Chapter 27
The parking lot of Horrorville was littered with old cars and costumed attendees.
There was a proper crispness in the air that burned my lungs but offered infinite amounts of comfort.
We followed the heavy flow of foot traffic to the pumpkin-framed entrance.
I could already hear the music and pre-taped screams from this side of the fence.
“So?” David watched me as I bit back my smile. “Good pick?”
I was a horror girl through and through, who’d grown up in a household that couldn’t even stand sitcom Halloween specials.
Horrorville was an annual pop-up event that boosted the best haunted houses on this side of the country.
The tickets reflected that accomplishment tenfold, which was why I had to pass on going this year, since my funds were limited.
“Eh.” I shrugged and tucked my hand underneath David's arm.
“Come on.” He pressed a kiss on my temple. “You got to give credit where credit’s due.”
I looked up at him, stomach fluttering with every kind of thrill known to man. “I’ve been wanting to go here since the temperature dropped.”
David nodded with a grin. “I knew it.”
“But…” I sobered. “The tickets are almost a hundred dollars more than they were last year. I don’t think—”
He shook his head. “It’s fine. I’ve got you covered.”
“No, I mean… you don’t have to have me covered. I know between football and school, money’s got to be—”
“Yara,” he interrupted, tone clipped. “I can afford to take you on a date.”
My grip on his arm loosened. “I didn’t say you couldn’t.”
“No, you insinuated.”
“I… I didn’t mean to,” I said in a whisper. No part of me wanted to poke an unhealed wound right after we had mended our fences. “I’m sorry.”
David took a deep breath and shook his head. “No, I am. I… it’s been weird, thinking about where this is going. Where we’re going.”
“Where we’re going?” I repeated.
“You’re going to make me spell it out, aren’t you?” His smile reappeared.
“I dare you.”
“What a waste of a dare.” David tsked. “You’ve gone soft on me, Daredevil.”
“And what do you call what you’re doing?” I raised a brow. “Picking me up, taking me out, buying me dinner.”
David chuckled. “I don’t remember throwing in dinner.”
“You were getting to it,” I insisted as I smiled up at him.
His eyes softened. “I suppose I was.”
“So?” I stopped walking before reaching the ropes to line up in the queue, sidestepping so we’d be out of everyone’s way. “Spell it out. I know it’s not your strength. But I’m not opposed to giving As for effort.”
As I spoke, I grabbed onto David’s jacket, opening it a little so I could more easily press myself against his chest. His hands encircled my waist as if it were second nature. We’d made a habit of leaning into one another.
“So soft,” he chastised before kissing me. My grip on his jacket tightened as I steeled my resolve not to beg for more.
“We’re going toward a relationship that I have no intention of leaving anytime soon,” he whispered against my mouth. “Does that sound okay? Like someplace you want to be?”
I swallowed, trying to get my mouth to produce noise again. It quickly proved to be a lost cause, so I simply nodded.
“I figured.” David’s low, knowing chuckle should trigger a snarky retort. I couldn’t let this man get too bigheaded. But if I opened my mouth now, who knew what mushy nonsense would spill out?
“Ready to go in?” David asked, pulling back enough to let cold air filter between us.
My mouth stayed shut as I nodded. He wouldn’t get my unbridled confession of admiration. My frustrating desire to have him pull me back into his chest and never let go. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing I was falling fast… yet.
“Born ready,” I finally said.
“We have to get a scare band for this one,” I said when we stood outside the largest house of the night.
David and I had gone through three houses, starting with a low-scare tier: a wicked-witch one.
And building up to the creepier demon possessions and masked murder houses.
My adrenaline was pumping, and my cheeks ached from laughing so much.
“Lead the way,” David permitted. He let me tug him over to the worker handing out bands that told the scare actors we consented to being touched.
When I wrapped the bracelet around his wrist, I noticed the red in his cheeks didn’t hint toward amusement. David’s eyes went big when he realized what I’d realized.
