Reawakened Passions

  “You should,” she said seriously. “My least favorite word is slacks. And munch. Man, I hate those words.”

  Her toe caught an upraised bit of concrete that sent her stumbling a step or two. Jon easily put out an arm to catch her, and though she’d been falling away from him, not toward, she somehow ended up pulled close to his body anyway.

  “Thanks. I’m superclumsy.” She smiled up at him.

  Jon let her go, too uncomfortably aware of how her soft curves had pressed against him. “Be careful. You don’t want to break your ankle.”

  Undaunted by his gruff tone, Mel winked at him before she moved away. “Then you’d have to give me a piggyback ride.”

  He didn’t know what to say to that, so typically, said nothing. They walked along the river, Mel keeping up the conversation with a steady flow of observations and questions she managed to sneak in so skillfully, Jon barely knew what information she was weaseling out of him until she said, matter-of-factly, “So, why’d you give up that specialized carpentry business to work in the morgue?”

  Jon stopped short, thinking about the conversation and the questions she’d asked him. How he’d answered. She’d pieced it all together while they walked. He swallowed a little too hard. “I needed something a little more steady.”

  “Oh, right. Right, I get it.” Mel nodded. “I mean, sure, everyone dies. You’ll always have a job. Makes sense. You don’t find it creepy or anything?”

  Most people asked him that. Hell, he’d have thought it was creepy until this whole psychopomp deal got forced on him. “Someone has to do it.”

  “You don’t say much, huh?” Mel kicked at a pebble and slanted him a look through the fringe of her bangs. “Strong-and-silent type.”

  “Not much to say, I guess.” Jon paused to look out at the water. Night had fallen by now, and the streetlamps cast pale bluish light over them both. “We should maybe head back.”

  For a second he thought he saw disappointment flash in her eyes. “Right. Sure. I have some stuff I have to do tonight anyway. I just try to get out and walk a few nights a week. The river’s so pretty, and I’m not into running — unless the dead rise up,” she laughed.

  He didn’t.

  Mel’s mouth twisted a little. “So…sure, let’s head back.”

  She was quieter on the way home, which he chalked up to being tired. But when they got back to the apartment building and he once again hesitated on the doorstep, Mel put her hand on his arm. Her fingers squeezed gently.

  “I thought maybe a walk would help you clear your head,” she told him. “But you’re still kind of tense, huh? Is there something going on? I mean, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, obviously, but…”

  Jon shook his head. He couldn’t tell her he didn’t want to go inside his apartment because his invisible roomie was probably either going to fill his head with visions of blood or fucking. “No. Nothing. I’m fine.”

  She followed a few steps behind him as he went inside, watching as he checked his mail. Still watching as he put his key in the lock and twisted it. He turned to look at her.

  “Jon…is there something in there?” Mel inched forward, lowering her voice. She sounded serious, not scared, and met his gaze head-on. “I mean in your place?”

  “Something like what?”

  “Like…something weird.” She chewed for a second on her bottom lip, then seemed to gather her courage. “I think I have a ghost in mine.”

  Shit.

  “No,” he said sternly. “I’m just…expecting a phone call. From my ex. I don’t want…if it’s on the machine, I don’t want to listen to it.”

  The excuse sounded okay, but her eyebrows rose anyway. “Oh. Uh-huh. Well, yeah, I guess that would suck. Is it about something bad? Never mind, you don’t have to tell me. Not my business.”

  Mel backed up to put her foot on the bottom step just as Jon pushed his door open. He nodded at her so he didn’t have to come up with another round of lies, and stepped over his threshold. He hadn’t gone more than a step or two inside when it hit him, the fierce and overwhelming desire to pull her inside with him and push her up against the wall.

  Jon turned, meaning to shut the door, but Mel stared, eyes wide and mouth slightly parted, just past him into the apartment. She shook her head a little as though in disbelief. Before he could stop her, she’d pushed past him and inside.

  “There was…I saw…” She turned to face him. “A man. I’m sure I saw a man in here.”

