Page 107 of The Masked King

He chuckles, and I’ve missed his laughter so much it hurts deep inside my chest. “Hospital vending machine coffee.”

“I don’t believe you.” He would rather die of thirst than drink instant, let alone vending machine slop.

“It’s the new me.” He shrugs, then his expression softens. “I might’ve refused pain relief while I’m guarding the most beautiful woman in the world.”

This time, my cheeks ache when I try to smile. “Who is she? Do I know her?”

“You might. She goes by the name of Nyx at night.”

Heat rushes to my face as my heart rate increases, pumping blood around my worn-out body. Did he know all along that I was Nyx? A flash of memory explodes behind my eyes: the night I tried to help Brian escape, he wasn’t wearing a mask, and I heard his real voice for the first time. It triggered something in me, but then the situation escalated out of control, and Malevsky was drugging me, and it got lost along the way.

But I knew I recognized him.

I knew Brian was Enzo, I simply didn’t hold onto the thought long enough to keep it safe.

“Brian…” I leave the name hanging between us.

“Do you think it suits me?” He gives me a small smile and turns from side to side, showing me his profiles.

“No. I knew you weren’t a Brian.”

His expression turns serious. “And I think, deep down, I always knew you weren’t a Nyx.”

“Is that why you kept coming back?”

“You were… not what I expected. There was something real about you beneath the mask and the games.” He pauses. “Something vulnerable.”

“Only with you.”

I want to ask him why he was there, why he went to JADED in the first place. What was he looking for? Because the Enzo I knew didn’t need gimmicky illusions to live out his fantasies.

As if he can read my mind, he says, “I almost turned around and walked away the first time. But curiosity won. The invitation felt personal, and I knew I couldn’t spend the rest of my life staring at the bottom of an empty bottle while I waited for a refill.”

I watch him closely, dragging up snippets of my conversations with Brian through the medication-fuzz. “You never did tell me about your fantasy.”

He rests his chin on the pillow and strokes my hair. There are deep bruise-colored smudges under his eyes, and his skin is paler than I remember, with a greenish tinge which might be from the dim lights in the hospital room and the monitor beside my bed. But his pupils enlarge when he looks at me, and I’m waiting for his lips to meet mine.

“You’re my fantasy.” He tilts my chin towards him and kisses me tenderly. “You’re the only fantasy I ever needed. Without you in my life…”

He kisses my chin, my jawline, tiny damp caresses down to my throat and back again to my ear where he sucks on the lobe, and my body responds the way it always has, with goose bumps and shivers, and the familiar heat between my legs.

“You told me to be afraid of what you would do to me,” I whisper.

My heart rate is no longer steady, my pussy is tingling, and I’m already wet, despite the unflattering hospital gown and the tubes attached to various parts of my body.

“Did that turn you on?” his voice is thick with want.

“Yes.”

“It turned me on too,” he murmurs against my lips, “but it terrified me at the same time.”

Before I can tell him that he has nothing to be afraid of, that he’s nothing like the other clients who came to JADED, nothing like Malevsky either, the door opens, and someone walks into the room.

Enzo reluctantly pulls away from me, his hand finding mine on top of the covers.

I drag my eyes towards the figure approaching the bed, and release a sigh.

“How are you doing, Demi?” Gio asks.