Page 38 of Not All Himbos Wear Capes
“W-what?” His question caught me so off-guard, my rising fury instantly evaporated.
“Did, eh,Butchagree to be exclusive with you?” Ownit was back to watching me like a hawk.
“Yes,” I rasped, as any remaining tension bled out of me. “He said yes almost immediately.”
“The answer will always be yes, Xan.”
Ownit made a noncommittal sound in his throat as he wrote more in my file. As usual, the man was letting a statement hang in the air to ensure I fully absorbed it. My attention had already moved on to Butch and the possibility that I might not see him tonight, either.
I don’t think I’ll survive it.
Beforethatcore belief could send me down the path of negativity, a deafening explosion rocked the entire building.
Ownit toppled out of his chair in a flurry of papers, but I leaped over his fallen form to rush to the floor-to-ceiling window for a better view. A body suddenly crashed into the skyscraper the next block over, immediately followed by a blur of blue.
Captain Masculine.
The emergency lights started flashing in the hallway, signaling we needed to evacuate the building. Ownit took his cue to escape, shouting for me to follow him, but I was transfixed. During my run-ins with the superhero, I’d been too focused on survival to appreciate his godlike powers, but having this front-row seat—at eye-level, no less…
Look at him go.
It was like watching a ballet and a cage match at the same time. Captain Masculine moved as though the air—the entire universe—was created for the sole purpose of supporting his glory. A news helicopter hovered nearby, and I spotted a few snipers on a nearby roof, but the superhero was deadly focused on his target as they exchanged blows.
I vaguely registered that his opponent was Red Renegade—a member of the Strickland family, probably after revenge for Agent Penetrate’s death. But all I cared about was seeing Masculine in action.
This is incredible!
Red attempted to make a break for it, but Big City’s greatest hero snatched the villain out of the air like a bird of prey and violently slammed him against the building right next to my window.
Yessss…
I stepped as close to the glass as I could get, tilting my head so I could watch my nemesis pummel Red into the granite. Even when the villain had stopped moving—and looked more like roadkill than supe—Masculine kept swinging.
Fuck. Yes.
I’d seen plenty of footage of Captain Masculine defeating his enemies, and it always looked staged to me, butthisdisplay wasn’t for the cameras. This was raw, unfiltered rage.
And there’s nothing hotter than that.
All at once, I understood that the hero I saw on TV was just a persona crafted to inspire—by Biggs Enterprises, no doubt—but the unhinged man I saw before me was closer to the truth.
I see you.
I. See. You.
Masculine abruptly snapped out of his fury, backing off to let Red’s mangled body drop to the pavement far below. To my surprise, he didn’t immediately turn to the cameras to pose and preen and take his usual victory lap. Instead, he dropped his masked face into his hands, his impossibly broad chest heaving like he was trying to catch his breath.
I was so mesmerized by this sordid glimpse behind the scenes that I forgot I was still plastered to the window only a few feet away from the famous hero. As if sensing my presence, Captain Masculine’s head suddenly snapped up, and I startled as his equally wide eyes locked on mine from beneath his identity-shielding headgear.
Then we just stared at each other.
I should have been terrified to be this close to the man who’d tried to kill me on multiple occasions, but I felt calm and weirdly safe instead. It was as if all the tension I’d been holding on to since dropping Butch off at the Navy Yard disappeared, simply from being in his presence.
This is some freaky shit.
Even though I wascravingButch, I couldn’t stop my gaze from wandering over Masculine’smasculineform. The sun was setting, casting shadows over his blue Lycra, bringing how stacked he was into sharp relief. Dude was built like a Greek god brick house, and I had the irrational urge to run my tongue over every inch of him.
When I looked up again, I saw he was doing the same to me—his gaze hungrily taking me in as ifIsomehow had the same effect on him as he did on me.
