by Megan Hart
“No.” He shook his head, not wanting to go there. Anywhere but there. Yet he couldn’t stop himself from adding, “Can you?”
“Um…sometimes,” Mel admitted with a sigh that lifted her shoulders. “It used to be little things. Nothing much. But lately it’s just a lot more. Things I see from the corner of my eye. And the…ahem…the…erm…”
She was blushing, he saw with some surprise. “The what?”
“Definitely nothing,” she said firmly and shook her head. “I need to get inside. But hey, Jon, this was nice. Walking with you.”
It was nice, which was why he had to be careful not to do it again, not by accident and not on purpose. He pulled his mouth into a grim line, hating that she noticed and how it made her frown, too. “Yeah. Well. I’m working late shifts next week and stuff. Won’t be able to. I’ll be busy, I mean. Too busy.”
Mel nodded. “Right. Sure. Okay. I got it.”
With that, she turned on her heel and went inside, leaving him there. Jon watched until the light came on in her apartment. He should’ve told her the truth, he thought. There was something in her apartment, and if it was anything like the one he had in his, no wonder Mel looked terrible.
Next time he saw her, he thought. He’d ask her again. Maybe finagle an invitation up to her place—it shouldn’t be that hard. He’d check out the situation again. See what he could do.
He didn’t see her again, except at a distance, for the next week and a half. It took him that long, too, to figure out that it was on purpose. All those other times he’d marveled at the coincidences of their meeting up, but now it became extra-apparent. Mel was avoiding him.
It was hard not seeing her for his own sake, but the longer Jon went without a glimpse, a grin, a giggle, the nastier the presence in his apartment got. It weighed on him, grew more oppressive. The sexy times stopped, replaced with an endless loop of simmering fury.
The crack of fist against flesh. The taste of blood. The smell of perfume and sex replaced by the stink of cigarette smoke, liquor and sweat.
Somehow, it was all tied to Mel.
Chapter 5
This laundry room couldn’t possibly harbor the doorway to hell, Mel thought as she covered her mouth and nose against the musty stink. Surely hell would be hot and dry, unlike the basement. Even a few blocks from the Susquehanna River, The Valencia basement had a tendency toward dampness. Still, it was creepy enough to feature in a horror movie, and though it had never bothered Mel before, the past few weeks had started to change her mind about the reality of monsters under the bed.
The first scritch-scratching noise came as she moved her clean clothes from the washer to the dryer. Mel paused, listening. She heard it again as she closed the dryer and twisted the dial. Normally she didn’t stick around while the clothes dried—there were four washers and dryers, and the other tenants were really good about sharing or putting your clothes in your basket for you if you didn’t get back in time and they needed the machine. She definitely wasn’t going to hang around with noises like that making the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
She’d just passed the row of storage closets when the door to one opened behind her. Mel yelped. No, to be fair, she screamed like a fire siren. Torn between fight or flight, she jumped and turned with a kick that barely missed the creep getting ready to…hand her a teddy bear?
“Um…I was just bringing some empty boxes down to my storage unit and I found this on one of the shelves. Probably left behind by a former tenant.” Jon held up the stuffed toy. “I didn’t want it to get ruined.”
Mel let out a shaky laugh. This was the first time they’d bumped into each other since the day they’d walked home from the Mocha. She’d seen glimpses of him, of course, but had avoided him. They were hardly strangers, but they weren’t anything like friends either. It bothered her. When the universe put someone in your path, Mel firmly believed it was for a reason. But no matter how friendly she’d been to him, Jon Adams had kept himself at a distance. She’d taken the hint. There was only so much a girl could take.
“I doubt it was Mr. Henry’s.” Her voice wasn’t as shaky as she’d thought it might be. Mel swallowed, her heartbeat slowing. “He hated kids.”
Jon looked at the toy and shrugged. “I’ll take it upstairs anyway. Put a note on it, leave it by the mailboxes. Maybe someone will claim it.”
“Yeah.” Mel let out a slow breath.
