Under My Skin (5 page)

“I don’t know why—”

“Shh,” I said. Lanie backed me up. No talking now. Later. But now…this.

I reached under my old-fashioned white nightgown, thanking the gods of clothing choice for billowy, soft, floaty fabric. I pushed my panties aside and ran the tip of him along my wet folds, making the breath in my lungs still. I felt Lanie’s essence expand and contract and expand again, a second heartbeat under my skin. I thought beyond her desire to say, “I’m clean. And protected. You don’t have to believe me but I’m—”

“Me too, me too,” he said and that was all I needed.

Elijah held my hips as I lowered myself onto him. My fingers digging into his shoulders, my forehead tilting forward to press to his. It was all a hushed stillness but for the sound of the heater and skin and cotton mixed with our breath.

“This is crazy,” he said, but his voice was humbled and awed. I nodded, moving down a bit faster, swinging my hips just so I hit all the right places deep inside myself.

He groaned, lips pressing to the thumping skin above my pulse. He chuckled and the part of me that was Lanie reveled in the beloved sound. The part of me that was me found it endearing. “I have to say…” He moved up fast, hands clutching my hips and holding me steady so he could drive deeper inside me. “It won’t be long. I’m sorry. It’s been ages since I—”

“Shh. Me either. I know. So, so long.” With that, he moved just right and hit the perfect place, and I came, kissing him fiercely like he could save me from myself, from Lanie’s pain and his loss.

Elijah wrapped his arms around my waist, pinning me flush to his body. He moved in short brutal thrusts, kissing me back and that was that. He surrendered to his own body and the pleasured sounds that came out of him made me smile.

We sat there in the morning light, on a thankfully deserted street, his beat up truck parked under a big oak tree in front of my house. Foreheads pressed together, bodies still fitted tightly to one another. “Wow. I don’t’ know where that came from.”

“Me either,” I lied.

Lanie leaned in and kissed him, trailed her tongue along his plump lower lip so he sighed.

“I swear I’m not—”

“Me either. But I must admit, you are pretty cute.”

That made him laugh, but the good natured expression faded to something darker. “I’m dying,” he said as if he were honor-bound to tell me.

“I know,” I said. “The neighbors told me.” I pushed his hand to my still pounding heart. It was Lanie who wanted him to feel that feeling of pumping blood and vibrancy. “I’m sorry,” she said with my mouth. “But I promise you, it will be okay.”

Chapter Six

We sat there waiting while his friend Al showed up and Elijah went to explain the deal. They shook hands, and he got in the truck. He gripped the wheel and blew out a sigh. “Look, this is going to sound insane. More insane than what just happened, but you cannot stay here until that’s cleared up. And even if he clears it today, you want the chemicals to clear. And…”

He shook his head. I felt Lanie smile, and I put my hand on his arm. “What?”

“Why don’t you come home with me? Stay for a night or two. If you need to. And—” He cut himself off with a sharp bark of laughter. “I sound crazy, don’t I?”

“No.”

“I mean, I just told you I’m dying. After we had sex. In my truck. On the road.”

I smiled, and in me Lanie laughed. “I know.”

“Worst pick-up line ever,” he said. “Hey, I’m dying, come home with me.”

“I will.”

He turned in his seat and grabbed my hands, holding them. “Listen, I don’t really do this ever. Ever! But you remind me so much of her, and that is also the worst pick up line ever. I should lust after you for you. And I do,” he sighed. “But there is that familiarity. You know?”

I nodded.

“And I am very confused by myself, even.”

I smiled. “Look, take me home. I’ve got a lot to explain if you’re willing to listen.”

“Of course,” he said.

“What were you doing here, anyway?”

He put the truck in gear, watching the road and not me. “I had the worst dreams. Lanie falling, someone I couldn’t see getting hurt. There was this droning, and I felt like I was getting stabbed with pins. Only it wasn’t me, if that makes sense. So I was up, I figured I’d check in with you to see if you’d found any floor areas you were worried about.” I saw him blush. “And you know…you’re pretty, Juliet. It’s been forever and a day for me, I thought before I die I might take a pretty woman to coffee. If she were interested.”

