Page 28 of Blue Velvet

I sigh, relishing the feeling, because I know it won’t last. Whatever cloud I’m floating on right now, it will slowly but surely approach ground until my feet are met with the floor and I’m right back where I was before, just a girl, selling herself for pleasure, her own and her client’s.

Or her kidnapper’s.

I open my eyes and tilt my head back, searching for his gaze.

“You lied to me, didn’t you?” I ask in a low voice, scared to hear his reply.

His expression darkens and he scrunches his eyebrows.

“When?”

“When you said you weren’t my client.”

There’s a flicker in his black eyes, as if he just remembered something. For a moment, it makes me believe that my assumption was right and he did lie to me. But then he objects.

“I didn’t lie to you, toy,” he says, and his grip around me tightens, as if he’s afraid that I might jump up and try to run away from him. “I didn’t pay for any of this, I didn’t order you, and I’m not the one you dolled yourself up for.”

My poor heart speeds up again, dealing with another scare after it had just calmed down. He’s sticking to his story. Is it a story, though?

“You don’t want to believe me.”

It’s a statement, not a question. He fixates on me with his black eyes, while his hand lazily travels along my upper arm, the tips of his fingers barely meeting my skin and causing the little hairs on my arm to stand on end.

“I don’t believe you,” I correct him. “I think you’re just saying this because I’m not acting the way you want me to.”

I shouldn’t be saying any of this, but he’s the one who started it. He’s the one who started talking about a contract that we had both agreed to never mention. I signed the most extensive and exclusive contract I’ve ever signed with a client before, and I distinctly remember the passage about discretion and silence. The client signed the contract before I did, and I remember the illegible strokes above his printed initials. His first name starts with a J, and that is all I know about him.

“Well, you’re right about one thing,” he says. “You didn’t behave the way I expected you to.”

“See?”

“But that doesn’t mean I’m not telling the truth,” he continues, narrowing his eyes as he looks down at me. “I’m probably a fool for ever telling you. I should have taken advantage of the fact that you were unaware and so fucking willing.”

I jerk in surprise when he pinches one of my sore nipples.

“So fucking willing and so fucking delicious,” he goes on. “I shouldn’t have told you. I should have let you believe that you’re safe, that all of this is just a game, just an elaborate form of role play.”

He pulls me closer then, and my breathing hikes up when he moves his hand between my legs, calmly placing his palm on top of my sore clit. The motion is so intimate that it feels as if I’m being undressed all over again, despite the fact that I’m already as naked as a person can be.

“But you know what?” he breathes, leaning in close to my ear, so that I can feel the warmth of his breath sizzling across the back of my neck. “That’s not what I signed up for.”

I hold my breath, unsure what to think, how to feel.

“I took you because I wanted something real,” he piles on. “I took you because I’m tired of paying someone to act as if they’re scared of me. I’m so fucking tired of it. I wanted something real, someone who’s genuinely afraid for her life, because she has every reason to be.”

“No,” I object, shaking my head. “You’re lying.”

“Am I?” he asks, and I shiver when he places a kiss behind my ear.

He squeezes the sensitive flesh around my core, reviving the subtle throbs that continue to hold me in a state of exhausted vertigo.

“Well, I’m sure I can think of ways to prove it to you, my toy.”

His words are laced with a dark undertone, and the threat it conveys feels so real that I’m inclined to believe him.

“Thirty-nine days,” I whisper. “You have thirty-nine days with me.”

I’m saying those words like a mantra, as if repeating the terms of my contract will make this real, prove that he’s lying, and prove that I haven’t fallen into the hands of a real kidnapper. He can’t be lying. He’s too good of a person to be a criminal.

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