Page 31

Scarlett

Eden welcomes me like an old friend.

“Slayer” by Bryce Savage is blaring over the club speakers when I strut up to the bar, already having spotted my prey. The hunt is on.

I come up on Broody’s side when he’s not looking in my direction, eager to drag out the suspense. Resting my elbows elegantly on the bar counter, I wave down the bartender for a drink.

A vodka and cranberry, just how I like it.

Both of the men are wearing their red masks tonight, which feeds into my theory that they have access to my application information. It could just be that they’ve returned to old habits since scaring me away, but I doubt that.

I’m not scared now, and I’m not running away anymore.

It takes them far too long to notice me—which is pretty annoying, because I was trying to make a dramatic entrance—but when they do…let’s just say I feel bad for whoever has to clean the floor at the end of the night. Their jaws drop .

Good. That was my intended reaction.

“Problem?” I ask, acknowledging them both. When neither of them find the courage to respond, I poke harder. “You did say to ‘bring it on,’ didn’t you?” This time, I talk directly to Broody, leaning in to whisper in his ear .

He straightens in his seat as if trying to act composed, but the knuckles wrapped around his glass of vodka are white with tension. His other hand comes up to run through his hair, and I can’t tell if it’s because he’s nervous or if he wanted to clear it from his face to stare me down.

“I did. Not like you’ve ever listened to me before,” he says dryly, taking a sip of his drink, but his eyes never leave mine.

I wish I could see them—both of them—through the souls in their eyes, but trying to see anything in Eden is like trying to see in a cave.

“Well, I’m here. So which one of you is it going to be?”

They share a look between them before turning to me. It’s Casanova who speaks. “I thought we made it pretty clear that it’s both of us, or noth—”

“Sorry.” I interrupt. “I made the mistake of letting you think I was asking for your opinion. It’s lady’s choice, I’m just trying to decide who deserves it more.” With my glass still in hand, I point out a finger and move it rhythmically between the two of them, mumbling under my breath.

“What are you doing?” Broody asks, looking more annoyed and broody as ever.

“Shut up. I’m playing ‘eeny, meenie, miney, mo.’ Now I’m going to have to start over.” So I do, making a big show of it. They exchange another glance, but my finger lands exactly where I planned it to. “Casanova, I choose you. Let’s go,” I command, turning my back and heading towards the hallway off the left side of the bar—the opposite direction of the Pearl and Sapphire rooms.

I don’t have to look behind me to know he’s following. I can hear him. I can smell him. I can feel him. He’s breathing down my neck when I turn the doorknob, but I don’t let it faze me. I need to keep my cool for what’s about to happen, and I’m through letting him intimidate me with his presence.

Opening the door, I realize The Red Room is mediocre at best.

They played it up to be this sexy, mind-blowing, and captivating experience—but it’s just like any other room. The only difference I see, at first glance, are the red LED lights shining along the ceiling trim. It’s not spooky at all. If I’m being honest, it’s sort of underwhelming.

“This is it?” I ask, spinning towards him with my arms outstretched. “This is the big, bad Red Room? You boys really need to work on your marketing skills.”

Casanova chuckles and steps up to me, his mind no doubt running rampant with all the things he wants to do—whatever deviant things he’s always promised he’d be able to show me once he got me here.

“You haven’t even given it a chance, Ruby.” He reaches out to put his hands on my waist, but I step back and hold up a reprimanding finger.

Similarly to the other rooms, there’s a cabinet at the foot of the bed with a wide array of toys sitting on the top shelf. I scoop a pair of handcuffs up with the tip of my finger and turn to show him my findings. These will do, I think.

“Get on the bed,” I demand.

He’s not laughing anymore. Instead, he cocks his head to the side and looks at the cuffs for a second before turning his attention to me. “Sorry, darling, that’s not how it works here. You know that.”

“It didn’t work that way before…” Holding the cuffs high—and my head even higher—I circle around him in small strides, reveling in the discomforted aura he’s radiating. “But things are different now. You get on the bed, or I leave. It’s as simple as that.”

He stops me, one hand grabbing the cuffs and the other catching my cheeks between his fingers. “What happened to you? Where’s my good girl?”

