The Ghost Exterminator (23 page)

“Pink.” He caught the lace at her hipbone with his teeth and gently tugged at it as his fingers glided up the insides of her thighs. “Tonight you wear underwear, and underneath all that badass posturing, is pink lace.”

Jo sank her fingers into his hair, shifting restlessly beneath him. “I like pretty things next to my skin,” she admitted, fighting a blush.

“That’s too bad.”

Jo fisted her hands in his hair and pulled his head up, forcing him to meet her eyes. “Too bad?”

He slid his fingers under the lace. “These are going to have to come off. No more pretty things against your skin.”

She laughed. “I’ll have you against my skin. You’ll do, pretty boy.”

He grinned and arched a brow at her questioningly, his fingers tugging at the lace.

“Tear them,” she ordered. His pupils dilated until his eyes were wholly black with just a rim of bright blue. He complied with one hard yank that lifted her hips. He balled up the scraps and tossed them aside, bending to bite her softly just beneath her belly button.

She gave his hair another soft tug, just to get his attention. “Get a move on, Wyatt. You’re making me crazy, here.”

He laughed against her skin, rubbing his cheek, slightly rough with stubble, against the sensitive skin of her belly. “That’s the idea, baby.”

She urged him up until his shoulders loomed over her and his hips were trapped beneath her thighs. “If you’re going to make me crazy, do it from the inside out.”

His eyes blackened and fogged. He moved to fit himself to her, but she stopped him, giving his shoulder a shove.

“Lie back. I wanna be on top.”

“You were on top last time,” he protested, but Jo ran her hands up over the Girls, reminding him what was different about this time.

“Trust me, Wyatt. You’ll like me on top.”

He rolled onto his back without another word, taking her with him.

She sat up, straddling his stomach, and faced him with her I-am-the-goddess-of-the-universe grin. She slid her hands up his shaft, teasing until his eyes crossed. His hands gripped the sheets. He was trying so hard to push back his instinct to take control, to dominate. Trying so hard not to grab her and ram her down onto him.

Jo rewarded his Herculean effort by fitting him against her and pressing down onto him in a slow, liquid slide that elicited twin groans from their throats. She seated herself fully and let her head fall back, wallowing in the feel of him stretching her, filling her.

She rocked against him, just the minutest flex of her hips, and another chorus of groans filled the room. She braced her knees and rose up, each movement slow and torturously controlled. Wyatt, poor baby, didn’t appear to appreciate her control. Veins popped out on his arms and neck as he fought to restrain himself. Jo appreciated the effort, but the last thing she wanted right now was restraint.

“Put your hands on me,” she commanded, grabbing his wrists and slapping his hands onto her hips. His fingers sank into the flesh there, digging deep enough that she knew he would leave marks, but she didn’t care. The muscles in his arms flexed deliciously as he lifted her and brought her slamming back down, quickly setting a rhythm that battered all thoughts other than him out of her brain.

He shifted his grip, grabbing the Girls with both hands. She panted his name, rushing forward on a tidal wave of sensation, building and tightening toward release. Jo braced herself, trying to find a fixed point in a world that was melting around her. She went over with a scream, dissolving into a million points of light.

As she was floating back down, she wondered, irrelevantly, if that was what the white light of transcending felt like, but she didn’t spare much time for the thought. Wyatt wasn’t done yet.

“My turn.” He flipped her onto her back, slipping out of her in the process, but driving himself back into her so quickly, her gasp at the loss was overrun by her moan at his return. He pushed high into her and all of the retreating sensations of her orgasm rushed back in a dizzying flood. She was wild again in seconds. He caught her knee and raised it higher to give himself a better angle as he worked into her, his mouth hot on hers as his hips drove against hers relentlessly. She lost all thoughts but
yes
and
more
as he brought her up, higher and harder. Her body coiled like a spring tightening around him.

She wanted to wait for him this time, wanted to hit that peak together, but she couldn’t hold off much longer. She pressed back against the urge to rush forward into madness, managing to pant, “Now, Wyatt, I’m going to come.”

He groaned her name, grabbing her hands and interlocking their fingers together, his hips pistoning into hers uncontrollably. “Jo,” he grunted, his eyes black and wild as they locked on hers, holding her gaze as he moaned, “
Now
” and went over. His orgasm set a spark to the explosion waiting to rip her apart and she came with him, the force of her release unbearable in its intensity. She couldn’t close her eyes, couldn’t look away from the searing possession she saw in his and knew was reflected in her own. She could only cling to him, shuddering with ecstasy, and ride out the storm.

