Him
My sex life has occasionally put me in awkward situations. That’s what happens when your brand of kink is outside the box. It puts you in unique places, with unique people. This is the first time it’s put me in front of a gun.
The setup had been simple, which typically works best in these situations. I leave a key at the front desk. I go to the room. At 10 PM I go into the shower, taking my time. When I finish, and step out, into the hotel room, she will be waiting on the bed. Cue the fun.
She is waiting, all right.
I rest my hands on my bare hips and look past the 9mm, and to the woman holding it. She looks nothing like the profile photos, her hair dark instead of light, her breasts big instead of small, her eyes calculating instead of sweet. She smiles, and a silver tooth glints out from her smile. I hope she’s not planning on raping me. I have a wide range of women who I find attractive, but crazy bitch isn’t on that menu.
A man comes from behind her and steps past me, into the bathroom. There is the rustle of clothing, and then he emerges, rattling my car keys. “Struck the jackpot with this one,” he drawls. “Tesla.”
He’s an idiot if he thinks that stealing my car is a wise move. The thing is outfitted with enough tracking software and cameras to find Jimmy Hoffa’s body. I open my mouth to enlighten them, then shut it. Let them get caught. They’ll have to stop and charge the damn thing soon enough, its battery already low. He has my wallet and watch in hand, and I wince at the sight of the Glashutte Original in his hands. The watch was my father’s—the inscription imprinted on me, his rough drawl clear as day in my mind every time I read it. You are the captain of your soul. The loss of it will hurt more than the car.
“Nice watch.” He grins at me and he is lucky I value my life. Take the gun out of this equation, and I’d have him down on the ground, my fist in that smirk, then my elbows. He thinks I am a rich prick who grew up above the law. He doesn’t know the neighborhoods I roamed as an only child, the type of streets where you fought for your respect and stole everything else.
Maybe I’ve gotten soft. I should have left the watch at home. I could have stuck a twenty in my pocket and left the keys in the car, locking it with my phone instead of the fob. Instead, I trusted the address, the Ritz Carlton logo, and a squeaky clean online profile. Now I’m literally left with my dick out, watching the man stuff my clothing into a duffel bag, my thousand-dollar jacket shoved, with little regard, in last. I watch my phone disappear into his jean pocket.
“You mind leaving my clothes?” I flash the woman a smile. “It’d be nice to walk out of here.”
The grin, one that hasn’t failed me yet, earns me a downward glance, her eyes drifting over my cock. “Go right ahead, beautiful. Nothing to be ashamed of there.” She smacks her gum and smiles. “Now, let’s get your sexy ass on that balcony.”
I am half-relieved, half-concerned, at the instructions. Maybe she isn’t going to kill me. Maybe she’ll just lock me out, thirteen floors up. If so, how long will it take for someone to see me? How long before they track down my room and let me out? I glance toward the balcony door. “Give me a robe, at least.”
She considers the idea, then nods, barking out an order to the man, who scoffs at my request while wearing a puffy jacket that I could climb Everest with. I watch as he yanks a fluffy white robe off a hanger and walks past me, giving me a wide berth, the sliding door opened, the robe left outside. Sixty seconds later, I am beside it, the woman’s bright orange fingernails waving at me as she closes the curtain and locks the door. I pull on the bathrobe and wonder how the fuck I got here.
“Mr. Marks, you can’t throw furniture off the balconies.” The hotel’s night manager sneers at me with a snobbish scowl that I haven’t seen in a decade, not since I moved solidly into the upper class.
“I understand that. I was trying to signal to the people out on the deck.” In the lunacy of this situation, I seem to be in trouble, the man glaring at me as if I am about to be put on a Ritz Carlton blacklist of sorts.