Page 29 of Boardroom Mask

It’s clean and warm and it smells like her.

That’s all it takes to make my dick start to harden.

My only complaint is that it’s too white in here. White this, white that, white everything.

It needs a littlered.

I look at my hands. Still wet with him. Good. That’ll work.

I step to the shower wall and press two fingers against the tile. The blood goes on thick and tacky, easier to write with than I expected. I drag my finger, almost in a trance, so locked-in that I don’t even realize what I’ve written until I step back and look at my message.

I TOLD YOU NOT TO GO.

Yes. That’ll work.

I stand there looking at it for a long time.

Six words in a dead man’s blood. Well, not dead. Not yet. I left Elliot Wilkinson alive, which is more mercy than he deserved for the unforgivable sin of sitting across from her in that restaurant, smiling at her, making her laugh.

It occurs to me, not for the first time, that I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing here. That’s the truth of it, plain and ugly. She should be dead by now. My father gave me an order and I’ve done nothing but make a mess of it. Instead of killing Jillian Pierce, I’m buying her coffee, beating up her neighbors, and writing love notes on her shower wall in someone else’s blood.

Maybe notlove notes,per se. But close. Love in the only language I was ever taught to speak fluently: the language of violence and blood.

The point is, there isn’t a plan. There was once, and it lasted about five fucking minutes. I had one when I climbed through her window the first night, and it evaporated the second she froze under my hands.

Now, I’m just circling her, orbiting getting closer every time, unable to stop, unable to reach out, unable to pull away. She does something to me that I can’t explain. She pulls out a version of Kir Lazarev that’s feral and depraved and so fucking possessive it scares even me. Every man who looks at her instantly becomes my sworn enemy.

I’ve never been like this. Not with anyone.

I don’t know how it will end. All I know isneed,scalding my internal organs like blasphemous fucking fire. Even now, afterI’ve already done unspeakable things to her neighbor and to Jillian herself, it’s not even close to enough to sate me. I’m still scorching. A drop of water on my skin will probably sizzle.

There’s only one thing that’s helped ease the burn since Jillian entered my life. Fuck it—might as well try it again now.

I strip off my jacket and drop it on the bathroom floor. The shirt goes next. I kick off my boots and shove my jeans and boxers down, stepping out of them and leaving the whole pile in a bloody heap on her fuzzy pink bath mat.

I climb into the clawfoot tub and turn the faucet. The water comes out cold first, then warm, then hot. I stand under the spray and watch the last remnants of Elliot Wilkinson’s blood swirl off my hands and down the drain in thin, pink ribbons.

My eyes land on the shelf built into the tile. The label on the body wash readsByredo. I pick it up, uncap it, and bring it to my nose.

Bergamot. Pine.Jillian.

This is what she smells like when she’s fresh out of the shower. When she’s wet and warm and naked and alone,thisis what clings to her skin. I breathe it in again, deeper, filling my lungs with it, and my cock goes fully hard so fast that I go light-headed almost pass out.

I squeeze a thick line of the soap into my palm. It’s slippery and cool and it lathers up nicely the second I wrap my fist around my shaft. I grip myself tight and pull, root to tip, slow, letting the sensation build.

I close my eyes.

She’s on her knees again, here in this shower with me. Those green eyes looking up at me, her red hair dark and heavy with water, her freckled lips parted and waiting.

I feed my cock into her mouth and she takes it. She takesallof it. Her throat opens and I push until her nose presses flat against my stomach and her fingers dig into the backs of my thighs, helpless and trembling.

I stroke faster. The soap is warm now, heated by the water, and the friction is perfect. I brace my free hand against the shower wall, right next to the bloody letters, and fuck into my fist.

She sucks me until I’m ready for more. Then I drag her up by the crook of her elbow and throw her belly-down across the rim of the tub.

Her ass is high in the air, her sex exposed. I’m on her like a mating wolf. My cock drives in past her folds andfucking hell,how she grips me. There’s no slow build-up. Not this time. I’m behind her, on top of her, all around her, slamming into her so hard the water sloshes over the sides and creates new oceans on the tile. I’ve got a fistful of that red hair wrapped twice around my knuckles and I’m pulling her head back so I can see her face when she staggers and dissolves into a moan.

I squeeze tighter. My hips snap forward, driving into my grip. The soap runs down my wrist and drips off my elbow.