Chapter 18 #2
“He always keeps the mask on and refuses to tell me his name. And he only takes me in the dark, except he positions me so the moonlight comes through the curtains and hits my skin. He tells me I look beautiful bathed in it.”
“That’s kind of sweet, I guess, in a masked stalker, serial killer kind of way.” She stops, her face going serious. “He’s not a serial killer, is he? Fuck, I know I joke about this shit a lot, Lu, but he isn’t one, right?”
I freeze and hope she doesn’t notice. Thankfully, she’s rubbing her hands over her face, trying to digest everything I’ve told her. There’s no way I’m telling Maren that part of the story. That I’ll take to the grave.
“Maren, seriously?”
She leans back against the pillow again. “So, what do you call him?”
I knew this question was coming. I run my fingers through my hair and sit back against the pillow.
“At first, my watcher. Now I call him my wolf.” The last word comes out soft, loaded with emotion I’m not ready to admit. “Because of the mask.”
“Your wolf.” She repeats it without inflection. “No wonder you flinched when I called him that.”
I stare at the ceiling, letting my mind wander down that familiar path of suspicion and doubt.
“So this all started around the same time you met Damien, too, right? You don’t think it’s him, do you? I mean, that would be totally fucking twisted of him.”
I’m relieved she asks because I have to say it to someone.
“Sometimes I think… but then I convince myself I’m crazy and imagining things, almost like I want them to be the same person.
Yeah, they’re both huge. Same height, same build, same overwhelming presence.
But they don’t walk the same, they don’t sound the same, and they don’t smell the same.
He won’t let me turn on the lights. I can only see hints of him, so I don’t know if I’m just imagining that they seem similar.
Damien always wears really strong cologne, and my wolf smells more natural, like soap and pine and sex.
I just want to breathe him in all the time.
I want to crawl inside that scent and live there. ”
“But the wolf mask?” Maren’s eyebrows shoot up. “Doesn’t that seem like too much of a coincidence?”
“Maren, I’m known across three states as the wolf whisperer.”
“Okay, fair point. Whoever he is could have picked the mask because of your reputation. But what about taste? Do they taste the same? And I’m talking about kissing here, not—”
She makes a crude gesture that needs no explanation.
My shoulders drop. “I don’t know. I’ve kissed Damien, but my wolf doesn’t kiss me. Not on the mouth. I don’t know what his lips taste like. Or how they feel on mine.”
“Oh, Lu.”
The familiar ache of disappointment returns. I sigh and let my head fall forward, knowing I’ve kept so much from Maren, and it just adds one more layer of confusion and guilt to what I’m already feeling. Her hand glides through my hair and comes around to rest on the back of my neck.
“Hey, no judgment, but I don’t understand what’s going on with you and how you got here.”
I sit back and let all the rest pour out of me. She stops asking questions and just listens in the way only Maren can when she lets the sarcastic armor she always wears fall.
It takes almost an hour to empty myself of everything I’ve been holding in.
But when the last word leaves my mouth, the relief crashes over me like a wave.
The weight that’s been crushing my chest for months—it lifts.
I can breathe again. She stares at me with the same dazed expression I’ve been wearing since the doctor’s office.
“So, let me get this right. You’ve been having nonstop sex for months with a guy who wears a wolf mask, ties you up, fucks you like an animal, chokes you, won’t kiss you, but tells you he’s never letting you go? Did I get that right?”
“That about sums it up. I know how crazy this all is, Mar. All the reasons it’s insane. Trust me, there is nothing you can say that I haven’t said to myself already a hundred times.”
“Obviously, it failed, but you do use protection, right? Please tell me you use protection with someone whose identity you don’t know.”
I cringe. She’s going to kick my ass.
“I’ve been on the pill for years, but other than that, he refuses to wear a condom. Says he wants to feel all of me. And I let him, Maren. I let him come inside me every single night.”
“Are you out of your goddamn mind?”
She looks like she wants to shake me until my teeth rattle.
“I know.” That’s all I have. Two words on repeat. I’m just as pissed at my recklessness as she is.
“Does this guy hurt you?”
“Not in the way you mean. He’s rough, but he’s never actually hurt me. It’s more like…” I struggle to find the right words. “Like he worships me through the brutality. If that makes any sense.”
She doesn’t answer, just raises an expectant eyebrow that tells me to continue.
“Lately, he’s been different. He still won’t kiss me, but he lets me feel the barest hint of his weight, and his touches have become more reverent. Like I’m something he’s afraid of losing.”
“Do you guys actually talk, or is it just sex?”
“At first, it was just sex. Pure, primal fucking for hours with barely any words exchanged. Just grunts and groans and orgasms until I was literally overflowing with his come.” My skin flushes at the memory.
“He’d tell me I was his, that I’d never have another man inside me but him.
How good I felt wrapped around him, how sweet I tasted, and how he couldn’t get enough of me. ”
“Fuck! Why can’t I have a man say shit like that to me? JT and I need to talk.” She’s trying to pull us out of the heaviness, so I laugh, but it sounds as forced as it feels. “And now?”
Even though I’m laying myself bare for her, I still can’t tell her everything. I can’t expose him like that. And I can’t put that burden on Maren.
