Chapter 10 #2
He doesn’t rise to my bait when I’m being a smartass. In fact, he just smiles and inches a little closer to me. And if he figured out that being near to me calms me down, too… well, my opossum mate may be ‘dead’, but he’s very, very intuitive.
Once I finish cleaning, we wake up Gus so we can leave.
I’ve also gotten into the habit of draping Gus around my neck as we walk back to my shop.
It’s better than explaining why he’s floating through the air when Ash has him, and while he could walk on the sidewalk with us, I’m worried someone—mainly me—might step on his tail.
Nah. It’s better to keep him out of harm’s way.
Ash asked me once why I don’t drive. I have a car.
If I wanted to borrow his, I could. The keys are in the jeans on his ‘dead’ body and he said I’m more than welcome to use them if I need to.
But I don’t need to. I only use my car over long distances.
Inside Moonburrow, I prefer to walk because that’s what I’ve always done.
Besides, it’s barely a half an hour walk between Dough You Believe in Magic and my shop. To a shifter, that’s no distance at all.
As we approach my shop, Ash moving on to tell me and Gus about this murder mystery he was reading before he ‘died’, I stop short in front of the entryway, cutting him off when I start making a low-pitched hissing sound similar to a stray cat.
That’s my raccoon making itself known as it hits me that someone came onto my territory and fucked with it.
“Roxy? Are you okay?”
I swallow back the angry sound, then wave my hand at the lock.
It’s been scratched to hell. Deep grooves run along the metal where somebody clearly tried to force it open.
Once I calm my inner beast down, I tap one of my nails against the lock with its gouges—and I snort. “Good luck.”
“Roxy?”
Just in case, I crouch near the damaged lock, scooting closer, running my fingers over the scratches before rolling my eyes. It looks like some amateur went to work on it, but it held.
Of course it did.
“If it’s a lock I can pick, I won’t use it.” I straighten again. “No way in hell they were getting in. It’s the best on the market. The lock and the handle. Not even a bear shifter could snap this one with their strength.”
Ash ghosts his hand over my upper arm. “So someone tried to break in, but they couldn’t?”
That’s right.
“It’s my junk,” I say automatically. “Nobody gets to steal my junk. And if by some miracle they do get past this lock, that’s not all I protect my store with.”
Reaching into my pocket, I grab my keys. I insert the right one in the lock, preening when the chambers move, unlocking the door so we can get inside. As always, I step in first, then wait for Ash to float in after me.
I gesture around me. “When I decided to open up for business, I found a witch who would sell me a spell to protect it. If someone steps foot in here and I’m not already inside, the alarm goes off.
But it’s not a regular alarm.” I top the shell of my ear with my nail.
“Only I can hear it, like ringing in my ears. It’s annoying, but it works like… well, a charm.”
I’m proud of the lengths I’ve gone to keep my stuff safe. Ash? At first, his mouth twitches, but then his expression softens into something that would’ve had the old Roxy heading for the stairs to outrun the honest and open affection in his gaze.
“Wow. You… you’re absolutely amazing. Has anyone ever told you thought before?”
Only myself.
I don’t run, though I do let out another snort as I lock the door behind us. “You clearly need better standards.”
“I think mine are perfect.” He pauses for a moment. “A raccoon shifter clever enough to find a way to build an entire fortress around her trash.”
If it was anyone else who said that to me, I would take offense to it. But it’s Ashton Morgan, and he’s so genuinely earnest when he says that, all I do is jut my chin up and remind him, “It’s important trash.”
Ash laughs softly, and Alpha help me, I love that sound. Not only that, but the chokehold his honest amusement has on me is such a distraction that I nearly walk into my own counter.
My raccoon screeches a warning—or maybe that’s Gus since he jumps off of my shoulder and lands with a thump on top of the counter as I wheel away right before I make impact with the corner. Embarrassed and unsettled, I turn too quickly and nearly collide directly into Ash instead.
Even though he’s a ghost, Ash is solid enough to steady me automatically. One pale hand goes to my waist. The other lands on the edge of my jaw.
Suddenly he’s close. Very close. So close that I can see every shade of purple in his unique opossum shifter eyes. Deep inside my chest, my raccoon goes completely feral while I part my lips and gaze up at him.
Ash stills, too. He freezes, almost like that’s his opossum’s reaction, but then those beautiful eyes drop to my mouth. He sucks in an unnecessary breath, then quickly lifts his gaze again like he caught himself staring.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I didn’t mean to—”
He might not have.
I do.
Before I can think better of what I’m about to do, I say ‘fuck it’, hook my fingers in the material of his ghostly sweater, pull him down so that his mouth is within my reach, and I kiss him.
Ash freezes. For one horrible second, panic shoots through me that I was too impulsive, too bold, and that he’s only being so kind to me because he has no fucking choice.
He wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t the only one who could see him, and when he cautiously returns my kiss like he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do, I pull away from him.
