Hunting for Love (4 page)

Meeting Gavin’s dark gaze, she choked on a laugh.
 
“Oh, boy.
 
You might not like the plans of this
ghost.
 
Then again, she has to get Henry to
agree.”

Gavin’s head tilted.
 
He looked like he was listening to someone.

“Um, Heather?”
His voice broke a little,
sounding startled.
 
“You’re not going to
believe this but…”

He paused, sucked in a breath and then laughed. “Is this
what you have going all the time?”

“What?" She focused on him, watching the way his face
paled.
 
He tapped his head, as if
removing excess water, and then looked around.

“Can you hear that?” He continued scanning the room
frantically.

“Hear what?”
 
The
silence of the house was like a blanket around them, buffering out the world
beyond the plantation.

“Seriously, is there like a mute button for this?”
 
He seemed a little freaked out and excited
all at once.

“For what?”
She waved her arms
helplessly.

“Either I’ve just lost my shit and gone loony or a ghost is
talking to me.”

She punched his shoulder with a smile.
 
“Welcome to the club, ghost hunter.
 
What did the ghost say?
 
Is it Louisa?”

“Nope.
 
Henry.
 
And, well, he wants to do
very dirty things to Louisa.
 
Very.
 
I kind of like
the way the guy thinks.”
 
His smile,
filled with masculine arrogance, left her wanting to find out, up close and
personal, how dirty the things were.
 

“You’re getting turned on by the ideas a ghost has about
sex?
 
This has got to be one of the
weirder conversations I’ve ever had with anyone.” Scoffing seemed easier than
admitting it tripped her trigger, too.

“Yeah.
 
Oh, shit.
 
Has she told you what
she wants to do?
 
Because…he
has a plan.”

He looked uncomfortable, as if he wasn’t sure how she would
respond to whatever the ghost suggested.
 
Instantly intrigued, she shot a question at the ghost in her own
head.
 
Louisa, what is it, exactly, you would like to do?

A feminine giggle, recognized from dreams, rang in her
head.
 
The smell of roses became cloying.

“I can’t talk to Henry.
 
He can’t talk to me.
 
But if you help us, I have things I need him
to hear, to feel.”

Shaking her head, trying to get past the strong flowery
scent, Heather focused on Gavin, the only solid point in a suddenly slightly
dizzying world.

What do you want me to tell him?
she
asked.

The room shifted, seeming somehow less solid than just a
moment before, as if her view of things changed and the room itself became lost
in the fog or mist.

“You don’t need to tell him anything.
 
I just want to borrow your skin, your flesh,
and touch him.
 
Tell him with your voice
that I love him.
 
It’s only a loan,
dear.
 
May I talk to my love one last
time?”

The request sent a shiver of panic skittering up her
spine.
 
Heather darted her gaze to Gavin
who looked somewhat disconcerted himself.

“Heather?” the question seemed to ask more of her than the
one word suggested.

“Is he asking you to borrow your body for the night?”

“Yeah, talk about a blind date.
 
I can fight him off.”
 
The offer trailed off a bit at the end.
 
As if he didn’t want to.

The possibility of touching Gavin once more, of feeling him
needing her, seeing his face twisted in desire, even if it was because a ghost
hid behind those dark, heavy lidded eyes, tempted her.

“We don’t have to.” The words came out in a whisper.
 
She didn’t dare say she wanted it, wanted
him.
 
She couldn’t bear to be rejected by
him again.

He caught her face, tilting her head and looking into her
eyes.
 
“I’ve wanted you every moment of
every day that we’ve been apart.
 
This is
me talking, not the ghost.
 
If I can have
you for one more night, I’ll take you however I can get you.”

A dazzling light seemed to fill her.
 
“Me too.”

Her words weren’t erudite but they didn’t have to be.
 
His lips covered hers and he thrust his tongue
inside her mouth, the kiss sweeping her away.
 
Then he released her, eyes sparkling in desire.

“So, let’s play.” His smile was devilish and she
shivered.
 

This was an adventure.
 
This was danger and excitement and everything that Gavin meant to her.

“I’m ready.”

She closed her eyes and let the smell of roses sweep away
her inhibitions, her worries,
her
sense of self and
fill her with the needs of another woman.

And this woman would dare to do just about anything for her
lover.

Chapter
Six

Her face cupped in Gavin’s hands, she couldn’t think of
anything that might feel better than him looking at her like he was.

But the ghost was thick in her head, the smell of roses
permeating everything.

I’ve tried this before,
Heather.
 
It never works.
 
For us to do this, you have to give up all
your control.
 
If you become upset or
uncomfortable…you will push me out.
 
You’ve got to trust that I will do nothing to harm you, that your lover
won’t do anything to harm you.
 
Can you
trust us?

Heather considered.
 
Never one to fear—it was hard to really comprehend fear when she wasn’t
afraid of dying since she knew, for a fact, that there were good things
coming—she usually dared to do just about anything.
 
But Gavin hurt her like no man ever had
before.
 
