Page 14 of Sherwood
Three dots appeared, flashing for a second before the next message.
Marian: Sir?
The pleasure that ripped through me when I saw that word was vicious, delicious. Unwise.
I didn’t care.
I got in my car, searched for some semblance of control, and then opened Marian’s message to answer.
Me: Send away.
ChapterFour
MARIAN
The mist was pressingin around Sherwood, filling the spaces between trees and veiling the brick-fronted storefronts of Sherwood’s venerable downtown. The Knot itself, perched on a jut of cliff just a few minutes outside of the city limits, was barely visible in the silver gloom, and that gloom clung to my skin and hair as I parked my car and strode to the tall wooden doors which fronted the club.
I was nervous; I couldn’t deny that. This was a threshold that I’d wanted to cross for years, but awful doubts were swirling around my feet along with the mist, and I couldn’t seem to shake them.
It’s Lox, I told myself. She’d fucked with my head by showing up last night, dredging up hurts and lusts that I thought were thoroughly sunk and rusted through. Dredging up feelings that were more dangerous than hurt and lust combined.
I wondered, as I opened the door and was welcomed inside the club, what she’d think of me if she saw me right now. I’d picked a white gown with long sleeves, sheer enough to reveal the delicate silk underthings I was wearing underneath: bra, panties, garters and garter belt, all in a soft pink. I’d woven my hair into a loose braid which was now draped over my shoulder, ready to be undone and tangled at a moment’s notice, and my makeup was simple, subtle. A brush of pinky gloss and then enough mascara that it would run if I were made to cry.
I’d dressed with Lox in mind as much as Rafe—which was ridiculous, because she obviously wouldn’t be here. But I couldn’t stop imagining her reaction to me dressed like this. Like a bride.
Or a sacrifice.
I stopped outside the doors, trying to shake loose the memory of Lox tracing over Rafe’s marks with her long, slender finger. Trying to forget how it felt—for one beautiful instant—like she was about to kiss me. I wanted to cross this threshold thinking only of Rafe, only about tonight, because while I didn’t feel like I owed him much as a temporary scene partner, I felt like I owed him that at least: my attention, in its fullness.
I shouldn’t step into his space with my mind twisted up in thoughts of Lox. I shouldn’t be connecting the two of them at all. And yet.
As fucked up as it was, it excited me a little. The idea of Lox’s jealousy if she found out. The thought of fucking someone Lox had fucked.
As some kind of revenge for her leaving Sherwood, maybe? As some sort of sick way of sharing something with her?
Or maybe it felt like the final swing of the axe—the definitive drop of the guillotine between her and me. If I did this, then I would push her away before she found a way to reject me again, and there was something perversely satisfying about that.
Or maybe I was a masochist through and through, and tonight would be a veritable tapestry of hurts, seen and unseen, woven together with Rafe and Lox and memories and futures that stretched beyond what any one person could see.
When I finally walked into The Knot, I was greeted at the front by a slender, corseted person with pearly skin, long hair, and a silver collar around their throat.
“Mr. de Lacy has requested that you join him in the castle room,” Caliber said, extending a hand to escort me inside, and together we walked through the beamed central hall of the club and up the stairs to a metal walkway which traversed the open air above the hall like a drawbridge over a moat.
And just like a drawbridge ultimately led to its castle gates, the walkway led to a suspended glass cube which comprised the castle room.
Our footsteps echoed on the metal as we went, and I could feel the eyes of the people in the space below us drawn up to us. The floor of the cube was solid, but with its glass walls, guests downstairs would be able to see glimpses and slices of Rafe and me as we played. In fact, I could see a slice of Rafe now as the employee led me to the door of the cube, wearing a suit that hugged the lean lines of his body to perfection.
He was currently pacing the length of the cube, not methodically, but restlessly, his eyes searching the room below, his hand raking through his hair at intervals. When the employee opened the door, he turned toward us, but I sensed he’d already heard us coming, or seen us, because he didn’t seem surprised at our entrance. Although the way his eyes burned over me as he took in my sheer white dress and practically bridal underthings told me that I had surprised him there.
“Thank you, Caliber,” he told the club employee, and Caliber gave an efficient but flawlessly submissive curtsey, and left us alone in the room, shutting the door behind them.
“You came tonight,” said Rafe after a moment.
“You’re surprised?”
“Come here, Marian,” he said, not answering my question. “Please.”
I came, crossing the small room over to where he’d stopped near the glass. The massive windows lining the hall outside the room and the reddish lights of the club combined to make the cube a place of refractions and visual echoes; it was hard to tell where the castle room ended and where it began.
