Bridal Jitters by Jayne Castle

her up again and settled her against the pillows. She reached for him with a kind of hunger she had never known.
    He crushed her into the soft bedding, his mouth hot and deeply sensual on her skin. All of her senses opened at his touch, the paranormal ones as well as the physical. Effervescent, invisible psi energy hummed in the air that surrounded them. She knew it came from both of them, sparked by their passion and fueled by their pleasure.
    Sam took his time with the lovemaking, crafting a slow,sensual dance. She felt his mouth on her breasts, his teeth light and tantalizing on her taut nipples. She kissed his shoulder, using her own teeth in ways that made him murmur husky, sexy threats.
    When, eventually, he did retaliate, she wanted to scream with delight. But she made no sound because he had stolen her very breath.
    He parted her legs, settled himself between them, and forged slowly, deeply into her. She sank her nails into the hard contours of his muscled back and gloried in the full, heavy heat of his erection.
    He eased himself partway out of her channel and then pressed forward again. The intense, impossibly stretched sensation was almost too much. She lifted herself against him, silently demanding that he move more quickly.
    But he only laughed softly in the darkness and whispered wicked things that exacerbated the sensual torment.
    Finally she could not stand it any longer. She pushed against his chest. His eyes gleamed as he allowed himself to be rolled onto his back.
    She came down on top of him, fitting herself to him, kissing his chest and his throat, riding him with a wild abandon that carried them both into the heart of pure ecstasy.
    •   •   •
    A long time later, she came awake, aware that Sam was not asleep. She stirred and stretched and drew her toes up along his leg.
    “Something wrong?” she asked.
    “No.” His arm tightened around her. “I was just thinking about that place where we hid out while I recovered from the burn.”
    “The zoo?”
    “The more I think about it, the more I think that maybe it wasn’t a zoo.”
    She shrugged. “A down-market apartment complex or acheap hotel. Maybe a prison, as you suggested. I doubt if anyone will ever know for certain, even when the experts get through untangling all the traps.”
    “True, but there is one explanation for the chamber that we overlooked. It fits with everything we experienced while we were in it, and it explains a lot.”
    She propped herself on her elbow and looked down at him. “What’s that?”
    “Maybe what we stumbled into was a Harmonic graveyard.”
    For a moment she could not believe she had heard him correctly. And then the implications hit her. Her mouth went dry.
    “You think it was a
cemetery
?”
    “That would account for all the small chambers,” he said seriously.
    “Graves and crypts.” She shuddered. “Good grief. Now that you mention it—”
    “It would also account for the weird feeling you got from the traps that guarded the cubicles. Maybe they were set as warnings against disturbing the dead.”
    “But that fountain room and the little antechamber off of it,” she interrupted quickly. “Why wasn’t it trapped?”
    “Probably because it wasn’t an actual grave site. It may have been a meditation chamber or a viewing room. Or it could have been the place where the caskets were displayed for sale, for all we know.”
    “Aaargh.” She flopped back on the pillow. “Do you think we really spent Halloween in an alien graveyard?”
    “I think there’s a good chance that we did, yes.”
    She stared at the ceiling. “Kind of boggles the mind.” Abruptly she sat up amid the sheets. “But what about that strange energy storm that Chaz triggered when he untangled one of the traps? And those things that we saw drifting pastthe window. You don’t suppose they were—” She broke off, unable to put the thought into words.
    Sam smiled slightly. “Real ghosts?”
    “No.” She shook her