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the hard muscles of his chest. It reminded
her how tall he was, how unexpectedly present and…how nakedly male.
    But for the first time she got a good look at him. Other
amazing parts of him couldn’t distract her from the unexpected joy of being
able to stare at his face, clearly revealed. It fascinated her. She’d long ago
decided from what she could see that he’d be a good-looking man, and in that
she wasn’t disappointed. But the vagueness of his form had hidden the way the
harsh planes of his cheeks and temples, carved by deprivation, hardened his
expression. Suffering and brutality had gouged deep lines around his eyes and
mouth as well. Based on his history he couldn’t be more than twenty-seven or
eight and was probably several years younger, but he looked older. Even with
the jubilation showing on his face now, the shadow of his past lay under it.
    She would do everything in her power to replace those
shadows with joy.
    If he still wanted her. She was thirty, which would
make her several years older than him. And he deserved a chance to look around,
to test out this new life.
    He stared down at her, and his expression slowly transformed
into a quieter thrill and more than a little bemusement. He lifted a hand and
turned to look at it, twisting it one way and then another. “This is real. You
brought me back.” He ran his fingers down the side of her face. “Kelly? I don’t
know what to say. ‘Thank you’ seems ridiculously inadequate. I’ll be your slave
for the rest of my life?”
    “Slavery was outlawed ages ago,” she said. “But, Robert?
This is still you? Your accent… When you were with me down in the cavern, you
were different. You spoke the way I assume you spoke in life, and you didn’t
seem to know anything from your time as a ghost.”
    “During the testing period, I could be only as I was in
life,” he answered. “The testing had to be based on that and only that. But now
I have all the memories of my life and my afterlife. Plus a body.” His tone
went suddenly elated. “And there are so many things I want to do. I’m eager to
ride in an automobile, to see the mountains and the huge buildings, to fly in
an airplane.” He stopped and drew a breath. “Just to feel the sun and the wind
on my body again.” His fingers slid down her cheek another time. “First and most
of all, though, I want to touch you all over. Everywhere. And make love to you
with my body as well as my spirit.”
    He pulled her tight against him and wrapped her in his arms.
She treasured the feel of his hard body against hers, his engorging cock probing
her belly, the smooth skin of his back. Smooth?
    “The scars,” she said. “They’re gone.”
    He reached up and probed at his throat. “So they are. And
thank heaven. It would be awkward to have to explain this one.” He brushed a
hand under his ear as if he could still feel the imprint of the rope scar that
had been there.
    “The ones on your back are gone as well.”
    “And good riddance to them all. I’m starting over again. A
new life.” He looked around. “Your bedroom is that way, right?”
    “You know very well it is.”
    “What are we waiting for then? We only have fifty or sixty
more years to get to know each other and try out all the things I want to do.”
    “Robert…?”
    He heard the doubts in her voice and backed up a step. “You
don’t want me?” he asked. “I just assumed—”
    “No,” she interrupted. “I want you desperately. But I’m not
sure you really want me. You have a chance to look around now. You could have a
lot of women. And…I’m older than you.”
    His face broke up into a gleeful smile. “Older than me…
Hell! This is what? 2009? That makes me around three hundred years old. Don’t
pull that older woman thing on me . And, I don’t want any other woman,”
he said. “I’ve seen plenty of them on the television and in the house over the
years. Beautiful women, seductive women, smart women, sexy women,