Chapter 1
Aggressive cuddler.
— T -shirt
KEELY
Present Day
“ I , uh…” I hesitated, wondering if I was crazy enough to say what I had to say next. Then , without giving it anymore thought, I just blurted it out. “ I want to be fucked by a stranger. Preferably one wearing a mask.”
My therapist didn’t even blink before she replied.
Damn , she was good.
“ It’s very, very normal to have kinks, period,” my therapist explained. “ You’re a healthy, well-adjusted woman despite your upbringing and everything you faced in your teens. It’s healthy to want sex. It’s healthy to crave sex that’s exciting. It’s even healthy to want sex with a man wearing a mask. Every red-blooded, straight woman craves the kind of sex that thrills her. Sure , not everyone has those kinds of kinks, but it’s highly likely that they’ve all considered it before.”
My therapist, Jenny , was a great lady. I liked her a lot.
I’d been seeing her since I was twenty-one, once or twice a year.
I’d started seeing her after my old one died—who I’d absolutely adored, too.
My brothers had felt like it was a good idea for me to start seeing a therapist after what my brother, Copper , had done, and what I’d experienced at the hands of my ‘father.’
The experiences at the hand of my father were something that I needed to talk to a therapist about. What Copper had done to my dad upon catching my father doing those things? That I didn’t care about. That had actually helped me.
Seeing my father suffer? That had been the best feeling in the world.
I’d felt loved and cherished. I’d felt protected again, like nothing could ever hurt me.
And the sick sense of dread and fear no longer dominated my thoughts.
My father hadn’t raped me.
Not fully, anyway.
But he had touched me inappropriately. He’d tortured me by making me think he was going to rape me. He’d beat me. He’d mentally abused me.
But he hadn’t raped me.
Not that the rest of it wasn’t bad enough, but I’d never had that particular violation happen to me.
Even if my brothers didn’t believe it never happened. They thought that I was trying to make them feel better for not noticing. I hadn’t been, but nothing could convince them otherwise.
“ So , say I really get off on those types of things—the domination and the force—that’s not a bad thing?” I asked warily.
Jenny smiled. “ No . I know that I usually don’t share personal information with you, but I feel like maybe this one time, to hear that someone as adjusted as me has these same kinds of fantasies, might make you feel better. I go to sex clubs. I enjoy role play, domination, and light slave play.”
I don’t know how I kept my mouth from falling open in shock, but I did.
Composing myself, I drew a deep breath and said, “ It does.”
She closed her book and stood. “ That’s all for today then. If you have any more questions or would like to meet any other time in the next six months, feel free to make an appointment.”
I stood up, too, smoothing my scrub top down over my hips.
After saying our goodbyes, I headed to work.
I worked at a sleep center in the middle of Dallas , and there wasn’t a night that passed that I didn’t question my thought process.
I could be working at a hospital as a registered nurse, yet I was here, working at a sleep center with my friend Dorie , making about half of what I could be making.
I made decent money.
I worked three twelve-hour shifts a week. I made enough money to pay my utility bills, and I had a fully paid-off apartment that’d lasted for a solid three years, thanks to my granddad.
When all the crap had gone down with my dad’s passing, Granddad had been the beneficiary of Dad’s will.
He’d taken us in, raised us, and then given us all of my father’s spoils. He’d even left Copper a plot of land on the lake that was sandwiched in between Chevy and Cutter’s .
For me, since Granddad knew I hated the lake and everything that it represented—my father’s ultimate goal of having a home there that was so grand no one could compete—he’d given me the money from the sale of our childhood home and a place in Castanon Enterprises whether I wanted that position or not.
I’d taken that and split it in half, giving half to Copper’s life-after-prison fund, and the other half to pay for my college completely and about three years’ rent on an apartment in the middle of Dallas .
Though , that three years was running out soon, and I’d have to start paying for my rent again before I knew it.
Which sucked because that meant I’d have to move.
I couldn’t afford my place much longer with my salary.
My place was bougie as hell, in an upscale apartment building that overlooked the Dallas skyline.
Sadly , my impending circumstances gave me a lot of things to think about.
I didn’t necessarily hate my job at the sleep lab, but I didn’t love it, either.
To be completely truthful, my ultimate goal was to find someone that adored my kinky side and wanted to give me everything—i.e., allowing me to stay home, raise our kids, and be available to him mind, body and soul any time he wanted me.
I wanted to not think.
I know that’s a crazy concept in this day and age, but that was my goal. I wanted someone to take care of me, give me what I needed, and love me unconditionally. All the while I’d give them everything that I had in my soul.
Was that too much to ask for?
Working when you truly didn’t want to work was a mind game.
All thoughts on my life and what I was going to do with it were put on the back burner when I got to work and spotted a close-enough parking spot that I wouldn’t be walking for eight days in the dark.
I expertly backed into it, shut the engine off, and gathered my things.
The sleep lab, though nice during the day time, was a bit scary at night.
