by Trisha Telep
“Troy.”
Restraint was over. He slid free of her flesh, heard her reluctant cry, and then lowered himself over her again. Her sleek thighs lifted, rubbing against his hips. The tip of him found her wet, swollen notch. Her hips tilted and he thrust forward.
Seeking home.
His mouth found a nipple again, giving her the edge of his teeth as he drove forward again. And again. And again.
He let her flesh pop free of his mouth. He sat back on his heels, spreading her open with his thighs, her legs draped over his. It was an incredible view, Jemma accepting his flesh, receiving his driving shaft, taking him in, and in, and in.
She lifted one hand to press against her nipple while the other gripped his knee. He was close, so close.
“Jemma,” he said, his voice urgent. Was she with him? Almost there? He took her clitoris between his thumb and forefinger. “Tell me what you feel.”
The stubborn girl moaned.
“Tell me what you feel,” he ordered again, rubbing the sides of that button of flesh. His orgasm was ready to launch. In her quivering muscles, he felt hers gathering. But he needed to be sure. He worked her clitoris with a more demanding touch. “Jemma, tell me what you feel.”
Her hips rose. Her inner muscles pulled his cock deeper. Heated bliss shot up his shaft. She convulsed and he dropped back over her body, thrusting home once more, twice, as she finally acquiesced to what he’d asked, using words that built a bridge between them all over again.
“I love you,” Jemma said, still coming. “I love you.”
Five
Stupid, Jemma admonished herself. Stupid, stupid woman. She’d left Troy asleep in front of the fire and now, back in her clothes, she was heading up the staircase, no longer concerned about locked doors or otherworldly hauntings.
Not when the very real and very dangerous ghost was out – the echo of those words she’d let slip as he propelled her toward paradise. I love you. How could she have allowed herself to say the one thing she’d promised herself she wouldn’t?
Of course he’d said nothing in response to her awkward, awful confession. She could only hope he’d continue pretending he’d never heard those fateful three words. It wasn’t as if she were going to bring them up a second time. What if you slip again? a little voice inside her asked.
Over my dead body!
She’d reached her bedroom. It didn’t surprise her that the doorknob turned easily. She only felt relief, as her plan was to get into bed and pull the covers over her head and hide beneath them until morning. At first light she’d be waiting on the front porch with her suitcase, and hope that her ride back to civilization and sanity came early.
“When I get home,” she murmured to herself, pushing open the door, “I’ll move out of my condo and never see that man again.”
Her feet turned in the direction of the bed, then stuttered to a halt. As the door behind her shut with a definitive click, she stared at the stranger seated on the dainty coverlet.
Jemma’s hand crept to her throat. “Who are you?”
“In this case, your guardian angel,” the woman said. Not that she had wings or a halo. Her dark hair was pulled back in a bun, and she wore lace-up, low-heeled shoes with her white nightgown.
Not nightgown . . . dress. Jemma’s gaze traveled from the person on the bed to the photographs on the other side of the room. She must be dreaming, because those flounces and pintucks the twins were wearing in the pictures were of the same design that this . . . guest was wearing right now.
She blinked, then made another detail-by-detail comparison, her eyes taking in the identical ruffles, the identical button placement. “Is that a . . . a vintage gown you have on?”
“Who cares about clothes at a time like this?” the stranger said, clearly disgruntled.
Jemma put her hand to her head. “I’m a dress designer.”
“I don’t care if you’re President Grant’s personal tailor.”
“Grant?” Oh, this was a really weird dream.
“Ulysses S., of course. Favorite of my father, though I wouldn’t have voted for him, even if women had such a right.”
Jemma just stared at the stranger, fixated by that dress . . . or oh, God, the fact that she could see through the dress. Her mouth went dry as her knees buckled and she sank to the floor. “Lily?” she croaked out. Lovely Lily, forever waiting.
