A Gift of Ghosts (Tassamara) Read online

  Zane pulled away from her. “I hate jobs like this, Grace. Tell Lucas—oh, hey, Akira.” His motion had been enough to bring him into her line of view. Akira gave him a tentative smile.

  Grace glanced over her shoulder, spotting Akira, and immediately turned and crossed toward the doorway. “I’ll let you know, but you know they’re going to want to see you. Hi, Akira.”

  Akira dipped her chin, acknowledging Grace’s greeting, but feeling awkward about having interrupted them. “If you’re busy, I can come back later,” she offered.

  She had been surprised to discover that Grace was Zane’s sister: the blonde woman looked nothing like her siblings. She’d been even more surprised to learn that the woman she’d assumed was a receptionist on her first day was actually the CEO of the business, managing day-to-day operations since Max retired. Max was still involved as Chairman of the Board, but Zane and Smithson—the heads of special affairs and research, respectively—reported to Grace. Dillon claimed that she sat at the front desk sometimes because it was how she started and she still liked it.

  “We’re not,” Zane sounded grim, but Grace also shook her head.

  Reaching the doorway, she said quietly, so that only Akira could hear, “Cheer him up if you can. Tomorrow’s going to be a rough day.”

  Akira glanced at her quickly. What did that mean? What did Grace expect? But the blonde woman just squeezed her arm in passing and continued out of the room. Akira stepped into Zane’s office. He was rubbing his forehead, looking tired.

  “Um, do you still want to see me?” she asked. Should she be here? Grace’s orders to cheer him up notwithstanding, he didn’t look as if he wanted company.

  He looked up at her and smiled, but it was strained. “Did I—oh!” It was as if a realization had struck, and his smile turned into a full-fledged grin. “Yes, I do want to see you.” He waved at the space behind her. “Check it out.”

  Akira looked. The first time she’d visited the playroom Zane called an office, Akira had laughed aloud. It made so much more sense than the barren cell he’d used for her interview.

  On the fourth floor, it was a large L-shaped room that might have been intended to be a conference room, or—if the complex had been built as a private school, as she suspected—a combination science lab/classroom. Zane, however, had turned one leg of the L into an arcade, with six old video games, a foosball table, and an air hockey table. The second leg of the L was a living room, with a comfortable couch, a couple of easy chairs, a huge flat-screen television on the wall, and more video game consoles than she knew the names of. Only the corner of the L looked like an office, with a desk, chairs, office equipment, even file cabinets.

  Now, though, in the space that she thought of as the arcade, the foosball table and the air hockey table were gone, replaced by a pool table. And not a trivial pool table—a real one, with ornate carved legs, a mahogany finish, rich green felt—the type of pool table that cost thousands of dollars. Her eyes widened.

  “A pool table?” she asked. “That’s why you wanted to meet with me?”

  “Yep.” A slightly sheepish expression crossed his face. “I guess I could have waited for next week at our usual time.”

  Zane met with all the employees of the special affairs division one-on-one, once a week, to assign new jobs, get updated on the progress of their current jobs, talk about any problems, and so on. Officially, that was. Based on her meetings with him, Akira thought that meant he probably spent a lot of time playing foosball or Halo.

  “But what happened to foosball? I thought you loved foosball.”

  “I decided it was time for a change,” he answered, standing and moving out from behind his desk. He paused next to her, their shoulders almost brushing, and she looked up at him. He was admiring the table, his smile still playing around his mouth, but he looked down at her as if he felt her gaze, and his lips quirked. “And you did say you’d play pool.”

  “I did?” she questioned. “When did I say that?”

  Every time they met, he tried to convince her to play some game: foosball first, but then usually a video game. And every time, she declined. She’d been trying to keep their meetings professional. Lately, though, as their relationship slipped over the line into personal anyway, it had been getting harder to resist. At their last meeting, she’d been laughing when she said no to bowling on the Kinect.

