Page 7

EDEN

T he night of the Triumph Haunted House fundraiser…

Prickles of recognition, impossible as it may seem, skittered down my spine. As I walked away from Zoe, who was going back to help with whatever she needed to do, someone brushed along my side, but when I turned there was no one there. A caress I’d been missing for so long. A phantom limb. Yet I had everything I’d ever thought I’d needed.

Hadn’t I? The ache in my chest returned.

The smoke filled the dimly lit room as I entered, flashing lights reflecting off distorted mirrors and ghoulish facades. Each room had a different theme, yet only one person greeted me on the main floor.

Noah, in his Beetlej-um, Keatonesque glory, had me grinning when he suddenly appeared from behind a black column in the monochrome room just before the stairs that led up to the second floor.

“Hey, there little lady,” Noah said, with an appropriately smarmy smirk on his face. On anyone else, it would be, and the makeup helped, but it was all Noah, his sparkling brown eyes shining with humor and so much heart. I giggled, because he’d even added a padded belly to authenticate the look. “Want to help me shrink some heads?”

I snorted as he wiggled his eyebrows, the noise faint under the spooky noises playing from hidden speakers. Hands on my hips, I glared at him the best I could in my bunny mask. “You know he wasn’t the one doing the head shrinking, right?”

“Of course,” he scoffed. “I was trying to keep away anything that might shrink any,” he wagged his brows. “heads around here.”

“Noah!”

“Hey! No names! It’s Beetle-”

“Don’t say it!” I gasped, dissolving into giggles, but my eyes strayed to the stairs. The feeling washed over me once again. Not looking back as he started singing about bananas and dancing, I called over my shoulder, “I’m going to find my…room.”

“Have fun, E.”

The first rung of the ladder, or stairs, sent tremors of fear and anticipation down my spine. The kind of fear where you knew you’d be scared, but somehow safe, at the same time.

Each step up the stairs brought me closer to something unknown and spectacular. Life changing.

I just didn’t know how much.

My eyes widened as he stepped out of the shadows. I let out a shriek of delight and, if I was honest, terror. The tingling in my hand from where a stranger had passed me returned, my heart pounded, and words failed me.

“Want to play a little game?” A voice growled behind me, sexy and smoky. My toes curled and my heart thudded in my chest. “Eden?”

When the mystery man said my name, every nerve in my body shot to life, and I stuttered, “H-how do you know my name?”

The masked hockey player shrugged, a sensual move that drew my eyes to the impressive abs visible between the unzipped black hoodie. Then lower to his pants, and back up because I couldn’t fathom how that poor zipper stayed in together.

“Maybe I’ve been watching you. Waiting for you.”

Holy hell, I was turned on and terrified to admit it to myself, yet I had never felt safer in another person’s presence. “Waiting? To do what?”

“Whatever,” He talked toward me, and I had to tilt my head back to look at him he was so tall, “you want. What. I. Want. Have you ever been chased, Eden? By someone who wants you? Someone you’ve never met, but has watched you?”

I shook my head. “No.”Fuck, was I all alone with…him? Where were the other people? “Do you…want to chase me?”

“Fuck. Yes. And,” he said closing the distance and bending so his breath tickled my neck. I shivered, nearly panting at his nearness, the warmth of his breath on my overstimulated body. “Once I catch you, Bunny, I’m never letting you go.”

“C-catch me?” He moved slowly with a predator’s grace, looking into my eyes with a strange sincerity that belied our cat and mouse situation.“If you don’t want this, Bunny, tell me now, and I’ll walk away. But, if you say yes, know what’s going to happen once I catch you. Maybe even against one of the windows or over the casket in one of the rooms. ”

I licked my lips and whispered, “Yes.”

“That’s my good girl. One last chance.”

“Yes.” I repeated the word.

One hand up my neck, collaring me, and he growled, “Run, little bunny,”

He released me and panic set in, then I smiled as I spun and ran in the direction I had come. Exhilarated and so turned on that every nerve fired with an electric jolt.

Each breath I drew felt like my lungs were on fire. The click-clack of my heels along the hardwood floor thundered in my ears even as it was drowned out by the music that started playing through the speakers right before I found…him. The beats driven and erotic. Spooky and sexy.

His face was half covered by a white and black mask, the bottom half covered in pale white, lips traced in black.

My eyes darted down to his hands as he started toward me as I rounded the corner, caught by a blurred tattoo on the top of his palm. My heart thudded louder and faster as he advanced faster than I could move. My skin tingled, my knees trembled, thighs clenched.

Not out of fear…but desire?

Holy hell. Birds. Swallows? Two birds tattooed on his right hand, delicate and fierce. And God, the way the veins in his hands had me wanting to lick him, suck his thick fingers and lick him…in other places.

OMG.

Was I fantasizing about some random stranger chasing me in a haunted house wearing a mask? I needed to stop reading stalker romances. Or not.

“Keep running, Eden.”

I ran, but his voice, followed, quick on my heels.

“Keep running, Eden. But you won’t get away. ”

I gasped, darting around the corner, just as he gained on me.

I looped back to the main room but he darted out and caught me by the wrist. I twisted, breaking free and ran.

To the room I had designed. My fantasy.

I darted through the next door, but I didn’t gain any ground. I ran to the coffin with the ghostly bride holding a bouquet of dead black roses. Holy hell, I wanted him to catch me but I didn’t stop running. A fine coat of sweat broke out on my body.

A squeal as he neared again, frantically searching for a way out.

“Tsk, tsk, Bunny.” He leaned one arm on the door frame as I searched for a place to escape, and found none. A sexy and menacing sight. The music poured out of the speakers, the relentless driving beat like a metronome to my core.

Closer and closer, he trapped me with my back against the wall. “Looks like I’ve caught you, Bunny.”

