Page 63 of A Smile Full of Lies (Secrets of Stonewood #1)

Chapter

Forty-Two

ROS

The green room was colder than I expected.

Sterile, overlit, and clinical, despite the bowls of fruit and water bottles arranged like some kind of peace offering. Someone had brought in a small vase of daisies. It didn’t help.

I sat in the makeup chair, hands folded tight in my lap, trying to keep from bouncing my knee. The air smelled like powder and nerves and cheap coffee.

I had done smaller interviews before. A few podcast appearances. A pre-recorded local news segment. An NPR feature I still hadn’t been able to listen to without cringing.

But this? This was national.

Late Night with Jenna Pierce.

Syndicated. Live. Airing in over forty countries. And I was their closing guest tonight.

I wasn’t just the author of the book that broke the true crime charts. I was the woman who coaxed a dying confession out of a murderer, who took a knife to the chest for a cold case, who wrote the story that finally gave the Knox family their truth.

There were hashtags trending. TikToks dissecting every chapter of What We Buried in Stonewood. People debating morality, obsession, survivor’s guilt.

But none of them knew what I knew.

They didn’t know that the man I loved — the man I’d married in secret, in the house his family had died in — had once knelt at my feet with a camera in his hand and hunger in his heart.

They didn’t know he had become the mask that haunted them. And they sure as hell didn’t know he was about to take it off.

“Ten minutes,” said the producer, knocking on the door.

I nodded, and when the door closed, I finally looked across the room.

Knox was leaning against the far wall, dressed in all black, hands in his pockets, watching me like I was the only thing in the world that mattered.

He hadn’t come with me to hair or makeup. Hadn’t offered any advice. He just showed up the way he always did — silent, steady, lethal in his patience.

I stood and paced over to him.

He straightened when I approached, reaching out to slide a knuckle along my cheekbone.

“Ready to be famous, baby?” he murmured.

I scoffed.

“You’re the one about to blow up the internet.”

His mouth quirked. I slipped my hand into his, fingers lacing tight.

“Still sure about this?” I asked.

He didn’t hesitate.

“You laid the groundwork for unmasking me the second you wrote that book, baby. Might as well let the world catch up.”

My heart pounded.

“Your fans are going to lose their minds.”

“I know.”

“They’re going to want to fuck you even more now, regardless of our relationship.”

“They can try,” he said, leaning in until his breath grazed my jaw, “but I belong to you.”

Heat bloomed under my skin. I kissed him. Soft. Quick. Grounding. Then I stepped back, my heart still racing.

“Go get set up,” I whispered. “I’ll finish this. Then come find you.”

He nodded, and without another word, he disappeared through the service hallway backstage, where the tech crew was waiting. The same team we’d quietly cleared this with last week. The same people who had promised us the final two minutes of airtime. Two minutes was all he needed.

The interview went better than expected.

Jenna was sharp and funny, disarming me right away with a question about my glasses.

“They’ve got villain origin story energy. Are they plot armor or foreshadowing?”

I laughed and spent the next thirteen minutes answering her questions. We talked about the book. About the case. About the legacy of the Knox family and what it meant to tell the story right.

I didn’t cry. Didn’t panic. Didn’t even flinch when she asked the question everyone had been hinting at:

“You never disclosed how you uncovered the security footage that helped you break the case. Why?”

I met her gaze and held it.

“Because the source of the footage doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things,” I said. “The family does. Philip Knox does, and he’s already been through enough.”

She nodded, like she understood. But behind her eyes, I saw the flicker of curiosity. And I knew the audience saw it too. People always wanted to know the thing they weren’t allowed to.

Good. Let them want.

The lights dimmed at the close of the show. The band played a low outro behind us. Jenna stood to thank the crew, and then, just before they cut to commercial — right before the red light above the camera winked off — I smiled at the audience and said,

“Before we go, I’ve got a special surprise for you all. One last video. Something special from the man behind the Nox Obscura mask.”

I felt the entire crowd shift. Whispers erupted like wildfire. Gasps, too.

