“All right, I get it,” he finally said. “You’re still mad.”
Mad didn’t even cut it. I had enough of him, of the damn case and ghosts in general. I’d never once been asked if I wanted to help, I’d been told and sexually harassed to agree. No one cared that I wasn’t at work, was losing pay, tired, hungry—and yes, the pizza was delicious.
In the past two days, I’d been seduced, made a fool of, had the most erotic dream of my life, stuffed into jeans that were way too tight, been rejected and told I looked like your regular street whore.
Worst of all, none of that compared to how much I cared for the idiot ghost beside me, and the torment of emotions I’d been feeling lately left me spun around. As I took another bite of pizza, the front door flew open and I startled.
“Y’all are in so much trouble!” Caley stood with her hands on her waist, expression as tight as a person eating a sour candy. “No one called me! Y’all go off on this murder mystery, leaving me to worry, and not even one of you calls me to tell me that you’re all right! Every time I come here, no one is here. I even went to the police station and they wouldn’t tell me where you were—you all just upped and vanished.”
So Zach had told her more than I would have. I wasn’t at all surprised she had been on edge. I swallowed my food and wiped my mouth with the napkin. “You know, you aren’t our number one priority.”
Caley frowned. “Well, I should be. I couldn’t even sleep. I’ve been tossing and turning every night. Look—I have bags under my eyes.” She did, in fact, look disheveled. “And your phone is still off.”
I placed my plate on the coffee table and rubbed my hands across my face, feeling so tired. “What do you want, Caley? I’m not in the mood.” I waited for an answer, but I never received one, so I lowered my hands to find Caley studying me. I sighed. “What’s the problem now?”
“What’s wrong?” Caley’s tone sounded serious.
A thousand things, I wanted to say. Instead, I kept it simple. “I’m chasing a murderer and you’re asking me what’s wrong?”
“No, it’s not that.” She waved her hand dismissingly. “Someone has hurt you.” Her glare landed on Zach. “What have you done to her?”
Zach turned to me and glanced at me. “I haven’t done anything to her. Is something the matter?”
“I’m fine.” I hoped Caley would take the hint to shut her mouth.
“Bullshit! Why are you so sad?” Her hands balled into fists. “Tell me right now and I’ll deal with whoever has done this to you.”
Of course she wouldn’t let the matter drop, but I didn’t want to get into it. Caley had always been as protective as any older brother. She would make sure heads would roll. Even if Kipp’s head couldn’t, Caley would find a way to make it happen. In hopes of settling her down, I planted a smile on my face. “It’s nothing, I’m okay. Honestly.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I have known you since you were this high.” She held her hand to her waist. “Not only do I know you’ve been hurt, but I know you’re lying to me now.”
“I’m just tired,” I responded, hopeful this would do the trick. “The past days have just been so exhausting.”
“You don’t look tired,” Caley retorted. “You look heartbroken.”
I inhaled and tried not to let my emotions run wild. “Will you just let it go, Caley? I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Talk about what?” Kipp asked gently.
She knelt down in front of me and placed her hand on my knee in a gesture meant to comfort me. “What’s happened?”
The tender move was unlike her, which meant she understood the gravity of my pain. I jumped to my feet, moved to the other side of the room and glared between her and Kipp. “I said I don’t want to talk about. What of that don’t you all fucking understand?”
Her eyes widened before they lowered to slits. She came nose to nose with me. “You’re going to tell me right now or I’ll tell them what you did on spring break.”
The event she referred to involved bare breasts and a drunk me. As much as I wanted to keep this anger up and not break down, having my best friend with me now, all I wanted to do was run into her arms and cry on her shoulder. I felt torn in a thousand directions and my limit had been reached.
I hadn’t lied about being exhausted either, my eyes burned, and because of it, my control on my emotions plummeted. Before I could stop it, tears welled in my eyes.
Her mouth dropped open, displaying how much of a shock she experienced seeing me cry. “Jesus, Tess, what’s wrong?”
Kipp stared at me with concerned eyes. “Why are you crying?” I shook my head and the movement spilled tears down my cheeks. He stepped toward me. “Tess…”
I raised my hand to stop him and found my voice beneath the sadness. “No, don’t come near me.”
The energy to fight against my emotions had left me and holding back my tears became impossible. I glanced at Caley and then at Kipp. “Please do as I ask and just leave me alone.” Without looking back, I ran toward Kipp’s room, slammed the door behind me and allowed myself the right to wallow in the bottomless pit of self-pity.
Chapter Seven
A cold touch on my face dragged me from my sleep. It didn’t surprise me that after I cried enough to soak the pillow, I’d drifted off to sleep. I opened my eyes to find Kipp kneeling beside the bed as he lightly caressed my cheek.
I shifted away from his touch. “What are you doing in here?”
“I was watching you sleep,” he said without remorse and lowered his hand to rest on the bed.
“Er, why?”
His gaze focused attentively on mine and an emotion I hadn’t seen from him danced through his eyes—one I didn’t understand. He shrugged. “It eases me.”
I’m dreaming again.
I slapped my face, which made Kipp chuckle, but as the sting ran up my cheek, I realized I was wide awake. “It eases you to watch me sleep?”
“Very much so.” He leaned in toward me and his cold fingers came as an icy touch along my jaw. “Are you feeling better now?”
“I’m fine.” I shivered from his touch, but the reaction had nothing to do with the coldness of his embrace and more so the yearning for him to continue. “I’m just tired and overwhelmed.” Kipp’s look declared he didn’t believe me. “Honestly, I’m fine.”
“You like to run and hide from things, don’t you?”
I snorted. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know what I need to.”
Two could play at his game. “All right, tell me what you know.”
