Body and Soul: Pesky Paranormals Read online

  PESKY PARANORMALS

  An Ellora‘s Cave Publication, February 2005

  Ellora‘s Cave Publishing, Inc.

  1337 Commerce Drive, #13

  Stow, OH 44224

  ISBN MS Reader (LIT) ISBN # 1-4199- 0170-2

  Other available formats (no ISBNs are assigned):

  Adobe (PDF), Rocketbook (RB), Mobipocket (PRC) & HTML

  PESKY PARANORMALS © 2005 TAWNY TAYLOR

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without permission.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. They are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  Edited by Sue-Ellen Gower.

  Cover art by Syneca.

  Warning:

  The following material contains graphic sexual content meant for mature readers. Pesky Paranormals has been rated E–rotic by a minimum of three independent reviewers.

  Ellora’s Cave Publishing offers three levels of Romantica™ reading entertainment: S (S-ensuous), E (E-rotic), and X (X-treme).

  S-ensuous love scenes are explicit and leave nothing to the imagination.

  E-rotic love scenes are explicit, leave nothing to the imagination, and are high in volume per the overall word count. In addition, some E-rated titles might contain fantasy material that some readers find objectionable, such as bondage, submission, same sex encounters, forced seductions, and so forth. E-rated titles are the most graphic titles we carry; it is common, for instance, for an author to use words such as “fucking”, “cock”, “pussy”, and such within their work of literature.

  X-treme titles differ from E-rated titles only in plot premise and storyline execution. Unlike E-rated titles, stories designated with the letter X tend to contain controversial subject matter not for the faint of heart.

  Pesky Paranormals

  Tawny Taylor

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

  Dockers: Levi Strauss & Co.

  Wine Spectator: M. Shanken Communications, Inc.

  Massandra (wine): Fabio Import AG

  Prologue

  This story isn’t for people who won’t believe in what they can’t see. It’s a strange tale and I admit if it hadn’t happened to me, I never would’ve believed such a crazy, improbable thing was possible. Yes, a long, long time ago, I too was a logical but close-minded person who only believed in what could be seen, touched, smelled, tasted or heard.

  All that changed very suddenly one day.

  Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction…thank God. Because in the end, I am quite pleased with the results. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Better get back to the beginning.

  My name is Stephanie Burbank and this is my incredible story—believe it or not. As it unfolds, I challenge you to open your mind and question what you’ve believed since learning Santa Claus was your dad, the Easter bunny your mom, and ghosts, fairies and superheroes only existed in your imagination.

  After all—to bastardize a famous expression—truth is in the eye of the beholder.

  Read on, if you dare…

  Chapter One

  The day he died, Stephanie Burbank thought she’d be rid of him forever. She learned rather quickly she couldn’t have been more wrong.

  He was her pain-in-the-ass, control-freak ex-husband. It seemed that even after being the victim of a motor vehicle-versus-pedestrian fatal accident—a terrible trauma to say the least—he couldn’t let her go. In fact, he was more of a pain in the ass, control-freak dead than he ever dreamed of being alive.

  Who would’ve thought?

  Considering his history, she should have guessed. But formerly lacking any faith in the afterlife, she found believing in ghosts wasn’t exactly easy…at least not the first few months. After that, she became surprisingly comfortable with their unique relationship—marked by the unmistakable sounds he would make during even her most private times.

  The man had no couth.

  To make matters worse, recently he had acquired some new skills, adopted some methods that were seriously cramping her social life. And sex? Forget about it! Wasn’t happening. Not when every time she got down to her skivvies with a prospective hunk he would make something crazy happen to ruin the mood, like catch the poor guy’s shorts on fire.

  It seemed there was no escaping it. She’d recently started calling it “The Ex Curse”. After visits to psychics, the local priest, a couple shrinks and at least a half-dozen miserable dates that ended with her delivering the poor guy to the emergency room, she finally accepted the fact that, dead or alive, ex-husband Jeremy Burbank was going to make sure her life was a living hell…for eternity.

  But just because she’d resigned herself to that fact didn’t mean she wasn’t frustrated, and that irritation intensified when Rafe Hammond moved into the condo next door.

  Rafe wasn’t your average run-of-the-mill working stiff. He was a god in Dockers and a golf shirt. His jet-black hair was just messy enough to be sexy, his smile usually a little off-kilter and his body…there were no words for what lay hidden below the sharp-creased cotton trousers and shirts boasting his membership to one of southeast Michigan’s finest country clubs. Well-developed muscles covered every inch of his frame—she’d seen practically everything last summer at the pool when, gaping like an ass, she’d nearly drowned after tripping over a chair and falling in the deep end.

  She couldn’t swim to save her life.

  That was the single time in the past year and a half that a man who had touched her had not instantaneously combusted. Evidently even an arsonist ghost couldn’t set someone under twelve feet of water on fire. That could be the only reason why he hadn’t scorched like the rest of them, either that or Jeremy wasn’t ready to let her out of her misery yet. She figured even he couldn’t be cruel enough to watch her drown to death, her fault or not.

