Shifters in the Shadows: Seventeen Paranormal Romances of Sexy Shifters, Dangerous Vamps, & Things That Go Bump in the Night

by J. K Harper

  "Oh, right! Those are cute, but…"

  "Ah, witches aren't your thing. Prefer to eat a ghost's penis?"

  She grinned at me, holding up what looked to be a white-chocolate covered banana half, with dark chocolate piping on it, turning the innocent snack into exactly what she'd said—a slightly curved ghost that looked like a cock on a stick

  I couldn't help but giggle even as I told her no.

  "You don't know what you're missing. You haven't truly lived until you've had a ghost's penis," she grinned at me, throwing the words over her shoulder as I watched her walk away, offering her ghost cocks to others.

  I guess everyone's minds were in the gutter tonight.

  Man, is everyone getting laid but me?

  I took her appearance as a sign.

  That's it, I'm going to do it! I thought, tugging the zipper down over my breasts a bit again and yanking the hem of my mini dress up some as well, before turning back around toward where I'd just seen Mark a moment before.

  It was high time I put the past behind me and opened myself up to my future.

  Chapter 2

  He wasn't where I'd just seen him, but I knew he had to be around here somewhere. Before I could change my mind, I popped off a quick, hot text, telling him exactly what I wanted to do to him tonight, and I looked around the room, hoping to spot him so I would get to watch his reaction as he read it.

  It took me a moment to find him and I started to regret sending that text.

  Was I really ready for this? Here? Where I'd already planned to do exactly this two years ago, with someone I truly loved?

  There!

  I finally spotted him. He'd skirted the crowd and was standing at the edge of the room. He was standing beside one of the doors that was blocked off as off limits with caution tape.

  I met his eyes through the crowd and shivered in anticipation.

  From the look in his eyes I knew he must have already read my text. For a second though I had an odd thought—Funny, I've never noticed before but with that mask on, he kinda looks a little like Cole.

  His costume surgical mask was firmly in place but the way his eyes glowed, pulling me to him, I could tell he couldn't wait to get me into one of those off limits rooms I'd just texted him about.

  I shook off my odd thought and grinned wickedly back at him over the crowd.

  I was shocked that he let me put him off for as long as I had, but he never pushed me. And now that I'd sent that text it was out there and decided that tonight, here, was where it would happen.

  Unless I changed my mind.

  No, it's past time. I'm ready.

  Suddenly, I was determined to make tonight as unforgettable as possible.

  I realized that I was glad that I hadn't worn a bra tonight. I had dithered about it as I was getting dressed, standing in nothing but a pair of panties as I stared at the costume laying across my bed. I'd finally decided fuck it and left the bra lying there.

  I'd stepped into the slutty nurse's outfit, zipped it up over my naked breasts, pulled on some stay-put, white thigh-highs, clipped the little nurse's cap into my hair, and doused myself in fake blood.

  As I held his heated gaze across the room, I thought about tugging my panties off as well.

  Someone bumped into me from behind, making me stumble. They drunkenly apologized, and I smiled, half-lit myself.

  I looked back to where my hot-as-hell, creepy doctor was, to give him a “drunks, right?” look, but he was gone.

  Weird.

  I looked around, thinking I'd spot him coming toward me in the crowd, but I didn't see him. Without the look on his face drawing me in, I started doubting myself again.

  Where could he have gone?

  Duh! He must have slipped through the door he had been standing beside. He's probably just outside that door, waiting for me to join him and make good on my texted promises.

  As I started to follow him yet another snack-bearing waitress cut me off.

  "Curse a rival or dream of your one true love?"

  "What?" I asked dumbly, thinking where did Tommy find these waitresses?

  She pointed to her tray as she clarified.

  "These recipes date back to when this holiday was pagan. Eating this will curse your rival, eating that will make you dream of your one true love. Don't you want to know who you're destined to spend eternity with?"

