Death's Courtship

by Jory Strong

  “It worked,” Atticus said. “Practical, efficient…lucky, messy.”

  He paused, intending to ease into a stern warning about the sanctity of his private quarters and the value of his tarot cards—only before he could do it Bryn was at his side asking, “Who are you talking to?”

  Atticus sighed as Azrael gave an appreciative whistle before fading away. “Myself.”

  He wanted to protest when she bent down and picked up the offering of flowers and candies. In actuality he wanted to rip the offending items out of her hands and dispose of them in the nearest trashcan.

  “Are you okay?” Bryn asked, retreating into the office.

  “Yes.”

  He felt better when she set the box of candy and vase of flowers on her desk then took his hand and led him back into her living quarters.

  Atticus swooped her up into his arms. “I wanted to make sure he was gone. I don’t like him hanging around you.”

  Bryn’s smile traveled all the way down to his toes.

  “Mark’s lonely and maybe he’s a little fixated since there aren’t too many women out there who can actually see his mother, but I don’t think he means me any harm.” Bryn’s mouth sought his and Atticus’ cock pulsed in reaction. “Thanks for caring enough to worry about me.”

  This time Atticus set Bryn on her feet instead of on the bed. His hands found the hem of her sweatshirt and burrowed underneath the soft material until they reached her breasts.

  Hardened nipples greeted him. A whimper passed from her mouth to his, traveled down tongues rubbing and twining in carnal bliss.

  Enthralled. Drugged. Ensnared. When he was holding Bryn, touching her, kissing her, he understood the heady downfall that led to the ruination of many a male, mortal and immortal alike.

  A groan escaped when she opened his jeans and took his cock in hand. He shivered as she pushed his pants lower so one hand could fondle his heavy sac while the other explored the rigid length of his erection.

  “Bryn,” he said, a plea, a command.

  Her low moan of sexual excitement had him deepening the kiss, taking her nipples between his fingers.

  His heart beat in his penis, throbbed against Bryn’s palm. Arousal leaked to bead on his cock head. Hips jerked when her thumb found the wet evidence of his desire and turned it into an erotic wash.

  “Bryn…” Plea and command had gone to hopeless need, a willingness to beg.

  He shivered, nearly mindless with the desire to feel her slick wet heat, to plunge into her depths with nothing separating them. He’d die if she made him wear a condom again.

  A groan of protest escaped when she abandoned his cock and balls. Lust built when her hands went no further than his pants, this time pushing them lower so gravity did its work and pulled them to his feet.

  Atticus kicked them to the side, heart thundering as her mouth trailed kisses down his neck, over his nipples, along the center line of his chest to his abdomen, halted inches above where his penis strained to reach her lips.

  Her hands recaptured his penis and sac. Bryn’s earlier words tumbled through his mind. “Don’t make me wait any longer,” he said. “It’s safe. I haven’t been with anyone except you. Put your mouth on me, Bryn. Please.”

  Shock stilled Bryn. Uncertainty.

  “Never?” she asked, loving the smooth velvet-over-steel feel of him, the wild throb of his heartbeat and the hungry, desperate expression on his face. Was he saying what she thought he was? That he was a virgin?

  “Never,” he said, the heat coloring his cheeks in sync with the honesty she read in his eyes.

  She ran her thumb over his cock head, fondled the heavy sac. He was so gorgeous, so wonderful to be with, such a natural when it came to lovemaking that she found it almost impossible to believe he’d never been with another woman, and yet she did.

  Why would he lie? It would have been enough if he’d just told her he was safe, the same as she’d told him.

  That thought of being his first—for everything—was intoxicating, devastating to any barrier she hoped to erect around her heart. Questions bombarded her, but they had to wait for later, for after.

  Bryn touched her lips to his satin smooth shaft, reveled in the way he bucked, panted, speared his fingers through her hair and held her to him as if he was afraid of abandonment. He’d washed while she was talking to Mark on the doorstep and she found the smell of her soap on Atticus deeply satisfying.

  It was primitive. Something she’d never expect in herself, but then again, she hardly recognized herself at all when she was with him.

