Hot and Haunted Read online

  A bear. Made perfect sense. Especially with the security measures in place. “What about those tracks through the drifts?”

  “That was me. I was trying to see how fucked we are.”

  “Yeah? How fucked are we?” This time Miranda sat up.

  He shrugged. “Fucked. The Expedition is buried in drifts. I couldn’t get anyone on my phone. Cell service is out.”

  “Maybe there’s an emergency radio around here somewhere? And some food; I’m starving.”

  “There are Twinkies in the cupboard above the sink.”

  “Twinkies?” she asked, wrinkling her nose. “Isn’t there anything else?”

  “How are you at cooking over a fire?”

  “I don’t cook with a microwave, let alone in a cauldron over a fire like some wicked witch.”

  “Me either, and cold spam doesn’t sound appetizing.”

  “I’m surprised at how warm it is in here.” She crawled up onto the couch, wrapping the sleeping bag around her feet, an action at odds with her statement.

  “Some people use the fireplace or even a cookstove to warm their homes here.” Aden built the fire bigger. “So it’s probably built in such a way to do just that.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “My grandmother lived on Lake Homme Dieu, not too far from here. She used a cookstove.” He sat down next to her on the couch, pulling his boots off. “Now come here, woman. I’m freezing my ass off.”

  She slid into his arms easily, enjoying the way he felt wrapped around her. “Yeah, you better stick those little piggies in front of the fire before you try to tuck them under this blanket. I have a 9mm and I know how to use it,” she teased.

  Piggies. Little Piggies. Little pig, little pig . . . Miranda pushed the thought out of her head. His hand slid up under the blanket, testing her resolve.

  “You’ve got a hard heart, Marshal Garrick.”

  “Don’t you forget it, Agent Brewster.”

  Another chorus of howls began, the sound cutting straight through her flesh into her bones. She didn’t realize she’d thrown herself into his lap until he laughed and held her closer.

  “City girl.”

  “You bet your sweet ass,” she agreed readily. “God, I feel like I’m in some stupid horror movie.”

  “Well don’t worry. I’m not going to say I’ll be right back if I go outside to check on a noise.”

  “Why would you need to go outside to check a noise? Look at the size of that dead bolt, and the guns are in here. Problem solved.”

  “You have way too many clothes on to be discussing horror flicks.” He tugged at the hem of her shirt underneath the blanket.

  “The big-breasted chick always dies. I’m keeping the girls covered.”

  “You’ve already had sex, so you die anyway. Didn’t you watch Scream?” He cupped her breasts. “Might as well let me enjoy the time I have left.”

  “Nice,” she drawled.

  “You know I wouldn’t let anything get you,” Aden said as he peeled the blanket away from her. “Besides. Anything out there not afraid of me would definitely be afraid of you. You’re a scary bitch, Red.”

  She let the nickname slide; Miranda wasn’t at all positive she’d heard him correctly anyway, and his hands were doing the most delicious things to her tits. Her eyes had narrowed to slits as she watched him dip his head to the pink peak he’d bared.

  He still had his hat on.

  Under any other circumstances, that might have been funny. But not here, not now.

  Because with all of his pretty dark hair disguised by the hat, he looked a lot like the pictures of Dean Harvey Webster.

  She froze under his touch, her body stiff and unresponsive.

  Dear fucking Christ, it couldn’t be. Dean Harvey Webster kept his head shaved, he had thick eyebrows that met in the middle—and yet, she tried to protect herself from the impact of finishing that thought.

  She could never unthink it.

  It would always be there, waiting to pounce on her like a giant brown recluse.

  “What’s wrong, Red?”

  “Don’t call me that,” she growled through gritted teeth.

  “Why don’t you like it? It’s so apt. And it’s not just your hair. It’s your fire, your temper . . .” He laughed.

  Dean Harvey Webster. Dean Harvey Webster . . . the name repeated itself over and over in her head in a damning litany. And the thought that she’d refused to acknowledge stood up and shook the foundations of her world. Aden Brewster. Dean Webster. Practically anagrams. She’d bet her life on the fact they were if she found out Aden’s middle name, but she couldn’t ask him because then he’d know she’d put it together.

  She’d never actually inspected his credentials. He’d seemed to know right where to look for the method of escape, but he’d been content to point and hint until she found it, when she’d been about to step off the ledge. It wasn’t preternatural sight he had; he was just familiar with the setting. Why Jimmy Bancroft had submitted when he came on the scene.

  It was how he knew these cottages were here.

  Because he’d been here before.

  Occam’s razor said the simplest explanation was the best. Which was more likely? The various and sundry reasons why he knew things he shouldn’t? His penchant for calling her Red? Or the one reason that explained everything—that he was the serial killer she hunted, and he was right under her goddamn nose laughing at her?

  Those glorious hands of his that wrought such pleasure from her body, that played her senses like a well-tuned instrument, they were covered in blood. The mouth that had kissed her had tasted—she almost vomited.

  She choked back her bile. Miranda couldn’t let him know that she was on to him or he’d kill her. Fuck, she wondered what he’d done while she slept in his arms.

  “I just don’t,” she answered finally. “Every scumbag on both sides of the bars thinks it’s cute.”

  “I wonder how long it would take to make you like it.” Aden pushed her back onto the couch, his knee between her thighs.

  Miranda let him, God help her, she let him. She could lie to herself and say that she had to play along so he wouldn’t notice the change in her and wonder what had brought it about. That it was some kind of defense mechanism, but it wasn’t.

  She still wanted him. Wanted his hands on her, his mouth, his tongue. His cock. It made her sick, but heat flared in her belly in expectation of the pleasure to come.

  “I despise it, and even if you call me that every time you make me come, I’ll still hate it.”

  “You know I love a challenge.” Aden kissed her neck, grazed his teeth over the delicate pulse in her throat, and she shivered with both fear and desire.

  “It’s not a challenge,” she reiterated, but doubted he took her seriously because she pulled him down to her even as she spoke.

  “I can’t wait to hear you scream for me again,” he growled, his breath hot against her ear.

  Anticipation knotted around the desire, threading it with fear. A million sharp replies about it being his turn to scream for her were on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t make herself say them. She couldn’t make herself say anything.

  Not even stop.

  She didn’t want to. Miranda was trapped with him, and everything he did to her felt so fucking good. She was safe for now, he wasn’t done playing with her—and then when she walked away from this with him in chains, she could say she didn’t know. He fooled her the way he’d fooled everyone else.

  She writhed beneath him and found her voice. “So make me scream, Aden.”

  “You have such a wicked little mouth on you.”

  “All the better to suck you with.” He groaned, and she reached between them to grasp his cock through his pants, teasing the hard ridge with light fingers.

  “That won’t make you scream, Miranda. Or make that breathy little sound of pleasure. Or that frustrated growl when I’ve got you so fucking close you can taste it but are stoppe