  “It was when you got all huffy about Ms. Pac-Man.”

  Akira thought back. That had been weeks ago. “Huffy? Just because I told you it was sexist to think I’d like Ms. Pac-Man better than Halo?” The words might have sounded challenging, but he’d be able to hear the smile in her voice.

  “Grace does, Nat does. I wasn’t being sexist, just generalizing from experience,” he defended himself mildly, crossing to the rack of pool cues. “And if you remember, you said . . .”

  “I said that girls might like Ms. Pac-Man, but that physicists like pool,” Akira interrupted him, joining him by the rack and eying the cues, before picking up one that looked about right. She hefted it carefully, checking its weight and grip before putting it back on the rack and picking up another one. “I remember.”

  “Does this mean you’re going to play pool with me?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Akira answered, lashes down, covering her eyes. “Eight-ball work for you? Call shot, open break?”

  Yes, she was definitely going to play pool with him. And not just pool. The sizzle running through her veins told her that her impulsive streak—the one that brought her to Tassamara in the first place—had just made a decision.

  The only question left was how direct she was going to be about acting on that decision. And she thought maybe the answer was very direct. Cheer him up? Yeah, she could do that.

  Zane didn’t know it yet but their casual flirtation had just been upgraded.

  ***

  Zane had been happier about finally finding a game that Akira would play before she killed him six games in a row.

  “Best, um, seven out of thirteen?” he offered, leaning against the pool table with a sigh. She laughed. She’d taken off her light sweater a while back, revealing a black tank top, and he wished he could blame all of his losses on the distraction her dark curls brushing against her almost bare shoulders had caused him, but when it came to pool, she was out of his league. She’d even let him break that time, but it made no difference. “Or maybe some Halo?”

  “You ready to start shooting me?” she asked, a half smile curving her lips as she finished racking the balls.

  “Only virtually,” he drawled. Actually, shooting her wouldn’t be his first choice. Watching the way she moved around the table for the past hour, the concentration on her face, the graceful way she held the cue—and oh, hell, yeah, the curve of her ass as she bent to make a shot, the shadow down the neckline of her shirt—he really wanted to touch her. To taste her. To lift her up onto the edge of the table and take her lips and feel her legs wrap around him and pull him close.

  But he knew he couldn’t rush her. She was wary and cautious and even though he’d kept Max away from her, refusing to allow him to try to pressure her into communicating with his dead, Zane still wasn’t sure she wouldn’t just run away one day.

  “Physicists ought to be good at Halo, too,” he pointed out. “Pool isn’t the only game where angles matter.”

  “Oh, pool definitely isn’t the only game physicists are good at,” Akira replied, placing her cue back in the rack.

  “Oh, yeah? What other games do physicists like?” He was watching her, more attention on her legs than on her words, trying to imagine what they looked like under her pants, what they’d feel like if he could touch them.

  “Sex.”

  He blinked, eyes shooting up to her face. Had she just said that?

  “Chemists think it’s all about chemistry,” she said, crossing to him, taking the pool cue out of his hand, taking it back to the rack and putting it away, then returning, even as she continued talking. Her wo
rds were casual, conversational, but there was a hint of breathlessness in her voice that told him they were more than theoretical.

  “Hormones and pheromones. Some peptides, a little oxytocin, vasopressin, and that’s the whole story. But what do they know? Really, sex is all about physics.”

  She was standing in front of him, looking up at him, and whatever she saw on his face, it was right, because she took his hand and with a little smile, started tugging him with her to the other side of the room.

  He followed, saying huskily, “I don’t know. The chemistry seems to be working fine for me.” His jeans were abruptly feeling constricting, as she pushed him down onto the brown leather couch.

  “That’s because we haven’t started playing with physics yet.” She retreated to the office door, and locked it, then turned back to face him. “You have no professional objections to playing my game in your office, do you?”

  The mischief in her smile told him that she knew exactly how unlikely that was. “Not in the least,” he assured her.

