by Tara West
I did my best to strike a casual pose as I leaned against the doorframe, but I feared I would melt all over the floor in a puddle of lust instead.
Mister, you can bang down my door any time.
He arched a dark brow while eyeing me with a smirk. "Ashley MacLeod?"
"Everyone calls me Ash, but yeah. So sorry. I wasn't expecting you for another half hour. I had a bit of a blow dryer accident." I smoothed an errant lock of frizz behind my ear. "I'm not ready."
"They never are." He laughed.
And just like that, a bubble burst in my chest. I should have figured him for a Casanova. I was sure he went out with a different girl every weekend. Then again, judging by the confident tilt of his chin and the way those stone-washed jeans clung to his thick legs (and that bulge beneath his zipper), I was fairly certain each of his dates ended in mind-blowing sex. I was also thinking I wanted to end our date the same way, because Casanova or not, I was getting tired of buying batteries.
"Right." I pushed back another strand of hair that immediately popped out of place. "Maybe you should wait in the downstairs lobby. There's a soda machine. Don't drink the coffee. It's usually a few days old." I took a step back and prepared to close the door.
"I've got a schedule to keep."
I wasn’t sure, but I thought I heard the slight hint of a southern drawl, which didn't make a lot of sense because I was almost positive Roger's profile said he'd lived in Seattle his whole life. Casanova blocked the door with his foot, stepped forward and practically filled the entire doorway with his large frame.
That's when it hit me. Roger's profile said five-foot-ten, one hundred and eighty-five pounds, brown eyes, and pale skin. A dentist, he spent most of his days indoors and his past-times included going to the movies and playing fantasy football. But this guy hogging my doorway could have played real football as a linebacker.
I pointed at him with an accusatory finger. "You look nothing like your profile."
He pushed past me, frowning as he surveyed my cramped apartment. "What were you expecting? Hood and cape and a giant scythe?"
"A what?" I was suddenly feeling very self-conscious as he eyed my small kitchen table and even smaller fridge. Like Roger, I might have lied on my profile, too. I might have put that I was a defense attorney and not a law school dropout barely making a livable wage as a legal secretary.
He shrugged. "It was a joke."
"Can I fix you a drink?" I asked as I did a mental count of how many diet sodas I had left in my fridge. Probably not enough to last until payday. Luckily, Roger looked more like a water guy, and I had plenty of free tap on hand.
"No, ma'am, I told you, I've got a schedule to keep."
Oh, yeah, the southern drawl came across much thicker now, coating my senses like warm butter and sending a jolt of hormonal lust straight to my lady parts. I crossed one leg over the other, silently chastising myself for getting all hot and bothered by this guy when I didn't even know who he was. Of one thing I was certain, he was a far cry from a meek, pale-faced dentist.
I narrowed my eyes and tilted my chin, trying to force myself to stop thinking about those tight, stone washed jeans. "You're not a dentist."
He laughed. "No, ma'am."
I wasn’t fluent in southern speak, but I was fairly certain ma'am was a term reserved for older women. As if my frizzy hair wasn't making me self-conscious enough, now he was calling me an old lady. That's when I realized I still hadn't applied fine line minimizer and foundation. I really wished Roger, or whoever he was, hadn't showed up so soon. And I really wished he'd go downstairs and wait in the lobby while I made myself look more presentable, and hopefully younger.
"And you're not from here, are you?"
He crossed one beefy arm over the other. "Born and raised in Houston."
"That explains the sexy accent." I mentally smacked myself upside the head. This was what happened when I got nervous. I said the first thing on my mind without wondering if I should have said it.
"Are you flirting with me, Ashley MacLeod?" I loved the way my name rolled off his tongue like warm chocolate sauce melting all over vanilla ice cream. Mmm. I was suddenly in the mood for a hot fudge sundae. I had the vision of me lapping ice cream and chocolate sauce off his abs, which I suspected were as rock hard as the rest of him.
