Ever Tempted (23 page)

“You should have gotten to safety faster. You don’t understand how easy it would be for something to hurt you. I’d lose my mind if that ever happened.” Cole took both my hands, and his green stare burned me. “I can’t lose you.”

Apparently, I hadn’t thought enough about what had happened upstairs for Cole to understand I hadn’t exactly been attacked. Nor had he heard that I sort of enjoyed it, until the person disappeared. And I wouldn’t have enjoyed it if the ghost, or whatever it was, hadn’t been amazingly talented at making itself to look and sound exactly like my husband.

Come to think of it, though, the ghost had said ambiguous things, and I’d read into them.

Everything he’d said could have been said to anyone. It hadn’t known anything personal about me.

That was a good thing. At least I didn’t have to worry that it might have been Grace pulling her tricks again.

I shuddered.

A fuse had sparked to life in Cole’s gaze. It was just a matter of time before the bomb went off.

Crap. That thought hearing stuff was really trying my nerves.

He dropped my hands. “You didn’t almost have intimate relations with a ghost?”

“Please don’t be a hypocrite. The same thing happened to you. He felt real. He looked and sounded exactly like you, and I didn’t have blurred vision when it took place. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Except like it while it was occurring.”

“I thought it was you. There was nothing about the ghost that gave me the first inkling that I wasn’t in an embrace with my husband.” Starting to get a little annoyed, I stepped back from him.

Cole sighed deeply and stared at a tree nearby. “I’m not mad at you. I’m pissed that something almost raped my wife.”

Okay, I would have been furious too, so I had to defuse the situation. I stepped closer and pulled his arms around me. “You’re so cute when you’re jealous.”

Cole fumed as he regarded me. “It not…that’s not why…just hush.”

I gave him a cute expression I knew he loved from his past responses and wiggled as close as I could get into his embrace. “You are adorable when you show your insecurities. And I’m sure I would have stopped before anything happened.”

“Did you?” Cole winced as he waited.

“Do you want me to recount it step by step?” I kissed his neck, then moved to his jawline.

He stiffened but his thumbs made a slow ascent up my ribs. “I mean… Did you kiss?”

“Not exactly.” This was fun.

His lips pursed and that little vein on his forehead that popped out when he was pissed bulged. “What does ‘not exactly’ mean?”

I diverted my gaze. “He kissed my neck.”

Cole took a breath and held it.

I still didn’t look at him. “And I kissed his nose.”

He exhaled, his eyes narrowed to slits, and his nostrils flared. He let me go and leaned back on the car.

“Don’t worry. That’s when I shoved him away and told him it was inappropriate timing.” I caught Cole’s jaw in my hand and forced him to look into my eyes. Cole’s hurt expression softened every molecule of anger I’d had for him since I’d learned of the motel incident.

“You’re never going in that house again.” The bad mood I’d expected he’d have most of the day given our current race to an invisible finish line with Grace finally reared its ugly head. He paced the broken sidewalk and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why do you attract ghosts? What is it about you that they just can’t stay away from?”

“I’m irresistible, or they’re jealous of me.” I leaned against the car. The wind picked up and light rain sizzled on the pavement. “Let’s get in the car and talk about all the times you’ve been molested by a hundred-year-old ghost that you have actually had sex with and see who wins this little argument.”

Cole jerked the SUV door open and waved for me to get in. “For the record, she tricked me by drugging my food. I never willingly had sex with her.”

“In my defense, the ghost looked exactly, to the T, like you. He was pretty hot.” I jerked Cole into the seat beside me and sat on his lap.

“This is not funny.” He pulled the door shut on us.

“It is, actually. How does it feel to have the tables turned?” I traced his jawline. The way it worked when he was furious, pulsating, took my breath. “Do you know how sexy you are?”

“Don’t change the subject.” Cole closed his eyes.

I pulled his face to me and took his bottom lip between mine.

His hands shot around me and his fingers found the skin under my shirttail. His thumbs dug into the sensitive hollows of my hips. He turned me to straddle him.

Wound in a mess of heavy breathing and wet kisses, I almost forgot where we were. He had a way of doing that to me every time we touched.

Laughter and loud talking interrupted us, which was probably a good thing because I was about three seconds from ripping Cole’s clothes off.

