Page 37 of Guarded

“I’m glad. Can I get you anything?”

“No, I’m good.”

“Okay, I’m just going to set up the playpen and put Hudson in it so he’ll stay out of trouble.”

As soon as Briar finished feeding and burping Rosie, she handed the baby to Trinity. It was bittersweet to watch her friend hold Rosie. Trinity’s whole face lit up, her enjoyment obvious. Briar hoped she would consider adopting at some point.

The rest of the guests arrived in two groups. Briar forced herself into social mode and introduced everyone to Karen and Pat, then parked her butt on the “throne” they’d made for her. It actually helped to have her friends around. She’d been dreading this, but now that they were all here she felt so much less overwhelmed and isolated.

For some reason the days seemed to be better for her than the nights. By mid-morning she had usually managed to sneak in another hour or two of sleep in between feedings. After showering, she felt almost like herself.

The nights were a different story. She had already come to dread them. Each evening around dinnertime, some sort of switch inside her flipped. A kind of panic crept in at the thought of facing another long, sleepless night looking after Rosie alone.

She didn’t get it. With her training and background, considering the kind of punishment and deprivation she’d been trained to withstand, it made no sense that she would feel that way. And she definitely didn’t want Matt to know she was struggling.

“All right, now that we’re all stuffing our faces,” Zoe said, pushing to her feet as Libby and Hudson played with toys in the playpen nearby, “it’s time to start the games.”

Briar groaned. Several of the women laughed, but Zoe shot her a narrow-eyed look. “Yeah, I know you think that’s right up there with torture. But you haven’t played my games.” She waggled her dark eyebrows.

“So what’ve you got for us?” Carm demanded.

“A little something I like to call porn versus labor.”

Huh? Briar frowned in confusion as Zoe pulled out a folder and passed it to Carm. “Take one and a pen, and pass it around.”

Marisol took them and gave it to Briar. Briar pulled out a sheet of paper with a dozen different photos on it, each of them a close up of a woman’s face either in the throes of…well, it could be orgasm or agony, it was impossible to tell which.

“You have to guess whether each picture is from porn or labor,” Zoe explained. “Person with the most right answers wins.”

Man, romantic horror authors had sick minds. Briar eyed her sheet. “Tell me you didn’t find these while doing research for your new book.”

“I didn’t,” Zoe said. “But that would have beenamazing.”

“What do we win?” Taya asked, already writing down her answers. Keener.

“Prizes.”

“Yeah, but what kind of prizes.”

“Awesomeones,” Zoe said confidently.

Briar studied the images. Jeez, she had no freaking clue what was what. There was only one that seemed to obviously be labor. A few minutes later they traded papers and marked them while Zoe gave the answers.

“Okay, how many did you guys get?” Zoe asked.

“I got eight,” Karen said.

“Ten,” Carmella answered.

Zoe looked at Briar. “How many did you get?”

“Two.”

Those golden eyes widened. “Two? What? Gimme that.” She snatched Briar’s paper to read it. “How could you only get two?”

She glowered. “They all look like they’re enjoying themselves to me.”

Zoe laughed, a low, throaty sound. “Really? What the hell has Matt been doing to you all this time?”

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