Chapter Five

“Oh, no.” I groaned though I knew it was rude.

Alex grinned and simply said, “Hi, there.”

The ghost nodded at us, giving me the evil eye if I wasn’t imagining it. “What can I do for you?” I asked, trying to keep my irritation and exhaustion at bay.

She nodded, her long blonde hair eddying around her small, pale face. She didn’t speak to me, this one, she just projected a thought into my head and I laughed. “Well, hell, that’s easy enough. I can manage that.”

Alex followed me as I stomped four doors down. My smoking suede ankle boots did not really go with the muddy pink scrubs Mrs. Nunley had given me but everyone would just have to deal with my current fashion atrocity. I knocked hard and waited, wanting nothing more than a huge meal and Alex curled up in my bed for the night.

After all, it might be the last time—hell, the only time—I ever got to spend the night with him.

It made my head hurt to realize that we’d only met hours before. Tons of adventure, stress, sex and flying food and beverages had really messed with my sense of time. The movers would be back tomorrow morning and I might be telling them to head back to the city. I could not keep this frenetic pace of ghost-aiding. It was too much. Too exhausting. And I could especially not do it if they were planning on snatching my angel back to the heavens.

“Do you know what time it is?” said a short, round woman with flaming red hair.

“Yep, it’s ghost time!” I said, laughing. I was tired and hungry and horny and pretty sure I was falling for a heavenly creature, and now she was going to bitch at me?

I don’t think so.

She frowned at me and started to slam the door. I stuck my boot in the jamb and winced. “I wouldn’t do that. Not if you want to know where…” I had to concentrate,

“Grandma Helen’s pearl necklace is!” God, I sounded maniacally victorious even to myself.

“What? Are you the new neighbor from the city? I knew you’d be crazy,” she said almost to herself.

“Hey! Look! I am here to help. Your dead cousin Sarah is telling me that it’s in the jelly car net!” I put my hands on my hips and Alex Church—that beautiful traitor—had the nerve to laugh.

“Well, then, thanks so much,” she snorted. “I’ll run right out and look in the jelly car net.”

Okay. So that sounded wrong. “Wait a moment,” I growled and turned to dead Sarah. I focused on her mouth as she projected. It all came together and I turned. “So, she said jelly cabinet, so sue me. I just stopped the angel of death and took a bath in applesauce.”

Now my brand new shiny neighbor looked damn near terrified. I realized what I had just said sounded mildly unsettling when taken out of context. “Look it’s in a teapot in the jelly cabinet. Your necklace. Now Sarah can rest because you are not upset anymore and I can rest because Sarah can rest.

Good night,” I said and turned on my heels, stomping back to my own wreck of a house.

I dug and dug and finally found a box of pasta and a jar of sauce. “There’s wine in that box,” I said, pointing. “I’m starved how about you?”

He patted his belly and said, “Yep, but I keep forgetting what that means.”

“It means food! You need food, food, food and I’m going to make it.” I dumped a can of mushrooms in the sauce and wished for ground beef, but beggars can’t be choosers. I tried to keep my voice light as he uncorked and poured me some wine. “So now what? You go back up there?”

Alex stopped, pinning me with a gaze that made me feel like a bug under a pin.

“It’s up to me. Free will and all.”

“Even for you?” I asked, shocked.

“Even for me. For all of us, free will.”

“Ah, so now that your work here is done, you get to go back and what? Rest, choose again?”

He stared, sipping his wine and wincing at the sharp taste. “Wow.”

“Yeah, it takes some getting used to,” I laughed.

“I can do what I like. I can go back and study, I can go back and choose a new person to aide. I can…”

“You can?” Big giant butterflies seemed to have taken up residence in my stomach.

I turned my back on him so he couldn’t see my fear.

“I can stay if I want. For as long as I want.”

“Ah,” I said on a shaky breath. “Well, it seems your work here is done. You’ve helped me, we rescued someone from an untimely death and helped a few ghosts.

Good stuff. I guess you’ll be on your way soon.”

I stirred and stirred and stirred and heard him leave the room. When I heard the front door click behind him, I started to cry. Damn, damn, damn! Wasn’t it too soon for this shit? Did it seem fair that I had just moved to a new place after a break up, lost the house I worked so hard on, lost the guy I thought was the one to Ruby—also known as Satan herself—met an angel. Then had to deal with movers and ghosts and then a murderer! Got covered in applesauce had the door slammed in my face and now a guy I seemed to have fallen for hook, line and sinker on first sight had just…left. Call me crazy, but that didn’t seem fair.

I drank my wine, but did not eat my stupid-ass spaghetti. Though the buzzing energy of the cemetery was still there, it was a low level vibe that didn’t make me feel nearly as crazed as when I’d shown up. Still, there was no way I could live there if they knew about me, and by now they did.