Chapter Thirty-Three: Morning-After Negotiations

Jo woke in the softest bed she had ever slept in, to the feeling of someone with a scruffy morning beard nibbling on her shoulder blade. She blinked in the direction of the clock, and when it wasn’t where she expected it to be, raised her hand to rub sleepily at her eyes.

Her hand. Which was attached to her wrist. Which still had a pair of fuzzy pink handcuffs dangling from it.

“Good morning,” Wyatt mumbled against her back, his tongue soothing the beard burn he had left on her shoulder blade.

It was hard to be modest when you woke up with an enthusiastic man and a pair of handcuffs. Jo decided not to bother trying.

“G’morning,” she replied, rolling to face her lover.

His eyes immediately locked on the Girls. “Good morning, ladies,” he cooed to them.

“What time is it?”

Her uptight businessman just shrugged. “It’s early and I don’t have any meetings until this afternoon. Why don’t you call in sick to work?”

“I don’t need to call in. I don’t have any other clients at the moment,” Jo reminded him.

“Excellent.” Wyatt settled in to greet the Girls properly. “Remind me to send a glowing letter of thanks to Karmic Consultants for the personalized service I have received.”

Jo smacked him on the shoulder. “This is not part of the service.”

Wyatt chuckled, the vibration traveling through her where they were pressed together. “I should hope not. If Karma gives you shit, you can tell her that you didn’t officially go to
bed
with me until I was no longer a client.”

She threaded her fingers into his hair. “Technically, you are still a client. At least until I can get rid of Angelica and Teddy.” She sighed, enjoying the silky slide of his hair through her fingers. “We should probably discuss what you’d like me to do with them if I can’t figure out a way to transcend them.”

There were other things they should be discussing, but Jo was no more eager to delve into the relationship business than she had been last night. Angelica and Teddy seemed a safe topic.

Wyatt just shrugged again, his attention still apparently devoted to the Girls. “Why don’t we just leave them where they are? I have to confess, I’ve gotten pretty attached to the obnoxious little pranksters.”

“Leave them where they are? In the attic of one of your famous Hideaways?”

He abandoned the Girls—leaving the little hussies whining about his absence—and propped himself up on his elbow beside her. “I’ve been thinking maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea. We could market it as the Haunted Hideaway. I’m betting people would come from all over the world if they were guaranteed a ghost sighting.”

“And how would you guarantee that? Do you think that Angelica and Teddy are just some wind-up dolls that will perform for you on cue? They deserve better than to be a tourist attraction, Wyatt.”

“Of course we wouldn’t actually guarantee a ghost sighting, just spread judicious rumors. Generate a buzz. It’s all about marketing.”

“Wyatt…”

“If the kids don’t want to, we won’t do it. We’ll figure something else out,” he assured her. “But I’m betting the opportunity to play as many practical jokes as they want on a bunch of tourists—within reason, of course—will be more than they can resist. We’ll leave the toy room set up just for them, so they have someplace to go when they want to get away from all the ghost seekers, but I have a feeling they’ll like all the attention.”

“People who go on vacation specifically to get bubble-gum stuck in their hair by a bunch of juvenile ghosts are masochists.”

Wyatt grinned. “Whatever turns a profit, baby.”

“Greedy bastard,” she accused him without heat. Frankly, she thought his plan was pretty brilliant. Angelica and Teddy probably would, too.

He stroked a hand down her side. “Of course,” he began suggestively, “I’ll need a ghost consultant on the payroll. Just to keep an eye on things.”

Just what she needed—to be on Wyatt’s payroll. He’d have her in a powder blue suit in no time.

“No.”

He laughed at her curt response. “I haven’t even asked you yet.”

Jo rolled out from under his arm and out of bed, scanning the room for her clothes.

Wyatt sat up at her sudden departure, working a solid 5.0 Pissed-Off-CEO-Richter-scale frown. “What are you doing?”

“I need clothes. I refuse to have this conversation naked.” She grabbed her jeans and yanked them over her hips—going commando today since Wyatt had made free with her underwear.

