Is It a Ghost? Who: Maddy/Derek What: Tunnel Exploring Where: Railroad Tunnel, Las Vegas/Derek's Place, Searchlight When: Present Content Warnings: Very Mature Content (Marked In Scene), Trespassing, Language, Excessive flirting.
“Trust me. It’ll be fun!” Maddy’s voice carried down a steep embankment of crushed stone and dirt above Lake Mead.
Below them, a historic railroad trail clung to the edge of the landscape. It was thirty miles east of Las Vegas, but it might have been another planet thanks to the eerie, volcanic-red cast of the soil, and the quiet broken only by the sound of disturbed rocks plummeting into the water and a lonely cicada. At the bottom of this particular hill, their shoes would find the wide, flat surface of a trail that wound through miles of desert terrain and cut five tunnels through the bedrock.
Long ago, it had been a railroad track built to transport materials for construction of the Hoover Dam. In 1961, once its purpose had been served, the rails were removed and service discontinued until the 1990s, when it was rebranded as a hiking destination. For all its daytime popularity, it wasn’t immune to tall tales, including rumors of haunting by some of the laborers killed during construction of the dam, and one about bloodthirsty deer mice. That, plus the allure of its echoey chambers, made Maddy determined to visit it, but not during the day like a common fitness enthusiast. She wanted to go at night, after park hours, with naught but a camping lantern to guide her.
She came to an unsteady stop on the trail. A faintly visible cloud of dust hovered around her thick-soled boots, which were Maddy’s one allowance for the habitat. Practically vibrating with excitement, she opened a tall thermos and offered Derek a sip. It was not water.
Sometimes, Derek possessed a flash of clear self-awareness. He looked down at the trail, which thankfully wasn’t too far below. Because, despite being a vampire, he was afraid of heights. But tossing himself headlong into firefights with the mob and thinking nothing of taking a homeowner by surprise during a filet mignon jerky heist? That was just a typical weeknight. He shot Maddy a grin and accepted the mysterious beverage.
“I’m getting some Scooby Doo vibes,” Derek remarked, his shoulders coming up after swallowing whatever Maddy had put in the thermos. “Keep your eyes peeled for an old real estate developer in a white sheet.”
“Does this make you Shaggy?” She grinned watching him consume a concoction of grain alcohol, vodka, beer, ginger ale, and Countrytime lemonade mix. “Personally, I consider myself an amalgam of Daphne and Scrappy Doo.” Holding the lantern aloft, she did a spin in the dark, the flared skater skirt careening into NSFW territory. Her upper half was clothed in a midriff-baring top with long sleeves.
A vague sense of directionality took her eastward, away from the sherbet-orange haze of Vegas in the night sky. “We better get a move on, Norville… before the phantoms find you.”
He was trying to reconcile the fused imagery of a sexy yet disturbing anthropomorphic dog in coordinating purple when she spun around. Derek didn’t know if it was rude to stare or not to, which almost broke his brain, which caused him to stare anyway as he tried to figure out what to do. “Yeah, well, it’s…let’s go down. There.”
The vampire took the thermos back and had another pull before returning it. “Too bad it doesn’t snow here,” he remarked. “Could be fun to sled down.” What was he talking about? Derek had never been sledding in his life.
Maddy drank the sour-shivery punch and turned to face Derek, her feet marching steadily backwards towards the first tunnel. “I always wanted to sneak into a water park after an ice storm!” she confessed. “We need a friend who shoots ice out of their fingers. We could drag them to Wet ‘n Wild in the off-season. It’d be like the luge.” She imagined flying down a tube water slide at one hundred miles per hour. The landing might be tricky. “How do you look in a rubber suit?”
She winked at him.
The metal handle on the lantern squeaked as it endured the carefree hold of its owner.
Grateful for the conversational save, Derek went for it. “We can watch that one movie for inspiration,” he offered. “‘Cool Runnings.’ I’ve been waiting long enough for my underdog moment,” the vampire proclaimed, following Maddy and scanning the terrain behind her to make sure she didn’t fall.
“We can go to Party City and find out,” he said, in answer to her rubber suit query. “Or maybe you can borrow something from Iris.”
“Mmm… I don’t think you wanna be in someone else’s rubber suit,” she advised. “Trust me. I’ve seen things go awry with borrowed costumes. I won’t disgust you with the details.” Maddy poured more of the drink into her mouth and closed the cap. The liquor was doing that fun thing where she felt pleasantly warm in her cheeks and stomach. The sound of their voices was changing with the rising rock structures around them. “Unless you like disgusting details, in which case…”
“No, thank you,” Derek answered cheerfully. “I already have too-keen senses, I don’t need the blanks in my imagination filled out, too.” He borrowed another sip of Maddy’s concoction. The High Roller’s bartender needed to watch out for her, because it was oddly addictive.
“Unless you wanna trade stories,” the vampire added mischievously, inspired. “Not to one-up you or anything, but…I think I can one-up you.”
“Whoa, whoa. Okay.” Maddy held up a cautionary hand. “You know I can’t back down from a challenge. I’m the Marty McFly to your Needles. So give it to me,” she said, smiling. She beckoned with her fingers. A pebble skip-skittered away from her heel. It led the way into a rounded tunnel cut in the vertical slab of earth behind her. From the looks of things, it was ink-black in there. “What’s grosser than an entire cast of dancers being infected by scabies? That’s when the female mites burrow into your skin…” Maddy reached out and pinched Derek’s stomach repeatedly. “And then the males wriggle between the different sites until they find mates, and then they die, and the females lay eggs, and they hatch and begin their own sordid, doomed love affairs in all the places where your flesh creases.”
