Page 66 of If I Stopped Haunting You

She grasped his hand in hers. “Good.”

They paused, hands clasped together, cheeks blazing as they stared at one another.

“That was good, right?” he ventured.

“No, Neil, it was absolute shit.Yes,okay, it was good.”

“How good?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t push it.”

“Noted.”

She paused. “But just for the record, I was tested recently, and I’m clear.”

“And just for the record,” he said with a smile, “as am I.”

“Good.”

“Good,” he echoed.

If it was the end of everything, the least they could do was enjoy it.

Together.

Next time, preferably without pants.

Chapter 19

NEIL

Neil should have been focusing on the journal, or the study, or literally anything else, but he couldn’t. Penelope Skinner was like a fucking goddess, and now that he’d kissed her and touched her, he wanted to do nothing else.

“We’re trying to save the world,” she’d joked when he ran a hand along her side and kissed the delicate skin behind her ear.

“We could die at any moment,” he agreed as she straddled his lap and ran her hands through his hair.

She let him kiss her for a long, dizzying moment, but when she pulled away and slid off his lap with bee-stung lips, mussed hair, and glazed eyes, she stumbled back a step and drew an invisible line in the air as he stood as if to follow her.

“Five-foot rule,” she ordered.

“Penelope.”

“We have important things to do.”

“I know, but don’t you just love procrastinating?”

He stepped forward and pressed her back against a bookcase, ignoring when several books were jostled free and landed at their feet.

“May I?” he murmured, tilting up her chin.

She paused for a beat before nodding, and he bent to kiss her, relishing the way she moaned into him. He broke the kiss beforehe gently spun her around until her ass ground against his front. He smoothed one of his hands down her arm before tangling their fingers together and lifting it to the shelves, holding her in place. His other hand trailed over her front, skimming over her breast and down her stomach until his fingers found the groove in her full hips, tracing small circles. From the way she arched into him, she wanted more.

“Neil,” she groaned. “We’ve got important things to do.”

“It would be so easy,” he said against her neck, nibbling between words. “Don’t you want to?”

“Of course, I do. But what if the ghost is watching?”