Masquerade: A Standalone Romantic Suspense Page 2

  He laughs.

  “What’s so funny?” I ask.

  “I was certain you were too wet to think,” he says, lifting his arms to indulge me.

  I drag my hands over his arms and then down the sides of his torso. “What’s that?” I ask, feeling something in his pocket.

  He reaches in his jacket and pulls out what looks like a soft rubber bullet connected to a small pump, like the one attached to a blood pressure monitor.

  “Well?”

  “I’d really rather show you,” he says, returning it to his pocket before removing his jacket and stepping back so he can fling it across the end of the bed.

  “I don’t want you to use that thing on me,” I say, taking two steps forward so we’re halfway to the bed.

  “I wish I believed that,” he says, unhooking his belt and sliding it from his waistband.

  “You’re not the authority on what I want.”

  “Really?” he asks. “Because I’m pretty sure you didn’t want to come in this room, and now that you have, you’re having a good time.”

  “Do I need a safe word?”

  “Choose all the safe words you want,” he says. “They won’t be much good to you when I’m rendering you speechless.”

  I watch as he begins unbuttoning his crisp white shirt, revealing a chest so perfect I’m afraid I’ll break a nail on it. “What are you doing?” I ask, unable to tear my eyes from his abs.

  “You said this is your first time,” he says. “So I’m showing you what you’re getting into.” He throws his shirt across the bed and then unzips his pants. “And what’s going to get into you.”

  He pulls his pants and boxers down, revealing the biggest erection I’ve ever seen. It’s straight and dark and staring right at me, and my heart is pounding so hard I can hear it in my ears.

  “Usually I take my time,” he says. “But I was feeling a bit restricted.”

  “I can imagine,” I say, hoping he didn’t hear my voice crack.

  “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve seen in a long time,” he says, stroking himself as he steps up to me. “And my body is having a very strong reaction to you.”

  “I’m flattered,” I say. “But I’m a little surprised.”

  His mouth twitches.

  “I kind of expected you to try and kiss me before you got naked.”

  “There’s not going to be any kissing,” he says. “Not on the mouth anyway.”

  I raise my eyebrows.

  “Kissing is for people with open hearts.”

  I purse my lips.

  “I’m merely interested in opening your legs.” He reaches down and fishes a condom from his pants pocket. “Come here.”

  I know I’m at a fork in the road, that now is the time to stay or go, but now that I’ve seen the hard-on he has for me, I’m dying to feel it, dying to know if this stranger can make me feel what no one else has.

  I must be losing my mind.

  He hands me the condom when I step up to him and spins me around. I notice the adrenaline coursing through me as soon as he’s out of sight, and he puts one hand on my hip bone as he finds the gold zipper behind my neck and drags it down to the top of my ass.

  “You smell like candy,” he growls behind my ear, pushing my cap sleeves off so my dress falls to the floor.

  I close my eyes as his large hands pull my underwear down to my ankles.

  He drags his hands up my legs so slow I’m nearly dripping by the time I feel him behind me again, by the time I feel him press his dick against my ass and splay his hand across my stomach before reaching down to dip a finger in my pussy.

  Warm rays of light shoot up from where he’s touched me, and when he adds a finger, my head falls back against his hard chest.

  “Oh yeah,” he says, hooking his fingers inside me until my legs go weak. “That’s the pussy I’ve been waiting for.”

  My hips rock as he finger-fucks me, churning up a burning heat inside me like no man ever has.

  I want to say his name, but I don’t know it, so I just moan and hope my whimpers are enough to let him know that I like what he’s doing, that I don’t want him to stop.

  When he pulls his fingers from me the trance is momentarily broken and I feel empty, naked, and lost again.

  He unhooks my bra and pulls it off me before stepping around me and lying on the bed. His dick looks even bigger than my first glimpse, and the bedside lamps make it cast long shadows across his strong legs.