  She was pointing at what looked to be a tiny, shot-glass-sized cauldron filled with roasted, sugar-glazed nuts next to a set of tiny coffins filled with something that looked like sugar bones.

  "I don't want to curse anyone," I said, trying to step around her and aim toward Mark.

  "Then it's this one you want. Sweet dreams."

  She handed me the cauldron and I took it just so she'd go away.

  I wiggled a path through the crowd until I faced the door Mark must have gone through. I turned the knob but it was stuck. I tried to grip the knob with both hands, but I realized I was still holding the cauldron of nuts.

  I poured the contents into my mouth, placed the empty plastic cauldron on the nearest table in case they weren't meant to be trashed and noticed that the table's centerpiece was a plastic skull bowl. The skull was large, with a hole in the top to hold whatever one wanted to fill it with. I had to laugh out loud as I realized it was full to the brim with foil wrapped condoms.

  I grabbed one, stuck it into the small pocket of my costume, and turned my attention back to the stuck door.

  He'd just gone through it, how could it have closed itself so tightly?

  Mmm, this nut mix is yummy! I thought as I chewed.

  The sugary, buttery concoction had a bit of a spice to it—nutmeg?

  I was glad I grabbed it since it was delicious, but I highly doubted that the story she had told me about it was true.

  The damn door still didn't want to open.

  I had to bump my hip against the door a few times to get it to open enough to be able to slide through the gap. Once it opened, I found myself staring at it before stepping through.

  Through this door lay my future. Was I ready?

  Ready to do something I could never take back?

  I felt my heart speed up in excitement and I fought to swallow. I started to feel a bit lightheaded as I debated stepping through the door.

  Oddly, it was the waitress's words that propelled me forward.

  "You haven't really lived…" she'd said.

  And I wanted to, desperately.

  With a nod of decision I ducked some to get under the caution tape, slid through the small gap of the open door and stepped through, leaving the past behind, determined to finally embrace my future.

  I was ready to live!

  Chapter 3

  It was darker in the hall than it had been in the main party room, and it took me a second for my eyes to adjust, but I saw a flash of metal down the hall and followed it, assuming it must have been a glint off of Mark's clipboard.

  He could have waited for me, I thought, as I quickly yanked my panties down and off, sticking them into the matching pocket to the one that hid the condom. Feeling suddenly brave and daring, I followed the glint down the hall and around a corner into deeper darkness.

  Knowing how much he loves Halloween and all things scary, I figured he was just trying to set the mood. I must admit, it was working.

  My heart was beating a million beats a minute, and my eyes darted everywhere as I tried to take everything in. I passed closed doors as I followed the sound of Mark's footsteps, but I paused as I passed a room with an open door.

  I peeked inside, and shivered.

  Cots lined two walls, thin mattresses still on the beds that had housed inmates in this asylum many, many years before.

  A thud in Mark's general direction made me jump and I passed the cot room quickly, trying to catch up to him.

  When I'd imagined all of this the first time, with Cole, I pictured he and I in our ghoulish costumes, rocking a mattress just like the ones I'd seen. In my
imagination I'd heard the old metal springs squeak, squeak, squeak as we fucked for the first time, the room dark but for the fingers of moonlight spilling through a few tiny, bar-covered windows high up on the utilitarian walls.

  I thought it was sexy as hell, losing my virginity like that. Damn, I loved the spooky magic of All Hallow's Eve.

  I pulled my mind from the past and focused on the future, the now, with Mark.

  We'd done everything but already. I'd tasted his cock as we 69'd, my pussy waving above his face as I straddled his head many, many times, sucking his cock till he spurted in my face. The feel of his fingers fucking my tight, wet hole as his tongue circled and teased my clit, making me come all over his lips and chin was as far as we'd ever taken it before tonight.

