Epilogue
NICKI
The library card slides through the reader with the same soft beep it always makes, and I push through the door like nothing happened last week.
Like my entire fucking life didn’t get rewritten against a bookshelf by a man in a mask who turned out to be the exact person I’d been chatting with online for months.
Casual.
Ten forty-five on the dot. My Saturday night, right on schedule.
My new phone—Dominic replaced it after breaking the other, is upgraded to something with better camera specs, because priorities—is already in my hand.
I tap the TikTok icon and hit the little plus sign. The camera flips to selfie mode, and there I am, back in business. I hit the red button and wait for the three-second countdown.
“Hey, Hot BookTok People!” The energy comes easily, naturally, the way it always does. My voice lifts and expands to fill a digital room, even when the actual room is empty. “It’s your girl, Nicki, and it is Saturday night book haul time.”
The comments start flooding in before I can even finish my sentence.
Nicki! You’re back!!
OMG we thought you died!
What happened last week???
I almost called the police btw.
GUYSSS!! Did no one see that THE Masked Creator posted about her??
I laugh, warm and practiced, and pivot the camera to show the shelves behind me. “Okay, first off, nobody call the police. I’m fine,” I promise them. “I took a mental health day last week. Sometimes your girl needs to unplug, okay?”
The lies taste smooth on my tongue. I’ve been lying for a week now. To my followers. To my friends and family who were alerted to what happened during my last live.
The truth is I’ve spent the last week with Dominic. In his bed, in my bed, out in public, going for rides on his motorcycle. And… now, he’s all I want.
“Let’s get to the books,” I say, moving down the aisle with my phone held out in front of me. While talking, I pull books off the shelves and hold them up to the camera.
The comments scroll faster than I can talk.
Girl, there’s someone behind you!!
Fuck, look behind you. NICKI LOOK!!!
OH MY GOD!
Wait… is that him????
THAT’S TOTALLY HIM!!!
I don’t need to look to know who’s behind me. I’ve known since I swiped my card and pushed through that door that he would be here.
“Okay, so this one…” I start, but the words die in my throat.
Dominic steps out from behind the shelf to my right. Not rushed. Not dramatic. Just… there. The white mask stares back at me. His chest is bare, tattoos and lickable abs on full display. The low light catches every ridge of muscle, every shadow in the ink.
My breath stops. Completely stops. My heart hammers against my ribs so hard I can feel it in my throat, between my legs, everywhere.
My nipples tighten against the thin fabric of my tank top, and I know the camera can see it.
I know the two hundred thousand people watching can see my body responding to him before my brain has caught up.
The chat explodes.
Eeekkkk!! It’s HIM!
IT’S DOM!!
Run, Nicki!!!
He’s right theeeeeeeere!!!!!!
NICKI RUN!!
Why isn’t she running??
I’d let him chase me!!
HE’S RIGHT THERE!!!!!!!!!!
Dominic doesn’t speak. He doesn’t need to. He just tilts his head, the mask’s empty eyeholes fixed on me, and lets the silence stretch. I can feel him smiling behind that plastic. I know exactly what that tilted head means.
The comment count spikes. The viewer number climbs. Two hundred thousand becomes two-fifty, then three hundred. They’re sharing the live, tagging their friends, screaming into the void about the woman who’s standing six inches from a masked man in an empty library and not running.
Dominic reaches past me. His arm brushes my shoulder—the lightest touch, deliberate, calculated—and my skin erupts in goosebumps. His fingers find a book on the shelf behind my head and pull it free.
He holds it up to the camera, angling the cover so the lens can see it clearly. A dark romance with a masked man on the cover. The title reads: MINE!
“Thought this one might interest you,” he says. His voice is low, the distortion from the mask turning it into something that lives in my spine.
I laugh. Short. Breathless. The sound comes from somewhere deep in my chest as I take the book from him. Our fingers brush, and the contact sends a jolt through my arm that lands directly between my legs.
“Thanks, baby,” I purr.
***
DOMINIC
It’s hard not to laugh as I look at Nicki’s phone screen, the comments flooding so fast they blur into a river of panic and excitement.
Three hundred thousand people watching a woman standing six inches from a masked man in an empty library and not running.
They have no idea what’s really happening. I love that.
I let my palm settle flat against the shelf beside her head. Not touching her. Not yet. Just caging her in, close enough that she can feel the heat coming off my skin.
She keeps talking to the camera. Her voice doesn’t waver. She’s good. Fuck, she’s good. Performing for an audience while her pussy is probably dripping just from me standing here. The chat is a fucking riot.
OMG… is he reading the chat?
Hello masked man!!
Come chase me next!!!
Nicki, honey, if you’re not going to let him chase you, send him to my house!!!!
I am reading the chat. Every single comment. I lean closer, my chest nearly touching her back, and watch the screen over her shoulder.
Nicki’s thumb hovers over the screen, scrolling through the comments like she’s considering which one to address next.
I’ve had enough.
“I agree with the chat, Nicki baby.” My voice rasps through the mask, low and unhurried, and I feel her whole body go rigid against the shelf. “Run!”
I snap her phone from her hand. One quick motion, fingers closing around the device, and I hit the end button. The screen goes black. The library goes quiet.
Then she turns and looks at me through the mask’s eyeholes like she can see through plastic to the man underneath. Her hands find my face, fingers curling under the edge of the mask at my jaw, and she pulls.
The mask comes away. Cool air hits my skin. Her palms are warm against my cheeks. Her thumbs stroke the stubble along my jaw, and the touch sends a current through me so violent I actually gasp.
“You just couldn’t wait,” she almost moans.
“No,” I rasp.
“Neither can I.” With those words, she kisses me.
It’s not gentle. It’s not sweet. It’s raw and filthy and desperate, her mouth crashing into mine.
I groan against her lips—low, hungry, almost a growl—and my hands lock around her waist, hauling her tight against me.
Her tongue pushes into my mouth, and I suck on it, hard, my fingers digging into the soft flesh of her ass.
She tastes like the cherry lip balm she always wears on camera and something deeper, something that’s just her. I could drown in it. I want to drown in it. My cock is hard against her stomach, straining against my jeans, and she grinds into it with a moan.
“Dominic,” she breathes against my mouth, and the sound of my name in her voice—wrecked, wanting, absolutely fucking hers—nearly undoes me.
I kiss her harder. Deeper. My teeth catch her lower lip, bite down just enough to make her gasp, and then my tongue is in her mouth again and her hands are in my hair, pulling, and I’m so fucking gone for this woman it’s not even funny.
We break apart breathing hard. Her lips are swollen, her cheeks flushed, her eyes dark with want. I reach down and pick up the mask from where it fell. I pull it back over my face. The plastic settles against my skin.
Nicki watches me, her chest rising and falling fast. I push her. Not hard—just enough to create space between us, enough that she stumbles back a step and hits the shelf behind her.
“Run,” I demand. The mask distorts it, turns it into something hollow and hungry.
Her smile breaks open. Wide, giddy, breathless—the kind of smile that shows every tooth and makes my heart beat faster.
She claps a hand over her mouth like she’s trying to trap the sound, but it escapes anyway: a laugh, bright and genuine and terrified and exhilarated all at once.
Then she bolts.
Her ballerina flats slap against the library floor, that wild curly hair flying behind her. She doesn’t look back. She runs full-tilt toward the main floor, toward the exit, toward the fantasy we’re both playing out because we can’t fucking help ourselves.
“One,” I shout.
Her footsteps fade toward the front of the library.
“Two.”
A distant thud—probably her hip catching the edge of a table as she rounds a corner too fast.
“Three.”
I push off the shelf and run.