He had such a great smile, when he used it. This was maybe only the, what, third time she’d seen it. “I scared you.”
“You did.” Mel bounced on her toes. “Though to be honest, I almost kickboxed you to a pulp.”
“Uh-huh.” Jon gave her a wary look. “You really looked dangerous.”
“Hey.” Mel frowned, but good-naturedly. “These hands are registered as deadly weapons. Feet, too, and I don’t mean because of the stink.”
Jon let out a short bark of laughter that echoed against the concrete walls and seemed to startle him. “Oh, right. I’m sure.”
Mel grinned, bouncing again. She was a smile junkie. Laughter was even better. She’d wiggled both from him and couldn’t stop now. She put up her fists, thumbing her nose for a second. “Yeah, yeah. Better be careful, mister, I’ll knock your block off.”
Jon laughed again, lower this time but not so strained. “Wouldn’t want that.”
“Nope. It could get superugly.”
The second smile he gave her was even better than the first. It warmed her entire body. “Guess I should consider myself lucky, huh?”
Mel had always been fluid in the language of flirt. Even when she knew better. She stopped bouncing to tip him a wink. “Are you a lucky sort of guy?”
Jon’s smile grew the tiniest bit. “Sometimes.”
It seemed natural enough that he followed her up the service stairs as they chatted about inconsequentials—the lateness of the mail, the burned-out bulb over the front porch. It was the easiest conversation they’d ever had, but even so, Mel was stunned when Jon paused at his door without opening it right away, to say, “Do you want to come in?”
She’d already passed him and was up a couple of steps. She looked over the railing at him. “To your place?”
Jon hesitated, then nodded. “Sure. Yeah. I mean…I don’t have muffins, but I was going to make some popcorn and watch a movie. I thought, maybe…I don’t know. Forget it. I’m sure you’re busy.”
She was anything but busy, a fact that should’ve been obvious from the fact that she was hanging out in the laundry room on a Saturday night. She didn’t point any of that out. “Sure. What movie?”
That smile again. “It’s called Exit Light.”
“That’s about people who can manipulate dreams, right?” She’d heard of it. The reviews had been mixed, but she liked the cast. “I’m in.”
Jon stepped aside. “Well, c’mon then.”
An hour and a half later, Mel had helped him polish off an enormous bowl of stove-popped popcorn and wiped him out of his stash of bottled root beer. The movie was winding up to a thrilling conclusion, a real edge-of-her-seater. That’s when it happened, such a cliché. Their fingers met in the popcorn bowl, stroking against each other, slick with butter and gritty with salt.
Mel looked at their hands, the fingers linked though she wasn’t sure how that had happened. She looked at Jon. He wasn’t smiling, but the grim set of his mouth was suddenly sexier than anything she’d ever seen.
And then…he lifted her fingers to his mouth and drew the first between his lips. He licked away the butter, his gaze never leaving hers. Then the next.
Heat flooded her. The rough rasp of his tongue on the sensitive flesh of her fingertip, then the harder press of his teeth as he bit gently, sent shudders through her.
He smiled.
When he kissed her, mouths already open, Mel moaned a little at the flavor of the popcorn mixed with his taste. A second later the bowl was on the floor, neither of them paying attention to the scatter of kerne
ls against his carpet. She was in his lap, cupping his face, his hands gripping her hips to grind her down against the bulge of his erection.
Jon kissed her hard, tongue stroking. One hand came up to curl around the back of her neck. He tugged the elastic band from her hair so it fell over her shoulders.
Mel broke the kiss with a gasp. She looked into his eyes, thought about asking him what in the hell had prompted this and then…just went with it. His mouth tasted good, he felt good against her and he smelled even better. And the noise he made from deep in his throat, that little groan of pleasure when she rolled her groin against him, was utter perfection.
Somehow she ended up on her back, the cushions scattered. Jon covered her with his body, mouth working at the soft and sensitive flesh just under her jaw while his hand slid up under her T-shirt to cup her breasts through the bra she wished was lace or satin instead of plain old cotton. But hell, she hadn’t known she was going to get busy tonight. She was lucky she’d bothered to shave her legs today.
