Charlaine Harris

by Night's Edge

  From the shower he called, “I can’t believe you’re too scared to even go into the bathroom by yourself.”

  She frowned, her eyes rising to the mirror, where she could see very little—just his shadow on the shower curtain. “I am not scared.”

  “No?”

  “No. I just want to make sure you’re close by in case anything weird happens again.”

  “So I can protect you from the bogeyman?”

  “So you can witness it. You’re my ghost buster, after all.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So I figure you need access to this thing—so you can figure out how best to deal with it. So you’ll know which rattles to shake and which weeds to burn, that kind of shit.”

  “Helpful of you.”

  “I do what I can.” She rinsed her mouth, spit, gargled, spit again. “Don’t let it fool you, though. I’m no more convinced than I’ve ever been that you’re for real.”

  “Then why ask for my help?”

  She thought on that for a long moment, then sighed. “You’re the best shot I have. There’s not really anyone else.”

  “So it’s one of those ‘last man on earth’ situations?”

  “More like one of those ‘any port in a storm’ situations.”

  “I see.”

  She sighed. “So, have you?”

  “Have I what?”

  “Figured out which rattles to shake and which weeds to burn?”

  He was quiet for a moment. “I have some ideas.”

  “Good. How much longer are you going to be?”

  “Two minutes, why?”

  She glanced at the toilet, decided not to risk it, reached for a clean washcloth and turned on the taps.

  “Hey!”

  She looked up fast at the exclamation, realized her blasting hot water into the basin must have given him a shot of cold. “Sorry.” She shut the water off. Then she smeared some of her facial cleanser on, dipped the cloth into the basin and washed her face. She was applying moisturizing night cream when she glimpsed his long, tanned arm snaking out of the shower, groping for a towel. She handed him one.

  “Thanks.”

  “You’re wel—” Before she could finish, he yanked back the curtain and stepped out of the shower. And then she was stuck there. She couldn’t force her errant gaze to move from his body. Good God, it was incredible. Who would have thought such a jerk would have a body like that? Muscular shoulders, smooth and hard. Sculpted chest, and abs—oh, hell, his abs belonged in Playgirl . She could wash laundry on those abs.

  “I’m wel…?” he asked.

  “Built,” she said.

  “Compliments, from you?”

  “More like an expression of surprise.”

  “Shock and awe?”

  “Shock, yeah. Not so much of the awe.”

  He shrugged. “And what would it take to up your awe factor? Just out of curiosity, mind you.”

  She shrugged right back. “Hell, I don’t know. Maybe if you lost the towel?”

  He gaped. She grinned, and then he relaxed. “Funny,” he said. He reached for his clothes, which he’d draped over the towel bar. The briefs he tugged free were small, dark blue and clingy. She finally worked up the willpower to stop gawking at him and turned around again. But she was all too aware that he was dropping the towel and pulling those briefs on, and some little devil inside was trying to talk her into peeking.

  She resisted. Barely.

  “You want to stay while I drain the snake?”

  “Drain the…? Oh. That’s the tackiest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  He shrugged and moved toward the toilet.

  She darted out of the bathroom at the speed of light. But she didn’t go far. After closing the door behind her, she remained right there, just outside it. Hell, it pissed her off to no end that she was afraid to be alone in her own house. But damn.

  She heard the flush, the water running in the sink. Then he finally stepped out of the bathroom. He didn’t close the door, just held it open. And stood there looking at her.

  “What?”

  “Oh, come on. You know you have to. Go on, I’ll wait right out here.”

  She thinned her lips, thought about snapping at him. But hell, he was right. She did have to go, and as a matter of fact it was borderline decent of him to offer to stay close by while she did.

  “I don’t need you to wait out here for me,” she said as she went into the bathroom.

  “No, I know you don’t. But I’ll wait here, anyway.”

  If she didn’t dislike him so much, she’d have been grateful. As it was, she could only wonder if he was storing up all these weaknesses he was discovering in her for future use in the unending battle between them.

  When she came out again, she noticed him looking at her body, and decided she wasn’t the only one with weaknesses. He looked often, every time he thought she might not notice. Could her nemesis be attracted to her? Damn, she would never let him hear the end of it if he admitted that one!

  She led the way back to the living room, flung back the covers and crawled into bed. She really hadn’t been worried about spending the night with Jack. Now, though…

  “You aren’t going to put on a shirt?” she asked.

  “Wasn’t wearing a T-shirt,” he said. “Can’t very well sleep in my button-down.”

  “I don’t know why not. I could.”

  His eyes changed just a little, lowering slowly. And she got the distinct impression he was picturing her sleeping in his button-down shirt, and liking the image.

  “This isn’t going to be a problem, is it, Jack?” she asked, sliding to one side to make room for him.

  He got into the bed beside her, pulled the covers over them both and lay back on the pillows with his hands folded behind his head. “What isn’t?”

  The attraction, she thought. The fact that his body turned her on like nobody’s business and the feeling she got that he was having the same reaction to hers. But she wasn’t going to be the one to admit it! “Nothing,” she said. “Never mind.”

  He nodded. “’Night, Brigham.”

