“Not because you’re going in there to fuck that woman?” Eve never thought Selene would do this to her. Not after everything they’d experienced together. Not when Eve had made herself more vulnerable with her than anyone. “Tell me why you really want me to leave, then.”
Selene opened her mouth but no sound came out. Rivulets of sweat tracked down her face, and she couldn’t seem to stand still. Eve sensed confusion in amongst the guilt and fear, and had a sudden, sickening thought.
“Are you on drugs?” Scanning Selene’s face, Eve now saw that something was quite definitely not right. “Or sick?” She glanced over Selene’s shoulder, inside her apartment. Was it possible the woman was there for some other reason? It sounded like they had an appointment. What if Selene was hiding a health problem, not sleeping with another woman? Determined not to let her history with Jac prevent her from giving Selene the benefit of the doubt, Eve forced herself to see the situation clearly. “Tell me what’s going on, Selene. So I don’t think the worst.”
“I’m not having sex with her.” Jaw clenched, Selene seemed caught between desperation and reticence. “That’s all I can tell you. I need you to trust me.”
After Selene had lied about going out of town, Eve didn’t know how to offer that level of blind trust. “How? How can I trust you when you lied to me, when I can see you’re scared out of your mind and obviously full of guilt?”
“Because you know me. I’m not Jac.”
Eve didn’t know what to believe anymore. All of a sudden she wanted to ask about that anonymous phone tip just as badly as Jac wanted her to. “Did you report that body in Golden Gate Park to the police?”
Selene’s face drained of color. “What?”
“Jac says it’s you on the recording of that call. She wanted me to listen to it, but I refused to believe that you’d keep something like that from me.” Folding her arms over her chest, Eve said, “But obviously I don’t know you. At least not as well as I thought I did.”
“Eve—”
“Did you make that call? Just tell me. The truth.”
Selene looked up at the rapidly darkening sky, then stared at Eve with haunted eyes. “Yes.”
Eve’s insides turned to ice. Yesterday she would have sworn she understood Selene’s heart. Now she didn’t understand anything. “Who is that woman in your living room?”
Wincing, Selene brought a hand to her head and clenched her teeth. Eve watched warily, unsure how to interpret the histrionics. Nothing about what was happening made sense. How could she have been so wrong about someone? Eve had come to trust Selene more than she’d ever trusted anyone, at a time when her life was filled with fear and uncertainty. That didn’t just happen without a reason. Did it?
Tears poured from Selene’s eyes. Every word she said seemed torn out of her, as though she didn’t want to let them go. “Get out of here, Eve. We’re done for tonight. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Don’t bother,” Eve said, as surprised by the cold, angry words as Selene appeared to be. Ten minutes ago she’d thought Selene was the love of her life. Now she felt like she was looking at a stranger, one who cared more about keeping a secret than saving their relationship. “You’re right. We’re done.”
Selene’s face dissolved into anguish so painful that Eve felt it, too, deep in her chest. It hollowed her out, made it hard to breathe. She turned her back on Selene, but that didn’t diminish her heartbreak.
“Be careful, Eve.” Selene’s voice cracked with emotion. “Please. Go back to Jac. Be safe tonight.”
Eve didn’t know where she’d go. She glanced across the street, where she saw the car with her protective detail parked. The detectives were watching the scene but turned their attention away quickly when Eve stared them down. How long would it take Jac to hear about this?
“Eve—”
“Good-bye, Selene.” Each step away from Selene took effort. But as Eve walked the ache in her chest diminished slightly, so she picked up her pace until she was nearly jogging to her car. Once she got to the driver’s side door she threw it open and dove inside, starting the engine and pulling into the street as quickly as she could.
She didn’t know where she was going. She just had to get away.
Chapter Twenty-one
Selene staggered back into her house after Eve sped off, forcing her mind to the task at hand. She could fall apart about what had just happened later. Right now she had a call girl to instruct, and time was running out. The transformation was itching at her skin. Another forty-five minutes and she would be completely out of her mind from the moon. If the blonde didn’t leave before then, Selene would have even more to worry about than breaking Eve’s heart.