Okay, fine, she had
told
him to tear them off, but still. It was
someone’s
fault that she didn’t have anything to wear this morning and she wasn’t in the mood to take credit. The first shirt she came to was his, but she pulled it on anyway, knotting it across the Girls where the buttons had been ripped off.

“What conversation?” He sat naked on the bed, frowning at her.

“I’m not an employee, Wyatt.” She grabbed his pants and threw them at him. Wyatt caught them against his chest then reluctantly stood and began pulling them on.

“I never thought you were an employee,” he said irritably, still wearing his most intimidating frown. “I sure as hell don’t treat you like a fucking employee.”

Jo thought the mention of a “fucking” employee was rather telling, but that wasn’t the argument she wanted to have right now. “I won’t become a powder blue suit woman for you, Wyatt.”

“You aren’t wearing a suit!” he exclaimed, exasperated. “Blue or otherwise.”

“It isn’t about the color,” she snapped back. “It’s about subverting my personality to please you. That little color-coordinated peach ensemble from yesterday? Did that seem like the kind of thing I wear?”

“Who cares what you wear?” he shouted. “It was your goddamn idea to dress up like that. You could have gone to the opening wearing jeans and I wouldn’t have cared.”

“But you wouldn’t have wanted people to know I was there with you,” Jo insisted. “Your image is too important to you. If I want to be with you, I have to be
normal
.”

“You
are
with me and I don’t give a rat’s ass if you’re normal.”

“You’re with me now, where no one can see us. I’ll bet you sing a different song in public.”

“I try to avoid singing in public whenever possible.”

“Wyatt! This isn’t a joke.”

“I know. Believe me, I know.” He glowered at her.

Jo sniffed and looked down at the floor. She was
not
going to cry. She wasn’t that pathetic. “Maybe I should just go.”

Suddenly, he was looming over her. “You aren’t going anywhere.” He pulled her over to the bed and sat her down on the edge of it. “I’m making a mess of this,” he muttered, taking a step back to face her, his arms folded across his bare chest. “Listen, I know I was a dick before and I shouldn’t have said half the things I said, but do you think you could do me a favor and just forget all that? I’m trying to make amends here.

“I thought you’d like the ghost consultant job
because
it would be so public. Everyone would know that Wyatt Haines’s girlfriend was a ghost wrangler.”

She sat up straighter. “Girlfriend?”

His frown moved up a few points on the Richter scale. “You’re mercenary, aren’t you? You want it all. It can’t just be mind-bending sex and more fun than I’ve ever had with anyone in my life. It has to be official.”

“I want it all.” The words came out as little more than whisper, forced past the nerves that clogged her throat.

He narrowed his eyes, weighing his options. “What would it take to get you to move in with me?”

Jo gritted her teeth against the urge to shout, “Take me, darling, I’m yours!” and instead, tilted her head back proudly. “This isn’t a negotiation, Wyatt.”

He nodded once, acknowledging her words. His eyes were narrowed, considering. Jo waited, the fear digging its teeth in deep as the silence stretched. She knew it was unreasonable to ask it of him. They’d known each other for less than a week, but in that week, she had spent nearly every second with him and now she couldn’t imagine her days without him.

“I don’t see why I have to say it first,” he grouched, and her nerves evaporated in a blink.

Jo smiled blindingly.
He loves me
, she thought dizzily, the world suddenly rosy and bright. “You are such a wuss,” she accused. “You want me to say it first? Fine. I love you. Ha.”

Not the most mature declaration ever, but it did the trick. Wyatt grinned at her, the Pissed-Off-CEO-Richter-scale frown disappearing without a single aftershock. “I love you too. Public, private, normal, insane, ghosts, whatever. The whole package. This means you have to move in with me, right?”

Jo bounced off the bed and strutted the two feet to her love, an extra I-am-a-sex-goddess swagger in her walk. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so light and happy and free.

She looped her arms around his waist and tipped her face up for his kiss. “We’ll negotiate terms,” she promised, a fraction of a second before his lips touched hers.

As she fell into the touch and taste and feel of him, Jo marveled at the world that had thrown them together until they couldn’t imagine being torn apart. The Goth ghost girl and the anal-retentive mercenary businessman. She giggled against his mouth and Wyatt raised his head.

“What’s so funny?”

Jo twined her arms around his neck and pulled him back in for another kiss. She couldn’t tell him what she had just been thinking…

And Pamela Anderson and Bill Gates lived happily ever after.