Masked Read online

  She’d found home after that—at least parts of it, here and there. At college, where classmates and professors helped her grow and flourish, and then at the Agency, where the days were challenging and the fulfillment was high, finally giving her the feeling that she’d gotten something right in her life.

  Then there’d been Dan.

  Meeting Dan. Knowing Dan. Trusting Dan.

  Home. He’d been home. Or at least the closest she’d ever come to knowing it in her life.

  Had all of that been a lie too?

  Who the hell was he? Who was the man she’d entrusted with so many deep secrets? With whom she’d shared so many laughs—and tears? Who’d put up with her dorky princess cartoons, brought her cheesy balloons on her birthday, always let her have the chunkiest pieces of the guacamole, even the last spoonful on ice cream cheat night?

  Who’d told her he could never dominate her—then went ahead and did it as another person. Then did it again—and put the cherry on that shit-fun sundae by telling her they could never meet like that again.

  Why?

  What the hell was wrong with her that he had to become a different person to be intimate with her? What was wrong with Tess but right about Odette? Was it the whole coworker thing—though technically, right now, they weren’t even that? And what had she gotten so wrong about submitting to him that he’d called it all off after their second amazing night?

  Amazing for you, maybe…

  Maybe it really was just her. Maybe all of this had just been written in the stars since the day she was born, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do to change it. She’d always be the middle one. The disposable one. Getting it all right still wasn’t good enough, even for the lover who’d made her feel, at least for a week, that “good” was just the beginning of what she could accomplish.

  Maybe it was pointless to even continue trying.

  “Tess.”

  “Go away, Daniel.”

  “No.”

  Despite the order, he maintained his position in the doorway. Tess didn’t move. With her head turned, she was able to focus on every detail of his voice, all the things even the voice disk couldn’t cloak. Why hadn’t she picked up on it before? The core of baritone command. The subtle Atlanta accent. The husky word endings that wrapped their way around every nerve ending in her body, even now.

  “I can’t do this, Dan.”

  “I can’t leave until you do.”

  “I’m reeling.”

  “I know.”

  The sky flashed over the lake. A thunderstorm was approaching, even as the moon sneaked from between the clouds to drench the landscape in silver. She winced, almost shutting it all out, feeling as if she peered into a mirror instead of a window—if mirrors could reflect the depths of souls too. Hers was an equal palette of darkness, fighting the bursts of memory that kept trying to take over, painfully hot and blinding. When they weren’t, the electricity lingered on every particle of the air, razing her composure, singeing her nerves—all because he still stood there.

  Damn it.

  Even now, he could do this to her. Make her feel just like the lake outside, churning, waiting—needing the strike of his lightning to feel completely alive.

  But what was lightning when it was a lie?

  Just a cloud. Filled with ice. With nowhere to go.

  “Tess.”

  “No. Daniel, please—just go away!”

  Of course, he took two stomps into the room. Looked like he wanted to swear but didn’t. Slammed out a breath through his nose. “Look…I—” An inhale now, sharp and angry. “I had no idea you’d be at Catacomb that night.”

  She huffed. “No shit.”

  “I—”

  “Was just there with your handy mask and voice disguise, figuring you’d check out what was up in submissive tail for the night? Good on you, Dark Knight.”

  She grabbed her chance to lob an over-the-shoulder glare but instantly regretted it. Damn. He was so beautiful, it was torture to look. His gaze pierced her like sunlight through blue glass. His body, clad now in mission gear consisting of a black skintight T-shirt and cargo pants, was as perfect as a life-size GI Joe. Even with anguish possessing every inch of him, he was flawless.

  No. He’s not in anguish. He’s in pain. And shame. He hid himself from you and then came clean only because he had to. He shattered your trust, your friendship—

  Your heart.

  “Hell,” he gritted. “I was only there to visit, okay? Max Brickham is a friend. I had no intentions but to wish him the best with the club.” He dared another step. “Then I turned around and saw you there…”

  “And wasn’t that convenient?” she spat.

