“No. Not at all.” She tapped her foot.
“If you say so.”
“Can I help you with something?” She stopped tapping with that foot and started with the other. I was really making her nervous.
“Oh, cold now?”
“No. I’m not being cold. But I’m working.”
“Maybe you were too distracted thinking about me visiting you at home, but I offered to help you first.” Seeing her for the first time in this crowded aisle wasn’t ideal, but I wasn’t going to waste the opportunity.
“You can’t help me with this. Someone is asking for a pristine condition Staunton chess set. You don’t see too many of those, but Harriet said she remembered seeing one.”
“You act like the name Staunton should mean something to me.” I wiped some dust off her cheek.
She flinched as if I’d burned her. Did she hate my touch that much?
“It does if you like chess.”
“I’m a fan of the game. That doesn’t mean I know the history.”
“Funny. You strike me as a man that likes to know history.”
“I know the history of what’s important to me.” I cupped her chin. She didn’t flinch this time. “I know our history.”
“Our history only goes back a few months.” She turned her head, trying to shake off my hand, but interestingly enough she didn’t push me away.
“Is that your way of complaining that I’ve stayed away too long?”
“No. Of course not.”
“You don’t have to pretend. You are allowed to want me.” I looked deep into her eyes. “I want you.”
“Who said I want you?”
“Do you remember our first kiss?” I sure as hell did. It had been hot. Intense. And I wanted another one. As soon as possible.
“Not in any specific detail.”
I laughed. “Oh. Is that so?” I released her chin before I did kiss her again. My restraint was wearing thin. All in good time.
“Yes.”
“Well, I remember it.” I unbuttoned my sports coat. It was getting hot. Gabriella had a knack for making me warm. “I remember your taste. Sweet yet salty. And I remember the way you arched into me, the way you moaned. The way you opened up to me, wanting more. Needing more.”
“Uh, well...” She stammered.
“Left you speechless, did I?” I grinned.
“Why are you here?”
“Why do you think I’m here?” I stared at her lips when she ran her teeth over the bottom one. “To see you.”
“To see me about anything in particular?” She put a hand to her chest.
“You really are full of so many questions aren’t you?”
“I’m working. I haven’t heard from you in months. I’m allowed to ask questions.”
“I was right. You are annoyed at me for waiting so long.”
“Come on. Tell me why you finally showed up.” She returned to tapping her foot. The right one again. That was clearly her nervous tick. I could think of worse ones.
“Let me tell you over dinner.”
“Dinner? You think you can show up here after all this time and I’d want to go to—”
“She wants to go.” The ghost from the front floated over. “And she told me you can talk to ghosts, too. I know you see and hear me, so don’t pretend.”
I chuckled. She had some gumption. I didn’t trust ghosts, but at least she was trying to help me out. “Then tell her to say yes. I get the whole playing hard to get thing, but it’s a little bit late for that.” She’d been very much interested at the ball.
Gabriella gritted her teeth. “Would you two stop chatting as if I’m not here?”
“Then agree to dinner.” It was a very simple answer.
“I don’t remember you being this infuriating.”
“Probably because you were focused on other things.” The ghost laughed. “I’m Stacy by the way.”
“A pleasure.” I figured she already knew my name. I had to assume Gabriella talked about me if she was aware she’d want to go for dinner.
“At least give me a clue as to what you want to talk about.”
Okay, I was making progress. We were heading toward a yes. “Some business. Some pleasure.”
“What business do you want me for?”
I wanted her for many things that had nothing to do with business, but unfortunately, I needed her for something business related. “I don’t see why I should even bother answering your questions. You follow up each one with another.”
“Fine.” She sighed. “I’ll go to dinner.”
She was trying to sound disappointed, but the widening of her eyes suggested something else entirely. “Eight o’clock. I’ll pick you up.”
“Wait? What night?”
“Tonight.” I wasn’t wasting any more time.
“Tonight? What makes you think I'm free?” She looked down. “I’m busy.”
“Yes. Working. But Harriet already said you could have it off. I talked to her.” We’d spoken at length before I came by.
“Of course you did.” She shook her head.
“I’m nothing if not efficient.”
“You are plenty of things other than efficient,” she mumbled.
“I am well aware. I’ll get you at eight.”
“Where are we eating?” She looked up.
“You need to know that now?”
“I need to know what to wear.”
“Do you really think you have to worry about that with me?” She’d look gorgeous in anything. And in nothing.
“I don’t love standing out more than I already do.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, babe, but you will always stand out. That comes with the territory of your gift.”
“Curse.” She maintained eye contact as if challenging me to disagree.
I would step up to that challenge. “Gift. I can’t believe you are back to that again.” I knelt down and pulled a box off the shelf. “By the way, isn’t this what you were looking for?”
She took the box. “Wait. I thought you didn’t know what I was talking about?”
