Page 220 of Soul So Dark

Dallas flinches and sucks in a sharp breath, pretending to search the table for something while her legs tremble and my fingers work her clit. When your hands and face are moving, no one really pays attention to your lower body. Every movement of my head, every motion of my hand distracts from the subtle thrusts over and over.

Finally, Mary gives a wave and Dean follows her back through the restaurant, but not before he turns and approaches the corner of the table.

He leans down and kisses the top of Dallas’s head. “I love you, Dallas Bo Ballas.”

“I love you, too, Dad,” she replies in a voice that doesn’t exactly sound like her own.

And why should it? My fingers are vibrating the hell out of her clit right now and, as soon as they’re out of sight, I feel Dallas reach down and dig her nails into my thigh.

“Mmm—” she barely squeaks as she clenches my pants.

Her lower body trembles uncontrollably beneath the table, her legs hidden beneath her dress as she comes fast and hard around my dick. But she’s good, and no one looking at her gorgeous face would be the wiser. Her pussy contracts, the muscles pulsing so tight around me that it pushes me over the edge.

Exhaling, I knead her thighs and hips, pulling her close so there’s nowhere for my cum to go but deep inside her. And no one within a three-foot radius has a fucking clue. When it’s over, Dallas pulls my arms around her waist and leans back against my chest, her hips still fidgeting with aftershocks.

“That was dirty,” she mumbles, but makes no effort to move, my dick still firmly inside her.

I brush her hair behind her shoulder and lean in close, so only she can hear me.

“Remember,Angelína,I’ll play your games, but I’ll always win…becauseI’myour Daddy now.”

???

When I wake up, Dallas is huddled against a pile of pillows with her phone in one hand and a mug of coffee in the other, drinking it through a straw as usual. I roll over, coming face to face with a fat, purple, plush blob with sparkly wings and antennae.

This apartment was chosen, furnished, and prepared just for Dallas, but it’s been months and, for some reason, I’m still caught off-guard when I walk into the bedroom and see those creepy little pillow creatures staring back at me. I’ll never say anything to her about it, though, even if I’m being flayed alive.

She’s editing a photo for the fans. Because that’s who we are now.

“I like that picture, baby,” I say as I kiss her shoulder.

“Yeah?” she asks hopefully, looking at me with that adorable smile of hers.

GhostW@keandSilentStormare still forces to be reckoned with online, but in order to survive, you have to evolve. AJ and Riley couldn’t remain masked characters under the neon lights. They had to be brought to life.

It's all about the persona—the story. And Dallas loves it. Except, now, she gets a lot more than gaming consoles and pocket change from her brother’s delusional friends. It's not difficult to take photos that look like you're in an airport or on a Venetian holiday. It's all about angles and filters, right? They like following her story, which now includes me.

I found out where Thatch assembled his entourage and what kind of offer he held for me if I was ever “interested.”Fandora’s Boxis exactly what it sounds like—a dark, encrypted world where you can be whoever you want to be and all your illicit fantasies come true.

And people pay a lot of money to see it.

Once he found out how popular our streams were, he offered to facilitate our integration into his business venture. Some people transition from intel and cyber security to defense contracting or corporate IT; Thatch combined his love for Greek mythology, online gambling, and voyeurism into something more innovative.

Our fans wanted to see us dominateCall of Dutywearing masks and as little clothing as possible, but they were nothing short of ravenous to see our two worlds collide. Now, it’s pay to play and we’re Thatch’s biggest money maker. There’s a wait-list to be a spectator to our matches, where they throw down to play one of us while betting on whether we’ll last ‘til the end. And bylast,I mean whether the featured player will make it to the end of their run before the opponent makes them come in front of everyone watching at home. And if that happens, the featured player gets nothing and everyone else gets paid.

Some might say we’re cheating or gaming the system, but we’re still AJ and Riley. We’re still the fantasy—the escape. When Dallas steps into frame, no one would ever know she was already here, drinking her sugary coffee drinks on our balcony while she shows me a cat video that made her laugh so hard that she couldn’t breathe.

There's no me without her, and there's no her without me. And if they want to see this perfection, let them pay for it.

I grab my backpack and keys while Dallas posts a curated overhead of her black leather Vivienne Westwood bag and passport with her Christian Louboutin ankle boots in the background on Riley Storm’s social media page. The caption will read:Wheels up in one hour! Where should I celebrate after I destroy @GhostW@ke?The promos will continue until this Saturday when the masks and cameras go on.

I didn’t disappoint April, either. Dallas turned out to be such a good intern that Wolfsson offered her a permanent position. Then again, it might’ve had something to do with her executing an emergency software patch on the fly before a high-level client was affected by a vendor data breach. But now I have lunch in her office every day in addition to seeing her on my rounds every morning and afternoon. That part was a modification one week after she started.

Imagine my surprise when I walked by her tiny cubicle in the far corner of the building to find Gavin posted up right in front of her desk.

“Hey, did you know Dallas cosplays?” he asks, barely looking at me when I appear in the doorway.

I knew exactly what he was thinking the minute Dallas walked into the command center to get her badge the first day of her internship, which is why his fun comes to an abrupt end as soon as I enter the cubicle.