His laugh carried on the night air, and he put a hand over his mouth automatically. “You’re not supposed to call my bluff,” Derek told her with faux-dismay. “You’re supposed to let me have this.” The vampire tried not to let on that he was ticklish where she was pinching him, his hands going to his abdomen protectively.
“Okay, okay, you win. You’re the queen of…” Derek trailed off and made a face. “I never wanna hear the phrase ‘flesh creases’ again. What can I do to guarantee that?”
“Two things,” she said. “And there better not be any cheating. One… remember that I will always call your bluff. It’s just who I am as a person. Two…” Maddy eased backwards into the shelter of the tunnel. “Count to one-hundred, then come find me in the dark!” She set down her thermos and lantern and went sprinting into the midnight shadows of the railroad, calling out an echoing, ghostly note:
“Whooo!”
“I can see in the dark, you know,” Derek called after her, his words mingling with her spectral impression. But he obliged and did, indeed, count to 100. Well, maybe in the high 80s. He stepped into the tunnel slowly, letting his eyes and ears adjust. He was expecting it to be more damp, somehow, then remembered that the current humidity in Vegas was a paltry fifteen percent.
“You probably shouldn’t have left your lantern, either,” the vampire continued. “Who knows what you’ll find…lurking.” He halted in his tracks, smiling, and tried to locate Maddy by sound alone. Derek stooped down and picked up the best looking rock he could find, and skipped it down the tracks.
Eyeroll. ‘See in the dark.’ What a cheater. Next time, she’d make him wear a blindfold.
When she sprinted out ahead of him, Maddy had given herself a pat-down in the dark, searching for something she could shed to leave her scent in the tunnel in that direction. Getting to her socks presented too much trouble. Panties? A bit scandalous, even for her. Maddy had drummed her fingers against her lips in a darkness so complete she couldn’t see her hand and finally decided on a decorative ribbon that was tied around her throat. She dropped it on the ground and…
Poof.
Maddy was MIA.
He continued following the trail, trying to use anything to identify her. Derek wanted to win, at least once. It wasn’t long before he came upon the ribbon. The vampire stooped down and picked it up, turning it over as his expression changed to one of both chagrin and determination. Maddy had ghosted him, after all, if only briefly. At least, he hoped it was brief.
Derek considered running full speed down the tunnel, but the idea of a compound fracture, no matter how quickly healed, stopped him short. Plus, there was always the possibility of a 127 Hours situation, and he didn’t even want to know how that would look.
“Oh, no, Maddy!” he called out, feigning distress. “I think I’m getting that weird illness where people get lost and start taking off all their clothes.” He began to lift up his t-shirt.
Her voice popped up behind him. “Is it too much to hope you’re terminal?” Maddy gave his torso a little nudge, but all she got was cotton-poly blend. Damnit. “Oh, you liar!” she laughed, and popped him another time for good measure. Their voices carried in a cheerful but hollow echo through the length of the first underground tube. She still couldn’t see shit, but she was having too much fun to be spooked out by it.
He quickly whirled around and put his arms around her waist before she could get away. Now, if she blipped, she would take him with her. Derek gave a triumphant laugh, grinning. “I can’t believe that worked,” the vampire gloated before lifting one arm and dangling the ribbon in the air in front of Maddy’s face with one finger.
“Diversion or the opening gambit in a game of strip poker?” he asked.
“Poker for sure. Just don’t ask where I’m hiding the chips.” Maddy took the ribbon and tied it around Derek’s wrist with a little flourish. She stood on her tiptoes and stage-whispered, “Did you run into any ghosts while I was gone?” She draped herself against his lanky frame and pretended to be afraid of their surroundings. Maybe tunnel number two would be the winner.
“Maaaaybe,” Derek drawled, the hand with the ribbon resting on the small of her back as Maddy leaned against him. He paused to listen to her heartbeat, smooth and rhythmic. She definitely wasn’t scared, but maybe he wanted to make it race just a little. He wondered what would do it. “But none as pretty as you,” the vampire added.
“You know, after you told me about this place, I asked around for some local color,” Derek told Maddy, his tone casual. “Apparently there was some weird stuff that went down in the 70s. Sacrifices, that kind of thing.”
Maddy gasped and clung to his neck. “Oooooh! Animal or human?” ‘Pleasesayhuman, pleasesayhuman…’ If her heart beat faster, it was with enthusiasm rather than terror. “Did they drown the tunnel in rivers of blood? Was it virgin blood? Am I at risk?!” She wrapped her ankle around his calf muscle like he was the only safe thing within miles.
Which may have been true, given the terrain and its suitability for reptiles, startled bats, and rodents carrying hantavirus.
Derek ducked his head so that his mouth was in closer range of her ear. “Unfortunately, human,” he told her, pulling her closer, if that was possible. “Her name was…Addie. She was a costume designer for one of the big shows on the Strip. She was lured here by a group of ill repute.” He let his hands squeeze the material of her shirt.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “I thought I heard something that way.” He turned his neck to look down the tunnel. “Where was I?”