I shook my head, trying to clear it of this lust-induced fog. It had been a while since I'd gotten laid by something that didn't run on batteries. A long while. That had to be why my slut sonar was stuck in overdrive. What was with me getting all hot and bothered over this guy who’d clearly lied on his profile? Disregard the fact that I’d lied on my profile. I was actually looking forward to flirting my way into free teeth whitenings and cleanings (since my cheap health insurance had a five hundred dollar deductible) but this stud could have been a serial killer for all I knew.
Oh, please, God, don't let him be a serial killer. He's too sexy to be crazy.
I got a good long look at Fake Roger, and much to my embarrassment, I noticed he was sizing me up, too. But not in the way I wanted him to be looking at me. No, he had this impatient look in his eyes as his heavy boot tapped loudly on my linoleum floor. "We need to get going, ma'am."
Crud. Another old lady reference. This will not do.
I didn't give a damn about his schedule. I was not stepping foot out of the apartment until I (A) fixed this mop on my head and applied a generous amount of anti-ma'am foundation and (B) made sure Fake Roger was not a serial killer, or at the very least, that he had a job somewhat related to dentistry.
I took a step back, and then another, needing to put some distance between me and Mr. Hot Fudge Stud. "Give me a minute to fix my hair," I said. And double-check Roger's profile, I wanted to add, but decided to leave that part out.
"Relax," Fake Roger said with perhaps too much ease in his deep southern drawl. "You're going to The Penthouse. You can have any hairstyle you want there."
"The Penthouse? I haven't heard of it." Instinctively, my hand went to my stomach at the thought of trying someplace new. I had been very clear with Roger that I could only dine at certain restaurants. I'd even sent him a list of safe places to eat. "Do they have a gluten-free menu?"
Little fun fact about me. If I so much as ate a crumb of wheat, barley or rye, I turned into a cross between Godzilla (only the flames came out the other end), a gremlin (not the sweet, cuddly kind) and a rabid dog. To put it mildly, me and gluten did not get along, which is why I had to be very, very careful where I ate. Because just in case Fake Roger turned out not to be a serial killer, and I decided to let him get past third base (who was I kidding? I was so desperate for a real penis, I would have slept with anything with a heartbeat) it would have really, really sucked if I was forced to trade in an explosive night of passion for an explosive night on the toilet.
"You can eat whatever you want," Fake Roger said with a touch of annoyance. He motioned toward the front door. "Come on, let's go. I've got a heart attack victim waiting."
"Heart attack?" I gasped. "So you're a doctor?" Maybe his profile said oncologist and I'd read it wrong. Even so, if he did have heart attack patient, what was he doing going on a date when he should have been saving this person's life?
"A doctor?" He chuckled. "No, I'm a Grim."
"Excuse me?"
"Angel of Death, Grim Reaper, Gabriel, Yama, Azrael, depending on your religion."
Shit! Fake Roger is a weirdo.
I should have known. Despite being raised in a very religious household, I’d started to question if there even was a god. Because if there was a god, surely he wouldn't have deprived me of sex with a real person for almost a year, only to have set me up with the world's hottest psychopath. "This is a joke, right?"
Fake Roger, or Grim, or whoever the hell he was, scrunched up those handsome features of his and looked at me as if I'd just sprouted an arm out of the top of my head. "Have you seen yourself?"
"I know." I groaned as I pushed back a wiry strand of hair
that had slipped out of its headband. "I think I can fix this with a little conditioner and mousse. Excuse me."
I turned on my heel and ran straight for the bathroom, slamming the door behind me. I forced myself to let out a shaky breath as I stared at the warped wooden door. I didn't know why I was expecting Fake Roger to bang it down with a machete, but the guy was creeping me out. What the hell had that been about? Where had this guy come from and where was Roger?
The Angel of Death? Really?
Then it hit me. This guy might have actually been a genuine serial killer. One thing for sure, he was delusional if he thought he was the Grim Reaper.
I stood at the door for several seconds. When my arms and legs got this tingly, weightless feeling, I realized it must have been from fear. Then I remembered my cellphone. I had set it on the counter right before I got shocked.
I backed away from the door and spun around. That’s when I nearly tripped over my head.