The blonde stood up as Selene stumbled into the living room. She looked Selene up and down with uneasy eyes. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” Selene gritted her teeth and gestured toward her guest room. “Shall we?”
Clearly uncertain what to think of her, the escort offered her hand. “I’m Dani.”
Bracing herself for the inevitable, Selene shook Dani’s hand, suppressing a groan at her body’s reaction to the tactile stimulation. “Lovely to meet you.” She withdrew quickly. “We need to hurry. I’m on a schedule and we’re already running late.”
Dani followed her into the guest room. Like her predecessor, she didn’t react visibly to the steel table bolted to the floor. Her eyes were glued to Selene’s face. “I’m sorry if I caused any trouble between you and your friend back there. If you’d like to reschedule, I completely understand.”
“That won’t be necessary.” Selene tugged on the belt of her robe, pushing the flimsy garment off her shoulders and onto the ground. “Listen, what I need is very simple, but it’s important you do exactly as I tell you.”
It took every ounce of Selene’s concentration to get through her bullshit speech about how she liked to be lashed to a table so tight she could barely breathe. Because she liked feeling powerless. Right. She felt powerless every day, and she was sick and tired of it.
Dani listened carefully to every word, never betraying any reaction at all, then tied her as tight as anyone had ever dared. By the time Selene was immobilized on the table, she could no longer speak. Mixed in with all the lust and power she felt just shy of her shift was the terrible memory of watching Eve limp away in tears.
Selene was glad Dani wasn’t afraid to take things to the extreme. If Selene escaped tonight, her grieving, enraged beast-self could do anything, to anyone. One of her last coherent thoughts as Dani tied the final knot was that she would be sure to tip her well, and ask for her again.
“Eight o’clock tomorrow morning?” Dani walked to the guest room door, tossing the spare set of house keys in her hand. “I’ll see you then, okay?”
Selene grunted in the affirmative. Speaking required too much effort, took more conscious thought than she could summon.
“You have a good night, Selene. I hope you get what you want out of this.”
Selene waited until she heard her front door shut before she choked out the sobs that tore at her insides. What she wanted was already gone. Tipping back her head, she howled in pain.
It was going to be a long, dark night.
*
Selene came awake with a strangled gasp. She tried to sit up, but the rope and steel around her limbs kept her prone on the steel table. Exhaling shakily, she let her head drop back. She’d made it through another transformation safe and secure. After a moment she lifted her head and surveyed the length of her body. The rope was frayed and nearly torn through in places. But it had held.
She’d forgotten how damn good it was to survive another full moon knowing she hadn’t hurt anyone, herself included. But any relief she felt was short-lived. As she struggled to remember the events leading up to the loss of human consciousness, terrible, fragmented memories assaulted her. Opening the door to find Eve on her front porch. Fucking her hard, so hard she’d limped away in pain. The angry red bite imprint on Eve’
s neck where Selene had marked her. Worst of all, the betrayal in Eve’s eyes when she realized Selene had never planned to leave town. When the call girl—whose name Selene couldn’t remember—had arrived.
“Shit,” Selene whispered brokenly. She craned her neck, glancing at the clock she had mounted near the door. The escort wasn’t due back for another two hours, so she had plenty of time to relive every agonizing moment from the night before. In less than fifteen minutes, she guessed, she’d managed to destroy the one thing she held most dear.
It almost made her success at staying contained seem not to matter at all.
Selene closed her eyes. Though Eve’s presence during her moon-frenzy had thrown her already-clouded mind into overdrive, she could still remember how good it felt when they climaxed together. How awful it was to watch Eve jump into her car and speed away. Tears poured down Selene’s face, soaking her hair. She couldn’t fix what had happened, not without telling Eve the truth. Even that was far from a foolproof plan—Eve would quite possibly freak out. Who wanted to hear that her girlfriend was a shape-shifter whose monthly cycle involved becoming a vicious beast with no human conscience?
