“It’s a different kind of strength,” he continued, like he’d thought about it for a while. His erection played lightly against my belly. “Being the soft spot where a strong woman can rest.” He lowered his head, hair falling over his eyes, and when he glanced back up at me through it, his smile was untamed. “I fucking love it.”
Yes. Let someone else be strong for a change. I did need a soft spot. Even if only for a night.
My answer was my sigh, my breath as it caressed his cheek, my mouth as it played over his. As our tongues met he was inside me again, hard and fast in a solid stroke. I reared beneath him, wordless noises scattering across the moonlit room, my sigh turning into a needy moan.
“This is real,” he said, thrusting, the impact sealing our bodies together as one. “This is all there is.”
And feeling my acceptance, my need equaling his, he eased up, hooking his right ankle beneath mine, and flipped us easily, so I was on top. I gazed down and met his eyes, swallowed hard at the challenge there, and began to rock. Yes, I thought, as waves of heat rose through me, up my belly, making my head light. He licked wine from my chest, and I sighed his name into his hair. He was right. This was all there was.
After that we really did talk. I answered what questions I could-yes, I was alive, but yes, I was different too. No, I had no contact with my sister. Yes, that was in order to keep her safe. And I posed a few pointed inquiries myself. Did he miss the police force? Why wasn’t he still writing? Who the fuck was Rose?
Then he led the conversation into a linear questioning about what had happened the night of my disappearance, what had happened subsequently, and what was going to happen next. I answered these with mumbled half truths about a secret life-nothing about the sanctuary, Shadows…and certainly not that I’d found Joaquin-and ultimately the vague responses piled up between us and we fell silent, him trying to think of ways to draw me out, me wondering where I could hide.
So I distracted him by disappearing beneath the covers, mouth too full for words, and by the time I emerged again, he was too breathless to ask any more. We sipped directly from the wine bottle after that, propped up on each other’s flesh until the pastel colors of predawn seeped into the inky sky. I got up and shut the windows, knowing heat would begin bleeding into the room within the hour.
Ben watched my every move. His eyes fluttered shut from time to time, but he opened them again by sheer force of will, only letting a smile and relief pass his face when they found me again. I drifted off myself, and that was unexpected. So much so that when I did awaken it was with a jolt, breathing quickly, eyes winging open. Ben’s breathing didn’t change.
I rose and dressed, knowing even as I did so that it wasn’t fair. I mean, here I was, a ghost lover returning to seduce my beloved, to keep him in essence from getting on with his personal life, when I’d known all along that come sunrise I’d leave him again. What I hadn’t expected was to feel this soft; the ability to be fragile with another person wasn’t even something I’d realized I was missing, and only the contrast between the lightness I felt with his arms around me and the heaviness that returned as I left that room made me aware of it at all. Wasn’t it supposed to be the other way around?
And how the hell was I supposed to live without it now?
And still I couldn’t help but think maybe I could return to him intermittently, even semiregularly, as me. It wouldn’t be a normal relationship, but what was normal? The guy who went to his nine-to-five every day, then stopped by a strip club on the way home to his wife and family? The woman who waited until her husband was away on business to invite the UPS guy inside? The couples I’d seen at the swingers’ ball who’d decided three was most definitely not a crowd?
Hell, I’d turned down mortals and superheroes alike just because the memory of Ben was stronger than the reality of anyone else. But if I left now-and I had to get Jasmine’s aura back to her soon-at least I could comfort myself with knowing Ben wouldn’t die with scorched lips and genitals.
And he won’t replace your spot in bed with another woman.
I jotted down a quick note in the kitchen, telling him if he needed to get in touch with me to leave a message, unsigned, in the mailbox. Then I dropped the house key next to it before returning to the bedroom one last time. Just to look.
“It’s best this way,” I said from the doorway. “I promise.”
As I blinked back tears, I felt Jasmine’s aura loosing on my lids, the movement echoed just a fraction of a second after mine, and knew it was time to go. Letting myself out the back door, I leaped the block wall separating my house from the next, and sprinted away from my home and lover.
Away from my real secret life.
29
Less than an hour later I was home-having driven Jasmine to her house and watched her climb a trellis into her second-story window-but home at Olivia’s this time. Home as Olivia, I thought, catching my reflection in the entry mirror, almost surprised to see the cascade of long blond curls coming loose from their underpinnings.
Sighing, I dumped my keys on the console, my bag beneath it, and called out Hunter’s name as I made my way to the kitchen. There was no answer, and just as well. The scent of lovemaking clung to my skin, and I decided to momentarily forgo food for a shower instead. I was pretty sure Hunter knew where I’d been-he’d encouraged it, after all-but there was no need to rub it in his face.
I set the spray to full heat, threw my clothes into the hamper, and was about to climb into the shower when the phone rang. I hesitated. It could be Hunter, and if he had news about Valhalla he wouldn’t leave it on the machine. Then again, it could be Ben. By now he’d probably have woken up alone in a house of ghosts, and might be calling Olivia in a panic to see if she knew anything about my sudden return, and where I might be now.
But it wasn’t either of them. Instead Suzanne’s frothy voice followed my machine’s beep, made even tinnier by her panicked voice. I’d never heard her out of breath before. “Livvy, darlin’, it’s me. Listen, I’m standing at the starting line for the marathon-you know, the one that ends up in Nye county?” She said this like it was a reasonable thing, and I rolled my eyes as I headed back into the bathroom. I’d listen to the rest later. “Anyway, Ian and I were supposed to meet here an hour ago, he’s been talking about this race for months, and I just know he wouldn’t miss this for the world.
“I know the two of you weren’t seeing each other, but I was wondering if he mentioned something to you at the ball about a quick trip out of town, a death in the family, something like that? I don’t know, I’m just worried is all. It’s not like him. He’s been missing work too-”
This is the point where I backed again into the bedroom. “-and that’s not like him either. His bosses say he has a big programming project due soon, and they haven’t heard hide nor hair from him for at least a week.”
I whirled, staring hard at the spot where my sister’s computer once sat, trying frantically to put it all into a neat time frame-the swingers’ ball, Ian’s disappearance, the computer’s-while Suzanne’s voice continued chirping along in the background.
“…so if you happen to hear from him, or talk to him in the next little bit, would you mind giving me a ring, or tell Ian to call me himself? I just want-”
There was a loud explosion that jolted me and I looked back at the recorder, suddenly worried for Suzanne.
“Oops, there’s the starting gun, honey. Gotta run. Literally. Smooches!” And she was gone.
I went back to the bath and shut off the now-steaming shower, then returned to the kitchen, not for food, but for the fingerprinting kit I had tucked behind a basket of cleaning supplies under the sink. After lightly dusting the computer desk with the fine powder, I straightened, wrists cocked on my naked hips, heart pounding as I stared at the dance of prints revealed there. Significant because I didn’t have fingerprints. And neither did Hunter.