  “You think that was pleasant for me? In any fucking sense of the word?” He pounded closer. “Do you think I kicked up my heels at seeing you there, your skin spilling out of that corset, looking like a goddamn Dominant’s dream?”

  “But not yours.” She flung the blanket off and pivoted to fully face him. “You told me you didn’t want me. You told me to my damn face, that you wouldn’t even think about stepping into a dungeon with me!”

  “No.” He leaned closer. “Not that I wouldn’t think about it. That I couldn’t. That I didn’t want to fuck up what we had already.” His hands spread, fingers jerking as if he wanted to reach for her, but he lowered them back into taut fists. “What I found with you, Tess…what we had…well, I’ve never done that with a woman before.” He looked away, peering out as if he’d lost something out in the lake too. “It was so…real. And honest. And so damn good.”

  She gripped the edge of the window seat. Dipped her head to stave the tears. “Yeah. It was.”

  “So do you get it?” he pressed. “Now? Even a little? How we couldn’t have turned off the D/s part of things? How it would have changed everything?”

  Rain began to spatter the window. A thousand thoughts were just as persistent, bringing a flood of understanding.

  Damn it.

  He was right. As much as she fought against the admission, it was true. Pieces of their first scene flowed back to her in longer ribbons of recall. The demands he’d made of her. The boundaries he’d pushed. The way he’d restrained her, filled her, been in complete control of her. She’d never have surrendered all that to Daniel Colton. With the griffin, she had nothing to lose. It had been the key to her complete freedom.

  “But why didn’t you tell me?” She jerked her gaze up. “After that first session? Why, Daniel?” As more memories pushed in, fury drove her to her feet. “You left. You said you had ‘business out of town.’ What the hell?”

  He finally lifted a fist. Pushed it against the frame of the window seat. “That sucked. It was wrong.”

  “Damn straight it was.”

  “I’m sorry, Tess. So fucking sorry.”

  “Damn right you are.”

  But it still didn’t provide her with an explanation. The jagged set of his face proclaimed he knew it too. “I…panicked,” he finally uttered. “I know it’s lame, but—”

  “Lame doesn’t come close to it.”

  “I thought it was the best for you.”

  Okay, that one was the lame kicker. But as Tess stood, debating her best choices for calling him on the bullshit, something equally outrageous occurred. Her stare locked once more with his—and she saw that he meant it. Every damn word.

  “I panicked,” he rushed on, “because everything we shared in the dungeon that night was…” He shoved out another breath. “Well, it was fucking amazing was what it was.”

  “You sound surprised by that.”

  A sheepish grin quirked his lips. “Surprised doesn’t come close to it, dear one.” As if using her own words and her favorite endearment weren’t panty-dissolving enough, he swooped back in to fill her personal space, consuming her very air with his tall, graceful, not-an-inch-of-soft glory. Looking too damn much like he had when first approaching her at Catacomb—without his signature accessory. Without the mask, there
were no shadows hiding the intensity of his eyes, or distract from the determined lines of his jaw. And there sure as hell was nothing diluting how her body still responded to him like a tigress in heat, brutal and raw and hot…

  “So surprised is a bad thing?” She zeroed her focus in on the offense, just to keep the confrontation grounded. Fine, the man flipped every lust switch she had, especially now that she realized her best friend was also the hottest lover she’d ever had. That didn’t change a damn thing about the rest of the truth he owed her.

  “No,” Dan replied. “Not a bad thing. But that night, it also wasn’t a good thing.”

  She scowled. “Do I want to know why?”

  He pushed in even closer. Raised a hand and stroked her cheek with the back of a hand. “I approached you in that living room because I couldn’t bear to think of anyone else touching you. My concern wasn’t brotherly or friendly, Tess. The second I saw you, my blood was on fire…and my cock turned to steel.”

  Her lips popped open. “That’s…errrmm…” Shit, shit, shit. “Well. That’s…uh…nice.”

