Rafe bowed his head, met her mouth with his own, and set a steady pace of deep thrusts and slow retreats. It was heaven. So good. And the way he looked at her—Could this be real?
Her fingers dug into the strong muscles of his back as he moved within her, the pleasure building hard and fast. She wanted to hold back, to make it last, but Rafe already had her there. Coming apart beneath his whispers of praise and encouragement, she panted his name as she clung to him.
Then he was with her, his eyes locked with hers as, muscles tensed and skin slick with sweat, he drove into her again and again. With one final thrust, he buried his face in her neck and roared her name.
Their bodies glistened with sweat as they lay together, trying to catch their breaths and slow their hearts. Rafe slid an arm beneath her back, shifted, and rolled her on top of him where she rested her head on his chest. It was taunting fate—no, taunting Aaron—for them to stay like that. Naked, sated, and sweaty. But within the strong hold of Rafe’s arms nothing else seemed to matter.
For once, she wasn’t worried. Wasn’t waiting for the other shoe to drop. There was only this perfect moment in which their hearts drummed in time and their bodies fit together like two halves of a whole, and she snuggled into it. She wanted this memory. Just one minute more, and then she’d get Rafe out of there before Aaron had a chance to do it for her.
* * * * *
Kayla woke to Opal’s gasp of surprise. She struggled to rise off the bed, but her legs were completely tangled with something.
Someone, Kayla realized with a start.
“Kayla, holy shit. Has he been here all night?”
Horror set in as she turned, hoping she wouldn’t find Rafe wearing a wicked rash or sporting a new tattoo, courtesy of her overprotective brother. But there he lay, sound asleep and sexy enough to make her wish she had the morning alone with him. Somehow, they’d made it through the night without discovery. But she knew their luck wouldn’t hold out much longer.
“We have to get him out of here,” she whispered, her unease growing with every breath.
Rafe rolled toward her, draping his heavily muscled arm across her body. He cinched her tight and curled his warm, solid heat against her back. Her eyes nearly rolled back in her head, it was so good, but it was time to function. So prying each of his fingers back in turn, Kayla whispered, “Rafe? Rafe, you have to get up. You’ve got to get out of here.”
He sat up, rubbing the scruff on his chin. “What’s the matter? Are you okay?” Then catching sight of her sister, coughed, “Oh shit—err—Morning, Opal,” before looking back to her.
“I’m fine. But… look, I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”
Opal cut in. “Dude, not smart to spend the night.”
Kayla shook her head and stared at him. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be, baby,” he assured her, reaching over the side of the bed for his jeans. Opal turned, giving him some privacy as he pulled them on.
The muscular expanse of his back rippled with his movements, making Kayla’s mouth water and her mind wander. At least, until Opal had her way with the moment.
“Hey, speed it up, lover boy,” she said.
“Is this just about your brother, or your parents too?” Rafe asked, pulling his shirt on over his head.
Opal’s eyes went wide. “Jesus, Kayla, didn’t you tell him anything?”
Rafe’s confused gaze fixed on Kayla, making her flinch.
“There really isn’t time to explain. You have to go,” Kayla said, desperate. “It’s just my brother, but he’s more than enough.”
“Honey, that’s the thing,” Rafe started, shaking his head. “I don’t think this going to be as big a deal as you’re making it.”
Opal snorted her disbelief in the background, and Kayla’s stomach tightened. “Rafe, you don’t know my brother. You don’t want to—”
“I think I met him. Early twenties, shaggy brown hair. He was downstairs one night when I came in for a drink with some friends.”
Both women’s gazes snapped to him.
“I don’t think so.” Kayla answered.
“I met him last year, the day before I met you, and I saw him again yesterday in the bar.”
“No, you must have met someone else.” She shook her head. “That wasn’t Aaron. He…umm…he can’t hang out in the bar. Look, let me walk you out. He gets really upset about…guys. But I promise, we’ll talk later.” She bit her lip, and peered up at him. “I could come by after work?”
