Lights Out: A Dark Stalker Rom-Com
Lights Out: Chapter 11

Josh was the Faceless Man. I didn’t know how I knew it, but I did.

The second he opened his apartment door, that certainty hit me like a punch to the gut. He’d already been near the top of my suspect list – I’d met him, he was good with computers, and he had the right body type – but seeing him in the flesh confirmed it.

How he’d managed to keep a straight face while I squeezed the shit out of his hand was beyond me, but not a hint of pain showed in his expression. I felt terrible about it now. It must have hurt like a bastard. Hopefully, his stitches were fine. I’d texted him cleaning and bandaging instructions, so if it bled afterward, he should have been okay fixing it alone.

Aside from the suspicious-as-fuck gloves, something in his manner reminded me of the Faceless Man. He’d been so concerned and sincere when telling me that stalking was illegal. On the surface. But there had been a gleam in his eyes while he spoke that made me feel like he was secretly having the time of his life making me squirm with discomfort.

Other things pointed to his innocence that I chose to ignore. The fact that he smelled different. Instead of the clean scent of soap, his cologne was dark and heady: cedarwood paired with smoky magnolia. His movements were more relaxed, too. The Faceless Man stalked. Josh prowled. Most damning of all, when I texted my masked stalker, expecting Josh’s phone to light up on the coffee table, I’d gotten a response instead.

I’m a little worried about your plans for me, I’d said.

Short-term plans or long-term plans? Both should be cause for concern, in different ways.

I’d smiled and shaken my head. Short-term.

He’d texted back a GIF of a cartoon villain laughing maniacally while lightning flashed in the background, and I’d lifted my head just in time for Josh to hand me my coffee. Josh, who’d been in the kitchen sans phone, so he had to be innocent, right?

Wrong. I was falling for none of it. My lizard brain had watched the Faceless Man along with the more evolved part, and it saw Josh and knew, picking up on subtle tells I couldn’t put my finger on.

And if Josh was as intelligent as Tyler claimed, he could have anticipated me texting him and gotten one of his hacker buddies to answer for him or figured out how to auto-reply to me in a believable way.

I’d been half-tempted to take a sneaky picture of him to show Wendy, but I hesitated for two reasons. The first was the off chance that I was wrong. How would I explain showing her a picture of the person I thought was my “beau” only for her to look at me sideways and tell me it wasn’t the guy she’d met? The second was it felt too easy. Almost like cheating. My stupid pride was pushing me to figure this out on my own. I wanted to beat the Faceless Man at his own game, which was why I’d stopped at the gun store after leaving Josh’s place and picked up a tracking device. The next time I got the chance, I was slipping it into one of the Faceless Man’s pockets and seeing where it went.

I hoped it led back to Josh and Tyler’s apartment because I just plain wanted Josh to be the Faceless Man. It’d make me feel less guilty about how my body responded to him. He’d opened that door, and the second I caught sight of him, lust exploded through me. Because, holy shit, Josh was hot. Like, the kind of hot you didn’t see walking around in the wild with the rest of us plebeians. His face was more suited to a movie screen or magazine page.

And when he smiled and those dimples appeared? It triggered ovulation. You couldn’t convince me otherwise. Not after the way I stood there staring at him while my ovaries donned their warpaint and started metaphorically chucking eggs at the man.

I had no idea how I kept it together that whole visit when all I wanted to do was tackle him onto the couch and rip his shirt up to get a look at his tattoos. And then keep tearing clothes off until I had him laid out naked beneath me.

Fuck, I needed to get laid. It had been so long that my fingers and vibrator weren’t cutting it anymore. I’d gotten myself off in the shower after the Faceless Man left this morning, but it did almost nothing to take the edge off. I needed a dick inside me, needed another person’s hands on my body. I was touch-starved, skin hungry. It was what happened when people went too long without physical contact. Sure, I put my hands on others every day, but rarely did anyone touch me back, and certainly not in the way I’d been craving.