  Still, armed with the knowledge that even a kiss could land her hunkilicious neighbor in the burn ward, she didn’t dare pursue anything more intimate than a casual neighborly friendship with him. On a daily basis, they exchanged small talk, every now and then a cup of milk or a power tool.

  Until today.

  This morning—a Saturday, her favorite day of the week—she’d woken up after a restless night, in the mood to give Jeremy hell. He hadn’t let her get five minutes of sleep, filling her room with the most God-awful banging until daybreak. What had she done to deserve this?

  Anyway, if there was one thing that highlighted the less noble aspects of her personality, it was lack of sleep. Lack of chocolate came in a close second.

  Grumbling to Jeremy about the satisfaction of revenge when she found it, she walked outside to get her mail and her mood lifted instantly.

  “Hey,” Rafe said, wearing his usual lopsided grin and a pair of low-slung boxers with hearts. He looked fresh out of bed, rumpled and sleepy, exactly the way she liked him.

  “Morning.” Too busy checking out his abs—which were picture-perfect if she did say so herself—she dropped her mailbox key, which naturally bounced two times and landed in the tiny crevice between the brick wall and the concrete porch. “Oh, shoot!” Kneeling down, she dug at it with her fingernails, ruining her manicure. “Why do these things always happen to me?”

  He stooped next to her, caught her hands in his and gave her a smile that could easily have caused her to combust. “Please. Allow me.”

  Her mind racing ahead as she visualized a few dozen things she’d gladly allow him do, she forced herself to
look down at the concrete. “It’s stuck pretty good.”

  “I’ve dropped mine in there before. If you take a magnetized screwdriver—which I just happen to carry every time I come out here because you never know when it’ll come in handy—you can get it out of there lickety-split. He pulled a slot-head screwdriver out of the waist of his boxer shorts—that couldn’t be a very safe place to keep that—and shoved the narrow head into the gap. A second later, he handed her the key.

  When their fingers touched, little jolts of electricity buzzed up her arm. She sat there frozen, stunned as at least a couple of hundred watts of pure, unadulterated lust charged through her system.

  He didn’t move either.

  Then it dawned on her. So far, he hadn’t burst into flame. That was twice now. This man had touched her two times and hadn’t been burned. Had she found someone Jeremy couldn’t hurt for some reason?

  Her mind raced with the possibilities—and there were quite a few. But the one she most enjoyed entertaining was the thought that she could fuck this gorgeous guy to her heart’s content and Jeremy couldn’t do a thing to stop her. Was it possible? Could it be? If so, there was a God!

  Willing to risk getting singed around the edges, she licked her lips and leaned forward. Surely a kiss would tell.

  And it told…a lot of things.

  As her mouth touched his, her whole body came alive. Her heart rate at least doubled and both shivers and heat waves coursed through her body. It was instant chemistry, the kind she hadn’t felt before with anyone. Not even Jeremy.

  Rafe seemed to be enjoying it too. His quickened breathing melded with hers as she opened her mouth. His tongue slipped inside and performed a sexy little tango with hers, and the only flames she sensed were the mini-blazes igniting in her panties.

  A round of the Hallelujah Chorus sang in her head…until something ice-cold landed on it. The initial freeze was followed by a second torrent of icy liquid.

  Any heat she had felt instantly extinguished, she gasped as the cold substance ran down her body. Still trying to catch her breath, she jumped to her feet. Her gaze lifted heavenward as she searched for the source but found nothing but a clear blue sky and two rows of closed windows.

  Had Jeremy discovered a new weapon?

  She pushed her sopping hair out of her eyes and shouted, “Jeremy, if that was you, it wasn’t funny.”

  “Who’s Jeremy?” Rafe asked.

  Without thinking, she wrapped her arms around herself and responded, “My good-for-nothing ex-husband.” She caught him staring at her chest and glanced down.

  Egads! She was indecent. Thanks to the unexpected cold shower, her white T-shirt was not only translucent but also clinging to her boobs. She was wearing no bra and her nipples resembled little pink pebbles poking stiffly at the fabric. If she were on Spring Break in Fort Lauderdale, she’d be a hit.

  Unfortunately, or fortunately depending upon how one looked at it, she was in Michigan. And Spring Break was several months in the past. In an attempt to maintain a small amount of dignity, she inched her crossed arms higher over her chest to hide her nipples. “Gotta go. Sorry about that.” She made a hasty dash for her front door but a quick yank on the waist of her soggy T-shirt stopped her in her tracks.

  * * * * *

  This wasn’t happening. Not again! Rafe silently cursed the night he’d paid a visit to the crackpot who called herself a spiritual guide and gone home with a castaway ghost who amused herself by soaking every female who came within twenty feet of him with ice water. He caught the edge of his neighbor’s wet T-shirt and gave it another yank.

  “Are you okay?” Damn that little spirit! Thanks to her, he hadn’t been able to get any nookie in almost three months! He’d get the better of her someday, soon as he figured out how.

