Pounded in the Patch (Dark Nights Collection)

by Dana LeeAnn

I look down as I wince and try to hold back a gasp, and I’m suddenly aware of what I'm wearing—my sexy vampire costume from the office Halloween party. That's right. I’m the office slut.

"It’s time to wake up, my night monster." His voice is deep, rough around the edges, tainted with hardly leashed control and dark amusement. I don't recognize it. It’s definitely not anyone I know.

"I know you're awake, beautiful." The endearment should feel menacing, but it doesn't. It sounds almost… familiar. Like he knows me. But that's impossible.

Dozens upon dozens of jack-o'-lanterns are scattered across the ground like fallen stars, their glowing faces casting flickering shadows in a thick mist that curls around their bases. The fog is so dense I can only see a few feet in any direction, but what I can see looks like something ripped straight from a fever dream or a fairy tale gone wrong. It's beautiful, yet so terrifying.

What kind of psychopath creates something this elaborate, this beautiful, this absolutely fucking insane? And the Halloween music playing in the background… It polishes the spooky aesthetic.

"Welcome to your nightmare, night monster," he murmurs against my ear, his breath warm against the fake blood on my neck. "I hope you're ready to play."

I glance in the rearview mirror as I navigate the final winding curves of the forest road, drinking in every exquisite detail of the woman who belongs to me. Even bound and unconscious, she's breathtaking in that vampire costume she chose so carefully—for me, whether she consciously knew it or not.

My night monster. My obsession. My beautiful, brilliant addiction that I've spent endless time and money to possess.

by now the entire patch should be shrouded in that ethereal mist that will make everything feel like she’s stepping into another world entirely. Her world. The world I built specifically for her.

This is about claiming what's mine and proving that some men don't just love. They possess. They consume. And they can mold the world in service of their obsession.

This is about her, and us, and showing her that I will literally tear down mountains and rebuild forests to own every piece of her soul.

She'd just finished reading some erotic horror novel—Carving for Cara—and when she was telling me about it—fuck—I couldn’t help but notice how breathless and needy she was, desperately trying to hide the darkness that book awakened in her. But I saw it.

"Being hunted like that? Chased through a corn field and then fucked in a pumpkin patch?" "Caught and claimed in the middle of all those pumpkins, with the fog swirling around you and no escape, no choice but to surrender completely to someone who'll never let you go?"

The cost was more than most people's houses, but money means nothing when you're building an empire for the woman who owns your soul.

Each one is a prop in the elaborate theater I've created to break her down and remake her.

For tonight, I'm truly a stranger to her. She won’t know who I am or why I’ve brought her here. Not until the end.

And she is safe. Safer than she's ever been in her life. Because I would kill anyone who tried to hurt her. I would burn down cities to keep her from harm.

I hope you're ready to be hunted by someone who's already decided you'll never get away.

"You're going to run. You're going to run like your life depends on it, because in a way, it does. The woman you are right now? She ends tonight. What you become after I'm done with you? That's entirely up to how well you play the game."

even as I run, some traitorous part of my mind is whispering that this is exactly what I've always fantasized about. Being chased. Being hunted. And a masked man, of all fucking things.

"Your body knows what it wants, even if your mind hasn't caught up yet." Strong hands grab my waist from behind, and I scream into the night.

"Please," I whisper, though I'm not sure if I'm begging him to stop or to continue. "Please what, night monster?" His fingers trace the outer edge of my panties, not quite touching where I need him most. "Please stop? Please don't?" His voice drops again, throaty and entangled with desire. "Or please don't stop?"

I want him. I want this dangerous, mysterious masked man to fuck me until I can’t see straight. "I hate that I want this," I whisper, the words torn from deep inside me. "I hate that my body responds to you. I hate that I don’t even want to escape you."

"I’m gonna fuck you until you can’t walk, and then you’ll crawl to me on your knees while you beg for my cock to fill you one more time."

I want you, and then fuck you on the altar I built while I⁠— I mean you're never leaving this place as the same woman who entered it. But I can't tell her that. Not yet. It’s not time.

