Chapter 50
SLOAN
Everything hurt. Literally. Even my hair.
I rolled over onto my side and my eyes flew open to see the man in my bed. I winced and looked around. Not my room.
Definitely not my bed.
The guy from the bar?
Bishop. And the memories of the night and morning and afternoon washed over me.
Goddess, I hope you weren’t watching.
I buried my face in his arm, the soft cotton of his long-sleeved shirt made me want to burrow into him. I looked down at myself, a matching one in deep green hugged me as well as the covers he’d tucked around me.
Why was he on top of the covers? We’d definitely done all…
Then memories of what happened that morning ran at me like one of those bullet trains I’d taken in Japan.
I wanted to melt into the bed, through the floorboards, and into the earth.
I’d cried, screamed, and begged for things I’d never have had the nerve to do. And I was not a woman who shied away from sex.
I sat up slowly, my whole body screaming at me to lie back down.
The last of the sun turned the windows a molten orange. I could hear the ocean roaring from outside the French doors. I slid out of bed and went to the doors, opening them for a bit of air.
The room felt stale and I sure as hell needed a shower.
“Sloan?” His sleepy voice made me turn. He rolled onto his side staring at me, propped up on one elbow.
“It’s me. The real me. Not the Sloan acting like she was trying out for Only Fans.” I covered my face.
“Hey.” He got off the bed and crossed to me. “I’m just glad you’re okay. You had me worried.” He pulled my hands away from my face.
“I could just leave and we’d never have to face what that was.”
“Do you want to leave?”
“No.” The fact that I said it so quickly surprised me. “I mean, I can go if you want me to.”
“I don’t.” He took my hand. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“I’m fine. Nothing a hot shower and three to five business days of rest won’t cure.”
His face fell.
“I’m kidding.”
When he just lowered his eyes to the floor, I leaned into him.
“Hey. Truly. I’m fine. I’m better than fine. It’s not all that often that I get a night like that.” I tipped his chin up to meet my gaze. “Whatever was in that drink—at least I think it was the drink—affected both of us.”
His jaw was clenched tight and his shoulders stiff with what I could only imagine was recrimination.
“It’s okay if you’re pissed about it. I’m sure I wasn’t in your plans for last night.”
“No.”
I swallowed the sting of his words.
“I mean, it wasn’t in my plans. I was supposed to be in Salem. I don’t even know how I ended up in Driftwood Pointe. There was flooding…” He trailed off. “It doesn’t matter.”
“You don’t exactly seem like a Salem guy.” I tipped my head. “Though I imagine if you were dressed like you were last night and walked around Salem, you’d get tons of women—or men—throwing themselves at you.”
He huffed out a laugh. “Not what I was going there for. It was… personal.”
“Oh. Well, that’s understandable. I was actually just there myself for most of the summer. Lots of great workshops in the off season.”
He frowned. “Ruth?”
I laughed. “You know, Ruth? She’s amazing. I learned a lot from her. So many people want me to join a coven, but she was different. She made me feel like a solitary life wasn’t so bad. That she understood me. She said she studied under a few witches that walked the path alone as well.”
He stared out the window.
“Bishop, what’s your last name?”
The haze of the night before didn’t allow me to connect things. But the runes and the way he knew things. It couldn’t be a coincidence.
“Parrish.” He cleared his throat. “At least that’s what I go by now.” He turned from the window, the last of the warm rays at his back.
“You’re Ruth’s mentor.” I frowned. “But that can’t be right. She’s over eighty-seven years old.”
He gave me a tight-lipped smile.
“Three hundred and…” I couldn’t remember the number he’d said exactly.
“I’m three hundred and fifty-four years old.” He gave a wry laugh. “That drink definitely had some extra ingredients in it because I never would have given specifics.” He sighed. “Perhaps in jest if I’d been in my cups.”
Cups? I shook my head. He had the oddest turn of phrase sometimes. “We need to go back to the bar. I’ve only heard good things about Driftwood Pointe. The fact that the bartender would spike our drink is fucking ridiculous.”
“We don’t know that. Hell, I wondered if it was you last night.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, could have been a sweetheart trap. How the hell would I have known? We literally only met one another last night.”
I folded my arms. “I would never.”
“Tell that to the ingredients in your bag last night.”
“That’s ridiculous!” I looked around the room, finding my bag on the chair with the contents back inside. “You went through my stuff?”
“It was extenuating circumstances, witch—”
“Don’t start with that nonsense again.” I stalked over to my bag and dug inside for the wrapped baggies full of ingredients and crystals. I did a mental catalog of everything and still I couldn’t find anything in my stash that could have resulted in what happened last night.
