“What do you mean not exactly?” Juliana inclined her head.
He looked at her and again his pull was unmistakable.
“The last thing I remember was pushing Dottie away from the tram’s tracks,” he said.
“Dottie?”
“My sister,” he began pacing again. “We had an argument and she ran ahead of me right in front of the tram’s path. I had to get to her.”
“Oh my God.” Juliana gasped. “Is she all right?”
“I hope so. I have no idea what happened after I pushed her away.”
“When did this happen?”
“Yesterday, I think. I honestly don’t know. We were at Madam Merta’s just off Deansgate. Dottie has this penchant for fortune tellers and I accompanied her.”
Fortune tellers? Trams along Deansgate? Juliana had enough. She stood up.
“Right,” she began. “First of all, there are no fortune tellers on or off Deansgate. It’s filled with bars, office buildings, and furniture shops. Second, no tram passes through there. Third, and unless I’m wrong the news hasn’t reported any deaths along that street.”
“I know,” he said as he looked at her as though waiting what she was going to do next.
“You know?” Her eyes widened.
Mr Blue-Eyes-To-Die-For nodded. He walked to the stone bench and sat down with a resigned sigh. “What I told you did happen yesterday, but in a different year.”
“Which is?”
“Nineteen hundred and one.”
Bells like old fire engine alarms clanged inside her head in warning. Her heartbeat thudded in her ears. This man was freaking her out.
“I don’t know what game you’re playing at,” she said with a glare. Cold dread skittered over her skin. “I know it’s close to Halloween and that’s some fantastic story. But I’m not in the mood for games. I’m going and if you even just touch me, I swear I’ll scream my head off.”
“It’s not a game!” He stood up and he was trembling in anger that Juliana took several steps back, her heart stuck in her throat. “I’m telling you the truth because I need your help.”
Juliana swallowed giving him an uneasy smile. “Okay, I think I can do that,” she said immediately. Her hand trembled when she fished out her mobile phone from her denim pocket, intent on ringing Joanna or calling the police.
“What is that?”
“A mobile phone,” she said bewildered before laughing nervously. “Boy, you really are into playing the part. You sure you’re not an actor?”
He balled his hands into fists by his sides. “What can I do to convince you that what I say is true?”
Juliana realised that if the stranger became unstable, who knew what he could do.
“Calm down,” she said despite her feeling hysteria bubbling inside her. “I’m just going to call my friend and we’ll try to sort this out.”
But her mobile phone had no reception. Shit! She swallowed the panic that wanted to overwhelm her. She took a deep breath.
“Right, you stay here and I’ll go and pick them up,” she said.
Juliana returned her phone into her pocket and briskly walked toward the grove’s opening. She hoped that her knees didn’t buckle in fear.
Before she could reach the opening, the stranger intercepted her but interception was not have been the right description.
The stranger moved through and into her.
Juliana suddenly closed her eyes as flashes of carnal hunger lit her up like a roman candle. She gasped as she felt his essence pour through every pore of her body, heating the coil of longing that had been dormant inside her. She could feel his caress, his hands exploring her body, his mouth tasting every inch of her skin. She fell to the ground on all fours. Dimly, she saw him do the same. He groaned as she whimpered, gasping as the sexual spike rose like a wave about to consume her. The pleasure sparked through her, heated her core, liquefying her sex as though his tongue was literally on her, eating her, licking her and sucking her into erotic oblivion. Her nipples puckered and her womb clenched as she felt the crest of her orgasm rising before it drowned her.
“Oh God!” she cried out again and again as she climaxed, her lace underwear soaked with her desire, her body shuddering with the aftershocks.
Juliana heard him grunt his release and groaned as she felt his seed bathe her sex. Juliana crumpled on the ground, bathing in the afterglow with her eyes closed.
Spent.
Chapter Four
When Juliana came to, the man was gone. The sun was setting and there was a chill in the air. She raised herself on her elbow before she pulled herself up. She could still feel the wetness between her thighs and the thought of the stranger made her groan in remembrance. She sat down on the stone seat as she ran a shaky hand through her locks that managed to capture a few stalks of grass. She looked around the empty enclosure in disbelief. She looked down at her body. There was no sign of assault or violation even though she had seen the man run through her. Juliana felt her cheeks heat up as she remembered the stranger groaning his own release.
Her mouth parted out of their own volition as thoughts of the stranger came swirling around her. It made her realise one thing.
She wanted him. She craved for him, his warmth, and his touch. She wanted to truly feel his hands on her body, his mouth on hers, his shaft inside her channel’s embrace as they rode each other into rapture. But her rational mind scolded her. How could she feel something so real with another man when it could just be her thoughts of Brody being projected on someone else?
Juliana shivered. The stranger said that he had saved his sister more than a hundred years ago. Dear God, surely she hadn’t had a sexual encounter with a ghost? She couldn’t just have left the confines of her house to rid herself of pining for her husband only to be thrown into an encounter with another dead person?
“I’m bloody losing my mind!” She said blowing out a sigh.
