Return To Me

by LAYLE Madison

  “Ahh, ma cher,” she murmured as her cool touch popped the rest of the buttons from his pants in rapid succession, and her mouth clamped over his.

  He grabbed her shoulders and tried to push her away, but she was like a vine clinging to him, her hands everywhere at once, it seemed. In his hair, running over his chest, wrapping around his cock that had gone hard the instant she touched him. Her tongue was cool, yet…yet, with a low current of electrical power that singed his blood and made his lungs constrict. Lust shot through him, nearly blinding him with its intensity. He closed his eyes, a failed attempt to fight against her power.

  “Feel it, cher?” she asked as she moved down his body. Her hands, her mouth, touched his chest; his nipples tightened at the cool contact. “Feel what we have together? Feel what we have always had, even though we’ve been apart so long?” His muscles clenched, and he tried once again to push her away, but he couldn’t. The sensations were too powerful, too intense. He didn’t want them to end.

  “Arghh.”

  Her mouth closed around his cock, and he could do nothing but thrust his hips forward in silent demand for more. There was no wet heat of a flesh and blood mouth, but he felt the suck and pull of her luscious lips, the swirling pleasure of her active tongue. And he felt as if a low voltage electrical wire ran through his body from forehead to toes.

  You feel it, don’t you? she said, but didn’t say, because her mouth was busy on his cock. Still, her words were loud and clear in his mind. That pleasure I can give you. I want to touch you...kiss you all over until you climax—hard.

  Oh, God! Her telepathic murmurings made him bury his hands in her hair and pump himself deeper into her mouth. He had no control over his own motions. All he knew was he had to come, or he would surely die.

  Yes... Yes, my love! She was panting as hard as he was, though why he couldn’t fathom. He opened his eyes and stared. She was glowing. Bright as a fluorescent lamp. He couldn’t make out her form, not like the previous night when she’d appeared before him, but her body was tactile, and he could feel each strand of her long hair between his fingers. She got brighter, and he squinted against the intensity of the light even as he thrust into her mouth.

  He’d never seen anything more beautiful. She was blindingly white, but he knew from seeing her features last night that she wasn’t wholly white at all, or hadn’t been when she lived. Her lush lips and every word she uttered in that sultry, bayou accent was pure Creole.

  Je t’aime, Travis, her mind cried into his. I love you!

  His release swamped him, yanked a deep guttural groan from his body and, even as he threw back his head and came, he felt her love pouring into him, binding his heart, making him part of her.

  Pop! Pop! Lights flared, and bulbs exploded.

  Crash!

  A woman screamed somewhere in the house.

  Travis collapsed against the wall, his legs unable to hold him up in the aftermath of the strongest orgasm he’d ever experienced. He slid to the floor and sucked in huge gulps of air.

  “Oh no!” he heard Dominique say, a distraught whine, then there was another little pop, and her glowing form vanished.

  Chapter Six

  He’d been granted a reprieve. The scream he’d heard had been Susan who, along with her husband, had been spooked by the multiple light bulb explosions scattered throughout the house. David had hollered down the hall to ensure he was all right, and then made excuses for getting him and his wife out of there.

  Their quick departure was more than welcome, because he had no way to fabricate a feasible explanation for how he’d managed to lose every button on his shirt and jeans.

  While he re-dressed, he thought of what had just happened. He couldn’t close his eyes without reliving each moment. Her illuminating presence, her intoxicating touch, and...those words she’d said in that alluring voice.

  Her words had penetrated his brain as deeply as her electric touch had affected his body. She’d inundated him with the most intense sexual sensations he’d ever experienced in his life, but the most disturbing part—aside from the fact that he’d technically screwed thin air—was the feelings she engendered with her love.

  Her emotions were whole, tangible. Something he could touch—something that had touched him. A reality he hadn’t thought possible before today.

  I love you. That’s what she’d said, but it wasn’t Thomas St. Maurice’s name she cried out with that declaration. It was his own.

  He squinted as he stepped outside into the sunlight and descended the front staircase.

  He’d thought her fooled into thinking other men who crossed the threshold were her long-lost husband. She had fondled those construction workers, and he hadn’t been in the house ten minutes before she’d started in on him...calling him Thomas. It had to have been a case of mistaken identity.

  Or so he’d thought. Now, however, she’d called him by his own name, professed her love to him, and given him the best blow job this side of heaven. Did that mean she truly loved him? Or was she a succubus, capable of ensnaring a mortal man in a web of erotic need from which there was no escape? Would he become so enraptured of her that he’d forget he had a life to live in this world? He snorted at his own thoughts. Not likely. No matter how good the orgasm had been, he wasn’t some weak-willed man who would become blind to the fact that she was dead.

