CHAPTER FIFTEEN
LILA
I don’t move. I don’t breathe. Because I want the Red Mask to stay, and I’m terrified that if I speak or react, he’ll disappear.
Is this revenge for cheating in the maze? Did he let me win so I would owe him? Or is this payback for Leon and the dance floor?
His breath lingers just above my lips, searing me without ever making contact. God, I ache for the feel of his mouth. I crave the taste of him. He’s teasing me, and he knows it. Knows I’m coming apart beneath him with every shallow, desperate breath.
This might be a dream. A hallucination. But I don’t care. Because whatever this is, it feels more real than anything I’ve ever known. I’m still fully clothed, trembling with anticipation, already drenched between my thighs. “Touch me,” I whisper, barely audible.
His gloved fingers trace the curve of my jaw, the leather cool and commanding against my skin.
They drift lower, gliding over the curve of my covered breast and down my stomach, each movement a silent dance of desire, making my nipples hard beneath the designer fabric.
He pauses at my hips, where my skirt clings tight like a second skin.
He slips his fingers beneath the waistband.
Slowly, with agonizing patience, he begins to slide the lace down my thighs.
My red thong is revealed, and the air thickens.
His breath deepens. A low growl rumbles from his throat, raw and unrestrained.
Then his mouth caresses my stomach. Soft.
Warm. Torturous. He kisses lower, each press of his lips more possessive than the last.
I can’t see his lips, but God, if I could… I know they’d be full and inviting. The kind of mouth meant to ruin you with a kiss.
My back arches. My head falls back. I’m lost in the sensation of the way his mouth moves on me. His hands return, slipping under the delicate fabric at my hips. He pulls my panties down, inch by inch.
I lie there, bare and quivering, exposed in every way that matters. Above me, he lets out a groan. Not of control, but submission. The kind of sound that says he’s been starving for this. For me.
“Princess,” he murmurs, voice dripping like honey laced with poison. “You’re a masterpiece.”
The words slice through me deeper than I expected, my heart latching onto him and every syllable.
No one’s ever said that to me. Not like this.
Not when I’m half-naked, trembling, and completely exposed.
A moan slips out, needy and unrecognizable. “Please… touch me like I’m the only one who ever mattered.”
What the hell is happening to me? I don’t beg. I never beg. I’m not that girl.
My pulse pounds like a war drum in my throat.
“You have no idea how many times I’ve touched myself to the thought of you… like a damn teenager who never stood a chance,” he says, voice low and wrecked with need. I can’t help but giggle and nibble on my lip. “What did I say about that?” he asks, his tone clear but still cloaked in mystery.
He is no longer wearing the mask. I can hear him. Clearly, and God, I am so close.
If my hands weren’t restrained, I would rip off this blindfold and never let him go.
But I can’t help myself. I tilt my head in defiance, teasing him just like the dream I recently had.
“Oh? Like this?” I whisper, biting down again and shifting my hips just enough to make sure he knows exactly what he is doing to me.
My clit throbs from the tension. From the heat.
From the sensation, but silence remains.
The air in the room is thick and smothering, humming with emotions I don’t fully understand, and I don’t think he does either.
Is he feeling this too, or is it just me again, trapped in my own head, hoping for something that isn’t real?
He doesn’t move, but I hear it. His breathing is shallow and labored, like he’s caught in the middle of a decision he doesn’t want to make, as if he’s deciding whether to vanish into the shadows or consume me whole.
Then slowly, his leather-gloved hands rise and cradle my face. They’re gentle. Too gentle for the storm in the room. He pulls me closer. So close, his breath ghosts over my mouth, warm and poisonous.
“I… I can’t do this,” he murmurs.
“Then what are you going to do to me?” I whisper, my voice trembling, the words barely holding together.
I try to pull back. His grip tightens. “Are you going to punish me?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead, the room shifts. The speakers buzz softly, as if they’ve been listening to us this whole time. And then the first haunting note of “Say Yes to Heaven” by Lana Del Rey fills the silence. He still doesn’t speak. But somehow, the song is his answer.
My chest rises and falls, syncing with the rhythm, with the weight of what’s about to happen. Because the song isn’t just playing. It’s us . It’s every unspoken thing between us. A yes without words.
“Fuck it,” he breathes, ragged and desperate. Then he closes the distance, giving in at last, every ounce of restraint shattering as his mouth claims mine.
My first kiss in years wasn’t with Leon. It was with him. And the moment our mouths meet, he makes it clear that this moment was inevitable. It’s raw passion. Intense. Starved. Desperate.
He kisses me like he has been dying of thirst, and I’m the first drop of water he’s allowed to taste.
Like I’m the only thing keeping him from falling apart.
His lips crush into mine with a force that’s both brutal and tender, like he’s punishing himself with every second of pleasure.
Like he’s kissing me to forget something or to make sure I never forget him.
His mouth moves against mine like he’s famished. Like he needs this to survive. And maybe I do too. I part my lips for him without hesitation, welcoming his tongue, craving the connection to him. We crash together in a kiss that consumes.
This is what a kiss should feel like…
It isn’t just hunger radiating from him. It’s fire and ice, a storm raging beneath his skin. He’s at war with himself, torn between wanting me and trying not to. His mouth tastes of spearmint and smoke, dark and clean together, already my newest addiction.
I hate cigarettes. But this? This… I don’t mind.
