Unmasked: The Complete Series: Second Edition Page 6

  His mouth covers mine, swallowing my cries as my legs quake with ecstasy.

  He pulls his mouth away. “That’s it. Come for me.”

  His finger moves in soft circles over my clit as his cock slides in just a bit more.

  “Ow. It hurts.”

  “Yes. And it also feels good, no?”

  “Yes.”

  “You like my cock inside of you?”

  “Yes!”

  My hips buck uncontrollably as he stimulates me, until I can’t take it anymore. I lose myself, feeling my wetness gush over him. He removes his hand from between my legs and drives his cock all the way in. Filling me completely. I scream with pain when he digs in a little too deep and he quickly claps his hand over my mouth.

  “You’re a woman now, Alex,” he growls into my ear as he moves inside me. “You must behave like a woman.” He moves so torturously slow, I want to bite his hand and scream again. “When you scream, you scream my name. Do you understand me?” I nod and he removes his hand from my mouth. Then he whispers against my lips, “When you come, you come for me. When you dream, you dream of me. Understood?”

  “Yes.”

  “Now, I’m going to fuck you.”

  Wasn’t he just doing that? Before I can ask this question aloud, he answers it for me. He lifts both my legs and holds my ankles up on either side of his head. Then he pounds into me.

  Our bodies slap against each other, wet and sweaty and primal. This is what men and women were made for. And now I’m a woman. I hope I get to do this often.

  Suddenly, I begin to feel another orgasm coming from within me this time. More intense than the last one. So intense it frightens me.

  “Daimon?”

  He doesn’t respond, but I can hear his soft grunts. I wish I could see him.

  “Daimon!” I scream just as my pussy tightens around his cock and my body is rocked with another orgasm.

  He pierces me a few more times before he pulls out and I feel a slow warmth spurting onto my belly. He reaches between my legs and quickly finds my clit, unsatisfied with giving me two orgasms, he kneels between my legs and fondles me until I’m a writhing, sweaty mess. Then he finally lies next to me. I can feel movement, then he swipes something over my belly to wipe away his seed.

  “You did good,” he commends me, his fingers trailing over my belly and finding my nipple. He pinches it and I suck in a sharp breath. “I want you to go back to the clinic and get on birth control, Alex. That way, I will be able to come inside of you. I want to fill your pussy with my cum while you come all over my cock. Will you do that for me?”

  “Yes… I think I could do that all night with you. Can we do that all night tonight?”

  He chuckles. “No, ma chérie. You need your rest.”

  He drags his fingers over my chest and neck and up to my lips. He traces the curves of my bottom lip and I begin to feel tired. Then he traces my top lip and pauses for a moment with his finger poised on the bow. He runs his fingertip over my top lip again a few more times, as if he’s found something interesting.

  “Your top lip is bigger than your bottom lip?” He asks the question in a strange tone of voice I’ve never heard him use. It sounds almost high-pitched as if he’s truly surprised or…frightened.

  “Yes, why?”

  He lets out a breath he must have been holding while waiting for my reply. “It’s beautiful.”

  He holds my face as he leans over and kisses me hard. I try to focus on copying everything he does. I move my lips like him. I slide my tongue into his mouth when his tongue retreats. I think I’m doing a good job. I can feel his erection growing against my hip. Then he pulls away suddenly.

  “I have to go.”

  “Right now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you be back?” I don’t bother trying to hide the desperation in my voice.

  He plants a kiss on my forehead. “Yes.”

  And, once again, he’s gone. But, somehow, I can’t help but feel as if it had something to do with the disproportion of my top lip to my bottom lip. Maybe I’m not as beautiful as he imagined.

  Chapter Eight

  Aasif is scratching his beard as he enters the tiny snack shack. He always does that when he’s uncomfortable. Body language is one of our worst enemies. It reveals our inner truth when we believe we are being discreet. It’s like a two-faced friend handcuffed to your wrist, shouting your secrets to anyone who’ll listen.

