“How many what?”
“Acquaintances.” I let venom into my tone.
“There are many. I will make no apologies for who I am, X. The beasts in your dreams? I am like those beasts. Always hungry. Never sated, never satisfied. And the many, many girls whom I... visit, they are snacks. A bite, here and there. Enough to tide me over until I canfeast.”
Hot, hot breath on my flesh. My dress is ripped open, top to bottom.
“Caleb . . .”
“Youare the feast, X.”
Lips on my skin. Hands devouring flesh. Fingers seeking my wetness, my hidden heat. There is fear within me, but it only serves to excite. I fear, oh...deeplydo I fear. I fear the prowling predator behind me. I fear the claws in the shadows, the ravening beast whose appetite cannot be slaked. I fear, but I shiver with excitement when I catch a glimpse of it, and I wonder if it is coming for me. And when I see the eyes and the gleam of moonlight on talon, I know it is coming for me. It will devour me, for I am but a soft thing, all underbelly and easily parted flesh.
But this night? This night I find I have claws of my own. “No, Caleb.” I wrest myself free, naked but for panties. Cross my arms over my breasts, my chest heaving with fear and need and anger and myriad tumultuous emotions too turbulent and intermixed to name. “No. Youhurtme.”
Silence, fraught with tension.
Feet stab precisely through pants legs, shirt buttons are fitted through openings swiftly and without fumble. Socks and shoes slipped on, suit coat draped over a thick forearm. A hand slips into a trouser pocket and withdraws a phone, brief white glow of the screen, repocketed. Keys jingle, rotated around and around an index finger. “I’ll give you some time, X, if that is what you need. And I will say it one last time: I’m sorry I hurt you.”
There is a promise hidden between the lines of those words:Your time to get over this is limited.
The question that boils within me as my front door opens and closes and I am left alone is very simple: Can I get over this? What do I do if I cannot?
Can I forgive? Should I? Do I evenwantto?
I fear not.
And I fear what that means for the coming days.
Chapter 9
You stand alone outside my door, hands stuffed in hip pockets, hair slicked back, wearing a sleek, slim tuxedo with a narrow bow tie at your throat. Handsome, young, confident. Debonair.
You could be Jay Gatsby.
“Madame X. Good evening.” You lean in, kiss me formally on both cheeks. “You look lovely.”
I do, truly. A stylist had arrived early this morning, pulling a rack stuffed to overflowing with garment bags. A short, stout man with artificially silver hair, wearing a woman’s pantsuit in pale peach with four-inch heels and offering me a quick, genuine smile, helped me in and out of thirty-six dresses before settling on the one I’m wearing now. The dress is some brand I’d never heard of, a designer whose logo is a single thick Z stroke. A student, maybe, or a new designer. Gem wouldn’t specify, saying only that the designer didn’t matter, not in this case. That I looked my absolute best was all that mattered. The dress is deep crimson, floating loose from my hips to brush the floor around my feet, the skirt made of some light, gauzy material that feels like it should be sheer but isn’t. From the waist up, the dress is somehow sexy to the point of indecency without actuallyrevealing much at all. The back is open, plunging down to the very base of my spine, showing the slightest hint of my tailbone. The open back cuts in deeply around my ribs, too, so that I am in effect bare from just beneath and beside my breasts to just above my backside. A triangular patch of crimson silk covers me from throat to diaphragm, offering not a single glimpse of cleavage, yet is cut to cling and drape to sultry effect, the triangle of fabric somehow supporting my not-insignificant breasts into mounded prominence. A thin, nearly invisible strap wraps around my throat, clasping at the back of my neck with a delicate hook-and-eye. Gem applied double-sided tape to the edges of my breasts where a hint of side cleavage is visible, keeping the dress from coming loose and revealing more than intended. I insisted on my favorite pair of black Jimmy Choo heels. Gem had brought a rather excessive selection of gaudy, diamond-studded shoes he wanted me to try on, but I insisted on my own, because if I was going to spend the evening nervous and worried and out of my element, I would feel better in familiar shoes. Hair, makeup, all done simply and to great effect, hair piled up on my head, a few wisps escaping to frame my face, minimal makeup, just a touch of eye shadow, some stain on my lips, some contouring on my cheekbones.
Your compliment is delivered with deceptive ease. But as we wait for the elevator, I feel your eyes on me, raking up and down, looking away, stealing back to me.
“Is everything all right, Jonathan?” I ask, my tone sharp.
“Just fine, just fine.”
“Then stop staring at me.”
You quirk an eyebrow and grin. “Can’t help it, X. You’re just so beautiful it hurts. I can’t believe Caleb”—you glance back at Thomas, and correct yourself—“Mr. Indigo, I mean—agreed to let you come.”
Thomas. My bodyguard for the evening. A giant of a man, very literally a giant. Seven feet tall and enormously muscled. Skin black as midnight, head shaved to the scalp, eyes always shifting and moving, seeing, assessing, intelligent and cunning eyes that never look at me directly. He has not said a single word, and I do not think he will, unless absolutely necessary.
“It was a surprise to me too, honestly.”
“What changed his mind?”
I let silence linger for a moment before answering. “He keeps his own counsel, Jonathan. I cannot speak to his reasoning, nor will I attempt to.”
I can see Thomas’s reflection in the elevator door; he looks almost amused, if so rugged and brutal a face could be said to have such a mundane expression. Adingannounces the arrival of the elevator. The doors slide open and Thomas steps into the opening, gestures for us to enter with a sweep of a huge hand. I take the back corner diagonally opposite to Thomas, and you stand beside me. Too close. Your cologne is faint, distractingly delicious, light and citrusy and exotic. Your body traps me into the corner, and though you do not look at me, you are somehow still aware of me, and I am aware of your awareness. It is disorienting. I breathe out to tamp my nerves, and though I breathe shallowly, your gaze flicks to my breasts behind the crimson silk, you watch my breasts swell and retract. I tilt my head to the side, stare up at you with a scolding eyebrow lifted, lips pursed.
