by Gina Ardito
“Promise you’ll stay with me?” she asked Sean.
“That’s what I came for.” He squeezed her fingers in his palm. She squeezed back. “What’ll happen now?”
“They’re going to slide me into that machine.”
“Okay, then. I guess we’re going for a ride.”
“Will we both fit?”
“Of course we will. I don’t take up space. I’m not a physical being anymore.”
She inhaled long and soft. “I’m ready,” she told the doctors behind the window. “Let’s do this.”
While Sean continued to hold her hand, the table glided forward and stopped when her head and neck hit the center of the tunnel. A low hum filled the air, sparks flew, and a sudden magnetic force field pulled at Sean’s core. His energy cells went into hyper-drive, pulling him deeper toward where Isabelle lay.
“Sean!” she croaked, her throat tight with dread.
“I’m here. I’m right beside you. Don’t be afraid.”
Those were the last words he spoke. The hum intensified, a searing white light burst inside him, and he hurtled headlong into free fall. Isabelle’s arms wrapped his neck, and her hot flesh—naked and welcoming—pressed against him. His lips came down on hers, tasting a woman’s breath and soul for the first time since his death. She was pure life, sweet and heady, and he drank from her pool until he grew dizzy. Her fingers dug into his scalp, pulling him closer.
Arching her back, she offered her breasts to his hunger. He clamped his wet mouth to her nipple, took all that she offered and more, his need for her insatiable.
“Sean,” she moaned. “Yes.”
Within this nuclear cave, he became flesh: hard and hot and eager to slide inside this lush woman who called him forward, pulled him deeper. He kissed her eyelids, the delicate flesh quivering beneath his lips, and her lashes tickled when she fluttered. His fingers danced across her scalp, reveling in her silken hair, in the way it curled around his knuckles. Her warm flesh wrapped him in a velvet embrace. A thousand reactions flooded his body, waking his senses to the pure pleasure of lovemaking. What heaven had he lost the day he shoved the gun barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger? Christ, how long had he existed in his numb cocoon in the Afterlife? According to Belle, at least thirty earth years.
Too long. Too long without touch, without the sweet sound of a woman’s sigh in his ears, without the taste of her...
He licked the vulnerable skin behind her earlobe, savored the sweetened salt of her desire and anticipation. Her audible delight whispered through his body. She opened herself to him, and he thrust into her, afire with need.
“Yessss!” she whispered and moved against him, taking him inside, into the very core of her womanhood. “God, Sean, yes.”
He rode her with abandon, her cries driving him faster, harder, deeper. Her nails raked his back, and her knees drew up against his naked hips. She rocked back and forth, teasing him by tightening her hold and withdrawing herself to the very tip before soaring into him to the hilt. Pressure built, steam and power swirling around them both. Perspiration—real moisture—dripped from him onto her golden flesh. And still, he dove, holding her within his embrace, every cell connecting to hers in a glorious ocean of touch.
He came in a blinding flash, a shower of stars that burst and fell to the cushion beneath them in thousands of twinkling lights.
“Sean!” A familiar voice, filled with concern, broke the sensual spell. “Come on, Sean, snap out of it.”
He opened his eyes to find Xavia, hands on his shoulders, shaking him like a used dustcloth. “Jeez, Sean. Wake up. Come on.”
“I’m awake,” he mumbled. “I’m here.”
“What the hell happened?”
“I don’t know.” He blinked several times and struggled to bring himself fully into focus. “What’d it look like on your end?”
“Like some weird-ass electrical fire in a blender. One minute, you were you, standing here staring off into space—though almost transparent—and the next, you were this…galaxy of stars spinning out of control. No form, no substance. I couldn’t even grab hold of you. It was like…you exploded or something. What the fuck?”
“I’m not really sure,” he replied, his mind still struggling to catch up. “Would you believe me if I said I think Isabelle and I just made love?”
~~~~
Isabelle opened her eyes and found herself alone in the gamma knife machine. “Sean?”
No answer. He was gone.