  Despite how good he’s made me feel, how hard I’m gripping the condom in my hand, I’m not ready to fuck him. It’s too soon, it’s too-

  He reaches a hand out. “Sit on my face,” he says. “I need a taste of that sweet candy snatch.”

  I open my mouth to object, but he’s already pulling me over him. A hot streak shoots up my spine when the tip of his dick grazes my wet slit as I walk towards the head of the bed on my knees.

  “God, you’re beautiful,” he says. “Like a fucking angel.” He pulls my hips down and laps a tongue across me before I’ve even braced myself.

  On his second pass, I moan and grab the headboard. And when his tongue sinks deep inside me, my eyes burn from the pleasure of it as my body grows hot.

  His lips vibrate against my clit with his moans, and I can’t believe the relish with which he consumes me. Again, I feel the urge to call his name, but I find myself speechless, just like he promised.

  Finally some words enter my mind, and I whisper them out loud. “I’m going to come.” I guess they aren’t the words he wants to hear because he lifts my waist and drags his wet lips against my inner thigh.

  “Not yet,” he says, flipping me over and groping my breasts before moving back to the foot of the bed.

  I watch him closely—the man in the mask—the man who just denied me my first proper orgasm with something that wasn’t pastel and battery-operated.

  He kneels at the foot of the bed and pulls my ankles towards him, his eyes feasting on my body like he’s only getting started.

  “Give me the condom,” he says, putting his hand out.

  There’s something so imposing about his muscular frame and his intimidating erection that I do what he says, watching as he tears it open and slides the thin latex over himself so gently it seems like it pains him.

  “Get on all fours,” he says.

  I do what I’m told. After all, my ability to think straight has been severely compromised, and he hasn’t steered me wrong yet.

  I grip the blanket in my fists and prepare myself for him to enter me, but what I feel is entirely unexpected. It’s his fingers again. In my pussy. Followed by his tongue.

  On my asshole.

  It feels so good I think I’m going to pass out, and by the time I realize he’s licking my rim, it’s gone on too long to pretend I don’t like it. On the contrary, I like it so much it’s torturous, and I realize that it’s the kind of thing that’s totally list-worthy.

  Not that I’m a list maker.

  Or that things this dirty ever occur to me.

  Suddenly, there’s a knock at the door. “Room for one more?” a man’s voice asks.

  My mystery man pulls his lips from my ass. “Sorry,” he says. “This is a private party.”

  I smile to myself.

  “I hope you don’t mind that I want you all to myself,” he says softly, still fingering me with one hand as he rummages in his clothes on the bed.

  “Not at all,” I say, realizing I’d be devastated if he’d agreed to split his attention.

  “Good,” he says. “Because I think you’re really going to like what I have planned for you next.”

  “Which is?”

  “I’m going to slip my toy in your ass,” he says. “Nice and gentle, nice and slow.”

  “I don’t think I want anything in my ass,” I say, clenching it.

  “You didn’t think you wanted my tongue on it either,” he says. “So trust me.”

  I purse my lips.

  “Okay?�
�

  I take a deep breath. “Okay,” I say, reminding myself that I’m masked, nameless, and therefore licensed to behave as shamelessly as I desire.

  He drags what feels like a small balloon through my slick and then presses the tip of it against my asshole. “Relax,” he says. “It’ll feel better if you relax.”

  “I’m trying.”

  His wet tongue is on me again, flicking the edge of my rim and making heat radiate through my butt cheeks. I feel the tension in my frozen limbs melt into the bed.

  A moment later, he sticks the rubber bullet in my ass with his littlest finger, which feels surprisingly huge since nothing’s ever been there before.

  I cry out in surprise, but it’s not painful. And when it starts to buzz, I’m shocked at how good it feels.

  “You like it, don’t you?” he asks.

  “I admit nothing,” I say, the vibrations making my neck hot.

  He laughs and presses the tip of his dick against my slit, pushing the air from my lungs as he enters me.