  “’Night, Jack.”

  She closed her eyes, knowing good and damned well she would never sleep.

  He did not seem to have the same problem. In fact, he was snoring softly within ten minutes. And five minutes after that, he rolled over, and before she knew what to expect, he had wrapped her up tight against him, imprisoning her there with one arm and one leg. Her face was pressed to his utterly unclothed chest, one arm caught between his belly and hers, and her pelvis was mashed to his groin.

  “Oh, great,” she whispered.

  “Mmm,” he replied. And then one of his big hands burrowed into her hair, stroking just a little before settling down.

  Something in her stomach turned a somersault. She tried to tug her arm from where it was trapped between them, but in the process her hand brushed over his abs, and she stopped what she was doing as her heart skipped a beat. Lifting her head away from his chest, just a little, she peered up at his face. His eyes were closed, his breaths deep and steady. Sound asleep. So…

  She let her palm rest lightly on his abdomen, and when he didn’t stir or react, she moved it just a little, up and down over the rippling muscles there. God, he must work out like a man driven to have a belly like this. She’d never touched anything so perfect. So arousing. Too bad it was attached to a man she didn’t like.

  “Hey, Kiley?”

  She froze, her hand going still.

  “You awake?”

  That was it, that was it. Just pretend to be asleep. Perfect. She tried to breathe the way a sleeper breathed, but gradually, so he wouldn’t notice the sudden change.

  “Kiley?”

  She didn’t respond, just kept breathing, kept still.

  He drew his arm from around her, eased her from her side onto her back so slowly she knew he was trying not to wake her. She guessed he didn’t want her to realize he’d been holding her so…inti
mately.

  But no, that wasn’t it. A second later, she knew that wasn’t it, because he was sitting up, just a little, and she felt his hand pushing her hair away from her face, slowly, softly. The warmth of his touch trailed over her jaw to her neck, to her shoulder, and slowly, slowly, lower, drifted over her satin-covered breast, making her want to slap him and arch closer all at the same time. But he kept going, sliding his hand to her belly, sideways to trace the curve of her waist, and back again to her abdomen.

  Enough. Hell, it was enough. He was making her hot without even trying, and if he kept it up she was going to have an orgasm right in front of him.

  She made a little noise in her throat and slowly rolled onto her side, facing away from him, just so he’d get the idea that, even asleep, she was rejecting him.

  He went still for a moment. And then he was touching her again. His hands, both of them now, on the small of her back and sliding lower, boldly, right to her buttocks, cupping her cheeks and squeezing.

  Furious and more turned on than she could believe, she jerked onto her other side, facing him, and said, “Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  He smiled slowly. “Same thing you were doing to me a few minutes ago, Kiley. Fair is fair.”

  “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. I wasn’t doing anything but sleeping a few minutes ago.”

  “Liar.” His hand closed on her wrist, and he put her hand on his abdomen again, held it there with his hand over it. “Go on, touch to your heart’s content. It’s not like I mind.”

  “You damn well should mind. You don’t even like me.”

  He shrugged. “I’m a guy. Liking you doesn’t have to enter into it. Go on, satisfy your curiosity. Feel me up.”

  She slid her hand upward over those rock-hard abs even as she pulled it away. “You are so full of yourself.”

  “I’d far prefer you to be full of me.”

  She blinked hard and fast. “What?”

  He shrugged. “We’re both adults. Unmarried, uncommitted.”

  “One of us ought to be committed, though.”

  He smiled slowly, pushing her hair away from her face. “If we’re not gonna be enemies anymore—are, in fact, becoming allies in the war against your spooks—then there’s really no reason we shouldn’t.”

  “There are a million reasons we shouldn’t.”

  “You want to. I want to. It’s surprising, I admit that, but—”

  “I do not want to.”

  “No?” He ran the back of his hand over her breast again, and then again as her nipple grew hard and tight. “Gee, Kiley, your body says otherwise.”

  She narrowed her eyes on him. “I hate you.”

  “You want me, though. I want you, too.”

  “You son of a—”

  His hand slid down over her belly, and she felt herself wanting it to keep going, wanting him to touch her.

  “Tell me to stop,” he whispered.

  She didn’t. And he was right, liking didn’t even enter into it.

  His fingers touched the top of her panties. He slid them inside. “You can tell me to stop anytime, you know,” he whispered again. He was leaning over her now, his face very, very close to hers. “But I hope you don’t.”

  She told herself to tell him to stop, and then tell him to go away. But instead, she felt her thighs ease a little farther apart, her hips push against his hand, just a little.

  He moved his hand farther, sliding his fingers between her moist lips, parting them, and rubbing against the softness they hid. “Damn, woman. I haven’t been this hot for anyone in ten years. Why the hell did it have to be you?”

  She tried to answer, but all that came out was a soft moan, and that just made him rub her harder, exploring new places, probing to new depths. Shameless, she opened up to him and moved against his hand, and her breaths came faster. She reached for him, desperate to know this was hitting him as hard as it was hitting her, and her hand closed around him, thick and hard and pulsing with need. So she rubbed, teased him the way he was teasing her.

