He slides his arm from under my head and props himself up on his elbow to look into my eyes. “You are incredibly beautiful.”
“So are you,” I say, my lips parting as I see his eyes lower flirtatiously to stare at them.
“You are also incredibly sexy,” he says, taking his other hand and trailing it softly down my face.
“So are you,” I repeat, feeling my belly pull with excitement as his hand tenderly rests under my chin, lifting my face until it’s primed to receive his kiss. “You’re intriguing.”
“So are you,” he says with his bedroom eyes boring into me.
“That’s my line,” I say, running my finger over his pillowy lower lip.
Without warning he covers my lips with his and begins to explore my mouth, as I throw my arms around his neck and pull him on top of me with urgency.
Every nerve in my body is on fire as I run my hands up and down his back, feeling the taut, broad muscles there. I can’t help but moan as I feel his excitement pressing into me, and his hands glide up to my breasts, fondling them over my dress eagerly.
We are still consumed with the passion of it when an unwelcome sound invades our hungry petting. A creaking has begun to our right, it begins slowly and then continues insistently. We both stop and look over to see the armoire door opening and closing of its own accord, deliberately and in a dreadful cadence.
As we stare at it, it continues. Swinging open and then closed with a click before creaking again to an open position.
Ian sits up and looks at me. “Your room?”
I almost say yes and then remember that it looks as though a bodega exploded there. Chips, candies, water bottles and toiletries are still strewn all over my bed, unless I have a conscientious, housekeeping ghost in my suite.
“I would love to,” I start as I sit up and kiss him briefly on the lips. “But it is quite late.” And I am a slob, and don’t want you to know it yet, I finish in my head.
I see the disappointment on his face but he nods with a reassuring smile quickly and slides off the bed and turns to grab my hands and helps me up. He pulls me slowly right up to his rigid body. I let my breasts smash into his chest as he leans down and softly kisses me on the lips. I can feel us both getting excited again and with one last deep embrace I pull away.
“I’d like to see you again,” he says as he walks me to the door.
“After that kiss you won’t be able to get rid of me,” I say, running my hands slowly up his chest, knowing that I’m flirting with having sex in a room that has at least four people in it, living and dead.
“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” he says as he opens the door.
I laugh and start to walk over the threshold and trip over an unexpected pile at the door. I hear metallic clangs and look down in surprise to see a mountain of cutlery sitting there innocently.
I take a sharp intake of breath and look at him, where there is also surprise registered on his face. “Wow, that’s new,” he says.
I shake my head, curse Bridget the ghost and step over the pile carefully. I wave goodbye and stride down the hallway, grateful that he stays in the doorway watching me as I make my way back to the elevator.
It dings and I walk in, eager to get back to the safety of my own floor and room, hoping the supernatural activity is not elevated there too. I’ve never had to flee from a job before, but I am considering it now if this is how the entire hotel is.
The door closes and I look at the copper, reflective door remembering Ian’s hungry eyes watching me in it earlier. I smile as the elevator reaches my floor, but the smile doesn’t last for long as the reflection becomes suddenly obscured by a figure behind me.
I blink but it’s still there, shadowy, and almost animalistic in stance, with twisted and curled fingers. It’s long jagged tendrils of black curls seem suspended in the air, billowing in a breeze that isn’t present in the still elevator. I gasp and whirl around as the doors open, and I find nothing there.
I almost fall over fleeing the elevator and sprint to my room, ruing the blisters that have begun on my heels from these goddamn shoes.
In my room I throw all the lights on and hug my back against the door as I scan the room. I find nothing amiss, and even the air seems more innocuous here. I permit a small relieved sigh and walk forward to the bed where I sit gingerly to take off my shoes.
I am at a loss to wade through my stew of emotions tonight. I’ve met someone, which is great. I enjoyed his company immensely, and while I’ve had romance on the job before, it has never been with someone who actually lives in the same city as me. Not only that, but he understands the demands of my profession. Unfortunately, this all happened in a place where I am on edge. Where my carefully crafted life and emotional balance feel threatened, which he observed firsthand.
I wonder what happened. Besides just the advertised ghost, there was something else. I desperately did not want to see a connection between the thing in the elevator, what spoke through Bridget and what happened so many years ago, but I’d be an idiot not to. But how? What had happened had been as a result of the drugs. I’d long ago let go of the notion of anything actually supernatural. Not that I thought of it frequently. My goal was to never think of it, in fact. Ever. Which was why I was a mental to come