“There’s no way,” I whispered.
“Then maybe we should go to the bar and find out.” He said from behind me.
I tried to ignore the shiver that raced down my spine at his voice. “I need to get some fresh clothes and a shower.” I grabbed my wrinkled jeans off the floor, but they were hopeless.
Bishop crossed the room and retrieved something from the headboard. He came back to me and looped his arms around my middle.
I froze.
He looked down at me as he tied the strings from my sweater around my waist. “The shirt is long enough to be a mini dress on you. Enough to get you to your room.”
His hands rested at my hips.
My body felt like there was a rash under my skin. Hot prickles raced down my neck and went directly to my nipples, which hadn’t gotten the message that we weren’t supposed to be enamored with Bishop anymore.
I stepped back.
He dropped his hands. “Sorry.”
I had the strongest urge to step back into his arms, but I just grabbed my things. “I’ll meet you in the lobby in an hour.”
He nodded.
I stuffed my clothes into my bag and rushed out of the room. Twenty minutes later I felt marginally more human. Every muscle in my body reminded me of the time I took a yoga class and paid for it—for days.
I had a feeling that would be my truth for even longer than that.
Exactly an hour later, I found him in the lobby. He was talking to the woman at the check-in desk. He’d changed into an all-black ensemble that did insane things for my already chaotic system.
Black jeans, boots, and thick cable-knit sweater under his smooth as butter leather jacket made him look a little dangerous. His hair was swept back, showing off a widow’s peak, I hadn’t noticed before.
He’d trimmed up his beard which made his already drool-inducing jawline even more acute.
Do not look at him like a piece of Wagyu steak, Sloan.
I’d changed into my own form of armor. My favorite green hoodie over my ripped jeans with a pair of sturdy hiking boots. Nothing sexy about this outfit. We’d do just fine.
He turned and spotted me. Almost like he felt me enter the room. My heart stuttered before it went back into rhythm.
It was so weird to know a man’s body inside and out and barely know the person under the skin.
He met me at the door. “Did you want to just walk over?”
I nodded. “It’s a nice night.”
We were quiet on the return trip to the bar. Just last night we’d been near drunk on excitement and now all that was gone. He held the door open for me. The vibe in the bar was much different as well.
It seemed full of after-work locals and a few traveling types in for a day trip like I had been.
I went right to the bar, coming to a halt when I noticed a black cat on the stool I’d been on the night before. Instead of the good looking dark-haired bartender, a woman was behind the bar polishing glasses.
“What can I get you?”
“Is the bartender from last night coming in today?”
She shook her head. “I make drinks just as delicious.”
The cat went on her hind legs and batted her paws at Bishop. She was all black save for a tiny white diamond patch of fur between her eyes. He just arched a brow at the cat then caught her when she neatly jumped into his arms.
“Don’t mind Bess. She’s a shameless hussy.” The bartender slipped the glass into the overhead slider full of wine glasses. “You look like a vodka lemon lime,” she said to me, then pointed to Bishop. “Rye whiskey neat.”
“Good guess,” he murmured.
She shrugged. “It’s my job. Let me pour those for you.”
“Wait, I didn’t say that was my drink.”
“Isn’t it?”
I cleared my throat. “Actually, yes.”
The woman grinned. “I’ll be right back.”
I followed her down the bar. “Did anyone have any problems at the bar last night?”
“No, why?” She arched a slim brow at me.
“I don’t want to make accusations…”
“But you’re going to?”
I swallowed hard. “I had one of the Persephone Number Nine’s last night. Afterward, it was a bit of a… strange night. I only had one drink—and not even the whole thing.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What kind of strange night?”
“One that usually would take four drinks to start up,” Bishop said from behind me. “And I didn’t have a drink at all.”
“Are you saying you got roofied in here?” Her face betrayed nothing, but I sensed a dangerous anger under the words.
“Not exactly.” I looked around at the people at the bar. “Could we speak a little more privately?”
“If you’re accusing me and Rowan of something, I think it’s only right that it’s in front of our local sheriff.”
The man at the bar tipped the brim of his ballcap. And it was only then that I noticed the khaki uniform. “What seems to be the problem?”
“Uh.” Crap, I hadn’t really thought everything through.
The officer straightened away from the bar, nearly as tall as Bishop. His nostrils flared as he looked him over, his fingers a bit itchy at his belt.
I stepped back into Bishop and practically sighed in relief when his hand slid along my hip.