The smile that spread across Rafe’s face was like the first rays of sun breaking the horizon. Warm and beautiful. Filling her with hope for what the day might bring. It was crazy. She never felt this way, but after last night, suddenly all she could see was possibility.
He stepped closer, wrapping his big hand around her waist. “I’d like that.”
Opal reached for Kayla before she could melt into the hold. “Hold up.” One eye squinted, her mouth pulled to the side, she looked between them. “Um, Kayla, maybe you ought to talk to him now.”
Shooting her sister a warning look, Kayla shook her head. “I’ll take care of it, Opal.”
Only the promise wasn’t enough. “But if you don’t do it here,” she leaned in and whispered, “He’s not going to believe you. You know he won’t.”
Rafe was hanging back, clearly not sure how to give them the privacy he would have liked to. She had to make this quick. Get him out of there before something happened. She could talk to Opal once he was gone. Explain.
But for now, she whispered back. “Maybe I don’t have to tell him anything. Maybe…I don’t want to.”
Opal jerked away, her eyes wide with alarm. “Are you serious?”
She was. Opal could have the apartment. Kayla would move out. Get her own place, eventually maybe even move in with Rafe.
She’d still come up and see Aaron every day.
She’d still work at the bar, though she’d have to figure a way to keep Rafe mostly away from it.
But this could work. She wanted it to work.
Opal blew a breath out her nose and crossed her arms, before turning to Rafe. “You asked about our parents, Rafe. You didn’t know they were dead?”
Rafe’s gaze softened and settled on Kayla, but her heart was starting to race. “Opal, don’t.”
Her sister started walking out of the room, raising her voice as she went on. “We were in a car wreck about ten years ago. Our parents died on impact, and Kayla went through the windshield.”
“Jesus, Kayla,” he whispered, reaching out to touch her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
Her heart sputtered. She didn’t want to hear this. Didn’t want to think about it. She looked around, sensing a change in the air.
He was there. Aaron, snapshot still, one shoulder propped against the mantle, his eyes locked with hers through their reflection in the mirror. The air started to thin, the edges of the room going dark as the now fell away and suddenly she was back in that cold, dark, empty tunnel. Alone and lost. Terrified. And then Aaron was there, her big brother. The giant oaf she’d been so mad at mere moments before had found her, and she’d never been so grateful for anyone or anything in all of her life.
Taking her hand, he’d pulled her into his side and walked her away from the light. “We can’t leave Opal.” He’d told her. “Come on. I’ve got you.”
She’d looked around, not understanding what she was seeing. What she wasn’t seeing. And when she looked over her shoulder at that beckoning warm glow, he’d pulled her in closer. “Not yet, Kayla.”
He’d taken her back to herself, and when she blinked, a paramedic was standing over her holding paddles above her chest. Pain slammed through every cell of her being. Her head had rolled to one side, and she’d seen Aaron standing over a stretcher, motionless. He looked at her, and his voice came from within her head, rather than from his body. “Don’t worry. I’ll stay with you.”
Opal’s voice brought her back to the present, a sense of vertigo
making her reach out for the dresser.
“They resuscitated Kayla at the accident site, but—”
Rafe’s eyes went wide and he looked over her like he was searching for signs of injury. “Kayla, that’s terrible. I’m so sorry about your parents, but thank God you three survived.”
Kayla searched the corners of the room through the reflection. No Aaron. What was he doing?
“We have to go,” she whispered, her panic on the rise.
“No.” Opal shook her head. “I didn’t finish.”
“Opal, stop.” This time it was Kayla’s turn to interrupt. “Enough.” This wasn’t how she wanted Rafe to find out about the insanity that was her life.
* * * * *
There was something going on, Rafe didn’t understand. Kayla was pulling him down the hall, her hand trembling so hard it shook his. She was freaking out, and he had the feeling whatever it was had to do with whatever didn’t happen last night. They should have talked more, only he’d been so relieved when the fight left her and she turned to him—he’d figured there would be time to sort everything out later.
