Chapter Four

Drake

" N o way, Drake Whitlock," Madeline growls, her arms crossed and a dangerous scowl on her face. "There's no way I'm getting out of this—"

She squeals when I gently haul her out of the truck over my shoulder, being careful so I don't hurt her.

"Yeah, you are, unicorn," I say gently, resisting the urge to sink my teeth into her ass. It's right there in my face, taunting me. And goddamn, It's perfect. My dick has never been this hard. It's certainly never been this hard for this long. The motherfucker hasn't gone down since she grabbed him. "We did your thing. Now, we're doing mine."

I probably should have mentioned to her that mine involved parading across a cemetery to get where we're going, but I didn't realize she was going to freak out about it.

"Yours is in a cemetery," she hisses, biting me on the shoulder. "Mine was not in a cemetery, Drakius Crazy Man Whitlock!"

"That's not my name."

"It is if you think I'm going into a cemetery on Halloween at midnight," she sniffs as I swing her upright in my arms.

"What are you afraid of, baby? I promise not to fuck you over a gravestone."

She opens her mouth and then snaps it closed to growl at me.

"What are you afraid of?"

"What am I afraid of?" She holds up both hands, all ten fingers extended. "Death. Dying. Ghosts. Being murdered by a ghost. Being haunted by a ghost. Seeing a ghost. Falling in a grave. Ghouls. Zombies. And worms." She puts down a finger as she lists each item, and it takes everything I have not to burst into laughter. But she's serious, so I don't laugh.

"Anything else?"

"We do not have that kind of time, Whitlock," she says. "We'll be here all night if I have to list everything I'm scared of, and I do not want to be here all night. So let's just go with everything. I'm scared of everything." Her bottom lip actually quivers.

I stare at her for a silent moment, trying to wrap my head around the fact that this brave little goddess is afraid of so many things. The spiders were an easy bet. She made no secret of that. But everything else? Didn't see it coming. She's been practically fearless all night.

"Why does everything scare you, unicorn?" I ask, treading carefully.

"Because fear is terrifying," she says sarcastically. "It's right there in the name. Fear ."

"You placed your hand in mine and left the bar with a complete stranger," I remind her. "You told an Army Ranger to sleep with one eye open. You dragged me out trick or treating without knowing whose house we were at or if it was even safe. You're fearless. So why do these things in particular scare you?"

"Steele is an Army Ranger?"

I narrow my eyes on her. "Do I need to get creative to get the truth out of you, unicorn? Because I wasn't an Army Ranger, but I watched a helluva lot of porn when I was younger. I learned about fifty different ways to tie knots."

"Really? You can learn that watching porn?"

"Yes."

"I have not been watching the right kind of porn," she mumbles, making me smile.

"Madeline. Focus."

"Fine," she huffs. "Remember how I said I had trauma, too? Well, maybe this is part of my trauma."

"What happened, unicorn?"

"Nothing like what happened to you," she mumbles, avoiding my gaze.

"Tell me anyway."

"My parents would give me anything I wanted just to one-up the other. When I was thirteen, I asked to go to a haunted house. My mom took me." She huffs out a breath. "It went fine, but my dad was pissed because he didn't get to take me. So, he found an even better one, according to him."

Dread coils in my stomach when she pauses. I can already guess where the fuck this is heading, and I don't like it.

"It was one of those really terrifying haunted houses. The extreme ones where you have to sign a waiver," she whispers. "They grab you, hold you down, scream in your face, and chase you through the dark. They tied us up and left us in the dark. They sprayed us with water. We were chased through the dark and grabbed by men in masks. I was put inside a coffin, and it was padlocked shut."

"Your goddamn father took you there?" I growl, my blood boiling.

She bobs her head, refusing to look at me. "It's stupid, I know. The whole point was to be scared, but I had nightmares for months." She shrugs like it's no big deal. "Scary and I haven't really been friends since then. It gives me a lot of anxiety."

I curve my hand around her jaw, forcing her to look at me. "It isn't stupid, Madeline. And it is a big deal. You were a teenager and in an environment where people in terrifying costumes were tormenting you with the sole purpose of scaring you. Your asshole father never should have put you in that position."

Most of those places—the responsible ones, at least—don't allow kids in specifically because they're so goddamn terrifying. The fact that her father signed a waiver allowing her to go in just to spite her mother is beyond horrific. It's fucking abusive. I don't know the man, but I already hate him. She deserved his protection, not that.

I was bullied by kids. She was traumatized by adults who should have known better. There is no comparison. And still, she dived right into trying to salvage this holiday for me, ignoring her feelings and trauma surrounding it. Because she wanted to make it better for me.

Christ, she's incredible.

Now, it's my turn to salvage some of it for her.

Fuck. I hope she finds this funny and doesn't think I'm a raging asshole.

"Do you trust me, unicorn?" I ask, stroking my fingers along her cheek.

"The jury is still out," she mutters, narrowing her eyes at me.

"I'm being serious, baby. Do you trust me to ensure that nothing bad happens to you? Because I won't allow anything to hurt you. I swear to you, I won't."

Hell will freeze over before I let anything happen to her. I've never needed much, but I need her, and I need her trust. Everything in me craves both on a level that's completely foreign to me. At this point, there isn't much I wouldn't do for her.

I don't need a lifetime to figure it out. Hell, I don't need weeks or months or years. Some shit is instinctive. This is one of those things. She is mine. Mine to protect. Mine to love. Mine in every goddamn way. I was meant to find her tonight. I feel it in my fucking bones.

She studies me for a heartbeat, her expression softening. "I trust you, Drake."

"Good." My fucking heart grows six sizes at her sweet confirmation. "Then I want you to close your eyes and press your face up against my throat. I'll carry you through the cemetery, and you won't have to see a single second of it. But I do want you to see what's on the other side."

