Now that the fog has cleared, I feel so stupid that I let her do this shit. I also feel sticky blood on the back of my boxer-briefs.
I stand up. “Fuck.” I even got a little on the chair.
I’m shaking in earnest now, because if there’s anything I hate, it’s blood. I turn a circle, squeezing my eyes shut as I realize I can’t go clean this off of me, because I can’t leave Priscilla alone in my house.
I grit my teeth and push a chair in front of the bathroom door. Then I hurry to my bedroom, where I keep a first aid kit. I grab a fresh pair of boxer briefs, a black towel, and an Ace bandage, figuring gauze won’t be enough to keep the blood off my tux.
My stomach churns as I stride back into the living area. Priscilla is pounding on the bathroom door. “Hunter, you bastard! I have a party to host at my mansion!”
I shove the chair aside and she strides out, looking like an evil creature in her fluffy coat. “Hunter,” she says with mock concern as her eyes flick over my face and shoulders. “You’re bloody and you’re pale as a ghost. You need to lie down.”
When I lock my jaw and hold out the bandage, her blue eyes widen. “Surely you don’t expect me to...”
“Yes, I do, Priscilla.” I hand her the thing and its little metal clasps and turn around, trying to ignore her as she gasps and starts piling on the faux sympathy. “Oh you poor thing. This has to be excruciating.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I mutter. “Just start wrapping.”
“But Hunter, what you need to do is shower. If I wrap it like it is, you’ll get an infection.” I can hear the subtle note of gladness in her tone, the satisfaction as she assumes her plan is falling into place. “Hunter, I know we agreed to go as a pair, but why don’t you stay in tonight? Just relax. You’ve earned it, surely?”
“Wrap my back, Priscilla.” I level a look over my shoulder that I hope kicks her ass into gear, and a second later she starts wrapping.
She works quickly, and she’s not gentle. The bandage is tight as she steps in circles around me, wrapping me from abs to collar. I clench my jaw and shut my eyes and inhale through my nose. Fucking Priscilla.
I can gauge the width and depth of the wounds by the way they feel under the bandage. The superficial cuts near my shoulders and my hips just sting, but the deeper slashes in the middle of my back throb with every heartbeat.
“Tell me if I hurt you,” she says in her sing-song voice.
I wouldn’t tell her this shit hurt if my life depended on it. Priscilla is a masochist, but she has a sadistic side, I learned tonight. She probably knew from the beginning that I’d never use the whip on her. She brought it to keep me away from the party.
“All done,” she says after what feels like a thousand years. Pain is a hot vice around my throat, clouding my mind, making my body cold and light enough that I feel like I could float away. I ignore this and dress myself, trying as hard as I can not to wince or even move stiffly.
“You have a high pain tolerance,” she remarks as I slip into my coat. My stomach is churning because it hurts so fucking much to lift my arms, but I give her a smug smile and move briskly as I grab my keys and slide my phone into my pocket.
Priscilla wants to take her limo, and I make the calculated decision to indulge her. I’d like to get as far off her radar as I can tonight, and acting easy-going will help with that goal. I tell her as we slide into the limo that I don’t plan to be at the party long. I can see her perk up as she pours two glasses of chardonnay.
I arch my brow, roll my window down, and dump my glass out, and Priscilla laughs like it’s the funniest thing she’s ever seen. I smirk and lean forward a little in my seat. There’s something irritating about being around a woman who knows she got the drop on me. Makes me feel weak.
I’m still pissed by the time we roll up to the gaudy monstrosity that is the Heat Enterprises mansion: two stories of sleek gray stone with massive gold lions guarding the blood red doors. In between the street and the mansion, there’s a moat and drawbridge. The water in the moat glows sparkly red.
Priscilla grins when she sees the place.
We spend thirty minutes, if not longer, greeting a long line of Priscilla’s acquaintances—everyone from city officials to the local mob. I get caught with her when a gossip columnist pulls out her camera. I don’t duck out of the picture, but I don’t smile either.