  “That’s not nice,” he flung. “I had no business approaching you, not when I knew I couldn’t give you anything lasting with this fucked-up psyche and this half-monster face, but I did it anyway. I did it because I was selfish. Because I didn’t want any other man to be responsible for your first experience in that dungeon.” His caress changed. He stretched his fingers along her jaw, curling the tips into her hairline. “No other man in that place knew you as well as me. Nobody else would have cared that everything about that night be as perfect as you’d dreamed.”

  As if controlled by another, her arm rose. Her hand flattened to his face, mirroring his touch. “And it was,” she whispered. “Oh God, Daniel. You have no idea…”

  “I have every idea.” He slid in tighter, fitting the rest of his body against hers. Tess’s breath left her in a quiver as each awareness struck her senses. Her breasts to his chest. His thighs around her hips. His cock notched to her cleft. “I have every idea because it was like that for me too.” His breath warmed her forehead. “Getting to restrain you…hurt you…push you…” He tangled his hand in her hair, fisting the strands until she gasped. “Then getting to please you…arouse you…fuck you…”

  “Heaven,” Tess whispered.

  “Heaven.” His echo was thick and rough, resonating in the deepest parts of her spirit, not just her libido. Shit. You’re in trouble, girl. Proof: she seriously played with ditching the vow about giving in to the lusties. Luckily, Dan resolved the challenge, pulling away enough to let her grab half a brain. “But it was a heaven I had to disconnect from,” he went on. “I knew it as soon as I laid you down in that aftercare nook and watched you sleep in my arms. I knew that if I waited until you woke up, I’d be tempted to lay you flat, spread you wide, and bury myself inside you all over again. And that, I likely wouldn’t have survived in anonymity.”

  “You watched me sleep?” Damn it, that wasn’t supposed to soften her to what he’d done. Too late. Clear as if it happened now, she imagined him on the pallet in the dungeon, watching over her sleeping form with that midnight intensity in his eyes.

  “For a long time,” Dan confirmed. “That part, I was glad for. It firmed my resolve about not ever touching you as a Dominant again.” His hand wound in her hair again. The other he gripped to her waist, fisting the red cotton T-shirt she’d changed into when arriving here. “Being with you like that…every damn moment of it…was a seismic rift to my soul. Tess”—he drew her in closer, cranking the heat between them again—“you were everything—everything—I’d ever dreamed of in a submissive.” A funny huff escaped him, tugging at his scars, signaling that he drew on thoughts that ran deep. “But I was damn sure that if I ever had you in a play room again, I wouldn’t get so lucky about calling in favors from fate.”

  The revelation yanked twenty seconds of air from her. As soon as her lungs relented, she blurted, “But you dialed again anyway.” Literally. Her heart tripped over itself, remembering how growly and impatient he’d been when calling her at the office. I want to see you again, Odette. The sooner, the better.

  “Yeah.” He actually smiled. “I dialed again. As fast as I could.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Little intervention, courtesy of your sub drop.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah.” His grin plummeted. “Oh. As in oh, hell no was I going to let that blister fester in your mind. You weren’t going to go through another day of feeling like that if I could help it.”

  She wanted to let her chest do more backflips from that—his angry protectiveness spoke to so many of the parts inside that had never been sheltered by anyone—but her heart had a heckler. A nasty, frustrated one, bellowing loudly enough to make her speak its message out loud.

  “Why didn’t you just tell me the truth then?” she charged. “Why’d you let me continue in the dark, Daniel? Why’d you let me keep thinking I was a slut, an idiot, or both to keep aching for a Dom I didn’t even know?”

  “Didn’t know?” He dipped his head, underlining the question. “Do you really mean that, rose?”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “Why?” He planted both feet, raising his posture to a warrior-like stance, fully primed to claim back the space she’d just spread between them. “Because it’ll make you remember everything else I called you…things that your body and your soul craved to hear, even from a stranger? Because it’ll make you think too much about what you did with that stranger?” Sure enough, he moved forward and pulled at her elbows, banding the bottom borders of her tattoos. As he forced her forward, he dipped his head, making it impossible to escape his stare. “Because it’ll make you realize that even if you’d never known me before we came together at Catacomb, you knew me…little rose?”

