“Why not?” he asked, then smiled again, and again, she sensed her pulse racing. “And just so you know, I’m asking so we can try to keep it from happening. I don’t want you to cross Celeste. We haven’t had enough time together, not nearly enough.”
She looked down to verify that she was, indeed, still glowing, still a spirit instead of living, breathing flesh and bones. To her dismay, the glow was definitely still there, and even a little brighter than before, more pale yellow than creamy white. She frowned.
“What is it?” Dax asked. “Tell me.”
“For a moment, I thought that maybe-maybe I was alive again.” She looked back up and was touched by the heartfelt emotion in those hazel eyes. “But that isn’t possible, is it?”
“If it is, I’ll find a way to make it happen. I swear it. And trust me, I’m a firm believer, especially now, that you can’t rule out anything about the other side.” He stepped away from the door and moved closer to Celeste, so close that she could feel his breath against her lips.
“How can I keep you here, or how can I help you come back again? Just tell me, before you have to go. I don’t want to lose you again.”
“Dax,” she whispered. “I-I don’t know why I didn’t cross. Part of me feels like it’s because my spirit simply wasn’t ready to head to the light, but another part thinks that…”
“What?” he asked, so close now that she could see his pulse throbbing solidly at his throat.
She licked her lips and thought of how that pulse would feel against her mouth. “Part of me feels like I didn’t cross because I couldn’t leave you.”
The pulse at his throat grew quicker still, and Celeste couldn’t hold back anymore. She longed for him to move even closer, for that sexy mouth to touch hers, and then for his body to touch her, truly touch her, from head to toe, so that no part of her wasn’t completely engulfed by Dax. She burned to feel even more, to have him inside of her, filling her, making her complete just once before she had to cross again.
“Dax, I know you can’t touch me,” she whispered, “but those rules don’t apply to me. And I’ve been aching for this.” Her hand trembled as she tenderly brought her fingertips to his cheek.
Heat, powerful scorching heat seared through her body the moment she touched him, warming her, filling her, exciting her. She eased her hand along his face and reveled in the coarse stubble against the pads of her fingertips. Each and every sensation fueled her desire. She didn’t know what was happening, didn’t understand how merely touching him caused her to gasp, made her chest clench tight, and created an intense spiraling need deep within her core…but it did. And she didn’t want to stop.
“Celeste.” His voice was a low, guttural growl. Whatever was happening wasn’t one-sided, and the knowledge that she was having the same effect on him added even more fuel to the flame.
“I want you,” she said, moving her hands to the buttons on his shirt. She fumbled with the first one, and then the second, while Dax’s hands fisted at his sides.
“I want-I need to touch you, Celeste,” he said, and she saw his hands open, then reach toward her.
She swallowed, shook her head. “No, Dax, please. Don’t. Don’t do anything that could cause them to make me leave. I can touch you. Just let me touch you, just once.” Her hands continued to move down the buttons on his shirt, while his clenched into tight fists again.
“Hell, Celeste, I want you too.”
She pulled the two sides of his shirt apart and slid her palms against his solid chest, then she leaned toward him, rested her head against his warmth and watched the way her glowing hair shimmered beside his muscled flesh. His heart pounded fiercely, and she took pleasure in the steady vibration that emphasized the life still bristling within him. She wanted to feel that way again, wanted to feel alive again, and she believed she knew how to make that happen. “I want to make love to you, Dax, before I go.” She turned her head and kissed the pulse in his neck, and felt the hardness of his erection against her stomach.
Her skin was on fire, her body burning, needing and determined…but something else was joining in the flurry of emotions she was experiencing, and Celeste recognized it with a sudden pang of fear. “No,” she whispered as her energy started to drain, and her body began glowing brighter.
The door to the room shook, and a female voice called from the other side, “Hello? Is someone in there? We need this room.” Then the woman cleared her throat and yelled, “Can you bring me the keys?”
Dax’s curse was softly spoken against her hair. “Damn. We’ve got to go somewhere else, Celeste.”
“I-” She struggled to form the words, but it was getting harder and harder to concentrate, and harder to move away from Dax, and from the heat he generated within her. “I can’t.”
He looked down at her, and the desire in his eyes quickly converted to concern. “Celeste. What’s happening?”
She glanced at her hands against his chest, and they were painfully bright now, almost as bright as Cassie had been right before she stepped into the light. And she was so very tired. “Need to rest,” she said, and felt the truth of the statement. If she didn’t rest, she feared that she might have no choice but to head toward the light; she might not have the strength to fight it. But if she rested, she lost more time with Dax.
Celeste felt her spirit begin to fade. But it wasn’t time yet. Six hours at least; that’s what Adeline had guessed, but it hadn’t nearly been six hours yet.
“Don’t leave, Celeste. Fight it,” he said. “Stay with me.”
“Need to rest a while,” she whispered, but the words were slurred as her spirit pulled at her to leave the room.
The lock to the door turned, and Dax quickly asked, “Where? Where are you going?”
“Plantation.” It was the only place she could think of to go, and the only word she managed to say before she suddenly found herself on the velvet settee in Adeline’s sitting room. There she closed her eyes and prayed for enough energy to do…everything she wanted before her time ran out completely.
THE DOOR TO the hospital room opened, and a scowling nurse barreled in. “Excuse me, but did you not hear me knocking?” she snapped. “We need this room.”
“Right, I’m leaving,” Dax said, pushing by her and catching a glimpse of a gurney, evidently the patient they were wheeling in, as he darted past. Celeste was on her way to the plantation to rest, if the powers that be didn’t yank her all the way back. “She’d better be there,” he said to the ceiling, knowing that the guys above were undoubtedly listening. He spent every waking moment never knowing when he’d get called to help a spirit, never knowing when he’d get called to help them, and right now he needed a little reciprocation. He wanted the powers that be to help Celeste stay on this side, at the bare minimum for the six hours she’d been promised.
He could still feel her touch on his face, against his chest. The way her fingers had trembled, and the way she’d rubbed her body against his as she laid her head on his chest. He wanted to feel all of her against him, and he’d better get a chance to feel it before the day ended. “I mean it,” he added, sprinting down the hallway and toward the parking deck. “She’d better be there.”
He rounded a corner and ran slap into his older brother.
“Hey man, where’s the fire?” Gage Vicknair grabbed him by the shoulders and halted his progress. He had a stethoscope slung around his neck, a hospital badge clamped to the pocket of his navy scrubs and a look of exhaustion on his face. “One of the interns said she thought she saw my brother up here, but she didn’t say he was running a race. What’s happening?”
“Can’t talk,” Dax said breathlessly. “I’ve gotta get home.” Then he thought about the little ghost visiting with her parents in the hospital room nearby. “Listen. My current assignment, a little ghost named Prissy Fontenot, is here at the hospital in her father’s room.”