Wouldn’t be here staring at the button, psyching myself up to press it, not only out of morbid curiosity but also because I had to know exactly what we were dealing with.
Did I mention that Slowhand liked to hang out on porn sites?
Knowledge is power, Alexa.
I clicked the button and a Bible verse appeared. Today, it was James 1, verses 14-15.
But each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
If I’d known the words were an omen of what was to come, maybe I’d have told Jez to go fuck herself or Cole or anyone but me. But I didn’t, so I just closed my eyes and scrolled, wincing when my ears told me the situation was every bit as bad as I’d feared. The rustle of clothing played through my headphones. The jingle of a belt buckle. The rhythmic slide of hand against flesh.
Grimacing, I cracked open an eyelid, and at least he was alone. Nolan was sitting at this damn desk, slouched in this damn chair, a smile playing across his lips as he jacked off. The split screen showed what he’d been watching at the time—a pretty blonde with her hand in lacy panties.
Oh, hell.
I watched in horrified fascination as the video went on and on and on.
And on.
And on.
The blonde raised her hand to her lips and sucked her fingers, and of course, Jez decided that was an excellent moment to video-call me.
“How’s it going?” she asked. “We just arrived back home.”
“I hate you with the fire of a thousand suns.”
“Not good, huh?”
“It’s Slowhand. Fucking Slowhand.”
Usually, Jez tuned out when I talked shop, but her cackle of laughter told me at least some of what I said had penetrated her dumb brain.
“Are we talking a literal slow hand? Is there a video?”
“Nine minutes long and counting.”
“The line cut out for a second there. Did you say nine minutes or nine inches?”
“Minutes. I’m not sitting here with a fucking ruler.”
“Good going, Nolan. And if you need a ruler, there’s one in that tub of junk on the desk.”
“You come back and measure,” I snapped, then switched to my phone’s rear-facing camera. “Since you’re enjoying this so much, you can watch and tell me when it’s over. He keeps stopping and kinda sighing and then starting again. What’s all that about?”
“Edging? That’s hot.” Jez squinted at the screen. “Huh. The girl looks a bit like you.”
“Oh, please. She isn’t even real.” Dark Descent, the mastermind behind Slowhand—communiques referred to DD as “they,” and it wasn’t clear whether that meant a group or an individual—baited their traps with a mix of real videos they snagged off their victims’ webcams and computer-generated fakes. This wasn’t even a good one. “She has six fucking fingers.”
“I wasn’t studying her anatomy.”
“Don’t you have a boyfriend?” I reminded her. “We literally had a whole showdown about him last month.”
“Yes, but Cole knows I have to do unpalatable things for work.”
“Unpalatable? You just said it was hot.”
“So is a habanero, but that doesn’t mean I want to eat one whole. You like spicy food, don’t you?”
