Page 29 of Pawn's in the Bishop's Game (Checkmate 1)
7
Jess
Fraternizing With The Enemy
Six hours after leaving Kane’s apartment, I wake similarly to how I woke this morning; sweating, shaking.
But no grinding.
I walked into my apartment this morning and snagged an oats breakfast bar on my way to my room. I wasn’t hungry, not once I realized I’d slept with a murderer all night – and liked it – but I was going on thirty-six or so hours of no food.
Just because I don’tfeellike eating doesn’t mean I can ignore a basic human need.
I have stitches in my body from a man I really don’t know, and a hell of a lot of trust in someone I really shouldn’t.
Does he have AIDS?
DoIhave AIDS?
Did he sterilize everything?
Cracking my eyes open to the afternoon sun and shoving sweaty hair off my face, I groan at the clock and the flashing numbers; it’s a little past three.
Pushing my heavy covers away, I peek down at my ribs and pray I’m not pouring blood, but instead of bare skin and stitches, I find a dark shirt and piles of cottony material that stretch further down my legs than any nightgown I own.
I shoot my eyes toward the ceiling and groan.
How did I get myself in this position? How’d I go out thinking to walk into a club I wanted to see the inside of, but instead, I almost get raped, I’m saved by a dark avenger who thenadmitshe murdered my would-be murderer, only to then fall asleep with a fever, and wake to stitches in my body?
Then for my final act, because there must be a final act, I wake with a need deep inside my body thatapparentlycan only be satiated by my avenger-murderer-doctor.
What the hell is wrong with me?
I’m chalking it all up to shock.
Everything that has happened from the moment I met Lance, I’m blaming on shock. The fact I even talked to Kane. The fact I allowed him to bring me back to his apartment. The medical decisions I made. The grinding. The five seconds I allowed his fingers to pleasure me.
Everything.
Every single poor choice I made – I’m blaming on shock and fever.
Pulling the soft shirt up with my eyes scrunched closed in denial, I take deep breaths to prepare myself for the massacre. Or the flesh-eating disease. Or the alien growing off my body.
Instead, when I slit my eyes open, I find a clean bandage. No oozing pus. No neon signs that screech at me to see arealdoctor.
For today, I live, and maybe I don’t have AIDS, either.
Looking at the clock with a yawn, I pat Kane’s shirt back down and consider my plans. It’s only three, which means it’s too early to take the bandage off and clean it again – because apparently I’m still taking medical advice from the murderer.
I reach across my bed and drag my handbag closer. Digging inside, I remember the sex toy I found, and the look of pure male satisfaction on his face when I tossed it away.
Dirty pig.
Why would he put that there?
Because he’s a murdereranda sexual deviant.
Taking out my cell phone, I groan at the flashing battery bar, then the one-hundred and seventy-three unread text messages. Not even an exaggeration.
