“Don’t worry.” I grabbed his hand in both of mine, tugging him through the arched doorway. “I’ll protect you.”

“I bet you will.”

We entered a pitch black tunnel, horror sounds in the distance, but here it was quiet. I clung to Mateo’s arm, giggling to myself.

“You were saying you were going to protect me?” he whispered against my ear.

I just kept laughing to myself, readying for the first—

“Ahhhhhh!”

A black creature that blended with the wall leaped out with arms raised. I screamed, then threw my head back laughing as I pulled Mateo through a mesh-like door to the next scene. His hands moved over me, one across my neck to grip my shoulder in a loose chokehold. Another coasted from my waist to my hip, squeezing and shooting my adrenaline into the stratosphere. With the added exhilaration of the haunted house, I felt almost high. Completely touch-drunk by Mateo, and I didn’t want it to stop. I’m pretty sure I was addicted.

We walked through a sort of graveyard, the mist and wrought iron gate surrounding above-ground crypts. We passed the first, waiting for something to leap from the shadows, but no one did. We passed another on the right, but nothing. When we passed the third, five zombies stumbled out of the mouth of the crypt.

Not only did I jump and practically crawl up Mateo’s body, but I pushed one zombie back with a telekinetic punch. The dude fell backward onto his ass, then he sat up, shaking his head.

“Crap. Keep going!” I hauled Mateo past the zombies.

“Did you do that?” he muttered in my ear, his lips brushing the shell.

Heat pooled in my middle. “I couldn’t help it!” I yelled over the thunderstorm sounds coming from the next room. “He got too close. It just happened.”

He gripped my waist with both hands, pulling my body back close to his so I could hear him over the noise. “Be good, little witch.”

I had no smart come-back because my brain had left the building and my body wanted to rub up against him like a cat. He nudged me through the next door where there was indeed a simulation of a thunderstorm all around us. No rain, but a fine mist and strong winds whipping the moss-laden fake trees along a winding path. There were eyes peering from the dark, blinking and disappearing. They were canine-like. Then a howl erupted and carried on the wind.

“Oh, shit,” I said, realizing what kind of creatures were in this “forest” we walked through.

I glanced over my shoulder at Mateo who’d slowed his walk. His dark eyes were glowing with that inner fire. The feral gleam of his wolf, of Alpha. Fuck. His wolf was readying to fight an opponent.

“Come on.” I tugged him harder, pulling him along the lit path.

But when the dude in a werewolf costume jumped out in front of us, I knew we were in deep shit if I didn’t do something fast. I turned abruptly and wrapped my arms around Mateo’s waist underneath his coat. His body was a steel wall, a murderous growl rumbling in his chest.

“Mateo,” I said. “It’s okay.”

He didn’t hear me, his now otherworldly gaze on the fake werewolf making all kinds of stupid snarling and howling noises, swiping the air with his fake claws. This dude was about to get beat to a pulp, and he didn’t know it.

“It isn’t real.” I pushed a hand into Mateo’s hair and tugged, forcing his gaze down so he’d look at me. “It isn’t real.” I shook my head. “He’s human. You know this. Reach out.”

I wanted him to reach out with his magic, to feel there was no danger. His taut body eased some, his narrowed gaze assessing, his head tilting. With a deep sniff of the air, his body relaxed further but not fully. We could always sense other supernatural creatures. Mateo was able to override his wolf and recognize this for what it was. Thankfully, the fake werewolf made one more little howl and leaped back into the fake forest. Smart move, dude.

I pulled Mateo along, knowing we had to be coming to the end. His body practically thrummed with magic, emanating a sizzling electricity I hadn’t sensed on him before. His skin was fever-hot. We needed out of this damn haunted house. This had been a bad idea.

We walked through a mad scientist’s lair where deformed creatures hobbled around, chained and in pens, reaching out to touch us. I wasn’t even phased, completely focused on finding our way out. I could see the final arch up ahead, right through one more doorway.

“Almost there,” I muttered more to myself, feeling the tension rippling off the werewolf behind me.

As we walked through the last doorway, which was strangely shaped and about three feet deep, a wooden door sealed shut in front of us. I spun to see a wooden panel slam shut behind Mateo. Then I recognized the shape—a coffin. We were standing in an oversized, upturned coffin. I spun back around as people banged on the outer walls, circling us with screams and maniacal laughter. All part of the spooky vibe of a haunted house. Except what the spookers on the other side didn’t know was that I was now trapped in a very small box with an amped-up werewolf.

