Chapter 48
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
GHOST
Light.
It burns my retinas, causing my lids to stir.
Strawberry shampoo.
My lungs expand on their own for what feels like the first time in eternity as I breathe in the familiar, intoxicating scent.
Electricity.
It thrums from where a beautiful woman’s hand rests—burns across my nerve endings, breathing life to parts of me I thought had died long ago.
Blue.
Blue like the Salton Sea, like the crying skies over Moriton in the summer. Blue like sadness, like pain, like loss. Blue like Brett’s eyes.
Tears stream down her beautiful soft cheeks, and I want so badly to reach up and wipe them away. To have a taste, like I have so many times before.
And so, I do.
“ Brett ,” I whisper, lost in the relief swimming in her beautiful eyes. “Why are you crying?” She shakes her head. Her puffy pink lips parted slightly as she tries to form words. I reach up, cupping her cheek and brushing those pesky tears away with the pad of my thumb. “What’s wrong, darling?”
“I thought—'' She takes a shuddering breath, collapsing onto my chest as sobs wrack her body. “I thought I lost you.”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” I tut, running my fingers through her silky raven hair. Soft. So, so soft. Just like it’s always been. “Neither heaven nor hell want me. Looks like you’ll be stuck with me for quite some time.”
“That’s not funny,” she murmurs, crawling onto the bed and curling into my side when she realizes I’m not strong enough to haul her by force. “You could have actually died, you know. And you were just going to leave me!”
“I had to,” I murmur, taking a deep breath of her intoxicating scent as electricity thrums across my skin. “Although, I am thankful you were there. I would have been tiger food had your vicious attack cat not snuck in Rupert’s pouch.”
“That was pretty legendary,” she giggles, turning those brilliant sapphires onto me. “Hey, Ghost?”
“Yes, darling?” I ask.
She’s silent for a good while, tracing gentle circles along my chest with her fingertip, deep in thought. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about. Something that happened at the Sanctum, after you…”
“Almost died?”
She grins, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “I saw a girl. A young girl.”
I pause, my mind reeling at what this means. If she really saw a young girl, that means… “Are you sure?”
She nods. “Kain saw her too. We didn’t know who she was or what she wanted, but… Ghost, she saved your life. She shot this weird silver stuff into your wound, then totally disappeared. Like a fucking…”
“Ghost.”
She nods, nibbling her bottom lip nervously. “Who do you think she was?”
I sigh, running a hand over my face. “She didn’t happen to have any… strange animals with her? ”
“ Yes… ”
“Well, then, that must have been the Madam in Training,” I say, an ironic smile twisting my mouth. “If she helped you, I doubt her interests are aligned with the Sanctum. But it would probably be a good thing to check into, just in case.”
Brett nods, lying her head back on my chest with a relieved sigh. “I thought you would be mad I didn’t tell you.”
“Why in God's name would I be mad about that?”
She shrugs, a sarcastic little smile tugging the corner of her lip. “I don’t know. Because you’re… difficult?”
I chuckle, reaching up to the back of her neck and squeezing lightly in a warning. “Always so bratty.”
Brett giggles. Snuggles her face deeper into my side. We lie like that for a while, nothing but the steady beep of monitors in the background to break the comfortable silence between us. I’m so at ease, so blissfully peaceful, that I’m jerked from sleep as Brett’s tinkling voice fills the air.
“Hey, Ghost?”
“Hmm?” I murmur, lazily running my fingers through her hair. “What’s up?”
“I just wanted to tell you… You make this world a much less shitty place.”
I chuckle low in my chest, shaking my head gently. “I love you too, darling,” I whisper, pulling her up for a long, passionate kiss. “ God, do I love you .”
I’m discharged that same afternoon—much to the dismay of the attending handling my case. But nothing will stop me from holding Brett the way I’ve wanted to since the moment I gained consciousness.
As soon as I step into the main room of my lair, Rupert throws himself onto me, nearly knocking me to the floor as he assaults me with slobbering kisses.
“I missed you too, buddy,” I murmur, my eyes stuck on Brett’s happy little smile as I run my fingers through Rupert's fur. Brett’s attack cat rounds the corner, greeting me with a disgruntled yowl, only to rub himself against my leg a moment later. “Yeah, I missed you too.”
I crouch to pet Venom, only to have him swat at me with his T-rex arms, his yellow eyes narrowed at my blatant disrespect. Brett giggles, swooping him into her arms and giving him a few forehead kisses. To my amazement, the angry little cat purrs, closing his eyes in contentment as Brett reaches up to scratch behind his ears.
“He’s been a little grouchy ever since I told him I was going to pick you up from the hospital.” Venom opens his eyes, staring at me with a look that screams I was hoping you had died.
I chuckle under my breath as Orion rounds the corner, skidding across the tile in his socks in his haste to get to me. He pulls me into a bear hug, only to reach back and send a punch to my shoulder.
“The fuck was that for?”
“For not taking me with you to the Sanctum in the first place. Stubborn old bastard.”
I roll my eyes despite the smile tipping my lips. “I’m not even that old!”
“To me, you are.”
