JanesPrize (3 page)

“Responsible?” She was beginning to sound
like an echo.

“You know the saying that when you save
someone’s life you’re responsible for them forever?”

Did she? She couldn’t remember if she’d
known that or not because Pierce had pulled her against his side and his arm
was now around her waist. She breathed in a lovely aroma of tweed and soap and
man.

He was still talking as he led her to a
stone bench set into some bushes. “Do you have a name?”

“Jane.”

“That’s it?

“Right. Just plain Jane.”

“Well, plain Jane, I’m pleased to know you,
although you’re anything but plain. You’re quite beautiful in fact. As I was
saying, it’s the same with a ghost. You touch, you own.”

She had an insane desire to giggle. It was
like one of those notices warning about breakages in souvenir shops. The heady
perfume from the bush mingled with Pierce’s scent, making her dizzy and
disoriented.

He sat her down on the bench and she bent
forward to put her head between her knees. His hand was on the nape of her
neck, his fingers stroking up into her hair. God it felt good.

What was she thinking? She sat up. “So
what’s it like being a ghost?”

He sat next to her, his hand still on her.
“Pretty damn boring. You have to come back at least once a month to your
assigned haunt and go through the last hour or so of your life. Over and over
again.”

“Really? I had no idea there were rules.”

“Of course. How do you think ghosts keep
from running into each other? Some places, like dungeons, might have half a
dozen spirits wandering around. They have to take their turn.”

“I see. So who is the woman?”

“My stepmother. She really did poison me,
so she’s in a different category.” His hand moved from her neck to her shoulder
and he pulled her against him. “She’s condemned to haunt. I do it because I’m
supposed to be looking for rest.”

“And are you?”

“I guess I am. Was. I’m not sure what
happens now. Not too many of us get to come back as real people.” He stroked
her hair with his other hand, pushing it back from her face. “I guess I’ll know
if I stay around. I’m very grateful to you. You know the worst thing about
being a ghost?”

“I couldn’t begin to imagine.” She breathed
the words and her pulse quickened, a delicious fog seeping into her mind. This
was pure fantasy, divorced from real life. Whoever heard of a ghost becoming a
flesh and blood man? If this was a hallucination she’d make the most of it. Her
body was no longer under her control, her limbs heavy, her whole being
concentrated on the warmth, the scent, the feel of him. She leaned into him,
his chest a solid, warm wall at her side. Suddenly she was conscious of the
thin cotton of her pull-on top sliding over her breasts, and her nipples
puckered. The same delicious ache as when she used her vibrator began in her
belly. The cotton pants grew moist between her legs.

“The worst is not being able to touch
people, to feel the flesh under your hands…” His fingers traced a pattern on
her back. “Not breathing in the scent of a woman…” He tilted her chin toward
him with his free hand. “Touching your lips to hers. I haven’t kissed a woman
for eighty years.” The last words were whispered against her mouth. “I’ve
dreamed of holding a woman in my arms again. May I?” The pressure of his lips
was gentle on hers.

Chapter Three

She groaned and melted against him. Her
lips opened as if of their own accord as she responded to a man who craved a
woman as much as she had longed for a living, breathing man. What had he said?
She was responsible for him. He was hers.

His free hand trailed from her chin down
her neck to her shoulder, to her breast. Her back arched, thrusting her chest
against his seeking fingers. “Yes,” she breathed again. “Yes.” She didn’t care
if she was shameless, driven by primitive lust and instinct. She glued her lips
to his, turned more toward him and lifted one leg over his knees. He made an
appreciative sound in his throat, dropped his hand to her bottom and lifted one
cheek more fully onto his lap.

She raised her arm to loop it around his
neck. Her watch glimmered as the moonlight caught it.

Shit!
She
pulled her mouth from his and looked at the time. “Shit!” she said aloud.

“What is it?”

“It’s two o’clock. I was supposed to film at
one.”

She thrust herself away from him. “This is
lovely, Pierce, and please don’t think I’m not enjoying it but I’ll have to
take a rain check. Can we pick this up again later?” She was on her feet
already, pulling down the top of her tracksuit to cover her bare midriff.

“Come with me.” She took him by the hand
and pulled him to his feet. “Stay with me. I don’t want you disintegrating and
disappearing. We have unfinished business.”

She led him into the house and picked up
the video camera in her room. She switched it on. “Follow me. And I mean
follow. I don’t want you in any of the shots.”

This time it took her less than twenty
minutes as she jogged through the rooms, panning around each one of them. As
they went through the room with the oil painting she had time to notice that
the blonde woman and the bar had disappeared.

Pierce strode after her through the rooms
that had once been so familiar to him. He still felt stunned at his rapid
transfer from ghost to living, breathing humanity and he still had to figure
out the woman who had brought him back. She wasn’t like any female he’d come
across in his first life. In those days there had been a clear distinction
between “good girls” and the ones who would do whatever a man wanted. Jane’s
response to his kiss had been surprising to say the least. Yet she didn’t act
or speak like a loose girl, despite the strange clothes and lack of corsets.

