, and nothing will change, and they’ll make excuses …’ His voice drifted off again, then he looked up as though suddenly remembering where he was. ‘Please, Marie. Wait. Just give it a little time. Give it till tomorrow, then …’ He offered a smile and forced enthusiasm into his voice. ‘I reckon tomorrow we’ll both just be laughing about it all, and anyway, they’re only ghosts. A bit troublesome sometime, perhaps, but harmless.’ His voice wasn’t very convincing.

  ‘It’s freezing in here,’ Sky breathed as she ducked into the cave chafing her arms. ‘Really Fiori, couldn’t we have just done this in the suite. It would have been so much more comfy.’

  Fiori looked up from lighting candles around the perimeter of the chamber. ‘The magic will be stronger outside and even stronger underground like this. You know that. Besides if Tara can handle it, you and I surely can.’

  Sky joined Fiori in the preparations. ‘And you really think we need stronger magic for this? Sounds like a done deal to me from what Anderson said.’

  Fiori shot Sky a warning glance and half whispered, ‘You know why we need stronger magic.’ She threw a quick glance over her shoulder at Tara who sat on bare rock at the far side of the chamber, legs folded beneath her, her breathing that of deep meditation. ‘If Anderson is right, then we’ll have to protect Marie. We’ll have to protect both of them now.’ She worried her bottom lip with her teeth as she finished her task, and the two women sat down on the cushions spread over ruined slate.

  ‘But if it’s true, then maybe we won’t need to protect her at all maybe she’s –’

  ‘I know, but she doesn’t know that yet, does she, and you know how Tara feels about risking someone else.’

  ‘I hate dream magic,’ Sky said. ‘Even when it’s not me doing the dreaming. It’s just all so nebulous, isn’t it? And this time, we already know the answer, don’t we?’

  Fiori shushed her and glanced back over her shoulder to see if Tara had overheard. ‘Her mind’s made up about it, and surely you can see why.’

  Sky released a long, shaky breath. ‘Of course I can see why, and I’m as afraid to hope as she is, but we have to. Hope I mean.’ She looked around the chamber again. ‘Where’s Anderson? He was inside Marie Warren. He felt her essence. We can’t do this without him.’

  The words were barely out of her mouth before the ghost materialised in the chamber and sat down across from the two of them. ‘I’m here.’ He offered that dark, delicious smile that Sky was always happy to lap off his face when he gave her a chance. Sadly she wouldn’t get the chance tonight. There’d be plenty of sex and she’d no doubt have a blistering orgasm, but it wouldn’t be due to Anderson’s delicious cock. Once again, Tara would have that privilege. Since he was the only bloke in the coven, he always had his work cut out for him, but then it didn’t really matter because the only bloke in the coven just happened to be a ghost and was deliciously tireless and always at the ready for any ritual that required an erect penis.

  ‘There now. I think we’re ready.’ Tara roused herself from her meditation, plopped down next to Anderson, and offered everyone a distant smile. She rubbed her hands together slowly then fondled the pentacle resting between her breasts. She was already naked and, even in the constant 63 degrees of the cave, her body glowed, and a soft dew of perspiration caressed her upper lip and the valley between her pale breasts. Sky knew that for Tara, the ritual had begun hours ago, and her smile was not the only thing about her that was distant. She had been in the Ether preparing. She was only partially in the waking world, and in her altered state, she was as close to a ghost as she could be and still draw living breath.

  Tara carefully released the red ribbon that held back an eruption of wild dark hair, which she shook back over her well-muscled shoulders. Sky felt her heart clench at the sight of her coven sister so vulnerable. She knew how hard it was for her to allow such vulnerability after all that had happened. Then the power that Tara wore like armour, and wore so well, settled back around her, and she looked at the members of her coven with dark eyes, pupils dilated from her spell work and meditation. ‘We can begin then.’

  Oblivious to the cold or the discomfort, Fiori positioned herself on a flat slab of bare rock that slightly overhung the soft sea of heavily-stuffed pillows and cushions so incongruous with the rest of the surroundings. It was her job to witness and be prepared to bring the dreamers back from the dream world if need be.

  When they were ready, Anderson rose and slid out of the dove grey robe he always wore in ritual. Sky slipped free of her pale blue one and both she and Anderson reached for Tara at the same time. As the magic progressed, Tara would become the chalice for Anderson’s filling. It would be for her to dream the dream. If it were true, if Marie Warren really was a ghost rider, and anywhere nearly as powerful as Anderson believed her to be, then Sky could barely allow herself to imagine what that might mean. It was Sky’s task to help the two into the dream and assist them as needed.

  She eased Tara down into the cushions and kissed and caressed her breasts until her nipples felt like stalagmites rising up from the cave, a thought that, under the circumstances, didn’t really seem all that strange. Sky knew that the herbs Tara had taken in the mulled wine earlier were already thinning the veil between the physical world and the Dream World, while heightening her senses at the same time. She had never known her coven leader to call upon so much powerful magic for something that should have been a simple dream encounter, and that made her more than a little nervous. Sky could hear Tara’s breath like a wind in the cave as she kissed down her belly and opened her legs, which she no longer had the will to do for herself.

