“Not at all,” he answers calmly, stepping around a mannequin lying in a pool of fake blood. The mannequin seems to stare up at me with lifeless eyes, eyes that seem too knowing to be glass, too real to be fake. It’s part of the draw of this place. It’s creepily real. And now, since it’s abandoned and dark, it’s scarier than they ever meant for it to be.
As we walk, I know without looking where Dare is. It’s like I’m a planet and he’s my axis… or my sun. I feel his heat, I feel his presence, and I ache to lean into it, to fold into him, to absorb his strength.
It’s a sudden urge, and I’m startled with the intensity of it.
I’m startled because I’ve never felt it before, not like this. It’s enough to make me feel guilty, because it distracts me from other feelings that have overwhelmed me lately…the blinding grief.
I swallow hard as I lead him to the first bedroom.
Stepping inside, I shine the light around, at the mannequin lying on the bed, with the rope around its neck and the knife in its chest. She stares at me accusingly with matted blond hair, like she wants to know what the hell we’re doing with this intrusion.
I don’t know what I’m doing.
That’s the truth of it. What I know is that I like the way Dare makes me feel. I like being distracted from pain. I like the way my heart flutters and my stomach flips whenever he’s around. That’s what I know.
I turn my attention from the mannequin to her surroundings. The bed-sheets are splattered with ‘blood’ and on the wall, THE GOOD DIE HERE, drips in ominous red, supposedly written by the murderer’s finger dipped in the victim’s own blood.
“Are you?” I ask Dare with a smirk. “Good, I mean?”
He looks at me sharply, then his mouth tilts into a smile. “I’ve had no complaints.”
I shake my head because obviously that isn’t what I meant, but it’s funny so I laugh anyway.
“Hmmm. Then we might be in danger. If you’re good, I mean.”
I scoot closer to him and suddenly, I’m in his personal space. I’m pressed against his chest, and the rock hard solidity of it surprises me. He’s lithe and slender, so I didn’t expect him to be so…immovable, so muscular and hard.
I take a deep breath, inhaling his masculine smell, and stare up at him.
He’s staring down at me, his gaze connected to mine, just like the first day I saw him. But this time, there’s something in his eyes that wasn’t there before, there’s an expression there that I’ve only seen in my dreams. Want. For me. It shakes me to my core, causing my breath to linger on my lips.
I reach up to touch his face, my fingers grazing his jaw, his stubble teasing my fingertips.
“I’m ready to ask my fourth question,” I tell him, my voice wobbling slightly. His nearness makes me dizzy.
“Go on then,” he answers, his voice ever calm.
“Do you have a girlfriend back home?”
My words sound childish, almost. Because girlfriend seems so juvenile. Because my feelings seem huge and adult.
Dare sucks in his breath, and reaches up to enclose my fingers within his own, holding them in place as he stops me from exploring the rest of his face. He stares into my eyes and I can’t read him now.
“No.”
He’s holding my hand against his chest and I feel his heart beat against my palm.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
It’s loud in the silence.
The chemistry between us is palpable enough to touch, weaving around us, pulling us together, the air snapping with its electricity.
But he doesn’t move.
And I don’t either.
I want him to kiss me. I imagine the way his full lips would feel, firm, yet soft. I imagine the way his hands would feel on my back, pulling me closer, closer, closer.