Page 31 of Wanna Play A Game?
I did. Immensely. I look up. Sawyer’s blue eyes look haunted and angry for a second before he quickly puts on a mask of indifference. He scratches at his arms roughly. Sawyer has never really talked about his past, but I know it isn’t good. Shit pops up every now and again, usually during sex, and it takes him a day or two to return to normal.
Cali twitches and moans. Sawyer gets up abruptly, and I barely catch her head before it hits the floor. Sawyer stalks out of the room.
Cali groans, and her eyes flutter open. Her gaze is cloudy for a minute, and then she focuses on me.
“Fuck,” she rasps, looking around. “Why am I on the floor?”
“You passed out. How do you feel?”
She flushes and sits up. “I’m fine.”
I put my hand on her shoulder to steady her.
Cali shrugs me off. “I said I’m fine.” She hangs her head, muttering, “God, second time in two weeks I get choked out.”
Silence fills the room, and I hone in on her. Deep anger flickers through me for some reason. “Who the hell choked you out?”
“You did, asshole! With your dick!” She motions at me. Her makeup has streaked down her face in black lines.
My voice lowers, “Besides me?” I try to ask myself why I care.
Anger flushes her cheeks. “Oh, so you’re allowed to do it but not anyone else?”
Exactly.
Dread fills me. What the hell is this response?
I grunt, “Fine, don’t tell me.”
She sits on the floor in silence for a while, neither of us looking at each other.
God, but that attitude makes me want to wrap my fingers in her hair and fuck the sass right out of her.
Finally, she rasps, “What the hell do you want from me?”
I stare at the side of her face. She throws an attitude-filled look my way. But after seeing real anger on her face, it’s clear it’s just a front. This time, she’s afraid. It hits me like a sucker punch in the gut.
I soften my tone, “Nothing, little shadow. Sawyer is the one who took you. I can’t say what he wants.”
“So you’ll let me go?”
My gut twinges. “No. Sawyer won’t let me let you go.” That’s the only reason…
Cali picks at one of her fingernails. “Does he…do this often?”
“Do what?”
“Take women.”
“No.” I bark out a laugh. “No, he doesn’t. Actually, this is the first time for any of us.”
She glances at me out of the corner of her eye. “You’ve never taken someone?”
I think about the many, many fuckers I’ve hunted over the years.
She watches me. “But you said you don’t take women.”
“I don’t.”
