"They're called spicy romances, and they've taught me as much about myself as your masktok account has."
REVIEW
Would I read it again? Yes No Maybe
Spicy Level Legend How spicy is this book?
SUMMARY
Meet Josh - Josh is a professional hacker, who grew up as the son of a serial killer, and runs a secret Masked Man Kink Thirst Trap on TikTok (I felt like all that needed to be capitalized).
Meet Aly - she is a trauma ER nurse who works all the time. Her mom died in a car wreck (Aly was driving) when she was a teenager, and then her dad died of a heart attack shortly after. Aly’s favorite Tiktok account is a certain Masked Man. And she loooovveeesss to leave comments.
Aly used to date Josh’s roommate, Tyler. She sends a screenshot of Masked Man to Tyler and is basically like Wanna come over and wear a mask and have sex? And he’s like dude no. He shows Josh the text (he supposedly doesn’t know the Masked Man is actually Josh). And Josh is like wait…your ex hook-up thinks I’m hot? He checks his comments and notices that Aly comments a lot. Basically inviting Masked Man over for some fun. Josh is like .. well ok.
He breaks into her house, records a TikTok in her bedroom, and plants a hidden camera in her bedroom. She watches his latest upload and is like wait…is that my house?!
They start communicating via DMs. She doesn’t appear happy that he broke into her house (and hacked her laptop). The next day he sends an abundance of flowers and home security equipment to her house. She calls Tyler, she remembers that his roommate is really good with computers, and she needs to figure out who hacked into her laptop. Josh hears Tyler offer his services and he’s like well fuck.
The first time they meet in person (as Masked Man, not Josh) is after a really rough, very long, shift at the hospital. Josh takes an Uber to the hospital, breaks into her car, brings snacks, and tells her he wants to drive her home. He refuses to talk though so she won’t recognize his voice (they’ve met before). He gives her a loaded gun and a knife and tells her that way she feels safe getting in the car with him. On the way home, she … gives him head and accidentally stabs him.
The next day, she goes to Tyler and Josh’s apartment to meet Josh. Josh has donned fingerless gloves claiming that the heat is broken and he’s cold but really it's to hide his tattoos and the cut on his hand from her stabbing him. Ally thinks Josh might be the Masked Man, but doesn’t come away from this meeting with any concrete evidence. Josh pretends to check her computer for hacking software, but he really isn’t.
A few nights prior, a rape victim was brought into the hospital along with her rapist. The rapist had been attacked by people when he was found raping the girl. Unfortunately for everyone but the rapist, he comes from a very rich, very influential family. So he walks. Fast forward, he is back in the ER after being assaulted by the girl’s brother at a bar. None of the women nurses want to treat him, they are waiting for the male nurse, but he’s busy. So Ally goes in. Side note - Josh has also hacked into the cameras in the hospital and is watching everything. The rapist, Brad, tries to get a rise out of Ally, which he succeeds in doing. He tries to grab her, she jumps, he makes a comment about how she is scared of him, and she mouths off about how she isn’t scared of a shrimp dick spoiled brat, and she would like to see him try again, since she is a fully conscious woman. He starts yelling that the nurse threatened him, security comes in, basically tells him to shut up. HR gets involved but Ally just gets a slap on the wrist. Then a trauma comes in, a car accident. The woman is close in age to Ally’s mom when she died, same color hair, was impaled by an object but not fatally like Ally’s mom. She can’t be in the room and she leaves. Josh notices she is acting funny, so he goes to her house once she gets off work. He is no longer wearing the ghost face mask but a balaclava. They talk about her mom, and just about her shitty shift. He is there to comfort her, but after he does that, she wants to do other things. She tells him she wants to be dark. No safe words.
So…things happen. Involving a knife handle…Ally asks him to spend the night and he does. Still wearing the balaclava.
In the middle of the night, an alarm goes off on Josh’s phone. It's linked to a camera outside of Ally’s backdoor. Someone is breaking in. Josh takes her gun and goes to the kitchen. When the intruder gets in, Josh punches him straight in the face and he crumples.
It’s Brad. The rapist. And he brought with him, what Josh kills, a kill kit. He came there to rape and kill Ally.
They decide to tie him up, drive him to his last victim's house, and leave him on their doorstep. Hoping that the woman’s husband, an ex-marine, will take care of the situation. Brad starts to wake up and yell so Josh duct tapes his mouth shut. They load him, unconscious again, into Ally’s snowboarding bag, and into her trunk. They drive into the country and when they get there, they realize that Josh accidentally duct taped his mouth AND nose. Brad’s dead. When Josh realizes what happens, he rips off his balaclava, and goes to the bushes to throw up. Ally comes over and says “This is probably a bad time to gloat over the fact that I was right about your identity, isn’t it?”
Time for Plan B.
Ally’s only living relative is her uncle Nico. Who is in the Mob. Ally goes to him and asks for help knowing that she will end up owing him a favor.Lots of things happen. Basically - Nico takes care of the situation but will need Josh’s help as a hacker to clear Brad's computer. They are sure he had googled Ally and they don’t want anything linking back to her. When they pull up to Brad’s house, they notice a bunch of cops around. They are looking for Brad but they don’t have a search warrant. Nico and Co. know that they need to get in there before the cops come back.
To sum up many chapters - they are successful. Kind of nerve racking thinking they might get caught but they don’t. Nico has someone who matches Brad’s description use his credit card and show up around the Canadian border so the cops just think he ran. (Also, side note, there are two dead bodies in his basement).
Ally finds out about Josh’s serial killer dad. She is freaked out at first but she lets it go. As she should, Josh is nothing like his dad. Nico calls in his favor, and what is it? He wants a family dinner once a month. Ally says “Am I being Gilmored right now?”
The epilogue is six months later. Ally is running through the forest away from Josh. All in good fun. After he catches her, and fulfills another fantasy, he asks her to marry him. She, of course, says yes.
Book two, Caught Up, is slated to come out Spring 2025.