“Addie,” she squeaked. Maddy gulped even though she knew Derek couldn’t see it; it was the in-character thing to do. “What happened to her? Did they do strange, undulating dances by firelight? Did they wear horns and paint weird symbols on her body? Did they cut out her still-beating heart and hold it aloft while chanting to their pagan--- omigod, shhhh!”
Maddy tensed. “There’s someone here,” she breathed. Now she was admittedly climbing on him.
“No, that’s the thing! You see, they didn’t know Addie was a badass. She killed all of them, which made her power grow — “ Derek halted. At first, he thought she was kidding, getting into the mood of the story. But then he heard the unmistakable sound of a footstep. Slowly, carefully, the vampire moved them backwards. He glanced at the entrance of the tunnel. Maddy’s lantern had gone out.
“Oh, fuck, dude!” Maddy whispered, so quiet she could barely hear herself. “I didn’t do the Craigslist thing! Do you think it’s a park ranger?” She tried not to make any noise, which naturally signaled her stomach to gurgle in its digestion of grain alcohol and lemonade. A flapping noise followed soon after. Bat wings? Overly large insects lost in the dark? She would have whipped out her cell phone flashlight, only she was too freaked out to shine it in the eyes of a cryptid railroad monster.
Derek slowly and quietly disengaged himself from her grip, just in case he needed his limbs loose and free. He moved so that she was behind him, and he was facing the dark abyss of the tunnel. “I can’t see anyth— anyone,” he whispered to Maddy. But he definitely heard something. Maybe he should just pick her up and run, or maybe she could…
As these thoughts ran through the vampire’s head, he could hear a sudden flurry of footfalls. Without warning, a high-lumen beam was shining in both of their faces. A low voice began to speak, until Derek swung on instinct. The flashlight fell and bounced off a segment of the track as someone crumbled and hit the ground hard.
Derek grabbed the flashlight frantically and shone it at the person as they curled up and grasped their face with both hands. They wore a uniform, and suddenly a burst of static issued from a walkie-talkie clipped to their belt loop. The words Security Unlimited Inc. were embroidered on a shield-shaped patch in yellow thread. “Oh, shit.”
Maddy slapped a hand across her mouth. “Oh no!” She backed away from the dude’s freshly-shone work boots and ribbed socks. Derek just beat up a rent-a-cop! She squeezed the vampire’s arm. “It’s the fopo! Run!” She flailed, crashed into him, and started sprinting westbound in the wrong direction. It was everyone out for themselves. Maddy’s crazed shriek of laughter frightened a couple of mice away from the footpath.
“I’m sorry!” Derek looked down at the security guard. At least he was conscious. He tried not to notice the blood flowing down the man’s face. “But you also kinda ruined my story.” The vampire turned to run, human speed, after Maddy. “I can’t believe you took off without me,” he called after her. “Where are you even going?”
With a blast of speed, he grabbed her lantern and thermos in case they tried to get, like, DNA from it or something. Yes, Derek, the highly sophisticated crime lab run by a private security firm, that’s a thing… His critical inner voice had amazing timing.
“I don’t know!” she wailed. Maddy began to zig-zag up the side of the hill, which was illuminated by the moon if not the useless lantern in Derek’s hand. When did all these cactuses sprout from the soil? Each one was like a barbed phallus announcing itself on a nightclub dance floor. She gave the steep incline her best effort and made a final scramble onto the summit with Derek behind her. A rock came loose and pelted the vampire’s shin.
She put the heels of her hands on her forehead and caught her breath. “Wait…” Maddy whirled on the soles of her boots. “Where’s the car?”
“Ow.” He leaned down to rub his leg where the rock hit it. It was more annoying than painful. All those vampire senses, and he had been caught by surprise by a Home Depot flashlight. “Umm…good question.” Derek turned around slowly. The vampire looked up at the sky. “Is that the North star? No, that’s a plane.”
It also wouldn’t be that helpful, Derek realized, if he couldn’t even remember where he had parked in the first place. “Can you, like, picture it in your head and pop us over there?” he asked hopefully.
Maddy shook her head at Derek. “Is that all I am to you? A human transporter beam?” She took the lantern and thermos out of his hands in case he got the dropsies in the void again and linked arms with the vampire. “On a count of three, I want you to close your eyes and think of your car. Just broadly your car. It might give me some extra juice. Okay, are you ready?” She took a quick peek at Derek. “One… two…”
Maddy began to smile.
“Three.”
There was a tipping sensation, then a loss of the ground under their feet. It had always reminded Maddy of dreaming that she was falling, but never landing. Even with his eyes closed, Derek might have sworn that he was spinning in a formless void with nothing but a girl clinging onto his arm, but the experience would only last long enough to register it, and then he was exactly where Maddy had intended for him to be...
Sprawled on his side on the hard hood of his car like a video vixen while she stood nearby, pouring punch into her mouth.
Derek mistakenly thought he would be used to that sensation by now, but that clearly wasn’t the case. He opened his eyes and nearly slipped off the Aveo’s roof. “Oh, I see. You complain about being used for your abilities, and then you go and objectify me.” The vampire grinned, propping himself up with an elbow.
“Do you think that guy already called for backup?” he asked, climbing down and fishing out the keys from his pocket. “Maybe…we should hide out at my place.”
