“You. The bathroom is off-limits,” she told Michael over her shoulder. Then, shutting the door firmly behind her—locking it was a waste of time, considering that the creature she most wanted to keep out could walk right through it if he wanted to—she hurried to the medicine cabinet, shook two Pepto-Bismol tablets into her hand, and chewed desperately, hoping they would quell the nausea that the ride down the mountain had done little to ease. While she waited for the medicine to (hopefully) work she managed to brush her teeth and, after a single regretful glance at the waiting tub, take a quick shower that was steamy hot enough to chase away the terrible chill that still afflicted her. After that, she was so tired she felt boneless, but she was warmer and the nausea was better. Michael hadn’t put in an appearance—actually, she had trusted him not to—and she felt comfortable enough that he wouldn’t to drop her towel and rub lotion into her skin before pulling on her nightgown. Then she covered the flimsy, mid-thigh-length thing with her blue terry bathrobe, which she tied firmly at the waist, shook her hair out of the knot she’d twisted it into for the shower and even ran a brush through it (vanity, thy name is woman) before heading back out into the bedroom.
Where she knew Michael would be waiting.
Having taken his watch off before she showered, she was carefully carrying it.
“So, you upchuck in there?” was how he greeted her.
“No, I did not,” she answered, nettled that he knew so much about her, before she regrouped enough to remember the watch and hold it up for him to see. “Is there somebody I can send this to for you? Someone you’d like to give it to?”
Because after all the watch was no good to him now: he couldn’t wear it, would never wear it again, and there might be someone he’d like to leave a memento to. The matter could have waited for morning, but she was addressing it now as a way of sliding past any awkwardness that might result from him hanging out in her bedroom while she went (alone) to bed. She’d known that having him tethered to her would come with its share of drawbacks, but the reality of it was proving downright unnerving: if she didn’t find some way to change the terms of his continued earthly existence, he might very well be dogging every step she took for as long as she lived. Then she realized that he was shirtless, and that the soft glow of the bedside lamp was playing over a magnificent display of rippling muscles and tanned skin, and she forgot what she’d been thinking. Despite being so weary that her legs felt shaky, as her eyes slid over his powerful shoulders and wide, sculpted chest and as much of his sinewy abdomen as she could see above the low-slung waistband of his jeans, her heart sped up and she felt an electric tingle that started deep inside and shivered across every nerve ending she possessed. He was standing sideways to her, on the far side of the bed, holding his T-shirt out at arm’s length in front of him as if he’d been examining it. The tattoo on his bulging biceps caught her eye: like the rest of him, it looked totally badass and she was embarrassed to realize that the sight of it excited her. With a quick, comprehensive glance, she took in the smooth planes of his shoulder blades and his long, strong back, his brawny arms and square-palmed, long-fingered hands and felt a rush of heat. The instant quickening of her body was immediately followed by a sense of profound helplessness. Like practically everything else where he was concerned, she had no control over her body’s instinctive reaction to him. The one saving grace in the face of what she could only consider her really stupid weakness for him was that there wasn’t any way she could act on it. He might look as solid and substantial as any living, breathing man, but he was not. She could fantasize about running her hands over all that hard-bodied splendor, about kissing that chiseled mouth, about falling into bed and having mind-blowing sex with him all she wanted to, and it still wasn’t going to happen.
Which, she told herself sternly, was a good thing.
His eyes met hers across the not-as-wide-as-she-might-have-wished-it-was expanse of her spotless white bed. Charlie felt like the temperature in the bedroom had suddenly warmed by about a hundred degrees.
“You wearing something pretty under that robe?”
He knew her affinity for beautiful, feminine lingerie. It resulted, Charlie was sure, from the no-nonsense, practically androgynous clothes she chose to wear professionally. The answer was yes: her simple summer nightgown was cream silk with lashings of lace, and it was, indeed, very pretty. Not that she had any intention whatsoever of telling him so.
“None of your business,” she answered. “What’s up with your shirt?”
He smiled slowly back at her. His eyes had gone all heavy-lidded and hot. “Thought I’d try turning you on.”
Her eyes narrowed. Her lips firmed. His smile kicked it up a notch.
“It’s wet, okay?” he said. “Unless you have access to a ghost Laundromat, I’m just going to have to wait and see if it dries.”
The sizzle that was suddenly there in the air between them made her body throb. It made her burn. Instantly she started doing everything she could to shut that down. There was no point in even taking so much as the first step down the path this thing with him was heading.
Hot, mindless sex was
not
going to happen. What
was
going to happen was that they would have the conversation about the watch, and then she would get some much-needed sleep.
“I asked you who you’d like me to send your watch to,” she persisted, resolutely ignoring the shivery little tendrils of wanting she could feel coursing around inside her.
His mouth twisted. “Don’t waste your time.” His eyes slid over her again, lingering on the deep vee of the robe she had belted around her waist, openly assessing the scrap of creamy lace visible in the opening. “For future reference, I like lace.”
There was a huskiness to his voice that made butterflies take flight in her stomach. Against the hardwood floor, her toes curled.
Do not let him see you react.
“For future reference, I don’t care.”
“There you go with that pretty pink tongue of yours again.”
She was
not
wetting her lips. She didn’t think. It was all she could do not to glare at him, but that would be a dead tell—giveaway—that he was getting under her skin.
“So are you going to give me the name of your next of kin or not?” Charlie snapped, attempting to battle her body’s shameless response by trying to call to mind what she knew about him. For one thing, at the time of his arrest he’d had a girlfriend. Charlie even remembered her name: Jasmine. She liked the idea that she remembered his girlfriend’s name only slightly less than she liked the idea of sending his watch to her.
