“Were you?” His voice is a low rumble.
“If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be leaving.”
“Or you could stay.”
There’s something familiar about the way he speaks. I wish he would say more, so I could listen and try to remember who he reminds me of.
He moves closer, corralling me against the hedge. He doesn’t touch me, but he’s enormous, magnetic, swallowing all the air around me until I can hardly breathe. I’m not scared, not really. Or maybe I am—wonderfully, wildly scared.
His scent is rich, heavy, spicy—a cologne of pine, leather, black pepper, amber. I inhale deeply, savoring the scent because there’s something familiar in that too. Like the lyrics of a song you can’t quite remember but you wish you could because it always made you want to dance.
“You remind me of someone.” The man’s jawline and lips are the only features visible below the edge of his mask, and even those features are softened by the night.
“Do I?” I say vaguely, conscious that he’s coming closer, reaching for me.
He speaks again, thrillingly low and tempting. “May I touch you?”
No. The word trembles on my tongue. No is what I owe to Tom, to my family, to the white wedding and the pallid life that have been planned for me.
No is what they expect me to say to anything I might desire, anything that deviates from the plan. Always no.
But maybe, just this once, in the darkness, under the champagne stars, I can say a quiet yes, just for me. Just once, before the pearly noose tightens and my neck snaps.
Yes.
I say it with silence, and with the release of tension from my shoulders. I say it by leaning toward him, yielding.
He reaches down, cupping his hand around the back of my thigh right above my knee. His fingers glide upward, scrunching up the glittering fringes and the silky fabric of my dress. His hand skims across my garter strap and moves higher, sliding over the left cheek of my bottom and the lacy panties covering it. He pauses there, splaying his fingers. A tingling thrill skitters between my legs.
The stranger squeezes my ass lightly, and I shiver with pleasure. His hand moves higher, along my spine, dragging my dress upward. Cool air flutters across my lace-covered center, but even that slight chill can’t suppress the warm glow in my lower belly. I’m dizzy, delighted, flush with need.
Music from the party echoes across the garden, a hectic rhythm matching the heat of my blood, the speed of my pulse. The stranger bends, his masked face pressing into the curve of my neck. I tilt my head to give him better access. His warm breath bursts against my sensitive skin…and then his wet tongue trails over the pulse point of my throat.
My breath catches.
His lips seal to that tender spot, a brief kiss with firm suction. He folds his arms around me, gathering me close, engulfing my slender frame. I sense his fierce need in the heat of his mouth, the strength of his grip, the rush of his breath.
He kisses my throat again, and I’m motionless, mesmerized as each press of his lips sends a tiny bolt of ecstasy between my legs. The music is thumping faster, faster, a frenzied rhythm shuddering through the summer night…and as a trumpet wails, bold and brassy, soaring over the rest of the band, two small pricks of pain register at my throat. Twin needles of sharp discomfort melting swiftly into thrilling suction, into a mind-softening warmth.
One of the stranger’s arms is clasped across my back, while his other hand travels lower again, clawing my skirts up and slipping into my panties, over my bare bottom. Those devilish fingers roam my skin, smoothing and squeezing, and then they delve deeper, between my thighs, finding my slit. My face is a furnace, shock and desire mingling as he strokes one finger through the slippery folds, discovering how wet I am.
His mouth is still latched to my throat, and he’s sucking, sucking… I start to frown, to wonder…but then two of his fingers slip inside me, and I release a faint moan, sinking into the bliss of his touch.
Deep in my soft, slick channel, his fingers twitch and stroke, then begin pumping rhythmically. At the same moment, he breaks the long kiss on my throat—I’ll have a mark there for sure—and he licks my skin several times, as if he adores the taste of me, as if my skin is dusted with powdered sugar and he can’t get enough.
He eases his fingers out of me, and when I whimper a protest, he chuckles. “Greedy little kitten.” He runs his hand up my front, fondling my breasts through my sparkly fringed dress. I can’t help hating the dress, wishing it would disappear so I could feel his bare palm skimming over my nipple, his fingers kneading my flesh. The dress is going to be ruined now, stained with my arousal—his fingers are wet from me, from the liquid need soaking through my underwear.
I plunge my hands beneath his suit coat and rake his shirt up, dragging it out of his pants, working around the suspenders. Greedily I run my hands beneath the cool cotton of the loosened shirt, devouring the smooth, sculpted heat of his body. He’s beautiful, this man—I can tell that much, despite the dark. The body of a god, or the loveliest of monsters.
My slim fingers travel over his pectorals, nails scraping lightly, and he responds with a huff of barely contained lust, groping beneath my skirts again and sliding his hand into the front of my panties this time.
Sensation explodes through my body. Dazzling little bursts of electric delight dance along my nerves as he teases that small bud between my legs. Mama would never tell me its name; she called it the devil’s doorbell once. Not sure that’s a suitable name—he’s making me feel like I’ve died and gone to heaven, not to the other place.
I’ve played with myself a few times, when I dared to, but I’ve never been this aroused before, except once. My first time. The only time I’ve been with a man, and he touched me just like this.
It isn’t him. Couldn’t be. If he didn’t die in the war—if he really made it back, he would have come to me, found me…
He’s massaging that spot swiftly now, expertly, and I’m so close, I can’t help exclaiming a quiet “Shit!” And then I bite my tongue because Mama would die if she ever thought I knew that word, much less spoke it aloud.
The masked man laughs softly and presses his mouth to mine, as if to savor the taste of the profanity on my tongue.
The edges of our masks collide, but it doesn’t matter. I spin away into the sweet midnight darkness of that kiss, while moths burst into a fluttering frenzy in my belly and every bit of my skin comes to incandescent life.
I’m barely aware when his hand leaves my panties, when he picks me right up off the ground, still kissing me, and walks us both to the deeper shadow of a live oak tree farther down the sloping lawn. He ducks beneath a low-hanging bough, still holding me, still kissing me, and strides forward until he can set me against the trunk. Only then does he break the kiss and toss away his mask.
I can’t see his face in the dark. I don’t need to. With a trembling hand, I discard my mask too, and we wrap ourselves together, limbs locked and bodies grinding urgently. I hook my knees over his hips, lock him in with my ankles, haul him closer. My dress is scrunched around my waist, the fringe tickling my thighs. There’s a mere scrap of lace between my center and his pants—I rub myself against the hard bulge shamelessly, until, with a fractured groan, he reaches down and undoes the belt one handed. His pants are the new kind, with a zippered front. He rips the zipper down and pulls out his length. I reach for it, curling my fingers around it. Satin-soft and burning hard.
Desperately I rake my panties aside, uncovering my opening. His dick presses against me there, warm and urgent.
There’s a heady danger in doing this bare and unprotected. I think I know who he is, but I can’t be sure. I don’t want to be sure. I want to be a rebel, to be reckless. I want something wicked and dangerous that is mine to remember forever.
“Please,” I whisper.
He goes in easy, I’m so wet. Pushes himself all the way in…deep, so deep.
A gasp rips from my lungs at the sensation of that thick, hard column filling me up. My body welcomes him, like it recognizes his shape.
He groans, slow and heavy, like he’s been restored and unmade at the same time. It’s exactly how I feel.
