The Ghost Shrink, the Accidental Gigolo & the Poltergeist Accountant (6 page)

Chapter Ten: Impatience is a Virtue

Lucy restlessly paced in her living room, waiting with no patience whatsoever to see if Jake was going to show up to put her out of her misery. It seemed like every time she got close to an orgasm, they were interrupted. The Fates were definitely against her.

Admittedly, getting it on in a destroyed warehouse with the cops on the way and Big Joe watching from the balcony had not been one of her greater ideas. Apparently, she had an exhibitionist streak she’d never known about. Any thoughts of propriety or the right time and place had vanished as soon as he touched her.

Maybe she would just avoid going out into public with him. Lucy figured that was the only way to avoid jumping on him in public places.

The cops had been in high spirits. Apparently, finding Big Joe Morrissey trussed up on a stack of evidence and a topless blonde straddling the hardass PI who sometimes worked with them was better than Christmas. Even though they all knew him, they’d made Jake hold up his hands until his
identity had been verified
. Jake played along, but drew the line when they tried to get Lucy to put up her hands, glaring down the officers until they agreed that Lucy could keep her arms crossed over her chest, since she wasn’t packing.

She had blushed beet red the entire time, but took her cues from Jake and silently accepted the police ribbing.

When the cops finished their game and holstered their weapons, the first thing Jake did was grab her shirt and drop it back over her head. He’d then pointed her toward her car and told her to go home, that he would take care of everything.

Lucy had expected to be stopped, had expected someone to want her statement at the very least, but the cops just waved, leering at her like the lecherous bastards they were as she drove off.

And now she waited.

Lucy hated waiting. Over and over again, she paced her apartment and analyzed everything that had happened over the past twenty-four hours. When she got to the part where Jake all but patted her on the head as he sent her away, she groaned every time. He hadn’t said he was going to come see her when he was done, but he would. Wouldn’t he? It had been nearly three hours, dawn had already broken, but Lucy wasn’t even thinking about sleep. How long could it take to give a statement? He’d be in a hurry to get to her, wouldn’t he? He’d come as soon as they released him, wouldn’t he?

But what if he didn’t want her? What if she had just been a convenient piece of ass, and as soon as she was out of his sight, she was as forgettable as the next disposable lay?

When the phone rang, Lucy vaulted over the back of her couch to get to it. “Hello?” she asked breathlessly. Desperately. She was officially pathetic.

Karma’s wry, honey-coated tones rasped across the phone lines. “Honey, you need to relax. You’re so agitated, you’re keeping
me
awake.”

Lucy had spoken to Karma at every hour of the day and night over the years of her employment with Karmic Consultants and she had never heard her boss even refer to sleep before. She didn’t believe for a moment that her tension was upsetting the cosmic flow enough to alert her boss. “Is your name really Karma Cox?”

There was a long silence on the other end of the line, and then Karma sighed heavily into the phone. “My mother was surprisingly naïve for a hippie. She had no idea she was giving me a bonafide stripper name. I wondered if Jake would mention our relationship.”

“You didn’t tell me your brother had moved back from Phoenix.”

“It didn’t concern you,” Karma said flatly. “What concerns
me
is the fact that you took your ghost to confront his murderer. How exactly is that in keeping with the company bylaws, Lucy?”

“Jake was in trouble,” Lucy protested. “You wouldn’t have wanted me to leave him alone in the warehouse to die, would you?”

“No. You shouldn’t have done that. What you
should
have done is call me. Or the police. Or
anyone
, really. The one thing you
shouldn’t
have done is bring a volatile poltergeist into the situation. You’re just lucky things worked out as well as they did and that Big Joe isn’t in a position to sue for damages.”

“Eliot did do a number on the warehouse.” Lucy frowned into the phone, asking the question that had bothered her since Eliot had knocked over her nightstand, “How is it that he was able to manifest such physical energy? Most of my ghosts are barely there.”

“How strong the ghosts are depends on more than just you,” Karma replied. “There isn’t an exact formula, but the general consensus is that the strength of a ghost has to do with how much energy they carry over with them at the moment of their death. Murder victims have stronger presences as ghosts, because their deaths are often the result of a struggle. Old men who die peacefully in their sleep will often transcend without even passing through the ghost realm.”

“Well, Eliot’s death was certainly active.”

“And he had the poltergeist tendencies to prove it. In the future though, Lucy, the company would prefer that you not allow your ghosts to get quite so close to bringing about Armageddon.”

Lucy flushed. “Right, boss. Won’t happen again.”

“Excellent. That said. Good work. And thank you for saving my little brother’s ass, since he will probably never thank you himself.”

“He won’t?” Did that mean he wasn’t coming over? Was she never going to see him again? Had Karma done a reading? Did she see the Fates tearing them apart before Lucy achieved the sexual satisfaction at his hands she so richly deserved?

“He’s an ungrateful bastard,” Karma continued lightly. “Now, since you’ve done your part with the Mellman case, you have my permission to work on changing your client list. We’ll find someone else to handle the horny phantom population in the future.”

