by AJ Nuest
A straight-arm to the door, he winced as the stadium glare of every recessed light bounced off the white tile countertops and stainless steel appliances.
Damn, woman. What, was she prepping the place for surgery?
He blinked, waiting for his pupils to adjust, then jerked to attention as Charlie rifled the refrigerator, her curvy ass tipped in the air, black fringe swinging along the backs of her thighs, her skin-tight dress casting the perfect silhouette against the bulb.
Jesus. He closed his eyes against the driving urge to march across the room and lean over her. His cock stretched and flexed along his thigh. To spoon her with his body and take a slow deliberate grind along every inch of her delicious backside.
“I need cake.” Bottles clinked, and he lifted his lids as she spun around, kicking the door shut with her foot. A sharp glance his way, and she smacked a Tupperware container onto the butcher block island. “You want some?”
Even the thought of her full lips covered in a layer of sugary frosting made the tightness in his dick heat to a sweat-inducing throb. “I could be talked into sharing a piece.”
She scoffed, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “No way.” Peeling the lid off with one hand, she opened a drawer and rummaged around inside with the other. “Have you tasted this cake? I’m not sharing with anyone.”
Right. Then again, considering the numerous times they’d gone without, he couldn’t blame her for being a tad territorial when it came to dessert.
She slid the loaded fork past her lips and his mouth watered as the tip of her tongue darted out to lick a glob of frosting off the tines. Shit, he wanted to chase that gooey morsel down her throat. His windpipe clicked as he forced a swallow. Swirl and dip inside until her intoxicating flavor coated his tongue and pacified the way everything about her had escalated into a full-on obsession.
Jamming his hands in his pockets, he rounded the island and strolled toward the sink. Problem was, even though she seemed to enjoy kissing him, the end result hadn’t really worked out in his favor. And salivating like a dog while he’d been classified as public enemy number one was bound to freak her out worse than if he dropped to his knees and begged her to end the hell he was living.
Maybe it was time he took a different tack. Locate a backdoor in her firewalls so he could bypass her security systems, and find out exactly where she thought the two of them stood.
Hey, great idea. And the real ball-twister was he knew just where to start.
Too bad the subject matter was guaranteed to douse any hope about where this night might be headed.
Pivoting toward the island, he rested his ass against the sink. Up until today, he’d never owned a house—partial or otherwise—and whether or not he planned on keeping it, he wasn’t about to make that decision until Charlie weighed in with her two cents.
Over everything else, his highest priority was making sure she was comfortable. With him. He couldn’t do that unless she heard the whole story. And besides. If ever he got lucky enough to show her how good things could be between them, telling her about Malcolm after they’d had sex would only come off like he’d purposely held back information. Vital information she had every right to know.
He wasn’t doing that to her. Not after ten years of waiting to reenter her life. He’d promised her honesty moving forward, and no matter how mood-stripping the words, that’s exactly what he intended to give. At the very least, maybe she’d finally realize her opinion counted for just about everything, and she’d get it through her head that, regardless of where they ended up, he planned on sticking the landing.
“So, Chuck.” He glanced toward the corners of the kitchen. “You believe in ghosts?”
She paused with a hunk of cake halfway to her mouth. “Damn straight, I do.” A small wrinkle formed between her brows. “Why? You recently see one?”
“No, no.” Rolling his lips to hide a smirk, he studied his feet. It was downright goofy to him how some people bought into the whole paranormal scene. He’d never found proof the afterlife existed, and with all the hardships he’d lived through, the disturbing shit he’d seen, he knew death wasn’t necessary to create devils and demons. “I just wasn’t sure if you’d heard what happened.” He bumped his chin to indicate the room. “And if you had any thoughts on whether or not I should keep the house.”
“Oh, God.” Horror filled her gaze, and her hand fell to the island. The cake toppled off the fork and rolled to a stop. “What are you talking about?”
Dammit, he hated that panic on her face. Would’ve been happier had she stormed up to him and cracked him across the chin with a balled fist. Pushing up from the sink, he scooped the cake off the island and brought it back to her mouth.
