Chapter 12 #2
He steps into her space now, chest brushing hers. She feels his body heat, radiating from beneath that suit, and the sheer size of him makes her head spin. He leans in, lips near her ear, his breath hot against her skin.
“Tell me to kiss you.”
A small, involuntary sound escapes her throat before she can stop it. Her body responds before her mind can throw up a wall. She straightens instinctively, a weak show of resistance, but she doesn’t back away.
“Say the words, Daisy.”
Her lips part. Her voice slips out, breathless and soft, barely a whisper. “Kiss me.”
Something changes in his posture. The glint of mischief in his eyes disappears, smothered by something molten and direct. Hunger. Approval. Claim.
Strong hands find her waist as he crushes his lips to hers, fierce and hungry.
The kiss steals her breath and replaces it with fire.
Her spine hits the cedar wall of the gazebo, the cool wood pressing into her back as he holds her in place with the weight of his body, and she lets him.
Her hands claw at the fabric of his cape, anchoring herself to him as her mouth opens beneath his, yielding completely.
He tastes of heat and whiskey and dark, sinful promises. Her head swims. Her dress rides up her thighs with every shift of her hips, fringe swaying against her bare skin, teasing every nerve ending to life.
His lips leave hers to find her neck, and she gasps when his mouth finds the soft spot below her ear. Her head tips back against the wood behind her, offering more. She can’t help it.
“You taste incredible,” he rasps into her neck.
He trails his mouth lower, dragging over her collarbone, then down to the rounded swell of her breasts. Her nipples pebble beneath the thin fabric, aching for his mouth. When he buries his face between them, breathing her in like he’s starving, she arches with a whimper.
“Fucking perfect,” he groans against her skin, voice raw. “The things I’d do to you if we weren’t hiding in the bushes.”
Mila bites her lip, drunk on the friction and heat, on the wrongness and thrill of being touched out here where anyone might walk by.
She knows she should stop. But when his mouth brushes her skin again, and his thigh presses firmly between her legs, her body bucks against him like it’s made a decision her mind hasn’t caught up with.
She rocks against him, moaning when the pressure lights her up from the inside. Her fingers find the back of his neck, slip beneath the edge of his mask, and drag across his scalp. His hair is soft and slightly damp. She wants to lose herself in it.
He watches her, eyes gleaming beneath the mask, and something in him tightens. She sees it in his shoulders, the way he locks his jaw, like he’s barely holding himself back. The idea that he’s restraining himself makes her knees weak.
His hand comes up, firm over her mouth. “I need you quiet, Daisy,” he whispers, lips brushing the corner of her jaw. “We don’t want them finding us.”
He presses his body flush against hers, and she stops thinking altogether.
His masked face nestles against her temple, and he inhales deeply. The cool plastic grazes her flushed skin, the contrast making her breath hitch in her throat. She moans softly against his palm, rocking harder into his thigh, her body begging for friction, for more, for anything he will give her.
“Daisy,” he breathes into her ear, voice low and coaxing. “Can I touch you, my angel?”
Mila must have lost her damn mind, because she nods before she can think. Words abandon her, caught somewhere in her throat, but every nerve in her body is already screaming yes. She trembles, strung tight with want.
His hand trails down, slipping beneath her hem, the fabric sliding easily up her thighs. When his fingers find the soaked lace between her legs, he groans, pressing his forehead against the wooden wall as if to steady himself.
He yanks her panties to the side and slides a finger through her slickness, teasing her entrance before circling her clit with maddening precision. Her hips jerk forward, seeking more. Her mouth is still covered, her moan muffled but desperate.
“Do you like this, Daisy?” he whispers, voice laced with heat and amusement. “You like being touched in the dark, where no one can see you? You like being my dirty little secret?”
Her hips roll against his hand. Her eyes flutter closed. Every word turns the heat in her blood into fire.
His mouth is at her ear again, hoarse and commanding. “Say yes, sir.”
