Jason Morgan was a Halloween grinch.

And Elizabeth Webber couldn’t stand it any longer.

The petite brunette stood with her hands on her hips and her weight on the balls of her feet – typical defense stance for the battle that was about to ensue. That is, if she could get him to look away from his textbook any time this century.

“Jason Morgan,” she snipped loudly. It didn’t work; her roommate didn’t lift his gaze from the textbook and notebook in front of him. And so Elizabeth tried again, determined to have a word with her fellow medical school colleague.

“Jason.”

Nothing.

“Jason.”

Not a word.

“JASON!”

The blonde jumped at her voice, and whirled around to face her. His handsome features were stern with irritation, and he tapped his mechanical pencil on his PCU folder.

“What?”

Elizabeth smiled, very pleased with herself. “Oh, good, it moves.”

Jason rolled his eyes and turned in his leather desk chair, ready to get back to his studying. But his pesky roommate wouldn’t have any of it.

“Oh, no, you don’t, Morgan,” she hissed, stomping over and slamming his textbook shut. “You are going to listen to me, damn it.”

He looked up at her, clearly annoyed. “Elizabeth, what? What could you possibly want?” It wasn’t the first time that he regretted agreeing to move in with the girl. She was the little sister of one of his friends back in college, and when Zander had told him that Elizabeth had found a great apartment but had no one to split the rent with, Jason had agreed for his sake. The girl was cute, sure, and his friends were right when they teased him that he’d probably sign over his stethoscope for a chance to explore whatever emotional beast was between them, but she was just so annoying sometimes.

The brunette before him pointed at her watch, a slender black Timex on her even more slender wrist. “The hospital’s Halloween party starts in half an hour, Morgan – and you’re not in costume. Unless you’re going as a jerk, which is a good look for you.”

“I’m not going at all,” Jason replied, sullenly turning back to his book. He had just been about to flip it open to his bookmark when Elizabeth’s hand slammed down on it.

“Come on, Morgan,” she growled. “You know I’m not going to let you go that easily.”

He stared up at her, wondering if she would go away if he held his breath long enough. She was a nice girl and her annoying habits could even be construed as cute, but that wasn’t the reason he wanted her gone.

It had been increasingly difficult to stay in the same room with her since last week. Since god damn last week, when he had been thinking with his smaller head instead of the one that was on his shoulders. It wasn’t a big deal, or so he tried to tell himself, but it was. She had made them dinner that night, as she usually tried to do at least once a month, and she was carving the duck at the counter when he walked up behind her. He could see that she was having some trouble so he had offered to help, and taken a huge chance by leaning around her and putting one hand on either of hers. After a few gentle sawing motions, the duck was all but forgotten and he had bent down and kissed her.

And then the phone rang. Of course.

They hadn’t spoken of it since, and he was feeling increasingly awkward about it. Especially since he wanted to do it again. And again.

Elizabeth watched him stare up at her, doing his best intimidation glare – he should know by now that it didn’t work on her – and tried her best to think of what she was going to say next. She just couldn’t think when he was looking at her with those big blue eyes that twinkled just so when he was in the right mood. She’d never forget the way he had looked at her last week in the kitchen – who ever knew carving an overdone duck could be so erotic?

But alas, such was her luck – he hadn’t made a move on her since. Did he actually think she’d refuse him? The man must not have looked in the mirror – he was absolutely gorgeous and could turn her knees to water with one crooked grin. She had let it go at first, but as the week dragged on she found herself getting more and more frustrated. Why should she let it go, damn it? He was the one that had kissed her – let the bastard answer for it.

And that was why she had been playing up the feminine wiles – she’d walk around in the hallway between their adjacent bedrooms in her towel after she took a shower, she had ditched her flannel pajamas for a tank-and-shorts ensemble that she liked better anyways, and put on the charms whenever he was around. When he wasn’t being a jerk, that is.

“OK, if you go upstairs right now and pull together some sort of costume – I don’t care what – we can make it. Grab your lab coat – you can go as a doctor.”

Jason shook his head and removed her palm from his textbook. “Elizabeth, I’m not going. I was at the hospital all day today and-“

“Where do you think I was – the moon?” she demanded.

“-And I have a test in two days,” he added. “I can’t go.”

“Can’t?” she huffed. “Or won’t?”

“How about a little of both?”

Elizabeth scowled at him, but he was already absorbed in his reading. Stupid Morgan. Stupid test. Stupid work ethic.

“Damn it, Jason!”

He looked up at her sudden outburst. “What?”<br>
“Why can’t you just get your ass up from that chair and have fun? Just this once?”

