Oh, I cannot help him. The sister sounded grieved. She glanced up at them.
And, I sense . . . you are of Indian blood?
Zach’s fingers tightened around Clare’s shoulder and he angled his head as if straining to hear. That’s right, he answered. His mental tone came through gritty.
I admire Indians greatly, Sister Julianna whispered. I am sorry I can’t use my healing hands—
Clare is injured also, Zach interrupted.
The young woman rose—not like a person moved—and stared at Clare with dark foggy eyes flashing with small starbursts, both darker and brighter than Clare had seen before in a ghost.
Julianna Emmanuel’s hands lifted. I think I see— She let out a little cry, clapped a hand to her chest, then she jerked, her nun’s veil lifting in a supernatural breeze Clare saw but didn’t feel. She looked to her right and Clare followed her gaze but saw nothing but roiling fog.
Oh, no! Not again! I must go. I must help. Poor thing, poor, poor thing. The pain. I must diminish the pain and aid the separation. Sshhh. Your long travail is over.
She rushed by Clare out toward the street, leaving a heated wake behind her. “Wait!” Clare called.
But Julianna burst into a flash of silver sparkles and vanished.
Clare’s side throbbed and she put her hand to it, pressing against the spectral wound, which mitigated no pain. Julianna hadn’t helped, either.
“What happened?” demanded Zach, sweeping the near-empty area with his gaze, holding his cane like he might use it as a weapon. “I couldn’t see her well.”
Clare lifted her hands and pushed them through her hair, more of Zach’s gesture than her own. She shrugged. “She’s gone.”
“Who was . . . is . . . she? A nun like we thought?”
Turning her gaze from the gray dimension to Zach, loving the little jolt she got from just seeing his face and his concern, Clare asked, “You didn’t see her?”
“No. Didn’t hear her well, either, unless she spoke to me or about me. Not like I saw and heard Texas Jack.”
A sigh escaped Clare. “Darn it. Not something different again.”
Enzo barked, and she looked down at him. Zach angled his head, too, so he must see the phantom Labrador.
“What is it, dog?” Zach asked.
I think you saw Texas Jack clear because you are a lot like him, Enzo said.
“And you probably don’t have a lot in common with a young French nun of the late nineteenth century,” Clare stated.
Zach lowered his cane and put his right arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “I think you’re right about that.” His faint smile faded. “Though I like it a whole lot better when I know what’s going on.”
She lifted her phone. “I set this to record.”
“Since we didn’t talk aloud, any memo you got isn’t going to be very good,” Zach said.
Clare grimaced and looked around. More live people had come into the arcade space, and most shades stayed away, or clumped in the shadows where she couldn’t discern them. “I’ve been hoping to speak aloud so I can at least get my side of any conversation, but this place is too public.”
His expression remained impassive. She narrowed her eyes at him and said, “Are you doubting me as a good witness?”
He lifted and dropped a shoulder. “Always better to, uh, see . . . experience folks myself.”
“Uh-huh.” Leaning against him, she saved the voice memo and spoke quietly, recording the conversation as close to word by word as she could, reporting to Zach at the same time and ending with, “And that’s the best I can remember.” She labeled the note and tapped it closed.
Another squeeze from Zach, then he dropped his hand to hers and intertwined their fingers. “All right, I agree with your record. Pretty damn good notes, Clare.”
“Thank you, I’m trying hard to train my memory.”
“Doing well.”
Zach frowned at the spot where the nun had been. “She left us because she was helping someone else?”
“That’s what it sounded like.”
“Helping them what?”
“I don’t know,” Clare stated a little sharply. She didn’t want to speculate until she thought on the words, the whole event, more.
“Huh. Let’s head back to the resort.”
Clare sighed. “I’ll have to go to Miramont tomorrow for a tour and find out what those folks know about the Sisters of Mercy. Maybe they’ll have a pamphlet or something.”
Zach put his right arm around her waist, a big deal since strangers stood and moved through the space and he usually wanted to keep his gun hand free. They walked slowly back to his truck. As usual his warm support, not only physically but emotionally, bolstered and soothed her. She could do this. She—they—were on the right track. Then she realized that Enzo didn’t accompany them and she scanned the arcade and the street for him, to no avail. She hoped he had followed Julianna Emmanuel.
And the more she thought about it—the more she sensed the Sister of Mercy—the more Clare got a very bad feeling about where she might have gone and what she might be doing.
* * *
Zach peeked at Clare. A frown knit between her brows. No use asking what might be going on in her head. She’d’ve told him if she wanted him to know, but he didn’t like that the ghostly nun had left without examining Clare’s spectral wound. Left fast and in a hurry without even a commitment to meet with them—Clare—again, let alone a promise to heal Clare.
First discussion, yeah, but no action. He didn’t give a damn about the sister not being able to help him; he knew he’d be crippled for the rest of his life. But for the specter to head out instead of staying to help Clare, that made him seethe.
With a sigh, his lover sagged against the seat. This time he sensed Clare wasn’t physically weary so much as emotionally . . . smudged.