  Something shivery coiled between them. She was close enough that all he had to do was reach out and grab her wrist, tug her toward him. He could catch her as he’d done by the river, only this time instead of pushing her away, he’d hold her right up close against him. He’d grab a double handful of that sweet ass.

  And he’d kiss her so hard the room would spin for both of them.

  Inside his head, a low voice laughed.

  Mel still stood, eyes a little wide, looking around Jon’s place. She touched the small table where he tossed his keys with her fingertips and then looked up at him with a faint smile. She gestured.

  “It looks different than it did when Mr. Henry lived here. I mean, I only saw inside once. He was sort of cranky. Or he just didn’t like me, I’m not sure.”

  Maybe he’d liked her too much, Jon thought as another surge of desire threatened to make him stupider than he already was. It was not like being filled with visions, not like being overtaken. No, this was worse because his attraction to the woman in front of him was real, it was his own, and this bastard who wouldn’t leave was simply amplifying it for his own twisted purposes. Whatever they were.

  Well, screw that. Jon might not be too proud to turn down a voyeuristic fucking that was a few steps beyond jacking off, but he wasn’t about to let this lingering spirit force him into being some kind of rapey douche bag. “There’s nobody else here. And it’s late. You should go. Now.”

  Before she could protest, he’d reached over to take her by the elbow. Mel gasped at the touch, though he hadn’t grabbed her nearly hard enough to hurt her. Damn, Jon thought as he marched her toward the doorway, that gasp didn’t sound like pain. More like pleasure. He let her go abruptly as she moved over the threshold, and waited for the tingling in his gut to go away now that she was out of proximity.

  Except that it didn’t. She was just as kissable as she’d been a minute ago. Maybe more so without the hum and buzz of the spirit poking at him.

  “Good night, Jon.” Mel put a hand on the railing, looking over her shoulder at him.

  He closed the door behind her.

  * * *

  Jon stumbles home with the stink of blood and gasoline still clogging his nose and throat. After a dinner he couldn’t eat and a shower that stung his wounds, Naomi takes him to bed. He wasn’t thinking of sex, but when she lets her fingers drift over his belly, then lower, his cock springs to life in her fingers. Then her mouth.

  He gives himself up to the pleasure. The softness of her hair brushes his thighs, his balls. She sucks him slowly and carefully, bringing him close and then holding him off until all he can think about is how good it feels.

  Then she’s on top of him, her finger circling her clit to catch up to him. She’s hot and slick. Her thighs grip his sides. She rocks against him. Faster. Faster.

  “I love you,” Naomi tells him. “Oh, Jonathan, I love you so much…”

  He loves her, too, but the words won’t come from his dry throat. He thrusts inside her, mindless with the desire building in his balls. His hands find her hips. She leans to kiss him. She comes with a low cry into his mouth, and Jon is there with her, spiraling out of control, up and up and out…

  He pushes.

  Naomi clutches at him with a cry, not of pleasure now. Her body convulses. She falls forward.

  Spent, Jon catches her, already rolling to the side to tip her face up. He shakes her. Cries her name, then again, louder. Her eyes are open, and she’s smiling, but Naomi is…gone.
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  Chapter 4

  Upstairs, Mel closed the door to her apartment with a soft click and walked on numb legs toward her bathroom. Everything around her seemed sort of swirling, foggy, as if she’d just come back from pushing herself with a long, hard run—except of course that Mel didn’t run. She hated to run. She walked as many nights as she could, keeping a brisk but maintainable pace that worked up a sweat but never made her feel like this, as if she was going to just go to her knees.

  In Jon’s apartment, the idea of doing just that had been nearly all-consuming. The desire had faded a little, though it hadn’t lost its appeal. Mel felt sorry for women who didn’t appreciate the glory of fellatio. She’d had a college roommate who refused to suck cock, just flat-out refused. Sometimes, honestly, when Mel was really into a guy, it was all she could think about. Like right now.

  “Get over it,” she muttered, forcing herself toward the shower. She twisted the handle and stepped out of the way of the spray as she started peeling off her clothes. “He’s not into you.”

