Chapter 19
Blake
The walk over to Jonah’s place from where we parked several blocks away feels like stepping into another version of campus life—one I’d need a trust fund and a god complex to survive in.
The building is the kind of place you only get to live in if your family name is on a wing of the university. There’s a concierge desk in the lobby with a guy who barely glances at us, seemingly used to the chaos the weekend brings.
The party is already a lot before we even cross the threshold—music bleeding out into the hallway, people in varying degrees of costume and sobriety spilling out onto the balcony, and the faint smell of weed fighting for dominance with something pumpkin-scented.
Costume shopping with Mads had been a whole thing.
We’d both pretended we were going to commit to real Halloween themes, but that lasted about ten minutes before it turned into a competition of who could make the other break first. I’d walked out of the dressing room in a plaid skirt, fitted blouse, and a trench-style coat cropped at the waist, knee-high socks finishing the look.
A magnifying glass dangled from a chain around my neck, tongue-in-cheek, but from the way his jaw clenched when he saw me, I knew I’d won.
He’d tried to play it cool, but his eyes did this slow sweep that made my stomach flip.
Then he came out in a Ghostface mask, the black robe hanging open over his fitted tee and jeans, casual enough to look thrown together but still unfairly good.
He tugged the hood back, mask dangling from his fingers, and I had to turn back to the mirror just to hide the fact that I was staring.
I look around and realize, in hindsight, that showing up to a masked party to find one specific guy was a terrible plan.
It’s like someone dropped us into the world’s worst game of Where’s Waldo, except everyone’s drunk off their asses.
The loft is wall-to-wall bodies—vampires, witches, at least four cowboys that might be the same guy making the rounds. Any hope of spotting Jonah is crushed under a sea of plastic masks and cheap wigs.
“We’re never finding him,” I yell over the bass, wedging myself in front of Mads as someone in a glitter skeleton suit tries to squeeze past us.
He glances down at me, hand landing on my hip to keep me from being shoved into the wall. “We’ll find him. Just stick with me.”
“I am sticking with you,” I say, because the room is so packed that my back is basically glued to his front.
“Yeah,” he runs his nose along the column of my throat. “I’ll make it worth your while later.”
I swat his shoulder, but don’t actually move away. His hand stays on my body as we weave through the crowd, and every so often he leans down to murmur something in my ear—half strategy (“check near the DJ booth”) and half commentary (“guy in the Frankenstein mask is totally checking you out”).
“Are you jealous?” I shoot back.
“Of Frankenstein? Absolutely. His neck hardware is iconic.”
We stop by the bar, scanning faces—or in this case, scanning various layers of vinyl and latex. Mads leans down again, lips moving against my ear in a way that’s definitely unnecessary. “Remember when I said we’d find him?”
“Yes?”
“I might’ve been lying.”
I roll my eyes and grab his wrist, dragging him toward the stairs. “Come on. If he’s the kind of guy who throws parties like this, he’s probably holding court somewhere high enough to look down on his subjects.”
“You make him sound like an evil overlord,” Mads says, letting me tow him along. His free hand slips to the small of my back as we climb, and he’s grinning when I glance over my shoulder. “Which is fine. Means I know exactly how to deal with him.”
“By annoying him until he gives you what you want?”
“Exactly. Works on you.”
I don’t dignify that with an answer, mostly because he’s not wrong.
The upstairs hallway is somehow louder than the downstairs one, which shouldn’t even be possible. Music from two different speakers competes for dominance, the music vibrating the floorboards.
Every room we pass is some new level of chaos—beer pong, but with martini glasses balanced on a skateboard that two people are slowly rolling back and forth, three guys using a mattress as a wrestling mat, a girl crying into the shoulder of someone wearing a horse mask.
“This is why I don’t like college parties,” I say, sidestepping a guy who’s carrying a massive potted plant down the hall. “They’re just... unsafe.”
I do like being with my friends, though. So I go to them anyway.
“Unsafe is fun,” Mads says, scanning each doorway. He guides me around a cluster of people taking shots while lying on the floor. “You’re just allergic to fun.”
“I’m allergic to clown behavior,” I correct. “Nothing about this is fun.”
