Текст книги "If You Dare"
Автор книги: Jessica Lemmon
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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 12 страниц)
Chapter Ten
“I knew those weren’t safe,” Lily said, mourning the loss of her Corn Nuts. “I only ate a handful of them.”
Marcus continued chewing, mumbled something that sounded like “a shame,” then upended the bag and drained the bits at the bottom into his mouth. He crumbled the bag into a ball, crunching merrily.
She shook her head and made do with the rest of the cheesecake. “Where did the wine go, anyway?”
“How do you lose things when we don’t go anywhere?”
“Shut up.” She tagged him in the arm as she spotted the wine bottle on its side across the room under one of the boarded windows. Thankfully, Marcus had wedged the cork into the top so it wasn’t leaking precious Merlot into the cracks in the floor. “Found it.”
She crawled off the mattress, and he wolf whistled. She’d expected him to. Her butt was in the air, and she’d been waggling it pretty good for him. Shooting him a deviant smile over her shoulder, she waggled it again.
“Don’t tempt me, woman. I had one condom.” He held up a finger. “One.”
She snagged the bottle, smiling to herself. He hadn’t had enough of her, and even though she shouldn’t, she liked that. Maybe because after sleeping with him, she’d found she wanted more. To learn he was as insatiable as she was a huge turn on.
When she turned to tell him that there were plenty of condom-less pastimes they could explore, a bang! against the board next to her head startled a shriek from her instead.
Before she’d seen him move, Marcus was at her side, helping her scramble to her feet and positioning his body between hers and the window. She had upended the wine bottle, holding it by the neck to wield as a weapon.
“Tree?” she asked. Desperately.
“I don’t think so.” The foreboding in his tone didn’t make her feel any better. Neither did the fact that he shushed her when she started to speak again.
Another muffled bang sounded, this time from the other side of the house. “I think something’s outside,” came his husky whisper.
“Like what?” she asked, her voice strangled.
“I hope not people.”
Her stomach lurched. Where she’d felt warm and safe in his arms a moment ago, now Lily felt exposed, vulnerable. And foolish. They were in the middle of nowhere. The danger lurking outside the walls may not have been from some silly urban legend, but from someone made of flesh and bone who intended to do them bodily harm.
He extinguished the lantern, leaving them in the pale orange glow of the heater. He faced her, staying her shoulders with his hands. “Wait here.”
“Are you crazy?” She clasped his arms, keeping her voice as low as she could while feeling hysterical. “Don’t leave me alone! What if they have guns?”
She couldn’t make out his expression in the dim light, but she felt his patient smile all the way down to the soles of her shoes. He opened her palm with rough fingers and dropped a metal cylinder into her hand. The flashlight.
He lowered his head and whispered against the top of her ear. “Lil,” he started, and already the fear in her stomach was receding, being replaced by lust.
Jeez. The man was a drug.
“I doubt whoever’s out there is carrying a gun,” he said.
Oh, hello, Fear. Welcome back.
“Probably just some kids daring each other to run up and knock on the door,” he continued. “Ridiculous.” He kissed her temple lightly. “Who would come up here on a dare?”
She tried to smile, but she was too afraid.
“I’ll only be a sec. Find your keys.” Then he turned and walked into the kitchen, lantern in hand. She followed as far as the doorway and watched him fuss with the back door until the windowpane rattled and the door popped open with a squeak. Moonlight streamed through the gap.
He gave her a brief nod over his shoulder and walked outside.
Lily shielded the narrow beam of light as best she could while Marcus did a preliminary investigation of the mansion’s grounds.
She’d overturned her purse (again) and emptied out the grocery bags as quietly as possible. Although if there were people out there, it wouldn’t matter how much noise she made. They’d no doubt seen her car out front. But if it was mischievous raccoons or hungry coyotes, there was no sense in broadcasting her whereabouts.
She held the flashlight between her teeth and folded the last of the sheets and pillowcases, repacking as she went. The keys weren’t under the mattress, which was on its way to deflating thanks to the workout she and Marcus had on top of it. The recent memory would have made her smile if she wasn’t so disappointed to find nothing beneath it but the leaf-strewn floor.
