Incubus Moon Read online

  “Delays are usually problematic,” Mark was quick to point out. Their latest client had put the five-star restaurant project on hold for a couple of weeks while he attended to pressing business in his native France. “But he did ink the deal with MaGo right before he left.”

  “Can you believe it?” Christie said. “I feel like we won the Lotto!”

  “We beat out some major firms in L.A., too. Not to mention New York and Chicago.”

  “I can totally believe it. You guys are amazing and deserve this break.”

  My best friend had started up MaGo Design Studio shortly after college. The name evolved from using the first two letters of his given and last names, which meant magician in Italian. It appealed to his Italian roots and self-image as a gifted conjurer in the art of building design. After they got married, Christie came aboard as MaGo’s chief interior designer.

  “You know we haven’t been back to Rome since our honeymoon,” she said.

  “And this time it ain’t pensioni and panini bars, baby. Thanks to our buddy here. I just wish you hadn’t quit your job to go.”

  I closed my eyes and reclined the motorized seatback. “It’s all good.”

  What I didn’t tell them was that my personal distractions would have cost me my job at the law firm sooner rather than later. I was way too unfocused.

  This way, I’d at least gotten to leave on my own terms. And thanks to Laura’s investment guys, I’d built up a decent portfolio. Sale proceeds from the Monrovia house, coupled with a considerable cash inheritance, equaled instant Austin Iverson portfolio. A respectable enough one not to have to nine-to-five it for a while. That is, if the bullshit economy ever fully recovered and I could curb my recent tendency of spending like a rock star.

  Flying the three of us in Business Class and flipping for five-star hotel accommodations for ten days didn’t come cheap. Which was why I prayed that Cousin Riccardo was on the up-and-up and that I wasn’t leading Mark and Christie into danger.

  “We worry about ya, Buddy.”

  That made three of us. “And it’s one of the many reasons I love you guys so much.”

  When I reopened my eyes, I turned my head to see that Christie was staring fixedly at me. She was also wearing a Cheshire Cat grin. “Can I tell him?”

  Mark beamed over at her. “Think it’ll jinx it?”

  “Okay you two. My interest is officially piqued. What’s going on?”

  “We found our dream house!” she blurted out. “Escrow closes the week after we get back from Rome. We were going to tell you all about it during the trip, but—”

  “My gorgeous wife can’t keep a secret to save her life.”

  “You bought a house?”

  Did that mean the next logical step was having babies? Not that I could think of two people who deserved kids more. They both came from large families and had wonderful relationships with their siblings, nieces and nephews—relationships built on trust and mutual respect. Pity the one person they trusted most was keeping a mammoth-sized secret from them.

  More importantly, I might be risking their happy future by letting them come on this trip.

  Shit. “In that case, I raise my former amazing to super-extra-amazing!”

  Christie’s smile faded. “You need a blanket, sweetie?” I shook my head. Imagine how much more concerned she’d be if I fessed up to being a demon? “You look a little clammy.”

  “Nah.” Mark grinned across the aisle at me. “He always looks like that when he’s had a few too many. Let him sleep. He’ll be good as new by the time we land.”

  Wouldn’t it be great if it were as simple as blaming the wine I’d consumed at dinner for my jitters? But the apprehension in Christie’s eyes went beyond such predictable worry.

  Why did the women in our lives always have to be so tuned in? Couldn’t they be more obtuse, like us guys?

  “Is it okay if I chat with you until you fall asleep?” she said, ignoring her husband’s remark and offering me an easy smile.

  Christie Gold was not only physically beautiful, she had a loving nature that instantly drew people to her. As I followed the smooth curve of her tanned neck down to the inviting cleft between her breasts in the blue cashmere sweater, it wasn’t just her beauty I found irresistible.

  Was it my imagination or was she looking at me in a different way now, as well?

  I nodded a little too enthusiastically, trying to concentrate on her words rather than the stiffening in my cargo shorts. “If it’s about the new house, I’m all ears.”

  “She ain’t much of a looker on the inside,” Mark commented over his wife’s shoulder. “But Chris’s got that all worked out.”