We peek into another room. Nothing but a group playing Mario Kart on a flat-screen that takes up half the wall.
“Not here either,” I sigh.
“Brilliant. I was hoping to avoid actually finding him,” Mads says.
I roll my eyes, but the truth is I’m starting to agree. Every time we think we’ve spotted Jonah, it’s just another random dude. My shoes stick to the floor in a way that makes me not want to know what’s on them now, and I’m starting to question if any of this is even worth it.
We pass a door that’s cracked open. No noise. No bodies spilling out into the hall. Mads pauses and tips his head toward it.
“Thank god,” I murmur. “I need to reset my brain for a minute if we’re going to stay here any longer.”
He grins, nudging the door wider with his foot. “Oh, I’ll reset your brain, alright.”
I glare up at him, blatantly ignoring the fact that my pussy throbs in response to the thought of whatever he meant by that.
The room is empty, dimly lit from the streetlamp outside, the hum of the party muted as soon as the door clicks shut behind us.
Mads leans back against it, watching me. “So, we’re alone. At a party. In a room with a lock.” His voice dips just enough to make my stomach tighten. “Someone’s overdue for a full reboot.”
“Please,” I reply, my body wound so tight from the chaos that is this party that I’m not sure I could relax and let this happen even if I wanted to.
And I do.
I say as much out loud, and Mads—being Mads—takes that as an invitation to prove me wrong.
I mean, I’ll let him try.
He closes the distance before I can decide whether I’m moving closer or away. One hand bands around my waist, the other curls around the back of my neck, pulling me into him. Suddenly, I’m being spun around.
My back meets the door with a quiet thud. He’s in my space—heat, cologne, the self-satisfied look that says he’s been planning this the entire time.
His thigh slots between mine, pressing until my breath hitches.
“This. Fucking. Mouth,” he pinches my bottom lip between his fingers and tugs.
“Is merciless. And you have no idea how often I think about making you come,” he says.
I don’t get a chance to ask him how often exactly, because then his lips are on mine—hot, demanding, stealing the part of my brain that knows how to think.
Like everything else between us, the kiss is all push and pull, teeth catching, tongues sliding. He presses closer, caging me in, the solid line of his thigh between mine an unspoken dare.
Every shift of his leg sends heat rushing through me, his hands holding me exactly where he wants me. My fingers twist in his hair, pulling him in tighter, chasing the friction he’s deliberately giving and taking away in equal measure.
It’s dizzying, the way he kisses me. The way he is. Everything else blurs around the edges—the pounding bass from the party, the uneven beat of my own heartbeat—until all that’s left is the way his big hands move my body against his.
He doesn’t give me time to overthink what’s happening. There is a fleeting thought in the back of my mind that this is embarrassing, the way I’m all but humping his leg like a fucking dog. But it feels too good, too right, too much like he wants it as much as I do.
And I realize that nothing I want could ever truly be embarrassing with Mads.
I release every ounce of hesitation and grind myself down on his thigh, firm and unyielding from years of play, every shift of muscle against me a reminder of just how much power he carries in his body—and how easily he’s letting me use it.
He groans into my mouth—loud, encouraging—the vibration of it swirling through every inch of my writhing body.
I think the only thing that could make this hotter is if we were skin to skin, my slick pussy sliding over that fucking tattoo of his.
Every thought splinters into something bright, all logic stripped away until there’s only want—urgent, unrelenting, impossible to slow down.
The rest of the world shrinks to the point where it doesn’t exist, just his voice in my ear, the weight of his presence, and the dizzy rush of knowing I’m seconds from tipping over an edge I can’t pull back from.
It’s reckless and consuming, a single-minded chase toward something that feels inevitable, inevitable, inevitable—until it crashes through me and everything inside goes white-hot and blinding.
My chest heaves against his, every inhale catching on the weight of what just happened.
I can’t think past the rush still sparking under my skin, can’t remember what we came up here for, can’t bring myself to care.
His forehead rests against mine, his breath just as uneven, and there’s a wicked sort of satisfaction in knowing I’m the reason for that.
He finally leans back, lips quirking. “So… do we go back to our search now, or do we stay here and see how much trouble we can get into before someone walks in?”
