Page 81 of Ghost of a Chance
“Fucking hell, Paul.Really?”
Her heart was racing.Jasper reached for her bag, opening it and taking out the physics textbook.He tossed it on the ground behind them and then took her hand, walking away from it, abandoned on the sidewalk.
* * *
Jasper was done with everything.Talking about Paul today had really brought his friend back.But this was too much.He was tired of literally chasing after a ghost, of digging up his past, only for it to bite him in the ass.
“Do you think we should just leave the book there?”she asked.
“I told you, it always comes back, and I don’t know about you but I could use a break from exploding lights and Judge Judy’s gavel,” he said.“Tonight it’s just you and me, as if we met for the first time and didn’t know any of this shit about each other.”
The look she gave him told him she thought he was losing it.Maybe he was.There was only so much a man could take.
“Just go with it.A fun night with you and me.Maybe then your answer to seeing me after will be yes,” he said.
Lacing her fingers through his.“It wasn’t a no.It’s just… I have a book due and—”
He put his fingers over her lips.“Life isn’t allowed to intrude tonight.Just you and me.Deal?”
It took her longer than he wanted it to before she nodded.“Okay.What are we doing?”
“Well, you’re going to have a college experience that you missed with me,” he said.“To start.”
“How much do you have planned?”
“Not a thing.I’m making this up as I go,” he said.He needed this and he suspected she did too.Their lives this last week had been completely driven by their careers and these damned ghosts.“We’re hitting the party tonight.You said you really didn’t enjoy it last time, and I want you to.”
“Uh, that’s not necessary,” she said but didn’t resist when he drew her back toward the house.
Music was blasting from inside the house, the intense bass pulsing throughout the building, and of course since the house was off the campus drinking was legal for anyone twenty-one and up.UVM was pretty strict about drinking on campus and in student housing.
The house was a large brick one that looked like it had been here since the Revolutionary war, but it was really built in the seventies.There was a large porch that was shadowed now that the streetlamp was out.The moon didn’t reach it through the trees surrounding the facade.
He pulled her toward a corner tucked away from the crowd with a wooden bench that was secluded from the rest of the party.He sat down on it and pulled her onto his lap.It had been too long since he’d held her.
It had only been last night when she’d been in his arms, but that was way too long.
She wrapped one arm around his shoulder, sitting crossways on his lap.Her head rested on his shoulder.He lowered his to kiss her.Her mouth was perfect for long leisurely kisses, when it wasn’t delivering the perfect put-down or smile to take the sting off her acerbic tongue.
Tracing the shell of his ear with her finger, she sent tingles down his neck and straight to his dick.She shifted, gently rubbing herself against him as she turned to kiss him more deeply.
That slick turtleneck that hugged her body seemed to have no end, frustratingly he couldn’t find the way to get to her skin.
Her soft laughter made him look up.
“You growled.”
“Your shirt is a pain.”
“Is it?”she asked, opening his coat and then pushing her very cold hands against his stomach.
“Yikes, woman.”
“Cold hands, warm heart.”
Seeing her cheeky grin was totally worth her freezing touch.He shifted her hands up to his chest and then hugged her close until his thoughs touched hers.
Her tights were smooth and soft against his fingertips, the calluses from his guitar playing rubbed against them.She shifted, her legs parting as her mouth trailed kisses and love bites over his neck.