Had she dreamed him? Dreamed the whole thing? The whole amazing experience of what would forever live in her fantasies as the best sex of her life?
Every touch, every sensation, every movement had brought her to the brink and back. Again and again and again. No living man had ever made her so totally lose herself.
Hell, with Carlo, she spent most of their foreplay mentally writing a grocery list. What had happened with Sean was...mind-blowing.
And impossible.
She had to remind herself. Sex with Sean was impossible. Sean was a ghost. He wasn’t a real person. If he were real, he never would’ve been able to climb inside this dome with her. There was barely enough room to breathe in here. And she had a metal box screwed into her head, for God’s sake, along with the space-age colander. Yet, both items had completely disappeared during the sexual fantasy she’d shared with Sean. She knew because he’d run his hands through her hair, kissed her forehead, her eyelids, and licked that oh-so-sensitive place behind her earlobe: all the flesh he could never access if the box and helmet had remained in place.
Plus, she was hooked up to enough audiovisual equipment to make a Kardashian leap up and volunteer for the exposure. So if she and some strange guy started fooling around during the procedure, the doctors would’ve seen them, would’ve stopped it long before they reached their orgasmic conclusion.
The heat of a volcanic blush infused her, swamping her with sweat. No way this gamma knife thingy would have continued running while four people—four trained medical professionals—watched her have sex with a dead guy. Right?
God, she could just imagine that conversation. Umm...Ms. Fichetti? Could you please put your clothes back on and tell that naked, chiseled man to climb off you so we can administer your radiation?
Her clothes! She plucked at the thin sleeve of the surgical gown. Yup. Still intact. And the box’s screws bored into her forehead like...well, like tight screws, dammit.
So there you have it, folks. Just a dream. She sighed. Too bad. A guy like that, sex like that, was worth living for. No matter what pain she’d suffer later.
One upshot came out of all this, though. She’d never again complain about the lack of originality in the dreams Sean sent her. Because this one topped them all. Forget swimming with dolphins. She’d just swum with the stars.
“How we doing, Isabelle?” Dr. Regalbuto’s voice came through the headphones attached to her helmet for communication between her and the medical staff while she was inside the drum. “You okay?”
“Oh, yeah,” she purred. “I’m great.” If not for the tightness of her current quarters and the four eyewitnesses in the other room, she would have stretched like a Persian cat. For now, she settled for a secret smile.
“Good,” the doctor said, completely unfazed, which told her she had, indeed, imagined the whole sex thing.
Thank God. And yet, at the same time, damn! How she wished what she’d experienced with Sean had been real.
“It’s just gonna be another few minutes, and then we’ll be done,” he said. “So hang tight.”
“Okay.” Hang tight. Please. She was too loose, too languid, too liquid to be tight. She’d achieved a state of bliss between boneless and nirvana, if only for a little while. Thank you, Sean. Closing her eyes again, she lay patient and still, unafraid for the first time since she woke up this morning.
Time passed, and before too long, she felt the bed beneath her shift and begin its slide to the outside world again.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Dr. Regalbuto’s voice echoed in her ears.
No comment. What could she say? That the whole thing had been one long, drawn-out terror-fest until her guardian angel showed up and made love to her? Oh, sure. That’d go over big time. They’d conclude her tumor had already damaged her sanity, then whisk her straight from the hospital to some loony bin where another version of Dr. Feelbeige would be only too happy to talk about her mother issues. Or her father issues. Or why she preferred poodles over Poms. Whatever hot button psychological disorder the social media had latched onto this week.
“Okay, Isabelle,” the doctor announced. “Just hang on a sec while we double-check a few things on our end. Relax. The hard part’s over. In a couple of minutes, we’ll send George in to remove the headgear. We’ll have you comfortable in a room upstairs in no time.”
Yeah, right. Comfortable. Lucky for them, Sean had left her drained or she’d have a few things to say about their idea of comfort. She closed her eyes and sighed. Whatever. The bed beneath her became a cloud of feathers, and she floated into oblivion.
