AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My heart is sputtering and I’m hot all over. Muscles deep inside quiver and tremble as he pins me to the bed limb by limb. I’m like a butterfly on a display board. But so long as it’s him skewering me, I don’t mind.
“You shouldn’t be in dark alleys in the middle of the night if you can’t defend yourself,” he says. This time, he isn’t chastising me. The words curl off his tongue like delicate tendrils of smoke.
“Defend myself from what?” I’m breathless as his lips graze across my neck and over my collarbone.
“Monsters,” he whispers, nipping at my earlobe. “Monsters like me.”
* * *
I wake up slowly.
The mist becomes blurry sleep vision. The hands at my waist become what I’m sure is a bruise from my tumble to the pavement last night. I inhale to try and disperse the butterflies in my stomach, but it hurts to breathe.
If the body really does keep the score, I’m definitely losing.
I sit up, wincing at the pain and the disappointment. The blue-eyed beast was an asshole in reality, but he can invade my dreams anytime. That was unbelievably hot.
I dig through the tangled comforter for my phone. The screen is on full brightness and I hiss like a vampire in sunlight while I fumble to darken it. Then I catch the time.
“Shit!” Despite the ache in my shoulder and my hip, I lurch out of bed and dive for my closet.
I’m late. Beyond late.
If I were to arrive at my meeting right this very second, I’d be forgivably late. But I’m still standing in my room with bedhead and flannel pants on.
The next fifteen minutes are spent alerting my boss, texting the number associated with the case file to let the potential parent know I’m deeply sorry but on my way, and then making myself passably presentable.
My bike isn’t an option this morning, so I book it to the bus and then dab on some blush and mascara between stops. My claustrophobia doesn’t act up so much on public transportation, especially if I find a seat where I can crack a window.
When I reach my stop, I’m so busy double checking the address in my folder and sprinting through the neighborhood that I don’t register where I am until the gates are in front of me.
Tall, elaborate metal gates, hedged in by what seems to be acres of thick, foreboding trees.
Behind those, way off in the distance, is a mansion.
“That’s a new one,” I mutter.
I’m more accustomed to mobile homes on cinderblocks. Studio apartments with four mattresses on the floor and cockroaches climbing the walls. Mansions are uncharted territory.
What a day to skip a shower.
I go up to the gate, expecting to announce myself or something like that. Instead, as I’m reaching for the buzzer button, it sounds before I can touch it. The gate swings inward.
I look over one shoulder, then the other. But the bus is long gone and it’s eerily quiet out here now. I’m all alone.
Steeling myself, I slip through the pedestrian gate and half-jog up the long driveway. It takes almost twenty minutes of power-walking, so I have more than enough time to observe and confirm that this place is capital-F Fancy.
Trees after trees after trees. The swirls and spirals in the driveway stones stretch for almost a mile. The front door, when I reach it, is solid wood with a gold spherical knocker. And when the door opens, a man who looks like a Downton Abbey butler is waiting on the other side of it.
His face is dour and disapproving. “Ms. Quinn, I presume.”
“Yes. Sorry I’m late. I meant to be here earlier, but—”
“Follow me.” He turns and leads me into the house without another word.
I gulp, then close the door behind me and hurry after him.
A lush carpet runs down the center of a long hallway, absorbing the sounds of our footsteps. The arched ceilings should make this place feel like a church, but there is enough rich wood paneling and brass fixtures to keep it warm and cozy. It’s beautiful.
