“No I wasn’t,” I lied.
“Yes, you were,” Sean said in my ear. Despite my fear and annoyance, the feel of his hot breath on my skin made me shiver.
“What the fuck does that mean?” I asked. “What can I possibly do?”
“You need to be her. You need to step in and act out and give him some kind of closure.”
“No.”
“Then he collects sixteen souls and that’s on you.”
“That’s not fair,” Sean said in my defense. I nearly kissed him.
Roxy Morton shrugged. “They’re ghosts. They don’t deal in fair.”
“Look I—”
I started to say something but her big brown eyes grew wide and she said in a spooky hushed tone. “Quick, he’s coming.”
She darted off and we barely made it into a small powder room before the black smoke rounded the doorway. A woman who must have been hiding on the stairwell came tearing out and right before our eyes, the smoke enveloped her and poof she was gone.
Sean shoved me back, slammed the door. “But Roxy!” I said.
“She went in the next doorway. She’s probably better off than most of us. We’ll catch up with her in a minute. Give him a minute to clear out.” He shoved some guest towels under the door and I thanked the Martha Stewart gods that our host, a single man named Patrick who might have doomed us all with his taste in real estate, had the good manners to put out guest towels for his parties.
“Why is he sealed in a box in the basement?” I asked. “Why? This makes no sense. That woman is a crack addict. She’s crazy. She cannot, cannot, cannot be right!” I shrieked.
Sean held a finger to his lips and shook his head. “Shh.”
“Do not shush me!” I yelled and he smacked me.
Not hard enough to hurt me, just hard enough to shock the shit out of me and when I swallowed my next yell he clamped his hand over my mouth and said, “I really kind of like you, Van. I’d like to get to know you when we’re not in a supernatural lockdown and I’d really like us both to be alive to do that. So you need to shut the fuck up, okay?”
I nodded.
“I’m going to take my hand away and you’re going to be quiet. Okay?”
I nodded again.
He took his hand away. “Asshole,” I breathed. But then I kissed him. Really, really hard. I didn’t just kiss him, I tried to climb him. If I could have climbed Sean Tierney like a tree, I would have. “I’m scared,” I said into his mouth.
“I know.”
I pushed my hands under his shirt to feel his warm body. I found the rubbers in his jeans and yanked one free. “I’m really scared. And that revs me up and I—” I shook my head, kissed him again.
“What?” He grabbed my hair in his hands and tugged so that my mouth couldn’t reach his. His big green eyes stared me down and I felt as naked as hell under his gaze.
“Can we do it one more time? I think we’re going to die and I don’t want to die a virgin.”
“You are so not a virgin,” he laughed. I kissed his nose where tiny caramel-colored freckles dotted his skin.
“I don’t want to die a Sean virgin,” I said, rubbing his cock through his jeans. My heart beat so hard I felt lightheaded and I wondered, was that black smoked licking at our doorknob while we wasted good living time chitchatting. We could only have moments. I pushed my hand into his jeans and stroked him.
“You’re not even a Sean virgin,” he said, but he palmed my ass with his hand and tugged me to him.
“Bear with me. Just…go with it. I don’t want to die this close to a sexy guy I think I could really like without giving it one more go. One more slap and tickle, one more roll in the hay, one more chitty-chitty-bang-me,” I said and licked his chin.
“Christ,” he said and took the rubber from me. We were clumsy and rushed and frantic, adrenaline will do that to you. Soon enough though, he had me wedged in the corner and his mouth was hot on mine.
“Just once more before I die,” I said and opened my mouth when he licked his tongue over my lips. He kissed me hard and said, “You are not going to die.”
“Just in case, then?” I said.
“Just in case.” Sean slipped into me slowly, pinning my arms on either side of my head, the backs of my hands rubbing the ugly, rough-textured wallpaper.
I hooked my leg to his lean hip and let him in, thrusting my hips up to take him deep. “One of these days you’ll have to actually lay me down and take me on a bed,” I said. “Or a sofa…hell, on the grass.”
