“Celeste.” His voice was a low, guttural growl. Whatever was happening wasn’t one-sided, and the knowledge that she was having the same effect on him added even more fuel to the flame.

“I want you,” she said, moving her hands to the buttons on his shirt. She fumbled with the first one, and then the second, while Dax’s hands fisted at his sides.

“I want-I need to touch you, Celeste,” he said, and she saw his hands open, then reach toward her.

She swallowed, shook her head. “No, Dax, please. Don’t. Don’t do anything that could cause them to make me leave. I can touch you. Just let me touch you, just once.” Her hands continued to move down the buttons on his shirt, while his clenched into tight fists again.

“Hell, Celeste, I want you too.”

She pulled the two sides of his shirt apart and slid her palms against his solid chest, then she leaned toward him, rested her head against his warmth and watched the way her glowing hair shimmered beside his muscled flesh. His heart pounded fiercely, and she took pleasure in the steady vibration that emphasized the life still bristling within him. She wanted to feel that way again, wanted to feel alive again, and she believed she knew how to make that happen. “I want to make love to you, Dax, before I go.” She turned her head and kissed the pulse in his neck, and felt the hardness of his erection against her stomach.

Her skin was on fire, her body burning, needing and determined…but something else was joining in the flurry of emotions she was experiencing, and Celeste recognized it with a sudden pang of fear. “No,” she whispered as her energy started to drain, and her body began glowing brighter.

The door to the room shook, and a female voice called from the other side, “Hello? Is someone in there? We need this room.” Then the woman cleared her throat and yelled, “Can you bring me the keys?”

Dax’s curse was softly spoken against her hair. “Damn. We’ve got to go somewhere else, Celeste.”

“I-” She struggled to form the words, but it was getting harder and harder to concentrate, and harder to move away from Dax, and from the heat he generated within her. “I can’t.”

He looked down at her, and the desire in his eyes quickly converted to concern. “Celeste. What’s happening?”

She glanced at her hands against his chest, and they were painfully bright now, almost as bright as Cassie had been right before she stepped into the light. And she was so very tired. “Need to rest,” she said, and felt the truth of the statement. If she didn’t rest, she feared that she might have no choice but to head toward the light; she might not have the strength to fight it. But if she rested, she lost more time with Dax.

Celeste felt her spirit begin to fade. But it wasn’t time yet. Six hours at least; that’s what Adeline had guessed, but it hadn’t nearly been six hours yet.

“Don’t leave, Celeste. Fight it,” he said. “Stay with me.”

“Need to rest a while,” she whispered, but the words were slurred as her spirit pulled at her to leave the room.

The lock to the door turned, and Dax quickly asked, “Where? Where are you going?”

“Plantation.” It was the only place she could think of to go, and the only word she managed to say before she suddenly found herself on the velvet settee in Adeline’s sitting room. There she closed her eyes and prayed for enough energy to do…everything she wanted before her time ran out completely.

THE DOOR TO the hospital room opened, and a scowling nurse barreled in. “Excuse me, but did you not hear me knocking?” she snapped. “We need this room.”

“Right, I’m leaving,” Dax said, pushing by her and catching a glimpse of a gurney, evidently the patient they were wheeling in, as he darted past. Celeste was on her way to the plantation to rest, if the powers that be didn’t yank her all the way back. “She’d better be there,” he said to the ceiling, knowing that the guys above were undoubtedly listening. He spent every waking moment never knowing when he’d get called to help a spirit, never knowing when he’d get called to help them, and right now he needed a little reciprocation. He wanted the powers that be to help Celeste stay on this side, at the bare minimum for the six hours she’d been promised.

He could still feel her touch on his face, against his chest. The way her fingers had trembled, and the way she’d rubbed her body against his as she laid her head on his chest. He wanted to feel all of her against him, and he’d better get a chance to feel it before the day ended. “I mean it,” he added, sprinting down the hallway and toward the parking deck. “She’d better be there.”

He rounded a corner and ran slap into his older brother.

“Hey man, where’s the fire?” Gage Vicknair grabbed him by the shoulders and halted his progress. He had a stethoscope slung around his neck, a hospital badge clamped to the pocket of his navy scrubs and a look of exhaustion on his face. “One of the interns said she thought she saw my brother up here, but she didn’t say he was running a race. What’s happening?”

“Can’t talk,” Dax said breathlessly. “I’ve gotta get home.” Then he thought about the little ghost visiting with her parents in the hospital room nearby. “Listen. My current assignment, a little ghost named Prissy Fontenot, is here at the hospital in her father’s room.”

“She’s visiting him before she crosses?”

Dax nodded, eager to leave and get to Celeste, but also wanting to make sure that Prissy’s needs were taken care of. “I’m sure she’ll be fine staying with them until she has to cross over, but would you mind checking in and just making sure that everything, well, seems okay with them? They can sense her, so they should know when she crosses. And if they do need me for anything, call me and let me know.”

“Yeah, I can watch her, but why aren’t you staying with them?” Gage asked.

“It’s Celeste. She’s back. She came back with Prissy, but we don’t have long.”

“The ghost from the summer?” Gage looked confused. “I thought she crossed over.”

“I thought so too, but she’s back, for a little while. And I’ve got to go. No time to explain now.” He darted on down the hall, but heard his brother calling after him.

“Did you tell Celeste that she’s made you a royal pain in the ass to be around since she left?”

Dax didn’t bother stopping to let him know that he had, in fact, told her that, but he still had plenty more to tell her. And plenty more to do with her before she crossed, if they could.

“Those rules don’t apply to me. And I’ve been aching for this.”

She could touch him. That fact alone shocked the hell out of him, but the way her body trembled when she touched him, the way her silver-gray eyes deepened to charcoal-that evidence of how touching him affected her-that had made him harder than he’d ever been in his life.

Dax wanted in her, to be a part of her before she had to leave again.

What if she never came back?

No. He couldn’t worry about that now. He climbed into his car, cranked it and glanced at the digital clock on the dash: 9:28.

He’d be home in an hour, earlier if he sped, which he would. Seconds were priceless now, and he resented each and every one he wasn’t with Celeste. The fact that she’d already had to rest twice told him that they probably wouldn’t get anywhere near twelve hours together on this side. Midnight was probably as good as it’d get; that was only two and a half hours away, and the majority of one of those hours would be spent driving, trying to get to her.

Then again, after she rested before, she’d felt better, and was able to touch him.

But why was she so tired, anyway? Why would a ghost be tired? Something wasn’t right, something that Dax couldn’t put his finger on.

He hurriedly left the parking deck, his Beemer catching a wheel as he jerked the car onto Jefferson Highway. He punched the accelerator and the car jumped to life. Dax was extremely thankful his company hadn’t skimped on his corporate car. Right now he needed speed, and-as his speedometer neared a hundred-he had it at his fingertips.