The Haunted (Sleeping with Monsters Book 1) (3 page)

She
walked among the hip-high stacks, bending over to scan familiar titles, looking
for something new or something very very old and comfortable to read. She found
two books that she knew she enjoyed, carefully pulled them out, and held them
up.

“Which
one do you think I should pick?” she asked the man in the painting on a whim. “Lady
Chatterley’s Lover? Or Rebecca?” She waited half-a-second, smirking up at him.
“What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?”

This
brief moment of control and whimsy realigned her. Made her feel like she was
mistress of the house again, as unfamiliar as it was. She walked out of the
library and back to her room, her robe trailing her like a train.

Daphne
crawled into bed and began reading about Lady Chatterly’s Lover. It wasn’t long
before the book dropped forward on her chest and she began to dream.

In
it, she rode endlessly riding toward a horizon, rocking back and forth on a
horse’s broad back. Heat built where her legs split and met the saddle,
bouncing with every move the horse made, translating the beginnings of pleasure
into her, if she could just let herself go. In her dream the horse had no reins
and she wound her hands into its mane to hold on as the saddle disappeared and
left her grinding against its sweating black back, every motion it made beneath
her safe and strong. It raced toward a horizon that -- in the manner of dreams
-- it would never reach, and she began to moan.

The
horse’s back got bigger, spread her legs more widely and the friction between
it and her became more intense. She knew she should be ashamed of even thinking
such thoughts, but she knew it was a dream, and in her dream she wanted to let
go --

A
soft click from the outside world intruded and she startled awake. The
sensation of riding didn’t end though – because she could clearly feel the
outline of hot hands spreading open her thighs.

She
screamed, snapping her legs together, sitting straight up. The book fell from
her chest to the ground.

“Who’s
there?” She looked around the empty room – and saw where her closet door was
open, just a crack.

“I
mean it –“ she fumbled in her nightstand drawer for the remote that controlled
the alarm. She didn’t care where in the world Richard was now, they could very
well wake him, even if it was all in her head –

But
the light had been on when she woke up – there was no way there could be anyone
else in the room with her now. She would have seen them, they’d had no time to
hide. She squirmed in bed, an uncomfortable heat still lingering between her
thighs. She stood, and walked over to the closet, looking inside of it, and
finding only herself in the mirror. And then she checked out Richard’s closet,
and the bathroom just in case.

The
feeling of danger faded, replaced by curiosity. “I’m not the crazy one, am I?”
she asked, well aware that just asking it made it much more likely that she
was.

She
slid herself back up to the head of the bed, and picked up her book. Lady
Chatterley’s Lover had all sorts of provocative horseriding scenes, and her
dream had clearly come from that, it was a normal thing. But the sound of her
closet door falling open – it was one more thing she needed to fix, and good
thing she hadn’t fired Mrs. Dudley earlier, such a good thing – had startled
her and in her half-asleep state she’d assumed the worst.

Right?

She
set Lady Chatterley’s Lover down and picked up Rebecca instead. And when she
felt tired she set the book aside but left the light on.

Daphne
met Arthur for breakfast downstairs at eight on the dot. He seemed pleased to
see her and for Mrs. Dudley’s culinary talents not to go to waste.

“And
what are your plans today, Ma’am?” Arthur asked, after she had eaten a polite
amount of everything and the table needed to be cleaned.

Daphne
bit her lip. The bedroom was nearly finished, she couldn’t just hide in there
anymore. “I’m going to give myself a tour of the second floor, and see where I
should turn my attentions next.”

“Very
well, Ma’am. I hope to finish the library today, if I do I will find you and
ask for instruction.”

“Thank
you Arthur,” she said, pushing her chair back from the table. “And thank Mrs.
Dudley too, that was lovely.”

He
bowed politely, and she left.

Daphne
took her time walking up the stairs. She wasn’t tired, though she ought to be,
since she’d left the light on all night. Instead, she felt excited – invigorated,
even – at the chance to see the rest of the house, in the bright light of day.

