Page 24 of A Smile Full of Lies (Secrets of Stonewood #1)

Chapter

Seventeen

ROS

A strangled scream ripped out of me, cut short when the lights snapped off and the cellar drowned in suffocating black.

My breaths came sharp and ragged. Panic spiked hot in my chest, but it wasn’t the only thing. My stomach flipped, my thighs clenched, and somewhere beneath the terror, a pulse of something darker thrummed. Recognition.

“Shit,” I whimpered, stumbling back into the racks of wine. My palms scraped polished wood, corks, and cold glass bottles, searching for something solid, something real.

Then the dark bloomed with violet light.

A face — if you could call it that — hung in the void.

Jagged neon X’s where eyes should’ve been, a wide stitched grin glowing too bright, too wide, too wrong.

It floated closer, searing into my vision like it had always belonged to my nightmares… or my fantasies.

My breath stuttered, torn between terror and the sick, shameful thrill clawing its way up my spine.

“Run for me, sweetheart,” the low, distorted voice crooned. The sound wrapped around me, vibrating straight through my bones, straight into that place I’d never admit out loud.

“Oh, hell no! Fuck this shit,” I hissed, scrambling backward between the racks of wine to put distance between me and that disembodied neon face.

The scrape of my shoes echoed too loud on the stone, and I knew he was following… each heavy footfall deliberate, closing in. My hand hit the wall and I dragged my palm along it like a lifeline, breath tearing in and out of my lungs.

I blinked hard, desperate for my eyes to adjust, for the dark to give me anything besides the floating violet grin and stitched-out eyes that loomed closer and closer. Fuck, whoever was wearing that mask was tall. He towered over me by more than a foot.

My heel slipped against the floor, my whole body snapping tight with panic. Adrenaline flooded me, sharp and heady. It felt wrong — had to be wrong — but my thighs clenched anyway, my chest going hot and tight.

For one insane second, a thought cut through the chaos in my head.

Had I done this, somehow? Had typing out that stupid fantasy on the anonymous forum, admitting what I wanted in the dark of night, actually called this into being?

Was this some sick manifestation of the thing I should never have put out into the universe?

My stomach flipped, equal parts dread and shameful excitement.

Before I could think twice, my body made the choice for me.

I bolted. My sneakers slammed against the stone floor as I sprinted toward the faint blur of stairs along the far wall, lungs burning, pulse screaming that he was right behind me.

My footsteps thundered up the stairs, each one louder than I meant it to be.

The sudden burst of open space swallowed me whole as I stumbled into an empty corridor.

Silent. Too silent. This wing of the house wasn’t part of the haunted attraction, and the quiet pressed in on me like a hand squeezing my throat.

My chest heaved, breath sharp and shallow, each inhale rasping like it might give me away. I forced myself forward, shoes tapping against the hardwood floor in a frantic rhythm I couldn’t slow down.

I turned toward what should have been the kitchen, by architectural logic, and found that a solid panel had blocked that doorway off.

I glanced to my right, and where there should have been a dining room entrance, there was another solid panel blocking that path.

My only option was to keep moving forward, down the corridor.

Behind me came the steady, deliberate thud of boots. Not rushed. Not panicked. Just… eerily in sync with the drag of my own breaths, like he was matching me on purpose.

I glanced over my shoulder just before I darted around the corner at the end of the corridor. The purple glow from his mask reflected off the wall beside him, and for one dizzy second I caught the silhouette of him — too tall, too broad, too calm — stalking after me.

Heat knotted low in my stomach. Terror, yes, but not just terror. That pulse of primal recognition again, pounding in my blood like this was the exact scene I shouldn’t have admitted I wanted.

A metallic clang reverberated through the hall behind me, making me jump. My stomach flipped as I realized a panel had slammed shut, sealing me off from the way I’d come. I was trapped like a rat in a cage.

“Fuck, fuck, fuckity, fuck,” I whispered, the words spilling out in a sharp hiss as I spun forward and pushed myself harder down the narrowing corridor to a set of stairs that led up to the second floor.

The landing leveled out beneath my feet, my lungs clawing for air as I tried to decide which way to go. Before I could, a sharp clang split the silence, and a panel slid open to my right.

I spun toward the sound, heart seizing in my chest. A gap. An opening. My only shot.

