Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 79250 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79250 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
He came back and I felt the bed dip. I was nudged onto my stomach. He slapped my ass again. “You’re nice and red, Chere. You might have a few lingering bruises. A souvenir until you see me next time.”
“If there’s a next time.”
He turned me back over and kissed me, tasting faintly of the scotch we’d had earlier. “Oh, there’ll be a next time.”
“Not if you don’t stop blindfolding me. I can’t stand it.”
“I know you don’t like it. I won’t do that to you forever.”
His fingers traced over my face. I wished I could do the same to him, just to know anything about him, but I couldn’t. It frustrated me so bad.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “I’ve got to go soon.”
“Go then,” I said, turning my face away from his touch. “You pay for these sessions. You can leave any time.”
He rose, and I felt bad I’d been so snippity to him after what we’d just shared, after the orgasm he’d just given me, which eclipsed even the orgasms he’d given me last week, which used to be the best orgasms of my life.
“I wish you’d tell me your name,” I said. “Even just your first name.”
“The E’s stand for Edward and Estlin.”
“You’re not E.E. Cummings, and it’s wrong that you use E.E. Cumming for your fake name. So wrong.”
“He’s one of my favorite poets. At least I left off the ‘s’ so there wouldn’t be any confusion.”
“I bet you don’t know one thing E.E. Cummings has written.”
I jumped when he grabbed my hair. Shit, I never saw him coming. He yanked it once and tilted my head back, and kissed me hard this time, like a punishment. “You’re a sassy little girl,” he said against my lips. “If we weren’t out of time, I’d punish you for that sass. Sex dolls should be seen and not heard.”
Ugh, he was a disgusting pig. A sexy disgusting pig, which was so much worse.
“If you won’t tell me your real name, at least let me see what you look like,” I said. “If you won’t let me see what you look like, I’m not coming back.”
“I’ll miss you.”
That did it. His smug, self-satisfied “I’ll miss you” had just driven the final nail into his coffin. I wasn’t going to see him again. No. See how smug he was then. Asshole.
“You’re not going to miss me,” I said, “and I’m not coming back. Here’s a tip. There are a lot of high-class whores in New York who specialize in BDSM. Maybe you should look into it.”
“Shut your mouth and be quiet.”
I clamped my lips shut, not because he told me to, but because he was an asshole not worthy of any more words. Ten minutes or more went by. I had no way of knowing if he was getting dressed, or primping, or just sitting there staring at me. I thought I heard a pen drop on the desk, and a rustle of paper.
“I brought you another skirt and blouse,” he said. “You can take them when you leave.”
I wondered what he’d done with my old skirt. I wondered why he told me to bring extra clothes when he hadn’t cut my clothes off this time. I wondered why I cared.
He lifted me off the bed. I heard the rustles and noises and smells that were already so familiar to me in my enforced blindness, and the scissors against my wrists.
“You can stay here all night if you like,” he said, slicing through the zip ties. “If you don’t want to go home to your asshole boyfriend. But don’t dare bring him here.”
I stood a moment in shock, long enough for him to squeeze my hand and leave. The door lock engaged with a click. How could W have known I had a boyfriend? Maybe it was just an assumption. But then why had he called Simon an asshole? He is an asshole, Chere, even if you won’t admit it.
No, W couldn’t know about Simon. I stood there rubbing my wrists like an idiot before I finally reached up and unbuckled the mask. The first thing I saw was my bag on the table by the window. I’d dropped that bag by the door, so W had picked it up at some point. Had he gone through it? My phone screensaver was a photo of me and Simon. My asshole boyfriend.
Jesus Christ, he could have gone through everything in my phone. He might have pawed through my wallet. He might have all my credit card numbers, my phone numbers, my home address. I felt sick. I dug for my wallet and counted my money. But no, he wouldn’t have stolen my fucking chump change. He had plenty of money.
No, he’d only stolen my privacy and peace of mind.
How dare he go through my bag and my wallet, and possibly all my phone contacts, when he wouldn’t give me the first piece of information about himself?