22. Chapter 22
Chapter 22
An excruciating fifteen minutes later (in which David left several more messages for Paige), Evan arrived.
“Honey, I’m home!” he called out after letting himself into the loft.
“It took you long enough, asshole,” David called back. “I’m in my bedroom.”
“Jesus. I said I’d be here in fifteen minutes, and it’s been fifteen minutes,” Evan said, his voice getting louder as he got closer to the master bedroom. “So, what kind of serious situation is—” the rest of his sentence died as he cleared the doorway and saw David. For a moment, Evan just stood there, trying to assimilate what he was seeing—his naked friend oiled up and handcuffed to his bed. “Holy shit.”
“I need you to get me out of these,” David told him, shaking his arms and rattling the chain.
“Well, I have to say, this is not at all what I was expecting to find,” Evan said, pursing his lips and trying not to laugh. “Why are you trussed up like this?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“It kind of is, considering I left work for you, leaving that idiot, Lars, in charge while I’m gone.”
“Just get me out of these,” David demanded, rattling the chain again, while trying to maintain some modesty. He was sure he looked awkward with his hips twisted and his legs bent to keep his junk from being on full display, but he didn’t need any comments about that right now; he’d already given Evan more than enough to work with.
Evan began moving slowly into the dimly lit room, his amusement making him impervious to David’s impatience, but not to his obvious embarrassment. “If it makes you feel better, I’ve seen worse.”
“No, it doesn’t make me feel better.”
Evan grinned, only to stop as he spied a bit of crimson material on the floor. Bending over to pick it up, his eyes widened when he realized it was a very sexy, see-through bra. “Well, now. What have we here?”
On the bed, David made a sound of aggravation at seeing what Evan had in his hands. “Drop it.”
Ignoring the command, Evan held the bra out in front of him, pretending to examine it from all angles, mainly because he knew it would annoy David even further. “This is nice. And by nice, I mean slutty. Who does it belong to? It’s obviously not yours, since it’s not the right size—although, if it was yours, I wouldn’t judge, just so you know,” he told David, who was now looking a little murderous. Or, as murderous as he could while being naked, oiled up, and handcuffed to a bed.
At that moment, Evan decided he didn’t care if Lars accidentally burned Three Amigos to the ground because Evan was too busy enjoying this once-in-a-lifetime gift from God, a gift that wasn’t going to be squandered by rushing back to the bar too quickly.
“It belongs to Cat Lady, doesn’t it?” Evan peered down at the bra’s brand name tag and whistled. “Agent Provocateur,” he read aloud. “Cat Lady has expensive taste. And decent sized tits. Not too big, not too small …”
“Shut the fuck up, right there. I don’t want you thinking or talking about my—” David broke off, appalled. He’d almost said ‘my wife’s tits’ and that would’ve been unbelievably horrible, so he quickly changed it to, “Her tits. Get me?”
“Why are you being so bitchy?”
“I’m not being bitchy.”
“You kind of are. And you should think about adjusting your attitude, because I could easily leave you here and then what are you going to do? Call your mom for help?”
David hated that Evan was right. “Sorry,” he apologized, trying to actually sound sorry. “Her tits just aren’t open for discussion. And I really don’t want you touching her bra anymore, so can you put it down? If and when she ever wears it again, I don’t want to be thinking about you playing with it.”
Slowly, Evan walked toward the nearest side of the bed and as he draped the bra over the footboard’s short corner post, he said, “You know, I might have to start calling Cat Lady ‘Agent Provocateur’. What do you think?”
“I think you’re just fucking with me because you can, since I’m in no position to kick your ass. Now, can you just get me out of these handcuffs?”
“I’m being serious. I really like ‘Cat Lady’, but ‘Agent Provocateur’ has such a nice ring to it. It’s got panache.” Evan sighed. “I’m so torn.”
Knowing a ‘Word-of-the-Day’ when he heard one, David took a deep breath, seriously annoyed that his freedom was in the hands of a person who was clearly enjoying his temporary position of power. “Shut. The. Fuck. Up. I don’t want you calling her ‘Agent Provocateur’.”
“‘Cat Lady’ it is, then.”
“I don’t want you calling her that, either.”
“Well, I have to call her something, since I don’t know her real name, so … pick one.”
David definitely didn’t want Evan calling Paige ‘Agent Provocateur’, because of the obvious lingerie reference, so he reluctantly picked the lesser of two evils. “Fine. ‘Cat Lady’ it is.” David shook his wrist, making the chain rattle again. “Now get me out of these fucking handcuffs.”
Mainly because he did need to get back to Three Amigos, Evan smirked as he leaned over and started to work on releasing a handcuff, which was basically like unbuckling a belt, but then stopped to give an exaggerated sniff. “Is that coconut I smell?” he asked, a second before he noticed a giant container of coconut oil on the bed. Apparently he’d been so focused on David’s predicament, that Evan had overlooked it. “Things just got a little more interesting,” he mused. “And I didn’t think that was possible.”
“Jesus. Just shut the fuck up and hurry.”
As soon as David’s hand was free he rolled over, not caring that he was giving Evan a view of his ass, and immediately got the other cuff undone. Then, ignoring Evan’s amused chuckles (and knowing this moment in time would live in infamy), David quickly started throwing his clothes on, feeling much better once he was in his briefs and jeans and was no longer naked. As he pulled on his shirt, he told Evan, “Just to be clear, we’re never going to speak of this again.”
“Oh, fuck no with that,” Evan immediately argued. “There’s a hell of a story here and I’ll be hearing all of it at a later date. And I mean all of it. No detail will be too small.”
Not caring if he was being rude, David walked down to his entryway and opened the door. “Thanks for coming by.”
Amused, Evan gave him a salute on his way out to the landing. “No problem. I’m glad you called. Oh, speaking of which, how did you call—”
David shut the door, really not caring if that was rude, because he had more important things to worry about. He dashed back to the master bedroom and grabbed his phone and immediately started calling Paige again. After leaving a few more messages, and letting her know he was ‘free’, he started texting.
DAVID: Where are you? Please call me.
DAVID: Or text. Something.
DAVID: I’m worried about you. I need to know if you’re okay.
DAVID: Please please please please call or text. Please.
DAVID: We need to talk. I’m not sure what happened.
He kept picturing her looking devastated as she’d been leaving and all he could think was that maybe she’d been triggered by something, which had been his greatest fear going into this arrangement. But what could it have been? He didn’t know—especially since she’d seemed to be enjoying what they were doing. But he did know that whatever it was she was now dealing with it alone, and it was apparently something so bad that after almost forty-five minutes, she still hadn’t returned to the loft, or called or texted him back.
He started to text her again, only to stop when he realized none of his previous ones had been read yet, which made him immediately wonder if she’d listened to any of his voicemails, either. It seemed unlikely that she’d listened to those, but wasn’t reading her texts, so he had to assume she was totally ignoring him, which was beyond troubling.
He was now officially freaked out.
She probably shouldn’t have been driving, but he forced himself to not think about her getting into an accident and focus on where she might go, instead. Her apartment seemed the most likely place, so he decided to try there. It couldn’t hurt … and it would give him something to do besides wait and pace.