  He made his way around the side of the house, past the old bell tower—minus the bell—and beyond the row of rundown slave shacks that had obviously seen better days.

  He had to find out more about Thomas’ life and death if he ever hoped to discover the key to sending Dominique to the Other Side. And he had to do it soon, before he lost his sanity or heart to a woman who didn’t exist in his realm of reality.

  It didn’t take long for him to find the family cemetery, since a small wrought iron fence surrounded the weed-infested graves. Some of the headstones had crumbled and were impossible to read, but he squatted down and brushed away enough fallen leaves to make out the engravings on a few, including the one with Thomas’ name.

  “Thomas St. Maurice, 1823-1859,” he read aloud. “You weren’t much younger than me, were you?” Glancing at the next headstone, he saw the name of a female named Abigail St. Maurice, and only the year 1853. “Did you lose a baby sister?”

  “She was his wife,” Dominique said from over Travis’ left shoulder.

  He should’ve been surprised, but somehow he wasn’t. He didn’t even jolt from his crouched position. It seemed only right that her spirit would make its presence known here, so close to where Thomas’ remains now lay, but then again... Did she just say...?

  “His wife? I thought you—“

  “Non. That was never to be, though I wanted it with all my heart.”

  Dominique couldn’t hide the sadness in her voice, though she tried to at least keep it steady, which was always harder to do here, so close to the final resting place of her beloved Thomas.

  “You were his mistress.”

  She shook her head, only to realize that was useless in her invisibility under the bright morning sun. “Non. I was his belle...his sweetheart and lover, but only after she passed on. He was faithful to her and deeply mourned her passing.” She moved to stand beside Travis. “They had a child together, a son named Evan, who is buried there.”

  She pointed even though she knew he couldn’t see her, and still her voice led him to the right marker. It, too, bore the engraving 1853.

  “An accident?” His voice had softened to a mere whisper that was thick with emotion.

  “La fièvre jaune.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”

  “Yellow fever.”

  “Oh.”

  “They’d tried for years to have a child, had all but given up hope of having one when she became en famille. Oh, he was a beautiful bébé. Miss Abigail was so elated, and Thomas... A prouder father didn’t exist. But then, the yellow fever came, I think, with visitors up from New Orleans who st
opped at the ferry landing. Don’t really matter how it came to be here, though. It did and, when it was over, Miss Abigail and—”

  Travis stood and abruptly walked away.

  His move surprised her enough that he’d made it around the corner of the house before she caught up to him. He rubbed his arm when she floated near, so she knew he sensed her presence, but he didn’t stop. His long strides didn’t falter as he made his way to his conveyance. Pulling a set of keys from his pocket, he squeezed them in his fist, and she heard something click, like the sound of a lock disengaging.

  When he pulled open the door, panic threatened to zap her energy. She struggled to keep her voice calm. “You’re leaving?”

  “Yes. I have to go—“

  “You can’t leave Beau Vista.” You can’t leave me, her mind cried out, although she didn’t give voice to the thought.

  “That’s where you’re wrong. You can’t leave Beau Vista. I, on the other hand, can go anywhere I like.” He got in and shut the door.

  Oh, the man was too arrogant by half. If she’d ever toyed with the idea that he wasn’t descended from southern, aristocratic landowners, she didn’t anymore. She wanted to scream and rant at him, but losing control now would do her no good, and only make matters worse. If she vanished now, she’d never be able to stop him.

  “M’oule vini avec toi.” The desperate words came out before she could prevent them.

  He paused, hands gripping a wheel in front of him, and his eyes turned toward her. She knew he couldn’t see her, but his gaze had found her nonetheless.

  “Excuse me?” he asked from the other side of the window.

  I want to go with you. She wanted to repeat her words, but something deep inside kept her from sharing her need to be with him, from telling him what she’d really said. Instead, she warned, “If you leave, I swear I’ll haunt you, Travis Moreland. Wherever you go, I’ll haunt you.”

  “I guess that’s a chance I’ll have to take.” He looked away and started the vehicle.

  She slapped a hand on the glass and was materialized enough to make a sound, but that didn’t stop him.

  He had to call her bluff, Travis thought as he ignored her pique and backed the car up. He stopped only long enough to shift into drive, and then pulled out of the gravel driveway.

  Though he was open-minded enough to admit that anything was possible, he still doubted she’d be capable of fulfilling her threat. In all his years dealing with paranormal phenomenon, he’d never once heard of any earthbound poltergeists capable of leaving the general vicinity of their deaths.

  Regardless of her assumption, he wasn’t leaving for good; he was headed to the library at the university in Natchitoches, and maybe he’d pick up some food and a change of clothes. He just hadn’t felt the need to inform her otherwise. He didn’t answer to ghosts, especially one who threatened to haunt him if she didn’t get her way.

