“I’m getting worse, Milo.” Her voice is broken. “That must be why I’m here more.”
“What do you mean? What are you saying?”
She swallows, broadcasting the moment when her brain makes the decision to let me in and destroy me. With a deep breath, she blinks away the remaining tears stuck to her lashes. “Haven’t you ever wondered how we’re able to see each other?”
“Of course. I—”
She presses a finger to my lips with a weak smile. “That was rhetorical. Please let me explain. When I first saw you on my rug, I thought you were like me. I thought you were alive somewhere in your own room, and this was a final gift to us. We’d found each other in spirit and were supposed to finish life together. Or maybe you weren’t real. Maybe you were a vision in my dreams sent to distract me. When I was focused on you and your pain, I had meaning and purpose. I could love again. I was alive in a way I hadn’t been for a long time. I couldn’t explain it—I just knew you were supposed to be with me no matter how much it hurt sometimes. And then…” She reaches up to brush her fingers over my cheek. She searches my gaze, pulling pieces of my soul out of the void and filling it with remnants of hers. Is this love? This connection you can’t explain but can’t go on without? But she’s not finished. No, because if she were, this would be a fairytale, not the fucking nightmare it is.
She pulls in a sharp breath, blinks away more tears. After a long pause, she focuses on me again.
“And then we had this, whatever it is,” she says quietly. “This connection that’s become my world. You are everything to me, and once I learned you were dead…” She stops, but this part I get. “Anyway, it broke my heart because it all makes sense, doesn’t it? You suspect it too. I know you do.”
How can you feel so much and go numb at the same time? Her expression softens while my head starts shaking on its own. I push up from the blankets, and she follows, reaching for my arm.
“Milo…”
My eyes, are they as wide as they feel? Because I do get it now. Yes. And no. Fucking no!
“You’re dying.” I whisper the secret. Somewhere deep and dark and shattered, I knew that from the second I realized she wasn’t like me.
She nods, tears streaming down her cheeks. “You weren’t coming to my world, Milo. I’m on my way to yours.”
I slam my fist into the blanket with a frustrated cry. Of course she’s dying. Of course I’m going to lose her! Why had I ever let myself think anything different? Because you’re weak.
No, because you’re chasing the light.
I’m chasing you! You, Rachel. I don’t want the light; I want you!
Her face is a mess of emotion. I’m hurting her with my pain. I’m a gasp of stale air that can’t breathe.
“How long?” I bark out.
She looks away.
“How long do you have, Rachel?” I repeat, too angry at the universe to care that I’m landing its blows on the one soul I’d die again to protect.
“I don’t know,” she whispers. “Not long.”
I shake my head, eyes burning with tears. “So this plan you were talking about the other day? Is this it? We’re supposed to fall in love in the most fucked-up union of all time just to lose each other?”
She’s so small cowering in front of me. It’s breaking me apart knowing I’m doing that to her. I’m shrinking her like the monster I used to be. I press my fists against my eyes and turn away. I slam one into the wall. The sting feels glorious spreading through my knuckles and into my wrist. Once she’s gone, I suspect I’ll spend lots of hours fighting this wall in the darkness. What else will I have then but my eternal basement and a new kind of agony? Raw and fresh and violent and—
“Please, Milo,” she says behind me. “Don’t give up. You said it yourself: we don’t know what’s next.”
I feel like I’m suffocating. Why are you so angry? You always knew you’d lose her.
I still can’t look when I finally answer the screaming in my head. “I just… I thought we had more time.” My voice breaks on the confession. Broken like this moment and everything that will come after. “No, we don’t know what’s next. But it doesn’t matter because we won’t be together. That part we do know. We…” The words stop, drowned out by emotion I can’t control anymore.
My forehead finds the stone wall, and I let the cold seep in.
”Do you want me to go?” By her tone, the question breaks her to ask. Do I? Is it easier to let this end on our own terms? I could send her away like Addie Rose. Back to her blue rug and roses and the brilliant sunlight bathing her sleeping body.
Panic rushes in at the thought of losing a single second with her. Fuck easy.
I turn around. Reach for her. Pull her against me with everything I have.
“I never want you to go,” I say against her hair. Her arms tighten around me, her body collapsing with relief. “I don’t know anything except that we have now and that will have to be enough.”
Her tears break into sobs. My own emotion beats against my throat, fighting for freedom, but I suck it back so I can carry her grief for a while. Because that’s what we have, right? A while.
“I’m scared, Milo,” she whispers.
I soothe my fingers through dark, silky hair that’s still here. Still mine for today. “Me too, angel. Me too.”
Chapter Eighteen:
Perfection
Loneliness. There’s a word I know well and completely misunderstood. In life and in death I was alone, but it’s not until you miss the thing standing right in front of you that you truly understand it’s destructive power. Every second with Rachel feels like a treasure now. Beautiful and heavy and a gift I want to burn into the fabric of my being to draw upon when she’s gone. Because she is gone, even when she’s dancing around me to the imaginary song in her head.
I adjust my position seated on the trunk, watching with sad wonder as she spins around the basement, giggling to herself like yesterday’s bombshell never happened.