  He doesn’t look at me as he removes his blue windbreaker and tucks it into one of the cubbies under the snack shack counter. Aasif calls the store building the snack shack because the space is only about ten feet wide by fifteen feet long, and a large portion of the space is occupied by the clerk’s counter. The entrance door to the snack shack is always locked at nine p.m., two hours before my shift begins. After that, all transactions are made through the slot in the bullet-proof glass storefront windows.

  I never have to deal with customers coming into the floor area. There’s always a couple of inches of glass separating us, which makes this the perfect job for me. I can sit here reading a book by the light that shines through the window from the pump bays. Most customers pay at the pump with their credit cards, so I only see a couple dozen customers per shift. There’s the occasional complaint about a card reader or a pump not working. But, on the plus side, the panhandlers don’t come around here at night. So, for the most part, this is a quiet job, which I’ve come to love.

  Aasif looks up at me with that bored exasperation I’m starting to get really sick of. He’s ticked off that he couldn’t fire me when he wanted to and even more ticked off I still haven’t bothered asking if he was threatened. I’m not stupid. If I question why Aasif didn’t fire me for calling in sick two weeks in a row, that will just open up the possibility of him telling me who threatened him, and I don’t want to know. As soon as I know, that makes me an accomplice to blackmail.

  Aasif opens his mouth to speak and he’s interrupted by a knock on the glass. I spin around on the stool behind the counter and my heart nearly stops. A man in a black hoodie slips a fifty-dollar bill into the curved slot. I reach for the money and accidentally graze his cold fingers. I snatch my hand back, still unable to tear my gaze away from the shadowy blackness where his face should be.

  He reaches up and pushes the hood back. “Thirty on number two.”

  I sigh with relief at the sight of a young Hispanic guy with a spiderweb tattoo on his neck, but then I remember something that stops me cold.

  It must have been about two months ago. A man in a dark hoodie came to the window to pay cash. What kind of car was he driving? I try to recall all the images surrounding the mystery man in my mind and I’m sick to my stomach when the image materializes. The vehicle behind the guy in the dark hood. A gold Mercedes.

  “Are you gonna give me my change, or what?”

  The harsh voice snaps me out of this horrifying memory. I hastily slide a twenty-dollar bill back at him through the slot;, then I turn to Aasif. His eyes are narrowed and one of his thick eyebrows is cocked suspiciously. He knows something’s going on with me and I’m not being forthcoming with him. I have to find out what made him change his mind.

  “Aasif, why didn’t you fire me?”

  He rolls his eyes. “Because you do a good job scaring off the criminals in that costume.”

  “Now is not the time to fuck with me, Aasif. Tell me! Why did you change your mind?”

  He looks at me like I’m crazy for pretending not to know. Then his features soften and his round dark eyes widen with surprise.

  “You really don’t know?”

  I glare at him, a silent reminder that I’m not in the mood to be fucked with.

  He shrugs. “I got an envelope in the mail. When I opened it up, it was a picture of my mom and sister with the top of the picture cut off at their necks. The note on the back said I’d regret the decision if I fired you.”

  I cover my mouth in horror. “Oh, my God. That’s disgusting. Who would do something like that?”

  He looks like he’s not sure if he believes I had nothing to do with it. “Look, you can leave now. I’ve got it covered.”

  I want to insist he tells the police, but I have no idea who sent him that letter. I also have no way of knowing if contacting the authorities will cause this person to retaliate against Aasif and his family.

  I nod my head as I tuck my paperback novel into the cubby under the counter. He wants me gone. He doesn’t want to talk about this, and I don’t blame him.

  I pull the drawstrings on my hood a bit tighter and exit through the rear entrance. I hear the click of Aasif locking the door behind me and I stare at it for a moment, trying to figure out who would threaten his family. Initially, I believed it was my father because I refused to believe Daimon would care enough about me to do something like that. His hasty exit from my apartment six days ago sort of proved his apathy, but now I don’t know what to think.

