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“Ditto.”
I was beginning to think he was a legit monster, or sociopath or something. Who the fuck comes like we just had, and barely needs a second to catch their breath before they’re back into the hateful banter? I had actually never witnessed anything like it.
I studied him long and hard through half-lidded eyes as I rose slowly from his lap. He was at least a little out of breath, and sweaty as a result of the exertion, so I knew he wasn’t an actual cyborg.
I, on the other hand, wished we were in bed, or at least had a more comfortable option to relax on than an office chair and giant desk, while I took a moment to collect my wits and catch my breath—even better if I could be horizontal while I did so.
Bear, however, was all business. He stood up as soon as I’d lifted completely off his lap, and was busying himself with the condom and fixing himself back inside his pants. I stood statue-still, in shock that he could be that way after what had just transpired between the two of us.
“Take your time. I have to get back downstairs, but you can stay here and get yourself together for as long as you need. He delivered this information to the top of his shoes. After barely breaking eye contact while screwing me senseless, he now seemed to want to avoid meeting my gaze at all costs. What was that about?
I had no idea what to make of him or how to take the way he behaved most of the time, and this encounter was no exception. As if the whole Cygnus Dei mess wasn’t enough to make me steer well clear of him, his frankly bizarre behavior and habit of blowing hot and cold should have been. He was positively Machiavellian.
I watched in open-mouthed disbelief as he strode across the room—clearing it in a few long, confident strides—and slipped out of the heavy old door without a backward glance. Okay then.
Unlike Bear, I did need a moment, both to center myself and to recover from the physical impact of what we’d just done. Not only that, but I also needed to recover from the emotional aspects of whatever the hell we were, or weren’t, doing together.
There was no denying it was fucking with my mind—not the least of reasons being that I was struggling to understand my own thoughts and reactions, let alone hazard a guess at what was going on in Bear’s labyrinthine mind. More to the point, I didn’t know why I cared. A simple fuck, no matter how regular, shouldn’t necessitate an emotional debrief afterward; that was entirely the point of friends—or in our case adversaries—with benefits arrangements. It was supposed to be no strings, no feelings, no attachments.
How the fuck had I gotten myself into this mess, and more to the point, how was I going to get myself out?
I flopped back down on the over-sized, high-backed chair which was still facing away from the door of the room, toward the back wall, and fished in my purse for my make-up mirror. I was pretty sure I looked like a hot mess—I certainly felt like one—and I wanted to fix myself up before going back downstairs. The only thing worse than debasing myself by having outrageously hot sex with a distant and indifferent partner in the middle of an event would be if the other attendees were to somehow realize what I’d been doing. Talk about humiliation with a side of embarrassment. No thank you
When the giant door creaked open again, I continued straightening my hair, trying to restore my updo to at least a shadow of its former glory, rather than looking like I’d been dragged backward through one of the manicured hedges that surrounded each quad.
“Forget something?” I rummaged in my purse for my lipstick—Bear was probably wearing more of it than I was at that point. The idea made me smirk. There I was trying my damnedest to conceal the evidence of our tryst, while he was walking around with a face full of Crimson Tide lip tint. All the more reason for me to make sure I patched myself up properly. It wouldn’t take Sherlock Holmes to marry up the color smeared across his face to my near- naked lips, unkempt hair and wrinkled gown.
When Bear didn’t answer I swung the chair around to face the door, as I continued to fix my face.
“I said, did y—”
As the piercing scream left my mouth, I remembered what Bear had said about the room being soundproofed. Nobody had heard me shout my release minutes earlier, and nobody was going to hear me now. Fuck.
The chair and desk were surrounded by black velvet-cloaked figures, wearing creepy masks that were all too familiar, giving me a strong sense of déjà vu. Of course, it wasn’t déjà vu in the true sense of the word—rather a generalized niggling feeling that I’d ‘been there, done that’ before; I knew full well where I’d seen the sinister shrouded figures, apart from in my subsequent bad dreams.
“You don’t scare me.” It was a lie, but I’d be damned if I was going to show them how terrified I was.
“Liar.” So much for hiding my fear. The voice was robotic and metallic as though being spoken through a scrambler. Of course.
“Coward.”
As if to prove my point, I found myself suddenly shrouded in darkness as a hood of some kind was pulled roughly over my head. It seemed unnecessary, given that they were wearing hoods and masks themselves—as they had been the time I’d secretly witnessed their initiation process—and were also apparently obscuring their voices.
Apart from their heights, their builds, the size of their feet and hands, their shoes and how their voices sounded through a distorter, I knew nothing about any of them. And I was pretty sure that what little I did know wouldn’t stand up in court, or anywhere else, as identifying them, given that it was entirely circumstantial.
“We want you to crawl away into the little hole you came from and never bother us again, but evidently that’s not going to happen without ‘encouragement’, so we’re here to provide it. Think of us as your anti-cheer squad.”
There was whispering and shuffling, and what sounded like people orbiting me in some kind of bizarre circle. Wearing the hood completely altered my perception of what was going on around me. Having my eyes covered heightened my hearing, but, at the same time, sounds were also heavily muffled by the thick velvet fabric, and it was hard to tell what I was hearing at any given time—it was disconcerting,
The movement continued and was getting closer to me, if the proximity of the muffled breathing was anything to go by. Then there were hands on me, gently and not inappropriately, fiddling around my neck with what felt like something metallic.
What the fuck was going on? The hood was making me feel increasingly claustrophobic, and as the moments ticked on, my anxiety ratcheted. I began pulling at the thick cloth, my breath coming heavier and harder. I clawed at the fabric, knowing it was futile. If they’d wanted me to be able to get out of it, they wouldn’t have put it on in the first place.
Sure enough, it was secured tightly enough that there was no way it was budging unless they wanted it to.
“Please,” I panted, continuing to tear at my neck. “I can’t breathe. I think I’m hyperventilating or something. Please can you take this off; I feel faint.”
“Shut up. Things happen as and when we say they do and, not before.” At those words the hood was snatched off of my head.
