by Ashe, Karina
Take Me in the Dark
In the Dark #3
by Karina Ashe
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He's not who I thought he was.
It's too late to turn back. There's nowhere to run. But despite the danger, I can't tell you that if I had a chance to go back in time and change everything that I would. Because despite everything that's happened, I still want him.
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Copyright Information
Take Me in the Dark (In the Dark #2)
Copyright © 2015 Karina Ashe. All rights reserved.
First ebook edition published May 2013 under the name "Love Me in Shadows (Behind the Mask, #1) by Tess Harper."
This book is a work of fiction. Names, celebrities, characters, places, businesses, trademarks and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons alive or dead is entirely coincidental. None of the celebrities, trademarks, works of art, artists, or businesses mentioned in Take Me in the Dark endorse this book unless otherwise specified. All stock art and fonts were either purchased or made availalbe free for commercial use by the artists/designers. None of the models, photographers, artists, font designers, etc endorse Karina Ashe or her work unless otherwise specified.
Chapter 1
Did you have fun tonight?
His words echo through me. I shiver.
Yes. It feels like betrayal to say it. All the places where David touched me—my back, my wrists, my forehead—burn. But not as much as the one place David touched with an intimacy that would be impossible for one who wears a mask to duplicate: my lips.
“I asked you a question.”
He sounds angry. It scares me. Shouldn’t my eyes have adjusted to the dark already? I can see so little in the room. My friends and I often hang out in this place. This is where I meet up with other girls from my dorm. Where we talk about small towns back home, big city dreams and failures, and boys.
I swallow. “Yes. I had a good time.” I don’t see any point in lying. I don’t have anything to hide. I’ve always been open with him, no matter how much it hurt.
He stands. He’s taller than I remember, maybe because the room is small and familiar and intimate. In the auditorium he always seemed far away. Even when he was breathing right by my ear and pressing into my body, I could look out into the darkness and see nothing.
Now, I see nothing but him.
He steps forward. Though he moves slowly, it takes almost no time to reach me.
Instinctively, I step back. My palms slam down on the piano. It’s old and out of tune.
He takes his last step and grabs my hips.
The piano chimes angrily as he pushes my ass into the keys. The music stand digs into the small of my back. His fingers are beneath me, as cold and hard as ivory.
“You let him touch you.”
It isn’t a question. I wonder how he knows. “I only kissed—”
“He puts one hand on your cheek and the other on your breast as he dragged his mouth over your jaw.” The skin below my ear tingles as his breath fans over the left side of my neck. “You brought your hands to his shoulders, as if to pull him down closer, and he grabbed them and pinned them to the table at your hips, just like this.”
He lets go of my wrists and runs his hands down my arms. He’s cutting off the circulation to my wrists. Your grip is tighter, I want to say. It’s nothing like his. But I can only breath heavily as he parts my thighs with his knee and sinks between them. My dress slides up to my waist. His erection presses his zipper to my damp panties.
“I want you,” he says. It isn’t a question or a statement, but a plea. I roll my head back. I swear I can see the intensity of his gaze through the mask.
I spread my legs, sliding my cunt over his zipper.
He groans. “Laura.”
I want him too. It hurts to admit just how much. Any action I take will feel like a betrayal. My body wants him, but if I give in now I’m betraying David and that fragile happiness that has always eluded me. I still remember him in the rain, the taste of his lips—I can still taste both those things on my tongue.
I’ve never even truly kissed this man. He’s done nothing but hide himself from me. It’s not fair for him to show up now after being silent for so long to claim me like this. To remind me how much I want him even though I know I shouldn’t.
I should push him away. I want someone whose face I can hold in my hands. I want someone whose name I can whisper as we lay beside each other in bed. I want to run my fingers through his hair and look into his eyes.
David wants to give that to me. He can give it to me. From this man I receive nothing except an emptiness only he can briefly fill.
And then I remember his letters. The longing in his voice. The longing I can feel even now as he touches me. His raw desire calls me like a siren. Even if it’s false I can’t stop myself. I want to be that one to draw him back into the light. I want him to fulfill these dark needs inside me. I want to dissolve into him, even if it can only be in darkness and will only make me want and dream of more.
Perhaps his words cast a spell on me. Perhaps this isn’t really me doing and feeling these things, but some alien spirit he conjured within me. Or maybe it’s a part of me he unlocked. In the end it doesn’t matter. I can’t stay away. I can’t deny him anything.
I run my hand down the tough, hard muscles of his stomach. David was sculpted everywhere, like a marble statue. This man is more like frayed rope and steel. There are scars there, old and new. I didn’t see any evidence of scars when I removed his mask, but I wonder if his face is scared and that’s why he doesn’t want me to see it.
Slowly, I grip his cock through his pants.
He groans and his fingers dig into me, hard. I squeeze harder, jerking him through his pants. My fist bumps my cunt and I press forward, already aching for him.
He leans against my hips. I feel his teeth through his mask, brushing against that sensitive part of my neck between my ear and jaw. I want him to bite down—for his mouth to be as rough as his hands. “On the bench,” he says as he steps back and pulls the bench out.
