Blind Man’s Buff: Excerpt

I splashed through a puddle, following the herd, and despite all that worried thinking, I appreciated the hindquarters of a certain, well-muscled buck. Point of fact, I couldn’t change how I felt. I liked him. I was an idiot.

Probably, I missed something vital along the way as we loped ahead.

Since the weakest link is usually the first to be eliminated, I dragged my attention back to the game. Losing is not hot. Plus, my feet were starting to get soaked.

The corridor opened to the main hallway.

Hallway? More like a major thoroughfare, bisected with a series of fat, long, low-walled planters and cluttered with more toppled kiosks.

However, an indoor forest benefited from Dougie’s well-spaced lights. Mall trees thrived inside Parkway, despite the conditions. Full and leafy, they were lit from below, so long, thick, shadowy branches stretched armlike toward the skylights. A line of hands reaching for freedom.

Roots snaked over container walls to a shallow, life-giving pond.

Our progress grew slick, our shoes squelching as we avoided as much water as possible.

We slipped along, bearing to the left at the T. There were probably a billion mosquitoes inside the mall during summer. Dengue. Malaria. Zika. Yellow fever. Fortunately, the water was ice-cold in early May.

Fewer LEDs shone from the second level as we closed in on the neutral zone. I wondered if Dougie meant to encourage or discourage players from climbing to the top, but those haunted shadows were a temptation. No getting around it. One of us would need to scout.

I knew exactly who.

We halted at the juncture, and I motioned for Piper to take the upper deck, not to get rid of her, not really. Jonah gave her an encouraging nod and thumbs-up, and I fought to maintain an innocent expression.

She rolled her eyes, made an obscene gesture with her fingers, and scampered soundlessly to the decrepit escalator, climbing with our flag—again, a stupid gamble.

Damn, that player moved fast, and I trusted her. Piper possessed rare athletic skills and laser-like focus after spending her childhood as an elite gymnast. She loved our games now because she’d never been permitted to play them as a kid, and she was easily as good as yours truly.

When she vanished from view, Jonah grinned boyishly at me for a full second, and I was a little nonplussed. His hoodie fell back, revealing shorn, dark hair and the strong planes of his handsome, devilish face. Brown eyes, square jaw, straight nose, butter-soft lips, slightly pointy ears.

Call me a goner.

With no warning, he snagged my hand. Just flipping reached out and took hold of me as if he wanted to lead me somewhere, and for the life of me, I couldn’t remember if he’d ever actually touched me before. Like, skin to skin.

But that touch thrilled me, which sounds dorky and juvenile and queer, but I am all those things, so what do you know? I lit up. Like a fucking Christmas tree. I mean, he instantly charged my entire body with jolting electricity, his touch that powerful. That sexual. That intense.

Shocking and exciting and unlike anything I’d felt before. As if an actual electrical current zapped my central nervous system, hot-wiring me. From his hand to mine, up to my neck, down to my chest, and coursing way, way lower. Jonah ignited areas of my person not generally activated for gaming. Everything woke up, and at the same time, he fried all relevant thoughts from my mind.

I blinked at our joined hands, and his fingers curled tight, sealing our palms.

Oh, man. I thought I’d be the aggressor. Nope. No.

My gaze met his, and his smile turned sexy, bold, and mischievous.

I was fucking hypnotized. What game? Where? Who? Huh?Although for a second I did ask myself why had I taken so long to even notice him.

Clearly, he’d noticed me.

Go Tommy.

Jonah tugged me under a wide gap beneath the escalator. A nook. A fucking make-out nook right there, nestled within Dougie’s fancy light show, in the crud-filled Parkway Mall. I didn’t want to be too eager, but my dick homed in on Jonah, hard and reaching and absolutely inappropriate.

Heart hammering, mouth dry, zero resistance as he palmed my neck, whispering against the shell of my ear, “You ready, Tommy? I’ve been waiting forever for this.”

Oh my Jesus, yes, holy shit beans.

“Forever?”

“You have no idea. Took you long enough.” He nibbled my neck, and I groaned. No kidding. I hoped Piper couldn’t hear me, and wasn’t watching, and fuck it, who cared? His lips fluttered softly, and he murmured, “Open your mouth.”

