Sensitive Page 4

  “Be rude,” I said. “Be rude some more.” I grabbed the front of his jeans and wrestled them until my hand was down inside his pants, holding his cock, touching him so that his breath came hard and fast and his tongue flicked out to touch mine.

  “Okay, I can do that.” He dropped to his knees and tugged at my jeans. Freed me from them so that when he stood and took my leg and wrapped it around his waist, I didn’t fall. My pussy spread and slick for him, he rubbed against me, his warm hard-on maddening against my flesh.

  “Condomcondomcondom,” I chanted and he sighed heartily.

  “I don’t need—”

  “I need it,” I admitted. “Please.”

  Alex closed his eyes and rested his forehead on mine. He never stopped bucking against me softly. A metronome of motion, sliding his hot skin to my wet slit. And then it was sheathed, his hard-on, and I laughed. “I’ll never get used to that.”

  “I’ll never get used to being reminded to do it,” he said, slipping the head of his cock into my pussy, pushing my arms low and back so that I had to grip the oak’s bark as it bit into my lower back, adding that sharp spark of pain that made my cunt go tight around his thrusting cock.

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t ever be sorry with me,” he said and his mouth crushed down on mine. His lips and tongue bullying mine into submission. For an angel, he sure as hell could kiss me so that my ears smoked and my insides started to boil over.

  “Okay.” I let him push me hard to the trunk, pinning me helpless and tight to the tree, and my legs came up to wrap around his waist. He was as big to me as the monstrous oak. I opened for him, taking his cock as he thrust high and hard into me. “I won’t.”

  “Good. I know that you are this way because of the energy,” Alex said, bending his head at an impossible angle to suck at my nipple. He pushed my sweater high on my chest so that he could bite and suck until my insides grew tight around him and I bit my lip to keep from crying out and startling whoever the hell lived across the street.

  “Not entirely,” I corrected. I shifted under him, eddying like a tide, and he let me. I had experienced an influx of psychic energy before. I had been able to fend men off and once, even sent a boyfriend I was breaking up with home. Not with Alex. With Alex the insatiable feeling got the better of me. I almost told him he was different, but held it in.

  “But why am I this way? Psychic energy and ghosts don’t bother me. Or influence me. Why am I so…uncontrollable around you? Why do I have to have you?”

  He thrust harder and the bark of the tree scraped my skin. I felt the warm flow of blood as the tissue tore a bit, but I didn’t want him to stop. I gripped him harder and felt the orgasm rushing toward me like a wave. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

  “I feel like I need you. Like I have to have you. I can’t not have you,” he said. His lips brushed my ear and I came, holding his shoulders like I was going to be tugged underwater by an undertow. “Do you feel that?” he asked.

  I hated to admit weakness. Especially being newly single. But I did. I had an undeniable forceful tug to the angel-slash-possible-crazy-man. I nodded, but refused to speak.

  “I heard that,” he said, gripping my bottom tight in his fingers so it pinched. My body let loose a warm trickle of juices and I inched closer to coming again. Everything was intense with this man. I wished I could see his gorgeous blue eyes, but I felt the energy that pulsed off him like a flickering flame.

  Lust rolled in my belly and affection flooded my chest. I was a mess.

  “You heard me nod? Did my head rattle?”

  “Sort of. Not the rattle, but the nod. I heard you nod. I felt your feelings. There is a certain amount of empathy with angels. I can feel what you feel. When you’re open to me. And when we’re joined.” He thrust and thrust and wedged his big hand between us, rolling the slippery ball of his thumb over my clit. “And you are open to me right now.” He came, his teeth on my lower lip where he nipped until I joined him. My pussy milked his cock until we both staggered at the base of the tree, trying to right our messed up clothes.

  “Oh, that’s great. So when I was all pissed and frustrated back at Molly’s house?”

  He nodded, grinning and taking my hand. Alex led me toward my new home and said, “Who can blame you? I was frustrated and I’m an angel.”

  “Jeez.”

  “I wasn’t expecting this,” Alex said, pushing open my brick-red door when we got home.

  “What?”

  “The way I feel,” he said. His big hands worked to tidy my front entry table. I took his hand in mine. Large and warm and soft on the palm, no calluses.

  “Frustrated like a human?” I said, smiling.

  Alex reached up and brushed a long brown strand of hair, stained honey from the summer now past, from my face. “The feelings I have for a human. How intense it is.

  Like seeing the light of the inner heaven for the first time.”

  “Inner heaven?” I asked.

  “Long story. There are degrees of heaven like lots of stuff. Inner, outer, upper. It’s complicated.”

  “Hungry?” I asked, letting it go. Heaven was not something I wanted to ponder tonight. Not while exhausted and so hungry I was tempted to eat a cardboard box.

  “What’s that?”

  “Seriously?”

  He grinned. “Seriously. What is that?”

  I patted his belly, flat and taut. “Is there an aching gnawing feeling in here?”

