Chapter 23
“Where are we?” Eden stared out the fogged window of the car at the wooden building tucked into the wilderness off the side of the road.
It was a luxury cabin that had at least two levels and didn’t appear to be occupied.
They’d driven to the game despite the field being on campus and only a fifteen-minute walk from Castle Black.
At the time, Ares had expressed his aversion to traipsing through the cold, but since he’d deviated from the road that would circle around to the Black Hart’s humble abode, it’d become obvious to Eden that he’d had other intentions from the beginning.
Eden had opted to quietly wait it out, content to lie back against the heated seat and sort through his tangled feelings. But now that they were actually here, in the middle of nowhere, he was second-guessing his approach.
“Before you say anything,” Ares shut the car off, “I’d planned on bringing you here before you spoiled the plot of that Memory.”
Right, the one where Ransom and OP end up in a cabin in the woods.
Alone.
Eden got out of the car and shivered, hunching his shoulders as he scowled across the hood of the vehicle at Ares. “If you’re thinking about ordering me to run through the forest, think again.”
“In this weather?” He shook his head. “There’s too great a risk you’d trip and hurt yourself. Or worse, break your neck.”
“Thought you could bring people back from the dead,” Eden drawled sarcastically, following Ares across the gravel driveway to the entrance to the cabin.
Someone must have cleared the way for them since the yard was covered in three feet of snow, meaning Ares really had planned this trip a while ago.
Ares hummed in agreement and pressed his thumb to the keypad of the house. “As long as you don’t hit your head too hard, I most likely could. But being brought back hurts. I don’t want that kind of suffering for you.”
A spiral staircase greeted them as soon as they stepped into the entrance.
Aside from that, there was a wooden bench to the left beneath wall hooks for jackets, and two closed doors behind the stairs.
Warmth already radiated from above, so Eden didn’t argue when the Black Hart started removing his shoes and coat.
Upstairs, a fire roared in a cozy living area, with a plush couch and a faux fur black rug stretched between them. To the right was a kitchen, and Ares moved there first, grabbing a couple of water bottles from the fridge.
“Don’t,” Ares ordered when Eden found a light switch on the wall by the stairs and reached for it.
He paused. “Why?”
“You won’t need it anyway, not for what I have planned.”
Eden shivered at the dark promise, anticipation causing him to shift awkwardly on his feet as he tried to hide how turned on it made him.
As if on cue, Ares’ multi-slate chimed. “The ambulance transporting Sedos slipped on black ice and rammed into a tree. The driver and paramedic onboard were able to escape, but it caught fire and exploded with Sedos trapped inside.”
And just like that, Sedos was dead. All it’d taken was a single message from the man standing across from Eden, and a life had ended in under an hour.
“I upheld my part of the deal,” Ares reminded, twisting off the top of one of the bottles and holding it out for him. Because he was still in the kitchen, doing so forced Eden to come to him. “Now it’s your turn. That’s how the game works, remember?”
Snatching the bottle, he drained half of it and then glared. “Did I say anything?”
“Not this time,” he said. “But you’ve been avoiding me all week.”
“Avoiding your brutal cock, you mean. Just tell it like it is. There’s no need to dance around the truth when it’s just us.” There was totally a need for it, mostly Eden’s pride, but that was the same reason he made the flippant remark.
No one had ever managed to get under his skin like this.
Ares could turn him petulant and childish at a mere glance, a single word.
Up until this point, Eden had prided himself on his calm facade.
It’d done him well during all those fan meets and at the gaming conventions he sometimes had to attend.
“How is work?” Either Ares read his mind, or he was planning something. Something that required easing Eden into a false sense of relaxation.
“Fine.”
“The new studio is to your liking?”
“Yeah.”
“And the tech?”
Eden had spent the past three days acquainting himself with the office Ares had put together for Astral Realms Innovations.
It was located down the street from campus, in literal walking distance.
Since he’d been so focused on everything less, the work as Ransom had piled up, and Eden had dedicated long hours to his original job.
Clearly, Ares had taken his late returns to Castle Black as Eden’s attempts to avoid him. He wasn’t entirely wrong…Even if that wasn’t the main reason for it, he’d taken space from the Black Hart on purpose in order to deal with his own tumultuous emotions.
He didn’t want to form an attachment, had gone into this thinking he’d get to experience revenge and good cock.
Nothing else had mattered. He hadn’t considered the consequences because he simply hadn’t cared about them.
