Ghost Maker

by Robin D. Owens

He stared at her, but she looked at his jutting sex. Wet her lips and they looked darker and swollen and reminded him of her plumpness between her thighs and the last time he’d seen that opening of her body, wet and ready for him. Like it would be right now. He nearly fell to his knees.

  She reached out and peeled his shirt up, and his nostrils widened at the scent of his own sweat. Leaning forward she licked his chest, and this time he damn well swayed toward her

  “Clare,” he rasped. Okay, he wasn’t above begging, not when his control became slippery in his grasp and he struggled to let her continue to lead them to the edge where sweet pleasure met grinding need. “Please.”

  Smiling again, she pushed down his boxers. He didn’t look down to see his dick ready to go, flushed and heavy. She wrapped her hand around him.

  “Clare. Can’t hold out.” Sweat beaded his forehead.

  “Sure you can. You’re my hero.” Her words lilted lightly against his ears, phrases he could barely hear because his blood pounded so. He thought the air around his shaft sizzled with the heat he gave off.

  She let him go and he clamped his jaw tight. He couldn’t jump her, not after that. But he might just spontaneously combust. Or maybe pass out.

  A zipper rasped. Not his. Her fragrance—aroused Clare and her perfume—wrapped around him, tempting him. He opened his eyes. She’d already taken off her sweater and bra, and her breasts showed tight deep red nipples.

  Saliva pooled in his mouth as he recalled the taste of them, and he wanted to suckle.

  The sound of a zipper came again, and his gaze dropped to her hands at her waist, fiddling with the tab she’d pulled up. Then she unzipped her trousers again and let them fall. One of her pretty legs lifted away from her pants, then the other, and she wore a wisp of red lace that showed off her honeyed skin.

  She laughed and he flinched. Then she shimmied out of her panties and his gaze went straight to her mound. Her hair was redder there than on her head, and he strove to see signs of her arousal. “You done teasing me?” he growled.

  “Not at all.”

  She came over and knelt before him. Instead of begging, he panted. Closed his eyes again. Would not remember her mouth on him, how she licked and sucked and worked him—

  His right shoe came off. She lifted his foot and his sock vanished. Her fingers ran down the sole of his foot, and he shouted at the lust that boiled through him from foot to groin.

  And he broke.

  He leaned down, picked her up under her arms, and tossed her on the couch. He leapt across the space and followed her down. Their bodies met, skin rubbing against skin. The slick friction enflamed him, burned all thought from his head. But he held on to control for one purpose only, to make her and himself crazy with passion before they came together.

  Settling himself atop her, his dick against the smoothness of her stomach, leaning on his elbows, he leaned down and took one of her taut and flush-darkened nipples into his mouth, tongued it. She gave out a cry and arched up, and that movement stopped his breath. His vision tinged red with lust. He lifted his head so he could breathe.

  Lying in a wide shaft of sunlight, she looked like pure passion from her wide, blurred eyes to rosy breasts to the wetness between her thighs that he craved.

  The sounds he made were far from words.

  Needed. His. Woman.

  His love.

  No fumbling, he rose above her, touched her slick entrance with his fingers and watched her shiver with passion, surged inside her. God, she felt so good! Her inner muscles clamped around him. He groaned and she shifted under him so his dick slid deeper into her welcoming body.

  He moved, too.

  No orders from her; she was too gone for that, and he grinned. Slow and steady, long and deep until the rhythm turned ancient as he plunged and she arched, and they connected with more than their bodies. Primal emotions as they strove for release, breathing ragged, harsh moans sounding throughout the room. Until they cried out together.

  All he was released into her, emotionally as well as physically.

  She sighed and he thought her breath carried a piece of her that blew through him, to lodge inside him. Yeah, interconnected more than ever.

  Making love to Clare had gone beyond mere sex immediately. Now every time strengthened the bonds between them.

  He’d collapsed on her, lay on her soft body. Her warm body. And that had his own sigh pumping from his lungs. A warm Clare indicated no death cold threatened her.

