Dreaming Death (Krewe of Hunters #32) - Heather Graham Page 0,64

also believe that he thought we just might work out.”

“And...we’ve worked out?”

“I’d say so,” he told her.

But she still looked worried.

“I don’t want... I mean, I know you’re feeling bad for me, I don’t want... I hate to even say it, but I don’t want...pity sex.”

“You don’t pity me?” he asked softly, amazed at the combination of tenderness, longing, hunger and urgency sweeping through him.

She smiled, looking a bit sheepish. “I’ve just never had...”

“Sex?”

“No, no. Just not...often. I mean casual. I just... How do you let a relationship go anywhere when you’re constantly afraid you’ll wake up screaming?” she asked bleakly.

“You can scream for me anytime—awake or asleep,” he said softly.

“I’m going to be screaming now?” she asked.

“Well, moaning and all. At least, I hope,” he said.

Then she smiled again, and her smile was beautiful, and he wondered if she wasn’t more gifted than she knew, that she was a gift herself, to him.

Because he knew the feeling; he’d cared for others.

He’d lost once. Because with all that he knew...he hadn’t been fast enough.

Young, yes, but...

And nothing had ever really worked again. The past had haunted him with a greater clarity than any ghost had ever managed.

Forget the past, let her forget her past...

Live for the present.

He smiled down at her, straddling her, and laced his fingers with hers.

“You are the best thing to come into my life ever,” he told her, “and if we’re talking about pity or mercy...have pity on me.”

She looked up at him, eyes wide, disbelieving at first and then crystallizing with understanding. He leaned down, and they enjoyed another incredibly wet and heated kiss, then his lips slid onto her throat and collarbone and down to her breasts. Their fingers broke free; he felt her touching him, felt her fingers moving down his back and her body shifting beneath his, arching and writhing.

Then the tension of their lives and the reminders of the past seemed to evaporate, and the need for her that was rising in him felt insatiable.

It was torture to wait, yet he had to know her body, feel the tension in her abdomen as his kisses fell there...on her thighs, upward...teasing, demanding. And the feel of her touching him, the incredible sensation of her lips and tongue and wet kisses over the length of him.

Then their bodies moved together. The night rocked. They slipped and shifted, came close to climax, drew back to savor the moment, moved onward again...

The release was fantastic.

“Told you. You definitely screamed,” Keenan said into Stacey’s hair as they lay, still tangled together.

“The screaming was you!” she said.

He laughed and said, “Maybe.” He wrapped her in his arms, just holding her tight as his lungs gulped in air, and he heard the thunder of his pulse, pounding in his ears, slowly fading.

She curled against him, comfortable there.

“So, Jackson thinks we’re sleeping together already,” she said. “Maybe we should assure him that he was right on.”

“Nah. Let’s let him wonder!”

She shifted against him. For a minute, he felt a lump in his throat. He rolled to look at her and spoke earnestly.

“We’ve all had our pasts. For me...it was Allison. We were in high school. She was sweet, giving, popular, and she made those around her better people. She wouldn’t allow bullying. Senior year, right near graduation, she was abducted. I already knew that I could see the dead. A ghost came to me. The ghost of a girl this deranged man had already taken and killed. She tried to get me to Allison, and she did, but...it was too late. She’d been left by the side of the road. Bleeding into the ground. I guess I’ve never really forgiven myself. I’ve always thought that I didn’t form relationships because of my work, because others didn’t understand. I envied Kat and Will, Jackson and Angela, and Vickie and Griffin and the other couples who work together, but of course, there was my work to keep me busy. So, yeah, I’ve had more casual sex than I’d like, but...you. You will never know, whatever the future brings, what you’ve meant to me tonight.”

“What?”

She sounded indignant.

He was surprised. He was not a man who showed his emotions easily, if at all. He had just poured his heart out.

But she smiled and set her palm upon his face, causing him to look at her. “This better not be just tonight!” she said. “Please, don’t let this not be just tonight!”

They made love again.

The morning was coming. And with it, the tension and