Page 74 of The Ghost of Exes Past

She moves into his lap without being asked, facing him. His hands find her hips and guide her onto him. She gasps and for a moment they stay like that – his hands steadying her, their foreheads almost touching, breath shallow and uneven, but neither of them moves. He feels her tighten around him, but his eyes never leave hers.

She watches him try to hold still.

She watches him decide to try to hold it.

She thinks the effort of it is the most intimate thing she’s ever seen.

And then he can’t take it anymore.

His touch slides down her body, and he thrusts – her head thrown back in total ecstasy, his grip tightening, fingers digging in, and she rides and rides and his mouth hangs open as he watches her breasts jump and he can’t stand the beauty of it, of her. They tessellate. They always have.

He pulls her closer to him, her warm body flush against his, and they kiss – breathless, starving – his hands in her hair and hers gripping his shoulders, and nothing between them, nothing neatly managed, nothing held back.

For once, she has nothing left to hold back. So she doesn’t.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Belle

If this bed wasn’t haunted already, it is now.

We lie still, side by side, the sheets crumpled around our thighs. My head rests on his chest and I wait for a heartbeat that doesn’t come. I’d been listening for one without realising. I pull up the duvet and we sink beneath it. Outside, the Whitby wind batters against the windows.

Is it still cheating if it’s with a ghost? More importantly, is sleeping with a spirit the night before you wed another man the ultimate form of betrayal? Am I a slutty Scrooge? Am I now pregnant with ghost babies? I press my cold feet against his legs. It doesn’t help warm them much.

I don’t regret it.

An awful part of me has wanted this. I had missed him so desperately that I’d forced myself to stop thinking about him and now I can’t stop. His hands, God, those hands, the way they know exactly where to go, without fumbling. How they moved across me like he was relearning something he’d never actually forgotten. The way he’d cupped my face before kissing my neck and my chest, taking his time in a way that made me want to scream at him not to stop, never stop. And his eyes. The way he’d entered me slowly, watching my face the whole time. The way he’d looked up at me from between my thighs like he had absolutely nowhere else to be. I’d forgotten what it felt like to be looked at like that. I press my thighs together now, lying here, still feeling the echo of him.

I’ve known for a long time that I wasn’t finished. That I’d never be finished with Jake. I just wish that wasn’t true.

I should be furious. An hour ago I was telling him to leave and I meant it, but now I’m lying here, drawing circles on his chest with my finger, and I can’t really explain what changed … except a folded piece of paper with his terrible handwriting all over it and the fact he came back and for the first time, maybe ever, said the thing he’s spent a decade avoiding.

He came here for himself, but he stayed for me. I hold on to him tighter. It feels like nobody has chosen me freely in a long time.

‘Where did you go?’ I ask, nuzzling into his neck.

‘Huh?’

‘When you left earlier? Where did you go?’

‘No, you’ll laugh.’

‘Go on.’

‘I walked down to Whitby Abbey. Moped around like a sad puppy. Lots of goths hanging about up there. Turns out goths can see ghosts too.’

‘What?’

‘Did you know they hold a goth weekend here in Whitby twice a year?’

‘Stop!’ I laugh into his neck, breathing in that scent of him I missed so much.

Our laughter dies down and it’s just us and the silence and the realisation that the day is nearly over.

This is the closest we’ve been in a decade, but time is running out. My eyes keep closing against my will so I press my fingers into the sockets, forcing them open. I’m not ready for sleep. Sleeping means morning. Morning means no Jake.

He’s gone quiet in a way that I can’t read. One of us has to say something.