Barbie & The Beast (22 page)

“No,” Barbie allowed. “Find Angie first, explanations after.” Common sense after all? Which Barbie was that?

Something else had struck her, a thought rather terrifying. What if the continuation of these lustful cravings for Darin weren’t
simply any old lustful cravings? What if the bells and whistles she’d experienced in his presence all along were nothing less
than Cupid’s incoming silver-tipped arrows? She was inexperienced, true, but what if this actually was. . .love?

“Why are you frowning?” Darin asked.

“Why are you getting bigger?” Barbie countered.

“You said explanations later.”

“Then you
are
getting bigger?”

He sighed. “There’s a good possibility I am.”

“Brother. Those explanations had better be good.”

“Oh, they will be. Now, will you please stay where I put you while I search for Angie?” he asked.

“You’re kidding, right? Been there. Not going backward this time. Think of me as glue.”

“I’ll find Angie if you please do as I suggest.”

“Sorry. To night I’m Rebel Barbie, so letting you out of my sight would be a stretch.”

“Then I’ll have to lock you in with Dog.” Darin indicated the closest crypt with a wave of his hand.

Barbie searched the outline of the building and grimaced. “You’re telling me Dog’s in there? Inside that marble thing?”

“Yes.”

“Pass.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

“I’m a brown belt in karate and not afraid to try out what I’ve learned in class. Want to see?” Barbie threatened.

Darin shook his head, long hair flying in the breeze. He chuckled sort of wickedly, the sound fading into a snort that reminded
Barbie of the scratch-and-sniff game and the noises he had made with his mouth against her skin. A hormonal surge happened,
right there in the graveyard. Unwanted, but unquestionable. What Barbie desired most was to run her hands all over Darin’s
hot bod. Unfortunately, that urge was a bit impractical at the moment.

“You say ‘Them’ like it’s a bad thing, Darin, about the people who have her.” Talking kept her lips busy and away from his.

He shrugged. “May or may not be bad, depending.”

“Those frat boys might have Angie, you mean?” Barbie guessed. “Those frat boys from the party have a cubbyhole out here?”

“I’m not talking about fraternity boys, Barbie.”

“Hoodlums?”

Darin just looked at her.

“Wait. You don’t really think I believe your ‘things that go bump in the night’ theory, do you?”

“Trust me,” he said. “Some things go bump.”

Barbie’s own internal bumping increased in both intensity and tempo. Her whole body had begun to shake, one particularly potent
shiver sending her pelvis right into Darin’s. She got her fingers up into the wild, flying hair in record time, and pushed
the mane back from his face.

“Are you one of them?” she asked teasingly.

A pinprick of light, finding its way through the overhead branches, lit her fingers and Darin’s skin. She saw his eyes at
last, not exactly the green she’d remembered. . .more like a piercing gray-white.

It took a full minute for her to realize that it wasn’t Darin’s face she was looking at between the shiny curtains of his
hair. It was something. . .liquid. Flesh in transition. Like in a really scary movie.

Barbie stifled an exclamation. Stumbling backward over the grass, she stared, riveted, as Darin’s face contorted like a thing
made of rubber. It was terrifying, obscene—and utterly fascinating. Although Darin shook his head trying to negate what was
happening, his body began to bust out of its clothes.

Ping!
A shirt button soared.
Ping!
Another. Barbie covered her eyes with her hands, saving room to peek through. No way she was going to miss this. She couldn’t
have run if she’d tried.

The sound of tearing silk split the night, followed by a growl so deep and guttural that Dog couldn’t have hoped to compete.
Darin’s shirt fell in shreds to the ground, a couple pieces left to dangle from one remaining seam at his collar. His biceps
bulged, sprouting Popeye-like into huge masses of flesh and muscle.

Next came forearms. Big, burly forearms, covered with dark hair. Manly hair, not anything zoological. Not yet, anyway.

