Page 13 of Spooked (31 Days of Trick or Treat: Biker & Mobster #13)

While it should still be at its zenith, it’s as if the sun is disappearing beneath the horizon.

It’s starting to get dark in this house that’s been abandoned for years.

I already know no electricity is connected.

It feels ominous, even worse than before, when she places her foot on the first step.

Acknowledging my hesitancy but mistaking the reason, she gestures again toward my walking aids. “You don’t need to come with me.”

“I can make it,” I growl, not wanting to admit my reluctance is due to my apprehension, rather than my skill at climbing stairs.

She pauses at the top, then after eyeing cautiously, then stepping over a fallen bean, she indicates a room, and then proceeds toward it.

“This was mine, where I stayed.” Opening the door, she’s surprised, but I’m resigned when we find the area is stripped of all furnishings and bare, just as it was before. Only a few teenage posters remain.

Stepping forward, she opens a closet built into a wall, one I’d ignored. Bending down, she picks something up off the floor. It’s a worn teddy bear with moth-eaten ears. She clutches it to her.

“Yours?” I ask, completely unnecessarily.

“Mine,” she confirms after a short pause.

I want to question her further, like ask her why she left it behind, but then realise how many memories there are in this house for her. No wonder she’s acting strange. She’s suffered so much pain, so much hurt, I don’t want to pry deeper.

We exit her old bedroom, and she hesitates before going to another door, with her hand on the doorknob. Her voice drops to a whisper. “This was my gramma’s room. The place where you took the photo that showed her shape.”

“It was a trick of the light,” I remind her. “I saw no one here. Maeve, I’m sorry, but your gramma’s gone, sweetheart.”

“I know,” she replies sadly. “Nevertheless, I want to see her room. When I was overwhelmed that my mom was dying, she used to sneak me in here, letting me sleep with her, reminding me I was loved and safe. If anything remains of her, I want to know.”

There are no ghosts in this house. Any fragment I might have imagined is a result of my TBI.

Nevertheless, I’m more than reluctant for her to open that door.

The image in the photo we saw in Bullet’s office must have been nothing more than dust disturbed after lying for a decade and a half, swirling up to resemble a shape.

However I try to rationalise it, I’m loath to investigate further. “We can leave now,” I tell her. “No shame, no foul. There won’t be anything in there that you want to remember. Everything will be decaying.”

Ignoring my warning, she twists the knob. “I need to see for myself.”

The light in the house has darkened while we’ve been talking.

Although I know in reality it’s still a few hours from sunset, in here, it seems like a different time zone.

I can barely see the hall behind me, and when she pushes open the door, it’s to see a room lit by flickering candles and oil lamps.

She freezes, and I immediately put my arms around her, pulling her in close to keep her safe.

“What the fuck are you doing?” she yells, jumping back so fast, for a second, I struggle to get my balance.

“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 be reading 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 to disappoint 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 say fuck it and 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.