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When they were back in the limo, Brooke asked her, “Do you have any reservations about going to work tomorrow night?”

“Unless you’ve had to help me tonight, and I don’t think you have, then I should be fine. I mean, not having them around feels like a loss in a way I can’t describe, but I’ve been able to maintain my energy okay.”

“I’ve checked in on you multiple times, but I haven’t assisted. You let your energy get a little wonky when we were doing the shooting game, but you fixed it.”

Genie nodded. “There was a bear running at me, and I had to shoot him over and over to try to bring him down before he got to me. My owl wanted me to run for real, and it was hard to stand my ground and keep shooting. She didn’t understand it wasn’t a real bear.”

“The important thing is that you fixed it. There’s a hotel just across the interstate from your hospital. Dev will be there while you’re at work for at least the first two nights. With your permission, I’d like to set it up so the two of you can telepath. He can already telepath with the twins. I can open it up so you can telepath with them as well, but I’d advise waiting a few days before we do so. Their energy is a little more wild than Dev’s.”

“It’s because their cats are never really in the background, I think.”

“You are absolutely correct. I’ve seen it before, usually in birds who are abused in their early years. I have confidence the twins can step out into the world if they choose to, though I’m not certain they will make that choice.”

“I don’t know,” Genie said. “On the one hand, I can see a certain amount of alpha-ness in them, and yet, I think they might be happier taking orders in a way that allows them to exercise that need for control.”

“Very insightful, little owl.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Tuesday morning, two hours before she was due to go off shift, Genie got a text from Dev asking,Are you up for a thirty-minute-long quickie role-playing scene? Something intense, to help you sleep? Scene, sex, room service food, sleep, in that order?

It hadn’t been too bad of a night, so she texted back,So long as I don’t have to put weight on my feet or do too much work, that sounds lovely.

Fifteen minutes after she sent the text, she received one from her cash-transfer app telling her Dev had sent her seven thousand dollars.

Her insides heated to scalding, and she stepped away from her patient and pretended to fiddle with her phone a few moments to get herself back on focus. A thirty-minuteinterrogationscene was in her immediate future, and she couldn’t think about it until she went off shift. She breathed through the lust she could scent filling the room and was thankful there were only humans around at the moment.

Fortunately, the floor was hectic until she could finally log out and leave, so it wasn’t hard to stay on task. Dev was camped out in a hotel room less than a half-mile away in case she got into problems with her energy, so she didn’t have far to go. She called him once the car was started.

“I’m on my way. I’ll need a quick shower before the timer starts.”

“I figured. I’m still down the street getting some supplies, so let yourself into the room when you get there. I should be back before you’re out of the shower.”

Genie took a robe to the bathroom, but no clothes. She pulled the long half of her hair into a ponytail to get it out of the way, and stood letting the heat of the shower hit her back once she’d soaped everything and rinsed.

The shower curtain abruptly opened and a man in a ski-mask and boxer briefs grabbed her arms and twisted her around so he could hold them high on her back. He turned the water off and then ordered her to walk, while he steered her from behind with her arms.

“Move. Do as you’re told.”

The scent reassured her it was Dev, but his voice sounded harsher than she was used to, and it would’ve been easy to convince herself it was someone else.

She was pressed to the floor and arranged so she sat on her ass with her legs in front of her, bent, her knees nearly to her chest.

A rod went under her knees, her arms went under it, and rope went around her wrists, in front of her shins. Once they were bound, the pole was trapped behind her knees, and her hands were trapped on the outside of her bent legs.

He lifted the pole into the air and Genie’s entire body tipped backwards in a nauseating swing, her weight distributed between her wrists and the backs of her knees, her head dangling down.

One really secure tie of her wrists and her entire body was immobile. She was nothing but athing, hanging with no control, her head upside down, her pussy and asshole exposed and pointing up.

The room had two beds, and he put one end of the pole on each bed, so she hung suspended between them. The hair on one side of her head barely brushed the floor. The ponytail holder had come off during the scuffle, apparently.

She looked at the bar, about as big around as a broomstick, but it was made of metal and certainly seemed strong enough to hold her weight.

“What’s the login and password for your cash app?”

Damn, could she hold out for thirty minutes? If only for her own self-respect, she had to hold out longer than a minute and a half, which was about how long it’d been since he’d secured her hands. She assumed he’d started the time before he grabbed her, because he’d moved really fast. Probably three minutes since he’d turned the shower off, tops.

She was disoriented, but she tried to take stock of her position. Her knees bore the brunt of her weight, and it was already uncomfortable, on the verge of painful. Her wrists weren’t in terrible shape. She lifted her head and tried to get a better visual, and it helped shake off some of the disorientation, but it hurt to hold it up, so she slowly put it back down. She tried to push up with her legs, but it did nothing except hurt herwrists. She couldn’t get leverage to do anything except rock back and forth, which just made her knees hurt worse.