I can’t help but kiss him deeper, greedier for more. More of this. More of him. He kisses me softly at the corner of my mouth, then maps a path down my neck like I’m fragile. And something shifts. His touch slows. Softens. It turns gentle, almost hesitant. Almost… afraid.
“I want you…” I breathe. “Please. Take off the blindfold. Let me see you… all of you.”
I feel it, the way his hands falter ever so slightly. He’s not just pausing. He’s scared. But why?
Then his voice cuts through the silence, low and frayed at the edges. “Trust me… You don’t want to know me.” A breath hangs between us. “I’m nothing but unworthy of you.”
“Then show me. Show me every scar. Every secret. Every filthy, broken piece you think I won’t want, and Baby, I’ll show you how wrong you are.”
I’ve never called anyone that before. But something about him makes me forget who I am. Makes me want to be his.
He doesn’t speak. His breath catches, like he's shocked or stunned by my response. His hands tremble slightly against my skin, like my words cracked something open inside him. Like maybe… he wants to believe me. And then his mouth dips lower.
“Well then, let me show you what I know,” he says, the smirk in his voice unmistakable. His breath ghosts over my sensitive skin as it throbs. “So, no one’s ever kissed your sweet cunt?” He leans in, his breath warm and maddening as he hovers just above my clit.
“No,” I admit, my cheeks burning.
“So no one’s ever made you cum before?” His tone shifts. Softer now. Quieter. Like, he’s not just asking to tease me. He’s trying to understand me.
“I’ve had sex once,” I whisper. “But… I’ve never had an orgasm. Not from anyone.” Silence. A beat.
“Damn it,” he mutters, more to himself than to me, before leaning in closer. “Then, Princess, I’m not stopping until you’re shaking.” His hands hover just above my hips.
I can’t see him, but I feel it. The way the heat of his palms pulses just above my skin.
He isn’t touching. He isn’t retreating. He’s suspended in hesitation.
And for a moment, nothing happens. Only the echoes of our breaths fill the space.
Only this invisible thread between us, pulled taut with anticipation. And then I hear it.
The slow slide of leather. First one glove, then the other, peeling away a layer of who he really is.
He took them off.
I gasp as his fingers graze my ribs, drifting lower to my hips. Warm. Bare. Human. Skin against skin.
Lila, this is real and not a dream.
His contact is hesitant. Careful. As if I might break.
Or maybe he will. I lay there, waiting, frozen in place.
Legs spread, bare and exposed, ready for whatever he wants to do to me.
Every part of me is buzzing for what comes next.
And then I feel it. His mouth. Right there on my clit.
Wet, warm, intentional. It’s not just pleasure, it’s a jolt that shoots through my entire body.
It’s not just pleasure. It’s a shock, as if my body has been waiting its whole life for this single touch.
My back arches, the world slipping away. His tongue moves with purpose, not greedy, not rushed. Every stroke feels like an unspoken confession, as if he’s discovering parts of me no one else has ever dared to explore.
Heat spreads low in my belly. Pressure coils tight and deeper with each slow lick. My thighs twitch. My breath catches in my throat. He flattens his tongue and drags it through me like he is savoring every taste. A sound breaks from his throat. It vibrates against me, and I nearly come undone.
“Mhmmmm.” It slips out before I can stop it. My hips lift without permission, desperate for more. But his strong, steady hands are already there. They press into my thighs, grounding me, holding me in place.
“Oh fuck…” he breathes. “If you keep this up, I’m going to cum in my pants.”
A smile curls on my lips as I picture his face behind the blindfold. And somehow, that image alone makes my pulse race even faster.
No one has ever touched me like this. Like, I am everything he has ever wanted. Like I’m not just a body beneath him, but the wet dream he never thought would come to life. I’m the one restrained, but somehow still the one in control. The one with all the power.
Each swirl of his tongue builds something wild inside me, something alive. But when his lips close around my clit and he sucks, the gasp rips out of me. My head tips back. My pulse races. Heat spreads through me, every muscle tightening.
He hums against me, the sound sinful, sending vibrations through my clit that make me shatter a little more. It sinks into my skin, curling my toes, unraveling me piece by piece.
I want to moan his name. I want to give him that. But I don’t know who he is… Well, not officially.
My hands clench the sides of the table. “Baby,” I whisper, breathless. “You feel so good.”
He groans again, louder. His mouth works faster now, his tongue tracing circles that make my eyes roll back. One finger slips inside me. Then two. He finds a rhythm that pulls moans from my chest and makes my thighs quiver. “Right there. Yes. Please. Don’t stop.”
My hands pull against the restraints. My skin glistens with a sheen of sweat. My legs lock. My lungs forget how to breathe. The world disappears, and all I see is the Phantom, caught in the moon’s glow and imprinted on me like a memory I will never escape.
But with the Phantom in the back of my mind, while the Red Mask pleasures me, I am unraveling second by second.
Oh God, I think I’m about to black out from the pleasure.
And as I fall apart beneath his mouth, his touch, his whispered grunts, his fingertips drift across my thighs, lingering like a memory I cannot erase.
I will never be the same. And him… he will never be just a fantasy from the maze again.
Because he’s real, I’ve felt him and touched him.
I don’t know his name. I’ve never seen his face.
But I’ve felt his soul. And now that I have, I’ll never stop chasing it.
He thinks he’s pulling the strings, but I’m already his. And soon, the man beneath the mask?
He’ll be mine.