Dead People

by Edie Ramer

  “Should I be flattered you prefer me to death?” He stood like a fighter, his head down, his legs braced.

  “I don’t have to stay here to live. I can hop in my car and drive away.”

  “You can’t leave,” he said quickly. “You don’t have your strength back.”

  Was that dismay flickering across his face?

  Something fluttered inside her. Tiny and fragile, like butterfly wings.

  Hope?

  Oh God, she was pathetic. She was the one who didn’t want a relationship. He was willing.

  Laughter exploded in her mind. Of course he was willing. She was a woman around the right age and with the right equipment. Between them, they created enough chemistry to blow up a high school science lab. But if she drove away he’d forget about her in a couple days. He’d be attracted to another woman, while she’d picture him for the next decade every time she used Hunk.

  The flutter inside her stilled. “I’m not denying there’s something between us. It doesn’t matter. It stops here.”

  “I don’t hash over emotions.” He rubbed his chin. “But I’ve gotta ask. Why?”

  “Because you think I’m a freak.”

  “Freak is a strong word.” His expression was tender. “The wrong word. I think you’re lovely.”

  She gritted her teeth to hold back a rush of emotion. No one had ever called her lovely. Strange, weird, freaky were more common. And from her stepmother, another word. Diet. Every Christmas when she was a teen she got another year’s membership to the local health club.

  But he said she was lovely. Lovely.

  She pushed up from the chair. She was softening again. There should be a warning in the prescription the doctor gave her: Caution: For those users recovering from attempted murder, there is a 99.9% chance this can sharpen your libido and dull every working cell in your brain.

  Luke reached forward to help her up, but she shook away his grip on her elbow.

  “I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”

  “It won’t go away,” he said.

  She glanced down at the bulge in the front of his jeans. “It always goes away.”

  He laughed and she stifled another groan. There she went again. She didn’t need sleep, she needed a muzzle.

  He could look for the passage without her. She’d already checked out every shelf in the library. It must be somewhere else. But he was a man. He had to see for himself.

  Three minutes later, in her temporary bedroom, she groped through the top dresser drawer. She burned inside, in every place. But when her hand curved around Hunk, she knew the vibrator wouldn’t satisfy her. Not today. It wasn’t Hunk she wanted. It was—

  “I don’t understand you.”

  “Eek!” She jumped, her heart leaping up into her throat, holding Hunk like a weapon. Seeing her best friend floating a few inches above the floor, she dropped her arm. Joe’s gaze followed her hand.

  “Will you put that thing away?” His face turned bluish purple.

  She stifled a giggle and tossed Hunk in the drawer, then closed it to make sure Joe didn’t get a peek that would dent his ghostly sensibilities.

  “I was in the library,” he said.

  She stood still. If he’d been in the library, she should have sensed his presence.

  Why hadn’t she?

  The answer came in a rush. Too focused on Luke. Instead of thinking with her brain she’d been thinking with her vagina.

  “I don’t like to see you this way.” He gestured at the drawer. “I don’t like it that you’re using a mechanical substitute when you can have the real thing.”

  Just what she needed. Ghostly advice on her sex life.

  She hobbled past him and sagged onto the bed, the energy drained from her, sexual and otherwise. “I can’t believe you want me to have sex with a man. You’re always telling me not to.”

  “None of them were good for you.”

  “But Luke is?” A small flame of hope rekindled in her chest. She trusted Joe’s opinion.

  “He’s...okay.” A ghost of a grin flickered on his handsome face. “For a live man.”

  “Idiot.” She pulled the covers up to her neck.

  He settled onto the edge of the bed, carefully not sitting his ghostly butt on her legs, as if she would feel his non-weight.

  Sometimes, she thought, he forgot he wasn’t alive. If he were a real man... She pictured herself tossing Hunk into the trash.

  Sighing, she turned off the mental image.

  He frowned. “I have to leave soon. My partner’s great-granddaughter needs me. She might be stepping into danger.”