Barbie crept backward until her butt encountered a solid object. A tombstone. “Oh, crap.”

“Run,” Darin growled in a voice that was almost unrecognizable. However, Barbie was too busy wondering if his
pants would be the next article of clothing to tear away. She was considering what could possibly be underneath.

Tearing off his belt with a graceful tug of his arm, Darin repeated, “Dammit! Run!” even as he reached for Barbie’s hand and
caught hold. He dragged her to the side of the mausoleum and pinned her against the chilly marble. His lengthening face came
close to hers. “You. . .little. . .fool!”

Without waiting for her to comment, he flung open a door and shoved Barbie inside. She spiraled backward into a mausoleum
in a dance of balance (or lack thereof) and finally stopped twirling as she hit a long, low slab.

The air knocked out of her took its own sweet time to return. Only then did Barbie turn her head toward the doorway, where
moonlight spilled across the threshold. In that light, she caught sight of Darin’s now-bare buttocks, spotted with moonbeams.

She clamped a hand to her mouth, because above Darin’s rather impressive derriere his back had grown wide in a very peculiar
manner. The skin covering his backside had become a follicular miracle, as hairy as Dog’s and well deserving of a horror-flick
comment. As she watched, as petrified as the marble beside her, the muscles beneath Darin’s newly sprouted fur coat shuddered
once, then went momentarily still.

“Is this some kind of a joke?” she cried, bewildered by the turn of events. “Because I think you’ve made your point. I shouldn’t
have come out here. I should have listened to your explanations when you tried to call. Chances are I shouldn’t have left
my phone number on that card in the first place, or listened to Angie’s client about the party.”

Off-kilter, shaky, and in total denial about what had just happened, what she thought she had seen, Barbie stood tall in order
to better project her voice. “You have a life apart
from mine. I had no business bothering you. I had no business spying. The fact that I love you is my problem.”

Oops. A slip of the tongue. Shakier than ever, she inched sideways. “Since I’ve apologized, don’t you think you can quit the
histrionics, the body bulging, and the playacting? If you leave the door open, I’ll go through it and back home. With Angie,
of course. You will get her, since I’ve more or less apologized for my behavior?”

Barbie had an even better view of those quivering naked buttocks in the doorway from her new vantage point. They certainly
were great buttocks, give or take the covering of hair. Not an ounce of fat on them. Nothing to jiggle.

How long had it taken Darin to get made up like this? she wondered, again falling back on denial. This had to be a gag. He
had gone to a lot of trouble when he couldn’t even have known for sure that she would follow him out here. He had ruined a
terrific shirt, too.

Lightning struck between her ears with that last thought. With the lightning bolt came a protest. Wait just a darned minute!
How had Darin known she would return to the cemetery? She could see Angie knowing, but Darin? Barbie herself hadn’t even known
she would come.

Shivers rode her nerves like mini-tobogganers. A moment came and went where she was sure she might hyperventilate. Moving
slowly into a karate stance, knees bent, hands up and ready, she felt raw energy course through her. She had been willing
to hear Darin out, and was being made fun of.

Maybe Angie wasn’t out here, taken by
Them
. Maybe there wasn’t even any
Them
! This Angie-rustling bit could be nothing more than a conspiracy to throw her off guard, make her feel stupid for participating
in the Dating Game. Darin was exacting his revenge by playing at being a were-wolf and scaring her senseless. He merely wore
a costume
that came with an inflation pump inside. Technology was a marvelous thing.

Werewolves! I mean, really!

If he’d planned this, the upshot to this new turn of events remained her arsenal of alter egos, ready for the picking, that
supported her biggest personality flaw: temper. Rambo Barbie. Rebel Barbie. Kick-butt Barbie. Just thinking about them all
gave her a modicum of calm. For once, she felt somewhat appeased for all those years of endless teasing.

“By the way.” Her voice echoed with Rebel Barbie’s testy edge in the small space. “Nice ass, Darin.”