  “Oh, but—” she paused and bit her lip.

  No, no, no, he thought fervently. Don’t change your mind. The attraction he’d felt the day they’d met had deepened over the past weeks: something about her mix of fragility and determination, her stubborn fearfulness, caught him like no one else ever had. He wanted to tease her, to protect her, and to make love to her, sometimes all at the same time.

  “I didn’t really come prepared for, um, this type of game,” she continued. “Are you—do you—would you happen to have . . . ?” She tucked her hair behind her ear and tilted her head to the side, looking at him as if hoping he’d read her mind, her cheeks turning slightly pink. “My game requires approved protective gear.”

  Oh, hell. He tried to remember if he’d ever had a reason to bring condoms to work and then realized that the travel kit he kept in his desk for quick trips might be stocked. Standing, he crossed to his desk, opened the bottom drawer, found his bag, and rummaged through it, all the while acutely aware of her eyes on him, and of his heart racing. Ah, there.

  Holding up the foil wrapper, he said, “Is this what you’re looking for?”

  She smiled at him demurely, and his fingers tightened on the wrapper as he felt his body respond with a surge of pure lust. “Exactly.”

  She gestured with her head toward the couch and he met her in front of it, dropping the condom onto the end table, as she placed one small hand on his chest. “So what’s wrong with chemistry?” he asked in a murmur, bending his head toward her, intending to kiss her, until she put a finger up and across his lips.

  “Not a thing,” she said. “But physics is better.” He let her hold him off, waiting to see where she was going.

  “See, physics is about touch, and then movement,” she said, not looking him in the face. She slid her hands over his shirt, and then, one at a time, carefully, slowly, she opened the buttons, as she started to stroke, tracing patterns into his chest, circling her fingers delicately around his nipples and then tracing away, down, down, and then back up again.

  She looked up at him, eyes glinting with humor, and he realized that she knew exactly what she was doing to him. “I could tell you all about your sensory system, the way your neurons are transmitting electrical impulses, the ions breaking through the cell walls, but we’ll just focus on friction for the moment.”

  “Friction, huh?” He shrugged out of his shirt, letting it drop onto the ground behind him, and then brought his hands to rest on her hips, pulling her a little closer so that he could feel her soft curves. She wiggled against him, just a little, and he closed his eyes, trying to resist the need to go faster. Much, much faster. But he took a deep breath, and let his hands slide up and under her tank top, touching the warmth of her bare skin as she continued.

  “Friction,” she said, moving her hands up his chest, “is the force that resists the motion of two surfaces against one another. Too much friction is a bad thing, of course, but just the right amount of friction . . .”

  Her hands were stroking, caressing, around his back and down, over his jeans, and then coming back up, pulling his head down to hers.

  He followed her lead, reaching down to let her take his mouth with hers, letting his lips open under her searching tongue until he couldn’t resist any longer and began exploring, caressing the soft skin of her lips with his mouth until her head fell back and she let him nibble and stroke his way along her chin and down the taut line of her neck.

  “Just the right amount of friction,” she continued breathlessly, “. . . and kinetic energy gets converted to heat.”

  “Oh, yeah, I think that’s definitely happening here,” Zane murmured against her skin.

  “Mmm.” Her response was wordless, before she took a step back. He let her go reluctantly, but she just smiled, reaching down to the base of her tank top and pulling it smoothly over her head. He closed his eyes, almost in pain at the sight of the black lace bra and her gentle curves, but she was already reaching around herself, unhooking the bra and letting it fall to the ground.

  She looped a finger in the top of his jeans and pulled him toward her. “May I?”

  “God, yes.”

  She laughed, and unbuttoned the first button on his jeans, but then paused. “Maybe we should skip ahead?”