“Come on!” She swipes for my hand as she passes, missing badly.
I shake my head with a smirk, much preferring the view from here. I’m already capturing every detail for a later sketch.
She stops and levels a hand on her hip. “You’ve been so broody since yesterday.”
“I have good reason,” I point out, but she’s not impressed.
“Nothing’s changed.”
“Yeah… everything’s changed.”
“Says the ghost boy. If anyone should be sulking, it’s me. I’m the one with a dead boyfriend.”
I laugh. Can’t help it. “Boyfriend, huh?”
“Less cheesy than soulmate, I suppose.” She grabs my hands with conviction.
I let her pull me up this time, and soon I’m chasing her around the basement in whatever this weird uncoordinated game is.
“This isn’t dancing so much as skipping around like forest nymphs,” I say.
She barely slows her frolic to toss me a glare. “Right. Because you know so much about forest nymphs?”
I shrug. “I am the prince of the spirit world after all.”
She snorts a laugh. “You are not. You can’t even leave your basement.”
“Fine, a captive prince then.”
“Waiting for a princess to come save you?”
“Maybe. Depends.” I grab her mid-twirl and pull her into me.
Her breath is rapid while I stare her down.
“Depends on what?” she asks. I can’t tear my eyes away from her lips. Deep red arches slightly curved up—in humor or invitation? My finger considers them slowly.
“On the princess,” I say finally, my own mouth turning up in another smirk, and she shoves me. It’s not hard enough to push me away; just to force a perfect collision when I swing back and capture her again. Her arms coil around my waist, aligning our bodies. Once she’s satisfied, her hands slip under my shirt and climb my back until her fingers sink into my shoulders. It’s an instinctive reaction, the way
my muscles harden in response. Even better is the way her eyes change when she senses it, radiating primal hunger. Her teeth sink into her lower lip, right where I want mine, and this dance, yes. This one I want.
I thread my fingers in her hair, tugging until she releases a pleased gasp.
“Milo…”
I love when she says my name like that. The sea-breeze-ocean chime that resonates through my body. Lock that away. Preserve it for the infinite song you’ll write when that’s all you have left.
I shake away the thought. Not now. No, now we have time and scalding chemistry to fill it.
We back onto the blankets, and I still have trouble imagining this vibrant ray as anything other than a fairy princess. Logically, I know she must be comatose on a bed somewhere, but here she’s bursting with life and beauty. So much freaking beauty.
She grasps my shirt, and together we yank it over my head. I work at the buttons of her eternal nightgown that I now understand.
“Wait, Milo.”
She catches my wrist mid-pull.
“What’s wrong?”
Her anxious glance trickles from one corner of the room to the next before landing on my eyes. She looks younger with her eyes so wide and innocent.
“I’ve never… I mean…” She stares down at the thin fabric of her dress that’s doing too much and not enough to hide her perfect body. Peaked from arousal, her breasts form a silhouette I’m desperate to explore.
“What is it? You never what? Made love to someone? Because that was pretty unforgettable.”
She laughs nervously. “I know. Not that. I mean, even then we were…” She points to the blankets, reddening, and I fight the urge to tease her further.
“Are you embarrassed about being naked in the open?”
Her throat moves as the color in her cheeks deepens. “I know it’s stupid. It’s just… oh!” She covers her face with her hands, and I swear it’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.
“Rachel, you’re perfect,” I say, gently pulling her hands away. I touch her cheek, her lips, her jaw. Along her neck to the smooth skin over her collar bone. My fingers play along the elastic lace of her gown, slowly pushing further and further down her shoulder. She closes her eyes, absorbing my touch as it moves over her. The color in her cheeks starts to change hue as well: the heat of embarrassment shifting to arousal. I can tell by the way her body begins assisting instead of resisting. Her shoulder dips so I can slide the gown down her arm. I reach up to work on the other side. She’s flawless in the dim light, but my gaze doesn’t linger on her chest. How can it when her eyes flutter beneath dark lashes in the sweetest invitation?
I can’t hold back anymore and lean in to taste her lips. She nearly flinches when we touch, that spark singeing her as well. Her dress falls the rest of the way, but she doesn’t seem to notice as her hands snake into my hair. My angel becomes a little devil when she finds something she wants.
“You too,” she breathes, stepping back. I stare at her, surprised and completely turned on, as she motions to my jeans. Hard to follow instructions with the work of art standing before me. A smile twists on her lips as she watches my struggle, enjoying it too much, I think. I smirk and fumble with the button, never taking my eyes off her.
“Seven,” she says.
“Seven?”
Her gaze moves to the V of my hips.
“The number of talons on your dragon tattoo. Why seven?”
“How do you know there are seven?” I follow her gaze. Only four show above the waist of my jeans. Damn. As if I wasn’t hard enough.
“I counted them.”
“When?”
“I don’t know. Before you knew me. Why seven?”
“How many talons do dragons have?”
She shrugs, looking irresistible. God she’s killing me right now. “No idea, but it would have to be an even number, right?”