  Don’t go. Don’t leave me. She sucked in air and dredged up a smile, trying to think of something happy to make her expression seem real—puppies, kittens, the sun shining. “She’s lucky to have you looking after her. I’m going to miss you.”

  “I’ll come back to mess with you. And I’m not leaving yet. I can’t leave until you’re out of danger.”

  Tears burned her eyes but she kept the damn smile on her face. “I’m fine. I’ll be okay. Life goes on.”

  “Does it? Then why don’t you give Luke a chance?”

  She let her smile drop. “If you think Luke wants anything more than a few hot and sweaty rolls in the hay, you’re mistaken. He wants me sexually—” She stopped and shook her head. “I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. You’ve spent the last three years repelling interested men, not telling me to jump them.”

  “It’s not about sex.”

  “If you believe that, you’ve been dead too long.”

  “He likes you. He wants to protect you. He doesn’t mind...”

  “My ghost friends?” She laughed harshly, her head flinging back, hitting the headboard. She made a face, her laughter stopped. Leaning forward, she rubbed the back of her head. “You’re misreading the signs. He hates it that I’m different. Just this morning I saw him doubting me.”

  “So he doubts you. He’s human. He’s alive. Live men don’t know. You have to teach them.”

  “I tried that once.” She heard the tightness of her voice. “The only one who learned a lesson was moi. You want to know what I learned?”

  He shook his head, his mouth twisted as if he’d seen something ugly.

  “I learned that even if they go into the relationship with the best of intentions, they can’t change their inner convictions. They can’t change the “ick” factor that’s an inherent part of them.”

  “You’re talking about your ex.” He sighed. “So he cheated on you. It happens to a lot of people, but they don’t let it ruin their lives.”

  A black cloud draped over Cassie’s shoulders. Joe was leaving soon. Her confidant, her friend. “It was more than that.” She heard her voice, dispirited, flat...self-pitying. Considering the subject, she thought Joe would understand, but still she infused energy into her voice. She didn’t want him to remember her as “the whining woman.”

  “Frank was an English professor at Northwestern. He used to tell his friends I was a therapist, but he never mentioned my patient specialty. I met him when he was writing a ghost story for a literary magazine. He didn’t believe me at first, he thought I was an opportunist.” She laughed harshly. “I should have wondered why, if he thought I was shallow, unethical and a liar, he still dated me.”

  “What I can’t figure is why you were with him,” Joe said.

  Cassie shrugged. “It’s not like men were lining up to date me. He asked me to marry him. We planned on marrying in a year, but ten months later I went to his office. It was the size of a closet and the door didn’t latch properly. I opened it and found him screwing one of his students. On the way out, I saw a box with my name on it. I grabbed it.”

  She paused, her throat dry. The remembered taste of vomit came up her throat. She grabbed the glass of water from the nightstand and gulped down half the contents. It was warm but the moisture soothed her throat.

  “The box.” Joe’s face looked hard. She could easil
y imagine him as the bad cop in an interrogation. “What was in it? Some kind of home movies of you and him in your private moments?”

  “Porn? You’re way off.” The rueful twist of his mouth made her smile—for one second. “He’d taped me talking about my meetings with ghosts. Beneath the tapes, I found a proposal to sell my stories to a publisher. That night he called to grovel. But it wasn’t me he wanted, it was the tapes. When I pretended not to know what he was talking about, he said some ugly things. A typical bastard. Nothing special.”

  “What ugly things?”

  “The word freak was used. Weirdo. Insane. Certifiable. The usual.” She shrugged. “I’ve heard it all before. He wasn’t original.”

  “Listen to me, Cassie.” He leaned closer, his expression intent. “The crime isn’t that he said it. The crime is that you believed it.”

  She looked down at her hands clasped on top of the blanket, over her stomach. “Maybe I believed it once. I don’t believe it now. I knew beforehand what he thought, but wanted to believe he’d change his mind. That he—” She bit back the words hovering on her tongue. Too pitiful to admit she wanted to believe he loved her.