Was “craving” a strong enough word for what I felt at this point? It didn’t seem like it. “Need” was better, but still not quite there. What I wanted was closer to possession. I wanted someone to own me, body and soul. The Faceless Man had the potential. So did Josh. The way he’d leaned back against the kitchen counter and winked at me, dark eyes smoldering, spoke of a man who knew what he wanted, and what he wanted would get him excommunicated from most religions. There was something devious yet playful in his eyes, like he’d make your descent into hell the most fun you ever had.

My mind was made up. Until proven otherwise, the Faceless Man and Josh would be one and the same. I couldn’t fathom another explanation for why the pull Josh had on my body was so instantaneous and strong. And it hadn’t just been my body that was drawn to him, but my mind, too. It had been so easy between us. We’d clicked in a way I hadn’t with anyone in a long time. I never wanted that game of Would You Rather to end, and when I made him choke and got to rub his back? Heaven.

Something about the feel of heavy muscle really did it for me, and not just because it looked nice, but because of how much effort and intensity it took to create. It spoke of someone with drive and focus, someone willing to put in hard work even on the days they didn’t want to. That dedication had the potential to transfer well into a relationship because relationships could be the hardest work of all.

If Josh were the Faceless Man, that meant I might get kinky sex, witty banter, easy conversation, and even a new gym buddy all in one. Uh, yes, please?

Speaking of the kinky sex. Work had been especially rough again tonight, and if ever I needed to go home and replace a naked, masked man waiting for me in my bedroom, it was now. I thought about it the whole way there, which took longer than normal thanks to the black ice covering the roadways and the need to drive at a snail’s pace to keep from sliding on it.

What would I realistically do if I opened my bedroom door and found the Faceless Man waiting on the other side, shirtless and covered in fake blood like he’d stepped out of one of his videos? Probably say, “Smash,” and then pounce. These masked thirst trappers had no idea how feral they made people. Sure, our comments might give them some indication, but they probably thought we were all talk. We weren’t. By the time I was finished with the Faceless Man tonight, he would be the one walking funny.

Anticipation sang in my veins as I pulled into my driveway. I glanced around the street but saw no strange cars nearby. He must have done the smart thing and parked a few blocks over again.

Fred did his usual scream-greeting as I opened the door, and I dropped my stuff just inside the threshold, scooped him up, and started walking.

“Where is he?” I asked.

Fred purred at me, eyes slanting in bliss like he hadn’t gotten attention in a while. Hmm. That didn’t seem right. If the Faceless Man were in my house, wouldn’t Fred have been all over him, ignoring me like yesterday?

I smushed my cat and then set him back down, heading toward my bedroom, where I’d most likely replace –

No one. There was no one in there.

Frowning, I went to the closet and pulled it open, half worried the Faceless Man would jump out at me like a life-sized Jack in the Box. Nope. Not there either. I checked under my bed and then in my bathroom, going so far as to pull back the shower curtain. Nada.

A search of the rest of my house revealed that it was just as empty.

I fought back a wave of disappointment. It wasn’t like we’d set a time and date for our next encounter.

Was this his way of getting back at me for stabbing him? Making me think he’d be here with those ominous texts and then not showing up?

I ran a hand through my hair, digging my nails into my scalp. Argh! Why were relationships so confusing?

Not that this was a relationship.

No. Absolutely not. I shouldn’t get attached. Not when I didn’t have confirmation of the Faceless Man’s true identity or what his end game was. For all I knew, my daydreams about more time spent together lounging on couches in between marathon bouts of sex were a pipe dream. He might be planning to show up once every few weeks when I least expected him, adding a thrill of fear and surprise to our encounters.

That sounded like fun but also torture – not the fear part, but the waiting in between. I’d barely had a taste of him, and already I craved more. I’d make an entire meal out of him next time I got the chance, savoring every lick and suck, making it so good for him that his cum tattooed the back of my throat.

I shook my head. Those thoughts weren’t helping me. Nor would the pity party I felt like throwing myself. What would happen would happen, and worrying about it now wouldn’t change anything. It was just that the Faceless Man had done so much to convince me I could trust him that I thought he felt it too, this gnawing hunger for more.

