Jodi Redford: That Voodoo You Do

Plowing his hands through his hair, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood. After glancing behind him to ensure he hadn’t awakened her, he headed out to the kitchen. He padded to the island and fished his cell phone from the drawer. A tap of his finger on the display triggered the backlight. Thirty-three missed calls.

Aw fuck . He didn’t need to check the caller ID to know they were all from Clarissa.

He’d broken the cardinal rule—no sex with Jemma. There would be hell to pay.

Weariness plunging like a two-ton anchor in his chest, he turned off the cell phone and returned to the bedroom. He climbed in next to Jemma. She stirred with a sleepy sigh and curled against him. “I missed you.”

He smoothed aside a lock of her strawberry-blonde hair and kissed her forehead, his heart swelling with everything he was forbidden to reveal. Forbidden to feel. “I was barely gone two minutes.”

“Two minutes too long.” She nuzzled his collarbone before embarking on a tantalizing journey down his chest and abdomen. By the time she reached his cock he’d been reduced to a quivering mass of tortured nerve endings. The wet warmth of her mouth engulfed his shaft, employing enough suction to make a Hoover envious. His eyes rolling back, he groaned and dropped his head to the pillow.

Hell could wait until tomorrow.

“I don’t have any coffee in the house.”

Jemma cracked one eye open and gave Griff a bleary stare. “No condoms. No coffee. What kind of swinging bachelor are you?”

He leaned down and nipped the back of her neck. “The kind who has plans for you when I get back.”

She speared him with a suspicious look. “These plans better not include cleaning your bathroom. I’m not falling for that again, you sneaky bastard.”

Griff tried for an innocent look that fell way short of authentic. “What? I told you it was an emergency.”

“My cousins coming over to play poker was not an emergency.”

Chuckling, he pushed off the mattress. “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be back in twenty. Make sure you’ve lost that T-shirt by then.”

A shiver of expectation raced through her. Who knew Griff could be so sexy and demanding? She indulged in the delicious view of his sculpted buns before they disappeared beneath the faded denim of his jeans. He shrugged into a dark gray T-shirt and traipsed from the room. Snuggling into the sheets with a blissful sigh, she closed her eyes.

Her own snore snapped her from a light doze several minutes later. Thank God Griff wasn’t around. Kind of difficult to maintain her sex-goddess vibe when she sounded like a damn foghorn.

Footsteps scrunched across the carpet and she groaned. “Oh shit, you are home.” Remembering that she hadn’t obeyed his earlier command, she wiggled her butt beneath the covers and snickered. “Guess what, I didn’t ditch your shirt. Does this mean you’re gonna spank me?”

Griff didn’t answer, but she knew he was still there. She could hear him breathing. Loudly. Either he was severely out of breath or brushing up on his obscene phone caller skills. A foul odor wafted to her nostrils, and she scrunched her nose. “Dude, that better not be the coffee because it smells like something fell in there and died.”

Rolling onto her side, she glanced toward the doorway. Her uncle Harold stood a couple of feet away, puddling dirty rainwater on the bedroom carpet.

Pretty damn freaky, since he’d been dead for the past sixteen months. She blinked. “Okay, this is officially going down as the weirdest dream ever.” Not to mention amazingly lucid. Even the rain that sluiced from Harold’s severely bad comb-over looked eerily realistic.

One mud-caked wingtip stomped forward with a wet squelch. Harold’s opaque eyes focused on her with malevolent intent, prompting her skin to prickle with the creepy-crawlies. If this was real, I’d probably be peeing myself right about now.

Deciding that it was way past time to wake her ass up, she pinched her arm—and yelped at the resulting sting. “Holy shit, I am awake.” Numb disbelief paralyzed her limbs. There could be no way in hell this was actually happening. Only it was. Dead Harold definitely wasn’t a figment of her imagination.

Her eyes widening, she stared at the corpse’s shuffling advance. A mix of fear and panic raced through her, competing with the irrational part of her brain that kept dredging up images of her uncle teaching her how to play his old Gibson guitar while they both belted out the words to Otis Redding’s “Dock of the Bay”. She’d sung the song in tribute at Harold’s memorial, certain he’d been watching from the afterlife with a huge grin on his face.

Only he wasn’t smiling now. If anything, his face held the scariest expression she’d ever seen. She gulped and struggled to fight off a renewed surge of terror. This was Harold . He would never hurt a fly, much less—

His pale, waxy features twisting with ugly menace, Harold lunged forward. Long, boney fingers swiped the air inches away from her head. “ Graw .”

She’d seen enough zombie movies to know that loosely translated, graw meant Hmm, which of your tasty appendages should I snack on first? A pathetic excuse for a scream gurgling from her throat, she scrambled sideways, battling to escape her uncle’s windmilling arms and the imprisoning blanket. Finally free of the covers, she tumbled off the bed and ducked to a crouch near the closet. Crawling toward the corner of the mattress, she peeked past the dangling quilt. Yep, deceased relative still there and blocking the only means of exit.

Heartbeat roaring in her ears, she considered her options. Only one sounded good at the moment—getting the fuck out of there, with all her limbs still attached. Which meant she needed a weapon. Keeping low to the floor, she scanned her immediate area. On the far side of the dresser, a piece of exercise equipment caught her eye. A part of her couldn’t believe she was actually considering defending herself with a freakin’ ThighBlaster. An even bigger part wondered why the hell Griff owned a ThighBlaster. She’d have to give him major shit about that one.

Assuming she lived long enough. Of course, there wasn’t much chance of that happening if she didn’t leave her pathetic hidey hole and haul ass over to the dresser. Easier said than done when her stubborn toes were currently fused to the carpet.

She sucked in a deep breath. “Damn it, you can do this.” With Herculean effort, she pried her feet from the floor and scrambled toward the dresser. Another loud “ Graw ” rasped nearby—way too close—and she dove for the ThighBlaster, her flattened palms and bare knees plowing through the carpet. Her fingers wrapped around the ThighBlaster’s rubber handle at the exact moment a dark wingtip squished into view. The stench hit her full blast. Wet, moldy wool and the sick sweetness of formaldehyde.

Holding her breath, she jerked her gaze upward and locked stares with Harold. Any thought of trying to convince her uncle’s corpse that he didn’t want to make a snack out of her instantly died. The creature looming over her with murderous zeal in its eyes wouldn’t be swayed by her pleas. His hand swiped at her. She ducked, striking out with the ThighBlaster. It hit him square in the ankle, hard, and he wobbled. Seizing the opportunity, she struck again, swinging her makeshift weapon with a howl of determination. It crunched against his kneecap. Grunting, Harold clamped onto the ThighBlaster and jerked it upward. Jemma—still holding her end tight—slammed into him, her nose indenting his left breast pocket.

Oh God, dead person cooties. Shuddering, she scooted backward. Zombie Harold lashed out with the ThighBlaster, and she catapulted over the dresser’s edge to avoid getting bashed in the head. “If this is about the butt-ugly flower arrangement my parents sent to the funeral, I swear I had nothing to do with it.”