I winked. “Who says I do? See you later, Gabriella. Nice to meet you, Stacy.” I headed back through the store. I wanted to do more than just say goodbye, but I couldn’t tip my hand. As much as I had pleasure on my mind, part of the reason for the dinner was indeed business. I hadn’t been making that up.
“I like the girl.” Harriet caught my arm as I slipped toward the door. “Be nice to her.”
“Would I ever be something other than nice?”
She narrowed her eyes. “You’re a demon.”
“So are you.” I pointed out the obvious. We weren’t completely the same, but we both shared that trait. “The difference is I don’t pretend to be something other than what I am.”
Her lips twisted into an unsettling smile—well, unsettling to anyone else. Nothing unsettled me. Aside from Gabriella. There was something about that girl that got under my skin. “I don’t pretend either, but sometimes it takes a while for someone to see another for who they truly are.” She could have been talking about humans and their propensity to act like chameleons, but in her case, she was talking more about what she was.
“Thanks for letting her off tonight. And speaking of nice, pay her anyway. She could use the money.”
“Worried about her finances now?” There was a twinkle in her eye.
“Is there a problem if I am?”
“No. Merely making a statement.”
“I have work to do.” I pushed open the door.
“It’s okay to have feelings for her.”
“I don’t need your permission.” I walked out into the chilly afternoon. Not that I was cold. I didn’t get cold.
I wasn’t lying, I did have work to do. I had a bar to run. I get how much of a cliché that is. The demon incubus who runs a bar? But really, there weren’t too many options for what I needed.
I pushed opened the heavy silver door to Appeal. The door
was new. There was nothing random about the choice of silver. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with vampires more than I had to. The name was also new. I tended to change it up based on the current trend. Before Appeal it was called O’Henry’s. Before that Glimmer. People tended to flock to what they viewed as new. As a bar owner it was my job to understand human nature.
“Where have you been, boss?” Greer looked up from the newspaper he was reading behind the massive concrete bar that spanned an entire wall of the space.
“Seeing to business.” I generally didn’t let my staff talk to me so informally, but I tended to give Greer a little longer leash. Plus, I wasn’t in the mood to reprimand anyone. Seeing Gabriella had put me in a good mood, albeit with quite a bit of frustration. There had been more than a few things I’d wanted to do with her in the darkened, cluttered aisle of the shop.
“It was the girl, huh?” Greer grinned.
I’d made a mistake telling him about Gabriella, but sometimes even an incubus needed to get things out and therapy was never my thing. “I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to say it.” He put his feet up on the bar top. One glare from me told him everything he needed to know. He quickly removed them.
“It was all business.”
“Yeah?” He leaned back on the far counter of the bar. Maybe my glare had gotten to him. “Got it.”
“What do you care?” I shouldn’t have even been humoring him, but I usually did a far better job hiding my interests and intentions.
“Because I’ve waited years to have something to give you a hard time about.”
“That’s your problem not mine.”
“Okay, all that aside, is she going to help you with business?”
“We will be discussing it tonight.” At least she’d agreed to dinner. I knew she wanted me as much as I wanted her, but she was stubborn when she wanted to be.
“Tonight, eh? She coming here?” He straightened back up to standing.
“No. I thought it prudent to keep that business separate.” I hadn’t mentioned my non-ghost business dealings with her yet. I wasn’t sure what she’d think, but that wasn’t why I didn’t want to bring her by. There was plenty of paranormal clientele I wanted to keep her away from. At least in the beginning.
“You’re taking her out to dinner.” He wasn’t asking a question.
“It’s a good public place to discuss things.”
“Because you want to discuss things publicly. Right.”
“I thought she might be more comfortable in a public place.” And I’d be forced to behave. I already knew the intensity of what flowed between us. We needed to talk business, and that wasn’t going to happen if we were completely alone.
“In other words, you know you can’t control yourself.” Sometimes Greer got too close for comfort.
“I have fantastic control.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“I’d watch myself if I were you.” Even a loyal man like Greer could find himself on thin ice.
“Or what? Going to get rid of me? Trust anyone else enough?”
“No one is irreplaceable.” No one. Not even me. I knew that with complete certainty.
“No. That is true. But some are harder to replace than others.”
“And what’s your point exactly?” My patience would run out eventually.
“My point?” He took down a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. “Do I have to have a point?”
“My guess is you do have one.”
“You need me around.” He filled both glasses and slid one across the bar top to me. “And part of that is because you know I won’t let you fuck things up too badly.”
“I can take care of that myself.” I took a large swig of the whiskey.
“Can you?” He sipped his whiskey. “Then tell me, Rexton. Why are you meeting the girl for dinner? If it’s business why not ask her back to your office? Offer her enough cash to get her to agree and you’re done. Why the charade of wining and dining her?”
“Wining and dining? I’m taking her to Pete’s.”
He chuckled. “Interesting choice for a date.”
“And as I have established, this is not a date. Not in the slightest.” I picked up my glass again. I turned the glass and studied the liquid.
“Okay. Interesting choice for business.”’
“It’s loud and casual. Checks all the boxes.”