Now though, nothing seemed right.
“Kayla, honey, wait. I’m serious. You don’t need to worry about your brother so much. I’m thirty years old, and he’s barely more than a kid. We’ll work it out.”
“You don’t understand.” She halted in her steps, looking into one of the several mirrors hung around the apartment walls. Something about the way her stare searched the reflection, never bothering to stop on herself set him on edge.
She bit into her bottom lip and let go of his hand. “Aaron’s dead.”
“Whoa.” He stalled. That wasn’t what he’d expected her to say. “What are you talking about?” His heart beat faster, and he wondered what Opal had done. His gut knotted, and his mind raced with ugly possibilities. Despite the girl’s assurances he hadn’t met Aaron, he was pretty sure he had. He’d seen him the day before. What could have happened between then and now?
He swallowed hard. “Did something happen to him? Did he…do something that made you have to fight back?”
“No, nothing like that.” Kayla vigorously shook her head. “Aaron is my older brother. But…okay, this is the part you aren’t going to believe. He and I are connected because we both died that night in the car accident. Only, he didn’t survive…the way I did. They brought me back, and he returned as a ghost who—”
Rafe stared at her, waiting for her to break into a smile or say something to justify why she thought now was the time to joke about such a bleak topic. But she didn’t clarify herself, and she didn’t grin. Instead, she simply took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
His anxious concern turned hard in his chest. After what they’d shared, he couldn’t believe she was jerking him around like this. “What are you trying to pull?” he asked. “ I want to be with you, and up to thirty seconds ago I would have sworn you wanted to be with me, too. What are you doing?”
“Telling you the truth.” She met his stare, and tears glistened in the corners of her eyes. “Aaron controls my dating life because he’s dead. He uses tricks to make my dates go away. I don’t want him to hurt you. But if you stay, he will.”
The most shocking thing about her confession was that she obviously believed what she was saying. Yet…she couldn’t.
It was too absurd.
She was a completely functional, successful business owner…who lived in a decent apartment... she’d turned into a complete hovel.
His own words tiptoed back into his mind. How can I walk in here twice, a year apart, and find you without a boyfriend? Why isn’t there a line of guys trying to knock me on my ass for talking to you?
Maybe the answer was simple. Anyone who knew her for more than a day would discover that she thought the poor kid who was trying to hook her up with a decent guy was dead, and a physical threat to anyone who touched her.
Jesus. The idea that she might be mentally ill felt wrong, but when he considered the emotional trauma of the car wreck that had taken her parents’ lives and nearly hers as well, and the guilt associated with being the one who’d survived—maybe a break from reality wasn’t such a far stretch.
“Kayla, baby,” he said, in the most soothing, non-confrontational voice he could muster. “I think you need some help. Professional help.”
A flush of red crept into her cheeks, and a wounded look washed into her eyes. Had she really hoped he would believe her? How many times had she been through this before? How many guys had run like hell and left her to carry on with her broken fantasies and functional psychosis?
Kayla rubbed her eye with the back of her hand and sniffled. “I’m not crazy, Rafe. But I don’t blame you for thinking I am.”
Damn, he wished she didn’t sound so sure of herself. It probably meant she was worse off than he’d imagined. “You’ve dealt with a lot in your life, baby. Sometimes talking to a doctor can help you to—”
“Oh, this is bullshit.” Opal burst out of the bedroom holding something that looked like a game board. “Here, if you don’t believe us.”
She thrust the board into his hands and glared at him.
Us? Opal was facilitating this fantasy? How could she believe she was helping? Rafe stared at her, then glanced down at the board in his hand. It was a homemade Ouija board, customized with their names, regular phrases, and an impressive assortment of high frequency words. The problem was way worse than he’d thought.
Kayla shook her head and held out her hand to take the board from him. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll take that, and you can just go.”
Holding firm on the board, he met her eye. “Kayla, I’m not leaving you.”
She might not be capable of having a relationship with him, but he wasn’t going to abandon her.
