He was dressed as Dracula. His robe was ebony satin with a blood red lining and the hood that covered his head shadowed all but his mouth.
My breath hitched in my throat and burned in my lungs. My pulse thumped wildly and my skin tingled in response to a presence that I couldn’t forget. It was Bo. Beneath the hood that concealed most of his face and the cloak that concealed most of his body, I knew it was him. I’d know him anywhere. I’d love him always.
I could see only his handsomely square jaw and chiseled mouth. My eyes hungrily memorized the lips that I’d never forget the taste of. I felt like I’d been starved of them for far too long.
As Bo’s hand rose slowly from his side, reaching out to me through the crowd of bodies, the words to the song carved themselves onto my heart. Bo was both my sweetest dream and my most beautiful nightmare.
Without hesitation, I stepped forward and slipped my hand into his. A little bolt of electricity shot up my arm when our skin made contact. Bo pulled me to him and I inhaled, reveling in the tangy scent that had teased me for what seemed like forever, and probably always would.
Bodies brushed me from every angle, every direction, but the only thing that I felt was Bo pressed to my front from chest to thigh. I looked up into the most consuming eyes I’d ever seen and I fell into them, sinking into the only place I ever really wanted to be.
I saw Bo’s lips move and, even above the music, I heard his whisper.
“I never thought I’d get to love someone so beautiful,” he said.
The words echoed through my soul and warmed me to my toes. With Bo staring down at me, his words in my ears, his body moving gently against mine, it was the most surreal moment—dream-like, so much so I never wanted to wake from it.
The music surrounded us, wrapping us in a pulsing cocoon of privacy amid the sea of bodies. I laid my palms flat against Bo’s chest as one of his hands snaked around my waist. The fingers of his other hand teased the skin of my arm as they made their way up to disappear beneath the hair at my nape. I felt them tangle in my hair and then curl into a light fist.
With one quick tug, Bo pulled my head to the side as he bent toward me.
I gasped when I felt his hot lips at my throat. I pressed my body closer to his, running my hands down the sides of his firm abdomen. I felt the hard muscles contract beneath my fingertips as Bo’s breath hissed through his teeth.
Lyrics about guilty pleasure wove a sensual web around us. My blood heated with thoughts of Bo’s skin on mine, covering me, sliding against me.
The friction of Bo’s body rubbing against mine, moving in time with the music, sang along my nerves and turned my core into a raging inferno. When I felt his tongue licking at the pulse that beat violently beneath my ear, I had to bite my lip to keep a moan from escaping.
“There’s no one like you,” he said, his lips tickling my sensitive skin as he spoke. “There’s no taste like you,” he sighed, trailing his tongue up to tease the lobe of my ear, drawing it gently into his mouth. “No feel like you,” he moaned, his hand moving to the base of my spine and pressing my hips into his. “There’s no one that I need like I need you.”
My insides melted. I wanted to cry with the pleasure of it, the bitter-sweetness of it. I couldn’t imagine ever wanting someone as much as I wanted Bo. I didn’t think my heart could take it without exploding. I would gladly give up years of my life to be with him, if only for a little while. In the end, I knew it would be worth it.
Bo raised his head to look at me, his eyes searing me with a heat so intense, I felt it in my stomach. Without a word, he tightened his hold on me and lifted until my feet were several inches from the ground and my chest was plastered to his.
Slowly, he turned and walked out of the crush, away from the crowd.
He carried me toward a deserted corner of the gymnasium and into a short, dark hallway that led to a door that emptied out onto the stage in the auditorium right next door.
The music still thudded in my chest, obscuring the excited patter of my heart.
Bo walked to the back of the hallway, to its blackest point, and stopped, pushing me up against the wall and holding me there with his body. And then his mouth was devouring mine.
As his tongue tangled mercilessly with mine, I grabbed his shoulders and held on tight. I felt his hands at my thighs, his fingers working the material of my dress up until I could feel skin on skin.
I wanted Bo so badly it almost hurt. I wanted more. I wanted it all and the frustration of it was killing me.
At first, the scream sounded like it came from somewhere inside me, like the cry of my body for Bo’s attention suddenly became audible. But then I heard the music die and an uncharacteristic hush fall across the gymnasium, which lay only a few feet away.
Bo leaned back and looked at me, both of us breathing like we’d just run a marathon. Confusion and a little concern swirled in his beautiful, velvety eyes. A frown creased his shadowed brow as he let me slide to the floor. My dress shimmied down my legs and righted itself at my ankles as we both turned to look toward the gym.
Bo took my hand and led me from the dark, back out to where everyone was shuffling to get a better view of something that was happening around the refreshments table, near the exit.
The closer we got, I could hear that someone was crying. A girl. And one of the chaperones was soothing her, encouraging her to calm down and tell him what happened.
Bo and I pushed our way to the far right interior edge of the crowd so we could see. It was Bailey Adams. She was dressed as a cat in a skin-tight black suit.
The material was torn down her arm, her tail was missing and one of her ears was bent. A fine red spatter covered her face—blood. She’d obviously rubbed at it, causing it to streak across her cheek and smear her whiskers.
She was hiccupping, bawling her eyes out, trying to speak around her terror.
“Take your time, Bailey. Just tell me what happened. Are you hurt?”
“No. She didn’t want me. She took Jason.”
“Who? Who took Jason?”
“Summer. She took him.”
“Summer? Summer Collins?”
“Yes,” Bailey cried, her sobbing renewed. “I think that’s who it was. She jumped out from behind the side of the school and attacked us. We both fell down to the ground, but it was him she wanted. She started biting him. She took two big chunks out of his face. Right in front of me. I-I-I saw her do it,” she stammered hysterically.
“I crawled over to him and grabbed his arm, tried to pull him away from her, but she wouldn’t let him go. She just chewed on him and kind of shook him, like alike a- a toy. Blood was going everywhere and- and then she got up, grabbed hold of his foot and dragged him off.”