  She breathed hard. Swallowed harder. Damn him! Every last syllable was the truth, but she’d confess to murder before admitting it—before she’d give him one single clue about how deeply he’d affected her.

  About how thoroughly he’d taken over her heart.

  Every tattered piece of it.

  “Tess.”

  She didn’t answer him.

  “Odette.”

  Bastard. Bastard. Bastard.

  “What?”

  “Look at me.”

  Her head refused. Even her heart refused. But as lightning flared beyond the window again, the thunderheads in her soul roiled, summoned by the matching storm of his. Like air and water and wind, she was a helpless element, called to action by her Master.

  She lifted her head.

  And clenched back tears once more.

  Unable to ignore the raw emotion on his face. The brick now embedded beneath his jaw. The contortions of his lips. The glass-sharp surfaces of his eyes, barely holding back the rain from his soul.

  He twisted tighter into her arms. “You lied to me, too.”

  She choked out a laugh. “About the plans for Newport? Right. That was a whopper, wasn’t it?”

  “I had a right to know, damn it.”

  “I know, Dan. I know.”

  She tried to match him note for bitter note but couldn’t. She was too heartsick. Too heartbroken. Too chewed up about the dumb things they’d held back from each other, too quickly transformed into the bricks of the wall that rose between them.

  Or maybe he’d been right all along. Maybe the sex had messed everything up. Maybe this was the big joke from the Big Guy upstairs. Mars and Venus really couldn’t do it all with each other.

  Why didn’t they just put crystal balls in every damn BDSM play room?

  She lifted both her arms. Dug one hand’s fingers into his shirt. Pressed the palm of the other to the center of his chest. For a moment, she simply reveled in the strong, bold beat beneath her hand.

  Home.

  Ever again?

  Or never again?

  “It’s scary,” she finally rasped.

  “What?” Dan r
eplied.

  “The wall.” She looked up, seeing that he got it already. “These are deep shadows, Colton.”

  His jaw stiffened. “Yeah.”

  “I can’t see past them anymore.”

  She slid her hand to his face. This time, for the very first time, she ran her fingers directly over his silvery scars. He flinched. She yanked on his shirt. Persisting, persevering, forcing. Making him accept every inch of her soft exploration.

  Making him accept her unspoken love.

  “But you, Daniel…” she whispered, “you’re still right at home in the shadows, aren’t you?”

  The heat behind her eyes, too unbearable, went to liquid—as the windows in his gaze shattered. She responded by pressing her whole hand to the waxy planes, letting his tears pool between her fingers, capturing every drop of the spirit he poured into her safekeeping.

  “Come into the light with me, Daniel. Please.” She leaned up, kissing his mottled skin, rasping her entreaty into his ear. “Please.”

  He didn’t answer. She didn’t care. She didn’t know how long they’d stood there, crying into each other as the skies wept outside, but it was long enough for Franzen to yell up from the living room. “Spook man! Damn it! Sometime this year, yeah?”

  Dan dropped his head and pulled away. He still didn’t speak a word. Tess still didn’t care. His shoulders remained weighted, slinking from her in shame—until she yanked him up, forcing his reddened gaze to knot with hers again.

  Forcing his lips to mesh with hers again.

  She sucked at him. Bit at him. Slammed his mouth open so she could plunder him, lick him, taste him, adore him…love him. His stance turned as rigid as the Red Rock cliffs. She didn’t relent. He moaned and grunted, sounds of agony and pain. She didn’t give up. As an incredible Dom had once shown her, the most extreme pain was often what a person needed for the hugest breakthrough.

  He shoved away, his chest pumping and his fists coiled. He looked to her—once—taking just enough time about it to show that there was no more glass left in his gaze.

  He’d put up solid steel in its place.

  Retreating to the shadows.

  And as he spun from her and marched out of the room without another glance, she had no idea if she’d dragged him even one damn inch back toward the light.