By the time Selene heard the faint sound of her front door opening then closing, she thought she was all cried out. Her tears had run dry at least a half hour ago, partially because her eyes were too sore to keep producing them. Wishing she could fix her face before the escort opened the guest room door, Selene just took a deep breath and prepared to act as normal as a woman who liked getting tied to steel tables could possibly hope to seem.
The guest room door opened and an attractive blonde strolled inside. “Rise and shine, darling.”
Selene mustered a weak nod. “Hey. Uh…”
“Dani.” She gave Selene a sunny grin, immediately going to work untying the ropes. “Well, you seem like you’re feeling better today.”
Selene could only imagine how she must have seemed to Dani last night. Between the moon and her encounter with Eve, Selene had no doubt that she’d come across as either sick or crazy. Maybe both. “Yes, thank you.”
“Still pretty broken up about what happened with your friend, though.” Dani met her eyes cautiously before returning her attention to the restraints. “If I’m overstepping, feel free to tell me.”
Selene considered telling Dani to mind her own business for only an instant before discarding the notion. She paid good money for these escorts without asking for much at all—a sympathetic ear actually didn’t sound half-bad right now. “She wasn’t supposed to know about you.”
“Yeah, I gathered that.” Dani freed one of Selene’s wrists. “I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault.” As soon as Dani released her other wrist, Selene sat up and rubbed her hands together, getting her blood moving again. “I should never have invited her inside. I knew you’d be here any minute.” She couldn’t possibly explain what a slave to the moon she’d been, how she could have had such an incredible lapse in judgment. So she just shrugged. “I made a mistake.”
Dani glanced up as she untied Selene’s ankle. “She your girlfriend?”
“Was my girlfriend.” Selene’s chest ached from the finality of the statement, but she didn’t doubt it was true. “Yeah.”
“It’s over?”
Selene’s chin trembled. Apparently she hadn’t run out of tears to spill, after all. “I think so, yeah.”
“Well, that’s a shame.” Dani raised an eyebrow. “Because I’m pretty sure I interrupted some of the hottest sex I’ve ever seen.”
Selene nodded, then dissolved into a fresh round of sobs. Mortified that she was breaking down in front of a stranger, she covered her eyes with her hands and willed herself to pull it together. She’d known from the start that this would happen someday. Lying to Eve every month would never have worked, but that didn’t lessen her heartache. If anything, it made it worse.
“Hey.” The restraint around Selene’s other ankle opened, then Dani’s arms were around her naked, shivering body, gathering her into a warm embrace. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
Every instinct Selene had screamed at her to pull away, to send Dani home and keep any further details of her personal life to herself, just as she’d always done. Not that her instincts were always correct, clearly. Selene really wanted to cuddle into Dani and let her try to ease the gut-churning pain of knowing she’d destroyed the love of her life.
“I screwed up.” Selene’s shoulders shook, and Dani squeezed her even tighter. “She was the one. She was it. And I…I lied to her. She thought she knew who I was—I told her she knew who I was—but I’ve been lying to her this whole time.”
Dani stroked Selene’s hair as though comforting a weeping child. “May I ask you a question?”
Selene had nothing left to lose. “Sure.”
“You like being tied up, right? Feeling out of control?” Dani drew back and searched Selene’s face. “Does she know that?”
Selene wished it were as easy as having the courage to share unusual sexual tastes. “No.”
“You don’t think she’d accept you?”
“No, I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t.” Embarrassed, Selene eased out of Dani’s arms and crossed the room to slip on her robe. “It’s more complicated than it seems.”
“I’m sure it is.” Dani sat on the edge of the table, staring at her thoughtfully. “But if she really is the one, don’t you think she’d accept you no matter what? I mean, I hate to break it to you, but you’re hardly the kinkiest freak I’ve ever met.” Chuckling, Dani ran a hand over the edge of the table. “In fact, this is relatively tame. Hell, you’re not even asking for sex. Just restraint.”
Selene shook her head. She couldn’t explain this without spilling her deepest secrets. If she couldn’t tell Eve, she certainly wasn’t telling Dani. “You just have to trust me on this. I don’t think Eve would understand. If she knew about me—everything I’ve been hiding—she’d run away screaming.”