The
upstairs was organized into two massive wings, accessible only from the
wide-winged stairs in the hallway out front. She felt like a detective, trying
to piece together what each room had been. Four old divots in the hardwood, as
if from a desk? Then perhaps it’d been a study. An abandoned piano in one room
– a conservatory? She plinked out a few tentative notes and listened to them
echo before moving on. Many of the rooms had massive beds, but little other
furniture – and halfway through she realized she’d started thinking of the
people who’d come through after the Master had died as locusts, stealing away
the home’s rightful furnishings, like the curtains and the portraits from the
dining room’s walls. No wonder the statues seemed so upset – they’d had to
watch everything else around them get taken away.

She
tried all the faucets in the bathrooms – they were done in garish shades of
lime green and pink, and they’d all need remodeling too, if she could get
contractors out this far – and flushed all the toilets, making sure they
worked. As she walked from room to room, inspecting doors and closets, looking
out each window’s view, she began to feel a sense of ownership. She may have
been abandoned here, but this place was hers, already so much more than it was
Richard’s, even if the only reason they could afford it was because of his deep
pocketbook.

She
trotted down the stairs again, across the cold tile of the entryway, and up to
the other wing’s second floor.

This
side was all bedrooms, one after another, politely divided by more garish
bathrooms. They were all empty, except for a few more statues, and one enormous
room holding a massive four poster bed.

Its
mattresses were as high as her hips. It had enormous clawed feet and the
posters were only inches below the ceiling in height. She walked across the
room to it slowly because it looked like a living thing, like it might come
alive and attack her. There were no sheets on it, nothing to hide the elaborate
carving that held the mattresses in on all four sides, roughly hewn symbols of
a bygone time, roaring lions, sleeping dragons, and a brace of running wolves
taking down a bucking unicorn. Someone must have commissioned it, because she
was familiar with antiques in a general sense, and she had never seen its like.

Daphne
slowed as she reached its end. A feeling of warmth overcame her – a flush of
embarrassment, she thought, because it was impossible to stand at the bottom of
this kind of bed without imagining being bent over it, ass in the air, being
taken from behind. The longer she thought on the image the more turned on she
was, and her pussy began a low familiar ache. Richard was gone so often – and
still gone, now. She swallowed, and remnants of last night’s half-forgotten
dream returned, how close she’d been to coming then, before her fear denied
her.

Heat
gathered inside her hips. She shouldn’t stay here, she should run back to her
own bedroom and finish herself off, be able to stroke her own clit and push
welcome fingers inside – when she felt the distinct outline of a hot hand press
against her leg and move up.

Daphne
yelped as if caught, and whirled around. No one was there. But she’d felt it,
it’d burned her almost, it felt as hot as her pussy was – and maybe just as
hungry.

But
she
was
alone. She stood there panting, half in fear, half in need,
trying to convince herself that what she’d felt had been real and not sure at
all that that was a good idea.

If
it hadn’t been daylight, if birds hadn’t been singing outside, and if Arthur
and Mrs. Dudley hadn’t been puttering in the library and kitchen downstairs
respectively, she might not have continued – but because it was, and they did,
she took a crazy chance.

“I
know you’re there. You can come out, if you want.”

A
hot hand squeezed her own. She gasped and stepped aside.

“I’m
– not insane, am I? Are you…real?”

Whatever
or whoever it was decided not to honor that.

“Who
are you?”

The
hand squeezed her own again, and she had the sensation of someone taller than
she was standing very close. She could feel the heat radiating off of their
unseen body all along her own.

“Did
you used to live here?”

The
sensation of nearness did not decrease.

“Did
you live in this room?” she guessed. “In this house?” she clarified. In
response, she felt one warm finger trail down her arm. She shuddered at the
contact, not in fear, but in pleasure – and was instantly ashamed and
horrified.

“I
have to –“ she stepped aside, away from the heat, and ran, both frightened and
turned on. She slammed the door shut behind her, hoping to hide from whatever
it was in the room with her and her feelings.

She
raced down the stairs and into the library, where the Master’s portrait looked
down disdainfully at the progress Arthur had made.

“Arthur
–“ she began, breathless.

“Ma’am?”
He startled straight at the sight of her. “Do you need tea? Lunch will be --”

“No,
no – um –“ Now that she was here with him, she wasn’t sure what to ask without feeling
foolish. “Can you tell me some of this house’s history?”

He
blinked. “I was only here for the last twenty years of the Master’s life, and
other than his interest in carving furniture, there’s not much to tell.”

“Have
you…ever seen a ghost here?”