“And the Bobbsey Twins interrupt again.” Cole gazed out the window where the girls walked from the rear of the property. “I’m going to tear into you when we get home.”

His words singed me almost as much as his touch. “I can’t wait.”

“Thank God for tinted windows.” The corner of Cole’s mouth drew into the sexiest grin I’d ever seen in my life.

“Look at it this way.” Reluctantly, I slid off his lap and into my seat. “Upstairs, the ghost was nowhere near as good as you. He couldn’t even convince me to kiss him.”

Cole covered his face and lay against the window. “How do you do that to me? I can be so mad, and then bam, you almost have me arrested for public indecency.”

I giggled as Shelby, Kaitlyn, and Anna Marie opened the doors. Trevor sent Shelby and the girls a wave as he walked to his black BMW.

“Please tell me you gave him your number?” I said, hoping they hadn’t gotten a glimpse of us in our indecent embrace. We would never hear the end of it.

“Maybe.” Shelby found the car keys with a wide grin. She flipped her hair over her shoulder and regarded me in the rearview.

“I get it. He’s hot. Can we move to the matter at hand?” Cole rolled his eyes. “Did you get your hog warts or whatever you needed for your witch’s brew?”

“Yep.” Kaitlyn dangled two zip lock baggies with a brush in one and indistinguishable particles in the other. “We might be able to use human dander. In all the dust on the floor and from the wash bin, we should have plenty.”

Anna Marie held up an old washbowl with a nasty brown ring around the inside of it.

“Ugh. Who did their cleaning?” I recoiled from the artifact.

“They didn’t have Mr. Clean or bleach then.” Anna Marie plopped into the backseat and yanked her door shut.

“Well, still. Yuck.” I shivered.

Cole pulled his seatbelt around. “Are you the proud new owners of the Addams Family Mansion?”

I clicked my seatbelt into place. “It’s a beautiful house. Full of potential.”

“Full of molesters,” Cole said under his breath.

“What?” Shelby said.

“What’s he talking about?” Kaitlyn faced us as Shelby put the deed of trust in a cubby.

I took Cole’s hand to ease his anxiety. “Let’s just put it this way. It needs exorcising.”

“Shush. You’ll piss off the spirit. They have a tendency of falling in love with people, then following them around for innumerable years afterward.” Cole’s wry expression said he was done talking about my secret, not so transparent admirer.

“Not funny.” I pulled his hand into my lap.

“Did you have a ghostly encounter you haven’t told us about?” Shelby’s brow perked in the rearview.

Cole slammed the door with extra force. “Yep. One I’ll pay the best medium to remove if she ever has need to visit this house again.”

“Aww. A housewarming present,” Kaitlyn said.

“You two are just full of jokes.” Cole tapped his fingers on the door panel.

After we ate dinner at Fatz and drove forty minutes back to the manor, Cole’s mood had lightened.

The whole drive to the house, we’d had light drizzle. With a right turn onto the property, the bottom fell out. With the hopes that we were closer to seeing the end of Grace Rollins, we all laughed as we ran into the house.

I was completely soaked by the time we made it to the entrance where Brooklyn, one of the quietest and hardest working staff members, held the door open for us. She was always right on time when I requested anything. One day, she’d thanked me for not being like Ava.

Apparently the appreciation for eccentricity stopped with Cole.

I grinned as we passed her. “Thank you. I’m so glad you were here. Another second in that and we might have been washed away.”

“My pleasure, Mrs. Kinsley.” It was the first time I’d heard anyone say my last name other than Cole and me in jesting. It sent chills unrelated to the cool rain down my spine.

Cole nodded to Brooklyn and she walked away.

“I love the sound of that.” He dipped his head and swooped in for a light kiss. “Let’s go check on your evil sibling. Hopefully, she hasn’t budged.”

I wrung water out of my shirt. “I’m going to get out of these wet clothes. I’ll meet you in the basement.”

“Before I take any clothes off, I’m going to make sure she’s not around to witness it. She has a way of catching you with your pants down.” Cole winked at me. That was for telling him about my steamy moment with the ghost Casanova.

“I didn’t mean to make out with the guy. I told you, he propositioned me. And he was good at it.” I gave Cole a wicked smile and continued up the stairs.

