“Oh, come on. Ten seconds is barely enough for me to get ten feet away. You’ll still have your eyes on me. No. I want at least a few minutes.”
“A few minutes? Damn. Anything else you need, Princess?” He mockingly used Fang’s pet name for me, probably in an effort to make fun of both me and Fang, but given the subject matter, he only sounded sexy when he said it.
“You already know everything else I need.”
Kieran sighed. “Fine. I’ll give you a five-minute head start. How’s that sound?”
“Good. Oh, and just in case you get any ideas about tracking me, I’ll be leaving my phone in the car.” After certain comments he’d made to me in the past about tracking me through my phone, I didn’t want to make it too easy for him. Tonight would be a good, old-fashioned hunt.
“Challenge accepted. This is going to be fun.” Night had fallen as we drove along the backroads with hardly a car in sight, but I could still detect the twinkle in his tone, one that I knew mirrored the same twinkle in his eyes. I wasn’t the only one looking forward to tonight.
Tonight… it really had been a long time coming. A long, long time. While I’d fallen into a routine with Fang and Mike, it’d been harder with Kieran, in more ways than one. Sylvester had kept him insanely busy, but that wasn’t the only issue we faced. I hated that I’d been so caught up in my own thoughts when it came to him.
My Devil.
Tonight my Devil would make me his again, remind me of that delicious possessiveness I knew dwelled just beneath the surface, simmering, always waiting to be unleashed.
I wore comfortable shoes that were good for running, ones I didn’t mind if they got muddy. Same with the rest of my clothes. I might not have looked too sexy, but the goal for tonight wasn’t to dress to impress. Oh, no. Kieran would give chase, and I’d put up a fight. It was definitely going to be a lot of fun.
We neared our destination, and Kieran pulled us off the side road, onto a dirt path. I had no idea how he found this place, and I didn’t care. I was too excited to look the gift horse in the mouth. Tonight I’d take life by the balls.
A few minutes passed, and Kieran slowed the car to a stop. He shut it off, then turned toward me. “You ready?”
I smiled from ear to ear. If I smiled any harder, my cheeks would hurt. “Hell yeah. Are you?”
“Laina, maybe I haven’t been dreaming of this particular night, but I’ve been waiting an eternity to have you again. Fulfilling one of your fantasies in the process is just a bonus.” As strange as the subject matter was, Kieran really did sound like he meant it—and why wouldn’t he? Beneath that grinning exterior was my Devil, waiting to emerge and take control.
I set my phone in the compartment inside the door, tucked away so it could be forgotten about. We got out of the car, and we both walked around to the trunk. He lifted the trunk door and reached inside. Though I couldn’t see a thing since it was so dark, the trees around us were tall and plentiful, blocking out the light of the moon, I heard him unzip a bag. My heart skipped a beat as I took a step back and watched him pick something up.
His mask. The devil mask that looked like it belonged in a school’s drama department in the eighties. Old, scuffed, black as the night itself. Small horns on its forehead. Only eyeholes and two small holes for the nose.
Even though my eyes hadn’t quite adjusted to the darkness, I still sucked in a hard breath when he picked that mask up. Talk about a blast from the past. I thought I was ready to see it again; I’d been dying for him to don that mask again now that I knew who he was underneath.
Will that mask always hold such power over me? Will it always make my knees feel weak and the breath catch in my lungs? Probably. That mask was a part of my metamorphosis. That mask helped me change, become who I was today: a girl who wasn’t afraid of staring darkness in the eyes, a girl who welcomed said darkness inside her.
That mask and the man holding it changed my life. I would be dead without them.
Kieran ran his fingers over the mask, then locked eyes with me as he slammed the trunk shut and brought that mask to his face. His movements were slow and steady, deliberate and unbelievably sexy, and when he spoke next, I hardly recognized his muffled, rugged voice: “You better be ready to run for me.”
I shivered. It was like he put on that mask and became a whole different person, like his inner monster was finally unleashed and had complete control of him. There was nothing sexier than that, take it from me.
It took me a ridiculous amount of willpower to say, “You better time me, Devil. No cheating. I want to give you a run for your money.”
He pulled out his phone and hit a few buttons, then turned the screen toward me. I saw the seconds ticking, and an immediate thrill ran through me. I said not another word as I turned around and darted away, running in the opposite direction of where we pulled in.
Away from the car, away from Kieran and that mask, I ran and didn’t look back. Thankfully I wasn’t the frail girl I was when I first emerged from my two-year kidnapping. My legs had a bit of muscle on them now, so I didn’t get out of breath quickly. I had some stamina, and I put that stamina to good use.
It may or may not surprise you to know that sprinting through the woods in the utter darkness wasn’t the easiest thing in the world. The ground was dry, which was good—meant less slipping overall on mud and wet leaves on the forest floor—but you never knew when there might be a stick buried beneath the leaves, a stick that would either try to catch you by the ankle or attempt to impale your leg when you stepped on it and the other half of the stick jerked upward and came right at you.
I supposed I wasn’t as prepared as I thought I was. I didn’t have much experience racing through the woods at nighttime, although I didn’t know a single person that did. Something likethis wasn’t a situation most people ever found themselves in, let alone voluntarily.
Even with all that, it was fun. God, was it fun. Though Kieran would be the one who had the true thrill of the hunt coursing through his veins, I was still having a kickass time. A girl could get used to nights like this, where she had not a care in the world, where the night would end with a carnal, animalistic claiming that only nature would see.
Oh, yes, I was beyond excited for the culmination, the climax of this chase. I was ready for my Devil to have me again, to give my all to that man and let him devour me.
The only thing that would make tonight hotter would be having all my guys out there, giving chase to me. Have them start in different locations or something, so it was a competition instead of a simple hunt. Whoever got to me first would be the winner, and they’d get to call the shots that night.
Fang would probably do it, but Mike? I didn’t know. He still liked being told what to do most of the time.
