What he most wanted? “Do I have to tell you?
***
“No.”
“Babe.” And the way he said it, even if it was slightly inappropriate, made her feel tingly all over. His eyes darkened. “Why do you want to give me a reading? I have no future. I’m dead.”
“I noticed.”
“Then what do you suppose you can do for me?”
“Give you peace. Isn’t that what all the undead want?”
He winced. “I’m not sure about the undead in general. All I want is to have fun.”
“Deep,” she said. When he didn’t move, she continued, “If you can’t pick up the cards, point to the one you want.”
“I thought I had to touch the cards to give them my energy.”
Clearly, he had some knowledge of the fortune-telling world. “Are you psychic, like your sister?”
He laughed and the sound rumbled. “Babe, if I were psychic I wouldn’t have stuck around to get shot in the head.”
That made sense. “You’re as stubborn as an ornery old mule.”
His signature badass smile spread across his face. “If stalling gives me more time with you, darlin’, I’ll even whinny.”
“You sure are good with the lines, for a dead guy.”
“I ain’t feeling so dead at the moment.”
Charlie felt her cheeks flush. They were her tell. The guy had too much charm for her health. “Humor me, tough guy, and pick a card.”
Rufus moved closer and ran his hand, palm down, above the cards as if he was determining which one to choose. Charlie’s gut clenched. He passed his hand one way, and then back the other way. Then he leaned back and scratched his chin. “So many cards, so little time.”
“Choose a freaking card.”
He laughed. “Or what?”
She exhaled noisily and balled her fists. This was not going the way she planned. Annoying, obstinate, and infuriatingly hot, he kept sidelining her. “Rufus.”
“Maybe you could whip me?” He winked.
“I’m not into whips.”
“Oh, that’s a shame. You’d be a honey of a dominatrix. How about a little bondage?”
“How ’bout I duct tape your filthy mouth?”
“But then how could I tell you all the things I want to do with you.”
Oh crap. Images flew through her mind. Images that made her want to jump his ghostly bones. “Slow down, bad boy, you ain’t got what it takes to make me happy.”
“Are you sure about that?” He moved closer so that his specter was almost touching her body and he whispered in her ear. “You are the sexiest woman I have ever met.”
Charlie’s heart beat so loudly the neighbors could probably hear it. She stepped away from him. “Okay, I’ll make you a deal.”
“A deal?” His baritone voice sounded smoother than silk and softer than satin. “Does it involve you getting naked?”
“Maybe.”
“Oh, I’m all in.”
If only he wasn’t dead. His playfulness was hotter than his body. Hooking up with him would be so cool. What was she thinking? He had a hole in his head. She licked her lips slowly.
“Aw, come on. That’s not fair.”
“All is fair in this game.” She undid the top button of her blouse. “If you take a card, I’ll undo all of my buttons.”
“All of them?” He moved closer. His leather scent filled her nostrils and revved her engines. The desire in his eyes melted her from the inside out.
“Your choice?”
Without looking at the cards, he used his kinetic powers to draw one card and slammed it on the table face up. The six of Pentacles in the position of his past.
“Interesting.” But she wouldn’t say more until she saw all three cards. Still, the card got her mind going. Pentacles is the suit of the tangible earth. The six indicated he found joy in giving, was sensitive to the plight of others, philanthropic; that he was resourceful and had a good business sense. It also indicated his heightened sensuality. Yup, it fit.
He wiggled his fingers and her second button came undone. Her mouth dropped. Then he did another and another, slowly, until they were all undone. Heck, she was undone. As the cool air touched her skin, her nipples beneath her bra hardened. It didn’t matter what her brain said, her traitorous body wanted this guy, dead or alive.
His eyes roved over her body with admiration.
7
The Second Card
“Cheating death is the only way to live.” Three Sheets.
