37. Im Coming to Get You.
Ron
"Here's how the challenge is going to go."
Selene's voice is a dark velvet whisper slipping straight against my earlobe. "You're going to catch me first, and then... you're going to fuck my mouth while still wearing that mask."
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
My brain suffers a fatal crash, resetting instantly. I grab her hips with both hands, squeezing instinctively, and lean over her, trapping her with my gaze.
"And how the hell do you expect me to run after you with the erection you just gave me?"
Selene parts her lips and chuckles. A low, wet sound, dripping with pure mischief and the absolute awareness of the power she holds over me.
Cheeky, wonderful little brat.
She's learned how to play with fire, and judging by the spark shining in her eyes, she fucking loves burning with me.
I pull away from her with a titanic effort of will, running a hand over my face to try and scrape back a shred of clarity.
We're in the final stretch. We're about to face the last, decisive challenge of the reality show.
If I stop to think about it, I feel a strange knot in my stomach.
I'm running on adrenaline, hyped up beyond belief, but there's also a veil of sadness tightening my chest at the thought that all this is about to end.
It has been an incredible experience.
The group has drastically thinned out. Emma and Levi, unfortunately, were eliminated after the Ball of the Damned challenge. Carolina and the twins left us last week, disqualified during the locally-sourced Horror Kitchen challenge.
Which means only one thing: the only ones left in the game are the two of us, and Melusine and Lucien.
Assuming those two don't kill each other before the starting whistle.
They are particularly furious with each other today.
They aren't speaking, just shooting each other murderous glares, and something tells me that, because of that, they're going to be fantastic, ruthless opponents in today's challenge.
The final game is called I'm Coming to Get You.
The concept is simple. We men of the pair, dressed in black and faces covered by killer masks, will be the hunters. We have to chase down our prey—the girls—through the tangled woods surrounding the estate, find them, and capture them before the other couple does.
Obviously, the woods are rigged with micro-cameras, drones, and operators hidden in the branches, strategically placed to make sure the girls don't cheat. They can't let themselves be caught on purpose to let us win. They have to actually run. They have to fight to not get caught.
I grip the raw leather mask production gave me, feeling the rough grain of the hide under my fingertips. I look back at Selene, who is lacing up her dark boots, ready to run through the mud.
Me, masked, hunting my woman through the trees, fully aware of what she just promised me if I'm fast enough to catch her?
Fuck... this is a seriously, fucking exciting challenge.
Selene
Cold mud splatters against my calves with every stride as my boots sink into the soft forest floor.
Elm Hollow's damp air scrapes my lungs, but I don't slow down. I can't. A production drone is buzzing right above my head, a mechanical fly monitoring me to make sure I'm following the rules. That I'm actually running away.
And the truth is... I'm running like my life depends on it.
The atmosphere is a masterpiece of terror.
Fog rises from the ground, wrapping around the twisted trunks of the ancient trees, turning the woods into a maze of hostile shadows.
Bare branches brush my arms, snagging the fabric of my sweater, while the unnatural silence of the vegetation is broken only by my ragged breathing and the dull thud of footsteps behind me.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Heavy footsteps.
I look back for a fraction of a second, my heart pounding in my ears.
Through the curtain of white fog, I see him.
The massive silhouette of a man dressed in black, his face completely erased by a raw leather mask, advancing through the trees.
He moves with the fluidity and power of a predator.
He is the perfect, physical incarnation of every dark lord I have ever birthed in my novels.
A shiver of terror races up my spine, twisting in a sick, twisted way with an arousal that liquefies my insides.
I dodge to the side, trying to skirt around a thorny bush to lose him.
But he's too fast. Too strong.
A hand made of steel shoots out of the dark and clamps down on my hip like a vice.
A sharp, genuine scream escapes my lips. I am yanked backward with a force that nearly lifts me off the ground. The impact against his rock-hard chest knocks the wind out of me.
"Caught you," a low voice growls, distorted and muffled by the leather of the mask, directly against my ear.
The drone buzzes away, moving toward another area of the woods, probably deeming the hunt over. And as soon as the camera's red eye disappears into the branches, Ron stops performing for the audience and starts performing strictly for me.
With a fluid, brutal motion, he spins me around and shoves me against the rough, damp trunk of a massive oak tree.
The impact makes me gasp, but there is no pain, only pure pressure. Ron crushes the entire length of his body against mine. His hips slot perfectly against my center, his erection—hard as iron against the denim of his jeans—pressing exactly where I throb and burn for him.
I part my lips, panting.
I look up. The leather mask is terrifying from this distance. Inhuman. But through the eyeholes, the blue of his gaze is a stormy sea, saturated with a lust so dark it makes my knees weak.
"You lose, Queen of Darkness," he whispers, his hot breath filtering through the leather and tickling my chin.
His hand slides off the trunk, grips the back of my neck, and his fingers tangle in my hair, pulling slightly. His other hand wraps around my throat. A firm, possessive grip that perfectly mimics our game from last night.
"And now..." he murmurs, tilting his masked face toward mine, rubbing the rough leather against the delicate skin of my cheek in a contrast that makes me moan. "I think it's time to collect my prize. Do you remember what you promised me?"
My breath catches in my throat. "Don't you dare, not here..." I pant, even though my hands are already gripping his biceps, my nails digging into his shirt.
"Oh, I'll dare, Selly. I will absolutely dare. But first..."
Without warning, Ron steps back. He leans down, grabs me behind the knees, and with a grunt of effort, lifts me entirely off the ground.
He throws me over his shoulder like I'm nothing but a sack of grain, my stomach pressed against the hardness of his muscular shoulder.
"What the fuck are you doing?!" I shriek, pounding my fists against his back, my face dangling toward the dirt. "Put me down, Willers!"
"Rules of the game, sweetheart," he laughs, his masked voice vibrating against my chest as he starts taking long strides toward the rendezvous point. "The captured prey must be physically carried out of the woods. Enjoy the ride."
I huff, outraged but unable to hold back a smile.
We are almost at the edge of the woods when a harsh, anger-filled noise catches my attention.
Hanging upside down, I look up.
Through a break in the fog, in a small clearing to our left, are two figures.
They aren't running toward the finish line. They aren't even pretending to follow the rules of the reality show.
Lucien and Melusine.
He isn't wearing the mask anymore; he's gripping it in a fist, dangling by his side. He is furious. He literally has her cornered, shoving her against the crumbling remains of an old stone fence.
Melusine isn't backing down. On the contrary, she has her hands planted on his chest and is screaming something I can't hear because of the distance.
Lucien drops the mask in the mud. He grabs both of Melusine's wrists, pinning them above her head against the stone. He leans forward, his face a millimeter from his adopted sister's.
I really don't think beating them is going to be as hard as I expected.