Текст книги "Lights out"

Автор книги: Navessa Allen

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Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

She glanced sideways at her cat. “Only one way to find out.”

Before I could zoom back in on what she was doing, she tapped something out on her phone, fingers flying over the screen before hitting a final key. A swoosh sound followed, like she’d just sent an email or a text.

My phone chimed on my desk.

I froze.

Oh, shit. Had she DM’d me?

Carefully, like it might rear up and bite me, I lifted my phone. A notification flashed across it, reading, “User aly.aly.oxen.free would like to send you a message.” My heart pounded against my ribs as I unlocked the screen and opened her message.

This might sound completely insane, but did you break into my house tonight, film a video in my bedroom, and leave a mask behind?

Fuck. How did I respond? If I said yes, it could eventually get held against me in a court of law. If I said no, I’d be gaslighting her. Was there some way to play it cool? Answer her question with a question that neither confirmed nor denied her suspicions?

What would you do if I said yes? I asked. There. That seemed safe enough.

Onscreen, her app pinged, and I had a front-row seat as she read and reacted to my reply. She bit her lower lip again, sucking in a breath as she pulled her phone close. A few loose strands of hair fell over her shoulder, obscuring her profile from my sight.

“Holy fucking shit, he answered,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “He never answers anyone. Ever.”

Turn right a little so I can see you better, I almost demanded, but that would give the camera away, and now that I had her talking, I wasn’t ready to have the feed cut off.

She started typing again, and a second later, my phone chimed.

That depends, she said.

On what, Aly? I typed back.

She sucked in another breath, and I grinned. So she liked it when I used her name. Did it make her feel special, knowing that the man she’d openly lusted after online, who notoriously never responded to comments or DMs, had finally chosen to speak to someone, and that someone was her? If so, I’d type and say her name every chance she gave me.

On what your intentions are, she said.

I sat back in my chair. My intentions. How to respond? There were so many options, so many fantasies I’d played out in my mind with her already. There was the one of waking her up in the middle of the night with a knife to her throat, but instead of turning the blade on her, I slid the handle between her legs and used it to edge her to the brink of insanity, teasing her but never giving her what she wanted despite how much she begged and sobbed for release. Or the one where I kidnapped her in the hospital parking garage, drove her into the middle of the woods, and told her to run as far as she could because what I planned to do when I caught her would make even the Devil weep.

But she probably wasn’t ready for any of that right now, and she might still be thinking about calling the cops, so I settled for taunting her instead.

My intentions? Oh, Aly. Why would I tell you what they are when your previous comments have led me to believe that fear is half the fun for you?

I lifted my eyes just in time to watch Aly drop her phone on the comforter and place her head in her hands. “I need so much more therapy than I’m currently getting.”

I grinned, because same.

Fred meowed and butted his head against her arm.

“Fur therapy isn’t going to cut it this time, buddy,” she said, scooping him up. “And I’m sorry for this, but I need to do grown-up human things right now, and you can’t be in here.”

As I watched, she strode to her bathroom and set Fred on the tile floor, apologizing again as she shut him inside. I waited with bated breath as she returned to the bed and picked up her phone.

How can I trust that you wouldn’t hurt me? she asked.

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 would get 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 becoming mine.

“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 bounce as 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, I couldn’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.

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Chapter 5Aly

The Faceless Man had been here. Here, in my bedroom, on my bed with 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.

Until tonight, I honestly thought my obsession was just a phase. That I was all talk, and my recently awakened kink was purely driven by the overwhelming abundance of masked men on my social media feed. I was convinced that a new trend would gain traction online, and I’d be into bondage by the end of the month instead.

Silly me.

I knew better now. This wasn’t just a passing fancy for me. It was my ride-or-die fantasy, and the fact that I might be living it out made me feel more alive than anything else had in months.

