Page 81 of Take Her

Anything

I promised, having already broken through the pictures-of-my-pussy horizon.

Good

he said again, then followed it with,

I need you to cuff up the sleeves of your shirt and take pictures of your wrists for me.

The bottom dropped out of my stomach at the same time I felt like retching. “Please, no,” I whispered out loud, but he couldn’t hear me.

I’m waiting.

Seconds counted by the same as years did. It felt like I could feel the seasons change, the sun flying overhead again and again, while the moon swelled, dwindled, and then disappeared, repeatedly.

And no force on the planet could’ve gotten me to show my wrists to him.

A final text from him came in:

You’re in trouble.

34

RHAIM

Ihad absolutely gone into a bathroom to jack off after my last meeting of the day—and this one was probably only fifty-one percent about Lia’s ass being on my desk earlier, and forty-nine percent sheer stress relief.

I couldn’t believe that Nero was going to die. I wanted to rail against that fact, but he had enough money to explore all his options—I was sure he’d gotten the best doctors, and had gone through second, third, and fourth opinions.

I also couldn’t believe that I was expected to keep quiet about that fact, and to continue babysitting his bright and beautiful baby girl, until he could hand her off like a baton at a relay race.

It was ridiculous that I thought I knew her better than he did after two short weeks, but it had to be fucking true.

In fact, I suspect I knew her better than she did herself—and I had to get her to a place where she could stand on her own two feet as quickly as possible.

Would it be any fair that I was using pictures of my own dick against her, to prop her up, like a kickstand?

Probably not.

And I knew that even after all my harried bolstering when the truth came out, in regards to how much of Nero’s plans I knew in advance, she was going to fucking hate me.

But there was a slim chance I could fix her, by then, for our mutually fucked-up values of becoming functional.

There was nothing wrong with her—compared to me—and the sooner I got her to see that, the more beneficial it would be for her long-term sanity.

Which was why I was breaking into her apartment at two in the morning.

The place smelled like her. A little bit like roses, a little bit like honey—I didn’t think she wore perfume; it was probably just something nice she used to wash her hair.

I liked it.

I carefully pulled her apartment door closed behind me, so she wouldn’t hear it latch.

She’d left all her lights on—expecting me, no doubt.

I was in black jeans and a black T-shirt, and I’d given the sleepy doorman a fistful of twenties—I’d have the man fired once I finished here, because I couldn’t have someone who was bribable taking care of my little girl’s building, but his avarice had been useful in the moment.

The place was spacious and open floor planned like my own, but everything was softer. No pictures on the walls, but she’d just moved back. There was a bookshelf full of books she liked to read in the living room—and I figured I already knew some of these books by now, from snooping on her Instagram account. I pulled one of the books off her shelf and found it tabbed, like she’d been studying what was inside—and when I held it spine down in my hand, it fell open to a naughty bit, which made me silently chuckle.