Fearless In Love (The Maverick Billionaires, Book 3) (24 page)

“Isn’t Thing the weird hairy creature?”

Susan laughed and ruffled her son’s hair. “No, dear, but that’s apt since you need a haircut. Thing is the severed hand.”

Daniel held up his arm, pulling back the sleeve of his jacket. “See, I came in costume. I’m Thing. I just haven’t been severed yet.”

They all laughed, and it was so good to feel like one of them even if she wasn’t. Not yet. Not until Matt was ready to let himself love her the way she was sure he wanted to. But she understood how past experiences made you scared to trust or to risk. So she’d be patient, no matter how badly she wanted to hear him say
I love you
.

“Where’s Sebastian, dear?” Susan asked, her hand on Will’s arm.

“He and Charlie are up at the haunted house putting on the last-minute touches.”

Harper looped her arm through Will’s. “Charlie was wonderful in lending her artistic talents for the haunted house. Did you see it up on the hill?” She waved in the general direction. “Jeremy wanted to do something fun, and they’ve gone all out for him with scary creatures. She made a lot of them, in papier-mâché instead of metal. And there’s—”

Jeremy pulled on her arm. “
Har-purr
,” he said with huge exaggeration. “Don’t spoil the surprise.”

Harper put her hand over her mouth. “Oops.”

“Oh my.” Susan gasped. “Will you look at that dashing figure?”

Everyone in their group looked up the stairs. Matt descended dressed in an immaculate tux that fit him so closely it defined every one of his magnificent muscles. He’d slicked his hair back, and he sauntered down the steps like he owned the world. Which he undoubtedly did.

Ari’s mouth went dry just watching him. He held out his hand to her when he reached the bottom, saying, “Bond. James Bond. At your service.”

She shook his hand in a daze, feeling heat all the way to her toes. He was so polished and perfect. She wished she’d dressed as a Bond girl to match him.

Then, realizing too late that everyone’s eyes were on them, she withdrew her hand, sliding it behind her back to hide how his touch affected her.

“Daddy, guess who I am?” Noah was bouncing, his T-Rex tail hitting the floor.

“Oh no, it’s T-Rex!” Matt cowered, throwing his arms out in fear. Noah roared, a loud, perfect rumble that shut down all conversation for three seconds while everyone in the hall stared.

“It’s going to get me,” Matt cried and ran in small steps so Noah could catch him.

“Really,” Daniel drawled. “James Bond should have more dignity.”

“At least I dressed up,” Matt said, pulling on Noah’s tail.

“You’re just wearing your tux.”

Matt suddenly crouched in a Bond shooting stance, reaching quick as lightning behind his back to draw out a gun, and shooting Daniel with a stream of water. “Bull’s-eye.”

Just like that, Ari fell in love with him all over again.

It was his laughter, the water pistol, the way he’d played the terrified victim with Noah. And how beautiful he was in that tux. You could love a friend. You could lust after a man. But with both lust and love coming together, it was enough to make a girl swoon.

Noah grabbed Matt’s hand. “Daddy, take a picture and send it to Mommy. I want her to see T-Rex.”

Matt shot a quick glance at Ari, and the look said so much. Irene was the ghost in Noah’s funhouse—and if he didn’t hear back from his mother, he’d be hurt all over again.

Quickly hiding his reaction, Matt said, “Sure, buddy.” He caught a shot of Noah roaring, then texted it. “It’ll scare her to death.”

Thankfully, two seconds later, his phone pinged. Irene had sent back a terrified smiley face followed by lots of heart emoticons, which made Noah laugh.

For one long moment, Ari felt as if she were alone in the hall with Matt, everyone watching Noah, only Matt’s gaze on her, communicating silently. He could have refused to take the picture. But he’d done the right thing, giving Noah the contact with his mother that made him so happy.

She wanted to reach out to touch Matt even if the time wasn’t right. And she might have if Jeremy hadn’t started to chant, “Haun-ted house. Haun-ted house.” Noah joined in, then Susan and Bob, and finally the downstairs filled with the cry.

Will climbed two stairs and clinked his glass. “Silence!” he called out. “Let me see if the ghosts are haunting.” Reaching into his Bride of Frankenstein pocket for his phone, he pushed his wig slightly out of the way so he could put the cell to his ear. A few seconds later, he held up the phone and yelled, “The haunt is on!”