  Alex pressed a hand to his taut stomach and nodded. “Is that what that is?”

  “Hunger,” I said. He followed me into the kitchen where I opened the fridge.

  Nothing but a box of baking soda and a bottle of ketchup the previous owner left stared back at me. “See, yeah. About that. I’m sort of light on food stuff.”

  “It’s okay,” he said. He trailed his fingers up my spine and the zing of excitement that flew from his fingertips made me feel a little drunk.

  “It’s really not. If you don’t eat, then you will…” I trailed off. Trying to explain something as mundane as eating was hard to do.

  “What?”

  “Fall down? Stop functioning? You won’t work right. You’re familiar with cars, right?”

  “Of course, we see them all the time. We’re familiar with a lot, even eating,” he laughed. “I understand the concept and the human need.” This time his fingers tiptoed up the front of me. His fingers skipped from my bellybutton up the middle of me, like he was tugging up an invisible zipper, only the sensation made me feel naked not clothed.

  “Good. Then you understand that humans eventually die if they don’t eat. Though, I doubt we’re going to die, I do think we could feel gross and bad and not be able to help any more pesky ghosts if we pass out.”

  Alex leaned in and kissed me. The smell of him, a mix of manly smells and baking smells filled my head. Is this what heaven smelled like? Or just my version? “I see,”

  Alex said. He pressed his soft warm lips to mine and pushed his tongue gently into my mouth.

  The sensation of him kissing me warmed my pelvis from the inside out, my pussy going flush and liquid for him again. I was on the verge of bending over my counter and begging him to take me. But my stomach roared with need and I pushed him gently away.

  “I know you want it again,” I said, my breath hitching with a needy stutter in my throat. Man, oh man, this angel screwed with my head. And my hormones. “And I do too,” I confessed. “Really, really, really do. But we need to eat or you’re going to sex me right into unconsciousness.”

  Alex Church got my sense of humor enough that he snorted with soft laughter and I smiled at him, liking it even more. I raided a box on the counter and found a tin of crackers and some peanut butter. I set about making us peanut butter crackers, with lids, thank you very much. “I think there’s a case of soda in the pantry and a case of water, too.”

  Alex pulled the door open and we both jumped. “Um…”

  “Damn! Ano
ther ghost!” I stared at him, lean and tall and much older than Molly.

  “I mean, hi. Sorry. Didn’t mean to be rude.”

  The ghost stepped out, nodded, stood in the corner while Alex stared at me. I closed my eyes.

  “He wants us to carry on. He can wait. As long as it’s not too long,” I gave a hearty sigh. Nothing was creepier than uber patient ghosts.

  “So we…just eat? But I…” Alex, poor clueless angel, looked confused.

  I waved a hand at him. “He'll be fine. Don't worry, he'll butt in if need be. Might as well grab us some drinks, most likely he won’t talk ’til we’re done. We’ll eat and then he’ll spill the beans. And we’ll have our next mission!” I fake-chirped at him.

  “Are you happy?” Alex asked, eyeing me warily.

  “Hell, no. But what am I going to do? I doubt I’ll be able to stay in my new dream house, “I sighed. “Ghosts and angels and what’s next? De—”

  Alex held up a hand. “Whoa, wouldn’t go there,” Alex said.

  “Do they really exist?” I asked. I’d never had a run in with an inhuman but I wondered.

  “Do I?”

  “Good point. If you do, then I guess the opposite of you could.”

  “You won’t stay here?” He looked sad as he gave the ghost a wide berth and settled at the counter on a red-topped stool.

  “I’ll never get any rest,” I admitted, passing him a plate of peanut butter crackers. I set about inhaling mine wishing I had more. And maybe a steak to go with it. Alex passed me a soda and I drank deeply. God, I had no idea I was so ravenous for food and drink until it was before me.

  “You see them all the time?”

  “Mostly. I mean, I can turn it off. I’m lucky, I always have been able to. And I don’t quite know how. I just sort of…can. Like you and your shutting your eyes and manifesting stuff, thing. Do you know exactly how you do that?”

  Alex shook his head, bit into a cracker and grinned widely. He ate two more without chewing, I was pretty sure. Peanut butter crackers—score! “Nope. I just do it.”

  “Same thing. But I can never tune out all of these lingering spirits. And it’s still an active graveyard from what I can tell! They’re burying fresh bodies every week. My god! It’ll be like a twenty-four hour convenience store around here but only with help for the recently deceased.”

  “So you’d have to give up your dream home after all you’ve been through because…you’d never get any rest?”

  I nodded. “Sad but true,” I sighed. “But hey, we get what we get, right? Gotta play the hand you’re dealt and all that jazz.”

  Alex shook his head which baffled me. “That’s sad.” Of all the folks in my life, I’d think he’d know since it had all been going on before he even came down here to help me. Fell to earth? Plummeted?

  Dived? Whatever.

  “Aren’t you here to help me deal with my loss?” I asked him, thoroughly confused.