I curled up in my bedframeless bed in the scrubs from the hospice. It’s not like I had to impress anyone. This was the point where I wished I’d broken down and bought a cat or a dog—hell a guinea pig.

Well, maybe not a guinea pigs since I could crush a guinea pig in my sleep. But a cat or a dog, yeah.

I dozed instantly. Being exhausted and overworked and freshly broken hearted—again—will do that to a girl.

* * * * *

It seems I have slept alone long enough now that my very first impulse when feeling the weight of another person settle in my bed is to punch. So I punched. Hard.

“Ow!” Alex yelled, but it was muffled. In the dim light from the hall I could see him clutching his beautiful face.

“Oh shit! Oh sorry!” I sat up, feeling around in the dark for anything to offer him to put to his bleeding nose. Though I admit, the part of me that broke when he walked out the front door was a tiny bit gleeful at how hard I’d nailed him. By the time I found a wadded up tissue in the nightstand he was fine.

“It’s fine. It’s fine, it’s really not important.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry!” I was kinetic then. Grasping at him, pulling at him, touching his face.

“What are you doing here?”

“Shh, Harper,” he said. He leaned in, kissing me. Warm long kisses that stilled the wild thing that had bloomed in my chest from the fear and the surprise.

“I am shushing. I am,” I lied. I tugged at his hair and I felt the resounding growl in his throat. I felt the hardening of his cock along my thigh. I felt him press to me, between my legs, rocking his hard cock against the soft fabric of my clothes. Pinning my panties to me under my scrubs. I held him close and kissed him hard because there was a very real chance, I realized, that I was dreaming this.

“No you’re not shushing. You’re talking.” His strong fingers pushed down the horrible pink scrub pants. The top was next. When I was naked under him, he kissed me again.

I hadn’t talked while he undressed me. That had to count for something.

“Where were you?” I asked but he started to rock. Pressing the length of his hard-on along the seam of my sex, tripping all the nerves around my pussy lips, getting just the right friction on my clit so that my brain sort of staggered to a stop and my breath froze in my lungs. Damn. For an angel, he sure knew how to be bad.

“Taking care of some things.”

I pressed a hand between us and laughed. “Don’t worry,” he said, when my fingers found the familiar feel of thin latex. “I always keep my word.”

“Next time, okay? Next time all naked, all the way. Promise,” I said, parting my thighs, touching his hot skin. Wishing I could see him better in the crappy light. The light seemed to brighten and then I could. Those smiling blue eyes and staggering face.

But most of all, with Alex Church, the total feel of him. The goodness of him. All of it.

“I’m going to hold you to that,” he said, and pulled my hands high, pinning them wide, pushing into me on a smooth, restrained thrust so that I whimpered like he was hurting me. But quite the opposite. My body bunched up around him, eager and wet and ready to couple with him again. Well trained to the pleasures that were Alex.

“After all, you are my first lover.”

He moved into me, slow and easy until I tugged and pushed against his restraining hold. Then his movement grew with each driving motion, filling me so that I said his name over and over like a prayer.

His mouth came down on my throat, his tongue lapping at my clavicle, my nipple, my breast. He sucked so hard that pleasure tugged at my pussy, tumbling me over into my first orgasm. Soft and somehow graceful. I came, trying so hard to free my hands from him, but not really wanting to break his hold or his spell. “Stay still for me, Harper,” he laughed. “I’m not done with you yet.”

He wasn’t. He kept me there, rather easily, with his grasp, though he had switched to one hand.

The other snaked under my knee, lifting my leg high, skewing my body so that he brushed new bunches of secret flesh as he fucked me. I put my mouth to his shoulder, in lieu of having hands, and bit him as the second orgasm rushed over me and pulled me under. I bit him none too gently and heard him make a sound that made me smile in the dark. That spark of pain had him toeing the line between being in control and losing it.

“I had to make sure everything was good for you,” he said, flipping me before I could track his motion. The world twirled around me and there I was, on hands and knees, ass high in the air, Alex’s huge hands on my hips as he pushed into me from behind, anchoring me with his firm touch. He tugged me back to him even as he drove forward with greedy thrusts. The less refined side of him had my stomach dipping with crazy nerves and my blood hummed in my ears like feedback.

Because he’s leaving. He had to make sure everything was good for you and now he’ll leave.

After a goodbye fuck, of course…

I bit my tongue, refusing to give into pity as he moved faster and faster, his fingers sliding over the skin of my bottom. His finger pressed the small star of my anus and he pushed just enough of his finger in so that sparkles of bittersweet, unexpected pain flared in my body. “Not because I’m leaving,”

he said, moving more aggressively. Truly taking me, claiming me with the harsh overtone of this encounter. “Because I’m staying.

because I realized I can’t leave. Because I saw you over all the things there were to see for a reason. You stood out to me for a reason, out of all the souls, all the people. And you, Harper, are the reason I belong here.” His voice broke and he pushed me so my face was flush on the mattress. When he came, I came with him, crying into my pillow, but realizing it was a relief cry, not pain.

