Ascension (6 page)

“Go on. I’ll be here.” Ro bit his lip then released it. “Right? I’m not going on to wherever?”

“You either go when you die, or you don’t, as far as I’ve seen, so no.” Conner brushed a kiss to the top of Ro’s head. “Stefan, stay here with him.”

“Sure thing, Con.” Stefan saluted him and Conner didn’t hesitate any longer. He focused on finding Sev and a split second later he was beside Sev in the car Sev was driving. Way too fast.

Conner focused on his foot and he pushed it against Sev’s right calf.
“Slow down, Laine’s fine. He’s not hurt.”
Conner wasn’t lying, but he felt dishonest, so he added,
“But he does need you. Trust me when I tell you that you arriving doing ninety isn’t going to help him any. Just slow down, make sure you get to him.”

That must have sounded foreboding, because Sev gasped and took his foot off the gas. “When did you become precognitive? Are you saying I’ll die if I keep speeding? What the fuck do you mean?” Sev shouted the last question at him.

Conner wondered if he could get a headache. There was a pressure building right between his eyes. He pressed a thumb to it and tried to reassure Sev that he wasn’t predicting a fiery death for him. Conner stayed in the car with him until Sev pulled up behind Laine’s vehicle. In the distance he could hear the wail of a siren, an ambulance coming their way.

“That’s Ro’s truck!” Sev was out of the vehicle and running. Conner would have given anything to spare his friends this pain, but he could do nothing except be there in his spirit way.

Sev knew, before he reached the truck. Whether it was his psychic ability, or seeing his lover crying, his sobs silent and powerful, Conner didn’t know. But Sev skidded to a stop and stared right at Ro where he stood with his hand resting on Laine’s back.

“Ro.” Sev sounded broken, there was no other word for it.

Laine turned his head the rest of the way, giving Sev more than his profile. “I’m so sorry, honey. I got here too late.”

Sev moved then, joining Laine and putting his hand right where Ro’s was. “No, you didn’t get here too late. Did he, Ro?”

Laine blinked and took a handkerchief from his back pocket. He wiped his face and pulled Sev to him. “He’s here?”

“With Conner and Stefan,” Sev confirmed. “It doesn’t help. I thought it would, if Alma stayed after she passed away, but now I know it wouldn’t have mattered. It still fucking hurts.”

“I shouldn’t have swerved,” Ro said again.

Conner touched his cheek. Ro looked at him and Conner knew he had to be the biggest jerk in the world, because every second he was with Ro, he was more and more glad Ro was there. Which meant he was glad Ro was dead, but he wasn’t, but—

“Stop thinking so hard,” Ro told him.

“Stop thinking about what you should or shouldn’t have done,” Conner retorted. “Take it from someone who knows. I’ve had years and years of the afterlife to learn that thinking about what you could have done different only makes you crazy.”

Ro nibbled on his bottom lip again as he watched Sev and Laine. “I can’t help it. I’ve hurt them, and my dad. God help him, please.” Ro tilted his head up and closed his eyes. “If You’re up there, please, please help my dad. Help him through this.” Ro lowered his head again and turned his dark eyes on Conner. “I don’t think I’m everything in Dad’s world, but my brother and sister aren’t around much, and with Mom having passed away, I’m worried about him. Sev told me Mom went on. Do you know what’s after this?”

“No, and I don’t want to.” That would be like another death for him. “I think we stay here as long as we want to, maybe. Others go wherever there is to go other than here.” But there’d been that tug… Conner wasn’t going to think about that. “Where’d Stefan go?”

“I don’t know.” Ro looked at Sev and Laine. “Sev, can you hear me?”

“It takes practice—” Conner started, because it had taken him years to be able to reach a living human being. But Sev stood straighter and spun to look right at Ro.

“Ro?” Sev’s tears shone under the moonlight. Laine turned and his gaze landed on Ro as well. Sev moved a step forward then held out his hand. “Ro? What happened?”

Ro cocked his head and glanced at Conner, who surely didn’t know what to think, then at Sev. “Deer. I swerved, even though you, Laine and Dad always told me not to. I should have listened, but I was distracted.”

“Were you texting?” Laine asked, then his eyes about bugged out of his head. “How’d I hear you? Sev? Sev, how’d I hear him?” Laine clutched Sev’s shoulders and pulled Sev against him. “I don’t have psychic abilities.”

“No, you don’t.” Sev frowned, pulling up a deep line across his forehead. “But maybe Ro does.”

“Me?” Ro thumped his own chest. “I don’t.”