  I loved the way he teased me, and thinking about it was starting to get me more in the mood for what was about to happen. I loved it when he rubbed the tip of his cock between my slick folds, making me rock my hips until he scooted down between my thighs, making me come again and again with his fingers and tongue. But tonight, finally, I was going to let him slide his thick cockhead past my entrance. Tonight I was saying to hell with blow jobs and fingers, to hell with being a good girl, I was going to finally feel him slide his cock all the way inside me, fucking me deep.

  I patted the tiny little pocket on my nurse's uniform and felt the condom's reassuring round shape in the square, crinkly wrapper as I picked up my speed, wondering which room he'd ducked into to wait for me.

  I turned a corner, and then another, but I couldn't hear his footsteps in the hall anymore.

  It was really dark this far into the bowels of the old asylum, and for the first time I started to get nervous about where I was instead of about what I was planning to do.

  Where had he gone?

  I knew we'd want to go deep enough into the haunted old place not to get caught, but I didn't want to go so deep that I got lost and couldn't find my way back out again.

  I stopped, listening.

  Nothing.

  I turned around, thinking I'd retrace my steps. I must have passed him without realizing it. I felt an arm grab me around my waist and I screamed.

  My scream was cut short as a hand clamped over my mouth. I was lifted and dragged backwards into a room just off the hallway. The door slammed shut once I was pulled inside, and I was pushed against the closed door, my breasts crushed against the hard, cold metal of it.

  There was a window in the door, but the hall just outside it was so dark I couldn't see anything. I started to fight, trying to look back over my shoulder to see who was pinning me against the metal door.

  I caught a glimpse of a white surgeon's skull cap and a mask, and relief flooded through me.

  It was Mark, it had to be Mark.

  I started to laugh, a scared, relieved laugh, but his body crushed me harder against the closed door, and the hand that wasn't covering my mouth wormed its way between me and the door, finding my zipper and tugging hard.

  I stuck my tongue out, teasing his fingers with it, letting him know that I knew it was him, and that I wouldn't scream.

  He acknowledged me by removing his hand from my mouth, and using it instead to join his other hand, yanking my now unzipped dress apart.

  It only unzipped to my waist, but that seemed to be enough. He opened the fabric wide, tugging it back and over my shoulders some until my breasts were freed and pressed against the solid metal door.

  My nipples hardened against the cold metal, and his hands found them, pinching and tweaking them even harder.

  He squeezed my breasts, still using his hips against my ass to pin my bottom half to the door, but letting my top half have enough room so that he could tease and play with my full, heavy breasts.

  I could feel his hard cock through his scrubs and through the thin fabric of my mini dress as he pressed himself between my ass cheeks.

  One of his hands slid up, over my chest, finding my neck. He squeezed slightly as he tilted it back, making my head rest against him. One hand held me still, gripping my neck, as his other slid down, down.

  He pulled on the fabric of my mini dress, yanking it up roughly until the hem was up around my waist. His hand slid down again, my skirt no longer a barrier.

  He never spoke, but I could hear him breathing behind me. He gasped when he encountered no underwear between his seeking fingers and my slick slit. His fingers slid between my pussy lips, already wet with need, sliding deep and pulling my ass against his hard cock as he fingered me.

  He rubbed me hard and fast, alternating between teasing my clit with his fingertips and filling me, finger fucking my tight hole.

  I'd expected tonight to be softer, gentler, since he knew he was my first, but with the whole “costumed holiday party in an insane asylum” thing going on that we both loved, I was kind of glad that he took control.

  I knew that he knew what he was doing, and I knew that I had no idea what I was doing, so the fact that he was taking all the “are you sure's” and the “how does this feel's” completely off the table was hot as fucking hell.

  I spread my legs wider, rocking my ass against his hard cock. I was tempted to fight him, just to get into the spirit of being yanked in here, but I was too ready for this to play coy.

  The hand that was exploring my pussy and sliding through my wetness left me, but just long enough for him to yank his scrub pants down and pull out his thick, throbbing cock.

  I felt him rub himself over my ass crack, before squatting some and aiming his round cock head at my entrance.

