Page 109 of Hot Ghost Summer

I erase the digital evidence of my visit here from his computer and slip back into the dense electrical network that flows through London like invisible highways. Travelling north-east, I follow my heartstring home. To Theo.

He’s still asleep, the duvet kicked down around his feet, exposing the bruised flesh of his backside. Taking shape as a living ghost, I slip in alongside him and pull him close. He shudders at my cooling touch, and mumbles without stirring.

“Shhh, Baby,” I whisper. “Sleep.” I kiss the side of his head. “I’ve got you.”

thirty-four

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Theo

The soft brush of my hair away from my nape, the gentle caress of a stray breath on my bare skin, and then Hollis’s cool lips on the back of my neck stir me awake.

I shuffle back into him. “Morning.”

His hand finds my throat. Claiming. Possessive. “Did you sleep well?”

“Mhm.” I turn to face him, seeking. “Like a baby.”

He gifts me another kiss, this one to the corner of my mouth.

Greedy for more, I push up into his hold.

His fingers tighten.

My breath hitches.

“You are a menace, Baby.” His lips move against the shell of my ear.

I moan.

“A dangerous little thief of my time…” He grazes my jaw with his teeth.

I arch my back.

“Sweet sin wrapped in wicked temptation…” He dematerialises entirely from the bed, and I flop onto my back. “Come on, brat. Up.”

Hollis reforms at my feet, fully dressed in well-tailored fine woollen trousers and a navy-blue shirt. His chiselled jaw cuts a sharp edge against his collar, high cheekbones add an aristocratic elegance, and those gold-rimmed glasses slide down a straight nose.

The dangerous angles of his face clash with the heavy pull of attraction he inspires. He looks like a god—and fucks like one too—but I have little interest in art I can’t get my hands on.

“No.” I pout, rolling onto my front and shoving my hands under the pillow.

“I want to show you something,” he barters against my curiosity.

“I think what you want t’ show me, and what I want you t’ show me, are two different things,” I mumble into the pillow.

He gives a long, exaggerated exhale that sounds more like a huff of laughter. “You can’t stay there all day.”

“Can too. Can brat perfectly well from ’ere, ta very much.”

The rhythmic buzz of an incoming call vibrates my phone against the bedside table. Why would anyone need to call me at this early hour on a Sunday morning? I ignore it in favour of grinding Hollis’s disciplinary gears.

“You should take that…” he suggests.

I crack open one eye in suspicion. Nothing makes me want to do something less than when someone says I should.

Jayne’s name on the screen has my arm shooting out of its own accord.