Stomach clenching, she looked at her phone, noticing the battery icon blinking at three percent with no signal inside the house. Daylight wasn’t far ahead, but it was still dark outside and would be for a while. And Marcus was out in it. Worry crept in, but she pushed it aside. He was beyond capable of taking care of himself.
She scrunched the pockets of her hoodie uselessly. Even if the keys had been in her jacket, she was sure they would have fallen out when Marcus took it off her earlier. She turned to the kitchen next, on the off off chance she’d overlooked them when she’d investigated earlier. She didn’t make it a single step before she heard a familiar jingle coming from upstairs. A jolly sound anywhere else…but behind these walls, it was anything but.
She had two keys. A house key. A car key. Because of her minimalist keychain, she’d needed a bauble large enough to help her locate it in her oversize purse. Last Christmas she’d found just the thing to tie to the ring—a pair of large jingle bells only better suited to Rudolph himself.
She went back into the living room, her steps slow and purposeful, her heart thundering. The bells jangled again and a rash of goose bumps leaped to the surface of her arms. The sound hadn’t come from her purse. Or this room. Or even downstairs. It’d come from the murky blackness at the top of the staircase. Real, ice-cold fear snaked down her spine, turning every brave part of her body yellow. How on earth…?
“Find them?”
She spun toward the voice behind her, her open palm landing over her tortured heart. Marcus stood at the front door, his hand resting on the knob. He lowered the lantern and shut the door behind him.
“Must have been animals. I didn’t see anyone out there.” His brow creased with concern the longer he looked at her. “You okay? What happened?”
Unable to explain yet another mysterious sound behind these walls, she shook her head.
“Enough.” He advanced on her, his steps firm, his voice an angry echo. She might have flinched if not for the unveiled concern in his eyes. “Enough of this stupid bet. We can walk to the road and call Clive from there.” Snagging her hand with his, he started for the door. “Let’s not push our luck.”
His palm warming hers, and the fading fringes of their time together, almost made her compliant enough to follow his lead. Almost. She stopped, planting her feet.
He stopped, too, and turned his confusion on her. “What?”
The voice. The bells. He hadn’t been around for either occurrence. “Where were you just now?”
“Outside.” The confusion morphed into anger. His mouth flattened into a line. “You know that.”
“Do I?” She thought back to the mask incident. The way he’d been trying to get her to call off this bet from the beginning. The memory of how another man had taken advantage of her threaded into her brain and sewed itself to this patch of time.
Granted, Marcus was not Emmett, but she wouldn’t be played twice. She tugged her hand from his. He had been by her side when they’d heard the crash in the kitchen, but maybe he’d somehow caused that sound, too. Maybe he’d planned to get her good and scared. Maybe…she thought with sinking dread…he’d planned all of it. Including the part where he got into her pants.
Panic radiated from her limbs. Surely he wouldn’t…would he? She searched his face, growing angrier by the moment. Having been a sucker in the past for men with knee-weakening charm, she knew she could easily be taken advantage of again.
“It was you,” she said numbly. “Upstairs.”
It was the only explanation. He’d vanished outside and demanded she stay in here, which made no sense when she thought about it. And now he’d waltzed through the front door and suggested they leave. Coincidentally, just a few hours shy of meeting her goal.
“My keychain has Christmas bells on it. I heard them upstairs.” She pointed toward the second floor. “There’s no other explanation for how they got from here to up there.” None…other than Marcus taking them when she wasn’t looking and sneaking up there while she stayed behind to search for them.
“Oh, you think that was me?”
He looked pissed. She gulped but stood her ground. “Was it?”
“How did I sneak back in here, creep silently up a staircase held together by rusted nails and wood rot, jangle your keys, and bolt back down here and come through the front door?”
He made a point.
“Okay, maybe a trick, then. You have them and jangled them before you came in.” She wrapped her arms around his middle and grabbed his ass, patting his back pockets in search of her keys. When she turned up empty-handed, she thrust her hands into his front pockets and felt around in there.