I did, and he pressed, tender and sweet, and totally removing any questions I had about my own intentions for later—yes, fuck yes. We were sodoing it.

I kissed him, full tilt. No holding back, my palm snaking to grip him, and I took charge, pushing until his back met the wall, hard. I tipped his jaw and dipped my tongue deep. Licking into him. He was the one moaning now. Right freaking on. I lapped into his mouth, tongues swirling, and a noise rang from somewhere above and beyond our nook. A voice echoed around the bend, and Jonah and I jolted apart, dicks hard, breath ragged, stunned.

He grinned sheepishly at me, and I’m sure my expression mirrored his. We were blinking and listening and smiling and shuffling our feet, and I had to sort of tuck a certain overeager appendage back into a less obvious position. All said, at the very onset of our evening, I was smiling like a fucking clown and way ahead of schedule. Booyah.

Jonah turned, ready to go. “You think they have Piper?”

I nearly asked, Piper who? Honestly. “Maybe, but I don’t think they’d nab her this fast.” She was too sly and way too athletic for Chris and Vinnie—although Vinnie had a long reach, and his ability to climb outmatched most of us. Not me, of course.

I followed Jonah from under the escalator, skirting branches and checking doorways and tiptoeing around broken glass and skating puddles, grinning foolishly the entire time. My heart pumped as we came to the widest open area in the mall. Man. What a time to be alive. I flipping sparked with joy and hope and this crazy blossoming feeling for Jonah.

He’d kissed me.

We stopped under the mezzanine and assessed the route ahead.

A crumbling, stucco fountain marked the epicenter of Parkway Mall, a light burning within its topmost basin. This one cast a different sort of shadow, making everything flicker. A trick of the wide, voluminous space and the three-story, vaulted ceiling, perhaps. Or they weren’t the same lights. Dougie may have gotten crafty.

A tumbled retaining wall ringed the dry fountain, and far to the right, near the old arcade, a ghostly carousel marked the bend to the food court. The rendezvous.

To the left of the fountain stood an information desk, currently lacking any authority, and next to that, one of those freestanding mall directory stations. Together, they perfectly blocked the sightline, and beyond them lay an inaccessible main entrance. The other less formal entrances were locked within the anchor stores.

Stars twinkled from the naked sky, the clouds having blown past. From every direction came the soft, arbitrary ploink,ploink,ploinkof water dripping into puddles. The air felt cooler, but the view no less magical.

I scanned the mezzanine briefly; still no sign of anyone. The bad smell tickled my nose again, not as strong as when we first entered, yet lingering, its origin unclear. Jonah must have caught a whiff as well because his nose crinkled.

Making him even more attractive.

Jonah pointed to Red Territory ahead. An elevator hid their hallway. No hint where to find those a-holes, which meant they’d split up (which was appropriate) and had probably secured the base for their flag on the second level, near a balcony. That’s what Dougie would do. Tighter control, better vantage point, easier to defend, textbook gaming. When a strategy proved successful, he didn’t deviate.

I assumed someone would show his or her face soon enough, most likely along the open, multilevel staircase, or they’d drop down from above, all Mission Impossible-like and cool. Intervals of wide gaps were visible in the balcony railing, the ruined remains of twisted metal littering the tile around me.

Piper surely watched from up top, where at least one enemy lurked. Because Chris had a history of impulsive behavior, I assumed he had called out, moving the game along, or just being overly excited. I didn’t see him either. No one.

Jonah turned and smiled. He tugged his hood back up, and presto chango, he turned into an ambiguous ninja. He gestured toward the elevator, obviously jacked for crossing the center of the mall and scaling that decrepit tower. He winked, my heart raced childishly, and he darted ahead, target locked. He moved with real beauty at a beastly clip, smoothly broad-jumping a pile of mall flotsam and landing deep in a stabilizing, athletic squat.

I remained under the lip of the mezzanine, hidden from view, waiting my turn. I checked again for Piper—

And a whirly gray blur fell fast and furiously, knocking me flat on my back and nailing me to the floor.

Critics are saying…

“Exciting, heart pounding, and romantic, I couldn’t put this story down.”

~All About Romance

“I have long loved the work author L.B. Gregg has put out and Blind Man’s Buff is no exception.”

 ~Joyfully Jay