I could teleport. I swallowed. I so didn’t want to end up in the woods again. Maybe I should walk after all. But no, I didn’t shrink from challenges. I faced them head on.
Think about the library, not the woods. Hold the library in your thoughts, hold it hard.
I mumbled out loud, not caring if anyone heard me talking to myself. “Okay, library, library, library, ruby slippers take me there.” I tapped my now-red sequined shoes. “Cause Auntie Em, there’s no place like home.”
The richly appointed ghost of the King George disappeared in a smear of gold and red.
Chapter Six
My surroundings stabilized when I got to my destination. I groaned as I looked around the dimly lit apartment I’d called home.
“I’m never going to get the hang of this.”
I stood in the living room, which opened into the dining room and kitchen. The light over the stove burned, casting low illumination in the space I no longer inhabited. It looked like all my stuff was still present and accounted for except for my laptop, which always sat on the glass-topped coffee table. The police must have taken it, hoping to find some clue as to who had killed me.
I drifted through the apartment, looking at it as one might a museum tableau. 21st Century Life: Call Girl Interrupted the plaque might read. I inhaled the flowery aroma of the scented candles I preferred. With a dispassionate eye I took in the nice furniture I’d collected, the newspaper on the sofa turned to the crossword puzzle I’d never finish. The last issue of Business Week waited to be read.
My Keurig coffee maker stood ready to brew a cup of my favorite flavor, Wild Mountain Blueberry. Through the darkened doorway of one of the two bedrooms, I spied the dull gleam of metal from the treadmill I’d logged hundreds of miles on.
I’d decked out my space to rival the model apartment the facility showed to prospective renters. If the manager had any sense, she’d leave these rooms intact for display. Except for the clothes in my closet, the toiletries in the bathroom and the half-done crossword puzzle, anyone might have lived here. I’d injected no personality to intrude on the senses. Tasteful furniture. Stylish accents. No pictures.
No life.
Had my existence been so empty? I’d seen to it my family disowned me, freeing myself forever from their control. I’d had regular clients who were smart, made good conversation, and sated carnal desires to various degrees of satisfaction. But no close friends. No real boyfriend, not since the debacle of my college romance. No girlfriends to meet for lunch and gossip. I’d kept everyone at arm’s length, determined to forge my own path and unwilling to trust others to let me do so.
Looking at the apartment I’d called home for five years, I felt my aloneness as I never had before. An outsider might believe it had been occupied by an empty shell, an automaton with no soul. I’d left no one behind to mourn me. I might as well have never existed as far as the living world was concerned.
Tears prickled my eyes, and I rubbed them away resolutely. I’d screwed up, and there were no do-overs. All I could do at this point was pick up the pieces and start fresh. Maybe do better with afterlife than I had with life.
I took a deep breath. “Okay, no thinking of anything but the library this time. Library, library, library.” I fixed the main room of the Fulton Falls library in my mind, smelled the smoky mustiness, felt the hardness of the table beneath my naked body where Dan and Tristan had taken me so delightfully.
The ground beneath me shifted as I left behind the life I hadn’t lived.
* * * *
I made it to the library, but my victory was short lived when I realized I’d arrived lying naked on the table. Just as I’d imagined it.
Dan looked up from the book checkout desk where he sat perusing newspapers and a couple of open books. His eyes widened to see me in my altogetherness, and then an appreciative smile lit his rugged features.
I took a quick look around to make sure no one else roamed around to see my humiliating arrival. Dan and I were alone if you didn’t count Miss Gertrude, blessedly forever enthralled with her book.
I huffed with aggravation. “How long does it take before I don’t suck at this teleporting crap?”
Dan stood and approached, his tented slacks leading the way. I hurriedly drew the kimono on I’d worn earlier.
“Oh please don’t put on clothes on my account,” he grinned.
“It’s hardly fair when you remain dressed.” Still huffy with embarrassment, I slid off the table and promptly fell to the floor when I misjudged my landing. “Darn it!” I yelled.
“Let me help you up,” Dan offered.
I looked up at him towering over me. Suddenly a memory jumped to the front of my mind.
He stood over me, this dark, cold thing. The gurgling screams had stopped, and I knew what that meant, but I couldn’t consider it now, not when it was my turn.
I shrieked, cowering from the huge apparition. Dan suddenly knelt in front of me, his arms gathering me close to him, sheltering me with his sturdy body. “What’s wrong, baby girl?”
“I remember–” I gasped, looking around, seeing the library again. Most of all, not seeing the presence of Death looming overhead. Relief made me sag against the broad chest Dan offered.
“What do you remember?” With my ear against his chest, Dan’s voice came out all rumbly. Okay, kick me for being a weak-butt girl, but I was grateful to have a big, strong man to protect me in that instant. His broad muscular frame became a fortress to hide inside, giving me the strength to talk.
