And in order to do that, I have to getcloser.
So I do, tentatively stepping over to the couch. When I get there, he peers up at me, black marble irises gazing from behind his equally ominous disguise.
Surely if he suspected I was here to kill him, he wouldn’t bother with the mask…?
“Sit with me,” he offers a honey-dipped command, followed by a gentle, “Please?”
Okay, there isno wayhe knows it’s me.
The Ivory wouldneveruse that tone, a yearningplea, when speaking to someone he knows wants to kill him.Would he…?
Joining him on the couch, slowly, I leave enough space between us—a foot or so. But when he turns his body to face me, his knees bump mine, and I stiffen.
My fingers twitch.
Knife… in my shoe…
“You are right,” he hums. “You shouldn’t have been in the private area. But that doesn’t much matter to me. I was more taken with what I saw happening…” He allows his voice to trail, gazing at me intently until my face warms at his obvious reference to what I was doing in that dark room. “Do you do that often?”
Again, I’m taken aback by his question, mainly becausewhydoes he care?
Is this a test? Is he toying with me?
Or is he… interested in something else?
“What part?” I ask quietly. “The… blowjob? Or the blowjob with a relative stranger?”
A tiny, rumbling chuckle comes from within my chest, and I’m onfire. I can feel my face melting off, and it’s not an act. I’m sort of mortified right now.
I don’t talk to people about sex…Especially cartel leaders in rubber masks.
“I guess both,” he breathes, shifting just a hair closer, until I can feel the warmth coming from his body.
But mine is warmer.
“Not…often, no.” I clear my throat. “Not really… ever.”
His eyes have taken on an intense depth; a magnetism that feels like it’s suffocating me. “So you made an exception forJonahthebartender?”
Wow. He sounds jealous.
Something about it is so deliciously satisfying, though I’m not sure why.
“It was just something different.” I squirm. “Something… exciting. I’m new to the city and I figured I’d—”
“Give a relative stranger a blowjob?”
“What business is it of yours?” I snap, surprising myself. “I don’t… know you.”
I can’t see it well, with the mask in the way, but I think he’s grinning.
“You’re right, Lucas,” he rumbles. “You don’t.”
So he doesn’t know it’s me…
He hasn’t spoken a word of Spanish to me yet, and now he’s calling me Lucas… Thathasto mean he doesn’t recognize me.
“I don’t mean to shame you, please know that. I just…” His eyes fall, and for the first time since I saw him downstairs, I catch a glimpse of some very minute vulnerability that hits me like a head rush. “I saw you and I was… quite taken. With the sight… withyou.”