Now, more than ever, I want her to see it. It's another secret I've never shared with anyone.

She hesitates for a split second and then nods bravely. "Okay." Her teeth immediately sink into her bottom lip. "But if I die in a graveyard, I will find you, and I will haunt you."

"You aren't dying in a graveyard. You aren't dying at all." I tap her button nose. "Close your eyes, pretty unicorn."

They reluctantly flutter closed.

I tuck her carefully up against my chest, gently pressing her face against my throat, and striding toward the cemetery. She's rigid in my arms, clearly not relaxed. Neither am I. Not with her lips against my throat. Not with every sweet breath pelting my skin. Not with her in my arms, so fucking soft and sweet.

But I grit my teeth against my body's reaction to her and stride forward. I parked facing the cemetery and left the lights on so we'd be able to see. There isn't much else out here to light the way. But with the lights of the truck and the moonlight, I find the path easily.

"I've been coming out here for years," I murmur to her. "I don't think anyone else in town even remembers this place exists. The people buried here died so long ago that they don't get visitors anymore."

"That's sad," she whispers.

"Yeah, it is. I keep the place cleaned up so it doesn't run wild. Figure someone should do it."

She relaxes slightly, melting into me.

"My favorite grave belongs to an old man named Bitter Smithers."

"That is not his name."

"I swear to you, it is," I say, chuckling at her scandalized tone. "And judging by his epitaph, the name fit the man, unicorn."

"What does it say?"

"Damn you to hell."

She giggles softly.

"He was one of the original founders of Midnight Falls, but he was a cranky bastard by all accounts. He hated everyone, and everyone hated him. I'm not entirely sure if the epitaph was his idea or someone else's."

I cross the last few feet of the cemetery and step through the rusty gate on the far side, moving carefully through a copse of trees and into the lot beyond.

The headlights don't penetrate on this side, but an old streetlight shines down on the overgrown lot, enough for her to see what we came to see.

I position her just right and then press my lips to her ear. "You can open your eyes now, unicorn."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive," I say, smiling.

She slowly lifts her head, glancing around.

"This is where the mansion was," I murmur, explaining. "The year after I fell, the town council voted to tear it down so no one else got hurt." Aside from an old stone foundation and a pile of rubble, nothing remains of the mansion. But the lot isn't empty. Not exactly.

"Why are there so many Halloween decorations, Drake?" she asks, looking from one display to another. "There have to be hundreds of them."

She's not wrong. Hundreds of the damn things litter the lot. Frankenstein is positioned so he looks like he's banging a masked serial killer from behind near a tree. A murderous, life-sized doll and a dummy in a Ghostface mask are sharing a beer on top of the pile of rubble. A group of zombies are playing soccer with a dead lady's head. Undead bears roast marshmallows on a pile of Halloween inflatables that no longer inflate. It's like every Halloween ghost, goblin, and bad guy decoration in town went rogue and claimed the goddamn lot.

I clear my throat, the tips of my ears burning. "I started stealing them out of yards right after they tore this place down," I confess. "But I didn't have anything to do with the damn things, so I just brought them here and dropped them off."

She turns to look up at me with wide eyes. "You stole all of these?"

"Not exactly," I mutter. "At first, I stole them out of the yards of the kids who bullied me. It was some petty revenge, I guess. I don't fucking know. But now, I just add one or two to the collection every year for the hell of it. The rest just kind of fucking show up." I run a hand down the back of my neck. "I don't know who else is stealing them and bringing them out here."

She covers her mouth with her hand, staring at me. And then a peal of laughter rings out around us. "Oh my gosh, Drake. You started a theft tradition! This whole place is a shrine to your thievery."

"I know! It's fucking awful," I groan, cringing. "I'm a goddamn criminal billionaire, unicorn. I started a theft revolution."

Another bright peal of laughter bursts from her lips, and fuck. I love that sounds so goddamn much.

I tangle my hand in her hair, dragging her mouth down to mine. Her laughter bleeds to a little whimper as I devour her lips, greedy and desperate.

She tastes so fucking good. I could kiss her like this all night and never grow tired of it. I want her taste branded on my senses. I want every damn second with her imprinted in my memory.

And I want her wrapped around my cock so badly it's ridiculous.

"Reach into my pocket, Madeline."

"Are you trying to get me to touch your dick again?"

"Only all night," I growl. "Reach into my pocket."

She shifts in my arms, reaching down to slip her hand into my pocket. The back of her knuckles grazes my erection before her fingers close around the tiny decoration I stole for her.

"Drake." She wrenches her mouth from mine, staring up at me with wide eyes as she drags her hand from my pocket. "Is this what I think it is?"

"It is." I grin at her. "I stole it before you decided to grab my cock. Figured if they bothered you so much, I'd at least get rid of one of them for you."

She squeaks like a little bird and flings her arms around my neck. "This is the best Halloween ever. And you're the best maybe-an-ax-murderer-ever, do you know that?"

"Yeah? You think so?"

"Yeah," she breathes, staring at me like I hung the goddamn moon. "I've never had this much fun escaping a party."

"Me either, unicorn. Me either." I brush my lips against hers, my heart threatening to beat out of my chest. "Go pick a spot for your stolen goods."

"I have a better plan." She flings it blindly over her shoulder, a devilish smirk on her face. "It can find its own home…and we can go check out the bodies in your basement."

"Christ," I groan, anchoring her to my body with my hands around her waist. "If you go home with me, you'll be in my bed tonight while I'm fucking you raw, unicorn. If you aren't ready for that, tell me now."

"Drake?" She wraps her arms around my neck, pressing her perfect tits up against me. "Stop being a gentleman and take me home with you already."

She's right. This is the best Halloween ever.