  She recovered before he did, since she stroked his head, and that felt beyond good. He’d have to move, take his weight off her, when he could move. The sexual peak had wrung him out.

  A couple of minutes later, he rolled to his side, to the edge of the wide couch. “Uhhhn,” he said. Actually, he’d meant to say how wonderful she was, but that was all that came out.

  He felt the vibration of her chuckle under his hand on her chest.

  Clearing his throat, he said, “You’re wonderful, my Clare.”

  Her eyes went dreamy and she stared up at him with an expression no other woman had given him. His chest tightened with the thought that maybe no other woman could give that to him. She was the One. That sent something—alarm? fear? for her or for himself?—zipping through him, energizing him.

  Expression remaining soft and satisfied, her lips curved in a smile. “Being like this with you—it’s the best thing in my life.”

  He lifted one of her limp hands, turned it over, and kissed the hollow of her palm. “For me, too.” Simple truth. He would not consider the wreck of his life if he lost her.

  “Thank you,” she murmured, then her lashes lowered. She fell asleep, quickly and deeply, like she had been doing since she’d fought the evil ghost and been wounded. Before then, he’d usually zonked out before her, knowing her mind ticktocked as his brain fuzzed into sleep.

  Sitting up, he stared at her, narrowed his eyes, and attempted to see the tear in her etheric body. That would be easier if he called Enzo, but he wanted this time of peace and quiet just for the two of them.

  Yeah, he thought he could see it, if he strained his eyes and all his other senses. He reached out a finger and touched her rib cage under her left breast—she’d had a cracked rib in the last month, too. Despite the fact that she’d helped two ghosts move on to whatever came next today, the rip didn’t look as if it had torn. In fact, it seemed better than it had been the morning before, and a good thing. He figured the Other had taken care of it a time or two.

  Not that he would ever count on the Other.

  He stopped to think about that. Would he ever trust that spirit? Not soon. Like all abused trust, it took about quadruple the time to reestablish lost trust or good relations than it would have if the person or being were trustworthy in the first place. And Zach believed that the Other helped Clare because of complete self-interest.

  Put that concern away. As long as the spirit did help Clare, it was enough. Until the nun cured her.

  He shifted them around and grabbed the soft afghan Clare had found in a closet the night before, pulled it down from the top of the couch, and tucked it around her. Sitting on the edge of the sofa, he looked down and grimaced. She’d taken off the shoe and sock of his right foot, his good foot, so his jeans tangled around his bad ankle.

  Naturally he hadn’t cared about that at the time, but it appeared odd now. Good thing neither of them gave a damn about looking perfect. He removed the special shoe on his left foot, and the brace, stood and limped heavily to the front door, and got his cane. His muscles moved fine during sex, but he needed more exercise.

  When he went up to Denver, and he’d have to, he’d see if he could squeeze in a little half-hour session of bartitsu. He needed to continue to learn the cane fighting, and he began to miss his odd duck of an instructor.

  He figured the people he met here in the resort exercise c
enter, those upwardly mobile professional types, wouldn’t have a bunch of scars from old wounds. Not like Rickman’s operatives who used a private room in the gym under the skyscraper that housed the office.

  He thought about a shower, but detoured to the bedroom to turn on and warm up the hot tub, and drew on some sweatpants for the interim. Then he made a new pot of coffee and poured a cup, his mind fretting at the puzzle of finding Tyler Utzig. Zach drank his coffee in the bedroom and stood, staring out at the golf course and the plains to the southeast, the minor skyline of Colorado Springs.

  When he’d spoken with the undercover cop this morning, Jim, he’d gotten the feeling that the man had focused on Zach’s problem for the moment—outside his own cases—and made connections that Zach didn’t have. Frustrating to depend on someone else.

  Zach rolled his shoulders. He couldn’t shake a bad feeling.

  Clare walked into the bedroom, hunched over a bit to protect her wound. From him? He’d never hurt her. Never physically, never emotionally, at least not deliberately.

