Page 23 of Caged Bliss

Getting ogled by the guests is one thing. I’m used to the stares and the glances. But what’s worse is I have so much time to think while I’m in here, and I can’t help but linger on everything that’s happening.

Like freaking Angelo. I keep running through that meeting in room 33 over and over. The absurdity of all those fucking machines turned up to the high setting. His hands on my body, his mouth at my neck. The way he used intimacy to mask what we were really doing.

Planning a coup. Making a deal.

Except it wasn’t all fake. There was the kiss, there was his lap, there was the orgasm breaking me to pieces. I still feel shattered. I’ve never come like that before, and definitely not from just dry-humping a guy in bed.

It wrecked me. That orgasm totally broke my brain. And now I feel like I’m dick crazy, because I keep on thinking about Angelo and wondering when I’ll get to see him again.

It’s pathetic. It’s pretty sad. I need to focus on my priorities and stop being such a moron with a crush.

Because no matter what else happens, this is about saving my sister’s life.

I see him then. He shows up ten minutes into my shift. He’s right at the bar, not even trying to hide, drinking a beer and watching me. When I meet his gaze, he only lifts his eyebrows, but he doesn’t turn away.

It kills me, that stare. I want him to come over here and talk to me, but he doesn’t. I’m stuck in this damn cage dancing away in a provocative outfit while he gets to lounge at the bar in his tight suit and his perfect stupid face and his amazing haircut. It’s so frustrating I could scream.

But it’s also obscene. It’s hot in a way I can’t describe. After a little while, I start to feel like I’m dancing only for him. The crowd fades away, the other faces staring at me dim and drop from view, and there’s only Angelo’s attention like a spotlight. Every time I sway my hips, I think about grinding into him. Every time I shake my tits, I think about his mouth on my neck.

It’s a show, a performance, for a man I barely know. A man that’s using me.

But I’m using him too.

This isn’t me. I keep telling myself that. I got good grades in school. I worked hard and got a scholarship for college. I didn’t go—because even with the financial help, I couldn’t afford it—but I was always the kind of girl who excelled.

Serena was the rebel. Beautiful and magnetic and smart, but a troublemaker. While I was getting straight As in my AP courses, she was getting detention after school for making out with her boyfriend in the halls. We were polar opposites growing up. Where I’d hide and run away from our dickhead uncle, she’d scream at him and stand up for both of us, sometimes to the point of throwing stuff to make him go away. I’m the older sister, but I looked up to her in so many ways.

We loved each other. I think we still do, or at least I still love her, and I’m not sure if she’s capable of loving anyone or anything except for opiates right now.

This isn’t supposed to be me. I should be in school getting a degree, not sweating in a cage while wearing glorified underwear. I could’ve moved from Chicago, started my life over. Except if I had done that, Serena would be gone forever, because there’s nobody else to pull her back to the real world.

Angelo gets up and comes over. I try to calm my hammering heart but it’s impossible. I can’t pretend like I don’t want him.

“You’re here,” I say, but he doesn’t respond.

All he does is reach out, slip a hand through the bars of the cage, and tuck something into my bra.

“What the hell?” I ask, pulling away.

He puts a finger to his lips and smiles. Then he turns and walks away, bypassing the bar, and disappears down the side hall.

I stare after him, not sure what to make of that, before pulling the paper out.

It’s a hundred-dollar bill.

The hell?

I unfold it—and find a phone number.

Plus some writing: Remember, he’s listening.

I bite my lip and shove it back into my bra. I guess this is how we’re going to communicate while in the club from here on out, and I’m not sure how to feel about that. The spy shit is exciting, and he manages to make it absurdly sexual on top of all the danger, but a part of me wishes I could just have a conversation with the guy.

I still don’t feel like I know him.

Even if I did come in his lap.

“Hey, you.” Serena’s voice grabs my attention. She leans against the other side of the cage, her eyes looking marginally clear. “Tommy wants to talk.”

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