“Come on,” he said quickly and turned toward the house’s line.
“David.” I hurried after him, smiling as I hugged his bicep to keep his pace aligned with mine. “Look at me.”
He turned his head, so all I saw was the back of his beanie. I laughed and switched over to his other side. He turned away—but not before I could see a smile tugging at his lips.
“You don’t have to wear the band if you’re scared. I won’t judge you.” I slipped to his other side and this time, caught his gaze. My lips pressed together as I tried not to laugh.
David leaned down so our foreheads touched as he whispered, “You’re already judging me, liar.”
“Not harshly,” I promised. “Not in the way I would have months or even weeks back.”
“How comforting,” he muttered deadpan.
“It’s okay to be afraid.” I tugged at the bracelet on his wrist, but he waved me away.
“I’m fine,” he promised. “You know I’m fine.”
Sure, he hadn’t screamed once in any of the houses we walked through so far.
In fact, the man barely blinked as a very well-done headless monster fell onto the walkway.
The actor didn’t move, so we had to step over him.
I freaked out, and David briefly picked me up to carry me over the obstacle.
It was all very ‘thank-you-for-saving-me-want-to-have-sex’ vibes after that.
I quelled that feeling with about a liter of apple cider and a bucket of caramel popcorn.
“Is it the scare rating?” I asked. “You know, most of it’s just preference. High ratings don’t guarantee you’ll be afraid. You’ve been doing so well, so far.”
David shook his head, keeping his gaze on the start of the line.
Since the sun had long dipped under the horizon, the night was full of mosquitoes and bats.
Fewer people lingered in the queues. The crowds were thinning, migrating either to the parking lot or the food court.
End of night meant peak time for getting into the best houses at record speed.
“Promise me you won’t use this against me.” The seriousness in his tone had me straighten at attention. I held up my pinky.
David raised a brow. “I mean, really promise.”
“What do you think this means?” I asked and wiggled my finger. “I’m not so coldhearted as to break this kind of promise. Besides, what are you so afraid of? You know enough about me to retaliate if it comes to that.”
He hooked his pinky around mine. We didn’t unhook our fingers, even after we lowered our hands.
“I hate aliens,” he said.
I frowned and glanced at the house’s sign, The Last Abduction. “Aliens? Really?”
As far as my ranking of horror went, aliens were on the lowest tier, along with evil gnomes and chaotic birds.
I couldn’t think of any truly devastating horror alien movies (besides the obvious sci-fi one) that’d come out in the last decade.
As far as the larger collective consciousness went, aliens seemed low on that pole as well.
“One of my foster brothers swore he’d been abducted, and the evidence—” David shook his head as if it were disgraceful not to believe— “was damning.”
I swallowed a laugh because this was real and serious. Something rooted in his childhood. “What kind of evidence?”
“Creepy.” He sniffed, looking around the queue line as we started moving faster to the entrance.
“Care to elaborate?”
David shook his head. “Not really. Unearthing deep-rooted fears doesn’t seem wise when one is about to face said fears, you know?”
I pressed my shoulder against his. “I won’t leave your side.”
“Promise?” he asked, half-teasing.
“We’re locked and loaded, aren’t we?” I tugged on my pinky that was still curled around his. “And we can toss these bracelets.”
“You wanted the bracelets, so we’re doing the bracelets.”
“But—”
“Don’t argue,” he said.
My nipples hardened at the finality in David’s tone.
I pulled my hand away from his and stuffed it into my jacket.
Prolonged contact equaled heightened emotion, I told myself.
I’d have to pace myself if I wanted to have a leg to stand on in this relationship.
He couldn’t have known I was this wanting so early on.
David cocked his head to the side, studying me and my rigid posture when I pulled away from him. But he said nothing until we crossed the threshold of the house.
“Don’t wander or lag too far behind.” He brushed aside a plastic curtain tattooed with mist from the excessive fog machine.
