Intimate Whispers

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An Excerpt From: INTIMATE WHISPERS

Copyright © DEE CARNEY, 2011

All Rights Reserved, Ellora's Cave Publishing, Inc.

He rested his hand on hers, preventing her from getting into a comfortable writing position. “Sabrina, is this dangerous?”

Dark circles lined beneath her eyes, but she held his gaze. “Think about your brother and let’s get this over with. It’s a one-time offer.”

A pause gripped his breath. Reluctantly though, his hand dropped and he gave her a curt nod. “Fine.”

Only it wasn’t fine. What the hell was he thinking? Did she just mention something about getting possessed? This virtual stranger had no reason to help him, yet she was willing to work within the loose rules of the occult on his behalf. Rules he knew nothing about.

He hadn’t thought this through at all. Maybe they both needed to take a step back, figure out what they were doing, and formulate some sort of game plan. If this didn’t involve Teddy, he wouldn’t be here at all. She didn’t need to be dragged into his family’s disaster.

Second thoughts creeped over him like little spiders.

“Sa—”

Her eyes stared unseeing at him. No blinking. No movement.

He edged closer, but nothing changed. She sat erect, the pen resting loosely in her right hand. Steady breathing. The pulse in her neck throbbing with a constant rhythm.

Jesus, what had he gotten them into? He had more questions than answers, and the only person who could answer them sat trancelike before him.

Everything happened so quickly, before his brain had a chance to process the changes. Sudden movement jerked his attention back to her. The pen moved. Quick, uncoordinated motions that resulted in jagged lines of ink marking the page.

He held his breath, his focus riveted to the scrawl.

Sabrina let out a soft whimper, a sound so erotic and wanton, his gaze snapped up to study her face once again. She regarded him with soft, half-lidded eyes. No, not him. The space in front of him.

Her chin lifted through a blink so slow he thought her lids might remained closed. She opened her eyes at last, but they didn’t focus. Sabrina was in another place.

“Sabrina?” he whispered.

The pen began to scrawl across the paper again. As much as it pained him to do so, he left the comfort of scanning her face to figure out the meaning behind the pen’s movement. She wrote with strange, disjointed weaving lines that crossed each other backward and forward until the page filled with illegible scribble.

She’d instructed him to focus and instead of thinking of Teddy, he’d become enthralled on the process of automatic writing. Shit.

He plucked another page from where she’d gotten the first and replaced the insanely marked one with the stark-white page. The moment blue ink appeared on it, he pulled every memory he had of Teddy from within his psyche.

It still hurt to think of him as gone. Maybe if they’d been closer, like when Teddy was younger, before the problems began…

Their mother said the nurses must have accidentally dropped him in a tub the day he was born. Teddy loved the water. Every type of water sport. Swam like a fish. His boat, purchased before he considered saving for a car, had been named The Mona Lisa.

Teddy, with their father’s exuberant green eyes, of whom he’d been jealous. Whose smile had never quite reached his emerald gaze. Who became more sullen and withdrawn from all of them as the years passed.

His brother, who he’d ultimately failed in the end.

A woman’s sigh caressed his mind. Other sounds in the room sharpened to a fine point, scraping against the base of his spine like nails on a chalkboard.

He opened his eyes, just now realizing he’d closed them in the first place. His shoulders ached, his neck stiff as if he’d been in the same uncomfortable position for hours. A quick roll of his shoulders eased some of the tension, but new pings of protesting muscles screamed for his attention too. He looked up to find Sabrina standing next to him, a glass of water extended.

“You okay?” she asked.

Biting back a moan, he nodded. “Yeah. What time is it and what happened?”

She waited for him to take the glass. “Think of it like meditation. I went into a sort of trance and you followed.”

He gulped down some of the cool liquid. “Did it work, then?”

Leaning forward, he searched for the paper she’d been writing on, but Sabrina shifted until she blocked his path. A gap appeared in her robe, offering enough of a teasing view that his gaze dropped, lest she find him ogling. Despite a fevered imagination having to work overtime with an image of what he hoped he’d seen, like clockwork, his dick lifted.

“It worked,” she replied, her voice like silk.

His ears perked because he knew the dulcet tones of a woman’s seductive voice. The one that gave him permission to touch her body, explore her intimate places. When he swallowed this time, it had nothing to do with the glass of water.

He glanced at her and swallowed again. Sabrina’s eyes were bright, the pupils dilated until the color of her irises could have passed for black. She brought her finger to her lip to trace the lower rim. Her hand drifted lower, over her chin and trailed down her neck, moving lower still until she pulled that teasing gap open a little wider.

“Hey…” His words caught in his throat. Really, he had nothing to offer. Nothing any red-blooded man with a lick of sense staring down a beautiful woman would say.

She reached for his jaw, and when she connected, a burst of fire enveloped his skin. “You have the most incredible eyes, you know.” Heat traveled along his skin, a wake of burn following her touch. “They’re so unique. Mesmerizing.”

The skin along his face never felt more sensitive. His heartbeat hinging on whether she kept her finger connected to him. Something about this didn’t sit well. This sudden interest in him. But damn if he could get his mind to concentrate long enough to sort the details.

Her scent wafted to him and he realized she’d moved closer. Not just closer. Electricity crackled in the sparse places they didn’t quite touch. Very few places.

Sabrina wedged herself between his legs, her body sliding against his with casual ease. The gap in her robe widened even farther, exposing a smooth, soft belly. A delicate indentation he wanted to dip his tongue inside nestled farther down in the middle. Below there he didn’t dare look. Not yet.

“What—” What are you doing, he almost asked, but held his tongue. He knew exactly what she was doing. Hazy eyes, parted lips, suggestive proximity all exposed her intentions. Somewhere between his brain and his mouth, a short-circuit deliberately made certain he didn’t put an end to it.