His returning growl sounded something like
Lord help me
.

Of course, Barbie knew that couldn’t be right, because she was the one in need of help. If Darin shut that really heavy
door, she was screwed. Not only would it be incredibly dark and very probably smelly, but if Angie truly was out there, Angie
would have to fend for herself.

And since Darin didn’t seem to be in any particular hurry, despite his reference to
Them
and to the possibility of no more cookie consumption with Angie if they didn’t find her, this had to be another game. More
graveyard-keeper antics. Scary costumes and all.

Rational thoughts fled when that perfectly rounded Darin derriere moved. Thighs big as tree trunks, no longer lithe and silk
clad, took a backward step. Yes, Barbie wanted to shout, Turn around! Show us what else you’ve got!

Evidently, he read her mind.

Maintaining her karate stance was an impossibility; all Barbie’s kick-boxing class time went out the window in the seconds
it took for Darin to turn completely. Her eyes sprang wide. Her brain stalled. Quite probably she was staring at the most
perfect body in all the world. Greek gods had nothing on this guy.

She gaped in astonishment at a heaping mass of rippling muscle and sinew, all in the right places. Industrial-strength sex
appeal in a werewolf costume. Yes, it was all there: biceps, pecs, quads. . .fur, muzzle, pointy ears. Not to mention the
fact that Darin’s costume came with a first-class werewolf erection. It was huge! Had he gone to an X-rated costume shop?
Good thing Rebel Barbie was in residence, because Barbie Bradley felt lightheaded.

“I know you’re enjoying this,” she remarked, hands on the cold stone behind her for support and to keep her from whimpering.
After all, seeing the full splendor of Darin’s mostly naked (if costumed) body in the moonlight was a shock. “It’s a neat
trick all right, but did you stop to think that everything else is going to pale by comparison?”

This resulted in another growl, which might have been a curse word in werewolf-speak. Hard to tell, since it must
have been difficult trying to talk through the mouth hole in that mask. Barbie sympathized. Sort of.

“Sorry? Can’t hear you. Come closer,” she prompted, keeping hold of Rebel Barbie’s enthusiasm for confrontation with only
the thinnest of threads. What she needed was a
ploy
—one of her tenth-graders’ vocabulary words the week before. A word described in
Webster’s
as an action intended to outwit or frustrate an opponent.

She had it!
Yes, good tactical thinking, Barbie!
She would surprise the heck out of Hairball by grabbing hold of that glorious costume attachment that was supposed to be
this werewolf’s “all-male part.” She’d feign a fondness for it. . .then rip the thing from his ridiculous costume with a
hearty laugh. Afterward, she’d run like heck.

Angie wasn’t going to believe this story when Barbie told her. In private they would titter. Though this escapade certainly
was the oddest she’d ever encountered, it would also be the most memorable. And. . .

Dang! Determining her tactics must have taken too long. Or maybe it was all her staring. Darin moved with graceful agility,
even in his costume. One hop and he was four feet from where she stood. Nothing of his usual chiseled face was recognizable
behind the mask, but his dark hair was fluffed around his head like a moon-kissed aura.

Absorbing the shiver that rushed down her spine, Barbie swallowed, then taunted, “Come on.
Closer.
Nice Wolfy.”

The sound of his footsteps seemed magnified in the mausoleum: padding sounds, not unlike Angie in bare feet on Barbie’s kitchen
linoleum.

Barbie suddenly found swallowing difficult. As was breathing. “Is your last name Chaney, by any chance?” she teased, the word
ploy
dissolving as Darin came closer. “As in Lon Chaney? You did say you liked old movies. . ..”

Darin’s body, encased in its hairy ensemble, exuded a surprising
amount of heat. From three feet away Barbie could feel the inferno. Two feet away, and she started fanning herself with both
hands. One foot away, and she felt as if she were sticking her face into a furnace. Pure radiant heat.

