Page 16 of Ghost of a Chance

L ike nothing. She didn’t want to have rules for hanging out with a guy that she’d already almost hooked up with. It felt dangerously close to a relationship. “Forget it. I need to get back upstairs and write.”

She started to stand. Better to leave now than do something she’d regret later.

“I never figured you for a coward.”

“Excuse me?” Now she was awkwardly towering over the table as he sprawled on the other side.

Those long arms of his draped over the tabletop, defined and tempting.

From this angle his long bladelike nose, combined with the expression on his face, painted him in a harsh light.

There was something of a playful warning in the way he watched her.

“You heard me,” he said, taking the most exaggerated sip of his tea that she’d ever witnessed.

Screw him . “I’m not scared of you, Jasper.”

“But you’re definitely running from what you feel for me,” he said.

She wanted to roll her eyes and walk away without looking back. That would be the easiest way to show him just how wrong he was. But she couldn’t.

“Maybe you’re projecting.”

Ugh, that was her great comeback? A grown-up version of same goes for you but double . For a professional writer, she needed to work on her dialogue.

“Am I?”

Maybe it was the creepiness of the Gothic house or some lingering energy from the séance, but it seemed he’d moved around the table with preternatural speed. He placed himself right in front of her, pushing her back, the edge of the table digging into her butt.

With his big naked chest, his silver-blue eyes swirling with lust, and the subtle spiciness of his aftershave, she was a goner. Surrounded by all Jasper. Right where she wanted to be.

“I’m not backing away.”

“You can’t,” he said in a low voice, sending shivers coursing through her.

Her heartbeat sped up as she inhaled his scent and felt the heat of his body circling her.

“I could climb up on the table to get away,” she pointed out. “Also let’s not rule out the ever graceful option to drop to the floor and crawl under it.”

He threw his head back and laughed. Something wild and sensual sprung to life inside of her at the way he could be both sexy and ridiculous.

That was it. Trying to be smart had never worked for her. It wasn’t like she was going to stop craving him. She liked him even though she didn’t want to.

One-night stands only worked because there was no chance to start weaving little fairy tales deeply buried in her psyche.

Family, happily-ever-afters—all things that seldom showed up in real life.

In the past, she wove fairy tales in her head around the men she dated.

The first one had been in high school so she could excuse herself for being young and naive.

The second had been in college. He seemed different—at first. It had taken a humiliating event at winter social to wake her up.

“What the hell is going on in your head?”

She remained silent, refusing to meet his eyes.

“I like you, Kirsty. I have since the Dead Boys concert. You’re funny, different and difficult. I can’t stop thinking about the fact that we are both sleeping in the same house.”

Another flare of heat went through her, pooling at her center. “So?”

“Fine. If you’re not feeling it then that’s cool,” he said, watching her with that laser gaze of his. “I didn’t figure you for a liar.”

The séance’s eerie voice would disagree. But she didn’t lie most of the time…except about having paranormal gifts. “I’m not.”

He arched one eyebrow at her. So arrogant. He didn’t have to point out she was being ridiculous.

“Fine. I like you. Being around you is fun. Is that why you’re all I like you and we should hook up?”

“No, I’m like that because I do like you. And I want you.” He shoved his hand through his thick straight hair, making it stand up for a moment before it fell back into place. She remembered how silky and cool it felt. How effortless it all seemed for him.

A slow hum was going through her body. Her mind and good sense were losing the battle with her libido. But she had to stay strong. Their time together had an end date. He wasn’t going to move back home with her. He lived and worked in Chicago, for crying out loud.

The lights flickered above them three times. Judge Judy’s voice blared from the other room. “I am not going to ask you to leave. But, the next time you come into my courtroom, dress more appropriately. You are not going to a beach party.”

Jasper let out a string of curses as he left the room. This was the perfect chance for her to go back to bed and pretend like this never happened.

Run away .

Like the coward he accused her of being.

Fuck that.

She wouldn’t let him be right about that. Instead she followed him. It didn’t mean she’d allow herself to fall back into his arms. But she wasn’t running away again.

