“Oh? Jax thinks she can claim you that easily, does she?”
 
 Jax.Jax. Jax had claimed me? That must have been the liquid she’d painted on me earlier.
 
 The blue masked woman leaned back on her knees. “Well…” they glanced around. “What Jax doesn’t know won’t hurt her. Might hurt you, though.”
 
 Fear pressed in on me again — I was trapped.
 
 I was caught.
 
 The woman hastily hooked her hand into the waistband of my skirt when an image appeared in the fog behind her with aglowing green neon light. A gasp pulled from my lips before I weakly cried out. “Help, please help.”
 
 Just as the woman on top of me looked over her shoulder, Jax grabbed her back collar, throwing her roughly off of me and onto the pavement. “Are you all right?” She asked, kneeling and ignoring the swears of the assailant she’d thrown aside.
 
 I nodded.
 
 “Did they touch you?”
 
 I shook my head.
 
 In a flash, the blue masked woman lunged forward, knocking Jax off balance. They shoved each other before both rising to stand. “I marked her,” Jax growled. “You’re breaking the rules.”
 
 “Your mark wandered into my ring, so I can do what I want with her.”
 
 “Not if I break your wrists.”
 
 “Now that’s against the rules, Jax. You know that.”
 
 Jax lifted a shoulder. “I don’t fucking care.” Dropping to her knees, Jax unlinked my chains and threw them roughly at her opponent. “We still have a problem, or are you going to fuck off? Because trust me, I’d love to keep kicking your ass, but the game clock’s ticking.”
 
 With a grunt, the blue masked woman huffed away, leaving me alone with my rescuer. “That’s the second time you’ve saved me—“ My words died on my next breath as Jax was suddenly on top of me, her hand gripping my throat.
 
 “Little Birdie with broken wings and no place to run. Who’s going to save you now… from me?”
 
 I thrusted my hips forward in answer. Normal me, pre-party, pre-chasing-game me, would be mortified at my overtly flirtatious behavior. In the daylight, I’d never come on so strong. But there was something about the neon masked stranger above me. There was something about running, being afraid, andbeing caught… that swirled fervent desire within my lower belly. Maybe that was the point? Was that why everyone was here?
 
 “You really want to get fucked that bad, huh?” Jax gritted out, squeezing my neck harder, her mask inches from my face.
 
 “By you, maybe,” I answered on a pathetic breath.
 
 “Good, because you’ve been a good bit of trouble so far.” Straddling my hips and resting her arm by my head, she eased her palm down my center again. Opening my knees as far as I could beneath her, I let out a small gasp when her fingers made contact. This time, finally, she moved the fabric of my panties aside and dipped two tips of her fingers into my opening. “Bloody hell, you’re fucking soaked for me.”
 
 A group of masked players shuffled by, and my cheeks flushed beneath my disguise as they stalled to watch. My hips froze as I informed Jax. “We’re not alone.”
 
 She glanced over her shoulder at the three onlookers in orange light-up goat masks. “Don’t fancy people watching me fuck you, hm?”
 
 “No, not really,” I breathed, though the sound of it came out more like a plea, more like a yes, than I would have liked.
 
 Jax growled into my ear, inching deeper into me at a maddeningly slow pace. “Well, that’s too bad. Consider this your punishment for running into another game master’s circle and wandering out of mine with my X on your chest.”
 
 “I didn’t know,” I confessed, my gaze flicking to the three bodies in animalistic masquerades that now circled us.
 
 Jax pushed further into me, and my thighs clenched around her arm, though my attention kept retreating to the surrounding stares. “Eyes on me, Little Birdie,” Jax coaxed. “Show them how beautifully you come when you’re caught by me.”
 
 With the buildup of sensation in my core intensifying, I obeyed and locked my gaze to the glowing green criss-crosses for eyes above me.
 
 “Look at that, she can listen and follow orders.” Jax teased, eliciting a few chuckles from the onlookers. “That’s right, baby, keep moving your hips like that. You’re doing so well. Give me a pretty orgasm and I’ll let you up off this cold pavement.”
 
 A masked, masc lesbian was on top of me, pushing two fingers in and out of my pussy while strangers looked on with hardly concealed heavy breathing — and I’d never been so wet and turned on in my life. They watched us like we were a performance, with the reverence you’d have while attending a ballet. Yet instead of tights I was in fishnets, instead of a stage I was on my back on damp concrete. This wasn’t an act of finery it was a primal, sensual show, and my pleasure was center stage.