Kiss & Hell (Hell #1)

His gaze held hers for an uncomfortable period of time before he responded with an easy smile. “Yeah, you are. You don’t want to get too attached. Each time you’ve gotten attached to someone or something, it ended. And that hurt. I make it worse because I understand your gift. I believe in it, and it doesn’t freak me out. It’s not something I couldn’t learn to live with. That makes me one step ahead of everyone else you’ve been involved with. The others found out about it by circumstance and freaked out and the relationship ended—with a navy sea captain, as I recall. If you can keep me from you by pretending I’ve been lying to you, not only will you not end up being what you call played, you’ll protect yourself from the end result of this fiasco. Me leaving. What I wonder is this. What’s going to happen when you find out I’m telling the truth, Delaney?”


Her stomach rose and fell like the swell of the ocean; her heart pounded in loud, harsh beats. The neon light of Anthony’s blared with its annoying redness, exposing her. Horns blared, people meandered along the sidewalk, yet all she could feel was the night swallowing her whole.

Okay, so she didn’t want to get too attached and for all her “I’m an informed, mature woman of the new millennium” talk last night, for all the “this has to end” rhetoric, Clyde had hit the nail on the head. It must not be in her to live for the moment. She wasn’t the kind of chick to tap it and skip back off to her life with a satisfied smile. Her desire to have children, to create a family, was stronger than even some mind-blowing sex. She wanted more, and even if she wasn’t sure something like that could ever develop with Clyde at this early stage in their relationship, he had so many of the right qualities that it sent her into a full-on freak.

But there were facts she couldn’t ignore.

He liked her dogs. They loved him to the point of ignoring her as of late. He was wicked-ass hot, but had no clue how brick shithouse he was. He was smart. Most of all, he understood the life she’d been living—the ghosts she communicated with. That was half the battle in finding someone to share her whacky life with, and that he’d have no choice but to go before she could get to know him better just plain sucked wankers. That she wanted to know him beyond this fairly superficial level troubled her more.

“Ms. Markham? Care to elaborate? Maybe fight back with some of that passion?” he taunted.

“No.”

“Sulking much?” He grinned, obviously to show her he was teasing, but she wasn’t laughing.

Her arms crossed in protective mode over her chest. “What’s all this about anyway, Clyde? You don’t strike me as the kind of guy who likes to get deep unless it’s knee deep in H2O2, or whatever it was that you creamed yourself with.”

The hand that had held hers tucked deep into the pocket of his jeans; his lips were grim. “I think I’m turning over a new leaf. Maybe it’s a little late, maybe it’s well past the time it was due, but there it is. I spent ridiculous amounts of time buried in books about life, but I didn’t gorge on life itself. Looking back, I would have done it differently. So I’m paying closer attention, and paying closer attention means that I see you, Delaney. I know you and how you tick. I want you to see that interacting only with the dead has left you with blind spots to everything else. I want you to see what I see now that I’m dead. And I don’t want you to miss out on what you want because you won’t at least try or realize that you’re not really trying at all.”

Her mouth might have fallen open in astonishment if not for the fact that she had so much to say. “Have I mentioned what my life’s like, seeing dead people? Were you not present for the overall synopsis?”

Clyde’s head dipped. “I was there. I’m here now, and from my vantage point, I’m seeing someone who’s been rejected because of something she can’t control, and then decided it was much safer to stay at home with her dogs and Melinda Gordon than it was to take a risk.”

If only that was the entirety of her self-imposed isolation. It would be a much simpler explanation than the real reason. Sure, the medium thing was a difficult pill to try to make someone swallow, and that she’d given up on a relationship was just as well, because Satan’s threat to hurt anyone she came in contact with brought her more fear than telling someone she talked to the dead.

Delaney threw her hands up in the air in disbelief. “A risk? Risk? Did you smoke a bong when I wasn’t looking? Maybe hit my herbs and some paper towels for rolling? That’s not all this is, Clyde. This is about something much bigger than a risk.” A risk. Risk this, asshole. He had no idea what it was like to have to explain why and how lamps and dishes and a host of other objects had managed to become airborne without her moving a muscle. Or why she was in the coat closet, talking to fucking nothing. Risk that.