Chapter 13
thirteen
It’s been weeks since I’ve had any sign of the masked man. Still, the thought of Sebastian leaving town is terrifying. What if the masked man is watching, waiting for the moment I’m alone and he can pull me under his spell all over again?
I don’t know what possessed me to make Sebastian a birthday cake.
Or birthday tiramisu, since I’ve been told a dozen times tiramisu is not cake.
Hearing the way he described his childhood, I felt a kind of kindred familiarity.
Like I’d lived the same life, in a different time, on the other side of the world.
My parents never celebrated any of their children except my brother.
Eventually, it became so normal that it stopped bothering me.
But I always knew it was fucked up. Parents are supposed to be your biggest cheerleaders, the ones you can depend on for anything in this life.
I got completely fucked in that department.
But I had Aria, I didn’t need much else, and that was fine by me.
Curling up in my favorite position on the couch, I tug my blanket over my shoulders.
Maybe I’ll do something really outrageous and sleep in Sebastian’s bed while he’s gone.
Not that this couch isn’t ridiculously comfortable, because it is.
But the idea of being surrounded by his things, his scent, is intoxicating on a completely different level.
My eyes drift closed, pulling me into the abyss of a dreamless sleep.
“Diavolina, I’ve missed you.” His fingers caress my cheek, and goosebumps spread across my skin.
No, no, no, no, no, this is not happening. I’ve eluded him for weeks! Why now?! Why tonight, the night I finally felt the ice melting between Sebastian and me? I can’t move a single muscle, every fiber of my being feeling like solid concrete.
“What did you do to me?” I croak out, my voice scratchy.
How the fuck did he even find me here? Where is Doug? Where is Sebastian? There’s no way he could’ve gotten into this apartment without Sebastian waking up. Ice runs through my veins. Did he hurt him? Is Seb dead, and I’m to blame? Emotion lodges in my throat, a sob aching to break free.
“Shhhhh, not to worry. Everything is fine.” The gentle tone of his voice, the delicate way he touches my face, although I know I shouldn’t trust him, I do.
“Why are you doing this to me?” I strain to get the words out, tears leaking from the corners of my eyes.
“To you? No, amore mio. I’m doing this for you. To show you who you really are. What you really want.” He pulls the blanket down my body, exposing my bare arms to the cooler air.
I want to pull away, to shiver and tug myself from his grip.
But I can’t move. Is this what sleep paralysis feels like?
Is all of this really just a vivid fever dream I’m constantly falling into?
Maybe I’m sleepwalking every time something has been moved before.
Maybe I really have been imagining everything, and this man is just all in my mind.
“I don’t…I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Heat flushes through my body, sweat breaking out across my skin.
“There is no need to lie. I can feel it in your pulse, I can smell it on your skin. You want me just as I want you.” One dark hand slips around my throat as the other slides down my arm, leaving heat in it’s wake.
Swallowing hard, his fingers flex tighter, the circulation slowing as I teeter on the edge of lightheadedness.
I’ve never really been into choking before, but I’ve also never really had to chance to explore this side of myself.
So I can’t say if this is something I’m actually turned on by, or if the heightened emotions are just getting the best of me.
Who the fuck am I kidding? I’m definitely turned on by this. Should I be? No, this is insane, absolutely diabolical. I should be committed for the things I’m thinking right now, but that doesn’t stop me from leaning in to his touch the slightest bit.
“Give in to me, diavolina. Let me show you how good it feels to dance with the devil.” He leans closer to me, his grip tightening.
Spots dance across my vision. I want to reach up and pull his hand from my throat, but I can’t. I can’t move at all. More and more I feel like my visions of the masked man are nothing more than vivid nightmares, manifestations of my subconscious showing me the deepest, darkest desires of my soul.
“Give me every piece of you, and I will show you who you really are.” He squeezes hard, his chest rising and falling rapidly. This is turning him on just as desperately as it is me.
My body feels as if it leaves itself, spinning on the ceiling, skin blazing against his touch.
I’m going to die if I spend another moment here in this heat, in the flames he stokes inside me.
I’ve felt this way before when I used to party in Miami and spend all night drinking bottle after bottle, popping pills with my friends just to forget our meaningless lives.
I want to scream, to call out for Sebastian to save me from this evil. But is he evil? He feels so familiar. Like he’s touched me this way a thousand times before. Like we’ve memorized each other’s souls in every lifetime, and this is our reckoning.
I’m going to pass out. I feel the light slipping from my eyes. It doesn’t quite feel like he wants to kill me, but I’m not so sure he doesn’t want to hurt me. The thought should scare me, but it does the complete opposite. I’m so fucking confused, I just want to get out of here.
“Let…me…” I choke on the words, my head beginning to float, my body almost hollow, as if I’m drifting half a step behind reality.
“Mine,” he growls, one hand gripping my hip so tightly I know it’ll leave bruises, the other stealing the very breath from my lungs.
I force a scream from my chest with every ounce of fight I have left inside me, but it’s pitiful. It comes out as barely more than the mewling of a child afraid of the monster under their bed.
“Come with me,” is all I hear him say before everything around me fades to black.
Doug barks loudly and Sebastian curses from somewhere down the hall, the commotion waking me from a dead sleep as a sob rips from my throat.
“Sebastian!” I scream, and he opens his bedroom door, confused.
Rushing into the living room, Doug hot on his heels.
