Page 15 of Adored by the Grumpy Ghost (Mapletown Monster Mates #1)

Natalie

T he kiss is slow at first, sensual, but there’s clear hesitancy coming from both of us.

Did I kiss him? Or did he kiss me? I can’t remember how it happened, but I’m screaming on the inside that it did.

Every part of him steals my breath, and for once, he’s not actively trying to piss me off. He’s been sweet and protective.

I wasn’t expecting that.

Winston’s tongue swipes along the seam of my lips, and I let him in. He tastes like bourbon, with a hint of vanilla. I wonder if that was the last drink he had before he died.

Then the kiss shifts from sweet to scorching. His hands are rough as the left grips my hair and the right splays against the middle of my back. I moan against his mouth, and he jerks back, giving me a look I can’t decipher.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, worried he regrets this and is about to end it.

He smiles, his eyes heavy-lidded with lust as he says, “Absolutely nothing, sweetheart. That sound you made. It’s the most beautiful fucking thing I’ve ever heard.”

I can feel the blood rushing to my cheeks, but before I can get embarrassed, Winston crushes his lips to mine once more, his mouth rough and hungry as he hauls me against him and into the air.

I promise myself that I’ll punch him in the dick if he chooses this moment to disappear and drop me again, but that never happens.

At one point, he strides deeper into the water until it reaches my shoulders, then he removes one arm from around my waist and cups my cheek so tenderly I feel tears prick behind my eyelids.

I don’t think I’ve ever been kissed like this before.

I’ve never felt so desired and cherished at the same time.

He nips at my bottom lip, and I suck in a breath, my chest arching into his. My hands find their way to his hair, and I revel in the silkiness of each strand as my fingers run through it. “You have no idea how many times I’ve wanted to do this,” he rasps.

“I thought you hated me,” I whisper against his lips.

Winston pulls back to look at me. Shame fills his gaze as his mouth forms a frown. “I’ve never hated you, Natalie. Not for one second.”

Our bodies melt together as his lips make their way along my jaw, then my neck, then my collarbone.

“Winston,” I whimper, my hands still traveling freely over his body.

His biceps, the dusting of soft light brown hair on his chest, tracing the V of his stomach, the muscles tightening beneath my fingers.

I’m kissing someone with a six-pack. With a beautiful face and mouth-watering body.

How did that happen? I could grow addicted to this.

To him . The feel of him. The taste of him.

The smell of him. The combination makes me feel drunk.

Is that how I should feel about my roommate, though? My centuries-old ghost roommate, that is. Are we entering messy territory here?

His hand brushes against my breast, then down to my side, where he lets his fingers stroke across my belly.

Fear makes my blood run cold. Instinctively, I wince and yank out of his arms, swimming backward as I put distance between us.

Why did he do that? I’ve never had a partner touch me there. Not lovingly, anyway. During the best sexual encounters I’ve had, my stomach was ignored. That’s what I’m used to.

The cruel voice in my head wants me to think he was mocking me, like my classmates did throughout middle and high school.

Winston’s lips are swollen from our kiss as he gives me a confused glare. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” I quickly reply. What am I supposed to say?

Tell him that he touched my stomach, and it sent me plummeting into a dark hole of self-loathing?

I’ve spent years trying to deprogram the negative thoughts and forget the hurtful comments made about my body, and for the most part, I like my shape.

Since this is the only body I’ll ever have, I know I need to be kind to it.

The negative thoughts are especially hard to ward off when there’s an unexpected trigger, like a hot ghost touching my belly while his tongue flicks my earlobe, for instance.

His jaw tics as he steps toward me. “No, it’s not nothing. Did I do something wrong? Something you didn’t like?” His face falls, and knowing I put that agonized expression there makes me feel like a pile of shit.

“No,” I begin, trying to figure out how to explain something that fills me with such shame, “it’s not that, I just–”

His large hand wraps around my arm, his strong grip loosening to a gentle hold. “Tell me, Natalie.” Winston’s voice is pleading, and it shatters my resolve.

“Okay, so I have a hard tim––” A high-pitched jingle cuts through the silence of the forest, interrupting me. It’s the alarm on my phone, blaring from the beach, and saving me from having to put these complicated feelings into words.

“I need to get ready. That alarm means I have an hour before work starts.”

He sighs heavily, running a hand through his wet hair. “Fine. Let’s head back.”

