“Hey, Watson, I want you to relax now. You’re going to go to sleep for a little while,” he said, his voice a flat monotone. Less than a second later, I was falling, and I felt Jay catch me just before I lost consciousness.
Part Four: The Trick
My head felt foggy when I woke up, and I was cold, so cold my skin was prickling. It was strange, because I hadn’t felt this kind of cold since I’d arrived in Vegas. It was forever hot and humid here unless you were somewhere that was air-conditioned. It got a little colder at night, but not this much, not in my experience, anyway. I could also hear rain pounding down on the roof of wherever I was; a roll of thunder rang out, causing me to shudder. When I was little, I’d always been scared of thunder.
My body was sore because I’d been lying flat on dirty wooden floorboards. It was dark, and I didn’t know where I was, couldn’t remember how I’d gotten there.
I searched my memory for clues, but the last thing I could remember was having lunch with Jay on the stage after I’d been mending his cape. For some reason, I felt like there was a gap, like there were things that had been blanked out. They were just within my grasp, but when I tried to reach for them, they disappeared like wisps of smoke. The imagery of smoke triggered something, but my brain couldn’t work to comprehend what that something was.
Pushing myself up onto my knees, I looked around. I could hardly see a thing until a fluorescent light bulb began to flicker in the distance.
It blinked on and off, providing me with the opportunity to take in my surroundings. When I did, my gut sank. I was in a gigantic, rundown, grotty old room in what felt like an abandoned factory or warehouse. There was rusty old equipment scattered about, but I couldn’t tell what it might be for. I was shivering hard, because this felt like a kidnapping to me. There was no way I’d set foot in a place like this of my own choosing.
“Gah!” I yelped as I felt somebody tap me on the shoulder. I turned, startled, but there was no one. Then I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye. Oddly, there was a large mirror on the wall at the other end of the room. It was large, with an antique frame, and completely out of place for the setting. Feeling compelled, I walked toward it, and when I got near enough, I gasped because there was a figure standing there, still as a statue, looking at me through the glass: a tall male form wearing all black with a white mask over his face. The mask had a single black question mark on one cheek, which for some reason I found highly disturbing.
I glanced all about frantically, trying to figure out where the reflection was coming from, because I was standing right in front of it and I couldn’t see myself, only the man. It was almost as though he were trapped inside the mirror.
He was still staring at me.
“Who are you?” I called out, and the moment I said it, the glass cracked, causing me to jump. More thunder rang out, this time followed by the loud wailing of a woman who sounded like she was in extreme pain. I was trembling all over now; the wail was foreboding, and it made my skin crawl. Seeming uninterested in my fear, the man within the glass turned and walked away. Then he was gone, but I still couldn’t see my own reflection.
It was eerie. I was only wearing a thin lacy dress, and I was freezing now as I rubbed at my arms. Freezing and terrified.
“Help!” I cried. “Please, somebody help me!”
My voice echoed around the empty space. I ran to one of the windows, trying to see outside, but it was so coated with dirt that I couldn’t make out a thing. When I noticed the open door at the end of the room where I had originally woken up, I ran for it. If I could at least get out of the building, then I could figure out where I was and perhaps get to safety. Before I reached the door, a strange hissing sound filled the room and I froze.
It started out low and soft, but rose in volume little by little. It was a horrible sound, and it made my skin crawl, like somebody had crossbred a snake with a vampire. A vampire! For crying out loud, I was being ridiculous. This was rapist territory, not horror movie territory. Still, the imagery of the man in the mask had my mind conjuring up all sorts of macabre ideas. Someone was trying to fuck with my head. I tried to will myself to believe I’d imagined him because it was the only way I knew how to carry on.
I felt something move by my foot and looked down to see a massive snake slithering through my legs. My mouth dropped open in a silent scream, and then I heard a whisper echo in my ears. A single word.
“Murder.”
When I looked back down, the snake was gone, but now I could feel a new presence advancing behind me. I didn’t want to turn around to see what it was, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. For some reason, my brain wanted to see what it was frightened of. I could hear footsteps advancing behind me, and when I looked, I saw the man in the mask. Now he wasn’t trapped inside the mirror, he was real and coming straight at me. He wasn’t wearing the mask anymore; it had been pulled down and hung around his neck, but I wished he’d kept it on. His face was deathly pale, like a corpse, and his eyes were blood red. There was no white at all, just red. He was holding a knife in his hand and it was covered in blood.
His movements sped up once he saw me looking, and I sprang into action, screaming as I ran for the door. I made it and discovered a narrow staircase, practically tripping over myself as I scurried down the steps. All the while I could hear the red-eyed man coming after me, hissing and grunting. Luckily, I was a fast runner. My entire body broke out into a sweat, and my every pore was pulsing with pure, undiluted fear, adrenaline rushing through my system. I had never felt anything quite like it. Had never felt the imminence of death so strongly, because something deep down in my bones told me that if the man caught me, I was done for.
