Page 11 of My Masked Stalker
No. However, he left me a present again. This time it’s not flowers, though they’re still in their vase, stubbornly clinging to the last remnants of their beauty. But there’s a package dead center on my kitchen table. I tear the tape with shaky fingers, half expecting something grotesque, like the head of some guy who looked at me for too long. Instead, a swath of crimson spills out, smooth beneath my touch. Fabric. I lift it free, and a longvelvet cloak unfurls in my hands, the deep red catching the light like spilled wine. It’s beautiful.
Beneath the cloak is the rest of the outfit: a black corset bodice strung with scarlet ribbon, a scandalously short skirt in soft, sheer layers, and stockings that slide like smoke through my hands. My cheeks heat just imagining what I’d look like in it. Whathewants me to look like.
At the very bottom of the box, folded with surgical precision, is a note written in the same harsh scrawl as the note that came with my flowers:My Little Red doesn’t need underwear. Makes it easier for the wolf to eat her up.
My breath hitches, and my pulse hammers so hard it rattles the paper between my fingers. I can’t unsee my masked stranger’s gloved hands picking each piece, knowing exactly how they’d fit me, how I’d be left bare the second the modest cloak slips away.
When my phone buzzes in my jeans pocket, I nearly jump out of my skin. I fumble for it, pulling up the new message.
Wear this to the Halloween party. You’re mine to unwrap, every last secret.
A shiver rolls down my spine, and I slam my phone down on the table. “Oh, hell no. Not doing this,” I mutter, turning my back on the costume. I start pacing, running my hand through my hair, torn between blocking him… and replying. Stopping, I let my head hang and groan. “What’s wrong with me?”
I pad to my phone, and pick it up again, my fingers trembling. Hesitating for only a moment, I punch in the text and hit send before I can talk myself out of it.
I don’t even know your name.
When I grow lightheaded, I realize I’ve been holding my breath, and I take a loud, shaky inhale. As I watch the screen, a new text pops up.
It’s Killian, sweetheart.
“Killian,” I whisper. A dangerous name for a dangerous man.
Before I can think of a reply, another message comes through.
I like the way it sounds on your lips. Say it again, baby. Out loud.
My gasp is loud in the silence of my apartment, followed by thethunkof my phone falling to the floor. He can hear me? No. He must have predicted I’d say it out loud. Crouching down, I grab my phone again, my fingers scrabbling against the worn hardwood floor.
“Killian,” I say out loud, the word coming out like a challenge.
My phone buzzes in my hand, and my heart stops.
Good girl.
“Oh god.”
7
KILLIAN
Ishouldn’t have come. Staying away these past few weeks was the smart move. But fuck, I missed her smell, her taste. I can’t take it anymore.
I lock her front door behind me and take off my jacket, throwing it over her sofa. Everything here smells of her, and I breathe it in, filling my lungs with my Emily.
For long days, Ethan and I have been buried in surveillance feeds, pulling on the threads of the Black Ash syndicate until our eyes burned red. We traced weapons shipments, watched faceless men move crates through Jersey docks, pieced together just how deep this organization runs.
Our client is anonymous, though we have our suspicions that the CIA might be connected. And they want us to cut off the head of a very large, very dangerous snake. To do that, we need to be smart, methodical.
While Ethan traced shell corporations and offshore accounts, I tapped into black market chatter, learning that the syndicate doesn’t just play in drugs and guns—they own people, governments. This hit won’t be clean. And Emily can’t be anywhere near it. And, yeah, I have to fucking admit that she distracts me.
My discipline only held so long. Now I’m here, in her apartment, the soft sounds of her breathing pulling me deeper than any mission ever has. She makes me weak, and I’m done pretending this weakness is something I can resist.
I’m standing above her sleeping form before I know it, my breathing becoming labored as I soak in how helpless she is in this moment. She’s completely at my mercy, and as far as she’s concerned, my mercy is anything but tender.
I take off my gloves and push back the strands of hair lying over her cheek. As I make contact with her skin, I realize it’s the first time. When I was here before, I only touched her with my Glock.
I waited too fucking long. I’m ravenous for her.
