“No.”
“Fair.” Sila smiled. “Don’t you trust I can get anything I want?”
Bay considered it, but not for long. “Yes.”
Sila had figured out Bay was Pandaveer, had managed to plant hidden cameras at a place like the Seaside, and uncovered the fact that Bay’s grandmother had been wrongfully accused. He’d had to have done some serious digging for that last one, since all of the official documents said she’d had a sudden stroke due to her anxiety over having gambled away all of her possessions.
“If there’s something to be found, I’ll find it,” Sila promised. “And if there isn’t, if they covered their tracks, then I’ll help you make them pay for it the way they should have two years ago.”
Was he offering to be Bay’s personal judge, jury, and executioner? That shouldn’t be so tempting, so attractive.
“I don’t just want revenge,” Bay said. “I want everyone else on this stupid planet to know. Even if that means we get a verbal confession before slitting their throats, I want it.”
“Does this mean you’re going for option two?” Sila asked.
This was a mistake, a dangerous and foolish mistake and yet…His life might no longer be important to him, but he needed to know. Once and for all. He needed proof that Idle Delmar hadn’t left him homeless on purpose.
If he had to sell his soul?
He hadn’t had a use for that in years anyway.
“You swear you’ll help me find evidence?” he wanted to hear it again, just to be sure.
“In exchange for your complete and unwavering obedience,” Sila nodded. “Yes.”
He’d said there’d be no rules and no safe words, which implied there was going to be pain. Maybe even a dash of humiliation.
It was a good thing Bay wasn’t averse to either of those things.
“All right,” he sounded far more excited than he should and he knew it. “Option two. I pick that one.”
Sila grinned and the devil seemed to be gleaming behind his eyes.
Chapter 12:
Something was wrong.
Bay could sense it, or more aptly, feel it. Literally. That spot of dread that he’d felt last night lingered still, and with it there was something else, something an awful lot like contentment.
It was the latter that was worrying him the most, and that in and of itself was yet another issue.
Bay shouldn’t be able to feel anything this deeply or strongly, hadn’t been capable of it in years, but there was no denying it as he stood in front of his bathroom mirror. His murky reflection, due to the clouded glass from the shower he’d just taken, peered back, only instead of the blank expression he’d grown used to, there was a spark in his eyes and a flush to his cheeks that had little to do with the hot water he’d just attempted to drown his sorrows in.
Sila had left abruptly yesterday and ever since Bay’s body had yet to calm. He was still heightened, as though subconsciously a part of him thought perhaps the younger man would return for round two.
The fact that didn’t terrify him like it should…
“There is no way I can be that fucked up,” he murmured to himself. As far as he could see it, there was only one explanation for what was happening to him, and he didn’t like it.
Could Sila have…cured him?
It was too soon to tell for certain, of course, but Bay was used to the feelings dissipating shortly after whatever adrenaline inducing activity he’d partaken in had ended. The longest he’d been able to keep his emotions after had been about fifteen minutes and that was only because the rush from the race itself and the stimulation from winning was intense enough to.
The other night…and then yesterday morning…
He swore and covered his face, wishing the floor would open and swallow him whole so he wouldn’t have to face this situation or what it most likely said about him as a person. It was one thing, liking kink in the bedroom and being an adrenaline junkie of a sort. Getting a high from racing or watching porn was actually pretty normal. Wanting to be hunted down in the middle of a dark forest and tossed to the ground and brutalized…
Had he always been like this, or was this a change that had come after the death of his grandmother? Was it a side effect of emotional detachment? One he just hadn’t read up on before? He didn’t think it was possible for that to change who he was at a primal level, which meant, like it or not, he was someone who found it arousing to be taken advantage of.
