Page 42 of Eden's Joker

The hallway leading to Eden’s room is dark and I suddenly feel the weight of all the earth flanking this basement and that of the three floors of concrete above my head pressing against me.

I wish the floor would at least creak as I walk to her door. Anything but this silence where my breathing is the loudest sound I hear. That and the rattling of the heavy chain in the cargo pocket of my pants. The chain that will soon be around Eden’s neck.

I unlock the door and find her just as sound asleep as she looked on the camera. The room smells like gin and mixed with that sweet, faint cherry smell that’s all her. Her silver dress seems to glow under the faint blue overhead light. She looks amazing in it. Dangerous, like a warrior queen.

Too bad the white virgin dress I got for her to wear out of here is more her speed. Sacrificial lamb and all that.

I need to stop thinking and start doing. It’s what my guys—especially Scorpio—have been telling me to do all day.

So I keep my mind blank and stride to the bed. She stirs as I sit down beside her and opens her eyes as I gently shake her awake, calling her name.

As soon as her eyes focus on me, she jerks up, running a warm hand across my cheek. To say her touch doesn’t do things to me—good things that I wantto last—would be a lie. But I never want good things to last. Because they never do anyway.

“Tyler, is it really you?” she whispers. “I was abducted… where am I?”

She looks around the room, her hand still cupping my cheek.

“You’re with me,” I say and take hold of her hand. “That’s all that matters.”

The gratitude in her eyes is strong enough to melt something in my chest. Too bad there’s only rock underneath.

“Come on, get up now,” I say and rise, holding her hand and pulling her along.

“Are we going home?”

“Sure, yeah,” I say. “But first, you should take a shower and change.”

I pick up the white dress off the nightstand. “Wear this.”

She looks down at her silver dress. “You don’t like this one? I wore it for our date… “

Her eyes suddenly harden, becoming two very hot beams of green laser light. “The date you stood me up for.”

Despite remembering this, she’s not in her right mind yet. She’s still drunk or messed up from the chloroform or a mixture of the two.

“I’m here now,” I say and start leading the way to the bathroom. “And I love the dress. But right now, I’d love to watch you take itoff.”

She blushes as sweetly as ever, but that hard look is still in her eyes. I hope I’m not wrong about her being too out of it to figure out what’s going on. I don’t want her to fight me on this.

She lets go of my hand and grabs the white dress from me. “You missed your chance for that. Now you’ll have to earn it back.”

And with that she walks into the bathroom and slams the door in my face.

Before I even fully understand what’s happening I hear the shower hissing on the other side of the door. And in this strange mood I’m in, I just stay there, where she left me, until the shower stops.

She flings the door open, her hair neatly combed and dripping, the dress clinging to her wet skin. Her nipples are hard and standing at attention, the red showing faintly through the fabric of her dress. Ripe like two summer cherries that I want to taste more than anything else. But I’m good at waiting for what I desire. I had to do that all my life. A look that’s more than half fear making her eyes very wide.

“What’s happening here, Tyler?” she asks, steam from her shower enveloping and making her appear like a creature from a dream. “Is this your doing?”

That sounds like something that they’d say in that long black and white movie we went to see the other day. I guess the cat’s out of the bag now.

I grin and pull the chain from my pocket. It toogleams in the bluish overhead light, just like her dress did.

I hold it up between us.

“I want you to wear this now.”

Fear intensifies in her eyes. But something harder and more unyielding than any chain shines beneath it. Her eyes are red, but that’s from all the drinking she did last night, not tears. She doesn’t scream or try to run. She just stands up taller.

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