“Well, good for you,” she said, shrugging. “I just think a small-town guy like you is going to have a really hard time breaking out.”
It was the same conversation they had every single time, where she put him down because he wasn’t from the city. Those words stopped hurting long ago, and now they just annoyed him.
He remembered how he felt around Eric, that sensation of having his back against the wall with nothing to do but fire back, and he struggled to feel it again, but couldn’t. There were too many other options right now for that. “Whatever you say, okay, Georgia?”
She opened her mouth, obviously meaning to deliver some more barbs, when his phone vibrated in his pocket.
Just in the nick of time.
“Sorry,” he said, and grabbed at his pocket while walking away as fast as he could without actually breaking into a run. He worried for a moment that she might follow him, but a glance over his shoulder confirmed that she had joined the larger group of other hopeful actors and actresses. Jealousy soured his stomach as he caught a better glimpse of them as they shifted under one of the working lights, and he saw that he knew most of them and nearly every single person there had nabbed at least one part in other productions like this.
After a moment, he dragged his gaze away and brought the phone to his ear. “Hello?” he said, not quite certain if he’d recognized the number or not.
“Hello, Mr. Champion.”
Terrance.
“Oh,” he said. “Hi.”
“You don’t sound quite so enthused to hear from me,” the butler said, his voice lilting up slightly at the edges in what was probably meant to be a joke.
“No,” Shawn said, and shook his head. “That’s not it. I’m just a little busy right now.”
“How unfortunate. You see, Mr. Timmerman is ready for you and requires your presence immediately.”
His heart sank. Motion behind him made him turn around, to watch as the doors of the theatre were opened and his peers filed on through while a severe-looking woman greeted them. “I’ll come as soon as this is over, okay? I can’t just leave.”
“And you can’t just stay there,” the butler said firmly. “You are required here immediately and must come. Do you understand?”
“But…”
Now more than ever, he was torn.
“If you don’t come, we will be forced to choose another caretaker.”
Just like that, the choice was taken right out of his small hands. This audition might possibly have been something for him, but he knew with a great deal of disappointment that he couldn’t risk something as certain as this caretaker job over it. There was just too much uncertainty. And there would be other auditions, right?
“Okay,” he said quietly, regretting it almost immediately, but knowing he could say nothing else. “I’ll get my stuff and tell my roommates that I’m going, okay? I can’t just drop everything I have.” Well, he could, but he didn’t want to. And it wasn’t like there was really anything important left for him to get, since Carmen and Peter had been tossing his belongings in the trash bit by bit for months now, but he at least needed his remaining clothes, his toothbrush, and a handful of other necessities.
“Very good, then,” Terrance said, finally sounding a little pleased. “Hopefully with you here he will mellow down for the both of us.”
Turning his feet towards the entrance of the theatre, as the audition doors closed both mentally and physically behind him, Shawn finally gave voice to one of his biggest questions. Crossing the parking lot and heading out towards the street, he said, “I’m just not sure I understand what I’m supposed to be doing.”
The butler sighed. “I knew he wouldn’t tell you. But, you will see. And I will see you shortly.”
He hung up and that was it. Shawn hurried off down the sidewalk, catching a glimpse of his bus just pulling up to the stop. He had never been very good at spontaneity, and he definitely hated situations like this where there was no precedent to follow, but he grabbed onto the hope that being a caretaker might have some routine to it. That would be good, to have a steady life. And in an enormous apartment like that! Really, he reminded himself that he shouldn’t complain at all and mounted the bus steps to head home.
It can’t get any worse than it was before, Shawn promised himself. The guys were only too eager to help him pick up his stuff and hustle him out of the apartment, waving and shouting goodbyes after him for an uncalled-for amount of time. Everything he owned fit into a backpack and half a duffel bag.
And now he was walking up those steps to the penthouse again, lugging around his bags that seemed to only be growing heavier and heavier with dread. Still, he repeated to himself that this definitely couldn’t be any worse than before and he finally reached the floor where Terrance was waiting, ethereal-pale as a vampire and always somehow present.
“Hi,” Shawn said, trying to sound pleasant. “How do you always know exactly when you’re going to be needed?”
Terrance raised his eyebrows, and then reached out for Shawn’s duffel bag, who handed it over with a bit of surprise. “That would be easy,” the butler said. “I pay attention. I know when Mr. Timmerman will want certain things, and I am not so old that I can’t hear you stomping up the stairwell for ten minutes.” Shawn blushed, and the old man actually laughed as he turned to push the heavy oak door open. “I don’t mean anything by that, I assure you. I have hearing aids. They work perhaps too well.”
The interior amazed him just as much as it had last time, absolutely identical without a single change. Even the couch cushions were in the exact same spots.
No, he realized, there was one change, and that was Eric. He stood right there in the foyer with his hands behind his back, as big and beautiful as ever, but the color of his eyes seemed somehow mellowed and he was smiling politely as he reached out and took Shawn’s bag from Terrance.
The butler looked a little surprised, but bowed his head and quickly retreated.
“Hello, Shawn,” Eric said, and his voice was a soft purr in comparison to its former sultry growl. “I hope we’ll be able to get along for a long time. Would you like to see your room?”