Heaven knows I don’t have a prayer of winning whatever this is. “I like the number seven.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s important. Seven is the number of perfection. Completion. The barrier between death and life. It’s the day of a rest.”
All humor fades from the room, and suddenly I’m the one blushing in my nakedness.
“I want to see the rest.”
“What?”
“Show me the other three.”
I swallow hard, shy for maybe the first time in my life. I’ve been gawked at, used, and admired for as long as I can remember. But seen? That’s something else, off-limits and banished by my survival instinct until this moment.
“Please, Milo? I want to see perfection.”
Her eyes—crystal blue orbs pleading with me to show her the one thing that could only ever have been for her. For this moment. Life and death coming together in the perfect number seven. It’s hers. I’m hers.
I lower the zipper, spreading the fabric as I go. She freezes, her gaze traveling over me like mine did to her a moment ago. I can’t read her face. Does she like what she sees? How can she if her standard is perfection?
I don’t move when she starts toward me. Her eyes climb back up and lock on mine, holding me in place until she reaches me. I nearly flinch when her fingers brush the first talon. Down they slide to the second and third, tracing gently at first, then harder as my body responds. By the fourth my heart is pounding in my chest, and when she grips my jeans and pulls, it’s everything I can do to stay still.
She drags them to the floor, and I step out, but she’s quickly in place again, on her knees and eye-level with number five. I hiss in a breath at her touch, her push to number six. Erect and at her mercy, I wait, her lips so close and not nearly where I want them as she studies number seven. Tracing the design, it’s like she’s purposely trying to torture me by keeping chaste.
Then her mouth is on me. First the dragon, tasting the trail her fingers just took. The sweetest moan escapes her, and my eyes close on instinct. If I weren’t already dead, I would be now. She’s a total novice as she explores my body, and it’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever experienced. A groan builds in my throat, and I lock my hands on my head to keep from interfering. I want her version. It’s so much better than mine.
But it’s Rachel. Full of surprises and the girl I’ll never solve. So just when I think she’s pushing us to the edge of ecstasy, she stops.
My eyes snap open, and I stare down at an impish grin that’s too far from my body.
She slides back another few feet, still smiling and looking as heated as I feel. Doesn’t seem to bother her that it’s killing me though. Instead, she pushes to her feet and studies me again.
I think my eyes are the ones pleading now as I wait for an explanation.
She nods to herself, clearly satisfied.
“What?” I ask, confused, frustrated, and ridiculously turned on.
“Yep, now I see it.”
“See what?”
“Perfection.”
She only has a second to bask in her triumph before erupting in giggles when I tackle her.
Thankfully, her bite is as good as her bark, and soon we’re breathing in a recovery on our backs, spent, relieved, and wholly satisfied. I take her hand and bring it to my lips.
“Thank you, Milo,” she says, propping herself up to lean over me.
“Thank me? For what?”
“For showing me that part of yourself.”
There’s a reverence in her touch as she traces the design this time.
“You’ve seen it before.”
“Not like that.”
“Definitely not like that,” I say with a smirk.
She laughs and swats my stomach. “You know what I meant.” Her smile fades as she studies the claws again. “You shared a part of yourself. Really shared it. I don’t take that lightly.”
Her attention moves back to my face where I’m trying to fight the rise of emotion. She has no idea.
I do.
Oh. Right.
We exchange a
brief smile before she settles on my chest. Her hair tickles my skin as I absently run my fingers through it.
“You said once that it was your dream to play music,” I say.
She lifts her head just enough to meet my gaze. After a second she lowers back to my chest and starts tracing the guitar on my side. “Yes. It’s been my dream for as long as I can remember. Music was my anchor through the pain and trauma of disease and treatment. Not a day went by when it wasn’t streaming around me. But I was too sick to actually hold an instrument. After a few years, I couldn’t even talk right because of all the tubes, let alone sing.”
My heart clenches, remembering the adamant denial of her singing.
“And now I’m in a coma dying, so I guess we’re at the postlude of that dream.”
“I wish…” The words start coming out before I can consider them. Definitely before I can stop them. “I wish I had a guitar. I’d teach you now.”
Tears fill her eyes when she lifts them to mine again. I reach over and brush one from her cheek.
“You’d bring back the music for me?”
“In a heartbeat.” No one is more shocked than I am. But it’s true. As I lie here, gazing into the face of an angel, I know I’d do anything to give her that.
She sits up, her face alive with excitement. I regret my confession when she scans the room as if an instrument will magically appear.
“I’m sorry, Rachel. I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean to get your hopes up.”
“You didn’t mean it then?”
I push myself up as well. “Of course I meant it, but I don’t have a guitar. There’s no way for me to teach you even if I wanted to.”
“Can’t you just ask for one?”
I snort a laugh, then suck it back when I realize she’s serious. “Huh?”
She waves her hand in dismissal of my skepticism. “Just wish for one or whatever.”
Is she serious? Wow, she’s serious. Um… “Rachel, I’m a ghost, not a fairy godmother. I can’t just wave my wand and make shit appear.”
Haunted Melody: A Ghost Story Page 12