She obviously had some kind of job to do
and was going about it seriously. In the dim light he could see her face set in
concentration, a pale oval with smooth skin. He had already noted the deep blue
of her eyes. She was pretty, and young. Getting to know her better would be
exciting.

Back in her room Jane set the camcorder
down and turned to Pierce. “We have three hours until the next one.”

“The next what? You’ll forgive me but I
have no idea what you were doing.”

Her gaze locked on to his like metal drawn
to a magnet. The last thing she’d expected in this assignment was to find a man
who exuded sexual attraction like she’d never felt before. Her head told her to
be sensible but her heart silenced the nagging voice of reason. She was out of
her everyday world and in some fantasyland which promised her untold delight if
she would only believe.

“Let’s save the explanations for later,
shall we? What were you saying about not having kissed a woman for decades?”

She stepped close to him and tried to put
her arms around his neck. To do it she would have to lift herself almost on
tiptoe. She knew he was tall but hadn’t realized how tall. She was no midget,
standing a tad over five-six in her stocking feet, but he was a good head
taller. That made him about six-three. She gave up on his neck and satisfied
herself with slipping her hands inside his open jacket. The tweed was slightly
scratchy and the friction sent little shivers up her arms. The lining inside
the jacket was silky and cool, the perfect yin to the yang of the hairy tweed.
If those feelings were delicious, his body was even better. Her probing fingers
traced the swell of hard muscles beneath his linen shirt.

Close up she could appreciate even more the
slant of his jaw and the shape of his mouth. His lips were full and
soft-looking. About the only soft thing about him. His heart hammered under her
palm as her hand rose up his ribs. Nice to know he was growing as aroused as
she was. He put his arms around her and drew her in tighter until there was not
even a hairsbreadth between them. She felt the other hardness then. His
erection pressed against the soft flesh of her belly. She wanted to open her
legs more than she’d wanted anything for a long time.

She tilted her face up and he understood
she needed more of those wonderful kisses. He obliged immediately and this time
his mouth ravaged hers, his tongue thrusting inside her mouth, licking,
probing. His thighs pressed against her legs.

Warm hard hands slipped under her thin top
and wandered up her back then around to her breasts. Since she wore nothing
under the cotton suit, she got the immediate benefit of the probing fingers that
circled around her nipples. He seized each bud between thumb and forefinger.
Immediately her thighs were bathed with a fresh gush of creamy moisture.

She couldn’t think, couldn’t move and hung
like a doll in his arms. The pressure from his thighs pushed her back until she
met the resistance of her rumpled cot. They fell onto the bed and she squirmed
around until she lay completely underneath him.

She pushed on his shoulders until he
released her bruised mouth. “Let me get my clothes off.”

“Best idea yet.” He rolled off her and onto
his feet.

She sat up and pulled her top over her
head. The cooler air on her superheated skin felt wonderful. He had already
shucked his jacket and shirt by the time she stood to slip her pants down. She
kicked them off and watched as he undid the buttons of his fly, his suspenders
hanging around his hips. His chest was every bit as gorgeous as she’d imagined.
Donald Duck in the wall socket was still doing a good job and Pierce’s skin
gleamed, muscles rippling in the faint glow. A wedge of dark hair spread across
his chest and down until it disappeared into his pants. His nipples were brown
and flat, nestled in a swathe of silky hair. She absolutely knew it would be
silk beneath her fingers.

Six-pack abs is what they called them but
Jane had never seen them in real life before except on cover models. Maybe more
men had them a century ago, or there was something about being a ghost that
produced a body to die for, excuse the pun.

She dragged her eyes away from the wavelets
in his chest and watched in fascination as he discarded his trousers. He wore
long cotton underwear like short long johns but it was far from comic. The thin
fabric clung to every line and hollow of his hips and thighs and cupped the
delicious mound at the base of his belly. She was almost sorry when he pulled
the underwear down. Almost, because what he then revealed was worth waiting
for. A line of dark hair inched down his abdomen and finished in a neat nest
around his penis and balls. His cock was thick and looked incredibly long as it
stood away from his body, hard and proud.

She stretched out her hand toward him. “Oh
my God!”

He grinned at her, a shit-eating grin like
Jack Nicholson in his younger days. “Like it?”

“So far I love it. What are you going to do
with it?” Was this Jane Chartraine talking? Plain Jane who lived at home and
kept her vibrator hidden behind some boxes on the top shelf of her closet where
her mother would never find it? Where had she ever learned to say things like
that?

His gaze swept her from head to toe and she
knew he liked what he saw. “I’m going to invite you to lie down again and
spread those lovely legs. Then I’m going to kiss you and lick you all over.”
She closed her eyes as uncontrollable tremors rippled through her. Imagining it
was driving her half crazy. Doing it would send her over the edge.

