A Ghost of a Chance Read online

  Fatigue wound around his face until his eyes closed on their own. It wasn’t long before he fell asleep.

  * * * *

  Isabella was in what must have been his bedroom, standing in one corner, counting loose change onto his dresser. She was naked except for a pancake that dangled from her right ear.

  Her body was the most glorious thing Keenan had ever seen. Black areolas circled two very hard nipples and her breasts were the size of oranges. They crowded together on her chest and bounced nicely when she counted the change. His cock stiffened with each movement.

  The slim waist and hips beneath them framed a flat, smooth stomach and a black triangle of curly hair beneath. That churned his juices, and he tried to move over to her, but he was stuck. He looked down at his dream self and noted with interest that he was tied to the bed with paper napkins that all had “Hotcake House” imprinted on them. His erection was the size of a bratwurst. He couldn’t move.

  “Isabella?”

  He knew it was his voice, but didn’t think he had opened his mouth. She looked up from the change, smiled, and put a finger to her lips.

  “Shhh. I’m counting,” she said and went back to it. “Don’t look at me or I’ll have to torture you.”

  He tore his eyes away, but not before one more languid inspection.

  To fill the time, Keenan checked out the room. He was right, it was his bedroom, yet in a way not his bedroom. There were cubicle walls all around him instead of regular walls, a gaggle of ghosts with their faces pressed to the window glass from outside, and a cop car parked over by the bathroom. Thompson was asleep in the cruiser, snoring like a chain saw.

  When Keenan looked back, Isabella had moved to the end of the bed and was standing there staring at his cock. The attention made his ass squirm and his already aching erection harder. When she licked her lips, he almost came.

  Crawling very slowly over the end of the bed, Isabella’s breasts dangled darkly over his legs. He saw her black eyes when she glanced up at him, and the mischievous expression produced an even deeper anticipation. Keenan’s butt clinched without any help from him as she moved forward, spreading his legs as she came.

  Sinking down until her nipples tickled the inside of his thighs, Isabella rubbed them in gentle circular motions against his legs. Her hot flesh elicited a loud moan, but not from her. Keenan’s guttural groan seemed to please her, because she lowered her head and began to lick the inside of each thigh. That really got his mouth going. He almost lost his voice with all that screaming.

  When she reached his balls, Isabella stopped and Keenan groaned.

  You can’t stop. Not there!

  She shook her finger at him three times and, without warning, took one of his balls into her mouth. The sensation was torturous and magnificent. He shouted again despite his laryngitis.

  In mid scream, a shadow solidified against the far wall. When it materialized completely, Keenan’s voice caught in his throat. The succubus, in her full glory, appeared behind Isabella.

  “Isabella, watch out!”

  Isabella looked behind her, and all Keenan could see was the top of her head as she confronted the apparition. Then she did a very strange thing. She laughed. It scared the shit out of him.

  Without preamble, she turned her face back to him, wrapped her hand around his already engorged cock, and gave it a tight squeeze. The heat from her grip was almost painful, but it sent shards of rapture coursing through every blood vessel. Smiling sweetly, she wrapped her lips around the swollen head and sucked it into her mouth. The sudden sensation forced his eyes closed and he howled.

  When he got his eyes open again, Isabella was working her mouth and hand in slow in-and-out motions down his shaft. But what took his breath away, beyond the exquisite feel of her hot mouth against his cock, was what the succubus was doing behind her; she was rubbing Isabella’s back, making her writhe against the ghostly hands. Her ass rose into the air.

  Keenan watched in fascination as those strange hands moved down to Isabella’s ass and spread her wide open. With a single finger that she made sure Keenan saw, she opened Isabella’s moist pussy lips and thrust it into the hot slit to the knuckle.

  The succubus extracted the finger and bent her head down to run her tongue along Isabella’s pussy, slopping up her juices.

  Isabella moaned against Keenan’s hard member, the vibration deepening the ripples of bliss running through him. The entity thrust that long tongue deep into Isabella’s wet folds, first slowly, then stroking faster. Isabella’s mouth tightened down on Keenan with each thrust.

