Free A Haunted Romance by Sindra van Yssel Page A

here and turned on the light, the moaning stopped.”
    Trent looked speculatively up at the light fixture. “I suppose if it happens again, you can try to listen without the light.”
    “If you’d heard the sound, you’d know why I was eager to have the light on. It was pretty ghastly.” She shuddered, but his attention was elsewhere, on her bookshelf.
    He pulled a copy of Cat and Curiosity and thumbed through it absently. “All the things you didn’t bring with you, and you brought a complete set of Cat Connors hardbacks. These things don’t even look read.” He turned and looked at her.
    She still didn’t want him seeing her picture in the books, no matter how dolled up she looked with makeup on. She moved up close to him and put her hand on the book while pressing her chest up against his.
    He let her take the book from him, then slipped his hand around her waist. She put the book back on the shelf.
    He kissed her. She never thought she was the type to seduce a man to distraction, but apparently it was working. She kissed him back, their lips melting together as heat poured into her body until she tingled all over.
    “For the record, Chelsea, I think you look better without your makeup.”
    “Huh?”
    “I have the book at home. Already looked at the flyleaf. Relax. Your secret is safe with me.”
    He’d been just teasing her by pulling the book off the shelves. “You bas—” But she didn’t get anything else out. When his lips covered hers again, she didn’t really care.
    She pushed his sweater and the shirt underneath up over his head. His fingers were busy with the buttons on her blouse. With a low growl, he grabbed the shirt and sent a button skittering across the floor as he ripped it off her.
    “Yes,” she whispered.
    The creaking of the door caught her attention. He didn’t notice until it slammed shut behind him. But she saw it shut.
    He let her go and turned toward the door, one hand still on her, making sure she was behind him. He stood between her and whatever it was, and she was very aware of the muscles of his shoulders and back, tense and ready for action. “Did you see anyone?”
    “No,” she said. “I could see it perfectly. There was no one there.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “I’m sure.”
    He chuckled. “Apparently your ghost thinks we should have some privacy for what we were doing.”
    Chelsea wondered. What little she’d seen of the chest, she thought the ghost might prefer to watch. But she had only guesses as to who the ghost might be really. If it was Minerva—maybe her pain at only being able to read about sex made watching the two of them too much to take. She frowned. Then again, maybe Minerva got married the year after she received the letter and had seven children or she wasn’t a virgin at all and just claimed to be to entice her pen pal. For that matter, Minerva might not even be a woman, just someone using a woman’s name. Chelsea really knew nothing at all.
    Trent moved away, opening the door and looking around. He came back a minute later. “No one here.”
    Chelsea sighed. “Yeah. Just us.”
    Trent smiled. “You look very sexy with your shirt off.”
    He narrowed the gap between them, wrapping one arm around her waist as the other went to her bra strap. She wasn’t entirely in the mood to continue, not after the door slammed shut, but he did feel nice and warm, his bare skin touching hers. His voice dropped to a low whisper, her lips right next to her ears. “Let’s see if the ghost closes the door again.”
    She smiled. It wasn’t a bad plan, she thought, as her bra slipped off her shoulders and landed on the floor. It would have seemed that was enough for a test, but his hands slipped inside the waistband of her long skirt and that fell as well. It was important to test one’s deductions thoroughly. Cat Connors liked to restage the crime, often elaborately but always with an eye for detail. She undid the buttons on Trent’s jeans, all for the sake