The Ghost Exterminator (18 page)

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Mile-High Cuddles

“My parents loved you,” Wyatt said as a peace offering, raising his voice above the drone of the jet’s engines. Jo sat silently across from him. She’d been pouting since before takeoff, though he couldn’t imagine why. They were close to being done with this fiasco. She should be relieved.

“Your mother thought the ghost thing was a metaphor and your father thinks I’m a freak,” she said, never taking her eyes off the window.

“Hey, at least you didn’t throw anyone into the pool.”

Jo’s only response was to grimace, as if the debacle at her cousin’s party had been her fault instead of his.

Wyatt watched her, studying the face that, in a ridiculously short span of time, had become as familiar to him as his own. It defied rational thought that he should be able to truly know her after only a week, but he was sure of her. Sure that she would never stop surprising him, but just as certain that he knew who she was at her core.

Jo Banks was not a woman who bottled up her emotions. Her silent stewing could only mean that something was wrong.

“Are you mad at me for springing my parents on you?”

Introducing Jo to his parents had been a spur of the moment decision. The impulse had surprised Wyatt, but no less than it had stunned his parents, who had never been introduced to a single date or girlfriend in his entire life. Wyatt had always been careful to keep the various parts of his life separate. Business, family, sex. There was no crossover. Business for the mind, family for the heart, sex for the body. There was no mingling of motivations, no mixing emotions. Until Jo somehow insinuated herself into every aspect of his life.

“You could have warned me.” The words were a complaint, but her voice was expressionless. His parents, clearly, were not the root of her mood.

He took another stab in the dark. “You were right about Moonbeam.”

“Mm-hmm.”

Wyatt waited for the “I told you so”, but Jo just continued to stare out the window. Maybe it was the schmoozing that had bothered her. The boring, endless smiling for the press. “I’m sorry I had to drag you along. I know how boring those things can be.”

That caught her attention, pulling it away from the window. “No, it was interesting.” She didn’t appear to be lying. “Especially watching you work the room like a pro. Have you ever considered going into politics?”

“There’s too much uncertainty in politics.”

“That’s right. You have to be in control. I forgot.” She turned her face back to the window, her expression blanking again.

Wyatt sighed and raked his hands through his hair. “Come on, Jo. I’m terrible at this. Would you just tell me what’s wrong?”

She glanced over at him, surprise clearly written across her face. “You know something’s wrong?”

Wyatt managed to keep from laughing somehow. She was about as subtle as a neon-flashing billboard. “I’m very astute. Come on. Whatever it is, you can tell me.”

She stared out the window, chewing on her lower lip. Wyatt could only watch her abuse that lip for so long. He reached across to unfasten her seatbelt, pulling her onto his lap.

“Hey! I’m supposed to remain seated with my seatbelt securely fastened.”

For a supposed rule-breaker, she really got off on following the rules.

“I promise not to let the stewardess spank you.” When she stiffened and tried to shove away, he wrapped both arms around her snugly. “Let me be your seatbelt. Now, tell me what’s bothering you.”

She gave up struggling and slumped against him. When she spoke, her voice was petulant. “You really would make a great politician.”

“That doesn’t sound like a compliment,” he said lightly.

She elbowed him hard in the stomach. Wyatt quickly moderated his demeanor. Apparently this was no laughing matter. Though he couldn’t figure out why Jo should be upset that he’d be good in an arena he had no interest in whatsoever.

“I’m no Martha Stewart.”

Wyatt snorted, even though he knew he was risking another flying elbow. “No. You certainly aren’t.” What a nightmare that would be. Martha Stewart was an automaton of perfection. Jo was real and impetuous and
alive
. “But if you want, I can give you some tips so you, too, can go to jail for insider trading.”

She glowered at him, unamused. “You’re so
normal
.”

Wyatt frowned. “That still doesn’t sound like a compliment.”

“I hate being around normal people. No one makes me feel more like a freak than a normal person.”

Wyatt felt a sudden pain in his stomach that had nothing to do with where Jo’s elbow had landed moments earlier. Did she hate being around him? And if she did, why did it matter so much to him? They were just linked by ghosts and sexual attraction, right? When had respect and affection entered into the equation? When had he started
liking
her so damn much?

“You aren’t a freak,” he insisted, his voice catching a little. Had he really made her so miserable?

“Yes, I am. You know I am. No powder blue suit can change that.”

Wyatt frowned, confused. She was wearing sort of an orangey color, but color-blindness wasn’t at the heart of the issue, so he let it pass. “So you’re different. So what? Normal is boring. I find I tolerate freaks remarkably well.”

“So
what
?” she mimicked. She stiffened in his arms, but he wouldn’t let her pull away. “This may come as a shock to you, Mr. Haines, but being regarded as a freak isn’t a laugh a minute. It pretty much sucks.”

“Who regards you as a freak?”

“Yo—
Everyone
. The world.
They
do,” she insisted, growing more vehement with each word.

He shrugged. “Who cares what they think?”

“
I
do!” She shouted the words, and then froze. Her eyes widened as she stared at him, awareness flooding her face. “
I
care what the world thinks of me. God, I must be the worst rebel ever. I’m so busy worrying about not being approved of that I can never really commit myself to the rebellion. I might as well have been Little Miss Perfect like Beth and Kim. I was so damn scared of not being normal that I never let myself be anything else.”

“I hate to break it to you, kid, but no one’s really normal. It’s all varying degrees of weird. On that scale, you’re as normal as minivans and apple pie.”

She sighed, dropping her head back on his shoulder. “Cake.”

“Excuse me?”

“Cake. I can’t make pie. Pie is hard.”

“Cake is easy.” He laughed. “Yeah. I remember. Apple cake, then.”