  Besides, he needed to get away for a while. Clear his head. After hearing about the tragedy in Thomas’ family—circumstances that struck too close to home for his peace of mind—he had to leave.

  Like Thomas, he’d lost a wife and child, although his babe had never been born. Christine had been coming from the doctor’s office, where she’d just learned the good news about their child growing in her womb, when the accident happened not five miles from their home.

  His grip tightened on the steering wheel until his fingers ached.

  A fever hadn’t taken his wife. A flash flood had. The road had been washed out, the waters not yet receded when—he believed—in her excitement to get home, she made the fatal decision to drive across it.

  He felt chilled and checked the air conditioner settings. He realized belatedly that he hadn’t turned the AC on when Dominique’s sudden laughter made him jerk and damn near crash the car.

  “This is so incredible!” Her excited giggles filled the car’s interior.

  After regaining control of the swerving vehicle, he slammed his foot on the break, and the car skidded to a stop on the gravel shoulder of the road. He threw it into neutral and yanked the parking break.

  “What the hell—“

  “I told you I’d haunt you.”

  “You can’t—“

  “Indeed I can. I’m here, aren’t I?”

  He couldn’t see her, but knew by her rather smug voice and the chill in the air that she sat in the passenger seat. He faced forward, gaze steady and unmoving from the flat stretch of road ahead. His fingers curled around the wheel, his knuckles white.

  Now what?

  She had to be a succubus instead of an earthbound ghost. How else could she be free of the bonds that typically hold a poltergeist to its place of final mortal moments?

  “What are all these?” she asked.

  Air blasted him from the vents. A radio dial pushed in, and loud music blared from the speakers.

  “Magnifique!” Her laughter mingled with the raucous melody.

  A turn of the knob and the volume increased too much.

  “Hey, stop that!” He punched buttons, shutting everything off.

  He was coming back to the plantation, but she didn’t know that. He doubted she’d believe him and get out if he now said he planned to return.

  “Tell me again, what do they call these horseless carriages?”

  She pressed a button on her door, the window opened, and she squealed with renewed excitement. Up and down the window went.

  “Cars...” He pushed the control on his door for her window until it closed, and then locked it. “Automobiles, vehicles. They’re called lots of things.” The button on her door moved down and up several times.

  “Oh... What happened? Did I break it?”

  He found himself smiling at the innocence and concern in her voice. When he responded, his own tone was softer. “No. I locked it. You didn’t harm the car.”

  A pause. Then... “Oh. Bon. I wouldn’t want to break anything of yours.”

  An inexplicable pain throbbed in his chest, and he wished he could see her face.

  “Mo chagren, Travis...truly sorry. It’s just... I’ve never been inside one of these before.”

  He chuckled. “So, I see. But it would look pretty strange with the window going up and down as I drove down the road.” He waited, but she said nothing. With a defeated sigh, he put the car back in gear and pulled into the lane. “Well, you’re here now, and I still have to run errands, so you might as well go with me.”

  “Bon! Merci beaucoup.” She giggled with renewed excitement.

  “But then it’s back to the plantation. And please, ask before you touch anything, okay?”

  Chapter Seven

  Ignoring a ghost who hadn’t been off the farm in more than a century was an impossibility of monstrous proportions. So far he’d received odd looks from at least a dozen people at the grocery store, the clothing store, and now the library.

  It didn’t help that apparently no one but him could hear her. And everyone could hear him.

  “Shh,” the librarian said with a finger over her lips.

  He tried to look contrite rather than irritated at being shushed like a disobedient child, and went back to his task.

  “What’s that?” He felt the cool brush of her arm against his as she reached past him to touch the projector he was using to view microfilm.

  “Don’t touch that,” he whispered and added for the umpteenth time, “Behave.”

  She huffed right by his ear. He didn’t need to see her; he could envision the pout. But she moved away, and the air around him warmed in her absence.

  He concentrated on the old newspaper articles scrolling across the screen and tried to not dwell on how suddenly he missed her cool presence when she wasn’t by his side. He finished the reel he had, and had just placed another in the projector, when he heard her return.

  “Is there nothing here in French?” A book floated up beside him, the paper making a soft rattle as she flipped through the pages.

  “Shit!” h
e hissed at maximum shock volume and reached for the book.

  Too late.

  His curse startled Dominique who proceeded to drop the tome from a height of about three feet. The boom was impressive, and totally embarrassing.

  “Sorry,” he muttered to the librarian. Her frown remained, topped off with an effective glare of reproach. He retrieved the book and, duly chastised, went back to his perusal of the microfilm.