  “Did I hurt you?” he demanded, putting down his coffee mug on a side table that already held one of hers half full of cold coffee.

  She shrugged. “My injury is draining. If I pass on . . .”

  “I am not letting you pass on. Has the Other told you that this situation would be . . .” He stopped, not able to say the words the death of you. There could be no death of Clare now. He squashed panic. “You’re just tired.” Easy to see that in the dark bruises under her eyes. She hadn’t been sleeping well, and he hadn’t noticed since he usually slept like a rock himself.

  “No, the Other hasn’t come out and said I would die.”

  “And he promised he’d do so. Tell you when it was . . . your time.” Somehow that phrase, and that image felt better to Zach, like an old-fashioned windup clock had released its spring and reached its last tick

  “I just wanted to let you know that all my affairs are in order.”

  He made a cutting gesture. “Of course they would be.”

  She took a big breath. “I didn’t have the courage to tell you before, I put the house in your name.”

  Dislike at this conversation and irritation sparked into anger. “When? And why?”

  She straightened, and though he was glad to see the defeat fade from her manner, he didn’t like that they’d slid right into a confrontation.

  Chin jutted, she said, “When you were in Kansas City working our last case. And I knew I loved you and wanted to be with you.”

  “You didn’t ask me.”

  Her face flushed, and he could swear he could hear the snap of her teeth. Well anger would clear out the blues, stimulate her blood rate.

  After a quick breath, she said, “I’m sorry about that. I admit I was selfish. Thinking of myself and of what I wanted for us.” Her spine snapped upright more than he thought it could, as straight as any soldier’s. “Also, I’d just met with Mr. Boutros of my old firm to hire him, and with my attorney to finalize my will. I wanted things tidy and in order.”

  “God in heaven, Clare!”

  To his amazement her eyes went damp and she didn’t look at him. “My past cases had included an element of danger.” She sniffed but no tears rolled down her face. Whew. “And if I . . . if I died, I wanted you to have a token of my affection.”

  He thought his mouth dropped open as he stared at her in complete shock. “A two-million-dollar historic house close to the country club is not a token, Clare!”

  She stomped across the room to the hot tub, but her hand didn’t go to her side, and that sent a trickle of relief to him. Better, though, not to tell her that he wasn’t sure what he’d do with that house if . . . No, he couldn’t keep it, too many memories of Clare in their short weeks together. And it wasn’t a house he’d’ve picked out for himself. He had no idea what his perfect home consisted of. Clare’s place was nice, okay, better than nice, but mostly because Clare was in it.

  “I also thought you, as a friend, could handle my estate, since you’re here and my brother is in Virginia.”

  He jerked a gesture. “Pick another friend. Rickman, maybe. Doesn’t your old accounting firm also handle estates for a while?” Since he worked for them with regard to Tyler Utzig, he knew they did.

  “I don’t trust Rickman. Desiree—”

  “Heaven help you with that one.”

  “No, I wouldn’t want to impose on her.”

  “But you’ll impose on me, and I’ve only just hit Denver since we met. I don’t know anything about local real estate, or much about local laws outside what we’ve worked on.”

  Her nostrils widened with a breath and her gaze focused away from him and on her hands—he saw them tremble, then steady—she punched the button of the hot tub to bubble. Head averted, she snapped, “Then go, just go, after I die. I release you from doing anything of a helpful financial nature with regard to my estate. Go on your way like a—like a tumbleweed! I’ll just stay and take care of it myself.”

  “After you’re dead?” he asked blankly. “You’re going to hang around and haunt your own house?” The concept— His eyes met Clare’s and he nearly reeled at the love he saw there, the simmering attraction, and an equal shock of the weird twist the argument had taken.

  “Haunt. My. Own. House,” she repeated, spacing each word. She took a step, faltered, then perched on the lip of the tub. Wide-eyed and lips trembling she repeated, “Haunt. My. Own. House.”

  Uh-oh, gone too far there.

