I don’t know why I did it. It was his hips in those tight pants, or the way his shoulders looked so strong under his shirt, or maybe it was the way lust burned in his eyes, no different than a living man.
I tiptoed and captured his lips.
Chapter Thirteen
My world burst into flames.
Every man I’d kissed until that point had been child’s play. My high school sweetheart, the frat guy I’d dated throughout college, and all the one night wonders in between. Nothing had prepared me for the way my body would react to Ian.
What Ian did to me with one kiss, one hand pressed into the curve of my back, Alan could never have hoped to do with his entire body.
For a dead guy from the eighteen hundreds, Ian knew how to use his lips and his tongue for maximum heat. I yielded to him, completely unexpected. I’d thought just to kiss him and prove he was no different than a living man; I hadn’t considered the fact that I was a hot-blooded living woman, and the way his chest felt under my palms made me ache to touch his skin.
Ian finally pulled away, but not before I felt evidence of his desire, something that no ghost should have been able to do.
We stood gazing at each other for a long time, both of us surprised at the intensity of our kiss. His breathing had ratcheted the same as mine.
“Miss Kane. That was too forward of me. I apologize.”
I burst out laughing. “Drop the nineteenth century bullshit, Ian. I was the one who kissed you, and you know full well you want to do it again. And more.”
He smoothed his palms over my back, gently adjusting the hem of my tank top. “It has simply been a very long while since I had companionship.”
It hadn’t for me, but that made not a lick of difference. As far as I was concerned, Alan was over after what I’d just experienced with a ghost. If the passion was ten times stronger with a dead guy, what the hell was I still doing with a pot-smoking waiter who could barely hold a job?
“It will not happen again, Miss — ”
“Ian,” I murmured, closing the distance between us and grabbing his shirt in both my hands. “Shut up and kiss me.”
Time passed as we leaned against the wall, tasting each other; touching each other. Our tongues danced as Ian’s hands moved under my shirt, making pathways over my bare skin, his breath on my lips and his hips moving against me.
I was burning from the inside out, delirious with lust. Ian moved away from my lips, trailing fire down my neck. He slid my tank top strap down my arm, his lips on my bare shoulder.
I groaned, cupping the back of his head as his tongue swirled on sensitive skin near my collarbone. I felt like an observer outside of myself, watching as Ian kissed his way to my lips, his hand drifting over the curve of my breast. I felt his touch deep inside me.
I couldn’t believe the words were coming from me. It seemed surreal, like a movie in black and white. A whooshing sound in my ears, my skin on fire. “I want you.”
Ian stilled briefly, his breath ragged. “Dear God in heaven,” he murmured, then deepened his kiss, adjusting his stance so that his erection pressed between my legs.
This couldn’t be happening. First of all — I was making out with a ghost. Secondly, I was actually entertaining the thought of removing my pants and taking him right there on the attic floor. Both ideas were insanity. Where on earth was my head?
But then the flashlight — perched on a chest of drawers beside us — winked off, plunging the attic into full darkness.
The temperature plummeted as Ian broke our kiss. “It’s here.”
The cold returned me to my body, breaking the lust stupor I’d been under since the moment we first kissed.
“It used us,” Ian said, straightening my shirt.
“What?” I said that a lot around him.
I couldn’t see him as he moved away from me, but I could tell he was on guard. “It’s powerful. Do you feel it?”
My heart was beating in my ears. I closed my eyes and reached with my senses, searching for the ghost energy in the house. It flowed over me, a river of power.
I opened my eyes, but the darkness was so absolute nothing changed in my vision. “It used our desire to strengthen itself. We weren’t acting completely under our own free will.”
“Correct.” His footsteps were further away.
The impact came from my left. I heard Ian’s startled yell, but not fast enough to dodge it. I hit the ground face first, not quick enough to catch my fall with more than one hand. My forehead thunked on the hardwood floor, and for the second time in twenty-four hours, I saw stars.