It didn’t even bear thinking about where the bloody knife had come from and whose blood it was. My muscles were drawn tight, and my mouth was dry and rough like sandpaper. If this was a dream, then I desperately wanted to wake up. Tears were streaming down my face as I reached the bottom of the stairs and entered another room, this one almost identical to the first. I hated it. I felt like I was in a labyrinth that never ended. But then I scanned the space and realised it was worse, because lining the far wall were about twenty people standing there, still as stone, all replicas of the man in the mask, like their clothing was a uniform or something.
Who the hell were these people?
The hissing got close again, so I knew Mr. Red Eyes had caught up with me. I was penned in. No escape. Arms came around my middle, gripping me tight like a vice, and I whimpered. This was it. I was done for. All at once the line of identically dressed people started to move, marching toward me, their movements strange and staccato, their footsteps ringing loud and harsh as I was held in place. I struggled to break free, but it was no use — my captor’s strength was far superior to my own.
“Please! Please let me go,” I begged.
When the line of people was just two feet away, they stopped, and the tall one right in the centre stepped forward. My chest rose and fell frantically in terror, and then he pulled off his mask, revealing a familiar face. The face of my husband.
My breath escaped me all at once, and I felt like I might faint.
Confusion washed over me as Jay came and took me from the man and into his own arms.
“Hush now, it’s okay, you’re safe,” he whispered, bringing his hand up to my face. He clicked his fingers, and the sound reverberated in my ears. Then I was out again.
***
I woke up to the sound of an engine running. I was lying down, this time in the back of a car. Jay’s car. I’d recognise his smell anywhere. My head was in his lap, and he was stroking my hair away from my face in a soothing manner. The windows were down, and the fresh night air flowed in. I swallowed down deep gulps of it, my heart still going ninety as the events leading up to this moment rushed into my head all at once.
Now I remembered the party, Halloween, and our bet. While I’d been inside that strange nightmarish scene, I’d forgotten about all of
it. I guess that had been the point. Jay had hypnotised me, somehow made me forget everything so that I’d believe what was happening was one hundred percent real. For a brief moment in time, very specific things had been wiped from my memory. It was incredible and infuriating in equal measures.
“Where are we?” I asked, my voice a little raspy as I tried to sit up.
“We’re in a parking lot, darlin’. Lie back down. You need to relax.”
He was right; I did need to relax. For now. Once I’d recovered from my fake near-murder experience, I was planning on giving him the tongue lashing of his life. And not the sexy kind. I squeezed my eyes closed, trying to summon some calm.
“I’m going to kill you,” I muttered, and he chuckled in response.
He continued stroking my hair. “You gave me permission to do this, Matilda. I gave you a choice, and you asked for a mind fuck. You can’t complain that I gave you what you asked for. If you’d chosen a simple scare, my zombie routine back at the hotel would have been it.”
I reached out and slapped him hard on the arm. “I was terrified, Jason! Some scary Halloween fun is fine, but that felt too real. I could have fallen down those stairs and really hurt myself.”
“You wouldn’t have. I was with you the entire time. You just couldn’t see me.”
“Are you going to tell me where all that took place and who all those people were?”
Jay gestured to the tall building in front of us. “It’s a film studio. The whole thing happened on a specially designed, climate-controlled set, and those people wearing the masks were all actors. They’re in a drama group that meets in a center near our hotel.”
“You took it too far,” I complained, some of my anger dissipating. Jay was right — after all, I had given him permission to do this.
He leaned in and kissed me softly. “I’m sorry. You know that when I set my mind to something I can get a little…extreme. But you felt fear. I saw it. That was the whole point. You wanted me to scare you, and I did.”
“You didn’t just scare me, you terrified me, Jay,” I said, and began to massage my aching temples. This whole thing was bringing on a migraine. “Seriously, if you ever get tired of magic, you should start making horror films for a living.”
“Nah, movies aren’t my thing. But I did have an idea to make this a whole experience next Halloween. You know, have people pay for me to scare the shit out of them. Could be fun.” He grinned playfully.
“You have a very warped idea of what fun entails.” I scowled. “And anyone who’d sign up for that needs to have their head examined. I can’t believe you hypnotized me! I mean, I’ve seen you do it to other people lots of times, but I didn’t think I’d be susceptible to it.”
“Most people are susceptible — you just have to tailor the technique to the individual. The cape was the trigger, and my voice was what put you under.”
I slapped him again, this time more in surprise than in anger. “I knew there was a reason why you were having me repair that old thing. That was sneaky!”
He grabbed my hand right after I slapped him and used it to pull me closer. “You know what this means, don’t you?”
I sighed. “You won the bet.”
He nodded and brought his lips to mine, tasting me leisurely. “I won the bet. But since you’ve been such a good sport, I’ll give you one concession and let you choose my outfit for tomorrow night’s show. I’ll give you carte blanche, wear whatever you want.”
A big smile spread across my face, all annoyance from his elaborate horror stunt wiped clean. “You will?”
“I will for you. Only for you, Watson, because I love you.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck and planted kisses all over his face. “You’re the best. And I love you, too.”
The next night I was still smiling as I straightened out Jay’s Dickie bow. I’d paired it with a dark brown three-piece suit and a pair of Italian leather shoes. He hated it, and I adored it. After our confrontation at her party, Tina was skulking around, giving me the evil eye and then plastering on a sweet-as-pie expression whenever Jay was looking.
