Page 85 of If I Stopped Haunting You

Pen wrapped her arms around her middle, suddenly aware that she wore nothing but a loose T-shirt and underwear. Blushing, she swiveled toward her room. “I’m going to go put on some clothes.”

“Probably a good idea,” Neil said as his hand settled on her lower back.

“Next time, knock if you want to join!” Daniela called, laughing.

Neil and Pen stopped in the hall between their rooms, both clearly unsure of what to say. Pen swallowed and glanced down the hall, the sight of the shadowy west wing making the pit in her stomach drop as she imagined the woman in white and the man who’d slipped out of the secret passage in her room and toward the hall as if Pen’s presence had been no bother.

“I guess we have some research to do today,” Pen said finally, rocking back on her heels.

Neil nodded slowly. They stared at each other in the silence, the dread of the coming day tethering them to the space for a moment longer.

“How mad do you think Laszlo will be if we skip today’s itinerary?” Pen asked, taking a step toward her room.

“Furious,” Neil said, mirroring her action.

“Then we better get a move on.”

“See you in a few.”

“In a few,” she agreed, slipping into her room and closing the door softly behind her.

She leaned against the door and pressed her palms to her heated face. Would she ever get used to this feeling? To this giddy, bubbly burst of excitement she felt in her chest whenever she looked at him? She doubted it.

Sighing, Pen glanced up and surveyed her room. It was a whirlwind of clothes and blankets and pillows. They’d abandoned everything where they’d left it the night before, tossing things carelessly as they scrambled for each other.

Pen felt her face grow hot as she remembered their bodies meeting so perfectly, and the space between her legs began to ache. Even though they’d showered after the first round, she could still feel the weight of his hands on her,inher. His lips against her skin, his tongue and his teeth scraping a path toward the slickness between her legs.

Damn it,she was turned on again.

“What is wrong with me?” she muttered as she shoved her dirty clothes in a laundry bag and pulled out fresh ones.

Pen hadn’t felt this way in a long while, if ever. Dozens of failed dates, one-night stands, and a few heated, albeit short relationships throughout the years had not prepared her for the fondness she was beginning to feel for Neil Storm.

This new thing between them felt like it would go up in flames at any moment.

Dressed, and with her hair brushed and pulled into a messy braid, Pen opened her door. Neil’s door was still shut, and as she leaned out into the hall, she found the silence of the castle loud. The patter of the snow on the windows fell into a rhythm, melding with the ringing in her ears like a distorted ambiance. Pen’s palms were clammy, so she wiped them down her thighs before wrapping her arms across her middle.

Before she could think better of it, Pen stepped out into the hallway, peering down the long corridor. Everything was still. There was notap-tap,no whispers or voices floating down the narrow walls.

“Hello?”

No one answered.

She inched farther down the hall, her sock-clad feet quiet on the floorboards as she crept forward, automatically drawn to the west wing. She paused on the landing between the wings, a creeping sensation dripping down her spine.

“Don’t do this,” she whispered, her hands balling into the fabric of her sweater.

Pen glanced over her shoulder; the door to Neil’s room was still shut tight. Though she knew she shouldn’t, Pen slipped over the landing and to the edge of the light, hesitating on the dark threshold to this cursed place.

“This is a terrible idea,” she said.

And still, she started down the hall.

Something pulled her here, and though she knew Neil was coming to terms with his own writing, taking back the power he’d given up all those years ago, she was beginning to think that the answer to all her troubles lay in wait in Georgina Walsh’s room. She’d been drawn to it since she arrived, pulled like a part of her was connected to the ghost.

The hall was as she remembered from the day before, the same cracked and torn wallpaper, the same blackened walls, as if this side of the castle had survived a tremendous fire. The floors squeaked beneath her weight, and Pen’s eyes were trained on the door Georgina had opened.

Pen stopped, clasping and unclasping her sweaty palms. She could still turn around, still return to the east wing and its sconces casting everything in a warm glow. She would be safe. But… surely someone would come find her, if only she yelled?