Page 247 of Stay Scared

Cade kisses me until my shoulder presses harder into the wall and my legs start feeling unreliable. Somewhere farther down the corridor, a piece of metal settles.

Cade lifts his head, the skull angling toward the darkness.

Owen is there, watching.

Cade keeps his hand beneath my skirt. “Come out.”

Silence answers.

Cade looks at me. “He’s there.”

“I figured.”

That earns me another sharp look through the mask.

I push away from the wall. Cade lets me move, but his hand follows my hip until distance forces him to release it.

“Owen.”

The darkness shifts.

The white mask appears between two ruined game stalls. He was closer than I thought. A familiar unease crawls over my skin and turns hot halfway down my spine.

Owen stops a few feet away while Cade remains behind me. Silence stretches between them.

I have heard enough men explain themselves tonight.

I walk toward Owen.

His mask gives me nothing. That blank white face used to make my stomach turn because I never knew when it was looking at me.

Now there is no question. It is looking at me, only me.

I reach up and remove it. Owen’s eyes are already fixed on my mouth.

“You stayed hidden.”

“Yes.”

“Were you planning to keep doing that?”

He glances briefly toward Cade. “No.”

That is all I get.

I grab his shirt and kiss him.

His hands lag behind the kiss for less than a second before closing around me exactly where he wants them, one at my lower back and the other at my jaw.

His kiss is nothing like Cade’s.

Cade hits.

Owen consumes slowly enough to make me feel every second of it. His thumb presses beneath my ear, directly over the pulse jumping there.

He feels it too.

His eyes open with that old unbearable focus sharpened by six weeks without access.