5. Maya
Maya
“Want to go to a Halloween party tonight? Ryan Thompson’s having one,” my friend Chloe asks when I answer her video call.
“The basketball guy?” I ask, setting down my pencil and sketch pad.
“Yes! God, he’s so fine. Come on, you have to go with me. I need a wing woman, and I know you don’t have plans tonight.” Chloe’s right, I don’t have plans tonight. But it’s rude of her to point that out.
“Bitch,” I say, laughing. “Don’t call me out.”
“You’re coming. End of story.”
“Fine, alright,” I concede. “What are we going to wear?”
Five hours later, I’m decked out in a black mini skirt, a black corset, a Scream mask, and splattered with fake blood. Chloe looks just as hot, done up in her slutty Pennywise costume.
Meeting up with a few other friends, Chloe and I make our way to the kitchen, where we get the ball rolling with—what else?—a couple of shots.
I have to pull my mask up onto my head in order to drink them, and I can admit that while the costume was killer in theory, doing a make-up look rather than a mask look would’ve been more practical.
The two of us spend a good amount of time talking to both people we know and meeting complete strangers—one of my favorite parts about the college party scene. Meeting a fellow drunk girl and raving over each others’ costumes? Peak bonding experience.
In the basement, we join the throng of people on the dance floor. The combination of the loud music, the flashing lights, and the liquor pumping through my veins makes me feel like I could float away.
Chloe shoots me a euphoric smile when Ryan Thompson starts hitting on her, and eventually dancing with her.
I feel a body come up behind me, a large hand brushing my waist.
“Hey, Maya.”
The voice belongs to Taylor, one of Ryan’s teammates, a guy I hooked up with once. He’s nice, but I don’t have any interest in repeating the experience. He’s not exactly my type. Where he’s very clean cut, country-club hot, I tend to gravitate toward the more rugged, bad boy types.
I know. Red flag, Maya.
I turn around to face him, my mask still perched atop my head, with a friendly smile. “Hey, Taylor.”
He leans forward to kiss me, but I pull back, laughing. “You thought it’d be that easy?” I ask, shoving him lightly on the chest.
Taylor laughs, too, and shrugs. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”
“I told you: one time only.”
“You know you had fun though,” he says, trailing his eyes down my body.
I shrug, taking another sip of my drink with a cocky grin. He’s not wrong; the man has stamina, I’ll give him that.
“What will it take for you to come home with me tonight?” he continues begging, biting his bottom lip.
Shrugging again, I reply, “Don’t know. Guess you’ve got to earn it.”
“How about this? I’ll give you twenty bucks if you get up on that table and dance. If not, we go back to my place.”
I bark out a laugh over the music. “I don’t think you know how this game works, Tay baby.”
Taylor shrugs his lean shoulders with a smirk of his own. “Maya Winchester never backs down from a challenge. It’s a fifty-fifty shot you pick me over the table.”
Downing the rest of my seltzer, I say, “What if I choose neither?”
Taylor’s wry smile grows. “You won’t.”
And he’s right. Maya Winchester loves a good dare.
Bumping him playfully with my shoulder, I walk over to the amateur DJ and request he turn on something hot. Making my way to the table, I’m pleasantly surprised when he fades the current song into an upbeat, remixed version of “Buttons” by The Pussycat Dolls.
The table in question is a large pool table someone pushed out of the way to make room for a dance floor.
When I’ve almost reached my destination, I grab the wrist of a random girl who’s dancing with two of her friends.
I hop up onto the green felt surface, and the girl doesn’t hesitate to follow my lead.
Her two friends join us, and in no time, the four of us are grinding our hips in sync with one another and dancing with our arms in the air, not a care in the world, like drunk girls do best.
Someone hands me a shot glass, and I look down seeing Chloe joining us on the table.
When the song ends, my three new friends stay up on the pool table, having the time of their lives. Chloe finds Ryan Thompson and promptly sticks her tongue down his throat.
I mosy my way back to Taylor, who gives me a slow, sarcastic round of applause and hands me a new, unopened seltzer while failing to fight a smile. “Touché, Maya Winchester. Now I’m hard and have to go home alone.”
“Aw, Tay honey, you don’t have to go home alone. You just aren’t going home with me.”
I smirk, and pull my mask back down over my face with a wink. Then I wrap my hands around his neck and indulge him in a dance.
After another couple of hours drinking, dancing, and getting hit on, I decide I need some air.
I make my way to the second floor of the house, hoping to find a room or bathroom with fewer people. I attempt to open three doors, all locked, before the fourth one swings open as I reach for the handle.
My eyes are met with a broad chest and a black leather jacket. Strong hands reach up and steady me when I stumble backward, startled.
“Easy there, pretty girl,” a raspy, low voice hums. A voice I recognize immediately. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Tilting my head back, I lock eyes with Jamie’s stormy gray and bloodshot ones. Well, he locks eyes with my mask, which I never took off. His smirk is lethal, and I realize he’s still touching me, still holding my arm. His touch is like fire, spreading over my body and making my legs quake.
Jamie is touching me.
Smiling at me.
Checking me out.
Because he doesn’t know it’s me.