Eden hadn’t exactly given up on life after his family’s deaths, but he’d been coasting at best, desperately grasping at straws in a poor attempt to keep himself afloat.
Wanting Ares as anything more than a means to an end wasn’t on his Bingo card and, frankly, Eden was mad about it.
Mad because he still couldn’t tell if the Black Hart was messing with him or not.
This could be a long game, and Eden could merely be another victim in a string of them.
People like Ares got bored, took things to the extreme.
It wouldn’t be unheard of for someone like him to use people as game pieces.
Hell, the goal could even be to gain Eden’s affection and then ruthlessly discard him after the fact. There was no way of knowing.
He either had to trust Ares or not.
He’d trusted Inzer, once upon a time. Look how well that had turned out.
“Did you really have to put the studio so close to campus?” Eden asked.
“I like to keep you close,” Ares replied shamelessly.
“I’m not going to run.”
“I know.”
“You took care of Zonnie’s body. Daven Dephik doesn’t even know his son is dead. No one is coming after me, so it’s not like I’m in danger and need your protection twenty-four-seven.”
“Do you know what I used to think about Ransom?” Ares took the mostly empty water bottle from Eden’s hand and set it on the kitchen counter. “I wished I could keep him always. That we could be together all the time. That either I could step into his reality, or I could bring him into mine.”
“I’m not—” Eden gasped when Ares captured him by the nape and hauled him in for an aggressive, claiming kiss.
He felt his bottom lip between the Black Hart’s teeth and grunted in discomfort when his skin was broken.
The rich coppery flavor of blood was driven into his mouth by Ares’ tongue, and when Eden tried to shove him back, the other man clung harder.
Ares backed him up until he hit the back of the couch, and then he rolled his hips, rubbing their hard-ons together in a somewhat mocking gesture, as though he were trying to prove a point.
“I’m tired of watching you from a screen,” the Black Hart growled.
What the hell did that mean?
“Sedos is dead. You got your revenge, Paradise. Now it’s time for my reward.” He stepped back so suddenly, Eden had to grab onto the couch to remain upright. “Strip.”
He struggled to control his breathing, but the hesitation annoyed Ares.
“Strip,” he repeated sternly. “If that porcelain skin of yours isn’t on full display by the time I return, there will be hell to pay.”
“Lucifer.” Eden didn’t even know what he was trying to ask for.
“That’s right,” Ares grinned. “I’m playing the role you assigned to me. Right now, I’m your fallen angel. Be good. If you are, maybe I’ll opt to show you what heaven is really like.”
“And,” he just couldn’t help himself, “if I’m bad?”
“Misbehave,” Ares left the kitchen, “and I’ll tie you to a chair in the corner and make you watch as I have fun without you.”
He was threatening not to let him come.
Eden had had more than enough of that struggle on his own this week.
He flipped Ares the bird as soon as the Black Hart disappeared into a bedroom, then quickly started peeling off his clothing.
* * *
Ares had him blindfolded, kneeling in front of the fireplace. His wrists were bound at his lower back with leather cuffs, and a spreader bar attached to his ankles kept him from closing his legs.
“Do you prefer the Vanity intro or outro song?” Ares asked cryptically, and Eden tipped his head in the direction of the sounds he was making as he sorted through the rest of the items he’d brought from the room.
“Why?”
“Be good.”
“Intro,” he huffed.
“Me too.” Ares laughed when Eden jumped a little when something stiff tweaked his nipple. “Remember my headphones?”
“The ones with the cat ears?” Black and red and sexy as fuck. Of course he remembered them. It made no sense for those to look so hot on a grown man, and yet they added a dash of playfulness to Ares’ otherwise dangerous persona.
“I got you a pair. I’m going to put them on, and then I’m going to slip a ball gag into your mouth.”
Eden was already annoyed he’d been blindfolded, now he wanted to take away his ability to hear him as well? “No.”
In response, Ares flicked the tip of Eden’s erect dick, chuckling again when that earned him a hiss.
“I can leave you here, go to the couch, and take care of things on my own, if you’d rather.
Trussed up the way you are, you wouldn’t have a hope of finding release.
Or you can listen to me like a good boy and tell me to take control of your senses. ”
He weighed his options, a growl rumbling up his chest when he realized neither of them was favorable toward him.
“Well?” Ares prompted. “What’s it going to be, babe?”