Again I worried about Lanie’s feelings, but there was nothing but a sense of peace in me. She wanted to be with him, but I found myself feeling the same. It might all end when I came clean with him and told him what was going on.

“Would you settle on making me coffee? I am in my nightgown, after all.”

He put his hand on my thigh and squeezed. “Of course.”

I realized I liked the feel of his hand on my skin.

* * * *

He took me home, made me a cup of coffee and I sat, curled up in his kitchen. The kitchen table was insane—I loved it. One side was a booth built in to the wall, the table stood between, the other side sported two chrome and patent leather chairs.

“Lanie loved it, too,” he said, reading my face. “It’s part of why we chose this house.”

“Your loss is still palpable,” I said, feeling my heart rate pick up as Lanie’s sadness increased. I touched his hand, and he turned his hand in mine, palm up, fingers curling around mine.

“I still miss her. I even feel sort of guilty about today.” He shook his head at himself, his dark blond hair brushing his eyebrows.

“Don’t,” I cleared my throat. “I have something to confess, if you’re willing to listen and be open-minded.”

Inside of me, Lanie twisted and squirmed. I was flooded with her fear and insecurity. She wasn’t sure he’d buy it. She didn’t want him upset. She pushed forward, overshadowing the bit of me that was in control. “But first,” I heard myself say, “Just another kiss.”

She sprawled my body over the white Formica table and pushed my fingers into his hair. I tugged him to me and kissed him hard, giving into what Lanie wanted, relishing in her machinations. His mouth was warm and sweet against mine, tasting slightly of coffee and sugar. Elijah gripped my shoulders and held me steady as he kissed me back.

My belly hit the table, and I literally slid over the shiny surface so that I was closer. He laughed and took my arms, gently pulling me toward him. He drew me across it until I moved myself slightly to slide down onto his lap.

Elijah wrapped his arms around my waist and said, “This is not how I thought this day would start.”

“I’m sorry you missed work.”

“I don’t work much anymore. Small things. Pity jobs, I call them.” He laughed, but there was a sharp bite of painful honesty in the sound. “But I don’t have the stamina to work the jobs I used to.”

I wiggled a little in his lap, and Lanie whispered through my lips. “How about stamina for me? Do you have any?”

“I think I can manage.”

I moved to kiss him again, and he pushed me back a bit. “For real this time. For real, okay? I want to treat you the way you should be treated.” With that he took my hand and helped me stand, leading me through his cute little house.

Our house
. I felt Lanie sigh, being in the house she loved again. I held my energy back and let hers be front and center. She squeezed Elijah’s hand as he led her upstairs. My feet, led by her, were swift and sure on the steps and down the hall. My body knew where it was going.

He laid me back on his big tall antique bed and lifted my fluffy white nightgown to reveal my pale yellow panties. Those came off in a swish and a whirl of soft fabric, my hips shooting up to ease their travel.

“Should I get a condom?” He cocked his head, watching me. “We were very irresponsible.”

My fingers curled in his shirt and I tugged him down. “I’m on the pill and I am clean as a whistle. It was all true.”

A swift nod, and he was kissing me, pushing my thighs apart and settling between them. “Me too. Well, not the pill part.” He grinned, and it lightened his whole face, his whole energy.

“You still have clothes on,” Lanie whispered in his ear. My throat tightened with her emotions. Being here on this bed, face to face with the man she loved, kissing him. His weight, heavy and pleasant on my body. How many times has she felt his weight on her? How many countless times had they been face to face making love? The density of her memory and emotion threatened to crush my chest, but it wasn’t unpleasant. Just intense.

“So do you.” He laughed against my throat, making me shiver. “I just want to
be
here for a moment.”

It would not be easy to explain this to him. It would not be simple. I wrapped my legs around his waist and shoved my fingers into his hair again. I liked the softness of it under my hands. I took every kiss he gave me, every glancing brush of his mouth over my eyebrows, my cheekbones, my neck. My skin became peppered with goose bumps and when I couldn’t take it anymore, I said, “Please, Elijah. Please…”

It was a quick flurry of motion and soft words as I pulled off my nightgown and he got undressed. And then I surrendered myself to Lanie, giving her complete control. Utterly lost to her wants and needs, completely crushed under her emotions and sensations.