“I don’t have them, Lil.” He lashed an arm around her waist and pulled her flush against one strong thigh, as hard as the striking angles of his angry face. A muscle in his jaw ticked as he glared down at her. “But feel free to keep looking.”
“If you don’t, then how the hell—”
Clomp.
Clomp.
Marcus lifted his chin and studied the cobwebbed ceiling. She tilted her head as well, not that there was anything to see. And there was no mistaking what the sound was. Footsteps.
Clomp.
Clomp.
Clomp.
They finally ended over their heads, stopping with a final clomp. The silence that followed was a living thing, wearing her heartbeat like a cloak. Her breathing turned hectic, the hairs on her arms stood unbidden. And her brain fumbled for a rational reason for who or what could be standing directly overhead.
“Tell me you have an explanation for that,” she begged in a hoarse whisper.
“You mean other than the fact that someone is up there?” His voice was quiet, his face drained of color, his lips thinned. Pale light was visible through a gap in the waterlogged ceiling. The steps began again, blotting out the light briefly as they retreated to the other side of the house.
Clomp.
Clomp.
Clomp.
Then they vanished into the silence once again.
Both fists wound in Marcus’s T-shirt, the words trembled from her lips. “I take it back. Let’s walk to the road. Unless…you think it could be Clive? Did you ask him to sneak back to scare me?” That didn’t even sound like something Clive would do, but she’d take the explanation. She’d take any explanation. “Tell me the truth. I’m freaking out here.”
“Not Clive.” He lowered his gaze slowly, meeting her eyes.
“Raccoons?”
“Wearing boots?” His eyebrows jumped and he was silent for a few seconds.
“What do we do?” She wasn’t beyond suggestions at this point. And she believed him about the keys.
“See if your phone works.”
The button meant to bring her phone to life only produced the cautionary beep of her deceased battery. The screen went black. “Yours?”
He shook his head.
That brought the count to two dead phones, a pair of unexplained footsteps upstairs, and one set of missing keys now in the hands of whoever…or whatever…was tromping around on the second floor.
Perfect.
He left her side suddenly, and she was alarmed to find herself alone by the door. She scrambled after him. “Where are you going?”
“Getting your keys, McIntire. Stay put.” He placed one boot on the first step of the staircase and one hand on the railing.
She grabbed his belt loop and tugged. “Are you nuts? Don’t go up there.”
He turned and palmed her face. “Not nuts,” he said, his voice hard and soft at the same time. “I just want to get the hell out of here.”
So did she. Hawaii or not. But she really, really didn’t want Marcus to go upstairs and leave her down here alone.
“We’ll call a draw on Hawaii.” She forced a smile that Marcus didn’t meet. She guessed he was still angry about her accusing him of taking her keys. “We can bet something else. How about—”
His stony eyes matched his severe expression. She backed from the staircase to the floor, but his scowl didn’t improve with her vantage point.
“Do you think I give a good goddamn about Hawaii?” he boomed, the light from the Coleman in his hand casting shadows on his handsome face.
“You earned that trip. You were proud to earn that trip.”
“And Hawaii was clearly my priority after we fucked.”
Her head jerked at his harsh tone. “I never said that.” Only she kind of had.
“Stay put, McIntire.” His dismissive tone made her prickle.
“If you go up there, I’m coming with you!”
“No. You’re not.” He moved up a few more rickety stairs. The backdrop of the eerie blackness ahead of him covered her body in goose bumps.
“Do you blame me?” she practically shouted as she stomped behind him.
He froze, then turned on her, glaring again. But under the anger, she thought she saw a flicker of pain, then what appeared to be concern as his eyes moved from her face to her footing. “Go back downstairs.”
She ignored him. “You were the one trying to cheat. Remember the hockey mask?”
“Lily.” His tone was a warning.
“There are things happening here I don’t understand.” The voice. Her missing keys. The crash in the kitchen. And what had happened between them. Maybe that most of all. “I’m scared, okay? I say things I don’t mean when I’m scared.”