“I’m normal. Sort of,” she said, testing out the revelation. “
You
thought I was a total freak when we met.”

There was a catch, a hesitation in her tone, but Wyatt had had more than his fill of soul-searching conversations for the week. He designed his answer to keep the conversation light and laughing.

“Yeah, well, I’m a prejudiced asshole. I don’t know why you listen to anything I say.”

“I like listening to what you say,” she said. “It tells me what not to do.”

He pinched her and she yelped, squirming around on his lap in a way that made life suddenly seem more interesting. The orange dress she wore had ridden up as she wriggled on his lap, giving him an excellent view of her long legs from mid-thigh down. The snug sweater buttoned up over her breasts had twisted until it was stretched tight across her impressive assets.

Wyatt cleared his throat roughly. He nipped at her ear, his fingers toying with the bottom button of the sweater. “You know,
normal
people join the mile-high club every day.”

“The ghosts,” she reminded him half-heartedly, turning in his lap so she could twine her arms around his neck.

“You can control the ghosts,” he said at his most persuasive, nibbling down the side of her neck. His hands slipped under the sweater, but she squirmed away from the touch before he could get to the good stuff, so he changed direction, stroking down her stomach until she gasped, around her waist, over her hips and down to cup her ass, holding her tight against him.

“We shouldn’t,” she protested weakly, but her body leaned into him, proving the words a lie.

Wyatt had a sudden flashback to high school and trying to convince the head cheerleader that good girls
did
. He couldn’t remember whether he’d actually managed to get her out of her clothes, and right now, with Jo’s proximity siphoning all the blood to the lower half of his body, he didn’t have the brainpower to care. “We
really
should,” he urged, his breath teasing the soft skin at the underside of her jaw. Then he caught her face in his hand and turned it toward him.

The kiss started off slow and persuasive, closed-mouthed and innocent. Well, somewhat innocent. One hand skated underneath her sweater, spanning her waist, sliding up her ribcage and breezing against the lower curve of her breasts before retreating back down, teasingly tentative, a game of hesitation, advance and retreat.

She leaned into him with a soft little sigh against his mouth, her hands gripping his shoulders, his back, stroking the back of his neck, as she kissed him back. She was the one to coax his mouth open, but he was quick to respond, his tongue teasing the smooth inside of her lips. When she sealed her mouth against his and sucked his tongue into her mouth, all of the blood surged southward, out of his brain. He broke away with a ragged laugh.

“Where were you when I was in high school?”

Jo chuckled against his mouth. “Probably in junior high.” She ran one hand down across his chest and the muscles of his abdomen.

When her hand skated over his fly, he swore under his breath. “You are a bad, bad girl, Jo Ellen.”

She laughed throatily and caught his mouth again. Wyatt let her take control for now, quietly unbuttoning her sweater as the slow slide of lips, tongue and teeth set a fire in his blood. He brushed the edges of her sweater apart, sliding it back over her shoulders until it tangled around her elbows. Jo didn’t seem to notice, until he ran his fingers along the low-cut neckline of her dress, tracing the top curve of her breasts.

She broke away and caught his wrist when his fingers slipped beneath the fabric. “Hey. Nothing under the clothing,” she said, channeling her inner cheerleader. “The ghosts.”

“You can control them,” he reminded her, but he moved his hand—above the fabric this time—to palm her breast as his mouth closed on hers again. Jo gasped into his mouth and clutched at him as he plumped the heavy weight of her breasts. She may look like a silicon-stacked Playmate, but all it took was one touch for Wyatt to determine that Jo Banks was all natural. Her nipples hardened into points beneath his fingers and she gave a little whimper, her hip bumping against his hard-on as she writhed in his lap.

With one hand paying homage to her breasts, he plunged his tongue into her mouth. Thrusting inside, he set up a rhythm to mimic the instinctive pulsing of her hips as he ran his other hand down to her thigh and began gathering up the fabric of her skirt.

She caught his hand, breaking away from his mouth, her breathing short and choppy. “Wyatt…”

“Jo?” He tweaked her nipple, utterly unapologetic. She started to shift away, but he gathered her close against him again, deliberately stroking a finger up her thigh in the process. She shifted restlessly against him, rubbing her legs together as her skirt slipped up another inch.

“You can control them,” he persuaded, caressing down the outside of her bare leg. “
We
can control them. There is no way in hell I am letting a ghost take over my body right now.” He teased the sensitive skin behind her knees before trailing his fingers back up the inside of her thigh.

“What if I can’t control myself?” Jo bit her lip, her expression unsure, but her legs shifted apart enough to allow his fingers access.

At the first brush of his fingers, her breath caught and Wyatt swore. “Jesus H. Christ. You aren’t wearing underwear.”

She was hot and wet. Wyatt slipped his fingers easily though her folds. “All fucking day in that demure little orange number, you’ve been running around without any underwear on?” The thought of that alone nearly had him coming in his pants.

“It’s peach,” she corrected him, her eyes wicked with the knowledge of what she was doing to him. Her fingers traced the line of his fly again and Wyatt groaned. “Do you have something?”

Fuck
.
Fuck, fuck, fuck
. The thought was both an instinctive directive and a curse. He didn’t have a fucking condom. It wasn’t like he kept a stash on the plane. Most of his business associates were not the kind of people he wanted to get naked with. Jo being the notable exception.

She noticed his sudden stillness. He watched her working at her lower lip with her teeth and was tempted to offer to give it a bite for her. “I’m on the Pill,” she said slowly. “Have you—”

“I’ve been tested!” he blurted, too desperate to have her for any degree of finesse. “Clean bill of health.”

“Well, okay, then.”

She slid his zipper down.

There was a God.

Her fingers slipped inside to ease him out of his boxers.
Hallelujah.