I sighed, double-checked that my doors were locked, and went to take a shower. I half expected to replace him waiting for me when I got out, but he wasn’t, and alongside my disappointment, I was starting to feel bratty. There was one way to make him regret not being here, and that was revenge.

I shut Fred out of my room and yanked open the top drawer of my bureau. Nestled between my two favorite vibrators was the hidden camera the Faceless Man put in my room.

It was time to plug this bad boy back in.

There was a chance he wasn’t even awake, but I hoped he was up and had some notification attached to the camera that would tell him when it was on because I was about to pay him back for all the times he’d needled me or made me laugh when I should have been furious. Not that I was complaining about either of those things. Secretly, I loved it.

Oh, hell, fine. I openly loved it. I wanted more of it, and quid pro quo felt like a great way to get it.

I plugged the camera into the socket with the best view of my bed and then dropped my towel, leaving me butt ass naked. The light in my room was dim, the only illumination coming from my cracked shower door, but it was still enough to see by and no doubt be seen on a computer or phone screen. I unwound the towel from my hair and let my damp strands fall loose to my elbows, chilling my skin and making my nipples pebble.

My phone chimed.

What are you doing? read his text.

Elation zinged through me. He was up, and he’d noticed the camera was live.

Keep watching and replace out, I wrote back, adding a winking face followed by a grinning devil.

A typing bubble immediately popped up, but I switched my phone to silent and tossed it aside. I was done talking.

I’d never done anything like this before, and before my nerves got the better of me, I pulled my largest vibrator out of my top drawer and climbed onto the bed, taking my sweet time and making a show out of the way I crawled toward my pillows. I leaned back against them, spread my legs wide toward the camera, and pulled the lube out of my nightstand. The vibrator wasn’t something to scoff at, and even though I was already turned on, I knew I’d need a little help taking it all.

I dropped a dollop of lube on the tip of it and used my hand to work it over the silicone. It was molded from a famous porn actor’s dick, but I still thought the Faceless Man’s was prettier. I briefly considered telling him that, but I didn’t know if the camera had a microphone, and I was trying to torment him, not inflate his ego.

My chest rose and fell as my breathing picked up. Knowing he was watching me was a bigger turn-on than I’d anticipated, and now I needed to add voyeurism to my kink list because this was something I wanted to do again. Or watch someone else do.

Oh, fuck. The Faceless Man and I, hidden in the back of a dark, crowded room while someone onstage pleasured themselves? I didn’t think I could get through five minutes without hiking my skirt to my waist and planting myself on his lap, still facing the stage so we could both watch while he fucked me from behind.

I ran my free hand over my breasts, cupping and kneading them, fingers bouncing over my tightened nipples in a way that sent sparks racing straight to my core. My other hand gripped the base of the vibrator as I braced the tip of it at my entrance and turned it on. The main source of it was located at the bottom of the device, where a second, smaller nub stuck out that would lie flush against my clit when it was all the way in, but the vibration was so strong that just the head of it felt good against my aching center.

I’d barely even started, and this was already better than every other time I’d masturbated recently. Yup. This confirmed it. I wasn’t vanilla, and vanilla wouldn’t cut it for me from now on. Maybe the world of grays I’d been living in had less to do with my darkening mentality and more to do with the lack of spice in my life.

I pushed the head of the vibrator in, feeling myself expand around it, stretch to accommodate its girth. How much more would I have to stretch to take the Faceless Man? What would it feel like to be seated on his cock, so full that I could barely breathe around it? And then to feel him retract, leaving me aching and desperate before he came roaring back in with a hard, brutal thrust?

My legs trembled at the thought. I pinched and tugged at my nipples before easing the vibrator in another inch, relishing in the delicious, heady lust coursing through my body. I felt languid and giddy, the oxytocin lowering my inhibitions and making me want to be braver. Bolder. If I was going to put on a show, I was going for it. To hell with my lingering self-consciousness and worry that I wasn’t doing this right.

Teasing myself was fun, and teasing him was even better, but right now, I was horny and frustrated, and I wanted it hard and fast and rough, all thoughts driven from my head as I abandoned myself to pleasure.