  I noticed our patient ghost was looking a bit impatient now.

  Alex shook his head. “It doesn’t work that way. I don’t know why I’m here or how I can help or even if I can.” He stretched across the counter and pressed his lips to mine.

  All of me warmed at the kiss. All of me seemed to crawl with need and I wanted him so bad right then I wished I could blink my eyes and banish my ghostly visitor.

  “Why would you be here if you can’t help?” I breathed, pushing my fingers into his soft dark hair. His eyelids drifted shut at the pleasure of my touch and his gas-flame blue eyes were shrouded from me for an instant.

  “Sometimes we come to observe or just watch over you. To guard, protect, guide or just watch.”

  He outlined my lips where he’d just kissed me with his fingertip. I shivered and I swear to you, I heard that ghost sigh, mightily.

  “Ohhhh, I see,” I said. “No, I lied, I don’t really see. But we do have to help this man before he finds a way to beat me from beyond the grave. His patience has met its limit and I feel like…there’s an urgency now.”

  Alex smiled. “I guess you’re right.” He very subtly pressed his thumb to my nipple through my cardigan and I made a sound in my throat that was half growl.

  “Don’t get me into trouble.”

  “I think it’s you who is getting me into trouble,” he said.

  “Hey, horny is part of this deal mister!” Again I heard the ghost make a disgruntled noise in my head and I wrangled my libido and my attention. “Fine, fine! Tell me, Mr.

  Ghost.”

  Walter.

  “Tell me, Walter, how can I help you?”

  So Walter told me. And thankfully, for the most part, Alex got the gist of it. I simply summed up.

  “There is a hospice in the center of town where the souls cannot cross over.

  We need to help.”

  It seemed the Cherry Grove Hospice had an angel of death—a worker who was

  “helping” residents cross over. Not the ones who truly wished for end-of-life assistance, but those who did not. Those still relatively in this earthly plane and happy to be here.

  The fear and the anger and the disservice was holding the souls at the facility. Hospices are like airports for the dead. There’s a departure every few minutes some nights.

  Something as stressful and disheartening as an angel of death—or more succinctly, a murderer—could clog up the works hugely.

  “Let’s go. Or we’ll never ever get to…” Walter had turned his back and I reached out and touched my fingers to Alex’s fly. He was hard under my touch, feeding off my constant sexual energy. I bet if I asked him if he was hungry, he’d say yes. Because I was hungry again, already. And if I pulled out a bottle of wine, you’d have two drunken, hungry, horny ghost facilitators on your hands.

  Instead of throwing him down and banging him senseless or eating or drinking, I tugged his hand and we followed Walter.

  Chapter Four

  My wife is in there, Walter informed me and I sighed. Poor Walter. Poor Walter’s wife. Poor hospice people being sent on their departing flights before they were ready.

  We climbed in my beat-to-shit Chevy and headed up the hill to the high center of town.

  The building was like something out of a movie. Large, dark, rather creepy and as intimidating as hell “Can you see that?” I asked Alex.

  Alex nodded. “Yeah, right out of the mind of one of your human horror writers.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, I bet you’re right.” The building was swirling with a dark halo of shadows.

  Although invisible for most folks, I could see the dark stain of bad psychic energy floating around the hospice like storm clouds. “How about you, Walter?” I asked.

  When I turned Walter was gone. I sensed he’d hurried up to see about his wife. I turned to Alex, biting my lip with anxiety. “I have to tell you, I’m scared shitless,” I said. My intuition had not hit fever pitch yet. There was still time for me to collect myself and for that I was grateful. Hell, maybe we’d go in there and Walter would be wrong. Judging by the energy around the building, that was doubtful, but a girl can hope. “I’m really, really scared,” I said again.

  He looked shocked and then concerned. Alex, newly humanized angel, ran his hand through his hair so it stood in dark spikes and horns. I smoothed one down, rubbing his hair like a worry bead. “You are scared? You don’t strike me as the scared type.” He took my hand and kissed it gently. My pussy loosed a small trickle of juices.

  God, whenever he touched me I wanted him so, so, bad. It scrambled my brains, the way his skin felt touching mine.

  “I’m used to small potatoes. A ghost here, a spirit there, a family freaked out by a residual haunt. Most people don’t know I’m sensitive but family and the dead. I keep it close to my vest. I don’t mind helping, but I don’t bang my psychic drum and put my

  ‘open for business’ sign out. I freelance computer work, teach a class here and there, write technical stuff. I have a small account from my father’s death when I wa
s young and I have no interest in…”

  He was holding both my hands in his and the heat of him made me feel like it was June instead of November. I felt like I should have warm sand between my toes and sun in my hair. “In?”

  “In being Harper Brown psychic detective. Or medium for hire. Or any of that.” I let my body take over for a minute so my lips were drawn to his like I had magnets hidden in my teeth. Alex kissed me back, pulling me to him across the hideous burgundy bench seat of my ancient Chevy Malibu. Gotta love the bench seat.