Grave Danger (38 page)

Clarissa rested her head back against the crook of
his arm. “Did you tell your family of the death bokor the Eidolon
council has been trying to entice to come to the city? From what I
hear from the others, though I don’t know if it’s not all hype, is
that he’s the best at his craft. That concerns me. I don’t think I
could stand up to someone who’s trained. Henry – you remember I
told you about him, he was the first ghost I met. He has been sent
to sweeten the deal with more money I would imagine. I’m not sure
what entices a bokor; a pick-up truck of sacrificial chickens. I
still wonder if the council members don’t already know that I was
one to. None of them have made a point to question me, but
sometimes I have this feeling that they’re setting me up. What do
you think?” She waited several heart-beats for him to answer and
when he didn’t she turned her face up to see the reason. “Corrigan
LeMoyne, are you listening to me?”

Still no response, so she stuck her fingers rudely
in his arm pits to get his attention. He seemed to come out of a
day-dream. Then he focused his attention down on her agitated face
as he rubbed the area where her fingers had poked him.

“
Did you hear anything I just said?” Clarissa
asked on an exasperated sigh. He shook his head. “What were you
thinking about that distracted you so?”

“
I was thinking of killing a bokor,” he said
matter-of-factly. “No, I haven’t told my family of the Eidolon
council’s new pet. I wanted to be the one to kill him.

Clarissa inched away from him, coming up to sit on
the edge of the couch. “What?”

Corrigan’s face remained impassive as he watched
Clarissa hovering on the edge of the couch. “I was thinking about
how I would relish taking the life from this bokor who sought to
take you from this world. I know he’s the same man you saw in your
vision just now. When he reveals himself, and I know he will, I
will take pleasure in ending his existence.”

Clarissa was suddenly on the couch again, sitting up
on her knees which made her almost eye level with Corrigan. She
braced herself using the stability of his shoulders and leaning
forward till their faces were a breath apart.

“
If anyone gets to take that man’s life from
him, it will be by my hand,” Clarissa said, that secret dark spot
inside her yelling in triumph at the thought of a new
death.

Corrigan’s iridescent blue eyes flashed through a
sequence of emotions. He knew of that secret spot that at one time
had been allowed to take its revenge against the paranormal
infestations on this planet. She kept it in check most of the time,
but sometimes he wondered if he was dismissing a valuable part of
her because all he wanted was to see the beauty of her soul, the
soul that he knew loved him without question. That was the part she
gave to him and that was the part of her he focused on. Just as she
focused on the frail light in him and not on the dark monster that
they both knew he was.

Your love is wrapped in delusions
and fantasy. Your nature will turn her against you and she will
kill you for it.
The voice of bitter rationale invaded
his mind.

You will kill her… She will kill you…

He pushed that hated voice away from him. Bringing
his hands to her otherworldly face he held her head within the
cradle of his palms. At any moment the love that they had found
could fly from them, leaving them to take up their post as hated
enemies. Corrigan would do anything even murder to keep that from
happening. “I understand,” he said, stroking her soft cold
cheek.

She returned to herself then, pushing away that evil
little voice and returning to the woman she wanted to be. “Thank
you,” she answered him, taking up the short distance to reach him,
taking his lips.

As always when their lips met the world fell away
into a hazy background. Lips met in communion of a love that
connected two halves of humanities entirety, the body and soul
connected through a bond as intricately woven as the threads of
space and time.

Chapter 21-

Clarissa found her head on the soft worn leather arm
of the couch, her heart – his heart – in her throat. Corrigan’s
lips consumed her, taking possession of them in a manner most
befitting the carnal beast of his species. Not to be a lack-luster
partner in these situations she reached her hands to encompass the
back of his head, holding him to her as the bare skin of her leg
wrapped around him like the temptress snake of folklore.

Corrigan’s lips broke away from hers for a moment,
his breath beating warm and heavy against her face. Her own cool
breath escalated as he took up paying homage to the soft underside
of her neck. She could actually feel the sensitive energy currents
of her skin quiver in anticipation of his lips brushing heated
caresses against her throat.

