3. Rue
RUE
It would be impossible to get away from the giant masked biker. He’s too big and strong, so I hurry along after him, my dress swishing eerily over the ground.
Gunnar pushes through the black cloth strips covering the entrance to the haunted maze and pulls me in behind him.
Cold fog crawls across the ground. It slides beneath my skirt. Purple lights flash somewhere up ahead. The pulses illuminate hanging sheets and scary faces for half a second before everything goes dark again.
A scream echoes inside the maze. I stop as my heart shoots up into my throat.
Gunnar doesn’t slow down and his arm pulls tight between us. When he realizes he’s dragging me, he turns to look down at me.
I croak, “I changed my mind.”
“You haven’t agreed to anything yet. So you can’t be changing your mind.”
“This feels like enough.”
Another scream cuts through the maze, followed by the roar of the chainsaw. This one is closer.
I step backward and bump into someone coming through the entrance. Gunnar hauls me against his chest. “Out of the way, sweetheart.”
His body is warm and solid behind me. The hand resting against my stomach is enormous.
“This was your idea, not mine,” I remind him.
“It was my best idea all day.” He makes that short, dark sound again. That’s his laugh and it sounds rusty.
“Gunnar,” a voice calls through the darkness.
A young guy dressed like a blood-covered surgeon sticks his head around the corner. He looks at Gunnar, then at me, then at the huge skirt blocking most of the entrance.
“You coming?”
Gunnar tosses the gear bag into the other man’s arms. A fake hand falls out and lands at my feet. My stomach flies over.
“Is that thing going to fit?” the other guy asks motioning to my costume.
“We’ll make it fit.”
Gunnar’s reply should not make my pussy tingle, but it does.
He turns me toward the first narrow passage, keeping one hand against my lower back. The metal hoop beneath my skirt scrapes both sides as we move.
“This thing wasn’t designed for mazes.”
“It wasn’t designed for motorcycles either.”
“You’re not putting me on a motorcycle in this.”
“We’ll see.”
The certainty in his voice sends a strange little thrill through me. I glance back. His eyes are crinkled at the edges in that mask.
My imagination supplies the tilt of a sexy mouth.
We round two corners and stop beside a stack of fake coffins. A narrow opening separates them from the plywood wall.
Gunnar points into it. “You stay in there.”
I stare at the opening. “My dress won’t fit.”
“Make it.”
“That seems to be your solution for everything.”
“So far.” He gathers the front of my skirt in both hands and I suck in a breath.
The pink fabric bunches around his forearms as he shoves the hoop sideways, forcing it through the narrow opening. I stumble backward until my shoulders hit the wall.
Gunnar follows.
For a moment, we’re both squeezed inside the alcove. My skirt folds around his legs, hiding everything below our waists. His hands are still buried in the fabric, close enough to my thighs that my body reacts with a pulse of heat settles between my legs.
The storage-room fantasy returns with painful clarity.
Gunnar is on his knees beneath my dress. Those massive hands are pushing my thighs apart. His mask lying beside my boot while the party continues a few feet away.
I wet my lips.
“You good?” he asks and his voice sounds different. Lower. Almost strained.
“Perfect.” The word comes out breathless.
His masked face tips downward. I know he’s looking at me. I feel it everywhere, most of all in the tight peaks of my nipples beneath the cold, damp bodice.
His hands shift inside my skirt. Then he slowly pulls free.
“Wait until they pass you,” he instructs. “Come out behind them.”
“Then what?”
“Scare them.”
“That’s the training program?”
His hand closes around my chin. The skull mask moves close enough to brush the tip of my nose. In a low rasp, he says, “You walked into a dark room, screamed, and nearly climbed me. Use those skills.”
Before I can think of a response, he steps out of the alcove and disappears around the corner.
I press my back against the plywood. Whoa. Wow. Okay.
The place is eerily quiet. For a while I only hear my own breathing. Then a group enters our section. Two women and a man, judging by the voices. They move slowly, laughing too loudly every time the purple lights flash.
One woman spots the coffins and stops cold. “Something is going to jump out of there.”
“Then go first,” the man tells her.
“I’m not going first.”
They bunch together as they pass my hiding place. I wait until the man is directly in front of me, then reach out and drag my fingernails down the back of his jacket.
He freezes, one foot lifted. I lean close to his ear. “I was alive when he put me in the coffin.”
Screams shatters the air. The man yells louder than either woman.
“Oh fuck!” he wheezes.
All three of them spin as I step into the purple light. The dress bursts out of the narrow opening. One woman takes off running.
