Page 4 of Paranormal Love From an Immortal Thug

I c a m e t o with the taste of wine still on my tongue and the sound of smoke crackling.

My lashes fluttered open, slow and heavy.

My towel was still barely wrapped around me, but my body was cool and dry like I’d been lying there for a minute.

I blinked a few times before my vision finally focused.

That’s when I saw him sitting in the fluffy chair beside my bed like he’d been waiting for me to wake up.

His legs were spread as he leaned back with one arm draped over the armrest. The other brought a slow-burning blunt to his lips.

He took a pull like it was his morning ritual with his eyes on me the whole time.

I sat up too fast, heart thumping out of rhythm as I noticed the fiery rose now resting on my nightstand. “No, no, no…”

He exhaled a thick cloud of smoke and tilted his head. “Go ‘head. Say it.”

“This shit ain’t real,” I whispered, pressing both hands to my temples. “It’s the wine. I’m drunk. I’m dreaming.”

He smirked like I’d amused him, then he stood.

Lord, help me. He was even bigger up close. And not just tall but commanding. Built like he bench-pressed souls and didn’t flinch. The smoke curled around his shoulders like it wanted to stay near him. Like it knew who really ran things.

He walked slowly, stopping at the edge of my bed. “It’s real, ma. You called. I came.”

I shook my head. “No. No, I didn’t. We were just playing. It was a joke. A dumb spell from TokTick and…”

“And yet here I am,” he cut in, voice low and laced with that dark rhythm that made my skin feel too tight. “Conjured up by candlelight and pussy prayers. Back from the dead. Just for you, baby.”

I looked down at my hands, trying to convince myself I was still drunk. Dreaming. Something! Because this? This was not reality. I closed my eyes and whispered, “This can’t be real. This can’t be…”

“Wednesday.” The way he said my name was like he knew it before it was ever spoken.

I opened my eyes slowly. He was still there, smirking like a demon with time on his hands and lust in his blood.

“It’s real,” he said, flicking ash into the glass tray on my nightstand. “And I’m not here by accident.”

I swallowed hard. “What the fuck are you?”

He hit the blunt slowly, eyes locked on me like he owned the air I breathed. “I’m that nigga, ma,” he said, real calm, like he was talking about the weather. “Been in that fuckin’ coffin for almost… what year is it?”

Trembling, I managed to push out, “It’s... 2025.”

He nodded, inhaling and exhaling weed smoke before he responded. “Four years this time. Six years the last. A year the first time this happened.”

I had no clue what the fuck he was talking about. Confused, I asked, “What… what do you mean? You’re… dead?”

“Technically speaking, I did die back in 2010,” he shrugged, slowly pacing the floor, pulling on the blunt.

“But that lil’ spell you clowned with your homegirls?

You know, right before you slid them fingers between them thick ass thighs in the shower?

” He smirked, exhaled the smoke through his nose.

“Yeah… that’s what brings me back every time.

Gives me breath. But only ’til Halloween ride out. ”

I just stared. “This ain’t funny,” I said, voice tight. “You’re talking like this is normal. Like you’re…”

“Reborn,” he cut in, voice smooth as a fresh fade. “But only for a few hours. When that veil thin and the world ain’t payin’ attention. Every few years, some bad ass woman like you opens that gate without even knowin’ it… and boom, here I come.”

I couldn’t keep up. My hands were clutching my towel like it could save me from whatever the hell this was. Heart beating, mind racing, and he just kept talking like none of it phased him.

“Let me tell you ‘bout myself so we got more of an understanding,” he said, slow-walking the room like he still owned the block.

“At twenty-one, I ran shit, fed the streets, and gave fiends what they needed. I moved how I wanted to with women because I had power and shit most people was too scared to even fantasize about.”

My eyes tracked him, wide and locked. Every step he took made the air feel heavier. Every word had weight. I swear I could feel it in my chest like bass.

“Muthafuckas feared me. Hated me. They wanted my spot. They wanted the money I had, the power I held, and the women I made delirious between the sheets.” He stopped, looking at me now, dead in my face. The kind of stare that strips your soul bare.

“So, I was set up and killed by someone I considered a fuckin’ friend.

Betrayed. Shot the fuck up. But what muthafuckas never knew,” he murmured, lifting the blunt again, “they can’t kill a real nigga, especially not one whose grandmother was into rootwork.

God rest her soul. I can’t say for sure, but I know this shit was all her doin’. Puttin’ the spell in the universe.”

He paused to take a pull, lips wrapped around it like he was tasting the moment. Then he looked at me again, closer this time. Voice low and wicked.

