Read Lips Touch: Three Times for Free Online

Kizzy froze in mid-step, chilled and
startled, and looked up at Jack Husk. For a second some look passed through his
sly eyes, some intelligence ... a hint of a sneer? And Kizzy almost thought he
knew the sudden wind for what it was: an onslaught of ghosts. Had they swept
around her only, she wondered now, or around them both? Had they included Jack
Husk in their circle of protection? Or had they wound up Kizzy alone? Had that
wind tried to slide between them, like a wall?
    "Brrr ..." he said, shivering slightly. To Kizzy's
dismay, he unhooked his arm from hers, but then he settled it around her
shoulder, drawing her neatly against his side, and her dismay evaporated,
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    along with any question she'd had about his awareness of rampant
ghosts. "Cold wind," he said simply.
    "Mm hm," Kizzy agreed. The velvet of his jacket was now
snug against her cheek, and there was very little room to think of anything
else but the feel of it, and of the way she'd caught him looking at her lips,
and what that might mean.
    As they walked through the cemetery, tucked together, she heard
words as she used to when she came here as a child, snippets of speech as murky
as gutter water draining through a clog of leaves. "The wintermen are
gleaning," said one, and another intoned "butterfly," and
"hungry." "Stove burning," said a flat voice, and then
suddenly, a familiar voice hissed, "-- knife, Sunshine --"
    Kizzy's eyes went wide and she looked around and over her
shoulder, inadvertently nuzzling Jack Husk's hand with her chin. Despite that
smooth jolt of a touch, she had the wherewithal to realize she'd left her
grandmother's knife in her jeans pocket. All the years of wanting it and she'd
left it behind! She wanted to ask her grandmother what she was doing here. She
should be far away by now, navigating labyrinths, fending off shadows, lapping
water from stalactite tips with her ghostly tongue, and answering riddles to
win passage through gates made of bones. She should be singing beasts to sleep
with lullabies and bribing otherworldly coyotes to smuggle her deeper into her
new world. She shouldn't be here, among these fainthearted cemetery
ghosts! This eternal loitering wasn't for Kizzy's folk, least of all her
grandmother, her strong, untemptable grandmother. Kizzy wanted to ask her --
but she was warm against Jack Husk's side and didn't want to step away from him
to whisper her question to the dead.
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    "Did you hear something?" Jack Husk asked suddenly.
    "What?" Kizzy asked, startled and strangely guilty, as
if he'd caught her hoarding the whispers of the ghosts to herself.
    "I don't know. Sounded like a twig snapping. I wonder if
anyone else is here."
    But there didn't seem to be anyone else in the cemetery, or even
any sign of recent visitors. It was a lonesome place, and Kizzy wasn't
surprised the ghosts came to her messy yard to while away their days among the
cats and chickens.
    Jack Husk's fingers began idly stroking Kizzy's shoulder as they
walked between the rows of graves. It happened slowly, imperceptibly, but she
realized he was pulling her little by little closer to him, the stroking
deepening into rubbing, so his whole hand was cupped over her shoulder, his
thumb making little circles. She could smell boy spice beneath the thrift-store
aroma of his jacket, and the rubbing and the smell began to work to soften her
-- like butter before you add sugar, in the first step of making something
sweet. It was her first experience of how bodies could meld together, how
breath could slip naturally into rhythm. It was hypnotic. Heady.
    And she wanted more.
    "They have teeth," whispered a ghost. Kizzy ignored it.
    "They have nectar," said another, very faint and filled
with longing. Kizzy felt a small chill, but ignored that too.
    "Hungry?" Jack Husk asked, as they pivoted to walk
another cemetery row.
    Kizzy shrugged. She had little interest in eating just now. But
spreading out the checked blanket someplace quiet and sitting down,