His body was sin and beautiful, from his bird tattoo to his sculpted abs. The room spun around us, disappearing until only need and want remained

“One final chance.”

He locked one hand above my head, and I was lost in sensation, of the scent of his skin, the music, his touch. His breath mingled with mine, exchanging precious oxygen until I nearly drowned in him.

A knee nudged my legs apart and I whimpered, not caring how wanton it sounded. Binding my hands with a silk scarf.

“Yes,” I pleaded, not caring if I sounded desperate.

His mouth claimed mine, taking and taking, teeth scraping, biting until my panties were soaked through.

“I told you, didn’t I? I’m never letting you go. ”

One hand reached beneath m y skirt, and tore my panties, wet with my arousal, from my body. I watched as he smelled them, then stuffed them in the back pocket of his pants. He thrust his thick fingers into my wet pussy., and I moaned ,unable to stop myself.

“You loved being chased by me.”

I nodded, mindlessly grinding on his hand, desperate to come. A writhing, mindless thing that needed his touch.

“My bunny wanted to get caught because you wanted this? You’re so fucking wet for me, aren’t you? That’s it, Eden. Ride my fingers. Come all over them. I need to taste you.”

My orgasm tore through me as I came, noises and sounds tore from me over the music that still played. Over and over, until my body finally let go.

“I’m going to fuck you now, because you’re mine. Understood?”

Unable to stop myself because I needed this, needed him, I freed his cock clumsily. He rolled on a condom, and I watched, fascinated.

One thrust, and he was inside my body, taking. Fucking me until I couldn’t breath, legs locked around his waist. “Choke my cock like a good little bunny.”

We rode the frantic wave together, grunting and writhing, coming until our bodies were spent.

“Shh. No regrets. No shame. Two fucking adults. And I’ll find you again, Eden. You’re mine.”

He cleaned me with the scarf he had bound my hands with, and I nodded. “No regrets,”

“Go find your friend. I’ll see you soon, Bunny.”

One week later…

“Wait,” Zoe’s eyes widened as her jaw dropped. She reached for the bottle of wine on the counter as I grabbed two glasses and set them down in front of her. “ You got freaky in the damn haunted house and didn’t tell me?”

I flinched as her voice hit a note that dogs could hear. “And you’ve been keeping secrets from me and Noah all summer, so don’t give me all that outrage and innocence wrapped in a Zoe package.”

“I told you about Brett.”

“But you told Noah about you banging his big brother during practice. On the ice. Or did Brett? The details are fuzzy.”

The wine nearly sloshed over the rim as she filled both glasses and handed one to me. Using it like a finger, she pointed at me. “Stop changing the subject. Did you even look at his face? I mean, was it one of the boys that hangs out at Noah’s place?”

I tipped the glass back, nearly draining all the contents. Then set the glass down with a silent prayer that the wine would hit me sooner rather than later. But one glass was my limit tonight. Because it was family dinner night. Nothing like a little pregame action. “I don’t think it was any of the guys we know.”

Zoe tapped her finger on her chin. “Then that means new guy on the ice.” She ticked the players off her, finger by finger. “Theo Gerard. Walker Miles. But if you banged my brother I’m out. There are some things I don't need to know. Or maybe Coleman Sunders? He used to play with Seattle. I bet Ollie can get the dish on him.”

“At least it wasn’t Shaw,” I shuddered. “I know Noah’s other brother likes him, but the guy gives me the creeps. Plus he treated you like shit.” Zoe had dated the player but he had wanted to keep it a secret…because it was special. More like his dick wouldn’t stay in his pants. Ugh, men!

Zoe narrowed her eyes and drained her glass then reached for the bottle. As she refilled it she added, “Mason hasn’t been around Shaw in years, according to Noah. At least not for longer than a random dinner here and there. Noah can barely stand the guy.”

“Then definitely did not let that dickhead anywhere near me.” I set the glass down, and drew in a steadying breath. “Unless you figure out who has a hand tat, I may never know.”

“Just ask Noah. He knows all their ‘ghost hockey daddy’ identities,” she said with finger quotes.

I smoothed the off the shoulder perfectly pink that matched part of my hair shirt over my leggings and slipped on the rhinestone chunky heeled combat boots with a sigh. “I tried. But Mr. ‘I can’t watch Freddy without squealing doesn’t want to break the circle of ghost face trust’. Maybe I wasn’t the only one who got freaky that night.”

Zoe snickered.

My jaw dropped. “No. Zoe! I knew it!! You and Coach LeCav did the deed somewhere, didn’t you? Tell me!”

She just shrugged and raised her glass. I pointed a finger at her. “We are going to have a conversation about what besties are when I get home!” One last longing glance at the half empty wine bottle. “And I swear, if you finish that off all alone I’ll be so mad at you!”

“Cross my heart,” she mimicked the words, “I will not finish it. Or if I do, I’ll make sure another is chilling. Now go and have family fun dinner time. Tell your mom I said hi!”

I groaned and headed out the door to where the car I requested on my phone sat waiting. After the customary confirmations, I slid into the back of the car, and watched the city flash by and prepared myself for a night of figurative glances and questions designed to see how I was handling my life choices, on top of a slightly overprotective stepfather who tried to keep my mom’s worry at bay. They had the best intentions, and while I loved them, I knew they had my best interests at heart. Even if it drove me slightly crazy.

Thank God I went away to college. And figured out who I was, and what it meant to not be afraid of the person staring back at me in the mirror. I can still picture my mom’s face the first time she saw my hair.

Stealing my resolve to not let the evening restart bad habits like making myself smaller, I thanked the driver and walked up the walkway to the house that probably could’ve housed most of Noah’s teammates. And knocked.