“Your place.” Maddy nodded. “A completely reasonable solution to our predicament. It would be irresponsible not to go there.” She sealed the open container and lifted the passenger door handle. “You are wise, and thus I am inclined to accept your offer of refuge. But no funny business!” She lowered herself daintily onto the seat and wedged the objects she carried between her dusty boots. Once her seat belt was fastened, she smoothed her skirt over her thighs and lifted her chin.
Ever the lady.
Derek blinked a few times. Oh. That had worked. He shook his head in order to catch up, sliding behind the wheel and starting up the Chevy. He did a mental inventory of his trailer and how he had left it. Was there a souvenir cup with some drying blood in it on the counter? “Completely reasonable solutions are exactly what I’m known for,” he agreed, punching buttons until the radio landed on 105.7, which was currently broadcasting an A$AP Rocky song.
“Yeah, I bet they are. Ah shit!” Immediately abandoning her prim posture, Maddy gave Derek an excited look. She raised her hands and started dancing. “Fuck no, this ain’t no hookah, smokin’ while I’m strollin down Wooster! Buck-fifty, my babushka! No pistol poppers and prostituters!” She stretched her seatbelt and leaned across the console to kiss him on the cheek, then returned to her seat. The temptation to roll down the window and drive with the air rushing past her was too great to resist, so she searched for the gadget in the dark, a feat that only took her slightly longer than usual thanks to her buzz.
The kiss made him grin, and he turned the volume up as he navigated to the 515. Traffic was light once they got out of the thick of Vegas. The speed limit signs changed from 65 to 70, and Derek kept the Chevy at a steady 75-78. It was one of those magical nights where the local station was on a roll and the commercials were minimal.
About 40 minutes later, they were pulling into the crumbling little driveway next to the white trailer with its screened in, green-carpeted porch. The lightbulb over the front door illuminated dozens of tiny flying things. “This is me,” Derek told Maddy, cutting the engine. “But you know that, because you were at my party.” He drummed his fingers against the steering wheel.
“I was,” she agreed and tipped her head right. “It’s different when you’re not high.” What was the word for this era of home design? She took in the bold, rectangular lines of the porch. Such strong choices. Utilitarian. Maddy took a breath. “Do you still have that crochet toilet paper cozy? The one with the head and torso of a southern belle, and the roll of toilet paper is under her skirt?”
She looked at Derek. “I named her Charmaine.”
“No, Ronnie took that when he moved into his new place. It belonged to his mom.” Most of the things inside the trailer did, but his friend was kind enough to leave the harder-to-replace items. At least, harder to replace on a t-shirt stand employee’s salary. Derek paused in the middle of exiting the compact sedan. “Ha, Charmaine. I just got it. That’s the second time you’ve referenced brand name toilet paper,” he pointed out as he stood and stretched.
The vampire climbed the steps, keys in hand, and began to unlock the door. “Hey, did you ever call that number about Tammy?”
“So I’m a toilet paper snob. Sue me!” Maddy stood behind him on the steps and waved a pale, fanatical moth away from her hair. Probably a good thing to be distracted, because otherwise she might have pinched his ass. “Tammy the Turtle? Yeah! When I called, they said they got overwhelmed by reptiphiles and I was, like, the eighteenth person to call. Who knew? I just hope there’s not some secret society of turtle soup enthusiasts.”
The moth flitted past her lips. “Pbbt.”
“No, I mean, it’s funny because I went to the store and bought some Cottonelle after you mentioned it. You were right, it does look kind of like corduroy.” The door swung open and Derek began switching on the lights. In the living area, an array of different video game controllers rested on a coffee table. Before Maddy could notice it, the vampire picked up a plastic cup with the Caesar’s Palace logo printed on it and made a beeline to the kitchen sink.
Maddy closed the door, kicked off her shoes, and began snooping. On the whole, it looked the same as before, meaning brown. She picked up a couch pillow and tossed it in the air, narrowly missing a ratan ceiling fan blade. Catching it on the way down, she continued her perusal of the pink tie-back curtains, a bricked up section of wall, and two full-length mirrors on either side of it. “Well, what have we here, Mr. Mitchell?” Maddy slowly pivoted to look at him. “Oooh… I’ve gotta know. I’ve just gotta!” She backed up, mischief in her eyes, and raced down the hallway towards what could only be the master bedroom.
A queen size bed, nothing on the ceiling, but a-ha! A sweet little built-in vanity at the foot of the bed, resplendent with its own mirror. “Yoooouuuuu hypocrite!” she laughed.
Derek followed her to the bedroom, half-amused, half-nervous. When she saw the vanity, he began shaking his head emphatically. “I…that’s…” The vampire waved a dismissive hand. “I’ve never, like, used — I don’t know how that got there.” He lifted each hand in the universal gesture of cluelessness.
He was precious when at a loss. Maddy struck his stomach with the couch pillow. “I think I know how it got there.” She bent over and propped her elbows on the mirrored vanity, the pose guaranteed to stick her butt out at comical angles. She looked up and blinked cartoonishly. “Tell the truth. It was a selling feature.” Maddy straightened and stole what looked like an inside-out souvenir shirt from the corner of his bed. She pressed it to her face. It smelled like Derek’s soap. If this was a test of how up in the vampire’s business she needed to get to elicit a blush, she was just getting started.
“Are you trying to kill me?” Derek asked her, even through the smile that was due to someone like Maddy being interested in him, even if that currently meant a mild invasion of privacy. “Why don’t you go through my underwear drawer? Or, wait!” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and pretended to offer it to her. “Phone password, perhaps?”