“What do I get if I choose a card?” said a deep voice from the doorway. Charlie looked beyond Rufus to see a swoon-worthy pirate with a devilish grin. Built strong and solid, he had an olive complexion and long, dark hair, pulled back. His open shirt revealed a well-toned chest. Everything about him spelled rogue in neon, capital letters, right down to his killer, pirate boots. “I want to play too,” he said, with mischief dancing in his sinfully dark, chocolate-brown eyes.
Charlie had only done threesomes in her dreams, but these guys were both so hot. And they were dead. And her mother wasn’t around.
Rufus put up his arm to block his friend from coming near her. “She’s mine, you soggy sea dog.”
“Soggy sea dog? That’s the best you got? I say we ask the lady. She may like her men salty.”
Charlie tried to appear composed, but inside a whole different rodeo played. Sitting in front of these two handsome men with her blouse open, her mind zipped through a sexual rolodex. She licked her lips. “Here’s the deal, pirate.” She looked over at Rufus to make eye contact. His eyes were deliciously warm and welcoming, like warm cocoa. “I want Rufus to stop haunting my brother, Mad Dog.”
“And what are you willing to do to stop him?”
Holy tamoley, the pirate’s voice was as seductive as his eyes.
“Hey, I’m still here,” said Rufus. “And I want her all to myself.”
“What’s the fun in that, mate,” said the pirate.
“I ain’t your mate, asshole. She’s mine and mine alone.”
Oh, now that did sound nice, thought Charlie, in a Neanderthal kind of way that trumped the group-orgy thing in her fantasy landscape, but not by a whole lot. She swallowed.
“Okay, fellas. If Rufus flips the second card, I’ll take off my blouse completely.”
“The bra. What about the bra? They are pretty things, but they cover way too much.” The pirate narrowed his eyes.
Rufus gave him a hard look. “You don’t get to touch her, but you can watch.”
The pirate raised his hands in the air. “Agreed.”
The card flipped. The ten of Wands in the present position. Charlie bit her lip, to stop herself from saying anything. A good reading couldn’t be gathered until all the cards were on the table, because the meaning of individual cards was influenced by their proximity to others. Still, the ten of Wands in the present position intrigued her. Wands were the suit of the spirit, or at least that’s how she liked to think of them. The ten meant that his energy was drained. He felt weighted down. Check and check. How else would a ghost feel? This card indicated a free spirit forced into a limited situation, when his life goals had not yet been completed. It all fit. Damn she was good. But she kept her face serene, so he wouldn’t know how much she knew about him.
Before she could reach for her blouse it lifted gently from her body and flew into the air, landing softly on the chandelier. Great. She would need a ladder to reach it. Standing with nothing on but her faded blue jeans and a push-up red lace bra that barely contained her over-sized breasts, she felt naked. Really naked. To the sinew of her bones naked. Big boobs ran in her family, and she had a set of double Ds.
The men’s eyes bulged. Both of Rufus’s arms flew up to keep the pirate from getting any closer.
His soft breath caressed her skin and its coldness sent a tingling sensation through her body. The hot-cold experience revved her engines.
The pirate reappeared at her other side of her. Now
she had two men adoring her with their eyes, which, truth be told, turned her on more than if they were touching her.
“For the third card, I want more.” Rufus’s voice had turned low and gravelly, as if he could barely talk.
“How much more?”
He leaned closer and whispered in her ear. Meanwhile, the pirate blew air through her hair and sang an exotic song in a language she did not know that relaxed her and made her want him and the other him and, well, any him.
“I want you,” Rufus said. “I want all of you.”
“Ah hell.” She put her hands on her hips. “This ain’t right.”
“Which part?” said the pirate.
“The part where you guys get me all hot and bothered and fly into the night.”
The men looked at each other. “We’re not going anywhere, love,” said the pirate.
Rufus’s eyes narrowed and he gave his friend a warning stare. “You can go anytime you please.”
“You need to hear me out,” she said.
They both stared at her. “You were saying you’re all hot and bothered,” said Rufus in a tone which made her panties wet. Well, okay, wetter.
“Do you do this to all the ladies?”