  In her peripheral vision, Sky could see Anderson kneeling at Tara’s feet, one hand resting on his thick erection, the athame in flesh, ready to enter the chalice and bless it. Sky pushed Tara’s knees wide apart, and in her mind’s eye, she knew that Anderson now viewed Tara as the Gateway, the chalice into which he would pour his experience of Marie Warren and release the magic that would begin the dream.

  Without a word, Anderson positioned himself between her legs, lowering his face to kiss her heavy clit and tease open the pout of her labia, reverencing the Gate, before he covered her with his body, taking his weight onto his arms as he shifted and rocked until his cock found her slick path and slipped inside as though it were as anxious to find shelter as Sky had been when she entered the cave.

  Sky heard herself groan as though she were a long way away. She felt the drag of memories that weren’t hers slide and shimmer at the edge of her consciousness until she grasped onto them. She heard Anderson’
s breath catch as Tara gripped him. Lovely that, a ghost’s breath, so much more precious than anything the living could imagine. Sky pinched Tara’s nipples hard knowing the pain would help focus her. Then she felt a flood of sensation that coursed through Tara, and the harder Anderson thrust, the clearer the images of Marie Warren on the fells became. And the harder Tara rode him, the further away from consciousness he took both of them until only Sky remained fully alert to witness the events that had taken place on the fells.

  Sky watched as Anderson, consciousness only, reached out to touch the woman huddled down on the path in the rain. And both Sky and Tara felt the jolt of his shock as clearly as if it had been their own. The very touch of this woman made Anderson hard all over. But it wasn’t sex, it was flesh. And it was instantaneous, without the Love Spell. Her touch alone had enfleshed him, even without her knowing it, even without him willing it so. That couldn’t be right.

  But there was no time to dwell on it. The memories rushed forward like fast moving water, and then Sky and Tara were in the cave watching Anderson lift the woman onto his lap lest she catch a chill from the cold stone. And the woman took his mouth, holding him there in the flesh as easily as she breathed her own breath. The passion she generated sizzled and danced along the walls of the cave like fireworks, and she didn’t even know it. Sky had never seen Anderson so open to anyone.

  With a little tremor of her heart, she realised how vulnerable he was now making himself to his coven. They were the ones closest to him and yet even they had never seen him as he was with Marie Warren. Sky felt the acceleration of Anderson’s heartbeat, the excitement of his thoughts as this woman held him so perfectly, so exquisitely. She held him inside her when he entered her, she held him there in the container of flesh and bone that, without her knowledge, she had created for him, so perfect, so tight fitting that the heat of him radiated like life itself. And he spilled his semen in her in great heavy splashes steaming like fire into the chalice that held him tight.

  Then he lifted her on top of him, holding her close to the pounding of his heart, wanting to keep her awake so he could feel the flesh she had given him just a little longer. But knowing her exhaustion and knowing his own rawness at rubbing up against such power, he had let her drift into unconsciousness. And as she did so, he had allowed himself to evaporate like the mist on the fells when the sun came out.

  For Tim, sleep didn’t come easily, even after an endless scouring of Raven Crag with Keswick Mountain Rescue for the lost tourist who just hadn’t bothered to tell anyone she’d changed her mind and gone shopping in Windermere instead. She seemed dazed and confused, not at all sure why she’d made such a silly decision. She had wondered mindlessly into a pub at closing time and announced that she was lost. The whole thing had made Tim nervous. Maybe the woman was on something, maybe she had some mental problems no one wanted to talk about. He didn’t know, and in the end they had all nervously laughed it off.

  To Tim’s disappointment all the lights at Marie’s cottage had been out when he got home. He had planned to invite her over for dinner that evening, to help her get her mind off the ghosts, and admittedly, maybe on to something a little more amicable. He hadn’t planned on a call-out from Mountain Rescue. Several of the volunteers were away on holiday, and he was close to Raven Crag, so in spite of an uneasy feeling about leaving Marie after such an unnerving revelation – especially after he had convinced her not to call the Elementals – he’d felt he had to go. And now it was late, and her house was dark, and he’d had to eat the lamb stew in the slow cooker alone.

  Her car was out front so he could only assume she was sleeping soundly, the morning’s ghost incident happily forgotten. He was relieved about that, at least. He was afraid she wouldn’t let it go that easily, and he had worked hard to disentangle himself from the nasty mess of three months ago and to learn to cope with the constant comings and goings of ghosts. The ghosts he could live with. He just didn’t want anything to do with the Elementals and especially not with whatever it was that seemed to have attached itself to them. They’d tried to convince him the man was just another ghost, but in his gut, he knew better. Could they really think him that naïve?

  He tossed in the bed and readjusted the pillow. Marie might be sleeping soundly, but he sure as hell wasn’t.

  It was hard to ignore the small-breasted ghost sitting on the chair at the foot of the bed tugging and pinching at the plumped nipple that peeked over the top of her deep-cut bodice. With ghosts always being the order of the day, sometimes he succeeded in shutting them out and sometimes he didn’t.