When she opened her eyes again, the radiology suite had transformed into a private hospital room. A vivid burst of colorful flowers in a squat glass vase sat on the counter: wide-awake orange lilies, hot pink carnations, mixed with dark lacy ferns. Mint green curtains filtered sunlight through the lone window in the background, and an anxious-faced Justin fretted in an olive-drab pleather chair in the foreground.
“Hey, binky,” she murmured, drawing his worried gaze toward her. She cast a meaningful glance around the room. “This place makes me homesick for my Barbie bedroom at your house.” When she summed up her riposte with a wan smile, he didn’t follow suit, and she sobered. “What’s up? What’d I miss?”
Scooting to the edge of his chair, he grabbed her hand and squeezed. “Belle. Thank God. You had me so worried.”
She struggled to sit up and focus. “I did? Why? What’s wrong now? What’d they find?”
“Nothing.” At her sharp look, he added, “I mean, nothing new. Dr. Regalbuto said no one’s ever fallen asleep immediately after the procedure before. You didn’t even wake up when they removed that goofy frame from your head.”
The frame. Her hands flew up to check her forehead, touched skin and scalp. No metal. But her sensitive fingertips found the depressions above her eyebrows where the screws had kept the frame in place. “It’s off?”
“It’s off. You slept through the whole unscrewing.”
“Lucky me.”
“Let’s hope so.” His cheeks reddened.
As if she hadn’t shared the same thought. If she was truly lucky, the gamma knife thingy would kill the malignancy and she’d still have decades of living to experience. If not...well, best not to go there right now.
“Hey, are you hungry?”
Her stomach must have heard Justin’s question because a low rumbling erupted in her belly. She placed her palm flat against her abdomen to muffle the sound. “Now that you mention it, I could eat.” She hadn’t eaten since yesterday afternoon. Even then, her nerves wouldn’t allow her more than a one-egg-white omelet with two skinny strips of white meat turkey.
“While you were still in la-la land, Tony stopped by with steak sandwiches.” Justin rose from his chair and pulled a bright red thermal lunch sack from the counter near the flowers. “He had to go back to the shop, but I figured you’d be ready for one when you woke up so I kept them wrapped and warm.”
“You figured right. I’m starving. Then again, great sex always makes me ravenous.”
“Sex?” He whirled from the counter, a lascivious grin stretching his lips.
Whoops. She’d said too much. How would she cover up that little faux pas? “Just a really hot dream, I guess.”
“That explains the glow on your cheeks. I thought it was from the radiation. Aren’t you a little old for wet dreams, sunshine?”
Her careless shrug didn’t come off with the aplomb she strived for, and she giggled. “I guess not. ‘Cuz this particular performance was Academy Award-worthy.”
“Ooh, do tell! But not yet. Give me a coupla minutes.” He opened the sack and removed two dinner plates, two sets of silverware bundled in scarlet and gold tapestry napkins, two wine glasses, and a pair of miniature sterling salt and pepper shakers.
“Jeez, Justin, what’s next? Candelabra? A sommelier? Where’s the tuxedoed piano player I ordered?”
“Ha ha.” After arranging the place settings on her tray table, he unwrapped the sandwiches, laid them with a flourish on the dishes, and rolled the feast toward her bed. “Just because you’re stuck in this disease factory doesn’t mean we can’t savor our meal like civilized humans.”
While she raised the back of her bed to a more upright position, Justin settled on the mattress next to her thighs. “Okay, now I’m ready,” he announced. “Who’s the guy? Anyone I know?”
“No.” To hide her smile, she leaned close to her plate and inhaled the aroma of beef on toasted garlic bread with melted mozzarella and horseradish. God, she was starving! “Definitely not.”
“Was it Sean?”
She jerked her head up. “What do you know about Sean?”
“Honey, there isn’t a pair of ears in a five-mile radius that didn’t hear you screaming his name. And that was before your alleged sexual romp. So...who is he?”
“Forget it.” She waved him off. “No way in hell you’d ever understand.”
He bit into his sandwich, chewed, and swallowed. “Try me.”