“We’re not accusing, but we are concerned about what happened here last night.”
“Just what did happen?” The sheriff’s voice was cool, but interested.
“Well, it’s a bit personal.”
“I’ve heard it all in this town, Miss…”
“Sloan Locke. And this is Bishop Parrish.” I cleared my throat. “The drink I had seemed to have a bit of a side effect of the enhancement variety.”
The sheriff’s eyebrow arched. “Just how enhancing?”
“Of the break the bed variety,” Bishop said dryly.
The cat jumped out of Bishop’s arms and to the floor, hissing. All three of us turned, to find the cat cornering something along the bar.
“Dammit, Bess.” The bartender quickly slipped from behind the bar and swore. “You can’t go after every—Billie Blue, what are you doing in here? You know you’ve been banned.”
I looked around. Who the heck was she talking to?
A small person… well, not a person. But something other climbed up on the stool and stuck its tongue out at the cat. “I know, Elara. It was a special occasion.”
“Just what kind of a special occasion?”
He tapped his chin. “Can’t say.”
“Can’t or won’t?” Elara, the bartender, asked.
His gaze skittered to the sheriff. “What? Don’t look at me like that Ezekiel.”
“The last time you had a special occasion, I was herding goats off the beach.”
I gasped. Trickster… or. “Are you a Brownie?”
Billie preened. “What a guess! People usually say fairies. While not exactly wrong, it’s not exactly right!” His voice was a singsong. He hopped up on the bar, floating lightly with a flash of stardust on his feet.
Bishop growled.
Billie flitted back toward Elara. “Don’t let him hurt me.”
“You’re on your own,” she said. “I’m not getting involved in one of your schemes.”
“It wasn’t a scheme. Just a little… push.”
Elara picked him up by the scruff of his shirt. “What did you do? There is no magic in the bar. You know that.”
“It wasn’t exactly magic. Just a little something to make them talk to each other.”
“Talk!” Bishop bellowed. “There was no talking. She could have been hurt.”
I turned around and put my hands on Bishop’s chest. His heart was galloping. “Hey. Calm down.”
“Calm down. That little shit drugged you.”
“I did not!” Billie flitted out from behind Elara then back again when Bishop marched forward. “It was just a few sprinkles from the Mexican holly in her bag. It would just make you guys flirt.”
“What?”
Billie zipped up into the rafters. “It was harmless!”
“First of all,” I called to him. “It was Damiana and a potent version at that. Did you mix it with allspice and something else?”
“I added a little honey to mask the flavor,” he said quietly.
I plopped down on the seat, automatically petting the black cat who jumped in my lap. “Well, that explains it. Between the pomegranates and the spices, add in the honey, which is why it stuck around between us all night, and it made a perfect bonding agent.”
“It was just a little!” Billie said and hid in the light fixture.
“And that’s why you’ve been banned, Billie!” Elara said and slammed a book on the bar top. “Now I’m adding three more years to your ban.”
“Elara, no!”
“You could have seriously hurt someone.” She scribbled something in the book then pushed it over the sheriff who signed it too before she tucked it under the bar. “Final say.”
“All right, out with you, Billie. If these folks want to press charges, you’ll have to face the music.”
The brownie was about to flit out the door. “You wouldn’t do that would you?” Billie paused at the threshold of the bar’s door.
“Why did you do it?” Bishop asked.
Billie shrugged. “Ruthie said you were sad. We thought you’d like each other.”
And then he was gone.
Bishop collapsed on the seat beside her. “Ruth. She knew I’d be heading for Salem.”
“For what?” I turned to him, resting my hand on his forearm. Knowing the priestess was involved in all of this made everything make sense.
She was a peculiar woman and her gift was divination. Did she know something we didn’t?
“The glow.” He flicked his fingers. “The fairy dust led me right into town. The rain pushed me off course and I ended up here.” He looked at me.
I squeezed his arm. “Did we get the matchmaker special?” Ruth was a bit meddling, but never to this level. She’d told me of her mentor. Speaking of him like he walked the world alone on a level like no other.
A little like me.
“I think we did.”
“Pretty sure she didn’t expect it to go quite like this.”
Bishop shook his head. “She should have known better. Everything attached to me goes to shit.” He stood up and hurried out of the bar.
What the hell did that mean?
I slid off the stool and handed the sheriff the cat. “No charges. But keep Billie out of spellcasting when he doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
“He’s the bane of my existence, ma’am.”
I could only imagine.
But what if Ruth was right all along?
What if the nudge was only the beginning? I ran out of the bar, but he was gone.