Page 79 of House of Crimson Cloak and Silver Teeth

“Go back to camp, Garrett,” I mutter under my breath.

I pass him without slowing, without looking. My shoulder comes within inches of his.

“You’re the one who takes it,” he decides.

I stop walking.

“Yeah.” He chuckles softly. “That’s it. You don’t want to be in charge at all. You want someone to take control, to pin you down, to—”

Before I realize what I’m doing, I’ve turned and started back down the bank. My pace stays slow because anything faster ends with his blood on my knuckles.

He watches me come and the smile doesn’t leave his face.

“Go on,” he says quietly as I close the distance between us. “Hit me. I’ll take it. I’ve earned worse.”

I stop a stride away from him, close enough to smell the wine on his breath. His glazed eyes tell me exactly how much he’s had. I unbuckle the lower half of my mask.

Garrett doesn’t understand at first. I see the confusion in his face, the slow blink and the light tilt of his head. He’s never seen my face fully. Since the moment we met, part of me has stayed hidden either by my upper or lower mask. There’s always been something between his eyes and my face even as I lay with him in bed.

I pull the mask off completely and throw it. It hits the ground somewhere in the darkness behind him with a muffled thud against dirt and grass.

Gone. Nothing between us now.

Garrett makes a sound, small and surprised. His lips part and his eyes travel across my face, taking in my mouth, my jaw, the linear scar across the bridge of my nose.

“Oh,” he breathes, sounding almost dazed for a second.

His hand comes up slowly, drifting toward my face as if drawn by a string.

I slap it down.

Hard, and the crack of it echoes in the quiet night. He stares at me with his mouth still open.

I put my hand on his belt.

His breath stops and I feel the whole of him go still. His pupils are wide and black in the moonlight, mouth still slightly parted from whatever he was about to say. He doesn’t move. I’m not sure he’s breathing either as my hands find his belt buckle and ease it loose. The metal clicks as it comes free.

“Wolf,” he manages, and his voice has gone hoarse and uncertain.

“You wanted to know,” I tell him, meeting his eyes while my fingers find the laces of his breeches and pull them. “You asked what I’m like. So I’m showing you.”

“What are you—”

The laces come free under my fingers and his breeches loosen, sagging low on his hips. Our eyes stay locked while I let him see the truth written plain on my face. Garrett thinks he knows me.

He doesn’t know me at all.

I drop to my knees. He has made a mistake, and I’m about to prove it.

“Wolf…” My name fractures on his lips. “You don’t have to. This isn’t—”

He needs to understand that I’m not what he thinks I am. I don’t take orders or submit or let myself be led by anyone, least of all him.

I pull his sagging breeches down enough to free him. His cock springs out, thick and already hard.

I freeze.

I’ve felt it pressed against me before and saw occasional glimpses when he came out of the bath stark naked. But looking at it now, it seems bigger somehow. Veins run along the length, prominent and visible even in the dim moonlight. My throat tightens at the thought of taking that inside.