Tempted by His Wicked Kiss Read online

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “I’m saying the police killed us, Charlotte. They killed us before they could get any justice for you. There was no third accomplice, just me and Cal. Two guys they’d been dying to get their hands on for the longest time. Bad guys they wanted to stop at any cost to prevent them from once again hurting the city they protect.”

  Charlotte could feel herself panicking. “What do you mean they killed you? You’re standing right here as clear as day. I have to call the police.”

  She turned. She’d run downstairs and use the phone in the librarian station, but Jack grabbed her arm.

  “You can’t call the police, Charlotte,” he said.

  Anger rose up within her. “Why the hell not?”

  He cradled her face in his hands. They were freezing. “Because I’m dead,” he whispered.

  Chapter Five

  Charlotte looked at him blankly and he felt his mind race. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He never should have been a part of Cal’s plan to hold her up at the ATM. Charlotte never should have bore the aura and he never should have pursued her, slept with her, fallen for her. After their first kiss, when he knew that he wasn’t going to take her soul, he should’ve just turned around and walked away instead of letting his fascination, his caring for her get the better of him. This was all a huge mistake.

  He saw her mouth move, her hands gesture wildly, but Jack couldn’t hear her. She grabbed his bare shoulder and for a second he relished in the feel of her hand on his skin.

  “What did you just tell me, Jack?” she demanded, no doubt repeating herself.

  “I’m dead, Charlotte,” he said as he removed her hands from his shoulders and placed them in his. His fingers ran over the soft skin on the back of her hands, her knuckles, her fingernails as hard and smooth as a seashell’s. “Cal and I did do that terrible thing to you at the ATM and a few minutes later we were both killed.”

  Charlotte’s eyes were starting to roll into the back of her head and it looked like she was going to faint. She clutched his forearm, her nails digging into his flesh, as her knees buckled.

  “How can I...” was all she managed to say as Jackson helped ease her down to a sitting position on the floor.

  “But I—” she started, but only a small voice squeaked out. She tried to take a few deep breaths before trying to speak again. “But I haven’t seen spirit in so many years. I thought that part of me was gone,” she said in a daze. “I tried to will it away for such a long time.”

  “This has happened to you before?” Jack asked.

  Charlotte nodded weakly. “Yes. When I was younger.”

  Now that explained it. Somehow, he wasn’t surprised that such a remarkable woman would have such a remarkable gift. He shook his head slowly in understanding. “You must’ve opened yourself back up to it. Allowed yourself to see what you wanted to see.” It was the only explanation Jack could think of.

  “But it’s not that I can just see you, I can feel you, like you’re sitting right here with me, your heart beating, your flesh as solid and real as anything. That’s never happened before.”

  He looked into her eyes and a tear welled, threatening to spill over the edge. He brought his hand to her face.

  “I know. I can’t explain it. I’m somehow normal when I’m around you. It’s amazing. Incredible.” He leaned in to kiss her, to feel her once more, when her lips tightened into a pucker. Her eyes widened and a frantic, panicked look washed over her face. She gripped his hand and pushed it off her face before sliding her body away from him.

  “You mugged me, Jack,” she whispered fiercely. The tears that had threatened to fall were flowing freely now over her pale face. “You and Cal stole all my money for school—at gunpoint.”

  Jack felt his face grow hot. “I know.” His throat felt constricted, like someone was choking him. “But I didn’t know who you were then. It was before I got to speak with you, get to know you like I did tonight.”

  Charlotte’s voice was getting louder. “That still doesn’t make it right, Jack.”

  He wanted to tell her everything. Like how he and Cal had gotten out of control. How if he ever resisted or said no to Cal, he’d get a gun shoved in his face. Like how he was too much of a coward to stand up to his childhood friend, too afraid to start his life over. Like how he was too scared to abandon his friend, the one person in the world who had looked out for him.

  But he was never looking out for you, a small voice in his head told him. He only used you. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to shake off the notion.