With his footing knocked away like this, all he could do was nod and follow Eric up the steps and to the second floor. Everything was blue and sleek up here, fulfilling his wildest imaginations from what appeared to be an endlessly-circulating fountain in the middle of the room, all the way to the strings of futuristic globe lights dangling down in lieu of chandeliers. The kitchen was here, enormous and stocked with every type of gadget a person could imagine, and that was excluding what might be hidden away in the cabinets.
Eric led him past the kitchen, over the sea-foam tiled floors to a short stretch of hallway upon which hung a seascape of shells and sand. Shawn watched that swift hand flick over the light switch and started to imagine how that exact same motion would feel on his…
“Nice place you have here,” he blurted out urgently.
Eric paused and looked back over his shoulder with a smile, which had thawed from polite and seemed to hold a bit of genuine warmth. “Thank you. My companies keep me afloat rather well, and since I spend all my time inside now, I might as well do it properly.”
That was a curious thing to say. “Why don’t you ever leave? You have to, right?”
“Not quite,” the man laughed gently, and took Shawn into one of the rooms down the short hall. “Everything I need to do in order to keep up with the demands of realty can be done online or over the phone.” The laugh faded, and the warmth developed an edge of cautious. Wisely deciding not to push it, Shawn looked around the place where he would now be spending all of his days.
It was blue, as was everything else on this floor. The coverlets on the bed, the plush carpet, and the walls were all shades of blue perfectly in tune with the other. Contrasting against the mellow nature of his new room, the frame for the bed itself, the furniture, and even the picture frames were all dark bronze. There was a televisio
n on the wall opposite the bed, a stocked bookshelf and nightstand, and a full-sized bathroom compete with tub and shower.
This whole place is the size of my old apartment, he thought with amazement. Not quite, but close enough to be almost frightening with its expensiveness.
Eric set his bag down on the bed and then spread his hands, seeming to gesture not just at the room, but the apartment –the entire world, almost.
Eric’s entire world, he thought, so lightly and absently he very nearly forgot about it before the words were even done.
“This is where you’ll be staying. I hope it’s to your liking. And you have free reign of my abode. You may go wherever or do whatever it is that you wish. All I ask is that you not leave. I might need you.”
He looked up quickly from where he was studying the pattern of the carpet. “I can’t leave?”
“All I meant to say is that you’re a live-in caretaker now,’ Eric amended himself quickly. “I might need you at a moment’s notice.”
“For what?” Sex?
Eric’s eyes darkened in the shadowy room, closing off and seeming to shed his personality until all that remained was the polite façade again from earlier. “In the coming days, you will find out. Now, dinner will be in a few hours. Please show up wearing that.” He pointed.
A suit lay on the bed, also blue-toned. And it looked almost like it would fit him perfectly. “Is that my size?” he asked curiously.
Eric shrugged. “I asked you those questions during the interview for a reason. The moment I saw you, I knew that I wanted you.”
For the job, right?
“I took what I knew, and what I remembered seeing of you myself, and went to my best tailor. If it needs adjustment, please let me know and I will have it returned. Until dinner, this is all.”
Just like that, he was left alone. Part of him wanted to run and pretend this never happened, to go home and start over the way his parents thought he should have all along, but at the same time he knew that would be idiotic. Look at where you are, he scolded himself. He very well couldn’t take all this for granted.
Yet, he stayed in his new room for the next few hours. Unpacking his clothes and toiletries didn’t take so long as that, and neither did checking out every single drawer and photograph in the room, but he felt like a shy animal brought to a new home, unwilling to leave his carrier as of yet, while adjusting to the new surroundings. At some point, he found the remote and turned the TV on, keeping the volume only a few notches above complete silence, just to have something in the background. The penthouse was startlingly quiet, but for the occasional footsteps as Eric or Terrance walked around. Towards dinnertime, some pots and pans clinking together could be heard, as well as the crisp sounds of vegetables being chopped, but that was still barely anything at all.
Eventually, his name was called.
The suit felt surprisingly good, even though it was a bit loose about the hips. And it also felt strange to be wearing a suit at all, and from such nice material, too.
He exited the hallway and stepped out into the rest of the penthouse just as his name was being called again. “Shawn! Oh.” Terrance quickly cut himself off, and then cleared his throat. “I was wondering if you would help carry some of this to the dining room.”
The dining room was separated from the kitchen by a counter island and a few feet, but Shawn did what he was asked. For only three people, there was an enormous quantity of food. A dish of rice, a pan of beans, a casserole dish of stuffing and chicken, and two different vegetable sides. Everything looked gorgeous, full of bright color, and smelled even better, but Shawn couldn’t make heads or tails of it as he helped carry everything to the table big enough for a party, where Eric sat already waiting.
Terrance fetched two glasses, poured wine into both, and then disappeared.
All this food for two people? That can’t be right.
“Please, sit,” Eric said pleasantly, waving to the chair opposite him.
Shawn obeyed, while the tall man placed the glass of wine in front of him, and then looked around again. “Isn’t he going to join us?”
