6. Him

6

HIM

I slammed the door and engaged the industrial-size lock before punching the code into the keypad. Could never be too careful. Emily had gotten smarter over the years. But I was prepared for her games. I expected her to have something up her sleeve. What I hadn't seen coming was how easy it would be to agree to her bullshit terms. She didn't know what she was asking of me.

I had no issue with the truth. I was the most honest man I knew. She was the pretty little liar. The thief between the two of us. And I was ten steps ahead of her before she'd even placed her pieces on the board.

Five days? Five days was fucking child's play. A joke. For me anyway. For her? It would be the worst one-hundred and twenty or so hours of her goddamn life.

"Morning, pet," I sang a little too loudly as I shoved the metal door closed behind me, the gears clicking into place and ensuring only one of us was capable of getting out of the room again. "Trust you slept well?" I grinned as I eyed her from a distance.

She was curled up on the cold floor, behind the hospital bed, using its frame to shield herself from my view. She probably thought she was being watched. She was. The entire 20x20 space was wired with hidden cameras, which were monitored 24/7 from a surveillance room located just down the hall. She was lucky it was also climate-controlled, or she could have frozen to death overnight.

That would have been a shame, seeing as we'd only just begun to reacquaint ourselves. And my cock, the pathetic bastard that he was, had yet to have his fill.

I'd foregone the mask today. I didn't see the point. It'd been more for her benefit than mine. So that my… distinct attributes didn't immediately send her into a panic when she woke from her drug-induced coma for the first time. I was used to the figure I saw staring back at me in the mirror. Others? Not so much.

When she didn't seem in a hurry to move her ass up off the floor, I placed the tray I was carrying on the desk and crossed the room. "Come on, Emily." I kicked at her arm with the tip of my boot. "Let's not add laziness to the list of all your other sins."

Silence.

"I can see the slight rise and fall of your chest, the fluttering of your eyelashes, even as you try to hold your breath." My eyes dropped to the face of my watch. "And now you're cutting into your thirty—correction, twenty-eight minutes."

With that, she huffed. Reached out an arm and pulled herself to her feet.

"Really? Playing dead?" I shook my head as I walked back over to the desk and plucked the apple I'd brought her from the tray. I sank my teeth into its juicy skin before adding, "I would have thought you more creative."

"Yeah, well, I can only work with what I'm given…" She flicked her eyes from corner to corner. "Which isn't much."

"The accommodations not to your liking, princess?"

She narrowed her glare on me, causing my lips to tip up at one side. "The accommodations could be better but it's the company that's really lacking."

My jaw clenched as I slammed the half-eaten fruit on the desk top, bruising what remained of its flesh. If Emily kept up her bullshit, the apple wouldn't be the only thing to change colors. "Pretty sure my company was requested, Emily. But if you are so set on spending the rest of your days— hours? —in solitude, I'm more than happy to oblige." I pushed away from the furniture, as if I were planning to leave.

I wasn't. But she didn't know that. My every action was conflicting, irrational, left her guessing. So that by the end of this all, she would be begging for my attention. My companionship. My condemnation as much as my praise.

"No! Wait!" she called out, and I paused.

Hook. Line. Sinker. Like taking candy from a spoiled fucking baby.

"What the fuck do you want now, Emily? Eat your goddamn breakfast and then we can try this again—when you aren't so hellbent on being such a stuck-up cunt." I tossed the tray on the floor, watching as the bowl of oatmeal toppled over and sprayed most of the contents across the room. "You'll appreciate what I do for you. What I give you. Or you'll fucking starve. Now, clean up this mess. I won't step another foot through that door till you've lapped up every last drop."

I didn't wait for a response before I pivoted on the heel of my boot, turning my back on her and the remnants of her meal. And stalked out.