I can only smile, because of course his first thought is to wonder where my submission has disappeared to.

Much to his surprise, I curl into him. With my right hand, I grab a fistful of his shirt to steady myself, then lift my left leg up to wrap my calf around his hip. It’s a good thing he’s so transfixed with this embrace, because it allows me the stealth required to pull the knife from my garter.

The point of my blade is pressed to his throat before he can even register the sound of it springing open. “ You happened to me, you sick fuck. Get. On. The. Bed,” I say, enunciating each word perfectly so there’s no confusing my authority. His eyes flick to the door, but I dig the blade into his skin before he can make a move. “Now.”

If I wasn’t staring at his neck so intensely, I might have missed the tic in his jaw when he holds his hands up in surrender. It’s a lie; he’s not submitting to me, he’s just planning his next move.

It also happens to be the wrong one.

He drops the cuffs and grabs my wrist, but I slide my leg down and press my heel into the back of his knee. His leg collapses and we go stumbling towards the bed, all the while fighting to keep control of the knife.

He falls to his back on the mattress and I stay right on him, straddling his waist to regain my advantage. It’s really unfortunate that he’s bigger than me, because it doesn’t take much effort on his part to keep my wrist trapped in his grip.

These aren’t the throes of passion he was expecting to find in here, but this is who we were always meant to be. His hot, bitey breath chuffs against my cheek as we wrestle for the blade, and the smell of alcohol forces me to remember the first time I tasted the bourbon on his tongue.

I thought it was magical back then—the way two heavily-contrasted flavors could meld together so seamlessly—but now I fucking hate it.

The sounds of our struggle reverberate off the walls, surrounding us in a bubble of frustrated grunts and strained panting. I’m trying to rip my arm from his grasp, but he’s holding on like his life depends on it. At least he still has some sense left.

I flash him a smile, leaning in close to whisper against his lips. “What’s wrong, daddy ?” I mock, but the word elicits an unforeseen response. He becomes still altogether; the heave of his chest disappears, the secure lock on my wrist falls limp, and his bared teeth retract until his jaw hangs ajar. Fucking putty in my hands. “I thought you loved it when your good girl put up a little fight. ”

I know he’s enjoying this. His buttoned pants are the only thing keeping his twitchy cock from piercing through me. My hips roll against him, grinding down against the bulging denim, and he throws his head back with a moan.

“Fuck, Ruby. What are you doing to me?” he murmurs, relinquishing his reign over my knife. Both his arms flop to the mattress on either side of his head, and he lays fully spread out beneath me.

Without ripping his shirt, I slide the tip of the blade down his arm at a hair’s breadth—trailing from his limp hand to his bicep, then across his chest. He flinches when I pop off one of his buttons, but otherwise remains frozen.

“Don’t you trust me, baby ? I can’t do the things I want to do to you if you won’t listen.” He lifts his head to look at me, the red glow of the room accentuating the muscles in his clenched jaw. “Scoot up on the bed. Hands above your head. Just like our first time.”

Despite the rage flowing through my veins, the intoxicating aura of Eden pulls me in like it always does. There’s always been something about this place that makes every touch feel as though I’m bathing in a tub of feathers.

He knows it, too. He adjusts his arms to run both his palms up the side of my thighs, resting them on my ass as a smile creeps across his face.

“Then you’ll be good?” he asks playfully, but I’m not interested.

I don’t answer, fully intending to keep my words as vague as possible until I have him in a less threatening position. His fingers tighten and dig into my ass when he pulls himself into a sitting position, our noses nearly pressed together.

Being this close again stirs up memories I’d much rather forget.

Call it Eden’s enigma, or whatever the fuck it is, but I find him irresistible. Even when he’s being a fuck. Even when he’s torturing me. The only thing I can do to stop myself from being pulled under his spell is to hold the knife perpendicular between us—pressed straight to his heart.

“Take off your shirt,” I insist, gesturing with a flick of the knife.

I’m the one in control. I’m the one with the power. I’m the one who gets to make the demands .

He looks at me with panicked eyes before blatantly refusing me, not moving an inch except to shake his head. “My clothing stays on, or I leave. That’s the deal.”

