CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I wasn’t planning on casually strolling down the second floor to get the EVP recorder, anyway. I was going to get in and get out as fast as I could. Ignoring the warning look in Dex’s eyes, I turned and booked it down the hallway, not looking into any of the rooms—especially the room of dead rats—nor looking ahead of me in case there was something I didn’t want to see. I ran watching my feet, and as soon as I hit the stairs, I vaulted down them. Once I reached the school’s floor, I relaxed and walked quickly over to the nurses’ room without drawing attention to myself from the passing schoolteachers.
I knocked just in case Kelly was in there with a patient. When I didn’t hear anything, I opened the door and peered in. She wasn’t in her office, so I walked through all the way to our room. Now I had to remember where the EVP recorder actually was. I went through my bag first then brought out the one that housed the camera equipment.
“Hey.”
I nearly jumped out of my skin and flung myself around to see Dex coming through the door to Kelly’s office. He gently closed it behind him, then came in the room and closed that door too.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. “I was going to come right back.”
“I need to speak to you,” he said, his voice grave and rough. He walked over to me, standing a foot away. “You need to talk to me.”
“I need to talk to you?”
“Damn it, Perry,” he growled, reaching out to grab my arm, holding it tightly. “You can’t ignore me forever.”
My mouth flapped open. “I’m not ignoring you.”
“Bullshit. Bullshit.” He pulled me closer to him. “So stop it. And talk.”
I’d never seen him so distraught, so volatile before.
His eyes narrowed for a second as he observed me closely. Then he straightened up and said, “Fine. I’ll talk. Look, Perry, I don’t know what to say other than I’m sorry. But I don’t think I should be punished for something that happened in the past, something that happened before I ever met you.”
I looked away, feeling the bubble of disgust rise up in me. “I’m not punishing you. But how the hell do you think it makes me feel to learn that?”
“And that’s why I never wanted to tell you!”
I put my hands on my hips and backed away from him, trying to reclaim my personal space. “By not telling me it looked like you had something to hide.”
He grunted, shaking his head. “There was nothing to hide. Nothing. Don’t you get it?”
“Sex isn’t nothing.”
He stroked roughly at his jaw. “Yeah, well sometimes to me, it is.”
“Nice.”
“Well, it’s the f*cking truth. Do you want to know how it all started?”
“Uh, no.”
“I thought she was hot, okay?”
I grimaced, feeling stabs of pain in my gut. “I said I didn’t want to know.”
“She was hot,” he went on while my eyes widened incredulously. “And I’d just started the show and I was nervous. And she was upset over a breakup, and at the time I had no idea she was a lesbian. She just seemed like a flirt.”
I stuck my fingers in my ears. “La, la, la, la, la, can’t hear you!”
He pulled my fingers out, his grip hot and hard around my wrists. “Listen to me. We got drunk and it just happened. It wasn’t very good. It was awkward and I couldn’t figure out why. I couldn’t even come.”
I shut my eyes. “Dear god, I am going to murder you in your sleep if you don’t shut the f*ck up.”
“And,” he continued, “the next day she fessed up and said she was a lesbian and that she was sorry for leading me on. And I told her it was fine, because honestly, even if she didn’t turn out to be gay, I wouldn’t have f*cked her again. There was something missing from the start. So we obviously just decided to be friends and that was that. We never think about it, we never talk about it, because it was just that stupid funny thing that we once did. She’s like my sister, Perry, you know that.”
I glared at him. “A sister that you make all these inappropriate comments about. God, Dex, now I’m thinking back to all the times you talked about the three of us having a threesome.”
“Baby, you can’t possibly think I’m serious when I say that. That’s why I say it. It would never happen, and it should never happen, so it’s just funny. It’s harmless. If it wasn’t harmless, I wouldn’t dare joke about it.”
I glared at him, still unhappy. I tried to get out of his grasp but he held me firmly in place, his eyes blazing deep into me. “You should have told me,” I said.
“When?” he cried out. “When should I have told you? It has no bearing on our relationship, and it’s, frankly, none of your business.”
I bristled at that. “You’re an ass,” I seethed.
“I know,” he growled back. “You keep telling me. But even an ass deserves the benefit of the doubt from time to time. When would I have told you? Huh? When I first introduced you to Rebecca? Oh, this is my friend Rebecca. You should be friends with her. By the way, we once had terrible sex together. Or later on, maybe, when we started going out and she joined the show. Hey, now that we’re working as a threesome, here’s some interesting information that will make our jobs awkward as hell.” He finally let go of my hands with an exasperated sigh. “No, I don’t think so.”
