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“Charlie, wait.”

I freeze. Why do I freeze? The door handle is right there. How come I stop every time he calls my name?

I feel a hand at my waist. Naturally, I turn like a freaking puppet, helpless to his touch.

“I think you forgot something.”

Raising my gaze, I don’t connect with his. I stop on the key dangling from the chain in his grasp.

Holy shit. I still have the cage on. Thelockedcage. The freaking reason I told myself I came in here in the first place. If it were possible to melt into a puddle of lava on the floor right now, I’d do so.

Dropping to his knees, he waits. Once again, I strip for a man I never thought I’d strip for, lowering my trunks to just below my cock. He’s still naked. The glow from the TV painting enough light on him that the definition of his body looks like a work of art right now. The position is all too similar to our first interaction in his club, making my knees weak.

I’m positive I have congealed cum clinging to my cage, but he makes no protests, gently gripping my cage. It shifts, and I feel the lock give way when he turns the key. The cable loosens, and he slips it over my sac, freeing me.

It’s nothing at all what I imagined it would feel like. I feel light as air, so light it’s like my cock and balls are missing even though I can see they’re still attached to me. I’m free. Finally free, but it feels like I’ve lost something.

Glancing up at me, he’s silent. I wait. I don’t know if I’m expecting him to speak. He always seems to be two steps ahead of me, and so self-assured, I just assumed he’d have somethingto say. Maybe I wait because I want him to say something, but he doesn’t. I certainly have no idea what to say. And I’m pretty sure it has everything to do with that look of hope in his eyes.

Is he waiting for me to ask him to put it back on? For a second, I consider it.

And then…I regain my fucking senses. What the actual fuck am I thinking? Why would I want it back on when my life’s goal since the second he slapped it on me was to get it off?

Turning without a word, I yank my trunks up and wrench the door open. I breeze down the corridor in swift strides, my spent cock wagging back and forth in freedom. I’m free, I remind myself as I open the door to my cabin. As a twinge of emptiness washes over me, I remind myself again—I’m free.

CHAPTER 13

I curse at the fancy sports car parked on the street way too close to the entrance of my driveway. They mustn’t value it enough if they’d risk it getting sideswiped by parking like an idiot. Parking my SUV, I let out a sigh. I never used to have anything against Mondays. I’ve never understood people who do. My ass, however, feels like it’s dragging from the grind of work for the third in a row now. It’s been two weeks since I’ve been back from the most fucked-up cruise to ever cruise. I was supposed to be happy to return to my routine, but work has lost its luster.

Making my way to my front door, I grind my teeth, knowing that’s not exactly true. Work is fine. I’m just…distracted. If I could stop thinking about a certain CEO and the cruise activities that I got up to with said CEO, everything might feel more like it’s gone back to normal. I don’t want to quit. Quitting won’t change what happened. Why should I quit? I kick ass at my job. I don’t have to see or talk to him. His name is on several mass emails now and then, but it always has been. It doesn’t matter that I now know what the face of that name looks like or…the rest of him. And what the rest of him…feels like.

“For fuck’s sake, Charlie,” I grumble to myself, unlocking my house.

Maybe it’s because I haven’t forgotten that little tease he dropped about me getting the promotion. Was there even afucking promotion? If so, I’ve not heard a word about it. Certainly nothing from oneRiordanMcDonnell. The bastard.

It was all bullshit. Wasn’t it? He toyed with me to get me to let him fuck me, and it worked.

Growling, I curse under my breath when the lock sticks. He’s still so much in my head that I can’t even focus enough to unlock my fucking door.

Mostly, I hate the complete and utter mush that has become my brain for thinking shit like that. I would never let someone fuck me just to get a promotion, so I know that’s my pride talking. I…did what I did because…well, because I couldn’t help myself.

Whatever. I tried something new. That’s human growth. Right? It’s supposed to be good for people. Even people who don’t need to change.

I just…don’t like the idea of being…forgotten. Snorting, I shake my head and turn the key the right way, like a sane person this time, unlocking my door. Why the fuck do I care if Rory McDonnell forgot about me? Part of me can’t believe that he would, though. After all the things he said.

And that’s the other thing that doesn’t make any sense. The more I go over everything in my head, the more I can’t sell myself on the idea I was just a game to him. Who puts as much thought into everything he said and did just to have a one- or two-night stand with someone?

That combination—the one he gave me for the first lock on the cage—I think it means something. I mean… to me it does at least.

Going through my calendar last week, I got distracted—imagine that—and rehashed a timeline of interacting with a certain someone.1-0-2-5. That was the combination he gave me.1-0-2-5—October twenty-fifth. The date of the Seattleconvention I met him at last year. Is it a coincidence? How can it be?

But what does it mean if it’s not? What does it matter? It would only matter if Iwantedit to mean something, which I don’t. Because I’m over the entire ordeal.

A knock at the door has me nearly jumping out of my skin. If it’s one of my freaking brothers right now, I don’t have the patience to deal with them. I love them in my own way, but it’s like listening to someone speak a foreign language whenever we talk. Wives, girlfriends, kids, Little League games, home repairs. There’s never talk about cock or just hiring a contractor to do home repairs right because some of us weren’t born with brain cells that give a shit about learning home remodeling. Honestly, I think I’d die if any of my brothers were into guys and tried talking to me about men. Right. I need to quit my bitching. Everything’s fine being Greek between us.

“Hey, Mr. North!” my mailman greets me when I answer the door. Thank fuck, it’s just him. “I’ve got one that needs a signature today.”

I take the stiff cardboard mailer from him and close the door. Inspecting the label, I go as rigid as the envelope. The addressee reads,Riordan McDonnell. I know for a fact the return address under his name isn’t the address to headquarters. It’s from an address in the Northwest Heights area of Portland.