She sauntered by, swinging her hips as though hoping he’d check her out, even though I was standing right there in front of him. The woman was shameless.
“You know, I’d been hoping her behavior was something to do with your trick, like maybe I had to be pissed off in order for your hypnosis to work, but seemingly I don’t have that kind of luck,” I griped, and stood back to admire my work. Jay looked absolutely dashing. I needed to take a picture before he went on stage, because I knew by the end of his show, half the buttons would be undone and he’d have stripped down to the waistcoat at the very least.
He ran a hand down my arm and leveled his eyes on me. “Ignore her. She might as well be wallpaper to me, and besides, we’re stronger than that. Nobody else can touch us. I told you before — all I see is you.”
His words made me breathless. I ran my hands over the lapels of the suit, acting like I was dusting it off when really I was just taking any excuse to feel him up.
His mouth hovered over my ear when he whispered, “Hold that thought. After tonight, I have two days off. As soon as we get back to the suite, I’m cashing in on my winnings.”
Trust him to be able to read my desire. I wanted him badly. I’d been too exhausted for anything when we got back last night, so our week of abstinence was still going strong. I trembled with anticipation, licking my lips. He bent down for a quick, hot kiss full of promise, and then the house lights were dimming and it was time for him to take to the stage. I stood and watched him perform. Even though I’d seen the act dozens of times before, there was always some new detail that fascinated me.
After his show, we took the elevator up to our suite. The car was empty when we stepped inside, and the moment the doors closed, he was on me.
“I should get a fucking trophy for sticking to this sex ban,” he growled as he backed me up into the wall and brought his mouth to my neck.
I giggled and then moaned when his hand went between my legs and cupped me hard. Immediately, I was aching. “Oh, indeed, a medal at the very least,” I replied, my voice raspy.
He chuckled, and the deep sound reverberated through me, making me shiver. It felt like it had only been seconds when the door pinged open, and Jay was scooping me up into his arms and carrying me to our door. It seemed he didn’t have the patience for walking. I almost regretted putting him in the suit tonight, because it felt like it took forever for me to get his shirt off. Since it was tailor-made for him, it went against everything I believed in to tear open the buttons, so I summoned some willpower and forced myself to unbutton it carefully. He watched me the entire time, a wry, knowing smile on his lips.
When I had him topless, I ran my hands over his body, and he allowed me a moment to savor him. I loved that about him; even though he was desperate for me, too, he held back, letting me go first. He didn’t hold back for long, because the next thing I knew, he was scooping me up in his arms again and carrying me into the bedroom. I bounced when I hit the mattress, and Jay made short work of pulling my dress up over my head and off me in one fell swoop.
His mouth went instantly to my breasts, yanking down the cups of my bra so he could lavish my nipples with attention. I squirmed beneath him, and my hands fumbled for his belt buckle. We had all weekend to have our fill of one another. But it had been a while, and right then I just needed him inside me.
He seemed to sense what I wanted, because he came up for air. “No foreplay?”
I shook my head. “Later. Right now I need to feel you.”
His eyes darkened, and he practically growled in approval. Before I knew it, his pants were off, and he was plunging all of his hot, hard, silky flesh into my needy core. I cried out when I felt him, my walls clenching tight around him.
Our eyes locked, held, as he moved his hips, thrusting in and out, slowly building up a pace. Then he was out and out fucking me, giving me everything, not hol
ding back an inch, and I took everything he had to give. We were frenzied, lost to each other. There was so much love in his eyes that I became breathless and hot all over. In that moment, I knew I’d been silly to think that anybody could ever threaten what we had together. Jay and I existed in our own little bubble, and we always would. We’d been through so much. He had fought hard to get us where we were right now, and I knew he’d never do anything to jeopardize that.
The revelation warmed my heart.
And then I was so overtaken by lust that I couldn’t form coherent thoughts any longer. Hours later, our bodies spent, I fell asleep with a smile on my face.
Perhaps I’d make a bet with him every Halloween, because if this was where betting with my husband got me, I was quite happy to take a gamble.
END
Want to read Jay & Matilda’s story from the beginning? Check out L.H. Cosway’s contemporary romance, Six of Hearts.
Step right up and meet Jay Fields: Illusionist. Mentalist. Trickster.
I think in triangles. You think in straight lines.
I show you a table and make you believe it’s a chair.
Smoke and mirrors, sleight of hand, misdirection. I trick and deceive.
But most of all, I put on a good show.
The world thinks I killed a man, but I didn’t. Bear with me. It’s all a part of the plan.
Revenge is what I want. I want it for me and I want it for her.
I want it for all six of us.
She doesn’t remember me, but she’s the reason for everything. She’ll be my prize at the end of all this – if I can hold onto my willpower, that is. Maybe I’ll slip up a little, have a taste, just a small one.
So go ahead and pick a card. Come inside and see the show. Look at my hands, look so closely that you can’t see what’s happening while you’re so focused on looking. I’ll be destroying your world from right here in the spotlight.