Now that I was free, I turned away from him and walked over to the opposite wall, trying to get space and think. I know what Dex was saying and he made a lot of sense. I didn’t want to punish him over something he did prior to meeting me and I understood why he never told me. It didn’t mean I had to like it though. And it wasn’t the real reason why I was so upset. In the end, I didn’t think it had a lot to do with feelings of insecurity or betrayal. It was that I didn’t know this piece of information about Dex. And how could I expect to know everything when we’ve only been together for eight months? How well did we really know each other? >
“Are you done being mad yet?” he asked.
I almost was, but then his callous words made me snap my head around and send him daggers with my eyes. “Hey, give me a f*cking break, okay? Why don’t you put yourself in my f*cking shoes for once?”
He shook his head, his eyes burning, and stormed over to me until he was right up against me and my back was pressed against the wall. He put his hands at my hips, holding them tight, and leaned in so his face was just inches away. I could smell his sweet breath, count the gold flecks in his brown eyes, see the enviable length of his dark lashes. It was probably a bad time to have the thought, but sometimes there was nothing sexier than Dex when he was angry.
“Baby,” he murmured roughly, staring at me fixedly with half-closed eyes, “I try and put myself in your damn shoes every single day. Because you’re my girl. You’re my woman. You’re my partner. You’re my lover. And if I can’t try and f*cking understand you and that complex, crazy head of yours, then I’m not doing my job. Then I’m not worthy of you. I want to be worthy of you, baby. I want to know how you work, how you function, how you think. I want to know you so I can be there for you and be there with you. There’s not a day that I’m not trying to discover another one of your beautiful layers. So don’t say that I’m not in your shoes. I’ve been wearing them more than you think.”
Oh god. His words rendered me speechless and sent my heart into a tailspin. I could only stare back at him, my resolve melting into his warm hands.
“And I’m sorry,” he went on, licking his lips, still gazing at me seductively, “if I didn’t tell you about me and Rebecca. I wasn’t trying to hurt you—I wasn’t trying to do anything. All I think about is you, Perry. From the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep, and even in my dreams. I don’t think about my past anymore. I only think about my future. And you’re my f*cking future.”
Wow.
“You jerk,” I blurted out breathlessly. “I love you.”
He grinned at me as his eyes slid over to my lips. “That’s all I needed to hear.”
Then he kissed me. Hard.
Hard enough that the back of my head banged against the wall and I let out a cry of surprise that was buried by the intensity of his moan. His tongue was feverish, relentlessly f*cking the inside of my mouth, his lips soft and violent. I closed my eyes, immediately succumbing to the delicious feeling of him wanting me, of his obvious desire, of his brute strength and masculinity.
My hands went for his jacket, helping him shrug it off while he pulled my sweater and t-shirt over my head. He put his mouth to my neck, biting me sharply, his hands going to my bra and unclasping it from behind. I moaned as he licked the sore flesh of my neck with his tongue then continued licking up to my ear. As soon as his lips enveloped my earlobe, his heavy, lustful breathing making my skull buzz, I was as wet as sin and famished, desperate for him to be inside me. As if knowing this, his fingers swiftly unzipped my jeans and thrust themselves inside me—one, then two, then three at a time.
“F*ck you’re so wet,” he grunted, his mouth covering mine again. “I’ve never wanted you so badly.”
“You can f*cking have me,” I managed to say before I was overcome by his tongue again. He pushed his fingers further inside, making a motion that rubbed hard against my G-spot. I cried out, insane with pleasure, but still needing more. “Deeper,” I told him breathlessly. “Harder.”
“I’ll give you harder,” he said. I heard the unbuckling of his pants, and the stiff, solid length of his cock against my thigh. He pulled off the rest of my jeans, then grabbed the backs of my thighs and pulled me up. I wrapped my legs around his waist and he pressed me hard against the wall, the tip of his dick finding purchase within seconds, as if it was second nature. He pushed himself into me slowly and I widened for him, taking him in as deep as he could go without it being painful. I never felt better than when he was inside me, filling me up, making me feel whole.
He brought his head down to my breasts, biting and sucking them as he started thrusting deeper inside of me, his pace quickening.
“Harder,” I groaned.
He hissed in a breath through his teeth and I looked into his eyes, almost startled by their madness and intensity, the pure hunger that was rolling through him. He drove himself deep inside until I gasped and then he kept hammering me, one thrust after another until my head was banging against the wall, the pain a complete turn on. He’d never wanted me so badly and I’d never been so f*cking horny.
