We Have Till Dawn - Cara Dee Page 0,17

dozen maraschino cherries and a couple chocolate-filled wafers.

Then I went back to my keyboard and sat down. I had another half hour or so to develop the song I was working on before I had to get ready for Gideon’s arrival. I’d been at it all day, unable to get Anthony’s song out of my head. It deserved a response.

You’ll find strength in the fight.

“Hmm.” I stuck the ice-cream-filled spoon into my mouth and jotted down the words in my notebook.

I wanted to believe that the best kind of love was worth burning for. A flicker of a flame wasn’t enough. It had to consume you. I wanted the blood, sweat, and tears kind of love. The unpredictable, the wild, and the hard love.

Hard love.

We were always proud of hard work. We stood taller next to our biggest achievements.

Hold on tight.

The music swept through me, and I played until the perfect melody emerged. I’d continue working on it tomorrow, though I suspected my mind would be preoccupied with it all night. Hey, Gideon wanted me passive and motionless; he was gonna get it. I’d just wander off mentally instead.

Or, I was gonna get through to him somehow. I kept going back and forth. He’d texted me the instructions for tonight, and he wanted me lying naked on my side when he arrived. Sleep mask on until the lights were off, and then he’d remove it. He’d thought of me all day, he’d said, and he wanted to be inside me within a minute of his getting here, so I had to prepare myself too.

He was taking the excitement out of this arrangement mad fast.

I was officially nothing more than a sex doll, and it made it difficult to motivate myself to help him.

That rock made a comeback in the pit of my stomach tonight, and now I knew it had nothing to do with my job as a sex worker. It wasn’t about sex, it wasn’t about selling it, it wasn’t about feeling “dirty.” It was because of clients like Gideon. Every now and then, someone had rented my services to treat me like an object, and that did it. That was the reason.

Gideon hadn’t been lying. He’d been inside me within a minute of his arrival, and he’d been different. He hadn’t spoken a word until he’d gotten off about two minutes ago. And then, he’d only said, “I’ll be right back.”

He’d disappeared, only to return with a wet washcloth to clean me off.

I was so done with this. Now I remembered why I’d quit in the first place.

Seven weeks to go.

Seven weeks of evidently not feeling like a human being whenever my client popped in for a quiet fuck.

At least Tina had gotten me a sweet deal with the payment renegotiation. Now I’d be walking away with four grand a week, minus her ten percent. First payment was due tomorrow, which Tina had held for me. The client paid in advance; the sex worker got paid afterward.

“You didn’t get hard during…” Gideon’s voice filled the dark apartment, and it faded just as quickly.

I had nothing to say. He hadn’t asked a direct question.

I scrubbed my hands over my face and yawned, hoping he’d either leave or wanna get some sleep, because I was a few minutes away from losing the last fuck about the rules. And if I opened my mouth now, he’d get an unfiltered piece of my mind.

The mattress dipped with his weight as he sat down on the edge next to me. “I’m frustrated. I know the rules I’ve imposed, but now I feel alone in this companionship.”

“Because you are.” Welp, those words left me of their own volition. But now I might as well continue. “You asked for a plaything who didn’t move or speak and you got one.”

I heard him swallow and take a couple breaths.

“Have…Have I hurt you?” he asked hesitantly.

Yes, I wanted to say, but it wouldn’t be right. He hadn’t done anything wrong whatsoever. I just wasn’t as perfectly suited for this work as I’d once thought I was, and now I was out of the game. Two years had passed since this had been a regular thing. My guard was down. I’d been naïve to think I could jump in without any preparations.

“I’ve hurt myself a little,” I settled for saying. “I thought I could go through with an arrangement—as a one-time thing—like I used to. This was once my full-time job, but I quit two years ago.”

“Yes, Tina