Page 62 of The Escape Artist

But then the one-time ice breaker joke became a long-standing inside joke. And at some point, both of them had stopped laughing. At some point both of them had started to take having sexual access to whoever the other was with as some sort of fucked-up sacred right. And though Ari wasn't attracted to men and was sure he would never fuck Kane, he'd fucked with Kane for years now.

The two of them had enjoyed many women together. And now both of them had a woman they wouldn't release even if she wanted out. That's how far both of them had lost their minds and moral reasoning faculties. Kane had his thing with Saskia. Ari had his thing with Claire. But there was also this potential for this other thing with all of them. And apparently Marcus watching—at least for tonight.

The doorbell rang. Ari went to the front door, nervous energy still buzzing off him. He pressed his thumb against the keypad, and the locks slid back. He opened the door and Kane, Saskia, and Marcus walked in. All of them were dressed casually in jeans and T-shirts, a high contrast from the last time he'd seen them.

“Is everything ready?” Kane asked.

“It's all set up in the dungeon. The branding irons are heating. Once it reaches the right temperature, it should hold steady, but there's a digital read-out to be sure.”

“Where's Claire?” Kane asked.

“She's in my room.”

“Does she understand what tonight is about? Is she all right?”

Ari wasn't entirely sure what the answer to either of those questions was.

“I could talk to her,” Saskia offered.

Ari nodded. That seemed like a good idea.

Claire paced back and forth in front of the fireplace in Ari's room. Every few minutes she looked up at the painting Kane had done of her as if looking at that painting was going to make any of this better. Ari had explained things carefully and patiently to her. She was Ari's, but sometimes he wanted to share her with Kane. And sometimes he wanted her to play with Saskia.

How was she supposed to respond to that? Anything but “Yes, Master” would displease him. But didn't “Yes, Master” make her the biggest slut in the world? Especially since it was no tormented hardship to say yes to that.

Her fantasies had somehow become real and the real version was even better than all the things she'd imagined. So when would she wake up? When would something terrible happen to break it all apart? She felt like something horrible loomed just ahead to mess everything up. She'd been convinced for years that happiness just wasn't a thing that she'd been allotted in life. Happiness was for other people.

She jumped at the knock on the door.

“Hey, it's Saskia. Can I come in?”

She let out the breath she found herself holding. “Of course.”

The door opened and the dark-haired artist walked in, except she sort of glided when she moved. Even in jeans, a T-shirt, and wedge sandals, there was something unbearably sophisticated about her. Maybe it was her long exposure to an artist like Quill.

She smiled as she looked around. “I've always loved this room.” Then she spotted the painting over the fireplace. “Oh! He painted you. Did you get the full artist-process treatment?”

Claire felt herself blush.

Saskia laughed. “That's a yes. Quill is... intense.”

“You call him Quill?”

“No, I call him Master, or it's my ass,” Saskia said with a wink. “But yeah, I think of him that way. And he told me you knew about the art thing, so I can say it in front of you. Are you okay? About what's happening tonight?”

“Are you?” Claire asked.

Saskia smiled. It was an easy smile. A conspiratorial smile. Claire hadn't really gotten to talk to Saskia at her art show, but she already liked this woman. “Yes. I'm good with it. Excited. I think this will be good.”

“What about the branding part?” Claire asked, holding back the shudder. Ari had explained it all to her and had reassured her it wasn't the horror show she imagined, but that was easy for him to say. He wasn't the one getting branded.

“It won't hurt like you're thinking,” Saskia said. “I mean it'll hurt, and you'll be really sore while it heals, but it's not going to feel like a burn. With strike branding, the iron gets heated at a very high temperature. It burns off your nerve endings fast. So... it won't feel like a burn. It's not torture. It's a huge endorphin rush. And then if you take care of it properly, you'll have Ari's initial on your hip, forever. And I'll have Quill's. He's signing me with a Q,” she said sounding almost giddy.

“Have you been branded before?”

“No, but I've seen it done. Trust me. It will be okay. The part you need to be concerned about is the healing process. That's when most things go wrong if you don't take care of it properly. But we will.”

She sounded so reasonable. And Claire knew she was crazy for thinking it, but she was sure Ari would never intentionally harm her.

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