"Lily. Lily, wake up, sweetie,"

I blinked my eyes open and immediately felt groggy and uncomfortable. For a split second I wasn't totally sure where I even was. Then I looked up from Zak's shoulder and saw him looking down at me with a cute little smile and I remembered.

"Mm…are we there?" I asked, sitting up and stretching my arms and legs as much as I could from my airplane seat.

"Yeah, we're just about to land," Zak replied.

I twisted my neck side-to-side until it cracked and then I rubbed it with the palm of my hand. As if that pain wasn't enough, my glasses had been pushed askew while I napped against Zak and they'd all but killed the bridge of my nose.

"Ugh, I hate falling asleep in airplanes," I groaned, "and cars, for that matter."

Zak chuckled. "Does your neck hurt a little?"

"Just a bit," I grumbled. "Why didn't you move me into a more comfortable position?"

He put his hands in the air. "Hey, I wasn't about to risk waking you up. You made my arm go to sleep but you looked comfortable enough to me. I figured if you were in extreme pain you'd just…move yourself."

I rolled my eyes but smiled at his mannerisms. "Jerk…"

"Oh, stop. Get ready to get off this damn thing."

I gathered up my phone and crossword puzzle book I'd been working on before I fell asleep and looked out the window as we landed in Georgia. The weather looked okay. It was kind of cloudy, but I enjoyed cloudy weather. With all the sun and desert air we had in Vegas, I welcomed any kind of change.

As the plane began to descend, I gripped Zak's hand on the armrest. He flipped his hand over and rubbed the back of mine with his thumb in slow, wide circles. I hated the sensation of taking off and coming down on a plane. My stomach went into my feet and my heart went into my throat. It was uncomfortable and it made me feel sick, although I had yet to throw up. He leaned down to kiss my temple and I leaned against him—more lightly this time as to not put his arm to sleep again.

"You survived," he whispered when the plane's wheels hit the tarmac.

"It was a close one," I commented.

He chuckled lightly. "Drama queen…"

"Like you should talk!" I exclaimed.

"Shh," he urged. "You're so obnoxious."

I snickered. Our relationship wasn't perfect, but I loved it. I loved him. I loved teasing him just as much as he loved teasing me. We were kind of weird that way, I guess.

We got off the plane and out of the airport with all our equipment intact. We went to check in at our hotel first thing. There was something about hotels that I loved. I loved the pre-made beds and the coffee makers that were always set up on the desk by the heavy phone book. I loved the little soaps and shampoos and conditioners in the bathroom. I loved the paintings hanging above the beds, even if they made no sense. I loved the shitty cable television. It wasn't home, but it was comfortable and stress-free.

Zak and I got ourselves somewhat situated in our hotel room before we were set to meet everyone for lunch and then the guys would head to the location. They had roughly five hours to conduct a few interviews and learn as much as they could about the haunted house we'd be investigating. In the pit of my stomach I was still worrying about the actual lockdown and how it was going to go. I really didn't want to screw it up for everyone. I didn't want to be that girl that ran screaming at the slightest noise. I was over-thinking it.

"Are you sure you don't want to come?" Zak asked, sidling up to me as I admired our view from the window. "Sometimes funny, interesting things happen on interviews…"

I smiled at him, affectionately cupping his face in my hand. "I'm sure. I'm not feeling top notch and you know I can't keep a straight face when you use your TV voice. I don't want to be a distraction to you."

He smiled. "Well you probably will be anyway. I won't know what you're doing for five hours. Don't go out and spend all my money, please."

"The thought never even crossed my mind," I sighed, "but now that you mention it…"

"Hey," He put his tattooed finger on my lips. "Don't run with that idea."

"I'll try not to, although it is tantalizing."

I followed him away from the window and sat down on the edge of the bed. I watched him slip his black jacket on and he fixed his hair in the mirror on the wall before turning back to look at me.

"So what are you going to do, then?" he asked. I could tell it was actually bothering him, seeing as he was likely trying to figure out if he was supposed to worry or not, and it put a smile on my face.

"Sleep," I answered plainly, flopping back onto the plush mattress, "maybe in the nude, I don't know yet."

He groaned. "Now I remember why you don't accompany me more often. You make my job a lot harder to do."

"That's not the only thing I can make har—"

"Lily! Don't," He chuckled even though he was trying to sound stern.

"Oh, c'mon, Bagans!" I smirked. "Liven up."

"Yeah, yeah," he muttered, rushing over to kiss me. "Behave, Lily."