  The slight tilt of this ghost’s head and the way her pale hair fell slightly over one eye made him think of Marie. She was smaller breasted than Marie, and her hair was short, but if he looked at her in the low light through heavy eyelids and used his imagination, he could almost imagine Marie sat there watching him hungrily. He could almost imagine Marie about to strip off her clothes, crawl beneath the duvet and snuggle her luscious nakedness up against him. Real body heat, alive and breathing and needing the way he needed, that’s what he wanted. Most of the time he just got on with it and didn’t think about it, but right now, right this moment, he wanted Marie naked and slick with need, gagging for it as badly as he was.

  He was embarrassed to think it might have been his cock that possessed him to lease the cottage to her. With all the craziness going on around him, the last thing he needed was a tenant, but he’d not been able to resist. In spite of his efforts to minimize contact with her for her own protection, he’d been horny for her since he first laid eyes on her – a real flesh and blood woman with sultry eyes that made him think of a fast-moving storm above the high fells. And her voice was just a tiny bit too low for a woman’s voice. He could listen to her talk about the weather and get stiff. It was hard to chase away thoughts of her pouty-lipped smile and what he wished she’d do with that mouth of hers. Then there were her full breasts, which more often than not were crowned with nipples that jutted like heat-seeking missiles. And, oh, he wanted to give them some heat to seek, especially tonight after he’d actually spent time with her, talked masturbation and sex with her.

  OK, the context hadn’t been ideal, but still, thinking about it now when he was chasing sleep and struggling to keep his mind off why she had come to him in the paddock this morning, he’d cherry-pick the sexy bits of their encounter, and it was the heat he chose to remember. His cock stretched and stiffened beneath the duvet, into his searching hand.

  ‘You sleep naked, Tim Meriwether,’ the ghost in the chair purred. ‘I know that you do. Let me see your cock. Please let me see you.’

  ‘Go away, Lisette,’ he sighed. ‘I don’t want you to see me.’

  ‘Yes you do.’ She moved to sit on the edge of the bed. ‘You know you do. I’ll show you my pussy. It’s so wet. You could help me if you would.’

  ‘I can’t help you and I don’t want to see ...’

  He stopped talking because Lisette wasn’t listening. She never listened, and in a way that always gave him an excuse for the wank he knew would follow, and he needed an excuse tonight.

  Lisette slid her flapper skirt gracefully, almost demurely up over her hips. ‘I haven’t worn any panties tonight. I left them off just for you, Tim Meriwether, because I want you to look at my cunt.’ She shifted on the duvet and lifted one shapely leg onto the bed making it impossible for him not to see the glisten of her swollen pussy lips. ‘I want you to see what you’re missing; I want you to see how you make me suffer.’ Then she plunged her nimble fingers into her split and began to thrust and stroke, eyes fluttering, breath that was not real spilling desperately between the full painted bow of her mouth.

  God, Tim thought, if she were real, if she were flesh and blood right now, he’d never be able to resist. He’d crawl between her splayed legs and hump her brains out. But she wasn’t real, she wasn’t flesh and blood, not like Marie. He tugged at his cock and ground his arse against the mattress.

  The g
host gave a throaty chuckle. ‘I know what your hand is doing against that lovely hard cock of yours.’ She leaned forward, ‘And we both know it’ll feel better if you throw off the duvet and let me watch.’ The ghost excavated the other tight breast from the flimsy front of her dress and gave it a hard squeeze. ‘Come on. I’ll pretend to be your Marie for you. I don’t mind. You can even call me Marie and tell me what you want to do to me.’ She leaned close, fingers shoving hard into her gape for emphasis. ‘I know you want to fuck her.’ She nodded to his hard-on hidden in the folds of the duvet. ‘I know that’s for her, for her warm round body.’ Her thumb went to work on the nub of her clit. ‘I could have a warm round body if you’d listen to the witches, if you’d do as they asked, and I would let you fuck me until I was raw, until I couldn’t walk. You’d like that, Tim Meriwether. I know you would.’

  ‘Then why don’t you go to the witches and let them take care of you,’ he said between gritted teeth as he cupped his balls and kneaded them almost to the point of pain.

  ‘I don’t crave women flesh, Tim Meriwether, and it’s you I want.’

  Almost as though his body had a mind of its own, he heaved off the duvet without missing a stroke, and the ghost gasped her appreciation. He shoved himself upright against the headboard, spat on his hand and rubbed his saliva over the hot length of him, too impatient to dig in the bedside table for the lube he kept handy.

  Lisette shifted her weight back and lifted her hips until he could see the whole of her cleft clear down to the shadowy clench of her anus. She wasn’t what he wanted, and he hated it when he gave in to her tauntings, and yet that was also a part of what made their little trysts so nasty. It was a game of substitution really.

  ‘If I were flesh, you would fuck me now, wouldn’t you, Tim Meriwether? I know you would, and I would be slippery enough and pouting enough to accommodate your heavy cock.’ As if to demonstrate her point, she thrust another finger into her sucking, slurping pussy until all that remained visible of her hand was her thumb rubbing against her marbled clit. ‘You can see it,’ she grunted. ‘But you can’t feel it any more than I can, you selfish prick. I make you come every time, but I only get to watch.’