  “Excuse me. I believe this is my bedtime story to Austin.”

  Mark threw his hands up in mock surrender and returned to the sports magazine he’d been reading. “Tell away!”

  Christie turned in her seat in one quick, excited movement to face me. “It’s off Mulholland, near Coldwater Canyon, and you’ll never guess who the realtor told me lives two doors down. Chaz Hartford!” She whispered this as though it were a national secret.

  “The actor?” I asked with a cocked brow.

  Chaz Hartford was network television’s hottest young star, and the male lead on Evening Sands, a curious fusion of Hawaii Five-0 meets tormented, twenty-something vampire. The show treated viewers to a weekly, one-hour orgy of pouting lips, gelled hair, and a shameful amount of overacting. ES, as it was referred to by its die-hard fans, was a runaway hit about to enter its sophomore season, even if I couldn’t quite grasp the whole tropical-sun-cum-bloodsucker angle.

  Maybe that was the point.

  “We could drop in some time to borrow a cup of sugar,” she said with a playful lifting of her brows. “That is, if you’d consider moving out of that over-priced shoebox and into a fabulous renovated guesthouse?”

  I was suddenly a lot less sleepy.

  “Admit it, the change’d do you good.” Mark was grinning as he continued to turn the pages of his sports magazine.

  I looked over at my best friends and felt myself getting choked up. With all the freaky shit in my life, being closer to the two people I loved most would be ideal.

  Then reality hit me like a bucket of ice water.

  If I were first in line to be terrorized, or worse, by some supernatural badass, why lead it straight to Mark and Christie’s doorstep by moving in with them? Forget it. I couldn’t accept the invitation, no matter how much I wanted to.

  “There’s an amazing pool and super cute cabana,” she pressed. “You could do all the nude sunbathing you wanted and I promise only to peek a little bit.”

  “Hey. That’s my best man you’re talkin’ about!”

  “Signori?” our impossibly handsome Alitalia flight attendant leaned in to say. “Something else to drink before we start the movies?”

  For the second time since becoming an incubus, my appetite for the same sex raised its head to sniff the heady air. Only this time, I welcomed the distraction.

  Not because I was any more at ease with what appeared to be a burgeoning attraction to men. It had a more immediate appeal to me. It diverted my rising horny from the gorgeous, married woman sitting across the aisle from me to a far safer destination.

  “No thanks,” Christie and I said in unison.

  “I am Massimo,” he said and flashed his pearly whites at us. “Call on me for anything.”

  She offered me a brief Dear Lord, is he even real look, and then we both leaned into the aisle to get a better gander at his backside. It had to be rock solid the way the seat of his trousers hugged the perfectly-shaped mounds beneath the wool fabric when he moved.

  My dick certainly gave a twitch of appreciation.

  A notable side effect of being an incubus was that looking at a hamburger patty pretty much made me horny.

  Christie regarded me with a curious light in her eyes. “Something you want to tell me?”

  “Yes,” I said in a solemn whisp
er. “I’m dating men now.”

  Christie’s disbelieving expression dissolved to one of pure amusement. She laughed out loud, and then quickly covered her mouth. “Always the joker,” she said with a big smile and shake of her head. “I’ve known you too long, pal. The day Austin Iverson gives up women for men is the day hell freezes over.”

  I grinned back at her, but couldn’t help thinking about the turn of phrase she’d used. I was a demon now, or at least according to Google and that creepy entity I was. There was also the Queen of the Damned to consider. Her terrifying appearance to me came with a special delivery of icy temperatures and the cloying scent of decomposing citrus.

  Maybe hell really had frozen over.

  I shivered in my seat just as Massimo’s award-winning ass disappeared behind the First Class curtain.

  The aircraft was devoid of movement when I awoke, the dim lighting in Business Class broken by the intermittent glow from a few LCD monitors. Mark and Christie slept with their heads together, his dark, unruly mop spilling into her soft, golden hair. Seeing them like this warmed my heart and helped to chip away at some of the cold dread which had begun to resurface in me. They were my rock, as cliché as that sounded. I needed them in my life. I needed them to be safe. But what I needed pronto was a trip to the head.

