I hate it. Ineverfeel like this.
It’s the whole reason I never did drugs in high school or college. Not only do I despise feeling out of control, but I also really just can’t stand beinghungover. Groggy and dehydrated, with an underlying awareness that you did something embarrassing the night before, but you just can’t remember what it was.
Actually, total memory loss would be preferred over what I’m experiencing, which is this sort of broken slide projector type flickering of distorted images and sounds.
Panting, growling, groaning… Echoes of two men fooling around in the dark.
Click—a dark room—click—a rickety cot—click—me on my knees, hunched over—click click click—gripping and spreading open full cheeks, feasting sloppily on a tight little hole…
Jesus.
I’ve been curled up in my bed just pretending… Wishing, hoping, fuckingprayingit didn’t happen. That itwasn’t real…
Because despite how hazy it is rippling through my memories, I’m certain I know who was in that bed with me lastnight, and I can wish until I’m blue in the face… But Iknowit wasn’t really Michelangelo.
He’s not here. He wouldn’t be in a dank, crumbling cell in solitary confinement, writhing around out of pure need.
But someone else would be…Was.
The same person who’s consistently been in solitary more times than any of my other friends.
And I just can’t deal with that reality.
There’s nothing I’d love more than to stay in bed all day when I’m spiraling like this, but I can’t. Because this isprison—and an awful one, at that. Its purpose is to make you miserable, which means getting you up and out of bed at random times, when all you want to do is lie down and rot away the knowledge that you were drugged and made to do extremely naughty things with your friend last night.
“Up and at ‘em, Rachel McAdams!” Velle barks from out in the row, accompanied by the sounds of inmates being filed out of their cells. “Heads up, the storm’s been messing with the power, so the food and water are almost guaranteed to be cold. Happy Doesn’tmattersday.”
Groaning for no one’s benefit, not even my own, I drag myself out of bed, forcing enough sluggish movement from my body to grab some products. Velle pulls open my bars, leaning up against them with his arms folded over his broad chest. And I’m reminded of last night, in the hallway… When he jerked Rook off into Dash’s mouth.
If only that was where the night ended.
I peek at him, brow raised. Apparently, that’s enough of an inkling to what I’m thinking for him to respond.
“No cuffs, princess.” He grins. It’s a wicked one.The kind of smile a cobra would give a mouse right before it swallows the poor creature whole.“You’re welcome.”
I can’t help squinting. He seemed pretty pissed off last night at the prospect of Rook hooking up with prisoners and supplying them goods, as if it’s not somethinghedoes himself. But then, hypocrisy is probably one of hisleastunsettling personality traits. Still, he was grilling Rook pretty hard about him potentially being the one getting Dash his stuff… while simultaneously giving him a dry-hump reach-around into the mouth of the very inmate he was all bent out of shape over.
So who the hell knows what his deal is.
“You’re in a good mood this morning,” I grumble. “I take it the power outage didn’t affect the mansion.”
His head slants. “Candlelight works just fine, inmate. You feel me?”
My lashes sort of flutter at him while memories assault my mind.
Cell in solitary… flickering candlelight…
Tonguing until my jaw went numb.
Shit. What the fuck…
Where did those candles even come from??
Did The Ivory put them there in anticipation of someone getting freaky? Did he plan for it to be me, or would he have settled for anyone?
And most importantly… Why??
Dozens of questions are littering my mind, but I’m fighting them all off. Kicking, punching.Karate chopping them shits.