“We will?” Lucy felt like she was missing some crucial piece of the puzzle.

“You bet. Goodbye, Lucy.”

“Bye.”

“Oh, and Lucy? Look on your front step.” Karma cut the connection.

Lucy walked to her front door, wondering what surprise Karma had left on her doorstep this time. If it was a gigolo, she was going to be very disappointed. She only had eyes for a certain non-gigolo gigolo. Jake, the ungrateful bastard, had ruined her for other men. When she opened the door, she nearly walked into Jake’s fist, which he had just raised to knock. Lucy smiled. There were worse things than having a psychic for a boss.

Chapter Eleven: Hello, Handsome. Goodbye, Larrinator.

Jake barely had time register the door opening before a warm, soft bundle of feminine flesh launched at him. He caught her instinctively as Lucy wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck.

“Howdy, cowboy,” she purred, rocking against him enthusiastically before planting her mouth on his.

Jake’s brain instantly incinerated from the warm, wet heat of her. He’d had a hell of a time explaining to the cops exactly what had happened in the warehouse without sounding as crazy as Big Joe, but now all of the tension from the last three hours drained out of him as he fell willingly into her mouth.

She broke the kiss and wriggled against him, making his eyes roll back in his head a little. She snagged his earlobe gently between her teeth. “I missed you,” she whispered huskily.

“If this is the homecoming I get, I’ll have to go away more often.”

Lucy leaned back in his arms. With her torso angled away from him, her crotch pressed tighter against his, grinding hard. Jake groaned and closed his eyes in bliss. This woman was going to kill him. Luckily, she’d also be his first stop in the afterlife.

“You aren’t going anywhere until you have fulfilled your promise,” she said sternly.

“My promise?” he asked dazedly. He was too horny for riddles.

Lucy rocked her pelvis against the hard ridge in his jeans. “
This
promise.”

“Sweet Jesus,” Jake gasped out, and waited for his vision to clear.

“Take me to bed, Mr. Cox,” she purred, his name sounding dirtier on her lips than he had ever dreamed it could.

“Yes, ma’am.”

There was something deliciously wanton about jumping a man on her front porch. It was even more delicious when that man was Jake. For once, Lucy didn’t care that she didn’t look like a sex object. Feeling like one was far better than looking like one.

Jake carried her easily, as if she weighed nothing, his hands palming her ass and his body bumping up against hers as he strode back to her bedroom. He sat on her bed and she pressed him back onto the mattress, letting her hands run wild across his chest, shoving his shirt out of the way until he impatiently grabbed it and yanked it off in one quick move.

He reached for her, but Lucy was enjoying having control too much to surrender it just yet. She batted his hands away and pushed his shoulders back down. She knelt above him, straddling his waist, and stretched her arms above her head, arching her back sinuously. She reached down and slowly raised the hem of her shirt an inch, giving him a teasing glimpse of her stomach. He reached for her again, and Lucy dropped the shirt back into place to catch his hands. He let her pin them to the mattress, though he was strong enough to easily overpower her.

“Stay,” she commanded teasingly, languidly releasing his hands and reaching again for the hem of her shirt. This time, he made no attempt to interrupt her striptease, though his gaze scorched every inch of skin she revealed. The shirt rose slowly above her navel, her ribs. She paused, giving him a teasing glimpse of the underside of her breast—a little reminder that she was braless, since the one she had put on that morning was probably still on the warehouse floor, if it hadn’t become a banner at the police station by now.

“Come on, baby,” he murmured encouragingly, and Lucy grinned wickedly.

“What do you say?”

“Please.”

Lucy chuckled throatily and dragged the shirt up farther, shivering a little as the fabric abraded her nipples. She slipped the shirt over her head and tossed it aside with a flick of her wrist. She brought her hands down slowly, sliding them down the sides of her neck, slowly over her collarbone, down her chest to cradle herself, offering herself up to him.

Jake flipped her onto her back, tangling his fingers through hers as he dragged her hands away from her breasts to make room for his mouth. Lips, tongue, teeth, he scraped, suckled and licked until she was writhing beneath him. She arched, trying to get more. It wasn’t quite
enough
, but he held her down, held her back, right on the edge of the
more
she needed.

His lips pulled at her nipple and she moaned, “Jake.”

He chuckled, his breath hot against her skin. “What do you say?”

“
Please
,” she whimpered, twisting against the delicious weight of his chest pressed against her abdomen.

Jake rasped out a rough laugh that sounded more like a growl and made quick work of her jeans, unbuttoning them with quick, deft flicks of his long fingers and then dragging the clinging denim slowly down her hips, thighs, knees and ankles, his hands roaming every inch of the way, until she was spread before him in only her pale blue panties.

Girl-next-door panties. Lucy felt a twinge of nervousness, as if he would suddenly realize that she wasn’t a sex goddess and walk away, but she needn’t have worried. Jake fell on her, his mouth hot on hers, and Lucy wallowed in the heat of his skin.

He was so
warm
. She wrapped her legs around his, enjoying the rasp of his denim against her sensitized skin as she burrowed into his heat. She felt his pulse pounding hard against her, vibrating through his chest and into her. He was a living, breathing furnace—both the pulse and the heat vastly different from the men she usually spent the night with.