  “To?” He reached for the clasp on her slacks, and slipped it free, then pushed the sides off her hips, letting her pants fall to the ground. She stepped out of them and kicked them aside, then stood there, eyes dreamy and thoughtful, dressed only in black silk panties with lace around the edge, and black heels. Her skin was pale and lovely, her dark curls falling around her shoulders, her pupils dark and dilated, and skipping ahead sounded like a really good plan to him. He wanted to bury himself in her, to feel her wrapping herself around him, and every moment he had to wait was a slow torture.

  “Oscillation is always nice,” she murmured, still motionless. “You know what oscillation is, right?”

  “Movement?” He used his toes on his heels to pull his shoes off without bending down, then shoved them under the couch with his foot, before moving his hands over hers and starting to help with his own buttons.

  “Not just movement. A repetitive variation around a point.” As he let his jeans drop, her hand closed around his warmth. He reached for her, as she added, “I bet you can find a really good place to oscillate.”

  “Oh, God,” he groaned, taking her mouth, his hands tangling in her hair as he kissed her, deep, intense, greedy, vitally aware of her hand tight around his hardness, the warmth of her curves so close to him. “I never knew physics was so fascinating.”

  She laughed and dropped backward onto the couch, pulling him down with her. He explored her body, touching and tasting her, until oscillation became irresistible, when he reached for the condom.

  He paused, fighting for control. “Science class was not like this.”

  “Shall I tell you about resonant frequencies?” she whispered, stroking her hands down his back, as he slid inside her.

  “It can’t be better than oscillation,” he answered, as he started to move. She felt amazing, so hot, so soft, and he wanted it to last forever. But he also wanted to move, faster, and faster, and to feel her moving with him.

  “Oh, but it is,” she said, breathlessly, arching underneath him. “Physical systems have frequencies.” She ended with a gasp as he stroked his hand up her body, cupping her breast, thumbing the taut nipple.

  “Mmm-hmm,” he murmured, letting his voice ask the question.

  “Frequencies at which they vibrate. Hit the right frequency . . . the resonant frequency . . . and an amplitude disturbance . . . reinforces the energy stored in the system.”

  He had no idea what she was talking about. Absolutely none. But he loved her gasping voice, the husky breathiness, and the way her body was responding to his. He moved a little faster, feeling how close he was to the edge, but wanting to make it last, wanting to bring her with him.

&nbs
p; “Resonant frequencies make music. Shatter glass. Make bridges collapse. And—ohhh.” He could feel her contracting around him and that was it, that was enough, that was too much, and he let go, feeling himself exploding inside her.

  “Yeah, that, too,” she murmured.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The post-orgasmic bliss lasted two or three minutes—not bad for Akira. The post-sex anxiety started immediately thereafter.

  Shit. She’d slept with her boss. And not just slept with him, seduced him. Hell, she hadn’t even made him buy her dinner first. And that third date rule? Smashed to bits.

  But he’d bought her a pool table, she reminded herself. Oh, not as a gift, of course, but she knew that pool table was here so that she would play with him. A small smile crept across her face, and she turned her head, letting her lips brush across his bare shoulder. His arm tightened around her.

  They were still lying on the couch, still tangled together. Zane had gotten up briefly, then returned, shifting so that she was half on top of him, tucked into the secure side of the couch, her back pressing against its back.

  “So,” Zane murmured. “How did you get so good at pool?”

  Pool, huh? That was what he was interested in? Well, it was what she’d been thinking about, too. “Practice, practice, practice and . . .”

  “Let me guess, more practice.”

  “We had a pool table in the house. My dad and I played a lot. Almost every day before he got really sick.”

  Zane stroked his hand down her back, a touch that felt sympathetic, not sexual, but before he could say anything else, his phone buzzed. There was a mutual pause, a hesitation born of uncertainty. Would they let the interruption break the moment? And then Akira moved, shifting off Zane and away, so that he could get up. With a resigned sigh, he swung his legs off the couch and reached for his jeans. As he dug out his phone, she gathered up her clothes, and quickly began to dress.

  “Damn it,” he muttered as he read his incoming text.