Gunnar's Halloween Chase

1. Rue

RUE

What was I thinking? I can’t believe I dressed up as a Victorian-era zombie to go to a motorcycle club haunted house fundraiser.

The living dead part, yeah, maybe that would be okay. But this frigging hoop skirt is all kinds of annoying.

“Come on, Rue, you’re taking forever,” my sister whines from outside the portable toilet.

“Give me a damned minute,” I mutter, wrestling the skirt.

When the door swings open, I pop out like a frothy pastel-pink champagne cork.

She stares at me, unimpressed, as she taps the toe of her goth boot, her black vampire cape streaming behind her in the wind.

“Let’s go,” I growl. “I need a drink after that experience.”

“It’s your own fault,” she snarks. “I told you I had a great maid costume you could wear.”

“Boring,” I counter. “Maids are so last decade.”

And so revealing, but I keep that remark locked behind my gritted teeth.

She gives me an eye roll. “And Victorian debutantes are so this year?”

“Zombies are very in. They’re evergreen.”

When we get to the door of the main building, a sea of black-clad Halloween partiers moves to the thumping beat. All of them turn to look at me.

Jeez, where's the creativity? Black. Black. Black. All I see is black clothing and bad makeup.

Claire swooshes through the opening, beelining for the monstrous bar that fills an entire wall.

“Can you imagine living here?” Her eyes gleam. “I mean, how fuckin’ awesome would it be to have a place like this to hang out all the time? I come out here every chance I get.”

Claire’s on some kind of secret invitee list apparently because no one else I know gets invited, except tonight. There was an open call in the community for people to attend the fundraiser. The club is building an animal shelter with the money they raise from this and a Christmas pin-up calendar.

“Hot fucking damn,” he says when his eyes snag on Claire’s cleavage. He’s a huge guy in a leather vest with no shirt underneath, and I can’t decide if he’s wearing a costume or if this is a real biker outfit.

The only thing I know is he’s fixated on my sister. Classic. Claire’s cleavage has an effect that should be measured on the Richter scale.

He grins and pops the cap off a cold beer before he leans across the bar. “This one’s on the house.”

Wearing a feral smile, he shoves the bottle right between her breasts. My sister gasps and laughs so loudly people’s heads whip her direction.

“See,” she declares. “Isn’t this place awesome?”

“Um… Can I get one of those?” I ask the bartender.

He blinks, then focuses on me like he’s seeing me for the very first time. As if he didn’t see the pink puffball in the sea of black costumes. He also looks at me as if I'm as inconsequential as the bottle cap he just tossed.

In a flat tone, he says, “That’ll be five bucks.”

Great.

We’re twins. But my D-cup boobs are in a properly fitting bra, behind three layers of heavy fabric. Which happens to be itchy as hell and makes them sweat. But for the life of me I can’t imagine wearing the crap my sister does.

However, she does get free drinks all the damned time.

Annoyed, I fish out some money from my hidden pocket in the skirt of my costume and put the cash on the bar. He’s talking over my head to someone when he thunks the beer down and picks up the five-dollar bill, not once looking at me.

Fine. I get it. Skin wins.

I tip up the beer right on time to have a huge biker dude bump into my elbow. Half the bottle dumps on my chest, soaking the lace and cotton.

Rue’s luck strikes again.

“Watch where you’re going,” I mutter, holding the half-empty beer at arm’s length as frigid liquid pools between my breasts because my bra is now a dam.

“Is there a bathroom around here? The kind with running water?”

Claire points, not missing a single beat as she talks to some big guy in leather wearing a Viking hat. It took her five seconds flat to latch onto a member of the opposite sex.

With a huff, I push through the crowd like a salmon swimming upstream until I find a hallway. Looks like a place where a bathroom would be. A woman dressed like a Bond girl stumbles toward me, holding onto the wall.

“Bathroom?” I ask, and she slurs her response.

