Lingering Touch: The Summer Park Psychics, Book 3 (15 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

Finn’s stomach was in knots. He couldn’t have been lost in a memory. He wasn’t touching anything. And yes, sometimes Michael’s memories had seemed to try to resurface in his mind, but he had
felt
them. He had always known when it was happening. Like when that darkness crept along his nerves.

What does she know?

Finn shook off the thought. She knew him. Always had. If she said he was losing it, he was losing it.

Christ, the thought was scary, though.

“Keep your hand on my leg,” she said.

“What?”

“I need to get us out of sight. Touching keeps you grounded in your body, so I need you to hold on to me till we get parked. Then we can sort this out.”

Could they, though?

The memories he had read so far were powerful—especially the ones back at the gallery. They had manifested physically on multiple occasions. The link was already strong enough that reading Michael’s kitchen chair made Finn share in Travis’s bloody nose after Michael hit him in the memory.

What if it was permanent?

Finn couldn’t believe that Siobhan would do this to him. He knew she was a good person. He could feel it through his dreams. She would be trying to help him, not throw him to the wolves.

Jazz slid back into the driver’s seat and put the SUV in gear. He left his hand on her thigh, trying to keep himself from gripping it too tight. For the first time, the softness of her skin, her warmth, wasn’t a turn on. It was a lifeline.

“Tell me about ghosts,” he said.

She glanced over at him quickly, then back to the bumpy side road. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything. How do they stick around? What can they do?”

She turned down another road as he pointed out the way, nearing their destination. “From what I’ve learned, it’s usually the standard story—they feel like they have unfinished business or suffered some sort of trauma that keeps them from letting go.”

“Like Siobhan.”

“It’s hard to say what made her stay. It could have been how she died. Maybe she wants justice or closure or something.”

“How do we find out? Can we talk to them like with a séance or something?”

She let out a scoff. “Those aren’t as effective as you might think.”

There was a bitter edge to her voice. He started piecing together what he knew about this other mystery. She had talked to him about her family at last. A mother and sister. Three nieces. But she couldn’t talk about her dad. Not wouldn’t,
couldn’t
. Adding that to her fascination with the paranormal and her comments and knowledge of ghosts…

“I’m sorry,” he said. “About your dad.”

Her grip on the wheel increased till her knuckles were white. A muscle he wasn’t used to seeing stood out along her jaw. Mystery solved.

“Thanks.”

She pulled into their spot and killed the engine, but didn’t look at him. Instead, she turned her face to the window and quickly ran her arm under her nose.

He didn’t know what to say, so he gave her a minute to pull herself together. She had never liked showing emotion. She was crystal clear about that. He wanted to give her privacy, but he couldn’t let her go without risking losing himself again.

After a few moments, she said, “Sudden massive coronary. Completely unexpected.”

Shit. His own heart started pounding in his chest. He couldn’t believe she was sharing this with him. No wonder she had freaked out when Finn told her about Dad. Jazz loved him about as much as Finn did. He couldn’t imagine how scared she would be to hear about his dad when her own had been taken from her that way.

“It happened in an airport.” Her voice lowered nearly to a whisper. “They were on their way to see me—to celebrate my graduating from college.”

“Jazz…”

She went on quickly, like she was afraid her courage would give out. “I was obsessed with finding him after it happened. I just wanted to talk to him one more time.” She sniffed again, still staring out the window. “It’s good that I was obsessed. The things I learned are helping people now.”

As if that made what she had gone through okay. He understood her attachment to Dad that much more.

“There’s something else you should know about me. Something I should have told you a long time ago.”

“Okay.”

His stomach started to twist. They’d covered a lot of ground already, but she seemed so much more serious about whatever she was about to tell him.

“Being close to me is dangerous.”

“Dangerous how?”

She paused for a moment, then said, “I’m cursed.”

He would have laughed if it weren’t for everything they’d been through. His reality had shifted way too far for him to not take this seriously.