It wasn’t fear that jack-knifed my pulse from zero to sixty in a millisecond. It was the wall of steel behind me and the sexual charge snapping off him like a dropped powerline.

“Mateo?”

His roughened hands gripped my wrists and pressed my palms to the door in front of us. I was breathing fast and hard.

“Mateo?” My voice shook now.

I felt his head dip, but he hadn’t touched me other than to place my hands on the wall, his hard body a wall of heat at my back.

“Don’t. Move.”

Holy shit. His voice. It was all gravel and rust. Deep and feral. I wasn’t talking to Mateo anymore, and I knew it. Long fingers skirted around to the front of my waist, then traveled down over my jeans until he cupped my vagina in a possessive grip. Not moving, just holding.

I jumped. “Oh, my God!”

“Shhh.”

His other hand fisted around my ponytail and tugged my head back and to the right with a sharp pull. Not enough to hurt me, but enough to make me obey.

Then I felt the heat of his breath just below my ear. And his tongue. Fuck, his tongue. He trailed a line down the column of my throat, sloping onto my shoulder where he bit down with teeth. Enough to sting. His body was aligned with mine, his thighs to mine, his hard cock against the cleft of my ass, his broad chest to my shoulders.

“Fucking delicious.” Again, that rough voice that wasn’t Mateo, but also was, vibrated against me. A voice that reeked of naughty, naughty things.

The people trying to scare us on the outside bled into nothing. Their stupid screams only amplifying the sensation taking place inside this coffin, this box of dark need and hot werewolf.

His tongue licked a line back up till he gave me a hard suckle just below my ear on a deep, rumbling groan. I bit my bottom lip, but still couldn’t stifle the moan of…of what? Pleasure? Fear? Both?

“Yeah,” he growled in Alpha’s voice. “My girl is fucking delicious.” He scraped his teeth along the side of my neck, like scoring paper with a knife, outlining where he intended to make his mark. “Bet you taste good everywhere.” He rubbed his hand where he cupped me between my legs. A chill shivered down to my toes. For a second, I honestly wondered if he planned to actually eat me. Then he tightened his hold on my ponytail, pressed his nose to my skin and inhaled deep. “Fuck, it’s gonna feel good when I finally sink into you.”

Aaaand, my knees buckled. I pushed against the wall, my fight or flight instincts punching me in the gut. He pressed his body harder, keeping me upright and trapped with far too much ease. His hand on my hair tightened.

“Mateo?”

A rough chuckle against my ear. “He’s left the building, baby.” He punctuated that with a rock of his pelvis and a grind of his hard dick against my ass.

“Alpha…please…”

A hot chuff against my neck. “Yeah, you’ll be sayin’ that a lot.”

He released my hair and skimmed his long fingers around to grip the front of my throat. I froze. This was the moment I knew I was in danger. The wolf’s need for both blood and flesh was about the same according to my late night readings. I could punch him across the room telekinetically but not when I was enclosed in a coffin with him. If I pushed him with my magic now, it might make him lose his shit and hurt me.

“You wanna know what the worst thing is?” he asked, all husky and carnal.

He brushed the rough pad of his thumb along my pulse. His hand between my legs moved, sliding his long fingers back then forward before he cupped me again, keeping a tight, possessive grip. This insane experience felt more intimate than any sex I’d ever had.

“What?” I asked, resting my forehead against the wood door, the sounds of the banging and laughter outside slowly receding. Thank God. Almost over.

“When I see a guy looking at you, wanting you…I want to rip his throat out. Push you to the ground…” His hot breath was at my ear, fanning the flames licking in my blood. “And claim you for all to see. So the world knows you are mine.”

I saw spots for a second, overstimulated and hazed with lust and a small amount of hysteria. Okay, maybe not so small.

“But Mateo, that coward, he won’t even entertain the idea.”

“I like Mateo,” I whispered on a shaky breath.

“Give me one night, and you’ll like me more.”

The weight and heat of him, the heady sensation of his mouth on my skin, his dominant hold on me, was about to make me spontaneously combust when the door swung open and we both stumbled out into empty air. None of the people who’d been banging and screaming on the coffin were there. Without even looking back, because I couldn’t, I jogged ahead for the exit, sucking in a deep breath when we were finally outside and standing on the grass, the upbeat tempo of a band playing nearby.

I breathed in and out for a few seconds, trying to erase the hot brand of his hands on my throat and lady parts. Now I knew why Mateo was so worried about Alpha taking him over. Oh, shit. Mateo?