Rebel meets by-the-book businessman. Love doesn’t stand a ghost of a chance.
The Ghost Exterminator: A Love Story
© 2009 Vivi Andrews
A Karmic Consultants Story
Jo Banks has been seeing ghosts since she was six, so normal was never really an option. Embracing the weird and shunning normalcy makes her the top Ghost Exterminator in her region. Then she meets Wyatt Haines, the uptight, materialistic and irritatingly sexy owner of a successful resort chain.
Wyatt’s new Victorian inn is extremely haunted and the Commando Barbie Ghost Exterminator is just the girl for the job. Except Wyatt doesn’t believe in ghosts, or Jo, or anything outside the norm. He’ll have to start believing fast, though, because Jo’s extermination goes awry and accidentally throws two prankster ghosts into Wyatt’s body to haunt him.
Every time he falls asleep, the mischievous ghosts take over, turning his perfectly ordered life into chaos. His waking hours are no less chaotic, with his thoughts possessed by Jo’s quirky appeal and Playmate physique.
Unfortunately, Jo’s ghost-exing mojo is on the fritz just when she needs it the most to unhaunt Wyatt and figure out why his inn is swarming with ghosts. Preferably before his spirit is permanently separated from his mouth-watering body.
And before her heart is permanently attached to the most sexy, frustrating, normal man she’s ever met.
Warning: This book contains prankster ghosts, PG bondage, and a not-so-PG trip to the mile-high club.
Enjoy the following excerpt for The Ghost Exterminator: A Love Story:
“Is it really so awful being a ghost host? I’ve always kind of wondered what it would feel like to have someone else inside me.”
She hadn’t meant it to sound dirty. Really she hadn’t. She didn’t even realize her words could have a wicked interpretation until his eyes lit darkly, the blue as hot as the flame from an acetylene torch. Oh, baby. Come to mama.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” she said hurriedly.
He laughed, a low, husky rasp of sound. “Didn’t you?”
That laugh was going to be her downfall. She couldn’t be interested in him. She just couldn’t! He thought she was nuts, for crying out loud. But when he wasn’t glowering down on her like a disappointed deity of propriety, he could actually be remarkably charming. And there was no point in denying the physical attraction between them. The man was gorgeous, no two ways about that, and her hormones had been singing the Hallelujah chorus since the moment she set eyes on him. As far as Jo was concerned, that was all the more reason to stay away from him.
Unfortunately, there was only so far she could go within the confines of her tiny office and she was stuck with him until she could foist him off on another ghost exterminator whose mojo wasn’t on the fritz.
Dammit. Her mojo couldn’t be gone. It just couldn’t.
Jo began to pace—one step forward, one step back—as much as she could in her miniscule office.
“Jo? You okay?”
“I don’t know what went wrong,” she said, fighting down hysteria again. “My mojo has never failed me before. It’s who I am—” Her voice broke on the last word and she shook her head sharply. She was not going to cry in front of awful, judgmental, occasionally charming Wyatt Haines.
“Jo, hey, come on…” He stood, reaching out a hand to her.
She didn’t know what he had intended. Maybe to pat her on the back or give her arm a comforting squeeze. But when Wyatt stood, he caught her turning in mid-pace. They both stumbled, tangled against one another. He tried to steady her and one hand brushed against the Girls as the other wrapped around her waist.
Jo looked up into his eyes, startled by his sudden proximity, seduced by the feel of him pressed hard against her.
Then, before rational thought could take control, he was kissing her.
His mouth landed heavily on hers, a full-frontal assault of the lips. The flare of chemistry was sudden, unexpected, and so freaking perfect her brain was instantly wiped of conscious thought.
Her mojo might be going horribly wrong, but this felt right.
He teased and coaxed and Jo was with him every step of the way, throwing herself into the kiss for everything she was worth.
He stumbled under the force of her enthusiasm, his feet tangled with hers, and they tumbled down onto the chair. Jo’s legs fell to either side of his. He yanked her forward by her belt loops until she was seated, straddling his thighs with nothing but air between them. And not much of that.
Jo wrapped her arms around his shoulders as he palmed the back of her skull, angling her head for better access as his tongue drove to take possession of her mouth. He untangled his fingers from her belt loops and brushed up under the edge of her shirt with his thumb, just the most fleeting of touches across the bare skin of her abdomen. Then his hands were sliding against her jeans again, moving around to cup her ass, two fingers of each hand sliding into the tight back pockets of her jeans to hold her still when every hormone in her body was screaming for her to squirm against him, wriggle closer to his heat.
“You can admit you want it,” he said against her throat. “Everything doesn’t have to be a war. Jo Banks against the world.”
God, why is he talking? Didn’t he know there are better uses for his mouth? Jo speared her fingers through his hair. He kept it ruthlessly short, completely restrained, but it felt as wild and thick against her fingers as an animal pelt. She gripped his head in both hands and yanked his face back to within a breath of hers. “I like you so much better when you aren’t speaking,” she growled against his mouth, her lips teasing his with every word.
He kissed her again, each drugging pull of his mouth dragging her further away from reality.