What The Heart Knows (8 page)

James
breathed in the crisp autumnal air as he walked slowly toward the
school, following the mobs of townspeople doing the same. From his
understanding, the school was broken up into three different rooms. A
room for the small children, ten and under. Not scary. Full of movies
and endless heaps of sugar. Then the older kids, everyone between
eleven and eighteen, had another room, completely decked out in dark
and gore. There would be a DJ there, playing thumping shock rock
while the teens did... whatever teens did when they were together.
Lastly, there was the gym. For the adults. Which would be set up with
tables and a dance floor.

And
there would, thankfully, be alcohol.

He
needed to drink until he stopped thinking about Emily so much. He was
a mess of interest and sexual frustration. The little episode in the
haunted maze had just sent him over the edge. He knew he was
attracted to her, but he hadn't anticipated how strongly he would
respond to her. It was unnerving. And he still didn't even see what
that Jessica Rabbit getup looked like from the front. Hopefully he
would be three drinks in before he had to deal with that.

What
a choice for outfits.

There
would be jaws scraping the floor all night.

Hell,
he would be lucky if he didn't drool all over his damn self.

Everyone
filed in the building in a long line, stopping at the desk. Parents
signed in their kids and watched as they got led away by the
volunteer chaperons. Adults got carded at the desk, everyone
twenty-one and under getting a waterproof stamp on their hands.

“I'm
afraid I am going to need to see some identification,” Maude
drawled, looking him up and down.

James
smiled, reaching into his pocket for his wallet. As Maude looked over
his license and wrote his name down, he emptied all his cash into a
collection bowl shaped like a pumpkin with a sign that said
“decorations and booze”. If there was ever a good cause
to give to, it was party liquor.

Maude
handed him back his license, pointed the way to the gym, and told him
to stop by later and pick up a drink called a Widow Maker.

The
gym had been completely transformed. There wasn't a hint of the
typical padded walls, bleachers, or shiny light wood floors.
Everything was black. The walls had been lined with thin black tissue
paper. The floor was painted black with a huge white webbed pattern.
There were round tables around the center of the room. Each table had
a black tablecloth over an orange tablecloth. A pumpkin sat in the
center of each, a towering black tree sticking out of it with orange
lanterns hanging off the bare branches.

The
stage was lined in front with long rectangular tables, overflowing
with various foods for everyone to pick at. On top of the stage was a
DJ dressed as a pirate.

He
had been to more than his fair share of parties in his day. College
had demanded costumed parties several times a month. Hell, he had
even been to a highbrow masquerade ball... in an actual ballroom. But
nothing had come close to even comparing to the epic dedication Stars
Landing had to their event.

Every
single person was dressed, sipping blood-red drinks out of goblets or
lime green shots from science test tubes.

The
strawberries on the fruit platter were dipped in white chocolate with
ghost faces drawn on them, the clementines were peeled with tootsie
rolls poking out as stems.

Every
last little detail was attended to. You couldn't look in any
direction and see something that wasn't screaming Halloween.

James
had barely gotten five feet in when he saw Lena, dressed as a sexy
nurse, leaning into a tall, good-looking man dressed as a T-Bird.
That must have been Eric. The man who had dulled the rampant
materialistic ambition that Lena had clung to like a lifesaver.

“James,”
Lena called, moving toward him, her boyfriend keeping a possessive
arm around her. “This is Eric,” she said, nudging Eric
with her hip. “This is James. ”

Eric
smiled, a weird, sly look on his face. “The one dealing with
Em?” he asked and James nodded. Eric laughed, rapping James on
the shoulder. “I'm gonna go get you a shot.”

Lena
eyed James when Eric walked away. “You actually look...
stressed,” she said, brows drawing together. “I don't
think I have ever seen you stressed out before.”

James
shrugged. “And I've never seen you... not stressed out before.
Things change, sweetheart.”

Lena
eyed him for a second, then a slow smile spread on her face. “She's
getting to you.” Eric came back, a plastic tray of test tubes
in his hands and James downed two quickly. Lena threw back a shot and
laughed. “Women never get to you.”

“First
time for everything,” James said.

“Speak
of the devil,” Eric said, nodding his head toward the side
where Emily was getting one of Maude's Widow Maker drinks. “Hey,
Em,” Eric called, a smirk playing at his lips. “Nice
hickeys.”

Emily
felt her eyes go round. Behind her, someone laughed. Did he have to
yell that across the room? She thought the marks had gotten a lot
better. But of course that former manwhore could spot love marks from
a mile away.

She
wanted to throw her drink in his face.

It
wasn't the attention to her obvious necking session that bothered
her. It was no secret that Emily was a woman who enjoyed a healthy
sex life. It was the idea that anyone might put two and two together
and assume it was James who had done the deed. Especially since she
hadn't exactly been burning up the social scene lately.

She
drank her red drink in one long swig and got another. She needed more
than a little alcoholic lubrication to get through the night that was
already starting to chafe.

She
stepped back from the refreshment stand to take everything in. The
decorations that seemed to get all the more flawless with each
passing year. There were hundreds of costumes from store bought to
hand made. Devon, dressed as Where's Waldo, was chatting up some girl
who worked up the hill at the lodge dressed in full-on Victorian
garb. There were women as sexy versions of everything or scary
versions of everything. Men in cowboy/zombie/pimp/hippie costumes. If
there was one thing she liked about Stars Landing on Halloween, it
was the commitment to it.