The hood of the scream mask covers my curly, dirty-blonde hair, hiding all of my distinguishing features. My body is littered with patchwork tattoos, but Jamie’s never been close enough to study them.
I inhale deeply, about to ruin the moment by telling him who I am. Only, the motion causes my chest to rise, giving my corset the opportunity to constrict around my breasts, drawing his attention.
His gaze drags down my body, hot and heavy, and the way he unabashedly takes his time sends butterflies directly south.
Oh, God. No. Bad vagina. No getting horny for Jameson Booker.
His grip on my arms eases, but his fingers don’t leave my skin. He trails featherlight touches up over my collarbone, dragging a path through the fake blood that’s turned sticky with sweat.
His other hand settles on my hip, comfortable but intentional. Insinuating.
“I love your costume,” he whispers, bending closer to me, allowing me to smell both his cologne and the alcohol on his breath.
I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to respond. How am I supposed to react to flirty Jamie? To drunk Jamie?
He starts to back up, taking the fact that I haven’t pulled away yet as a sign to keep going.
I stumble again, over the threshold into the bathroom, catching myself with both palms on his big chest. Holy hell.
He feels fantastic. Before my liquor-addled brain can communicate with my limbs that this may not be the best course of action, I drag my nails down the front of his shirt, feeling all of him. Every ridge and hard plane.
Jamie groans and—oh no—bends down to kiss my collarbone, having taken my waist in both hands and pulled me toward him. His lips press into my skin, and my knees threaten to buckle.
My head spins, both from the alcohol and from the intoxicating feel of his touch.
His hands move, wrapping around to cup my ass under my skirt. His fingertips brushing so close to my center, I wouldn’t be surprised if he could feel just how damp my panties have become.
I need to stop this. He doesn’t know who I am, and he wouldn’t be touching me this way if he did. This is wrong.
But why does it feel so fucking right?
He sucks on the top of my breast, where it swells over the lip of the corset, and I have no doubt he’ll leave a mark. His fingers inch closer to where my body craves him, and I whimper behind my mask.
I let my hands wrap around his neck, entangling my red nails into his curls as he pulls me closer; so close I can feel his erection through his jeans, pressing against my stomach.
I gasp at the sensation, and Jamie grinds himself into me harder.
“Let me make you feel good,” he begs into my skin. I feel myself nod before I register what I’m agreeing to.
Jamie spins me around so that I’m facing the mirror, and I catch myself with my hands on the vanity.
Looking over my shoulder in the reflection, I watch as Jamie admires my ass from the back, rubbing his hands over my hips before pushing up my skirt.
He locks eyes with my masked face in the mirror and smirks with a tongue in his cheek.
Watching, entranced, I don’t move as Jamie lowers himself down behind me, pulling my panties down as he goes. Of all the ways I was expecting him to touch me, his tongue on my clit wasn’t one of them.
I jump at the feel of his wet, hot mouth over my sensitive nerves and let my head drop back, panting.
“You taste as good as you look,” he praises, continuing to lick and suck in a way that sends my brain into orbit.
My breath comes out in throaty gasps, unable to form any coherent thoughts.
Minutes go by—or it could only be seconds, I’m not sure—and he fucks me with his perfect mouth and sinful tongue.
Just when I don’t think it can get any better, Jamie sinks two fingers inside me, growling into my clit as he feels me constrict around him.
He pumps into me, hard but steady. Not too fast, not too slow. Fucking hell, I’m about to come on Jamie’s fingers. On Jamie’s face.
The thought enters my head as Jamie curls his fingers and hits that perfect spot inside, sending me over the edge, quaking and gasping behind the mask. He doesn’t let up, fucking me with his hand and tongue until I’m completely spent.
When he stands, he meets my gaze once again in the mirror, lifting his hand to his mouth and sucking his fingers clean.
Good God, this man is going to be the death of me.
He reaches down, straightening my skirt back up, not asking to progress this sexcapade any further, and not asking me to return the favor. His eyes glow with masculine pride at getting me off, but his gaze brings me crashing back down to Earth.
Realization douses me like a bucket of ice as what we did sinks in. What I let him do.
My heart hammers in my chest, and suddenly I can’t breathe.
Jamie flashes me that cocky, sexy, sleepy-eyed smirk. “You gonna take the mask off now?”
He reaches around me, grabbing the chin of the plastic face with one hand, and I grip his wrist before he can pull it over my head.
My palms are sweating, and Jamie furrows his brows. He’s not stupid, and he knows this isn’t how someone should be acting mid hook-up.
Slowly, I help him remove the mask. As my face emerges, I note the state of my makeup in the mirror. Streaks of black run down my cheeks where my eyes watered and my mascara ran while he finger fucked me so good.
Now, my eyes tear up for a whole other reason.
Jamie’s jaw clenches, his eyes darkening. He’s livid. All signs of the flirty, sexy version of him are gone, replaced by a statue of rage.
“Is this some kind of fucking joke?” he whispers, never breaking eye contact.
My tears spill over as I shake my head. “No, I’m sorry. Jamie, please, I didn’t mean—”
He’s gone before I can even attempt to explain, door slamming into the wall as he storms away.