  “I felt awful afterwards,” Jack admitted. “I’ve been thinking about you every day for the last year. I kept seeing your face every time I closed my eyes, remembering your name flashing up on that ATM screen.”

  Charlotte’s shoulders slumped. Her voice was flat. “You made my life so much harder than it already was, Jack. Do you know that?”

  “Yes,” he answered. Jack tried to reach out and touch her arm, but Charlotte scooted farther away from him and scrambled to her feet. She made her way toward the bed and gathered her clothes—plucking them from wherever they’d landed on the floor and between the sheets of the bed—into a neat pile. Then she let the bed sheet she had gathered into a fist in front of her drop to the floor as she began to dress.

  “What are you doing, Charlotte?” Jack asked.

  “What do you think I’m doing? I’m getting the hell out of here.” She threw a handful of Jack’s clothes at him as she began to sort through her own. She bent down and pulled her panties up the length of her legs. Bent over, her naked ass as perfect as ever, he could feel himself harden in response. He’d do anything to take her again, right then and there.

  But he couldn’t blame her for her reaction. It was better this way. He began to dress himself as well, to put some kind of barrier between them.

  Charlotte had her hands behind her back as she swiftly fixed the clasp of her bra when her brow furrowed.

  “Who is that?” she asked.

  Jackson was about to ask her what she was talking about when he heard it. It was soft at first, but grew in strength like it was getting closer. A voice echoing off the majestic marble walls, down the gigantic halls and passageways. A deep voice. A man’s voice.

  “Jaaaaaa-aack. Where are you, man?” The voice was filled with agitation.

  Cal.

  Jack bolted over to Charlotte and threw an arm around her waist, hoisting her in to the air.

  “Wha—” she began to screech in protest, but Jack clasped a hand firmly over her mouth.

  “Don’t say a word,” he whispered in her ear before easing her under the bed and throwing a blanket over her. “Whatever you do, don’t move this. Make sure every square inch of your skin is covered,” he instructed. He locked eyes with her and could tell she was filled more with alarm than questions. He put a finger to his lips once more before straightening and walking across the room.

  Calvin’s head appeared through the door. “What are you doing here?” he exclaimed before letting the rest of his body pass through the entranceway. “You’re here all the time—need I remind you that we only have a few hours left?”

  “I told you, I come here to see if there are any books, any information about our situation.” The truth was he’d come here for a place of solitude, a place to reflect. But he’d never tell Cal that.

  “And look what good that has done. You’ve found nothing.” Cal scoffed as he cast the room a furtive glance. “What happened to your target?”

  Jack looked away, closing his eyes when Cal’s gaze lingered on the bed. “I lost it. What about you?”

  “It was a fucking trick of the light in Times Square. Just a dumb beam reflecting off of something.” He clenched his jaw. “That’s why I thought it was a bad idea to go to Times Square in the first place. I hate that area,” he said in an annoyed tone. “And it doesn’t exactly look like you’ve been searching the stacks for information like yo
u told me. How long have you been here?” His eyes scrutinized the disheveled bed. “Have you been sleeping?”

  “Here?” Jack asked, shrugging. “Yeah, I guess. I just took an hour to recharge. I’d been searching all day. Wanted to take a break.”

  “Take a break?” Cal said slowly, deliberately elongating every syllable. “What the fuck are you talking about? We don’t have to sleep. And need I remind you that we have only three and a half hours left?” He looked around the room wildly. “What are we even still doing here?” he asked, laughing wildly to himself. Cal was coming undone. It was the first time Jack had ever seen him looked scared—a tiny crack in his carefully crafted persona, a persona he took with him even in death.

  “We’re wasting valuable time just standing here talking. Come on!”

  He reached out and grabbed Jack’s collar, practically dragging him across the floor. Jack gripped Cal by the wrist and shoved his hand away.

  “I’m not going with you, Cal,” he said.

  Cal turned on his heel slowly. “What do you mean you’re not going with me? You want to spend an eternity in Hell? That’s perfectly okay with you?”