He squinted at her as if she had asked if he ate an ostrich for breakfast.
“I mean threesomes, with two ghosts and a live woman. Is that a thing?”
The pirate chuckled. “This would be my first. But I’m game.”
“I don’t do kink,” said Rufus. “And she’s mine.” The look he gave the other ghost could have killed him. If he wasn’t already dead.
“Stop, right there, Rufus. I don’t belong to you. I’m no man’s woman.”
He glanced back at her, mischief playing in his gleaming, ghostly visage. “We’ll see about that.”
She sighed loud and long. “Okay, so you don’t have nightly orgies with humans. I get that. I guess I should feel, uh, honored.” And hornier than hell. What exactly could she do with two devilishly handsome ghosts?
The pirate drifted back to the doorway and tipped his cocked hat. “If the biker bores you, I’ll gladly take his place. I’ll draw a bath in the claw-foot bathtub upstairs in case you decide you would like me to give you a sponge bath.” He pulled on his moustache. “I’m very good at bathing.”
Charlie laughed, loving the way the pirate made fun of himself. His self-deprecating sense of humor scored big points in her heart. But Rufus stood next to her, with a grim expression on his face that washed away that fancy.
“You don’t need him. I can take direction, please you in every way your heart desires.”
She swallowed and wished for the hundredth time that night that her flaming hot cheeks, didn’t give away how much she wanted this bad boy. “I didn’t come here for sex.”
He tipped his head closer. “And I didn’t expect to meet a woman as spicy as you in my life, let alone my death.”
Oh hell. Couldn’t he say something stupid, or bawdy, or wrong? “What do you mean, ‘spicy’?”
“Tough and sassy.” The way he said sassy grilled her insides. “Sexy and oh-so-womanly. And there’s so much of you.” A gust of wind broke her bra strap and it dropped to her waist, exposing her breasts. He moaned with satisfaction.
“I’m not your toy.”
A fire of desire played in his eyes. “I’ll choose the third card, if you promise to lose your jeans.”
A fire burst into flame in the fireplace.
8
The Third Card
“All is fair in death.” ~Rufus
Rufus stood a breath away from her. His eyes scanned her body. “I will please you in every way your heart desires.”
“I get it. You want to see more of me.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“How much more?” She cocked her brow.
“All of you. Every inch. Every cell. I want to caress you with my eyes, stroke you with my powers, make love to you in every way I can.”
“Love?” She laughed. “You just want to do the dirty.”
He leaned back as if he had been slapped. “Nah, it wouldn’t be a fuck. Not you and me. I think we both know that.”
The magical chemistry that pulsed between them sent a blazing current of heat beyond life and death through her body. A tide of desire so strong it had its own will. And she could not deny it. She undid the button of her jeans.
“Don’t you want me to flip a card?”
“I don’t care about the card.”
“Don’t you want me to stop haunting Mad Dog?”
“I don’t care—” She stopped. Of course she cared about her brother. What was she thinking? Hell, she wasn’t thinking.
A knowing smile crossed his face and mischief played in his deep-brown eyes. She wanted this man, dead or alive. Did that make her a tramp or a traitor? Heck, she was plain human. Reaching out to him she said, “This isn’t about Mad Dog. This is about you and me.” And she unzipped her jeans.
She could hear the water running upstairs. The pirate had drawn a bath.
“What can I do for you?” she said.
“Babe,”—his eyes held on her breasts—“you’re doing it.”
He flipped the third card, a nine of Cups in the future position. Cups represented the realm of the heart. The nine indicated good fortune, emotional tranquility and prosperity. She smiled.
The cards were turning in his favor; in their favor.
9
The Scourge of the Night
“We’re all fatally human.” Rufus
Rebel roared into the quiet seaside town of Sunset Cove under the light of the full moon. If he had been observant, he would have noticed the rolling hills descending down to the water’s edge, light coming from scattered cabins along the winding road, with wood smoke coming out of their chimneys, and signs advertising the town’s pancake breakfast on Saturday, but riding hard on his anger he took it all in with scarce a glance and kept his Harley going as fast as he could on the hairpin curves. Images of different ways to hurt Charlie flew through his mind, alternating with memories of making sweet love to her. Why couldn’t she have been his woman?