Pretty soon I was coming just from the feel of his cock inside me, of the crazed frenzy of our f*cking. But Dex had stamina. After my moans quieted down and I stopped clenching him from inside, he grabbed me around the waist and spun me around with a powerful cry. He slammed me down onto the counter, a bunch of medical textbooks and boxes of latex gloves clattering to the floor. The rest of the books and other items poked into my back as he tried to lay me flat, still pounding me with the same wild intensity. He looked like a man possessed by lust, and I had the perfect view of him, from his intense eyes and sexual sneer to his wide shoulders and hard, sculpted chest with those infamous words And With Madness Comes the Light. I loved the sight of his large, strong arms and skilled hands as they gripped the softness of my hips, the muscles in his forearms tensing as he ground in and out of me. His bronzed six-pack was taut with his movement and I knew his ass cheeks were flexing as he worked.
He smirked at me, the cocky bastard knowing I was gaping at him. He put his thumb onto my *, and the slick pressure had me coming again. I yelled out his name, taken by shock with this orgasm, my eyes not leaving his as he kept my heady spasms rolling through me. I was flying f*cking high, delirious and possibly insane, and yet he still drove deep inside me and I still wanted more.
“You’re being a little greedy,” he grunted as he stared down at me, his lips parted, chest heaving from the strain.
“You’re being a little generous,” I lazily said back to him. “Are you afraid of coming?”
“Baby, I could go all night.”
“You know we can’t. Let me finish you off.” I tried to push back with my elbows so I could sit up and suck him off, but he just growled at me, wrapping his hands tight around the small of my waist.
“Oh, you will,” he stated huskily. He pulled me off the counter and placed me down on his bed before immediately flipping me over and pulling my ass high in the air. “Just f*cking perfect,” he murmured as his lips and tongue trailed over the soft mounds, taking his time to try and lick me to death. I groaned, about to lose my mind as I felt the pressure inside me building up again.
He pulled his head away, and while stroking me softly with one finger, pushed himself inside me again. His grip on my hips tightened. “Sweet Jesus, you’re so f*cking beautiful,” he whispered, his breath hitching. I could feel his eyes scanning over my bare body. “So beautiful. I’m so damn lucky, baby. You have no idea.” His began to pick up the pace, both his thrusts and his finger becoming quicker. “I’m going to come now. Oh god, I just want to come.”
“Then come,” I growled at him. He started banging me harder, the bed moving back and forth, his balls slapping against my ass. The swirl of his fingers tightened, the pressure increasing, until once again I was reaching the brink. The result was explosive, violent. I came harder than ever—an out of body experience—before plunging deep into a wave that drowned me in pleasure. I cried out his name, expletives, and then I was just crying, a few tears leaking out while I tried to comprehend the feelings rushing though me and knocking me off my feet.
Dex came at the same time, his fingers digging sharply into my hips, holding on as if he’d lose me otherwise. He grunted loudly, gasping for air, letting loose the pressure inside as he pounded the last of himself into me.
I fell forward, flattening against the bed in exhaustion, and a spent, naked Dex tried to spoon me on the single bed, wrapping his arms around me, his ragged breaths at my ear.
“I love you,” he whispered between exhales. “More than you know.”
“I love you,” I told him back, meaning every word.
And then the room went black.
As in, the lights just went out.
“The f*ck?” Dex asked.
I tried to sit up without edging Dex off the bed. We had been plunged into darkness.
“Did the power go out?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said quietly. “But I’d really appreciate it if you kept your arms around me.”
“Don’t worry, kiddo,” he assured me. “It’s probably just the storm. It will come back on.”
“You do realize where we are, right?”
I felt him smile against my cheek. “I do. A haunted school. And look who said she could only come in this place if I had two dicks. Well, guess what, baby. You came three times on just one cock. You should never underestimate my penis again.”
“Believe me, I won’t,” I said. While it was obvious the power was out, we also weren’t alone in the school. I could hear people in the halls walking, chattering loudly, their voices high and anxious. Through the frosted glass of the door to the nurse’s office I could see a scarce amount of light shining in, just a dull glow.
“You’d think their generator would be coming on,” I said to him, picking up on the anxiety of the staff and students in the halls.
Suddenly we heard the door to the office open and saw the moving beam of a flashlight. A wide silhouette paused outside our door.
“Hello?” Davenport’s shrill voice shot through us. “Anyone in there?”
Shit.
“Just a minute!” I yelped. Dex and I both tried to get off the bed at the same time, resulting in both of us tumbling to the floor. I landed half on his back and half on my side. “F*cker!”