Brett’s giggle fills the halls, and I glance over to see her face spread in the most heart-stopping smile I’ve seen. She’s practically glowing—no, she is glowing—and it’s the most perfect thing I’ve ever laid eyes on. Pulling from Orion’s embrace, I give him a brotherly slap on the shoulder and turn to Brett, my skin humming with the need to have her against me.
Sensing the change in the air, Orion rubs his hand on the back of his neck. “Hey, Rupert? Feel like going for a walk?”
Rupert woofs happily, his tongue lolling as his front legs spring off the ground in a couple of happy hops. Orion chuckles, leading Rupert toward the exit without so much as a glance over his shoulder. “Have fun, crazy kids!”
I roll my eyes in time with Brett, matching grins on our faces. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” she asks.
“God, I fucking hope so,” I murmur, pulling her flush against my chest. I trail my hand up her side, reveling in the gentle dip and flow of her natural curves. Electricity hums beneath every inch of my skin, drawing me to her like a moth to a fucking forest fire.
My head dips low, and I press my face into the crook of her neck as I inhale her intoxicating scent. “Brett… if I have to go another minute without being inside you, I think I’m going to die.”
She throws her head back in a laugh, which comes to a halt when she sees the deadly emotion swirling in my gaze. “Oh…”
“ Oh is right, my darling,” I whisper, nipping gently at her delicate skin. Brett whimpers as a shiver runs through her, and I cup her ass with my palms, hoisting her up and binding her legs behind my waist. “I’m going to fuck you until you can’t breathe. Until you’re so consumed with me, there’s not another thought in your pretty little mind. I’m going to own you, Brett.”
Her throat bobs in a swallow as I rush us to the bedroom. I toss her to the bed, and she lets out a little yelp as her head smacks lightly against the headboard. My concern quickly dissolves as her bright laughter fills the space, only to dissolve a moment later as I get on my hands and knees and crawl to her.
“You don’t realize what you do to me,” I growl, prowling closer at an excruciating speed. She looks deep into my eyes, and what she sees doesn’t scare her. It lights a new kind of fire in her, a fresh new spark of desire. And when I finally press my lips to her, she kisses me back with just as much fever.
“I’m drowning in you, Brett,” I murmur into her neck, not willing to break our bond just yet. “I’m drowning, and I don’t want any fucking air. Never again. ”
Yanking her pants from her hips, I begin trailing kisses down her abdomen, over the peaks of her hip bones and down to the crease where her thigh meets her hip. Brett’s moans fill my chest with desperation as I lash my tongue against her needy clit, fighting the urge to devour her.
I lap every drop of her arousal, moving against her like this might be the last meal I’ll ever have. And when her walls collapse and her body shudders with an earth-shattering release, I don’t give her any relief. Positioning my cock at her entrance, I push into her with one powerful movement, the feel of her walls tightening around me, drawing a strangled gasp from my lips.
“This fucking pussy,” I groan, moving in her with a vicious kind of desperation. “You’re so fucking perfect, Brett. The way you grip me. The way your pussy cries for me. All of it is so. Fucking. Perfect,” I growl, punctuating each word with a thrust.
Brett gasps for air, her eyes rolling to the back of her head as her pleasure crests. Just before she comes undone, I wrap my palm around her throat, cutting off the blood flow to her brain. She writhes beneath me, her lids growing heavy as she slips into darkness.
I keep fucking her as her body goes limp beneath me. Her body still reacts, still grips me and shudders as she nears her release. The sight is so fucking hot, so indescribably, that when her walls clench in release, I follow.
“Fuck!” I groan, shoving my hips flush against hers as my cock throbs, filling her in the deepest spot. Brett mumbles unintelligibly as she comes back, her gaze foggy and a little smile playing at her lips.
“That was new…”
“You come so much harder like that,” I murmur, leaning down and pressing a lingering kiss on her swollen lips. “So much more uninhibited.”
She giggles tiredly as I pepper sweet kisses across her nose and lids, only for her to return the gesture by fluttering her lashes gently against my cheek. I jerk back from the strange flutter of electricity, gazing down at the beautiful creature in shock.
“What… why did you do that?”
“It’s a butterfly kiss,” she murmurs, her cheeks heating as she gives me a sleepy smile. “You never had one?”
“Never. I… enjoyed it.”
She laughs again, the sound full of life and mirth. “Come here, then.”
She repeats the process to the other side, only this time, the fluttering is in my chest, right where my heart is.
“Brett?”
“Yes, Ghost?” she whispers, her voice laden with sleep. I know in a few moments, she’ll be asleep, but I need her attention for one last thing.
“I love you,” I whisper, placing a kiss square in the middle of her brow. “Endlessly. Unequivocally. You are so much more than mine, darling. You’re my everything. And I’ll spend the rest of my days haunting you, if you’ll let me.”
Brett reaches up, fluttering her lashes against my cheek in that small, intoxicating way. “Deal. Oh, and Ghost?”
“Yes, darling?”
“I fucking love you too.”
I grin, pulling her impossibly tighter against me, needing every part of her skin against mine. “I know, darling,” I whisper, placing a delicate kiss on her brow. “I know.”