Darlings of Paranormal Romance (Anthology) (5 page)

“
What do you mean not exactly?” Juliana inclined her
head.

He
looked at her and again his pull was unmistakable.

“
The last thing I remember was pushing Dottie away from the
tram’s tracks,” he said.

“
Dottie?”

“
My sister,” he began pacing again. “We had an argument and she
ran ahead of me right in front of the tram’s path. I had to get to
her.”

“
Oh my God.” Juliana gasped. “Is she all right?”

“
I hope so. I have no idea what happened after I pushed her
away.”

“
When did this happen?”

“
Yesterday, I think. I honestly don’t know. We were at Madam
Merta’s just off Deansgate. Dottie has this penchant for fortune
tellers and I accompanied her.”

Fortune
tellers? Trams along Deansgate? Juliana had enough. She stood
up.

“
Right,” she began. “First of all, there are no fortune tellers
on or off Deansgate. It’s filled with bars, office buildings, and
furniture shops. Second, no tram passes through there. Third, and
unless I’m wrong the news hasn’t reported any deaths along that
street.”

“
I know,” he said as he looked at her as though waiting what
she was going to do next.

“
You know?” Her eyes widened.

Mr
Blue-Eyes-To-Die-For nodded. He walked to the stone bench and sat
down with a resigned sigh. “What I told you did happen yesterday,
but in a different year.”

“
Which is?”

“
Nineteen hundred and one.”

Bells
like old fire engine alarms clanged inside her head in warning. Her
heartbeat thudded in her ears. This man was freaking her
out.

“
I don’t know what game you’re playing at,” she said with a
glare. Cold dread skittered over her skin. “I know it’s close to
Halloween and that’s some fantastic story. But I’m not in the mood
for games. I’m going and if you even just touch me, I swear I’ll
scream my head off.”

“
It’s not a game!” He stood up and he was trembling in anger
that Juliana took several steps back, her heart stuck in her
throat. “I’m telling you the truth because I need your
help.”

Juliana
swallowed giving him an uneasy smile. “Okay, I think I can do
that,” she said immediately. Her hand trembled when she fished out
her mobile phone from her denim pocket, intent on ringing Joanna or
calling the police.

“
What is that?”

“
A mobile phone,” she said bewildered before laughing
nervously. “Boy, you really are into playing the part. You sure
you’re not an actor?”

He
balled his hands into fists by his sides. “What can I do to
convince you that what I say is true?”

Juliana
realised that if the stranger became unstable, who knew what he
could do.

“
Calm down,” she said despite her feeling hysteria bubbling
inside her. “I’m just going to call my friend and we’ll try to sort
this out.”

But her
mobile phone had no reception. Shit! She swallowed the panic that
wanted to overwhelm her. She took a deep breath.

“
Right, you stay here and I’ll go and pick them up,” she
said.

Juliana
returned her phone into her pocket and briskly walked toward the
grove’s opening. She hoped that her knees didn’t buckle in
fear.

Before
she could reach the opening, the stranger intercepted her but
interception was not have been the right description.

The
stranger moved through and into her.

Juliana
suddenly closed her eyes as flashes of carnal hunger lit her up
like a roman candle. She gasped as she felt his essence pour
through every pore of her body, heating the coil of longing that
had been dormant inside her. She could feel his caress, his hands
exploring her body, his mouth tasting every inch of her skin. She
fell to the ground on all fours. Dimly, she saw him do the same. He
groaned as she whimpered, gasping as the sexual spike rose like a
wave about to consume her. The pleasure sparked through her, heated
her core, liquefying her sex as though his tongue was literally on
her, eating her, licking her and sucking her into erotic oblivion.
Her nipples puckered and her womb clenched as she felt the crest of
her orgasm rising before it drowned her.

“
Oh God!” she cried out again and again as she climaxed, her
lace underwear soaked with her desire, her body shuddering with the
aftershocks.

Juliana
heard him grunt his release and groaned as she felt his seed bathe
her sex. Juliana crumpled on the ground, bathing in the afterglow
with her eyes closed.

Spent.

Chapter Four

When
Juliana came to, the man was gone. The sun was setting and there
was a chill in the air. She raised herself on her elbow before she
pulled herself up. She could still feel the wetness between her
thighs and the thought of the stranger made her groan in
remembrance. She sat down on the stone seat as she ran a shaky hand
through her locks that managed to capture a few stalks of grass.
She looked around the empty enclosure in disbelief. She looked down
at her body. There was no sign of assault or violation even though
she had seen the man run through her. Juliana felt her cheeks heat
up as she remembered the stranger groaning his own
release.

Her
mouth parted out of their own volition as thoughts of the stranger
came swirling around her. It made her realise one thing.

She
wanted him. She craved for him, his warmth, and his touch. She
wanted to truly feel his hands on her body, his mouth on hers, his
shaft inside her channel’s embrace as they rode each other into
rapture. But her rational mind scolded her. How could she feel
something so real with another man when it could just be her
thoughts of Brody being projected on someone else?

Juliana
shivered. The stranger said that he had saved his sister more than
a hundred years ago. Dear God, surely she hadn’t had a sexual
encounter with a ghost? She couldn’t just have left the confines of
her house to rid herself of pining for her husband only to be
thrown into an encounter with another dead person?

“
I’m bloody losing my mind!” She said blowing out a
sigh.

Standing
up, Juliana walked towards the gap. As soon as she stepped out,
deafening silence greeted her for the briefest moment before sounds
returned in a rush. She inhaled sharply to clear her head and get
her bearings. She turned to look at the grove and her heart
plummeted.