The vampire pulled it away before she could take him up on it. “So, circling back to what you said in the car, what does ‘funny business’ entail, exactly?”
“I would never go through your phone,” she assured him. “That’s funny business. Though I wouldn’t mind seeing your underwear. Especially if you were to… hear me out… model them for me. I think you’ll agree they don’t have the same je ne sai quoi all balled up in a drawer.” Maddy squeezed the little pillow and tried to look convincing. Sensible, even. “I’d maintain a professional distance, of course. Think of it as Searchlight’s answer to Fashion Week.”
She gave up holding in her grin.
Derek stared down at her. There came a time when the only thing left to do in a situation was to just go with it. This seemed like one of those times. “Yeah, maybe…” He nodded, looking up to the right as if seriously contemplating it. “Yes, I think I can do that,” the vampire told Maddy. He walked over to his dresser and opened the top drawer, pulling out a pair of black boxers with bright green pot leaves printed across them.
“What about these? Too on the nose?” He held them up to his hips.
“Ha!” Maddy dropped the pillow to cover her mouth. Her blue eyes danced above her fingers. “Are you for real?” She rushed over and grabbed the hem of the boxers to reassure herself that this was not an illusion. “Silky! Really high quality.” The fabric was tested between thumb and forefinger. Maddy backed off, but she was nodding with genuine approval of this most auspicious of discoveries. “Oh yeah. Those are going in the bank.” She tapped her temple and turned to exit his bedroom, but not before she gave the back of her skirt a little fluff to show off a hot pink thong. It was only fair.
“You got anything to drink?” Maddy’s voice drifted down the hall. “I’m thirsty.”
Derek dropped the underwear, his fingers jumping open. His brain came grinding to a halt, unable to process anything at first except for a flash of pink. “Yeah, drinks. I have drinks.” He followed her to the kitchen and opened up the fridge. There was a white styrofoam box containing leftovers of a questionable nature, cans of soda, bottles of water. Plus blood.
“What would you like?”
Water. Bleh. Maddy helped herself to a can of soda and popped the top. “Everything tastes better from a can,” she explained. The first few sips of Sprite tickled their way past the roof of her mouth. She eyed Derek while she drank it. “So we’re trapped here until the security guards give up their dogged helicopter search for the Flashlight Fiend.” Maddy bent the tab of her can until it popped loose and inspected the shape. With a diabolical smile, she handed it to Derek. “What do you want to do?”
He took the metal tab and looked down on it, wondering why she had given it to him. Maybe for recycling. Derek tossed it into the little blue can. “I think I can hear them now,” he told her, putting a hand behind his ear and pretending to listen closely. “Oh, yeah, that’s the unmistakable sound of a helicopter, alright. And wait, I think I can hear what they’re saying…”
The vampire paused, holding up a silencing finger, before nodding. “Oh, yeah, they’re onto us. They even mentioned you. Something about pink underwear…” Derek gave her a puzzled expression.
‘Fuuuuudge.’ Derek was either unfamiliar with social media trends or he wasn’t picking up what she was putting down. Maddy wrested her attention back from the recycling bin and her tab, which was wedged between a cup o’ noodles and a Totino's box. “Oh yeah? What else did they say about them?” she asked brightly. The toes of one foot rested behind the heel of the other. Casual.
“Something about you making a way better model than me,” Derek replied breezily. “Oh, man. I hope they’re not bugging the place.” The vampire grabbed a can of Coke and popped it open. As he drank, he put on a look of deep contemplation. Slowly, he lowered the soda and fixed Maddy with a concerned yet suspicious stare.
“Wait, are you wearing a wire? Was this whole thing a setup? You wanted me to punch that Rent-a-Cop, didn’t you?” Derek set the can down.
How offensive, the suggestion that she’d be in league with the cops. Maddy’s chin lifted in defiance. “Maybe I am, maybe I’m not,” Maddy said. “You want to check?” The can of Sprite clinked on the kitchen counter. She raised her arms with a flourish.
[.......Begin Sexual Content......]
Derek gave her a grin that could have also doubled as a warning. Suddenly, he picked her up and set her on the counter, mimicking the way he had done so at the Linq. This time, though, the vampire was on a mission. “Is that an invitation?” he asked. Her ribbon was still tied around his wrist as that hand began toying with the neckline of her shirt.
“Think of it more as a dare.” Maddy’s legs dangled in front of the lower cabinets. She placed her feet against the doors and fanned her knees wider. The fabric of her skirt draped between them. “And if you chicken out…” She looked around until she spotted the sink sprayer. Maddy pulled out a length of the hose and aimed it at Derek. “You get the hose.” The trigger clicked provocatively. Nothing came out because she hadn’t turned on the faucet, but that was a flick away.
“Oh, a dare,” he repeated. “Well, I’ve never been able to turn away from one of those,” Derek confided, his eyes shifting from hers to the sprayer in her hand. “No, I don’t wanna get wet, that would be terrible,” he added, his tone half playful and half suggestive. Okay, maybe 75 percent suggestive…
Slow enough for Maddy to stop him if that’s what she wanted, his hand found its way beneath her skirt and pressed against her inner thigh before slipping upward.