  Especially now that I remember a customer in a dark hoodie driving a gold Mercedes just like the one I saw the first night I saw Daimon. But it doesn’t make sense. Why would Daimon kill someone who was driving his car? He said it was a known sexual predator in that car. Unless, the predator just happened to have the same car as him. Or the man I saw at the gas station two months ago wasn’t Daimon.

  It’s too much of a coincidence to be unrelated, and now Aasif and his family have been pulled into this. But why does this person care if I still work at the gas station? What does all of this have to do with me?

  I turn away from the back door of the snack shack and head for the sidewalk. It’s four a.m. The sun won’t come up for another two to three hours. These are the hours of absolute darkness, when I should feel most at ease, but I’ve never felt more uncertain about walking home alone.

  Then I see it. For the first time in a month, I see my father’s silver Audi S4 parked about a block and a half farther down Hope Street. I get a strange urge to wave at him. To let him know I see him, I appreciate him, and, despite his mistakes, I love him.

  But I can’t. Because a larger part of me still wishes he would have been a better father. Teaching your child to fight isn’t a sufficient means of showing affection. I needed to know I wasn’t a monster. I needed to know I was loved. I still don’t know if my father loves me. All I know is he loved the fighting machine he created. He loved that machine, then he kicked it to pieces and threw it away.

  I continue walking down Hope, watching as the glowing cherry of my father’s cigarette flies out the driver’s side window and he drives away. I shake my head. He still hasn’t quit. The last few years I lived at home, I had to go easy on my dad during sparring matches. All that tar in his lungs was slowing him down. I tried to make sure he didn’t know I was going easy on him, but I’m sure there were times he suspected it. Those times when he’d cut a match short and chew me out for doing something wrong. Punishing me for his own shortcomings.

  Isn’t that what we always do? Punish others for our own weaknesses. Maybe that’s what Daimon is doing to me. Maybe he hasn’t come to visit me in six days because he recognized some weakness in himself while he was with me.

  It’s a long shot, but it would make me feel better. Like I hadn’t been used.

  Still, I find it hard to believe a man like Daimon would go to all that trouble to use a woman for sex just once. He killed someone in front of me, someone who was possibly driving his own car. Then he came to my door and introduced himself as a detective, which I didn’t believe for a single second. Until I contacted the Los Angeles Police Department yesterday.

  They confirmed to me twice that they do indeed have a Detective Daimon Rousseau in their department and that he works the Hope Street area. They wanted to know if I had a complaint about him or if I had some information for any of his cases. I told them I did not have a complaint and that I’d call Detective Rousseau directly to give him my tip.

  I knew if I called from my home phone, Daimon would know it was me. So I called from a pay phone on Wilshire and disguised my voice. The fact that I have to go to such lengths to find out more about the man who ravaged me six days ago is disturbing. I willingly granted him access to the deepest parts of me, and he thanks me by pretending I no longer exist.

  I’m near the place where my father was parked just a few minutes ago. I look at the black asphalt and immediately see the cigarette butt he tossed out the window. The cherry is still barely giving off a thin stream of smoke. I gaze at it for a moment, trying to figure something out. Then I step off the curb, take two steps into the street, and pick it up.

  Holding the cigarette butt up in the air, I smile as the streetlight shines down on it. Then I tuck it into my pocket and head home.

  Chapter Nine

  Never underestimate the lengths a person will go to for revenge. My father said those words to me the day I left. I didn’t understand if this was a threat or a warning. Who would ever want to exact revenge against a girl who’d been kept in a basement for most of her life? Well, now I know he wasn’t issuing this warning to me.

  It’s been two days since I watched my father’s Audi S4 drive away, and I’ve been a busy bee. I’ve been playing the part of Detective Alex Carmichael. I’d make a great detective.

  After taking a cab to a restaurant cattycorner to the Central Community police station on 6th Street, my stakeout didn’t last long before I finally got a tail on Detective Daimon Rousseau. Turns out he really is a detective and he either has anger issues or he takes his job way too seriously. I watched him get in a fight with another officer while walking to his car.