“But you, Wednesday? You ain’t like none of these other women. You ain’t just moan. You ain’t just wish for a quick nut. You wanted a presence. A real nigga. You wanted somebody to pull up and never leave.”

“I didn’t know what I was doing,” I whispered, shakin’ my head. “I was just…”

“But you knew what you needed,” he cut in, stepping closer.

“You wrote it, spoke it, and let that hot ass water run down your body while you pictured me. Don’t lie now.

” He leaned forward, one hand resting on the mattress beside me, close enough for me to smell the smoke on his skin and the heat radiating off his chest. “Ma, I ain’t just a fantasy,” he whispered. “I’m the answer.”

And that’s when I realized… I was trembling.

But it wasn’t from fear. It was from heat.

From how wet I was and how much that scared the hell out of me.

I should’ve screamed. I should’ve run, or done something.

But I just sat there, wrapped in this barely-there towel, chest rising and falling like I’d just outrun something I was still scared might catch me. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“I didn’t mean to call you,” I finally whispered. “We were just joking.”

His lips twitched into a grin that wasn’t kind.

It was cocky. Dangerous. Beautiful. “Yeah. Most of ‘em are.” I watched with wide eyes as he walked over and reached for the rose on my nightstand, lifting it like it weighed something holy. “You know what’s wild?” he said, spinning the stem between them, tatted fingers like he had time to kill.

“Every woman that conjures me, swear it wasn’t on purpose.

But your soul knew what the fuck it was doin’. ”

He eyed the rose for a second, jaw tight, then looked straight through me like he saw every secret I ever tried to hide.

“You was desperate, ma. Tired of bein’ half-touched. Tired of niggas playin’ soft when you need some fuckin’ pressure. You ain’t call out for no simp. You called out for real and I am that.”

My lips parted, but nothing came out because deep down, he wasn’t wrong. My body knew it. My spirit did too. There was no other way to explain the way I was trembling with need. Like something inside of me had already submitted before I could catch it.

“What’s your name?” I asked, barely above a whisper.

His smile deepened. “Khalid. Kuh-lid. It literally means immortal. Go figure, huh, since I’m what's considered to be ‘biologically immortal’.”

“Khalid,” I repeated, tasting it and feeling it coil on my tongue.

He smirked again. “Mmm. Dick hard already.”

I blinked. “So… you said you have to leave at midnight?”

“I do,” he said, eyes locked on me like a lion ready to pounce on its prey.

“That seems to be the end every time.” He paused, grinning like he could smell the fear and the want on me.

“I only get a taste just from the moment I’m conjured ’til that last stroke of twelve.

Then it’s back to dust. Smoke. Nothin’ but a memory ‘til the next woman out here starvin’ for more than this world could ever give her. ”

I sat there frozen, towel clutched in my hands, chest rising and falling like I was trying to breathe normally and failing miserably. “And in the meantime?” I asked.

His eyes dropped to my legs, slow and unapologetic. “In the meantime…” He leaned in just enough to let the scent of smoke, spice, and something unholy wrap around me. “I’m yours,” he said. “Every inch. Every thrust. Every stroke. Everything you wrote down… I came back to deliver, ma.”

My thighs clenched as heat flooded between them like a traitor. Khalid watched me catch my breath. Watched my lips part like they didn’t know if they wanted to scream or moan.

“You ain’t scared no more,” he said, more of a statement than a question.

“I am,” I whispered.

“Don’t lie to me like that pussy ain’t callin’ out for a nigga. I know these things, ma.”

That got me. I swallowed hard, still shaking, still processing, still not fully believing. “So… you just what? Ride the spell sex express every few years and then disappear like nothing ever happened?”

He chuckled. A deep, rich sound that lit my nerves on fire. “You could say that,” he murmured. He sat back in the chair again, tapping the ash from his blunt.

I shivered. “What happens if I don’t want it?”

He leaned forward, blunt resting between his fingers, glowing red at the tip. “I wait,” he said. “Right here ‘til Halloween ends. Whether you beg me to leave or beg me not to stop fuckin’ you.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I’d never met a man like this. But Khalid wasn’t a man. He was something else. Something dark, deep, and wrapped in sex like it was scripture. And I had written him into existence.

He leaned back, legs spread like he owned the whole room, eyes locked on me with heat and hunger.

“You got two choices, ma,” he said low, voice thick with smoke and control.

“Keep sittin’ there in that towel, playin’ like you ain’t curious to see what this dick hittin’ for or let me give you exactly what you summoned.

” He took a slow hit, eyes never leaving mine as he exhaled.

“Either way… I’m not leavin’ ‘til the clock runs out.”