The figure in white threw up her hands. “Why does everyone think of her first? They liked her best and it was always that way. Lily this, Lily that. Lily, won’t you dance with me? Lily, here are some flowers. Lily, I brought you chocolates.”
“R-rose?” Jemma scooted back on her butt. Was this Rose, the one who’d tossed her sister down the stairs in a fit of jealous rage?
“Don’t look at me like that,” the woman snapped out. “Why should you be afraid of a ghost? I should be afraid that you’re going to ruin my chance at redemption.”
OK, Jemma had had enough of this dizzying conversation. Clearly she was still asleep. “Troy?” She called his name, though it didn’t come out much louder than a whisper. “Troy, please wake me up.” She edged back some more, until her rump met the solid wood of the door.
Whoever, whatever, was sitting on the bed let out a gusty sigh and rolled her eyes. “You won’t get away that easily, missy.”
Jemma’s throat tightened. “Troy,” she croaked. “Please wake me up.” She’d take the embarrassment of facing him over this creepy dream confrontation with the bad seed twin any day.
“Let’s talk about him,” the ghost said. “This Troy fellow.”
He’d been Jemma’s lover, then he’d gone away. Tonight, he’d become her lover again, but it wasn’t going to last this time either, she knew that, because the practical, logical, science-minded man he was would never believe in something as ephemeral as love. He’d talked of his parents’ nasty divorce. All I had left were a couple of buckets of toothpicks and a robust aversion to marriage. Apparently their next marriages hadn’t gone much better either, cementing his conviction that love and commitment weren’t worthy of his trust.
“You mustn’t let him get away,” the woman on the bed said. “The two of you belong together.”
Jemma’s head was reeling. “You really think so?”
The woman rolled her eyes again. “I’m a restless spirit, not a fortune-teller. I can only hope you’re meant to be together because if I’m instrumental in your happy ending I have high hopes I can finally leave this house and move on.”
“Redemption,” Jemma said, the pieces finally fitting. The woman had said that word. “Lily isn’t the one who stayed behind after her death, but you, for your part in it.”
“Which I didn’t exactly cause, contrary to rumor,” Rose said. “She always was the clumsy twin. But I’m unable to leave here because I shouldn’t have meddled. The fact is, I pretended I was Lily when her suitor came to propose marriage and it was I who rejected him. When she discovered the truth, she tripped over her own two feet as she ran to catch him.”
“Poor Lily,” Jemma murmured.
“Poor Lily?” Rose echoed. “How about poor me? This place got a reputation for hauntings and I’ve waited forever for some lovers to arrive who need my intervention. This is not a romantic destination, as you probably guess.”
“Until Vicky and Michael, who met on Halloween.”
“Just so.” The ghost waved her hand. “Now go tell that Troy person you love him and let him return the sentiment and everyone gets what they want.”
“I did tell him I love him,” Jemma said.
The air in the room chilled. “What?” Rose seemed to waver where she sat. “Then what did he do?”
“He pretended he didn’t hear. After that he went to sleep.”
“Men!” Rose scowled, then made another little shooing gesture. “Well, go on. Go tell him again,” she ordered. “Insist he love you back.”
Jemma shook her head.
In a blink, Rose came off the bed
, rage written all over her face. “Don’t thwart me,” she said, hovering in place, her old-fashioned shoes six inches off the floor. Her eyes widened and the iris and sclera went black. “You’ll do as I say, you hear me?”
Again Jemma shook her head, even as the temperature in the room turned icy and her body started to shake. “I-it won’t work.”
“It will work,” Rose said, her voice filled with a foreboding as dark as her eyes. “It must work. This is how to lay my spirit to rest. Don’t you believe in me?”
Though Jemma’s heart started pumping in panic – the creature looked devilish now – she remained in place. “Oh, yes, you’ve made me believe in ghosts, Rose.”
“Then—”
“But you can’t convince me that Troy will allow himself to believe in love.”
