Page 2 of Masked Don

This feels like being hunted, and liking it.

My first instinct is to shrink. Make myself smaller.

I straighten instead, and let whoever it is look.

I glance over my shoulder. In a shadowed alcove near the stage, a man sits alone in a matte-black wolf mask, one arm stretched along the back of the booth. He doesn’t look away when I catch him.

He doesn’t smile, either.

Even sitting, he’s the biggest thing in the room.

Broad shoulders under a black suit that was made for him and nobody else.

Silver at his temples, catching the candlelight, the rest of his hair still dark as sin.

One big hand wrapped around a glass he isn’t drinking.

He just sits there and lets the whole party happen around him, like it’s his and he’s allowing it.

Holy shit. That man should come with a waiver, and I’d sign it without reading a word.

Between the mask and the shadows, I can barely make him out, and every part of me that’s supposed to be working has stopped to stare anyway.

I don’t know his name. In my head, he’s already the Big Bad.

Older. Not by a little.

I have always had a thing for older men. The quiet ones. The ones who don’t need to raise their voice to end a conversation. I have never once had the nerve to do anything about it.

I turn away first, because one of us has to. My pulse is slamming like it wants out.

Get a grip, Stevie. He’s a guest. He’s a stranger. He’s probably somebody’s very rich, very dangerous husband.

That’s when I see Kelsey, and the room narrows to one pillar and one scared kid.

She’s nineteen. A first timer. Right now she’s backed against a pillar with her tray clutched to her chest like a shield, and an older man in a gilded lion mask is leaning over her, one hand planted beside her head.

She’s smiling the way you smile when you’re scared it’ll get worse if you stop.

I know that smile.

I’m moving before I’ve decided to.

“Sir.” I slide in at the lion’s elbow, bright and professional, and hold out a fresh flute. “Your glass is empty. That’s a crime in this room.”

He turns, irritated. Then interested.

Kelsey slips out from under his arm and vanishes into the crowd.

The lion doesn’t step back. He just turns that slow, wet smile on me instead.

His eyes start at my shoes and climb, taking their time, stopping at every place a gentleman wouldn’t.

“Well,” he says. “They’re hiding the good ones behind the coat check these days.”

My skin tries to crawl off my body.

He leans in, all bourbon and cigars. “Tell me, little rabbit. Do you bite? Or do you just hop when you’re told?” A beat. “Come upstairs with me. I’ll make it worth your while.”