I can’t take any time to appreciate how beautiful he is, black ink covering his olive skin, salt and pepper hair mussed from heavy sleep, his boxer briefs doing nothing to conceal the thick cock I know he’s packing.
Instead, he finds me a sobbing mess on the floor, surrounded by blankets and pillows.
Nothing else is out of place. It’s as if I’ve been ripped from a nightmare, and maybe I have.
Maybe I am really just losing my fucking mind.
“Are you okay? What happened? Did you put the dog in my room?” He rapid-fires questions at me I just don’t have the answers to. Instead of answering him, I dissolve into a puddle of tears, burying my face in my hands as I'm crushed under the weight of my confusion.
“He was here, Sebastian. The masked man. I swear, he was here. He taunts me, telling me things that aren’t true. That I’m…” sobs choke me, wracking through my body like waves crashing against the rocks. Doug nudges me with his head, and I thoughtlessly begin stroking his soft ears.
“No one came into this apartment, Vanessa. I have security measures on every exterior door and window. No one could enter this building without alerting me to their presence.” He sounds so sure, so confident his systems could never fail. I have to believe him.
That leaves only one logical answer. I’m going fucking insane.
This masked man is truly all in my mind.
Everything I’ve been seeing, feeling, it’s all just made up, a story I’ve somehow convinced myself is real.
Maybe I really am sleepwalking. I never have before, at least not that I know of.
But there’s a first time for everything.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you. I don’t…
I don’t know what happened. I don’t know what’s happening to me.
” I’m sure I look like the most pathetic mess he’s ever seen sitting on the fucking floor, my curls looking something akin to Medusa, blankets piled around me, tears streaming down my face as I scream about a masked man tormenting me.
But he looks back at me stony faced, his features completely unreadable.
Whatever he’s thinking, he’s not going to let me in on it.
“I need to make a call,” he says, turning on his heel and stalking from the room.
What the fuck is wrong with me? How could I walk into this man’s life and turn it into such a disaster like this? Maybe my parents were right. All I do is ruin things everywhere I go. Maybe I need to see an actual doctor about these problems, not just assume I know what’s going on like I always do.
Climbing to my feet on shaky legs, I try to clean up the mess I’ve made of the living room, sifting through the blankets to find my phone. The sun hasn’t come up yet, so I don’t think I’m late, but wouldn’t that just be the cherry on top of a stellar fucking day.
After ten minutes, Sebastian comes back into the room, half dressed in black slacks and a white button-down with the front completely unbuttoned. This man will be my undoing, I swear. I’m not sure it gets any sexier than Sebastian at four in the morning.
“It’s done. Rory will be here in half an hour to open the shop.
She will take Doug home with her when she leaves for the day.
We will stop by your home on the way out of town so you can pack a bag.
Anything you don’t own, we can buy. You should pack enough for at least two weeks.
” He’s speaking basic English, but it might as well be Chinese because I do not comprehend the demands he’s making.
“I’m sorry, what?” I stare back at him, barely piecing together what he’s saying.
“We leave in 10 minutes. Get dressed.” He turns to leave the room again, but my brain finally catches up. Chasing him back to his bedroom, I feel my anger rising. He doesn’t get to make decisions about my life like this. I’m not a doll he can pick up and pose however he sees fit.
“Wait just a fucking minute. I can’t just pick up and leave. I have a business, Sebastian. I have responsibilities here. I can’t just push them off onto Rory like that. She’s…” I catch myself, not knowing if she’s confided in him about her condition and not wanting to betray her trust in me.
“It’s already been taken care of, Vanessa.
Rory assures me she can handle it, even in her current state.
She said she welcomes the distraction, actually.
Apparently, Breaker has been treating her with kid gloves since she found out she is expecting again, and she’s growing tired of it.
She said she’s happy to help.” I pull back, a little shocked that she would speak so freely with him.
They must be much more comfortable with each other than I thought.
“But I don’t-” my argument dies on my tongue when his eyes meet mine, the look he’s giving me that of a hunter, dark and deadly.
He’s daring me to fight back, to keep defying him. I get the idea no one ever questions or denies him back home. But my life doesn’t belong to him. I don’t belong to anyone, and he doesn’t get to tell me what to do like a child with no discussion or consideration of my feelings in the situation.
“Do you want to stay here alone? Whether your ghost man is real or in your mind, do you want to face him alone? Or would you rather give your mind a break five thousand miles from here in the most beautiful place you’ve ever seen?
Let me take you to my world, Bambina. Let me show you my home.
Where I can keep you safe.” he says every word with conviction, and how the hell can I argue with that.
This is the first time he’s shown genuine concern for my safety in a way that would lead me to believe he actually cares for me.
A quiet, destabilizing click like a lock turning, its pins falling into place, something I didn’t know was there suddenly shifts.
I replay moments I’d filed away as nothing.
The way his gaze always lingers when he looks at me, the way his voice softens lately when he says my name instead of the grating way it sounded did before.
Then it lands, slow and unmistakable, and my chest tightens not with panic, but with a sudden awareness.
Like someone just threw open the curtains after a long, dark winter, and light finally floods every corner of this space.
The air feels invigorated in this room. Charged.
Heavy with what’s not being said between us.
It’s enticing and terrifying all at once.
Because now that I’ve seen it, I can’t unsee it.
And whatever happens next, something has already shifted.
“Okay,” I agree, not knowing what I’m truly agreeing to. But knowing that whatever it is, I don’t think I’m ready for it.