"Or sex?"
She'd smiled. "Only if it's great."
He'd given her a confident nod. "Then we would have great sex."
Lord, we would... .
They seemed to fit in every way. Yes, he was half-mad, but as a Prohibition-era ghost with a penchant for stealing condoms, moon pies, and bras, she wasn't exactly in touch with reality herself.
Conrad could see her; her presence seemed to be the only thing that calmed his mind. He was healing, and she was happier than she'd been in eighty years. Two broken souls together in this broken place had found a kind of contentment.
Maybe his being here wasn't the accident she'd thought it. She couldn't believe this was all random. Maybe he was supposed to save her from this cursed afterlife?
And maybe she hadn't learned her lessons from Marguerite L'Are. If anyone was going to save Néomi, it'd be herself... .
At dusk, Conrad came to her.
Somehow looking both proud and contrite, he said, "I won't damage your house anymore."
"Merci d'avance."
He held out his hand. "I want you to come inside with me."
"No, Conrad, not tonight," she said, making him grind his teeth.
She knew her refusal frustrated him not only because he wanted to be near her. She believed he had a deep-seated need to protect her, as if she might actually need him to.
As if he felt that it was his right to.
Whenever he looked at her now, his eyes would darken in color and were becoming more and more possessive... .
"I might have damaged things, but I've repaired parts as well," he pointed out.
"C'est vrai." After finding some tools in the old shed by the drive, he'd fortified the manor, patching up or covering window openings and reattaching the front door he'd leveled.
Then, seeming to obey some undeniable instinct to keep her warm and safe, he'd set about rendering the master suite livable for her. He'd transferred the new mattress to the suite's bedstead, adding any available furniture to the area. In the attic, he'd unearthed an antique dresser and a chair that even she hadn't known were up there.
Once he'd miraculously cleared the chimney flue and was able to make a fire though he didn't seem to be cold and she certainly wasn't - he'd informed her that she would sleep with him in that room from now on.
His tone had reminded her that he'd been born an aristocrat and had become a warlord in the seventeenth century. Conrad Wroth was well used to having his will obeyed.
He'd seemed perplexed when she'd just laughed and deemed his domineering ways très charmant, and then he'd been angered when she'd reminded him that she already had a place to stay.
The fact that she had a hideaway she adjourned to every day annoyed him to no end...
"So you will come?"
When she made no move to, she could tell how badly he itched to force her inside. If she'd been corporeal, she had no doubt she'd be to force her inside. If she'd been corporeal, she had no doubt she'd be bouncing along over his shoulder as he hauled her away.
This mountain of a man was learning that his considerable might - which he'd clearly relied on for everything - was futile with her.
For once, her incorporeality was proving to be an advantage.
If he desired to be with her, then he either had to persuade her to come back or prevent her from leaving in the first place.
"I said not tonight." Willingly separating from him was just as miserable for Néomi. But she couldn't let him get accustomed to taking his anger out on her house - or her.
"Do as you will," he said in a seething tone, leaving her. But not before she spied that muscle tick in his jaw.
Late in the night, she'd just been dozing off in the studio when she heard his yell.
Before Néomi had even decided to, she'd traced to him. The second she arrived, he shot up in bed with another yell at the top of his lungs, so loud it rattled the windows.
When she hastened beside him, he swung his legs over to sit on the side of the bed.
"Conrad, it's all right. It was just a dream."
He held his head with his bound hands, elbows to his knees as he rocked. "My head... too full." He was squeezing it so hard, she feared he would crack his skull.
"Shh, shh, mon coeur." She gave a telekinetic stroke down his back. "It's over."
"I don't... I don't want to be like this anymore!" His tone was anguished.
"You're getting so much better," she murmured. "Soon you won't have these nightmares."
He narrowed his gaze at her, as if just noticing she was there. "You were... murdered - you remind me of the things I've done, of consequences," he choked out. "And you show me what I could have had... if I'd been... different." He grasped his head again and muttered, "You're what's wrong with my past. What has to be missing from my future."
She knew he would remember little to none of these words - but she would. "Conrad, your future's not settled. You can have good things in your life again."
"You're the perfect punishment for me."
"Oh." Stunned, she rose to leave.
He reached out to stay her. When he closed his big fist around air, he turned and struck the headboard with frustration. Eyes vacant, burning red, he rasped, "Did any man ever want his penance so much?"
She said nothing, just settled back beside him to stroke his hair from his forehead. She hated that he was in so much pain and wished she could draw it from him. He'd once been a hero, his life given over to something greater, but now he suffered.
Néomi had known that he was a broken man who needed saving. Over the last three days, she'd become convinced that he deserved saving.