But I wasn’t stupid. My years working as a trauma nurse had taught me that this was much more likely to end in tragedy than anything else. I’d checked my entire house, top to bottom, and knew he wasn’t inside. I’d also braced chairs against both my front and back doors, as well as my bedroom. I was as safe as I could be for now, and as soon as I got this overwhelming need out of my system, I’d go back to being terrified and angry.

The video started over, and I pulled my phone in for a close-up view as the Faceless Man flattened a big hand over his abs and then slid it torturously slow into his unbuttoned jeans. He stroked downward first, tugging his dick from base to tip. I moaned and imagined the feel of it in my hand, so wide I could barely wrap my fingers around it, hard as steel, soft as silk, and warm enough to set my blood on fire.

I wasn’t lying in my comments; I wanted to crawl to this man. Give him the most toe-curling, leg-shaking, dick-throbbing, sheet-gripping, soul-sucking, ball-draining head of his life. I was close just thinking about it, so I let the fantasy play out in my mind as I inserted myself into the video, joining him on the bed and replacing his hand with my mouth, choking down that dick until my eyes watered and my pussy clenched. I wanted his hands in my hair, gripping so hard it hurt as he fucked my mouth.

I craned my head up to stare at the mask, his mask, that he’d left for me like some macabre memento. It was all too easy to imagine him staring out of it, watching me while I shoved the vibrator deep and held it in place.

I was done teasing myself, needed to come like I needed to breathe. The small nub at the base of the device thrummed against my clit in a way that had my spine arching off the bed. My phone fell from numb fingers, and I slammed my eyes shut as my entire being spiraled down into the sensitive bundle of nerves between my thighs.

Oh, god, I was going to –

“Fuck!” I half-yelled/half-moaned as light exploded behind my closed lids, and an orgasm tore through me with as much violence as pleasure.

I lay there panting afterward, half dazed and still aroused. Shit. This wasn’t good. A man had broken into my house, and instead of calling the cops, I’d masturbated on top of whatever evidence might remain. No way could I call them now. How the hell would I explain myself?

“And why didn’t you call us immediately?” they would ask.

“Sorry, officer. I was too busy diddling myself instead.”

Ugh. And also? I’d asked for this. I wasn’t victim-blaming myself; I had literally begged for it to happen. At one point, I’d even left a comment offering him money to break in and wait for me in the dark. How would that hold up in court? His defense could probably argue that all their client had done was take me at my word. I should ask the hospital’s lawyers about it. Technically, I was one of their clients as an employee. That meant they couldn’t tell all my coworkers about the freaky shit I was into outside of work, right? Client privilege and all that?

I got up and cleaned myself off. I was soaked. Wetter than I’d been in a long time. Regular sex was fine, cathartic even, but at this point, it’d become less exciting than it used to be and more about stress relief and the need for physical intimacy with another person – a reminder that people could give each other pleasure instead of pain.

My job was truly starting to impact my life. I’d known it was a possibility going in. School had tried to prepare me. Back when I’d first entered the career field, my on-the-job trainer and other co-workers had told me how much of a toll trauma nursing could take on someone, detailing the sky-high divorce rates at the hospital, PTSD diagnoses, and addiction issues, but I hadn’t listened. I’d been too naïve and headstrong. No one had been there when my mom needed it, and I couldn’t let what happened to her happen to anyone else if there was something I could do about it.

Now, I was starting to become numb. I’d seen so much shit that my faith in humanity was at rock bottom, and I’d lost contact with everyone but my nursing and other first responder friends because no one else understood what I faced day in and day out. Even sex had lost its thrill. Or at least, vanilla sex had. What I had just done proved that I needed something spicier to get me off. Something darker with a sharp edge of danger.

A soft meow pulled me from my thoughts. Right. I’d locked Fred in the bathroom. It made me feel like a bad parent after the night he’d had. He’d probably hidden under my bed and only came out when I got home. He didn’t like or trust most people, especially men (who could blame him?), and he’d run from or hissed at every guy I’d ever invited over. A stranger being in his space when I wasn’t even here must have scared him shitless.

I got changed into pajamas and then let Fred out. He zoomed into my room and went straight to the door. Poor guy probably had to pee.

