Reawakened Passions. Megan HartЧитать онлайн книгу.
been a lot smaller. Lower ceilings, smaller rooms, nothing nice like the floor-to-ceiling windows or bookcases in the living room…
He saw it first out of the corner of his eye. Just a flicker. Not a shadow, more like a flashbulb going off, capturing a photo of an object moving so fast it blurred. He didn’t turn to stare. He didn’t have to. He already knew what it was.
Still, he said nothing as he shoved his couch in front of the window and the TV stand against the wall across from it. Nor when he saw it again as he set up his iPod in the dock to play some music while he connected all the wires and cords on his flat-screen and set up his internet router. Not even when he went to the bedroom to make up the bed with sheets and blankets, ready for the night’s sleep.
But when he hopped in the shower to rinse away the sweat of a hard day’s move, that was it. “Go. Away.”
Jon kept his voice steady, even. Nonaccusatory. With his eyes full of shampoo and the hot water pounding down all around him, he couldn’t see or hear anything, but then he didn’t have to. He could sense it like a tickle of fingers across his skin, raising the hairs on the back of his neck and tightening his balls. His toes curled a little, the way they would if he’d touched something electric and got a shock. He opened his mouth to rinse away the metallic tingle, but it didn’t help much. Even a few minutes later, standing at the sink with his mouth full of toothpaste suds, he could still taste it.
“I mean it, buddy,” Jon said conversationally, addressing the drain in the sink rather than the mirror because hell, he’d just moved in and wanted to have at least a few hours of peace before dealing with this. “Go away, or I’ll make you go away.”
The low, guttural reply might’ve been the wind soughing through the window overlooking the building’s central courtyard. The flicker of movement behind him, reflected in the mirror, might’ve been his own shadow or the shower curtain blowing from that same wind. But Jon knew better. The presence behind him, moving closer, was one pissed-off spirit, and it wasn’t going to rest until he or it was gone.
Jon spat and rinsed, spat again. It had been hiding the day he came to look at the apartment, though of course he’d sensed the residual energy a haunting left behind. But here it was now, out in full force. This was the reason why he’d been unable to resist this place. This spirit behind him, getting stronger by the second.
Jonathan swallowed water from his mug and set it carefully on the shelf next to the sink. He turned, braced for the sight of a ghostly figure, but saw only the toilet and the shelf he’d yet to fill with all his toiletries. His threat hadn’t sent it away for long. If it wanted to be gone permanently, it would’ve already been, and long ago, based on the feelings he was getting from it. This guy had been around for a long, long time.
Most of the time, spirits caught on this plane were eager to leave it. Not lingering on purpose, just confused or trapped, mostly because their passing had been abrupt or violent. People who passed in peace usually had no trouble letting go of this world and moving on, though occasionally he came across one who’d stayed out of concern for one reason or another. A loved one, a beloved pet, an unpaid debt. Those were biggies, the ones who thought they couldn’t move on until they’d settled something. Sometimes it was something like a simple message. “Tell Mary I left the money under the mattress,” that sort of thing. Other times it was flat-out revenge.
And sometimes it wasn’t that they couldn’t go, Jon thought as he went down the hall to his new bedroom, the biggest of the three in the apartment, and pulled a pair of flannel pajama bottoms from the drawer. Sometimes they just refused.
This guy felt like one of those. Hanging around to cause havoc on purpose because he was so angry that even years hadn’t dimmed his fury. There was no telling what had made him like that, but Jon would’ve bet anything it had to do with love. Or rather lust, that tricky emotion that could masquerade as love while driving you crazier than real love ever would.
Slipping into bed, Jon punched the pillows a few times to get settled, then stared up at the ceiling. He’d taken a few days off for this move. He didn’t have to work tomorrow. So of course he wasn’t tired. He counted the minutes ticking past in his head. He counted sheep, and sleep, that fickle bitch, didn’t even tickle his balls. He slowed his breathing, in through the nose. Out through the mouth. It was a meditative habit, though he wasn’t in the habit of meditating.
Finally, the lines blurred between the real world and dreams. Relieved, Jon let himself go limp and loose, giving up to unconsciousness. Some people felt as if they were falling in these moments and jerked themselves awake. Some heard someone calling their names. Jon, on the other hand, felt someone slap him across the face.
Awake. He was awake and knew it, but couldn’t struggle up from the bed. He couldn’t move. Eyes wide in the dark, seeing nothing, he felt everything.
A woman’s hands. Soft. She smelled of flowers, something powdery and sweet, not musky like modern perfumes. He felt the brush of her hair against his face. And her hands again, on his body. Moving over his chest, tweaking his nipples tight and hard. Lower, over his belly. Between his legs.
She wasn’t touching Jon; he knew that. She was touching the angry guy, who wasn’t so angry just now—even though he’d just been smacked a good one in the kisser. The sting was still there, but it only got his cock even harder. It was like rock, throbbing, and all he could think about was her mouth on it. Her hot, slick pussy. How she’d ride him so hard, maybe slap his face again when she came. She did that sometimes.
This wasn’t like dreaming. A dream would show him all of this. Jon would either see it happening or see himself in it—but this was different. All he saw was the darkness of his bedroom, a hint of ceiling hung with shadows. The faint outline of his doorway and the line of light behind the blinds on his window. He wasn’t seeing what was going on, just feeling it. Hearing it. Tasting it.
Jon groaned, but it wasn’t his own voice that came from his throat. It was the guy’s. He muttered words. Nothingthat made sense, just gibberish. It was hard, pushing past the veil. Touch and scent and sound were easier than actual communication. Jon’s cock twitched, enveloped by an unseen hand. When the heat of her mouth slid over him, his voice mingled with that of her true lover’s, both gone low and hoarse with pleasure.
He could smell her. He could taste her. The sweet, slick heat of her cunt on his mouth and tongue. She cried out. Her mouth moved on him. The scrape of her teeth sent jolts of pleasure-pain coursing through him—Jon was no fan of teeth on his prick, but the sensation nearly sent the guy in his head shooting off like a teenage kid looking at his first porn mag. They were doing it sixty-nine, her mouth sucking and licking while she rode his face. Jon couldn’t feel the weight of her on him. The bed didn’t dip. It wasn’t at all like making love to a woman with his mouth… except that it was exactly like it.
Jon had stopped feeling voyeuristic about whatever scenes he was forced to live through from other people’s lives a long time ago. Usually everything was so disjointed it didn’t matter, and even when it was crystal clear, well-—these poor saps were dead and gone. They were lost. It wasn’t his place to judge, it was his reluctant place to just push them on through. Most of the time, that meant dealing with their pain. Sometimes, it meant sharing their pleasure.
His cock was hard, for real. It strained against the soft flannel, the dual sensations of his skin pressing the material and yet at the same time being engulfed inside the phantom woman’s mouth driving him crazy. His hips pushed upward without thought, though he couldn’t do so much as lift a finger. Every part of him felt weighted to the bed, incapable of moving. Well, everything except his dick, which didn’t seem to give a flying fuck that none of this was really happening, and all he could do was ride it out.
Oh, God. Ride. Ride it. Ride it so hard. Ride my tongue. Ride my face. Fuck my mouth. Just like that.
The string of thoughts were suddenly crystal clear. The sound of the woman’s voice, moaning, and her cries became louder. Her mouth moved more frantically on his dick. Her hand cupped and stroked his balls, the pleasure mounting as her taste flooded him. Jon could still see nothing, but he imagined