Six
In Troy’s dream he was striding down the walkway at his condo complex, aware of the smile on his face, anticipating the pleased surprise on Jemma’s when she saw him. He’d thought a meeting would keep him from their regular Tuesday dinner date, but a last-minute cancellation had freed him to spend the evening with his favorite neighbor.
The beautiful woman who’d been sharing his bed for longer than any woman before her.
Jemma amazed him. She was bright, creative, loyal to family and friends . . . and undemanding when it came to him. He could hardly believe how easy she was about their relationship. She had never asked where they were headed. Never hinted at wanting to put a label on what they were to each other.
The thought of that made him so damn happy that he took a shortcut to her place. Rather than walking the long way around to her front door, he cut through a break in the vegetation surrounding her small patio. He knew she was working at home.
Glimpsing her figure through the sliding glass doors, he lifted his hand to knock, then went suddenly still. She was in front of a long mirror, her sewing supplies set out on the dining-room table nearby. White fabric clung like a lover to her breasts and hips, then fell in soft folds to the ground. As he watched, she picked up a length of gauzy material and in a flash fashioned a veil which she pinned to the crown of her head.
Jemma – dressed as a bride.
And just like that, he wanted Jemma as his bride.
It scared the living daylights out of him, wanting marriage with her. Marriages broke apart. Marriages broke people.
And beyond that, Jemma had never once given him the impression she couldn’t live without him. She’d never once hinted that she might want to be his wife.
Worried that his desire for permanence with her would only grow, and hers stay dormant, as her so-casual attitude seemed to imply, Troy made a phone call to his boss and volunteered for the Argentina job.
The truth was, he hadn’t left to spare them both the pain of a failed relationship, but to spare himself. Once he’d started thinking of wanting to build something real and lasting with her, he’d run because he wasn’t convinced she felt the same.
Troy started awake, the dream fresh in his mind, the admission fresh in his heart. Argentina had been his bolthole from his own fears.
And tonight, after a six-month absence, Jemma had told him she loved him.
He rolled his head to where he expected to find her, only to discover she wasn’t under the quilt he’d pulled over them after making love. An event during which she’d revealed her feelings and he’d responded with a stunned silence.
Troy groaned aloud. “What should I do now?”
“Tell the woman you love her, ask her to marry you, and get on with the rest of your lives,” a voice said.
Startled, he shot to a sitting position. The blanket pooled at his lap, and he was glad that some time before falling asleep he’d pulled on his jeans for warmth. His head whipped around, his gaze catching on a woman wearing a long dress and weird shoes standing by the parlor entrance. “How did you get here?” he demanded.
“I never left.”
She was a wedding guest? It had been a very small group, though, and he didn’t remember meeting her.
“Now let’s get down to business,” the stranger said, drifting closer.
Troy blinked, stared, blinked, then stared again. “Drifting” was the operative word. The woman’s feet didn’t touch the floor. She was floating toward him.
“Who? How?” He rubbed a hand over his face. “What the hell is going on?”
“I’m Rose,” the odd lady said.
“Rose?”
The floater sighed. “As in Lily and Rose, the source of the house’s legend?”
“Rose? The evil twin Rose?” he asked, harking back to the ghost story Vicky had shared on their arrival. Was this some history re-enactor who had got the wedding date wrong?
A gust of cold air disturbed the smoldering fire. Sparks flew. “I am not the evil twin! Most people liked my sister more than me, true, but that just confirmed my opinion that most people are lacking adequate wit.”
Or more than adequate judgement of character, Troy thought, rubbing his hand over his face again. Then he squinted, trying to sharpen his vision. In the dim room, lit only by the low flames of the fire, the stranger still appeared to be floating off the floor. “Where’s Jemma?” he asked.
“She wouldn’t do as she was told.” The lady frowned. “Lily was like that. Stubborn.”
A shiver rolled down Troy’s spine. In the legend, Rose pushed her sister down the stairs. He shot to his feet. “Jemma?” he yelled. “Jemma?”
