Page 82 of Only for Him

It burns my skin and leaves my body steaming with need.

The next minutes tick by to the click of my heels as we walk down the longest tunnel I’ve ever seen. It’s monotonous, lights low and evenly spaced. Our breathing echoes against each other, friction in sound.

I find myself wondering if it will ever end. What if this whole night is a Möbius strip and I’m already trapped on the dark side?

Or maybe I’m dreaming, actually, and have been for a month already.

Since it’s a dream, I don’t need to feel bad about picturing Roman pushing me up against the wall and giving me another orgasm that rewrites my psychological profile.

As though he can hear my thoughts—or maybe just my heartbeat—Roman turns to me, licks his lips, and offers me the crook of his elbow. I stare at it.

“Appearances,” he reminds me, before grabbing my arm and forcing it into his. I shudder at the efficiency of his movements, the tamed brutality in his touch.

My feet are starting to hurt, but I fight the urge to lean against him. I’m not there yet.

I hope I never get there.

Finally, we find ourselves at the end of a short line of people, all masked—black silk, silver, lace, a masquerade in hell. The women are all wearing gowns or dresses, and the men are in tuxes, or at least expensive blazers.

Roman’s posture is easy, as if he’s waiting in line at the post office. Chivalry in a $5,000 suit.

He nudges me forward, hands at my back. The pressure is a reminder: Move. Obey. Perform.

For the first time in minutes, I remember who we both are. I want to spit venom, but I don’t. Not now.

Instead, I let my thoughts play across my eyes:just because I came here with you doesn’t mean you get to tell me how to move. I’ll walk when I’m good and fucking ready.

The corridor ends at a checkpoint—three more guards, a table, an X-ray conveyor. They’re processing people like airport security, only with less patience and more interest in humiliation.

Each person steps forward, gets scanned, patted down, and then a little printer spits out a card with a number. The number goes around the neck. They’re waved through.

When it’s our turn, the taller guard eyes Roman with a look of polite contempt. “Remove everything from your pockets,” he says, New York accent so thick you could build a wall with it.

Roman empties his pockets: wallet, car keys, no knife or gun. They pat him down, rough but efficient, then move to me.

I expect hands, and I get them. The female guard is methodical but she doesn’t linger anywhere she doesn’t need to. When she’s done, she gives me my card: 247, black font on white plastic.

It matches Roman’s number.

I guess they count couples as one person, a single creature split in two. Or, maybe, I’m suffering from a split personality. Thatwould explain how he touches me like I’m his body, not mine. Knows what I want before I want it.

Shit, that would even explain the tampons.

The crowd is thick past the checkpoint. Everyone is masked, but the body language is Manhattan through and through: the way some men look for a camera in every corner, the way the women angle for an exit even as they put a hand against their companion’s chest.

I scan for weapons, for faces, for anything that might give away a cop or a fed, but all I get is the low background hum of money.

Roman, on the other hand, seems to recognize everyone.

“Judge Corcoran,” he whispers in my ear as his eyes glance off a rotund man with a beautiful younger woman on his arm. Two figures over, he has me study a man with a toupee. “Ex-Mayor Sitworth.”

That one surprises me.

I voted for him.

He keeps going: judges, bankers, police union representatives, real estate moguls. This must be how he knew who to go after: he must have run across the pianist and the day trader at a party like this. Maybe MacDougal, too.

More enticing than the civilians, to me, are the heads of various crime families.