“What kind of curse?”

“Whenever I care about people, things happen to them.”

“What kind of things?”

“Bad things. Like what happened to my father. I want to fight it to be with you. But you need to know the risk going in.”

Shit. She blamed herself for her dad’s death?

“Jazz, you can’t take that on.”

She shook her head. “You of all people know that there are forces at work that we don’t understand. Fate is one of them.”

“Yeah, but you don’t control people’s destinies.”

“No. I facilitate them.”

“How does that work?”

“I’m a nexus. Supposedly I gather people together at the right time and place. It’s one of the reasons I’m so good at running the gallery and finding the next hot thing.”

“I can’t argue that point, but I don’t know about the rest of it.”

“I’ve been to dozens of psychics. They all say the same thing. I’m an instrument of Fate. And for whatever reason, she doesn’t want me to be happy.”

“No. No way. I’m not buying it.”

“Finn—”

“I’m not saying you aren’t a nexus or whatever that is. That part actually makes sense. But caring about people can’t put them in danger. I mean, what kind of fucked-up universe would it be if that was the case?”

She chuffed out a breath and shook her head again. “The one I live in.”

“Not anymore. Bad things happen to people all the time. You can’t take responsibility for it. Siobhan was a good person. I can feel it. And she…” His throat tightened up and he had to cough to clear it. “None of us know how much time we have. No one gets to decide that. But we can make choices that make us happy while we’re here.”

“Being with you makes me happy,” she said.

Finn felt like his stomach dropped through the ground.

“And I’m sick of living this way. Always afraid to let myself…” She shook her head, her voice trailing off.

He reached over and picked up her hand, then kissed the back of it. When she looked at him, she was so raw. He could barely stand it.

“Listen to me.” He spoke each word crisply, making sure she knew he meant it. “Fate. Isn’t. A dick.”

Jazz busted out laughing.

“Good things happen,” he said, his voice growing softer. “Bad things happen. What we’ve been through in our lives, and what the people close to us have gone through—it’s all brought us here. This is where we’re meant to be. Everything happens for a reason. I honestly believe that. And I don’t believe that Fate is an asshole.”

Her eyes filled with tears. She looked away quickly. It would probably be a while till she was comfortable really letting all her walls down with him. That was okay. He could wait. At least he was starting to feel that there was hope for them on the other side.

“Rachel would be a better source of information,” Jazz said. “About ghosts.”

He could sense that she needed to move on from the topic. She had just faced down one of her demons. He could play along.

“Your assistant?”

“Yeah. She’s clairsentient—she can communicate with them.”

“You’re kidding. She always sounded so normal when you guys talked about her.”

Jazz shrugged. “You seem pretty normal too.”

She pulled the key from the ignition and tossed it in the drink tray, then opened her door to let in some air. He did the same to give them a cross-breeze.

Finally, she turned toward him. Her cheeks were dry, but her eyes were red around the edges. Seeing it felt like being punched in the gut. Jazz looked away quickly. She pulled her phone from the pocket of her shirt and stared at it for a moment.

“No signal.” She put her phone in the drink holder with her key. “We should try to call her as soon as we can and tell her what’s going on. Ask her advice. When we head back to Summer Park, we should head straight to Garrett’s house.”

“She’s staying with Garrett?”

“It’s a good thing,” Jazz said. “She needed to get out of her mom’s house. That woman is evil.”

Finn snorted, playing along with the conversation. Jazz wanted to gloss over what she’d shared. He could help do that for her.

“But how do you really feel about her?” he asked.

Jazz smiled and shook her head. “Maybe this time, they won’t be idiots and will finally hook up.”

He laughed outright. “Wait, she’s into him too?”

“Big time. She tries to play it down for some reason, but it’s obvious how they feel about each other.”

“Well shit. He’s been pining for her for years. Why didn’t they just…”

“Talk about it?” She arched an eyebrow.

Finn shook his head. “At least you had a really good reason.”

