Love Your Entity (18 page)

“She’s not my ghost.”

“Why does she keep trying to decapitate me with dinnerware?”

“She wants me to focus on helping her before she’ll help us.”

“Maybe we don’t need her help. Maybe you can reach my sister another way.”

“Hmmm.” Sierra thought about it a moment, taking the time to eat a few more huge spoonfuls of ice cream. “There may be a way.” She set the frozen dessert back in the freezer and headed to her bedroom. “Follow me.”

Ronan did, so closely that she almost ran into him when she grabbed what she was looking for and turned to exit the room.

“Careful.” He put his hands out to steady her.

She instantly felt the connection between them heat up. She wondered if she could read his thoughts. Looking into his dark brown eyes, she saw hunger there. Hunger for her or her blood?

For
you.

Did he really think that or was it just wishful thinking on her part? She hated to think she was the only one consumed with these feelings, this incredibly strong need. Had the vampire bond merely built on what she’d already been experiencing from the moment she’d walked into this house? She had no answers here. Only questions. A lot of questions. And a lot of aching, pulsing desire to have sex with him for days on end.

Maybe she wasn’t lacking the slutty gene after all. Ronan certainly brought out her inner slut.

But it wasn’t real, right? This was a temporary condition and she would revert to normal … when they had sex. Okay, then. She’d freak out and yank him into her bed if she didn’t focus her thoughts elsewhere, like on the vintage wooden Ouija board she had in her hand.

Pulling free, she hurried to the living room and set it on the table. She moved aside a few magazines and put the pointer on the wooden board before sitting on the couch.

“Put your fingertips on it the same way I am,” she told Ronan as he sat down beside her.

“My fingers are bigger than yours.”

Naturally his comment made her think about his other body parts. “Don’t say a word.” She was rather pleased with the way that order came out. She sounded like Nicki.

She eyed Ronan, but he wisely remained silent. She just hoped he hadn’t been butting into her thoughts about his body parts a second ago or about having sex with him for days on end. The dispassionate expression on his face revealed nothing aside from the fact that he was good at keeping his thoughts to himself.

“Spirits, are you with us?” she said.

“Don’t push the pointer,” she warned Ronan. “Just let it move where it wants to go.”

The pointer headed to the
YES
section on the top corner of the board.

“We want to speak to Adele McCoy,” Sierra said.

The pointer circled aimlessly.

“Are you Adele?” Sierra asked.

The pointer moved to
NO
.

“Do you know Adele?”

More aimless movements until it eventually went to
YES
.

“Did you do that?” she asked Ronan.

“I don’t think so,” he said.

“Maybe you being a vampire is giving the board a weird vibe.”

The pointer quickly moved to
YES.

Ronan yanked his fingers away. “Do it yourself then.”

“I’m not sure I can,” Sierra said.

“I can’t believe you’ve never used one of these before.”

“Not with a vampire.”

“You should know all this stuff,” Ronan said impatiently. “You write paranormal novels, whatever the hell that means.”

“It means things that aren’t normal.”

“Like vampires.”

“There are no vampires in my books. Only ghosts. Yes, I did some research on vampires in case I wanted to include them at some point in the future, but I certainly didn’t go around interviewing them.”

“Obviously. We don’t do interviews,” he said.

“And apparently you don’t do Ouija boards either.” At her comment the pointer moved on its own, heading toward the
Cosmopolitan
magazine on the table beside it. “Oral Sex. Yes or No?” the heading screamed out in bold letters.

The pointer rushed back to the board and
YES
.

“Great,” Sierra muttered. “We’ve gotten in touch with a perv on the other side.”

“You don’t like oral sex?” Ronan said.

“I can’t believe you’re asking me that.”

“I can’t believe you don’t like it.” His voice was like rough velvet.

She was speechless. La-la-la. Do not think about it. Do not envision it. Do not imagine Ronan getting her horizontal on the couch, removing her clothes and spreading her legs. Do not picture him lowering his head and practicing his dark magic on her down there with those bold tongue thrusts and erotic kisses. Do not want it. Stop, stop, stop!