Then Wolf Boy was up close and personal. In the flesh. Pressing Barbie back against the marble wall with the force of a gale.
Not more than a second later she was in his furry arms, inhaling spice and musk. Another second after that, she was lying
upon the mausoleum slab on her back, with a fuzzy muzzle against her left cheek.

“Down boy,” Barbie gasped. “That tickles.”

Rebel Barbie, don’t desert me now.

“Now or never,” she whispered, needing the audible command. She tried to slip her hand down between their bodies, but found
him too close.

“Impressive costume—though a cheap trick,” she declared, thunder rolling through her chest and slamming against her ribs,
her pulse hopscotching in her throat. Further speech was impossible. Determination had been hijacked.

The wolf costume wasn’t all that bad, really. In fact, it looked quite believable. This whole scenario reminded her of making
out with a costumed guy in her high school days, on Halloween, on a dare.

Actually, knowing Darin really wanted her—all that hot breath and panting!—was starting to turn her on. So was the cold smoothness
of the slab, pleasant on this balmy night. Heck, the mausoleum itself had become a turn-on, as sick as that might be.

All good girls had left the room.

The protrusion on the front of Darin’s costume remained a joke, however. If it had been Darin, all Darin, the very large,
extremely hard thing down there might have been, from everything she’d heard about the subject, a supernatural gift from God.
There was no time to explore that thought,
though. Wolf Boy, in two swipes of his pawed hands, had torn her sweatpants into thin strips without causing so much as a
scratch on her quivering flesh. Her Saturday undies, the day written right there on the front in pink floral script, were
exposed!

“You start sniffing anywhere near me, and the date is over!” Barbie warned, slightly embarrassed over being pants-free, trying
to decide where she had left her wits.

Wolf Boy howled, head lifted to the interior moonlight. It was something of a Tarzan-like cry, without the pounding-on-the-chest
part. The spot between Barbie’s legs responded to all this animalistic maleness with a little vibration that nearly did her
in with no help from Darin whatsoever.

Against her better judgment, Barbie closed her eyes and turned her head. Were people expected to be rational in a crypt?

The feel of Darin’s tongue on the side of her neck set her legs to quivering. Wolf Boy braced her knees with one hand and
pulled both her arms above her head with his other. The tongue returned, darting in soft downward strokes over the fabric
of her white T-shirt.

Darin couldn’t speak through that hairy mask, but he sure as heck could maneuver his mouth. With a very sexy purr— not too
frightening; quite erotic, actually—Wolf Boy made mincemeat out of her T-shirt. With his teeth! Which left her essentially
naked on the slab, save for her underthings. Cool mausoleum air mingled with all of Darin’s heat.
Kowabunga!

In the back of Barbie’s mind, consigned to the farthest recesses, possible problems nagged: the fact that she was now going
to have a difficult time getting home, clothes in shreds; the fact that she’d nearly orgasmed with this guy in a wolf suit
just looking at her.

Another intruding thought. Had Darin stripped her so that she couldn’t follow him when he ran out of here? Did he
know about her shyness and assume that it would hold her back? Absurd, really, his thinking she’d chase him, since he had
most assuredly made up the part about Angie being here to night.

But, dang. Who was calling whose bluff?

What about those other explanations Darin had said he’d offer? Would those have to wait, too, given that Darin very conveniently
couldn’t speak through his wolf mask?

What was wrong with her, anyway? Despite being confronted by all these concerns, Barbie didn’t care. She wanted more of what
this big bad wolf had to offer. For sure, more nips and nuzzling. A feeling of euphoria overcame her. Too many weird things
all at once, and sometimes a girl just couldn’t think them all through. Darin. . .well, he just had this effect on her.
In a moment of weakness, Barbie puckered up her lips and howled.

Wolf Boy drew back as if stunned, cocked his head, and answered with his own powerful howl, which might have been the equivalent
of licking his chops. Afterwards, he stared down at her, his gaze riveted to her lace-covered breasts.