  Or maybe he’s just stressed about something. Maybe he’s feeling the heat from that murder he committed three weeks ago.

  Either way, now I know his face, from a distance. I couldn’t see much, especially when he was scuffling in the parking lot, but it’s obvious he’s handsome. He carries himself with immense poise and an air of mystery. A bit of a loner.

  Even after discovering these new details about him, I still don’t feel like I know the real Daimon. But I do know he’s coming to see me, or possibly another woman, tonight. I watched him walk into a flower shop earlier today. Then he drove to his swanky apartment complex in Venice Beach.

  I’m ready for you, Daimon.

  I’ve resisted touching myself for eight days while waiting for him to knock on my door. My body and mind are primed for a perfectly sinful reunion. Tonight will be…explosive.

  I spritz the air with a heady perfume, which I’ve mixed with a vial of pheromone oil I picked up at a local lingerie shop. Then I dab a few drops on my décolletage, smiling as I say the French word aloud a few times. It rolls off my tongue naturally. I think Daimon would be impressed.

  As expected, at 11:23 p.m. on my night off, I get a knock on my door. I peek through the peephole and smile. He’s wearing the usual dark hood and he’s facing away from the door. I unlock the deadbolt and walk straight toward the bedroom.

  “Alex?” he calls softly when I’ve reached the corridor.

  I continue into the bedroom, calling over my shoulder. “Come in, Daimon.”

  I press my back up against the wall. It’s cool against my skin as I wait for him. He enters cautiously and I can’t help myself.

  “Boo.”

  He snaps his head toward me and I’m actually quite turned on by that black, circular shadow under his hood. The small hints of light on the top of his lips and nose are enough.

  “I apologize for my absence,” he begins and I quickly reach up and press my finger to his lips.

  “Shh. You don’t owe me any apologies. I’m a woman now, remember? I understand how it is. Things get busy. You get swamped at work. Blah, blah… Explanations are for saps.”

  He reaches up and grabs my wrist to pull my finger away from his mouth, then he’s silent for a moment. “If you don’t want an apology for your own peace of mind, that’s fine. But I’m offering my apology because I believe you deserve better.”

  “Better than what?”

  He lets go of my wrist and my hand drops to my side. Stepping forward, his hand lands on my bare waist. “Why are you nude?”

  I smile and lay my hand over his so I can slide it back onto my ass. “I was waiting for you.”

  “How did you know I was coming tonight?”

  “Woman’s intuition.”

  “I brought you something.”

  He pulls his left hand out from behind his back and brings a sprig of flowers to my nose. It smells like raspberry and honeysuckle.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s freesia. It reminds me of my days as a young boy in France. I want to take you there someday.”

  I take the flower from his hand and carefully tuck it behind my ear. “Perfect.”

  He brings his hands up to cup my face. “I’ve missed you.” His hand trails down to my neck and he leans in until his lips are hovering over mine. “I was thinking about you every day.”

  “I was thinking about you, too,” I breathe.

  He runs his tongue over my top lip as his hand slides between my legs. “What were you thinking about, ma chérie?”

  I draw in a sharp breath as his finger finds my clit. “I thought of you and me…fucking.”

  He strokes me softly. “Did you touch yourself?”

  “No. I wanted to wait for you.”

  I whimper when he shoves two fingers inside me. He drives his fingers back and forth as I whine with pleasure.

  “Oh, please.”

  “Please, what? What do you want me to do?” He slides his fingers out and begins caressing my clit again.

  “Please, fuck me.”

  “Turn around.”

  “No.”

  He tilts his head back. “No?”

  “I don’t want to do it like that.”

  “You mean, you don’t want me to fuck you from behind?”

  “Yes, I do. But… I was thinking…” This is it. I have to just blurt it out or I’ll lose my nerve. “I want to try something different.”

  -->