Maddy held still while his fingers moved up her thigh, sink nozzle at the ready. “Is that where informants wear wires these days?” she asked sweetly. If Derek noticed the angle that her legs made widening ever so slightly, it wasn’t his imagination. She wanted to lean forward and kisshim to see if he tasted sweet like sugar or sour like the drink in her forgotten thermos, but for now she was content to see if he took one of the hundred or so pieces of bait she dropped in the last few hours.
He slipped an index finger between where the material of her underwear clung to the top of her thigh, as his other hand bunched her skirt up higher. Derek had steadily moved closer until there was very little space between them. “That sounds like something someone very familiar with wires would say,” he told her suspiciously.
Before she could respond to that, he had tugged the pink thong down her legs and past her knees before taking her chin in his hand and holding her face still. “Last chance to confess,” Derek proclaimed.
Maddy had shifted to let him pull them down her legs. There wasn’t any room for the sprayer anymore. She let go and it hit the counter with a thud and zipped back into place. “I swear I didn’t do it,” she said, meeting his eyes. She grabbed onto his shirt and pulled it up to Derek’s armpits, then over his head and shoulders. It dangled off her index finger and then sifted onto the floor. Even up close, she could glance downward and see the extent of his tattoos down the length of his torso and arms. Holy mother of…
She breathed in and said, “But there’s only one way to know for sure.”
Derek let her peel the shirt off, looking down at the floor where it sat next to…this was really happening. Playing it cool went out the window. Probably halfway to Vegas by now. “Oh yeah?” he asked, his voice low. “And how is that?” Even as he made this inquiry, he was mirroring her previous movements with her top.
“If you disappeared right now, I don’t know what I’d do,” the vampire admitted. He took a lock of bright red hair between his thumb and index finger.
“Well, I was going to suggest a cavity search, but now I’m distracted.” She lowered her arms after the shirt came off and sat before him in her matching bra, her bunched up skirt, and a lot of body confidence. “And you don't have to worry about me ghosting.” Maddy placed her warm hands flat against his chest, bending her fingers and letting her manicure skip across his nipples. Derek’s skin was cooler than hers but she liked it. She wanted to press herself against him. “You’re like, the world’s hottest popsicle.” Maddy smiled at him and wrinkled her nose.
“Over the line?”
“For you, Maddy, I’ll move the line,” Derek joked. He placed his hands on each of her thighs. With her on the counter, their hips were level, and he pressed against her. “Especially when you’re so very flattering.” His lips found hers and it felt easy to sink into the kiss, even without the theatrics of last time.
As his tongue found hers, his hand traveled upward again, and this time he went further. His fingers hovered between her legs, feeling the heat of her.
Maddy smiled against his mouth and then kissed Derek back, opening her lips to taste him, and it was even better when she was being completely herself. She tilted her head to run her tongue across his. Damn, he was a good kisser. It was a challenge to remain still with his fingers that far up her skirt, but Maddy refrained from inching closer and let him make the move if he wanted to. If he couldn’t tell she was turned on by now, god help him, and if he was teasing her, bravo, it was working like a charm.
She kissed her way down his chin and underneath it. Then she ran her hands down his back and stuck both of them in Derek’s hip pockets to give him a squeeze. “What pattern are your boxers today?” she asked.
“What if I’m not wearing any?” Derek tried to give her a saucy look, but he got distracted by Maddy’s hands in his pockets. “They’re striped, black and gray,” he relented. He leaned in and ducked his head to kiss along her collarbone, chaste and sweet in contrast to what he did next, which was to slowly slide two fingers inside her.
“Do you wanna move this to the bedroom?” he asked, his mouth near her neck. “Or would the mirror kill the vibe?”
She clutched his hips. Her mouth was open and soundless at Derek’s shoulder, a perfect ‘o’ of surprise because even if she thought he might go for it, there was no preparing herself for that feeling. “You expect me to talk when you’re doing that?” Maddy asked. Also moving meant disengaging from his fingers, which was a tough sell. She distracted herself by sucking on his shoulder and finally nodded. “You know, I think I can make it work. Let’s go that way,” she said, pointing vaguely down the hall. Maddy pushed at his chest and climbed down from the counter. She held eye contact as she dropped her skirt and unhooked her bra. Both articles of clothing joined the growing pile. Naked, she led the way out of the kitchen.
He, however, fought to maintain eye contact as she removed the last remaining pieces of material that were the barrier between his imagination and reality. “I’m sorry, hang on.” Derek let his gaze drop, glad he didn’t really need to breathe. It was always a good feeling when reality trumped fantasy, and he followed her to the bedroom in a distracted daze.
Once inside the room, he managed to keep his hands steady enough to get out of his jeans, leaving just the aforementioned boxers. After that was accomplished, he grabbed her and pulled her against him, kissing her again as his hands roamed unencumbered. “You’re so fucking gorgeous.”
“I think I’ve got competition.” She smiled and gently latched her teeth around his bottom lip, then sucked away the tiny amount of sharpness. Maddy wrapped her arms around his back and stepped into the negative space between them until she felt the waist of his boxers on her stomach. While she was kissing him, her index fingers dipped into the band at the back and rode all the way around to the front, giving the elastic a light pop. She shrugged the left side down, then the right, then eased them away from his abdomen so they’d fall free of him.