“You’re unique, but are not self-absorbed to flaunt it. You’re kind to others, not out of duty, but from a warm heart. You’ve experienced enough sadness in your life that it should leave you broken, although you’re strong enough to push on. You’re beautiful and yet appear to have never been told that. And one thing I know for sure is you’re exactly the type of woman I’d spend the rest of my life trying to make happy.”
I smacked my face again. “I’m dreaming, right?” I glanced around and looked for a unicorn or something out of the ordinary that would confirm I was asleep. “Yes, this is a dream.”
Kipp laughed, a deep rumble. “If you were dreaming, I’d be fucking you.” I blushed up to my hairline. He grazed his fingers along my cheekbone to leave an ice cold trail in its wake. “I do love that I can make you blush.”
I shook my head, so confused. “I’m not dreaming?”
He trailed his finger along my lips, where I licked out at the frigid contact. “No, you’re not.” His eyes filled with deep regret. “I’m sorry that I upset you.”
I sighed. “I don’t even know what upset me.”
“Of course you do,” he countered. “It’s because you’re trying to fight against the feelings you have for me.”
My blush deepened. “I-I…”
He continued to run the frosty tip of his finger along my heated cheeks. “When I saw Zach kiss you,” his eyes became distressed, “it created anger in me I’ve never known.”
“That’s why you’ve been acting the way you have? You were mad about the kiss?”
“Not just because he kissed you, but knowing I never could.” He ran the chill of his finger back to my lips, where he stopped, touching my bottom lip with his gaze focused there. “Because you see, Tess, I’m sure I’ve already fallen in love with you.”
Tears welled up in my eyes and I had no strength to stop them. “You have?”
He nodded. “I certainly have.”
“But we can’t do this.” I stated the obvious, no matter how much my heart rejoiced at the moment. “You’re a ghost.”
He smiled. “It’s not the best of circumstances, no. But it can’t be a coincidence that the only one who can help me in this situation happens to be the woman who could destroy my bachelor ways.”
“Oh…” I hadn’t even considered what he suggested as a possibility, “so you think you needed to experience an attraction to me to cross over?”
It’d never occurred to me that meeting him could’ve been more than just my helping him solve the case. Did he stay around because he wanted to experience love as he never had before? Is that what kept him stuck here? Did it have nothing to do with Hannah at all?
“It’s the only thing I can come up with. The coincidence of it is too great.” He winked. “Cops don’t believe in coincidences.”
If anything, hearing this made my heart pitter-patter. Finding true love had meant so much to him, he couldn’t cross over. He might have been way off here—this might still revolve around Hannah—but I liked the fantasy too much to not indulge myself in thinking he was right. But acknowledging that made a thought rise. “Are you telling me this now so I can help you?”
“No,” he said sharply.
“Why, then, why now?”
His gaze softened in a way I’d never seen from the arrogant Kipp. His stare became warm and declared what he told me now was nothing but the truth. “Your tears made me fess up.”
“My tears?”
He continued to dance his finger along my cheek, creating little pings in my body, which made my senses alive. “Your true feelings showed tonight.”
“Which were…?”
“Longing, frustration, anger—everything I experienced in my own heart.”
This should have made me happy, but it didn’t. He’d put me through hell. “If you felt that way, why didn’t you say something sooner?”
He looked at me knowingly. “I’m a ghost.”
Yes, he was, but it didn’t matter, not to me. Although the simple reply had answered my question. “You were hesitant, like me.”
He nodded.
I stayed quiet for a moment while I processed the abundance of information. However, after a few minutes, I still held some confusion. “What do you think it all means? I mean, where do we go from here?”
“We enjoy the short time I have left. Whatever the reasons are we have met now, I’m not going to question them. I’m simply be grateful to have received it.”
Somehow I didn’t believe him. He didn’t want to go anywhere and I didn’t want him to either. “So, what, you’re my ghost boyfriend?” I laughed.
“Works for me.” His grin turned all sultry and warmed me from head to toe. “Now, since we’ve agreed to the terms, I think it’s time we move along, don’t you?”
My eyebrows rose. “Move along with what?”
“In the bar that first night.” He chuckled, clearly at my crimson cheeks. “Ah, I see you remember the night well. What I said to you weren’t things I made up, I planned then to fulfill them and would like to do so now if you’d be agreeable.”
I heard what he said, but couldn’t seem to fully understand it. “Are you serious?”
“Quite serious.”
I giggled nervously. “I’m sorry to break it to you, but we can’t have sex.”
“I realize that, but we can get creative. If you’ve been feeling as aroused as I have these past days, then I can’t imagine you wouldn’t like some relief.”
Not that the idea didn’t sound appealing, but a problem presented itself. “How would we be able to do anything since you can’t touch me?”
He grinned. “Get creative, remember?”
I’d be lying if I said seeing the smoldering look in his eye didn’t make me all hot and bothered. I’d suffered the highest levels of arousal these past days and even now my body warmed with the idea of being sexually involved with Kipp. But to hear he’d been in the same condition as me seemed impossible. “Um, sorry, but can you get an erection as a ghost?”
He groaned as he glanced down at his crotch. “Clearly.”
“Okay, that’s just weird.” I still couldn’t quite wrap my head around this. “What do you want me to do if I can’t touch you?”
“Get naked.”
I blinked. “You want me to get naked for you?”
Kipp stood up and stepped away from the bed, waving his hand for me to join him. “That’s exactly what I want.”
I didn’t move an inch. “Why?”
“My time with you is ending, so please, indulge me. I’ve never wanted a woman as much as I do you. My imagination has been working overtime as I’ve pictured what you look like beneath your clothes and I’m tired of trying to imagine your body. I want to see all of you, and like I said, we have to get creative.”
“But I barely know you,” I retorted.
He cocked his head. “Does it matter?”
“It does to me,” I said adamantly. “I never have one-night stands.”