Page 49 of Masks and Mishaps

Panic surges through me, and I don’t even bother trying to be sneaky. I launch like I’m trying to clear the ozone layer and make a break for the edge of his needlessly gigantic bed, but I’m not fast enough. Predictably, Dalton tugs me back.

“You’re a lightweight, babe,” he murmurs in a groggy voice, rolling on top of me. His body radiates heat, and he’s wearing only a pair of boxer briefs. With so much hot, bare skin showing, it has never been more apparent: Dalton is thickeverywhere.He grins.

“I can’t spend the night here,” I insist, making another futile attempt to wiggle away.

The motherfucker pins me down with his crotch. “It’s done. Can’t take it back. Plus, this isn’t the first time you’ve spent the night.”

“You were drunk,” I remind him, recalling the night we found out our parents were getting married. “I put you to bed.”

“That’s it?” he questions. “That’s all that happened?”

“Yes. I made sure you wouldn’t choke on your vomit, and then we both slept. That’s it.”

Dalton surveys me for a beat, expression even, before he exhales and pushes out a smile. “You did—and it’s exactly what I did for you last night.” His smile broadens, and he lowers his body, letting more of his abdomen touch me. “You’re so fucking cute when you sleep.”

“Dalton—”

“I was a gentleman,” he assures me, and his relentless hips are anything but gentlemanly. “I wiped off your makeup. Put your hair in a little bun.” He elevates on his forearms andbites downon the topknot on my head. “I even brushed your teeth.” He settles back against me. “Not going to lie: I thought about fucking you while you slept, but I was nodding off.”

“While I wasasleep?”

“Free. Use. You signed the contract.”

The idea of Dalton shoving up my shirt, tugging my panties to the side, and working himself inside me while I’m none the wiser is beyond hot, but I need to focus. “Our deal was to make money, not to share beds and cuddle. We’re trying to avoid a mess.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” he says, pretending to pity me, “when have I ever avoided a mess?”

“I still want to be friends when this is over.”

“Then back out,” he dares, lowering his head so our foreheads nearly touch, “and come with me to Rhinebeck.” When I don’t respond, he rubs his erect cock against my pussy—cotton against lace. “You have no idea how much cum I’m going to leave in you for the next four weeks,” he murmurs, tracing my jaw with his lips. “And not just this tight pussy. I’m going to work my cum into every little hole on you.”

My entire body tingles with the promise, but I temper my expression. “Fine. I said you could.”

“And you’re going to love it,” he asserts. “You’re going to be sore and swollen and leaking, lying exhausted on the mattress, and you’re going to have the sickest, most satisfied smile on your face. I won’t even have to tie you down. You’ll just be the best girl for me, legs open,waitingfor another load.”

Damn it. He’s good.

“Tell me,” he urges, grinding and steering sparks of ecstasy through me. “Tell me you’re going to take my cum, Ess. Tell me all the things you’ll do with it.”

My lips part, and the temptation nearly forces the words from me. I do have definitive plans for his cum, but I’m in his bed, ready and wedged underneath him. This is too domestic. This is too real. I nudge his face away with a tap of my fingers against his chin. “I’m not doing this. I’m not spending the night like your girlfriend.”

“Baby, I’m not asking you to be my girlfriend,” he replies, abandoning the tease and pushing himself up. The sudden absence of his weight is jarring. Now, he’s straddling me, cock bulging against the fabric of his boxer briefs. His stare hardens. “You were supposed to be my fucking wife.”

My fucking wife.Those three words do obscene things to my heart rate. “Dalt,” I warn.

“And you would have loved being my wife. Guaranteed, I’m the kind of man people know is rich just by looking at his expensive fucking wife,” he continues. “You would have been so goddamn spoiled, not just with cash and presents and the humongous house I would have bought you. Any need you had, I would have satisfied.Anyneed.”

“Dalton,” I say, trying to be firm, “you have to stop this. Your endgame can’t be to make me betray your mother.”

His expression immediately turns stony, and his muscles tense.

My eyes travel down, taking in the elegant ledges of his sculpted body. There are men, there are deities, there are Hellenistic statues chiseled from marble—and then there’s Dalton Cavendish.

His skin is fair olive and gold, smooth, with a dusting of coarse hair on his chest. My gaze lingers there, tracing the undulations of his muscled pectorals until I land on the X tattooed on his left. The letter is small, delicate even, with straight lines and slender serifs. It’s an unassuming, otherwise innocuous tattoo—possibly unnoticeable at a distance—but up close, it’s so deliberately perfect.

I rest my hand against his ribs—against another of his four tattoos. “I didn’t know you got a new one,” I mention.

“Well, we weren’t fucking.”

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