Page 2 of Deadly Blooms (Psychic Unraveled #1)

I still remembered the first time the obsession kicked in, like it was yesterday. We had just finished our second round of steamy sex, and he started acting weird—staring at me with this intense, desperate look. His eyes glittered with obsession, like if I didn’t stay with him he’d die.

It was the same look Jamie had now.

I felt bad, and when he nuzzled his face into my shoulder and whispered, “Please don’t go.” I didn’t know what to do or say.

So I stayed.

At first, it was kind of nice having someone so into me, but as time went on, it turned into a crazy fixation. I couldn’t leave without him following. He’d wait at the bakery until closing, lurking outside the stores I shopped at, and demanding to be with me every second of every day.

I’d always had a few kinks I unlocked with my smutty reading habits—like touch her and die, light BDSM, or even my newly found masked stalker kink—but this wasn’t it. His behavior was borderline mental illness, but since I knew I was the problem, I couldn’t have him committed.

During the week and a half that we dated, I never told him where I lived, I had Annie—my boss—bring fresh clothes from home, just so he didn’t know where to find me.

The night I broke up with him, we fucked until I was raw. Then he sobbed for hours clinging to me, threatening suicide if I left.

There weren’t many witches in the part of Ohio I lived in, and any coven I contacted refused to teach me how to solve my problem—unless I paid.

Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to support other witches, but I was broke and needed guaranteed results.

Google was a bust—only bringing up cord cuttings and some candle work, and what I did try either worked for minutes, or not at all.

I did manage to finally get him to back off by letting him know how important it was to me that he moved on and made a happy life without me in it. I tried to do it in the kindest, gentlest way, but having your heart broken is never pain free.

Annie said the guy still checked in daily to see how I was doing, only purchasing items I’d baked, and sat just out of my view to take me in.

God, I really am a horrible person .

Thank God, no one had figured out where I lived yet. I used an alias when signing the lease, because I didn’t want Mark knowing where I lived. If my dates knew, I probably would’ve had the police at my door breaking up fights every day.

But then I screwed that up by casting the spell on a man who worked for the moving company scheduled to take my shit to Massachusetts.

Luckily, I had Uncle Silas to be grateful for.

The move was a way for me to start fresh, saying no more to love spells or interfering with free will.

No more messing with people’s lives. I needed to grow up, even if it meant giving up my easy access to free and fast orgasms. I couldn’t live with myself if I destroyed one more person’s life.

“Jameson!” yelled Jamie’s red-faced boss, ripping me from the never-ending sea of thoughts flooding my mind.

His burly, black-haired boss stood at the roll-up door holding a dolly full of boxes.

Shit!

Panic washed over me.

“Oh—I—Uh—sorry, boss.” Jamie set me down and tucked himself back into his coveralls.

“That’s the third time this month I’ve caught you balls deep in a client of ours.”

Wait, did he say the third time?

If it had been any other day, I could have let the sudden jab of not being Jamie’s only interest shatter me. Thankfully, I didn’t.

“Wait!” I ran to his boss, tugging my dress down, and popping my tits back into my bodice. “Fred, is it?” I patted his name tag. “Jamie really had nothing to do with this.”

An amused grin smeared across Fred’s face. “Clearly he did. You’re still dripping—ain’t ya?” He bit down on his unlit cigar and shoved the boxes into their place with the others in the truck.

Heat flushed my cheeks. God, what did I expect? I was the one who decided the back of the moving van was a good place to screw around.

“Oh, come on Fred, you and I both know that’s neither here nor there.

” I ran my hands through my tousled golden locks.

“You know how it is. A lonely woman worried about the move. I thought we could have a little fun before I left to take my mind off it. I coerced him—I know I shouldn’t have, especially here, while he was working, but I just wanted—” I snapped my mouth shut. He didn’t need to hear all of this.

His red face scrunched up in a mixture of frustration, confusion, and maybe even a bit of arousal. Eyebrows knitting together in a sharp V as he shrugged.

“—don’t take his job on account of me.” I said, hoping my sincerity was as evident as I meant it.

Fred pulled a dirty rag from his back pocket and dabbed at the drops of sweat rolling down his round face and into his stubble. His eyes raked over my tits, and bare thighs, but lingered between my legs. When he licked his lips that was it.

Repulsion flooded my veins. God, was he thinking what I thought he was?