“I have fun,” he scoffed. Damn her. He was a regular party animal.

“Riding your bike through bumfuck New York doesn’t count,” she replied witheringly.

He smirked at her. “Last time I checked, you liked my bike.”

That got her, but only because it was true. “Quit changing the subject-“

“Oh, yeah, that’s your job, isn’t it?”

“-And get your butt up from that chair and have some Halloween fun! Is that too much to ask?”

“When I have a test? Yes.”

His eyes were riveted to the pages of his book, and Elizabeth glowered at him. Grinch. But as his lower lip stuck out in a confused pout, her dark mood slowly dissipated. Maybe she was going about this the wrong way – catching flies with honey instead of vinegar and all that jazz that Zman was always talking about.

Unable to suppress a sly grin, Elizabeth sauntered forward and casually swept Jason’s folder toward the far side of the table, clearing a nice place on the desk for herself to sit. Jason looked up in surprise when she slid her black skirt-clad bottom on to the table and crossed her legs. She was so close to him that her ankle was brushing against his thigh.

His nervous eyes traveled up her shapely legs and the slit in her skirt to the fitted pink ribbed sweater with the scoop neck and finally to her makeup-free face. A wave of satisfaction washed through her when she saw him lick his lips – apparently Mr. Morgan wasn’t as studious as he’d like her to think.

“All right, Jason,” she purred, rubbing her legs slowly together and watching his eyes instantly dart to the movement. “Tell me – why won’t you go with me?”

“I-uh-“

She swept her tongue over her lips, leaving them glistening under the light of his table lamp. “I wish you would. We’d be in charge of the haunted house, you know. We’d get to turn down all the lights…” If she wasn’t mistaken, his eyes seemed to glaze over slightly. “…and we could walk down the dark halls by ourselves…”

Jason swallowed when she shivered. “I used to hate haunted houses when I was little,” she admitted in a low, sultry voice. “I just get so scared sometimes.” She was leaning into him, her shoulders drawn in. “All the spooky decorations, the scary noises, the dark…”

“And the costumes, Jason, would be pretty fun, too. It doesn’t matter to me if you don’t want to dress up, but I’m going to. My costume’s waiting for me at the hospital. I’m going to be the devil.” Her blue eyes danced in the yellow light. “I’m wearing this black lace bustier thing under a red and black cloak, and these four-inch high spiked heels.” The picture she was painting for him was delicious and Jason had to do his best not to drool. “And I’ll be wearing this black miniskirt with fishnet stockings…”

Damn her. He loved fishnet stockings on girls, and she knew it. Damn her to Hell.

“It would be so much fun if you went with me, Jason,” she purred, fingering his collar with one dainty finger and sending chills down his spine. “I’d make it worth your while, I promise.”

That did him in.

Jason Morgan always prided himself on his immense self-discipline, but that whispered little promise had him wrapped around her little finger. At that moment, he would have jumped off the hospital roof itself if she told him to; he was under her power completely.

Or he was, until he remembered that he was playing into her hands just the way she wanted him to.

If there was one thing he knew about Elizabeth, both from her brother Zander and his own personal experiences as her roommate, it was that if she wanted something, she usually got it. The woman had a way about her; she could charm the wallpaper right off the walls if she felt so inclined. She even kept Zander wrapped around her little finger, and now it was Jason’s turn.

Unless he beat her at her own game.

“Worth my while, huh?” he asked, scooting his chair closer to her. Her crossed legs fell between his open thighs now. Though she hadn’t been expecting the bold move, Elizabeth knew better than to let him see that she was surprised. “Well, I don’t see how I can turn that down."

Her smile was quick and sexy as Jason’s palms flattened on the table directly next to her thighs.

“We could drive down there on my bike – I’ll go real fast, just the way you like it.”

Her mouth dried up at the knowing glimmer in his eyes.

“And you can change when we get to the hospital. Maybe I’ll go as a gangster – you always say I look like a gangster when I wear my boots and jeans and jacket, right?”

Elizabeth nodded once. He looked like a damn fine gangster – one that was most welcome to put a hit out on her.

His thumbs brushed her skirt sending currents of electricity sizzling through her body.

“And we can turn down all the power in the building and let the kids loose,” he growled in a voice as rough as sandpaper. “And it’ll be just the two of us on the main floor, right?”

Elizabeth tried to remember how to nod. It was increasingly difficult with the spicy scent of his aftershave invading her nostrils. Damn, he smelled good.

“And if you get scared, I’ll be right there to save you.” His lips were a scant distance away from hers and Elizabeth practically melted into his arms right then and there.