A full three seconds passed as she searched his eyes, and his stomach sank as she took a step back. “I’m not hungry anymore.” Crossing her arms, she set her jaw, the spark of anger in those mesmerizing blue orbs cutting him deeper than if she’d come at him wielding the cleaver stuck to the magnetic strip above the stove. “Spill it, Dade. What aren’t you telling me?”
Why? Why did it always have to be him?
He raked his hand through his hair, then glanced around for somewhere to ditch the cake before finally tossing it in the sink. The only thing he’d ever wanted was to make her life better, and yet here he stood again, about to drop a bomb that could change everything. Reboot her hard drive with a whole backlog of sickening memories they’d spent a lifetime trying to forget.
“Malcolm.” Dropping his hand, he shoved the words past the hard knot crowding his throat. “He was killed here, Chuck. In Eden’s old bedroom. His body wasn’t here, but she was the one who discovered the scene.”
“Holy shit.” Charlie slapped her palm to her chest. Moved it to her forehead. Then back it went to her chest as if she wasn’t quite sure where it belonged. “She never said a word to me. Not one word.” Her heel tapped the tile as she stepped forward. “Was she okay? I can’t imagine. Geez, I wish I’d known. Maybe I could’ve done something to help.”
The pressure built, threatening to cut off his airway, and he fisted his fingers to shore up the desperate need he always had to pull her into his arms.
In all his days on Earth, he’d never imagined the candle he held for Charlie could flame any hotter. But in that moment, when her first thought was not for herself but for Eden, a red-hot glow burned through his chest as if she’d somehow pumped the chambers of his heart with an industrial grade accelerant.
A soft tick came from the thermostat near the door. A beat later, the familiar hum of the boiler vibrated under his feet.
Xander snapped his chin up and locked onto Charlie. And while he was at it, maybe he should rethink his stance on paranormal activity. That timing was plain weird.
She hitched a breath, held it trapped behind her compressed lips. Heat blew up from the register, and he stayed hot on her heels as she took off for the side door to Malcolm’s office.
Staring down at the bronze grate to the left of the walnut desk, Xander followed her lead, taking the spot opposite her the same as the first day they’d arrived. Elbows bent, palms down, he splayed his fingers at waist level and braced against the memories as a steady stream of warm air gusted past his face.
“God.” A quiet laugh murmured in her throat as she flipped her hands over and back. “Do you remember how excited we were?”
How could he forget? It’d been the first time they’d had heat without the ripe stench of a tainted fire in over a year. “I remember thinking this was what Christmas morning must be like.”
She laughed again, shaking her head. “We must’ve stood here for hours.”
“And every time the heat kicked on we would shift back and forth until the bottoms of our sneakers got soft.” He shrugged. “Not that they were very thick to begin with.”
“Remember how we kept bumping the temp higher and higher?” A devious sparkle skipped through her gaze. “Dead of January and
Malcolm would get so pissed we were all walking around in shorts and t-shirts.”
And red-faced, sweat beading at his short sideburns, bowtie wilted and hanging out of whack. Xander grinned. “So he hired some dude to install those stupid plastic covers on all the controls.”
“And I picked every single lock.”
A deep chuckle rolled up from the pit of his stomach as Charlie tossed her head back, and Xander swore her full-throated laugh was the best damn sound to ever hit his ears.
In every way possible, the woman owned him. Down to each screwed-up, defective kick of his heart. Seeing her like this… Uninhibited. Free and clear of the stress she’d been carrying all day brought his entire world back into focus.
She lowered her chin, her smile lingering over what he could only guess was the image of them as kids, pulling one prank after the next at Malcolm’s expense. “It’s no wonder the man drank.” She rolled her eyes, cheeks flushed and a tempting shine of moisture along her bottom lip. “With the two of us running around, I’m surprised he didn’t have himself committed.”
