God, that stupid bet had been an even better idea than he’d realized.
“You are awake, right?” he asked, still rubbing her clit gently. It didn’t hurt to be extra sure.
“No, we’re about to sleep fuck,” Sloane said, and opened her eyes enough to turn her head and give him a very entertained look. “Right now, I’m having the weirdest dream about a sexy banana monster.”
Max stilled. “Banana monster?”
Sloane wriggled against him, her left foot resting atop his left knee. “I don’t know. Eggplant monster? Is that better?”
“You’re such a freak sometimes,” he said, then kissed the back of Sloane’s shoulder. She was still laughing when he slid in, the noise turning into an inhale and then a sigh. Max adjusted until he was all the way in, their hips flush, then stopped for a moment. His face was against the back of her neck, her hair everywhere—in his mouth—but it smelled like her, so he didn’t care.
For once, Sloane went with it. Max ran his hand up her soft, warm belly, under her shirt, between her tits, just—enjoying it. In an hour or two they’d both drive off to separate places, but right now, they could stay like this just a little longer. Max ignored the pounding thrum of arousal pulsing beneath his skin to press in a little harder, letting his fingers sink into the flesh over her rib cage. Sloane pushed back, her hand covered his, and suddenly Max realized he could feel her breathing, her body pressing against his palm with every breath.
He was open-mouthed against her spine, panting. Strands of her hair stuck to her skin. Max kissed them and rutted into Sloane again, pressing his hand into her rib cage, and he couldn’t possibly get deeper, but he could feel the noise she made.
“Good?” he asked, and god, he sounded wrecked.
“Really good,” Sloane said, not sounding any better.
They fucked like that, slow and lazy and still tangled in the sheets, the morning light filtering through the curtains. Max knew there was a world outside of the two of them, outside the bed, outside the hotel room, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was the noises Sloane made, the way her skin went slippery with sweat under his palm, the way she panted and rolled her hips back into him. When she started rubbing her clit, every few strokes her fingers would slide down and he could feel the pressure of them on the underside of his cock, and it made him feel insane, like he’d been on the edge for the last twenty-four hours.
Sloane came silently with a full-body shudder that Max felt in his bones as she clenched around him, toes curling and head back. He dug his fingers into her and kept going in the exact same slow, steady rhythm that had gotten him this far. He felt like he was dying, like his skin might split open with the force of it, but he managed to say, “Did you—” and Sloane said, “Yeah, fuck—” and Max finally let go.
Afterward, neither of them moved. Max felt like a disorganized assortment of skin and flesh and bones, none of which went together and certainly none of which could move. He had Sloane’s hair in his mouth and his dick still inside her, going soft, and since that was going to be a condom-related problem any minute now, he held on to it as he slid out and flopped over onto his back. Sloane rolled onto her front, turning her head to look at him.
“I had the weirdest dream,” she said, and Max was still too out of breath to laugh, but he tried.
Sloane’s room felt less creepy at ten in the morning than it had at three, which wasn’t exactly surprising. Most things did, with the exception of, like, abandoned mines or abandoned farmsteads in the middle of nowhere. Sunlight made those things creepier, somehow.
“I think this was a bird,” Sloane was saying, her face a few inches from the smudge on the sliding glass door. “This looks like it could have been made by feathers, maybe?”
“And it’s at bird height. It obviously wasn’t a dog,” Max said, on his knees again, looking at the AC unit in the wall. It was fairly small and fairly new, and the screen informed him that the temperature was currently set to seventy-five. There were zero Satanic symbols anywhere on it, and digital screens were basically the first thing any self-respecting ghost or demon went for. From what he’d seen, they were easier targets for supernatural manipulation than pen and paper.
“I guess it could be a cat,” Sloane said, doubtfully. “But a big one. Bobcat? Mountain lion?”
The hotel was near the end of a peninsula in San Diego Bay, which also contained part of a naval base, several public beaches, and zero mountain lion habitat.
“I doubt a big cat would come all the way out here,” he said.
“They cross freeways,” Sloane pointed out. “The mountain lion who lived in Griffith Park had to cross the 405.”
“He had to go across? There aren’t underpasses?”
“There are, but I don’t know if a cat would use them,” she said, still looking at the smudge. “Actually, they’re building a wildlife crossing over the 101, and I was reading about how they build it so animals will actually use it. It’s super cool.”
“They must be spending a fortune on giant neon arrows,” Max said, and stood. His knees were pebbled from the carpet, and he brushed them off out of habit. “The display on this doesn’t say ‘Hail Satan’ or anything, so that’s out.”
“Damn.”
“Maybe it’s a technologically inept ghost,” he said, opening the door to the balcony. A long shadow still slanted across it diagonally. “All they can do is play prerecorded spooky noises.”
“That doesn’t require technology?”
“We can ask the ghost when we find it,” he said, moved a chair out of the way, and set the tripod up on the table.
The Bellwether had been wired for electricity when it was built, but since air conditioning hadn’t been invented yet, all the rooms in the original building had had wall units installed at some point. Max leaned against the balcony railing, looked at the outdoor half of the AC unit, and hoped it was actually haunted. His hopes weren’t particularly high—not after the nonsense pentagram in the attic—but still, he had them.
“Are you recording?” Sloane asked, coming over to stand next to him.