“I think you do,” Sev argued. “Laine can hear you. That isn’t him, that’s you. Conner had to work really hard to communicate with me. Even now, sometimes it’s a struggle for him. He’s great at making parts of himself corporeal, and at tormenting people, but you I can hear clearly.”

Ro went back to biting his lip and Conner’s dick thought that was a fine time to plump up. He was damned glad Sev and Laine couldn’t see him. They’d both want to wallop him.

“Laine, you can hear me?” Ro finally asked.

Laine’s expression was almost comical. Would have been, Conner thought, if he didn’t still have tears streaming down his cheeks.

“Yeah, kid, I can.” Laine let go of Sev then and held out his hand. The question was unspoken, but Ro understood it. He reached for Laine.

“Concentrate. Think about making your hand firm, dense, so he can feel it,” Conner advised.

Ro laid his hand in Laine’s, and at first Laine didn’t seem to notice. Then he gasped and curled his fingers around Ro’s.

“Oh.” Laine smiled tremulously and cupped the top of Ro’s hand with his other one. “Rogelio, I’m sorry you passed, but I’m glad of this, that we have this at least.”

“I said it didn’t help, but somehow, with Laine being able to hear you too, I can’t help but feel—” Sev stopped and muttered something Conner didn’t catch. “Well, shit. There’s no right way to say it, but I feel better now. It’s like you’re not gone at all. Except I won’t see you again.” Sev burst into tears again and Laine let go of Ro to embrace Sev while he cried.

“Come on, let’s give them some privacy.” Probably a weird thing for him to say, but Conner meant it. He took Ro’s hand. “Let me show you how this is done.” Conner whisked Ro away, leaving Sev and Laine to comfort one another.

Chapter Seven

The stoic way his dad took the news was worse even than if he’d have broken down. Ro tried to reach out to Roger, but there was some sort of barrier that seemed to be erected around him. Ro bounced right off it and collided with Conner. Conner frowned and tried to pass the barrier too but his hand ended up pressed flat against the air like it was touching a window or a wall.

Sev and Laine were with Roger, and Ro didn’t want to interrupt as they were explaining to him what had happened. It hurt Ro that his dad didn’t ask if he’d passed on.

“I think he’s in shock,” Conner said, tucking Ro to his side. “Maybe that’s why he seems so cold.”

Ro didn’t have anything to say to that. His dad had loved him, and his behaviour now confused Ro. “I guess I’m being childish, wanting him to mourn. That’s horrible, but I feel like he doesn’t care at all.”

Conner jostled him slightly and scolded, “You know better. There’s only so much a person can take before they break, and I think your dad is at that point. I watched Roger and Alma raise you and your brother and sister. I know how much they both love their kids. This, with your dad, is his mind trying to keep him from shattering.”

“I shouldn’t—” Ro began.

“No, don’t go there. I told you it’s not going to do you a bit of good.” Conner made a gesture with one hand and Sev’s hair rippled. Sev slanted a look their way and Conner sent him a message, letting Sev know they were going to leave. “He’ll tell your dad, when the time is right.”

“I hope so,” Ro said, letting Conner whisk him out of the house. “I hate that Dad’s hurting so bad, I hate that he’s keeping me out. Do you think he’s doing it on purpose?”

“I don’t know. I never approached Roger or your mom since they seemed a little uncomfortable or maybe superstitious about me.” Conner had them in the air, soaring through the darkness. Ro might actually have enjoyed it had he not been so confused by everything that had happened and guilt-laden over hurting his dad.

“Where are we going?” he asked after a minute of silence.

Conner rolled them until they were on their sides, slipping through the night sky. His eyes shone with bright flecks of white, reflecting the moonlight. Ro forgot his first question for another one.

“How is that possible? How can I see the moon reflecting in your eyes? Why am I wearing clothes?” He glanced down his body then back at Conner. “And they aren’t even the clothes I was wearing when I wrecked!” Could spirits have panic attacks? Ro’s heart was slamming against his ribs—“Do I have a heart? Conner, what the hell are we?”

Conner lowered them to the ground, not that Ro felt it. In fact, it seemed as if they were still in the air. Before Ro could freak out over anything else, Conner put one of his big hands on Ro’s nape again and the other on his hip. Ro’s mouth was parted on a question he was forming when Conner lowered his mouth to Ro’s for a kiss that zinged fiery need straight to Ro’s cock.

Ro’s panic and confusion was eradicated by the plundering of his mouth. Conner kissed him with a need Ro had never experienced before. He was breathless, panting and shaking, when Conner raised his head enough to murmur against his lips.

