She moved on to her next task, discarding the shelf paper and cleaning the cupboards, and forgot about Barclay.
Soon she’d have to take a break and a shower. She glanced at the desk holding her powerful laptop and a stack of books. The genealogy program whispered to her; so much more fun than packing and cleaning. Ignoring it, she grabbed a portable music player, set the playlist for rock, and stuck in the earbuds, determined to finish the living room. Already she had a stack of stuff that wouldn’t be moving with her lined up against the far wall. The television monitor was only three years old, so she’d take it.
Zach’s here! Enzo zoomed from the backyard through the kitchen, probably through the fan in the front door and Zach, too.
“Clare!”
The second time a man had shouted at her that day, though with all the fans and her earbuds in, she didn’t blame him. She hurried to the living room and saw him on the other side of the screen door, staring down at Enzo, who hopped around and rubbed against him.
She’d gotten the idea that he could hear the dog, even without being in contact with her. But then Enzo wasn’t just a ghost dog. He was also some sort of spirit that Clare didn’t think too hard about. Especially when a handsome and sexy guy scowled at her under shaggy hair. She pulled out her earbuds and plucked her music player from her dress pocket, setting it on the coffee table. Then she moved the box fan from the door and turned it off, and unlocked the screen door.
“Clare,” he said.
“Yes?” She backed up as he came in, darkly intense.
Two good paces in and he yanked her to him.
Wow, he was a solid wall of muscle and his strong arm went behind her back.
“Clare.” His other hand went to her chin and she let him tip it back for a kiss.
His eyes held stormy secrets.
She rubbed her hands up and down the sleeves of his fine white linen dress shirt. He’d left whatever jacket he might have been wearing in his car. “Zach.”
His mouth came down on hers and pressed once, his tongue probing along her lips for her to open to him.
She did. And closed her eyes, willowed against him—such a solid man. Tasted him as he rubbed his tongue against hers. Felt the tightening of her nipples in desire, and more, she felt his erection, as solid as the man. She’d been sweating while working, and now she dampened, all over and under and in between with the flush of arousal. She ached for him, for intimacy, for completion.
For release.
He’d been sweating, too, doing more than working inside and walking around outside. That should have turned her off. It didn’t. His smell went straight through her and had her sex clenching with need.
Yes, he smelled right.
She pulled away, still leaning against him. “Zach. I’m all sweaty. I mean, I’ve been packing.”
His gaze swept the room: the organized empty boxes against the wall, the half-filled ones just beyond the kitchen threshold. The arm around her back fell and his fingers touched her bare leg below the hem of her short dress, feathered along her skin. He grinned. “Nice.” Leaning close again, he dipped his head near her shoulder, kissed her neck up to her ear with a touch of tongue, tasting her.
When he raised his head his cheeks had flushed, giving him a ruddier look, accenting that hint of Native American blood. Oh, yes, sexy!
He smoldered. She’d never had a look like that aimed at her. Her knees weakened; her whole body loosened. “You taste like woman. You smell like Clare.”
She had to inhale deeply just to have enough control to take a tiny step away from him, blushing herself. His hand curved around her cheek, thumb caressing her. “Peachy, the pink under your golden skin.” He bent and kissed her quickly. “Redder, fuller lips, just for me.”
He shifted; his arm came around her again and he lifted her from her feet, took the couple of steps to the couch, and sank down with her, her on bottom, him on top. Though he’d done all the work, her heart thundered at being in a sexual position.
“Clare.” He swept kisses along her neck and her mind began buzzing, doing a slow swoop of rationality sinking and rising in a sea of red desire.
Pushing the straps of her dress down and the bodice to her midriff, he flicked the front clasp of her bra open.
His hands on her bare breasts felt wonderful, so fabulous that she moved under him, aligning her body so she could rub against him in just the right spot, just the right way. Was that whimpering and panting hers? Oh . . . yes!
She slid her hands inside his pants. Smooth linen shirt under her palms, heavier trousers against the backs of her hands, then cotton boxers . . . male skin, lightly haired along his thighs, smoother on his butt . . . she began to slide her hands toward his front when he groaned, stopped her, rolled them over on the couch with her on top.
Good, she could breathe. She found the clasp of his waistband. His shaft was so hard and strong and long and thick and she needed that in her now.
“Wait. Wait.” His fingers stopped hers.
“What?”
“Rubber.”
Her mind went blank, then, “Oh. Protection.”
He cracked a laugh. “In my wallet, bought them last night.”
She bent down and kissed his mouth, swiping her tongue along his lips. When he opened his mouth she rubbed her tongue against his as she rubbed her lower body against his and stopped only when her mind was sinking into the world of blazing lust. She dug the word she’d wanted to say from her brain. “Optimist.”
Another laugh. He lifted his head for a very brief kiss. “After last night, I knew we’d wind up in bed together. Realist.”
“Bed? This is the couch.”
“Great couch, you’re gonna take it with you, aren’t you?”
“Hadn’t planned on that, but yes. And you’re lying on your wallet.”
He arched again, stroking her with his body in just the right place. While she gasped with pleasure, he tipped her in toward the back and shucked his pants and boxers, then took care of protection.
