Incorporeal Read Free Page B

to be in there with her, but he’d promised her some privacy. What he wouldn’t give to possess a body so he could touch her anytime he wanted to, not just when he entered her dreams.
    He’d been working hard, focusing all his energies on the few powers remaining to him. Nathan knew this was his penance, his one chance for redemption, this guardianship of the woman. He had to be ready to protect her, although he had no idea yet what he’d be protecting her from, or even how much time he had to prepare. He only knew there would come a moment when he’d have to appear in the flesh, but so far, he’d been unable to manage anything more than opening a door and flipping a light switch, until today. He’d shoved her backwards twice, once to avoid the scalding water from her tea kettle, and once onto the couch. It wasn’t something he’d planned in advance. Certainly manhandling the woman was the last thing Nathan intended.
    So now he paced, trying to understand exactly how he’d moved her. He’d acted without a second thought. Perhaps that was the answer, not thinking rather than thinking.
    Or maybe the answer lay with Sara. It seemed the more she riled him up, the more she aroused him, the stronger he grew and the more corporeal he became.
    To Nathan’s surprise, from the moment he arrived, she’d tempted him. Many generations had passed since he’d been in the flesh, but he still remembered how it felt to be a man. The act of joining with a woman wasn’t something easily forgotten.
    Even a dead man remembers the scent of a woman .
    Twenty years before, Nathan had sulked, alone in his self-imposed purgatory, when a Guardian had approached him. A spirit lingered in an in-between state, refusing to move on, begging for an escort back to the world of the living. He’d left behind a young daughter and he feared for her well-being.
    It didn’t take the Guardian much time to convince Nathan to offer his services. Over the passing centuries, he’d grown weary of limbo. The thought of doing something, anything, appealed to him. Over the next two decades, he guided Sara’s father back to the land of the living a number of times.
    Nathan had kept his distance, playing the role of escort only. He’d encountered Sara’s mother and witnessed her interact with her daughter on several occasions. Once would have been more than enough. Sara’s mother, Edith Wise, was not a pleasant woman.
    This time Nathan’s journey wasn’t at the behest of Sara’s father. Nathan had come for reasons of his own. He’d had enough of exile. It was time to rejoin either the living or the dead. Everything depended upon the outcome of this assignment. Protecting the woman was his penance. If he succeeded, he would have paid his debt, and he could finally rest in peace.
    Centuries before, the youngest son of a prosperous family, Nathan had lived a full and pleasurable life, but he’d failed in his duty to those depending upon him. He’d been drunk on fine wine, a guest of one of the royal princes in Castile, while his people died at the hands of the Inquisitors.
    Exiled shortly afterward from the land of his birth, guilt and shame had eaten him alive. He’d died in a filthy alley in London, unrecognized, unremarked, mourned by no one. At least he assumed he’d died. His memories of London were vague and blurred by a haze of cheap wine.
    After he’d crossed over, he kept himself apart from the others, isolated, in the dark, unwilling to join the other souls who ascended to heaven or were reborn on Earth.
    When Nathan assumed guardianship of Sara, he had only a vague notion of her skill as a sensitive. He didn’t know the details of her gifts. Her unusual perceptive abilities made his role as guardian harder in some ways. She could actively resist his attempts to intervene in her life. In other ways, it made his guardianship much more attractive. Her sensitive nature meant he could interact with her, especially in her dreams.
    Fuck . What a