His scowl softened. She was winning him over, she could see it.
“You can’t leave me alone down here,” she said, hoping to nudge him into a yes. “What if—what if something happens and you’re not here to protect me?”
His eyebrows bowed, and her heart squeezed. He cared about her. She could see it, feel it in her gut. He came down to where she stood and extended a palm. She slid her hand into his larger one, the feeling blending friendship with an odd eroticism that had never been there before. She didn’t mind it…or maybe, she preferred it.
“Stay close.”
“Okay.”
“No running,” he commanded, his voice strong. “I want you to walk. Carefully. This floor is a series of trapdoors waiting to happen.”
The boards at her feet were not all that solid, she’d noticed. They gave just enough to make her wonder if they’d snap in half. Comforting. Almost as comforting as the phantom footsteps that had frozen her solid moments ago. If it wasn’t Clive or raccoons, what was tromping around on the second floor of Willow Mansion?
She didn’t want to know.
She really, really didn’t.
Chapter Eleven
Marcus’s hand nearly slipped from the sweat-slicked handle of the lantern. At least his anger with Lily had masked the very real fear carving a path into his insides like a dull knife.
He hadn’t taken her damn keys. Hadn’t seen her keys tonight at all, in fact. He’d checked around and under her car while he’d been outside and found nothing. And he knew about the bells on her keychain. Made fun of her for it once at work—referred to her as Mrs. Claus for a week. While he was outside, he’d heard the faint jingling, too. It was the reason he’d double-timed it back to the house. He’d been sure she’d found them, had been shocked when she’d pointed the finger at him.
Arguably, that was deserved. He did rig up a speaker in the west bedroom to play a voice. He had stashed the remote with the bag of costumes near her car. But that she thought he’d continue trying to tip the scales for the Hawaii trip after they’d slept together pissed him off more than he’d like to admit. Did she think he was that much of an asshole? Or was it just that she really believed nothing had changed between them?
Yes, he liked to tease her, and yes, the pranks tonight were a touch too far, but using her—having sex with her—to get what he wanted was over the line. He would have thought she knew him at least that well. Hell, the last thing he imagined would happen was that she’d tear his shirt off and say yes. But once he’d started kissing those pliant lips, and she’d started moaning his name. Jesus. He couldn’t think about that now. Or else his body would forever tie being afraid of ghosts to sexual thoughts of Lily. That’s all he needed was a hard-on whenever he went to see the latest horror movie.
She stayed behind him off to his left, and he reached back to scoot her before she hurt herself. Shining the lantern on the step she’d nearly impaled herself on, he said, “Watch those nails.” Then, because he couldn’t keep from touching her, he took her hand and guided her around another rotted board with “tetanus shot” written all over it.
He had to get over this—the part where she believed the worst of him. But he couldn’t help it. Dammit, it hurt. And he didn’t do hurt. Hurt was for people who cared way too much, and he made a habit of not caring too much. Except where Lily was concerned. There, he thought he’d prefer hurt to never having a shot with her at all… Damn.
She was determined to keep him at arm’s length and he was beginning to think he didn’t share that sentiment. She might have seen tonight as a fun little fling to fill their time together in the dark, but for him, being with her, seeing her fiery reaction to his touch, hearing his name roll off her sharp tongue… Yeah. That called for another round.
And it wasn’t just the sex—although, sweet holy mother, that was a freaking out-of-body experience. It was nice to watch her walls temporarily crumble. To watch her give herself so fully to him, trusting him. That’s what had blown his mind.
As well as he played the part of the player, no other woman had wiggled her sweet ass into his heart as thoroughly and quickly as Lily had. He supposed it was his fault she hadn’t taken him seriously. But it still sucked. Because he’d done something with her he’d never done with anyone else. He’d let down his guard. Completely. He’d been bare in more ways than one when he’d moved inside her, had imprinted on the scent of her hair and each soft sound she emitted.
Shit.
He was a fucking goner.