She’d wiggled out of her dress and underwear, only glancing at the front door before he rolled her back over and kissed her, hot open mouth to hot open mouth. When they broke for a ragged breath, he said, “You coulda kept the dress on.”
She couldn’t even answer as she poised over him, rubbed her sex back and forth along his. So extremely, sensually good. Again. Again. Pleasuring herself, glorying in feeling how he thickened under her, became more rigid.
His hands cupped under her bottom and his hands against her skin broke the minor trance of escalating passion . . . and added a new element all at once. Her eyes had closed and she’d breathed in the thick air and the scent of them . . . him and her, mingling. Now her gaze went to his strained face, his own pupils so dilated she could see only an edge of green.
“Clare. You’re. Killing. Me,” he panted.
More sweat beaded on his forehead, appeared as if it might run down his temple. She had to taste that, the essential Zach. So she leaned forward, nearly stopped as the tip of him touched exactly where she needed. She sucked in a breath and trailed her tongue across his forehead. Salt and Zach . . . the taste of plains instead of city . . . sage, something like piñon pine.
And he angled her and thrust up into her and she moaned as he fit so well.
Paused. Cloth on his chest instead of skin that she wanted to feel. She unbuttoned his shirt. Muscles, little hair. Nice.
“Sexy woman,” he said.
TWENTY-FOUR
WHY WAS HE still talking? She began to move . . . rise until only the tip of him was in her, slowly, slowly slide back down. His jaw bunched, more color coming to his face, accenting the hue of his eyes. Beautiful man.
“Slow is good,” he slurred.
Still talking. So she started a rhythm, watching his face, feeling him flex and throb and fill h
er.
They moved together, spiraling up to the pinnacle of teasing ecstasy with each surge of their bodies. Zach’s eyes blurred . . . because of her own vision or his, she didn’t know, but her palms on his chest got a little slippery and she dug into his chest hair and he grunted and his hips moved faster.
“Cla-are.” Her name came broken on a jerky breath, like nothing she’d heard before, ever, and her body clenched tight and hot around him and he thrust and rapture shattered her into sparkling diamonds turning into rain, into mist, her spirit free and flying before coalescing back into her pulsating body and she felt him arch. His fingers clenched into her butt and she peaked again, quick and hard, and fell forward gasping.
“Clare,” he murmured, his hands falling from her.
She found the fast pulse of his heartbeat in a thick vein in his neck and licked it and he shuddered. “Clare!”
Subsiding on his chest, stroking his muscles instead of digging into them, Clare sighed out, “Zach.”
They lay there together, their hearts pounding and their breathing steadying into unison, taking long minutes for themselves. Clare’s mind seemed to turn on first and she said, “Wow.” Very hot, very sticky between them, and she didn’t mind.
Zach grunted a laugh, rubbed her back, ran his fingers through her hair, lifting it away from her damp nape, and the quiet whoosh of the fan overhead impinged on her hearing as her body cooled.
Her lover lifted her chin so their gazes could meet; his eyes were sensual and a lazy smile curved his lips. He looked satisfied, knowing that he’d pleased her and had reached climax, too.
After a quick kiss on her lips, he rolled her to the back of the couch, and the change in angle told her she wasn’t nearly as recovered from the fabulous sex as she’d thought, since her stare stayed fixed as she moved. She blinked and refocused just in time to see a taut backside turning into the small hallway that held her bathroom.
“I’m starving,” Zach called. “Can you order something in? Something that will be ready after shower sex?”
Clare scrambled to her knees, shoving her hair out of the way, her brain flipping through cuisines. She so rarely ordered delivery, she had to think about it. “Pizza or Chinese?” she asked.
“Surprise me,” Zach called as he turned on the shower.
She didn’t have that big a water heater. Grabbing her phone from the table, she ordered Happy Family from the Chinese restaurant; it would arrive in half an hour.
Running to the bathroom, she stepped into the tub shower, her toes curling. Steam rose around her and even in the heat, the humidity felt blissful.
Zach was simply gorgeous. All right, he looked as if he’d lost some weight, but he still had excellent definition. Better than she. She bet she’d have to up her exercise program if she wanted to keep him as a lover, and she did.
In the damp, his hair appeared to wave more than she’d noticed; her fingers itched to touch it. It was longer, shaggier than she usually preferred. She liked his hair, and the looks of him, his slow smile that melted her.
She was very glad she’d added nonslip strips to the bottom of the tub.
• • •
What with another round in the shower, the arrival of good Chinese food that they both ate with chopsticks, and easy conversation, any problematic after-sex tension just evaporated. There had been only a couple of hitches in their postcoital glow—one when Clare asked Zach to move the puzzle box from the coffee table to the top of her one knickknack cabinet, and one when Enzo made a clever comment about how good they were together.
She and Zach had played footsie under the dining room table, so he seemed to hear, and occasionally respond, to the dog. He didn’t seem to want to analyze the psychic stuff or talk it out. No doubt a man thing to just accept it without dealing with it, so she went along with him.