When he didn’t get a response, his stomach roiled. “Where is she? What have you done to her?” He stepped toward the stranger and reached for her arm, determined to get an answer.
His fingers slid through her pale flesh. His heart froze, as he realized the figure in front of him wasn’t solid.
She wasn’t real.
He stumbled back, rubbing his clammy hand on his thigh. “I’m dreaming.”
“She said you’d be hard to convince.”
“I’m still asleep.” He took another step back.
“Pinch yourself,” the strange woman suggested. “That’s supposed to be the test.”
“I don’t need to pinch myself,” Troy said. “I’m asleep. I’m dreaming. There’s no such thing as ghosts.”
“His name was Roger Willow. And the fact is, I think he should be haunting this forsaken place too, because he was at least a little bit responsible for my sister’s death. When I turned down his marriage proposal, posing as Lily, why did he walk away?”
Troy wondered if he’d remember all this in the morning. He usually didn’t recall his dreams upon waking, but this one was a doozy. Skirting the white-clad woman, he stepped toward the nest of blankets in front of the fire.
The dream-ghost was still talking. “Wouldn’t any man worth his salt, who really cared for a woman, at least stick around a while?”
Troy stilled. He’d set into motion his plans to leave the very night he realized his feelings for Jemma. Seven days later he’d been gone. “Maybe he couldn’t believe she’d really love him back.”
“Maybe he was a coward.”
That too. “Marriages break apart,” Troy said. “Marriages break people.”
The ghost gave him a malevolent smile. “Bones break too, when a person takes a nasty spill on the stairs.”
Troy’s blood iced over. “Where’s Jemma?” He knew he was addressing this dream figure, shouting at it, actually, but he didn’t feel asleep any longer. He felt terrified for the sweetheart he’d stupidly left behind six months ago. “Where is Jemma?”
Shrugging, the spirit just smiled again.
In the distance, Troy heard banging. Upstairs. Someone knocking on a bedroom door as if trying to get out. “Jem!” he yelled, running from the parlor and toward the staircase.
He heard her muffled shout.
“I’m coming, Jem!” Troy took the stairs two at a time. As he reached the landing, he pivoted for the next flight, his eyes on the room she’d been assigned. His foot was on the first tread when
her door burst open. He halted as she came flying through.
Relief poured through his system, followed quickly by horror. Bones break too, when a person takes a nasty spill on the stairs. He barked out a caution. “Slow down!”
But it was too late. One of Jemma’s feet seemed to tangle with the other and she started to tumble.
Troy’s heart went with her.
Seven
Jemma opened her eyes. She was in the parlor, in front of the fire, cradled in Troy’s arms. Looking up, she met his gaze. Heat rushed across her skin and she swallowed to lubricate her voice. “I had the weirdest dream.”
“Yeah?”
Her gaze dropped to his bare chest. “Oh.” Heat flashed over her face again. “I guess that part really happened.”
He laughed. “Felt pretty real to me.”
But maybe she’d dreamed the embarrassing admission. Except then he tipped up her chin with the back of his hand and looked her once again in the eyes. “You love me, Jemma?”
“I . . .”
“Because you can’t measure it, you know.”
She sighed. “I know.”
“Doesn’t weigh anything.”
“You’re right.”
“Something that ephemeral could just . . . blow away.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Or take off to Argentina for six months.”
He gave her a sheepish smile. “I deserve that. And I’m not sure I deserve your love.”
“Me neither,” Jemma groused. “So let’s just forget I said those three little words.”
“Nah. I’m not going to forget anything that happened tonight.”
She went to push her hair away from her face. “Ouch.” Her fingers found a lump above her temple. “What happened here?”
“You bumped your head on the banister.”
Memory came back. Being locked inside her room. Troy calling her name, his voice panicked. The door finally opening, her sprint for the stairs, her loss of balance at the top, a sharp pain, then . . .
