Page 19 of With All My Haunted Heart

“I know.” I raise a hand and let him pull me back to my feet. “But it’s too soft to properly ground after a spell like that. The floor is nice and firm.”

“Well, it is hardwood.” Xander glances around and breathes deep. “Is the barrier up?”

My heart sinks. “Why? Can you feel it?”

“What? No. Not at all, which is why I wondered.” Xander puts an arm around my shoulder. “I’ve been thinking…maybe you don’t ward my room.”

I have to crane my neck to meet his eyes. “Why? Did you already turn it into a sex dungeon?”

He laughs, full-throated and warm, the vibrations passing from his body into mine. It feels as good as magic. He leans to rest his cheek on top of my head. “What if my only chance at true love is a sexy gay ghost from the nineteen twenties, all repressed and eager to explore the love he didn’t have when he was alive? I don’t want my future ghost husband locked out of my room.”

“Xan, your love life isn’t that kind of dead.” I shove him playfully out the door, down the hall to his room. “Besides, the ghosts aren’t going to be corporeal. You can’t have sex with them.”

He smirks. “But could you make that possible? Assuming said sexy ghost wants me to ravish him.”

“Is that the personal reason for the hauntings Elle won’t talk about?” Even though I have no intention of conjuring corporeal ghosts—the bigwigs at NACOW would absolutely lose their shit over something like that—my brain starts spinning with possibilities anyway. I can’t help it. Someone offers a problem, my brain goes searching for a solution whether I want it to or not. Whether the solution is possible or not.

“Who’s to say,” Xander replies cryptically before settling on his bed to watch me work. I follow the same steps from my room, but now that I’ve already done it once, I have a better sense of the amount of magic I need to channel. When I’m finished securing Xander’s room, I’m balanced enough to move on to the Jack-and-Jill bathroom he shares with Elle.

“Do not judge me for the state of that sink,” Xander says as I reach for the door. “Lou has a twenty-step skin-care routine.”

Their bathroom is impeccably clean, all white tile and fluffy green towels. Despite Xander’s warning, I’m surprised by the sheer number of bottles and vials crowding the sink. “Is Elle older than us?” I ask Xander, who is nearly a year older than me and already thirty. “There are enough serums to make a fifty-year-old look twenty.”

The door on the other side of the bathroom swings open, revealing Elle. She’s wearing a skintight tank top and shorts, her hair in a high ponytail. Sweat gathers along her hairline. “I’ll be thirty in February,” she says flatly. “How long are you going to be in here? I need to shower.”

I’ve seen her before her runs most afternoons, which she takes once she’s finished baking for the day. But this is the first time I’ve seen her after, face flushed, chest heaving from exertion. My mouth goes dry as my brain unhelpfully provides images of Elle stripping out of those clothes. Her stepping into the shower, goose bumps trailing along her pale, creamy skin. My traitorous brain shows me rivulets of water running sensually down her body before I can shake the highly inappropriate image away. She’s a client, I remind myself. And also a person with no interest in me who I shouldn’t be imagining naked!

“Shouldn’t be long.” The words come out sounding strangled. I clear my throat. “Five minutes? Then I can do your room while you’re in the shower.”

All I get is that half-hearted hmm sound as Elle disappears back into her bedroom.

Downstairs, the doorbell rings, and Xander glances over his shoulder. “That’s the landscaper. They’re supposed to finish winterizing the garden beds this week. You good on your own?”

I nod and get to work the moment he’s gone, adding an extra pass of sigils along the shower in case something goes wrong and a ghost does end up in the bathroom. When I’m done, I’m jittery with magic. So much of my focus went to keeping my brain firmly out of inappropriate places that the flow of magic wasn’t as regulated as it should have been.

“Your eyes didn’t glow this time,” Elle says, leaning against the doorjamb, a towel tucked under one arm, a pile of clothes in her other hand.

“Most of the time, they don’t.” I focus my attention down to my feet, to the press of my soles on the tile floor. “They only glow when I’ve amplified the energy of my third eye.”

“Ah.” Elle steps into the bathroom, the small space heightening the lavender of her deodorant, the salty tang of sweat, and her familiar spiced scent. There’s even a lingering hint of fresh bread from the time she spent baking this morning.

She watches me a moment, those pale green eyes scanning my face. “Do you mind?” she asks, pointing to the shower behind me.

“Right. Of course. I’ll ward your room and get out of your way.” I feel her gaze on me as I leave, and when I close the door between us, I sink against it. I need to get my shit together. I’ve been around attractive women before without losing my mind like this. Yes, it’s been a long time since I’ve been with anyone, but that’s no excuse for the way my body is misbehaving.

I don’t normally dabble in romance-related magic, but I might make an exception to get this attraction back under control. Some spell to make me immune to whatever it is about Elle I find so damn charming. I don’t want to be unprofessional, and I won’t risk making things so awkward that I can’t visit Xander once I’ve finished this job.

Through the door at my back, I hear the swoosh of the shower curtain. The water turns on, the spray drumming the bottom of the tub. A moment later, the sound dulls as it hits Elle’s body, and I lurch away from the door before my brain starts supplying fresh mental pictures.

Enough. I trace a dampening sigil over my chest, and the out-of-control attraction fades away. I’m finally, finally able to focus. I find the center of the room and kneel about a foot from the end of Elle’s bed. With the flat of my hand, I trace the amplification sigil on the area rug.

Then I’m up, working my way around the room. I try not to notice any of the details of her space, but my brain catalogs them anyway. Her bed is neatly made with modern floral bedding in yellows, blues, and creams. She’s also arranged and fluffed her pillows like something out of a magazine. There are three books on her bedside table, one on business management, one on the history of French patisserie, and on top…an Ashley Herring Blake romance novel.

A sapphic romance novel.

Straight women read queer fiction, too, I remind myself, sending more magic to the dampening sigil on my chest.

I continue through the room, picking up the details of her space in a detached sort of way. There’s the small dish of jewelry on the dresser. A tiny vial of an androgynous cologne, the likely source of that spiced scent that drives me to distraction. Another paperback, this one a thriller by an author whose name I don’t recognize.