It was like coming home when he entered me. My legs wrapping around his waist keeping him near, my hands sliding up and down the warm expanse of his back. I didn’t speak, she was too overwhelmed to speak, and this wasn’t my moment, though the pleasure of it all bled into my reality, soaked into my own awareness.

Lanie moved my body up under Elijah, and he pinned my hands to the bed on either side of my head, nuzzling my neck, breathing in the smell of my hair, kissing me soft and lazy and then forceful and rough. The friction of his pelvic bone smacking against me gave the hard bursts of pressure I needed. His cock stretching and filling me had me close to coming whenever he drove deep. All the needy, desperate places inside of me that had been neglected for way too long hummed to life and reveled in our union. The waves of sensation crashed down over me, and I bobbed along on the sweet warmth of her bliss.

When I came it was me coming, when she came it was her coming. My body took the delicious brunt of two peaks. Lanie moved my teeth to his shoulder, clamped down just enough that it must have stung, and I heard him whisper, “Jesus” and he was coming. Shaking over me with the intensity of it, my buried but still active psychic senses picking up on his mix of confusion, gratitude and happiness. He felt a familiarity with me and had no idea why. He found it odd but comforting. It scared him, and it made him happy.

He had no idea. And now…now it was time to tell him.

Chapter Seven

“Are you hungry? I’m starved. Can I make you something to eat?” He took my hand, and my heart fluttered. I understand the loyal, beautiful feelings Lanie still held in her heart for him. Feelings that were probably part of her being bound here to earth, to her death place. But mostly to blame for her Earthly bondage, I thought, was , and I remembered how much I wanted to rid that house—this world—of him.

“Sure. I could eat a small village,” I said. It just sort of popped out of my mouth.

The sharp startled glance he gave me told me that was something from Lanie, not from me. It was easy to tangle us up now. I felt a real draw, a real affection…a real lust for Elijah. I also felt protective of him. So those feelings were mixing and mingling, and it was hard from moment to moment to tell what was mine from what was hers. Normally, with a spirit in my body, under my skin, that would scare the hell out of me, but not this time. This time, I knew her motives, and I believed them. She simply wanted to transition him. She’d lost him, and he’d lost her and now, at the end of his life, they could reunite. It was the most magical mind fuck I’d ever encountered.

“Lanie,” he said for the second time today. Not as a question, as a statement.

“We need to talk,” I said, pulling on my nightgown, twisting my hair back in a knot. But I had nothing to hold it, so when I let it go it just unwound, spinning wildly around until it was long against the back of my arms again.

“She used to say that,” he said.

“Yeah,” I sighed. “Look…how…
trusting
are you about the wonders of the Universe?”

“What?”

“God, angels, psychics, mediums…
ghosts.
”

He laughed, it was a harsh sound. I’d never heard him sound that way before, but then again, I’d only known him for a blink of an eye. “Don’t tell me you’re some mystical psychic who’s going to get me in touch with the wonderful but departed spirit of my dead fiancée.” He sounded bitter, and it broke my heart. Now he was suspicious.

“No,” I said, feeling defeated before I even started. “I’m telling you that your wonderful but departed dead fiancée is inside me, right now. And she’s watching out for you, and I’m just a vehicle, and she still loves you but you know, I think you’re pretty damn amazing too…” I said it all in one rough breath, like I was pulling a bandage off a particularly tender bit of skin.

Elijah sank to the bed, head in hands. “Great,” he moaned. “You’re a nutball.”

I couldn’t help it, laughter leapt from my mouth. It cracked me up. I took his hand, and he let me, so we weren’t too far gone. “No, I’m not a nut. Trust me, you’re not the first person to think it. Hell, I’ve even thought it once or twice,” I said, squeezing his hand. He squeezed back, and I felt the warmth and trust there, it made my chest warm.

“Tell me,” he said. I could feel it coming off him. The need to believe. The want. Which made Lanie excited, agitated her like an overheated molecule inside my skin.

“I’m a sensitive. A medium. Whatever label you want to put on me, I can see and experience the dead. And I bought the house—my new house—because I lost my fiancé. Just like you. Only Justin was a cop, and he was killed…” My throat caught as it always did. Three years, and my damn voice still caught. “In the line of duty,” I barreled on. “About three years ago.”