“Something walking up and standing over me. I saw him hurt someone else and then he came for me. I knew I was gonna die, Dan. Oh dear God.” I shuddered and remembered thinking please let it be quick, please don’t let it hurt.
Dan held me with firm gentleness, kissing the top of my head as if soothing a frightened child. “Did you see his face?”
“I think so, but when I try to remember — it’s a blank. I just remember a terrible presence.” I’d gone earthquake, shaking so hard with reaction that Dan had to tighten his arms around me.
“It’s okay. It’s all over now.” His mouth managed to capture mine, and he kissed me with the hard assurance of a man determined to fix everything. He laid me on the thick rug on the floor, his body sheltering me, his lips and tongue leeching the fear until it ebbed away to be replaced by demanding arousal.
I broke his kiss with a gasp. “Okay, I’m an absolute freak to be getting hot after remembering what I do.”
Dan stroked errant strands of hair from my face. “Even among the dead, lovemaking is life-affirming.”
Yes, sex would definitely help take my mind off that hideous memory. I grabbed him by the back of his head and pulled his lips to mine once more.
Our clothes disappeared in an instant, and I moaned to feel him hard and ready against my mound. His tongue swept into my mouth in a heady tasting of me, and I lost myself to sensation. He was demanding yet tender, and the juxtaposition made me wet for him. I locked my legs around his in invitation.
Dan seemed to sense my need for immediate gratification, because he didn’t bother with foreplay. He seated himself within me, and I arched to be filled. “Yes,” I breathed. I clutched around his driving length, and he groaned to feel me tighten.
He rose and fell over me, bringing me quickly. I clawed at his back, and he hissed, his eyes dark as he watched my reaction. “Do it again,” he urged, pounding into me even harder.
Warm, bright convulsions rippled through my body and seemed to feed on themselves. Every pulse came stronger than the last, turning my groans into ragged cries, then shouts, then screams. I was dimly aware of Dan’s animal-like grunts as he drove against me so hard that had I been corporeal, I’d have been bruised for weeks. I delighted in his bestiality, and a cataclysmic rush left me shrieking his name at the top of my lungs.
He let go with a shout that made my ears rings. His flesh pulsed hard and long within mine, the longest I’d ever known a man to climax. Dan made st
rangled noises with every jerk of his cock, like the pleasure originated from his throat. I smiled with the pleasure of a woman who’d served her man well.
My legs drooped from their frantic clutch around his buttocks, thumping to the floor. He gathered himself all around me, closing his thighs around mine, wrapping his arms around me, one big hand cradling my head as he dotted my face with gentle kisses. I reveled in the sensation of being warmed and cared for. Safe.
I could lie here with him like this forever. Eternity with a man like this—
I stopped the thought in its tracks. Dan was a good man. To me at least, I amended, thinking of the crime he’d committed in life. Caring, compassionate, and a true gentleman to a lady in distress. He made it easy to fall into silly thoughts of happily ever after, protective when I was my most vulnerable.
My rational mind knew better and hauled me back to reality. Hard experience saved me from the seductive peace of lying in Dan’s strong arms. I pulled away before I could be coaxed onto dangerous ground.
The afterglow of great sex and being well tended had made me soft with joy. Nothing more.
Chapter Seven
I sat on the couch, engrossed in a recent book by Mark Twain and thrilled death hadn’t dimmed the wry wit and wisdom of my favorite author. Not needing to sleep left me time to read; I was on the second book he’d produced since joining the afterlife. I had twenty more to peruse.
Dan was studying far less lighthearted material. I shuddered at the title of his choice, Twisted Paths: The Snarled Mind of the Serial Killer. He made notes on a piece of paper the library had kindly supplied him with. I’d been astonished to learn that when you used the library’s supplies, they never declined. The building had a memory of its own all right, but to keep his notes from disappearing, Dan had to tuck them in his pocket or store them elsewhere. What the library didn’t possess on the day it burned down ceased to exist in our world the moment you took your attention away from it. The only contradiction to that rule was the new books produced by now dead authors. Those appeared without warning, somehow finding room on the already stuffed shelves. It was weird but fascinating.
Tristan popped into our midst, and I stiffened for an instant before recognizing he’d left his vampire façade behind. He’d become a ghost again, last night’s coldness now missing. He was a dapper, warmly smiling, devastatingly handsome human once more. Thank God.
“Good morning,” he greeted us, his smile sunny as if he’d never chewed an artery in his afterlife.
Dan marked his place and set down his book. He folded and tucked his notes in a pants pocket. “Hi Tristan.”
I waved from my corner of the couch, and Tristan walked over to sit next to me. His dark eyes looked me over, and his smile brightened at my outfit: another joyful sundress, splashed with red and gold tropical flowers. My earrings and necklace matched. It was my seventh wardrobe change in the last four hours.
He kissed my hand. “Any news?”
Dan frowned as he stood in front of us. “She’s started remembering a little.” He related the memory I’d retrieved … okay, been waylaid with … the night before.