My head!
My body was on the floor, my hair was fanned out in a wild mess, and my lifeless eyes were staring up at the ceiling. But wait. What was I doing down there when I was also up here?
I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror, or what was left of my reflection. The woman looking back at me was so pale, she was translucent. Why hadn’t I noticed that before?
Oh-my-freaking-god!
Panic seized me, and the only thing I knew to do was scream. I screamed at the woman in the mirror. I screamed at the corpse on the floor. I screamed and screamed until I thought my throat would turn raw. And though my brain was barely functioning, I knew Fake Roger was the Grim, and I was dead.
Chapter Two
"I told you, I've got a schedule to keep."
Fake Roger (I refused to call him Grim, because then I would have had to acknowledge I was dead, which I couldn't possibly be over a stupid blow dryer) was hovering behind me, tapping his foot on my shag bathroom rug. Don’t ask how he got in my bathroom. I wasn’t sure, but I thought he floated through my door.
Creepy, right?
He kept going on about some stupid schedule, which shouldn't have mattered if we were dead, which I WASN’T.
I'll be damned (oops, probably not a good time to be using that phrase) if I'm going anywhere with Grim.
I was only twenty-nine. I couldn't have died. I hadn't even done the marriage and kids thing yet, not that I was looking forward to the kids part, but my mom had been bugging me about grandkids.
My mom!
Holy crap. She would be heartbroken when she found out. I hoped my sister stopped being a brat long enough to console her. But Mom wouldn't need anyone to console her because I wasn’t dead.
I'm not freaking dead!
I was sitting on the toilet crying, staring down at the chipped magenta toenail polish on my other body. My brain was so foggy from shock and grief, I hardly heard Grim as he heaved a sigh and said something about his schedule again. If my eternal fate hadn’t been in his hands, I'd probably have smacked him.
“What happened to me?” I asked through a sniffle.
He nodded toward the blow dryer lying by my side. Its bright fuchsia shell was marred by angry streaks of black. The cramped space smelled like burnt plastic, too. “Looks like you electrocuted yourself.”
“Shit!” I stomped a heel on the cracked tile. It created this weird, hollow echo, and I swore I could feel the vibrations ricochet into the other room.
“Were you running the water with the blow dryer on?”
I shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Didn't you read the warning label?” He held up the dryer and pointed to the chord, a look of condescension in his vibrant eyes.
I averted my gaze, chewing on my lower lip. “Maybe not.”
“Your dryer should have had a surge suppressor.”
He pointed to the little red button on the plug, the same stupid button that had been popping out just about every two minutes when I’d tried to dry my hair. Yesterday, I’d finally gotten fed up, so I Super-glued it down. I’d thought it was a good idea at the time.
Grim swiped a finger across the plug and looked at me with a smirk. “You glued it?”
Okay, I admit it wasn’t a wise decision. Lesson learned. “Can’t we just resuscitate me?”
“Ashley,” he said through a groan as he pointed down at my body, “You’ve been dead for half an hour.”
I shot to my feet and peered down at my body and then spit out a curse that would have made my poor dear granny spin summersaults in her grave.
“Ashley? You okay?”
“Ash.” I said in a tone that felt as hollow as my lifeless body. “Nobody’s called me Ashley since high school, and I can’t go with you. I’m not dead.” I said that last part without conviction. Shit. Even I was starting to believe I’d croaked. This was so not good.
“Ash, I really need to get to my next call.” Grim stepped over my body, approaching my personal space.
I took a hesitant step back, not because I minded him being so close to me. Not at all. But having so much male filling up my space was like, excuse the bad pun, overloading me with a surge of electric lust.
“I need proof,” I said as I backed up until I felt the towel rack behind me.
Weird, because even though I was supposedly dead, and shouldn’t be able to feel a thing, I could definitely feel him. He put out a heat that sent my senses reeling.
He angled his head, giving me a good glimpse of a square jaw and thick neck. I had a hunch the shoulders underneath his stiff shirt collar were corded with muscle. “There’s all the proof you need.” He pointed at my prone body.