The cheers were deafening.

“You’ve all got your tickets.” Cinderella had handed them out along with the drinks. “Rob the bartender will call the numbers every fifteen minutes. We’ve got a shuttle bus in front to take you to the haunted house when your number is up.”

A shuttle bus. A real haunted house. So
this
was how billionaires did Halloween.

“I didn’t get a ticket,” Noah pouted.

Will leaned down, almost toppling his wig. “That’s because you get to go on the first bus. You’re special.”

“Wow,” Noah said with a huge smile. “I’m special.”

Will said to the adults, “Privileges of being a Maverick—we all get to go first.”

“But Evan and Whitney and Paige aren’t here yet,” Susan said.

“We can’t keep this crowd waiting,” Will replied. “They might attack with pitchforks.”

The Bride of Frankenstein gathered up his monster and his doctor and led the way to the first shuttle bus. Ari slid into a seat and Matt followed, pulling Noah onto his lap, the dinosaur tail sticking into the aisle.

Like a brand, she felt Matt’s heat through the thin material of her gypsy skirt. And she wished she hadn’t made that promise—to them both—not to touch him while they were here.

* * *

Ari was beyond gorgeous as a gypsy girl, her midriff bared, her calves laced with gladiator-style sandals. The cleavage in the deep vee of her tight, sparkly top made all of Matt’s pistons fire.

He’d stood at the top of the stairs watching her for long moments before coming down. She was so natural, so easy and real as she’d laughed and joked with the Mavericks, with Noah, with Susan and Bob. She fit so well with everyone he cared about, the way Harper and Jeremy did, the way Charlie and her mother, Francine, did.

He’d wanted to claim Ari in front of everyone. But how could he when he was still unable to shake the feeling that, ultimately, he wouldn’t be able to be there for her when she needed him most?

Can’t stick up for nothing and nobody.

His father’s voice still plagued him. And it was true that he hadn’t yet found her brother. Hell, he hadn’t even been able to tell her how he felt.

But God help him, he still couldn’t stop touching her.

Noah grabbed the seat in front to shout with glee at Susan, and Matt leaned close to whisper against Ari’s ear. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to keep my hands off you when you’re dressed like that.”

“As a matter of fact, you aren’t,” she whispered back as she shook his wandering hand off her thigh.

“Oh. Yeah. Sorry. It just happened.”

“Liar,” she whispered. But she couldn’t hide her smile—or the glimmer in her eyes that said she loved the fact that he was driven to touch her. And while guilt simmered low in his gut and knowing he hadn’t yet declared his feelings for her, he simply couldn’t put any distance between them. Not when they’d been so close over the past three days. He craved that closeness now.

The bus zigged and zagged up the winding drive to Will’s workshop, where he and Jeremy had built the Cobra. Next to it, workmen had toiled for the last month constructing a haunted house right out of
Psycho
, complete with a long set of stairs leading to it. For safety, Will had installed lighting on the steps and in the spooky graveyard alongside it. But inside it would be dark and scary. And intimate.

Dark enough, he hoped, to get his hands on Ari for a moment or two.

Clambering out of the shuttle, Noah pulled at his hand, surging ahead as scary calliope music played like at the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland. “Daddy, Daddy, we gotta be first.”

Matt would have preferred to be last, so no one would see him grab Ari. But Noah couldn’t be held back.

Hands pushed Matt forward. “Come on. Little kids gotta see.” That was Bob, maybe Daniel too.

Noah grabbed Ari’s hand as the doors opened automatically into near pitch darkness. Red laser lights flashed on, splashing the front hall as if it were covered in blood. A man laughed from an overhead chandelier, and the red lights caught his dangling feet.

The laser lights led them along a hallway, where a door opened suddenly and a mummy grabbed for Noah. He squealed and jumped and wrapped an arm around Ari’s leg. “It’s the mummy from the museum,” he whispered with awe.

The mummy retreated, and the door slammed. It had been so lifelike that Matt thought a real person might be under all those bandages.

The house was filled with eerie sounds, doors slamming, and things that went bump in the night. The laser lights herded everyone along the designated path of mummies, ghosts, vampires, shapeshifters, fire-breathing dragons, headless bodies, or sometimes just dozens of eyes staring out, blinking, coming closer, closer. The long zigzag hall ended, and they were forced up a set of steps. Hands reached out to grab, and Noah was constantly shrieking with delight and terror.

