My hands ran down those firm glutes as he moved within me. My body sang under its new master.
And then I tipped over the edge.
“Oh yes, Big D. Yes.”
I felt his arse tighten under my hands, and after hard, fast, final thrusts and a grunt, Death followed me over.
“Wow,” was all I could manage to say.
Death nodded his head, “Wow.”
Usually after sex, you might curl up for a while and then fall asleep in each other’s arms, but neither of us needed any sleep.
Death laid back on the bed, and I curled into the crook of his arm. He looked around the room. “What are you thinking?” I asked him.
“That tomorrow you can clean my room. I’ll keep an extra bag of blood handy for you.”
I nipped his hip with my fingers.
“Ouch, that hurt. You’re a strong vampire you know?”
“I really should do some work now, shouldn’t I?” I said.
“If that’s what you want.” I could hear the underlying sulk in his tone.
“That’s not what I want to do,” I told him.
“So what do you want to do?”
“Stay in this comfy bed and make sure it’s sturdy. Want to help me test it out?”
He didn’t need asking twice.
Or any of the times after that.
Even vampires and Death could get sweaty and as we cooled down, Death offered to run me a bath. After this morning’s, I wasn’t expecting anything amazing. I couldn’t wait to get a proper shower and heating system. Death had his own en suite that I knew was equally grim. I’d have all this house on modern heating systems and plumbing and have the electrics checked while I was at it, although Death told me it was the spirits who affected the lights, making them flicker.
I found it unusual when Death sent me a text to tell me the bath was ready and then I worked it out. He wanted to share a bath! It would be a bit of a squeeze, but I was willing to give it a try. I grabbed a couple of fluffy towels I’d purchased and my shampoos and shower gels—at least this would be an improvement on this morning—and I made my way into the bathroom. I pushed open the door to find the bath partway full of hot water, but empty of Death.
I sighed, disappointed that my imagination had created an urge that wouldn’t be satisfied. I lowered myself into the tub and it was as I stared up at the mirror, I realised that written in the steam it said.
I’m sorry. This shouldn’t have happened
Was the man for real? We’d just enjoyed carnal pleasures for hours upon hours and then he left my bed and dumped me?
I was Death’s hit and run.
A use and lose.
A hole in one and gone.
I wasn’t wasting this hot water, but once I was clean, Mr Broody would be getting a piece of my mind.
“Have you heard of knocking?” Death muttered at me as I banged through his door and plonked myself down on the end of his bed.
“Have you heard of not sucking someone and then sucking off?”
He avoided my gaze. “It’s for the best. We shouldn’t have done that.”
“Says you,” I huffed.
“Exactly. Says me, and without me we can’t do that.”
“But it was ‘Wow’. We both said it.”
He sat on the chair next to his desk and turned to face me. “Mya, you just became Queen. You’ve only done the test, haven’t even started work yet. For us to start anything so soon is not conducive to what we both need to do. You need to clear some of these spirits, and I need to go collect souls. If we fell out, we wouldn’t be able to work together, so we need to be colleagues, or at the most, friends. I’m sorry, truly sorry, about what just happened, and I don’t regret the act itself…” his sentence trailed off.
“But you regret it happened at all?”
He nodded.
“Fine. We’ll just forget about it then and carry on as we were. New colleagues.”
“Really? Oh, Mya. That’s such a relief. I thought you’d be terribly difficult about it all.”
I smiled. “No, it’s perfectly fine. Okay, I’m going to go do some work now. I’ll see you later.”
“We could meet for breakfast at eight again?”
“Yeah, that’s fine.”
He smiled. Stupid sucking idiot.
Obviously didn’t know what fine meant when spoken by a woman.
I left him to it.
Walking outside into the hallway there was Spence again. I rolled my eyes. “Seriously, Spence, you might want to consider moving onto the next stage in life if all you have to do is hang around on corridors trying to listen for gossip.”
“Someone’s very moody. I heard you moaning earlier. Have to say I wasn’t expecting to hear you doing a different sort of moaning not an hour later.”
“I need to get to work. I’m behind schedule.”
“Ooh can I sit in? I promise not to be a nuisance.”
“That’s like me promising not to buy shoes in a shoe shop. But yes, you can sit in if you like. You can’t interfere with my work though. Observer only.”
Spence clapped his hands. “I’m so excited. Death would never allow me to sit in. Said I’d already showed my overfondness of spirits with rum and needed cutting off.”
“Well suck him and bring your rum. I’ll have some myself.”
“You want me to go suck Death?” Spence went wide-eyed. “I’m not doing that.”
I exhaled sharply. “I’m saying suck instead of the f-word because apparently those upstairs don’t like swearing.”
“Ahhh, well I’m not fucking him either.”
“Oh you know what I mean. Now are you coming to sit in with me or not?”
“Yes, yes. I’ll be back shortly with the rum.”
While Spence was off getting ready, I fired up the computer and tapped into the online Book of the Dead. I was going to make a database of all the spirits here, but for now I’d just ask for information.
“Please can you show me a list of spirits who had recently dumped their girlfriends,” I asked the application.
There were twenty-three of them from the last month alone.
“Let’s make a start then.” I pressed the intercom. “Jacob Owens, Room two please.”
Jacob Owens was a small, mousy looking man. His brown hair fell in his face and he wouldn’t look up at me. Instead, he bit at his fingernails. I’d be honest, how he’d even gotten a girlfriend to dump was beyond me. Those nails were grim.
I left him sitting in a chair near me while I sat with my earbuds in, my screen facing away from him and I read up on his death and watched it on the screen. From this point forward I wanted all the information I could get before I interviewed the rotten, dumping scumbags.
Spence had come in and sat in another chair nearby me.
I removed my earbuds. “Is it okay if Spence sits in? He’d like to observe.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Jacob shrugged.
I swivelled around to face him.
“So, the reason you are stuck in Wayward Souls is because you met up with a long term pen pal, took her back to your place and slept with her. And then, let me get this clear, while she was sleeping you wrote ‘return to sender’ on her forehead with her own black eyeliner, took a photo and posted it on the pen pal group you were in, which was basically a group of losers like you who got their kicks from engaging with women and then pranking them?”