We get dressed, and Winston doesn’t say another word on our walk back to the house. Neither do I. Luckily, Ethel is long gone by the time we pass the garden shed, so at least there won’t be any more murder attempts today.

He follows me up the stairs and stops at the door to my bedroom.

We stand there, looking at our feet, like two teenagers at the end of a first date, not knowing what to say, and I hate myself for crossing this line with him.

Things between us were improving. He still bugged the hell out of me, but he was a tolerable roommate.

Why did he have to kiss me and make it weird? Or wait, did I kiss him?

“Well, I’m going to shower,” I say. “Thanks for, uh, saving my life today, with Ethel.”

“Oh, yeah,” he says, as if he’d forgotten all about it. Then he puts his hands in his pockets and gives me a lopsided grin. “Anytime.”

My hand is on the doorknob when he grabs me by the elbow, spinning me around, and I stop short of slamming into the wide expanse of his chest. “Natalie,” he rasps.

I shouldn’t look up. Up is where those captivating green eyes are, and that soft, perfect mouth of his. But I can’t resist. “Yes?” I reply, breathless.

He opens his mouth to say something, then looks away with a wince. It feels like an hour passes before his gaze meets mine again. “Good luck tonight.”

“Right. Thanks.”

Then he turns on his heel and heads up the stairs to the third floor, turning into that gray mist before he reaches the top step.

I blow out a breath once I’m inside my room, giving myself a beat to process what just happened.

Then, I immediately try to forget, because that was easily the hottest kiss I’ve ever had, and if I want to get through my first day of work at the bar, I need to get Winston and his perfect lips out of my head.

My first shift is relatively slow at first. I don’t mind that one bit, since it takes me a few tries before I learn how to use the tablet register thingy to input orders.

Vyla, the orc bartender on staff tonight with me and Dominic, shows me how to mix a Ghastly Megan, a Fuzzy Doug, and a Slurpy Steve on the Rocks, which are their three most popular signature cocktails.

“Who came up with these drink names?” I ask Vyla.

Her silky black hair is tied back into several neat Viking-esque braids that reach the middle of her back, and the overhead lights make the intricate purple tattoo on her face look like it’s shimmering.

The tusks that jut out of her mouth are just as intimidating as her massive biceps, and I couldn’t be happier about sharing a shift with her.

No one is going to fuck with me as long Vyla is by my side.

She snickers as she pours a Mapletown Mule into the copper mug in front of her, before adding a lime wedge to the rim.

“That would be Riz,” she says, referring to Rizlan, the dragon-shifter bartender I have yet to meet.

“He finds human names amusing, so when he was building the drink menu, he included the most basic names he could think of.”

“That’s adorable,” I reply, jotting down the recipe to the Mapletown Mule in my notebook so I can refer to it later. “So that was one shot apple cider and one tablespoon of maple syrup? Or was it two tablespoons?”

“One shot, two tablespoons.” She delivers the drink to the shy gargoyle at the end of the bar. He’s been here for two hours and has barely spoken. Vyla told me he owns the bookstore, Tome Time, in the center of town.

Vyla must catch me eyeing him because she whispers, “Interested in Clark? He’s very good in bed. Want me to put a good word in for you? We used to be neighbors.”

Panic dries up my throat as I say, “Oh, no. That’s not necessary.”

Her eyebrows lift at my quick dismissal. “Are you seeing someone?”

“No, no, it’s not that.” It’s not…right? Even if I didn’t pull away from Winston’s kiss earlier, it’s not like we’re dating. Technically, we can’t even go on a date, since he can't leave the grounds. We’re nothing. Just roommates who kissed.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a crush on him, though. Can forty-somethings still have crushes? It feels like a term I’m much too old for, but what else would I call it?

Even before the kiss, I was thinking about him a lot––his lips, those strong hands, that deep rumbling voice.

And fucking hell, that body of his. He doesn’t look like a bulky gym rat.

His muscles look like they were built from manual labor, rescuing damsels in distress, that kind of thing.

Lean, but expertly efficient. A boyish face with the body of a man .

“Oh, are you queer?” Vyla asks, pulling me out of Winston-filled haze. “I am too! Most of the town is pan, actually.”

“That’s so cool,” I tell her. “But no, I’m straight.”

“Aw,” she says with a sympathetic frown as she pats my shoulder, “sorry, babe.”

I laugh. “Yeah, thanks.”