The Uber arrived ten minutes later, and as a midnight blue evening fell across the sky, I started my journey to the hotel.
The entire drive into Dallas, I felt like a giant ball of puke was stuck inside my throat. It was ten past six when my phone started blowing up with calls from my parents. I hadn’t shown up to their dinner. My heart raced in my chest. Ransom was going to lose his shit when I showed up at the hotel. As it happened, bickering with him was my new favorite pastime.
My thighs clenched when I thought about him pressing against me. When the memory of his blood in my mouth seeped into my brain. He was so messed up for getting off on kinks like that. Then again…apparently, so was I.
When the Uber pulled up at Tortoise Creek Mansion, I stumbled out, making my way toward the nearest trashcan, and vomited the little I’d eaten in the past forty-eight hours. Cold shivers rolled through my arms as I swayed onto the premises.
Somehow, I found one of Ransom’s men milling around the reception area, probably making sure nothing seemed suspicious. I could tell them apart from the crowd, because they were all over six foot four and dressed exclusively in black.
I tapped one of them on the shoulder to get his attention. He turned around. “Take me to my room.”
He recognized me instantly. His face paled. I couldn’t blame him. He was about to deliver his boss a very distressed looking, unaccompanied client.
“We need to tell Ransom.”
“No. You work for me, not him.” I started for the elevator. He followed me.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go up there right now.” His thick throat dipped with a swallow.
Of course not. Ransom was going to make a huge stink about it.
“I don’t think I asked for your goddamn opinion!”
“Miss Thorne—”
“No, you listen here.” I wagged my finger in his face, unbothered by the fact the lobby was jam-packed with people in evening gowns and suits, sitting around the bar and listening to a pianist playing an unpolished version of “Hungarian Rhapsody”。 “You’re going to be in a world of pain if you don’t let me into my suite right now. Lockwood may be your point of contact, but don’t forget who’s signing that paycheck.”
“Ma’am—”
“I want to go to my room. Now.”
The man ushered me into the elevator, where he swiped a card over the access control panel, before pressing a button leading to the top, private floor.
I glanced at my reflection in the mirror. My eyes were bloodshot and my hair was a mess. My lips were dry and cracked. My sweatpants were stained. I looked as bad as I felt. And I felt like garbage. I wanted to stumble into bed and forget today had ever happened.
The elevator pinged open. Muscle Man got out first, glancing left and right before motioning for me with his head to join him. He stopped in front of my suite’s door, his hand hovering over the card reader.
“Do it,” I bit out. “And leave.”
If Ransom took the bigger bedroom, I was going to strangle him in his sleep.
Reluctantly, Muscle Man followed my directions, bowing his head before slinking back into the open elevator. Running away from the scene.
As the door clicked shut, my skin prickled with awareness.
Danger crawled over me like spider legs.
There were sounds coming from the second bedroom of the suite. Alarming sounds. Like someone was sobbing uncontrollably.
Not again…
I made my way to the open bedroom door, clutching the phone in my fist just in case.
The image in front of me unfolded all at once.
The sight of Ransom fucking a complete stranger against the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the hotel restaurant, sliding in and out of her, his muscled ass cheeks contracting each time he pressed home.
He was fully dressed, his smart pants barely tugged down, not a hair on his head out of place. She was naked as the day she was born, wearing only red-tipped heels, which were wrapped around his waist, her ankles knotted together, pulling him closer. Her hair, shimmering gold, was blown out to perfection. She was the quintessential Texan beauty. Her breasts looked red and raw, like they’d been slapped and tugged painfully.
You didn’t waste any time, did you?
“That’s it. Take it all, and don’t forget—if you ever tell anyone, I’m going to make it very painful for you,” he growled into her face.
I stumbled back, choking on my saliva. An imaginary sword slid through my gut. At first I felt the burn—then the pain.
Deep. Wild. Curling over my throat like talons.
Not because I was disturbed.
But because this time, I wasn’t just turned on. I was jealous.
I didn’t get it. This delicious, breathless ache that spread through me like wildfire. I hated him. He was a disgusting pig. But I couldn’t look away. Couldn’t rip my eyes off the sight of Ransom driving into another woman while she moaned, pretending to protest while her heels urged him for more.
The woman slapped him.
He laughed roughly, pinned her arms above her head against the glass, and thrust harder.
“You’ll never get away with it.” But as she spoke, she met him thrust for thrust.
He pinned her harder, thrusting faster. “You just watch me.”
The woman’s eyes climbed from his face, and she noticed me. “We’ve got company.”
Oh, shit.
“She can watch. That’s all the action this little brat is allowed.”
Burn in hell.
“Unless you’re not into that?” He stopped thrusting, rubbing blood back into her wrists, searching her face now. He was being considerate and nice. Both qualities I didn’t recognize in him.
She shook her head slowly. “I’m having too much fun to stop.”
“Good.” He shoved her hands back above her head and continued thrusting, ignoring me completely, this time not even trying to apologize to me.
I’d been caught. The Peeping Tom in the room. No. Worse. Horny Hallie. Watching shamelessly as my bodyguard got his rocks off with another woman.
“You like to watch me fuck a stranger, don’t you, Brat?” he purred.
His gaze was on me as he drove into her. She spun her head the opposite way, so I couldn’t see her face. She was participating in being his prop! A part of his twisted, elaborate game between two, very unwell people.
“That’s right. See this shit through. Own your kink.”
I was mortified. Mainly because, as he was studying me, I was fixated on the sliver of space between his body and hers. Where I could see his cock through the glistering condom, engorged, thick and dark, draw back then disappear inside of her.
My belly dipped with shame. I felt my pulse thumping between my legs each time he drove into her, my thighs slickening. I wanted to be her. I wanted to be fucked. Disrespectfully. To be used by this heartless man. To be submissive, and docile. To stop fighting. Once.
What was wrong with me?
Everything, I thought. You don’t need a bodyguard; you need a therapist.
But I didn’t believe in therapists anymore. I’d had sixteen of them throughout the years, and not one could fix me.
“Do you like when I do this?” His white teeth twinkled in the dark. He snaked his arm behind the woman, fisting her hair in a death grip, angling her face down to watch how he was fucking her, deeper, more furiously now. Whimpers of happiness escaped her.