It takes a moment for me to get down from the piano. I straddle it and lean over, resting my elbows on the bench. My toes barely touch the floor.
He runs his hands up my bare legs. “Do you think of him at night when you’re alone in your room? Do you think of him when you sing? Is that why your voice was so full of longing?”
I was thinking of you. How you left without a word. How much the thought of never seeing you again devastated me. I’ve come to need you, and it scares me. I don’t like placing a part of my happiness with someone else. It makes me feel vulnerable, helpless.
But these are words I can never say, especially not when he holds me so roughly, and that vulnerable, helpless part of me finds something pleasing even in that roughness.
“Answer me, Laura. I want to know what can make you sound like that.”
I shut my eyes. “I wasn’t.” My voice is too breathy to be my own. It sounds uncertain, even though I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life. How can I think of another man after feeling his hands on my skin?
He grips my dress, hard, stretching the fabric over my hips. I shiver everywhere, falling deeper into the memory of his embrace: my dark, demonic, masked lover. “You weren’t what?” He asks.
He’s moving my dress up. I spread my legs further on the bench. God, if he wanted an answer why did he ask and then do something like that? “I wasn’t…” I start, struggling to speak, “thinking…”
Just then, he pushes my dress up over my hips and slips his hand under the elastic band of Dolly’s flaming red hoochie panties.
He goes still. Only the cool air filtering through the air conditioning moves.
Fuck. He’s gonna think I went out with the intention of getting some. In this case, even a little bit of hooch is still too much hooch!
I hear him swallow. “Did you wear these for someone in particular tonight, Laura?”
“Uh…” Would he believe me if I said no, or would he just think I’m trying to cover something up? Shit!
The bench creaks as he gets on it behind me. “Who did you wear them for?”
Damn. It’s probably too late for me to tell him the truth, but I do anyway. “Dolly.”
The bench stops creaking as he goes still. “Your roommate?”
“Yes.” Then I realize what he might be thinking. “I mean, she and I aren’t like that…not that it would be bad if either of us was, it’s just we’re not…” I inhale sharply. “We’re both into guys is what I’m saying.” Or at least trying to say.
He leans forward and takes my panties in his fist. “Why did you wear these for her?”
“She just wanted to make sure I had a good time,” I whisper.
“A good time with that guy you were with?”
Oh god. I have a sinking feeling I’ve just made things worse. Actually, I know I have, especially if I answer the next question honestly.
My throat goes tight. “Everyone likes David.”
He wraps his arm around my stomach. Slowly, he runs his middle finger from my belly to my clit.
I suck in a breath. I try to squeeze my legs together but his other hand slips between my thighs, stopping me. He presses against my clit slightly, once, twice. I cry as he suddenly takes it between his fingers.
“Do you like David?”
“Yes, but…” I finish with a moan, not even remembering what I wanted to say or if I even said it. He coaxes my clit with agonizing tenderness. Only the roughness of his fingers reminds me that this man isn’t gentle, or to be trusted. I shut my eyes. If I’m honest with myself, I’ll admit that I don’t even want that, anyway.
My desire drips down my legs and onto his hands. The air cools it and all the things I should feel flood my mind: shame, disgust, guilt.
David’s warm gaze cuts through my thoughts. I slide my tongue between my lips—those lips he left with a smile and a kiss. I can’t taste him anymore. I can barely even remember what they felt like. No, they were soft and pink and warm, the exact opposite of the hard piano bench currently smashing my cheekbones.
The stranger spreads a hand over my ass. He pinches my clit, reminding me me still possesses it—reminding me that shame, disgust, and guilt do not exist in the dark.
“Do you want me to stop?”
My body answers for me. I melt into my dark lover’s touch.
“Laura,” he reprimands softly, removing his fingers.
I diligently push myself into the heel of his hand. “No.”
“You don’t want me to stop, but you wish it were him, don’t you? You wish you could let him in like this.”
It doesn’t matter what I want, I couldn’t let David in like this. I wouldn’t be able to forget with him, and I want to forget. I want that blinding ecstasy more than anything—even something that would make me happy. I push my elbows into the bench and arch my back so it’s easier for him to get at me.
His zipper trails up my thigh until it pushes against my warm, aching center. I inhale sharply as cold metal scraps my cunt. He brushes the hair from the nape of my neck and slowly unzips my dress. “Do you think about him doing this to you?”
My hips move back as I try to press myself into his erection, dying for him to take me, but I can’t go far. His other hand is on my hips, pushing my pelvis and ribs down onto the bench.
His stomach slips over my naked back. He wraps a hand around my chest, bringing me close. I feel his heart hammering in between my shoulder blades, the length of him twitching between my thighs. He’s even bigger than I remembered.
“Do you imagine him when I fuck you, Laura?”
I look back over my shoulder. I don’t know why. I know I won’t find a human face—he will never reveal himself to me. And more than that, I’m afraid. He’s never talked to me like this. There has always been a kindness to his silence despite its intensity.