She stares at me like I belong in an asylum, which maybe I do. Maybe loving someone this desperately, this completely, is a form of insanity. If it is, I don't want to be cured.

"And then you run for me one last time." And this time, when I catch you, you're never getting away.

That's when I see it. On a pedestal near the bed, sitting on a cushion of black velvet, is a crown. Not some cheap costume jewelry, but a real crown made of obsidian and gold, with intricate metalwork that catches the candlelight and throws it back in mesmerizing patterns. A crown. He built me a throne room and put a crown in it.

"Such a beautiful Halloween queen," he growls, running his hands up my thighs. "Such a perfect fucking queen."

He reaches beneath the pillow beside my head and pulls out something that makes me blink in confusion—a vibrator, but not just any vibrator. It's shaped like candy corn, orange and yellow and white, and it's the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. A candy corn vibrator. He brought a fucking candy corn vibrator to his gothic sex altar.

"That's it," he says, watching my face with those intense green eyes. "Come for your king, my queen." My king. He thinks he’s my king and I'm his queen and this is our dark kingdom.

"I want to ride you," I hear myself say, the words tumbling out before I can stop them. "I want to fuck you while I wear your crown." His eyes flash with hunger. "Then take what you want, my queen."

I sink down onto him slowly, savoring every inch as he fills me completely. The crown is heavy on my head, reminding me with every movement that I'm his queen, that this is my throne, that he's made me into something powerful and dark and absolutely his.

"Come with me," I demand, using the voice of a queen giving orders to her king. "Fill me with your cum until I can’t take any more. I want your seed dripping out of me."

The face I wake up next to every morning. The face of the man I'm completely, utterly in love with. Luke. My Luke.

I thought we were only here to roleplay my kidnapping and primal play fantasy. But this… This is… "Luke, are you serious?" I gasp, pointing at the ring he's now holding as tears form in my eyes. "Is this real?" His smile is soft and nervous, but he nods. "I’m serious."

you did all of this because you want to marry me?" "Not just because I want to marry you," he says gently, sitting up and reaching for me. "Because I can't live without you. Because you're everything I've ever wanted and everything I never knew I needed." I can't breathe. I literally cannot breathe.

"When we planned tonight, you never said anything about—I thought we were just acting out my fantasy. I had no idea you’ve been planning all of this."

"It was about roleplaying," he says, his eyes never leaving mine. "But it was also so much more than that. Sera, you told me about wanting to be chased through a pumpkin patch by someone who wanted you desperately enough to burn the world for you."

I became that person. I literally became someone who would move mountains to possess you. I want to burn the world for you, and then...

You created an entire fantasy world because I mentioned liking a book."

"Because I love you," he says simply. "Because you deserve someone who will make your wildest dreams come true. Because you're worth every penny I spent, every hour I planned, every detail I obsessed over."

He's actually proposing to me on a gothic altar in the middle of a pumpkin patch. This is the most thoughtful proposal of all time. Every dark romance and erotic horror reader’s dream come to life.

"You are brilliant and fierce and secretly wild in ways that take my breath away," he continues. "You deserve a man who will build you worlds where your deepest fantasies can come true. You deserve someone who will love every dark, beautiful corner of your soul."

I promise that no matter how many years we have together, I will never stop being amazed that somehow, impossibly, you chose to be caught by me." Caught by him. Forever. That's exactly what I want. To be caught by Luke Morrison.

Yes to marrying him, yes to spending my life with someone who would build me a haunted forest just to propose, yes to whatever incredible adventure comes next.

My perfect, filthy, night monster. Taking my cock like she owns it. She does own it. Every part of me belongs to her. Mind, body, and soul. It’s all for her.

"You deserve a man who will create magic for you, who will love every corner of your soul, who will spend his life making sure you never doubt how extraordinary you are."

"What did you do now?" Built you another world. Created another adventure for us to share. Spent the last several months designing the perfect Christmas surprise.

"The same team that built the pumpkin patch maze and the winter wonderland designed this. It's twenty acres of Christmas magic, just for us."