I wasn’t entirely cognizant of what happened next. It was pitch black, so I couldn’t see, but I felt the bulk of the entity. It was huge and definitely not human. It was also the source of danger and anger I’d felt on and off inside Horeland Estate. The concentration of madness hung above me, stifling.
Ian grunted, and a scuffle ensued. I was reminded of the sounds of a struggle at the Albert Street house, and the way my voice recorder had sailed from the attic right into my hands.
And Ian’s caress in my sister’s office the day before.
He’d been following me since that moment, I realized. Because I looked like his lost wife. And the entity had just muddled everything by amplifying our latent attraction to each other. We’d almost had sex! I’d heard about sex complicating things, but this was ridiculous.
My head was still spinning when the air warmed and the flashlight popped back to life.
“Boston!” Ian kneeled at my side, his hands running over me as he checked for injuries. “How do you feel?”
“Dizzy,” I grunted. “Is it gone?”
Ian’s jaw clenched. In the pale glow of the flashlight, he looked fierce. “For now, it has fled. It’s stronger.”
“That’s ridiculous. My sister and her husband are disgusting with their PDA, so surely they fuck like rabbits. Why did it take you and me to give it strength?”
Ian stared at me a moment, maybe surprised by the F-word, then slid an arm beneath my shoulders as he helped me sit up. “I do not know, Boston.”
It was at that moment I realized brilliant red blood was trickling down his face.
“You’re bleeding!” I gasped, jerking away from him in shock. Dizziness washed over me, and I threw a hand out to stabilize myself.
Ian touched his face and pulled his fingertips away, red with blood. His eyes widened. “I am. I’m bleeding.”
“I just said that!” I shoved the heels of my hands into my eyes, trying to quell the pounding headache. “Ghosts don’t bleed. Even Earthbounds. You’re dead!”
“I did not feel so ‘dead’ ten minutes ago,” Ian replied, the timbre of his voice digging low inside me.
I remembered the feeling of his body against mine, the heat of his lips and the fire of his touch. I shivered, even as my head swam. “You didn’t feel so ‘dead’ on my end either.”
I thought he was going to kiss me again. I wanted him to kiss me again, even knowing part of the feeling came from the entity’s quest for greater power. But from somewhere at my side, my radio crackled to life and my best friend’s voice crossed the airwaves.
“Boss? Where are you?”
I’d completely forgotten about Vespers and Trevor.
I moved my arm in an arc, looking for the radio. The movement reinforced my dizziness, and I swayed, falling into Ian’s arms.
“Here.” Ian pressed the radio into my hand. “Have them come get you. I believe your mind is addled.”
“In modern terms, I have a concussion,” I replied, pressing the button and calling for my team.
Chapter Fourteen
One hundred dollars later, I checked out okay at the hospital.
“I’d like to point out that was a hundred bucks I did not have,” I grumped as we left Tory Medical, Trevor and Vespers on either side of me as if I were some kind of invalid.
“You know if you call your dad he’d give you money,” Vespers said. “Or Madi
son, even.”
“I am not asking my bratty older sister for money,” I said with a vehement shake of my head. The can of worms that would open up. Geesh.
“She’s gotta pay us for the investigation, right?” Trevor pointed out, snatching my keys from my hand.
“Hey!”
“You’re incredibly hard headed,” Vespers said, my arm in a death grip as she opened the back door on my Jeep and forced me inside.
“I’m perfectly capable of driving,” I said, crossing my arms.
Trevor turned over the engine and shook his head. “You’re concussed.”
“I’m not concussed. The doctor said so.”
“The doctor said for you to take it easy. So shut up and let Trevor drive.” Vespers grinned at me. “I like bossing you around. Can you hit your head more often?”
I punched her in the arm.
“Also, you’re not allowed to be such a safety nancy anymore,” Vespers went on, settling back against the passenger seat. “You break your own rules and get hurt. ‘No one investigates attics or basements alone.’ What kind of example are you setting?”
I groaned, splaying across the seat. “Wake me when we get there.”
