I didn’t want to believe it. Not that they’d tied her in for another round of filth so unwillingly.
“And is it the same? The terms?”
She shook her head again. “No. Not with this guy in charge. It’s nothing like the other sixty days. They were hard. Filthy. They fucked me up no end, but I never felt like they were gonna end bad. I never felt like I’d finish up there and brought back in for another go.”
Somehow that didn’t surprise me. The guy downstairs — Mr silver fox business partner — seemed nothing whatsoever like Brandon Grant.
Brandon was cold and callous. He was strong and steely and dominant enough that I couldn’t imagine sixty days ever going to anyone else’s plan but his. But he wasn’t the man downstairs. He didn’t have the same wolfish glare that made you feel like a piece of meat on a plate, all ready to be chewed and chomped and slavered over.
The man downstairs didn’t look at you like you were a person. A human. A girl with hopes and dreams and personality.
“I’ve been back on webcam,” Rebecca told me. “But this wasn’t like last time. This feels… different.”
“How different?”
She struggled for words. “I dunno, Paige. Just different. Like there aren’t so many involved this time around, but it’s worse. They’re worse.”
It was then that she properly looked me up and down, her eyes scouting out my nakedness and laying hard on the bruises. I felt self-conscious. Vulnerable in my nudity. Exposed and raw and like the same piece of meat the guys downstairs had viewed me as.
“He got you good,” she commented, and I nodded.
“He did, yeah. But I didn’t mind it…”
She nodded back. “Yeah, I get it. I didn’t mind it either, not with him.”
I wished I felt confident enough to tell her that I’d lost my heart to the beautiful monster. That I’d felt the pull of something deeper, something between us, something that was going to break me apart to find out he’d cast me aside like I meant nothing.
“Were you falling for him?” she asked, clearly reading my mind, and I felt my cheeks flush. Her laugh made them flush harder. “Don’t be shy, honey. I get it. I know it. I fell for him too. I don’t know how you couldn’t. He was… amazing… nasty, but amazing… and gorgeous, right? So fucking gorgeous.”
She turned her gaze back to the window and I cleared my throat.
“Did you feel it back? From him?” I managed to spit out. “Did you feel anything coming back your way when you fell in deep?”
“From him?” she asked. “You mean did I think he was falling for me?” Her laugh was a cackle from a sore throat. “Hell no. Not in this lifetime. There’s no way he’d fall for anyone, not that soulless bastard. Not in a million years.”
I was looking at our clasped hands when I felt her eyes burning mine. There was still a laughter edge to her voice when she spoke again. “You don’t think he’s really capable of that do you? Falling in love?”
“I dunno,” I said. “I don’t know anything right now. Not how we got here. Not why we’re here. Not what’s coming next.”
“Not what it’s got to do with him,” she finished, then sighed. “Please tell me you aren’t all in with that loved up feeling?”
I didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer.
“Should have guessed,” she said. “I know it’s hard not to. I know he’s hard to pass on by, especially when he’s pushing you to your limits and making you feel like you want even more. That’s fucked up, right? What he does to us is fucked right up. You’re all on your own in that webcam room, counting on the moment he’s gonna come on in and mess with your body for a few hours straight, and you wanna beg him, beg him to stay, beg him to be there… but he never does…” She paused. “Yep, that’s fucked right up.”
But it didn’t feel that way to me. What had gone on between me and Brandon Grant felt ridiculously non-fucked up. It felt ridiculously right to be a product of something so ridiculously wrong.
And his room. There was his room. Sleeping in his arms. Talking. Touching. Showering. So much more than waiting in a webcam room, but I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t bring myself to say it.
“You’ll get over it,” she said. “It’ll take some time, but you’ll get over it. I doubt you’ll ever see him again, as long as you keep your mouth shut. I should’ve kept my stupid mouth shut.”
“Maybe you’d be here anyway,” I said. “I’m here, aren’t I? Maybe this is a standard thing, a stint in this other place with other people.”
“Good point,” she replied. “That is a good question actually. What the hell are you doing here? You should have sixty days straight with the original monster.”