  With a stifled scream, Isabella broke the seal and threw her head back, arching her spine until her soft belly hit his legs. The trembling climax that shook her body sent waves of movement through his legs, his chest, and into his head. It was as if the climax had liquefied the air.

  Keenan’s hands were suddenly free, but the girls had the show so he let them continue. The succubus grabbed Isabella’s hips and turned her around so she was lying on her side facing away from Keenan. He adjusted himself until he had her between his legs. His cock stood at full alert near her open pussy. The succubus lifted Isabella’s leg and draped it over Keenan’s. His cock was throbbing with anticipation.

  Keenan wrapped his arms around Isabella’s irresistible body and pulled her as close as she would go. As if on cue, the succubus grabbed his throbbing cock and guided it to Isabella’s hot moist opening.

  Without an invitation, Keenan slid the swollen muscle into her heat. It was dripping wet and so tight he had to move in measured thrusts to get it all the way in. He didn’t mind. When the bottom of his shaft became soaked with her juices, he pulled it out a bit then slid it back in. Cradling her breast, he pinched the hard nipple between his thumb and index finger until Isabella’s deep moan resonated from her chest and she moved her hips against his pelvis.

  The succubus floated above the couple in an almost protective stance. When they found their rhythm, waves of lust flooded Keenan’s blood. With each hard thrust, their bodies seemed to melt into one another.

  Keenan watched from behind as Isabella’s body undulated against his when he drove into her hard. The succubus then lowered her head, stuck out that long tongue and began to lick Isabella’s clit as Keenan plunged his cock into her. The entity sucked the tiny bud into her mouth and Isabella bucked violently. For several precious moments, the entity tortured Isabella with her lips as Keenan buried himself inside her. The hot tongue and mouth that occasionally whisked onto his swollen muscle made it jerk inside her. Keenan was ready to burst.

  Isabella screamed and ripples of pulsating muscles gripped Keenan’s cock until he lost count. The climax came in great waves of pleasure and Keenan forced his eyes closed to savor it. The waves grew in size and intensity until Keenan’s world shook violently.

  * * * *

  “Hi.”

  The voice echoed against the dream and he snapped awake in an instant to two almond shaped eyes staring down at him. He could just make out his reflection in the warm brown.

  “Hi,” Isabella said again.

  Keenan bolted up and placed his hands as stealthily as he could over the bulging hard on that was making a lump in his pants the size of New Zealand. When she glanced down, he was pretty sure it didn’t work.

  “Dreaming about me, big boy?” Isabella’s tantalizing lips parted and she actually licked her lips. Keenan covered up by rubbing the still warm dream images from his head and the bright red blush residue from his face.

  “Look.” Isabella sat on his coffee table, knee to knee, her chin down, twirling the ends of a crimson Indian scarf in her fingers. Jeans and a white peasant blouse had replaced the running suit. A thick shawl hugged her shoulders. “I’m sorry about this morning.” She lifted her face to him and looked very serious. Keenan preferred the happier face. “But you scared me. Can we talk?”

  “Uh…” Words eluded him. He was still trying to get his wits wrapped around the fact that she was there. “S
ure.”

  But his confidence sloughed away leaving him exposed, as if his skin had fallen away from his ego. Isabella’s beauty was a distraction. He hopped up from the couch and headed for the bathroom.

  “I’ll be right back.” As he moved through the house, he had never felt emptier. The house was silent, his insides twisted into icicle swirls, and for the first time in his life he began to doubt his own sanity.

  Leaning against the sink, he pondered his reflection in the mirror. It would take discipline to get the chaos to melt around his cerebral cortex, so Keenan took his time, sorting everything out as neatly as he could.

  He liked Isabella. No, he really liked Isabella. There wasn’t another time in his life he had fallen so hard or so fast for a woman. Sexual attraction aside, there was something about her that made him want to give up everything to be with her. It was almost like an addiction… a wonderful, mind-altering drug that sent his hormones into overdrive and played Twister with his emotions. Every time he got near her, problems, stress, even monotonous routines fell away like melting chocolate. He wanted to move in and shut the world outside.