  Relieved bladder in tow, I was making my way back to my seat when I brushed a sock-covered foot poking out from behind a heavy curtain. The drape at the opposite end partially opened to reveal a grinning face.

  Massimo pushed the curtain aside far enough to expose his tanned, muscular torso.

  “Sù, bello!” His hand shot out, grabbing me by the arm and bringing my head to within inches of striking the upper storage area. “I have less than one hour before my shift resumes.”

  I tumbled in on top of him and he yanked the curtain closed behind me, securing the Velcro straps at both ends. He then clamped his mouth over mine and breathed into me, “Ti voglio penetrare,” while his large hands kneaded my ass through my cargo shorts.

  It didn’t take a scholar to grasp that Massimo was gunning for a fast and furious round of ‘bury the bone.’ The trouble with his plan was that he’d snagged another alpha. This time, if there was a bone to bury, it was gonna be mine.

  Clasping the sides of my face, he deepened the kiss, his tongue warm and insistent in my mouth, his fingers working deftly to pop the top button of my cargo shorts, which he then unzipped. This was clearly not the flight attendant’s first trip to the rodeo.

  I tried to twist out of his embrace, but he was strong. Too strong.

  This should have been a red flag moment to me. Incubus me, however, was far too focused on breaking in this randy stallion.

  With my cargo shorts and boxers worked down around my knees, the flight attendant hooked his foot into their waistbands and slid them the rest of the way to my ankles, while at the same time pressing his considerable bragging rights against the cleft in my ass. Flipping me around to face him once more, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end when I found myself staring into black, soulless eyes.

  “I’ve found you at last, little incubus…”

  No way! The Shadow Walker was a fucking Alitalia flight attendant?

  Massimo’s smile widened to form a terrible slit that grew wider and wider, his mouth expanding beyond his face and body, beyond the very walls of the jetliner itself, until I was left staring at a giant gash in the earth. Darkness and a howling wind raged around me, the scent of rotting oranges pervading the frigid buffets of air slamming into me.

  Suddenly, my legs were knocked out from under me and I hit the damp soil, its loose, fetid clay seeping into my mouth and nostrils, gagging me, as an invisible force dragged me ever nearer to the edge of that gaping maw.

  I kicked and clawed at the damp earth to keep from falling over the edge and into certain death, but it was too late. I tumbled over it and into the abyss.

  I wrenched awake to find Christie Gold standing in the aisle staring down at me, a few passengers nearby eyeing me with considerably less concern. “You were yelling in your sleep.”

  “I—I’m good,” I lied.

  Massimo appeared behind her and reached across me to cancel the attendant call button. I recoiled at the close contact, given our most recent dream encounter. “You called?”

  I offered him an awkward smile. “Sorry. Must have hit the button by accident.”

  He winked flirtatiously, and then made his way back to the galley.

  “I think you may have a fan,” Christie said with a mischievous grin.

  “Lucky me,” I smiled awkwardly back up at her.

  The delicious scent of warm bread and freshly brewed coffee were wafting through the cabin. I also noticed seams of daylight seeping around the plastic window shades. Over the intercom, the First Flight Attendant announced that breakfast would be served shortly and to please lift our shades and lower our tray tables. We’d be landing in Rome in two hours.

  “Rough night?” Mark asked with a yawn.

  CHAPTER 9

  “Try him again,” Christie urged from the edge of my hotel room sofa.

  “I’ve been doing that all morning.” I began pacing in front of the tall floor-to-ceiling windows. “It’s the same recording every time. You’ve reached a number that’s not in service.”

  I was so frustrated that I squeezed my fist around my iPhone and felt the metal casing pop. This was followed by a shattering sound, as small fragments of broken glass rained down onto the tops of my sneakers.

  “Oh my God!” Christie sprang up from the couch and ran over to me. She raised my bloody hand with the mangled cell phone in it and examined both with a mixture of concern and shocked disbelief. She wasn’t the only one.

