Page 5 of Edged By the Apparition (Halloween Temptation #12)

I was so cozy. That’s all my brain could register as I drifted in and out of consciousness.

It was like I was floating on a cloud, my head resting on the softest of pillows.

Was I naked? Someone stroked my leg, the lightest of touches, and I was safe.

Secure. And…not sad? For the first time in forever, I wasn’t sad.

My eyes fluttered open. I was on the living room couch.

It was one of the few pieces of furniture that weren’t Victorian.

Blaise, of course, had wanted a period sofa, but I had insisted on something new.

Sofas of that era were so uncomfortable.

A couch should be for lounging: big, enveloping, and relaxing.

It’d taken some doing, but I’d convinced him to get the big leather couch I was currently resting on. One of the few splurges when we bought the house, lying on it was like floating on a sea of dandelion fluff. Along with the working brick fireplace, it turned the living room into a sanctuary.

“Blaise?” I called out, even though I could feel him touching my leg. Not being able to see him would be hard to get used to. I knew he was there, but there was an emotional component to it.

“Hi, lover.” His soft words floated through the air, calming the nagging anxiety bubbling up in my chest.

I sighed, closing my eyes and sinking further into the glorious cushions. Was this the best moment of my life? It just might be.

“I guess I’ll have to tell Jen that I don’t want to sell the house after all…” I murmured, my lips pressed against the pillow.

Blaise stopped stroking my leg, removing his…hand? His energy? I didn’t know what to call it, but it disappeared.

“Aw, don’t stop, that was so nice.” My head stayed buried in the cushion, but I assumed my supernatural boyfriend could hear me.

“Tommy? Are you sure you should come back to this house?”

Blaise’s ghostly words were like being plunged into a lake in the middle of winter. I sat up, glancing around, not sure where to look.

“What are you talking about?” I kept my tone clear and even, although inside my mind was spinning out of control. Did he not want me here?

An incorporeal hand rested on my leg, and I started at the unexpected touch.

I was no longer in a state of relaxation.

Not having a pair of eyes to connect with for this conversation, I stared across the room at a large black and white portrait in a dark-stained wooden oval frame.

Inside was a picture of my great-grandfather in a military uniform.

I’d never met him, but I’d always thought his eyes were compassionate. Kind.

Now, though, they seemed disapproving. Judgemental.

A quiet breeze blew across me. It sounded like a sigh.

“You have your whole life ahead of you. You shouldn’t be stuck with me in this old house. You should be out there chasing your dreams, having adventures. You’re still in your twenties. There’s time to find someone new, to fall in love again. To build a future together.”

Tears welled up in my eyes and threatened to spill down my cheeks, but I held them at bay with force of will. Was this what he wanted? To send me back to my miserable life?

“You want me gone?” I croaked out, my fingernails digging into the leather cushions.

“Of course not. I just…it will be better for you. Not to be saddled with a dead boyfriend who can’t leave the house. You can’t even see me!”

I couldn’t catch my breath. My chest was so tight it was painful, and I bent over at the waist, gasping and struggling to force air into my lungs.

How could I lose him again? Didn’t he see how miserable I’d been without him? How I had completely given up? My only lifeline had been my sister. The grief had been unbearable.

An invisible hand pressed down on my back, rubbing comforting circles as I tried to recover.

“Baby, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean that I don’t want you.

You are everything to me, and seeing you again was like waking up again after wandering through a fog for five years.

But I couldn’t take it if I held you back from the rest of your life. I don’t want my love to be a burden.”

He didn’t understand. I focused on slowing down my breath and regaining control. One breath at a time. In and out, in and out. I could do this. I had to make him understand.

When I found my voice again, I closed my eyes. I needed the right words. The perfect words.

“When you died, I didn’t want to end my life. I’ve never wanted that. I put one foot in front of the other. I left this place behind, left my old job and tried to create something new.”

“Baby—”

I threw my hands up in the air to stop him.

“But that was impossible. My life hadn’t ended, but it hadn’t continued either.

I was frozen in amber, stuck at the moment I lost you.

I convinced myself that leaving had been moving on, that a new home and a new career would help me build that. But I was deluding myself.”

I rested my arms on my thighs, my palms up and my fingers spread. Thankfully, Blaise understood what I wanted and intertwined his invisible fingers with my corporeal ones.