  But there was that troublesome problem again; he saw things. No doubt. But lately the thought that he might actually be crazy began to beat the hell out of his confidence. Maybe they weren’t real.

  Like Thompson said, maybe Keenan needed help. A lot of help.

  The only consolation from that thought was that he hadn’t actually cheated on Isabella… kind of. He shook his head, trying to force the glaring contradictions to get a grip on themselves.

  Keenan focused on the water swirling down the drain. Was his life doing the same? Did he really want to put this wonderful woman through it all, drag her down with him? That gallant thought fought long and hard against the overpowering desire to be with her.

  In the throes of that debate, Keenan made a decision and headed out to the living room.

  Isabella was stretching (and very nicely too) to look closely at one of the few of Keenan’s paintings the thieves hadn’t taken. It was a portrait of a little homeless kid that lived in the underground beneath Keenan’s flat in Florence. Big blue eyes looked through black locks of hair like a puppy in a cage.

  “His name was Anton.” Keenan crossed to the couch.

  Startled, Isabella jumped back and whirled around. “Sorry. It’s magnificent, Kee. I had no idea how talented you were. If you can paint like this, why are you doing layout work?”

  Keenan shrugged. “Fine art doesn’t put food on your table or pay the electric bill, unfortunately. You need to be or have a good businessperson to sell art these days. I know about as much about business as I do about raising pigeons.”

  Isabella lifted one slim eyebrow and the opposite side of her mouth. “I know about business.”

  Keenan appreciated the proposition. It added another check mark on the pro side of his growing list. The con side of the same list only had one item, but it was a damned big one.

  Keenan let the silence ride and Isabella changed her tactics.

  “Your place is very— how can I say this delicately— minimalist, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, apparently when the crooks were doing their eeny meenies, my house came up a moe.”

  Isabella grimaced and gave him a sad frown. “Sorry.”

  “Hey…” Keenan plopped down on the soft cushions and Isabella joined him. “Just another day in the sunshine.”

  In a graceful gesture, Isabella lifted her hand to his face and stroked it with her thumb. “You poor darling. It’s been a hell of a weekend for you, hasn’t it?”

  Knowing he was probably making the biggest mistake of his life, Keenan pulled away from her and scooted a little further to the right. “Isabella…”

  “I know,” she said, folding her arms across her chest. “I’m moving way too fast. Occupational hazard. I’m sorry, Kee. I’ll slow it down a little.”

  Wondering for an instant why moving too fast would be an occupational hazard, he put that aside and got to the meat of the thing.

  “It’s not that.” Keenan turned his knees away and laced his fingers together. “Not to sound too cliché, but it’s me.” The words took on a life of their own then, animated by lack of sleep, jumbled nerves, and stale adrenalin. He didn’t have the heart to look at her. “I like you. I like you a lot. Probably too much. You are the most amazing woman I have ever met in my life. I’m probably one of the biggest suckers of all time for saying this, but…” The air in his lungs went a little sore. “…I have some slight problems. Maybe not so slight.” It was only then that he cinched up his sinews and looked her in the eye. “I need some time to sort things out. It’s going to be one hell of a journey. One I can’t possibly ask you to take with me, feeling about you the way I do.” All of it was coming out so pitiful, he was sure Isabella was going to bolt out the door. Then he said the eight most devastating words in the history of the human existence. “I think we need to just be friends.” He watched Isabella’s face shift under them. “For a while, anyway,” he added quickly. “Until I can get this all worked out.”

  Isabella unfolded her arms, placed her hands on her knees with unhurried accuracy, lifted herself off the couch, and threw the right end of her shawl over her left shoulder. Keenan braced himself for her departure.

  What he got instead set his emotions reeling.

  “I know you’re getting off on being all noble and everything, but I have a few words of wisdom to impart before I go.” She threw her shoulders back and got her hands moving, generations of Italian heritage rearing up on its indignant haunches.