He’d see how strong her control was. She wasn’t going to fall for a sexy, high cheekboned man with lips that were made for kissing. Not again.

Except as she entered the living room and saw him standing in front of the TV, illuminated by its blue-tinted glow, an unreadable look on his face, she knew she was lying to herself.

* * *

Honestly, what did he have to lose? Kirsty was in his head. Always the embodiment of mysterious except when she kissed him tonight. A dam had broken inside of him leading to an epiphany. Life was too short not to go for it with Kirsty.

Then of course Paul had to come in and break it up once again. Thankfully Jasper managed to turn down the television to a reasonable volume before it woke the others up.

Judge Judy was on a rip, crisply pointing out in that sharp, intelligent way of hers that the litigant was dumb.

He really didn’t like the show because it displayed people at their worst. A woman suing her best friend over getting burnt eating cheese fries…

Stuff like that made him realize how fragile trust was between people.

“You just don’t give up,” he said to the textbook. It remained on the living room table.

“Does he answer you?”

He jumped at the sound of Kirsty’s voice. “No. I would have told you if he did.”

“Tell me more about him.” She came into the room and sat on one of the big leather chairs, curling her legs under her. “I want to get a complete picture of him. You told me about his study groups but I want to know more.”

“Like what?”

“Something funny,” she said.

“Do you think it will help you figure out how to contact him?”

“It can’t hurt.”

Shaking his head as he smiled at her, he sat down on the sofa, putting his feet up on the coffee table. He reached over and pulled the book to him. Absently he flipped through the pages.

Physics hadn’t been his favorite subject in high school even though his dad had been studying to become a physics teacher.

When he applied to school his love of watching TV and movies had steered him to a BA with Major in Film and Television Studies.

Though he and Paul had been in the same physics class so that Jasper could get a better idea of what his dad’s fictional theory was based on.

“He liked a puzzle. On my last birthday he gave me a map and some scrambled clues.”

Was that all this was? Some puzzle he had to solve? That would be just like Paul, getting a one-up on him even in death.

“Did you figure it out?”

“Sure did, but it took me about two weeks. When I finally showed up at the location, Paul had left me a present and a cupcake in a watertight box.”

Remembering that stale cupcake and the copy of the latest Assassin’s Creed game made him smile. Twigged something in his mind about the game where you could travel back on your own timeline. Was that what Paul was doing?

“What kind of clues did he leave you? Is there anything he might have been doing for the last five years that reminds you of that puzzle?”

“There’s this one TV show that’s always on when Paul’s ghost acts up. Tonight, I was thinking that most of the cases she sees involve people who knew each other. Who break each other’s trust.”

She took her phone from her cardigan pocket and started tapping her fingers on the screen. “So, a soured friendship? You said you’d had a fight with him, right?”

“Yeah. But really it wasn’t friendship ending. I just thought he needed to take a break. Party a bit more instead of always hitting the books.”

The look she gave him wasn’t hard to figure out.

He made himself sound like an entitled prick who’d come to college to just have fun.

“There was a Reddit thread on how blowing off steam helps you to focus better when you come back to studying. Paul wasn’t retaining half of what he wanted to because he worked too hard. ”

“You sound defensive.”

“I know. I went to the party he refused to go to…and he died that same night. If I had been there with him, I could have called 911 or taken him to the hospital.”

He’d never denied the guilt he carried about that evening. The thought of Paul dying alone…the way Jasper’s dad had, broke his heart.

“You said he had a brain hemorrhage. I’m not sure there was much you could have done,” she said.

“But he wouldn’t have been alone,” he said quietly.

He didn’t hear her at first as she sank down on the couch next to him, wrapping her arm around his shoulders and hugging him. He put his hands on her arms, taking the comfort from her. It was nice to have her next to him, not because he was pushing her to be but simply because she cared.

Though he wished it wasn’t the fact that he was getting a response from her by showing her his hurt.

He leaned to the right until the side of his face was on the top of her head.

Her shampoo smelled like fall, all apples and cinnamon.

Her breath was warm against the column of his neck.

Even the glow of the TV with Judge Judy bringing down her gavel and handing down her judgment couldn’t distract him from this moment.