  "Wait! The condom! It's right here in my…"

  And it was too late.

  The foil packet fell from my fingers as he stood tall again, thrusting his hips as he stood, filling me full in one quick motion.

  "Aw, hell," I mumbled as I realized he was bareback.

  He pulled out quickly, I thought to jacket his cock after I reminded him in his lusty haze, but no. He drove himself home hard again.

  His hand found its way back to my clit, and as he strummed me with his every stroke, I promptly forgot all about the condom.

  He circled and slid in my juices, pressing his fingers against my clit as he fucked me against the door, from behind. My head rocked back and forth as his hand still gripped my neck. He rocked his hips, filling me with his thick cock again and again.

  I tilted my hips back, slamming my ass against his pelvis, taking every stroke he thrust into me.

  "Ah, fuck yeah." I groaned the words against the glass window, as he stroked his cock deep inside me, pressing my clit harder and slicker against his strumming fingers with each thrust.

  He pulled himself out of me and I groaned in protest, but he quickly turned me so that I was facing him, my back now against the door.

  He lifted me slightly, and I wrapped my arms around his neck and widened my thighs, helping him as his cock slid home once again.

  He tugged one knee, then the other, and before I knew it I had my ankles locked around his waist as he held all my weight, driving my ass up and back against the door as he fucked me. His pelvic bone rubbed just right against my clit as he pounded me against the cold door that had probably locked some poor, insane prisoner in here under the guise of therapy at one point. As he quickened and deepened his strokes I started to yell.

  I screamed some kind of nonsense as I came, digging my nails deeply into his back with one hand and tugging his hair with the other as his pace quickened as well.

  His cock swelled inside me in the final seconds before he came. I felt him thicken, and his thrusts got faster, staying buried deep in my pussy as he finally stilled, then jerked, and hot, thick, sticky streams of his seed jetted out of him, hitting the walls inside me and splashing every internal inch of me with his come.

  He jerked a few more times as he emptied himself into me. I felt the thick ropes spurt deep, and then slide down my walls till it started to leak out of me as he thrust one last time.

  He leaned against me, spent, as my legs
still held him deep and my head rolled back, still riding the waves of my own orgasm.

  After a few minutes he released my legs and I stood on my own two feet again.

  He yanked his scrub pants up from somewhere around his ankles and tied the strings tightly around his waist.

  I pulled the hem of my dress down over my ass once again and zipped my boobs back into place as his warm seed started to drip down my thighs.

  "I guess we should find a place to clean up and then get back before anyone misses us?" I asked as I yanked open the door I had been pressed against during my hot deflowering in one creepy as hell old patient room, and walked out into the hall, only to see Mark, my boyfriend, headed my way.

  "There you are! I've been looking all over for you! What in the world made you go exploring through the halls of this old place without me? You know it's haunted, right?"

  Confused, I looked from that Mark, to the guy who I'd thought was Mark, who was walking out of the room right behind me, still adjusting his scrub pants from fucking me so good.

  "Who the fuck is that?" Hallway Mark asked, lunging for the other bloody, masked doctor in scrubs with his fist drawn back, ready to punch.

  Mark let loose his fist, aiming his piston punch toward the other masked doctor's face, only his punch didn't make contact. Instead, it went right through his face, like he was a ghost.

  I saw the guy I'd fucked, the guy I'd thought was Mark, grin a wild, crazy grin behind his mask, his eyes crinkling in a satisfied smirk just like Cole's used to do, right before he disappeared into nothing.

  Chapter 4

  I blinked a few times, but each time I opened my eyes it got weirder. I finally focused on Mark beside me as he was calling my name over and over.

  "Do you know where you are?"

  I looked past him, my eyes darting around behind him, expecting to see the dark walls of the asylum but seeing brighter, freshly painted walls instead. I started looking around more, taking in my surroundings. It looked like a hospital. A real hospital, not the asylum.

  "Hannah, can you hear me? Do you know what happened?"