  Joe nodded, his expression sad. She knew she’d get no more advice from him on giving Luke a chance.

  “Close your eyes,” Joe said.

  She wilted against the pillow, breathing in and out, exhausted. She was on the edge of sleep when a touch startled her into awareness. A human touch. She opened her eyes.

  “Joe!”

  He hugged her, and for a second she was engulfed in a sense of warmth and caring. Then he pulled away.

  “You really can turn solid,” she whispered.

  “I have to go now, but I’ll be back.”

  She nodded. As he disappeared, so did the sense of warmth, leaving her cold and alone and wondering what was next.

  Chapter Forty-five

  Asleep in her bed, Erin looked at peace for the first time since Cassie had met her. Standing in the semi-dark bedroom, Cassie felt an ache in her throat. Lower, she felt another ache.

  She put her hands over her belly. Her womb.

  While telling Luke about her breakup with Frank, she’d made an intentional omission. The part where he told her he never planned on going through with the wedding because he didn’t want mutant children. Her stepmother had warned him that her mother was strange and any children of Cassie’s were bound to be the same.

  Gazing at Erin, she knew this was the closest she’d get to being a mother.

  She hadn’t known it would hurt this much. Like a knife in her heart.

  Why did Vanessa Desidero, a junkie who cared more about feeding her habit than her child, get to be a mother and—

  No! She slapped her hand over her mouth. She wasn’t going into that “poor pitiful me” corner of her mind. She’d been there once or twice. It wasn’t a fun place to visit, and it sure as hell wasn’t a fun place to live.

  Time to stop feeling sorry for herself and do something about it. If even Joe was telling her to have sex with Luke...

  She was letting her ex-fiancé stop her from getting what she needed. Why use Hunk to satisfy her body’s normal desires when the real thing was available?

  A moment later, she stood outside Luke’s door. She heard music, something jazzy and sweet, with fuzzy sounding horns. She raised her hand to knock and took a deep breath. Her heart thumped liked one hundred drums playing at once. Her head felt light, too light. Maybe she was still feeling the effects of the medication and should be—

  Wimp! In a second she’d squawk like a chicken. Be bold, she ordered herself. You’re not a chicken. You’re a leopard stalking your mate.

  Mate for one night.

  Would a leopard knock? Taking another deep breath, she set her lips together, brought down her hand, grabbed the doorknob and turned it. Luke lay on his bed, half-reclining on two pillows planted against the headboard, one leg bent, one arm behind his head, talking on a cell phone.

  “I’ve got to go,” he said into the phone, looking at her, his face expressionless. “Okay, I’ll do that.”

  Not taking his eyes from her, he tossed the phone onto the table next to the bed. “What can I do for you?”

  She lifted the hem of her shirt. “Fuck me.”

  ***

  Luke froze, not breathing for a full ten seconds, but something was building up inside him—and not just below his waist. Something in his chest, expanding it. Expanding his emotions, his mind. All this happening as he watched her strip off her top, her bra—

  Christ, her breasts were beautiful.

  Then she was pulling down her loose fitting pants. His own jeans were becoming too tight with his dick growing like Jack’s beanstalk. His hand went to the button and stopped, an alarm blaring in his mind.

  This morning she said she didn’t want to do this.

  What the hell had changed?

  “No,” he said.

  She stopped with her pants dropped around her ankles, her forehead crinkling, her head tilted as if she wondered whether she’d heard correctly.

  He pushed up from his reclining position. “I want to know why.”

  “Because life is short.” She kicked off her pants like a chorus line dancer, and his erection grew another inch. “Because my best friend will be going away and I might not see him for awhile. Because I’m alone, so I should take some comfort when I can. Because Hunk is low on batteries.”

  “Huh?”

  She hooked her thumbs into the top of her bikini panties. “Just making sure you were paying attention.”

