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Authors: V. J. Chambers

Midnight Moonlight (6 page)

BOOK: Midnight Moonlight
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“I know,” she said, getting to her feet. “But we have to try to find a door, okay?” She pressed her back into the wall, and she began to inch down it again.

The Beast Man moved with her, still crouched down, but gazing up at her.

She smiled at him. “Gonna keep me company?”

Of course, he didn’t respond. She rubbed his head. He was exactly like a dog.

Slowly, she continued moving around the perimeter of the room. It took a very long time to reach the far wall, confirming her thought that the room was a rectangle, but indicating that it was an even longer, thinner rectangle than she’d originally thought.

She felt around the short side at the end of the rectangle.

No door.

And then she made her way back up the next wall, aware that she was headed back to the place where she’d started.

It was slow going, but she was happy enough to have the Beast Man next to her, because she could talk to him as they moved around the room. It made her feel less lonely, like she had a companion and an ally.

She babbled aloud to him, telling him that she’d thought about getting a dog, but that Chad had been allergic, so they never had. She’d always liked dogs, especially ones with long, fluffy fur. Of course the Beast Man wasn’t a furry dog. He wasn’t a dog at all. But he seemed so much like one. She kept expecting to look down and see him panting, his tongue sticking out.

Eventually, she reached the opposite short wall, and she knew that she had made a complete circuit of the room.

No door.

How was that possible?

There had to be a way into this room.

She sank down to the floor. “I don’t get it, Beast Man. They didn’t build this room around us.” She let out a helpless laugh. “Maybe they trapped us underneath it. Someone smashed it down over us the way children trap insects. Isn’t that what happened in that Stephen King book? Only it wasn’t a child that did it but some monster or alien or something?”

She shook herself. “Listen to me. I’ve gone bonkers. All I can think of are things that happened in stories. Evil spells, Mowgli, Stephen King… I guess nothing out of the ordinary has ever happened to me.”

Her stomach was growling even louder now, but there wasn’t any food. And she realized that she was exhausted. She hadn’t expelled a lot of physical effort walking around the room, but the emotional twists and turns of the day had taken their toll.

She yawned.

The Beast Man’s body came closer.

She let her eyelids fall. Not that it mattered. It was just as dark behind her lids as it was with her eyes open.

But then the Beast Man suddenly wrapped his body around hers.

His strong arms around her waist, his bare chest pressing into her.

Oh,
she thought.
He’s really not a dog at all.

* * *

The Beast Man was wearing a pair of jeans, but he wasn’t wearing anything else, and that meant that whenever Calla tried to move to push him away, she brushed some part of his bare anatomy. His muscled arms, his hard chest, his taut stomach.

He was close, and he was warm, and there was something that felt right about being wrapped up in his arms.

His head rested on her shoulder. One arm was behind her, resting on her waist. The other arm was flung over the front of her body. His body curved around hers.

It was very intimate, and it wasn’t anything like a dog might do. Dogs didn’t have limbs, and they didn’t know how to put their arms around people. It wasn’t animalistic at all, except for the fact that most animals—mammals, anyway—did seem to like to curl up together for warmth when they slept. And, she supposed, if she was honest, there was nothing sexual about what the Beast Man was doing. He was holding onto her, but he wasn’t trying anything.

It was her. She was the one that was making this sexual.

Because from the moment the Beast Man’s body had touched hers, she’d felt like something inside her had been woken up, like a spark of flame was growing deep in her core. Every place they touched sizzled. She felt feverish, a little out of breath—as if in breathless anticipation for something that was going to happen.

But
nothing
was going to happen.

It was wrong for her to feel this way about him. He wasn’t all there in the head, quite obviously. If she were to allow anything to happen between them, she’d be taking advantage of him. He was innocent and sweet and pure. It was her thoughts which were deviant and wrong.

And she wasn’t going to be able to keep from having them if they were close like this. Which was why she was trying to push him away.

She wriggled in his grasp, turning to face him, and she placed both of her hands on his chest and pushed.

Oh
, she thought.
I’ve never felt a man’s chest that felt like this. It’s warm. It’s flesh. But it’s so solid, like stone.

He didn’t let go of her, but he did lift his head and give her a puzzled expression.

Damn it. Why
was
he holding onto her? He wasn’t totally an animal, was he? There was some part of him that was a man. She remembered the way he’d punched the wall beside her head, the way he’d struggled to make noise, almost as if he was struggling to speak.

“What are you?” she whispered to him.

He cocked his head.

He furrowed his brow. And then licked his lips. He opened his mouth. He made a sound. It was a low “errrrrrr” noise, half strangled. He sounded even more mentally challenged than she’d first thought.

She held up her hand, shaking her head. “It’s okay.”

He stopped the sound, storm clouds gathering in his eyes. He was angry with himself.

She patted his forearm. Geez, it was like hot granite too. “It’s okay. Really.”

His shoulders slumped. He moved his head back to lay it on her shoulder.

“No,” she said, pulling back.

He recoiled quizzically.

“It isn’t right,” she tried to explain. She pointed out away from herself. “You sleep
there
.”

His brow furrowed again, and his grip tightened on her body.

A tiny jolt of fear went through her again. What if he wouldn’t let go of her? This man seemed gentle and innocent, but he was clearly a full grown man, and he probably still had male hormones running all through him.

Maybe she wasn’t the only person making it sexual. Maybe he wanted her too.