“You two act like you’ve been married for years.” Kaitlyn waved as she and her sister walked toward the ballroom doors where the basement entrance was off to the left.

Cole followed the girls. “Imagine how argumentative we’ll be when we’re eighty. And all that making up will be fun.”

Their voices were almost inaudible by the time Shelby replied. “That’s foreplay for you guys. I don’t even want to imagine you being frolicky at that age. Seriously. I haven’t eaten yet.”

Shaking my head, I pulled my bedroom doors shut and without flipping the lights on first, I stripped off my shirt. I could imagine he’d be sexy even when he had a few decades of age on him. Salt and pepper layered in his hair, and that same grin framed with a few wrinkles would be enticing even when we were too old to put as much effort into intimacy. There’s no way I would ever tire of him. He could be on his deathbed.

“You’ve only been married for a few days, and he’s already sick of you. He could have come up here and ravished you as soon as your clothes were a heap on the floor, but he wanted to see me first. I tried to warn you that he’d always come to me when he was done with you, when we were alive.” A decaying body sat on the side of my bed. “Oh, wait. You’re the only one who really counts as being alive right now. And for the first time, that’s the way I want you to stay. After Cole dies, I’m going to bring Colby with me to the In-between, I don’t want your cute little thieving spirit there with us being a distraction. And that’s exactly what you are. A distraction. With you out of the way, he won’t think twice about you. It’ll be all about me the way it was when we first started courting.”

My grip on my shirt went slack. It fell to the floor as my knees turned to mush.

The stench of dead animals permeated through the room, or had her body decayed that much in a few days?

Her lips were already black as she stepped from the shadows in my room. She held the bedpost as she sat on my bed. As she raked her dirty fingers across my white bedspread, she left a trail of animal guts.

My voice jerked, but I mustered words. “Are you… Are you dead?”

“Not just yet, but I learned something that might be useful later. If you don’t feed a body for days and leave it wounded in a pit of bacteria, it tends to hurt like a bitch. I haven’t felt pain or anything in so long, it’s almost refreshing. If I was truly alive and I wasn’t so classy, I’d probably be one of those people who cut themselves just to take the pain away. Or for attention. Emo, isn’t that what your youth calls it nowadays?” Grace stretched out her hand and gazed at her newly manicured, but now cracked fingernails.

I backed toward the door, but the lock mechanism clicked into place. “I promised if Cole crossed me I’d make your life a living hell. I could start by locking you in here with a rotting corpse for hours on end, and no one could do a thing about it. If they tried to break down the door, I’d just maim you so badly Colby would never turn a wandering eye in your direction again.”

My blood curdled. This could not be happening. Shelby was supposed to have her under a sleep spell. We’d been so close to finding the answer to all our questions. It was too soon for her to be awake.

“Before those idiots realize I’ve climbed out of that pit of stench, and out of duty to a damsel in distress, Cole comes charging to your rescue like one of King Arthur’s knights, let’s get you to the pond. That’s where the real action is going to take place tonight.” As Grace stood, her joints made a disgusting popping noise. She left a spot of decayed animal juice on my bed. “That’s where the action has always been. I’m sure you loved the story of how Colby gave his virginity to me. I can’t stop thinking about it.”

My stomach churned into knots, and bile rose in my throat.

With a wave of her hand, Grace’s dark magic slammed the doors open. “We’re closest to the front door, so when we get to the bottom of the stairs, we’ll go out that way. We don’t want to run into your little group of misled followers.”

Taking one whiff of her breath was akin to sticking your head into a dumpster full of rotting baby diapers. Chunks of dinner crowded the back of my throat. I almost choked.

She was sick.

I had known she was mentally off before. I’d heard stories, and I’d seen what she’d done with Colby’s bones, but this…stealing an innocent woman’s body and allowing it to die for her own personal gain was beyond any act of selfishness she’d staged so far.

With a floppy arm, Sage slapped me in the back. Her teeth chattered and black liquid slipped down the side of her face as sounds moved across her vocal cords. “Go. Now.”

The farther away from the house Grace took me, the more difficult it would be to hear me cry out in distress. If I could cry out at all. I couldn’t catch my breath and could barely function due to the dizziness Grace had started with her macabre show of mental illness.