  Jack took a deep breath before meeting his eye with a steely determination. He’d known his answer ever since he shared that first kiss with Charlotte in her apartment. There was no way he could do it.

  “If it’s what we deserve, then yes,” Jack answered.

  “What?” Cal practically growled.

  “I said I’ve given up. I’m not going to do it. It’s not fair to the people we’re stealing souls from. They don’t deserve it—we do.”

  Cal stared at him for a long moment before tossing his head back and laughing incredulously.

  “I can’t believe this! It’s the easiest transaction in the world! All we have to do is find someone with the mark, grab their soul and boom—they go downstairs in our place and we get an instant ticket to the big show in the sky. No one gets hurt—I’m sure the kiss doesn’t make them feel a thing. And you’re telling me now that you’re not going to help me search today? The one day we have left?”

  Jack regarded him with a determined gaze. “No, I’m not. You can’t bully me this time, Cal. It doesn’t feel right to send someone in my place.”

  Cal opened his mouth to speak, but then closed it. He was stunned. When he finally got his wits about him, he said, “You know what? I’ve been trying to look out for you, but you’re not worth it, man.” He shoved Jack hard, causing him to take a few steps backwards, but Jack did not reciprocate. “You’re just wasting my time,” he said quietly as he turned and vanished through the door.

  Jack waited a few moments to make sure Cal had really left before he moved over to the bed, crouched down and warily pulled back the blanket covering Charlotte. She turned her head to him, her mouth open in shock, a look of pure horror on her face.

  “What on earth is going on, Jack?” she whispered.

  * * *

  Charlotte had heard every word of Jack and Cal’s conversation. Her entire body was shaking. Shaking with fear over the talk of stealing souls, and shaking with anger at the realization that she’d opened herself up to him. All this time he could have decided on the turn of a dime to send her down to Hell for all eternity. So why hadn’t he?

  When he offered her his hand to pull her out from under the bed, she refused it, inching across the polished floor herself. When she sat up, she was too lightheaded to stand up fully. Jack lowered himself to the floor and sat in front of her.

  “I know I have a lot of explaining to do,” Jack said.

  She only nodded, too dazed to speak.

  “When Cal and I died, we didn’t go to Heaven. And we didn’t go to Hell. We just got kind of...stuck.”

  “In limbo,” she offered, hearing of such places in her supernatural books.

  “Yes,” he sighed. “A voice told us that it didn’t know which place to put us. Was our lifestyle a result of our upbringing in the streets or was it inherently inside ourselves? And so it gave us a challenge: if in one year, we found a soul to go in our place, we’d go...” He pointed upwards.

  “And if not?” Charlotte asked.

  Jack just tilted his wrist until his pointer finger was directed at the floor.

  “So...how did you know which person to choose?” Charlotte asked. “Which truly bad person to send in your place?”

  Jack hesitated for a moment. “They have this kind of mark. Their skin glows a purplish color.”

  “Like an aura? The bad people have a dark aura?”

  “That’s just it, though. That’s what confuses me, Charlotte. The people with the mark aren’t bad people. Not at all. The first few months of our search, I saw a few people with the mark. A rescue worker, a doctor, even a small child. I couldn’t see how any of these people were bad. I wasn’t able to do it.”

  Charlotte bit her lip. “I see.” She took a deep breath, but still felt the tightness in her chest, anger bubbling up within her. “So you and Cal have been hunting side by side this whole time? I’m surprised you never told him about these people.”

  Jack looked down. “I know. And I’m sorry I stretched the truth. I stood by his side for the last year because I felt like I owed him something, even though he was responsible for our deaths. But when I saw you, you reminded me of the person I was before I met Cal and I knew that I didn’t have it in me to do it. That I’d just accept my fate regardless of what Cal does. And, thankfully, Cal never saw those first few people I’d seen with the mark—he’d always been too frantic and impatient to see what’s in front of his face.”