I grabbed a pillow from behind me and sat up, rising onto my knees so I could shove it between them, brace the vibrator on it, and let go, dropping straight down and spearing myself on the huge silicone cock.

Stars exploded across my vision as a throb of deep, dull pain told me I probably should have spent more time on foreplay.

Fuck foreplay, I thought. I welcomed the ache. Especially because it was already fading, and what was left behind was the feeling of being stuffed full in a way I’d been craving since I first fastened my lips over the head of the Faceless Man’s thick cock.

I leaned forward, bracing my free hand on the bed and holding the vibrator in place with the other so I could ride it. The first thrust was pure delight, so good I paused on the downstroke and rotated my hips, letting the vibration thrum against my clit. I did it again, and my breath hitched. At this rate, I wouldn’t last long.

The light in my bathroom went out, plunging my room into a darkness so complete that the whole block must have lost power.

I froze.

An unholy BANG echoed through the house.

I clicked the vibrator off.

What the fuck was that?

Was it the Faceless Man? Was he here? Or had someone else just kicked in my front door?

I shivered in the dark, the lingering water droplets cooling on my skin, lust shriveling up as fear took hold of me. If there was an actual unwanted intruder in my house, this was the most vulnerable position I could be in – naked and soaked in lube.

I needed a gun, and I needed it now.

I was just lifting off the vibrator when I heard Fred let out his welcoming yowl. He didn’t do that for anyone but me and the Faceless Man.

There was another yowl, and then a deep, guttural voice broke the silence, too deep to be natural, so low it must have been modulated. “No, Fred. Mommy and Daddy need to have alone time right now.”

I almost laughed, my relief was so strong. Mommy and Daddy. It had to be him. No one else was so presumptuous.

My door opened and closed quickly. I could see almost nothing, just a large shape looming in the darkness, growing bigger and bigger as it strode toward me. My bathroom light kicked back on, and suddenly I was face-to-mask with my stalker.

I reared away on instinct, caught off guard, but he grabbed me by the throat and pulled me back to him, those gaping black eyes staring straight into my soul, his grip firm. Inescapable.

“Don’t stop on my account,” he said, and my inner walls clenched around the vibrator. Of all the voice modulator settings he could have chosen, of course, it was the one that sounded like it was about to growl absolute filth into my ear.

His grip on my neck tightened, and he tugged. It was either rise or be choked. I hesitated for half a second, feeling the sweet thrill of fear course through me at the possibility of having my air cut off. He sucked in a harsh breath and pulled harder, and up I went, sliding almost all the way off the vibrator.

“Are we doing this?” he asked.

He didn’t have to explain himself. Doing this meant finally playing out our shared fantasy.

“Yes,” I said, my pulse thundering against his fingers.

He held me in place and reached between my thighs, clicking the sex toy back on. “No safe words,” he rumbled. “You want me to stop, just say so. No matter when. No matter what I’m doing to this greedy little pussy,” he flicked my clit, and I cried out. “Do you understand?”

I nodded in his hold.

His fingers dug into my skin. “I need you to say it, baby.”

“No safe words,” I agreed, my voice thready from a mixture of worry and lust. He was so much bigger than me, so much stronger despite all the time I’d put in at the gym. This man could do serious harm to me. Sure, there was a chance I could fight him off, but all it would take was one solid punch to put me on the ground.

I’d never been in such a vulnerable position in my life.

And I’d never felt so fucking alive before, either.

He used his grip on my neck to push me back down, all the way to the base of the vibrator, and hold me in place. “Swivel those sweet hips.”

I whimpered and did as he said. Holy fucking shit, that felt good.

“Again,” he said, and I complied, staring up at him with wonder.

Gone was his playfulness; gone was his sly teasing. The man who stood above me now was everything he promised in his videos: demanding, despotic, and absolutely ruthless.

He reached down again, slipped his fingers between my clit and the nub stimulating it, and clamped down on that sweet bundle of nerves. My spine arched as pleasure punched through me.

“Were you trying to punish me?” he asked.