No way would she allow him to shred that lace. “If you go there, it’ll cost you,” Barbie panted, experiencing restless legs
syndrome. “Even in fun.”

“Hmmm?” Wolfy growled.

Had Wolfy raised a wolfish eyebrow? Naw. No mask was
that
elaborate.

“It’ll cost plenty,” Barbie told him. “You want to see me naked? We’re talking a chick flick, popcorn, a late supper, cocktails
at Sammy’s, and then a fast Porsche ride through the streets of downtown with me at the wheel. All of this pending, of course,
my determination of how decent your explanations are. Because you
are
going to give me some.”

Wolfy hesitated, his mouth poised above her size 34-Bs. He seemed to like the lace. His throaty growls became deeper,
again almost like a purr. A wolf was, after all, a wolf, right? And lacy lingerie was a bazillion-dollar business for that
very reason.

“Maybe I should make you sign a contract agreeing to my demands.” Barbie gulped as he continued to stare. “Got. . .a . .
. pen handy?”

Darin’s eyes were shining in the wolf mask—big, pale, and luminous. There was plenty of lust there, all right. He seemed to
be smiling.

“No pen? Doesn’t mean you get off complete—
Ohhhh,”
Barbie moaned as he began to take little nips at her flesh that felt like tiny bug bites. Only these bites were immensely
pleasurable, not itchy. She remembered these bites.

“Ahhhh!” On her left shoulder, near her satin bra strap, more bites. A warm nose on her skin. Darin’s proximity was like being
covered in mink, that fur was so soft.

Wait!
Her mind did a rewind. Hadn’t she seen someone in a fur coat briefly beneath the streetlamp outside her home? Could it have
been Darin, trying this costume out?

Darin made another wolfishly satisfied sound.

“That tickles!” Barbie cried out. Her voice echoed in the mausoleum. Other sounds kept on rolling after her own voice faded,
too. Strange, muffled sounds. Freezing, Barbie lifted her head, listening. “What was that, Darin?”

It was hard to believe she had heard anything over her own ragged breaths, hard to believe this moment could be interrupted
for any reason. But there it was again, closer. Voices? One in particular sounded familiar.

Darin’s furry head lifted. As more cool air hit her, Barbie’s goose bumps returned. Without the fuzz of Darin’s wolf suit,
the draft seemed icy. Without the close proximity of the erotic furball, she regained some approximation of rational thought.

“Darin. You
were
kidding about Angie being out here.
Right?” This was like starting their entire relationship over—in another dimension.

“Grrrr,” Darin said.

“Take that mask off and talk to me. Is Angie out here? Really? This isn’t a joke just to get me naked on this slab?”

“Grrrr.”

She felt his hold loosen, and was off the marble in an instant, standing between Wolfy and the door. So what if she was mostly
naked except for her bra, undies, socks and running shoes? So what if she never went undressed anywhere at all, except maybe
from her bedroom to the shower? This wasn’t the time to be embarrassed.

“I thought you were kidding.” She frowned. “Is that sound coming from my friend?”

Darin, in his wolf costume, didn’t answer, though he also moved toward the exit.

“This was fun,” Barbie began, noticing that one of her socks was folded down while the other stretched partway over her ankle.
White athletic socks. Gad, how sexy was that? “If that truly is Angie, though, we need to find her. Can you run in that hairy
getup?”

“Grrrr.” Darin growled louder. His tone, Barbie decided, sounded pretty darned dangerous. Perfect for saving her friend.

She smiled at a sudden thought. “You can pump that suit up whenever you want, right?”

“Grrrrr,”
he replied.

“I’ll take that for a yes.” Barbie stole one more look at Darin’s costume—the lower bits, especially—before setting her mind
to the task at hand. “Okay. Let’s get out there, Wolf Man. Let’s go find my friend.”