Even Jenna looked stunned as the large video screen behind her desk that usually showed a cityscape cut to black, then flickered to life again.

Only now it showed a man in a hotel room. Black hoodie. Head down. The familiar black and purple neon mask sitting on the table beside him.

The world froze. And then… he lifted his head. Knox. Unmasked.

His hair was tousled from my hands. His jaw sharp, mouth grim. His eyes locked on the camera like he knew what he was doing. Like he knew what this would cost.

He reached for the mask. Lifted it. Turned it over in his hands.

And then he said, “Nox Obscura was never really about thirst traps at all.”

The camera zoomed slightly.

“I made that account to purge an obsession. To feed it. To survive it.”

He exhaled.

“The first time I saw Rosalind Cooper, I knew I was done for. And for years, I let the mask be the only way I could touch the fantasy of having her.”

He smiled, slow and sharp.

“But the fantasy became reality.”

He held up the mask.

“I appreciate the views, likes, and many of the comments I’ve gotten over the years, but don’t get it twisted. My MaskTok account was never for, or about, any of you. It was always about her,” he said. “I’m not sorry. I’m not ashamed. And I’m not interested in your opinions on the matter.”

He paused for a beat.

“She’s my wife now. And if you ever disrespect her — online or in person — I will find out.”

His blue eyes burned like backlit sapphires.

“She took a knife to the chest for me. She solved my family’s murder. She gave them back their names. She rebuilt the ruins of my life and called it home.”

His voice dropped.

“She is a motherfucking queen. And I worship the ground she walks on.”

And then he leaned forward, lowered his voice, and said, “Keep watching if you want, but make no mistake about who I belong to. Rosalind Cooper owns every single shred of my body and soul. Period.”

The screen cut to black.

The audience erupted, but I didn’t pay them any mind.

I was already on my feet, already moving, already headed toward the man who had just told the whole fucking world that he was mine.

I don’t remember getting off the stage. Don’t remember how I got from the set to the elevator, or what the ride up to the hotel suite looked like.

The world was all noise: cheering, buzzing phones, screaming fans in the audience.

Security whisking me away while Jenna’s producers scrambled to contain the explosion Knox had just dropped on live television.

But none of it touched me because all I could think about was him, and what he’d just done.

The moment the elevator doors opened, I ran. Barefoot, heart racing, dress bunched in one fist, heels long forgotten somewhere down the hallway.

I shoved the hotel room door open, breath ragged, and found him there.

Waiting. Still in the black hoodie, mask on the table, wedding ring catching the low lamplight.

His hair was messier now — like he’d dragged his hands through it.

His shoulders tense. His eyes trained on the door like he knew I’d come flying through it.

“You didn’t have to—” I started.

“Don’t,” he cut in. “Don’t do that thing where you act like I went too far.”

I stopped because he was right. I closed the door behind me. Locked the deadbolt.

And then I looked at him.

Knox, unmasked and all mine.

“You really said all that,” I whispered.

He nodded once.

“I meant every word.”

“The whole fucking world knows you’re Nox Obscura now.”

“Good.”

I crossed the room slowly. Like I was walking into a cage. Like I already knew what lived inside it, and I still wanted to be devoured.

When I reached him, I slid my hand up his chest and felt the tight coil of tension just under his skin.

“You sure you’re okay?” I asked.

He didn’t answer at first.

Then he spoke, his voice quiet and rough, “I was terrified.”

I blinked.

“Of what?”

He looked down at me, the emotion in his eyes raw.

“Of losing you to the idea of me.”

I swallowed hard.

“You think I love you for the mask?”

He shrugged.

“It’s easier to want the fantasy.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But I married the man underneath it. And I wanted you back when we were just two teenagers watching masked slasher flicks together on my Gran’s couch every Wednesday night, even after my asshole boyfriend at the time stopped bothering to show up and hang out with us like he was supposed to. ”

That cracked something. His jaw twitched. His hands moved — clenched at his sides like he didn’t trust them. Like if he touched me now, he wouldn’t stop.

“You’re sure you still want me?” he asked, voice shredded.

