Page 116 of Masks and Mishaps

“Weston Hannington is blackmailing me. He knows I’m a camgirl, he knows you’re with me, and he says he’ll tell everyone at Hannington-Hale unless I fuck him.”

I think my heart has stopped.

This one time in business school, I had to pull an all-nighter to finish a project because I had gotten super into the New York Times crossword puzzle and basically did only that for two weeks. At the time, I was sharing an apartment with Lander and Everett while they were in law school, and Everett kept this stack of National Geographic magazines in our bathroom. That night, during a three am bathroom break, I was certain I was going to pass out if I didn’t focus on something while I was taking care of business, so I picked a random Nat Geo and read this article on volcanoes.

Most of Earth’s volcanoes exist at the meeting point between two tectonic plates, which are basically the Earth’s crust. Normally, tectonic plates are perfectly-fitted jigsaw pieces, but from time to time, they move. When this happens, one slides under the other, a bunch of magma escapes, and a volcano forms.

Could have been the Adderall talking, but twenty-five-year-old Dalton thought the formation of volcanoes was profound as shit.

Essie and I are tectonic plates. We fit perfectly, but in those rare moments when one of us is out of place, I am a goddamn volcano. I am sweltering lakes of magma and plumes of toxic ash and lethal showers of sulfuric acid. I’m uncontrollable pressure and species-ending heat. I amcataclysmic.

When I try to speak, the only thing I can manage is, “The fuck did you say,” and the words are fragments tied up in the tight clench of my jaw.

“He’s blackmailing me,” Essie states as she caresses the peak of my cheekbone with her thumb.

I jerk against the handcuffs, making them dig into my skin. My muscles strain, the chair’s wooden arms creak, and now it’sabundantly clearwhy Essie restrained me.

“Let me out,” I grit.

She shakes her head.

“Essie.” I rattle my chains. “Baby. You have to let me out.”

“Nope.”

“You think I’ve never broken a chair?Me?”

“Calm down,” she replies before she finally climbs into my lap. Her weight settles on me, light and familiar, and the scent of her flowery perfume surrounds me. Her hands return to my cheeks, and she tilts my face up. “Keep looking at me,” she instructs.

“I’m looking.”

“No, your eyes are darting around like you’re already envisioning the kill room you’re going to build. Look at me.”

I look at her. I focus on the deep umber of her eyes, the notes of gold in her skin, and the subtle touches of cherry in her long brown hair. When she rests her forehead against mine, I shut my eyes.

Essie’s hands splay flat on my chest, palms to pectorals. “Breathe,” she murmurs.

Inhale. Exhale.

“Again.”

Inhale. Exhale.

“One more for me, Daddy.”

Inhale. Exhale.

When she pulls back, I open my eyes.

As I learned from Nat Geo, after an eruption, the area destroyed by the volcano doesn’t simply descend into a desolate wasteland of smoke and ash and ruined dirt. On the contrary, the land actually comes back more fertile than before. New ecosystems thrive with the minerals from the eruption, and more often than not, the first thing to grow in the aftermath is moss.

Moss.

It may seem unlikely that something so soft and small and green could flourish in the harshest environments, but it’s true. And not only does moss thrive, but it also prepares the land to grow back better and richer than ever.

I may be the volcano, but Essie is the moss and the ferns and lichens.

Her hands—hands that have touched every part of my body—go from my chest to my pants. She takes them off. For a hot second, I think she’s going to ride the residual rage out of me…but she doesn’t unleash my cock.

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