Great. Just what I need, another vague answer.

I come to the end of the hallway. One door sits to the left. One to the right. No signs to mark a bathroom.

I pick the door on the right.

The moment it opens, I know I’ve made a mistake. The room beyond is pitch-dark. There’s no cleaning chemical smell. Only a vague smell of gasoline, plastic, and maybe motor oil.

I reach back for the door, but the edge of my hoop skirt catches on something. There’s a metallic pop, followed by the unmistakable sound of fabric ripping.

“Shit.”

Thanks to my skirt, the door swings shut behind me.

Darkness swallows me. Every last bit of light snuffed out.

I turn around, lose my balance, and walk straight into a wall.

Except walls aren’t warm. They don’t grunt when you hit them. And they sure as hell don’t grab you by the arms when you bounce backward.

A man. He’s a big one. All I can do is suck in a breath and shriek.

One massive hand clamps over my mouth.

Sharp, dark laughter rumbles through the dark.

“What the fuck, Claire?” he asks.

My heart stops. The hand remains over my mouth as he reaches around me and cracks open the door. A thin blade of light slices across his face.

Or what should be his face.

Instead, I see a mask.

It’s terrifying . He looks like something that stepped out of the haunted house to drag a woman into the dark.

My scream turns into a strange little noise against his palm.

“Jesus.” He laughs again. “Calm down. It’s me, Gunnar.”

That would be helpful if I had any idea who Gunnar was. He slowly removes his hand.

My lips tingle where his palm pressed against them. I can vaguely feel my gigantic skirt scraping against things… against him.

“I—I was looking for the bathroom,” I stammer.

His masked head tips slightly, but he doesn’t speak.

“Because I spilled beer all over myself. Some guy hit my elbow, or maybe I hit him with my elbow because technically I was the one holding the bottle. It went down my dress, and now my boobs are cold. Not that you need to know that. I was looking for water. To clean up. Not my boobs. The dress.”

My mouth snaps shut. Rambling is a weakness of mine. Especially when I’m cornered by a mask-wearing stranger who smells a lot like a sinful dessert.

He stares at me through the mask.

At least, I assume he does. It’s hard to tell when the man doesn’t have a visible face.

“Are you drunk?” he asks.

“No. I lost half my beer before I took a whole sip.”

His hand is still wrapped around my upper arm. His fingers nearly meet around it, which tells me everything I need to know about the rest of him.

This man is a giant. He’s a masked biker the size of a truck who thinks I’m Claire.

I should correct him. It would take two words. I’m Rue.

Then he’d realize his mistake. He’d mumble an apology, point me toward the bathroom, and head straight back to the party to find the twin he actually wants.

Men always want Claire. No one looks at the two of us and picks the twin wearing three layers of fabric and a practical bra that contains my ample breasts in a responsible way.

“Hm,” he hums as he shifts closer. His chest brushes the front of my dress, pressing the cold, wet bodice against my breasts.

Oh my god. This is unexpected.

He’s wearing leather. I can feel the edges of his vest beneath my fingertips because apparently I’ve put my hands against his bare chest. I don’t remember doing it, but there they are.

His body is hard. Warm. Has a narrow forest of hair running down his midline that delights my senses. He is very, very male.

An image flashes through my mind before I can stop it.

This masked biker is pushing me against the wall. Gathering my ridiculous skirt in his fists. Shoving it up around my waist until he discovers the bloomers I’m already regretting. Tearing a hole through them because he’s too impatient to bother taking them off.

The vision plays out—me having my wildest sexual experience with a faceless stranger in a dark room at a motorcycle club at a Halloween party.

Someone who thinks I’m my sister. A man who doesn’t even know who I am.

It’s so naughty, I’m surprised I don’t burst into flames and take the entire clubhouse with me.

“You’re panting,” he says in a husky tone.

“I am?”

“Yeah, little zombie, and it’s the hottest sound I’ve ever heard.”