I couldn’t answer. Couldn’t do anything but sit there and pant. The vibration was rolling through me from clit to core, but with the blood flow to my pleasure center nearly cut off, it was impossible to come. Instead, I spiraled higher and higher, sweat starting to dot my forehead. My skin felt electrified, like I stood too close to a live wire.

He squeezed my clit harder. “Answer me, baby.”

“Yes,” I rasped. “I was mad you weren’t here.”

His fingers eased off me slightly, and my legs started shaking as blood returned to my clit, and it started to grow engorged between his fingers, the returning pleasure multiplied because of its recent absence. I was about to come so fucking hard.

“You should have known I was on my way to you and waited,” he said.

I barely caught the words, too busy thrusting my hips down as my inner muscles tightened around the vibrator. Close. I was so close. I just needed him to loosen his hold a little more on both my clit and my neck, and I would –

His fingers clamped down again, catching me off guard. “It’s me who should be punishing you,” he said. “You fucking stabbed me, Aly.”

My gaze had been unfocused as I started to lose myself, but his words had it sharpening again. I grinned as I stared into his black eyes, my voice coming out as a wheeze because of the pressure on my windpipe. “Yeah, but you liked it.”

He growled, and the modulator turned it animalistic, making it sound like a goddamn werewolf had just stalked into my room.

His fingers disappeared from my sex, and the flood of returning blood had my head spinning and spine bowing as I got closer to the edge, but then he pushed my hand off the vibrator’s handle and pulled it out of me. I had just enough time to whimper at its loss before he shoved me backward. I bounced on the bed, and then he was on me, swinging a leg over my waist as he pulled his shirt off. He yanked me up by my arms, shoved the shirt under my head and neck, and then tugged his zipper down, freeing his cock.

I reached for it hungrily, but he pushed my hands aside and grabbed the lube I’d left discarded on my comforter. A splash of it landed in the middle of my chest, all the warning I had before he grabbed my hands and put them on my breasts.

“Press them together,” he ordered. “Your first present is that necklace you’ve been begging me to get you.”

I shoved my breasts in tight and smirked up at him. “I see you’ve been reading my comments.”

He huffed out what might have been a strangled laugh – the modulator made it hard to tell – and thrust straight into my cleavage.

I craned my head up and managed to lick his frenulum before he grabbed my hair and pulled me away, holding me against the bed.

“What was it you said yesterday?” he asked. “This isn’t for you?”

“It feels a little like it’s for me,” I shot back.

Another strangled laugh was quickly cut off by a groan as he thrust into me again, starting a steady rhythm. The bed squeaked beneath us. Our heavy breathing echoed through the room, and the smell of sex filled my nose.

If he was trying to punish me, he was failing. I was all for the feel of his hot, smooth, lube-slicked cock shoving between my breasts as he used me to replace his release. And really, letting him paint a pearl necklace over my throat was the least I could do after stabbing him. Maybe I could replace more ways to piss him off and see just how many of my comments he’d read.

“Your tits are perfect,” he said, letting go of my hair to brace both hands on the bed and piston his hips back and forth, picking up speed.

Your whole body is perfect, I wanted to say, but I was too mesmerized by the sight of him looming over me, abs contracting, biceps straining as he held himself aloft. I pushed my breasts together even tighter, imagining it was my pussy he was slamming into. His monstrous cock would probably hit my cervix with every thrust – lucky me.

I lifted my gaze from his straining pecks to see him staring straight down at me, watching as he fucked my tits. His breathing hitched, and his cock swelled with a fresh infusion of blood. I felt his balls lift off my skin as they started to tighten up, and the sight of what he was doing to me, the feel of it, was so hot I had to squeeze my legs together to ease my unsatisfied need.

“I want to feel you come,” I said, unable to keep my mouth shut any longer. “I want to feel you brand my throat where your hand just was, marking me.”

“As mine,” he growled.

It wasn’t a question, but I answered him anyway. “Yes. Yours.”

“Fuck, Aly.”

With one last thrust, he was coming, hot seed splashing over my skin, dick pulsing between my tits, body trembling above me as he sucked in one breath after another, his hips changing rhythm as he lost himself to pleasure.

