“We don’t invite this energy to stay,” she said. “We aren’t scared.”
I huffed out a bitter laugh. “What the hell are you talkin’ about? I’m scared as shit.”
She smiled, but she wasn’t backing down. “We left something behind in that room,” she said. “And I want to burn it out.”
I swallowed hard. “You sure?”
June nodded once. “We’re going to exorcise that shit right fucking now.”
God help me…she was absolutely right. And she wasbrave.
I’d spent the last few weeks walking around with ghosts, and here she was—half-naked, gloriously mussed, legs still shaking—and she was the one standing steady. June Fontenot, who had every right to be afraid, was looking me dead in the eye and saying,Not today, Satan.
So I took her hand…and I let her lead me from the door to the bedroom.
She walked in first like a goddamn badass, sweeping her gaze across the room like she could burn out any trace of the ill intentions that had been brought here…that may have been living here ever since the Trents left, all those years I’d lingered here, alone. Then she turned toward me, met my eyes…and pulled her dress off one shoulder, then the other.
My throat seized up, my chest tight. Memories of that night warred with my desire for her, my cock already rising back to attention, eager to give her anything and everything she asked for. I took a hesitant step toward her and she reached out to grasp my hand as her dress fell to the floor, pooling around her feet. She raised her left hand, the one with the snakebite and the rosary, her eyes flitting from her hand to me.
“Kiss me here,” she breathed.
I delicately took her hand…still bruised, with those two healing puncture marks.
I did as she asked.
Kissed her there, lips brushing the wooden beads of the rosary.
“You down with some weirdness?” she asked, her lips curving into a half-smile.
I cocked an eyebrow. “Have you met me?”
She laughed, then looked up and around like she was searching for something hiding in the corners. I followed her gaze—because I half-expected there to be some scaly, slithering shape, haunting us.
“If there are any ghosts here who aren’t down to see something real raunchy, you might want to leave the room!” she shouted.
I laughed out loud, unable to stop myself. June grinned like she’d just pulled the pin on a holy hand grenade.
“Not kidding,” she added. “This place…there’s been a lot offear here, not just from that night, but from this church. And we’re gonna change how this place feels, one orgasm at a time.”
“You aresomethin’ else,” I said with an incredulous laugh.
“You’re not wrong,” she laughed. Her hands were on my hips now, thumbs hooking in my boxers and my jeans, pulling them down my thighs. I couldn’t say I’d ever experienced anything quite like this…and it just made me love her more.
I’d tell her when this was over.
And I wouldn’t stop telling her for the rest of my life.
“So we’re gonna fuck the ghosts out of this place?” I asked.
She bit her lip and kept her eyes on me as she slowly sank to her knees. “Isn’t that how y’all break curses in Willow Grove?”
She said it with a smirk, but her hands were careful, trailing down my thighs like she wanted to make sure I felt safe—which was fucking crazy, given that she was the one who’d almost died here. I hissed through my teeth, my hand shooting out to brace a hand on the bedside table to steady myself.
“Jesus, June…”
“Not quite,” she murmured, her lips brushing the inside of my thigh. “But I’ll take the compliment.”
I looked down at her—at this woman on her knees in my haunted bedroom, eyes full of fire and kindness, grief and glory—and I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. She kissed her way up until her mouth was hovering over the head of my cock, then she looked up and said, “We claim this house.”
