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The screams became raucous. Panic—the perfect amplifier for the harsh sound.
I stormed down the hall for Dec, my feet heavy and loud, but still not heard over the stranger’s terror.
I reached for Dec’s room, directly opposite the guest room, where the screeching came from.
“Dec went, too!” Jolie called, stopping me as my fingers closed around the brass knob.
Fucking great.
I capped my movements, taking a breath and a moment before heading to the corridor’s other side.
“I’ll take care of it,” I promised. “Go back to bed.”
The couple got closer to one another, their arms wrapping around each other. They lingered to support me. But I didn’t need support. If this woman had been owned and traumatized, people would overwhelm her. That was probably why she didn’t feel like talking after Ollie had put her in front of an audience. He should have known better, the clown.
I nodded in their direction, and their shoulders slumped before they sank through their bedroom door.
Again, my fingers on the brass knob, I let myself into the guest room.
My bare feet pressed into the thick carpet fibers, and the woman hushed as if my presence wrapped her in an untouchable safety.
There was a ruffle of sound as she pulled the blankets over her head.
I stayed at the door, the thick wood hiding me from her view, even if she turned over and pulled that blanket down.
I watched her through a mirror.
“You okay?” I wasn’t sure if she’d woken up or if her nightmare had just mellowed into a more peaceful dream.
She answered with a gentle snore, and I chose not to disturb her further, quietly clicking her door shut and retreating to my room, taking my coffee with me.
Chapter 3
Remi
Ayelp woke me from my sleep. Mine. I darted up on the sofa that I hadn’t even bothered to convert to a bed. But I had wrapped myself in a satin sheet that was now clinging to the sweat on my naked body and hiding my cock and the hand still wrapped around it from last night’s antics.
Fuck.
I’d fallen asleep while trying to get off.
That was a whole new level of tired.
The half-drunk cup of coffee hadn’t done its job. All it did was put pressure on my bladder. I stared at it, cold and sitting bedside—or, sofa side, next to my hearing aid that I popped back into my ear.
I pushed myself up, pulling up my sweats when my feet hit the floor. My body’s imprint was still pressed into the sofa when I stretched.
I closed my eyes as the winter sun tried to blind me through the drapes I’d forgotten to close.
I blinked away the strain, still feeling all the tiredness in my eyes, and moved to the bathroom, closing the drapes on my way so the sun wouldn’t attack me on the journey back out.
After the longest leak in history, I washed my hands and stupidly picked up my dirty clothes, sullying my hands again.
I hurried through the house to the laundry room and dumped them straight into the machine. Way too much detergent followed.
I left the room, stepping into the kitchen to collect the coffee cup that had been left out for me in the empty space.
Woodrow was outside with Jolie, teasing one of the cats—Gabriel, our hairless wonder—with a daisy that the animal wanted to mutilate.