“I wouldn’t dare leave you to fend for yourself.” I grabbed onto the hem of his jacket. That seemed a much safer option than skin-on-skin contact.
David led the way like he’d done through every house, rounding each corner with the vigilant eye of a man with every intent to survive. It was regrettably hot, and I found no part of me willing to resist the pull.
I didn’t notice the house’s first jump scare because I’d been too busy studying his sharp jaw. The green light from above painted shadows across his skin. A fan that was supposed to clear out the fog pushed his spicy cologne into the air.
“Fuck,” he said with a low laugh when the second scare actor knocked into us. David looked back at me for a check-in.
“Yeah.” I chewed on my bottom lip, trying not to stare at him for too long.
He caught on to me, anyway. “What is it?”
“Nothing.” I shook my head and nudged my chin toward the fork in the house. “Which way?”
David wasn’t convinced and said, “You pick.”
“No, you.”
“Are you scared?” He frowned and grabbed my hand.
“Terrified,” I mumbled. Of wanting him this much.
“We’ll make it out,” he promised with a teasing smile.
“Maybe.” I took the lead and tugged him into the hall on the right. Perhaps following him was the issue. If I were in front, I wouldn’t have the chance to watch this curve on his shoulders or the flexing of his jaw.
Leading worked for a while. I screamed a few times, backing myself into his chest when an actor tried to tug me into a side room.
David held onto my waist, refusing to let go until the actor relinquished their grip.
I kept leaning into him, exaggerating my panic just to feel his warmth.
We were almost at the end of the house when I bumped into him a final time and felt how hard he was against my ass.
He didn’t say a thing. I’m not even sure he knew I noticed.
But by the time we got out of the house, his cheeks burned and gaze wouldn’t hold mine.
“Wasn’t so bad,” he said in a low voice.
“Told you.” I was too breathless and hot to properly tease him.
David ran his fingers through his hair, scanning the crowd. “Hungry yet?”
“Not really.”
“Then what do you want to do now?” He finally looked at me, reading the want in my gaze.
David shook his head but grabbed my hand.
Before I knew what was happening, he led me through the throng of people.
It felt like ages before we found a quiet, isolated spot at the back of a hay maze.
David’s hands held onto my waist as he backed me against the stacked hay bales.
“How about now?” he asked again with his gaze on my parted lips. “Hungry?”
“Getting there.” I gripped his jacket collar, pulling him into a kiss.
David placed one hand over my shoulder and the other around my waist. He pulled me against him so I could feel the extent of his arousal.
The buzz of the crowds faded into nothingness, and we continued to cling to one another as if we were the only people in existence.
“Yara,” he groaned against my mouth. The vibration of my name on his lips sent my nerves on fire.
“Yes?” I bit his bottom lip and swiped my tongue across to soothe the assumed sting.
“It’s nearly impossible not to touch you.” His mouth ventured down to my neck, planting kisses against my pounding pulse. “How did it get this impossible?”
“I’m irresistible once you get your head out of your ass,” I joked.
He nipped at my jaw, and I laughed.
“You and that mouth,” he murmured, less scolding and more wonder in his voice.
“What about it?” My smile faded when his thumb lightly traced my bottom lip.
“It’s been all I could think about for the last four years. Its ability to cut me down while simultaneously—” He pressed my waist harder against his. I could feel him against my clit. “—giving me the best hard-ons of my life.”
“Best hard-ons?” I smiled and shook my head. “Sounds frustrating.”
“I like the teasing. Build up without reward.”
“A little torment.”
“A lot,” he confirmed.
“How many times have I caused this?”
“A lot,” he repeated and kissed me with the desperation of a man in the middle of a desert with no water in sight.
“Promise me something?” he asked, breathless.
“Depends.” I smiled against his smile.
“Don’t go easy on me. Ever.”
I shoved my fingers through his hair, tugging on it a bit. “With me, easy was never in the cards for you.”