3. Victor #2
“Masks?” she repeated, tilting her head as she took them in. I forced myself to look away and take in every single one on the wall. They ranged from that Ghostface she liked to skulls to devils and one with horns. I glanced back at her and noticed just how pink her pretty face had suddenly turned.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, biting away a knowing smile.
In her mind, we’d just met.
She didn’t know I was the daddy she spoke to.
The one she’d given her number and name to.
The one who knew about every single kink and fantasy she had.
Including the one about a man in a mask.
To her, I was a semi-stranger who happened to live next door to her.
There would no way I knew what it was about those masks that made her breathing change into something shallower, heavier.
Breathing I knew meant if I leaned in closer and slipped my hand under that skirt, those tights, and panties, I’d find her fucking soaked.
“What?” Her tone sounded raspier than before.
“You’re all…” I tilted my head to act like I was trying to read her when I didn’t need to. Again, to her, we’d just met for the first time other than quick neighborly hellos and goodbyes. “Red. You’re blushing.”
“Oh.” Her eyes widened and her pretty hands rose to touch her cheeks. I had to shove my hand into the pocket of my pants so I wouldn’t reach for her and confess everything.
Can’t she feel who I am? Her hands dropped to her sides, and I watched as her pretty lips parted and closed.
She shrugged. “It’s nothing.”
“Lucy—“ I started to say, but she tried to step away, not that I let her. My hand took hers again and pulled her in closer, close enough I could smell the scent of her perfume. She smelled like vanilla with a touch of peach today. “Uh-uh, come on, you made me try this pumpkin spice stuff. What’s that look about?”
“You said it tasted good.”
“It does, but that’s not the point.”
“Fine,” she sighed, her eyes grazing the wall of masks. Without looking at me, she started to speak, “You know how women wear lingerie? Like for their partners?”
“Right.” I prayed my cock wouldn’t decide right then and there to go full mast. It was bad enough the fucker was aching to get closer to her as her soft perfume filled my lungs.
“For some women, masks, especially during, umm, spooky season are the equivalent of that.”
“Really?” I asked, and I hoped I did a good job of pretending I was surprised. She turned and looked up at me, and our eyes locked. There was something playing behind hers.
Recognition?
Interest?
Shit, was she interested in Victor, her neighbor? And if she was, how the hell was I getting pissed and jealous over her being interested in me?
“Hmm… and are you one of these women?” I asked, wondering if she would share something so personal with me. “Who likes masks?”
“Hmm.” Her lips quirked upward, eyes sparkling bright and unwavering. “What do you think?”
“I think you might be,” I answered. She shrugged and, with a giggle in the air, I lost her eyes as she walked towards the wall.
I watched as she stood on the tips of her toes and reached for a Ghostface. She looked at the mask in her hands and turned over her shoulder. Her gaze on me, my face, my body. It was clear she liked what she saw. That she was picturing me shirtless wearing that thing as I chased her around.
And she liked was she saw.
Lucy turned and placed the mask back on the wall before we kept walking down the aisles.
“What’s your thing anyhow?” she asked when I caught up to her side after turning the corner. The store was massive.
“What do you mean?” I pretended not to understand.
“You know what I mean.” She hip-checked me, and I laughed.
“I don’t know. I work a lot.” You, I wanted to say. She was my thing.
“Hmm, and?” she pushed, willing to pull teeth for information. And because I couldn’t resist giving her anything and everything in my power, I kept sharing. “And I hang out with my brothers.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. I have four of them.”
“Four! That’s… a lot. I’ve never seen them around the building.”
“They’re pretty busy. I usually go to them.”
“Five brothers… Big family.”
“We grew up in the system together,” I shared right off the bat and braced for some kind of judgment or pity in her eyes. I’d told her a lot about me during our online chats but never something like this. That look never came.
“We were adopted by the last couple who fostered us. The Porters. They gave us their name. Their love. They were good people.”
“I’m glad you had that. That’s good you had one another,” she said softly.
“I have two sisters, and we don’t even see each other for the holidays.
I couldn’t tell you the last time we were all together for brunch, much less a holiday,” she shared.
I’d found this out with my digging online but had never really understood it.
“And why’s that?”
“Well, the oldest lives in Spain. The other… she doesn’t… really like what I do.” Judgmental bitch. That was her loss, though, not Lucy’s.
“And your parents?” I asked even though I knew the answer.
“Mommy and Father Dearest?” she laughed humorlessly.
“They split up when I was five. My dad was never really around before that and less after he left. He passed about four years ago. And my mom moved to Florida when she retired. She’s in her own world.
According to her, she did her job raising us and her job was done the moment we graduated high school.
She wasn’t the cookies-and-milk type, if you know what I mean. ”
“That sucks.” I hated that for her. Didn’t they know how fucking amazing she was?
“Your brothers and you might not share blood, but that’s not what makes a family. I wish I had… people like that, you know? Whom you can count on to just call about having lunch together.”
I wanted to give her that.