He smiled, his teeth bright and shiny in the gloomy, tiny room. “Promise.” He thrust hard and my feet lifted almost off the floor. My tippytoes kept purchase on the tiles. Outside something banged and my heart jumped. “Hurry, make me come! He’s going to kill us.”
He shook his head and gritted his teeth. “No pressure there.”
I leaned in and bit his nipple and Sean stilled, growled and then surged forward, trapping me in place with his harsh movements. His thumb found my clit and he pressed and rubbed until I said, “Whoa,” and came in a rush of wetness and adrenaline and a lust to live.
He came saying harshly, “Biting is cheating.”
“You seemed the kind who might um—”
“What?” We were putting ourselves together as something fell overhead. Someone or something on the floor above us had taken a fall.
“Like it. Get off on that little jolt of pain.”
I couldn’t quite catch my breath but in a good way. Better from orgasm than terror.
I zipped my jeans and fluffed my hair, as if that mattered, when someone knocked. “Um, hello in there?”
Roxy.
“Jesus,” I said. “This is getting to be a habit with her.”
“At least she’s alive,” Sean said and unlocked the door.
“God, make me feel bad!” I said and he grinned. We opened the door and let her in.
She pressed her back to the door. “Boy, you two seem to find fear an aphrodisiac.”
I rolled my eyes. “Now, tell us. Why is this kid—the boy spirit—in the box? How the hell did that happen?”
“Interesting story,” she said and pulled a bottle of vodka from the folds of her skirt. “Nip?”
“Hell, you’ll be lucky to get it back,” I said and took a swig.
Chapter Three
“There was a great commotion in the house for years after his death. His mother was so fearful she tried to sell the house but he’d act up worse when folks would come to look. Finally she called in supernatural help and had him bound in the box. She tried every religion she could think of before finally finding a voodoo doctor who managed to lock him up tight.”
“Gee,” I breathed. “Not too creepy.”
“We have a brief respite,” Roxy said. “He’s taking a break.”
“Great, let’s haul ass,” I said and grabbed Sean’s hand.
“The house is still sealed,” she said, shaking her head so her pseudo dreadlocks swayed around her plump face.
I frowned. “How?”
She shrugged. “This is the supernatural. How anything?”
We moved through the house, the three of us. “How do you know he’s taking a break?” Sean asked Roxy. He tested the front door knob and frowned. He took a lamp from a bookshelf and banged the heavy base against the front door glass. It bounced like the glass was rubber. “What the—”
“It takes a lot to manifest that way so he told me.” Roxy took the lamp. “That won’t help. You’ll just hurt yourself.”
“Why is he telling you this?” I asked, taking another swig of her vodka and then handing it back. Sean intercepted it and took a few gulps of his own.
“I can hear him.” She shrugged. “Wouldn’t you talk to the only person who could hear you?”
“Hmm. I guess.”
“So he’s on um…down time?” Sean asked.
“Yes,” Roxy said. She pulled out a pack of cigarettes, considered them, put them away. “I’m trying to
quit,” she said.
I nodded.
“But we’re still trapped?” Sean asked, taking my hand. I squeezed it. And then slightly startled by the ease with which we did it, we both stared at our intertwined hands as if we’d never seen them before. Then we dropped each other’s like it was hot.
Roxy laughed softly but then sobered. “Yes.”
“Okay, listen up, people!” Sean yelled in a really sexy cop voice. “I don’t know how many folks are here, but if you are battened down, good. Now’s your time, though, to grab something you might need, find someone you’re looking for or hit the can. We don’t know how long we have but we’re okay now. Then return to your spot and get comfy. When it’s all over, I have a feeling you’ll know. Until then, watch your back, because the house is still sealed.”
“He has ten,” Roxy said to me. “He only needs six more.”
“Then what?” I asked.
She shrugged. “He hasn’t said. Think of a really petulant ten-year-old who’s all mean and fed on evil and has had years and years to hold a grudge. Then make him crazy.”
“Awesome,” I said, but my throat felt about three sizes too small.