Maybe
she should find some other guy to spend her night feigning interest
in. There was Alec who cared for the stables at the inn. He was
always her go-to flirting target. Even though he never bit.
Unfortunately for her, the eligible Stars Landing men were getting
snatched up like crazy in the last few years. Her options were
becoming limited.

She
had just spotted Alec when she felt someone move in to stand next to
her. She didn't have to look to know who it was. Every inch of her
skin felt tight and tingling with anticipation. A feeling that she
was trying really hard to blame on the Widow Makers.

“That
is quite a costume,” he said, his voice dipped low.

Emily
took a deep breath, drinking the rest of her drink, before turning.
He was in all black. Black combat boots, black trench coat, black
clothes underneath. His hair was slicked back. His eyes... his eyes
were a freaky, disconcerting red color. “You know... goth isn't
a costume,” she said, trying to keep eye contact.

James
smiled, a slow forming thing, revealing two overly pointed eye teeth.
Fangs. And not the plastic clip-on ones. The porcelain ones that you
need to temporarily cement in. There was a strange twisting in her
belly as she looked at him, a sensation that made her wish a bit that
he would drag her out of there and sink those fangs into her lips,
her neck, her inner thigh.

Seriously,
what the hell was wrong with her?

“Got
a thing for biting, huh?” James asked, smiling wider as he
watched the look of shock cross her face, quickly replaced with
distaste. “Don't worry about it. Most women do. Predatory.
Primal. It's a turn on.”

“Not
for me,” she lied, wishing she could throw back three shots
without it making her look like she needed alcohol to be able to deal
with him.

James
lifted a brow, moving forward, sliding one of his boots between her
heeled feet and she felt the tension up her toes to her core. There
was an instinctual wish to flee, a weird fluttering feeling in her
chest and belly telling her to run. Was he actually planning on
kissing her? Right there? In front of the entire town? There was an
unexpected jolt of anticipation at the idea.

James
leaned his face in, tilting slightly to the side like he was going to
sink his lips or teeth into the skin on her neck. She felt her breath
catch in her throat, her pulse beating wildly. James laughed, a low,
humorless sound, his breath warming her skin. “No,” he
said, shaking his head. “not at all, huh?” He
straightened away from her, looking at her face with a mix of
amusement and desire. She was so easy to read. And right then, she
was both shooting daggers at him and using every bit of self-control
to not drag him out of there. “Come on,” he said,
reaching for her hand. “let's dance.”

As
if on cue, the slow, sensual Annie Lennox version of “I Put A
Spell On You” started to play. Of course it couldn't be
something as comical as “The Monster Mash”. Of course
that wouldn't be her luck.

There
was a second of uncertainty, James watching her like maybe she would
reject him, before he reached forward and slowly moved an arm across
her hips, pulling her toward his chest. Her arm slid up to his
shoulder, her other hand still trapped in his, brought up to the
side. Her eyes stayed on his, red and foreign but still his. Deep.
With small smile lines to the sides. His hand pressed into her lower
back, pushing her up against his pelvis.

And
then they were moving. A slow dance, barely making their feet leave
the floor. A hush fell around them, like a curtain had been drawn on
the world outside of their arms.

Maybe
it wouldn't be so bad. Emily felt her body melt against his. Maybe
fighting her attraction to him was just a waste of time. Why fight
something you obviously wanted?

A
slow smirk played at James' lips. He leaned his face closer to hers,
making her think he was going to kiss her. Right there. In the middle
of a dance floor. In her old high school.

“I
think I just won,” he said instead, winking at her.

That.
That was why she was fighting it. Right there in all of his
arrogance. In his certainty in her desire for him. In his steadfast
determination to win her. Like a fucking prize at a town fair. Like
he would earn bragging rights for bagging her. Fuck him. And his
charming smile. And his perfect face. And his undeniable game.

James
felt his smile falter. He had been celebrating too soon. Him and his
stupid mouth. Because where she had been plastered against him a
second ago, she was standing pin straight with inches between them.
Her eyes that had been heavy lidded and turned on looked lowered and
angry.

“No,”
Emily said, letting out a sound that wasn't quite a laugh. “Darling,
you just lost.”

And
then she was pulling out of his arms, storming off the dance floor.
Lena and Eric were sitting at a table, Eric holding a green test tube
shot out in the air that she took as she stormed off.

Emily
flung herself into the hallway, mumbling under her breath. “That
narcissistic asshole. Who the hell does he think he is? He won? I'm
gonna show that son of a bi...”

“Things
seem right on track then,” Maude said, eyebrow raised,
listening to Emily's tirade.

“There
is no track to be on,” Emily protested, the shot on top of her
drinks making her lips feel almost numb. “You don't know what
you're talking about.”

“No?”
Maude asked, smiling. “So that aint a hickey from him on your
neck? Hmm?” Maude cackled, wiggling her eyebrows.

“He's
a tool.”

Maude
shrugged. “Tool huh? Any chance... drilling or... hammering
came to mind when you said that?”

“Oh
my god,” Emily groaned, walking down the hall a way. “Get
your mind out of the gutter, woman.”

“You
know, Emily,” Maude called, not caring who overheard. She was
never one for subtlety. “you've never been a woman afraid of
her own desires. Ask any of your ex lovers. So what are you so scared
of?”

Emily
turned quickly, but Maude had already opened the door to the gym and
disappeared. Scared? She wasn't scared. Not of James Michaels. Not of
her attraction to him. Not of his attraction to her.