I could almost see his dick pulsating. My body recoiled at the thought of this man, twice my age, filthy, sweating and grunting on top of me.

“What’ll you do to save his job?”

I think I just threw up in my mouth.

“What do you mean?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“For me?” He bit the end off his cigar and lit it. “I bet your cunnie is still good, even if it is for sloppy seconds.”

Then he reached for me—he fucking reached for me. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I wasn’t going to be some chauvinistic pig’s plaything.

“Of course, I could always clean up that buttered bun before we get started.”

My jaw dropped, my heart leaping into my throat.

No fucking way!

It wasn’t his appearance, size, or even his filthy words that turned me off. It was the kind of man he was—thinking he had a right to me just because I was the lesser sex in his eyes.

“Don’t!” I yanked my arm away just before he could touch me.

“Boss!” Jamie lunged between us, his posture stiff.

I grabbed my sweater and fled past them down the ramp and to the sidewalk so any onlookers could be my witness if things headed south.

“I’m not having it.” He growled, shaking his head, “Get your things and go! You’re not finishing the day. Had your little whore—” h e looked right at me when he called me that— the bastard. “Had she been a little more accepting of me, maybe you’d’ve lasted til the end of the week.”

Jamie’s words: “I really need this job…” trailed off as he followed his boss to the road.

The guilt seeped in and weighed me down, as I watched him beg for a second chance. Dammit!

I couldn’t believe I’d let myself do it again.

Well, no more.

I meant it.

No fucking more.

My selfish spell casting cost a good man his job, and I could’ve ended up seriously hurt—or worse. My ears strained as Jamie and his boss walked further across the street.

Jamie’s eyes met mine, and I mouthed, “I’m sorry,” before turning away to collect the rest of my things in my apartment.

And just like that, I ruined another man’s life before lunch.

Gold star for me.

I didn’t have romantic feelings for Jamie—at least not anything more than an appreciation for his generous dick—though I did like him. And he didn’t deserve to suffer because of my addiction.

Graham

Her head was on my chest, and I was already counting down the minutes until I could bail.

The circles she traced across my skin were supposed to be sweet, but they tickled—annoyingly. Like a mosquito that wanted commitment.

Her bedroom smelled like sex, overpriced candles, and that faint powdery perfume that women wear when they’re trying to be classy but end up smelling like a Walgreens aisle.

There was a crystal hanging in the window. One of those rainbow-casting ones. The kind girls like her swore “cleansed the energy in the room.”

Last night, she called me “sweet.”

It always started that way.

“So… maybe we could catch dinner tonight?” She asked, her lust-drunk eyes gazing up at me.

Of course.

Good sex always meant more to them than it did to me. I really needed to stop being so generous with the orgasms. I just figured if I was going to use them like this, the least I could do was give them a good time.

“I’ve got plans.” I said, easing her head off me and standing up.

I tugged on my jeans—dick still wet—and found my shirt half hanging from her dresser, and I fished my phone out of the pocket.

Nettles was already bitching.

Nettles:

LOCKE. brIEFING STARTED TEN MINUTES AGO. GET YOUR ASS IN GEAR.

Another message—Cynthia.

Tonight’s date. Confirmed.

I didn’t even remember swiping right.

Michelle stretched across the sheets, her skin still flushed, her hair in a tangled halo. She rolled onto her belly, lifting her perfect ass into my view.

Tempting.

But I wasn’t in the mood to play games.

“You’re a great lay, Michelle. But I meant it—no repeats.” I wished the girls I took out would actually read my goddamn profile, not just see my body and swipe. It literally said, I’m an ass and will most likely be gone by morning. No relationships. No repeats. It’s just sex.

“Besides, don’t you have to get back to the counter at Sephora?”

Yep. Asshole.

Her face cracked just a little. I ignored it, laced up my boots, and headed for the door.

Her apartment was two blocks from the precinct, which was part of why I’d picked her.

Convenience.

I hit the street, and let the fog settle into my lungs. Port Grey did that thing again—where the sun pretended it might show up but really just backlit everything like a black-and-white photo.

Perfect for hiding just how goddamn tired I was. What was I supposed to expect, a different girl every night, sometimes two? Using sex as a way to bury the past, wore a guy out.

I didn’t bother hurrying. The briefing would be halfway over. Nettles would bitch whether I got there now, or an hour from now.

Same shit. Different Day