“We joke around a little now. Tease each other.” I pause, struggling with how much I can reveal. “But honestly, it’s still mostly sex. We can’t keep our hands off each other. Well, he can’t keep his hands off me.”
“And you’re in love with him.”
My head slumps forward again. “Yes. Which is so fucked up I can’t even process it.” Tears well up in my eyes. “How do you love someone whose face you’ve never seen? A man who won't even kiss you?”
“What about Damien?”
“That’s the worst part. I think I have genuine feelings for Damien, too.” I wipe my fingertips under my eyes. “I started seeing him because he reminded me of my wolf in some ways. The intensity, the way he looks at me like he wants to devour me.”
“So you really don’t think they’re the same person?”
“I don’t know anymore, Mar. I don’t trust my own judgment at all. How can I?”
“Have you thought about just confronting him?”
“And say what? Are you Damien?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s incredibly jealous of Damien. Loses it when I go out with him. There’s no way…” Her eyes blaze with anger. “Don’t look at me like that. I told you he doesn’t hurt me. He gets rougher, but we both like it rough.”
She doesn’t look convinced, but she nods.
“How the fuck did I miss this? I knew something was up with you. But I wanted to give you space. Let you come to me when you were ready. That’s what we do.
But I’m the one who catches everything.” She runs a hand through her hair, tugging at the ends. “I’m fucking losing my touch.”
I grab her hand, interlacing our fingers together and squeezing. “I twisted myself in knots to keep you from finding out.”
“Wait.” Her eyes go wide. “That night I came into your bedroom—when I thought I heard voices. Was he here?”
I nod. “Behind the door.”
“Son of a bitch. What kind of freaking best friend am I? And why didn’t Shadow blow his cover?”
“Shadow trusted him from the start. It’s why I trusted him.”
“I thought I saw your panties on the floor that night. And I swore I heard you moaning after I went back to bed.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because what you do with your vagina is none of my damn business, Lu. Every woman’s got a right to take care of herself without her best friend demanding a play-by-play. Though you know I’m always down for that.”
I snort and rest my head on her shoulder. “I’m sorry I lied and kept it from you. I wanted to tell you so many times.”
She leans her head against the top of mine. “So where does that leave you now?”
“On the train to crazy town.” I try to laugh, but the sound comes out hollow and wrong.
“I think you’ve been on it for a while.”
“I don’t know what to do, Mar. I’m torn between two men who couldn’t be more different, except for the way they make me feel. And now…” My hand drifts to my stomach. “There’s this.”
“Does he know? About the miscarriage?”
“Not yet. I have no way of getting in touch with him. I just have to wait for him to show up. He’ll come tonight expecting to fuck me, and I won’t be able to.”
“Will he take no for an answer?”
“He never has before. That’s part of what I love about him. The way he just takes what he wants. Makes me take it.”
“What about Damien? Are you going to tell him?”
I feel the weight of all these secrets crushing down on me. “I don’t know.”
“If you’re not that serious and you aren’t fucking him at the same time, you don’t owe it to Damien to tell him.”
“If I want something real with him, I need to be honest. I can’t build a relationship on lies.
But how do I tell him I’ve been having sex with a masked stranger every night while dating him?
” I curl up smaller, pulling my knees to my chest. “I need to end things with my wolf if I want to be with Damien. But I don’t know if I can. I don’t know if my heart will let me.”
I don't know if my wolf will let me either. I'm terrified he'll hurt Damien, but I keep that to myself.
Her expression softens, and she tucks my hair behind my ear. I lean my face into her palm.
“I’m so sorry about the baby, Lu. Just because you didn’t know doesn’t mean it isn’t gutting.”
I go quiet, trying to sort through the mess of feelings tangled inside me. More tears blur my vision. “I don’t know how I feel. I had no idea, but now that it’s gone… part of me is wrecked. Not just because it was mine, but because it was his.”
She nods, and something passes between us.
An understanding that doesn’t need words.
Senior year, the guy she was dating, the one she thought was the one, left her the second she told him she was pregnant.
She fell apart. Then she lost the baby a month later.
God, I’m dragging her back through all of that. I’m a terrible friend.
“If things between us end, and they probably will because we can’t keep going like this without destroying each other, at least if I’d had his baby, I’d always have something of him.” The tears come harder now. “How sick is that?”
She wraps her arms around me again. “It’s not sick, Lu. It’s human.”
“I’m so fucked, Mar. I’ve gone so far down this road I can’t even see the way back anymore.”
“Well, for what it’s worth, I think you need to tell your wolf the truth. First, because you can’t have sex while you’re still miscarrying. And if he fucking doesn’t take no for an answer, I will kill him, and they’ll never find his body.”
I laugh and cringe at the same time. Her words are almost unbearably ironic.
“But what if he ends it? I’m not ready for that. It’ll break me, even if breaking is probably the healthiest thing that could happen.”
I sag against her, and her arms tighten as fresh tears stream down my cheeks. A wave of grief, held back all day by numbness, releases, washing over me in waves.
Maren holds me through it all, her presence an anchor in the storm of my emotions. She doesn’t try to fix anything or offer empty reassurances.
She just holds me, and for now, that’s enough.