Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
“Are you all right?” Hayden called out. “That was a hell of a storm!”
Hayden was there, too? Fuck.
“Why did you go out in the storm?” Pippa screeched, her voice a piercing pitch. “You could have been killed!”
“Ah, it wasn’t bad,” Granger said, and I smelled him lighting up a cigarette. “Just a little bit of a breeze.”
I concentrated on being motionless. Was all of my body covered? They were so close by. What if they looked down and saw me?
“Why don’t I get in your boat and we’ll go back together?” Pippa said eagerly.
She sounds so desperate, I thought bitchily. Like she doesn’t feel secure in him at all. She knows, even if she can’t admit it to herself.
“Bunch of dead fish at the bottom, I don’t think you’d enjoy it much.”
How the hell could Granger sound absolutely zero percent stressed out? Through the gaps in his windbreaker I saw him laying with his long legs across the boat like he didn’t have a care in the world. Not a twitch, not a break in his voice.
He truly was a psychopath.
“All right,” she said reluctantly. “Well, come back as soon as you can so we can go to lunch together.”
“Sure.”
My limbs were cramping painfully by the time he finally tapped me on the ass.
“See,” Granger said indifferently. “I told you it was going to be fine.”
“We almost got caught!” I squawked, raising my head up cautiously as he pulled the boat up to the dock.
“But we didn’t, did we?”
He pinched my cheek.
“Now go and be a good girl. Don’t do anything stupid like that again, you hear me?”
“The stupidest thing I ever did was talk to you,” I spat but he only blew a ring of smoke in my face and went to secure the boat.
Now how was I supposed to get out of here? And why wasn’t my boyfriend the one to rescue me?
When I didn’t hear from Jax for the next few days, my worry and unease only grew. I was going mad with not knowing. What in the world could have happened to him? Was he ghosting me? I couldn’t imagine why.
We had seemed so well-matched, so many things in common.
And such a kind man. . .
There was no way he could have known about any secret thoughts I had about that asshole Granger.
Well, I refused to be ghosted. I was going to figure out why. But for that I’d have to use someone else’s phone, because he was obviously ignoring my calls.
They were setting up for another performance, when I walked determinedly past Hollingsworth House toward town.
“Where are you going?” Hayden called out.
“Just downtown,” I said.
Out of the corner I could see Pippa and Granger sitting at the outdoors table, and I could feel his eyes on me.
“Want to grab a cup of coffee?”
“Sure,” I said, ignoring the angry awareness that prickled over my skin. “I’d love that.”
Granger didn’t like that. Good.
Now where should I go? Where would I get the least chance of having some spy run and tell Pippa everything that had happened?
I settled on the very corny Fun House that was so popular year-round with tourists.
It was right by some swanky coffee shops and restaurants, but the owner had repeatedly refused to either sell or modernize the peeling, blue-and-white building.
At least that was one thing still the same without any bad memories.
A noise made me glance behind. But there was nothing out of the ordinary there.
“Can I use your phone for five minutes?” I asked the bored-looking teen at the front desk. “I’ll pay you $20.”
“How about $50?” he countered, and I gritted my teeth.
Stupid filthy rich Oystar Bay.
But I was too desperate, and I dug around in my purse and tossed the money over the counter, eagerly closing my fingers around the phone.
“I’ll bring it right back.”
“Sure, whatever.”
Then I hurried down the mostly-empty halls, past the Fun House mirrors that had an ancient clown popping geriatrically out at you, and dialed Jax’s number.
Come on, pick up.
Ring. . .ring. . .ring. . .
OK, maybe he really had an accident. Maybe something really had happened to him. Or this was all a big misunderstanding.
But then he picked up.
“Hello?”
“Jax?” I yelped. “It’s Sosie. What’s happening? Why haven’t you answered any of my calls? I’ve been going crazy with worry.”
There was a pause for a moment.
“I can’t talk to you,” he said finally.
“What do you mean?” I cried. “Why?”
“I’m really sorry, I—”
But then the phone was snatched from my fingers and I was getting pressed into the side of the building.
“What did he mean he can’t talk to me?” I demanded.
“He means his job is done,” Granger whispered in my ear.
“What—”
Granger pulled me into the mirror maze room.
“What do you think, songbird?”
“I’m not your songbird,” I hissed, my hands tightened into fists.
“He was hired to do a job. He’s now completed the job.”
“And who hired him?”
Unease crawled across my skin as I heard the tinny cackling of their ancient machine.
“Who do you think hired him?”
I didn’t care what it cost me, I screamed at the top of my lungs, but it didn’t matter, he had already clapped a hand around my mouth and was dragging me further into the mirrors.
“Couldn’t have you giving this sweet ass away to anyone else.”
I looked up to see us reflected, piece by piece, in the mirror, the bright auburn of my hair framed against his white T-shirt, my pale skin contrasted with his deep tan.
“Why?” I screamed. “Why go to all this effort for me? When you rejected me?”
“Who said I rejected you?” his voice was sinful honey, rolling down my spine like he had any right to be there.
“I said you were mine, and that hasn’t changed. So don’t piss me off with Hayden.”
“You’ve got a wedding band on and you’re daring to tell me who I can and can’t go out with?”
“Yeah. I am.”
He kissed me against the mirrors, then dragged me further into the funhouse, between the gaping lips of the evil clown, then pressed me against the wall.
“I love having you back, Sosie. What a sweet handful you are.”
“Granger? Granger?”
“Sounds like your wife is calling for you.”
“Well, here’s something to remind you to behave.”
With one big hand, he bore me down to my knees in my darkness and tipped up my chin.
“If you think I’m going to blow you here—” I hissed angrily, but he only dragged my lower lip down.
“I think I’m going to mark you up, baby.”
His thick dick was in his hands and he popped me in the cheek with it, hard.
I tried to scramble backwards, but he had me in too tight a grip, his hands stroking that hard dick and I watched in horrified fascination as a pearl of precum appeared on the head.
“Granger? Granger? They said they saw you come in! Where are you? It’s creepy as shit in here.”
He had my hair with his other hand.
“Lick that bead off.”
Glaring at him, I obeyed.
“Shouldn’t you go find your wife?”
He raised an eyebrow.
“I’ll go when I’m ready. Now I want this soaked in.”
His balls were slamming me under the chin, and he released a rope of cum directly onto my face, splattering my hair, soaking into my cheeks, and dripping down to my mouth.
With hard, rough fingers he pressed it into my skin and I could only stare open-mouthed at him as Pippa screeched somewhere in the background.
“Look how pretty this cream is. It’ll keep you beautiful. Now, behave yourself.”
“I hate you!”
“We’ll talk about that later. Enjoy your new perfume.”
As soon as he left, I headed over to the coffee shop.
“Hi, Sosie, really happy you could meet me here.”
I had zero interest in Hayden, but the fact that it would piss Granger off was reason enough for me to agree.
And I didn’t want to think about who or what did have my interest.
Not the psychopath who had hired a man to pretend to be my boyfriend, that was for sure. . .
“Did I see you and Granger going into the Fun House together?” Hayden asked.
“No,” I said.
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely positive.”
“Well, good. Because there’s something you need to know about Granger.”