Playing a hunch, Xander eased his hands forward, then slowly exhaled as she threaded her fingers through his. There she was. The girl he remembered. The one who’d always had him so jammed up he couldn’t think straight. Who still had him ready to do whatever she wanted at the snap of her fingers.
Tugging her onto the grate, he stepped in, meeting her halfway. He released her hand and gathered a fistful of the blond silk trailing past her shoulders, twining her hair around his knuckles and closing the distance to her lips until she’d tipped her head back. “Jesus, woman. Do you have any idea how impossibly beautiful you are?”
Just like that, the humor vanished from her eyes, and she twisted out of his grasp.
“I wish you wouldn’t say things like that.” The smooth texture of her hair slipped through his fingers as she started for the bay windows, and by the time his brain caught up, he was holding nothing but a column of heated air. “I don’t think it’s funny.”
Funny? He jerked his head back as she rounded Malcolm’s desk. Had the woman actually said funny?
He glanced between her and the rain-spattered panes, every nerve-ending tingling, tension building in his neck. No.
Storming toward the drapes, he yanked the cord and the sides clattered across the track, overlapping as they swung to a stop. For Christ’s sake, the woman shouldn’t be standing in full view of anyone who might have it in their head to be casing the property.
Pivoting to face her, he aimed a hard finger at the ground. “I wasn’t joking, Charlie.” Was she trying to drive him crazy? A non-stop body like hers, that generous heart and self-sacrificing nature, and she couldn’t have been more perfect had he drawn up a list of qualities based on his most erotic sexual fantasies. Hell, even her fresh, fruity scent had permanently imprinted his fly on his dick.
“I don’t like being lied to, Xander.” Her chest lifted and fell on a tired sigh. “Honestly, it’s insulting, and makes me feel like you think I’m stupid.”
What in the sweet, holy— Giving her a compliment equaled stupid? Since when?
Studying her out of the corner of his eye, he tried to come up with any clue to how their wires could’ve gotten so crossed. Any time or place he might’ve fucked up and made her think she was anything less than his ideal.
Nothing. The data stream in his head cranked out nothing but a flat, blank screen.
The sarcastic jabs she’d sent in his direction, though. Those sure filtered through the ol’ gray matter loud and clear. And so did the few times he’d spotted her insecurities peeking past her tough outer shell.
Awareness jabbed him between the eyes, and he slowly lifted his chin. The heat kicked off and, with it, the pieces finally tumbled into place.
He’d been wrong. And so had Eden.
The worry in Charlie’s eyes? The vulnerability and constant hedging whenever he got too close? They didn’t have anything to do with him. And they sure as shit didn’t have anything to do with the truth.
“I meant what I said.” Stepping close, he ran his palm down her arm, up again to the ball of her shoulder. Each of them had a past. Some form of abuse they’d escaped in exchange for doing whatever they could to survive on the streets. As kids, Charlie had never opened up about hers, and he’d been too blown away by her to ever break the unspoken don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy between them.
But that hadn’t stopped him from wondering. And her silence hadn’t made him forget that, whatever she’d been running from, it had been bad enough she’d thought herself better off alone. “You’re drop-dead gorgeous, and I’m telling you right now, I’m fully prepared to kick the shit of anyone who says different.”
“I said stop it!” She spun on him so fast she tipped off-kilter, her hand scrambling for a hold on the back of Malcolm’s chair. “I know what I am, Xander, and up until you landed on my doorstep, I was fine with it. I was covered. But you acting like I’m something else doesn’t make it go away. So just do us both a favor and quit pretending. Stop looking at me as if I’m anything more than an overweight thief without a pot to piss in!”
She clapped her hand over her mouth as if the words had shocked even her, and rage drilled his skull as everything went red.
Kill. That same unnamed force clawed at his gut, snarling and snapping. He was going to kill the fucker who’d pumped her full of that garbage. Whoever they were, they’d done a fine job of messing with her head.
Securing her chin between his forefinger and thumb, he lifted until she looked him dead in the eye. “I need two words from you, Charlie. A first and last name.”