  Stephanie turned slowly, mumbling words he could barely make out and pointing up at the windows, “I need to go… Jeremy has a terrible sense of humor… I’m so sorry… I swear, someday…”

  Who was Jeremy? Their condo building was a duplex. He knew he wasn’t living with a guy named Jeremy.

  “…my ex-husband…”

  What had she said about an ex-husband? He glanced up again.

  She was living with her ex-husband? If so, why was she making the moves on him, in plain daylight, for all to see? And why would he throw water on their heads? What the hell was going on? Was this a joke?

  Were they swingers, maybe? Newly converted swingers? Not once since he’d moved in had she ever acted like this before.

  Well, there had been that time when she’d groped him in the swimming pool. He had always assumed her grabbing him there had been an accident. After all, she’d nearly drowned.

  Didn’t drowning people grab things in their panic?

  Not a guy’s cock, you idiot!

  Had he been missing an opportunity all this time?

  Well, now, after a more obvious sign—that kiss couldn’t have been an accident—he was not about to let her mumble some incoherent apology and run off! A guy could only take so much.

  Hoping Annabelle wouldn’t send more buckets of ice water cascading from the sky, he pulled her closer. “What are you talking about? Do you live with your ex-husband? I’ve never seen him.”

  Stephanie blanched, giving him the impression she wasn’t about to tell him the truth. “No.”

  “Then how could he get up there to dump the water?”

  “It’s a long story and a little bit complicated.”

  “Well, after that kiss, don’t you think you owe me an explanation?”

  She staggered backward, threatening to trip over the pot of weedy flowers on the porch stoop and he grabbed her arms to help steady her.

  She seemed to get her feet back under her but the contact between his hands and her skin, and resulting heat rising from his nether regions, was making him a little unsteady too. He wrapped his arms around her waist to support them both.

  Not a good idea. They were bathed in water again.

  He shook his head like a dog and looked down at her, hoping she wouldn’t get hysterical like all the other women had. Most women didn’t care to have their expensive clothes and hairdos ruined, even if it was just water.

  At least she’d been wearing pajamas and from the look of it hadn’t gotten around to fixing her hair and makeup.

  Instead of acting like a girl and getting hysterical like he expected, she laughed and he found himself laughing right along with her as he released her and took one step backward.

  Their hair was plastered flat to their heads, hers clinging to her neck, shoulders and chest, partially obscuring his once-clear view of her breasts.

  Their clothes were saturated. Water dripped from his chin. He glanced around to see if the neighbors were staring yet. Both wet and shivering and laughing like a couple of crazed idiots, they had to look ridiculous. Someone was bound to call for the men in white coats soon.

  At least his drawers had cooled. Strange, it had almost felt like they were burning.

  “I’m sorry.” Her arms lifted and she ran her long, graceful fingers through her sodden chestnut hair, the motion leaving those twin peaks out there front and center and in clear view where they belonged.

  He couldn’t help staring. Again. Hey, he was a guy. He could appreciate a set of nice boobs. And she had them, boy did she ever. Had to be at least Cs but he wouldn’t ask. That probably wouldn’t score him any points on the gentleman scale, not that the ice baths would either. But for some reason, she seemed to think her ex-husband was at fault for those.

  “This is really funny. I don’t know what to say.” Clearly catching on to what he was staring at, she glanced down again and promptly folded her arms over her chest.

  He gave himself a mental kick in the ass. Where were his manners? “No, I’m sorry. I can’t seem to help looking… I mean, they’re…er…” Shit! I sound like an ass. “…you’re very beautiful.”

  The slight blue hue around her lips faded as her face tinted a
sexy shade of pink. It was a nice change. He wondered how far down her chest it extended. “That water was cold,” she stuttered.

  “Yes, it was.”

  “I better get inside before another bucketful falls on my head. I’m bound to come down with pneumonia.” She didn’t move.

  “In that case, you’d better hustle inside,” he agreed. He gathered his forgotten mail, which was as soggy as the rest of his things and followed her to their front doors, which stood within inches of each other.

  She twisted her doorknob and pushed it open, smiling shyly over her shoulder. “Thanks for the invigorating…chat. This is one Saturday morning I won’t soon forget.”

  “Then how about making it a memorable Saturday afternoon and evening too?” he asked, before he had the chance to chicken out.

  “And risk pneumonia?”

  “Your ex-husband can’t be everywhere. There must be a safe place we can go.”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  “Then maybe it’s time to go to the police. Stalking’s against the law. Unless you’re one of those women who like having an ex hang around. I’ve never understood that but I wouldn’t judge you—”

  “Believe me, I’m not happy to have him around. He’s like a fungus. I can’t get rid of him. And if the police could help, I’d have gone there months ago.”

  Disappointed by her lack of enthusiasm but not surprised, considering the water and the ex-husband thing, he simply nodded. “All right then. I guess we should just call this morning an experiment and go back to being friendly neighbors?”

  “I suppose that’s best. I’m very sorry. I was hoping…”

  “Yeah. Me too.”

  Ready to give Annabelle hell for the water, he opened his door and stepped into his condo.