Tristan rubbed his chin thoughtfully with one hand while resting his other arm on the back of the sofa behind my shoulders. “So there was someone else present, probably killed when you were attacked.”
I made myself not snuggle against him, firmly reminding myself of his vampire aspect. I had a hard time of it when he was so darn handsome and right next to me. The subject matter of the conversation helped. “I think so, but where’s the body?”
“We’ll have to retrace your steps that last day.”
I nodded. “If I knew which day I died, I could follow my usual schedule.” I suddenly realized I could have checked the date on the newspaper during my impromptu visit to my apartment the night before. Duh.
Dan saved me a trip back to that depressing place. “You were reported missing on a Wednesday.”
“Then I must have at least made my Saturday date with Cooper Weathers.” That narrowed it down.
Tristan’s eyebrows shot up. “The real estate developer?”
I grinned to see his avid interest. Boy, the revelations I could share about Fulton Falls’ most illustrious citizens. I bet I could shock even this jaded vampire. “The beginning of the week is slow. No regulars are scheduled until Wednesday. I see your cohort on the county commission on Friday.”
Tristan sighed. “That reminds me. I have to prepare a statement for when his indiscretions with you come to light.”
My jaw dropped. “You’re not going to the press with this?”
His arm behind me slid down so he could stroke my shoulder. “I’m not that petty, and I like the old boy. The press will come to me. Because your body has been found, the police will no doubt be getting their search warrant for the escort service’s records.”
My stomach lurched. “Oh no. There are some powerful people on that list.” People I honestly liked. My death sucked on so many levels.
“So I’m gathering.” He drew back to study my face. “You’re really upset.”
Upset didn’t begin to cover the maelstrom of emotion swirling through me. “Lives are going to be ruined. A lot of my regulars are good men, they just—”
“Like to have sex with a beautiful, intelligent woman without strings attached,” Tristan finished for me. “It’s their own faults, Brandilynn. They didn’t have to stick their hands in the cookie jar, so to speak.”
Maybe, but when you’re the cookie jar giving out the sweets, guilt comes easily.
He stood and bent to take my elbow, pulling me up to stand beside him. “Come talk with me for a bit.”
He led me away. As I passed Dan, I noticed how his face reddened and his hands clenched for a brief instant.
I hoped I imagined the flash of jealousy on his expression.
* * * *
Tristan took me into the head librarian’s office where the plain wooden desk overflowed with books and papers. Bookshelves were crammed full until I thought they would groan from the weight. The biggest surprise however, was the window that stretched almost from the floor to the ceiling. Blinding sunlight poured in, and forgetting Tristan for an instant, I went to it. I gasped to see the waterfront. Wooden ships under sail plied the river, and more were tied to the docks. Sweating grubby men moved about the pier and ships like busy ants to-ing and fro-ing over an anthill. Horses pulled carts back and forth, gathering goods from the ships.
I heard the creak of Tristan settling into a chair. Unable to tear my eyes away from the sight, I murmured, “I thought we were underground. Isn’t the city built on top of us here?”
“What you’re seeing is the library’s memory. It’s an older time, somewhere during the mid-1800’s. I can’t even guess why that scene is imprinted on the building.”
“So if I went out to the buried part of the wharf, I wouldn’t see this?” I swallowed my disappointment. I would love to walk out there, to actually climb aboard one of those ships with their graceful lines and spiderweb rigging. And to sail on one! How magnificent that would be.
Tristan sounded wistful too. “You’d see nothing but burnt ruins of the dockmaster’s office and the concrete wall of the present pier.”
I reluctantly turned my back on the fascinating vista. Tristan sat on one of two wooden chairs in front of the desk. I joined him, crossing my legs. His eyes wandered the length of my calves before bringing his gaze back up to my face. Good boy.
“What did you think of my vampire side?” he asked.
I suppressed a shudder. I tried to be charitable. “Calculating and dangerous, but you all seem to be a pretty cold lot. I felt like I was in a rattlesnake nest last night.”
Tristan nodded. “The hunger is a part of that, but I’m probably worse than many. I have to be careful, even aloof. I’m in a position of power with many enemies.” He rubbed his temple, a small crack in his veneer of absolute confidence. “There have been assassination attempts. I’
m sure I face many more.”
I could see his point. “It can’t be easy, worrying all the time that someone might stake you.”
“Actually, staking a vampire through the heart does little more than piss him off.”
“Language,” I warned.
I felt something inside me melt as he smiled an apology. “I’m sorry for cursing. Did we not go over this? The purpose of staking a vampire is to pin him helpless to the ground while you cut off his head or burn him to ashes using fire or sunlight.”
“Yuck.”
Tristan’s smile grew, increasing his good looks exponentially. My insides turned to runny butter. I hoped he didn’t notice.
Netherworld: Drop Dead Sexy Page 10