He
seemed to consider this. “A house this old has history, no doubt. And history,
almost by default, includes ghosts. But no, I’ve never seen one.”

Daphne
chewed the inside of her lip. “Never?”

“Never,”
he said, shaking his head solemnly. “It is spooky here sometimes though. So
much open space, so little life. Perhaps you should buy some houseplants?
Orchids would go nicely with your décor. Or take in a cat or dog. I can arrange
that in town, if you’d wish.”

She
shook her head quickly. The thought of a cat staring off into space watching
something she couldn’t see didn’t appeal to her much.

“Perhaps
can I interest you in some tea?”

“I’d
like that.”

She
sagged into the sitting couch as Arthur left the room. He was right about one
thing – there was history here. And the family that’d lived here after the
Master had died had done little to erase it.

Daphne
looked down at her arms. She’d felt it, hadn’t she? It had touched her – it had
been real.

But
who was it?

A
lazy breeze made the shadows of the trees outside wave across the ground. She
watched them for a time, and when she looked up she saw the Master staring down.

Daphne
finished unpacking the bedroom that day and didn’t go exploring again. Dinner
was a quiet affair, she ate because she needed to eat, nothing more.

“Are
you sure you’re well?” Arthur’d asked solicitously at the end of the evening.

“I
am.” She wasn’t, not at all. But she’d been thinking about it, all afternoon.

She
didn’t want to tell Arthur about it and sound crazy. The ghost, if ghost it
was, hadn’t tried to harm her. There’d been no parlor tricks, no flies beating
against the windows, or blood dripping from the ceiling – nothing frightening,
just a presence nearby. If this had been her home for eighty years, wouldn’t
she want to vet the new owners too? And she didn’t want to go in with guns
blazing, hiring a priest, as if their mumbo-jumbo-malarkey would even work. No,
there had to be a way to come to an amicable agreement – an understanding --
between the two of them, to live here in peace. The house was certainly big
enough.

She
heard the alarm chirp on and calmly walked upstairs. If the ghost had wanted
her dead, he’d already had two nights to do her in. And he hadn’t tried to
scare her yet – he’d just wanted to make his presence known.

Daphne
closed the bedroom door behind herself and swallowed before speaking. “You’re
still here, right?”

Nothing.
No heat, no sensation of anyone else in the room. She didn’t know if she should
be angry or relived.

“Hello?”
she tried again. Where else would a ghost have to be? She smirked, imagining
him going off to a ghostly dental appointment – when the feeling of being
watched began, wiping the smirk off of her face.

“You’re
here.”

Nothing
touched her. No heat. Just that skin prickling feeling that was as intense as
being turned on.

“I
don’t think I’m afraid of you. I mean I am – but – I shouldn’t be, right?”

A
warm hand took hers and pulled her to her bedside, as though she and the ghost
were girlfriends, about to have a difficult conversation. She sat down, ankles
crossed, her skirt pulling just above her knee.

“We
live here now. But there’s no reason for you to go anywhere. This house is
definitely big enough for the two of us. Three of us, if you count Richard –
although I realize you haven’t seen him yet.”

The
hand that’d been around her own disappeared – and reappeared, on her knee, like
a familiar lover’s.

“He’s
very nice. You would like him if you met him. I know you would,” she said,
talking faster as the hand moved fractionally up her thigh. “I mean, we’re
married, and, he’s only gone because he has to be. He’s in the banking business
and –“ the sensation of heat crept higher along her bare skin and underneath
the front edge of her skirt. Daphne saw the fabric ripple, allowing him access
beneath, the edge of a hand, an arm, as she felt fingers stroke the inside of
her thigh.

“And
I know he loves me – he must, mustn’t he? He bought me this whole house –“ she
went on, as the heat rose. She knew she should be running away, be hiding in a
closet, be setting off the alarm. But every motion the hand made created a warm
flutter inside her, echoing its motion, and she found herself experiencing it
as though she were in a movie, waiting to see just how far it would go, how far
she would let it go, if she would – could -- even stop it.

She
was holding her breath now, and the hand stilled, grabbing hold of her inner
thigh, fingers, thumb, and palm all hot, mere inches below what her underwear hid.
She could feel her pussy ache, empty for so long, wet and scared and excited
now.

“You
won’t hurt me, will you?” she whispered to a seemingly empty room.

There
was no reply.