“You two are so cute,” Selene said in a cooing voice as I handed her my cell phone for the photo. We stood by one another. Reed wrapped his arm around my middle, and Selene snapped the photo. “Okay, now take one kissing.”
“What?” I jumped, hitting my elbow on the edge of the bar and cursing under my breath.
Reed forced a quick laugh. “She hates PDA.”
“It’s the honeymoon. Come on, for the memories,” Selene pushed as she used her free hand to motion us moving together.
I turned my upper half toward Reed and apologized with my eyes before taking a big breath. What if I had onion breath? He lowered his top half, arching over me. I froze, my muscles stiff. I ran through all the food I ate. Had we eaten onions? I couldn’t kiss the hot guy. What if he thought I was ugly or smelled bad or tasted weird?
He inched closer and whispered, “Come on, Elenore. We have to make this look good.”
I slammed my eyelids shut and inched up on my tiptoes.
8
With my eyes closed, I tilted to the side a fraction and placed a hand on the wooden bar at Savannah Brewing to steady myself. My heart quickened a microsecond before Reed’s lips connected with mine. I almost moaned like a complete moron.
My fingers tightened on the edge of the bar as his lips pressed harder into mine. They were soft, yet he had a take-charge movement as if he expected his lips to guide mine somewhere. They would have listened. I had whore lips.
I wobbled on my tiptoes and Reed wrapped his arm around my back to keep me in place. Holy cannoli he kissed well.
“Okay, you lovebirds. I’ve got the picture,” Selene said with a nervous laugh.
Reed and I jerked apart at her comment. The new gum in my mouth—how did that get there—stuck against my back teeth. My tummy wobbled as he removed his hand from around me with a sheepish smile. “We had to make it realistic.”
I nodded.
He tilted his head at me, and my heart gave a flit. The hair on the tops of my arms tingled. That was weird. “Are you okay?”
“Yes!” I slapped my hands together, too loudly, and looked around for someone else to blame. The bar had filled with a small group of about twenty people while we’d been in the bathroom.
“Those pictures are hot. You can get them framed with your wedding photos.” Selene tapped me on the arm with my phone, and I grabbed it from her. “Looks like Chris is ready to start your tour. You’ll like him.”
“Thanks,” I said when nothing better came to me. How would anyone respond to any of that after sharing a kiss with a hot SEAL?
“Remember what I said,” she whispered with a half wave as she walked out the big wooden double doors of the bar.
They clicked closed with a dull thud, and a man to our right gave a low dog whistle as he put his left hand in the air. My face crinkled with the horrible intrusive sound. The various groups of people slowly moved in his direction.
Once we’d collected around him, he lowered his hand. “I’d like to start tonight’s investigation with a little history of our building. Savannah native Elazer Early built this wonderful structure in 1821. Originally called the City Hotel, it’s had multiple uses over the centuries. It was even the very first post office in Savannah.”
The crowd looked to their neighbors and a few quiet “ohhhs” came from one or two of the women. He continued with the history, including quick stories on live lions, General Sherman during the Civil War, a yellow fever outbreak, and hurricane damage.
Then he started in on the scary stuff. Literally.
“Once we finish on the upper floors, we’ll move to the basement, where you will get the chance to meet Toby. He’s a little shy, but we’ll get out the spirit box and hope he’ll chat with us tonight.”
I widened my eyes at Reed. Did we need to stay and meet Toby? I mean, we’d already checked out the bathroom situation. Unless I took the angle that a ghost killed Lisa, which I didn’t think Delaney would agree with, we didn’t need to stick around to meet a murder obsessed basement demon.
“For safety, everyone must stay inside for the entire evening,” our host said as another person, wearing all black with their hair in a high ponytail, walked to the two main doors.
Our group stood silently as she flicked the handle with a harsh click, locking us inside the building.
Oh, no.
Darkness had totally engrossed the city streets as we made our way home to the rental a few hours later. I wrapped my arms around myself and shoved my hands under my arms to protect against the chill. Something moved in a bush across the street, and I watched a tuxedo cat lazily cross an empty parking lot.
“I wish I’d have thought to bring a jacket,” Reed said, not looking disturbed by the temperatures.