Standing up, Juliana walked towards the gap. As soon as she stepped out, deafening silence greeted her for the briefest moment before sounds returned in a rush. She inhaled sharply to clear her head and get her bearings. She turned to look at the grove and her heart plummeted.
The grove was gone.
* * *
Simon moved out of the shadows as soon as the woman left the grove. The memory of how she felt when he had gone through her kept playing itself in his mind over and over again. He didn’t know whether ghosts could have memories but this was one he was hell bent on keeping. His body clenched with the need to have her in his arms. His cock twitched with hunger now that it knew how it felt to be inside her. He felt the whisper of her skin against his palms, her waist, her slightly round belly that signified her fertility. And the Eden in the apex of her thighs, soft, delectable, as sweet as the nub that peeked from her female folds. Simon groaned at the memory of entering her. Snug, wet, and hot. His trousers tightened at the thought.
Apart from the unusual way they had sexually come together, Simon had been able to get a glimpse of who she was. Juliana. So that was the name of the woman who had entered his mind in Madame Merta’s salon. Simon thought that he had conjured her but she was real. She was flesh and blood.
And he was not.
“Bloody hell,” he muttered underneath his breath.
How long would he be imprisoned in this hell? Was he alive or dead? It was the question that kept on running through his mind but which he had no answers for. Going through Juliana made him believe that he was dead, but the excruciating pain in his knee made him think he was alive. Neither living nor dead, he could feel yet he couldn’t touch. He craved but could never be satisfied.
All because he hadn’t given any credence to a fortune teller. Simon wished that this was all a cruel joke. Not everyone who supposedly had the gift of telling the future was genuine. The problem was that he had no experience in telling who was real and who was not. Still, he had to grudgingly admit that treating Madame Merta with derision was wrong. This was what he got
for his arrogance. He gave a deep drawn sigh. If only he could make it up. If only he could take back what he did and make amends. Intense sorrow claimed his soul at the remembrance of everything he had lost. If only he could see his family, especially Dottie, once again then perhaps he’d be able to find a measure of peace.
But he doubted that could happen and no amount of wishing would give him that chance to make reparations.
Second chances were only given to the living.
Not the dead.
* * *
Juliana couldn’t stop thinking about her encounter. It had been three days since her ghostly sex happened and she still couldn’t find the guts to tell Jo and Eric because if she did she wouldn’t hear the end of it. They’d believe that she just made it all up because she wasn’t over Brody.
She made herself comfortable on the plush sofa in the conservatory, a mug of tea warming her cold hands. The trees in her backyard were slowly shedding its leaves. The colours of fall were everywhere covering her in its warmth and glow. Some of the green leaves which had just turned slightly yellow clung fiercely to the branches only to be ripped away by the wind that whistled against the glass windows.
Juliana hadn’t wanted to accept the possibility that she had seen a ghost until the grove she had left disappeared. Jo and Eric hadn’t even missed her because it had only been five minutes since she left her friends when her time in the grove felt longer. She shivered into her thick woollen wrap drinking the brew, seeking some fortification.
Was the stranger someone whose life had been snuffed out unexpectedly? Was his limp the cause of his death? And the way he pleaded with her, it haunted her how desperate he sounded. She wasn’t the kind of person who wouldn’t help. God knew there were so many people in the world nowadays who just couldn’t be bothered.
But a ghost? A ghost who awakened sensations she thought had been buried with Brody?
She sighed in exasperation. Ghosts were supposed to be cold. They had no mass or matter. They were supposed to move on and not stay on the earthly plane. They were not supposed to make humans hot and needy with a hunger not even a rampant rabbit could assuage. And why the hell was she thinking erotic thoughts about a ghost?
“Oh damn it all!”
Juliana threw her wrap on the sofa and walked towards the entrance door. Grabbing a denim jacket hanging on the coat rack and her car keys from the foyer table, she left the house.
When she reached the park, it was deserted. The fair had long since finished. She was glad that she had taken a few days off from working as an heir hunter. Her passion for finding lost heirs and the stories of their ancestors fascinated her to no end. She always believed that the dead left clues for the ones they left behind. She had always hoped that Brody would someday make himself known to her, even if only in her dreams. But he never appeared.
Her thoughts turned to the ghost. Who was he? Why was he still here? Regardless of how the ghost made her feel, if she could find a way to help him move on, she would do it. She could only imagine what it was like being unable to do so. It probably felt like hell on earth.
The sun was close to four o’clock in the sky as Juliana walked towards the place where she had her ghostly encounter. Dried leaves crunched underfoot. When she arrived it was just a flat empty space. Juliana bit her lip, her shoulders hunched in a mixture of disappointment and relief. Turning to go back to her car, she caught sight of something glistening on the ground. She stopped to look making sure it wasn’t a figment of her imagination.
There it was again.
She approached, her feet moving forward in slow motion. Just then, the sunlight filtered through the trees. She saw the grove appear as though rising from a mirage. Juliana’s heart skipped before settling to a faster pace. As excitement and trepidation suffused her, she walked through the gap. This time, she was ready for the momentary loss of sound.