  She was too quirky, too chatty, too curvy, too eclectic. Mel caught sight of herself in the mirror just before she climbed into the shower. She cupped her breasts and ran a hand over her belly and hips. Between her legs. Her chin lifted.

  She was who she was, and if he wasn’t into her, well, someone would be. She just had to keep looking.

  Until then, she had a steamy hot shower and the sleek, waterproof vibrator she kept tucked on top of the small tile shelf over the showerhead. She didn’t use it often, preferring to get herself off in bed with the full-powered rabbit toy she’d recently replaced, but tonight she didn’t want to wait.

  Head bent under the pounding water, Mel put a hand on the tiled wall. Her fingers curled, slipping. The vibrator, the size of her thumb, slipped easily against her clit. She hummed with pleasure, eyes closed, legs slightly spread but feet planted firmly—the last thing she wanted to do was slip and fall.

  Shower fucking could be tricky. Slippery. Mel began to imagine her shower seduction. His hands would slide over her body, no resistance, nothing snagging him. He’d cup her breasts, flick her nipples, pinch them upright. One hand on her belly, his mouth biting at the back of her neck, he’d pull her close so she could feel the press of his erection against her ass. It would slide against her, teasing her, slipping between her thighs from behind as his fingertips tweaked at her clit…

  * * *

  The taste of gin coats her tongue. Her hair falls forward on her cheeks, tickling them, but it’s not as nice as the tickle-tickle of his fingers between her legs. He finds her sweet spot, just right, slips and slides because she’s already so wet. He’s behind her, so she can’t see his face, but she doesn’t have to. She knows what he must look like. Brow furrowed. Stubbled jaw clenched in concentration as he works his fingers into her. In. Out. His cock’s hard on her buttocks—sometimes he likes to slip it inside her back there, and she tenses, waiting, but he only thrusts against her.

  He likes to twist her nipples, a little too hard. She loves it even when it hurts. That’s what this is with them, always was and always will be. Pleasure and pain, all mixed up together. She gasps when he pushes her against the cold tile. His fingers spread her pussy. Delve inside. He bends her enough to slide his cock inside her. The angle’s off, and it hurts a little more than his fingers on her nipples. She cries out. He covers her mouth with his hand, the flavor salty, his palm warm.

  He fucks into her slowly. Then harder. His fingers slide on her hips. Over her pearl. He takes it between his thumb and forefinger, jerking it slowly as he thrusts.

  And then she’s tipping up, tipping over, ready to burst, and he eases off the pressure just before she can explode. He turns her. One leg up around his hip, his hands on her ass, he pushes inside her again. His pelvis grinds hers. It’s the last bit of pressure she needs, that internal stroking making her shake and shudder and dissolve.

  She opens her eyes as she climaxes. She sees her lover’s face. And oh, it’s him, the one she’s loved for so long, the one she can’t bear to be without, the one she’d kill to keep…

  Kill to keep.

  * * *

  Mel gasped as she rode the waves of pleasure coursing through her. The vibrator slipped from her fingers and rattled on the floor of the shower, and she was still too woozy and disoriented to bend and get it. Not without pitching face-first and breaking her nose, anyway. Instead she turned the water to cool and let it rush over her as she took long, slow breaths.

  Finally, she felt steady enough to put away the toy. She turned off the water and reached for a towel. She wrapped it around her body and left her hair dripping, still riding the aftershocks as she made her way down the hall and fell onto her bed, limbs sprawled. Mel stared at the ceiling, recovering. She should have felt great after that—the orgasm had certainly been a knee-trembler. The best she’d had in a long time. Yet something about it stuck with her, leaving her uneasy.

  The man in her head, the one fucking her to such delirium…it hadn’t been Jon.

  * * *

  Jon didn’t have much use for the internet—he didn’t like social media because it required him to be well…social. He didn’t want to keep in touch with friends from what he thought of as his life before. Before the accident, before the crazy asshole had turned him into this monster, before Jon had killed Naomi. If he wanted to have contact with any of them, he sure as hell didn’t want to do it through such an artificial medium. As for new friends, he’d been trying to avoid them too.

