Page 21 of Willing Prey

“A bath sounds great.”

I’ve broken the spell. Shane gives the slightest shake of his head, then a nod. “I started coffee if you want some after.”

“Thank you,” I say, but he’s out the door before I finish. I beeline for the bath. It’ll be a miracle if I don’t fall asleep in the tub.

Chapter Fourteen

Shane

I may have gotten carried away.

Correction, I did get carried away. It was the perfect storm, literally. Rain beating both our bodies. Lightning charging the air. Her blood in my mouth. Thunder crashing. The memory is visceral. Her slick skin beneath me, claiming heat around me, and that scream. Rage, rebellion, and pleasure all combined into a sound that stole my breath. My stomach tightens when I remember it.

It was incredible, but it was also intense. Extreme in a way that makes me feel like I fucked something up, pushed too far. I don’t know BDSM best practices; hell, I don’t even know if BDSM is technically what we’re doing. I’d known some people liked rougher stuff sexually, but I never thought I might until I heard Keith talking about hunting Claire at that damn party. Now I know I do like it. Love it, actually. Or at least I do with Claire.

I should have known I was jumping in the deep end. The first woman I hired asked me about aftercare when I was putting together the contract, and that was the first time I’d heard of it.

For twenty minutes, I sit at the kitchen table worrying. It’s irritating because I’m not a worrier. I wait, hoping Claire comes down for coffee. Trying not to picture the look on her face, the way her mouth was smiling, but every other part of her looked upset. A horrible thought leaps into my mind, shoving out all others.

Claire could leave.

She could come down the stairs with her suitcase packed. There’s less than a week left on the contract, though if I’m honest with myself, I’ve been intentionally ignoring the looming end of this agreement. Coffee sours in my stomach. What if she decides that she’s made enough money that she’d rather go, even if it means leaving a few grand on the table?

The fear makes me confront what I’ve been running from. I want Claire to stay. Not for just another thirty days, though I’d take it if that’s all she’ll give me. I want her to stay for real, as a partner, to try out whatever dating looks like when you start a relationship this way.

I wish I could shake my past self. Why didn’t I ask her out like a normal person? As much as she seems to enjoy my company, for all I know, she’s being polite because this is a job to her. She could be repulsed at the thought of an actual relationship with me.

I’ve never been great at seeing from other peoples’ points of view, but tonight I feel terrifyingly aware that through Claire’s eyes, I’m probably a sexual deviant who pays women to fuck in the woods and doesn’t do aftercare. Does she think I’ve done this dozens of times? That I’ll be moving someone else in to take her spot when her thirty days are up?

Fuck fuck fuck.

I have difficult conversations for a living, but the thought of asking Claire to stay as a romantic partner makes my mouth go dry. There are too many variables. Will she think I’m attempting to keep having sex with her for free? Or be insulted that I have the audacity to ask her out after paying her for sex? Maybe she hates me because of whatever happened tonight.

I’m moving before I can stop myself. Out of the kitchen, up the stairs, and down the hall, I’m knocking on Claire’s door before I even stop to think about what I’ll say.

Please don’t be packing.

Please don’t be leaving.

I swing the door open the second I hear her quiet “come in.” Stepping through the door, I stop hard. The room’s dark, but moonlight through the open window illuminates the bed enough to see a Claire-sized lump under the quilt. She props up on an elbow, her silhouette clear but her face shadowed.

“Shane?” she sounds dazed, her voice groggy with sleep. I woke her. “Everything okay?”

Shit.

“Yeah, sorry, I didn’t think you’d be asleep.” I blurt out the question before I can second-guess it, “Did I hurt you?”

Are you going to leave?

Now she really sounds confused. “You bit me pretty hard, but it’s fine. Biting is an approved action in the contract.”

The contract. A handful of papers that might be the biggest mistake I’ve ever made in my life. I want to shred them into a thousand pieces, light them on fire, and piss on the ashes.

All right, a little unhinged.

But unhinged is how I feel right now. I try to control my voice when I ask, “But are you okay? You didn’t seem like yourself …” I’m butchering this. I wasn’t this tongue-tied at my first trial. Before I can try to make more sense, Claire laughs.

“Yeah, I’m good. Honestly, you’re fine. I was just overwhelmed after. It was intense.”

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