Page 57 of Untether

I’m out of my depth here, that much is clear. In this place. With him. But as I take in his sheer beauty, he slips his shirt the rest of the way off his wrists and catches it in one hand, holding his arms out in alook your fillkind of way.

‘Touch me, baby,’ he says, and I step forward, because there’s nothing I want more. I lay my hands on his chest again and let them wander over his soft skin. I trail them down his arms, skating over the ridges of his triceps. I bend my head and kiss a line across his pecs. And when I look back up at him, he’s quiet. Watchful. The single eyehole is large enough for me to see his eyes clearly. They’re impossibly dark, his lashes long.

He is the most sinful looking man I’ve ever laid eyes on. He’s a fucking fantasy come to life. He’s ridiculous, frankly. He’s—

Two women interrupt my ogling. They flank Cal, andeven though they’re in masks, their lithe figures and long, blonde hair and teeny, flimsy dresses and perfect skin suggest they’re seriously young. Belle and Maddy’s age, probably. I don’t hear what they say to him, because they’re each whispering in an ear, but they’re handsy as fuck.

I back away, suddenly reminded that we’re standing at the outskirts of an orgy. This is a free-for-all. Normal nightclub etiquette absolutely does not apply. Cal gives them a tight smile and takes a step back so he can shrug them off before holding up his hands. He shakes his head, and it’s pretty clear he’s telling themno.

They turn to go, pouting as they do, and Cal reaches for me and pulls me roughly against his body. As I inhale the gorgeous, masculine scent of his skin, a thought hits me, so horrifying it knocks the breath right out of me.

Because I amso fucking stupid.Stupid and naive and rusty and unable to read the fucking room.

This should be Cal’s big night.

Maddy said so. Cal said so. It’s a major staple in Alchemy’s calendar. An orgy of more dramatic and epic proportions than any other night at the club. So it stands to reason that on occasions like this, he lets loose.

I mean, look at the guy. He could fuck every single woman in here if he wanted to. That night he told me about—the orgy where he put his dick inside something like twenty different women in one night—was probably one exactly like this.

Jesus. I’ve waltzed in and hijacked his big night of fuckery, and now he’s stuck babysitting some middle-aged woman when he should be showing off that gorgeous body and capitalising on all the women he can get.

I lift my head, aligning my mouth with the bump in hismask that denotes his ear. I know what I want to tell him, but I have no idea how to articulate him.

‘I can—’ I begin. ‘Look, I’m sorry. It hadn’t occurred to me that you’d probably want to fuck around tonight. I didn’t—I can go. Or we can, like, do this quickly, and then I’ll leave you to it.’ I stop, embarrassed.

He grabs ahold of my biceps so he can hold me at arm’s length. The look he shoots me is one of total bewilderment before he leans back in toward my ear. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘I’m cramping your style,’ I say. ‘I railroaded you into making tonight about us, but this is your party. You should be having fun and fucking whomever you like.’

He releases one arm and hauls me over to a huge pillar which he uses his body to press me up against. Then he bends his face towards mine. I watch his lips move through the hole in his mask.

‘Do you want to fuck me tonight, Aida? Because if you’ve got cold feet, no hard feelings.’

‘I do,’ I protest, squirming at the sensations his proximity is giving me.

‘Good,’ he says. His eyes look so much more intense surrounded by the menace of his mask. ‘Because I want to fuck you, too. Do you know why I didn’t want to do this with you tonight?’

I stay silent.

‘Because I knew that if I got you in here like this, with our masks on and everyone fucking around us, I’d be so fucking wound up that I wouldn’t trust myself to take it easy on you. Do you understand?’

‘Yes,’ I say meekly.

‘It’s not because you’re cramping my style. Jesus, I haven’t even been in here since before your massage.’

‘What?’ I ask. Surely that can’t be true. I thought he’d be in here every night—I’ve just tried not to think about it.

‘Seriously. The only woman I want to fuck is you.’ He’s speaking through gritted teeth, like I’m really driving him to the brink.

He steps closer, pinning me against the pillar with his hips, and I suddenly understand why he’s on the brink, because his dick is like a damn baton inside those fitted black pants.

His lips go to my ear again. ‘The only thing I can think about is fucking you every which way, and my only concern right now is that I’ll go so hard on you you’ll run for the hills. It isnotwhether I can have a piece of those vapid blondes or their little friends tonight.Got it?’

‘Got it,’ I say. My breath is coming fast now. This is alot. The mask. The erection. The soaring opera and its pulsing techno beat. The bodies writhing around us. Cal’s words. His intensity. And, above all, the feeling I can’t shift that he’s a different version of himself tonight.

A hungrier one.

My smiley, jokey, good-time-guy Cal is gone and in his place is this ridiculous, hulking masked man who seems unsure of whether he can control himself around me.

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