They deposited me at home as dawn was breaking, going so far as to walk me into the building and up to my apartment on the third floor.
“You have a note,” Vespers said, ripping the taped notebook sheet off my door.
“What was your first clue?” I griped, tearing it out of her hands.
A short line from Bernie — Gladys making meatloaf. See you at seven.
“My neighbor is a crazy cat lady who gives me the stink eye every time we pass each other,” Vespers said with a sigh. “How’d you get so lucky?”
“I put up with Madison in the same house for twenty years.”
“Your sister isn’t that bad.” Trevor unlocked the door, then passed me the key ring. “She’s cool.”
“What, you got a crush on Madison now?” Vespers shot back.
I may have been semi-concussed, but I could see the jealousy simmering in her chocolate eyes. Trevor, being a guy, probably couldn’t, given his response.
He shrugged. “She’s hot. But she’s smart.”
“She is that,” I agreed. Contrary to her appearance, and the fact she was now a stay-at-home wife, my sister had graduated valedictorian at our high school, and then graduated with high honors from the University of Georgia.
Vespers aimed her best glare at Trevor, then turned her back on him.
“Call me if you need me,” she said, giving me a little shove through the doorway. “Take some aspirin, go to sleep. And we’re not doing anything tonight.”
“We need to go back — ”
She cut me off. “No. We don’t. Not until you rest up. Nothing has hurt your sister up till now, so I think she’ll be alright.”
I’d briefly filled them in on the dark entity in the attic while we’d waited for the doctor, though not before they’d both tarred and feathered me for going up alone. It had taken some wheedling, but I’d managed to convince them we needed to find a way to get rid of the entity before Madison or her husband got hurt.
I closed and locked the door behind my friends, thankful for the quiet of my home.
Until Sherrie rounded the corner and screeched, “Oh dear, what happened?”
Her ice-cold hands ran over my face, and she clutched my chin, turning my face so she could get a better look at the goose egg on my forehead. Her eyes disappeared from the effort of touching me. Creepy.
And also, why? Why could Ian do everything a person could, and never lose his appearance?
I sighed, pushing past Sherrie and her black hole eyes as I headed for the kitchen. “I’m fine.”
“If you have to tell me ‘I’m fine’, then something most certainly did happen!” Sherrie’s voice had reached unnatural decibels.
I paused, turning to face her as she came to a stop behind me. Her hands had been so cold on my face. “Give me your hand.”
Sherrie raised a blonde brow. Her blue eyes were back, thank God. “Why?”
I shook my fist at her. “Just do it.”
I didn’t touch Sherrie often, not even by accident. Her skin was like ice, as if it’d been in cold water for hours. Even though she didn’t look insubstantial, she felt it — her form had little texture and substance, seemingly fluid beneath my fingertips. Even as we touched, for a brief instant, her face wavered out of focus.
“Does it take a lot of energy to do this?” I asked, lifting her hand in mine. “To manifest?”
Sherrie considered my question, her pearl white teeth clamping thoughtfully into her bottom lip. “It isn’t so easy, I suppose. I have to will it. When you’re not here, I don’t bother.”
“There’s an Earthbound at Horeland,” I told her, letting go of her hand and continuing into the kitchen.
“You seem to be finding many of those lately.”
“Too many,” I agreed, pulling a pot pie from the freezer. “More than usual. I always assumed Earthbounds were rare. But that’s not even the weird part.”
As I prepared the pot pie, I gave Sherrie a quick rundown of my night at Horeland, from the dark energy, to meeting Ian, and ending with our run-in with the creature. I left out the fact we’d made out like two horny teenagers. Sherrie was too much a mother figure for me to share that little nugget of info.
My roommate latched on to the part that was most disturbing.
“He bled?” Sherrie asked, aghast. “But Boston, that is impossible.”
“Is it?”
To prove her point, Sherrie grabbed a steak knife from the holder and stuck it through her hand. I didn’t even have time to cry out.
