Kiss & Hell (32 page)

And she was überpsyched about that.

Because it meant he could stay.

With her.

She looked around as though she’d spoken the words out loud. Disentangling herself from the grip she had on Clyde’s arm, she sat back in her seat.

“What hospital am I in?”

“Crap, I have no idea. I could just barely understand what she was saying, but I understood the alive part. That’s all that matters. You’re alive.
Alive
, Clyde Atwell. The rest shouldn’t be too hard to find out. What I’m having trouble with is how your soul got out of your body and landed you in Hell . . .”

“Not nearly as much trouble as I’m having with it,” he commented in wry observation—still showing no signs of even a glimmer of happiness.

However, Delaney was now lost in finding a theory about what had gone wrong. “It makes no sense. I just don’t understand this. Your soul’s all wandering around like you actually exist on this plane—you manifested, you can touch things—but your physical body’s in some hospital?”

Clyde shrugged his wide shoulders in what almost looked like indifference. “Don’t look at me. You’re the ghost expert—got some ghost friends you might consult about it?”

“No . . .”

“Well, you might if you—”

“Got that life you keep trying to talk me into. Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Stop knocking my self-imposed seclusion and let’s get to the business at hand—which is figuring out where you are. And getting you out of there.”

“I suppose my chances are grim if I’ve been in the hospital all this time—I’m probably in a coma, and I bet I’m pretty crispy. My chances of surviving were . . .”

Clyde’s voice became all slo-mo, warbling in and out, leaving her only a word or two about percentages to pick from the gobbledygook of slurred sentences.

Because out of the blue—epiphany—stark realization—total understanding—had just wailed her like a punch to the gut.

Holy. Shit. A
coma
. . . she grabbed at Clyde’s arm again, almost unable to string her thoughts into a coherent sentence. She bounced up and down on the seat. “Remember that lady that showed up—the ghost lady who spoke German or some foreign language?”

“I do. The typical blame on your part was involved. Then my usual apology for throwing a monkey wrench in your ghost communications. What about her?”

“Right! That’s her. She said
Das Koma
, remember? She kept saying it over and over. I don’t know who she was, but when we get inside, we’re looking her and those words up online.” Delaney’s thoughts blurred together, stringing triggers of memory. Discovery, much the way it always does, claimed her thoughts in one fell swoop. The missing piece of the puzzle fell into her lap like manna from Heaven. All she had to do was put it into the puzzle to complete the picture. “And the doctor with the decapitated head, remember him?”

Clyde blanched with a shudder. “Unfortunately.”

“We thought he was saying
uma
—but I’d bet my left ovary he was saying
coma
!”

Clyde’s frown deepened, but Delaney pressed onward—her quest for an answer was right at her fingertips. “Don’t you see, demon? The spirits were trying to give us clues all along. Whoever the German chick was, she was trying to help us—help you. She knew you were in a coma.”

“Then who’s the doctor?”

She rolled her eyes. “Does it really matter? Sometimes spirits, if they can help, even if the information they bring you is disjointed and often confusing, will try to help if they’re invested in some way in seeing you cross over.”

“So how’s the doctor or the German lady invested in me?”

“Didn’t you say your mother had a doctor whose head was decapitated in a brutal accident?”

“I did. But he didn’t sound at all like the description you gave me. He was older. Not some young guy.”

“I’d bet my right ovary he manifested in the way he most liked his physical appearance when he was alive, which was young and blond. And he wants to help because I’m guessing, during your mother’s illness, you were pretty good to her.”

“You’d better stop handing over ovaries if you hope to have those children someday. You know, with the guy you’ll find once you get that life?”

Delaney knew he was teasing her, forcing her to continually face her boxed-in life the way he did, but his words had a tinge of regret she wanted to cling to. Savor. If Clyde was still alive, and could recuperate, would he choose her when his spirit no longer needed guidance? Thinking about that right now was selfish. There was no time for self-indulgence and pansy-ass behavior. Not now.

“Okay, so if he was an older doctor when he died, he was probably vain enough to miss his youthful form. So in death he chose to manifest in the body that pleased him most. I’d bet my uterus he’s got pics online somewhere. If you can remember his name, that is. Maybe from the hospital he worked at—something. There has to be
something
.”

“Stop handing out your birthing bits so casually. And Dr. Watson. Gordon Watson was his name. But I can’t remember the hospital my mother was in. In fact, now that I try, I can’t remember any of the area hospitals. One of those blank spots again. And don’t feed me that shit that it’s convenient for me to forget. Why would I want to forget I’m still alive and not tell you where the hell I am?”

Talk about clinging to one stupid remark. Okay, okay, okay. She’d been caught with her pants down. But they had bigger issues to address than her calling him a liar. “How about we don’t argue about your integrity now? Let’s just get inside and get online. We’ll order a pizza and start digging. You can’t be far.”

The elevator ride to their room was spent in silence, Clyde brooding and Delaney lost in the possibility that his body still ticked somewhere—that somewhere in North Dakota, no matter the shape he was in, Clyde lived.

His heart beat.

His pulse throbbed.

He breathed.

His body had life.

She couldn’t think any further than that.

She wouldn’t.

seventeen

Delaney typed in the words
das
and
Koma
only to come up dry. Maybe she was spelling them wrong. She took a trip to Babel Fish, punching in the URL on her laptop while Clyde sat on the chair, facing the bed she sat cross-legged on. She’d been so absorbed in figuring out who the woman with the doily on her head was, she’d forgotten that Clyde had just found something out that changed the landscape of his life in an enormous way.

She’d just have to be overjoyed for the both of them because Clyde wasn’t feelin’ it.

Looking up, she took in his face, so somber and serious. “You still absorbing?”