Yeah, right. Try him. How? How could she possibly explain what happened with Sean without sounding delusional?
Well, see, it’s like this. Sean’s my guardian angel. He killed himself when I was in pre-school, and now it’s his job to watch over me, to make sure I don’t commit suicide like he did. So when I called him to stay with me during the gamma knife thingy, he showed up and distracted me by making mad, passionate love to me.
Even she didn’t believe the story. And she’d lived it!
Taking the coward’s way out, she concentrated all her energy on her food, taking a bite and allowing the sharp, beefy flavor to pop her taste buds. “Mmm...God, this is soooo good!”
“I bet Sean said that, too.” He smirked and waggled his brows.
She shook her head and took a huge bite to keep any reply from escaping her mouth.
“So he’s a seeee-cret,” he sing-songed. “Okay. I can wait. Eventually, I’ll find out all about this Secret Sean.”
Doubtful. But she let him think what he wanted. His innuendo and vivid imagination would never come close to the truth.
Chapter 16
Xavia’s fingers dug into Sean’s shoulders. “What the hell are you talking about? Are you sure?”
“No.” He paused, cocked his head, revisited whatever the hell had transpired between him and Isabelle. Tried to find words to describe the machine, the moment he gained a solid form, and the potent pull toward a very alluring Isabelle. But he came up empty. “I don’t know. I mean, it’s been a while, you know? And I certainly haven’t had sex since I got here.”
“Hold up.” She frowned. “You didn’t say you had sex. You said you made love.”
“Same thing.”
Her harsh laughter scorched the air. “For you, maybe. For most men, I’d imagine. But women don’t see it that way, Martino. There’s a whole Grand Canyon-sized difference between the two in our minds. Sex is just…sex. Making love, though, that’s the World Series, the Super Bowl, and Mardi Gras all rolled into one. So, which was it?”
“I don’t know. I’m still working on the how, forget about the what.”
She quirked her lips. “Yeah, I’d like to know more about the how, myself. I didn’t even know such a thing was possible.”
“I’m not a hundred percent sure it is. I just don’t know how else to describe what happened.”
“Try harder.” She pushed him onto one of the strange, wooden crates that lined the area. On
ce she had him in a seated position, she towered over him, arms folded across her chest, in full boss-lady attitude. “Let’s take this one step at a time.”
He shot up, nearly head-butting her chin. “Can’t. I want to get back to Isabelle.”
“Wow, you really have a soft spot for your wounded bird, don’t you?” Shaking her head, Xavia took two steps back—out of range. “Quite a hero complex you got there, Officer Martino.”
“Hardly.” He was far from anyone’s hero. “Don’t be an idiot. She’s my priority, remember? Your words. I wasn’t to worry about anyone except Isabelle. Not you, not the Elders.”
“I meant when it came to keeping her alive. You’re the one who’s gone overboard with this whole ‘I think Isabelle and I just made love’ routine.” She paced the orb ball grid from their end to the wall. “You know what I think?” She turned around and strode toward him again, each step intense, a predatory gleam in her eyes. “I think you’ve fallen in love with your offender.”
Oh, hell, no. She was not about to hold him up to ridicule. Just because something weird happened between him and Isabelle didn’t mean he’d gone gaga over his first offender. He couldn’t allow anyone to get the idea that he was unfit for probation service. If Verity thought he was too soft for this job, who knew where they’d send him next? The Chasm?
He shuddered. For all his false bravado around Xavia, the images of that land of eternal damnation still lingered just beyond the fringes of his memory. No one could experience the Chasm and not relive the emptiness, the desolation, the bleakness that ate a soul, and the howls of the damned piercing the fetid air. He had no intention of ever returning.
“I got sucked in!” he exclaimed. “I don’t know exactly what happened. That damn machine they had her in...it whipped me into something...almost human. Next thing I knew, I was kissing her, she was kissing back, we were both naked, and...” Her arched brow registered disbelief, and he lowered his voice to a whisper. “I know it sounds incredible, but I’m telling you, I have no idea what happened. Something just...happened.”