Page 12 of Cruel Pleasures

At the time, I had no idea the memories we were making. The best friendship we were forming. That she’d become like a sister to me.

Closer than any of my real ones.

I’m lost in my dancing, my gaze everywhere and nowhere at the same time. I’m barely cognizant of the present, too steeped in the past. So much so that I blink and swear I see her. The present merges with the past and Lyra appears along the outskirts of the dance floor like old times.

“Lyra!” I yell. “Lyra, what are you?—?”

But the crowd shifts and the people dancing rotate across the floor. I watch in real time as she’s swallowed up by the dozens of people, absorbed into them until she’s no longer in sight.

“Lyra? LYRA!”

A hand clamps shut around my wrist and I’m roped in before I can stray. Kaden’s pulled me up against him, peering down at me as if I’m the only thing in the crowded club that he notices. “Hey,” he says with a small smile. “Eyes on me.”

And then he kisses me…

4. Imani

Are You All Good? - breathe.

I’m not sure if the pounding I hear is from the bedroom door or the inside of my skull. I lay still in hopes I’ll orient myself. Find a way for my mind and body not to feel so… disconnected.

But the moment feels surreal even before I can open my groggy eyes. I’m experiencing firsthand the aftereffects of doing too damn much.

My first real hangover in years.

I roll over until I’m on my back, my face tilted away from the light of the window. Last night feels more imaginary than real.

I’d gone from a ball of anxious energy on the flight to the isle to something else altogether. Reasoning it was the last night before the winter shutdown, I convinced myself to go out for a night on the town with the other tourists. One margarita turned into two margaritas turned into barhopping and shot tossing. It morphed into me on the underground dance floor of the Sunset Isle, gyrating with a man who could’ve been my best friend’s boyfriend.

Same name, different face.

But the situation unnerved me any time I let my mind linger on it too long. It nagged away at me until a new song started and swept me up with the rest of the throbbing, thrashing hive mind. Eager to leave my problems behind, I always gave in.

I danced with Kaden. I danced with others. A man with bulky arms who smelled of a spicy cologne and another girl with glow sticks braided into her hair. At some point I made it onto the DJ platform and danced alongside others who had climbed on.

Each moment feels like a brief snapshot of time. Merely a flicker in what turned into a long, wild, unpredictable night.

I’d danced ’til I was soaked with sweat, and then I was trapped against the wall minutes later, panting out breaths against Kaden’s mouth. I was trapped under him again in my bed as he was about to give me the true release I always sought out when stressed and anxious.

The last thing I remember as my eyes rolled shut was him settling between my thighs…

The pounding grows louder, and it clicks that it’s not inside my head. At least not anymore.

There’s really someone on the other side of the door demanding that I answer. I don’t have long to clean myself up—putting on real bottoms and patting down my hair is all I manage.

“Check out was almost an hour ago,” snaps a woman clutching a caddy of cleaning supplies.

Hurst Manor is only three blocks away from the Isle Bed and Breakfast. I make the trek on foot, rolling my vintage Louis Vuitton with me.

After a hot shower and change of clothes, I’m in the mindset I need to be. I’m playing a role from the moment my foot touches the pavement outside.

I walk like Sasha Newton would walk. I carry myself like she would and disappear into the part.

Everything about what happened last night gets pushed to the back of my mind.

The lushness of Hurst Manor unfolds before my eyes.

The manor is like a setting from an era gone by. Mid-nineteenth-century architecture that resembles a castle, preserved through the decades so that it’s like new today.