In fact, at this very moment, he was considering one. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on Carter. That fucking kid needed a wake-up call. Chastity could have ended up anywhere. With anyone. And Mitch had probably just burned a bridge to ashes with her. Next time she came out, she wouldn’t come to him. Okay, decision made—he’d kick Carter’s ass and convince Eden she needed to be caged. A conversation he so didn’t want to have.
CHAPTER XXVI
Mitch saw Eden gasp, eyes wide open, and move to sit up. The chains stopped her, snapping her back to the mattress. Her scream was the most desperate and anguished sound he’d ever heard. Damn it, why hadn’t he untied her instead of contemplating his own crap.
“Eden! It’s me, Mitch,” he called through the bars. He ran to get the key, realizing he was still naked. What the hell could he do about it now? She needed to get out of there. He knew what it felt like to wake up trapped, held down.
She was struggling to get a full breath, panic filling her face, her body. Clenching muscles that had spent the last seven hours tightened by someone else. “Get me out of here! Get me out!”
He tore open the door and headed toward her wrists. “Eden, you have to relax your arms. I can’t release the cuffs if you are pulling on them.”
Her eyes pleaded with him, tears dripping down her temples onto the mattress. “Help me, please?”
Her pecs and biceps wouldn’t let go as if she was frozen with fear. With his hands just above her arms, he hesitated, not wanting to be the one to hold her down.
“Do it. Get me out of here,” she begged.
He pushed her arm down and used the other hand to release the cuff. With one hand freed, she relaxed slightly, enough to let him undo the other one. He tried not to think about his cock being so close to her head, holding his hips as far back from her as he could. Gee, had he caused enough emotional scars today?
Her breathing slowed while he undid her legs. As soon as they were free, she leapt off the bed and ran out of the cage, stopping with one hand gripping each side of the door to the hallway.
“I’m sorry, but I had to confine her somehow,” he said. “It was the only way.”
“I know why you did it. I just—I can’t be . . . like that.”
He picked up the skirt and bra Chastity had been wearing, wondering if they were Eden’s or not, and handed them to her. “I’ll be right back.” He slipped past her into the hall and went to get her shirt and some shorts for himself.
Back in Hyde’s room, Eden had already put on her other clothes. She took the shirt gratefully, mumbling “thanks,” with her eyes lowered.
“Nothing happened between us, Eden. She came here and I locked her up. That’s all.”
She looked at his half-naked body with a serious look of doubt written across her face. At least he had pants on and was only semi-hard. A full erection would have been tougher to explain.
“Nothing happened. I was getting out of the shower when she came over. And I didn’t want to leave her once I tied her up.”
Since she flinched at his last sentence, he felt it wise not to mention the colossal hard-on he’d sported all night. I’ll leave that for another day. Nah, already have too many awkward conversations planned for the two of us.
“You hungry? Thirsty?”
“Thirsty.” She nodded.
Downstairs, she gulped down two tall glasses of water before the questions started. Her voice was shy, tentative, as if she was refusing to believe they had each witnessed the other’s worst moments.
“How did I get here?” she asked.
“I don’t know.” But I sure as hell will find out. As soon as I can get my hands on that little shit of a boyfriend you trust so much.
“Did she do anything to you?”
“No. Other than throwing some stones, an occasional stick, she didn’t do anything. Don’t worry about me.”
“I’m not.” She hadn’t forgiven him. “I should call Carter. Tell him I’m okay and find out how she got past all the locks.”
He gritted his teeth. “Why don’t you stay here and rest? I’ll go over there and talk to him. He’s not working today, is he?” If he was, he’d have to come up with a clever way to hide the bruises.
“At the station? No, I don’t think so, and definitely not for a few more hours. I should call him.”
“I’ll take care of it.” He watched her rub her arms, knowing how sore she must be. “You take it easy. I’ll be back soon.”
Her head popped up as if struck by a new idea. “You don’t think she did something to him, do you?”
“No, he’s strong enough to take care of himself.”
“She’s strong too.”
“He’s stronger.” Probably. “I doubt she touched him.” Strange that it hadn’t occurred to him. Well, as long as the guy got a whipping, he didn’t care who did it. Mitch imagined wringing the boy scout’s scrawny neck with his sash of merit badges. “Get some rest.”
He left her curled up on the couch, her legs tucked underneath her, hands clutching her glass, eyes dull and at half-mast. He hoped she felt safe enough to get some sleep. He locked the front door behind him, knowing that it would never hold Chastity in, but, then, Eden was nothing like Chastity.
His feet hit the pavement in front of her building at a jog. Which then turned into an outright run. The stairs he climbed in two’s. When he reached the second floor, he forced himself to slow down and breathe. The door hadn’t been ripped off. Not a good start for Carter. If Mitch didn’t see his unconscious body on the floor, he’d make sure it was there by the time he left the apartment. His fist hammered the door. I swear to God, if he comes to this door with sleep in his eyes, he’s dead.
He heard the padlock being opened from the inside. Saw the knob turn. Readied his legs to pounce. It opened. Fucking guy is yawning! Mitch threw Carter back into the room and slammed the door behind him.
“What the—” Carter yelled.
“How did she get out you lazy, stupid piece of shit?” He towered over the younger man who was anything but sleepy now.
“Stop! Jesus,” he yelled, holding his hands out.
Mitch had been hoping for an all-out fist pounding, but the guy wasn’t fighting back. Ah, hell. That only mattered to honorable men. He coiled his arm for an upper-cut.
“I dropped her off, man! I dropped her off at your house!”
Mitch’s arm fell as fast as his jaw did. “You let her out? On purpose?”
“Yes . . . No. I didn’t let her out. I brought her to you. I gave her to you.” The words were forced through tight lips.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Carter slung his head forward and scooted back onto the arm of the chair he’d fallen against when Mitch had pushed him. “She attacked me. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“I don’t see any bruises, so she couldn’t have hit you that hard.”
