He could almost hear her softly moaning, then those moans turning into sharp gasps as she thrust her hips and brought him deep, deep within her. And he could feel the tensing of her flesh around him, holding him so tight as her climax grew imminent.
Dax bowed his head and closed his eyes as the hot water pelted him. Then he circled his cock with his hand in an effort to reproduce what was happening in his mind. There, she was riding him, fiercely determined to claim every inch of him and to bring him to the same kind of powerful orgasm that was building within her.
In reality, Dax was finally succumbing to his baser needs. Three weeks was way too long to go without a release, and one minute was way too long to go without Celeste.
He thought of her again, of the way those dark eyes closed slightly as she came, and the way her mouth parted in sweet, delicious abandon…and his body tensed, his erection pushed forward as though trying to get inside of the woman in his mind, and his hips jerked in orgasm.
By the time he returned to the kitchen, Nan was rinsing her bowl in the sink. “Obviously, your idea of a quick shower and mine aren’t the same. I assumed you decided to rest for a while so I put your gumbo in the fridge, but I can heat it up if you want.”
“No, thanks,” he said. Unfortunately, even after his climax, he was still only hungry for one thing. Celeste. Her touch. Her smile.
Her kiss.
He sat at the table and reached for the stack of letters in the center. More than anything else he’d done today, he’d read and reread the letters from the attic. He was convinced that he’d missed something. His grandmother had said that he and Nanette would find what they needed in the attic. While Dax knew that the letters would help Nanette with her quest for historical-landmark status if she ever decided to share them with the world, he hadn’t found anything that would help him get Celeste back.
“Still hoping to find something?” she asked, drying her hands on a towel, then sitting next to him at the table. She peered over his shoulder at the letter in his hand and frowned. “I still don’t want to show them to anyone. Maybe we won’t have to.”
“Maybe not,” Dax said. “I do think this is what she intended for you to use, whether you choose to or not. But she said what you and I needed was in the attic. I know she was talking about these letters.”
“Maybe she wasn’t talking about you getting Celeste back. Maybe all she was talking about was the historical landmark status, and she said both of our names because we’re the ones who’ve been doing the most to try to find proof.”
Dax didn’t buy that. His grandmother had said that what Nan and Dax wanted was in the attic. She knew what Nan wanted, to prove the house was inhabited back then, and Adeline Vicknair undoubtedly knew what Dax wanted too.
“No. She included me because of Celeste. I know it. I’ve just got to figure out how to use these letters to help me learn where she is, and why she can’t remember what happens when she’s there.”
They continued to scan the letters. He nearly knew them all by heart now, and there was nothing in them that referred to spirits stuck in the middle. Every ghost his great-great-great-great-grandmother mentioned was simply another assignment needing a little help to find the light.
“Have you been back up to the attic?” she asked.
Dax shook his head. “No, why?”
“Maybe you’re right. The letters are what I need if I decide to turn them over to the historical society-which I won’t,” she said. “But maybe there’s something else in the attic intended for you. I mean, you pretty much stopped searching when you found the letters, didn’t you? Maybe there’s another clue up there that would help you find Celeste. Or whatever you need may have been in the stuff that Monique and Ryan took.”
“No, I thought of that. They’d already cleaned out what they wanted before I got the note from Grandma Adeline. She knew what was up there, and she knew that what I needed was there.”
“Okay, so it’s still there. Don’t you think if it were in these letters, we’d have found it?”
Dax looked at her green eyes, alive with excitement.
She stood, grabbing his arm. “Come on. If you’re not going to eat anyway, there’s no reason for us to sit around in the kitchen when we could be looking for whatever you’re supposed to find in the attic. Plus, now I’m curious. Let’s go check it out.”
He dropped the letter he was perusing on top of the stack. “I know it’s a long shot, but you could be right. I did stop looking when I found these.”
“Exactly.” Suddenly quite energetic for a woman who’d been teaching ninth-graders all day, she led the way to the third floor, taking the steps two at a time.
When they reached the attic access, she moved to the side. “You’ll have to pull the string. I can’t reach it.” She pointed to the thin rope hanging from the panel in the ceiling.
He grabbed it and pulled. Same as the last time, Dax barely made it out of the way of the unfolding ladder before it slammed him in the face. He caught the lower portion just before it hit the hardwood. Several dents and crevices already marred the floor from where previous Vicknairs hadn’t been so careful.
“Ladies first.” He waved Nanette up the ladder.
“Well, I’ll be, we do have a gentleman in the family after all.” She started up, with Dax close behind.
“Hell, I’m just letting you go first because it’s dark up there,” he said, then laughed when she shoved a foot toward his head.
“Smart-ass.”
They emerged into the dusty room, and Nan quickly located the pull-string to turn on the room’s single bulb.
“I thought you covered that back up before we left the other day,” she said, pointing to the chifforobe, which was the only piece of furniture in the room that wasn’t covered by a sheet or plastic.
“I did.” Dax moved toward the large piece of furniture.
“Did it slide off?” she asked, and then located the sheet, folded in a perfect square. “I-guess not.”
“Didn’t I put it back on?” he asked, but he knew that he had.
“Even if you didn’t, you tossed all of the sheets aside when you were looking through the furniture. I remember. And that sheet wasn’t tossed, it’s been folded. Neatly.” She paused, leaned down and touched the corner of the white cloth. “As neat as Grandma Adeline always folded things, I’d say.”
Feeling a slight kick of adrenaline at the hint that there was still something to find, Dax pulled the top drawer open and slid his hand inside. It was completely empty. “There’s something else here,” he said, knowing their grandmother was trying to help him. “We’ve just got to find it.”
Nanette opened the long door that composed one side of the piece and started rummaging through several old quilts and blankets. “I agree. She wants us to find something else, but what?”
All of the drawers had previously been stuffed with cards and letters, but Dax had removed them. Even so, he pulled open the next drawer and slid his hand inside, but again came up empty.
“Find anything?” he asked as Nanette removed the last of the quilts and placed it on the floor beside her. She ran her hands along the wooden bottom and up the sides.
“I thought perhaps there was some sort of hiding place in here. I don’t know, like maybe a secret panel or something,” she said. “But I can’t find anything.”
Dax looked down at her, still in the dress pants she’d worn to school, crouched on the dirty floor, running her hands across dusty old wood trying to find a secret panel. Her black hair had something grayish on one side, and he’d bet that it was probably a cobweb.
He laughed. He couldn’t help it. Here Nan was, the girl in the family who always tried to portray herself as the oldest, the toughest and the biggest hard-ass when it came to dealing with spirits and sticking to the rules, but every now and then, Nanette’s softer side made an appearance, and right now was one of those times.