Page 14 of Lights Out

You can’t, Aly. I’m a stranger on the internet.

She let out a sharp exhale and shook her phone. “Don’t you think I know that? I just need some sort of reassurance that I’m not about to be headline news.”

I should have felt bad for her, but, just like her fear, her obvious aggravation only turned me on. It had been a long time since I’d made a woman this frustrated. Usually, I preferred their frustration to be sexual, winding them higher and higher until they finally snapped, but with Aly, I got a thrill from even this benign form of antagonism. There was something about seeing such a beautiful woman turn feisty that got me going. Maybe it was the challenge. I liked women with some fight in them. Ones who didn’t put up with bullshit, spoke their minds, and could take care of themselves.

Not that I had anything against meeker women; they just weren’t for me. In fact, they downright terrified me because they’d been Dad’s preferred prey. I’d never even dated one, let alone slept with one, on the off chance that I shared his proclivities. I stuck to strong, borderline-aggressive women instead. Ones who had a better chance of fighting me off if I ever…well, I’d rather not think about that while Aly still filled my computer screen.

Seeing her all riled up made me feel like rewarding her, despite my instincts screaming at me to be careful. I pulled up the second half of the video I’d shot in her room, the half that wouldget me banned from social media if I ever posted it, and before I could question myself, I uploaded it into our message thread and hit send, acting on instinct alone.

Aly clapped a hand over her mouth when she opened it, her voice muffled when she groaned out, “Oh my fucking god.”

I leaned back in my chair and waited, wondering what she’d do with the video. It was another test. Most likely, she was about to call the cops, but on the off chance she didn’t, she was about to take the first step toward becomingmine.

“Is his…?” she said.

Hand sliding into his pants? Yes, it was, and I was absolutely going to hell for taking a video of myself stroking my dick to full arousal in her bedroom.

Her head fell forward, and a low moan slipped from her lips. Her eyes were half-lidded again when she raised them, cheeks pink, and suddenly, I realized what this expression was: lust.

Aly was fucked up too. Hallelujah.

She reached out with her free hand and propped my mask against her pillows. Once it was settled, she stood and double-checked the chair braced against her door, ensuring it was secure before she went to her dresser, opened the top drawer, and pulled out a vibrator.

Oh, fuck.

I needed to kill the video feed.

Not ten minutes ago, I’d told myself the line in the sand was watching Aly sleep or change. Spying on her while she masturbated was way over it, wrong on so many levels that I – holy shit, there went her pants. I caught the briefest glimpse of a well-manicured triangle of hair before she turned and –

Look. At. Her. Ass.

I wanted to slap it. Hard enough to leave a mark. And then I wanted to bite it. Turn her around in my lap and watch it bounceas I fucked her from behind. God bless whatever glute exercises she did at the gym because they were paying off.

No. This was wrong. I wasn’t going to watch Aly pleasure herself to a video I’d sent her. And I definitely wasn’t snaking a hand into my shorts and choking the base of my dick.

Stop that. Bad hand. We’re not doing this.

Onscreen, Aly laid back on her bed with her spread legs facing my mask, her phone held aloft with one hand. She clicked the vibrator on with her other one and, without any foreplay whatsoever, positioned it at the apex of her thighs and slammed it all the way home, her back arching, a half-tortured, half-pleasured cry ringing out over my speakers.

I slapped the button to cut the video feed, and my screen went black. For good measure, I shoved my computer chair back and strode away from my desk, stopping in front of my bedroom windows. My hands shook, and I clasped them behind my head as I stared out at the rising sun. Fucking hell, that was close. The sight of Aly’s arched back was burned into my retinas, and her tortured cry had been far too sweet to my ears. If I’d watched for even a second longer, I never would have found the willpower to stop.

It was slightly reassuring that I still had some morals. Aly might be masturbating to a video I’d sent her, but she hadn’t consented to me watching her do it. And sure, she hadn’t consented to me breaking into her house, filming a thirst trap inside her bedroom, sending her a sexually suggestive video, or watching her since she’d gotten home, but the line had to be somewhere, and sexual predation seemed like a pretty good place to draw it – no matter how much the darkest parts of my mind protested that what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

I was already becoming unhealthily obsessed with Aly. There was no way this would end well for either of us if I didn’t hold myself in check, but now that I had her within my sight, Icouldn’t seem to stop myself, and all my carefully laid plans of taking it slow and easing her into things were going up in flames.

I needed her, and whether she was ready or not, I was about to put her to the ultimate test.

I just hoped it didn’t end with either of us traumatized or dead.

Chapter 5

Aly

The Faceless Man had been here. Here, in my bedroom,on my bedwith his hand in his pants as he filmed himself. I should have been scared out of my fucking mind that a stranger from the internet had broken into my house. And I was. Truly. But I was also more turned on than I’d ever been in my life, and at this rate, it was only going to take a few more brutal thrusts of my vibrator before I came screaming.

I turned the vibration up and pumped the sex toy into myself with one hand while I held my phone aloft with the other, watching as the man I’d lusted after for months pleasured himself on this very comforter. Look at those goddamn muscles. At the knife he held in his free hand. The way his forearm bunched and flexed as he stroked himself. He was the hottest thing I’d ever seen, and he’d somehow noticed all the thirsty comments I left him out of the thousands he must get on a daily basis.

It made me feel special. Seen. Chosen.

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