Page 15 of Spooked
“What? Protecting you…”
“Protecting me from what?”
I just point to the room behind the open door. “From…” My voice trails off. Here, the light of the setting sun is streaming in through the windows. The flickering I attributed to candles is only the golden rays filtered through the autumn leaves on the trees. The oil lamp? Well, that’s the reflection of the sun itself on a trio of mirrors lying forlorn on the floor.
Oh my God!My head spins as the implications flood through me. Sinking to the floor, my plastered leg shoots out in front of me, leaving me to land heavily and undignified, and painfully, on my ass, eliciting a groan of pain to escape my lips.
“Hound! What the hell’s happened to you?” Suddenly, Maeve’s on her knees by my side, offering a hand to help me up, which is a joke as I probably outweigh her by one hundred pounds.
Even under extreme torture, I could give no excuse for the following words to come out of my mouth. “In the accident where I broke my leg, I had a concussion. I was in a coma for three weeks.” Her hand covers her mouth as she gasps. “Doctors warned me that as a result of a traumatic brain injury, I might start acting irrationally, or, like, you know, see things which aren’t there.”
“Oh, Hound.” Her hand now hovers above me. “I wouldn’t have wanted you to come here if I’d known.” That’s quickly followed by her asking me sharply, “And what things are you seeing?”
“I grabbed you as I thought the room was lit by candles and oil lamps.” Snorting, I continue, “But it was just the reflection of the sunset.”
As I wait to hear her reaction to the thought she’s here with a lunatic who can’t control himself, I didn’t expect her to bite her lip and apologise. “I’m so sorry I pushed you.” She tries to put her arm around me to help me up for the second time. “Let’s get out of this house.”
Leaning on my own arm mostly, I let her believe she’s helping me off the floor. When I’m standing on my good leg, she passes me my crutches, and I get them back under me. While all I want to do is escape, I don’t want to let her down. “We’re here now. May as well finish what we came for.”
“And risk you putting your arms around me again?”
Turning fast, I see her grinning at me. Then she shrugs. “You startled me, but I don’t mind admitting, I wouldn’t feel too bad if that happened again.” Her eyes widen as if she’s surprised herself with those words. Then, rather than backtracking as I expect, her cheeks flush as she adds breathily, “I mean, it’s not every day I’m in an embrace with a handsome man.”
A smirk comes to my face. Of course, I’m not blind to my god-given attributes, but for some reason, knowing Maeve’s attracted to me affects me more than any club whore brushing up against my dick and blatantly offering her body for sexual favours. For a moment, it makes me forget my brain injury, and the worrying symptoms I’m experiencing.
Feeling bold, knowing my attraction toward her is reciprocated, I ask, “If you like my arms around you, darlin’, how would you feel about a kiss?”
There’s only a second’s hesitation, before she’s rising on her toes, and lifting her face to mine. So much shorter than me, I need to bend to accommodate her, but instead of immediately lowering my lips, I inhale as her warm, and faintly sweet breath mingles with mine. The air seems to crackle with electricity as my eyes narrow to focus on the curve of her mouth, the subtle tilt of her head, and the anticipation in her eyes. I might bereading too much into her expression, but there’s a slight quiver to her chin, which makes me wonder if she thinks she’s going to disappoint.
Take this slow,I tell myself. She’s no club whore offering herself up on a platter—though, in that event, I’d hardly delay things with a kiss. Finally, reverently, I arch my neck, letting our lips meet. Her mouth touches mine, hesitantly before pulling away. It’s a testing brush that sends a shiver down my spine. It’s hard to say who moves first to find that connection again. This time she stays, allowing me to feel her soft lips, warm, pliant and alive. Finding the small of her back with one hand, I draw her in, tasting something that’s somehow more intoxicating that any spirit I’ve ever imbibed. Blood rushes south, my cock immediately hardening.
Her scent surrounds me as she moans into my mouth, her arms clasping me to her. Her breasts easily felt against my t-shirt make me wish we were naked, and I could see and touch the whole of her body. The air is filled with a faint trace of perfume that I already know is uniquely her. I deepen the kiss, making it slower, more deliberate, more sensual, loving the way she responds. My heart’s beating fast, not in fear, but with such an arousal I can’t remember ever having felt before. Her little mewls entice me, I forget where I am, who I am, and maybe even my name if I was asked.
Without anything other than tactile communication, our kiss becomes a wordless conversation, each applying pressure then releasing as if in a choreographed dance. Never before have I felt such a magnetic connection.
The house groans as it settles around us, bolting me back into the present, reminding me I’m here to do a job, not to seduce a client. Which she is, whether she’s the one paying us or not. My loyalty to my club brothers comes into my mind like a physical slap around the head. Pulling back, slowly, so as not todisappoint her, I pause, plastering just one more sedate caress against her mouth. But the lingering warmth on my lips comes with the quiet ache to feel hers again.
As she steps back, I can’t miss her expression that suggests for her, I’ve just hung the moon. And you know what? I don’t fucking hate it. Even with the girl I’d thought was my forever, I’ve never felt such an immediate and deep connection.
Before I sayfuck itand act on the invitation that’s clearly there, I clear my throat, force a businesslike expression on my face, while taking her hand in mine—a tactile gesture to minimise her disappointment—and step into the room that was once her grandmother’s personal domain.
CHAPTER EIGHT
HOUND
Together, we step forward into her gramma’s bedroom, and I take a moment to check everything is exactly how I left it before. But of course, it’s nothing like how I last saw it with my own eyes. Instead, the room’s exactly as the photos foretold. The unstable frame of a four-poster bed remains, still in the same state, with no mattress and no curtains. The dressing table, I’d already noted, is opposite the bed, still lying upturned on the floor, and that wardrobe has doors hanging off, looking abandoned and forlorn. The once majestic wallpaper is peeling off the walls.
Fucking TBI.I close my eyes briefly, swallowing down the panic of what that will mean for my future. Somehow, the hand I still clasp seems to ground me, keeping me in the here and now rather than losing myself in my fear of what lies ahead.
I even centre myself enough to realise that this decay is not how she would have wanted to remember her grandmother. I squeeze her fingers and hold tighter.
“Hound?” she asks, her voice tremulous and urgent.
It was only a moment I was lost in my head, but her tone gets my attention. She’s looking behind her, and as I turn, I can seewhat’s gotten her distressed. There’s a black vapour rising up the stairs.
Fire?But breathing in, I can smell no smoke, and there’s no crackling to suggest flames have taken hold. While being trapped upstairs as the house burns would be dangerous, what panics me more is that there’s a shape to the blackness, and the way it swirls shows deliberate intent.
A shiver of fear goes through me.Is she seeing what I am? If she is… if she’s sharing these sights and sounds, then this isn’t just my hallucination, this is hers.She’s certainly scared by something. Her eyes are wide, her breaths are close together, her pulse racing when I clasp my hand to her wrist. As the blackness continues to swallow what’s behind us, I throw caution and my doubts about my sanity to the wind as I clump my way back to the door and slam it shut. On hearing a loud gasp, I turn back around.
