Page 70 of Mastered By Desire

I went to bed lonely. I’m waking up lonely.

I check my phone to see if Gage texted last night. He doesn’t owe me anything—he went above and beyond by getting me to Dmitri’s house.

But that moment we had…it was special. Maybe not to him, but it was special to me.

I contrast that with the moment Dmitri and I had. Also special. Then he had to go and ruin it.

There’s no text from Gage.

The missed call notification from Dmitri glares up at me, though.

Rolling over in my hotel sheets, I groan into the pillow. Sexual involvement with two guys wasn’t on my bingo card. Neither is romantic entanglement. Dmitri told me a relationship isn’t possible. Gage has given no indication that our fun together is anything more than that—fun. So I’m trying not to have feelings, but how can I not? I’ve had feelings for Dmitri for years.

And Gage is magnetic. He hasn’t given much away about himself, but I want to know more.

It’s eight a.m., and Detective Wentz said he’ll come by at nine. I open the lonely gray curtains and drag myself to the shower to start my day. The warm water is therapeutic, but I miss Dmitri’s shower gel. It had a faint lemongrass scent. The hotel brand smells like antiseptic.

Everywhere I turn is another reminder that I’m not living with Dmitri.

My stay with him wasn’t even a full two weeks, but I got attached to that couch.

Okay, fine. I got attached to him. And I was attached before I started crashing at his place.

As I rinse the shampoo out of my hair, I resolve to have a better attitude. I need to be fully present when Detective Wentz gets here. I didn’t like how he asked me if I own a gun at our first meeting, like he thought I could be responsible for Mick’s murder.

Should I get a lawyer? Can I even afford one? I don’t even know how much they cost.

An alarm starts blaring, loud over the sound of my shower.

“Shit, fuck!” I stumble out, grabbing a towel before dropping it. No time to dry off. I yank on my underwear, jeans. The fabric catches on my wet skin. I skip the bra and pull on my hoodie.

The alarm is deafening. I pull on my hood in a futile attempt to cover my ears. No time to gather my stuff. I don’t have time to search for my phone; I must have dropped it in the blankets somewhere. But I grab my hotel key card and jam it into my back pocket. My phone and everything else is more or less replaceable.

Hopefully this is a false alarm.

The elevators aren’t working. A few people hurry past me toward the stairwell, footsteps thundering, echoing off the walls. I follow them, but I get stuck behind three slow-moving guys. I have to follow them all the way to the stairwell. They don’t speed up in the slightest. In fact, it feels like they’re slowing down. Surely they realize there’s an emergency, with the strident alarm blaring in our ears?

“Excuse me, can you hurry up a little, or let me pass?” I ask.

No response. Rude. But we’re on the third floor. We only have a couple more flights of stairs to go. I hop from foot to foot. Aren’t they worried about the alarm? If there’s a fire, we don’t need to be running or anything, but they’re moving at an amble.

Nobody is behind us, so it’s just me that has to wait. I bounce in place, looking for an angle. Maybe I could squeeze past. When I try, though, they use their giant frames to block the stairwell.

“Let me pass, please,” I say, more firmly. Fuck being polite; this is an emergency. “I need to get by. Move.”

They don’t respond. Can’t they hear me? Do they not speak English? They don’t even turn around until we get to the second floor.

The guy closest to the stairwell door opens it, looks down the hall, and says, “All clear.”

So theydospeak English.

The other two move so fast, I don’t realize what’s happening until I’m in their arms and being lifted.

I start to shriek. “What?—”

The biggest guy reaches out, flat hand flying toward my face. “Shut up.”

The impact is sudden and strong. My eyes water from the pain and my cheek throbs.

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