The anger consumes me. Before I realize what I’m doing, the blade flies to the underside of his chin, and I’ve got my fingers tangled through his hair. He suppresses a grunt when the metal punctures his skin, sending thin rivulets of blood dripping down the handle and onto my arm.

“There is no deal,” I hiss through my teeth, yanking his head back to watch the crimson liquid flow from his wound. “You never gave me the courtesy of staying clothed. You stripped me, humiliated me, then left me alone. Time and time again.” Pulling my arm back to hold it between our faces, I study the red stains trailing down my forearm. “Why should I give you a kindness you never offered me?” I ask, then run my tongue through the blood—making sure he’s watching every second.

I shouldn’t have let my guard down, but I guess I understand now how they get so caught up in the sickness of this room. He manages to plant his feet on the ground and scoops me up in his arms, standing to his feet. Aside from a slight wince across his mouth, he doesn’t seem to mind when the cut deepens because of the rigorous motion.

Without a word, he sets me down, bends to pick up the cuffs, fastens one around his left wrist, then steps backwards to sit on the bed.

He moves with such majestic energy that I’m almost regretful for what I’m going to do to him. He’s fascinating to watch, and I just find myself wishing he’d never broken me so we could actually share something special.

He doesn’t remove the shirt completely, but when he slides on the bed to position himself where I instructed, he rolls up the sleeves and undoes the front buttons to expose his chest.

I’ll take it as a win—it’s perfect for what I’ve been planning.

It’s not until I walk over and kneel onto the mattress that he finally lays down, begrudgingly allowing me to mount him and secure the cuffs around a post in the headboard. Without hesitating, I recite the same words he said to me last August when we met. “ No touching. ”

He laughs in response. I’m glad to see he finds humor in the situation, because he’ll need to hang on to that for later. “Don’t go easy on me,” he mutters.

I find it amusing that he thinks he has to convince me, but I don’t argue. Climbing down the bed, I rummage through the cabinet for the last things I need, then return with a roll of duct tape and a men’s tie. He watches me curiously, but when I start removing my panties, I can see the ideas swirling through his head.

I wish it didn’t feel so good to have him against my bare pussy when I straddle him, but it has to be done if I’m going to play out this scene.

“Don’t worry. I wasn’t planning on it,” I assure, laying the tie over his eyes and securing a knot behind his head. “ No peeking .”

“Fuck, Ruby,” he moans, thrusting his hips up into the cradle of my thighs. “Do you see what I was talking about now? How fucking amaz—”

He fights when I shove my panties through his lips, and I finally understand why he likes being in control so much.

If I don’t want him to touch me, I can make that happen. If I don’t want him to watch me, I can make that happen. And if I don’t want him to open his fucking mouth to spit more honeyed words at me…

“ No. Fucking. Talking. You’re going to lie there and take it, ” I recall, the memory of him doing the same thing to me still painfully vivid in my brain. “ Or you won’t get anything at all. ”

His hips buck frantically in an attempt to throw me off him, but when I press the tip of my knife into his left chest muscle, his legs tense up. The handcuffs clink together as he tries to find comfort in his position, but there’s no way he can touch me.

That’s all that matters. This is for me.

Despite the fact that he asked me not to go easy, he sure does fucking scream when I dig the blade into his flesh. I’ve never done this before, so I don't know exactly how deep I’m supposed to cut if I want to leave a permanent mark .

He isn’t handling it as well as I thought he would. For being someone who loves to do the cutting, I expected him to have more nerve than this.

It just goes to show, don’t dish it if you can’t take it.

Regardless, I persevere through his trembling and keep my hand as steady as possible, being sure to take my time so each letter looks perfectly legible for him to admire later. I contemplate writing out my name—it’s not like they aren’t aware of it—but I want to keep Scarlett away from Eden.

Standing from the bed to appreciate my handiwork at a distance, I only have one last thing to say to him before I leave. “Since you were such a bad boy and didn’t want to follow orders, I think I’ll leave you here to consider the consequences of your actions. Goodbye, darling ,” I add before walking out the door.

I don’t imagine I’ll have much of a head start, because there’s no chance of them letting this go. There will be repercussions.

But my work here is done, for now.