“I thought I did. Maybe they do too.”

“Okay, I guess I shouldn’t be pointing fingers.”

“I think I’m going to call those years we didn’t talk,
the lapse
.”

“The lapse?”

“Yeah. As in,
lapse in judgment
.” She became more serious as she said, “I should have fought for you harder.”

“I should have insisted we talk things through.”

She smiled again. “While I’m willing to work things through verbally when we need to, I really am not used to all this talking about feelings. Now that we’ve settled all that, can we please crawl into the back and have sex again?”

“Absolutely.”

He unfastened his seat belt so he could lean closer, pulling her in for a kiss. He heard the click as she undid her seat belt, and then she was in his lap again, pushing him back into his seat. Her tongue slid along his lips, her fingers burrowed through his hair.

He knew what it was like to seek solace in her touch, could feel that was what she wanted—needed—from him. She was still raw from what she had shared. He grabbed the lever to push the chair back, giving them more room to work.

She didn’t waste any time. She reached between them and undid his jeans. With her attentive hands, his dick became rock hard in about six seconds. He was still amazed at how her touch could relax him so deeply while working him up at the same time.

The intrusive thoughts and disconnection that had been plaguing him also vanished. Maybe Siobhan
was
to blame, and seeing her brother go at it made her run away. He’d be the same way.

Not the time to be thinking about ghosts, man.

Jazz moved her kisses along his jaw and down his neck and he stopped thinking period. She grazed his skin with her teeth and nipped at him. Damn, she remembered just what he liked. She pumped her hand up and down, increasing the pressure. He leaned back and closed his eyes letting himself relax into the chair.

She slid down between his legs, pushing his shirt up so she could kiss his stomach and trace the lines of his abs with her lips and tongue. That was something she had always liked—playing with the lines of his muscles.

She never had trouble talking about how much she loved his body. It didn’t bother him anymore now that she had given him hope that there might be more to it. She wasn’t just in it for the physical part of their relationship. Knowing that let him sink into the sensations, to enjoy them on a level he’d never reached before.

The wind had picked up a bit. It drifted through the open space, lifting her hair across his stomach. She kissed him lower on his abdomen, on the sensitive skin below his navel. She held his dick so she could draw her cheek along the length of it, then wrapped her lips around his crown.

So damn good.

She took him in deeper, swirling her tongue, running her fingertips lightly over the base of his shaft. He trailed his fingers through her hair, resting his palm on the back of her head to feel more of her movements. Up and down, a steady rhythm rippling through his body, reminding him that he was Finn and he was hers. He always had been.

She picked up on the pulsing beat starting to build at the base of his shaft and eased him from her mouth. She kept herself pressed against his side, kissing his stomach as she reached down and slid her bikini bottoms down her legs. Then she crawled back up to straddle him in his chair.

Bracing her arms against his shoulders, she lined herself up. He rested his hands on her hips as she inched down over him, her body stretching to hold him tight.

“We need to keep doing this forever,” he said.

She smiled, then leaned forward and kissed him, tongue plunging deep, hips rocking on his body. He thrust himself up into her, meeting every movement. The pull of her flesh against his was bringing him too close. He wanted to be sure she was right with him.

He pulled away from the kiss and said, “Sit back.”

She kept her hands on his shoulders as she leaned back, using the leverage to steady herself as she slid up and down along his length. Damn, she felt too good. He was going to go off any moment.

He put one hand between them to find her clit, circling it as she moved. Her breath hitched and her eyes rolled shut. He used his free hand to push her bikini top up over her breasts, then drew one into his mouth as he cupped the other, lightly tracing his thumb over her nipple till it was a tight bud.

“Finn…”

His name came out as a moan. God, he loved it when she said his name like that.

His dick was pulsing, pressure building deep. The pull of her skin against his, wet and hot, the softness of her breasts—it was too much. He let go of her breasts but kept the hand at her clit, circling, flicking, feeling the pre-quake tremors start echoing out through his body.