A breeze blew through the apartment, and the dry leaves piled at the end of the hall spun in a spiral across the floor.
Looking panicked, Kayla grabbed his arm. “You have to get out of here now.” She turned toward the leaves. “He’s leaving.”
Opal let out a hoot, and Rafe looked behind him. She shook her head and clucked her tongue. “Don’t say we didn’t warn you.”
He turned back toward the door and started at the sight of the kid from the bar.
“Aaron, man,” he said, running a hand across the back of his neck. “You nearly gave me a heart attack. Look, I need to talk to you about your sisters.”
The poor kid, how the hell was he dealing with this?
Kayla stared at him, eyes wide, haunted. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “It’s going to be fine, honey.”
Looking back at Aaron, he asked, “You think we could go talk in the hall a sec.”
The kid didn’t move. At all.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.
Something wasn’t right.
Aaron had seemed nice enough in the bar, but looks could be deceiving. How deep did the pathology in this family run?
“Aaron, man?”
A sideways smile on his face, Aaron just stared at him. He looked like a snapshot. Rafe held the Ouija board out to Kayla. Her pretty mouth hung open in a not so pretty way. She seemed…stunned.
“What is it?” he asked. But before she could answer, the Ouija board flipped out of his grasp and tumbled open on the floor. The pointer landed over the word, Hello.
What the—?
Aaron nodded at his sister. The movement jerky. Off. But not as off as the kid’s voice., “Told you Kayla’s pretty cool.”
Nervous energy built in Rafe’s gut. “Yeah, you were right,” he said to Aaron. “I do like her. Very much. But—”
Kayla grabbed Rafe’s arm, her fingers digging into his flesh, but her eyes were on Aaron. “Who are you talking to?”
“This is all my fault.” Aaron shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
Rafe stopped and looked from Aaron to Kayla, alarm building fast.
“Don’t freak out.” Aaron winked, and the front
door to the apartment slammed closed. His body vanished into a pile of churning leaves.
Chapter Six
This wasn’t real. No way had her brother been talking with Rafe. Except for a moment, there at the end, Kayla had seen him too.
“What the fuck was that?” Rafe rasped. The instant Aaron vanished, Rafe had pulled her behind him. Now he edged forward, swinging his free hand into the space Aaron hadn’t actually occupied.
“Rafe, it’s okay. That was our brother.” Kayla tried to rest her hands on his shoulders, but he shrugged them off with a jerk and spun to face her.
His eyes were wild; the skin around them, pinched and pallid. “What…? How…? What…is he?”
All at once, Aaron was there again. “Didn’t want to shock you. But don’t try to touch me—you won’t like it.”
Kayla could hear him inside her head and see his vague outline within the leaves, and from the way Rafe pulled back, he could hear him, too.
Opal huffed behind them. “Aaron, how can he see and hear you, and I can’t?”
“Don’t know.” Aaron’s voice echoed inside Kayla’s head, and the Ouija danced in quick, halting steps around the board. “I went to the bar last year, and he looked right at me like I was standing there. Maybe he’s in tune with the spirits.”
“This is crazy.” Rafe raked his fingers through his hair. “I don’t believe in ghosts.”
Aaron looked at Rafe and shrugged. It was almost comical, except it wasn’t.
Kayla tore her eyes away from her brother’s leaf display and glanced at the man who had held her through the night, afraid of what she’d see. He’d wanted her so much then, but he wouldn’t after this.
“Rafe, are you okay?” she asked.
His eyes darted back and forth between her and Aaron, and his mouth moved a few times before he was able to choke out a sound. Finally, his hoarse voice came through, and he met her stare.
“Kayla, come with me. You’ve got to get out of here.”
She shook her head, a little smile that didn’t have anything to do with happiness on her lips. “No. I don’t.” Before Rafe knew about Aaron, she’d fantasized about leaving. Never telling Rafe about this part of her life. Pretending the brother who, even in death, had loved her enough to stay with her and protect her… didn’t exist. But she couldn’t.