“Occasionally.”
That tone of voice said the exact opposite, however.
Very quickly, he realized this was not a dinner for two people. It was a dinner for one. The other man was a voracious eater, devouring everything in sight. Shawn quickly grabbed a bit of something from each bowl, and then ate and watched in amazed silence as Eric proceeded to nearly empty out every single other dish. There was no conversation, no room for talking. His mouth was always crammed full.
And somehow, it was adorable. Figuring out how, was impossible, though. Still, if a man like this could still manage to be attractive while stuffing his face, how was he not covered in women? More to the point, why did he have to pay someone to be his caretaker when anyone in their right mind would drop everything just to be within 15 feet of him? It was incredibly puzzling, and he suspected he wouldn’t be getting an answer anytime soon with how vague this man was. That was annoying, but he guessed it was his to deal with now.
He hardly drank from the glass. He was thirsty, but he hated wine. Meanwhile, Eric downed nearly the rest of the bottle and seemed entirely unfazed. Of course, he was built like a football player so perhaps that had something to do with it, but he wasn’t quite sure.
Just as the meal was ending, Terrance returned to clean the table up. Shawn started to rise to help, figuring that was going to be his part in things for a while, when Eric reached out one long arm to stop him. “No need for that.”
“Can I go to my room, then?” he asked hopefully, but his heart sank when the other man shook his head.
“Not just yet. I have something I need your help with.”
He didn’t like the sound of “helping” this guy out with anything. That sounded a lot like something a guy might say when he was trying to be crafty about wanting sex. And he didn’t know exactly how to feel about that, only that part of him as completely onboard and ready to start throbbing with want the moment he gave it the go-ahead.
Eric led him up to the final floor, which was actually smaller than he thought it would be. It resembled a loft, all scarlet and black with an enormous king-sized bed. They didn’t stop there, however. No words passed between them, and the other man kept right on going to the opposite wall, where there was another door.
Shawn paused and tilted his head. It looked like a closet, but there was a keypad beside it. Eric raised his hand and settled his fingers against it. “I need you to remember this code. 58316.”
“58316,” he echoed.
Eric nodded as he punched in the numbers. “Good. Don’t forget. Please, come inside. This is where I’ll need your help.”
Eric was so tall and broad that he blocked out most of the view of the room from behind him, but once they were both inside he gasped and clutched at his heart with shock. Full, heavy dread pumped through his entire body.
It was not a closet, but a wide, square vault with metal walls. There were chains in the center of the floor, connected to the floor really, and the chains ended in four thick metal cuffs. The length of them looked to allow some mobility, but not enough to reach the door.
I was right, he thought, turning to flee in blind panic. I was right. He’s into some freaky shit! Oh, god!
A burly hand clamped around his wrist, making him stumble, but then released again almost immediately. When he looked up, Eric stood between him and the doorway with a sober look on his face. “You can’t leave yet. I need you to chain me up.”
“Chain you up?” he repeated numbly, switching to another theory about what this burly man was into.
“Yes. Chain me. This is what I was preparing for during the few days you were not here. I wouldn’t want to see it go to waste.” Eric strode past him with those towering legs, and then folded his body down into a crouch on the floor. “There will be a set of keys hanging up just outside the door, near the number pad. Take it. Chain my arms, my ankl
es. The bands will fit perfectly, don’t worry about that. Then, please return at 6 a.m. tomorrow morning to undo the chains. Do you understand?”
“I…No?”
Eric sighed softly, and looked down at his bared wrists, the sleeves of his suit pulled up the slightest bit to show soft skin and pulsing vein. “I suppose you wouldn’t. I will tell you eventually, I promise you that. But for now, please just do as I say.”
There was no arguing with that tone of voice. Every fiber of his being screamed at him not to do this, but he slowly walked over with the key in hand and picked up the shackles one-by-one to wrap them around the bigger man’s wrists and ankles. Every second, he stayed tense and trembling, expecting at any moment to be hit, to have the key taken away, to be knocked onto his back while Eric laughed and told him how much of an idiot he was. He knew that he would probably never leave this room alive, that this would end with him in those chains.
And it didn’t happen. It was over quicker than it should have been, and he stumbled to his feet. Eric sat there, looking emotionless and sad and somehow still polite. “What is the code?”
“58316.”
“Very good,” Eric said kindly. He lifted one hand to wave, the shackle sliding down against his sleeve while the chain rattled ominously. “Good night, Shawn.”
He opened his mouth to reciprocate, and found that he just couldn’t. Everything was so much bigger than him, a jumbled-up giantess of confusion, and so he just shook his head and walked out of the vault.
The alarm rang at 6 a.m., right on schedule. He hadn’t even really needed it though, because he didn’t sleep all night. He lay here in his unfamiliar bed, in this stranger’s house, and just waited the whole night away. His eyes didn’t even close, not even as midnight passed and the long hours of dawn wore away at him. Nothing would have been better than sleeping and forgetting this place existed, than to dream for hours and hours while this weird reality did whatever it pleased without him, but it was impossible.
Omega Wanted: Bad Boy Mpreg Romance Page 29