  “First of all, I think I should be the one to decide whether I want to journey down any roads with you, you macho son of a bitch.”

  Well, he probably deserved that one; it was a little pretentious to think she would want to go anywhere with him.

  The pink flush in her cheeks was adding brilliance to her eyes the angrier she got. It was making Keenan very uncomfortable.

  “Second of all; where do you get off thinking you are the only one with problems?” With a grand hand gesture, she swept it past all humanity. “We all have problems, buster… all of us. Normal people get through them with help… not on their own!”

  “That’s what I was saying…”

  “Shut up! I’m not finished.”

  Keenan sank into the couch more dazzled by Isabella every second.

  She leaned into him and got one sneakered foot up on the couch to get closer. “I like you, too… always have. But I will beat you bloody before I see you succumb to your own life. You want joy, love, freedom, all those wonderful things we humans fight for but usually fail to reach? Then you have to quit feeling so fucking sorry for yourself and kiss me!”

  With that, she straddled his lap, slammed her mouth against his, and sucked away thirty-two years of hesitation, self-loathing, doubt, and fear. Time went away…

  …and all at once, so did Isabella.

  Something yanked Isabella from his lips. When he opened his eyes, she was almost out the door, pulled by a gray-black tendril of smoke. The cloud entity filled every window outside his house and in an instant, Isabella was gone. When he jumped up to follow, everything went black.

  Chapter Eleven

  Wild Ghost Hunt

  When he opened his eyes, Reggie was crouched next to his head, staring directly into his face. Keenan could see the clock hanging on the wall right through him. It read 12:30. Everything in and out of the house was pitch-black.

  “You busy?” Reggie asked.

  Keenan shut his eyes tight, trying to figure out where he was. It all shot through him in an instant.

  He jumped to his feet.

  “Where is she?”

  “It took her downtown.”

  “What? What’s going on, Reggie?” If he could have shook his old friend he would have. He settled for wringing his hands instead.

  Reggie was floating crossed legged above the coffee table. “Don’t know, old bean.”


  “Damn it!”

  Keenan rushed to the open door, but it slammed in his face. When he tried to open it, it wouldn’t budge. He stepped back. It was the first time any of the ghosts had done that and it scared him.

  “What the fuck, Reggie?” he screamed.

  Reggie nodded to the couch without moving. “Have a seat, my friend. We need to talk.”

  Keenan tilted his head toward the door. “You did that?”

  Reggie looked at his fingernails and brushed them against his lapel. “Of course.”

  Keenan couldn’t keep his bottom lip from trembling. He backed away from the specter and caught himself on the dining room wall.

  “What is this?”

  He had known Reggie almost as long as he had Constance. The Englishman had been with him for nearly every adventure, had advised him countless times on life, love, and the pursuit of happiness. Reggie had been his best friend when he couldn’t find a human one, had guided him on his choice of jobs, houses, cars, and even girlfriends. In essence, Reggie had seen him through everything.

  That thought now made his arms cold and his guts ache. He gaped at the floating spirit.

  “Oh, come on, old boot.” Reggie leaned forward. “Just because I don’t use my…abilities, doesn’t mean I don’t have them. Many of us do, you know.”

  Keenan maneuvered himself away from the wall, not knowing exactly what to think. It was scaring the shit out of him.

  “You said you would do anything for me, remember?” Reggie continued with arrogant nonchalance. “There in the restaurant. I’m here to collect. You owe me, brother.”

  “I don’t owe you jack shit!”

  “Au contraire, mon frère.”

  The glimmer of intensity lighting up Reggie’s ghostly eyes was making Keenan very nervous. He searched the room for a way out.

  “Only you can save her.”

  Those words tightened the vise suffocating Keenan’s responses. “Isabella?” was all he could manage.

  “Of course not. You have to help us.”

  Keenan tried to shake the strange words out of his ears and frowned. “What the hell are you talking about? You’re not making any sense. Where is Isabella?”