Page 13 of Chasing Ghosts
“What…?”
“I know there’s something going on, Cori.”
I shake my head and try to take a step back, but go nowhere as he pulls me closer to him.
“Cori, tell me.” His face is so close to my chest, and I know the flimsy gown offers me no protection. He has to be able to see…everything.
Tell him!
I look behind me at where the voice is coming from, knowing I shouldn’t, but needing to anyway.
“What is it? What are you hearing?”
Once again, I shake my head and try to put space between us. Fear over being used, being rejected, or just being sent to a hospital for evaluation clogs my throat, “I…I can’t. I can’t.”
It comes out as nothing but a whisper.
“You can hear them, can’t you?”
I shake my head, wanting to deny what he just said.
“You can. You can hear them without the recorder. Tell me, baby. Tell me you can hear them.
“I want to leave. I won’t mess with your show. I’ll take the boat off the island…” Behind me, something falls, making me jump and jerk closer to him as I turn to see what happened.
“You’re not going anywhere, baby.”
I shove his bare shoulder and fight against his hold. “I’ll leave when I want to. I’m not going to stay and be some…some…sideshow so you can get viewers. I…Oh my God!”
He stops me from saying anything else by smacking my ass cheek. Heat floods my face as his expression changes from one thunder cloud to another.
“Cori…you’re not wearing panties.”
“Oh!” I’m going to die on this island. Right here in this boathouse. Of utter mortification. I push against him, this time with both palms, and get ready to launch myself out into the night and the storm. It can’t be as bad as what happened here.
“You’ve been running around this god damned island with nothing on under these tiny fucking things.”
“It’s…my nightclothes…no one was supposed to find out I wasn’t…”
He smacks my ass again, this time on the other side, and brings both hands up to cup the globes of my ass, causing me to let out a squeak that dies on my lips as his hands grip my curves.
“God damn, baby. Do you know the self-control I am having to practice right now?”
I let out an irritated huff as I place my hands back on his chest to push him away. They had fallen to my side, useless, when he made contact with both ass cheeks.
“Don’t! You…You have someone…you’re with Ripley.”
“What?” The look he shoots me is a mirror of what I am feeling: utter confusion. We were talking about my…gifts, then we skipped to my choice to not wear panties, and now his hands are on my ass, giving me the most confused look I’ve ever seen. “I’m not with Ripley. That fucking producer is with her.”
“I…I know, but…I thought... How did she know about what you said…on the boat? Never mind. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to listen to all of your stupid reasons or rules that you clearly don’t follow.”
“I follow my own rules, thank you very much.” He stands up in front of me now so that he towers over me, “I don’t sleep around with people I work with, and until you, I damned sure didn’t touch them! She overheard me and Drake talking about you. I didn’t want you to come because I was worried about you. You don’t have any experience with this shit…or at least I didn’t think you did before I found out you hear them. You seem to have left that off your resume.”
“I didn’t…”
“What else have you been keeping from me?”
“What?!”
