Zeth walks back to the bed, comes to stand right in front of me. My eyes are level with his belly button, which is just about goddamn perfect (how the hell does a man have a perfect belly button?). He curls his index finger and tucks it under my chin, lifting my face so that our eyes meet across the length of his torso.
“I’m going to go out there and drink some champagne and then I’m going to find someone who wants to play.”
“Play?”
“Yeah. Not fucking chess, Sloane. Someone who wants me to fuck them until they can’t see straight. Someone who’ll let me sink my tongue into their pussy. Someone who’ll let me taste them. Someone who’ll let me restrain them and scare the living shit out of them. Someone who likes that. I was hoping it was going to be you tonight, but…”
I swallow.
I swallow again. My throat feels like I’ve inhaled the fucking Sahara Desert. I have to get out of here before I do something stupid. I stand up so quickly, Zeth has to step back to avoid injury. “I—I have work tomorrow. I—” I hurry to the door, fighting for…what? The strength to leave?
“Ahem.”
He’s washed in pale yellow light when I turn around. “I think you’re forgetting something.” He bends and picks up my medical bag, lifting it in front of him. He smirks when he sees the look on my face. “Y’know…you can stay if you want to, Sloane. You don’t need to actually say the words. It doesn’t mean you’re weak. It means you’re strong.”
I walk back to him, staring him straight in the eye. I can’t…I can’t do this. I’m not this type of person. Am I? Do I even know who I am? He offers me the handle of my bag, arching an eyebrow at me. “What’s it gonna be, brave girl? You want the bag, or you want me?”
He said I didn’t have to say the words. He said it didn’t make me weak. But maybe…God, maybe, just for a second I want to be weak. I’ve been strong for the past two years. I was strong when Lexi was taken. I was strong when I gave up my virginity in order to find her. I was strong when I realized I wasn’t going to be able to save her. I am so sick of being strong. I take a deep breath and close my eyes, already regretting what I’m about to do.
I shift around him and sink down onto the edge of the bed.
Zeth’s low voice breaks the silence, a rich, electrifying sound.
“Yeah. That’s what I thought.”
This girl’s a ticking fucking time bomb, and she’s about to go off in this bed. I’m gonna make sure of it, if only to reward her for not pissing her pants when I told her I killed someone less than a month ago. Most girls would have reacted, but not her. I’m not blind—I know that I scare her. That just means she’s not a fucking moron, though. There are a small percentage of women out there who wouldn’t care that I take people’s lives when the occasion calls for it; they’re the ones I like to term fucking mental. Why would I want to screw an unhinged person?
Sloane has a healthy fear or me, and that suits me just fine. She doesn’t know what she’s just signed herself up for, though, not really, which positively fucking thrills me. I’m still sticking to my scare the living shit out her plan, but the greedy side of me wants her to enjoy it a little first. I might just enjoy it a little, too.
I smile like the cat that got the fucking cream when she tells me yes. I knew she would; there is no reality in which she was ever going to say no. I stand up, leaving her rigid on the bed, and walk over to the doorway.
“Stand up,” I tell her. She moves slowly, watching me, like she’s waiting for me to morph into some kind of monster or something. Poor pet. She should already know this is what a monster looks like. Once she’s standing, I lean against the doorframe and fold my arms across my chest.
“Strip.”
She wants to say no. I can see it on her face, but she’s trying hard not to upset me, too. She takes a hold of the hem of the tiny, skin-tight black dress she’s wearing and hikes it up enough to show me that she’s wearing proper stockings and a garter belt. I’m fucking crowing on the inside. No girl wears that shit unless she knows she’s getting fucked. Sloane can deny it all she wants to, but she knew this was happening tonight. Her fingers move carefully over the catches on the suspenders and then she props her foot up onto the bed, gently sliding the stockings first down her right leg and then her left. Her measured movements aren’t because she’s a master of strip tease—they’re because she’s shitting her pretty little lace panties—but she’s having the same effect on me regardless. My dick is throbbing in my pants as I watch her, but I don’t touch it. I won’t touch it for a while yet.