He lifts his hand from her mouth to give her space to speak. His eyes are locked on hers. The black stage makeup smudged around them makes it hard to read their color, but Mila guesses brown.
Richard had never spoken to her like this. He’d been a hands first, words later kind of lover. Rough, fast, impersonal. No tension, no teasing, no space for her anticipation—just the assumption she’d follow. And she had. Back then.
This…this was different.
He is giving her room to react. To say yes. To want it aloud. And somehow, that makes this more dangerous, more intoxicating than anything she and Richard ever shared.
It takes effort, more than she expects, to get the words out. But she wants to say it. Needs to.
“Yes, sir,” she breathes.
The smile that curls over his mouth is wicked.
His fingers slide inside her, filling her with steady pressure while his thumb keeps working those perfect, slow circles. She cries out, and he silences her again with his palm, kissing her cheek as she writhes against him, lost in the heat and the rhythm.
He works her steadily, patiently, like he wants to see every inch of her unravel. Her body clenches around his fingers, hips moving in frantic little pulses as the tension builds.
Her orgasm rips through her like lightning, sharp and bright and all-consuming. She goes slack against the wall, her legs trembling as she gasps for air, barely able to stay upright.
She should feel embarrassed. They are outside in the dark, one turn from being discovered. But all she feels is the press of his hard body against hers, his breath still rough, the way his fingers linger against her thigh.
She feels owned. Worshipped. Wanted in a way that steals the air from her lungs.
He keeps her braced against the wall, panting, as he slips his hand from beneath her dress, fingers glistening with her wetness.
Maintaining eye contact, he lifts his fingers to his lips and gives them a long, slow lick.
Something in his chest rumbles, a sound of pure male satisfaction as he tastes her.
He steps back, pushing off the wall, leaving weak-kneed Mila to regain her balance. He reaches out to straighten her dress, his hands trailing up her body and adjusting her headband that is no doubt askew. He touches her like she’s precious.
“Go back inside, Daisy,” he rumbles, voice thick with heat. “Natalie will be looking for you.”
She sucks in a breath at the sound of her best friend’s name.
Her eyes flick up, meeting the stranger’s. Still hidden. Still unreadable behind the mask and smudged black makeup. She hadn’t told him her name—her real name. And Natalie hadn’t come outside. She would’ve noticed.
Her gaze darts around the shadowy backyard, her thoughts tangling as she tries to catch hold of them. “Wait—how do you—”
But he’s gone.
The shadows swallow him like they’ve been waiting.
Mila stares into the darkness, heart pounding for an entirely new reason.
She blinks, trying to orient herself. The firelight flickers across the slats of the gazebo, painting strange shapes on the ground.
Her skin is flushed, her breath shallow, lips swollen, thighs still trembling where his body pressed between them.
Her dress is rumpled, the slit showing too much leg, her pearls askew.
She should feel embarrassed.
And part of her does.
But not for the reasons she expected.
Who was that?
She pushes off the wall slowly, still dazed. Her heels wobble for half a second before she steadies herself, gathering what’s left of her dignity. Her fingers ghost across her lips, tingling from his kiss.
She didn’t come to the party for a stranger. She came for Theo.
Theo, with his shy glances and quiet strength. Theo, who wouldn’t—couldn’t—speak plainly to her. Who never made her feel fully wanted, not like that.
Mila straightens her dress as best she can and smooths her hair with both hands, though it’s futile. Her lipstick is probably a smudgy mess. She must look like she was ravished in a bush.
Which, well…she had.
A laugh bubbles up, unexpected and almost hysterical, and she stifles it with the back of her hand as she walks toward the house. Her steps are uneven, but she doesn’t care.
She’s too spun out to care what anyone thinks.
She slides the door open and the pulse of music slams into her, a burst of light and sound. She pauses, glimpsing her flushed cheeks, tangled hair, and haunted glow in her eyes in the glass before stepping through
She doesn’t recognize that woman.
And she’s not sure yet if that’s a good thing or a warning.