All the Rules of Heaven (All That Heaven Will Allow #1) - Amy Lane Page 0,6

supernatural sexual violation. But I’d rather not have one looking me in the face while I rinse my cracks!”

Not-Damien’s mouth opened slowly while Tucker sponged his pits. “I am not a violation! I am a guide!”

Tucker soaped up his member, which—probably befitting his karmic mission or whatever—was of a gratifying size. “Guide this,” he said crudely. “If you’re not out of here by the time I soap my hair, whatever you want to use me for, I’m not doing it.”

Not-Damien scowled. “I’ll be waiting outside the bathroom,” he muttered.

“I’m not going to try to escape my fate,” Tucker promised bitterly. “Believe me, I’ve learned the hard way. Whoever is in charge doesn’t like us to have too goddamned much free will.”

The ghost’s scowl softened. “What happened to you?” he asked, looking like a wounded choirboy. “Your aunt said you were such a sweet boy.”

“None of your business. And quite frankly, she never mentioned you.” Dammit. He looked so much like Damie, the wound opened again, fresh and bloody and bright. “Just go.”

There was a faint breeze, carrying with it the odor of new sneakers and indigo dye—and the faintest scent of citrus and lavender—and Tucker was alone.

But not for long.

Not-Damien was not actually waiting for him outside the bathroom, as Tucker feared. Tucker had a chance to wash, dry, and even shave using the kit from the suitcase he’d left in the kitchen.

Dakota slept on through it—probably pretending, but Tucker didn’t mind. Sometimes when you woke up with a stranger, faking sleep was just courtesy.

Or that’s what he thought until he walked back to the kitchen to grab his luggage and make his exit out the front door.

She was awake, barely, yawning through coffee and blinking through the morning-after mess of her hair. She’d kept the tank top on and put on cutoffs this time, and she still looked sort of delicious and sexy. Tucker had a moment to regret that he wasn’t a real person to her, because if he’d had a life of his own, he really would have chosen someone exactly like Dakota Fisher.

“Heya, darlin’,” he said, kissing her cheek. “I thought you’d sleep in.”

“I really could have,” she mumbled. “Then I remembered—I live down three miles of dirt road, Tucker, and it’s already eighty-five degrees outside. It would be really frickin’ rude of me to let you walk that hauling your two suitcases.”

Tucker hadn’t thought of that, and the kindness made him blush.

“Thank you,” he said in a small voice. “That’s really nice of you.”

He had a cup of coffee with her, and then she grabbed her keys and the smaller suitcase. She went first, bumping her way across the porch and down the steps of her little house, and he followed. Not-Damien was standing outside the door.

He frowned at Dakota and then turned his glare to Tucker as Tucker maneuvered his big old suitcase over the threshold.

“I thought you said—”

Oh my God. “It’s over ten miles away, asshole,” Tucker hissed. “I’ll meet you there!”

The self-recriminatory look on not-Damien’s face was almost worth the aggravation of knowing the dickweed would be waiting for Tucker once he reached his destination.

“Sorry,” the ghost said and disappeared, leaving Tucker feeling the faintest bit sorry for being such an ass. But not enough to worry about it.

“OH MY God, Tucker, are you sure?”

Tucker looked at Daisy Place and swallowed. “Yeah,” he said weakly. “I’m hunky dory.”

Peeling mint-green paint adorned the window and door frames, but the rest of the house was a collection of rotting shingled siding and rusty tin roofs. Was it Tucker’s imagination or did the entire house slant at odd angles so that the west wing dipped down and the east wing tilted up, and the middle seemed to loom bigger and smaller with each of Tucker’s deep, steadying breaths?

“It looks like a cult of Satanists lives in the basement,” Dakota said frankly. “You could always room with me for a few weeks. I’m going into the sheriff’s department today—my uncle said he could get me a job as a deputy. You know, in a month I might even be able to use a gun.”

Tucker tried not to stare at her. Of all the unexpected outcomes of his magic sexual karma, he had not expected the former English teacher to scream “I’m gonna be a cop!” in the middle of orgasm.

And yet she had. And apparently she also had follow-through.

Tucker thought seriously about her offer and then about what a live-in girlfriend with a gun would do