"I'll try to," I replied. "I can't be held responsible for anything I may do wrong while unconscious for five hours."

"Mm, so sarcastic for such a little thing," he said.

"Careful, don't make me want to spend all your money." I warned.

He rolled his eyes and tossed me an envelope.

"There's some basic information that Jeff managed to dig up on the place in there," he explained. "Since you don't want to come and learn about it in person you can learn about it via email. I'll fill you in over dinner tonight when I get back."

I looked at the envelope in my hands like it was about to erupt into flames.

"Okay," I said softly. "I love you."

"Love you," and he was gone.

I crawled back onto the bed, settling myself against the pillows, and opened up the envelope. It provided a picture of the building as well as two pages worth of jot notes on it. The picture made the building look gargantuan, and it was only a picture! The outside was black, like it'd been engulfed in a fire but still managed to stand just fine. A couple windows looked broken and dark clouds above the rooftop made it even more horrifying. I took a deep breath before reading any further. I read something about a sadistic doctor that had built it and I stopped. I put the paper down in my lap and stared across the room at the flower painting on the opposite wall. It just made more sense that the less I knew, the less scared I could be. Carefully, I folded the notes back up and slipped them into the envelope, replacing it on the bedside table. Then I continued to blur it out of my mind and fall asleep.

I don't know how long I'd spent in the lounge. I'd gone down after I'd gotten up from my nap and had a shower. Originally I'd gone with the hopes of stretching my legs and maybe finding some decent food. I knew there was a restaurant somewhere in our hotel and I figured if I didn't want to go there I could run across the street to a homey looking bistro. Both of those plans had been kyboshed, however, when I learned that I could get any cereal I wanted for free with room service. I ordered a big box of Frosted Flakes and it got brought up on a fancy silver platter with a bowl and some milk. I poured myself a generous amount and settled down on the bed, selecting some cheesy romance movie on the TV.

I was kind of getting into the film when I heard a card in the door. My heart thrummed happily in my chest at the idea of Zak walking in. I figured how I was feeling must be how Gracie felt whenever Zak, Avaya or I got home.

He walked in, looking rather exhausted, and first looked at the TV, then to me, then to the hefty bowl of cereal in my hands. He smirked as he shrugged his jacket off his shoulders.

"You look comfortable," he noted.

I wiggled my feet, fitted with my favourite purple fuzzy socks.

"Very," I said. "How was your day?" I grabbed the remote and shut the TV off.

He removed his hat and ran his fingers through his hair.

"Awesome," he said. "We had some really great interviews."

I tilted my head. "Why do you look so exhausted, then?"

"That place is intense," he said, settling down beside me on the bed. "I mean it's a huge mansion, first of all, but the entire atmosphere of it is so heavy. The energy is almost palpable in the air as soon as you go inside. I mean, you read the email. You know the horrible things that happened in there before it was abandoned. It's crazy."

I swallowed a spoonful of cereal and averted my eyes. "Yeah, crazy…"

He looked at the cereal in my hands and furrowed his brow behind his glasses.

"Where'd you get cereal?"

"Room service," I said brightly, welcoming a change of topic. "I was craving it."

He chuckled. "Leave it to you to find your favourite bedtime snack anywhere we go. I take it you don't need to go out to dinner now. Did you leave me any?"

I smiled. I loved how my quirky trait had infected him over the years. Now he ate cereal before bed just like I did. I rarely ever saw him eat it in the morning anymore.

"No, I'll be good for the rest of the night. This is free dinner anyways. It's over on the desk if you want some."

He was so drained he just sighed at it. "I'll get some later."

I set my bowl of milk aside and shuffled closer to him on the bed, kneading his shoulders with my fingers.

"You look like it's time for bed anyway," I said.

"Pretty much," he yawned. "I'm a little bit more awake than I was on the taxi ride back here."

"Why's that?"

He grabbed my hips, hauling me over so I was straddling him. I just laughed and put my hands on his shoulders. He grinned up at me and I ran my thumb gently over the slight wrinkles at the outer corner of one of his blue eyes. He was so handsome, he really was.

"Because now I have you to stare at," he said.

"Oh, hush," I said. "I'm just going to tell you to get to bed, so."

"And if I don't listen to you?"

"There'll be hell to pay, boy."

"Mm, I sure hope so…"

He leaned in to kiss me and I played with the hair at the back of his neck. Don't get me wrong, I was so damn thankful that the romance was still very much alive in our relationship, but I worried about his health sometimes. I'd seen him wear himself to the bone because he refused to sleep when he was tired. He always felt like there was something else to be done somewhere and he just wouldn't go to sleep until he absolutely couldn't keep his eyes open anymore. He reminded me of a child that'd bargain with its parents for a later bedtime. I didn't want him overexerting himself too much, was all.

