Page 52 of His Toy

He lifted a brow. “Are you flirting with me, Heather?”

I tilted my head. “Of course I am.”

“That was sarcasm,” he said.

“I got that. But I don’t lie. Not even with jokes.”

He studied me for a moment, then said, “I’ll go with you.”

After we got dressed, Zaid still in those black boots, we exited through his backyard, passing through the garden of wildflowers, springing up in every direction. Once the grass ended, it was woods. We hiked through the fir trees in silence, letting nature be our song: the wind’s breath on our ears, the quiet chirps of birds, the crunch of the twigs beneath our boots, the soft noises of our exhales. A squirrel ran through the trees, darting away from our path, cautious of us. I looked to see if Zaid had seen it; he was watching too.

About ten minutes in, I saw something that drew my eye. A clearing that looked odd. The rocks and trees around it seemed sturdy enough, but there was something, a box or a plaque, something rectangular, hidden behind a stump.

“Wait,” I said. I pointed to the clearing. “Let’s go there.”

There was hesitation in Zaid’s eyes, but I darted for the clearing. Maybe it was a gravestone or some sort of memorial, for whatever happened in Zaid’s past. Maybe it had to do with Zayda, whoever she was. Or maybe his mother. He had said I could explore the property by myself; what difference did it make if I found this mystery while he was with me? As I got closer, I saw that it was a door, sort of like a cellar, but installed neatly into the ground. A hatch.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“A door,” he said.

I didn’t know how long he had owned the property, but knowing Zaid, he knew every inch of the woods. He had even gone so far as to show me the surveillance footage of the area. He was keeping something from me.

“I find it hard to believe that you don’t know,” I said.

“I didn’t say I didn’t know.”

“What does the door go to, then?”

“Nowhere.”

It was clear that this wasn’t going anywhere. It hurt that he kept it from me. But I had to trust him. That we were still after the same goal. That if I needed to know, he would tell me.

Iwantedto trust him.

I lifted a brow. “You’re the most secretive person I’ve ever met,” I said. Zaid had been good to me, even with his secrets. I was trying to make light of it, to convince myself that not all secrets were bad.

“What makes you say that?” he asked.

“I don’t know anything about you.” I threw up my hands. “You’d rather open up a secret room with strange pictures than tell me about yourself.”

He sat on the stump. “You know my sexual inclinations.”

“Do I, though?” I smirked. “I know what you’ve trained me to do. I—” He repositioned himself, his back straight, staring at me fiercely. That confident dominance. That control. He was good at making me feel nervous and excited at the same time. “I might have noticed when you get turned on.” I blushed. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean you would do those things under other circumstances.”

“Under other circumstances,” he repeated. He stood and walked closer to me, his hands wrapping around my lower back. “We wouldn’t have met under other circumstances.”

His lips were soft, pink. I wanted them on me again.

“No,” I said.

“Ask me, then. What is it you want to know?”

His dark eyes peered down, piercing me to the core. The wind rustled the trees, flowing around us. It felt like we were the only people left in the world. We had no one but each other.

How had this turned sexual in a few mere seconds? He had that kind of control of me.

He held my chin with one hand. “Ask me, Heather.”