After dinner, he helped her tidy up, finish packing the living room and start on her small home office. As the sun set, they were rolling around in her bed, learning each other’s bodies, though through distraction or Zach’s avoidance, she didn’t get a good look at his injury. Not that she cared much; the man was an attentive lover and there were other parts of him that proved more interesting and demanded more of her attention.
They finished up the last of the Chinese when dark fell, and he rose to go. She hadn’t asked him to stay overnight, and he hadn’t pressed to sleep with her. He had called Mrs. Flinton and Mrs. Magee earlier to let them know he wouldn’t be back until after dark. He and Clare had spoken about their respective moves. His voice held affection for the ladies, and she thought it was a good fit for him and them, for the time being.
All the changes in her life had such sharp edges right now that she didn’t want to hurt herself more than necessary . . . perhaps become more attached and dependent on Zach just because he’d come into her life at this time. All that could wait for later.
Not to mention the fact that he’d made his discontent with her current house evident with a couple of grunts. Neither of them believed this house would sell soon in the sluggish market, nor would it sell until the weather cooled down. The lack of air-conditioning this year was a real liability.
Clare would focus on her new house and her new gift, have this house professionally cleaned and take Arlene’s advice about when to list the place with an eye to selling. In any event, she should get enough to pay the mortgage off and maybe a little more, which just plain satisfied her. She’d done fairly well.
But at the door, when Zach pulled her against him and despite all the sex they’d had, her nerves picked up an anticipatory buzz.
He kissed her. “I like you a lot, Clare.”
“Ditto.”
“Not over?”
Her heart gave a hard thump at the question. “No.”
“Good.” A short kiss. “Later.”
“Later.”
The cane added to his swagger.
• • •
Her energy seemed to drain out as she turned out the porch light after Zach drove off, then reluctantly stopped the fan and moved it away, closing and locking the door. Such a small starter house, but she’d been happy here. Her parents had been appalled. They’d come once, dismissed her house and Clare herself.
Two more days and she’d be gone.
Turning off all the lights, she shuffled through the heat and fell onto the clean sheets on the bed that she and Zach had made together. Her insistence on that and his male teasing made her smile. She knew Enzo had joined her since he radiated cool.
“Good night, Enzo.” She reached out and petted his back, her fingers turning icy in an instant.
Good night, Clare. You are doing good. Mostly, he said.
She sniffed, but no ghosts, no nightmares, and no chills racked her body while she slept. Though she wasn’t nearly as comfortable as when she’d been crowded on the couch with Zach the night before.
• • •
In the morning, Clare had a list and a tight schedule and concentrated on packing, ignoring the lure of research on the computer. The more she worked, the more she thought of questions about Jack Slade, Cold Springs Station, ghosts, mediums, and the rules of her gift.
She thought of Zach . . . tried to set aside the remembrance of his hands on her body, her hands running over his muscles, but the sex had been so incredible, and the man himself was enthralling. She should, of course, do that web search on him, but it really didn’t matter who he was . . . before.
He was an intense man, and she believed that was nothing new to him. And that he’d told her about his brother, opened up a hurt that was so devastating she could still hear it in his voice, touched her. His story made her more protective of him and his feelings, though she wouldn’t tell him that.
He had issues, but didn’t everyone? And sharing emotions, intimacy, was almost as good as the sex. She felt he was negotiating rough wa
ters like her.
Clare wasn’t the person she’d been before, just a little over a week ago. She wasn’t an accountant, had no job, had no intention of being a professional . . . medium? . . . she hated that word. She had no intention of becoming a professional Ghost Seer, or Apparition Mover, or Phantom Vanquisher, or whatever. She didn’t need to work. All she needed to do was practice her gift enough to keep the madness and chill away.
That didn’t sit well, to do the minimum and not her best. But she’d been pulled into these new circumstances kicking and screaming, against her will, and didn’t want to do more than the minimum to get by right now. Later . . . when she’d become accustomed to her new situation, after she’d learned all she could, she’d probably feel different.
Her tablet alarm rang like tolling bells. Time to buy Dr. Barclay lunch and show him the improved Clare and get him out of her life.
• • •
Rickman had spoken with Mrs. Flinton about her case the day before and had finessed from the older lady that her father’s family, who’d taken her in when she was a child, had also kept good records, ledger books that she’d stored in the attic. Zach’s boss had approved using Clare as a financial consultant, and that morning Mrs. Flinton had handed Zach the three ledgers from the year in question; they smelled of dust and mothballs.
Ready to see Clare again, get her focused on something other than her new strange gift and the death of her aunt and everything else surrounding that, Zach texted her to meet near noon. She said she’d be having lunch at an uptown restaurant. Zach smiled. He’d figured Clare for being careful with her money, but now that she had a whole lot more to be careful with, she seemed to be eating out more often. He hoped she continued to eat, but she’d looked good the day before, had been energetic with sex, and sharing the Chinese food had been fun.
Zach had considered a messenger bag or a briefcase and gone with the case. Odds were he wouldn’t be carrying anything of extreme importance and all he had to do with a briefcase was drop it if he got in danger, unlike a bag that could hamper him.
Ghost Seer Page 20