He hadn’t shaved, and the rough brush of his stubble on her skin was delicious. Mel arched against him, turning her head to give him free access to her throat. Jon nibbled, then stroked her skin with his tongue. The man was a genius. His fingers moved over the mound of her breasts, then dipped inside her bra to expertly flick her nipples.
He paused when she whispered his name to look up at her, his expression serious. His kiss moved back to her mouth, softer this time. “Hmm?”
There was a time for talking, and this wasn’t it. Mel shook her head a little and opened her mouth to let him kiss her again. His hand moved under her shirt, over her belly. His fingers drifted along the waistband of her yoga pants, but though she tensed, waiting for him to slide inside, he didn’t.
The kissing went on for a long time, and Mel drifted with it. How long had it been since she’d simply kissed and kissed, making out like this without things moving along to naked-town? Probably not since high school. Except in high school, back in virgin territory, she’d only ever guessed at how good it would feel when a boy touched her, and now she definitely knew.
When Jon finally slipped his hand between her legs, the sweet pressure of his knuckles on her clit was dampened by the barrier of her clothes. Instead of being frustrating, this only made the pleasure better. He rubbed gently, firmly. Perfectly.
Mel rode the waves of pleasure until she wanted to writhe with it, but Jon’s steady hand kept her in place. The pace quickened just when she needed it to. The kisses became a little desperate, harder, almost bruising, but she didn’t care. She gave herself up to every sensation of his lips, his teeth and tongue, the rasp of his stubble. The never-ceasing press, release of his hand on her clit.
He was going to make her come without ever taking off her clothes. The idea of this, that he could bring her to such powerful pleasure without really even touching her, was what sent her over the edge. An orgasm exploded inside her, and Mel gasped and shuddered with it, crying out his name.
Before the first shocks had faded, she was going up and over again. This second climax was gentler, ripples rather than crashing waves of pleasure, but it lasted longer and left her boneless and sated at the end. If she never moved again, Mel thought drowsily, it would be too soon.
The rough rasp of Jon clearing his throat forced her eyes open. She smiled at him, not caring how disheveled she looked. But he wasn’t smiling.
Mel sat up. Jon had retreated to the opposite side of the couch. He cut his gaze from hers and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, holding it there for a second as if he meant to hold back words he ended up saying anyway.
“You should go.”
Mel sat up higher and swung her legs over the edge of the couch. Her stomach had been in a delicious swirl of arousal—now it sunk. Still, she looked him right in the face though he wasn’t returning the courtesy. “What’s wrong?”
“I just…can’t. I’m sorry.”
“You can’t what?” She scooted closer but stopped herself from touching him when he flinched.
Yeah. Flinched.
“Can’t be with you. Like that.” Jon gestured, finally looking at her, his expression grim. Nothing in his eyes. He might as well have been a robot.
“Like what?” Mel looked at the spot on the couch he’d pointed toward, where only moments ago he’d been getting her off. “Like…sexually?”
Jon cleared his throat again. “Yes. I can’t really have a girlfriend or anything—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold up, cowboy.” Mel lifted her hands. “You think I’m looking for a boyfriend?”
Well, she was. Any single girl who said she didn’t want a boyfriend (or a girlfriend, Mel didn’t discriminate when it came to that sort of thing, love was love) was lying at some deep, cellular level. Sure, she wasn’t actively out there looking, she didn’t have a profile in a dating site or anything, but hey, if something came along, she wasn’t going to avoid it. However, she wasn’t about to tell that to Jon, who looked as if he was blushing.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Of course you’re not.”
Mel crossed her arms over her chest. “Okay, maybe if the opportunity for a boyfriend came up and slapped me in the face I wouldn’t turn it down, but really…you’re telling me you’re not interested in a girlfriend? At all? Ever?”
“No. I can’t.”
She stared at him through narrowed eyes. “Bullshit.”
Jon stood. “Look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let it get that far.”