“Yep.”

“Okay, sponge. Well when you’re done, you let me know. I could use some help deciphering this
das Koma
thing and figuring out who that ghost was. It sounded just like the word
coma
, but I need to double-check. With the way our luck’s run lately, I’m probably wrong and it’s another clue to whatever’s going on that we’ll miss if I don’t get it right. Thinking back, she had big heavy skirts on and that doily on her head. I’ve seen that somewhere . . .” Delaney drifted back off, typing in the word
Koma
on Babel Fish, an online foreign language translator. “Aha! It does mean ‘coma,’ only it’s spelled with a
K
in German . . .” Okay, so the woman had been trying to relay Clyde’s condition to them. But why and who was she that she’d stepped up to the plate on Clyde’s behalf, and if they figured out who she was, what difference would it make? She hadn’t reappeared. Maybe all she’d wanted to tell them was that Clyde was in a coma. Mission accomplished.

“Describe her dress again,” Clyde ordered.

Delaney eked out as much of the memory as she could. She’d been fuzzy and distorted due to Clyde’s presence.

“That doily on her head sounds familiar. Here, gimme the laptop.”

Delaney let him have it, pleased he was finally taking an active role in getting them closer to finding his body.

“Did she look like this?” He tilted the laptop to show her a grainy portrait of a woman.

“Holy shit—yeah, that’s her. Who is she?”

“Well, it makes sense if we keep following the pattern that half of the dead medical profession is trying to give us clues. The picture is Florence Nightingale, probably the most common, well-known name associated with nursing, and she did speak German among other things.”

He was right—it did make sense. Perfect sense. “Florence Nightingale showed up, even in death, to help you. That’s monumental. And how do you figure shit like this out? You’re way too smart for your own good, ya know that? I never would have made the association.”

“It’s just what I do—did—I don’t know.” He handed her the laptop and sat back against the headboard, putting his glasses on the nightstand and sliding his eyes shut. She’d hoped a shower and some time to himself to think would improve his attitude, but he was still all dark thunderclouds.

“Clyde?”

“Delaney?”

She leaned her head back to cast him a sidelong glance. His profile was tense and rock hard. “What the hell is wrong with you? We just had the best news we’ve had since we hooked up. Could you at least crack a smile? I understand needing to absorb this, but we need to be looking up hospitals and locating you, er, your body, I mean.”

“Locating me,” he said with a flat note.

“Yeah! If we can find out where you are then we can . . .”

“Can what?”

Yeah. What? How were they going to get him back into his body? Shit, she should have watched
Paranormal State
more often—maybe she’d have learned something. “Okay, so we have a stumbling block or two, but that doesn’t mean we can’t figure it out, Clyde. C’mon, you’re really smart—help me find some answers. I promise it’ll be okay. We’ll figure this out.”

Clyde pounced on her like a cat pounces on a stuffed toy mouse, his legs straddling her hips, his arms bracketing her shoulders. His eyes lanced hers, intense and cutting. “Don’t say anything else. I don’t want to talk about my body or where it’s at, or how in the hell we plan to get me the fuck back into it.”

Whoa. “But we have to talk about it, Clyde. If we don’t talk about it, we’ll never figure this out, and then—”

Clyde’s mouth was on hers, stopping her words, her thoughts, stopping everything but the pound of her heart and the heat gathering at all points on her body. His lips became aggressive—insistent—demanding. His rock-hard shaft pushed at her hip from beneath his jeans; he shoved her T-shirt up with hands that were impatient and held urgency.

His hands roamed her body. His lips followed close behind, licking, teasing, sucking her skin, taking her nipples in his mouth and laving them with fierce, hot strokes.

Deft fingers slipped under her panties and spread the lips of her sex, stroking them until they swelled with need, ached to be satisfied. Her clit throbbed, pulsing with wanton lust as she buried her face in the pillow, jamming it over her face when Clyde’s skilled hands and mouth brought her to orgasm. The climax made her stomach muscles clench so tight, she had to fight for air. Delaney stifled a scream with a clenched fist to her mouth, rising up and driving against his hand.

Clyde pushed his hands beneath her, latching on to her waist and dragging her down along the bed to look him directly in the eye. Shocked eyes met blazing blue ones just before he captured her lips again and pushed the heel of his hand to her shoulder, driving her back against the bed to her back.

Commanding
,
demanding
,
driven
were the words that flitted through her addled, lust-filled brain when he pulled her underwear off and chucked them on the floor. But Delaney wanted more this time; she wanted to taste Clyde, discover what else made him writhe with desire.

Slipping from beneath him, she rolled him to his back, slinking along his body until she laid her head against his pelvic bone. Clyde’s cock strained against his abdomen, reaching upward, the smooth skin hot to the touch and lightly veined.

She snaked her tongue out, flicking it with a light lick. Clyde reached down between his legs, thrusting his hands into her hair with a feral groan. Wasting no time, she took him in her mouth in one downward stroke, letting her tongue follow with a leisurely pass. She grew bold with each plunge of her mouth, wrapping her fingers around his rigid length and pumping him until she felt him shudder beneath her.

Each groan she elicited from Clyde, each deep rumble of satisfaction spurred her on until Clyde’s hands tightened in her hair. “Stop!” he growled, pulling her up to meet his eyes. “I want to be inside you when I come.
Deep
inside you.”

Her chest shifted at his words, her heart pounding so hard and sharp it would surprise her to find only she could hear it.

Wordlessly, he rolled her to her back, spreading her legs and kneeling between them. His eyes held so many emotions in the light of the room, his teeth clenched with a clear struggle she didn’t understand. Clyde’s large hands clamped onto her thighs when the tip of his cock pressed against her entry, preparing to delve into the wet cavern.