by Bonnie Dee
“What in the world are you doing?” he asked, amused.
The old woman jumped. “Oh, goodness! Oh, dear!” she said again. “I think I arrived in just the wrong…” As she spoke, she drew closer to him, peering hard into his face. “But then again… What’s your name, young man?”
“Sebastian,” he said dryly. “What’s yours?”
“Oh, that’s not important.”
“It might be to the guards when they arrest you for trespassing.”
“Arrest me?” The old woman looked stunned. “They can’t arrest me! Cinderella would never allow it!”
Sebastian frowned at her. He was sure he’d never seen her before. “Why? Who the devil are you?”
The old lady smiled—a singularly sweet if vague smile. “I’m your fairy godmother, of course.”
“Of course,” Sebastian sighed. He’d have one of the guards take the poor old thing home.
“Well, strictly speaking, not your fairy godmother, but I do like to help the unhappy—and you are unhappy, aren’t you, dear?”
“Not in the slightest,” said Sebastian, giving her the look that withered haughty noblemen.
“Nonsense, you drew me here like a bullet. No wonder I landed so abruptly. Dustbins indeed! Anyhow, now that I am here, what’s your problem?”
“I do not have a problem.” Apart from you.
He was already drawing his head back in, preparatory to summoning the guard, when she enquired, “Going to the ball?”
In spite of himself, Sebastian smiled sourly over his shoulder. “Organizing the damned ball.”
“So you’ll be there? Then perhaps I can grant you a wish.”
I wish you could.
“I did for Cinderella once, you know. At another ball. She met the prince, as he was then…” Her voice trailed off, unhappily. But Sebastian, against his better judgment, had turned to stare at her. The mad old trout actually brightened under his disbelief.
“Come on then,” she encouraged. “What would you like?”
Sebastian laughed. What I wish for, nobody can grant.
Rab’s dead, but he won’t lie down.
Requiem for Rab
© 2009 Marie Treanor
Lili’s luck is on the upswing. Her acting career is taking off, she’s home in Edinburgh to perform in a high profile Festival play, and romance is blossoming with her famous leading man. The last thing she wants or expects on her first night of passion in two years is her ex-husband looming over her new lover’s shoulder, dripping blood on her pristine sheets.
Rab, self-confessed hedonist and computer geek, has always been a joker, but surely even he wouldn’t go to this length to stop her getting laid—inventing a wild tale of being shot dead and having to track down his own body.
Then again, there’s no logical explanation for why she’s the only one who can see him. Why the police are knocking on her door. And why Rab is still the only man who drives her crazy, in bed and out.
All she knows is it’s all still there. The fun and the pain. The feelings that never really went away. She owes it to him to never stop looking—even though finding him could take him away for good…
Warning: Contains blood, swearing and hot, spiritual sex.
Enjoy the following excerpt from Requiem for Rab:
It seemed I’d only just fallen asleep, when I sprang back into wakefulness.
“Oh mama mia, mama mia,
Mama mia let me go!
Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me,
For me, for ME…!”
Queen.
In my living room. What the…?
Blindly, I stumbled out of bed, pushed open the bedroom door and blinked in the lamplight.
“So you think you can love me and spit in my eye?
So you think you can love me and leave to die?”
It was like a time warp.
Rab sat at the old desk, hunched over a computer, singing along to loud rock music, his gaze glued to the screen while his hand flew across keys and manipulated the mouse at the speed of light. How many times over the years had I discovered him like this, at all hours of the day and night?
The only difference was the absence of his big tower computer. He was using my laptop.
At least I knew what to do. Crossing the room, I turned down the stereo to don’t-force-the-neighbours-to-call-the-police volume, and went to stand beside him.
Quite naturally, his arm came out and drew me to his side. He didn’t look up from the screen, but he did stop singing. Which was a relief to all.
“What are you doing?” I asked, still suffering from a weird sense of déjà vu.
“Looking up mediums,” was the unexpected answer. His hand moved on my waist, absently caressing. Little sparks of pleasure ran up to my breasts and down to my stomach.
“Mediums?”
He shrugged. “Makes sense. If I can get through to one of them, maybe she’d be able to track down my body.”
“Why can’t you track it down?”
“No idea. One article here was wittering about the dead body repelling the spirit. Suppose it would.”
He glanced up at me, still half-absorbed in his research, but almost at once, his eyes cleared and softened. He drew me onto his lap and held me loosely in both arms.
“There’s one in Morningside. She looks the genuine article.”
I glanced at the screen. A plump middle-aged lady gazed back at me. She had short, grey hair, dangling earrings and a no-nonsense smile. Above her, a plain banner proclaimed, “Rose Colvin, Medium”. So far as I could tell, there were none of the obvious clichéd images on her site. She might have been advertising a cleaning service.
Against the curve of my bottom, I could feel Rab’s erection growing. Excitement warred with disbelief. How did ghosts get erections? I twisted round to face him. “Will you go and check her out?”
“Yes…” His eyes darkened. His arms tightened, and I felt his hand slide up from my waist along the side of my breast. “Tomorrow,” he breathed.
I swallowed, unmoving as his hand roamed back and around, touching the sensitive underside of my breast, brushing the nipple that reached out to him without permission.
“Tonight, I wish…”
“You wish what?” I managed.
“I wish…” His gaze roved over my unbuttoned nightshirt, came back up to my face, unsmiling. “I wish we could make it right.” He touched my cheeks, my lips, with the sensitive tips of his fingers. “I wish we could wash away all the crap and just leave the one thing that matters.”
“Death,” I whispered.
His lips quirked. “Love.” He brought my face nearer and fastened his mouth on mine.
It wasn’t like the last time, in the street outside the theatre. This was a ravenous kiss, consuming me from the outset. He attacked my mouth with lips and tongue and teeth, taking fierce possession, and the fire surged from him straight through me.
I gasped into his mouth. “And when you’re gone?”
“Then you’ll have it to remember as you get on with your life. And we’ll both know that for this night, at least, we loved each other. And Lil…”
“What?” I gasped as he dragged my nightshirt over my head and threw it over his shoulder.
“I loved you every night. And day. The ones in the pub as well as the ones at home. The ones on computer games and the ones pissed in our bed or on somebody else’s floor. The ones I fucked you, and all the ones since you left me. I never stopped and I never will.”
“Oh, Rab, don’t make me cry,” I choked.
He seized my mouth in his, cupping my breast and kneading, groaning deep in his throat. “Can I make you come?”
“Can ghosts have sex?”
“This one bloody can.”
Laughter caught in my throat, feeding the frantic lust. “Then do you fancy a shag?”
He left my mouth, smiling, to kiss my breast instead. “I thought you’d never ask.”
His lips brushed my nipple, pulled at it
while his tongue flicked over it wickedly. Moaning, I arched up into his mouth. I felt his teeth grazing my nipple, teasing. His hands were busy on his zip.
He lifted me by the waist and I watched with blatant desire as his cock sprang up between our bodies. God, I’d missed that… Big, blue-veined, purple headed and thick. Watching my face, he began to lower me onto it.
I gasped at the shooting pangs of delight as its blunt head probed among my folds. It brushed against my clitoris, found my soaking entrance which already throbbed uncontrollably as if trying to draw him in. Then he pushed up into my body and I cried out in shock and delight.
“Oh, fuck, I love being dead,” he whispered.
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