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“Levi will also be dining with me tonight,” I say. “Please put our meal on my husband’s room card. And we’ll have a second bottle of our friend Dom here.” I tap the ice bucket with my nail.
“As you wish, ma’am.”
The waiter leaves, and I busy myself perusing the menu. Levi’s presence unnerves me, especially thinking about what we did in that elevator earlier today.
I’m suddenly a ball of nervous energy. I tap my foot on the ground. I can’t think of anything to say to him because I’m so busy thinking about Jackson and Orion and Brooks and that fucking kiss. It’s a good thing that I’ll be able to leave as soon as we release this ghost. A little distance from the Bellua brothers will make a world of difference.
Right away, Levi notices I’m distracted. “Is everything okay with you?”
“Fine, fine.”
“Is that so?” He lifts an eyebrow. “Because when I see a girl like you eating alone on her honeymoon and looking a little spooked, after her husband spent most of the day in the gym beating the shit out of a punching bag instead of between your legs, making you scream his name multiple times, I can’t help but think something’s wrong.”
The menu falls from my fingers. My cheeks flush with heat at the image Levi’s words conjures up…me lying down on that enormous, ridiculous heart-shaped bed, the sheets tangled around me as strong hands force my knees apart, and a hot, probing tongue dances over me…but who is in that vision? Jackson? Orion? Brooks? Or all three of them…
Fuck, I’m sick.
Levi bends down and picks my menu up off the ground. As he hands it to me, his fingers brush mine, and this hot, trembling sensation in my body blows out into a full-body blush. My gaze falls on Levi’s lips, and my stupid heart does the flipping thing it’s started doing around him.
Now I’m imagininghimon the heart-shaped bed, that silky British voice of his whispering all kinds of filthy things…
If I brought Levi back to our room and fucked him on our bed, that would really put a twist in Brooks’s panties.
Would it make me stop thinking about Jackson’s lips on mine?
It’s tempting.
I snap the menu from his grasp and straighten up.
“I don’t want to talk about Brooks.” I sip my wine, trying to stop my hand from shaking. “Hey, if you live in the hotel, did you happen to know the couple who was murdered?”
“Which couple?”
“Any of them. It appears premium quality pillow mints aren’t the only experiences guaranteed at the newly renovated Bridgemont—a grisly death is included free of charge.”
“What makes you ask about the…incidents?” Levi sounds amused.
“Morbid curiosity. They stayed in my room, you know.”
The meals arrive then, and we both tuck in.
“I met the groom from a few days ago,” Levi says as he slides a piece of meat into his mouth, chews, and swallows. “Honestly, he seemed like kind of a dick. Or a wanker, as they say in my native tongue. They came to the bar for a drink while they waited for their room to be ready, and he downed three martinis in quick succession and made our lovely Chrissy feel very uncomfortable while she worked the bar. His new wife wasn’t happy. She practically had to drag him up to their room.”
I wonder why the ghost targeted them, out of all the couples who’ve stayed in that room? I assumed he went for the couples who were most in love out of a jealous rage, but they don’t sound like a match made in heaven.
I think about the number six scrawled on the wall in their blood. It was on the walls of the other two recently murdered couples, but not in the original bridegroom murder, unless the police missed something. That has to be important, but how?
Stop thinking about it, Lily.
The ghost’s motive or how he chooses his victims doesn’t matter. Tonight we’re going to get rid of the ghost once and for all. No more dead newlyweds. And I can get the fuck out of here before I make a Bellua-flavored mistake I’ll later regret.
“I’ve heard some rumors about the honeymoon suite,” I say.
“Oh yeah? Like that it’s haunted by a malevolent ghost?” Levi lowers his voice. “I don’t believe it.”
“You don’t believe in ghosts?”
Levi smirks. “Oh, I believe in all sorts of things, princess. But no, I don’t believe that Sid would hurt anyone. I’ve seen him around the building over the years. He hangs around because he misses her, his love, even after everything she did to him. Love can make you do crazy things, Lily Dean. Reckless and wild things. And the kind of tortured, forbidden love that keeps Sid here against all the laws of nature…well…that’s the wildest of them all.”
