Emily walked into the room wearing jeans and a t-shirt. She raised an eyebrow, smiling at me.
“So you can follow directions,” she said.
I nodded. “But apparently you can’t.”
“Oh, I can. But only when I went to.” She took out the phone and took a picture of me.
“What’s that for?” I asked. “A little something for later?”
“Oh, no. Just a little extra blackmail in case all this fails to pan out.”
I blinked and slowly figured out what was happening. “You naughty girl,” I said.
She smiled and did a little curtsy. “Thanks.”
I couldn’t help it. I burst out laughing, and that only made her smile a bit more confused.
“I don’t know what’s funny,” she said. “You do realize that I’m not letting you go, right?”
That only made me laugh harder. I had to hand it to her, the girl was fucking funny, and apparently was very good at pranks. I was going to have to be much more careful around her from here on out.
She looked confused and finally laughed a little bit her, shaking her head. “You’re crazy, you know that, Carter?”
“I know,” I said, getting a hold of myself. “But you do realize that I’m going to get you back for this.”
“I’d expect nothing less.”
Without another word, she blew me a kiss and left the room.
I leaned my head back, grinning to myself, picturing that Snap she sent me again. Fortunately, the phone had voice control, so all I had to do was call out and command it to send someone to release me, but I was going to savor this moment for another few minutes.
It wasn’t every day that someone got one over on me. Apparently, I had my hands full with Emily, and I fucking loved it.
9
Emily
The look on Carter’s face both confused and excited me in ways that I didn’t expect.
I assumed he was going to be really pissed. I figured he’d yell and maybe threaten me, the usual stuff. Instead, he seemed genuinely amused and excited by the whole thing, which seemed totally crazy to me. On the other hand, he looks so damn attractive handcuffed to that bed that I did nearly forget my plan and give in to temptation. I could have easily gotten him hard and then rode him to my heart’s content, but I had to resist that urge.
Still, the way he reacted showed me that he wasn’t just some immature playboy asshole. He could take a joke, and apparently he liked a challenge. That excited me and intrigued me more than I would have guessed.
The next morning I did feel a little bad about leaving him there. I sent him a quick text.
“If you’re still cuffed to the bed, don’t respond to this message.”
A few minutes later, he got back to me. “I was free ten minutes after you left. Although I think I owe this poor housekeeper a very large raise.”
I grinned to myself and felt a little bit better, but still. It wasn’t cool to trick him like that, and maybe I should consider apologizing.
Then again, I doubted he would apologize to me.
I had some breakfast, got into my bathing suit, and headed down to the pool. So far, living at Carter’s place hadn’t been nearly as awful as I assumed it would be. I thought it would just be months of Carter being an insufferable ass while surrounded by stupid and absurdly expensive paintings. Instead, I just lounged around the pool, enjoying my summer vacation. The whole plan was still extremely stupid and ill conceived, but at least I was having fun so far.
About an hour into sunbathing, I heard a weird whining sound. Frowning to myself, I looked around, trying to spot whatever was making that noise, but couldn’t see anything. I assumed it was just some weird gardening thing, like maybe nearby sprinklers, so I decided to ignore it.
But the noise got louder. I grabbed my sunglasses to protect my eyes from the sun’s glare and looked up, trying to spot what the heck was making the noise.
That was when I spotted it. Hovering maybe fifty feet above me was a drone. It was one of those models with the four helicopter rotors with the big camera on the bottom, and I could tell that the camera was directed right at me.
Chills ran down my spine. I grabbed my towel and wrapped it around myself before swiping through my phone, trying to find someone to call. At the bottom of my contacts was a listing for someone named “Security Cox.”
I called the number and a man answered on the third ring.
“Security,” he said.
“Uh, hi,” I said. “This is Emily. There’s a drone hovering above me—“
“What kind of drone?” he asked, business-like and direct.
“One of those helicopter things with the four spinners. And a camera at the bottom.”
“Quadcopter,” he said. “What color?”
“Silver. With some blue trim.”
“Not one of ours,” he grunted. “Where are you?”
“Out by the pool.”
“Be there in a second.”