I look at the clock on the wall. “It’s already eleven though.”
He quirks a humorless smile. “I know, but I have a business meeting at...” He swallows hard. “It’s a strip club but it's business only, baby.”
He goes on to tell me about Barton’s Babe’s and all the details that go into the club. But he mentions the small detail that nags at the back of his mind. How he knows, occasionally, they slip a girl or two in there against their will to groom them and auction them off, whether Barton, the owner, knows it or not.
“One day, I’ll burn as many of those places down as I can,” he says, staring into the fire.
I trust him, and understand he has to do a lot of things he doesn’t like for the sake of business. I don’t blame him for wanting to take down seedy places that strip women of their choice and dignity.
“Don’t wait up for me. I still have a lot of things to do tonight.” He hooks a curl behind my ear. “Sleep, and I’ll come join you when I get back.”
“Okay.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
SUNNY
I rustle in my sleep,trying to ignore the too familiar feeling of someone watching me. It’s only heightened since the phone call, revamping the paranoia I thought I had kept somewhat at bay.
I reach a hand out, realizing Tyler still isn’t in his place in bed. I’ve had to have been asleep for a few hours. Where is he?
Taking a deep breath in, I roll over and grab my phone to see it’s 3:34 am. I sit up, trying to clear my blurry eyes and send him a text when I’m met with a shadow of darkness in the corner of the room.
Gasping, my phone flings from my hands as panic blooms my chest but settles just as quickly when I’m met with emerald eyes. He sits in the corner with his face painted like a skull, just like Halloween, twirling his knife in his hand effortlessly.
He doesn’t even react to me.
“Tyler,” I whisper, shuffling out of the bed.
He cocks his head to the side but doesn’t say anything to me as he continues twirling his knife, eyes gleaming brighter when surrounded by the hollowness of the black paint.
He mentioned the masquerade theme for Barton’s Babes, sothe face paint makes sense. To keep the identity of all the higher ups masked in a place like that one. A secret no one else outside their circle can know or use against them.
“Little fire, you’re the bravest person I know because you face me daily. I’m probably the scariest thing you will come across in your life, Sunny. I’m fucking scarier than Ryan, yet you don’t run from me. I’m a far worse person.” He gets up from the chair and takes slow deliberate steps towards me. With his face inches from mine he asks, “Why?”
He grabs my face in his hand and uses his other forearm to pin me against the wall. He pins his hips against mine, the hard length of him pressing into my stomach.
“Because you don’t have a choice.” It’s breathless.
“Everyone has a choice.”
The glint of his knife catches my attention, ripping my gaze from his hollowed eyes. He runs the cold, sharp tip along my jawline. But it doesn’t scare me, if anything it has me squeezing my thighs together in a desperate attempt to stop whatever it is this does to me.
And maybe he’s right, maybe I have already met my most dangerous predator, yet I can’t get enough of him.
He drags the cool metal along my thigh, then uses it to slap my skin. “Open,” he growls.
I do as he says and part my legs. Maybe we all are fucked up in our own ways, but this feels freeing in a sense for me, because I know that no matter what he does, I will always have the control with one simple word.
Something I never had with Ryan.
He glides the tip of the knife along the sensitive skin inside my thighs. The tip of the knife lifts his t-shirt I’m wearing, tracing along my bare stomach. His eyes flick to where his knife and my skin meet then to my now hardened nipples that peak through the shirt. He drops the knife and his t-shirt drops with it, covering up the skin that now has goosebumps all over.
“Answer me. Why aren’t you scared of me?”
I know what he’s trying to do. He’s trying to test me. He’s trying to see how far I’m willing to let him take it before my limits are reached. The thing is, I trust him completely. I know he will stop the minute I feel uncomfortable. He wants to make sure I’m well familiar with all these dark and depraved parts of him, that way I can love him with no surprises. That way I can love him fully.
But little does he know, I already do.