He shuddered and went still when he was done, bowing over me, and even though I hadn’t done anything but hold my tits together for him, I felt a triumphant little thrill that he’d come so hard he needed a minute to regroup.

“My turn?” I asked, unable to keep the excitement out of my voice.

His answering laugh was evil, and at first, I thought it was because of the modulator, but soon, I learned better.

“Fuck you,” I spat.

“Only good girls get fucked, Aly, and from the way you’ve been cursing my name for the past five minutes, I think we’ve established that you aren’t one.”

More vitriol spewed from my mouth as he braced his forearm across my shoulder blades and held me in place while he slowly started thrusting into me again. With my godforsaken vibrator instead of his cock.

It felt like he’d been doing this for an hour, though it had probably been closer to ten minutes. Over and over again, he’d fed the vibrator into me, holding it steady against my clit until stars danced across my vision, only to pull it out again, denying me the orgasm that needed to happen at this point, or I swore I would die from frustration.

“Please,” I begged.

“You can always tell me to stop,” he said.

No, I couldn’t. Because then he would win. He’d had almost all the power in our dynamic from the start, and I couldn’t bring myself to give him any more by tapping out. My stubborn streak was too big for that, and it would probably be the death of me.

He eased the vibrator out again just as I was getting close, and a sob slipped through my lips before I could stop it. The bastard had the audacity to chuckle. Fuck him. And fuck me too. Past me, specifically, who’d read about edging and thought it sounded fun.

It wasn’t fun. It was torture.

I thrashed beneath him as he pulled the vibrator out, leaving my pussy clenching on empty air. How did he think this was hot? I was a red, sweaty mess right now, hair plastered to my forehead, tears streaking from the corners of my eyes, but I knew he was into it because he was rock hard again, his pants still unbuttoned, showing off his picture-perfect cock. That he wouldn’t give me. Or even let me touch. Every time I reached for it, he slapped my hands away and went back to tormenting me. The man must have been a goddamn sadist to be having so much fun.

I shook my head from side to side. “I need to, I need to,” I repeated.

“Shhh,” he said, brushing the hair from my face. “I know, baby. You’re doing so good.”

Another sob shook my body. I’d never look at arousal the same after this. He was shifting my entire worldview.

“Brace yourself,” he said, all the warning I had before he rammed the sex toy home.

My back arched off the bed, and his hand landed on my throat again, just beneath my jaw, keeping my head tilted away from him as something warm and wet enveloped one of my nipples.

Had he taken his mask off?

His tongue laved at my nipple just as the vibrating little nub hit my clit, and if he didn’t stop soon, there was nothing that would prevent me from coming this time. I could feel it building like a tidal wave just offshore, gaining momentum as it raced into the shallows, ready to slam through me with the same destructive force as a late-season cyclone.

He rotated the vibrator, simulating the act of thrusting, rubbing the nub over and around my clit. Spots danced at the edge of my vision, crowded close because of how tight he held my throat.

Shit, he was cutting off my airway.

His mouth latched onto my nipple, and he sucked, hard, fingers popping off my neck. I dragged in a single breath before he tightened his grip again. Oh, no. How was the pleasure still building? I couldn’t do this. It was too much. My entire body felt like one raw, pulsing nerve, and if he pushed me any higher, I’d have brain damage; I just knew it.

His mouth left my breast, and I cried out in desperation.

“Let go, Aly,” he rumbled. “I’ll catch you when you fall.”

He refastened his mouth over my other nipple and sucked, bore down on my clit with the vibrator, and loosened his hold on my neck enough that breath flooded back into my lungs. And then I was shaking, sobbing, legs slamming together and clamping down on his wrist as he tore the most soul-shattering orgasm I’d ever had from my ruined body.

It felt like my brain short-circuited. It felt like I died. It felt like I spoke to the Devil, and the Devil told me he was proud of what we’d just done.

And then I’m pretty sure I passed out for a few minutes because, by the time I came back to myself, the Faceless Man was cleaning my neck off with a warm towel and telling me what a good girl I was after all.