“Go!” the man yells as he stumbles after her. But the other woman stares at me, horrified.
I let my head fall sharply to one side.
Then Gunnar starts the chainsaw behind them. The deafening roar fills the passage. Rrrr-RRRR-WHAAAAAAA!
The remaining woman launches herself toward the exit. “Run! Run!”
I’m dying with laughter as she grabs the man by his jacket and nearly takes him down with her. They disappear around the corner in a tangle while I laugh so hard I have to hold my stomach.
Gunnar kills the chainsaw.
“That was fucked up,” he says.
“I know.” I straighten my skirt, my chest still jerking with laughter. “Did you see his face?”
“He tried to outrun both women. Pathetic.”
“Yeah, it kind of was. Hilarious though.”
Another group of voices moves our way. Gunnar points toward the alcove, and I hurry back into position.
We do it again.
Then again.
By the fourth group, I’ve perfected my dead stare and added a twitch that makes my head jerk sideways. Gunnar chases anyone who runs. He’s a huge masked beast with massive arms covered in wicked skull tattoos.
Of course they freak out.
The screams keep getting louder, drawing more people toward our section.
It’s crazy fun and I lose track of time. I also forget that I felt stupid when I arrived. Inside this haunted maze, my ridiculous dress is perfect. People stop laughing when they see me. They grab each other and back away.
They notice me. I’m certain Gunnar does too.
Every time the path empties, I feel his attention return to me. The shadows and flashing lights make it hard to see his eyes, but I know when they travel over my body.
He gets closer each time he helps me back into position.
The first time, his hands remain at my waist. The second time, one slides lower and rests against the curve of my hip, just above the skirt. The third time, his fingers slide down and wrap around my wrist before he steps away.
By the fifth group, I’m so keyed up that I nearly scream before they reach me.
Every time the path empties, I feel his attention return to me. My breasts tighten beneath the damp lace.
Sometime later—maybe hours—the guy in bloody scrubs appears around the corner again. He pulls down his surgical mask and wipes his forehead with the back of one wrist.
“We’re closing for thirty minutes. Need to refill the blood lines and reorganize the props before someone trips over a body part. Last group is moving through section six now. I’m locking the entrance.”
“Sounds good,” Gunnar says, his masked gaze fixed on me.
The kid glances between us. “You coming out?”
“In a minute.”
Something about the way Gunnar says it makes the guy grin.
“Take thirty,” he says with a laugh. “Try not to break anything expensive.”
The maze goes quiet in an eerie way after all the screams. The silence is pulsing around us. Gunnar sets the chainsaw on top of one of the coffins.
Watching him move makes my pulse pound.
“That was fun,” I say, mostly because the silence feels dangerous. “I didn’t think it would be, but it was. I understand why people like doing this now. The woman in the witch costume almost climbed over her own husband when you chased them. Did you see?—”
Gunnar grabs me. His hands span my waist.
The words disappear as he lifts me off my feet and pushes me backward into the alcove before he sets me down. My skirt folds around him, trapping his legs in the hoops.
He fills the opening, blocking the purple light.
“What are you doing?” I whisper, almost sounding hopeful.
“Something inappropriate.”
His hands slide from my waist to the sides of my bodice. His thumbs press beneath my breasts, testing the stiff fabric.
A tremor moves through me and I dare ask, “How inappropriate?”
“I’ve been hard as a fucking steel rod since I put you in here the first time.”
My lips part. He presses his erection against the front of my skirt.
“You have been?”
“Every time you stepped out of the dark in this dress.” His hands move higher, framing the outside of my breasts. “The way you laughed after scaring someone. When you bent over to fix the skirt, you gave me another reason to wonder what the fuck you’re wearing under it.”
“Bloomers.” The word slips out before I can stop it.
His entire body goes still as his head tilts. “Didn’t expect that answer.”
I close my eyes, mortified. Every inch of me is burning from my throat to hairline. “I’m wearing bloomers. They fit with the period costume.”
A rough sound comes from behind the mask and he says, “That shouldn’t be hot.”
“It isn’t.”
“It fucking is.”
His right hand moves to the front of my throat, holding me gently beneath the high lace collar.
“I was supposed to be working. Instead, I spent the whole shift thinking about getting under this dress.”
My knees weaken, my throat works against his palm, and inside I burn like a firework that’s about to go off.
I manage to say, “That’s very unprofessional.”
“Totally inappropriate,” he agrees. “I’m not one fucking bit sorry.”
The front of his mask brushes my temple. His breath blows between the slats and his body heat wraps around me.