I scrambled to my feet, trying to figure out where my clothes were. They were clear across the room with Dex’s clothes. No way we could find them in the dark without injuring ourselves.
“Kiddo,” Dex said, and suddenly I was enveloped with a blanket. “Cover up.” I felt him stand behind me, holding my shoulders. “Come on in!” he yelled.
The door opened and I automatically winced from the flashlight Davenport was holding in her hands and aiming right at us. Her mouth dropped open before she quickly snapped it shut and gave us an unimpressed once-over.
“I came to tell you that the power in the school is out,” she said. ”You may or may not have noticed.”
“We noticed,” I said, holding the blanket tighter around my boobs, hoping that naked Dex was well hidden behind me. Thank god for my wide hips.
Just then, Rebecca came inside, holding the camera and our own light.
“Oh,” she cried out softly when she saw us. She raised her thin brow. “I see.”
Just claiming back my man, I thought, which was totally petty. But whatever, I was still pretty miffed at her for telling me about her and Dex the way she did.
Davenport shook her head and clucked her tongue. “At any rate, I’m glad you three are here. The power has gone out because of the storm. We’re sending everyone home. We do have a generator here, but it’s not enough to power everything we need. Carl can keep it running for you, but it would just be in the cafeteria so the food doesn’t spoil. You’d have to move yourselves down there—keep in mind I don’t want anyone sleeping in the kitchen. That’s unhygienic.”
The cafeteria was one of the few places on this floor we hadn’t really been in; we just had a little look when Kelly was taking us around. It also wasn’t a place I felt like holing up in. Though it wasn’t a big space, there was something extremely unsettling about empty cafeterias and kitchens at night. I think I developed a healthy fear of them after Jurassic Park.
“Well,” Dex said slowly, “what do you think?”
“I find it hard to talk to you when you’re naked, Dex,” Rebecca said.
I kept my mouth shut, biting my lip hard. I looked over at Davenport. “Will Carl be staying to clean up?”
“No,” she said with that patented brand of disdain. “He’s being sent home as well, which is why I need to know now what your plans are. The generator will be going on for the fridges and freezers but he needs to know if it will go to the heat and lights in the cafeteria as well.”
I looked over my shoulder and up at Dex. “It’s up to you.”
I didn’t quite feel like staying in that place with the power all out, and I definitely didn’t like the idea of the cafeteria. But it was our last show and it was our last night. No doubt we could stay at a motel tonight and come back tomorrow to film, but I knew once I was out of here, I wasn’t coming back.
He nodded as if he understood what I was thinking. He looked to Rebecca. “How about it? Give it a shot?”
You could see she was less than thrilled as well and probably not for the paranormal reasons. Dex and I had very obviously made up, but things between her and me and her and Dex were still strained, leading to one awkward night.
Still, she was a trooper. Either that or terribly stubborn. Probably both. She smiled tightly. “I’m game if you are.”
Davenport made an unimpressed noise. “Suit yourself.” She walked over to the counter where we had made a mess and put down her flashlight. “You might need this to find your pants, Mr. Foray.” She pivoted on her heel and left the room.
“I’ll give you a moment,” Rebecca said as she followed Davenport out into the hall. I shut the door then propped the flashlight up so it lit the room, putting my jeans and my Master of Puppets sweatshirt back on while Dex quickly slipped on his clothes. >
“So how are you feeling about this?” he asked as he slipped into his jacket.
“About the hot sex?” I asked as I gathered my hair back into a ponytail.
He smiled. “About staying the night. You sure that’s what you want?”
I nodded and rubbed my lips together. “Yeah. But I mean, if one thing goes wrong, I’m leaving and I’m not coming back. We’re done here. Once I set foot outside, I never want to return to this place ever again.”
“Right with ya, baby. And you won’t ever have to do this show again.”
My face fell slightly. I couldn’t help it. “You know, I will miss it.”
“So will I,” he said, coming over to me and wrapping me into his arms. “But you’re the best part of it. As long as I have you, I don’t care what I’m doing.”
“Same.” I pulled away and looked at him carefully. “Except amateur porn.”
“Aww,” he said. “You’re killing all my dreams here.”
I punched him in the chest then quickly kissed him. “We should go see the ruckus.”
We gathered up the flashlight and went out into the hall. There were only a handful of teachers loitering in the marble-tiled foyer and a few kids holding hands and being led by a teacher out onto the front lawn. Brenna was there on the front steps, typing something into her phone, Jody hanging by her side, while the wind blew violently, shaking the pine trees. Once Jody spotted us, her eyes lit up and she ran back inside.
