Page 112 of Love at First Fright

“Open your eyes.”

I peeled them open slowly. Found Charlie’s face inches from mine. Smiling. Amused. Still stroking the air where my hair would be if I could hold myself together properly.

“Can you feel this?”

“Um… sort of.” A tiny lie. But I didn’t want him to stop, regardless. My imagination filled in the blanks. The weight of his hand. The gentle pressure. The warmth.

Charlie leaned in. Pressed his lips against my cheek.

The sensation flickered. There and not there.

“What about that?”

He pressed his lips against my mouth. I gasped. “I can feel you. Almost.”

Almost wasn’t good enough.

I forced myself to become solid. Dragged energy from somewhere deep, deep inside, and pulled. My body coalesced. Became real. Became touchable.

Charlie grabbed my arm and laughed in relief. “There you are.”

I didn’t waste time. Wasn’t sure how long I could last. Grabbed Charlie’s shoulders and shoved him quite violently onto the bed.

Then froze.

What was I doing?! Was this okay? Had I—

But Charlie grinned up at me. A new kind of smile. A wicked smile. A hungry smile that sent electricity through whatever passed for my nervous system these days.

“Are you actually standing there waiting for my consent? Really?” His eyes sparkled behind his glasses. “Because that usually isn’t a problem with you.”

I launched myself at him.

No hesitation this time. No second-guessing. Just pure want propelling me through the air and onto Charlie’s warm, solid, living body.

The impact drove him deeper into the mattress. Springs protested beneath us. Charlie’s breath rushed out in a surprised gasp that morphed into something lower. Darker. A groan that vibrated through his chest and straight into mine.

His hips bucked up against me.

Stars. Actual stars exploded behind my eyelids. Or maybe that was just my synapses firing for the first time in decades. Hard to tell when every nerve ending I’d forgotten I possessed suddenly screamed back to life.

I ripped Charlie’s glasses off his head, tossing them onto the bedside cabinet as his hand slid up under my T-shirt. Fingers splayed against my ribs. Cold—no, I was the cold one. His touch burned like a brand against incorporeal flesh that had forgotten what warmth meant.

His other hand gripped the back of my thigh. Squeezed. Then slid higher, cupping my ass and pulling me tighter against him with a grip that said come here. A grip that said mine.

My cock pressed hard against his hip. Against actual, physical resistance that wasn’t just my own hand in some lonely corner of this manor at three in the morning. The sensation hit like a tidal wave. No. Like a power chord cranked to eleven. Like the bass drop in a song you’ve been waiting your entire life to hear.

Rock hard didn’t begin to cover it.

“Oh, thank fuck,” Charlie breathed against my neck.

I pulled back slightly, dizzy. “What?”

“I didn’t know if ghost dicks still remembered how to have fun.”

Laughter burst out of me. Actual laughter. Was it normal to laugh during sex? From what I could remember, sex had always been desperate and fumbled and tinged with shame—quick hookups in club bathrooms, rushed encounters in someone’s car, always afraid of being caught, of being seen.

But this felt different.