Page 164 of Boardroom Mask

Those are the moments I live for. They make everything we’ve been through feel worthwhile.

Thismoment, however, is sucking, because this damn eyelash extension just will not behave. “Listen here, you little shit,” I snap. “If you don’t get your ass in line…”

But just as I’m leaning toward the mirror, the lights go out.

Bathroom, hallway, kitchen—black. The whole apartment plunges into darkness so total I can’t see my own hand in front of my face.

My heart goes from resting to full sprint in about half a second. The old programming fires up instantly, muscle memory from a life I thought I’d left behind. My skin prickles. My breath goes shallow. Every sound in the apartment gets louder.

The Fear is nevertrulygone. It’s hard-wired into me, I think, and there’s no permanent purging of it.

But these days, it always brings its old friend with it.

The Fire.

That heat, that trickle of flame low in my belly. My thighs press together as my mouth begins to water, a fucked-up Pavlovian response to terror that never fails. My nipples pucker up in the cups of my bra, straining and achy already. The grasping, clenching need in my womb roars to life. Fight-or-flight-or-flee—or, preferably,fuck.

Then a leather glove closes over my mouth from behind.

“Hello, little fox,” purrs a dark, toxic voice. “You’re looking especially breakable tonight.”

In response, I bite down on the leather as hard as I can.

The Masked Man laughs and his gloved hand drops from my mouth to the curve of my throat, where he presses his lips to the spot just below my ear. The smell of him floods in. Cinnamon and sandalwood and musk.Home.

I spin around.

He’s in the mask. The real one, the O.G. It’s black and fitted, covering everything from the bridge of his nose to his jaw. For a second, it’s like we’re back on that first night almost a year ago, when he cut my power and pinned me to the wall and told me to kneel.

He’s tall enough that I have to crane my neck even in heels. The suit he’s wearing is dark and exquisitely tailored, hugging shoulders that are too broad for a CEO and more suited to someone who breaks things for a living. Which, to be fair, he used to. His hands are gloved, but in the gap above his cuff, I see tanned skin and the swirling ink of his tattoos.

He’s not for everyone; I get that. He’s got depraved fantasies, and he wants to hurt me, to make me beg and plead and cry. He likes when he locks me up and edges me to the point of sobbing. The more my body twitches and spasms, the brighter the red blooms on my skin where he bites or lashes me, the happier he is.

But that stuff makesmehappy, too.

There’s nothing better than the feeling of utter helplessness that consumes you while a man you trust more than life itself looms overhead, masked and untouchable, swearing he’ll make you break and then promising to put you back together again.

And there’s nothing better than when he does exactly that. Shatters you a thousand times over, then unlocks you from your cuffs or collar and pulls you into his arms to whisper tender sweet nothings in your ear until you fall asleep melted against him, with the hot candle wax still cooling on your ass and thighs.

He’s a temptation for all the wrong reasons.

But I love him for all the right ones.

My fingers reach for the fabric stretched across his cheekbone. He catches my wrist before I get there, and guides my hand back down to my side. “Can’t break the rules,” he chides.

I arch a brow. “We don’t have rules anymore.”

“For tonight, we have this one. The mask stays on.”

His thumb traces a slow circle on the inside of my wrist. I can feel his pulse through the leather. Or maybe that’s mine. Hard to tell anymore. The difference no longer seems that important. He is me; I am him; we’re two shadows swallowed up by the same warm, safe darkness.

I can feel the shift in the air as he switches to his dommy voice. “Tonight,” he growls, “I’m not Kir. And you’re not my girlfriend.” His gloved hand tightens on my wrist. “I’m the man who broke into your apartment. And you’re my puppet.”

He reaches into his jacket and pulls out a strip of black silk. He spins me around and ties it over my eyes, knotting it snug at the back of my head. It’s like I’m back in the darkroom at the newspaper. Total nothingness. No shape, no shadow, no anchor point. There is only his hands and his scent and the low rasp of his breathing.

“Here’s how this works,” he murmurs against my ear. “You don’t speak unless I tell you to. You don’t move unless I tell you to.” His gloved thumb drags down the side of my neck. “And you don’t cum until I say you can.”

I open my mouth to respond, but his finger presses against my lips.