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She shrugged. “Yeah. I’ve been in it before. It’s not so bad when you get inside.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “You’d be the white girl in a horror movie who hears something go thump in the basement, decides it’d be a good idea to go see what it is, and then gets everyone hacked into little pieces by the end of the third act.”
Wren smiled, not arguing with my assessment, and said, “Don’t you wanna do something crazy before we have to go back to sneaking around?”
“Crazy, sure. Let’s find a tattoo parlor and get inked. I’ll let you pick out a ridiculous design off the wall and put it on my ass. Walking into a deathtrap of tetanus and dry rotted flooring? Hell no.”
She opened her door. “I can’t have tattoos. House it is.”
Grumbling as I cut the engine to her vehicle, I stalked around the front and opened her door. “Let it be known that I think this is a terrible idea.”
“Noted,” she said, hopping to the ground. Her winter boots squished in the mud.
Frigid air whipped off the ocean as icy waves crashed against frozen sand. “Why can’t you get a tattoo?” I asked as I slid my hand into the pocket of her heavy winter coat and laced our fingers together.
“Team rules. No visible tattoos for the Ladies in Red. The uniform barely covers anything, and since I don’t want a tattoo pen anywhere near my nipples or my ass, I’ve abstained.”
I snickered as we made our way up the lopsided stone steps. “Now I’m thinking about what it’d look like for you to get your tits tattooed. Lying there, shirtless.” The thought had me reaching down and adjusting my dick.
“I don’t kink shame, but that’s a weird turn-on. Dream on, big guy,” she said with a laugh, clouds forming around her breath.
“Everything about you turns me on.” I cupped her cheeks as we stood on the threshold of the collapsing mansion and threaded my fingers through her hair. “You bundled up in all these layers is a fucking turn on. I want to unwrap you like a present and see what’s underneath.”
“You know exactly what’s underneath,” she whispered.
“And I will never get enough of it.” With that confession, I turned and faced the doorless house. “Well, Little Bird. It’s been nice knowing you. Let’s go say hello to the serial killer hiding in the kitchen.”
True to her word, the house was slightly better inside than outside. Missing windows allowed a cross breeze, keeping the stale, ancient air to a minimum. There was definitely a family of raccoons living in one of the guest bedrooms, a bird’s nest in the bathroom sink, and a suspicious number of hornet hives. White sheets turned yellow with age covered the furniture. Hutches and curio cabinets had shattered panes of glass and cobwebs in every corner. Leaves crunched underfoot, mixed with crushed beer cans and rattling spray paint canisters.
With every twist and turn of the floor plan, a new surprise was unveiled—a library, a sitting nook, a hidden doorway that led to a shortcut to the other side of the house. I’d never seen anything like it. Once upon a time, the mansion had probably been a landmark. But after years of abandonment, it was left bending to the will of the elements.
I found Wren upstairs with her arms crossed over her waist to ward off the chill as she stared out a window at the angry, gray Atlantic. When I moved to stand behind her, she closed her eyes, like a bird seeing freedom on the horizon, then remembering the cage that surrounded it.
Responsibilities. Careers. Commitments. Safety.
Wren’s voice was soft, barely a whisper when she asked, “What if you have everything and give it up for nothing?”
I rested my chin on top of her head. “Nothing is where everything is built.”
There were fingerprints on the windowpane. Hers, if the light brown smears of dirt on her fingers were anything to go by. I snaked my arms around her middle. I knew where her mind was. Back in Providence. Already back to the grind. Back to something that made her happy, or at least it did once upon a time.
Maybe that’s why we had been drawn together from the first time we laid eyes on each other. I had a thorn in my paw, and she had clipped wings.
“Have you been inside the lighthouse?” I asked. Unlike the house, the lighthouse looked aged, but sturdy. Resolute and unyielding to every blow Mother Nature hurled its way.
Wren shook her head. “The door was locked the last time I was here.”
“I think I can take care of that.”
Wren waited a few feet away as I tested the strength of the door, took a few steps back, then rammed it with the thick sole of my boot. The paper-thin door cracked away from the hinges and fell into the wall. I assessed the damage and looked back over my shoulder. “If you ever buy this place, you’ll have to fix that.”
She giggled, stepping over the splintered wood. I took the lead, carefully walking up the stone spiral stairs. Spiders scurried back into their crevices at the intrusion.
Wren kept her hand in mine as we scaled the narrow staircase. “If I ever buy this place, I’d have to sell everything I own and live out of my car. Even that’s a longshot. I don’t know how much the property with the structure is, but the land by itself is valued at just over three million.”
I took another step, dodging something creepy-crawly, and let out a low whistle. “Three million just for the dirt that this dump is sitting on? Why the hell is it that much?”
“This.” Her whisper was reverent. Sacred. My breath fogged around us in snaking tendrils as we stood at the top of the lighthouse. Panes of glass surrounded us from every side, reflecting the vivid sunset like a prism.