“Shit, Ash. You gotta forgive me. I… I don’t know where I left my brain. You were there, and your mouth was there, and I—”
“Roxy.”
“I shouldn’t have done that.”
His brow furrows. “You shouldn’t have? I’m sorry, but I have to disagree. I think you very much should have done that.”
What?
Wait—
“You wanted me to kiss you? Then why did you tense up like that? Was it too soon or something?”
“To be completely honest,” he says hoarsely, “it wasn’t soon enough.”
My breath catches. “Then—”
“I’ve wanted to kiss you since the moment you flung a banana peel at me.”
I blink at him. “Why the hell didn’t you say so?”
A strange sadness flickers briefly across his face before he sighs and steps away from me. I don’t want to let him go, but I regretfully release my fingers from his sweater so he can put some space between our bodies.
“I’m dead, Roxy. Or as good as.” His gaze drifts away from mine for just a second.
“What would a feisty, gorgeous shifter like you want with a male like me?” His smile turns crooked and self-deprecating all at once.
“I couldn’t even die right. And I’ve never kissed anyone before.
I’m cursed and you’re stuck with me since Honey is out of town and, for some reason, you can see me…
and I think I have any right to kiss you? ”
Of course he does. He’s my mate.
Only… maybe I’m trying to convince myself that holding off on revealing the truth is more for his sake than mine, but I get the feeling that—if I confess the truth to him right now—it’ll only confuse him more.
Make him think that I made a move on him only because I know that he’s my mate when, really, even if he wasn’t, after this past week and how close we’ve grown, I probably would’ve kissed him anyway.
I’d do more than that if I could—
I don’t like to think I’m a perv. A healthy sexual female shifter if that, and one who decided to get some practice before settling down with her fated mate.
I know what I like, I know what I want, and if my gaze drops low when Ash moves his hand to cover his crotch, you can’t really blame me, right?
Especially when I step into Ash and take his hand, easing it away from the obvious bulge in his blue jeans.
A tiny smirk tugs on my lips.
Ash, meanwhile, has gone bright red despite the lack of coloring in his cheeks. So he’s a ghost. He can’t eat, sleep properly, or use the bathroom—but he sure as fuck can get hard.
I swallow the bubble of laughter in my throat. “Not so dead after all, huh, Ash?”
“Ignore it,” he mutters. “That’s what I do.”
I raise my eyebrows. “You say that like you’ve had a lot of practice.”
He gulps. “Only every second I’m near you. It keeps happening, and I can’t seem to control it, and I tried to hide it best I can because… I don’t know. It’s my problem to deal with. So, please, Roxy, just ignore it.”
Not on his afterlife. “What if I don’t want to?”
Ash looks like he might actually combust, though he doesn’t have an answer to that.
I glance toward Gus, who’s now sitting atop the counter watching us with wide black eyes like this is the greatest television episode he’s ever seen.
I move over to him. “Gus,” I say very seriously, “I need you to do me a favor. Go upstairs and watch over Ash’s body. Can you do that?”
The opossum chitters immediately.
Ash lets out a startled laugh.
I look at my mate. “What?”
Ash shakes his head while trying—and failing—not to smile again. “He says if you want to go out without your fur on and bounce around with me, that’s fine with him. He doesn’t mind.”
Naked and bouncing… holy shit. Is that how Gus interprets mating?
I choke.
Gus chitters again.
Ash’s cheeks go even redder. “He says he usually covers his eyes with his paws when Mother and the wolf are bouncing, but he’s happy to curl up next to the other Brother while we’re… bouncing so we can be alone.”
“Oh my Alpha,” I bite out, not sure if I want to laugh, cry, or call Honey and fill her in on that little tidbit at least. “Gus!”
On the counter, Gus looks unbearably pleased with himself. And you know what? He has reason to be.
In the end, I just scratch his back, then tell him to go.
He squeaks once—Ash’s cheeks are now basically on fire so I can only imagine what Gus’s parting shot to him is—before he races for the stairs, his tail the last I see of him before he’s gone.
I’ll have to go up there to open Ash’s door for Gus, plus there’s no way I’m about to mate Ash in the middle of my store, but first…
Once we’re alone, I cup Ash’s jaw before he can say anything else, then kiss him again so he knows I really mean it.
This time, there is no hesitation or surprise. My mate kisses me back instantly. It’s not a very smooth, practiced kiss, and knowing that no other female has been able to claim these lips only ratchets up my desire for Ash even higher.
When I pull back, his ghost form looks more solid than ever beneath my touch. His breathing sounds rough despite the fact that I’m not entirely convinced ghosts are supposed to be able to breathe. Old habit, I guess, but the sound… yeah. It does something to me.
I brush my thumb along his jaw slowly before asking in a husky voice: “What do you say, Ash? Feel like bouncing?”
Ash’s eyes darken immediately to a deep violet color.
“Alpha,” he says throatily, “yes.”