And he realized he’d lapsed into moody silence again, maybe not a negative-type silence, but certainly not a positive one. Remembering Enzo’s words and his own resolution to help her and keep his attitude upbeat, Zach knew he had to find some way to . . . uplift her. Show he cared for her. But his own brain seemed to be working on levels that excluded romantic words.
So, instead of going up a level, maybe he could take it down one. Connect to her at a more basic, instinctual, intense layer that would stop her from thinking.
He reached out and took her hand, put it right over his dick. Her fingers stiffened, then felt his growing erection and curled over the hardening ridge of him, and he sucked in a good breath. She withdrew her hand, glanced his way with big eyes, then licked her lips.
Grabbing her hand again, he put it right back to where it felt so good. “You just keep on touching me.”
“This can’t go anywhere,” she said, but this time she didn’t draw her fingers away. Her breasts rose and fell a little faster.
“Just pet me, make me feel good.” He narrowed his eyes as she gave him a stroke. “A little arousal, some good anticipation. Maybe we’ll check out whether the living room couch at our villa is as good as the one at your house.” He grinned.
“You should keep your mind on your driving,” she said primly, and her hand stopped stroking, just curved around him. Man, she knew what he liked, what he needed.
“Oh, yeah, my mind is on my driving. Have to concentrate more than usual, but there’s nothing like riding the edge of pleasure.” And he’d distracted her; that was damn fine.
He stopped talking then, relishing the experience of the physical connection with his lover. She wasn’t thinking of what they’d left behind, the elusive ghost. No, she’d bent her very capable mind to figuring out how to make him really hard without endangering them. He thought she watched the steadiness of his hands—or maybe his breathing—to make sure she kept him on that edge he’d spoken of.
Still
it was good they headed to the resort during a lull in the traffic, and that he’d clocked thousands of hours patrolling during his career. He was tempted to take one of his hands off the wheel to touch the back of her neck, reach under her light leather jacket.
The atmosphere in the cab of his truck thickened with sensuality. Her breathing didn’t sound altogether steady. At a stoplight, he spared a glance at her. Not at all pale. A quick check of the light, then he reached out and covered one of her full breasts with his hand, felt the bud of her nipple. He grunted as his lust ratcheted up a notch.
“Your nipples are hard,” he said, squeezing her breast gently and feeling the tip thicken beneath his palm. He noticed she caught her breath and watched her cheeks flush. “Hot, Clare?”
“Yes.” She didn’t look at him, but her index fingernail slid along his erection with the exact exquisite pressure that had him hissing a breath out in pleasure.
Before the even bigger truck behind him honked.
He slapped his hand back on the wheel and pulled forward. Then, clearing his throat and turning onto the road around the resort’s golf course, he said, “I really love those thin cashmere sweaters you’ve started wearing, Clare.”
She shifted in her seat.
“Better when they aren’t covered up by a jacket, though.” A split in the road lay ahead, to the main resort hotel or to the cul-de-sac with the villas. “Hey, Clare, want to head straight to our rooms and make out?”
Swallowing, her voice a little high, she said, “I thought that was evident.”
“Because of my dick under your fingers, you mean?” He took the branch to the circle of small buildings. “Yeah, I sure am ready for you. Easy for you to tell. How about you? You ready for me? Hot? Wet? Want me in you?” The images that flashed through his mind as he growled out the questions—the memories of making love with her—made his dick iron hard.
She gave a shaky breath. Her fingers left him as she drew up her tote bag to her lap, and he carefully pulled in front of their rental.
But as she loosed her seat belt, he clicked the lock of her door to keep her with him. She fumbled at the handle a couple of times before she realized what he’d done, and turned to meet his eyes. Her pupils had dilated, a sure sign of arousal, her cheeks showed a blush, and it appeared as if her lips were fuller.
“I want to hear the words, Clare. I want you to admit aloud that you want to have sex with me. Soon. Hard. Fast.”
She wet her lips, and the heat raging inside him soared another notch. He actually glanced at the grounds and wondered if outside sex—no.
“Come on, Clare.”
But she stayed silent and staring. He took her hand and put it back on his dick that felt like a hot steel rod. Needing her wet depths.
“All right,” she said. This time her voice came slow and husky. She inhaled sharply, met his eyes. “Yes, Zach. I want you. Badly. Inside me, plunging—”
He flung his seat belt off, his door open, and limped around the truck so he could grab her, let her body slide down his, torment them both with pure sexual need.
Too late. She waited for him, already out of the vehicle.
When he grasped her hand, she tried to twist her fingers away. “Gotta touch you, Clare,” he said gutturally. “Hold my hand or I’ll slide my fingers down your waistband to cup your ass.”
She gasped. Then with more than her usual speed, she moved toward their villa, and thank God he’d chosen a private building for them.
His hand trembled as he swiped the key, but at least he didn’t fumble it. He took her bag from her and slung it on the table beside the door, slammed the door, moved in, crowding her against it, zooming in for a kiss.
His lips had barely brushed her cheekbone before her hands thumped against his chest and pushed hard. Her defensive training remained poor, but he stepped back reflexively.
Her mouth was set, her eyes narrowed, and as he faded another step back, she moved away and around him.
He pivoted. “Clare?”