There’s no kindness now.
He slips a finger into my mouth—rough, strong and earthy. I flick my tongue against it, erasing whatever lingering taste of David might be left. He continues to trace my lips as he stands.
His chest heaves. I can’t tell if he’s looking at me or the door.
Don’t go, I want to tell him. Instead, I close my lips around his finger, sucking gently.
He groans. “I need to see your face.”
He removes his hand from my mouth, leaving a cold trail from my bottom lip to my chin. He grabs my hips. Before I have time to register what’s going on, he pushes me against the piano again.
I look up into his mask, trembling. I don’t question. He spreads my thighs apart. My toes no longer touch the floor. The entire time I don’t stop looking at him. I’m completely open.
I hear the sound of a zipper. The hot head of his cock slips over my slit, teasing my entrance.
I suck in a breath. Instinctively I try to squeeze my legs shut, but he holds them open. “I’m not him.”
His thumbs dig into the sensitive skin beneath my knee. I don’t even flinch. “I know.”
“He won’t fuck you like this. He won’t make you feel like this.”
My eyelids flutter but I keep my gaze locked on his nonexistent face. I know he won’t. I know he can’t. It’s always you, even when I don’t want it to be—especially when I don’t want it to be.
That heady, destructive desire rushes through me. I fall deeper into the darkness and the scent of him. It’s as if he demanded I let go of myself and I immediately acquiesced. He could ask anything of me right now and I’d say yes.
“Laura.”
His grip becomes bruising. I roll my hips forward, bracing myself for him. “I want you,” I say, looking deep into his mask, searching for something. I don’t know if he believes me or not, but it’s enough. Not even a second later, he fills me completely.
His wrists flex as I dig my fingernails into them. My eyes roll back as they shut. I don’t think I’m ready for him to go fast and rough, but God I want it. No, need it. He grabs my hair, holding my head back. I feel the outline of his teeth on my cheek.
“Don’t let other men touch you,” he whispers fiercely, desperately. His fingers dig in between my ribs as he holds me up.
I moan.
“Don’t touch them.”
I realize he wants me to respond. “I won’t,” I say. Only it doesn’t sound like words but like another moan.
He pounds me against the piano. My ankles cock back as I pull myself tighter for him. His pace is too desperate to fully satisfy and too fast to call pleasurable. The keys make ugly sounds, crescendoing unsteadily from a pianississimo to a fortississimo as if they’re wailing.
I grab his shirt, yanking him forward, and bite his neck. He groans as his hands slip up to my knees, pushing them back and spreading my legs so far apart it almost feels like they’ll snap. I link my heels behind his legs and keep pulling him closer, silently begging him to split me apart even further. I feel his heartbeat hammering on my bottom lip as I slide my tongue across his throat.
He’s not immune to me. He wants it even more than I do—this dark, beautiful, destructive thing. Everything about this moment is wrong and I wouldn’t have it any other way. We consume each other with teeth and greedy hands. We embrace each other with nails, drawing them over skin, trying to clutch each other closer, never feeling close enough or completely safe.
I ignore the uncomfortable angles of the piano and the angry chiming of keys. I grab his pants, pushing him deeper into me, matching him
thrust for thrust until the world around me starts to go black.
His fingers slide through my hair. His thumbs rest on my cheeks. The tenderness is such a contrast to the hard, relentless way in which he takes me. I grab his forearms, holding myself up. It’s a struggle to look at him when he’s fucking so hard and I’m so close to the edge.
“Cum for me, solnyshko moyo.”
I shatter around him. There’s nothing beautiful about it. It’s the basest, rawest form of release. My nails scrape him as I grip his arms, entwining my body around his as he continues to pound relentlessly, reveling in the weight of his body on mine.
He lets go of my face, holding me up with one hand and bracing himself on the stand-up piano with the other. His grip on my waist tightens as he rides out my shock waves. He sighs, pumping into me three more times before finding his own release.
Chapter 2
He rests his head on the back of the piano. The hand that previously braced him finds my cheek again. The other rubs my lower back.
We lie there, panting. My ribs are so sore it hurts to breathe. I don’t ask him to move. There’s something I like, even, about this ache. So I breathe into his shoulder as my mouth fills with the taste of cotton.
I think he’s about to say something. It feels like he is. But he doesn’t. Instead, he touches my cheek again.
There’s something so familiar about the gesture. And something sad. Something this sweet and inconsequential should comfort me, but it doesn’t. It feels like a mockery of intimacy. No matter how much I get of him, I’m never sated. It doesn’t matter how close we get. I’m never complete.
I raise my hand. He tilts his head, watching it, but he doesn’t stop me from reaching for his cheek.
He flinches when I touch his mask. He probably thinks I’m going to try to remove it again. For a moment I think I might too, but I don’t.
“I wasn’t thinking of him.”
He stops petting my cheek. “What?”
“When I sang, I wasn’t thinking of David.”
He doesn’t respond for a long time, as if he’s imagining every single thing in the world I might have been thinking of. “Who was it?” he finally asks.