"Zak…" I sighed dreamily as he began kissing my throat. "We really shouldn't…"

"Why not?" His breath was warm on the side of my neck. "I brought condoms."

I rolled my eyes. I was on birth control and he knew it.

"Really? One might think you were expecting this to happen."

"I kinda was," he admitted. "What? I'm allowed to have my own weird fantasies."

"Of course you'd have a ghost hunting fantasy," I chuckled.

He pulled back and smirked at me. "Nah, this isn't even it. My real fantasy is to do it with you in a haunted location somewhere, y'know, get all naughty like with the spirits."

I playfully smacked his chest. "We do that every time we have sex at home."

"That's not what I mean, though."

"If you think you're going to get me naked in an abandoned asylum you can think again. I've seen the second season of American Horror Story. We're not going there."

"Shh," he said, kissing me again. "Just go with it."

I giggled. "Zak—"

He bit gently at the skin just above my collarbone and directed my hands to the buttons of his thin black shirt.

"C'mon, help me out a little bit here," he murmured.

I sighed but unbuttoned his shirt diligently. He tended to get pouty if I didn't play along. It's not like I wasn't into it; like I said, our romance was still very much alive, but I had a lot on my mind. Of course that was my fault, so I didn't want Zak to feel like he should be to blame for any of it. He had a very sensitive ego more often than not and I didn't want to hurt it.

He captured my mouth with his once again and held me securely to his front as he settled me down on my back on the unfamiliar mattress. I rested my arms on the back of his neck until he pulled away to remove his shirt. He gazed down at me and gave little away on his face as he hauled upwards on my large Big Steppin' hoodie.

"Stop thinking so hard," he warned, leaning down to kiss a path from my cleavage to my belly button. The cool metal of the necklace he was wearing sent sparks along my bare skin.

"…I don't know what you're talking about," I said, helping him pull off my yoga pants.

"You're thinking about tomorrow night," he said, kissing my knee and inner thigh. His breath was warm and inviting.

I sat up and took his face between my hands, gently gripping his bottom lip between my teeth for a moment. His eyes fluttered closed and he groaned.

"No I'm not," I argued. "You're delirious."

"You're a terrible liar, Lily Bagans," he said with a tiny smirk, hooking his fingers into my underwear.

I rolled my eyes. "Whatever, just take off your stupid pants already."

He chuckled but pulled out his belt anyway, running the smooth leather across my stomach very slowly. He refused to ever let it lick me, not that I'd ever asked him to do it. He didn't want to play the game like that. We'd used toys before, but nothing that risked inflicting pain. I suppose we were both too afraid of what memories that might dig up.

I let my teeth carefully drag across his bare chest, kissing his skin at random intervals. He made a gentle groan and I took his moment of weakness as an opportunity to reverse our position so I was hovering just above his hips again and holding his face in my hands as we kissed. His fingers tangled themselves in my hair and I let out a soft breath of pleasure against his lips. I felt the pressure of his hips against mine as he pushed upwards slightly to close the gap between us, coaxing me to keep going in a silent way. Very gently, I rolled my hips against his, much to his enjoyment.

I couldn't fathom why he wanted to do it so badly. He was so tired when he'd walked through the door and then, as he hastily kicked his boxers off, I found myself questioning whether I'd imagined all of that or not. Maybe he'd burst through the door with a rose between his teeth and his clothes had just fallen off, although that didn't seem any more plausible than what was really happening.

I slipped my fingers between his and allowed the sensations to take hold of my body. It was just as much my fault, what we were doing. I couldn't say no to him very well. He was my weakness and he knew it. He knew what he was doing.

So maybe that's exactly why he was doing it. He wanted me to stop thinking about the hunt so he was distracting me. He was clever; I had to give him that. Although his chosen method of distraction was in no means a new plan of attack, I suppose I was the stupid one for continuously falling for it. He just makes it very hard not to.

So as his fingers probed my skin and his lips found mine, I just decided to ride it out. I was already too far in to back out and call him on it and maybe sex was what I needed anyway. In the moment, I felt no fear or anxiety of any kind. If anyone could keep me safe and fearless, it was Zak. I felt bad for overreacting so much, but even that was something I quickly forgot about. And for a brief minute, I actually contemplated his twisted little haunted building fantasy. Unfortunately for him, my answer was still no.