Page 50 of Masks and Mishaps

The fact is true, and also highlights how being a camgirl has rewired my expectations for sharing bodies. I’ve shared myself with countless people whose names I didn’t know. Valeria and Cora have done the same, and I recognize their bodies with profound intimacy, but most friends don’t know each other’s bodies like we do.

I also know Lander and Everett’s bodies. I’ve watched them fuck my friends. I’ve watched Valeria slip her hands under Lander’s shirt and run her fingertips over his abdomen while we watch movies together. I’ve seen Cora inch up the hem of Everett’s shorts and tickle his thighs while we’ve lounged on the grass on muggy DC summer days. Dalton is different though. Our friendship has never quite crossed those razor thin lines. In spite of its beauty, his body has generally remained a mystery under his tailored shirts and suits, excluding a couple trips to St. Michaels when I saw him shirtless. I knew he had tattoos, but I never asked about them. And naturally, I don’t touch Dalton, even though he’s not shy about touching me.

And how horrible, I can’t help but think, because Daltonlovesto be touched.

I move my hand, caressing his skin until I reach his hip. He’s defined—brutally so—and it’s a mouthwatering journey from the sinful divot above the brim of his boxer briefs to his thigh.

The tattoo there is a treehouse with wood board sidings. Branches surround the house, partially obscuring it in a canopy of detailed leaves and twisted stems. There’s a small door and two square windows, a quintessential, classic treehouse—the kind I would have loved as a kid if we’d had a yard.

Tentative, I move my hand until my index finger skims the swells of leaves atop the winding branches. All the while, Dalton is quiet.

“Tell me about this one,” I request.

“I got it when I turned twenty-five.”

“Say more.”

“That’s it.”

He’s lying—and staring at me with the most impassive of expressions.

I want to shake him out of the mood he’s in, so I touch more of his thigh. It’s astounding. Even before I knew he had a tattoo here, I’d toyed with a far-flung fantasy of rubbing my pussy against a muscled thigh until I made myself come. Now, I place my palm on his ink, covering the treehouse in the center and feeling the sculpted planes of his muscles. “What does it mean?”

“Who knows. I was drunk.”

Well, fine. I’ve dealt with enough sullen boys to know they get quieter the more I push, so I move my hand to the next tattoo: a series of coordinates on his lower abdomen. “What’s this place?”

“Again, drunk.” When I shoot him a skeptical look, he says, “Besides, we both know you’ll look them up next time you’re on your phone.”

He’s not wrong.

I move on to a sprig of flowers with delicate, round petals and speckles of stamens on his ribs. “And were you drunk when you got this one?”

“Stoned, actually.” His expression is somewhere between amused and cagey.

That leaves the X on his left pectoral. “And this?”

“To remind me where my heart is,” he replies before he lowers his face close to mine once more. “Are you done trying to decipher me? Because I’ll stop trying to make you my wife ifyou let me kiss you.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Come on. I want your lips for once.” He leans even closer, and I feel the warmth of his next exhalation before he says, “I bet your taste would ruin me, Essie Romero. Everything I’ve tasted has been unreal.”

My heart flips at the realization—Dalton’s mouth has been on so many parts of me now. Kissing is a no-fly zone though. Kissing makes it real. Kissing makes it harder to stop.

He rubs his cheek against mine, and the stubble on his jaw prickles my skin. He repeats this on the other side, brushing himself against me like he wants to pass his scent. “You’re going to let me kiss you,” he informs me, speaking into my jawline. “You’re going to beg for it.”

“Unlikely.”

“You will.” Dalton pulls back again. The amber in his eyes catches the faint morning light trickling through his curtains. “You’re going to ask me to kiss your lips, and then you’ll open that mouth for me—for my tongue. Every morning, you’re going to expect a kiss. If I leave for work while you’re still asleep, you’re going to poutall damn daybecause you didn’t get your kiss.”

“I don’t pout.”

“You also don’t squirt, apparently.” He smirks. “First thing you’ll do is send me an angry text.”

“Maybe I’d show up in your office,” I reply—and the words sort of fall out.

Dalton knows I slipped up. The expression on his face is unprecedentedly gleeful, which is saying a lot because I once saw Dalton shout,Let’s fucking gooooo,and punch the air when there was a buy-one-get-one sale on chicken tenders at a Washington Capitals game we all went to last year. “Ask me. Ask me to kiss you, Essie.”

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