  She kissed along the length of his shaft, teased him with the feel of her tongue, her teeth. Gave him sucking bites that turned the sound of her name into a litany no man had ever spoken so passionately.

  Each of his pleas, each of his gasps fed her confidence, filled her with a feminine power that was exhilarating, pushed her to give more, to take more. She nuzzled his testicles, took what she could into her mouth, fed on Atticus’ pleasure.

  He was hers. As much as she tried to shy away from the thought, to deny it, to live only in the moment, it returned again and again, tore down her reservations and insecurities, turned her into a woman who was unafraid to give and take everything.

  One of his hands joined hers and she found it wildly erotic to see his fingers locked around his cock. His other hand tugged at her hair, urged her away from the velvet pouch and upward, over his knuckles, along his shaft, until finally her lips were on the soft, mushroom-shaped head of his penis.

  “Put me in your mouth, Bryn, please.” His voice was tortured, strained, his belly and chest covered with a thin sheen of sweat.

  She looked up at his face and it was like looking at the face of an ancient Greek god. He was beautiful, elegantly masculine, peerless in his appeal.

  Bryn took him into her mouth, sucked him hard, deep, let him fuck through her tight lips. His moans and gasps increased her hunger, her need to give him pleasure.

  She would willingly have swallowed him down, let him come and reveled in his loss of control. But he surprised her at the last minute by pulling from her mouth. He thrilled her with his whispered pleading to let him enter her channel without any barrier between them.

  “Yes,” she said, only barely managing to shed her clothing before she was on her back with Atticus above her.

  His expression was tender, fierce, desperate, and yet rather than plunge into her in a single stoke, he lodged the tip of his penis at her entrance and stilled, a look of tortured ecstasy on his face.

  “Bryn.” It was almost a prayer as slowly he pushed into her, stretched her, filled her.

  She shuddered under him, felt so intimately connected to him that she wanted to close her eyes to escape the vulnerability of it, but she couldn’t. Instead she speared her fingers in his hair and guided his mouth to hers, captured his lips as his cock forged deeper, not stopping until every inch of him was inside her.

  Bryn wrapped her legs around his waist. “I can’t believe you’ve never done this before me,” she whispered, knowing that whatever happened between them in the future, she’d never forget the incredible joy of being his first lover.

  His smile nearly took her breath away.

  “I’ve waited forever for the right woman. As you might imagine, my line of work attracts a very ghoulish type of female.”

  Bryn laughed despite the fact the most gorgeous man she’d ever met was lying on top of her with his cock buried to the hilt in her channel. “If you ever call me ghoulish it might just be the last thing you ever do. And you already know the chances of hanging around as a ghost to haunt me are next to zero.”

  Atticus grinned, amazed he could manage such a wide range of emotions while experiencing unparalleled physical bliss. It was sweet torture to remain still, and yet he knew as soon as he moved he would become mindless with the need to keep moving.

  He brushed his mouth against Bryn’s, shivered when her hands left his hair and trailed over his neck and bac
k. He already craved her touch, thrived on the soft sounds of her gasps and moans.

  “The only name I’ll ever call you is mine,” he said, deepening the kiss, his hips thrusting, breaking the barrier of his self-restraint.

  Raw pleasure and liquid heat swamped him. Heart, soul, mind—all migrated to his cock as he plunged in and out of Bryn’s tight channel.

  His breath came rough and fast. His moans matched the rhythm of her gasps as she clung to him, welcomed him, fed his hunger for more with her need and lust.

  Possessiveness gripped him as did tenderness. She was his! Just as completely as he was hers.

  Bryn’s fingers curled, her nails scratched down his back, freeing something primitive inside him. He lay more heavily on her, wanted to sink through her skin and become a part of her.

  His world was reduced to her lips, her tongue, her wet, silky core. Insane pleasure gripped him when she cried out in release and her sheath clamped down on his cock, hurtling him over the edge as wave after wave of hot semen rushed through his shaft to fill her with his seed.

  Chapter Six

  The knocking was loud, enthusiastic, and showed no signs of going away. It was not the way Bryn wanted to start Saturday morning, but when she heard last week’s temporary assistant yell “It’s Sheri!” Bryn knew she’d have to leave the heavenly warmth of Atticus’ arms.