“Kind of like she did last night?” Dani shrugged. “Look, you don’t know me. God knows I don’t have all the answers. But it doesn’t make much sense from where I’m standing—lying to someone for fear of losing them, only to lose her anyway because of the lies. If you tell the truth, maybe she will leave you. I don’t know. But maybe she won’t. This way, you never even gave her a chance to prove you wrong.”
It wasn’t that simple, of course, but Dani’s words tugged at Selene’s gut. Would Eve have really exposed her if Selene had revealed her secret? Possibly, but somehow Selene couldn’t imagine it. Would Eve have ended their relationship? Quite likely. But would Selene have felt any worse about it than she did right now? At least that way it would have been Eve making a choice instead of Selene violating her trust. If she truly loved Eve, she should have given her the opportunity to make that choice. Even at the risk of her own freedom.
Selene shook her head. “It’s too late now.”
“Is it?”
Exhausted from her difficult night, Selene didn’t have the energy to even consider the possibility that their relationship could be salvaged. She couldn’t decide whether to tell Eve the truth without thinking seriously about the matter and considering all the possible consequences. She would need to do that alone. Selene gestured for Dani to follow her into the living room. “Let me get you the rest of your payment.”
Taking the hint, Dani didn’t say anything until Selene withdrew a stack of bills and handed them over. Dani tucked the money into her pocket with a grateful nod. “You take care of yourself, okay?”
“I will. See you next month?”
Dani gave Selene a sad smile. “It’s a date.”
Selene walked her to the door and saw her off, keeping a stoic face. But the minute she closed the door she crumpled, totally and utterly lost. For years she’d been alone, never talking to anyone except her freelance clients and assorted call girls, yet she’d never felt as desolate then as she did now. Eve had given her a taste of something truly extraordinary,
and now that it was gone, she felt as though her soul had been ripped from her body, leaving behind an empty shell.
All at once fear stabbed deep in Selene’s gut. She had no idea where Eve had gone last night after leaving her place in tears. Back to Jac? Or had she returned home, alone and vulnerable? Selene closed her eyes and concentrated on reaching out with her mind, desperate to feel the gossamer pull of Eve’s emotion that was usually within her grasp even when they were miles apart.
The good news was that she felt something, which had to mean that Eve was alive out there somewhere, hopefully safe from harm. Unfortunately, all Selene could read from her was pain, so thick and deep it threatened to choke Selene with its intensity. She couldn’t determine what the source of that pain was. Selene suspected—hell, almost hoped—that it was because of her, not because she’d fallen prey to her stalker. But because Eve could be in trouble, Selene wouldn’t be able to rest until she made sure Eve was physically unharmed.
Selene got her cell phone and typed in a text message. I know you don’t want to talk to me right now. Please let me know you’re safe, okay? Clicking Send, Selene held her breath, knowing that the sight of her name in Eve’s in-box was sure to stir up some pretty intense feelings.
Crazily, Selene sensed the exact moment Eve read her message, less than a minute later. A pang of sorrow constricted her heart. Tears stung her sore eyes. A few heartbeats later, her phone beeped with an answer.
I’m safe.
Hands shaking, Selene typed out one last message, even though she knew it wouldn’t be welcome. I never wanted to hurt you. It’s complicated and I wish I had the courage to explain. I love you.
This time Selene felt Eve’s reaction as a dim mixture of anger and grief. Trembling, she both anticipated and feared Eve’s response.
One never came.
*
Eve locked her phone, then slipped it into her desk drawer. Any feelings of obligation she had as far as communicating with Selene ended with her terse reassurance that she was safe. Beyond that, her life was no longer Selene’s business. After a long night filled with tears, anger, and disbelief, Eve had come to work today determined to hold her head high and keep her dignity intact. So what that she’d been fooled again? She was a professional, respected in her field and responsible for helping catch a very bad man who’d killed many women. It would take a lot more than a woman she’d known only a month to destroy her—even if the idea of never being with Selene again left her bone-chillingly empty.
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