  “Fuck,” I breathe. I’ve never felt so full, so possessed, so…completely out of my own mind.

  “Jesus, you’re even tighter than I thought,” he says, backing his hips up slow before sinking deep inside me again.

  He feels so big there aren’t words to do it justice. I can only imagine this is what it’s like to get fucked by a porn star, and I’m amazed at how I can feel both completely impaled and stimulated at the same time.

  Just when I think it can’t get any better, the bullet in my ass inflates a little.

  He digs his fingers into my butt cheeks, making the vibrations even more intense.

  “You feel so good,” I whisper, my eyes watering from how exhilarated I feel, how far out of my comfort zone.

  He inflates the balloon one more pump and then bends over me, reaching around to fondle my breasts as he buries his face in the hair at the back of my neck. “Tell me when you’re going to come,” he growls against the back of my ear.

  “Soon,” I say as my legs go numb.

  “I want to come with you,” he says. “I want to feel your orgasm on every inch of my dick.”

  I bite my lip.

  “I want you to come so hard you pour over me and down your thighs.”

  “I’m going to come,” I say. “I’m going to come.”

  He straightens up and grips my hips like handlebars, swelling inside me as he picks up the pace, bruising my insides with his throbbing cock as he slams his hips against me.

  I cry out as I come, the vibrations stemming from my clit and shattering through my whole body.

  He growls and pulls the plug from my ass, thrusting deep inside me as I pour over him.

  My arms are shaking so bad I collapse forward on the bed, taking him with me, the weight of his body on me as crushing as it is comforting.

  For a moment, we stay silent, listening to each other panting and focusing on how it feels to throb against each other. Then he rises up on his elbows and pushes my hair away from my ear. “I forgot to ask what your safe word was.”

  I laugh. “You never gave a shit about my safe word.”

  He rolls off me and sits up, naked and flushed apart from the black mask still nestled firmly on his face.

  “You were right to congratulate me,” I say. “I didn’t realize it, but you were exactly what I was looking for.”

  He smiles and scoots to the end of the bed. “Thanks for trusting me.”

  I roll over, letting the air rush over my burning body as I watch him get dressed and bask in the high of the greatest orgasm of my life.

  Until a strange wave of sadness washes over me at the realization that it’s over. Not only am I never going to know his name or see his face, but he’s not going to stay up talking to me until dawn. And he’s definitely not going to call.

  Of course, maybe I only want those things because of the crazy chemicals firing in my body that tell me I should be attached to anyone who makes me feel that good.

  And maybe they’re wrong.

  Or maybe I’m just not cut out for this kind of no-strings affair because I’m convinced this would be easier if we could at least go for a drink—or a walk—or exchange numbers.

  But I can tell by the fact that he’s already getting dressed and bringing my clothes to the head of the bed that none of those things are going to happen.

  On the contrary, as ridiculous as it sounds, he’s just going to love me and leave me. Because those are obviously the rules. At least according to him, whoever he is.

  I put my clothes back on and try to smooth my hair without unsettling my mask.

  Yes, I’m desperate to know if he likes my face, but he doesn’t want to see it, and I have to respect that.

  We’re dressed around the same time, and he sits beside me on the bed for a moment.

  “Who are you?” I blurt when the silence becomes too much.

  His mouth twitches as if he feels conflicted that I asked. “I’m whoever you want me to be,” he says, his eyes dropping to my lips.

  I press them together and take a deep breath.

  He lays a hand on my bare knee. “Enjoy the rest of your night,” he says. “And thanks for letting me taste your candy ass.”

  And with that, he lets himself out, disappearing from my life as quickly as he entered it.

  T H R E E

  I can’t even keep a straight face.

  Everywhere I go, I feel like my secret is written all over me. And it’s been like this all week.

  The poor barista at my local Starbucks must think I’m making fun of him in my head. I’m even struggling to be serious at work, and as a lawyer, that’s just not okay.