Sean pulled me in for a one-armed hug and kissed the top of my head. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“For what?”
“For bringing you here. And for waiting so long.”
Roxy had moved ahead of us and marched her lace-up, leather boots down a long, narrow hall. We followed her because she seemed to be the logical tour guide for Mr. Crazy’s Wild Ride.
“Waiting so long?” I asked and surprised even myself by standing on tiptoe to kiss a man that earlier this evening I had been hell-bent on not liking at all.
“To take you out.” He put his arm around me and around us I heard the hushed whispers of people in hiding who refused to come out despite his announcement. I couldn’t say I blamed them much.
“Why was that?”
“I heard you were—”
“What?”
Roxy stopped before a room that was painted a horrid robin’s egg blue. She waved to us and I followed her.
“Difficult,” he said softly. “And I had just come from a bad, bad situation So, I put it off but Clarice kept—”
“Difficult!” I said backpedaling.
“A bit.”
“Fuck!”
“Hey, now, you are a little…standoffish to say the least,” he said.
“I am so not. I am so…still!”
He clamped a hand over my mouth and pulled me into the room. Off the main room was a smaller room, probably a nursery once upon a time. Roxy said, “Hey, I’ll just be in here, lovebirds,” she said and quickly ran for cover.
“I was trying to say that I’m glad we’re out, even if we are trapped in the hall of terrors.”
“Great job!” I huffed, dropping to a big saggy double bed. I crossed my arms over my chest. To think, I had gone down on this man. I’d had sex with him. And yes! I wanted to have sex with him again. How crazy was that?
“Come on, now.” He laughed and sat next to me.
“Shut up,” I said. Tears pricked my eyes and I promised myself that if I cried in front of Sean because he called me difficult I would poke my own eyes out with shrimp forks. I swallowed hard and then harder to fend off the tears I refused to shed.
“Forgive me,” he said and kissed my head.
“No.”
“Forgive me,” he said again, pulling me to him with that maddening one-armed hug and rubbed his thumb on my nipple. My body responded with an eager want.
Stupid body.
“I’ll think about it,” I said and yawned.
“Lie down with me,” he said.
“No! You just called me difficult.”
“To rest. No monkey business. We need to rest so we can focus so we can deal with the monster box or the smoke guy or whatever you want to call it.
“Arthur,” said Roxy through the door.
“Great,” I said. “Arthur. The big bad Arthur.”
* * * * *
I hadn’t expected to sleep but Sean pulled me to his warm, broad chest and the sound of his strong, steady heartbeat lulled me under. I felt my eyes grow heavy and could not believe that my body was considering falling asleep. And then at some point I fell asleep.
When I opened my eyes he was staring at me. Big green eyes shot with blue striations like the ocean staring me down. I swallowed hard, hoping against hope I looked at least decent and not the way I normally looked when I woke up. Which is sort of the way a person looks when she licks a light socket. “Hi,” I said.
“Hi.”
“Something wrong?” I listened and not a sound. Nothing at all. No screaming which was good. No emergency sirens or quick response supernatural police force who could banish evil spirits with the wave of a…um, wand?
“Nope. Just looking.” His fingers tickled through my long bangs and brushed them off my face. They gently settled on the skin of my forehead and rubbed me there. It was like melting or taking a Valium or a big deep breath. Him touching me that way made me so calm even in the middle of all the chaos and the uncertainty.
“At me?”
Sean made a show of looking around for another person. “Pretty much,” he said, smiling.
“Any word?”
“Nah. No sounds, no smoke. Nothing bad has happened and nothing good. I figured that our early warning system will know and give us a heads up when we can either make a break for it or the smoke comes back.”
“Arthur,” I said.
“Arthur,” he echoed.
I turned to face him, praying that I hadn’t been asleep long enough to have dragon breath. “I don’t like it,” I said.
Sean laughed softly, traced a finger down the slope of my nose. He touched my lips with his fingertip and then leaned in to kiss me for a lingering moment. “I don’t think anyone does.”