Lust forgotten. This guy sure knew how to kill a girl-gasm.
I shook my head before covering my eyes with my hands. “No, she’s not real. Neither are you. I zapped my head really badly when I shocked myself, and I’m still knocked out.”
“You don’t honestly believe that.”
The pity in his voice would have been humiliating had he not been a figment of my imagination.
“I do. I have to. I’m not ready to go.” I looked at him through my fingers. Damn. He’d stepped closer to me, and I couldn’t back up another inch.
Much to my amazement and annoyance, he had the nerve to smirk. Not the everyday, average, asshole smirk, like the kind I had to deal with from my pinhead boss on a daily basis, but the devastatingly handsome, sideways smirk that could only be perfected through years of endless flirting.
This definitely had to be some sort of hallucination. No guy I’d ever met was that damn sexy.
“What?” I asked as I clenched my hands.
His eyes gleamed with mischief. “You’re cute when you pout.”
I let out a huff of air, knocking a piece of wayward frizz out of my eye. “Okay, the Grim Reaper is flirting with me. Now I know this is a dream.”
He laughed, combing a hand through his thick, dark hair. “You want proof I’m real, don’t you?”
I wagged a finger in his face. “Flirting hardly counts as proof.”
“Sorry.” He shrugged. “That’s all I’ve got.”
Then a thought came to me, a really, really wicked thought. That devil sitting on my shoulder had to have been working overtime to come up with that one. I tilted my chin, looking deep into his eyes as I gave him a challenging glare. “What about kissing?”
Grim’s face paled, and, ironically, he looked like he’d been spooked by a ghost. He backed up, holding out his hands in a defensive gesture. “I’m not going to take advantage of you.” His words were at war with the molten look in his eyes.
Though I knew my hair was a frizzy mess, and my tight, black skirt might have exposed a bit too much pudge in the thigh area, I knew lust when I saw it, and this man was turned on.
Okay, since he was just a figment of my imagination, I figured I’d enjoy playing out this fantasy while it lasted. So I did what any woman in my situation would have done during an uncomfortably awkward moment of flirting gone wrong, I kept ri
ght on flirting. Ignoring the body lying between us on the floor, I stepped over my torn dress, which was definitely exposing too much pudgy thigh, and moved toward him until he was backed into a corner.
He stiffened until he was parallel to the wall. That would have been a definite sign he was not interested, except he licked his lower lip like he hadn’t eaten in a week, and I was a juicy cut of prime rib. I continued my advance until there was barely a breath between us and my heavy breasts were pressing against his chest. He stood there with this deer-in-the-headlights expression, and that’s when I started to lose confidence.
His knee went up, grazing the skin between my bare thighs, and a zing shot straight to my lady parts. Holy heck! I was horny for Grim! If this really was a dream, I hoped I didn’t wake up for at least another ten minutes. Scratch that. Make that twenty. Judging by the way this flirting was progressing, we’d both be at home base faster than I could devour a plate of triple-chocolate chunk brownies during PMS.
“Prove to me I’m dead,” I cooed, laying a hand on his chest. The top button on his long-sleeved cotton shirt was unfastened, revealing just the right amount of dark hair and a hint of hard muscles beneath. I moved my fingers to that small patch of curls, letting the heat from his bare skin on mine soak through. And then I did something naughty. I leaned up and pressed a feather-soft kiss on his tanned neck.
He groaned, cupping my shoulders in his strong grip. “What are you doing to me, woman?”
“Proving I’m not dead.” I giggled, nipping at his earlobe for good measure.
“Maybe you need some other kind of proof,” he growled, right before his lips came crashing down on mine in the most heat-searing, exquisite kiss imaginable.
I moaned into his mouth as I welcomed his tongue’s invasion. I tasted the sweet scent of fruit, maybe apples? I wasn’t quite sure, but I knew I needed to investigate further, so I fisted his shirt collar in my hands, clutching it like a lifeline as I deepened the kiss. He pulled me against the length of his hard body until I straddled one hard thigh. Our tongues sparred and our lips melded together perfectly.
