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Only then did he change his pace, moving in shallow, faster thrusts, until a moment later he joined her, whispering her name over and over as his cock jerked inside
her.
15
AFTERWARD THEY LAY IN SILENCE—FACE-TO-FACE, thigh-to-thigh—staring into one another’s eyes. There was something there, in both of them, she knew it. Unspoken questions?
Zoë was forthright by nature. She always asked questions when she needed to. There was no shame in not knowing everything there was to know. It was part of what made her world function.
“Were there others?” Oh, dear, that had come out wrong. “Were there others that Annabel communicated with this way? The visions, I mean.”
“Not that I know of. All I’ve heard about before now is sightings, nothing like this.”
Did you bed them to find out?
What if he had shagged them, all of them, to find out? That was none of her business, she reasoned with herself. Except it was, if ghost hunting was the only reason he was shagging her. She wanted to believe that there was more to it than that. For her, there was. She wanted him. It was more than a quick shag. She liked him. “Why me?”
He touched the side of her face, stroking one finger slowly down from the temple, around the edge of her cheekbone to the tip of her jaw. As she leaned into his touch, loving it, she wondered what he was thinking.
“I don’t know.”
“You’re the professor. You’re the one who should have all the answers.”
One corner of his mouth lifted. “Why do you think I need a research assistant?”
Was he just teasing her, or was there more to it? Something about the way he looked, so thoughtful, made her wonder if he knew more than he was letting on. It was her that was being haunted; she deserved to know all that he did, surely? “If I’m going to help you with your research, it’s all about sharing information, right?”
He seemed amused by her question. Resting one arm around her waist, he kept her close. “Yes, mostly.”
Mostly?
He continued on. “I was doing research on folklore along this coast, but the mystery surrounding Annabel kept coming up over and again, this past year. Something is shifting in the atmosphere between the spirit world and the real world here in Carbrey, and it seemed necessary to question why she’s become more active recently. If she’s communicating through you, maybe we’ll find out why this is happening.”
He was very focused on that goal, and try as she might not to let it get to her, it did. She sat up, drawing her knees up. Wrapping one hand around her shins, she shook out her still-damp hair with her free hand.
He reached out and stroked her back. She closed her eyes, savoring the way it felt as he moved his hand over her, gently, between her shoulder blades. He’d made her focus on every minutiae of their physical experience, which only made this more intense. Being touched by him was sheer bliss, and it made her body melt and mellow into a myriad of sensory experiences. It was hard not to just lie back and let him organize the rest of the week, just so she could have more of it. But she had come here to do her own thing and to have fun. Okay, she was having fun with him, but he was very bound up in his grand purpose, and he had his bloody book to think about.
That annoyed her, she couldn’t help it. On an everyday basis she spent her time doing things for other people, being there for them, and organizing them. Just because she had the hots for him, she couldn’t allow him to commandeer her whole week off.
Besides, she had other things to do. She had a trip to the pub to look forward to, a dance, a bit of fun. Immediately, she regretted not mentioning Crawford’s suggestion before, but she tried not to let the guilt get to her. It wasn’t a big deal.
“Oh, I meant to tell you. You know that guy, Crawford, the one who owns the boat builders,” she stated, casually, “he told me about this event that’s on at the village pub tonight, the dance. He suggested I check it out. It sounded like fun, so I’m going to go up there with him this evening.”
The hand stroking her back stilled, and then moved away.
The atmosphere grew tense, and Zoë immediately felt even more awkward. Okay, she told herself, so things had got out of hand with Crawford the day before, and normally she wouldn’t get involved with two men at the same time, but in the grand scheme of things she didn’t feel as if she was dating either of them. The event at the pub was a social thing, not a one-to-one, so Grayson had no right to get in a huff about that. If he was in a huff, it had to be because she wasn’t falling into line with his plans for his research.
Tension mounted.
“Are you going to the event?” she added, trying to force him to respond by taking the party line approach.
The dreadful silence looming at her back meant she was forced to turn around and look at him.
A heavy frown had taken up residence on his face, and when she looked at him he sat up, turning away so that he was sitting on the edge of the bed with his feet on the floor. After a moment he rested his head in his hands as if he had a huge weight on his shoulders.
Bloody hell. He was acting as if it was the end of the world. Why? It occurred to her then that she might have gone and wounded his male pride. That had not been her intention, but if that’s what was happening here, maybe he did care about her? She reached out and rested her hand against his back. “Grayson?”
“You don’t know what you’re messing with,” he said, sternly. “Stay away from Crawford—and Cain, for that matter.”