  “I’ll be back,” she said, her heart doing a little dance when Atticus’ arms tightened on her with a mumbled protest before letting her go.

  Bryn slid from the bed, dressed quickly, and closed the door between her living quarters and the office before letting Sheri in.

  “I was pretty sure you were here,” Sheri said by way of greeting. Her eyebrows lifted. “Cool car. Who is he?” Her gaze shifted to the flowers and box of chocolate. “Oh, wow. No wonder lover boy just squealed away like the hounds of hell were after him. Did he know you had company? Is that why he threw in the chocolates this time?” She shook her head. “Guy needs to get a clue. I mean the flowers look like what my granny used to put on the graves she visited at Easter time. No originality. It’s the same arrangement he gave you last Sunday, right? The one you took to the old folk’s home on Monday.”

  Bryn held up her hand to halt Sheri’s conversation. She’d tackle the subject of why Sheri was knocking on her door on Saturday morning in a second, but first, “Are you sure you saw Mark here?”

  “Mark? Oh, yeah. Lover boy. I guess I knew that was his name.”

  Bryn closed her eyes briefly. She was starting to feel like she had a hangover though the only thing she’d gotten drunk on in recent memory was the best sex she’d ever experienced, with Atticus, and he certainly hadn’t left her with a headache.

  “Are you sure you saw Mark?” Bryn repeated, not really wanting to revisit the last exchange she’d had with him.

  Sheri stopped chewing on her bubble gum long enough to blow a huge bubble, then pop it. “Not a hundred percent positive,” she finally said. “But it’s not like this is Grand Central Station. I mean, this place is Deadsville.” She laughed at her own joke then bit her bottom lip. “Sorry. You know what I meant. This business park isn’t exactly a hotbed of activity. The few businesses still here don’t get much action even during the week and the places with live-ins are on the other side and at the far end. So a car leaving in a hurry from a few doors over…” Her gaze strayed to the flowers and chocolates. “He here last night?”

  “He stopped by,” Bryn admitted just as Atticus opened the door into the office.

  He had trousers on and nothing else. For a long moment she couldn’t tear her eyes away from him. All she wanted to do was strip and press her body to his. The idea of opening his pants and sliding them over his hips, then kneeling in front of him and exploring his cock with her mouth again held Bryn in its grip.

  He was rock hard, his erection a very notable presence against the fabric of his trousers. Heat flashed between them and Bryn’s cunt spasmed painfully. Morning-soft nipples tightened to hard points.

  Only the sound of Sheri popping a bubble reminded Bryn she and Atticus weren’t alone. She made the introductions and, not wanting to linger on the subject of Mark Bildner, she looked at Sheri and said, “Did you forget something? Is that why you’re here?”

  Sheri’s hands settled on the huge bag she carried, clutching it to her hip as a hint of nervousness surfaced. “Look, I know you don’t owe me anything. I mean, I’ve only worked a week for you so it’s not like we’ve got the team thing going. But Marietta said I could come back next week if you didn’t call and say you and her are even. See, that’s the thing. She’s really grateful you sent her ex packing. And she thinks if she keeps sending us, eventually one of us is going to click and you won’t tell her to stop. So if you don’t call, it’ll be a done deal.” Sheri’s fingers tightened on her bag. “I could really use the work. Not to put pressure on you or anything, and I’m not talking about forever.” Her gaze strayed to Atticus. “Right now I’m not exactly rolling in the money. The secretary-receptionist gig is my weekday, daytime thing, but only until something happens with the band.” She swallowed her gum. “That’s why I’m here, for your help.”

  “What kind of help?” Bryn asked, moved by the vulnerability she saw in Sheri’s face.