In fact, maybe she had been right before, when she’d speculated she was here for the Beast Man’s pleasure. Maybe the carnival workers had to keep their Beast Man satisfied in order for him to perform. Maybe they nabbed women and locked them up with him here so that he could have his way with them…

She shuddered, the tiny bit of fear growing stronger.

And his grip on her loosened. He yipped at her, butting his head against her shoulder.

She understood it as a reassuring gesture. She smiled at him.

He laid his head on her shoulder again and snuggled against her body.

She sighed. Maybe there was no avoiding it. As long as it went no further than innocent physical closeness, she supposed it wasn’t wrong, no matter what forbidden desires his nearness wrung from her body.

She shut her eyes.

The Beast Man shifted, getting more comfortable.

And that was when she felt him…
poke
her.

With his…

She stiffened. All right, so he was aroused. They were both aroused, and they were lying in each other’s arms.

She gulped. Would it really be so horrible a thing to give in to a willing man, even if he wasn’t strictly all-there in the brains department? It wouldn’t hurt him, would it? He’d probably enjoy himself, and he had such a glorious body. She wanted it stretched out against her, wanted to be able to run her fingers over all of his bare, muscled flesh. It had been quite a long time since she’d made love. She and Chad had been anorexic in the bedroom for months and months before he left. She longed for the feeling of a man inside her, a man filling her up. And from the way that poke felt, the Beast Man would do a pretty good job of it.

She drew in a shuddering breath, bringing up one hand to caress his shoulder.

His hand moved against her waist, sending thrills through her body.

She gasped.

The Beast Man shifted position quickly, and suddenly, his body was over hers, pinning hers to the floor. His pelvis ground into hers, and she found herself parting her legs to cradle his hips with her own.

She felt frightened and excited and unsure. “I don’t think… We really
shouldn’t
.” Her voice was a squeak.

The Beast Man looked into her eyes, and she could swear that she saw tenderness in his expression, which didn’t make sense. Couldn’t make sense. He caressed her cheek again, and then his lips came for hers.

Her heart pounding, she let her eyes flutter closed.

And then, there was the first touch of his lips against hers—soft and warm and just a little insistent.

Could a Beast Man know how to kiss?

She opened her mouth to let in his tongue, which swept inside, tasting and claiming her.

She whimpered, confused and stunned. His kiss was so sweet.

Light.

Startled, she turned to see that there was a square of light appearing at the other end of the room.

The short wall—it wasn’t a wall at all, but a door. It was all being lifted up, and as the light filled the room, she realized that it wasn’t a room either. She was in the back of a freight container—the kind that was attached to a trailer and pulled behind a truck. That was why everything was metal, why there was no door, why it was shaped like a big rectangle. She let out a little cry as it all slid into place.

A figure stepped up into the freight container. Lit from behind, she couldn’t make out the figure’s features, but she could see it was a man.

“Aw, hell, Ryder,” said the man. “Get the fuck off of her, you idiot.”

The Beast Man got up on all fours, but her body was still trapped between his limbs. He turned to the man and growled.

The man was advancing across the container. “I mean it. If you don’t move, I’m going to have to tranq you.” The man reached back and took out something gun shaped.

Calla drew in breath.

The Beast Man growled again, this time more menacingly.

The man shook his head. “Ryder, I swear I don’t know what I’m going to do with—”

The Beast Man leapt off Calla, lunging for the man.

The man raised the gun shape. There was a bang.

The Beast Man squealed, halting in midair, and then falling to the ground.

“Damn it,” said the man. He eyed Calla. “I was hoping you’d make him better, not worse.”

Calla looked from the body of the Beast Man to the man. Could she run? If she did, would the man shoot her too? He’d said it was a tranquilizer, so she hoped that the Beast Man wasn’t dead. But whatever the case, she couldn’t leave the Beast Man here. These people were mistreating him. He was a mentally ill man who needed help, and Calla had already decided to help him.

Slowly, she got to her feet.

“Hey,” said the man, “did he hurt you? I’m real sorry if he did. I didn’t think he would.”

She recognized the man now. He was the ticket taker, the man who’d jeered at her, asking if she was scared. She drew herself up and said to him in her best no-nonsense-teacher voice. “You have to let me go.”

The man sighed. “I need you to try a little longer with him. If it’s hopeless, I promise, I’ll let you go, but until then, I just can’t. I’m sorry.” He gestured to the end of the container, where it was light. “You hungry?”

Her stomach growled in response.

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER FOUR

 

Just because she was hungry didn’t mean she came easily. She was wary of this man, and she didn’t trust him. But when he walked out of the freight container, she followed him cautiously.

Outside, she found herself deep in the woods. There were huge trees all around the container. It was early morning, she realized. She’d probably been working her way around the container for most of the night.

The man looked back at her. “We’re about an hour’s drive from where the carnival’s set up, but we’re at least a two-hour’s drive from any town. There isn’t anyone else around here, so don’t even bother yelling for help or nothing. No one’s coming.”

Calla licked her lips. She really didn’t like this guy.

He gestured to a tent which he had set up in a small clearing of trees. Next to it was a small campfire, and on the campfire was a saucepan. Something inside it smelled delicious. Her stomach did gymnastics inside her. Her mouth started to water.

“You’re probably thirsty,” said the man. He opened up a cooler and handed her a bottle of water.

She snatched it from him. She hadn’t realized how thirsty she, in fact, was.

BOOK: Midnight Moonlight
3.59Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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