“And there are burgers. That checks another of your boxes.”
“Don’t you have some work to be doing?” I took another long sip.
“In theory.”
“In a whole lot more than theory. I do pay your salary.”
“Yes, you do.” He set his glass down. “And about that.”
I glared at him. The games were fine for a while, but eventually everyone needs to be put in their place.
“Okay. I’ll get back to work. Enjoy your work meeting.” He went into the back, which was very wise.
I polished off my drink and headed into my office.
Gabriella
Dinner. I’d agreed to dinner. I was crazy. Completely and utterly crazy. But then again, did I have another choice? Yes. I’d had the choice. All it would have taken was one word. No. But that word was harder to muster than it should have been when it came to Rexton. How could a man I’d met once before have such an effect on me? Because he was no mere man. He was an incubus, and even though I was no expert on the paranormal, I knew that meant he could affect me. But it was more than that, and I knew it. And it was that part. The part of him that was mere man that I feared the most.
“Why are you making such an effort?” Ronny perched on the bathroom counter. The collar on his grey shirt was a little bit cockeyed. The way it always was.
I shook my head. Not for the first time, I wished Stacy was the ghost at home and Ronny was at work. I wasn’t a fan of any roommates, let alone a male ghost one. But I didn’t have to worry about him forgetting to put the seat up, or trying to get me committed for being crazy. “I’m not making that much of an effort.”
“You just put on eyeliner.” He pointed to my makeup bag. “You don’t wear eyeliner.”
“And remind me why this is any of your business?” I ran a brush through my hair, regretting my decision to skip blow drying it.
“I never said it was. But I was wondering why you cared so much. The guy left you hanging for months. He doesn’t deserve you putting in this effort.” He pulled his feet up as Bilbo and Fluffy walked into the small bathroom. It wasn’t like the cats could really touch him, so I didn’t see why he physically moved, but to each their own.
“And I love getting advice from a dead frat guy.”
“Come on. We’re friends, right?” He slipped his legs back down once the cats had come back out the way they came.
“Uh, friends may be pushing it.”
“We live together. That should count for something.”
“You are crashing at my place. Or haunting it. Whatever you want to call it. And I’m not going out with him for any romantic reasons. But he knows a whole lot more about my talking to ghosts thing. Maybe he can help me, and in turn, you.”
“And that’s why you are putting on eyeliner?” Ronny raised an eyebrow. “So he can tell you more about ghosts?”
“No. I’m putting on makeup for myself. Not him. I’d never do something like that for a guy.”
“Sure.”
“It’s true.” When you looked good you were more confident. At least that’s how I’d always felt. It was amazing what a pair of heels or the right jeans could do for your confidence if it was done for you and not someone else.
“We’d have never dated when I was alive, but that would have been my fault. You are the kind of girl I should have dated.”
“Oh. You dated the wrong kind?” I set my brush down. This was the first time he had opened up about this side of himself. My life was insane. Was I really asking a dead guy about his dating life?
“Yes. Always the wrong
kind.”
“Well, you were still pretty young when you died.” I’d researched him. His death. Everything I could find. Maybe that was a bit creepy, but I needed to know. He’d fallen from the balcony during a wild party. He’d died upon impact. At least that’s what the reports said. The lucky thing was I didn’t see the damage of death on a ghost. I didn’t see the blood, the bullet wounds, any of that. They looked normal to me. Too normal sometimes. More than a few times I’d made the mistake of talking to a ghost like they were a living person because they looked so real and alive.
“Close to your age.” He put his arms behind his head showing off his muscular arms. I wouldn’t have wanted to date him when he was alive—I wasn’t into frat guys—but it wasn’t from a lack of attractiveness.
“Well, I like to consider myself young.” Sometimes I felt too young, like I had too much life ahead of me.
“You are, but does your age preclude you from knowing what’s best for you?”
“Yes.” I didn’t really consider my answer until I spoke. “Yes, it does. Well, not completely. I just mean it’s normal to still make mistakes with that stuff.”
“A lot of people are married by their early twenties.”
“And a lot aren’t.” Statistically most weren’t.
“True dat.”
“True dat?” I chuckled. “That’s a new one for you.”
“I’m playing around a bit. Trying to vary my speech.”
“You’re a funny one.”
“Says the girl who can speak to ghosts.” He stuck out his tongue.
“And yet you are the ghost. So, I don’t think you can use that as an insult.”
“I never said that was an insult.”
“Fine. Does it look like I’m trying too hard?” I glanced in the mirror again.
“No, it doesn’t, but I know you are. He isn’t worth it.”
“I already told you I’m not doing this for any romantic reason.” Just because I wanted him didn’t mean I was going to let that happen. I had self-preservation after all.
“Oh, yes. You did tell me that.”
“So, stop worrying about whether he’s worth it, even though you just met him for a few minutes.”
“Which isn’t all that different from how long you knew the guy.”
Shadow Kiss: Ghostly Shadows Page 2