“Everything I’d done wasn’t so that I could move on.

It was so that I could stop thinking. A job that required no effort.

An apartment that needed no upkeep. A roommate who didn’t speak.

My bedroom. A single room, a chair, and a mattress on the floor.

That was it. Jen tried to break me of it, but I didn’t want to get out. ”

Blaise’s hands gripped mine tighter now, but he didn’t say anything. The feel of his fingers in mine imparted the emotional strength that I’d been lacking the past years. A fierce determination burned in me, racing through my blood.

“I don’t care that you’re dead. I don’t care that you can’t leave. I don’t even care that I can’t see your face. You can speak to me. I can feel your touch. That’s all that matters, and I will do anything to keep that. A life without you is no life at all.”

A sob sounded from the empty space in front of me, and suddenly Blaise’s arms were around me, squeezing me as if I might be the one to disappear. He whispered near my ear, and his tone was one that I’d never heard him use when he was alive. A mix of devastation and relief.

“I’m so sorry, Tommy. I’m so sorry that I left. That you were alone. I may not have a body anymore, but it still hurts when I think of how sad you’ve been. Seeing you in pain is like being stabbed in the gut. I want you to be happy. You deserve to be happy.”

With that, his lips were on me, pressing against me, devouring me. I wrapped my arms around his invisible form, squeezing him even as he did the same to me. He had to know how much he meant to me.

“Please. I need you inside of me.”

Blaise’s ghostly form vibrated in my arms, shifting and morphing, and although I wasn’t sure what was happening, I held on. Alive or dead, he was the love of my life, and I trusted him.

Which was a good thing, because I was levitating. Still fully naked, I was rising into the air, clutching onto Blaise’s invisible body. I was maybe four feet off the ground when he disappeared.

I yelped as my arms cut through the now-empty space around me. I closed my eyes, expecting to hit the floor hard. The thin antique rug in the living room would do little to cushion my fall.

Except I didn’t hit the floor. I stayed right where I was, suspended. What the hell was happening?

“Blaise? Where did you go?” I did trust him, but that didn’t prevent my voice from shaking at being hoisted into the air by an unseen spirit.

For a moment, I thought I would be stuck aloft in this strange sitting position, when once more tendrils of energies wrapped around my wrists. Not just my wrists, but my ankles as well, and in one swift motion, Blaise tilted me horizontally and spread my limbs out like a starfish.

I whimpered. I couldn’t move. All I could see was the intricate plaster mouldings that decorated the ceiling.

I was hard as a rock.

I struggled, pulling to test my ghostly bindings, but he had me tight. My dick twitched, the only part of me that was vertical at this moment. I waited, shivering in anticipation, wondering what mischief my incorporeal boyfriend would pull next.

The first thing that came was the voices. Somehow, he whispered into both of my ears, creating a kind of eerie surround sound.

“I’ll get inside you, Tommy, but you don’t need gravity for that.”

Before I could respond, I was being invaded. Finger-like tendrils spread my cheeks, and a warm, wet sensation tickled at my entrance. Tremors went through my body like earthquakes as the sensation took me over. My cock was dripping pre-cum in a steady stream, drops of it dribbling down my shaft.

“Fuck, Blaise. I need you. Fuck me. I’ve been waiting for so long.”

“Then we can’t rush it, sexy. I don’t want to hurt you. After all, I’m a ghost. My dick can be as big as I want it to be.”

I whined as the tongue slipped into my hole. Every nerve ending back there was on fire, but worse was what Blaise wasn’t doing. He wasn’t touching my dick at all.

“Please…touch my—”

“I don’t think so.” The whispers grew louder even as the tongue slipped further into me, and I sobbed at the breach.

Not only was his dick as big as he wanted, but this tongue was longer than any human tongue, and it was demonstrating physical abilities no tongue should have.

It was pulsing inside of me, and with each pulse, I whimpered.

It was so fucking good. I opened my mouth to beg once more, when I found an invisible hand clamping down on it.

“You’ll come soon enough. And neither you nor I are going to touch your dick to make it happen.”

I thrashed around at his words. This was going to be torture. Such exquisite torture.

The assault started with that tongue that was no longer a tongue. It was expanding deep inside of me, becoming something more phallic. I moaned as the appendage formed ridges and moved in and out of me, slow and steady.