For half a second I hesitated, frozen in place. That was all it took for the soft thud of boots to echo up the stairs behind me. Heavy. Deliberate. Closer. My blood froze in my veins.

“Move, bitch,” I hissed to myself, shoving forward. I darted into the open corridor, sneakers slapping hard against the wood.

Another metallic shift clanged behind me, and when I glanced toward the nearest doorway, it was sealed. Solid. Every path was closing as fast as I reached it, leaving me only one direction to go.

“Fuck,” I breathed, palm smacking the cold wall as I skidded to a stop. My fist curled against it, useless, before I pushed off and kept running.

The sound of whistling floated down the corridor behind me, cheerful and so fucking wrong.

It was the sound of a predator enjoying himself, savoring the chase, and it lit me up with equal parts fear and shameful heat.

It twisted in my stomach, making me run harder, even as heat flared low between my thighs.

I bolted toward the only opening left. Another door slammed shut behind me with a metallic snap, sealing me in. My pulse roared in my ears.

The corridor ended in a single, heavy wooden door. My footsteps faltered, slowing against my will, my chest heaving under the thin fabric of my hoodie. I stumbled the last few feet, pressing my palm flat against the cold surface.

I shoved. Nothing. It didn’t budge. My breath stuttered, catching hard in my throat. It was a goddamn dead end and I had nowhere to go.

“Fuck,” I whispered, softer this time, the word breaking as it left me. Leaning my forehead against the door, I tried and failed to get ahold of myself.

The sound of cheerful whistling floated down the corridor. My spine stiffened. I twisted toward the sound, a beat before he stepped into view, every nerve in my body snapping tight.

The glow from his mask hit me first. Violet light spilling from those jagged stitches reflected off the blank, towering panels that blocked me off from the rooms and halls of Knox’s childhood home which existed beyond them.

The only piece of the house I could touch was the locked door at my back.

Realization hit me hard and all at once.

None of this was by chance. The panels had funneled me into this dead end like a rat in a goddamn maze, and I’d played right into it.

My breath stuttered. My back pressed into the door harder as he stalked closer, slow and steady, the heavy thud of his boots filling the narrow corridor.

The neon grin burned too bright in the dark, every tilt of his head making it seem to leer wider. My pulse hammered so hard I imagined he could see it throbbing at the base of my throat. Shameful heat licked low in my stomach, traitorous, exactly the thing I shouldn’t be feeling.

Recognition stabbed through me, sharp and undeniable. I know this. I wanted this. I wrote about this. The exact kind of chase I’d admitted to StrayDog777 in the middle of the night — the one I’d never thought would leave the safety of words on a screen.

And God help me, it wasn’t just terrifying. It had me wet. The panic, the pursuit, the trap snapping shut around me — my body answered before my mind could catch up, slick heat pooling low and insistent between my legs.

Part of me knew I should be ashamed of being so goddamn turned on by this, but a bigger part of me didn’t give a flying fuck about shame when there was a massive, muscular, masked man closing in on me.

“Say it,” he purred, voice low and distorted, wrapping around me like warm, dark velvet.

My chest seized. I wasn’t sure my heart was even beating anymore.

“S-Say what?”

The words fractured out of me, barely a breath.

He didn’t stop. One gloved hand lifted, trailing the backs of his fingers down the side of my throat. The leather of his gloves gliding cold and smooth over my too-hot skin. My body betrayed me, trembling with a heady mix of hunger and terror.

“You know who I am.”

My lips parted, the name catching in my throat before spilling out in a whisper I couldn’t hold back.

“You’re… Nox Obscura.”

The sound of it on my tongue felt like a sacrificial offering to a dark god… like surrendering to madness.

“That’s right, baby,” he purred.

The endearment made me shiver.

He crowded closer, boxing me in. His hand slid from my throat down to my hip, his grip hard and possessive.

Then his thigh pushed between mine, forcing me open, rocking up into the wet heat there.

Even through my jeans and panties, the intimacy of the touch electrified me from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.

A sharp gasp tore out of me at the sensation. My knees buckled, and my hands shot forward, clutching the front of his jacket like it was the only thing keeping me upright.

He caught my jaw in his other hand, leather-covered fingers gripping until I had no choice but to look up. The purple neon lights of his mask seared in my vision, consuming everything as he stared down at me.

“You’re going to come for me,” he said darkly. “And you’re going to do it like a good girl.”