My nerves returning, I scooped my gun off the dresser and carefully slid the chair from beneath the knob, half afraid that someone was waiting to bust inside. I flicked open the lock and then cracked the door, gun aimed. No one stood in the short hall separating the bedrooms – thank god – and I’d left so many lights on that I didn’t see anyone anywhere else when I craned my head around the corner and looked into my open-concept living area.

Still, my paranoia had reached an all-time high, and while Fred raced toward his litter box, I cleared my house for the second time. A chime had me turning back toward my bedroom when I was done. I’d left my phone in there. Had completely forgotten to respond to the video the Faceless Man sent me.

A blush stole up my cheeks. If only he knew the reason why. He’d probably be even more convinced that I approved of what he’d done and was hopeful for a repeat, preferably while I was home.

I scooped my phone off the dresser and froze. Was I hopeful for a repeat? I shook my head. No. Absolutely not. That would be crazy, right? But there was no denying the heat blooming in my core or how my heart tripped in response to the thought.

My phone chimed again, and I glanced down at it. I saw two new social media notifications. The Faceless Man had sent me more messages.

My fingers shook as I unlocked the screen. What had he said? Did he send another video? And why was I so desperate to find out when I should be blocking and reporting his ass?

It wasn’t another video. Just two simple, heart-stopping messages.

Sleep tight.

Alyssa.

I blinked. Not Aly. Alyssa. My full name. That I hadn’t used in my profile, comments, or anywhere else on this goddamn app. I wasn’t even surprised. He’d broken into my house, so he must have learned my full name, and god only knew how much else about me before he came here. Still, having him type it out felt even more intrusive for some reason, and not in an entirely bad way, either.

What the hell did I say back to him? Thank you? Go fuck yourself, you creep? Try something like this again, and I’ll shoot you? Get your ass back here right now, you monster, you can’t leave me this turned on?

It felt like my brain was splitting in half. On the one hand, this was the hottest thing that had ever happened to me. On the other, it was also the most fucked up.

This truly was the horror movie I would die in, wasn’t it?

Somehow, despite how horny and afraid I’d been, I managed to fall asleep. I’d barricaded myself in my room with Fred, moving his litter box into my bathroom and his food and water bowl by my dresser. I also fell asleep clutching a baseball bat, my gun within easy reach.

I was convinced I’d have nightmares, or worse, sex dreams, but I’d slept like the dead for a solid ten hours, waking only when Fred got bored with his imprisonment and started running laps around my bed.

Now, I sat at my small dining table, clutching a huge mug of coffee while my mind worked on overdrive. Part of me couldn’t believe what had happened. The Faceless Man broke into my house last night. Even thinking it felt surreal. Like I’d detached from reality and resided in a dark matrix glitch of my own making.

He could have hidden in here and murdered me the second I walked through the door, but he didn’t. I was still whole and hale, if more than a little rattled, and that had to mean something, didn’t it? That he didn’t want to kill me?

Don’t be a dumbass, I told myself.

Right. For all I knew, this was foreplay to him. He could be like a cat toying with its prey, relishing the chase, watching mercilessly while I flailed around, waiting for the opportune moment to strike. He might really be a killer and did this with all his victims. Lured them to him online, flirted, broke into their houses, maybe even fucked them a few times without hurting them. I could see it now, how easily someone could fall for that trap, dropping their guard only for him to serial murder them in some spectacularly messy way.

Well, I’d be his next victim over my dead – whoops, wrong phrase for right now. I wouldn’t be his next victim. Later today, I’d add the gun store to my long list of errands. They sold more than weapons. In addition to personal defense items, they carried home defense supplies. I’d get cameras. An alarm. That motherfucker wouldn’t be getting back in here without one hell of a fight.

I shifted in my seat, trying to ignore the fact that despite my newfound resolve, I was still turned on and had been since last night, my panties damp and my nipples shooting little shivers of pleasure through me every time they brushed against the inside of my sweatshirt.