His long fingers slid beneath the fabric of her blue girl-next-door panties and Lucy emitted a thoroughly un-sex-goddess-like squeak and pressed herself up into his touch. Jake scraped his teeth against the side of her neck and worked his hand deeper.

“Whoa, baby! Free show!”

Lucy jolted and Jake froze over her. She peered past his shoulder to where the nasal voice had come from and saw the vague, mostly-transparent form of a ghost hovering over the bed.

“You want a hand there, stud?” the ghost asked, his shimmering form giving the slight impression of a lecherous leer. “I’ve always wanted to try a threesome. Of course, I thought it would be me and two chicks, but beggars can’t be choosers, am I right, champ?” The ghost drifted closer. “I bet I can make your lady scream.”

Lucy did in fact scream. In frustration.

“I thought they only showed up at night,” Jake growled, shifting his body to more completely conceal her from the ghost’s view.

“Usually at night,” Lucy corrected, all but whimpering. “But they pretty much show up whenever the hell they want.”

The ghost suddenly appeared on the pillow beside her. “Hey, baby, you wanna feel what a
real
man can do for you?”

Lucy was used to such lines. She just rolled her eyes and tried to think how she could get her clothes without giving the ghost a show and transcend the little punk as quickly as possible so she could get back to Jake. They had been
so close
. Dammit.

Jake, however, was not used to ghosts hitting on her. And he definitely wasn’t used to ghosts crawling into bed with her. He reared back as much as he could without exposing Lucy and pinned the ghost with a look of pure violence.

“Listen, Casper, you may be dead, but that doesn’t mean I can’t make you suffer. If you even think about laying one ghostly finger on this woman, I will perform an exorcism on your ass so fast it will make your god-damn hornball head spin. You get me? Now, get the fuck out and don’t come back unless you want to see what hell looks like.”

“Jake, he can’t—” Lucy began, but broke off when the ghost yipped in terror and made a beeline for the closet door, flying directly through it. Through the link, Lucy could feel him cowering on the floor among her shoes, but at the moment, she really didn’t care.

Jake groaned and dropped his head down beside hers on the bed. “Lucy, we have got to do something about these ghosts who are attracted to you. There must be something we can do to keep the horny loser set from barging in on us.”

“There is,” Lucy said, tipping her hips up against his. “Make me come.”

Jake looked her straight in the eye and growled, “Done.”

He whipped off her panties, hooked her legs over his shoulders, and bent to lick into her. Lucy’s toes curled, her back arched, and she jaggedly screamed his name as she came from the first unbearably perfect touch of his mouth, but he wasn’t done yet. He bit and licked, stroked and teased, working her higher until she shattered a second time, digging her heels into his back and keening senselessly.

When she could speak again, she panted his name and he looked up. “Inside me,” she managed to gasp. “Need you.”

Jake beat the speed record for stripping out of a pair of jeans and was back against her in a heartbeat. He fit against her and pushed inside slowly, stretching her with the almost pain that was so intensely pleasurable. Lucy moaned and her eyes fell closed, but Jake growled, “Look at me,” in a voice that sounded barely human, and her eyes flew open to lock with his.

The intensity in his eyes coupled with the intense pressure of his body invading hers was overwhelming. Lucy trembled, afraid she was going to burn up and disappear, but Jake wouldn’t let her. His eyes held hers, his focus pulling her along with him, making her match him stroke for stroke, moan for moan. They locked together, closer, tighter, unbearably, impossibly linked, until they exploded together, transcending every experience that came before, breaking them apart and fusing them together. One heart, one body, one spirit.

Lucy sighed, utterly replete.

Then sighed again, resigned. “I’d better go talk the ghost out of the closet.”

Jake grunted. Lucy figured that was the extent of his verbal ability at the moment. She patted his shoulder affectionately. He had a right to be exhausted; he’d moved mountains, erected pyramids, and rebuilt the world as far as she was concerned.

Jake rolled off her and flopped bonelessly onto his back. Lucy slipped off the bed and went in search of clothes that weren’t in the closet, enjoying the feel of his eyes on her back as she puttered around the room. She finally settled on his shirt, wallowing in the scent of him that enveloped her as she pulled it over her head.

“Is this going to be a common problem?” he asked from his lazy sprawl in the center of her bed, nodding toward the closet where the ghost could be heard whimpering to himself.

“Karma said my client list would change, but I’m always going to get visits from ghosts,” Lucy answered hesitantly.

“And they’re always going to pop in on us uninvited, whenever the hell they please?”

Lucy squirmed, terrified that he was going to announce that she wasn’t worth the trouble, grab his clothes and walk out of her life forever. “Probably,” she admitted reluctantly.

Jake frowned and then dropped his head back to the pillow and sighed heavily. “I guess I can put up with a few ghosts.” He shot her a devastating grin. “As long as I get you.”

Lucy beamed at him and padded over to the bed. The ghost in the closet could wait. Her own private gigolo came first.