“The power went out!” Jody exclaimed.
“We know,” I said. “Were you scared?”
She shook her head. “Nah. It’s just nature.”
“Hey,” Brenna said as she came over. “I just talked to Rebecca,” she said, motioning that Rebecca was somewhere out in the parking lot. “She said you guys are actually staying the night.”
“Squatting in the cafeteria,” Dex told her. “At least we will have an endless supply of those really tiny ice cream cups. The ones with the tiny wooden spoon.” He made the spoon motion with his hand.
“Nice try,” Brenna said gleefully. “Our school has a gluten-free, non-dairy menu. Hope you like frozen soy milk.”
He made a face. “Soy milk. Ugh. Tastes like jizz.”
I gave him a curious look. “And how do you know that?”
“I have bad aim sometimes,” he said. He looked back to Brenna and smiled lightly. “We might be gone by morning so we just wanted to say good luck and thank you for showing us around.”
Brenna was still blushing red at Dex’s bad aim comment but she smiled. “Thank you. And good luck to both of you. I’m sorry I couldn’t be as much help as I wanted. When Rebecca and I figured you weren’t coming back, the only thing we captured was the rubber ball moving slightly, but I think it was the wind. That’s what she thinks anyway. Sorry the tour was a dud.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, and thanked her. She gave us a wave and headed out the door, holding out her hand for Jody. “Come on, Jody.”
Jody looked back at Dex and I. “Bye.” Then she looked at Dex and raised her little arms for a hug. Dex crouched down, smiling broad enough that his dimples stuck out, and let Jody put her arms around him.
God damn it if my uterus didn’t swoon. I’m sorry, but I needed to have that man’s babies.
Then as Jody pulled away, I could have sworn she whispered something in Dex’s ear, enough to make him frown momentarily. Then she grinned up at me and waved. “Bye, Perry. Bye, Elliot!” I followed her gaze which shifted to a spot behind me. Elliot was standing at the foot of the stairs, hat in hand, staring at us meekly. “Take care of them,” Jody added before she turned and skipped away, joining Brenna.
Brenna gave us a wary look to say that she had seen Elliot too, then she turned and they both disappeared out into the storm.
I looked back behind me at Elliot, but he was gone.
“Did you see him?” I asked Dex.
He nodded. “Yep.”
“What did Jody say to you?”
“Just now?”
“Yeah.”
His expression became darker. “She said watch out for the ones that look like you.”
“What?”
A teacher walked past us and both Dex and I smiled politely and moved ourselves away from the front door. He leaned into me, lowering his voice. “I think she might mean doppelg?ngers, even though she doesn’t really know what they are.”
“Doppelg?ngers?” I whispered back. “Why would there be doppelg?ngers here?”
He shrugged, eyes still dark. “Why not? This is a genuine house of horror, Perry. There are ghost kids and demons and who knows what else. Doppelg?ngers make sense. This amount of sadness and death and pain is going to bring in a lot of very bad things.”
“I think I saw one last night,” I admitted.
He shot me a sharp look. “When? Who?”
“When I left the break room and came back to you guys. I saw Rebecca in the hallway, heading to the bathroom. She even turned and looked at me. But when I got in the room, I saw Rebecca in bed.”
“Are you sure it was the real Rebecca in bed?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t think you could interact with doppelg?ngers. You just see them.”
“Did she talk to you? The one in bed?”
“Yes. She said she was sorry. You were awake. Didn’t you hear her?”
“Yeah.” He scratched his head. “She was probably legit.”
I almost laughed at how blasé he sounded. “How else can you tell though?”
“I have no idea,” he said. “I suppose the doppelg?nger wouldn’t know the real you, wouldn’t know your thoughts. They’re an imposter as much as they’re a double. Funny that it took us this long to encounter one, don’t you think?”
“Better never than late,” I said just as Rebecca came back in the building, her normally coiffed hair in a mess around her face, the camera light in her hand.
“Stormy,” Dex commented, pointing out the obvious.
Woo boy. The awkward evening had already begun.
Rebecca pushed her hair away from her eyes. “It’s a real ripper. Maybe we should start moving everything into the cafeteria now. In fact, perhaps we should start filming as soon as possible. It’s still light outside, which means there’s at least some light coming in through all the windows. It’ll be easier to see that way.”
And less scary, I added to myself. With the last of the staff heading out of the building and into the storm, we headed down the hall to move our belongings and prepare for one last night.