Page 76 of The Player

“Holy fuck,” he gasped. “This night is just full of surprises.”

“The best surprises,” I replied.

Reluctantly, I lifted myself off him, missing the feel of him as soon as I did. Still gasping, I lay on the bed beside him and took a moment to get my breath back.

Once we’d come back down from our high, I stood up and walked to the bathroom to fetch a wet cloth and a towel. Then I climbed back onto the bed beside him, and with the wet cloth, I wiped his stomach, chest, and cock. Taking care of him in the same way he always took care of me.

“Aftercare too. I am being spoiled,” he moaned. He was still chained to the bed, but he didn’t seem to mind.

I reached up to pull the mask off him, and as I did, his hair stuck up in all directions, making him look cute as hell, not to mention utterly satisfied and thoroughly fucked. It was a good look on him.

I glanced down at the mask in my hand, feeling an unwanted heaviness growing inside me. It was only subtle, but it was there, so I threw the mask into the corner of the room. It’d served its purpose for tonight; it wasn’t needed anymore.

Was I magically cured of my fear?

No.

Did I still have the weight of guilt, terror, and grief weighing me down?

Yes.

But tonight, just for a little while, I’d been able to forget. Distract myself and live in the moment. It wasn’t a cure, but it was a start. One step on that long road to finding some kind of recovery. There’d be other moments, steps forward and back, but at least I’d be moving, and that was what counted the most.

“Next time…” I lay against him, kissing his cheek as I wrapped my arm around his waist. “I want to see your face when I do that to you.”

He turned his head to look at me. “Next time, I want you to lick me clean after you do.”

I smirked.

“Deal.”

ChapterThirty-Four

WILL

Fuck me.

Literally.

I’d just had the best night of my life, and it didn’t stop there. We spent most of the night playing with her new toys. That was until Tiny grew restless and started to scratch at the bedroom door, crying to be let in. We couldn’t say no, and we picked her up, putting her on the bed between us. The three of us slept huddled together. For the first time since I was little, I felt like I was part of a family again. Sure, my friends, brothers as I called them, were my found family, but this, it was something for me.Myfamily.

In the morning, as the sun lightened the fabric of the curtains, waking us up, I grabbed my phone to find a load of missed calls from Adam and Colton. Then a text from Adam that read,

You need to come back. Now. We have the IDs back from Tom.

It’s not good news.

I already knew it wouldn’t be good news. I also knew exactly whose hands they were, and I had to tell Bryony. This couldn’t go on another day because Colton would know her father was one of those victims, he’d feel torn about what to say to Shelley. It was only fair it came from us. That she was told in the right way, and who better to know what that way was than her sister, Bryony.

I sat up, resting against the headboard as Bee stroked Tiny, playing with her on top of the duvet.

“I need to tell you what I meant to last night, before I got… distracted.”

She sighed, picking Tiny up and burying her face into the pup. She was avoiding me.

“I mean it, Bee. You need to hear this, and you need to tell Shelley today too. I need to tell my friends.”

“Why?” She whipped her head around to stare at me, questioning my insistence that it was done today.