My stomach turned. “God, Sherrie. I hate when you do that.”
She yanked the blade out and flashed me her palm. No cut, no blood. Just smooth skin.
“I know!” I wailed, throwing myself on the counter, my legs dangling over the tiled floor like a child throwing a tantrum. “Ghosts can’t bleed. But I swear to you, he did. And I can’t feel him the way I can most ghosts.” I propped myself up on my elbows. “I can always feel you. Whenever I walk in the door, I know where you are and I know how you’re feeling. But this guy… I don’t always sense him. Why is that?”
Sherrie shook her head. “I don’t know, dear.”
Sherrie settled above the couch to watch the morning news, and I sat down with my finished pot pie at the kitchen counter. As the television droned in the background, I powered up my laptop and navigated to Google. People had googled stranger things, I was sure, but even so, as I typed “Can ghosts bleed” into the search bar, I shook my head.
I paged through several articles on ectoplasm and references to the Ghostbusters movies. Video game cheats and speculation on the paranormal. I’d finished my pot pie and made it nearly fifteen pages into my search results when I finally came across something relevant to my search terms.
It was a blog post dated three years before on a Wordpress site called “Arimea’s Gift.” In the corner, a beautiful African-American woman smiled sweetly in a professional photograph, the kind you only see for high school portraits or engagement photos.
The title was “Ghosts can bleed, and I’ll tell you why.”
Pay dirt.
I’ve made it no secret on this blog that I have the gift of seeing spirits. But something I haven’t really gone into is the reason why I think I can.
I didn’t even have a theory until last year. I thought maybe I was just one of many with this special psychic gift. But I’ve since found out that after you wade through the schizophrenics and the scam artists, there are few of us out there with this particular ability.
I have this gift because I’m dead.
I paused, and had to read the line twice before I comprehended exactly what Arimea was saying. Then I laughed.
Maybe this wasn’t pay dirt after all, but I was already hooked, so I kept reading.
I know. That so
unds mad, right? I breathe, I eat, I bleed, just like any other person in the world.
But that’s the rub. I’m not a person. I’m an Earthbound.
I can see and speak to ghosts because I AM ONE.
I read that line twice, too.
I didn’t remember my death, like most ghosts. Something happened to dredge up those memories, and I remembered the seizure and the black that came after. Then I opened my eyes and sat up, leaving my body behind.
Nobody knows. My mother, my sister, my friends and coworkers. I’m even married. He is an Earthbound, as well. We were drawn together because of the depth of our emotions for one another. My husband and I have been unable to conceive. Of course — I’m a fucking ghost.
Because ghosts can bleed. They can live again. They can eat and drink and make love. You wanna know why?
BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT GHOSTS LIKE WE THINK THEY ARE.
When we die, we don’t disappear. We don’t magically float to heaven or hell to eternal paradise or damnation. When we die, we shed the earthly shell and begin a new existence. Those with the strongest souls, the greatest characters, those are the ones who become Earthbounds — able to interact and live among living beings as if we were one of them. Those with the weakest characters become Shades, simple, ethereal spirits that will eventually be chosen for rebirth, to give them a chance to strive for a stronger character and an Earthbound existence.
All spirits, Shades and Earthbounds, can sense each other and interact with each other. This is the origin of our “gift.” We feed off of the power each other brings to the fold. When I am with my husband, we are both stronger, more life-like.
But the same is not true for a living person interacting with an Earthbound or spirit. A living person will only see an Earthbound as yet another person; they will not sense them innately or know their emotions.
This is the truth as I know it.
I sat back in my chair, remembering Ian’s signature so faint at Horeland. The way we came together: driven by the dark entity, sure, but it was more than that. The entity took our already burgeoning emotions and made them stronger.
I thought of Ian’s sure hands on my body, and the way I melted on his lips. I thought of the way he could pop in and out of existence, and his skin was still so solid and warm. Ian was confident and dependable. Strong and independent.
His Haunting Kiss Page 8