They reached the landing where the hallway divided. To the right, a series of doors. To the left, just one room, its door off the hinges, moonlight spilling into the hallway from the window. That was where he’d stashed the speaker. Guilt speared him, but he sure wasn’t going to confess to that now.
Maybe not ever.
“Don’t you dare say ‘split up’.” She stopped mangling his shirt and flattened her hand over his ribs. His skin had been branded by her unforgettable touch, and he ached to sweep her into his arms again. He guessed if he admitted the speaker thing, a second shot would be out of the question. So yeah. Maybe he’d keep that to himself a little longer.
“We’re not splitting up.” Up here, his voice sounded hollow in the barren space.
She let loose a frustrated groan.
He opened his mouth to tell her he wasn’t going to leave her, but she didn’t look upset. She looked terrified, eyes wide and focused off to the side, white-knuckling the material of his shirt.
A floorboard creaked behind her. “That wasn’t me.”
It wasn’t his speaker either.
Every muscle in his body coiled. He moved quickly, lashing an arm around her and stumbling to the nearest wall. He pressed his back into it, keeping her at his side, one arm wrapped protectively around her.
Even in the light of the Coleman, he couldn’t make out figures in the shadows. He held his breath and tried to locate the source of the phantom noise. He heard nothing but the almost audible rattle of his nerves.
He was far from timid, but there was something happening in this place. And he didn’t want Lily here another second. She clung to his arm, her grip chilled from a fear as tangible as his own.
“I want to leave.” Her voice was as fragile as glass—not something he was used to hearing from her.
“So do I, sweetheart. Let’s find those keys.”
With strength he didn’t feel, he pushed away from the wall, held tightly to her hand, and walked to the first of many closed doors.
He lifted one hiking boot and kicked the door open.
“May as well start here.”
…
Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch.
Arms wrapped tightly around her waist, Lily scanned the room she’d followed Marcus into, shivering as a gust of air sifted through the rip in the roof over her head. It’d been there a while, if she had to guess. The boards at her feet were decayed from water damage and there was a roll-top desk tilted awkwardly in the corner, one of its legs having broken through the floor.
Marcus inspected a built-in bookshelf on the far wall, shoving soggy books from the shelves while searching for the missing keychain.
A spider web overhead caught her eye and she backed away from it, and the fat-bodied black jewel in its center. Something squished beneath her shoe, and she looked down to find an Oriental rug, soaking wet, likely from last night’s rain.
“Careful,” he said. “Any one of these floorboards could give.” His black brows arched over his nose. He seemed angry…or something. Worried? Uncertain? His emotions were hard to read. That didn’t keep her from admiring the way the shadows darkened his face, making him look mysterious and sexy.
Again, her heart ached with regret for insinuating that she’d thought the worst of him. She didn’t. She was just…scared and had lashed out like a cornered cat.
Lily took a step toward him. “Why don’t you just say it?” she prompted. She’d feel better if he’d talk to her. Or argue with her. She could handle that a lot better than his silence.
He held a book open in his palm. He shut it with a damp slap and tossed it onto the shelf. “What do you want me to say?”
“That you’re angry with me.”
He reached for another book, avoiding her eyes. “I’m not angry with you.”
“My keys aren’t being used as a bookmark, so I doubt you’ll find them in there.” She grabbed the edge of the book in his hand, but he didn’t let go. Much like in the tug-of-war over the plastic ax earlier, his strength won. He dragged her to him. She allowed him to, stopping short of stepping on his toes. She relinquished the book, and he tossed it onto the shelf with the others.
She waited.
He watched her silently.
“Marcus.”
“You think I arranged this entire evening to maneuver my way into your pants?”
She flinched. That was fair, and basically what she’d accused him of doing. But it wasn’t the truth. “I wanted into yours just as badly,” she admitted.
Despite his narrowed eyes, she felt as if she’d made a bit of headway with that truth.
He lifted his chin and looked down at her. “And?”
She felt her eyebrows rise. “And?”
He shifted his body so he faced her, so close that his broad shoulders blocked her view of the bookshelf behind him. Leaning closer, his breath sifting into her hair, he said, “And did I satisfy your curiosity?”
