I recognize it.
The world and everything in it stop. Even though the parking lot is bathed in the glow of Midnite City’s brightest lights, I sink into a cold, black pit. There’s no need to look up and see him. No need to reach out and touch his polished black boot.
This all-too-familiar situation has taken place once before.
And I’m the one who lived to talk about it.
I wonder if that same luck will extend to tonight.
“It’s you,” I say to the ground. Too weary to face him, too afraid of what I might see if I do.
I hear a swish and a rustle of clothing, followed by a choked whimper. Dylan attempts to speak, but no words come. There are only the panicked, garbled sounds of someone having the life squeezed out of him.
“You can’t seem to keep yourself out of trouble,” he says, his voice distorted behind the mask.
For three years, I’ve built this man up as a monster in my head. Seen him as a demon lurking in the shadows, waitingfor his moment to strike. Now that he is here, rescuing me again, I can’t help but feel that Dr. Rice was right all along. Maybe his cruelty isn’t directed at any one thing, but injustice as a whole.
I look up in time to see a single fist being thrown with an incredible strength, and Dylan goes limp in an instant.
“Who is he?” the man in the mask asks, tapping his foot against Dylan’s shoe.
I don’t know what comes over me, but I can’t manage a straight answer in my head. Maybe the drink I had with Raymond is making me loopy. More likely, it’s the fact that the man in the mask is Colter.
Everything about him becomes clear with that realization. The way he looks at me, his strange mannerisms, why he could spank me like a naughty child, but I still felt so safe…
And as if that wasn’t enough, when the maskedstrangeroffers me a hand to stand up, I see the very same ink on his wrist that I saw the night we met.
“You…” I whisper, his question disappearing somewhere far away in the back of my mind.
“Me?” He sounds confused, thinking it is an answer.
I reach up to his mask without thinking. He stops me by grabbing my wrist.
“Wait,” he says.
But I don’t listen. I break free from his grip and take the mask between my fingers. And after a rushed internal count of three, I pull it away from his face.
And there, in all his stern, stoic glory, stands Colter Crawford.
My legs tremble, delayed shock finally catching up with me.
My pulse hammers painfully hard, and I suck in a breath, reminding myself that I’m standing, that I’m breathing.
“How am I supposed to kiss you,” I say, “if you’re wearing this?”
He moves his hands around my waist, and pulls my head under his hood, to do just that.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Lilith
Ican’t keep my hands off Colter the whole ride back to the mansion, tracing twitching muscle beneath his robes as I slide lower over his thick cock, straining the seams of whatever pants he’s wearing.
I’m surprised by how quickly I went from fearing the stranger, to seeing him as so damn sexy, because I know the man underthe mask.
I unbuckle my seatbelt and get onto my knees in the passenger seat. To preserve privacy during our drive, I shift the hood to just past his ear and lean in close to whisper, “You’re going too slowly.”
Colter slams his foot down and gets the car moving again, as fast as it’ll allow him.
