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“Please don’t play with me.”
“I just enjoy seeing you do the guesswork.”
“I’d prefer it if you saved me the torture.”
“Yes, I imagine it would be hard to choose. Considering how many men Dean’s videos fired up for you. Dogg Wilson, for example. He’s been obsessed with you since that night at the party, when you ground yourself against two men.”
I swallow hard at the threat in his voice. It bothers him. Still, what he saw that night inspired him to track me down here and set up this entire nightmare.
“Or Carlton Wilde?” he continues. “He was pretty loud about how much he enjoyed what he saw in that group chat.”
The knot in my throat feels like a jagged pill. Carlton is a big guy, the muscle on whom the Kings’ society at Norton King’s relies to do their dirty work when someone needs a painful lesson. Some people whisper he’s their hitman. It’s definitely not out of the question that he could be the one standing behind me.
But if it’s Sade–
My mind freezes before I fully acknowledge that possibility. It would mean that he saw into my mind tonight when he read my verses and knows all about the dirty, preposterous, boundless perversities I want him to do to me. I shudder, even though I’m wrapped in a cocoon of unbearable heat coming from his presence, making it a struggle to breathe.
“What do you want? Why are you here?” I croak.
A gloved hand slithers around my neck from behind.
“You didn’t go back home that night. You have no idea what that did to me.” His fingers press into the sides of my neck, enough to obstruct the flow of blood through my jugular. “I should have monitored you every step of the way. The torturous hours before I tracked you down, thinking that you might have–”
He doesn’t finish the sentence, but I know what he means. Despite the fact that I’m going lightheaded, I understand the psycho was worried I might have caused myself irreparable harm. But does that mean my life is precious to him, and he won’t attempt to take it himself? The energy coming from him is dark and barely contained, and there’s a killer in the vibrations of his voice. His fingers curl into my flesh, possessive like a claw.
He pulls me back into his large body that feels rock-solid against my back. Yet his energy is a swirling black hole, ready to suck me in.
“Relax, princess,” he purrs while that gloved hand claims more of my air supply, forcing me to abandon my weight against his body. “You’re in better company than you imagine. I’m a fellow poet myself, you see, and I wrote something for you. I’m curious what you think.”
He reaches into a pocket to produce another piece of my scribbling and holds it in front of my eyes. I should be relieved it’s not a knife he’s holding, but the red writing across it, trumping my own lines as if it owns them, fills me with terror. If I had a sliver of a doubt it was blood, it dissipates into thin air. My pounding pulse must tell the masked man exactly how I’m feeling because a laugh rumbles against my back. The bastard is amused.
“You can rejoice, pretty poet. The words are written in the blood of a man who deeply grieved you. Come on, read them out loud for me. But careful. Not loud enough to draw attention.” His mouth is now touching my ear, I can feel his hot breath through the mask. “We wouldn’t want to get the guards in trouble now, would we?”
My eyes fall to the words, tiny rivulets of red darkening the parchment-like paper. I didn’t even realize he led me back towards the stairs while we talked. We are now close to the windows on the back side of the house. There are no lamp posts here, just hedges and rose bushes all the way to the wrought iron fence that separates the property from the black forest beyond.
I try to make sense of the words in the moonlight, but my brain just won’t work with me. The masked man hums in understanding.
“All right, let me help you then. I’ll start by reading your own lines first.”
“No!” It’s a knee-jerk reaction. The prospect of hearing the explicit things I wrote about Sade, from this guy’s mouth, makes my blood curdle. I’d rather face his twisted desires than the realization that he knows my own. I put my attention on the red words.
“Then you read my own verses to me, little poet.” His voice is almost dreamy as he says it. This bastard takes serious pleasure from tormenting me.
My tongue flicks over my parched lips, my throat constricting, not wanting to produce the words. I force myself through it.
“Stepping on petals of sin, A death rider brought to ruin, Locks you in his soul–an iron maiden, And makes of you his hellish haven.” The dark walls swallow my strained voice. My throat bobs under his gloved hand, so large that it completely covers my neck from base to chin. There’s so much strength in those fingers that a single squeeze would kill me.
“Doesn’t it sound romantic?” he says.
“I see only despair,” I whisper, staring at our verses’ twisted embrace like it’s a work of art.
He breathes in, his dark presence wrapping around me like a cocoon, his hand tighter around my throat.
“It’s a violation, you know,” I manage, my voice a ghostly whisper. “Reading someone’s poetry without their permission is the same as reading their diary.”
“Ah, princess, you surely understand by now that I’m not someone who is easily held back by morals. For example, that beautiful red color of the verses I wrote for you. Like I said, it’s acquired from a man that grieved you.” His mouth touches my cheek through the mask, and I shut my eyes tightly as if that could keep the information at bay. But his whispers trickle into my brain. “One of the men who exposed you at that party. Who tainted your dignity, and took away from you everything you believed you were.”
“EverythingIbelieved I was,” I retort, my voice as low as his, “or who youwantedme to be?”
