Page 9 of Hunt Me (The Skulls #1)

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Fauna

I feel like my body is about to combust. Something so wrong couldn’t feel this right, could it?

Seconds ago, he was chasing me, and now he has his hand wrapped tight around my neck, one of my only anchors to stop me from falling straight over the balcony edge. Something about that thought makes me even hotter as if the danger is spurring us both on in our lust-filled movements.

I’ve been able to feel how hard he is since the second he barrelled into me, but this new angle with him gripping my ass and my leg wrapped around his hip has him pressing into me in all sorts of pleasurable ways.

My hips move on their own accord, unable to hold back from grinding into him and stealing any pleasure I can get.

His hips match my movements as we both claw at each other. Our desperation to touch in any way we can is evident. And our panted breaths mingle as our parted lips are only a fraction apart.

His tongue darts out, sweeping across my lower lip as he tastes me. A slight sting comes from the area, and I watch as the expression behind his eyes turns feral.

My core clenches as I realise what he has just done. My lip must be cracked, and he is licking the blood from it.

Fuck I need him closer. I need more.

I shift to grip the back of his head, but as I move a crashing sound comes from behind us and before I can think I am flown to the cold, hard floor.

My back impacts with the solid surface, and I choke out for a breath that doesn’t want to come. My body convulses as I try to suck in a breath, but only a thimbles worth of air reaches my lungs.

Forest-green eyes look down from above me, startled and scared. ‘Breath, baby.’ He coaches, rubbing a palm down the side of my arm as his other cradles the back of my head. ‘That’s it, slowly in and out.’

More air fills my lungs as the seizing feeling dissipates and my body relaxes.

A smack rings out as my palm connects with the dick head’s cheek.

‘What’s that for?’ He asks, face startled.

‘What was that for?’ I snarl, propping myself up on my elbows and shaking off his hold.

‘I was saving you. A simple thank you would be nice.’

‘From what your idiocy?’

Here I was, dreaming for a second. I must have been because no man left alive can be that attuned to how my body was reacting to his. They are all idiots with one collective brain cell shared between them.

‘What? No, the stone was cracking. Look…’ he spins, pointing to where we were just tangled together. But the balcony wall looks the same, with no cracks in sight.

‘Please tell me that wasn’t you trying to be sexy.’ I groan, getting to my feet and wincing at the pain in my back.

‘There was that noise. You heard it?’

He’s right, I had. So, if it wasn’t the balcony, what was it?

I grab my bat, hold it firmly, and scan our surroundings. ‘Take that side,’ I nod to the right-hand side of the building and move back through the hall he had just chased me down.

My body is as light as a shadow as I check each gallery corner but find nothing.

It doesn’t even look like anyone has been here in years, and if someone was using this place as a home, there would at least be some signs, but there is nothing.

There is not a speck of dust out of place apart from the ones that the Skull and I are responsible for.

I squeeze my thighs together at the thought of how he’d chased me.

Wetness pools at my core and ignoring it is almost impossible.

From the second I looked at him from those steps, I knew what I wanted, and it wasn’t something I’d say I’m proud of.

A more primal part of me took over. I wanted to be chased, and more than anything, I wanted to be caught.

And when he caught me, bent me over the balcony railing so that all I could see was the long way down and feel how he was the only thing standing between me and death, I wanted him to do whatever he wanted to me.

Take whatever he wanted from me.

I release a long breath.

Then he went and ruined probably the hottest moment of my life by slamming me to the floor.

At least he wasn’t doing it to try and be sexy. With the way his hand on the back of my head protected me from the floor, I was questioning it for a second. Now, that would be awkward. I like it rough, but not body-slam-me-into-stone-flooring rough.

‘No one on this side,’ I shout out to where the Skull is walking through the archway, and we meet in the middle of the building, the night sky shining through a couple of smashed glass plains on the ceiling.

The shadowed lighting perfectly highlights his cheekbones and the toned muscles of his tattooed arms.

‘No sign on my side either,’ he crouches down to retrieve his mask and his thumb draws across the white plastic. White plastic with a bloodied fingerprint smeared across it.

His gaze snaps to my hands, searching for any cuts but I shake my head. ‘I’m not bleeding,’ looking around again. ‘That’s not mine.’

The Skull bolts to where the door stands open, and he disappears through the large wooden entrance and into the empty street.

I follow, peering outside to take a look. There’s nothing out here but the crumbling city and all the nightmares it holds within.

‘The mask must have spooked them,’ he states as he passes where I stand in the doorway.

‘That’s all it takes?’

‘Yes,’ he doesn’t smile like I expect. ‘For most people anyway.’

I scoff, trying to ignore the lack of any unsettled feelings that comment should give me.

‘C’mon,’ he waves a hand towards a staircase inside the entrance that leads down.

‘Not a chance.’

‘You scared?’

‘No, but I’m not stupid.’

He shrugs, mumbles a ‘suit yourself’ and trudges down the white steps, not looking back as he leaves me in this spooky as fuck museum. I feel eyes on my back, and it’s as if every stuffed animal is staring right at me.

I shudder.

Maybe a creepy basement with a psychopathic killer isn’t that bad of an idea.

I keep my steps light as I follow after the Skull, not wanting him to know just yet that I’ve listened to his command.

Bottles clanking sound from the end of an open-plan room. It is filled with various sized tables and a till stands at the back, right in the direction of where all the noise is coming from.

‘What are you doing?’ I shout.

‘They used to host events here,’ his muffled voice calls back.

‘So?’

‘So, mischief. Events means drink.’

So he’s searching for…

His head pops up from behind the counter, and in each hand, so do two glass bottles. ‘Nothing better than a wee dram,’ he smiles and makes his way over to me.

‘What?’

Not responding, he just nudges me to go back up the stairs. Intrigued, I oblige and he leads us back up to the next level, right to where he just had me pinned to the balcony not long ago.

I try to catch his eye, but he ignores me. The corner of his lips tipped up with a satisfied smile.

He’s fucking with me, he has to be.

Only he walks straight past it and straight to the shadowed corner that was sectioned off to the public at some point. A faded ‘Do Not Enter’ sign is lying at the foot of the doorway.

‘Where are we going?’ I ask, skirting around the pollard.

I wait for him to answer but he just climbs the new set of steps. These ones are not as grand as the others, but more like what you’d expect in a princess story, where she climbs hundreds of spiralled steps to get to the top of a tower. Only I’m not a princess and this isn’t a fairy tale tower.