Then his lips returned to their post at her mouth,
delivering messages of more things to come with the flick of his
tongue against the seam of her mouth. Clarissa opened her mouth,
more than ready to receive the news of carnal love from the man of
all her soul’s desire.

His teeth scraped against the plump line of her lip
and she could feel the shape of them, different from her own. Like
all flesh-eaters, the canines were elongated more so than in a
traditional human mouth and all their teeth were set in a jaw
designed to exert enough pressure to cut through bone and tissue in
a matter of seconds.

But as his teeth pulled gently on her lower lip, it
was not in an act of pulling apart tendons from meat, but to
enhance the pleasure of this beautiful act that at first seemed
impossible. A flesh-eater and ghost caught in a world of carnal
pleasure, unheard of until now.

When lips met so too did hands. Corrigan’s right
hand reached up encompassing her left, holding it above her head
while his left hand traveled the journey from her shoulder down to
the soft undersides, down further where ribs met waist to hips that
moved gracefully with the movement of her right leg that swept
about him. He set a course to a destination of pure bliss. Her body
which should have been insubstantial for his body to touch flowed
with the energy of a thousand nuclear bombs. Though her flesh
remained cool, already he could feel warmth under the surface with
each sway of her hips against him, bringing heat to his already
overheated body. He was sure her energy would consume them both in
an inferno that would leave them both blissfully incapacitated.
He’d like nothing better.

Tucking her hips closer to him, he expressed without
words how much she was affecting him. He’d been fantasizing about
what she’d look and feel like under all those pretty clothes she
came over to his house in and he never saw her wear the same outfit
twice. They went swimming in the ocean many nights and sometimes he
hoped the current would whisk away her bathing suit so he’d get to
see more of her beautiful skin. She always prudishly insisted on
wearing a one piece suit with shorts. She was adamant about the
fact that she had a slight muffin top in a bikini and that it
wouldn’t look very good. He had no idea what a ‘muffin top’ was in
reference to. In his estimation muffins were delicious and then
that set his mind to Clarissa as a tasty muffin slathered in
butter.

He felt her smile against his lips as he moved to
kiss his way down her neck to the spot just above where her heart
should be. With a girlish giggle he’d never heard from her before
she whispered above his head. “I hope that’s not ‘rigor mortis’
kicking in?”

That stopped him. He lifted his head from where he
was enjoying making licking bites over the area near the swell of
her breast where he’d pushed the shirt aside. She had a delicious
smell, black raspberry vanilla she’d said. It was her favorite
scent she’d used liberally when she was alive and was so much part
of her that now her skin smelled permanently like the potent
fragrance. But he didn’t appreciate the ‘rigor mortis’ joke, not at
the moment anyway. And it cooled his ardor enough to put blood back
into his brain.

“
No,” he said darkly.

Clarissa felt him let go of her hand, felt as he was
retreating back away from her. She quickly held his hand to her,
refusing to let him pull away because she’d made a really, really
bad joke. She was extremely nervous about doing this with him and
though she couldn’t deny she hadn’t thought about it before. That
didn’t mean when confronted with the possibility of it actually
playing out that she could just go through the motions without some
moments of hesitation or in her case covering her own insecurities
with a poor urban euphemism.

“
Forget I said that,” she said, taking up
where he left off by kissing a trail along his warm neck to the
open collar down his chest. He wasn’t responding as she’d hoped.
Clarissa guessed the ‘rigor mortis’ joke hadn’t gone over so well
with someone who was technically a reanimated corpse. She made
little mewling sounds in the back of her throat, trying to
encourage him, but he remained impassively still, his face staring
off into the distance above her head.

Corrigan,” she nearly shouted, forcing his focus
back down to her. He had this annoying habit sometimes of pushing
her away from him, enclosing himself behind an invisible shield of
glass. It took all her effort sometimes to smash it down and get to
him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that. Can you blame a girl
for being a little nervous?”

