Page 77 of Bad Enough

“And you’re not stupid,” he assured her. “Maybe naive at times, but not stupid.”

And now we’re back to reality.

She huffed. “Yeah, because naive is so much better than stupid.”

She tried to walk away, but he gently pulled her to him, his hands moving to her shoulders. Being five-foot-five in her heels put her at a distinct disadvantage to his six-foot-seven, so he had to duck down to meet her eyes since she was refusing to look up at him.

He tilted her chin up to his gaze again, and for a brief moment, she got lost in the forest green of his irises. “In this case, I mean that you take people as they are. That can put you needlessly at risk, like now. But the truth is, you also see the world in a much more positive light. Sometimes, I wish I was like you. I know too much about the horrors of the world. Horrors you will never see, thank Christ, and that’s the way it should be. Men like me are the sacrifice so that the ordinary world can live in blissful ignorance of what evil goes on around them. I will never see the world the way that you do. It’s just not meant to be.” He framed her jaw in his huge hands, forcing her to keep looking at him. “And I prefer it that way, princess. I want you to have your romance, your ability to see the beauty of this world, and your giving heart. It’s what makes you precious to others.”

“What about you? Am I precious to you?”

He felt his heart physically ache at her question. “You have to ask?”

Shrugging, she replied, “Sometimes I don’t think you like me very much.”

“It’s not you, princess. Honestly? I like you more than I should. If I were a different man…” He let that thought hang in the air.

“You can be any man you want to be.” At his confounded look, she sighed and shook her head. “Take me home. I have writing to do.”

27

JUNE 16TH

TB

He was unsure what to do with himself. He needed to come up with a plan. His brain usually worked best when disengaged directly with the planning of a mission and engaged with something mindless. It was one of the reasons why the club was helpful to him: distraction. Maybe watching some television would help. That wouldn’t require any of his brain power, so he left the guest room and went back to the main floor.

His one true weapon against Flame was that he knew she was physically attracted to him, and seducing her would take very little work. They had unbelievable chemistry, and it was an easy interrogation tactic for him. After all, he’d used it before with female marks.

Motherfucker, she’s not a mark. She’s a victim of a sadistic fuck. Quit being a tool. No, you’re worse than a tool. You’re the whole toolbox. Probably the whole tool cabinet.

He shook his head. He had just known this favor for Kubrick was going to be messy, and sure as shit, it was. He didn’t want to hurt Flame the way he was about to. But if she wouldn’t give up whatever she was hiding, he had no choice. It was either hurt her to protect her or let her keep back information and potentially let her stalker frighten her to death or, worse yet, take her.

When he got downstairs, he looked around the living room, and did a complete three-sixty turn. He frowned.

“Okay, I can forgive the no coffee, maybe. But who the hell doesn’t have a television?” he mumbled.

Flame, that’s who. Why wasn’t he surprised? She lived in her books. He rolled his eyes. Of course she did.

That’s when his eyes caught sight of the curio cabinet tucked into the corner of the room. He crossed over to it. Behind the latticed glass, he saw books lined up along the shelves. Some were on book stands. Others were all lined up like typical books on a shelf. There were also photos, primarily of shirtless men, that were signed by who he assumed were the models in the images.

When he looked more closely at the cover of one of the books on the middle shelf, he noticed that the photo of the model on that same shelf matched the model on the book’s cover and his Flame’s name in beautiful flowing script across the cover. These were her books that she wrote, and Steel’s suggestion rang in his head.

Well, it’s not like there’s anything else to do. You wanted something mindless. There can’t be anything more mindless than reading this.

Grabbing the book facing him, he read the title. Nature of the Beast. Underneath the title, in script, it said A Historical Paranormal Romance. The cover sported a man in a white dress shirt from a time gone by, the material shredded. There were claw marks scratched into his pectoral muscle, his head was thrown back, eyes closed, and he looked as if he were close to reaching a sexual peak. A woman’s arms were around him, her nails at the base of the claw marks as if she had put them there. Her eyes, forehead, and part of her hair were all that he could see of her, peering intensely from behind the man’s shoulder, looking straight out at the reader. The eyes were a vibrant, glowing green, and her hair was long, looking like it was blowing wild in the wind, and a deep auburn.

Well, that’s kind of hot.

He settled on her couch in the living room, sprawling his large frame on it after toeing off his boots and putting a throw pillow between his head and the arm of the sofa. Still gazing at the cover, something struck him as odd about the female model, but he couldn’t figure it out. Maybe he’d seen her in an ad or on a billboard before? He sighed and gave up worrying about it. Resigning himself to boredom, he opened the book and began to read.

Within ten minutes, his mouth had dried up, he could feel his heart beating faster, and there was a fine sweat breaking out of his pores. None of that was even close to the arousal he was feeling. He attempted to adjust his dick, which was painfully hard.

His eyes devoured the pages.

The sex was right out of the gate.

Leather cuffs. Chains. Sensory deprivation. Commands. Just the barest traces of consensual nonconsent.

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