The Dead Tell (Magical Temptations Collection) Read Online Free PDF Page A

eyes had been…determined. Yeah, he was determined.
    Probably why she hadn’t been able to shake him. Or the other times they’d ended up in bed.
    This morning she’d been really glad he was there and though she argued, she was just as glad he’d seen her home.
    What they were, she didn ’t really know.
    They were more than friends, occasional lovers and… something. Though she considered him a friend, even a close friend, they didn’t know everything about each other. Not everything. Close, but not all.
    She ’d never actually told him about the ghosts. She’d only ever told Sam.
    Sam looked at it as an experi ment. Thus, the journals and recording what she’d been doing, thinking, even her diet. Sam liked to break it all down. The Riggios were an involved family, so they all knew because Sammy couldn’t keep a secret to save her life.
    So Paige wouldn’t have to listen to her best friend, she recorded all she knew from last night, this morning and how she felt.
    But Mike kept sliding into her brain. The man was a distraction.
    Waiting on a stubborn woman.
    Ideas of what could be, danced evilly in her head. She’d been there before. Men like Mike didn’t go for women like her. Men like Mike were solid, salt of the earth types of guys and tended to steer clear of women who could talk to ghosts.
    Tapping her pen against the edge of her journal. The sun had brought the day bright and heavy, it would probably rain. Then again it was autumn in New Orleans.
    A knock at the door pulled her out of her almost nap.
    She climbed from her purple couch, checked the peep-hole , and opened the door.
    Mike leaned against the doorjamb looking pale, with tired red eyes.
    “ Come in,” she said stepping back.
    “ Babe,” he stepped in, shut the door and pulled her against him, resting his head on the top of hers. She felt his exhale.
    “ One of these days,” he muttered.
    She started to pull away to ask him what he meant, but instead he tipped her chin up with his fist. His eyes locked onto hers and she saw something move through them as he studied her face. What, she couldn’t pinpoint and wasn’t sure if she wanted to.
    “ Mike?”
    “ Shhhh.” He leaned in and against her lips said, “I’ve realized what your problem is, babe.”
    “ I don’t have—”
    “ Shhh,” he whispered. “You think too much.” He leaned in and nuzzled, then lightly kissed the skin just beneath her ear. “I’ve waited, Paige, but fair warning, I’m tired of waiting.”
    “ What?” she asked.
    He didn ’t answer. His hand cupped the back of her head, his fingers scrunching her hair as he had a habit of doing. She saw his eyes flash for one brief millisecond before his mouth descended and he kissed her.
    She loved kissing Mike. The man could kiss .
    His lips started off slow, coaxing, always coaxing her to join him. Her tongue darted out and she licked the seam of h is lips, pulling his bottom lip between hers for a moment.
    His hand at her hip moved to the center of her back, pulling her tight and close as he took over the kiss. She tasted coffee and Mike and fell as she always did into the moment, into Mike, wrapping her arms around him.
    “ There she is,” he said pulling away.
    She looked at him, confused.
    “ My Paige. She loves when I kiss her, leans into me soft and sweet and, babe, I’m telling you now, this—whatever this is—between us, we’re gonna talk about.” He looked like he was about to fall over.
    “ Now?”
    “ Babe, I’d love nothing more than to pin you to the door or the wall and fuck us both into sleep. So no, not now.”
    She snapped her mouth shut and swallowed as places tingled that already want ed him.
    “ I’m dead on my feet. I need a bed, a couch, I don’t care. But if I don’t get horizontal, I’m sleeping against the damned door.”
    He was tired, and she could see it in his reddened eyes, the stoop of his shoulders.
    “ Okay.” She took his hand and led him back to her room.