I snort and push at his chest. “Tempting, but I’m not potentially giving anyone at this party a show.”
“So you’re saying you can’t keep quiet?” he murmurs, voice scraping along my skin.
“Doubtful,” I breathe, the word catching somewhere between a challenge and a promise.
We both drift toward the bed, and he drops onto the edge with that arrogant, loose-limbed sprawl of his. I choose the safer option of standing. My eyes wander over the space—rumpled sheets, half-empty water bottles, a half-packed suitcase shoved under the desk.
“I’m guessing that’s not Jonah’s,” I say, nodding toward the luggage.
Mads tilts his head, then bends to pull it out. “Nope. Unless Jonah’s been lying about his name being Miles Bennett.” He flips over the luggage tag, showing me the neat black letters.
The buzz in my chest dulls to a low hum. “He was staying here?”
“Guess so,” Mads says, his gaze flicking from the bag to me.
“Explains why it’s the only empty room in this place.
No one wanted to be the creep hanging out in the dead guy’s bedroom.
With everything else we know, the suitcase makes sense.
It seems pretty logical that he may have been packing up to get the fuck out of here. ”
“Great,” I mutter. “So now we’re the creeps.”
Mads grins, completely unbothered. “Speak for yourself. It’s only creepy if we get caught.”
We start small—surface-level nosiness. I check the desk, sifting through loose papers and a stack of takeout menus, half expecting to find a receipt with “motive” written across the top.
I vaguely wonder why his family hasn’t collected his things, but there could be a lot of reasons. Maybe they don’t live nearby. It’s not like Mads’s family could just pop over on a whim, either. Regardless of the situation.
Mads moves toward the closet, flicking the light on. It’s mostly empty, save for a couple of hanging shirts and a duffel slouched in the corner.
“Nothing exciting,” I say, shutting a drawer that’s full of spare phone chargers and an alarming amount of gum wrappers.
“Not so sure about that,” Mads replies, crouching. He moves the duffel just enough to reveal something wedged behind it—a matte black pistol, the kind you only see in movies or bad news headlines. He doesn’t touch it, just shifts his head to look at me over his shoulder.
I blink at it, my pulse stuttering. “That’s not exactly a travel accessory.”
“Nope,” he says, voice flat but his eyes sharp. “I’d bet he thought he needed to protect himself. Looks like he was right.” He straightens, hooking his fingers through the strap of the duffel so the gun comes with it, balanced on top.
My stomach knots. “Don’t touch it.”
He glances at me, brows pulling together. “I’m not leaving prints.”
“I don’t care about prints—I care about it going off,” I snap, stepping back like distance will help if it does.
He nods, careful as he lowers the bag. “Alright. I’ll put it back. Maybe leave a note to whoever finds it next that says Please don’t shoot us.”
A laugh bursts out of me before I can stop it, nervous and completely wrong given the situation at hand. “Yeah, that’ll do it. Nothing screams bulletproof like a Post-it and good manners.”
When we step back into the hall, Mads falls in beside me.
We push back into the main floor of the party, the air rife with B.O.
It takes me a second to realize the music has been drowned out by a wall of voices, all shouting the same thing: “Jonah! Jonah! Jonah!”
Mads gives me a look that says, Finally. I’m not sure we even need to talk to him after all that, but we follow the noise into the living room, where the crowd has formed a loose circle.
Jonah’s in the center, standing on the coffee table with a bottle in each hand like he’s about to attempt a world record. Someone yells “Do it!” and, because he’s apparently not one to back down from a challenge, he does—chugging from both bottles at once before attempting a backflip dismount.
It does not end well.
The coffee table splinters under him, and Jonah hits the floor hard enough that even the drunkest people stop cheering. He doesn’t get up.
I exhale through my nose. “Guess we won’t be asking him anything tonight, after all.”
The crowd swarms Jonah, phones out, voices rising in a messy mix of panic and laughter.
I tug Mads back before we get pulled into it, pushing us toward the door. The noise fades behind us, traded for the cool bite of night air—and the heat from what we just did upstairs still thrumming under my skin with nowhere else to go.