Out of the Dark Read online

  He said nothing, stunned that she’d bothered to check up on him. At how easy it had been for her. How stupid he’d been not to be more careful.

  “I don’t always burn the evidence. There are other ways to hide it, but burning…feels the best.” Saying it out loud that way sounded crazier than anything else he’d told her. Psychotic. “It’s the only way I’m sure they can’t come back.”

  She tugged her lower lip between her teeth, her brow furrowed. “You could chop them into little pieces.”

  Luke blinked. She didn’t look like she was yanking his chain. “Takes too long. Too messy.”

  “Ah. Right. Makes sense.” Celia nodded. “Sounds gross.”

  “Celia,” Luke began, thinking there had to be a way to make sure she wasn’t just humoring him. The only thing worse than having her think he was some psycho maniac who believed he killed and burned monsters would be having her not believe they were real.

  She cut him off. “I don’t know why I believe you. Maybe it is some twisted thing inside me that always goes for the guys who are the most likely to run off, but at least your excuse is original. Freaking scary as hell, but original.”

  “It’s not an excuse. It’s real.”

  “The attack was real. I know that.” She paused with another small smile at what must’ve been his look of surprise. “The internet, Luke. I looked everything you told me up on the ‘net. It’s exactly how you said it happened, though the paper says the cave-in was from natural causes, your injuries from that. But do you know what else I found while I was searching?”

  He shook his head.

  “Two days after your cave-in, a farmer two towns away reported three of his cattle had been mutilated. Half-eaten. Speculation was coyotes or even a mountain lion. They’re rare in Pennsylvania, but they’re around. I read one report on some wackadoo site that said it was probably aliens. Nobody claimed it was blood-sucking ghouls from underground…but I figure that’s just because nobody thought of it.” Celia drew in a sharp breath. Her smile this time looked a little pained. “You never told me where you were, all those times you called. But like I said, all it takes is time and a good search engine.”

  “You believe me?”

  “I don’t know, Luke,” she told him. “Everything about it says I shouldn’t trust you. In fact, I should be calling the cops, not feeding you meat loaf and whiskey at three in the morning, or taking you upstairs to my bed.”

  Another flash, this time of her kneeling in front of him. His ears burned. A low noise escaped his throat, and she did that head-tilt thing again to look him over. Her tongue touched her upper lip for just a second.

  “When I was down there, in the dark,” Luke said, surprised he could speak with his throat gone so dry, “all I could think about, after getting away from them, was making sure there weren’t any of them left alive. So that nothing like that could ever happen to anyone else. To you.”

  Her lashes fluttered, and her lips thinned for a moment. She was, he saw with some alarm, trying not to cry. He was out of his chair so fast it rocked backward and hit the floor with a clatter. She was in his arms a second or two after that. He meant only to reassure her that he meant what he’d said, but just as she’d met him at the door with her mouth, Celia kissed him again now.

  “Take me upstairs, Luke.”

  Eight or even six months ago, he might’ve been able to lift her for a minute or so, made his way a few stumbling feet to a bed. Months of physical effort had honed his muscles, corded in his arms. Tightened his thighs and belly and chest. It wasn’t anything he’d worked at on purpose, not the way he’d once spent hours in the gym trying to push his body into making a six-pack. This new strength meant he could scoop her up, one arm under her thighs, the other around her back, and take her in several long strides down the front hall to the stairs. Then up them. Then to her bedroom, her mouth fused to his, her hands already sliding under his T-shirt.

  She cried out when he fell with her onto the bed. Her back arched as he pushed her T-shirt up over her belly and found the soft skin with his mouth. She smelled so good, tasted so sweet. He could only think about getting his lips and teeth and tongue against her. His hands tilted her ass up, her boxers already down her thighs. He found her pussy with his kiss. He drank her in.

  Celia’s fingers skated over the bristles of his hair, then traced his ears, skittered along his shoulders. She parted her legs wider for him, giving him complete access, and Luke took it. He found her clit, tugged it with his lips and listened to her answering groan. He used two fingers to slide inside her, curling gently. She was slick already. Hot. His cock filled as he imagined how it would feel to push inside her.

  But first…this.

  He spread her open with his thumbs to lap at her clit; another groan rumbled out of her. He thought she said his name, but it was lost in a sigh. He tried to remember what sort of pace she liked, how hard or soft, how steady to keep his stroke. He lost himself in her smell and taste, her heat, the smoothness inside when he slipped in a couple fingers again.

  She came faster than he expected. The beat and pulse of her clit and contractions around his fingers were hard and strong, and her hips bucked. Luke let his lips just brush her as he slid his fingers free of her heat.

  When he looked up at her, Celia was blinking, her hair tumbled over her face. She’d pushed up on her elbows to look down at him. “Condoms,” she said succinctly, pointing to the bedside table.

  He remembered. He got one from the box, realized he still wore all his clothes and tossed her the package before stripping as fast as he could. She watched him, admiration clear on her face, and when he moved toward her, she gripped his cock with one hand to sheathe him with the rubber.

  Things stuttered for a minute, but only for that long, until she looked into his eyes and lay back to pull him on top of her. He guided himself inside her, and it was better even than he’d remembered. Tight pussy around him, her mouth on his, her heels hooking over his ass. Her nails digging into his shoulders and the whisper of her voice in his ear.

  “Now, Luke.”

  During these long months there’d been days when he’d forgotten to shower, to eat, been unable to sleep. Fucking would’ve been out of the question, too much effort for his overstressed body. Still, through it all, the memory of her touch, her taste, her scent had never left him. He’d thought about seeing her again. Of making love to her, spending hours mapping her body with his hands and tongue. Of some kind of elegance, or at the very least skill, not some haphazard fumbling like a kid getting to home base on prom night.

  She gave a low, throaty chuckle that set the hairs on the back of his neck to rising. “God, Luke, fuck me now.”

  He moved inside her. Celia arched again, then tilted her hips to take him deeper. She gasped, biting her lower lip. Her hair spread out beneath her on the pillow and she breathed out. Her nails dug deeper; she would wound him, leave her mark, and of all the scars he’d gained this past year, Luke knew he’d never get rid of the ones Celia left.

  He didn’t want to.

  She’d gone down on him earlier and given him the best head he’d ever had, but it was like his cock had forgotten it had ever been satisfied. Now his orgasm built and built, and he tried to hold off, to make it last just a little longer. To maybe at least give her the chance to come again.

  Celia groaned and clutched at him. He couldn’t feel her pussy contracting on his dick, but he could remember how it had felt on his fingers, and when she choked a small series of cries, he knew she was coming again. The thought of it tipped him over the edge, and he hurtled into an abyss of pleasure so intense he thought he might very well have died and gone to someplace beyond.

  Only for a couple minutes though, before the real world swirled back into existence around him. He’d collapsed on top of her, and though she wasn’t protesting, he moved to the side to keep from crushing her. She sighed when he did, and turned on her side to look at him.

  “I’ll always let y