“I got no next of kin.” He was looking her in the eye again now, instead of staring at her chest. The sad thing was, that didn’t help what ailed her a bit. The steamy glint at the backs of those sky blue eyes had the unfortunate effect of making her go all gooey inside. “You’re it, babe: you’re the closest thing I’ve got to anybody who gives a damn about me. You keep it.”
There was no self-pity in his face, no chagrin that she could see, no sadness or sorrow. He looked perfectly fine, his usual drop dead sexy self in fact, but Charlie felt a pang in the region of her heart.
It was wrong that he had no one.
Something of what she was feeling must have shown on her face, because his gaze sharpened.
“Are you standing over there feeling sorry for me?” he demanded.
“No,” she replied guiltily.
“Yes you are. I can tell.” Wadding up the T-shirt, he threw it into the elegantly upholstered armchair in the corner. “There goes that soft heart of yours again.”
Charlie raised her chin. “You say that like having a soft heart is a bad thing.”
“Believe me, most of the time it is. But that’s why you get the watch, Doc: because you have a heart as soft and squishy as a big ole giant marshmallow. And because you—how was it you put that once?—oh, yeah: you
care
about me.”
About to deny it, Charlie realized that she couldn’t. And the fact that she couldn’t scared her enough to make her cross. Enough to make her brows snap together and her arms fold over her chest.
“Go to hell,” she said, not caring much at the moment if he actually did. He laughed.
“You gonna show me that pretty thing you’re wearing?”
“No.” She was still scowling at him. A yawn caught her by surprise, and she clapped a hand to her mouth a split second too late.
His expression changed to something she couldn’t read.
“You’re out on your feet,” he said in a totally different tone than before. “Go on to bed.”
She almost said no just to be contrary. But she really was exhausted, and the thought of climbing into bed and closing her eyes was all but irresistible.
Of course, before she did that, she was going to have to lose the robe.
Giving him a peep show was
not
on the evening’s agenda.
She could tell from the hooded way he was watching her that he was waiting for it. Lips curving in secret triumph, she set his watch down on the bedside table, pulled back the covers, positioned her pillows—and turned off the lamp, which was on her side of the bed. When he said
“Shit,”
she smiled. With the room plunged into almost complete darkness, she took off her robe, crawled into bed, and curled up with her back to him.
Then she lay there sightlessly listening to the too-rapid beating of her heart, so conscious of him standing there on the other side of the bed looking down at her that she couldn’t even close her eyes, that she had to remind herself to breathe. He didn’t move, or make a sound, and she knew that the most he could possibly see of her was a shadow-enshrouded shape beneath the covers. But simply knowing that he was there made her supremely conscious of the cool slide of her silk nightgown against her skin, of the tautness of her nipples against the slight abrasion of the lace covering them, of the dampness between her legs. The body lotion she used was scented with lavender: she could smell it on her own skin.
“Just for the record”—his voice was low and thick enough to send a shiver down her spine—“I want to fuck you. Bad.”
Her breath caught. Her hands fisted in the sheets. Her bones turned to water. Her body caught fire.
Oh, God, I want you to
.
But she didn’t say it. Wild horses couldn’t have dragged those words out of her mouth.
What she did say, very firmly, was “Good-night.”
Then she closed her eyes.
So aroused it felt as if flames were licking over every inch of her skin, she practically prayed for sleep.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Of course she had bad dreams. Who wouldn’t, under the circumstances? But when Charlie woke up in the morning, she couldn’t remember them. All she remembered was crying out once, and hearing Michael say, “Don’t worry, babe, I’m right here.” Which had made her feel absurdly safe and protected, and so she had fallen back to sleep until sunlight filtering through the curtains—and her shrilling alarm—announced the arrival of another day.
Michael was nowhere to be found. That worried her. At least, until she got downstairs, followed the smell of coffee to the kitchen, and discovered him with his back to the room, looking out through the big kitchen window while Crane hovered over the coffeemaker and Tony and Kaminsky sat at her breakfast bar discussing something that Charlie surmised had to do with the laptop that was open in front of Kaminsky. A sweeping glance told her that the back door was indeed, to all outward appearances anyway, repaired, and the mail was still piled as she had left it in the center of the table, which was probably why no one was using it. The gang was dressed in their usual FBI-agent suits, and Michael was once again wearing his T-shirt. Charlie presumed it had dried. Although how he had gotten down to the kitchen while still staying within the prescribed fifty-foot limit mystified her, until it dawned on her that Michael could go through the floor. As the ghost traveled, she calculated swiftly, her bedroom was only about thirty feet away.
“Morning,” Tony greeted her as she walked into the kitchen. “Hope you don’t mind us making ourselves at home.”
“Not at all,” she said, as Crane waved a spoon at her, Kaminsky favored her with a sour look, and Michael turned to face her. He was unsmiling, and the sunlight pouring in through the window spilled over his tall, powerfully built body as if he were as solid as the house itself. It picked up golden threads in his tawny hair and emphasized the hard planes and sculpted angles of his face. If she hadn’t known for sure that what she was looking at was his ghost, she wouldn’t have believed it: that’s how alive he looked. Even across the distance separating them she could see the beautiful sky blue of his eyes
. God, he’s gorgeous,
was the thought that ricocheted through her idiot brain, only to be squashed like an annoying little bug with the reality slap of,
And dead.
She pulled her eyes away from him to concentrate on the living, breathing good guy she was talking to. “Only I didn’t think I had any coffee in the house.”
“You didn’t.” Tony smiled at her. Obviously not long out of the shower, he was looking very handsome himself with his well-groomed black hair brushed back from his face and his brown eyes crinkling at her. “Crane ran to the store. Got some doughnuts, too.”