  If anything, my job is to take everything too seriously, to treat every case like it’s a moon landing or a brain surgery, but I can’t be as ball busting as usual because I feel weird in my own skin…like I’m a mermaid who’s not yet used to land.

  I open my desk drawer to grab the compact I keep there and check again.

  To my surprise, it does not say, ‘I fucked a masked stranger and liked it,’ across my forehead. Nor does it say, ‘I let a stranger lick my asshole.’ Or that I sat on anyone’s face, for that matter. Which is a relief in some ways, but of course now I’m thinking about it again.

  About his hands on my hips, his tongue in my pussy, his breath on my ear.

  And his voice. I can’t stop thinking about his voice and the way the tone of it alone was enough to make me wet.

  But it’s not just the mysterious stranger who’s left me reeling all week. It’s me. It’s the fact that I did something so spontaneous, so irresponsible. I’m still trying to figure out what came over me.

  Was it the mask? Was the simple act of playing dress up really so powerful that I could take things that far? That I could withstand double penetration and a mutual orgasm when I’d been faking them my whole life?!

  I don’t know.

  All I know is that there was nothing fake about my orgasm last Saturday, nothing fake about the hot chills that erupted over my body as he searched me, nothing fake about the fact that I’d been touching myself all week over a man who had neither a face nor a name.

  The whole thing is almost too crazy to believe. In fact, the only thing crazier is my new obsession with staring down other strangers and wondering if they’re closet deviants like I am, like the man in the mask is. Like Ruby’s coworkers are.

  I find myself staring at the back of Kindles and wondering what filth people are reading, what nasty things they’re listening to on their noise-canceling headphones, whether they’re on their way to sleep with someone they won’t recognize in the street the next day, someone they’ll ask to pull their hair, come on their chest, lick their asshole.

  It’s a distracting hobby to say the least, and the more I indulge in it, the more the real world starts to feel like some dark underbelly I never thought I’d be invited to.

  I roll my shoulders back and take a sip of water, desperate to cool d
own and make a dent in my ever-building inbox before I leave in a few hours, hopefully before eight.

  I’ve just gotten into the zone when there’s a knock at the door.

  “Come in,” I say, banging on the keys a little too hard as the door opens, as if that ever deterred someone from disrespecting my time.

  “Hello Cassie.” My boss comes in and closes the door. He’s lighter on his feet than he looks like he should be based on how top-heavy he is, and his silver comb-over seems even more heavily gelled than usual.

  I swivel towards the door. “Mr. Hanan. How can I help you?”

  “I need you to take on Rebecca’s case.” He pinches the open end of a manila folder between his fingers and approaches my desk.

  I furrow my brow. “Is everything okay?”

  He shrugs. “Depends on who you ask.”

  “I’m asking you.”

  He sighs. “She’s a great lawyer, so I hope you know I mean no disrespect—”

  I crane my neck forward.

  “But her pregnancy has become a liability.”

  “A liability?”

  “Her morning sickness, I mean. She won’t fucking admit it, but she can’t handle her normal workload when she’s spending all morning with her head in the toilet.”

  I swallow.

  “It’s only her most high-profile case I’m concerned about—The People vs. Richard Forsythe—”

  “I know the one,” I say, remembering a conversation we had in the staff kitchen about workers’ rights a few weeks ago.

  “I want you to take it from here.”

  “Isn’t she due in court in a few weeks?”

  “Only if she can’t settle before then, which in my opinion is the only way it can go if the defendant intends to protect his reputation.”

  “I see.”

  “Here’s a quick briefing on her next steps,” he says, laying the folder on the edge of my desk. “Her secretary is already collecting her work to date. You can expect it by the end of the day.”

  I glance at the clock. It’s already 5:30. “Great.”

  “Thanks for your understanding,” he says, heading back towards the door.

  “No problem,” I say, wondering how the hell I’m going to juggle this case with the others on my plate.