Page 5 of SKIN

“Go on. What’s your proposal? I’m just dying to hear it, pet.”

I took a deep breath, reminding myself to treat this like any other negotiation. A regular day at the office. I’d seen my boss do it a million times. I could do it too.

It came down to simple math. This guy wanted something and so did I. It didn’t matter how much those two wants conflicted with each other. We just had to meet in the middle or as close to it as we could get without me ending up in a body bag.

I glanced down at my chest before thinking better of it. I wasn’t above showing a little cleavage to brokerage terms. That was something else my boss had taught me. But we were beyond that at this point. I was barely dressed and I had no doubt this guy would use me like an old tube sock without breaking a sweat.

I shivered at the thought. I had to hope there was at least one line he wouldn’t cross—because not all kidnappers were rapist too. A realization that should have been comforting… and wasn’t.

“You claim that you know me…” I began.

“Oh, I more than know you.” His eyes were roaming up and down my body. “But I never claimed anything. I told you that you took something from me.”

I could feel it whenever his glare seemed to flick across my skin as surely as if he reached out and touched me. I’d never met anyone who had this effect on me, especially when I didn’t even know what he looked like. It was a sickening sensation, the curiosity warring with the terror. Like being dropped in a maze at midnight on Halloween, only this time all the monsters were real—at least the one in front of me certainly was.

“Right…” I crossed my arms, trying to keep the chill from rousing my nipples. “So you’ve said. Look, we both know you have the upper hand here. But humor me. I’m sure a lot of planning has gone into all of… this.” I gestured to the room. The creepy-ass medical devices and the rusty hospital bed. And tried not to appear disgusted.

“More than you know.” He seemed to grin. He was proud of himself. Cocky. Too sure of his failsafe. And it would be his weakness. He’d already determined how this would go. Which meant even the slightest deviation could tip things in my favor. “You’re stalling now, pet. Get on with it before I lose my patience.”

“Give me five days. Five days to figure out how you know me, who you are. Thirty minutes a day where I can ask you anything and you’ll answer honestly.”

He appeared to choke on his laughter, his sputtering ending with a deep vibration in his throat. “And why the fuck would I do that?”

“Because, if there is anything I’ve learned about you in the past few minutes, it’s that you are the sort of man who likes to play with his food before he eats it…”

6

HIM

Islammed the door and engaged the industrial-size lock before punching the code into the keypad. Could never be too careful. Emily had gotten smarter over the years. But I was prepared for her games. I expected her to have something up her sleeve. What I hadn’t seen coming was how easy it would be to agree to her bullshit terms. She didn’t know what she was asking of me.

I had no issue with the truth. I was the most honest man I knew. She was the pretty little liar. The thief between the two of us. And I was ten steps ahead of her before she’d even placed her pieces on the board.

Five days? Five days was fucking child’s play. A joke. For me anyway. For her? It would be the worst one-hundred and twenty or so hours of her goddamn life.

“Morning, pet,” I sang a little too loudly as I shoved the metal door closed behind me, the gears clicking into place and ensuring only one of us was capable of getting out of the room again. “Trust you slept well?” I grinned as I eyed her from a distance.

She was curled up on the cold floor, behind the hospital bed, using its frame to shield herself from my view. She probably thought she was being watched. She was. The entire 20x20 space was wired with hidden cameras, which were monitored 24/7 from a surveillance room located just down the hall. She was lucky it was also climate-controlled, or she could have frozen to death overnight.

That would have been a shame, seeing as we’d only just begun to reacquaint ourselves. And my cock, the pathetic bastard that he was, had yet to have his fill.

I’d foregone the mask today. I didn’t see the point. It’d been more for her benefit than mine. So that my… distinct attributes didn’t immediately send her into a panic when she woke from her drug-induced coma for the first time. I was used to the figure I saw staring back at me in the mirror. Others? Not so much.

When she didn’t seem in a hurry to move her ass up off the floor, I placed the tray I was carrying on the desk and crossed the room. “Come on, Emily.” I kicked at her arm with the tip of my boot. “Let’s not add laziness to the list of all your other sins.”

Silence.

“I can see the slight rise and fall of your chest, the fluttering of your eyelashes, even as you try to hold your breath.” My eyes dropped to the face of my watch. “And now you’re cutting into your thirty—correction, twenty-eight minutes.”

With that, she huffed. Reached out an arm and pulled herself to her feet.

“Really? Playing dead?” I shook my head as I walked back over to the desk and plucked the apple I’d brought her from the tray. I sank my teeth into its juicy skin before adding, “I would have thought you more creative.”

“Yeah, well, I can only work with what I’m given…” She flicked her eyes from corner to corner. “Which isn’t much.”

“The accommodations not to your liking, princess?”

She narrowed her glare on me, causing my lips to tip up at one side. “The accommodations could be better but it’s the company that’s really lacking.”

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