Upstairs, they were handed blindfolds by a woman dripping blood, and they entered an old-fashioned gag room with bowls of fake eyeballs and beating hearts and entrails that you stuck your hands into. Noah laughed and screamed and
eww
ed. Ari shrieked right along with him, especially when Matt put his cold, wet hand on the sliver of bare back between her skirt and top.

She slapped at him and pulled her blindfold down far enough to playfully glare at him. Of course, he wasn’t wearing his blindfold. How else was he supposed to find her?

They toured bedrooms that turned cold and beds that rose off the floor while ghostly sounds surrounded them. The old attic rattled with chains, and bones rolled across the floor. And everywhere, gory, scary creatures jumped out unexpectedly.

Noah was thrilled, shouting and giggling all the while. Clawed hands grabbed his dinosaur tail, pretending to drag him away, until Ari rescued him from the beast.

At last, they exited out a side door that led them through the graveyard filled with eerie sounds and ghostly clankings, finally making it down to the drive just as another busload of partygoers was climbing up the front steps.

“That was so fun.” Jeremy bounced as excitedly as Noah.

“Daddy.” Noah tugged hard on Matt’s hand. “I wanna go again.”

“Me too,” Jeremy cried with equal enthusiasm.

“Aren’t you hungry, buddy?” Matt asked. “I’m starving so bad it hurts.”

Will elbowed him. “You always are.”

“We’ll take him back through.” Susan leaned down to Noah. “I was so scared I want to do it all over again.”

They were about to part, half of them heading to the bus to go down, the other half following the group who’d just entered, when Charlie appeared out of nowhere. Sebastian was right behind her, his hands on her.

Sebastian always had his hands on Charlie, and for the first time, Matt understood why. He felt the same way about Ari, and with a light tug on her skirt, he signaled her to come with him rather than following the others back into the house.

“That was brilliant, Charlie.” Daniel grabbed her up in one of his bear hugs.

“I’ve never had so much fun building anything,” she said, laughing. Wearing overalls after obviously putting the final touches on her magnificent creation, she hadn’t dressed in her costume yet. Neither had Sebastian. “Will had all the workmen out here, and I just figured out the stunts. He hired a troupe of actors from the high school to play the monsters grabbing people.”

“You all outdid yourselves,” Susan said. “Charlie, dear, where’s your mother? I was so hoping to have a nice chat with her.”

“The party is too much for her to handle,” Charlie explained, curling her fingers around Sebastian’s. “But we’d love for you and Bob to come for lunch at Magnolia Gardens tomorrow. Mom wants to show the place off to you. They have a marvelous Sunday brunch.”

“That would be wonderful.”

That was all the chitchat Noah could handle, tugging on Susan’s hand. “We’ll talk later,” Susan said, then let herself be led away. “Don’t worry, Matt,” she called. “I’ve got him until we find you again.”

“We’re holding up the next busload.” Will clapped Matt’s shoulder. “And we’d better get this guy some food before he wastes away to nothing.”

Yes, he was starving. For Ari. On the bus, he slid into the seat beside her and worked like hell to keep his hands to himself on the short drive. Back at the house, he walked toward the food since it was expected of him, but instead of piling a plate high, he circled the table and headed for the other door.

“If you don’t want me to grab you right here,” he murmured to Ari, “you’d better follow. Or I’ll be forced to drag you off.”

“You’re incorrigible,” she said, a pleased lilt in her voice.

They waded through the crowd toward the back hall and down the spiral staircase to Will’s media and game rooms. At the far end, the basement gave way to the pool deck, and Matt led Ari around the corner to the changing rooms Will had built for his pool guests. Opening a door, he nudged her inside.

“Are you crazy?” she whispered.

He locked the door, then gathered her into his arms, nuzzling her neck. “Crazy for you.”

Matt kissed her long and hard, pushing her up against the wall, holding her there. Giving herself over to him completely, she wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him until she couldn’t breathe, until her body was melting against his. The small changing room turned into a sauna from the heat they generated, and the little coins on her skirt jingled against him.

“We should get back to the party before anyone realizes we’re missing,” she said. But she clung to him because, God help her, she didn’t want to go back.

“I need to love you first, or I’ll go crazy. I’m barely keeping it together as it is.”