Page 53 of Ghosted
He clicks it on, and I immediately snap my legs shut. I know if he puts that on me, I’ll be done in seconds, and I want this to last. He makes a tsking noise and says, “None of that, love. Flip over for me.” I hesitate for a moment before doing as I’m told, instinctively moving to my knees and arching my back as I press my chest down into the bed. “Beautiful,” he says, suddenly behind me. I push my hips back when he doesn’t move. “Needy thing, aren’t we?” he asks before palming a cheek and squeezing.
I whimper in response. “Yes, I need you,” I say, face half-buried in the mattress.
“Here?” he asks, dipping the tip of the vibrator inside.
“Yes,” I breathe. He withdraws the vibrator and lines himself up, pushing into me slowly. He leans forward, draping his long body over mine, and reaches around with the vibrator until he finds a spot that makes me see stars. Heat immediately licks out from my center, and I have to concentrate on the swirling colors and patterns of my bedspread to stop from shattering.
His hips meet the back of my thighs in slow, deep thrusts that nearly bring tears to my eyes. “You take me so well,” he murmurs in my ear, reaching his free hand forward to lace with mine, the other still between my legs. I can only moan in response, feeling myself spiral tighter and tighter. Finally, like a fishing line snapping, I unspool in waves, the vibrator he presses to me heightening the intensity.
His breath hitches, and he says, “I’m going to try to stay here with you, okay? But if I can’t, know that I want to. More than anything.” His muscles tense against me and he presses his forehead to my shoulder.
His thrusts become erratic until I feel him pulse inside me, the vibrator falling to the bed as he loses concentration. He seats himself deeply, gripping my hips tightly for purchase. He shudders and allows himself to lie on top of me. I can tell he’s holding off some of his weight, but it’s still the ultimate cuddle, our bodies pressed closely together. I smile into my comforter. “You stayed,” I say, half-delirious.
“I stayed,” he affirms, rolling off me and drawing me close, my backto his chest.
“So much for no funny business,” I say with a snort, feeling slap-happy from all the oxytocin bouncing around my brain.
“Yeah, well. You’re relaxed, aren’t you?” he says, kissing the crown of my still-wet head. I snuggle deeper into him, holding him close like an oversized teddy bear. “Sleep, Rae,” he says, caressing my side with his hand. I comply before I can voice the half-formulated argument brewing on my tongue.
THIRTY
Wren kicksher combat-boot-clad feet up on my coffee table and sighs, closing her eyes. She just finished her closing shift at Brewed Awakening and didn’t feel like making the drive home. This happens about once a month when her insomnia catches up with her.
I only have two days to go until the Night Before All Hallows Eve Ball and an overflowing to-do list to complete. I originally tried to get her to come up to my place without me, but she wouldn’t hear it. “Ew no, you workaholic,” were her exact words, actually. And then she proceeded to drag me out of the store, barely giving me enough time to lock up, and tossed a frozen vegetarian pizza into my toaster oven.
Now here we are, both so tired that neither of us has gotten up and pulled the pizza out of the still-dinging oven. I close my eyes, vowing that in just one more minute, I’ll get up and pull the pizza out so it doesn’t burn.
“Okay well, this is where I intervene,” Dean says. I openmy eyes and look over the back of the couch to see him pulling the pizza out of the oven with his bare hands. “Can’t have you dying in a house fire caused by an overcooked pizza. That’s just sad.” He slides the pie onto my countertop and turns off my toaster oven.
Wren wrinkles her nose and rubs the goosebumps on her arms. “Ugh. Ghost boy is here, isn’t he?”
Dean snorts. “Ghost boy? I guess I can rock with that. It sounds like some sort of superhero.” He places his fists on his hips and adopts a “Superman” stance, humming a theme I vaguely recognize.
“Okay, I knew you guys were still hanging out, what with the whole murder and everything, but does he have to be here now?” Wren asks, shooting daggers in his general direction.
“Geez, what’s her deal?” Dean asks, dropping his fists and flitting across the room to sit in the chair.
“She’s not a huge fan of ghosts,” I explain. “She can read auras, and it’s very unsettling to see an aura but not a person. It’s like when you try to tune an old TV and get to a channel that doesn’t have a good signal, so it’s all broken up and fuzzy. Her mind tries to make the picture clearer, but it can’t.”
“Gives me a damn headache,” Wren grumbles, standing and heading to the kitchen. I hear theshing!of her pulling my pizza cutter out and decide to risk her bad mood for a slice of pizza.
“Can you tell her I’m sorry?” Dean asks me. “I can go now. I just didn’t want you to burn your pizza.” He presses his mouth into a line. If I’m not mistaken, I would say that charismatic, people-person Dean is nervous about meeting my sister.
I relay what he said to her, and she sighs, cutting into thepizza with vigor. “I don’t want you to leave, Ghost Boy. If you’re banging my sister, I have to get used to you.”
I choke on my spit and eke out, “Wren!”
Dean titters, shoulders shaking until it evolves into a full-blown laugh. I guess I should have seen this coming when I confided in her yesterday. I run my hand down my face to cover my smile. These two people of mine are ridiculous.
“What? Am I not allowed to talk about it? Is ghost sex taboo?” Wren asks, a mischievous smile curling her lips.
I sigh from deep in my weary bones. “We are not going to talk about sex with my—With Dean,” I stumble out. I almost called him my boyfriend, but attaching labels is the last thing we need right now.
Wren senses the turn in my mood, so she hands me a plate with a couple of pieces of pizza. “Fine. Let’s eat. Dean, you can stay, but don’t get close to me, please. It makes everything go a little haywire in my brain.”
“Got it,” Dean says, settling further in the chair. I nod at Wren to let her know that Dean understands.
“So, you pulled out this pizza, huh?” Wren asks Dean, before taking a massive bite. She hardly chews before she continues, “That’s weird, right?” She looks to me for confirmation, and I shrug. “Your ghosts usually don’t have that much control. Like sure, they can move things sometimes, but to move around the world like a solid, flesh and bones person is unheard of.”
