There’s a creak. A scuffing sound on the floor.
Close enough, it’s impossible for me not to reconsider my earlier panic that someone else is in here with me.
I freeze, the vibrator quivering in my hand, the sound muffled now under the covers as I squeeze it between my thighs and just…listen.
To. Someone. Breathing.
CHAPTER 4
“Having trouble there?” A gravelly voice comes from the corner of my room by the closet, sending my heart into my throat as heat prickles like fire over my skin. “I like watching you, little girl. But trust me when I say, the real thing is better.”
I grit my teeth, my lips quivering as I press them together.
Someoneishere. I knew it.
God, what do I do?
“Grinch got your tongue?” he says as I bite down on the inside of my bottom lip, my mind spinning as I try to figure out how to jump out of a second-story window without dying.
His shadow moves but stays out of the light as I curse myself for leaving my phone downstairs in my rush to have my special alone time. The Grinch dildo taunts me, still vibrating in my shaking hand as I consider using it as a weapon.
Could I stab him?
Where? In the eye socket? The dildo is smooth and hard, built for it’s intended purpose, but no good for slitting a throat or knocking someone out with a right hook.
The low scratch of boots on the wooden floor kicks my heart rate up another notch.
“Perhaps I should have let you fall asleep. I imagined licking you awake like a sweet sugarplum. After all, it’s Christmas Eve, and youaresweet. Aren’t you? That pussy, all wet and spread wide, getting it sloppy and ready for me with your naughty little green toy.”
He tsks as he steps forward, the streak of light from the window cutting across his face, and I choke on a wet gasp.
“You were—” I gulp, slapping my knees together and backpedaling on the sheet until I hit the headboard, heels kicking at the mattress in an attempt to disappear into the wall as the man in my room takes two more steps my way.
He’s wearing a Grinch mask.
The same one I saw in town earlier today.
He reaches for the door just as my eyes dart in that direction, slamming it shut and cutting off the only avenue for escape.
“I bet your pussy gushed when you saw me in the street. Got you all sticky and achy. All those wicked fantasies hitting you directly in the clit.”
A rumbling sort of laugh comes out of him as I sit frozen, my eyes on that green rubber mask as he sidesteps along the wall, shifting his body, then bracing his hands on the edge of my dresser and shoving it across the door, trapping me. Trappingus. My insides are trembling as hard as my outsides, but God, how does heknow?
How does this man have an inside track to my most secret fantasy?
“How—” I swallow around the lump lodged in my throat and let the question die on my tongue.
He closes the space between us until he’s towering over me, right next to the bed. Up close, I can see the mask is skintight, with wide eye slits that let his own dark eyes shine through and a Santa hat stuck on top. The little black nose sits over a wide expanse of green rubber like a dog’s snout, with an opening for his mouth below. But he must have painted his own skin in the same shade of green, because in the dim light it’s impossible to tell where the mask ends, and his mouth begins, except that when he grins, those teeth are all human.
He lowers his chin, his dark eyes behind the mask pinning mine before falling to study the dildo still clenched in my hand.
“You should be more careful what you post on the internet. There are dangerous people in the world. People who would find you. Give you all the things youthinkyou want. Then take something for themselves. Something you might not be prepared to give.”
“It’s just—it was just a story.” My chin starts to quiver as I press my lips tight.
He scoffs. “That little green monster in your hand tells me you want more than a bedtime story, Little Cindy Lou Who.”
I yelp when he reaches down and snatches the dildo away. With his other hand, he unsnaps a leather sheath on his hip and draws out a Bowie knife as long as the toy.