“I think it’s my turn to tease you,” she whispered.
Chapter 21
She reached out and grabbed his belt buckle, hand brushing against his straining dick, and it was his turn to swallow hard.
She tugged. “Come along, lover.”
He could feel himself thicken, his blood rushing in his ears. Reaching out, he curved his hand around her biceps. She knocked it away. “I’m in charge here.”
Had she ever been so aggressive before? He didn’t think so, but then he wasn’t thinking at all. “Clare.” His voice cracked.
Tilting her head, and with that same glinting stare, she held out her hand palm up. His chest tightened and his breath came short. He placed his palm on hers, and the touch of her skin against those nerve endings sizzled until she lowered her hand, evaded his fingers, and grasped him around the wrist.
Her fingers felt hot around him, unusual, and he closed his eyes an instant.
She pulled as she walked away, and he stumbled, opened his eyes as he caught himself. She passed the bedroom door and led him to the living room. The high windows dazzled with sunlight, wide strips of it painting the room. And she positioned him in one large bar of light near the rounded arm of the leather sofa.
“You stand there,” she ordered, and yanked his sweater up. He stuck his arms in the air fast so she wouldn’t slow down. Please, don’t let her slow down. And he really needed his hands on her body. He reached out to remove her jacket, and she slapped his fingers away before he could get to it.
“No touching.”
“No touching?”
Her smile leaned to the feral. “Not by you.”
“Uh.” Okay, he wanted her hands on him. That would work. He’d worn an undershirt. Bad decision.
But she didn’t put her hands on him. Instead she used the nails of her index fingers to flick against his nipples, and he jumped and his dick got harder, or thicker, or something, because for that instant that was all he could feel, a hot wire of sensation from his nipples to his dick.
He couldn’t see the crests of her breasts, and he wanted to. “Uh, Clare—”
She reached out and stroked her hand along his cheek and jaw, and he heard the rasp of stubble. Maybe he should have shaved that morning. She smiled.
“Clare, uh, could you take off your jacket?”
Her brows rose and she got that prissy look that amused him so on her face. “I’m in charge here.”
“Oh, yeah. Yes, indeed. You are in charge,” he agreed. It might kill him, but he couldn’t wait to find out what she had in mind for them.
She stepped close and took one of his hands and slid it down into her slacks. His knuckles brushed against the softness of cashmere, but he continued with the motion down under her panties to her sex and the dampness he found there between her folds. He sucked in a good breath and his jeans tightened around his shaft.
“Good,” she moaned as his fingers stroked and probed.
Very good. Feeling her passion wound his need tighter.
She rocked against him, once, twice and he heard the rasp of his own breathing. Then she yanked his hand away from the blissful place and took a full pace back. Still damn close to the couch.
He moaned at the loss of the soft, damp touch of her, prowled forward.
Raising a hand palm out, she said, “Stop!”
Gritting his teeth, he did. “Take. Your. Jacket. Off.”
She crossed her arms over her breasts. Even worse.
“Please,” he said.
Her smile bloomed. His request had done that, made her smile. Simple enough, but damn this foreplay was fun—excruciating but fun. Then her gaze went to his crotch and her smile widened. He looked down. Yeah, his tight jeans outlined his full dick.
A movement snagged his gaze and he saw her shed her jacket. She walked over to the wo
oden coat stand and hung it up, and he watched her ass move under her pants. Not jeans. She should wear yoga pants.
When she turned around, his gaze went to her nipples her sweater outlined.
Oh, yeah, both him and her, hot for each other.
Strolling to him, she stopped a handsbreadth away, just outside of body-grazing range. She touched his belt buckle and his gut sucked in.
“Uh—”
She chuckled. “Yes, I know it’s going to be a delicate procedure, lowering the zipper of your jeans.” She angled her head in challenge. “How much do you trust me, Zach?”
“I love you.” The phrase rolled from him without thought.
“I love you, too.” She unbuckled his belt and pulled it loose, coiled it and set it on an end table. He thought his whole body, and especially his shaft, throbbed with each pulse of his blood.
“But do you trust me, Zach? Trust me not to hurt you.”
Even he might not be able to get his damn pants off without hurting himself. He rumbled, “Yeah.”
She jerked the snap of his jeans open. Her fingers grazed his dick, and he jerked and pulled in his belly and prayed.
“So very hard,” she murmured.
“Never been so hard,” he responded. “’S you, Clare.”
Opening his waistband wide gave him a little relief from outside pressure and revved his desire up another gear. Soon. Soon. Soon.
But his lover was careful Clare. Slowly, carefully, she lowered his zipper, pushed his pants down his legs where they fell to his ankles. She’d immobilized him now. He couldn’t walk easily, not with the special shoes he wore for his bad ankle.
He could fall on the couch, though.
Soon, he hoped.
A fine shiver insinuated itself in his muscles. If it kept on, he’d shudder. Nearly out of control, and all he could do was fist his hands at his sides to keep from grabbing her, taking her, ravishing her.
Sweat began to slick along his skin. He didn’t just want her. He needed her with every fiber of his muscles, every sliver of his being.
Ghost Maker Page 17