The Ex Hex (Ex Hex #1)(36)

Or maybe you were scared, a little voice in her mind reminded her. Because if he was the best, you lost him too soon.

His hands were skating over her hips now, gathering up the material of her skirt, and even as Vivi told herself she’d be completely out of her mind to have sex with her ex in a freaking library, she wasn’t stopping him. In fact, she was helping him, her own hands going to shove his jacket off his broad shoulders even as she situated herself more firmly on the edge of the table.

Rhys was standing between her legs and she could feel him, hard and hot through the denim of his jeans, pushing against the cradle of her thighs as they just kept on kissing, and Vivi put one hand on the table behind her so that she could brace herself to press even closer.

The sound he made as she rolled her hips against him sent electricity racing down her spine, and Vivi tilted her head to give him better access to her neck, her eyes drifting shut as her fingers clutched the edge of his jacket.

Then he was kissing her mouth again, his tongue stroking hers, his hips moving against her in a way that made her feel more than a little crazy.

“Vivienne,” he murmured against her neck, his hand stroking her thigh, and she nodded, needy and wanting.

“Touch me,” she heard herself say. “Rhys, please . . .”

She was wearing tights, but she could still feel the press of his fingers along the seam there between her legs, and she tilted up into his touch, gasping.

“Okay, so that part of the curse definitely didn’t work,” she muttered, and Rhys lifted his head, gaze foggy with desire.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she said, shaking her head. “Just do it again.”

He did, and Vivi lowered her forehead to his shoulder, her grip on his shirt so tight she was surprised the fabric didn’t tear.

This was insane. Irresponsible. Stupid.

And she was going to do it anyway.

When Vivi heard the first scream, the first thought her dazed, lust-addled mind could come up with was that someone had walked in on them.

But no, as the scream came again, it was clear that it wasn’t that close.

Rhys had frozen, too, his head slightly tilted toward the door.

“I’m guessing that’s not a normal sound in the library.”

Still only half aware of what was going on, Vivi shook her head, blinking. “No, that’s—”

The third scream was followed by a low rumble, and Vivi leapt to her feet, smoothing her skirt down back over her legs with one hand as Rhys took her other, pulling her toward the door.

“Come on.”

As they came out of the study room, Dr. Fulke had already stepped down from her massive desk and was looking off through the stacks back toward the regular part of the library, her wrinkled face creased even further with worry.

“Something’s wrong,” she said, shaking her head, and Vivi had the sense Dr. Fulke wasn’t even talking to them.

And then Rhys was pulling her back through the shelves in the direction they’d come this morning, closer and closer to that awful screaming.

The strange thing was, the closer they got to the source of the sound, the more Vivi’s heart pounded, not just with fear but with that same overwhelming sense of magic she’d felt earlier, that cold sense of wrongness that had seeped in from the moment they’d entered the library.

She and Rhys burst out of the stacks, and the cold nearly sucked Vivi’s breath from her lungs. Earlier, it had been chilly. Now it was frigid, so cold it almost hurt, and she looked around her with wide eyes.

Students were cowered under study desks, huddled in corners, and in the center of the room . . .

“Is that . . . ?” Rhys asked, and Vivi could only nod, dumbfounded.

“It’s a ghost.”



Rhys stared at the apparition in front of them, wondering how someone who grew up where he had had never seen a ghost before.

Truth be told, he hadn’t actually believed the damn things were real because if they were, there’d been no better place for them than Penhaven Manor.

This seemed very real.

The woman was a glowing greenish blue, her eyes wide in her pale face, feet dangling just a bit off the floor. But the weirdest thing about her was how she was dressed. She had on jeans, a flannel shirt over a T-shirt and a pair of Converse high-tops with Sharpie doodles on the toes, her dark hair pulled back in a messy ponytail as she glared at them.

Whenever she’d died, it hadn’t been all that long ago, and Rhys found that more unsettling than he could explain.

The kid nearest him, a tall skinny guy in a Penhaven College hoodie and jeans, was sitting on the floor, his hands raised over his head like he was warding off a blow.

“What the hell is that thing?” he asked Rhys, and Rhys fought the urge to reply, How in the name of sweet fuck would I know?

Vivi stepped a little closer to the apparition. “What’s she looking for?” she asked.

The ghost was still moving back and forth, her head swinging from side to side, and yes, she definitely seemed to be searching the shelves for something, her pale face contorted into a scowl.

And then she seemed to see him.

“Son of a bitch,” Rhys muttered under his breath.

“I think she’s looking at—” Vivienne started, but before she could finish the sentence, there was a banshee shriek, and the ghost was flying at him.