“Open your eyes.” She obeyed. He touched
his cock and it jumped a little. “Then I’m going to push this right inside you
as hard and as far as it will go. Does that sound good?”

“It sounds too good to be true.”

“It will be true, never fear. So are you
going to lie down for me?”

Jane settled on her back and kept her eyes
on him as he came nearer. He paused by the side of the cot. “Touch me,” he
said. She put out one hand and ran her fingers along the velvety shaft. It was
his turn to close his eyes and let out a long sigh.

“The pleasures of the flesh,” he murmured.
“There’s nothing else like it.”

“Come to me,” she whispered and spread her
legs wide.

He lowered himself on the cot gently, as if
anxious not to be too rough in his need, and crouched between her thighs. “I
want to taste you.”

“Yes.” She bent her knees to give him
access to her most intimate parts.

His tongue edged between her pussy lips and
he wrapped his arms around her knees. The tip of his tongue licked and teased
her clit in a way her own fingers never had. She was so wet she thought her
insides must be melting. Her hands rested on his hair and she held him there
while his clever tongue thrust deeper inside her.

She felt his teeth nip at the loose flesh
of her clit while he tongued the nub once again. She cried out half in agony,
half in delirious joy.

At the sound, he lifted his head. “Too
soon,” he murmured.

He slid along her body and took her nipple
between his lips. As he drew it into his mouth he edged his cock between her
legs. Slowly he nudged her legs even wider open and his long hard shaft began
to fill her.

She cried out again and he withdrew a
fraction.

“No,” she moaned. “Stay there!”

He raised his head to look at her, watch
her. She felt his soft breath on her cheek.

“Put your arms around me.”

After a moment’s hesitation she raised her
arms to rest on his shoulders. His skin was warm and silky under her caress.
Immediately his hands found her breasts and his mouth claimed hers. With a
murmur of acquiescence in her throat, she allowed him his way.

Never had she met a man who concentrated on
a woman with such intensity, as if everything else on earth had ceased to
exist. True, he claimed not to have made love to a woman for decades, but there
was something more than raw hunger in him. She had supposed she would embark on
a purely physical encounter but as she allowed herself to float away she felt a
tremor of unease—a peculiar combination of apprehension and pleasure at being
the focus of such fierce attention. Instinct told her this was a man who could
not only make her want to be naked with him but could also strip her mind bare,
could discover everything worth knowing about her, every private fold of flesh
and thought.

Part of her wanted to hold back, to save
something of herself, but she couldn’t do it. And he was just as wild, his
mouth hungry on hers, eager on her body, his hands trembling as they moved over
her. He murmured her name and his voice was rough and urgent, adding to the
power of his caress.

She was drowning, letting herself go,
knowing she was lost. The possibility of any protective emotional distance was an illusion. Whether she liked it
or not, life meant emotional involvement and involvement meant taking risks.

Her head told her this was one big risk.

He entered her a little more and the wave
began to build again deep inside her. Until he withdrew again.

Her cries were almost continuous now, deep
moans torn from her throat as she tossed her head from side to side, begging
and pleading with him for release.

At last, he took pity on her and the tip of
his cock came to rest tight up against the wall of her womb. If she had thought
the rest was unbearable, this was sweet torture. He pressed against the
sensitive spot deep inside her and she came with a final cry and a rush of
moisture.

Within seconds she felt his body convulse
and his cock thrust even harder as he was racked by his own release.

After, when he lay inert in her cot and she
heard his regular breathing she slipped from his side. It was as if she had
opened a door to a dark, mysterious cave and stepped inside. There she had been
shaken by what she had encountered.

She stood by the window, lifted the curtain
and gazed out in the darkness, looking at her reflection. Emotions were
universal and timeless and her emotions had rioted out of control. Were still
making her heart pound and her skin tingle. In the window glass she watched
herself run the tip of her tongue over her bruised and swollen lips. Emotions
could trump reason over and over again. One of the strongest emotions was love.
The truth of that could not be denied.

Why was the word “love” floating on the
edge of her consciousness?

She returned to the bedside and looked down
at Pierce as he slept. She was a grown woman with free choice. She could leave,
she could find somewhere else to sleep or she could stay. She slipped into the
bed and nestled against him. He murmured something and wrapped his arms around
her. She sighed. She might pretend to herself that she still had a choice but
in her heart she knew it was made.

They slept curled in each other’s arms
until her watch beeped at five in the morning.

“Oh God!” She flung an arm over her eyes.
“It can’t be time.”

Pierce nuzzled her neck. “Time for what?
Are you ready again?”

His cock stirred against her thigh.

“I have to film.”

She pushed the covers from her naked body.
“What the hell did I do with my clothes?”

“Stay naked,” he whispered. “Who’s to see
you but me? And I love you naked.”

He was right. The night was warm. There was
no reason to wear a stitch of clothing.