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Chapter One
Reagan
“Mask stays on. Clothes come off,” a deep, male voice rumbled in my ear. “You’re going to be good for me tonight, aren’t you?”
The man’s indecent proposal sent a trail of goose bumps washing over my skin, and I froze in shock.
Before he’d spoken, I’d been watching various couples twirl across the floor at the masked charity ball, wondering what the hell I was doing there on New Year’s Eve when there were so many other, more fun, places I could be. When I’d moved out of my parents’ house in tiny Honeybridge, Maine, I’d left my designer tuxedo hanging in the closet for a reason: glad-handing at society galas wasn’t supposed to be on my agenda anymore. But I’d underestimated how hard it was to break the habits of a lifetime—namely, my parents’ habit of thinking they ran my social calendar and my habit of letting them. Just a couple of months into what should have been my personal renaissance, there I was, doing my best impression of a politician’s silent, smiling second son while the cameras flashed, wearing a black feathered mask atop a stifling mask of bland politeness and praying someone (not me this time) would do something interesting before midnight to save me from death by boredom.
Fortunately, the Universe had heard my plea.
Unfortunately, it had sent excitement in the form of a creepy whisperer… which was really on brand for the Reagan Wellbridge Renaissance Era, whose tagline seemed to be “be careful what you wish for.”
Under other circumstances, being approached by a creepy whisperer might have been outrageous in a fun way. A hilarious tale to trot out to my friends at parties, or maybe even a story for my Instagram followers. But the last few months had been… well, difficult.
When I’d moved to New York, I’d vowed to be a new Reagan. A different Reagan. Not an immature twenty-something socialite whose parents controlled his bank account or a pretty, wholesome-looking doll who posed at campaign rallies.
But nothing had quite worked out the way I’d planned, and New Reagan was frustrated as fuck.
All the career disappointments I’d been pushing down for weeks, all the snarky retorts I’d choked back while making my way around the party tonight, sat in my chest like a heap of dry kindling, and the creepy whisperer was the spark.
I turned around to spew all of my anger and resentment in a verbal torrent sharp enough to flay this rude, outrageous man’s flesh from his bones…
And then choked on my own saliva.
Rude and outrageous he might be, but the creepy whisperer was… built.
He was tall—well over six feet—and his perfectly tailored black tuxedo lovingly cupped his broad shoulders and chest. Dark hair swept cleanly back from his brow. Though I couldn’t make out his eyes behind the burnished gold of his Roman warrior mask, especially in the “atmospheric” faux candlelight of the ballroom, I could feel the intensity of his gaze as he watched me.
Not creepy but sexy. Sexy enough to shoot a bolt of lust down my spine that left me shivering in the overheated ballroom. And so very much my type.
Maybe the Universe had done me a solid after all.
“Pardon me?” My words came out husky and flirtatious. “Do I know you?”
One black brow lifted over the top of the man’s mask, and his plush lips set in a firm, unsmiling line that made my pulse race with arousal… and then with a sudden fear as I remembered exactly where and who I was.
Think, Reagan. How likely was it that a man who resembled a Roman warrior even without his mask was trolling for an anonymous hookup with another man at a stuffy event like this one, where every third guest was a politician, a reporter, or a society gossip? More than likely, I’d misunderstood, or?—
“Not interested in games,” he growled, leaning closer. A muscle ticked in his perfectly smooth jaw.
—or maybe I’d understood perfectly. I blinked. How the hell did his voice feel like it was wrapping directly around my balls, firm as a physical touch?
His earlier words seared through my brain like a flash fire, burning away all other thoughts: Mask stays on. Clothes come off.
Well, shit.
Back when my father had been on the cusp of his political career—which was, sadly, right around the time I’d begun transforming from a sweet child into a snarky, opinionated teenager who Needed to Be Managed—my mother had signed me up for formal etiquette lessons. I’d loathed them, of course, but they’d come in handy over the years. These days, I could chat with anyone, from a sultan at a polo match to nice, elderly ladies in retirement homes, and most of the time, I even enjoyed it. I was never, ever at a loss for words.
Until now.
“I, uh…” I stammered, face on fire. “That is… When you say…? Are you asking me to…?”
It wasn’t the offer of sex, or sex with a man, or even sex at a society function that flustered me. Been there, done that, plenty. My mother might choose to believe I was one purity ring away from heterosexual virginity—and god knew I’d never cared to spell the truth out for her—but in the past ten years, I’d been with men, women, and nonbinary folx in all sorts of configurations across four separate continents. My DMs were always open. In fact, my brother, JT, joked that I was “try-sexual” because I’d try anything once.
But this—the Roman warrior’s erotic vibe of control, his expectation that I’d be good for him, the way my gut wasn’t screaming hell no but, shockingly, rolling over and panting yes? All of that was brand-new. I’d always sort of thought the whole “dark, mysterious, and dominant” schtick was a patriarchal cliché I was too smart to fall for. Yet here I was… falling.
“Room 4187, thirty minutes,” the man said roughly, ignoring my hesitation. With two long, sure fingers, he slid a key card into the breast pocket of my tuxedo jacket, then leaned forward until I was wrapped in the scent of his cologne—something smoky and mysterious and familiar. “If you’re late, I’ll find another plaything.”