  Mark was on his feet too. “You okay, Buddy?”

  “I—I don’t know what happened.” This wasn’t a total lie. All I knew for certain was that one minute I was pissed off and in the next my iPhone was scrap metal. “It just exploded in my hand.”

  “Imagine what would’ve happened if you’d had that thing up to your ear when it went off,” Christie said with wide eyes.

  “Yeah, but it didn’t blow up,” Mark said with equal disbelief. “He crushed the thing!”

  “That’s ridiculous.” Christie was already pulling me down the hall and in the direction of the bathroom. “We need to get that wound cleaned right now and make sure there’s no glass in it.”

  “Babe, I watched him do it—”

  “For heaven’s sake, Mark. Call the front desk and get them to send up a doctor.”

  “No!” The opulent ivory and gold Eighteenth-Century décor was suddenly overpowering. I felt dizzy and nauseous and needed to sit down, but Christie insisted on getting me into the bathroom, where I perched on the ornate bidet while she held my tender hand under the pedestal sink’s faucet to flush the abrasions. “I’ll be fine. No doctor.”

  Mark folded his arms and leaned against the bathroom doorjamb. When I looked up, he was staring intently at me. I could swear that I was hearing his thoughts. He knew what he had seen and wasn’t about to let it go. Shit.

  To my considerable relief, he instead asked, “What did Laura’s sister have to say about this Riccardo guy?”

  I looked from Christie to Mark and exhaled with renewed irritation. Once again, I was no-fucking-where. Every time I got close to learning something vital about my origins, the trail conveniently vanished. “That there is no Riccardo in the family.”

  In the days that followed, Zia Lucia, along with several prominent members of the Marmaggi clan, lavished sumptuous meals on us in their equally sumptuous apartments located in the most desirable neighborhoods the city had to offer. A few even boasted picture-postcard views of such famous landmarks as the Coliseum, Piazza Navona, and the Pantheon.

  The Marmaggi’s were clearly a wealthy lot.

  Strange how that on my last visit nine years ago, Laura’s relatives were living in modest dwellings on the outskirts of the city and
working unassuming jobs.

  Now, they were respected bankers and lawyers, doctors and politicians, some of whose adult children had gone on to become famous television and sports figures throughout Italy and Europe. All this mega success in under a decade.

  Some might call their rise to prominence magical. Other might say the family had struck a deal with the devil. Whatever was behind their good fortune, I was growing more suspicious of them by the day. Mark and Christie, on the other hand, were having the time of their lives.

  Thrilled to be given the royal treatment, they reveled in our after lunch or dinner strolls through Rome’s Historic Center, discovering its hidden jewels that most tourists would never get to enjoy. We were also afforded private tours of the city beneath the city off-limits to the general public; a part of Ancient Rome that had been buried for millennia beneath newer structures and still survived strikingly intact. Even I was impressed by these steps back in time.

  Trouble was we weren’t here on vacation—at least I wasn’t.

  It was also getting harder to control my emotions’ constant yo-yoing between anger and frustration. Anger, I was learning, triggered a new and dangerous strength in me. I was going to have to keep it together, considering that a fair amount of people and situations were routinely beginning to piss me off. My crushed iPhone was another matter entirely.

  Luckily, my friends had been too distracted to bring the subject up again. But I continued to wear the gauze bandage Christie had affixed over wounds that were no longer there.

  On the eve of our final night in Rome, Lucia pulled me aside.

  “Caro Austin. Questi documenti di cui mi hai parlato si trattano di uno scherzo cattivo e nient’altro. Perché non te li scordi?”

  Because I wasn’t the least bit convinced that the adoption papers were a bad joke. I also had no intention of dropping the matter. Not after the Riccardo incident.

  Someone out there knew the truth.

  Now more than ever I was determined to find out who that someone was. Particularly after several family members claimed to have met my father, Joshua, shortly after his marriage to Laura. He’d supposedly been stationed at the U.S. Military base in Naples and met my mother on a day trip to Rome. Photographs of him? But of course. They had dozens of them somewhere, along with pictures of Laura pregnant with me.