Alex collapsed flush on me, squeezing the air from my lungs with his weight so that I wheezed in a most unattractive way. It made me laugh. I lay under him, the pounding of his heart on my shoulder blade, the heat of him covering me. He laughed softly at my hysterical snickers. “What’s so funny?”

“I made a sound like a deflating pool toy.”

He twined his fingers in mine, stretching my arms, pinning me to the bed, spread-eagle, face down, I don’t think I’d ever been so comfortable. “I’m crushing you. But I’ll move in a moment.”

“It’s fine. Where did you go?” I breathed shallowly. I smiled. I was suffocating but thrilled.

“I went across the street. To set them straight,” he said in my ear. Alex kissed the back of my neck and I shivered, my scalp tingling with the sensation of him.

I finally did turn, but he didn’t move off me, he simply let me lay under him facing up instead of down. “Why over there?”

“I told them you are available once a season. One day out of each season, four times a year, they can come for help or to be heard. Beyond that, you are off-limits. You have a life.”

“Wow. Did it work?”

He grinned. “Of course it worked. I’m an angel. It seems helping you get control of your gift and your urge to help is part of my mission, too. That and falling for you.”

I blushed, turned away. He took my face, gently, turned it back. “I love you, Harper.”

“I…” I swallowed.

“I love you, Harper. And I know now I came here to love you. And I will tell you that I love you a thousand times a day until you feel safe telling me you love me, too.”

“But what if I…” I swallowed again. I would not cry. Not, not, not!

“You will. You’ll tell me, because you do. You love me,” he said. He grinned. He kissed me.

Something in me melted and something else in me flared up like a fire sparking in a fire pit.

“You’re so sure of that?” I asked, curling myself in on him.

“Yep. I am. And I’m sure of something else too.” He palmed my ass, pulling me in,.

I didn’t think I’d ever, ever get tired of feeling him against me.

“What’s that? That you want me again?” I asked, trying to joke but sounding all sexpot and breathy.

“Well, yeah. That. That’s always a given.” His tongue tangled with mine and heat flushed my cheeks. “But that wasn’t it.”

He pulled me flush to him, my back nestled to his front. His arms came around me, his lips to the back of my neck. I wiggled in and he groaned his fresh arousal. I laughed.

“What was it then?”

“That you are going to be very, very busy once a season.”

I laughed. “You’ll help me?”

“Always.”

I shut my eyes, knowing that part of my fear was I’d wake and find Alex gone.

Gone back to heaven. But then I realized that I could wake to find anyone in my life gone. It was the risk that came with love. New or burgeoning or well-tended love. It was all about the trust. “I trust you,” I blurted.

“And you love me,” he said.

“Oh, you’re so sure of that. You are all knowing, are you?” In my mind I saw him taking me from behind again. I had liked the feel of bending to his will, of him taking me and making me his. I smiled secretively, touching his leg.

“Yes, I am all knowing. I know that soon I’m going to do exactly what you just imagined and that you love me.”

I blushed, laughed, wiggled again. “How long does this mind reading thing last?”

“The longer I’m incarnate the less it becomes. It’ll get weaker and weaker each day.”

“Whew.”

“Yeah, I guess it’s kind of intrusive, but for now, just for a bit, can I enjoy it?”

“Sure.” The more I tried to keep the dirty thoughts out of my head, the faster they came. My mouth on his cock, his mouth on me, him taking me oh…anywhere! On the steps, against the wall, in the kitchen, in the tub. It went on and on, flashing through my mind at fast forward. “Enjoy,” I managed.

“Yeah. Let’s start working through those one by one.” He sat up and tugged me up with him.

“What? You peeked again. Where are we going?” I balked, but my body did an allover tremble of excitement. Alex Church the angel did strange things to me.

“To the tub of course. And the steps…and the living room…”

“Oh, I like the way you think. Or should I say I like the way you spy?”

“Either or. And don’t forget…you love me,” he said, nudging me toward my brand new bathroom door.

“How could I forget?” I sighed.

“You never will,” he said and pushed me over the threshold, pressing me to the wall, kissing me hard with his hands in my hair. “I won’t let you.”

For some reason I believed him, knew he spoke the truth But I am a sensitive. I know these things.

About the Author

Sommer Marsden writes from her cozy Baltimore home, which she shares with a very patient family and a chunky wiener dog. She’s widely published in the erotica genre. Her work has appeared in dozens of anthologies, multiple magazines and on numerous websites. When she’s not writing, you can find her haunting thrift stores, walking, drinking red wine and eating frozen blueberries. Often simultaneously. Visit Sommer at her blog, Smut Girl (www.smutgirl.blogspot.com), to keep up with her dirty ramblings and daily updates about her life of controlled chaos.

Sommer welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email address on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.

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