Maddy leaned back to see his face. But she couldn't help herself. She took one quick peek at the mirror to view them in profile, but what she saw made her eyes widen. “Whoa! Derek!” She backed up to the bed and got on her knees facing him. “You’re a smoke show! Get out of here!”
“You have to ration out the compliments,” Derek advised her, albeit through a grin of absolute happiness. “Too much at once, and my ego will become out of control.” He took in the sight of her before him before running his fingers through her hair. “I’m trying to remember where we left off…what was it that I was — Oh, right.” He slid his hand back up between her thighs.
“Yeah,” she said, nodding. “I think that’s what it wa—!” The single syllable fell off into a gasp. Maddy shifted her knees to make room for his hand, which was stoking fiery little sparks. She looked at him openly while he touched her. Her expression shifted between hazy and pleased, and she grabbed onto the back of his neck with her non-dominant hand. The other one reached down to return the favor, circling around him and starting to move. “Maybe the tunnel trip was a metaphor,” she whispered and looked down between them. She was a visual person and seeing herself holding onto him kicked her libido into overdrive. Maddy went for another kiss. She gave up trying to hold still and let her hips react to his hand.
Derek gasped, looking down at her hand, the painted nails. It was a very good image. He let his fingers curve up slightly. “I’m not good at metaphors,” he said. “Do you mean something like this?” He returned the kiss in kind before his mouth migrated toward her neck. “I don’t want to let go or you to let go, but I also want us on the bed. Is saying the game plan out loud a no-no?”
Oh shit. That felt… Like he knew what he was doing. Maddy gave up holding onto his neck and put that hand between his legs, too, cupping him.
“Nuh uh,” she answered breathlessly, giving him free reign at her neck. “I like a solid plan of action.” She wet her lips. As she felt his mouth opening, it only belatedly crossed her mind that Derek occasionally grew fangs and used to bite people, but instead of putting her on alert it was kind of hot. She changed the angle of her jaw to elongate her throat.
Maddy maneuvered herself backwards on the mattress, still on her knees but making room for him to join her on his. Her hold on him tightened, becoming less exploratory and more steady and deliberate. “Like, I have this plan,” Maddy said, and her voice was soft and persuasive, “Where you stay right there and I turn around. Just for a minute. Two minutes tops, I swear.” She withdrew from him and turned around, the slight, promising creak of bedsprings just one of the things in their environment that was working wonders for her imagination.
With her spine facing Derek and her knees set wide, she backed towards him until they touched. Maddy gathered her strawberry-dyed hair over one shoulder and pulled his arms around her.
Derek did as he was instructed, and the pay-off was better than he had thought. He let his arms fall around her, and he leaned down to gently bite then kiss the corner of her shoulder. “This is a good plan,” he agreed, pressing his hips against her almost possessively. He let his gaze fall downward, appreciating this view. One hand left her waist and began to travel and explore, following the plane of her hip, then sweeping between them. Her skin was soft and warm under his palm, and he found himself craving more. “What happens next in your plan?”
Her eyes were closed and she was just feeling her way, vibing with no particular roadmap. She wanted to know how their bodies fit at different angles. So many angles. Maddy reached an arm overhead and tugged a little on his hair, right at the base of his skull. The other hand took hold of and guided Derek’s fingers back up across her breasts, then down again between her legs. Maddy was comfortable enough in her skin to move towards what felt best and let him hear her whimper, or breathe shallow and fast. “That depends.” She smiled and turned her face up toward his. She was having a hard time with sentence construction. “Are you gonna hold me to those two minutes? Because if you’re flexible…” She leaned forward and put her hands above the head of the bed. “Maybe you can think of something?”
All the little noises she made, the way she moved and touched him, was driving him crazy. He watched her lean forward, and the hand she had so expertly maneuvered began rubbing slow but firm circles between her legs. “I can think of a few things,” Derek murmured, eyes glued downward. He placed one hand on the small of her back, using the other to guide himself. As he pushed slowly inside her, he slipped his fingers into her hair and tugged her head back lightly so that he could kiss her mouth, moaning against her lips.
“Like this?” he asked, his mouth hovering less than an inch from hers.
Maddy nodded fast, the fingers in her hair making her scalp tingle in the best way. It was hard to catch her breath, so she swallowed and gave herself time to adjust. She was too close to see much of Derek, but he was all around and inside her, and it was a jolting, sexy shock. Tall, gorgeous, sweet, funny Derek was the guy talking all low while he took her from behind.
“Just like that.” She pressed a palm firmly to the wall and arched her back. Warm air from Maddy’s mouth fanned across his cheek. “I’d say something dirty but you told me to ration the compliments.” She reached back to clutch his hip and squeezed.
He let his hand loose from her hair and used both to gain purchase on her hips for leverage. “It’s okay if it’s a dirty compliment,” Derek told her, as he pulled nearly all the way out before plunging back in again. “I’ll go first…you feel so fucking good.” The vampire’s gaze cast downward as he silently deliberated something. “Hold on.”
With ease, Derek pulled back and lifted Maddy, turning her over so that she was on her back. He lifted her hips up and pulled her to him, continuing where he left off. “I want to watch you come,” he explained with a smile that had a different edge than his usual one.
“If you keep talking like that it’ll be fast,” she moaned. “But I like fast, remember?” Maddy bent her left knee and hooked it over Derek’s shoulder. She started rolling her hips into him, becoming a little wilder with each upward motion, and then she stroked his torso and thighs, teasing him with her nails, which were sharp enough to sting but not leave marks. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back, then changed her mind and gaped his body instead. “Derek... the only thing better than how you look is how you fuck,” she said, somewhere between gasping and laughing.
