Page 11 of Chasing Ghosts
It just keeps saying thirteen until whatever touches Cori lifts her hair as she jumps away and cries out.
Then I’m coming awake here on the dock in front of Cori, who is standing in front of me with her eyes open but vacant. Her mouth moves, but no sound comes out. I grab onto her to keep her from walking off the side of the dock and call her name until she takes a long, slow blink. This time, when her eyes open, she’s actually awake.
“Wh…what happened?”
Just as I’m about to say something back, a flash of lightning splits the sky behind her, and thunder rumbles so loudly it shakes the ground. She jumps and moves to back up. I pull her into me, so she doesn’t instinctively back up and fall into the water surrounding the dock.
“We have to get inside?”
“The house!”
“No! We’ll never make it back before we get hit by lightning. The boathouse is closer.”
Before she can try to argue with me, I’m lifting her and running for the building closest to us. Another peal of thunder shakes the ground under my feet, but I keep going until I get us in the tiny door and shut it.
“This isn’t any better! There’s a big open pit of water right in front of us!”
“Come on.” I grab her arm and pull her to the back, where there is more room, and we are farther away from the water. “Stay low.”
I yank her down beside me and wait. We are silent for several moments, just listening to the storm rage over our heads. It takes me a second to realize she is shivering beside me. She’s not wearing much.
When I first came back to myself to find her standing in front of me, I was able to take in what she was wearing. I saw her in her nightdress once before, when she came out of her room yelling that first night. I let my eyes wander over the soft swell of her breasts under the thin material, the curve of her hip that was just barely evident underneath. And when I held her, for the brief time I actually got to hold her, my body felt like it came alive for the first time ever. My cock started getting hard, and my heart thumped against my ribcage like it wanted to be closer to her, and that was only a few seconds of holding her.
I saw her standing in front of me on the dock in a white nightgown that was basically see-through from the rain. It clung to her body, the tips of her breasts pebbled under the thin material, taunting me, making my mouth water. The dress was molded to her so I could make out every curve and dip, and the shadow in between her legs. I shouldn’t have looked at her when she was so vulnerable, but I couldn’t take my eyes off her either. It was like she was fucking glowing out there in the dark.
She was backlit by the lights running along the dock, but it wasn’t that. It was something else, something that came from inside. I reached out to make sure she didn’t back up and fall into the water, but also because I felt an overwhelming need to touch her. And now she’s sitting next to me, shivering. There is no way I can keep my hands off her.
“Come here.” The words come out gruffer than I want them to.
She looks at me like I might have lost my mind and doesn’t move from where she has tucked herself. My patience is long past its breaking point where she is concerned, so I just wrap my hand around her wrist and pull her towards me.
“Wait! What are you…?”
I manhandle her until she is closer to me, and I can wrap my arms around her. “You’re freezing. We’ll be warmer if we…”
“You don’t have a shirt on. How are you supposed to keep me warm when you're just as wet as I am?”
“Shit!” She’s not wrong.
I look around and stand just as a huge streak of lightning lights up the whole building. She cries out and grabs for me, trying to pull me back down. Her fingers curl in the pocket of my sleep pants as the thunder comes next.
“I’ll be right back.”
“No!”
I squat down in front of her until we are face-to-face. “We have to stay warm or else the storm isn’t going to be our only problem. Let me go take a look around. I’ll only be gone a second.”
I can tell by the way she chews on her full bottom lip that she doesn’t like it, but gives me a quick nod despite it. “Just…please be safe.”
“Would you be sad if something happened to me?”
The face she makes has me chuckling before leaning forward to brush my lips against hers. The move shocks a gasp out of her and relaxes her hold on me.
“Promise.” With that, I take off.
I shouldn’t have kissed her. It wasn’t a real kiss. At least that is what I tell myself as I root around boxes and compartments in the boathouse. It was just a way to offer her comfort. Nothing more, but even as I think it, some part of me laughs, and I tell myself I’m going to do it again. And again.
I finally find what I’m looking for and come back to find her curled up with her arms around her legs and her head down. It drives home how fucking tiny she is compared to me. I need to get my ass under control and stop thinking about mauling her.