  He drew his hand away, got up onto his hands and knees, above her. She felt cold, empty, ached to be in his arms again. But he was kneeling over her, stripping away her panties, peeling off her nightgown, staring down at her naked body. “God, Brigham. You never told me you were a goddamn goddess.” He closed his hands on her breasts, squeezing, kneading them.

  She wanted him as naked and vulnerable as she was, so she tugged at his briefs until they came down and she had complete access to his erection.

  He slid off the foot of the bed, grabbed her ankles and dragged her lower on the mattress until her butt was at the very edge. He slid his hands up her legs to her knees and bent them up, back, wide. She was aching for him by now. Squirming and pleading in soft whimpers for him to do it, already. Holding her like that, he pushed himself slowly, deeply inside her, farther, and still farther.

  “Oh, yes,” she moaned, her eyes falling closed.

  He buried himself inside her, filled her to her very depths. And then, for some reason, he went still and swore softly under his breath.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE LIGHTS WERE OUT . He was kneeling between her warm, firm thighs, buried inside her, every nerve ending in his body electrified. And every single light in the place had just gone out, making Jack wonder if someone had come in. Or maybe the storm going on inside him was actually happening outside, and the power had gone out.

  He stopped moving, and she whimpered in protest. Then he wondered what the hell demon lived in this house, that it would possess him to do something as stupid as to sleep with his worst enemy. And yet, when he looked at her, lying beneath him, squirming against him, head moving side to side, eyes closed, he wanted to ignore the sudden blackout and keep up what he was doing. It would be a mistake, but damn, what a pleasant mistake to make.

  He hovered there, deep inside her, debating, mind against body. He drove himself just a little deeper, loving the sounds she made as she took him. And then the light in the stairway flashed on, flickered, went off again. “Hell,” he muttered.

  “What?”

  Her eyes blinked open, just as the TV set flashed on, its volume full throttle, blasting a hard rock video. The surprise of that blast of noise sent her eyes flying wider. He withdrew from her fast, as startled as she was.

  She blinked at the TV screen, then at the flickering stairway light. “Jack?”

  “I’ll shut it off.” He went to turn off the television. The volume was deafening.

  “Wait.” She said it loud, then reached out and grabbed the remote from the end table beside the sofa bed. She hit the power button on the TV, and it went dark, silent. The stair light flicked again, then stayed on. One by one the other lights came back on as well.

  She pursed her lips, drawing the sheet up to her chest as if suddenly embarrassed to be naked in front of him. “Maybe my ghost is the jealous type.”

  He smiled, not because she was funny, but because she was making jokes when she must be frightened half out of her mind. Kiley was a tough one, but then again, he’d always known that. “Maybe it’s just as well,” he said, and couldn’t believe he was saying it.

  “I was thinking the same thing. Sex probably isn’t the best idea we ever had. We don’t even like each other.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. You’re growing on me, Brigham.”

  “Yeah, and us being naked in the same bed has nothing to do with that whatsoever?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  She shook her head. “Whatever just happened here—”

  “Almost happened,” he corrected her.

  “Almost?” She pursed her lips. “We didn’t finish, Jack, but we definitely got started.”

  “It was a goddamn good start, too.”

  She averted her eyes. “It wasn’t based on affection. Or caring. Or any tender feelings whatsoever.”

  “Oh, come on. Don’t pretend you can speak for me on that.”
r />   “Jack, we didn’t even kiss first.”

  He mulled that over, realized she was right. So no kissing, to a female, equaled no caring, no tenderness. Good to know. “Okay, so there was no kissing. So if this thing that almost happened—that started to happen—wasn’t based on affection, then what was it based on?”

  She shrugged. “Libido? Fear? Chemistry?”

  “And those are the wrong reasons to have sex?” he asked.

  “All the wrong reasons. But it’s okay. The ghost caught us in time.”

  “Gives me even more motivation to help you get rid of it,” he said, sending her an evil grin.

  She smiled back, and a lump formed in his throat as he watched the movement of her lips, and he realized he wanted to kiss her. He regretted not taking his time, before. Just as well, though. Hell, what would she have read into it then? Still, the thought persisted.

  “Think you can sleep?” she asked. She was getting out of the bed, tugging the covers with her. He glimpsed as much of her as possible, figuring it would be his last chance for a while.

  He surprised himself by answering honestly. “Not next to you, no.”

  She picked up her nightie, pulled it on over her head, letting the covers go only when she was concealed. Didn’t matter. He’d seen her and the image was burned into his mind. He almost groaned aloud when she stepped into the panties and pulled them up.

  Then she tossed him his briefs, because he was sitting there on the bed with a pillow over his privates. “Good,” she said.

  “Good what? That I’m not going to be able to sleep?”

  “Exactly. I won’t sleep, either. Between almost jumping your bones and the damn ghost, I’ll be lucky if I can sleep again for a week.”

  “You sound like you have a plan—something we can do instead.”

  She nodded, padding across the room and taking the book she’d had in her car earlier from the fireplace mantel. He used the opportunity to pull on his underwear and prop the pillow behind his head. She said, “We can read. I already got started, but nothing that really explains any of this has shown up so far.”