Could she trust him, especially
if he was being possessed by some alpha male ghost from the eighteen hundreds?

Meeting his gaze, falling into his eyes, she wanted to.
 
But it was a risk.

A gamble.

I trust you, Louisa.
 
I’ve had you in my dreams for as long as I
can remember.
 
I want you to find
peace.
 
And I can trust him, even if just
for this night.
 
He wouldn’t hurt me on
purpose.

Because he hadn’t.

He freaked.
 
It was
like light shining on that truth in her mind.
 
She understood the survivor’s guilt that motivated this man.
 
Understood that sometimes you’re waiting for
the epic sign and you get a gentle nudge—like her message from Gavin.
 
It wasn’t her gift—more importantly, it
wasn’t her—that he rejected, rather the idea that it could be that easy, after
all his work, to find Garrett.

He hadn’t meant to hurt her.

Peace flowed over her, replaced almost instantly by the
feelings and emotions of Louisa as she gently took the reins and control of
Heather’s body.

****

Gavin knew tonight would be epic and the voice of another
man in his head, clear as if he was speaking out loud, could be called just
that.

As the ghost explained the rules, that he would have to give
over control willingly and not snap it back if he became uncomfortable…that it
needed trust, he realized there was not another woman on the face of the planet
he would be able to do this with.

None other he trusted that much.

Her face, so precious, so missed, meant more than he could
say.
 
He wouldn’t lose her again.

He couldn’t. If this ghost would allow him to express his
love, just once, he could trust him.

Henry didn’t feel the need to worry about what Louisa
thought, felt.
 
He was a man ruled by
impulse, by desire.
 
As Henry seemed to
adjust himself into Gavin’s body, it was like he could see all of it.
 
His dreams—cut short by his death—his needs,
his fears.

Henry feared losing Louisa.
 
She was like the glittering grains of sand on a beach—the harder he
gripped her, trying to keep her with him, the faster she slipped through his
fingers.
 

He feared it so much that he blamed himself for their death
in the fire so long ago.
 
That he ended
his love, his beautiful and vivacious Louisa who dared to do anything for him,
ate at his soul all these years.

And he couldn’t even tell her he was sorry in all these
years he’d been trapped in this house.
 
No matter how much he might have wanted to just hold her, beg her
forgiveness, something kept them apart.
 
He could sense her, as if she was just on the edge of his vision, but
never see her.
 
Never speak to her.
 
As if the veil that dropped over him when his
life slipped away while he coughed and choked separated him from the thing he
most wanted to find.

He’d waited so long for her.

Never waste a moment, Gavin.
 
The ghost’s voice was like some internal one,
like that little narrator in his head but not his.
 
Never
waste a moment because you never know which will be your last and the hell I’ve
been in all this time?
 
I wouldn’t wish
that on anyone.

Gavin’s hand lifted, a strange sensation since he wasn’t the
one controlling it, and touched the face of his lover.

Gavin felt himself fading to the background, as if he was
just watching a movie starring his own body rather than taking part in what was
to come.

****

Louisa looked at her hands.
 
It felt strange, after being so unable to touch, to feel sensation
against her skin, to suddenly have all of it back.

These arms were far more naked than hers had ever been in
the light of day.
 
Far
darker, too, as if the sun kissed the flesh.
 
The palms, even, were rougher.
 

She took a testing breath and enjoyed that simple sensation
of her chest filling and emptying without coughing.
 

For so long, she’d been trapped in a circle of events.
 
When darkness fell on the plantation she
relived her own death as surely as the clock chimed the hour of midnight.

Now, on the anniversary of the events that changed
everything, she could speak the words trapped on her tongue since that first
night.

“Henry?” He looked at her.
 
Although the body was strange, she recognized her lover in the angle of
his head, the arch of his brow, and the slow curl of his lips.

“My Louisa—”

Using a finger to silence him, she shook her head.
 
Tears threatened, making the image of him
waver and dance in the failing light. "I've waited so long to tell you I’m
so sorry, my lover.
 
My pride had me
striking out at you, acting the fool, when all I should have done was hold
you.
 
Tell you I loved you.
 
Assuaged your fears rather than becoming so
defensive.”

He clutched the hand attached to the finger she’d pressed to
his mouth, hugging it to him.
 
“No, sweet Louisa.
 
Never blame yourself.
 
It was me,
my foolish pride that had us battling that fateful night.
 
I should never have doubted you or our love.
 
Can you ever forgive me, darling, for causing
this dreadful mess, this catastrophe?”

Rising to her toes, she wrapped her arms around him, the
wonderful solid and warm mass of him, and met his lips, speaking the language
of the heart as she took his mouth with hungry possession.

He returned her fervor with a matching starvation, as if their
flesh alone had needed this contact, needed this confirmation of their
feelings.

He pulled back after a moment and her heart stilled in this
strange, borrowed chest.
 
The last time
he pulled away from her, he’d filled the air with painful accusations, with
lack of trust and ugly things that destroyed their world and separated them for
generations.