Page 10

A cold breeze rolled across my bare arms, sending a sharp prickle over my skin.

I groaned, rolling over, fumbling for the bedsheets, only to grasp at nothing.

I cracked one eye open, barely conscious, only to find the bedding had vanished.

From the corner of the room, BooDini quivered in excitement, its sheet form fluttering as though it couldn’t contain whatever had it so giddy.

I buried my face into the pillow with a muffled groan, curling inward, tucking my limbs into myself for warmth. The floorboards creaked softly, followed by the familiar sound of rustling fabric, and suddenly, my pillow was gone too.

I let out a long, exhausted sigh. I did not have the energy for this.

“Leave me alone, BooDini,” I mumbled, tucking my chin into my crossed arms. “I just want to sleep.”

BooDini fluttered its sheets wildly in response. Yeah, it wasn’t going to let me sleep until I got up and did what it wanted.

Rolling out of bed, I slipped my feet into the pair of slippers BooDini had conveniently left for me. I snatched my tattered hoodie off the desk chair, pulling it on with a shiver before leveling a tired glare at BooDini. “What is it you need to show me so badly?”

The door creaked open in response. BooDini wasted no time, gliding out into the hallway with an air of urgency.

I rolled my eyes but followed.

As I padded down the dimly lit corridor, the scent of lavender thickened in the air, wrapping around me like an invisible fog. A soft glow flickered from the crack in the bathroom door at the end of the hall, candlelight dancing against the wooden frame.

“I don’t want another bath,” I murmured, lowering my voice as if afraid of offending the house—especially since we’d just made up.

BooDini, completely unmoved by my reluctance, lifted its sheeted arm and beckoned. It wasn’t taking no for an answer.

With a grumble, I shuffled forward, arms crossed, lips pursed as I came to a halt in front of the bathroom door. “Fine,” I muttered. “But this better be good.”

A deep, guttural groan rumbled from beyond the door.

Heat pooled low in my stomach, a strange, unwanted flicker of desire skittering over my skin—only to be swiftly drowned by cold, hard fear.

There’s a stranger in your house, Jen. And you have no magic to protect yourself.

My pulse spiked, breath hitching as my gaze darted around the hallway in search of anything I could use as a weapon. With few options, my fingers closed around the neck of a vase perched on a small console table.

I cut a sharp glare at BooDini. “You better not have let an ax-wielding murderer into my house,” I hissed under my breath.

BooDini flapped its sheets excitedly, as if completely unbothered by the fact that there was an intruder in the next room.

I swallowed hard, steadying myself, fingers tightening around the vase.

With a final breath, I pushed the bathroom door open.

The most ridiculously handsome man I’d ever seen was in my bath.

Chestnut hair clung to his face in damp strands, framing sharp cheekbones and a chiseled jawline.

His eyes were closed, his bottom lip caught between his teeth in a way that sent an annoyingly traitorous flutter through my chest. His head was tipped back, exposing the thick, corded muscles of his neck, one arm lazily draped over the side of the tub, his biceps flexing with slow, deliberate tension as his other hand moved beneath the water.

Is he...?

Is he jerking off in my bath?!

Horror crawled up my spine, heat flooding my face as I barely stopped myself from whipping around on instinct. Because my gaze had snagged on the bath tray. Or rather, what was sitting open on the bath tray.

My manuscript.

Not only had this intruder—who had clearly been let in by BooDini, the traitor—broken into my house, but he was now lounging in my bath, touching himself while reading my unfinished book.

My mouth opened and closed, rage crackling like a live wire beneath my skin.

The man slowly turned his head toward me, as if only just now realizing he wasn’t alone. His eyes fluttered open—rich, bourbon-hued irises meeting mine—and for half a second, I could have drowned in them.

“Who the fuck are you, and what the fuck are you doing in my house?” I snapped, my voice a low, dangerous growl.

Shadows exploded from him, swallowing the room in suffocating darkness. The sharp slosh of water cut through the void, and just as quickly as the shadows had appeared, they collapsed, retreating back into his form like ink slithering into his skin. And what was left in their wake?

An incubus demon .

Thick, ridged horns coiled from his hairline, dark and gleaming like polished onyx.

His lips peeled back in a silent hiss, exposing dangerously elongated canines.

Iridescent black scales shimmered along his forearms, fading at his elbows and ending in lethal, obsidian talons where fingers should be.

But it was the tail that stole my breath—the thick, reptilian thing that lashed behind him, covered in the same gleaming, black-scaled armor.

It moved with purpose, coiling and twitching, ready to strike.

My gaze flicked downward, taking in a long, jagged scar that ran the length of his thigh, curling behind his knee.

But it was his thick, aggressive erection, slick with water, a small peak of bath bubbles sliding down it, that had my throat immediately drying up.

With all the willpower I possessed, I ripped my gaze away from the first IRL penis I’d ever seen and forced myself to meet his eyes.

His chest heaved, droplets of water sliding down his sculpted muscles. Then, in a voice that should have sent me running, he parroted my words back at me. “Who the fuck are you , and what the fuck are you doing in my house?”

I should have flinched. I should have backed away, because he was poised to attack , his entire body thrumming with tension. Instead, my sex-starved brain betrayed me. I felt a slick heat bloom between my thighs, and my eyes flicked back down to his dick.

“My eyes are up here, human,” he rumbled.

Heat flooded my cheeks.

Stop looking at the strange incubus’s dick, Jen.

