Page 15 of Boardroom Mask

His hand drags up my torso and past the curve of my throat, until his fingers push into my hair, gripping at the roots. He tilts my head to the side and lowers his face to my neck. I feel the mask’s fabric brush my skin, then the warmth of his breath as he inhales, long and deep, smelling me and sighing happily.

“You’re right,” he murmurs against my bare throat. “Iamjealous. I’m the most jealous man in the world.”

His fingers tighten until prickles of pain dance across my scalp.

“And that’s why I wouldn’t hesitate to gut that frightened little boy like a fucking fish if I thought there was even a fraction of a chance you’d say yes to him.” His lips graze my ear through the mask. “Even a micro-fraction. Even athoughtof a fraction. I’d open up his veins right there in his doorway and he’d never even see it coming. You’d look pretty all splashed in his blood, wouldn’t you? Red freckles to match the brown ones.”

My rage sputters out. Just like that, poof, gone.

“Are you here to kill me or kill him?” I ask in a thin, terrified voice.

“I don’t care about him one way or the other. But I suggest you don’t make mestartcaring.” I hear the sole of his boot creak against my hardwood. “People I care about tend to have very bad nights.”

“Yeah,” I squeak. “I can attest to that.”

“Has it been so bad?” he taunts. “You looked perfectly content to be kneeling at my feet, little fox.”

“I think the mask might be cutting off your air supply,” I retort.

He chuckles ominously. “They didn’t tell me you were funny.”

“Who, me?” I say, pretending I’m breezy and unaffected. “Well, they should have. I’m a riot. You ought to see my tight five. Kills at open mics.” I glance down at the gun still wedged between us. “No pun intended.”

The Masked Man laughs again, but it’s a nails-on-the-chalkboard laugh that sets my teeth on edge. “You shouldn’t be worried about the gun. Much too loud and messy for what I came to do. I only brought it as a precaution.”

It’s my turn to laugh. “Do you know what normal people use as precautions? Umbrellas. Bicycle helmets. Fuckingcondoms.”

“I’ll ask again: What makes you think anything about me is normal?”

As if to prove his point, he dips his head and licks his tongue up the side of my neck in one long, slow stripe.

I suck in a breath. My hands fly to his chest to push him off, but instead of doing that, they just stay there, flat against the solid wall of him, doing absolutely nothing useful.

Then his teeth close on my earlobe and nip down hard. A sharp, involuntary squeal rips out of me before I can stop it.

“Oh, youlikedthat,” he breathes heavily against my ear. “Guess what? So did I.”

He presses forward and I feel exactly what he means. He’shard. Unmistakably, unapologetically hard, the length of him pushing against my hip through his pants. Even worse is that my hips tilttowardit instead of away.

It’s a tiny movement. Millimeters. Practically invisible.

But he catches it.

“There she is,” he murmurs. “She’s a very good girl after all.”

I shove him as hard as I can. That achieves a grand total of maybe three inches between us, but I’ll take every single one of them. I want this lunatic away from me immediately. My skin is prickly and hot and everywhere he touched me burns like I’ve been doused in chemicals.

“Get off me.”

I flatten myself against the door and cross my arms over my chest, trying to hold myself together. My earlobe is still throbbing where he bit it. I can still feel the wet trail his tongue left on my neck, cooling in the air.

He doesn’t come back for those three inches. He stands where I pushed him in the dark, breathing, radiating heat and cinnamon.

“Do you fuck a lot of men, little fox?”

My breath snags in my throat. “Do Iwhat?!”

He shrugs. The mask hides his facial expression, but his body speaks for him. It’s long and languid, lithe, capable, somehow sexual even while he’s just standing there.