No rest for the wicked? No heaven for bad boys? No dessert for those who transgress societies most basic moral codes? Fuck it. He had a right to eat. And a right to have a woman who didn’t betray him. It had to be her who called the cops in on his deal.
The sound of his muffler was loud enough to wake an army, and he liked it that way. First, he swept through town, checking out the scene. One barber shop, a fancy coffee shop called Skuttlebutt, a cafe that looked as if it had been torn out of a Norman Rockwell painting, one deserted-looking cop shop, a bait store, and a chandler. No Mickey Dees. No Starbucks. No biker hangouts. And one funky looking teahouse. The backstreet towns of America had never impressed him.
A drunk wandering the downtown street with a bottle in a paper bag in his hand nodded at Rebel as he passed, but that was the only person he saw. It creeped him out that the town could be so quiet this early in the evening.
Pulling his bike to the side of the road, he stopped for a moment. The salty air smelled of seaweed and muck. The tide had to be out. Checking his cell phone data, he found Mad Dog’s address: 939 Ahab Trail. Ahab? Who the hell was that? He tried to remember all the presidents’ names, had memorized them in school, but this one didn’t ring a bell. But then, he had crossed the border. Maybe it was the name of a Canadian president. Ah hell, his mind was stalling him. It didn’t matter the name of the street. It only mattered that he got there. His GPS app gave him a route and he started his motor.
He had never killed a person with his own hands, and killing her would be hard. Normally he paid others to do his dirty work, but this was personal. She had hurt his business and his associates would want an example made. Could he murder a woman he still had feelings for? Hell, she deserved it. It was her time to die
Mad Dog’s house was smaller than he expected, wooden and rundown. Business must be slow up here. The fr
ont shutters hung at odd angles. But there were spring flowers in the garden, a case of empties on the front porch and a Harley in the driveway. It looked right.
Mad Dog’s reputation for starting bar fights and holding grudges was legendary. Rebel had never met him, but he knew the guy had a serious issue with anger and that he was big and strong. One friend called him a half-lit stick of dynamite ready to go off at any moment. Rebel got off his bike and slid his gun into the back of his jeans. At short range, he wouldn’t miss.
All things considered, his issue wasn’t with Mad Dog, so he would try to respect his space. All he wanted was Charlie. He knocked on the door and waited. He heard a woman yell, “I’ll get it, honey. You finish those steaks.”
The door opened and a small woman with emerald-green eyes and nice curves answered. “Can I help you?”
“I’m looking for Charlie.”
She put her hands on her hips. “Sorry, you’ve missed her.” She looked him up and down, didn’t seem to be scared or intimidated by him, but neither did she seem impressed. When he didn’t move to leave, she added, “What do you want with her?”
Rebel gave her the most charming smile he could muster. “I’m a friend of Charlie’s from Seattle. I wanted to surprise her.”
“Send her a text that you’re here.”
Fuck it, this bitch was too smart. “Like I said, I want it to be a surprise and I want to see her face when she sees me.” All true.
“Well . . .” She held on to the door as if she sensed something wasn’t quite right and she hesitated before saying anything more.
A man’s voice from inside the house called. “There. Done.”
She looked at him once more with the hard eyes of woman who had traveled the block a few times. “You said you’re a friend.”
“A good friend.” He gave her a knowing look.
“Okay. She’s gone to the teahouse to talk to a ghost.”
The door closed in his face
What the fuck? He had spotted the teahouse on his way into town, so the location was not a problem, but a ghost? He ran a hand through his hair. Charlie liked to fool around with Tarot cards and believed in some pretty weird stuff, but she had never mentioned dead people.
The Biker Ghost Meets His Match (Gambling Ghosts Series Book 4) Page 4