He hadn’t been expecting that. Despite his earlier proclamation, his eyes slipped closed, getting lost in the feeling of her. He grazed his nails over the leg that rested over his shoulder, falling into a rhythm with Maddy that was nothing short of perfect. “You’re one to talk,” he told her, opening his eyes again, watching and waiting for that telltale flush. He wanted her closer.
Derek gently removed her leg so that he could rock back onto his heels and pull her into a sitting position on his lap, wrapping his arms around her. He ducked his head and put his mouth on her breast.
Maddy encircled Derek with her legs and buried her fingers in his hair. All of her muscles were drawn tight like a bow and her lungs were sucking in too much oxygen. The sparkly little pin pricks in her cheeks told her to hold her breath here and there, to keep it together, but it was impossible because his mouth and tongue were creating all this gorgeous friction on her nipple, and the warm, vibrating hum between her legs was climbing and climbing…
‘Not yet, not yet,’ she begged herself, even as her heels dug in and she reached back to Derek’s knee, bracing herself so she could rock faster. Her stomach started to tremble. “Derek? If you wanna watch… I…” ‘Can’t fucking talk.’ Maddy kept going for a moment before she tightened, then went quiet and still, the expression on her face one of helplessness and intense pleasure.
He lifted his head at her words, gasping as she tightened around him. Derek ran a hand down her back, following the curve of her spine as he gazed into her eyes. “God, you..” Whatever Maddy was, the vampire didn’t finish the sentence in the explosion of pleasure. There was a buzzing in his ears, all he could focus on was how amazing she felt, enveloping him like that.
He reached up to cradle the back of her head and buried his face in the crook between her neck and shoulder. “Maddy,” he moaned against her neck. He could barely put a coherent thought together.
Guh, those pretty brown eyes. The timbre of his voice at the end… Maddy turned her cheek into his hair and smiled through the last, little earthquakes making their way into her arms and legs. The rise and fall of her chest hadn’t eased at all and her heart thumped like mad. “You’ve gotta be kidding me!” she said softly. Her fingers ran up and down the notches of his spine. “Who do you think you are?”
“All yours,” he answered with a spent grin, dropping his head back lazily as his hand swept in circles over her back. “I don’t even want to move. Can we just stay like this?” Derek asked, stroking her hair. “You can zap us some food and it’ll be like room service.”
[......End Sexual Content......]
“From where, the truck stop?” she asked, laughing. “You want something fresh off the hot dog roller?” Maddy straightened up and contemplated their situation. With the exception of the gas station, nothing but Lucky’s stayed open super late. “Ooh… Maybe you can con Brian into dropping off some nachos on the doorstep! Just text him that it’s for science. It’s weird enough that he’ll have to say yes.”
She put her hands alongside his ears and tried to make Derek nod along with her. “Yes, great idea, Maddy. I’d love to eat apps in our underwear.”
“No, that is a good idea,” Derek agreed, leaning into the nod and smiling. “Because if we spill, we won’t ruin our clothes.” He was just a little tired. Carefully, he extricated himself so that they could lie down properly. “This is my third favorite part of the process,” the vampire added, fluffing the pillows quickly before lying down.
Maddy waited for the grand fluffening to conclude before joining him and finagling some of the covers for herself. “Okay, so the big, naked reveal, and the actual…?” She stuck her index finger through the okay gesture on her other hand. “Are those the other two?” The pillows smelled like him. She folded the loose end of the pillowcase over her face and inhaled. Perfect.
As she got comfortable, she remembered that somewhere outside Las Vegas, a rent-a-cop with a cold compress had no clue that his injury was the impetus for really great sex. It was too bad they didn’t pay attention to his nametag; they might have sent a fruit basket.
“Yeah, so I guess…okay, so there are basically the three parts,” Derek realized with a grin. He watched her play with the pillowcase and wondered if Maddy could tell he splurged on the really good fabric softener. Maybe he could work it into the conversation somehow. “Unless you count the bonus fourth stage, which is like the hidden track on an album.”
“Go on…” Maddy rolled onto her hip to look at him. “Wow me with your coital observations.” She propped her temple on her palm. The tips of her fingers marched up and down his torso, tracing the lines of his tattoos. She wanted to do a mental inventory of them. For reasons.
He shivered a little at her touch, glancing down at her nails against his skin. Derek reached up and placed his hand on the side of her neck, flicking his thumb up to trace the line of her jaw. “The part where we make plans to do it again,” the vampire told her, both amusement and hope in his eyes. “I mean, and other stuff, too. I really like hanging out with you.”
“Oh honey.” Maddy smiled and shook her head. “That was no one time hook-up. I think we should ride this thing as far as it takes us. Just as long as we tell each other what’s up,” she raised her shoulder, “It’s all good.” Her mouth puckered for a kiss on his collarbone, one that migrated up until it reached his neck. Maddy’s tongue tasted the place where a pulse used to be. She sucked on the spot and then pulled away with a mischievous look.
Derek’s jeans were on the floor. Who the heck knew where her belongings ended up. She pointed at the pants as the most likely location of his phone, which had phone numbers and texting capabilities. “Now what’s the deal with those chips? I’m starving!”