“But see this is my luck,” I protested. I kissed him back, letting the hot, wet tip of his tongue past my lips. He pulled me in so that we were flush—hip to hip, chest to chest, hard-on to…well, no-hard-on, but you get the picture.
“What is your luck, Van?”
“I didn’t want to go out on a date with you,” I said.
“So you said.”
“And I did not want to like you at all,” I went on.
“So I figured.”
“I assumed you’d be a big loser geek nerd or a douche bag. No offense.”
“Wow,” Sean said, “how in the world could I take offense to that?” But miraculously, he put his big, strong hands to the small of my back and held me close while I talked.
“I said assumed. And we know what they say about assuming.”
He nodded, kissed me again. Deeper this time, so that I had to break the perfect sexy kiss to continue. But I did, because I have never learned the great art of shut-the-fuck-up.
“I do. I do know what they say about assuming,” Sean said and cupped my bottom in his hands. He wriggled against me so I felt the hard ridge of his cock in those beat-to-hell jeans and I rolled my eyes.
“Distracting!” I said.
“Doing my best,” he answered.
“Listen, if we die I have to say this,” I said. But I pushed my hand between us and cupped his cock in my hand, feeling it jump in his pants at my firm touch. I smiled and he kissed me once more.
“Can you get to the but part then? God, tell me there is a but part. It’s not I thought you were a douche bag and turns out you were, the end, is it? It is, I assumed you were going to be a douche bag, but—”
“But you weren’t,” I said. I squeezed him and he groaned. “You were sexy and nice. You had a good story about your dad and a good heart. You’ve kept me safe and didn’t run off even though we’ve already done stuff. Boy, almost getting killed sure speeds up the time frame as far as sleep with him/don’t sleep with him for us girls.” I squeezed once more and when he sighed, I pushed my hands down past the waistband, forced my f
ingers into his jeans and cupped his warm, soft skin so there was no barrier between us.
“And I am so, so glad, because I would have totally waited,” he said, rubbing circles on my ass and then giving up, he shoved his hands down into the back of my pants to touch my skin. “But I am glad that if anything does happen we had a chance to be together. Because I think you’re really cool. Even if you did assume I was a douche.”
“I’m sorry about that,” I said and rolled on top of him, pushing my body flush to his. I moved just enough to feel his cock react to my undulation and when he groaned again, I smiled. I liked the way he looked horny and restless and sexy as all get out.
“You are sorry? Something tells me I should get that in writing.”
“Yeah, that doesn’t happen very often,” I said, leaning down to kiss him, watching the long fall of my dark hair rain down to shield us from view. I pulled at his button-down, managed a few buttons and yanked it over his head with his help. Under me, his cock was hard and he started tugging at my jeans and my sweater like my clothes were on fire and he had to get me out.
I laughed and it turned into a snort. “What?” His lean face was intent, green eyes flashing with serious intent. But he smiled and that softened the predatory look.
“I hope nothing happens if I’m going to be buck naked this time. Is it buck or butt?”
“Don’t care,” he said and cupped my breasts in his hands, pinching my nipples between his fingers so I froze up with a sigh and then I was fishing in his jacket, tossed on the bed, for the condoms and rolling one on, watching the slight curve of his cock and remembering the taste of him on my lips.
“Sorry,” I said. “I just don’t want to die naked.” I lowered onto Sean inch by inch, watching my body eat him up, feeling him stretch my pussy in the most delicious way. It was nice in the midst of this paranormal standoff to be able to steal a few minutes of bliss. On a bed, in a room, in private. Away from Arthur the smoke ghost and Roxy Morton the unkempt psychic.
Sean forced his fingers between mine, holding my hands as I started to move. Raising and lowering myself on his hard cock, moving slowly and letting my body adjust to the girth of him. He was big but he was patient and when I was past the point of needing time, he started to thrust, his fingers gripping hard to mine, his body surging up under me. “You are beautiful. Have I even said that? You are sort of caustic and have a sense of humor you could sharpen a knife on but you are beautiful and you are wicked cool,” he said.
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