As if on cue, the Ouija board flew across the room straight into the fireplace.

“Good thing there was no fire going.” A second later, flames filled the fireplace.

Sierra made a grab for the board before leaning back and letting it burn. She could buy another vintage one on eBay. She needed her fingers to write. She needed a clear mind to write. She needed to stop having hot fantasies about Ronan. She also needed to rein in her wayward ghost buddy.

Looking around the room, she tried to locate Ruby. “That was uncalled-for,” she said.

No answer.

Ruby was probably pouting. Which meant this might be a good time to try to reach another spirit. Or not. One séance and one burned Ouija board was enough for one day.

Sierra ended up working late into the night, editing four chapters that were still in draft form. Then she checked her e-mail and found one from her lawyer.

We’ll talk when I get back,
was all it said.

He wasn’t scheduled to return for over a week. By then, Ronan’s deadline would have passed. She didn’t want to think about what would happen to him if he didn’t find the key he needed.

She clicked on the next e-mail, which was from her energetic publicist Katie.
How did the interview go?

“It ended with a séance that led to a burning Ouija board,” she muttered as she typed the lie: “It went fine.”

She looked up to find Ronan standing in the doorway. “Bruce called. He wondered if you could do your thing tomorrow at Zoe’s house?”

It took her a moment to translate what
thing
was, but then realized he was referring to a séance. Given the fact that they didn’t know what Hal could hear, it was probably best to say as little about such things as possible.

“I guess that would be okay,” she said.

“Would ten in the morning work?”

She nodded.

“Vampires don’t need much sleep,” he said abruptly.

Since she had no idea where this conversation was going she remained silent, waiting for him to elaborate.

“So I’ll be watching out for you,” he said.

She didn’t reply.

“So you can sleep in peace.”

Right. How could she not sleep like a baby given the fact that a hot, sexy vampire would be watching out for her? What the hell did that even mean?

“It means you can go to bed safe in the knowledge that you are being looked after,” he said.

“Do you plan on tucking me in?” She meant for the words to come out sarcastically, but they sounded more like an invitation.

“If you want me to.”

“I want this to be over,” she said in frustration.

“You can’t want that more than I do.”

Slamming her laptop shut, she marched over to her bed, grabbed a pillow, and threw it at him. “Stay in that chair. Do not get any ideas about taking advantage of this situation.”

He easily caught the pillow.

An hour later, Sierra tossed and turned in her bed. She’d put on a baggy T-shirt and flannel pj bottoms that she sometimes worked in. She was in the dark but unable to fall asleep. Normally she’d turn on a light and read on her iPad. But she didn’t want to do that. Turning the light on would make Ronan’s presence in the room more evident. In the dark, she could pretend he wasn’t really in the corner.

Yeah, right. She could pretend all she wanted but the fact remained that she
wanted
him. And he knew it. Not being able to have sex with him made her want it even more. Did he feel the same way?

She desperately needed to think of something else. Like what she would post on Facebook the next day. Her author page usually had several daily posts to keep her readers interested. Yeah, she’d think about that … and all she came up with were images of Naked Ronan.

An hour later, she was still wide awake. She couldn’t take it any more. She flipped on the bedside lamp.

“Something wrong?” Ronan asked in that deep, rough voice of his.

For once, she wished he could compel her … compel her to fall asleep.

“I’m too tired to sleep,” she muttered. “How can you just sit there in the dark doing nothing?”

“I like the dark. And I wasn’t doing nothing. I was reviewing what we know about the situation and the possibilities.”

“Hal may have heard us talking about it in the living room earlier,” she said.

“Which is why I’m here with you. No one is going to hurt you,” he said in a steely voice. “I’ll make sure of it.”

Sierra looked down at her arm, where her wound was healing nicely. Hal had already drawn first blood. And Ronan was a vampire who consumed blood. Ronan hadn’t told her where he was getting his food source. She assumed it came from the bar she’d seen near the cupcake shop. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know any details beyond that.

Those images really weren’t conducive to pleasant dreams.