  He pushed off the bed, landing on his feet. Christ, her hips were great. When he grabbed them, he wouldn’t have bones digging into his palms.

  “I’m paying attention.” He needed to pay attention to his jeans cutting off his circulation. He unbuttoned and unzipped. Denim wasn’t made for expansion.

  “I know it’s a fling.” She wiggled her panties down to her ankles. “I want you to know it’s okay with me.”

  He pulled off his jeans and his briefs at the same time. Later he’d take off his shirt. First the most important part, and then—

  “I know you disapprove of me,” she continued, kicking off her panties with another chorus girl move, standing naked with her soft belly and thighs, a triangle of brown curls at the apex of her thighs. “I know you—”

  “Shut up.” He crossed over to her, his dick bobbing toward her, his socks and his button-down shirt still on. “Shut the hell up. You’re talking too much.”

  Her head tilted. “I just wanted to make sure you know I’m not expecting anything—”

  He kissed her.

  She made an “erp” sound. He opened his lips, his erection nestled against her belly, like it had come home and never wanted to leave. Except to go into that warmer, tighter home a few inches lower.

  He kissed her slow and easy at first, but that lasted only a minute. The kiss got harder, and so did he. She grasped his arms, her fingers digging into his biceps, her body moving. Small kitten squeaks came from her mouth.

  “Erin,” he whispered. “We can’t let her hear.”

  “I am being quiet, you idiot.”

  When a woman he was naked with called him an idiot, there was only one thing to do. He kissed her again. Long and hard and thirsty.

  This time when she squeaked, he held himself back from squeaking with her.

  He pulled his mouth away from hers. “I have condoms this time.”

  “Get them.” Her voice sounded breathless.

  “Not yet.” He moved his hips back far enough to slip his hand between them, sliding downward and touching her until she moaned.

  She clung to him, whimpering, rocking against his hand and fingers, clinging tightly.

  “Oh God, oh God, oh God. Never, ever let me go.” She raised herself on her tiptoes and bit his shoulder.

  He clasped her to him until her shudders slowed. Her head drooped against his shoulder, her body sagged against him, and he remembere
d she’d just returned from the hospital yesterday.

  Shit. He was wearing her out. This was not good. It would have to stop here.

  He willed his dick back to its former size. Mr. Maxi wasn’t getting lucky tonight after all, and it was his own damned—

  Her palms slapped into his chest and she shoved him away from her. “Where are your condoms?”

  “The drawer.” He pointed at the table by his bed, his dick rearing up, raring to go.

  “Get on the bed.” She nodded her chin at the bed and hurried to the dresser, her breasts jiggling. She glanced over her shoulder as she leaned forward and opened the drawer, her round ass facing him.

  Turning, she pointed at the bed. “You’re not listening to me.”

  “My shirt—”

  “Take it off. The faster the better.”

  He whipped the shirt off and flung it on the floor, still standing as she came around the foot of the bed, the package in her hand.

  “You’re too slow.” She splayed her hands on his chest and shoved. The back of his knees hit the mattress and he sank down onto it, his legs hanging down the front of the bed.

  He wanted to laugh. He wanted to pull her to him and kiss her again. He wanted to fuck her like she’d demanded when she barged into the room.

  She ripped open the package. Holding it, she brushed her fingertips up and down him. He closed his eyes for a moment, then shifted. This was torment. Sexual torment.

  Torment felt damned good.

  “Suit me up,” he muttered.

  She obeyed, her mouth tight as she pulled the sucker down.

  Before she could torture him further, he grabbed her arms and toppled her to the bed next to him. She squealed.

  “What are you doing?”

  He stood and spread her legs. “I’m taking over.”

  “Did I say you could do that? Did I give you permission, boy?”

  He looked at her. She wasn’t smiling with her mouth, but rays of light from the bedside lamp gleamed in her eyes.

  “No permission. I’m the man, you the woman.”

  She grinned. He grinned back, unable to remember the last time he felt so at ease with another person.

  Maybe it was never.