“I hope you won’t, for your sake. It would have been a waste of all my efforts to keep you alive this long,” I tell him, leading the way to the dining room smelling of that divine, creamy sauce. I quickly choose the chair in front of the unspiked meal and place the napkin in my lap.
Dalton seems a bit startled as he looks around, his gaze lingering on the painting of bones, but then sits opposite me as I light the candle between us. And there it is. The corners of his lips lift in a little smile.
“Okay. Nowthisis how you should treat your fiancé,” he says and grabs a fork.
I chose this exact dish, because one of the herbs easily masks the aftertaste of the aphrodisiac. I take a sip of white wine as I watch him take that first bite, but as he moans, shutting his eyes in pleasure, tension evaporates from my muscles. It’s nice to see him pleased.
It’ll be even nicer when he stops being a stubborn donkey and gives me another taste of his dick.
“I was improvising,” I tell him softly, and slide the first gnocchi into my mouth.
“It took me by surprise, won’t lie. That bit about me not leaving town, but going to yours was really smart.” Elbows on the table, stuffing his mouth, he watches me with all his attention, and I simmer in it like a frog that doesn’t yet know it’s getting cooked.
I suppose a bit of risk is inevitable, and I’ve been depriving myself for so long that now that I’ve made that rash decision… I can’t go back on it. Of course, people argue and couples split, so I could have informed my family about our parting within the next few months, but… why would I do that when Dalton already knows my family’s secret, when he owes me his life, and when his cock felt so irresistibly good inside me?
I hide my hands under the table when they shake and offer him a smile. “You know whatwasn’tsmart? Borrowing a million dollars you don’t have. How on earth did that even happen?”
Dalton slouches with a groan, but doesn’t lose his appetite. He’ll soon get hungry for more than some chicken, and I can’t wait to taste him. “Eh… It was a weird night that spun out of control. I just finished work, but had this lucky feeling in my gut, you know?”
I give him a deadpan stare. “No, I don’t know.”
“So anyway, I had a drink or two, and since the lucky feeling persisted, I tried a bit of roulette. Just a taster. And just like that, I was a grand ahead. I was behind on rent, so I thought, you know, why not try a bit more? I moved on to cards. I was always good with those. Kind of. My dad taught me how to play poker. That’s when a grand turned into ten, and I was locked in. Next drink, sweating bullets, betting big, and fucking winning. It was like a long line of coke straight to my dreams. I thought, why couldn’t it be me? People win the lottery. I could win big too. Walk away as a new man with a new life ahead of me.
“I kept playing, the stakes were getting higher, and in my head, I was already moving to a nicer house, getting a new car, all that shit. When I lost, I lost big. It was like my whole body was in shock and couldn’t even understand it. You’d think that okay, you had your big night, you blew it, time to go home and forget it. But… I don’t know, maybe I seemed rich because I bet so big before, but the casino offered me a loan for a few more rounds. And so I made the number one mistake you can. I tried to win back what I lost with borrowed money.
“By the end of the night, I was a million in the red. Just a complete fucking disaster.”
It was.
It was also a trap.
But why? In whose interest was it to drag this random guy into debt, when he couldn’t possibly ever repay such a large sum? There was no point in doing that, unless one wanted him hurt by the lender.
Which is how Dalton ended up in the basement of the mansion, and if it wasn’t for the messages on his Grindr account he’d be… nothing.
He wouldn’t exist anymore.
“Do you have enemies?” I ask, sliding off my slippers to rest my feet on the ledge stabilizing the table.
He frowns as he’s thinking, so transparent it’s baffling that he says he’s good at poker. I didn’t even need to prod him to tell me the whole story.
“I don’t think so. There’s the odd ex who might be unhappy things didn’t work out, or some guy I beat up when I still did cage fighting, but there’s no one in particular I have beef with. I mean, my landlord hates my guts, but right back at him.”
He’s offering me so much information on a silver platter I struggle to connect it all into a concise picture of Dalton. I can’t help my mind being stuck on“ex”. I want every ex of his dead.
“Well, that’s definitely something to explore. Normally, no one would offer you such a big loan without checking your finances first,” I assure him, licking the sauce off my fork as Dalton wolfs down the last of his chicken. He is so voracious.
I hope that’s how badly he’ll want to consumemeonce the drug kicks in.
“In any case, you are now technically debt-free, but is gambling something you do frequently, or was that a one-off?”
He smirks and grabs a piece of bread out of the little basket between us to get all the sauce off his plate. “Why? Are you worried I’ll gamble away myhusband’sfortune?”
He winks at me, which is cute in its smugness, I have to give him that. He’s my prisoner, and yet already he’s playful. I have to admire that.
“I will be giving you an allowance in the future, and if you ever borrow money from someone else again, I will see that as cheating,” I tell him with a straight face and have some more wine.
Dalton cocks his head and mirrors my gesture, gobbling down half a glass in one go. Savage. But good for me, as alcohol will amplify the effect of the aphrodisiac.