  “With a ghost.” Sheri’s hands left her purse to wave in the air. “I need you to do your thing, work your magic like Marietta talks about. See, I’m managing this band. My boyfriend’s the drummer. And things have been hot, I mean, with the band, not just my boyfriend. Only now, just when we’re starting to get noticed, our lead singer and way-talented songwriter, Stoner…um Eric, well, he’s losing his edge. He’s…”

  Sheri shrugged. “He’s says he can’t sleep because the ghost won’t stop singing stuff that went out in the seventies. He can’t fu—have sex with his groupies because the ghost, um, hangs out in the same room and masturbates while he’s doing it. He can’t get totally high because he’s afraid of going on a bad trip, and he can’t compose new songs because the ghost won’t shut up. I mean, this is really, really bad. My boyfriend would kill me for saying it, but Stoner’s kind of the major talent in the band. Will you help? Maybe take an IOU against when we make it big time?”

  “Even if there’s a ghost, I may not be able to do anything about it today.”

  “That’s cool. I understand, totally.” Sheri bit down on her bottom lip. “Look, it’s possible… Well, just knowing there is a ghost would be a big relief to all of us. Right? I mean, the band can work around that, but if Stone—Eric has lost it totally, that’s a major problem.”

  They left a few minutes later, Bryn and Atticus following Sheri’s scooter in the Aston Martin. “For Sheri’s sake, I hope there’s a ghost,” Atticus said. “How often do you go out only to find it’s a loose shutter or an overactive imagination?”

  “Not often. By the time someone’s willing to risk being cheated out of their money or being embarrassed, they’re desperate, which means there’s usually a ghost haunting them or their home.”

  Atticus nodded and took her hand. He placed it on his thigh and covered it with his own. It felt good to have her at his side, so comfortable that he was content to drive in silence, to breathe flower-scented air and take in the brief tableaus of human life on either side of them.

  Mothers herded their children to cars. Men mowed lawns. Rollerbladers traveled down the sidewalks. Little girls jumped rope and played with dolls on porch steps. Boys kicked soccer balls and threw baseballs.

  It was all so fragile, their lives, here and gone, the individual lost to time, to the sheer crush of a swelling humanity where only a few of them rose to be revered or remembered after they died. He glanced at Bryn, wondered for the first time who would be left behind to grieve when he took her, what would be left undone, unresolved, what regrets would linger for eternity, her role as his wife preventing her from stepping onto the ghostways where a different destiny might give her a chance to make amends, to finish the thi
ngs important to her soul’s completion.

  He laced his fingers with hers. She said, “I’m glad you’re here with me.”

  “Me, too.”

  They followed Sheri’s scooter into a neighborhood much like the one they’d met in. It was a mix of well-tended lawns with well-cared-for homes and sun-scorched yards in front of patched, faded adobe houses.

  Soccer games played in the street halted just long enough for them to pass then resumed with a mix of English and Spanish shouts. Dogs barked, some on chains, some running along fences, others from behind window screens.

  Sheri signaled a turn and guided the scooter to a stop next to an old, much-dented Kharmann Ghia up on blocks in the driveway. Atticus parked behind the disabled car and got out of the Aston Martin, quickly surveying the scene though he knew better than to breathe a sigh of relief at not seeing any of his brothers.

  There was strong ghost presence inside the house. He could feel it. Curiosity made him turn to Bryn and ask, “Anything?”

  Bryn rubbed suddenly damp palms on her jeans. “Oh yeah,” she said, wondering just what was waiting inside the house. Usually she felt a phantom breeze, a small telltale marker of a ghost presence. At the moment it felt like she was standing on the beach with a storm blowing in, winds howling.

  “So there’s definitely a ghost?” Sheri asked.

  “Yes,” Bryn said. “Does your friend know anything about who lived in this house? Who might have died here?”

  “It’s a rental. Stoner said he’d make some calls, in case you agreed to come over.” Her voice didn’t sound optimistic.

  Bryn glanced at Atticus and for a moment she was lost in the ghostway gray of his eyes. Having him with me is what makes the difference. It was the same thought she’d had earlier, the one she’d voiced over pizza. Yet now she knew it with a certainty she couldn’t explain. “Ready?”

  “Where you go, I go.”

  He took her hand as they stepped onto the cracked walkway leading to the front stoop. Sheri fell in behind them, popping the gum in her mouth more rapidly the closer they got to the door.