“Go to sleep,” he said in what she recognized to be his compelling voice. At least he hadn’t come closer to look deep into her eyes or she would have been a goner. She would have looped her arms around his neck and tugged him down onto the bed beside her. Then she would have ripped off his clothes and licked her way from his chiseled cheekbones to his chiseled abs. Where was all this licking coming from? She’d never had those thoughts before.

Sighing, she turned off the light and willed herself to sleep. Her last conscious thought was,
Why did life have to be so complicated?
Falling for a vampire went far beyond complicated and entered the realm of … She drifted off before she could come up with the right word to complete that sentence.

Chapter Fifteen

“You can’t leave this house!” Ruby had plastered herself against the front door again the next morning.

Sierra paused while fastening her coat. “I’m just going next door to Zoe’s house.”

“How do I know you’ll come back?” Ruby demanded.

“Because I’ve got this stupid bond thing going with Ronan and I can’t be far from him.” Sierra had a headache. She really didn’t need ghostly trouble this morning. She’d barely gotten five hours of sleep last night. The good news was that Hal hadn’t thrown any more furniture or objects at her. The bad news was that Sierra had vividly hot dreams about sex with Ronan that always stopped right before she could reach a climax.

“Is Ronan going with you to Zoe’s house?” Ruby said.

“Yes.”

“Then the two of you could leave me here and never come back.”

“All my stuff is here,” Sierra said.

“You already tried to take off once.”

“Not without my laptop and my laptop is here.”

“You could have backed it up to the cloud,” Ruby said.

Sierra stared at her in amazement. “What do you know about the cloud?”

“Not much,” Ruby muttered. “I’ve just seen on your laptop that you are able to do that.”

Sierra was stumped. She didn’t know how to reassure a panicky ghost that she would return. Not because she really wanted to come back to this cosmic chaos, but because she had to, thanks to Ronan.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t fair of her to blame him. He hadn’t deliberately forged that blood bond with her. Or so everyone kept telling her.

“What are you going to do over at Zoe’s house anyway?” Ruby asked suspiciously,

“What are you, my mother?” Sierra said in irritation.

“You sound guilty.”

Sierra shoved her hair away from her face. “I do not.”

“And you look guilty too.”

“That’s not guilt, it is exhaustion,” Sierra said. “I didn’t sleep very well.”

“Afraid Hal might throw more furniture at you?”

“No, Ronan stayed with me.”

“I know.” Ruby smirked.

“Then why did you ask?”

“To see if you’d lie to me.”

Ronan showed up behind Sierra. She sensed him there before she saw him. Was that something new? A new ability she’d developed since the blood bond thing? She was already trying to deal with the reading-her-thoughts stuff. Surely dreams didn’t count, right? No way was he able to view her dreams of last night. That was her opinion on the matter and she was sticking to it.

“We’re going to be late,” he said.

“For what?” Ruby yelled in his right ear.

Ronan instantly slashed out with his right arm, so fast his movements were a blur.

Ruby yelped as his arm went clear through her image.

Ronan remained on guard, eyeing his surroundings with lethal intensity, ready for battle.

“Ruby doesn’t want me leaving the house,” Sierra told him. “That was her screaming in your ear, by the way.”

“I thought it might be Hal, ready to toss something else our way,” Ronan said.

“That’s why we have to leave the house temporarily,” Sierra said.

“Because you’re afraid of Hal?” Ruby said.

“No, because this is the best way to move forward and achieve our goals.” Sierra was deliberately being vague. She didn’t want Hal overhearing their plans. Not that she was sure what their plans were specifically, other than to hold another séance to contact Bruce’s friend. Oh, and presumably to see if they could reach Adele as well.

“Swear on your mother’s grave that you’ll come back today,” Ruby demanded.

“I can’t swear on my mother’s grave that I’ll come back today,” Sierra said. “My mother is still alive.”

“Swear on your father’s grave—”

“I hated my father.” Her voice was cold.

Ronan realized this was the first time Sierra had talked about her family. He’d told her about his but she had not shared her past history with him. Not that he could blame her. He was a vampire, not the first thing that came to mind under the heading of a good confidant.