“But you did.” Mel stood too. He was tall enough she had to tilt her head back to stare at his face, and this annoyed her. “Look, just because I’m open to the possibility of finding someone to be in a relationship with, that doesn’t mean I had you all picked out like a puppy from the pound, okay? You asked me to hang out. And you kissed me,” she pointed out. “So don’t give me some song-and-dance story about how you can’t do this, you can’t have a girlfriend. If you just want to get laid, just say so. I’m a big girl. I can handle it.”
She glanced at the couch, her legs still a little weak and that soft heat still coiling in her belly. “I’m not against the idea of friends with benefits.”
There. Just the faintest twitch of his lip, the tiniest glimmer of something in his eyes. But then it was gone.
“No. I can’t do that.” He shook his head.
“I hate to break the news to you,” Mel said, “but you already did.”
Except he hadn’t, really. He’d made her come, but she’d done nothing for him. She eyed him. “Do you have some weird fetish or something?” she demanded.
Jon looked stunned. “What? No—”
“I mean, I’m down with just about anything. At least I’m willing to entertain the idea. So if you have some sort of kinky thing you’re into, you should just tell me.” She crossed her arms over her chest and leveled him with a stare. “The worst I could do is say no, and I promise not to laugh. Or recoil in disgust.”
God, she hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Mel had once dated a guy who confessed he wanted to be diapered like a baby. She’d managed to avoid doing that without hurting his feelings. She was pretty sure she could handle just about anything.
“I don’t have a fetish, Mel.”
“Then what?” She tossed up her hands. “I don’t get it. I thought we were at least friendly, if not friends, until you basically told me to fuck off a couple weeks ago. So, I did. Right? And then all of a sudden you have me on your couch with your mouth and your hands all over me, but you won’t follow through. I don’t understand. What am I missing?”
“You’re not missing anything. It’s not you. It’s me.”
Her lip curled. “Oh. Please.”
Jon moved forward, one hand out, but he stopped just before touching her. His fingers curled into a fist he dropped to his side. He sighed and cut his gaze from hers. “I can’t make love to you, Mel. I’m afraid I’ll hurt you.”
Oh, shit. She hesitated, keeping her answer ca
reful. “Are you into hurting women?”
“No!” He sounded more than shocked—he sounded disgusted. Jon shook his head. “God. No.”
“I don’t understand, Jon.” She moved a little closer, trying to get him to at least look at her. “You mean…emotionally? Because I already told you—”
“I had a fiancée. Her name was Naomi. She died,” Jon said flatly. “I killed her.”
Mel didn’t recoil. Didn’t flinch. Very, very carefully, she stopped moving toward him and stayed very still. “You killed her?”
“Yes.”
“On purpose?”
Jon shook his head, his gaze bleak. It shouldn’t break her heart, that face. But it did. “No. I didn’t mean to. I loved her. But something had happened, something I didn’t understand or know how to control.”
Mel had no idea what the hell he was talking about. She couldn’t help but look at the couch where not so long ago she’d been writhing under his touch. Her heat had turned to chill.
“There was an accident,” Jon said. “People died. There was a man there. And he made me into something. He gave me this thing. You asked me if I could see things, Mel. I lied to you.”
“You can see things,” she said flatly. “Like, ghost things.”
Jon’s expression was naked. Raw. “Yes. More than see them. I make them leave. I mean, the ones that can’t go on their own, the ones that are stuck here. I make them go. It’s like a push, a pulse of energy or something. I can’t describe it. He made me something. He said it was called a psychopomp. It makes me able to send spirits over. But I did it to Naomi when we were making love, and she died. I killed her. So I can’t be with you in that way, Mel. I just can’t.”
This was worse than any kinky fetish she could’ve imagined, and the internet had sadly educated Mel on a lot of things she wished she could unsee. This was worse because it was crazy talk, which meant one of two things. Either Jon was a lunatic, which was bad because Mel had sworn off the crazy. Or he was making up a story in order to get out of sleeping with her.