In the middle of a rougher part of Dallas , it didn’t give me the warm fuzzies when I got out of my safe car and headed down the street to work.
Like all parts of downtown, there wasn’t much parking to be had, and I was lucky to find one as close as I did at this time at night when everyone was usually home or getting home for the night.
I had to walk past six alleyways on my way into work, and all of them were occupied by questionable looking people. The trick was to avoid eye contact, and always have a knife in your hand to make you look crazy.
My brother, Chevy , taught me that.
The more crazy you look, the less likely they are to mess with you.
That was why I walked with a huge hunting knife that likely looked too big for my hand.
But it worked.
No one ever messed with me.
On the last alley I passed, a light caught my eye.
The burning end of a cigarette.
I glanced that way, which was a rookie mistake, and felt my heart flip when the burning ember illuminated a masked man standing in an alley. He was leaning against the exposed brick wall, shoulders against it, and one booted foot up against the wall.
My heart picked up speed because from what I could tell, the masked man had a great body.
He was wearing fitted pants, a pea coat, and the mask.
It was too hot out for a mask, well over eighty degrees, and not nearly cool enough to need a mask like that. And , since I had a sense of self-preservation, I didn’t dally for long.
But my thoughts were on masked guy for the rest of the night while I got our first two patients set up for the night.
A solid hour later, I met up with Dorie in the lab in the middle of the rooms and touched base.
Since she really was the only friend I had—outside of my brothers and Cutter’s wife, Milena — I , of course, opened my mouth when I shouldn’t have.
Then we were talking about our kinks all of a sudden, and I was blurting out things it’d taken me an entire year to work up the courage to even tell my therapist—who, might I add, was bound by law not to share my information with anyone.
Dorie , however, didn’t have that same code of conduct.
This was what happened with coworkers. They knew everything about your life.
Then again, I knew more about her life than I thought necessary.
Like right now, she was telling me that she wanted to fuck a werewolf.
“ I think it would be really cool,” she said. “ I mean, werewolves are awesome, right? I think my desire to do that stems from Beauty and the Beast . I mean, he was so dreamy as the beast, wasn’t he?”
I didn’t get the chance to answer before she was continuing on.
“ I think you should go with it,” she chirped. “ You know Craig ?”
Of course I knew Craig . Everyone knew Craig .
He was a doctor at the sleep center that we worked at.
“ Yes …” I drawled out.
“ Well , Craig has a certain kind of…” She hesitated, trying to find the right words. “ Okay , well, you can’t tell him that I told you, but Craig belongs to the elite sex club here. It’s called Torment .”
I’d actually heard of that one.
In fact, it’d been a place that I was willing to go to to feed this clawing need inside of me.
I just craved something that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, and I thought Torment might actually be a place that could fix what was broken inside of me.
To hear that Craig was a part of that place…
Normally , I’d take everything that Dorie said with a grain of salt.
Lately , she’d been super, duper salty about my brother, Cutter , breaking up with her.
She’d thought they were going to go all the way. I’d known differently.
Though , Dorie had helped it along when she’d told Cutter that saving money for when Copper got out of prison was stupid when he was living in a hovel.
Truthfully , Cutter didn’t care if he lived in a hovel. He loved where he lived, which was on a houseboat on the lake.
It was something that was given to him by our grandfather, and he’d adored that place—even if I hated it because it reminded me of times that I didn’t want anything to do with.
But I digress.
Cutter didn’t fix his place up because nearly half of his income went into a savings account for our brother, Copper , to use when he got out of prison.
All of us had agreed that we would put our extra money into an account, and we had, for seventeen years now.
That account was very, very healthy, and Copper would be set up for life when he got out.
When Dorie found out that months after breaking up with him, Cutter had met and married a woman he barely knew, it set her off .
I had to work with her every day, and at one point, I’d thought for sure that our friendship was going to die.
But then one day she’d come into work with a new boyfriend, and it was like she was back to normal.
So I didn’t think she was vindictive enough to lie to me about Craig .
“ You should ask him,” she said. “ I’ll bet that he’d be willing to indulge that fantasy.”
I liked Craig .
He was a very sweet guy that was quite attractive.
Sure , he didn’t give off the “fuck me” vibes that I craved, but he was safe, and I was nothing but aware of how dangerous this world could be.
Exploring things with a nice, safe guy sounded like the way to go.
“ Ugh ,” Dorie said. “ Speaking of assholes.”
I didn’t need to look up to know who she was talking about.
And though we hadn’t actually been speaking about assholes, but nice men, I didn’t bother to correct her on it.
“ What the fuck are you two even doing?” Dr . McCinnish snarled as he walked into the room. “ And why are you two sitting here doing it? Get to work.”
I clenched my hands into fists and kept my mouth shut.
I was a doormat.
Everyone knew it, but Dr . McCinnish definitely knew it.
I hated him with every fiber of my being, and if the man happened to die one night, I wouldn’t care at all.