But then the look in his eyes changed, and as quickly as that, so did the mood. “Or, you can go to your little party at GH and I can sit here and finish studying like I planned.”

Elizabeth’s mouth fell open. What…what had just happened?

Jason didn’t look at her but his lips curved into a grin. “Have fun, Elizabeth.”

As he flipped his book back open, he missed the tears of humiliation that pooled in his roommate’s eyes. But Elizabeth would rather do anything than cry in front of him, so she hopped off the desk as if her rear end was on fire and grabbed her coat and purse from the nearby table.

When she spoke again, Jason actually did hear the tears in her voice. “Go to Hell, Morgan.”

At General Hospital…

“All right, kids,” Elizabeth said in her best I’m-Fine-Even-Though-My-Ass-Of-A-Roommate-Is-Definitely-Going-To-Find-Nair-In-His-Shampoo-Tomorrow voice. “Are you guys ready to be scared?”

“Yeah!” the group of goblins and fairies and ex-Presidents shouted.

Elizabeth swept her dark cloak around her and put on her most dark and gruesome voice. “Then follow Jack the Ripper to the General Hospital of Horror and be prepared to have the pants scared off of you.”<br>
The kids eagerly followed Dr. Lansing down the dark hallway and to the stairwell up to the next floor, and Emily Bowen at the reception desk frowned at her best friend and fellow medical school student. “Have the pants scared off of you?”

Elizabeth shrugged. “Whatever. They got the point.” The brunette leaned her pitchfork against the desk and sighed with the weight of the world.

Emily tucked her auburn locks behind her ear and smiled sympathetically at her best friend. “Oh, honey, what’s wrong?”

Elizabeth’s blue eyes were soft and sad. “Jason. What else?”

The mention of her stubborn roommate had the redhead rolling her eyes. “Oh, boy. What did that baboon do now?”

“Nothing.” Elizabeth shook it off and picked up her pitchfork as the next batch of kids came up in the elevator. “It was my fault for starting it, but…”

“Trick or treat!” The kids grinned at the two nurses and expectantly held out their sacks. The girls dropped in some candy and then Elizabeth did her devil routine all over again. This was her flock to lead through the hospital’s haunted house, and she was glad that Dr. Lansing had already moved on to the next floor. That horny son of a bitch spoiled her Halloween last year by trying to grope her in the dark – and had received a black eye for his troubles. At least there was a floor and a ceiling between them this year.

“Come on, kids, let’s go!”

The small herd followed her down the hallway into the Pediatrics wing, where several other doctors and nurses were dressed up in scary costumes, ready to pounce on the group as the loud, scary music blasted through the halls.

The routine went on for a half hour and Elizabeth tried her best to be festive and get the kids in the mood – not that they needed any help. She, however, did. After her embarrassing incident with Jason, Elizabeth just wanted to hole up in a corner with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s and forget that it ever happened. Damn. She never should have tried the “Come up and see me some time” approach on him – she had most definitely overestimated his attraction to her.

“Let’s see what horrors lie in this last hallway,” she said in her most threatening voice. “Are you ready?”

The kids clearly were, judging by how they practically raced past her into the darkened corridor. Elizabeth quickly ran after them as fast as her spiked heels would let her, and heard their frightened screams echoing from the corners.

They reached the end and thought they were done as they spied the reception desk before them, but the kids were in for a rude surprise when a gruesome Frankenstein jumped out from a dark nook – and promptly scared the pants off of them, as Elizabeth had predicted.

“RUN!” one of the boys yelled, and the whole group of pumpkins and power rangers took off in the opposite direction, practically bowling over a very surprised Elizabeth along the way.

“What the-“ She spun around, looking in the direction they had come from. “Wait a minute-“ The course was supposed to be over; there weren’t any more doctors waiting down there.

But even as she thought that, the gruesome Frankenstein stepped into view and slowly walked forward. Elizabeth stood her ground, unsure as to who it was and really wanting to find out – because that was one wicked costume.

The Frankenstein walked up to her and just stood before her, and as she searched the darkened eye holes for any sign of familiarity, he reached down, grabbed her waist, and pulled her to him for a searing kiss.

Elizabeth’s brain kicked in a few seconds later, and she smacked a hand against the creature’s chest in resistance. He let her go immediately and she took a shaky step back before the anger surged up and she once again stood her ground.

“All right, Lansing, I swear to God, I’m going to kick your pansy ass-“

The creature peeled off the grotesque mask and Elizabeth’s words died in her throat when she saw who it was.

Jason’s eyes glimmered in the pale light. “I was a monster, Elizabeth. And I’m sorry.”


 

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