His tone was hard, his back rigid. And yet she sensed he really wanted to know. Was he actually asking how he was in the sack? If she’d had scorecards, she’d have raised a number ten.
In each hand.
“You want the truth?” she asked.
A soft grunt, then, “Why not?”
She wanted to go to him, hug him close. Kiss him again. Instead she hit him with the raw truth. “You left me satisfied, yet wanting more.”
He cocked his head in the playful way he had. “Don’t tease me, McIntire.”
She’d chipped through. A feeling of triumph filtered through her chest.
His mouth hitched at the corner. Just enough to light the wry glint in his eyes. “You’re not just fishing for a compliment yourself?” He was back to his charming, rakish, cocky self—so damn sexy, her knees went gooey.
“No. I know how good I am in bed.”
The barest dent of the dimple in his cheek tried to form, but he held his expression in check. “Come here.”
With pleasure.
One step should have brought her into the circle of his arms, but the moment she set foot on the rotted board between them, it gave way beneath her. One second she was on solid ground, the next falling, a shocked scream on her lips. Her pants caught a jagged piece of the floor at the same time Marcus gripped her upper arm and tugged her roughly to his side.
Chest heaving, she clung to him like a spider monkey, eyes on her sneaker as it hit the floor below with a sickening splat!
She thought of the legend of Essie Mae. The way she’d jumped from the second story. The way Lily could have died in this house, if not for Marcus’s quick reaction time. She snuggled in closer.
He bent with her and ever so carefully untangled her pant leg from the broken board. When he stood, it was to back them another step away from the gaping hole.
“This is so fucking stupid!” he yelled.
She trembled, but he kept her tightly in his arms. She didn’t think he was yelling at her specifically, but he shocked her all the same. It was possibly the first time she’d ever heard him raise his voice. No matter what went wrong at work, no matter what had Clive pacing and cursing in the conference room, Marcus was the cool, calm, and collected one.
His hand splayed on the small of her back, warm and gentle despite his body vibrating with anger, or fear, or maybe a combination of the two. She peered up at him, into his dark eyes, and his expression softened.
“Don’t do that again.”
She nodded.
He pressed her close and kissed her. When he backed away, she sifted her fingers into his hair. “Thank you.”
“I’d say any time, but seriously, let’s not do that again. You scared five years off my life.”
She could feel his racing heart under her other palm and gave him a wan smile.
His eyes went over her head, and his eyebrows crashed down.
She was afraid to ask, but it turned out she didn’t have to.
Jutting his chin forward, he gestured to the doorway. She spun around to see a set of bells, and attached to it, her car keys, lying on the floor. No way had those been there a minute ago. Chills skated down her spine.
“We’re going,” he announced, bending to lift her into his arms.
“Wait.” She stayed him with one hand. “I’m not sure how much combined weight this floor can take.”
Given the grimace on his face, he either didn’t like her suggestion, or was upset he hadn’t thought of it first. He hesitated as if trying to decide whether to listen to her or not.
“I can walk.”
He took her hand. “Hold onto me. And stay on the inside wall.”
They trekked as quickly as they could while watching their steps. Marcus reached the doorway and dropped her hand, signaling for her to stay where she was against the wall while he bent and retrieved her keys. The second he stood with them in his hand, a tinny, feminine voice said one word.
“Out.”
Marcus was on her in a flash, bending and scooping her up, heedless of the splintered boards as he took the stairs to the first floor, weaving around holes and exposed nails in his race to get them the hell out of the house.
Lily held tight and when she thought she saw movement on the rapidly dwindling landing above her, she squeezed her eyes shut.
He set her on her feet and threw open the front door, shoving her out of it. “Officially the worst idea we’ve ever had.”
She tried to come back inside “Wait! My purse.” The air mattress, the lantern, and everything else could stay there for all she cared. But her purse with her ID and everything she needed for her life outside of that house was paramount.
“Stay,” he commanded, darting into the living room. She wove her fingers together and refused to look upstairs. A second later, he thrust the bag into her hands, and they ran for the car.