Her laughter started slow, filled with defeat, and couldn’t have been more off from the effortless laugh she’d given him a few seconds ago had the world been flipped on its head. “You think you can fix this by pulling some stupid revenge scheme?”
She withdrew to the far corner of Malcolm’s desk. Tears filled her eyes, and a violent pressure expanded in his chest, coiling behind his breastbone and prepping to tear down every wall in his way.
“I appreciate the sentiment, but you’re too late. The asshole my mother married drank himself to death two years ago. But it doesn’t matter, does it? Because his memory lives on.” She tapped her temple. “In here. Every degrading insult, every broken bone and fat lip, they’re all right where he left them. And no matter how many pretty words you toss at me, nothing is going to make them go away.
“God, don’t you get it?” She opened her arms to the sides and he lowered his chin, fingers clenching and releasing, teeth grinding hard enough to chew glass. “Can’t you see? I care about you, Xander. More than you know. But, goddamn it, I’m not your problem to fix.”
“Enough!” The order flew out of his mouth before he had the chance to stop it, and he closed his eyes to hide the way she flinched.
No. This wasn’t happening. Somehow, he had to make her see. And yelling at her like a raving lunatic wasn’t the answer.
Christ, he wanted to destroy something. Propping his hands on his hips, he rolled his face toward the ceiling and pulled several deep breaths to get his temper under control. Grab the son of a bitch by the neck, and perform a post-death lynching all over again.
In no way, shape or form was Charlie a problem. And there wasn’t a single thing about her that needed to be fixed. Not to him, and definitely not for him as if she’d fallen short of some fucked-up standard beaten into her by her drunken prick of a stepdad.
But she’d certainly hit the mark about one thing. Hell, in the past five seconds, she’d proven him wrong not just once, but twice.
Ghosts did exist.
He refocused on her. Eased another calming breath into his chest and slowly exhaled. All he had to do was look into her tear-stained eyes to see how badly she was haunted.
And she was also completely solid on realizing she had to exorcise those hurts on her own. However long she planned to torture hers
elf, the choice was hers and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to stop it.
But that’s where their agreement ended, because she didn’t control his thoughts on the matter, and he as sure as shit wasn’t leaving this room without getting her started in the right direction.
One long stride forward, and he bent at the waist, scooped her thighs together and stood with her hanging off his shoulder. Her strangled squawk muffled the slap of her palms on his back as he pivoted and crossed the room.
“Xander, what are you doing?” She kicked and wriggled. One of her shoes went airborne, and he dodged his head left as it soared past his ear and landed with a thump on Malcolm’s desk.
“I’m carrying you to the bathroom.” Now that he knew what he was up against, time for them to get a few things straight. He wasn’t about to let her believe he drank the same Kool-Aid some worthless jackass had fed her as a kid.
“Put me down. Right now.” Her other heel slipped off, and her gasp hit his ears as he side-stepped right. “Whoa. You’re gonna drop me.”
He swatted her ass. “Then stop squirming.”
She had an issue with pretty words? Then the woman had better strap in tight. He neared the bathroom door and tossed it open. Whether or not she listened, no matter how many years it took or if he had to repeat himself over and over, he was gonna fight. For her. And while he had the chance, he was gonna make damn sure she knew what she was missing.
Flexing his knees, he lowered her to her feet, grabbed her shoulders and spun her to face the antique mirror above the sink.
“Okay, this is dumb.” She sighed and rolled her eyes, refusing to meet her reflection. “I already know what I look like, Xander.”
“Not to me, you don’t.” Nudging her feet apart, he stepped in behind her, and her breath caught as he pinned her between his hips and the edge of the marble-topped vanity.
That’s right, beautiful. They were doing things his way for a change. “Now eyes forward and zip it until I’m done talking.”
Gathering her hair, he swept it to the side, exposing the soft stretch of skin under her ear that always threatened the limits of his control. She tensed as he snaked an arm around her waist and hauled her back against his chest, but it didn’t matter. Unless she outright told him to stop, he was done dancing around the tension that had been building between them.