“We have form and substance, to other spirits naturally and to humans in small measure when we concentrate hard enough. You can see the moon in my eyes like I can see the want in yours because we exist, and we
are
.” Conner kissed him again, ending it with a sucking nip to Ro’s bottom lip. “Whether we feel our hearts beat from some sort of memory, or whether it’s really in there with us, does it matter? Or is it more important that we just feel?”

Ro shook his head slightly, dazed by the strength of the arousal he was experiencing. “Can we—?” He looked over the man he’d built his teenage fantasies around. Conner was every bit as big and handsome in this form as he’d been in life. His shoulders were almost twice the width of Ro’s, and he had deep dimples that dented his cheeks when he smiled. Ro hadn’t seen that in the picture, which had been of a more professional standard. Conner had been in his fireman’s uniform, and his smile had been more of a smirk.

“Can we what?” Conner asked, dragging his teeth along the side of Ro’s neck.

Ro shivered and rubbed his aching erection against one of Conner’s thighs. He told himself shyness was stupid here in their afterlife. He’d bypassed so many opportunities when he’d been alive and wasn’t going to do the same thing now. “Can we fuck?”

Conner snapped his head back, and those blue eyes of his were positively huge as he gawped at Ro.

Ro tilted his head to the side and watched a faint blush rise to Conner’s cheeks. A check of Conner’s groin showed him to be sporting a large bulge. Ro ran his hands down to cup that hot length. Conner filled both hands with a steely cock that made Ro want to beg to be fucked.

“Can we?” he asked again, stroking that tempting shaft.

Conner gasped, and gripped him tighter, pulling Ro’s hair and bruising—if he could bruise—Ro’s hip. A shudder racked the bigger man as a moan tore past his lips. Ro felt the pulse of Conner’s cock right before wet warmth spread from the tip.

Amused and flattered at how quickly Conner had shot, Ro winked at him. “I take that as a yes?”

“Oh God,” Conner whined as he slapped a hand to his forehead. “I’m gonna just go die again.”

Ro didn’t think that was funny. In fact, part of his need was to escape the thoughts of what had happened to him. A larger part, however, was that he finally could touch the man he’d wanted for so very long.

“Hey, don’t be embarrassed. I’m flattered.” Ro caught Conner’s hand before he could smack himself again. He tugged that big paw down and pressed it against his own dick. “And really, really horny. Conner.” Ro humped Conner’s hand, need coiling in his gut. “I don’t want to think. Help me forget, at least for a little while.”

Conner gulped and Ro wondered why he seemed so scared. Conner filled him in right quick. “I haven’t, uh.” Conner squeezed Ro’s cock and moaned softly, his eyelids drooping nearly shut. “Not since before I was killed.”

Ro was almost too lost in how good it felt to be touched. He was rutting away, pleasure building in his balls with each thrust, when Conner’s words sank in. Ro stilled and did some quick math. “Over twenty years, Conner?” he blurted out. Jesus, no wonder Conner had gone off like a lit firecracker.

“Don’t laugh at me,” Conner huffed, sounding hurt.

Ro practically climbed up the man, wrapping his legs around Conner’s narrow hips and his arms around his thick neck. “I wouldn’t. I’m not. That’s just a long time.”

“Time is…different, here,” Conner muttered. “I swear yesterday Laine and Sev were young and just freshly in love, and now they’re almost old.”

Ro snorted and when he inhaled, he caught the most delicious scent of musk and man. “You smell so good.” He forgot about his intentions of telling Conner Sev and Laine would shit bricks over the old comment. He forgot about everything but the need pulsing in his groin, the scent and taste of Conner’s skin as he nibbled under Conner’s jaw.

“Ungh.” Conner gripped his ass, squeezing it firmly, and Ro murmured encouragement as he kept sampling Conner’s jaw, licking and sucking it. There was the slight rasp of stubble against his tongue, and it ratcheted up Ro’s arousal. He’d always wanted Conner, always, and now he could finally have him.

“Did you mean it?” Conner asked him, something very close to longing in his voice, Ro thought.

“Did I mean—” Ro had a flash then, a bright and embarrassing moment of his confession to Conner. “Uh.” God, how did he answer that without being an asshole?

Conner’s hands stilled on his backside as Conner looked away. The moonlight painted his profile silver and grey, accentuating the cut of Conner’s cheekbone. “It’s okay. I shouldn’t have brought it up. You were scared and—”