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Shit, it was almost as if the past year of pain slid away beneath Kit s vibrancy. Mase reined in
his wild ideas. One young inexperienced submissive wasn t going to put all of his troubles in
the past, no matter how charming the man.
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Dinner only, take it or leave it.
A long sigh came across the line. All right. Where?
Mase gave the name of his cousin s restaurant the man made a great lobster ravioli.
Meet me there at seven tonight. Be prompt or I ll cancel our date. He barely resisted the
urge to tell Kit that there would be a punishment if he was late. He had a feeling Kit would
show up an hour past their meeting time just to test him out.
Yes, Sir, Kit muttered before Mase hung up.
He didn t want to give the tempting man another chance to coax him into anything
more. Hopefully dinner at his cousin s restaurant would prevent him from pouncing on the
pretty young man.
His phone rang again. Without checking the readout, he answered, Kit, you re not
going to change my mind.
I don t want to change anything but your status from living to dead. I can t let you kill
another one. I ll be watching you, a cold, quiet voice said.
The words chilled him to the bone. It can t be him. It s impossible. His grip on the phone
tightened as his hand began to shake. Taking a breath to steady his nerves, he asked, Who is
this?
A whispery chuckle came across the line, frosting Mase s spine with ice. You know
me. After all, you re the reason I m dead.
Before he could say anything else, the person disconnected. Mase sat there for several
minutes. Bile rose in his throat. Tossing the phone down on the bed, Mase fled to the
bathroom just in time to empty his stomach into the toilet.
After his stomach gave its final heave, he slumped down onto the floor and stayed there
for several minutes before his knees firmed up enough to hold his weight. Even with his
muscles finally under his control, he couldn t get his hands to stop shaking as he flushed the
toilet. He stumbled to the sink, rinsed out his mouth then quickly brushed his teeth.
He s dead, he told his stricken reflection in the mirror. Dead people couldn t make
phone calls. But why would anyone bother him now, after a year of blame and self-
recrimination? It had taken a lot of counselling for Mase to realise that he hadn t caused his
lover s death. He d found out too late about Jeff s instability a manic-depressive who d
stopped taking his medication and hadn t told Mase he d ever been on it.
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Mase had left the apartment that night to buy dinner and take a break from what he d
thought of as one of Jeff s temper tantrums. He hadn t known Jeff was having a psychotic
episode or that he should ve received professional help. When he d returned, it was to find
his lover had bled to death in his bathroom. Jeff s family hadn t taken his death well and had
blamed Mase. Fortunately for Mase, they d lost both the legal and the civil lawsuits. He d
finally had to get a restraining order against Jeff s mother and brother, Philip, when they
kept showing up at his condo and screaming at him.
He d moved from Chicago to Seattle to be closer to his own family and to avoid Jeff s
relatives. Unfortunately, the BDSM culture was small and the rumours had followed him to
the new city. Luckily the money he d inherited, along with his investments, had made
moving easier than if he d had to find a job& but the freedom money gave him also allowed
him plenty of time to think about his problems.
Some days all he could focus on were all the things he should ve done differently. He d
turned to writing to pour out his sorrows and guilt and had found, to his surprise, that he
was good at it. His first mystery book had been well-received and his second novel had
become a bestseller. Gay fiction with tortured characters apparently sold well.
All the thoughts of should haves and would haves spun around in his head as he tried
to think of who would call him pretending to be Jeff. He doubted his sub had come back
from the dead to torture him.
No suspects came to mind but the more he thought about it, the more he doubted he
should be starting anything with the adorable Kit. The sweet man deserved someone with
less baggage than him. They d go on one date then Mase would set him free. After all,
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