“
No,” he answered. Brushing her hair over and
away from her forehead he placed a gentle kiss upon her warming
flesh. Her cheeks had become rosy along with her lips making her
entire face glow contrasting beautifully with the radiance of her
inner soul. He pulled back knowing it was for the best. She wasn’t
ready for him yet, and despite how easy it might be to override her
anxieties he somehow guessed it wouldn’t be what she wanted; what
they both wanted.

As Corrigan sat upright on the old leather couch,
watching as Clarissa remained reclined enticingly over the armrest,
he wondered where his new found sense of gentlemanly discretion had
come from and why the hell it decided to rear its ugly moral head
in his face at this moment. He watched the pout form over her
temptress’s mouth and the rise and fall of her breast as she
breathed in and out. They moved with her lungs like breathing
mountains. His ‘rigor mortis’ was going to kill him if he didn’t
think of something else to distract not only him but the siren next
to him, who was even now moving over the couch on her knees to
attack him.

“
Clarissa,” he whispered as she curled herself
on his lap. She was trying too hard, wrapping herself around him
like a sexy contortionist trying to make up for the fact that she
wasn’t sure of herself or him in this kind of situation. As far as
he knew she’d never been intimate with anyone in her current form
and her new body chemistry might work differently than when she was
a living woman. That coupled with the fact that they’d never been
intimate with each other like this, intense make-out session
excluded. They were treading on new territory in their
relationship.

She seemed almost frantic in her movements as if she
were just trying to get through it, hoping that when it were over
the worst part would be behind them and they could ‘maybe get it
right the next time’. Her little purring noises and wandering hands
were making him loose focus and with a determination that made his
‘rigor mortis’ rage retribution throughout his entire system he
swept her hands away from her target bringing them to his
mouth.

He kissed her cool finger tips, one by one, each
time watching as her fingers curled spastically trying to get loose
of his grasp. He held firm.

“
Clarissa,” he whispered her name again,
trying to get her eyes to focus on his face and his words and not
on how she could get him out of his pants without the use of her
hands. She captured his lips, silencing him, trying to use his body
against him. Clarissa wriggled her hands free during a moment of
weakness on his part. Those hands began to wander his body
again.

She had quick little fingers and she’d made short
work of opening the front of his pants before he realized it was
happening. In the second before she reached in to explore further
though he grabbed her dexterous little fingers and placed her hands
behind her back.

“
Corrigan LeMoyne, if you don’t let go of my
hands I’m going to bite you,” she bit out harshly before doing just
that. Her mouth was at the base of his throat just above the mark
of his death and where his pulse beat quickly against her
lips.

His ‘rigor mortis’ told him to ‘fuck gentlemanly
morals and let her have her way with you’, but that damn frayed bit
of moral fiber wouldn’t allow it. Corrigan pushed her away, pushing
her down on the couch in the opposite direction from where they’d
begun this. Holding her hands above her head, he waited until her
head stopped thrashing back and forth, holding himself away from
her bucking hips until she finally quieted and looked up at
him.

Tiny prisms of liquid light fell from her angelic
blue eyes. He’d come to realize that ghosts did not have the
capacity to cry human tears. What leaked from their eyes was in
fact a viscous form of their soul. Her chest rose and fell heavily
with her strangled breathing. Clarissa was forcing herself to be
something she thought he wanted, not realizing that all he wanted
of her was her sassy smart-mouth self; the one that loved him
without condition.

“
Don’t cry, mo ghrá geal,”
Don’t cry, my bright love.
Corrigan wiped his
thumb across the tears her soul wept. Clarissa made a wounded sound
in her throat, trying to turn her face away from him. He wouldn’t
let her, using one hand to hold both of hers suspended above her
head, he forced her face away from the protection of her arm. His
thumb made a sweep over her lips which quivered in her distress
like a rippling pond.