  Too bad Mel didn’t seem to get the hint.

  Maybe it was just…what had she called it? Serendipitous, the way she always seemed to be leaving when he was arriving, or vice versa. How when he went to the lobby to check his mail, she was checking hers. When he stopped for a drink and bagel in the morning at the coffee shop down the street, she was there too.

  She was friendly. She was sweet and funny and so damned gorgeous it hurt him to look at her, though he couldn’t stop himself from it. And no matter how grouchy he was, how little he said, Mel just kept smiling at him.

  It was going to kill him.

  Today he thought he’d be smart and hit the coffee shop on his way home, but there she was again, leaning across the counter and laughing with that blonde girl who worked here, the one whose name Jon knew he should remember but never could. They both looked up when he came in, and there was no way to make a graceful exit. At the counter, he nodded at the girl behind it.

  “Tall latte with soy,” she said. “Extra shot today?”

  Jon shook his head. For the past week, every time he tried to fall asleep, he’d been treated to a replay of one of his ghostly roommate’s sexcapades. Or worse, the jealous anger and fury that had started to outpace the love scenes. He was exhausted. “Just a mango smoothie, please.”

  Mel turned to rest an elbow on the counter. “That sounds good.”

  “They are good.” Jon rocked a little on his heels, studying the menu. The new art hung on the walls. The crowd. Any place but at her, even though he noticed the extra streak of blue and pink in her pale hair and the funky fishnet stockings she wore beneath a colorful red skirt. Red sneakers.

  “You like ’em?” she asked, wiggling a foot. “They’re my new favorites.”

  Before he knew it, she’d cajoled him into walking home with her along the river. It took a little longer, but it was worth it, she assured him as she sipped from her extralarge cup of coffee.

  She looked tired, Jon noticed. In the hollows of her eyes clung faint shadows that might’ve been a trick of the fading light but looked more permanent than that. She moved slower, too. Mel usually had a bounce in her step that was missing tonight. The closer they got to the apartment, the more her feet dragged.

  “You okay?” The question shot out of him unbidden, too late to bite back.

  She looked at him through the fringe of her lashes. “Um…yeah? Why.”

  They stood on the sidewalk outside, looking in at the buil
ding. Something like a flutter shifted in her windows, but if Mel saw it she didn’t say anything. To Jon the shadow looked like the glimmer of a cigarette in one of those long, old-fashioned holders, winking out so fast it might have been nothing more than the reflection of a passing car—if there’d been any passing cars.

  “You look tired,” he said.

  Mel frowned. “Jeez, don’t you know that’s not the sort of thing you say to a girl? It’s like code for saying she looks like crap.”

  “You could never look—” he tried to stop himself, but her grin kept him speaking “—like crap.”

  Mel looked pleased. “Much better. I’ll make a gentleman out of you yet, Mr. Adams.”

  “You think I’m not a gentleman?”

  Mel laughed softly. “Nope.”

  Lack of sleep, the emotional drain of trying to figure out what the angry bastard in his apartment wanted…maybe it was just the way she smelled or the sweet shiver her laughter sent through him, but Jon laughed too. He didn’t want to. He wanted to maintain his gruff exterior, pushing her away.

  Mel looked surprised. Then she laughed again and looked up at the building. “I should go inside. It’s getting late.”

  “You don’t want to?” He didn’t want to, but he knew why. He thought he might know why she didn’t want to, either.

  “Oh…I want to. I’m wiped out. I’d like nothing more than to hit the shower and the sheets. Maybe just the latter,” she added, stifling a yawn with the back of her hand. She looked again at her apartment windows, her gaze darkening. “It’s just…”

  “What?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing. You’ll think I’m crazy.”

  “Something in your apartment.” He tried to make it sound like a question, but it clearly came out a statement.

  “Nothing is in my apartment,” Mel said solidly. Then slowly, “…is there?”

  “What makes you think I’d know?”

  She frowned. “I don’t. I mean, when I first met you and I was kidding with you about the building being haunted, you said it was. Maybe you know something I don’t, or you, I don’t know…can feel stuff…”