  But she looked around at the modern, comfortable environs of the villa, bright and cheerful, not the slightly faded glory of Clare’s home. Her gaze went to the window and the house construction on the next hill, this brash new area of Colorado Springs instead of the lushly landscaped area near the Denver Country Club.

  Her gaze coasted back to meet his. She squeaked a giggle. “My place is a pretty house. Maybe I wouldn’t mind staying a bit. Haunt my own house.” Now she laughed, shook her head, then snagged her old coffee cup and slugged some down.

  Danger averted, for now. Relief let him laugh, too.

  Chapter 22

  He glanced out the window, then froze.

  Clearing his throat, he said, “Do you see the crow?” It raised its wings and sidestepped down the first bar of the fence.

  She stilled, then sipped at cold coffee. “Ah, no.” He heard her inhalation. “Crow?”

  “Yes.” He didn’t say aloud, but thought they both heard the echo of One for sorrow in their heads.

  “Oh, dear.”

  He pivoted to her, nailed her with his most intense stare. “Not for you. No sorrow about you for me.”

  She met his eyes. “Well, not for me now, I don’t think.”

  His own breath released. “You don’t think.” He picked up his own nice hot coffee and swallowed a gulp, adding, “You don’t have any sense this . . .”

  “Omen,” she supplied.

  “Omen,” he agreed and drank more java. “You don’t sense the one for sorrow applies to you.”

  “No. Not this time.” She smiled. “I’m feeling good, Zach. Hopeful.”

  He hated hopeful. Because, as far as he was concerned, that was exactly when life yanked the rug out from under you.

  Crap, negative thinking again. Brooding. He put his arm around Clare, and forced his gaze away from the crow and to her. “I love you.”

  Saying that helped. When he accepted and pumped up the feeling of that love inside him, that helped even more.

  He leaned down and kissed her temple under her wild gypsy hair. Okay, maybe he couldn’t do cheerful rah, rah, rah like Enzo. But Zach could damn well do romantic. And intense sex. That would have to do.

  And if it didn’t, he’d freaking go out and buy pom-poms.

  He’d learned to shuffle-dance with Clare, and she liked that, so he announced to the elec
tronics, “Play Romantic Playlist.” Sweeping music filled the air. He took both their cups and stuck them on a table. Then he set an arm around her waist and gazed into her hazel eyes as she placed her hands on his shoulders.

  No, he didn’t keep to the beat, couldn’t with a cane in his left hand, but they moved well together, and they slowly circled the bedroom, along the hall to the living room and around it, back to the bedroom and the hot tub.

  He kissed her again before he let her go.

  Clare moaned a little as she slipped into the tub, and that had his dick interested again, but right now wasn’t about sex, or even romance. Not when his mind returned to those damn crows . . . the four he’d seen earlier that morning, the one just now . . . and what Clare’s healing phantom had said.

  Zach got into the too-hot tub, set for Clare’s comfort level, not his, and said, “About the nun . . . ,”

  “Sister Julianna Emmanuel?” Clare asked.

  Zach hadn’t heard her name well, so he tried it on his tongue. “Sister Julianna Emmanuel.”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you thought about what she said?”

  “Analyzed it? No.” She smiled. “The sex with you put it right out of my head.”

  “That’s good.”

  “But now that you mention it, I suppose we should.” She stretched long in the hot tub, closed her eyes.

  “She had to go, fast, without even looking at your wound, or trying to help you.”

  “Because she had to help someone else.”

  “Yeah, got that. She said, ‘diminish the pain and aid the separation.’” He made his tone more mild. “What does that mean to you?”

  Clare’s face—her whole body—had flushed after she’d entered the water, sweat had sprung along her hairline near her massively curling hair. Now she went pale, wet her lips, and stared at him with dilated pupils.

  Yep, he’d just destroyed all the romance that had built between them. Maybe he wasn’t so good at that. Maybe he should concentrate more on keeping a good attitude fueled by sex. Later.

  “She was aiding a dying person,” Clare whispered.