The
grove was gone.

* *
*

Simon
moved out of the shadows as soon as the woman left the grove. The
memory of how she felt when he had gone through her kept playing
itself in his mind over and over again. He didn’t know whether
ghosts could have memories but this was one he was hell bent on
keeping. His body clenched with the need to have her in his arms.
His cock twitched with hunger now that it knew how it felt to be
inside her. He felt the whisper of her skin against his palms, her
waist, her slightly round belly that signified her fertility. And
the Eden in the apex of her thighs, soft, delectable, as sweet as
the nub that peeked from her female folds. Simon groaned at the
memory of entering her. Snug, wet, and hot. His trousers tightened
at the thought.

Apart
from the unusual way they had sexually come together, Simon had
been able to get a glimpse of who she was. Juliana. So that was the
name of the woman who had entered his mind in Madame Merta’s salon.
Simon thought that he had conjured her but she was real. She was
flesh and blood.

And he
was not.

“
Bloody hell,” he muttered underneath his breath.

How long
would he be imprisoned in this hell? Was he alive or dead? It was
the question that kept on running through his mind but which he had
no answers for. Going through Juliana made him believe that he was
dead, but the excruciating pain in his knee made him think he was
alive. Neither living nor dead, he could feel yet he couldn’t
touch. He craved but could never be satisfied.

All
because he hadn’t given any credence to a fortune teller. Simon
wished that this was all a cruel joke. Not everyone who supposedly
had the gift of telling the future was genuine. The problem was
that he had no experience in telling who was real and who was not.
Still, he had to grudgingly admit that treating Madame Merta with
derision was wrong. This was what he got for his arrogance. He gave
a deep drawn sigh. If only he could make it up. If only he could
take back what he did and make amends. Intense sorrow claimed his
soul at the remembrance of everything he had lost. If only he could
see his family, especially Dottie, once again then perhaps he’d be
able to find a measure of peace.

But he
doubted that could happen and no amount of wishing would give him
that chance to make reparations.

Second
chances were only given to the living.

Not the
dead.

* *
*

Juliana
couldn’t stop thinking about her encounter. It had been three days
since her ghostly sex happened and she still couldn’t find the guts
to tell Jo and Eric because if she did she wouldn’t hear the end of
it. They’d believe that she just made it all up because she wasn’t
over Brody.

She made
herself comfortable on the plush sofa in the conservatory, a mug of
tea warming her cold hands. The trees in her backyard were slowly
shedding its leaves. The colours of fall were everywhere covering
her in its warmth and glow. Some of the green leaves which had just
turned slightly yellow clung fiercely to the branches only to be
ripped away by the wind that whistled against the glass
windows.

Juliana
hadn’t wanted to accept the possibility that she had seen a ghost
until the grove she had left disappeared. Jo and Eric hadn’t even
missed her because it had only been five minutes since she left her
friends when her time in the grove felt longer. She shivered into
her thick woollen wrap drinking the brew, seeking some
fortification.

Was the
stranger someone whose life had been snuffed out unexpectedly? Was
his limp the cause of his death? And the way he pleaded with her,
it haunted her how desperate he sounded. She wasn’t the kind of
person who wouldn’t help. God knew there were so many people in the
world nowadays who just couldn’t be bothered.

But a
ghost? A ghost who awakened sensations she thought had been buried
with Brody?

She
sighed in exasperation. Ghosts were supposed to be cold. They had
no mass or matter. They were supposed to move on and not stay on
the earthly plane. They were not supposed to make humans hot and
needy with a hunger not even a rampant rabbit could assuage. And
why the hell was she thinking erotic thoughts about a
ghost?

“
Oh damn it all!”

Juliana
threw her wrap on the sofa and walked towards the entrance door.
Grabbing a denim jacket hanging on the coat rack and her car keys
from the foyer table, she left the house.

When she
reached the park, it was deserted. The fair had long since
finished. She was glad that she had taken a few days off from
working as an heir hunter. Her passion for finding lost heirs and
the stories of their ancestors fascinated her to no end. She always
believed that the dead left clues for the ones they left behind.
She had always hoped that Brody would someday make himself known to
her, even if only in her dreams. But he never appeared.

Her
thoughts turned to the ghost. Who was he? Why was he still here?
Regardless of how the ghost made her feel, if she could find a way
to help him move on, she would do it. She could only imagine what
it was like being unable to do so. It probably felt like hell on
earth.

The sun
was close to four o’clock in the sky as Juliana walked towards the
place where she had her ghostly encounter. Dried leaves crunched
underfoot. When she arrived it was just a flat empty space. Juliana
bit her lip, her shoulders hunched in a mixture of disappointment
and relief. Turning to go back to her car, she caught sight of
something glistening on the ground. She stopped to look making sure
it wasn’t a figment of her imagination.

There it
was again.

She
approached, her feet moving forward in slow motion. Just then, the
sunlight filtered through the trees. She saw the grove appear as
though rising from a mirage. Juliana’s heart skipped before
settling to a faster pace. As excitement and trepidation suffused
her, she walked through the gap. This time, she was ready for the
momentary loss of sound.

The
grove looked the same as the last time, except that the stranger
was already there, his back to her. He had his hands inside his
pockets. His coat lay discarded on the stone bench beside him. His
sleeves rolled up to his elbows showing muscled
forearms.

Juliana’s hands itched, overwhelmed with a desire to caress
his back, to feel the muscles underneath her hands. To trail her
tongue all over his skin. To nip at his flat stomach. To taste him
and pleasure him with her mouth. To hold on to him as he buried
himself inside her.