I snapped my gaze up to meet his, attempting to cross my arms in defiance, only to remember mid-motion that I was still clutching a vase. The result was me awkwardly cradling it like a newborn instead.

“I’m a witch ,” I snapped.

The demon’s nostrils flared, his golden-brown eyes darkening as he took a slow, deliberate inhale.

“I don’t sense any magic on you.”

“And I don’t sense any pants on you.” I gestured wildly in the general direction of his still very prominent erection, refusing to fully acknowledge it. “Put some on, and then you can explain to me what the fuck you’re doing in my house.”

As if on cue, BooDini drifted into the room, vibrating with barely contained glee, tactfully averting its gaze from the very naked incubus and extending a towel toward him.

The incubus snatched it without breaking eye contact with me. “Thank you, ghost.” He wrapped the towel around his waist. His erection strained against the fabric, tenting the towel in a way that had a giggle threaten to burst from my lips.

“I’ll let you... uh, get yourself sorted,” I muttered, already spinning on my heel.

BooDini fluttered down the stairs after me, completely unbothered by my seething glare.

“Why are you letting strangers into the house?” I hissed, but the little traitor ignored me entirely, floating dreamily into the kitchen. A second later, the kettle began to whistle.

I rolled my eyes and collapsed onto the couch, staring into the fire, desperately trying to think about anything other than the way those bubbles had clung to the thick, veiny ridges.

Or the way his bourbon-colored eyes had fluttered open, hazy with pleasure.

Or how his bottom lip had caught between his teeth, his jaw tensed in restraint.

A sharp creak from the staircase yanked me from my spiraling thoughts. I turned my head just in time to see the incubus, now fully clothed, descending the stairs, a sheepish grin on his face.

His hair, still damp from the bath, had been towel-dried, giving him an effortlessly roguish look. His jeans were bootcut and tight in all the right places. The flannel shirt he wore clung to his frame, the sleeves rolled up just enough to reveal strong, sculpted forearms.

I gulped.

If he had a hat and a pair of boots with spurs, he’d look as if he could have stepped straight off the cover of one of the steamy rancher romances hidden in my forbidden book stash.

“Maybe we should start over?” he said, strolling toward me, hands tucked safely away in his pockets, his tone innocent as if he wasn’t a six-foot-something incubus who’d just been caught jacking off in my bathtub. “Hi. I’m Devlin,” he said smoothly. “I’m renting this cabin for the next two weeks.”

My teeth clenched so tightly I was surprised my molars didn’t implode.

“ BooDini !” I yelled loud enough to make the demon jump.

Devlin’s brows knitted in confusion just as BooDini peeked guiltily out of the kitchen, hesitating before coming to a stop a safe distance away.

“Has my childhood home been rented out to strangers?” I asked, my tone deadly calm.

BooDini’s cutout sheet eyes widened, and after a moment of tense silence, it slowly nodded.

I ran my hand over my face, fighting the urge to scream. “You just open your doors and let perfect strangers stay in our family home?”

A sharp pang of guilt twisted in my chest. This wasn’t a family home anymore.

BooDini immediately pressed its sheeted arms against its chest, shaking its head violently, as if appalled by the very suggestion that it would be so reckless.

I jabbed a finger in Devlin’s direction. “Well then, how do you explain him ?” I demanded, though my initial fire had dulled.

“To be fair to the ghost, it did try its best to scare me away. And—” Devlin rummaged in his pocket before pulling out a folded piece of paper. He set it on the coffee table and nudged it toward me with two fingers. “—it looks like BooDini usually does a pretty good job of it.”

BooDini clasped its hands together and held them against its chest, its head tilted in awe as if Devlin was its knight in shining armor.

Lips pursed, I snatched the paper off the coffee table and unfolded it with a sharp flick.

My eyes scanned the words at the top: The World’s Most Haunted House .

Beneath the title was a black-and-white photo of my house, looking ominously weathered under an overcast sky, a gloomy looking BooDini floating in the foreground.

“ Welcome to Bramble Cabin, the most haunted house in the world ,” I read aloud.

“ A nameless entity resides in the cabin, a tortured soul, hell-bent on its solitary existence, determined to plague anyone who dares cross its threshold. ” I glared at BooDini, who puffed its chest out with pride. “Tortured soul? Really ?”

BooDini shrugged its shoulders nonchalantly.

“I bet this is Caitlyn’s doing,” I said through gritted teeth, and BooDini nodded its head in response.

I let out a long breath, pressing my fingers to my temples. I supposed it made sense—when the house refused to return to the coven, my cousin Caitlyn had clearly seen an opportunity. And, in true Caitlyn fashion, she’d exploited it, turning my childhood home into a novelty vacation stay.

At least the house had put up a fight.

But what to do with the incubus who was currently vacationing in my house?

I turned to Devlin, only to find him grinning as he eagerly watched the exchange between me and BooDini.

There was something oddly endearing about the way the corner of his lip curled.

Heat pooled low in my stomach as my traitorous mind conjured the image of Devlin in the bath, his fist moving in slow, deliberate strokes.

Suddenly, his nostrils flared.

Incubus demon, remember? I chided myself. He can sense all your emotions and feeds from your desires.

I pushed the image of him into the dark abyss of my mind.

“So,” I said, crossing my arms. “You’re supposed to be here for the next two weeks? Any chance you could... you know...” I gestured vaguely toward the door. “Not be?”