I reached up and gripped his jaw.

“I live and breathe for you, Knox. You. Not your MaskTok persona.”

His control snapped.

He grabbed me — lifted me — pinned me to the wall in one smooth motion. His mouth crashed into mine like punishment, like a prayer, like a man unhinged.

I gasped, fingers digging into his shoulders, thighs parting automatically as he caged me in.

“You’re mine,” he growled, biting my bottom lip. “You’ve always been mine.”

“Yes,” I breathed. “Show me.”

He spun us. Carried me to the bed. Dropped me on the mattress like I was both sacred and sinful.

And then he stripped. Slow. Not a performance. A reckoning.

The hoodie hit the floor. Then the shirt. Then the belt and jeans, until he stood in nothing but his wedding ring and the feral look on his face.

“Undress for me,” he said.

I didn’t even hesitate.

The dress came off in one motion. No lingerie underneath. No barriers. Just skin and hunger and the weight of everything we’d been through.

He dropped to his knees in front of me, pressed his mouth to the inside of my thigh, and said, “Thank you for finding me. Thank you for setting me free.”

I whispered.

“What do you mean?”

He kissed higher.

“I would’ve lived and died in that mask if you hadn’t written that book.”

His tongue dragged against my skin in a long, slow, teasing lick up the inside of my thigh.

“You gave me back my name. My family’s story.”

He looked up.

“You made me real again after years of feeling nothing but hollow.”

Then he devoured me.

Tongue, lips, fingers — fury. Every lick was a vow. Every suck a confession. My back arched, hands fisting the sheets, hips grinding into his mouth like I was trying to fuse with him.

I was shaking in minutes.

“Knox—” I gasped. “I’m gonna?—”

He pulled back just enough to say, “Not yet.”

I whined in protest.

He climbed up my body, kissed my throat, bit my shoulder. Then slid his cock inside me with one long, brutal thrust.

I screamed.

He didn’t move. Just stayed there. Buried deep. Arms braced on either side of my head, forehead resting against mine.

“This pussy’s mine,” he whispered.

“Yes.”

“You take me so fucking well, baby. You were made for this. Made for me. ”

He started to move. Slow. Deep. Devastating.

“You think they get it now?” he rasped. “That I’d let the world burn before I let anyone else have you?”

I cried out.

“You think they understand what it means when I say you’re my fucking wife? ”

He fucked me harder.

“Yes — Knox — please —”

“You think they know,” he growled, “that I would kill for you?”

My orgasm ripped through me without warning.

I sobbed his name, shattered, shaking, cunt gripping him like I didn’t want to let him go.

And he didn’t stop. He flipped me onto my stomach. Pulled my hips up. Drove back into me harder — deeper.

“You wanted the truth,” he said, voice breaking. “This is it. I watched you. I wanted you. I planned for you. I did whatever it took for me to have you.”

He bent over me. Bit my shoulder.

“I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.”

I came again with a scream. And still — he didn’t stop.

“I don’t care if the world judges me,” he snarled. “I don’t care if they call me obsessed. I am. ”

He reached down. Rubbed my clit hard.

“I’m obsessed with my fucking wife. ”

I shattered around him again, my third orgasm, white-hot and endless.

And only then did he let go.

He came with a ragged groan, teeth bared, cock pulsing deep inside me as he slammed in one last time and stayed there. Filling me. Claiming me.

When he finally collapsed over my back, he wrapped both arms around me, face pressed to the nape of my neck.

“You’re mine,” he whispered. “Every fucking part.”

“And you’re mine,” I said, breathless, broken, whole.

He kissed my shoulder. My neck. The curve of my spine. Then rolled us onto our sides and held me.

Tight. Possessive. Like he was still afraid someone might try to take me from him.

Let them fucking try.

Because I knew now — without a doubt — that this man had loved me in secret for years. Had built a shrine out of shadows. Had bared his face to the world not to feed his ego, but to protect me.

Because I was never just his prey.

I was his reason for living .

And now? Now we didn’t need the mask anymore.

Because we had each other.

Forever.