  She suddenly realized what he meant. “So you’re...you’re going to go...?”

  Jack smiled sadly. “The long way down, Char. I’m going to pay for what I did. I can’t send an innocent person in my place.”

  “But how do you know those people were innocent? For all you know, that doctor could’ve been abusing his patients. Maybe that little kid was going to grow up to be a serial killer!” Her voice was growing shrill, desperate.

  Jack took her hands in his. “I know for a fact that people with the mark are inherently good,” he said.

  She gawked. “How is that possible?”

  He leaned in and kissed her gently, sweetly on her forehead. “Because you have the mark, Charlotte. That’s how I know.”

  She was stunned. That’s why he hid me under the bed, she realized. Because Cal would’ve taken me. What’s more, Jack could’ve taken her this whole time. He’d just saved her life. He’d just saved her from a fate she didn’t deserve. But a question still lingered in her mind.

  “Did you...ever feel tempted to steal it, though? You had me all alone in my apartment. You had every opportunity to do it.”

  Jack looked away from her for a moment before looking back into her eyes. “I thought about it. I mean, that’s why I followed you. But when we kissed I knew I couldn’t do it to you, Charlotte. I’d already treated you cruelly once. When I looked at you that night at the ATM before running off and we shared that moment, I realized you were the only person who made me think about what I’d done and made me want to change. And now I promise you that I’ll do everything I can with the time I have left to make it up to you. To help you in any way I can.”

  She launched her body at him, wrapping her arms tightly around his shoulders. She stifled a cry by burying her face into the crook of his neck.

  “Thank you,” she choked out.

  He felt his hand stroking her hair. “It’s going to be all right. I’m going to make this right. If I’m going to go down, I won’t go down a monster.”

  Suddenly he pulled back from her like he’d just experienced a revelation. Excitement danced in his dark gray eyes.

  “I know what I can do to make everything up to you.”

  Chapter Six

  Jack could kick himself for not thinking of it sooner. He knew how to get Charlotte’s money back to her. If it was still there, of course. If the police hadn’t discovered it. But t
here was only one way to find out and it wasn’t going to be easy. He’d have to get his and Charlotte’s hands dirty. Very dirty.

  Jack knew the options he faced and none of them allowed him to stay here with Charlotte. When they left the library it was nine-thirty. He had two and a half hours left on earth. And he was going to make sure they counted. If he couldn’t be with Charlotte, he was going to right the wrong he and Cal had committed against her. And that meant returning every cent of her money.

  The subway ride downtown to Greenwich Village was quiet. Everyone must’ve been heading up to Times Square for the big celebration. When he and Charlotte ascended the steps at Christopher Street station, the streets were deserted. Charlotte asked a few times what the plan was, but he didn’t want to scare her. Instead he asked her again to trust him, squeezing her hand reassuringly as he led her west. She shivered, the chill off the Hudson no doubt affecting her.

  She pulled her coat up over her face and kept her head down as they walked. He quickened his pace so he could get her blood pumping, warm her up a bit. They were walking so fast they almost passed by the ornate iron gates of the cemetery.

  Jack stopped and turned to Charlotte. “Here we are.”

  She pulled her oversized coat tighter around her. “What are we doing here?” Charlotte asked hesitantly.

  Jack took a look at the gates and saw that they were joined by a thick metal chain and a heavy padlock.

  “I’ll explain in a second,” he said, “But first I need to help you over this.”

  “We’re breaking into a cemetery?” she asked. “What if we get caught?”

  “It’s New Year’s Eve. We won’t get caught,” he promised. He clasped his hands together and bent in front of Charlotte’s leg. “Now let me give you a boost.”

  Charlotte looked around hesitantly, but then braced herself—putting one hand on Jack’s shoulder and the other on one of the iron spikes of the eye-level gate—and stepped one foot into Jack’s palms. In one fluid motion, she was up and over the gate. Jack walked through it behind her, the padlock shaking slightly.