Stupid kink making me lust after a man who probably wanted to carve my skin off and make himself a pair of gloves out of it.

I grimaced at that image and took another sip of coffee. This whole situation was beyond frustrating. Did he want to hurt me, or didn’t he? And why had he chosen me, out of all the people in his comment sections, to single out? Did he live somewhere nearby? Had I met him offline somehow? Bumped into him in my favorite coffee shop or lifted weights next to him at the gym?

Even if I had, how had he found me online? He must have known my name and what I looked like if he was able to pick me out of his comments because I’d told no one, absolutely no one, about my mask kink IRL, and I wasn’t friends or following anyone I knew personally on my account either.

What happened after he found me? How had he gone from figuring out who I was to learning where I lived?

Most importantly, how did he get in here last night? None of my windows were broken or unlocked, I didn’t have a chimney for him to slither down, and my back door had a deadbolt that I kept locked from the inside. As far as I knew, he would have had to break it to get in. I’d checked last night, and there were no signs of forced entry. So that left the front door.

The power had cut off sometime during the night. Had he somehow triggered it and used the cover of darkness to sneak inside? No. It must have been a coincidence. He’d have to be a top-notch hacker to pull something like that off.

And to figure out everything else he had about me, now that I thought about it.

My phone was sitting face up on the table beside me. I eyed it warily. Was he somehow watching me through it even now? I shoved it behind my napkin holder, out of sight, just to be safe. I was in way over my head. I’d taken a few programming courses in high school and college. Enough to realize that a job in one of the computer science fields wasn’t for me. I had no idea what skills were needed to hack my phone or if it was even possible.

Wait a minute. Wasn’t Tyler’s roommate a computer genius? Could he answer my questions? Things might have been over between me and Tyler, but it wasn’t like it was ever serious between us or ended badly. I’d seen him at the gym the other afternoon, and he’d been nice enough, waving to me across the weight room and giving me a thumbs up when I hit a new max on my deadlift. Would it be weird to ask him if he would talk to his roommate for me? How would I even explain what I needed?

Hey, Tyler. It’s Aly. Don’t worry, I’m not still into you or anything. I just need your roommate to track down the man from that thirst trap I sent you.

I rolled my eyes. Yeah. That would go over well.

Maybe I’d be okay if I kept it vague and offered to pay the guy. I’d only met Josh once, so it wasn’t like he’d have any reason to do it out of friendship or the goodness of his heart.

My thoughts wandered back to that one meeting. The only details Tyler had told me about Josh were that he was a recluse with a fancy cybersecurity job. I’d expected him to be some reed-thin short guy with glasses, and yes, I was aware that meant I’d fallen for the Hollywood stereotype of what a “geek” looked like.

Josh taught me better. Because he was huge, at least 6’4”, and though he’d been wearing baggy gym pants and a sweatshirt the morning I bumped into him in their kitchen, there was no hiding the fact that the man was yoked. I’d only caught a glance at his profile – strong jaw, aquiline nose, the kind of thick, long lashes most women would kill for – but that one glimpse was enough to tell me Josh had heartbreaker-level good looks. He must have had Mediterranean blood in him because his skin had some olive in it, and his hair was just as dark as mine. Mom would have taken one look at him and said something inappropriate about him being a man who could give her strong Italian grandchildren.

He’d made me stand up straighter, instantly aware of the fact that I was wearing his roommate’s t-shirt, and he’d probably heard me fucking Tyler just a few hours earlier because we hadn’t been as quiet as we should have after splitting a bottle of wine over dinner.

None of that mattered because I didn’t need Josh for his looks; I needed him for his brain. Would paying him be enough incentive to get him to help? And how much would I have to tell him about what I needed? Could I simply ask him to find someone for me without going into too much detail?

I needed Google to answer all these questions.

My fingers strayed toward my phone, but I hesitated, not trusting myself not to pull up my DMs again and obsess over the video the Faceless Man had sent me. Instead, I set my coffee down and went in search of my laptop.

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