Page 18 of Haunted Heart (Things that Go Hump in the night #1)

EIGHTEEN

I don’t want to sleep.

I’ve tried to force myself, but it still feels unfinished.

Julia’s arms wrap around me and I snuggle deeper into her. “Thank you for coming back with me.”

“What do you mean?” Her brows pinch and then her face clears and she holds me even tighter. “You thought there was a chance I’d go after the man who killed me and succumb to my wrath?”

“I worried that his pull was stronger than mine.”

“There is only one thing that could make me stay in Hell. And that is if you were trapped there too.”

I shiver, and it’s not because her skin is cold. “Let’s never go back there.”

“No more Hell,” she agrees. “We’ll stay here in the living world, where you belong.”

She turns to shift over top of me, sinking through the blankets as if they aren’t there.

The cotton sheet still tangles around my legs, and she doesn’t argue with me when I kick it away.

She brushes my hair back from my forehead, gaze wandering over my face. “I’ve lain beside you in this bed a dozen times before, wishing I could simply touch you… I would have been happy simply to hold your hand.”

I lace my fingers in hers. “You can hold my hand any time you like.”

Her lips brush the back of it. “I’m yours and you’re mine, aren’t you, Genevieve?”

“Yes.” I slip my fingers through her hair, behind her neck, and pull her down to me. “I’ve been yours for a while.”

When I kiss her, she seems to sigh with her whole body, easing more weight onto me. I free my hand from hers, wrapping my other arm around her waist so that I can clutch her tighter.

I need her.

I want her.

There’s an urgency within me that has nothing to do with anything outside of us.

The rest of the world could have been sucked to Hell… I’m not going after them. I’m not going anywhere when I have Julia like this.

She kisses me like she needs me, too. Desperate and deep.

Both of us have longed for too long.

“Let me give you my heart, Julia.”

I whimper when she slips away from me, but the disappointment is short lived. I help her drag my pajama pants down my legs, and I pull my shirt off, tossing them aside.

She hovers over me, looking her fill. I lick my lips… waiting, wanting…

“Let me be your anchor.”

When I reach for her, she sinks down to me, but she spreads my legs again, sharp fingers directing my thighs as she opens me for her.

“I want to be yours. I want to haunt you.” She kisses my knee and sighs against my skin. “But first… no spell for other people. This time, just us.”

I nod, biting my lip. “Just us.”

She smiles, her teeth still sharp, and descends on me.

I grab her head on a gasp, but I don’t try to take control from her.

What was rushed before is now languid. I bite my tongue as she takes her time, exploring me with her mouth.

She makes me writhe, and I prop myself up on my elbows so that I can watch her, meeting her dark eyes as she takes what she wants from me.

The leisurely way in which her tongue works makes me want to weep and beg, but I only let one whimper go free.

When her eyes flutter closed and her grip tightens on my thighs, I have to drop my head back and screw my eyes shut.

Demands clog the back of my throat. More… Now… Please…

But I don’t let them free.

Nothing passes my lips until that need and pleasure coil into a tight point inside my belly, and I come, hands twisting in the sheets as it courses through me.

Julia laughs, her breath fluttering against my damp skin. “Perhaps the next time I go to hell, it will be Gluttony that tugs at me.”

“I’m certain Lust would show me you and no one else.”

Julia kisses me once more and then shifts up to press her lips to mine. I grind myself against the hard column of her leg, forcing myself not to try to turn her onto her back.

“Are you fighting me? Or yourself?” she asks as she takes hold of my wrists.

Her grip is tight, her teeth on my neck sharp, and I wriggle against the weight of her hips. I’m not trying to get away. I want more. I’m always going to want more.

But I won’t take it.

“Too many people have taken from you… I only want to give.”

He smiles and shakes her head at me. “Oh, you’ll take.”

She chuckles as she kisses me, and I gasp when her fingers find me again, sliding through the wetness her mouth left behind and delving inside of me.

“We’ll both take and we’ll both give and I have no doubt the scales will always balance.” She moves over me, her smile even sharper than it was before. “But this time, I think I’ll give you what you want… what you need.”

She presses forward with her fingers, catching my lips in a kiss before I can argue with her.

I savor that kiss while she works herself inside of me, two fingers, then three, then…

My eyes fly wide, and she smiles at me, even though she doesn’t draw back from that kiss.

The pressure the… perfection.

I moan against her mouth and tighten around her as she presses her whole hand inside of me.

I fight for my breath when she leaves me, moving so that her lips can toy with my clit as she continues to work her fist into me.

“Before,” I say, shivering and shuddering at the sharp pleasure her lips pull from my clit, “I had thought to myself that I wanted you inside me. Can you hear my thoughts?”

“No… but I think I know what you want.”

She stretches and fills me, and I hold myself as still as I can until the pressure is too great, the pleasure too sharp. I thrash, a cry ripping from my throat. It feels like the whole house shakes around me as my orgasm tries to rip me apart.

Julia’s soft laughter is the only sound I can hear over my own heartbeat.

Joy… That is what I want for her.

That’s what I want for us .

When my heart slows and my breathing settles, Julia eases herself from me and lies at my side, nose brushing mine. She kisses my lips, my chin, my nose…

“I’d like to be your anchor,” I murmur in the softness that cocoons us.

“I’d like that too.”

She looks down through the bed and the floor. “The spell requires my heart.”

“So… to the cellar?”

She nods.

“I’ll meet you there.”

I pull on my clothes, things that would make sense for starting to actually make her house a place I could live—not just linger—so the jeans have holes, the t-shirt is from a high school spirit week celebration, years ago. Both of them have paint on them.

I look like I’m ready to get down to business.

Julia waits for me, staring down at the black and smoldering lump that still beats, despite everything. “Yesterday was the first day I’d come down here since I died.”

“I don’t like this place either.”

I hold her hand. “We don’t have to do this today. We have plenty of time. You already haunt my heart. And I’ll haunt you right back. Forever.”

“Forever.” Her hand flickers, but it’s completely solid when she touches my cheek. “Starting now.”