The grove looked the same as the last time, except that the stranger was already there, his back to her. He had his hands inside his pockets. His coat lay discarded on the stone bench beside him. His sleeves rolled up to his elbows showing muscled forearms.
Juliana’s hands itched, overwhelmed with a desire to caress his back, to feel the muscles underneath her hands. To trail her tongue all over his skin. To nip at his flat stomach. To taste him and pleasure him with her mouth. To hold on to him as he buried himself inside her.
She took a deep breath to quell her wayward thoughts. “Hi.”
He slowly turned. His eyes showed his pleasure. “You came back.”
“I almost didn’t,” Juliana admitted walking further inside. “This area was just an empty space until the sun streaked through the trees and I saw it. And this is bloody crazy.”
The stranger’s mouth quirked. “I gather women nowadays swear like soldiers.”
“Worse.” Juliana gave an answering grin before it disappeared. She let out a nervous laugh. “I must really be crazy or stupid or both to come back here. I mean you can be a lunatic or a figment of my imagination. Either way, I’m screwed.”
“Which do you believe?” He regarded her in a way that brought a frisson of arousal down her belly unsettling the butterflies nestling there.
“I don’t know.” With trembling fingers, Juliana tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “You look alive. Tangible, physical, real flesh and blood. You don’t look like a ghost. You don’t feel like a ghost. What happened last time I was here and you went through me…”
Juliana let out a sigh, her eyes rounding as she shook her head in disbelief before she continued.
“It was so surreal I just had to make sure I wasn’t going out of my mind,” she looked at him. “I am going out of my mind, am I not?”
He gave her a sad smile.
“Only you can answer that, Ms Stevens. Your name came to me when I passed through you.” he added hastily at her stunned look. “Juliana is a beautiful name.”
Juliana felt the colour rise to her cheeks.
“About that,” she cleared her throat. “How…?”
“I don’t know,” he took a step towards her and she took a step back. “I’m not going to hurt you but I have to say,” he briefly hesitated. “What happened between us was the first time I’ve felt alive again.”
Her heart skipped several beats causing her to part her lips to take small short breaths. The stranger’s sight zeroed on her mouth. Juliana felt warm, his attention deliciously heating her core. The attraction between them was palpable. His blue eyes darkened. She longed for another chance to feel him go through her. Her breasts felt heavy and longed for his hands to cup them. To tease them awake. But she couldn’t say what she wanted. Not yet.
“Stop,” she whispered. “Please.”
He halted before moving away, his hands clenching and unclenching. He turned to her with an apologetic smile. Silence stretched long between them until Juliana was able to get her racing heart to calm down.
“You know my name but I don’t know yours.” Juliana spoke her voice husky. “Why is that?”
“My name is Simon Lowe and I haven’t the foggiest why I was able to do that,” he muttered.
Something familiar about his name brought a light bulb flickering in her mind. She had read the name somewhere but couldn’t be sure.
“Well, Mr Lowe, how did you come to be here?”
“Simon. Please call me Simon.”
“Okay,” she paused. “Simon.”
He gave her the barest of smiles before he sat on the stone bench. He leaned forward, arms braced on his knees.
“I think I might have offended someone,” he said giving her a quick rueful grin. “If I am dead, I should have moved on but as you can see, I haven’t.”
“Madame Merta.” Juliana stated.
“Possibly. And it’s too late to make amends.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “It’s my fault really. I was an arrogant bastard then.”
“You’re somewhat the same now I think.�
�� Juliana mumbled.
Simon laughed, amusement crinkling his eyes. Juliana felt the blush heat up her cheeks.
“I didn’t mean…”
Simon raised his hand. “Dottie would probably have said the same thing. I think she would have liked you.”
The silence became more comfortable. Juliana sat on the stone bench closest to his, relaxed in the ghost’s presence. She suddenly thought of Brody.
“I wonder what it’s like for Brody,” she mused almost to herself, then looked at him. “Brody was my husband. I’m a widow.”
“I’m sorry.” Simon said, lifting his head to look at her. “How did he die?”
“He was part of the night patrol in Afghanistan. He got shot through the thigh cutting his femoral artery. By the time they got him to the base, he had lost too much blood. He died there.”
“I’m sorry.” Simon said.
“Thank you. It’s been five years and I’ve mourned for him all this time. Until you.”
“Me?” he raised his brows in surprise.
Juliana gave a small laugh. “Ironic, isn’t it? I forget my husband’s memory with the help of a ghost,” she paused before looking at his leg. “I noticed you limping.”
“Boer War.” Simon replied. “I returned to recuperate from my injury when I accompanied Dottie. My mind draws a blank every time I try to think of what happened next,” he exhaled, emitting a growl of frustration.
“Maybe I can help.” Juliana said before explaining what she did for a living. The more she told Simon, the more his face lit up before giving her a bemused smile.
“Why would you want to help me?” He asked, tilting his head to one side.
She shrugged. “The living mourns the dead. Time will close the wounds and leave a scar of memories. The dead? Why you can’t move on is beyond me but if I can find out anything about your family, maybe that can help you move forward.”
Darlings of Paranormal Romance (Anthology) Page 3