Holy fuck!
I left him in the living room without cuffing him to the bed. Jesus Christ. What the fuck is wrong with me?
I know he can’t escape. That’s not the concern. The place is secure. The concern is him getting hold of something he could use as a weapon. I watch marks in the bathroom because of their access to the mirror. A broken piece of glass can be used as a shank. In the living room, they have access to glasses and pots and pans and God knows what else in the kitchen. My fucking phone is on the counter. It’s switched off, but still. He could have turned it on and tried to call 911, or he could have tried to harm himself.
Jesus.
In all my years in this business, I’ve never dropped the ball like this.
I jump out of the shower and grab a towel and wrap it around my waist, then I frog march him to the bed and cuff both his wrists to the bed. I do it a lot tighter than I usually do. Tighter than I need to. He doesn’t utter a word of complaint.
I take an extra-long shower, sitting on the edge of the bath breathing in steam until I’m calm. At this point, I’m a hundred percent sure he’s being irritating on purpose. I can’t let him get to me. I need a new plan. I decide I’m going to answer each and every one of his questions calmly. When he complains, I’m going to nod to acknowledge that I’ve heard him but I’m not going to engage. I’m going to let him fetch whatever the hell he wants from the kitchen himself. If he’s dumb enough to try anything, it’ll be my endless pleasure to punch his lights out. There’s a penalty for delivering him bruised or broken, but at this point it seems like it would be money well spent.
“I’m bored,” he says a little while later. I’ve uncuffed him and he’s sitting on the sofa watching TV. “Boooooored. Bored, bored, bored. So bored.”
I don’t reply. His voice sounds like nails being dragged across a chalkboard. It aggravates me.
He leans his head back against the sofa, bringing his lids down to half-mast. His Adam’s apple juts out slightly, giving his pretty profile a masculine slant. It makes something deep inside me feel like it’s clenching. The too-small tank I bought him is exposing his taut lower belly. He has a fine trail of light brown hair that runs down from his navel and disappears into his sweatpants. That aggravates me too.
“I need to take a shower,” he announces as soon as I’ve gotten comfortable on the sofa.
I do my best not to show my irritation and follow him into the bathroom. He turns his back on me and undresses. I keep my eyes down. I don’t let myself look at anything other than the tile that’s directly in front of the one I’m standing on. He keeps a steady stream of conversation going. Now and again, I lose focus and look up when I answer one of his absurd questions. Not because I want to. I don’t. I look up because it’s habit to look at people when you speak to them. Despite what he said, I do know a thing or two about social norms. Thankfully, he still has his back to me. His back is tanned. His skin is smooth. Sun kissed. His ass is milky white. Whiter than the rest of him. It’s firm and round. Like the rest of him, it’s physical perfection. The sight of it is enough to incite a deep rage in me. Water trickles down the arch of his back in soapy rivulets as he washes his hair. It tracks down his spine and nestles between his cheeks. He turns around slowly.
I force my eyes back to the floor.
“Were you looking?” His voice is lower than usual, filled with spiteful delight. “I can feel it, you know. I can feel your eyes on me.”
I don’t answer. I hold out a towel for him and tell him to get out.
The rest of the day drags by. As soon as it occurs to him that I’m not going to be his snack bitch anymore, he stops asking for snacks and drinks every few minutes. He doesn’t stop asking dumb questions and he sure as hell doesn’t stop complaining about every single thing it’s possible for a human being to complain about. In my mind I make a long list of all the ways his nannies could have parented him better. It’s abundantly clear everyone who’s ever come into contact with him was too soft on him.Abundantlyclear. What he needed was to hear the word “no” once or twice. That might have improved him. No, what he needed was a few years at a state school. A little dose of reality might have been helpful. Come to think of it, a few months in a juvenile detention center wouldn’t have gone amiss either.
That’s what he needed, the little shit.
It’s scarcely nine thirty PM but I’m starting to have my doubts about being able to guarantee his physical safety if I hear one more peep out of him.
“Bedtime,” I say. He glances over at the clock on the oven. His full, luscious lips press together almost imperceptibly and if I’m not mistaken, I see a glint of satisfaction in his eyes. I ignore it. “Arm up or down?”
He considers my offer for several seconds. “Down,” he concedes.
I switch off the light at the switch in the kitchen and stumble over to the bed in the dark, stubbing my toe in the process. I cuff our wrists together.
“We need a bedside light,” he tells me as if I’m the type of idiot who’s not able to come to that sort of conclusion on my own. I grimace but manage to remain silent. I manage to avoid telling him the reason we don’t have one isn’t an accident. It’s because a table lamp can easily be used to subdue someone.
Come to think of it, maybe we do need a table lamp.
I cuff our wrists together and we clamber into position on the bed. We shift around until we’ve both found a spot as far as possible from each other.
“The sheets are terrible,” he says mildly. “Way too rough. Horrible thread count. They’re a disgrace. You should replace them at once.”
“Shut up.”
I didn’t mean to say it. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. I wasn’t wrong. Lying there in the pitch dark, I’m positive I can feel him smiling. I’m annoyed with myself. I don’t dwell on it though. Before long, I’m aware of something way, way more annoying. My senses are flooded by the smell of his hair. Flooded. Bombarded. Even though logically I know it should smell like my shampoo because I saw him using it in the shower, it doesn’t. It smells expensive. Like gourmand almond and soft leather. Like freshly minted hundred-dollar bills. Like a hundred luxury items I didn’t have growing up.
I decide to breathe through my mouth for a while. It helps. After a few minutes, my body relaxes. My breathing grows longer and deeper. The warm embrace of sleep begins to anesthetize my limbs. My eyelids are heavy. They slide shut at last.
“Asshole,” he whispers, tapping my shoulder firmly, “I need to pee.”
Chapter 5