He shook his head. “No, she didn’t hit me—she attacked me. Like . . . like . . . like she was going to force herself on me.”
Mitch cocked an eyebrow. “So you decided to drop her off on my doorstep? What am I missing here?”
Carter sighed, stood up and headed into the kitchen with Mitch following closely. He reached into the fridge and pulled out a beer. “Want one?”
Mitch glanced at the wall clock. 7:30. “Sure.” They sat on opposite sides of the small Formica table and drank. “What, no toast?”
Carter ignored him. “About an hour after I locked her in, she started screaming—Chastity, not Eden, but I didn’t know that at the time. Eden’s really weird about not being able to get out of closed spaces. She gets really freaked out and panicky.”
“Yeah, I know.”
With a tilt of his head and questioning eyes, Carter continued, “So, I thought it was Eden. I really did. But then, when I opened the door . . . obviously they’re different.”
“Obviously. Go on.”
“She tackled me—kinda like you just did—an
d started saying things that . . .” He took a large swig from his bottle. “She’s Eden for Christ’s sake. I mean, she looks like Eden, but she’s so. . .” He shook his head violently. “She had her hands all over me and I couldn’t make her stop. I didn’t—”
Mitch nodded. He knew what Carter couldn’t say out loud—he didn’t want her to stop. “But you did. You stopped.”
“Yeah, by practically hiding in my room! She started to swear at me and call me all sorts of names. And then she said she was going to get out. She was going to go to you. That you would ‘take care’ of her if I wouldn’t.”
“I’m still confused about why you would actually bring her to me. Especially after she said that.”
“I thought about Eden. And, after all that she’s gone through, I couldn’t do that to her. I didn’t trust myself.”
“And I’m a better choice because . . . ?”
“Because she’s been telling me no for years. I’m very clear on where I stand with her.” He looked up at the ceiling and a sad smile spread across his face. “Well, I am now. So if her other personality is going to use her body like that, it shouldn’t be me she uses it on. If she just got out, who knows what she would have done or who she would have ended up with. So you were the only logical choice.” He didn’t say what Mitch knew Carter was thinking, but, for the life of him, couldn’t understand.
“Logical choice,” he muttered bewilderedly. “So you think Eden would be happier if she found out Chastity had fucked me.”
“I don’t know if I’d use the word ‘happy’, but—” The guy struggled and then nodded. “Shit.” He slammed his beer onto the table. “Yeah, I might use the word ‘happy’. Plus, she already woke up next to you, so it wouldn’t be as shocking the second time.”
Mitch wasn’t sure about either point. Maybe the second made a little more sense than the first. “She needs to stay with me from now on. In my house. Whenever she sleeps. You okay with that?” Though he’d asked the question, the answer didn’t matter. But Eden would care, even if Mitch didn’t.
Carter thought for a while, chewing on his upper lip. “Her idea or yours?”
“Mine. She doesn’t know about it yet.”
He laughed. “Good luck with that. I don’t get a choice anyway. She asked me to move out.”
“She what? Well, that was stupid. Did she have a plan for her evening hours a few times a week? Sure, that’ll work. Hire a teenager to babysit her and listen to Chastity’s screaming. Or maybe she planned on locking the doors and windows and swallowing the key.”
“I told her I would be here when she changed.”
“That worked almost as well as the babysitter idea.”
“Give me a break! I didn’t know what else to do. You seem to have all the answers, like it’s something you deal with everyday, but this is whack for me. Totally frigging insane. I’m fighting myself to stick around for her, but I’m losing the battle.” The boy scout had a point—they didn’t teach this kind of crap in the Police Tech Academy.
“I’m empty.” Mitch shook the bottle and looked toward the fridge.
Carter drained his own and went to get two more.
“Alright,” Mitch said. “This is how it’s going to be: She sleeps”—he caught himself before he said ‘with me’ which wouldn’t help the tension level in either of them—“at my house. You do too. Every fourth day, you pack a bag and stay in one of my guest rooms. Lucky boy.” He winked. “Bring your own toothbrush—I don’t share well.”
“That’s hard to believe.” Sarcasm helping him regain his composure, Carter slid the Heineken across the table. “Why do I have to be there?”
“Because you do.” He lifted up his glass, toasting their new arrangement. “I didn’t sleep with her, by the way.”
Carter coughed, covering his mouth before he spit his beer all over the table. “Who stopped?”
“Who do you think? I did. Jesus, I’m not some kind of monster.” He shook his head when he saw the way Carter’s body finally relaxed and slumped back into the chair.
Mitch would have to come up with a way to explain the cage. Eden obviously hadn’t told him about Hyde, and he’d like the guy to stay in the dark about that for as long as possible. Maybe a thorough cleaning, a pink couch, and a big, red bow on one of the bars would make it look brand, spanking new again.
He would never be able to put those cuffs on her again, not after how scared she’d been this morning. But the cage would hold Chastity at this point. If it ever stopped being enough, well, they’d deal with that when it happened.
CHAPTER XXVII
For Eden, the next few days were either filled with anxiety or desperate attempts at normalcy. She saw her life as clearly as a book. The beginning, most of which she’d blocked out, had been traumatic, filled with hateful characters and painful drama. But until a month and a half ago, things seemed to be working out, slowing down, with the potential of including a moderately happy ending.
And then Chastity came along. So the future? The future held no promise, other than repeated visits to the cage, being taken care of by two men she’d never understand.
When Mitch had broached the subject of moving in with him—which was basically what it was, at least every fourth night—she’d thought he’d lost his mind. His voice had been so hesitant, his words . . . not so much. There were no other options, unless she bought herself her own cage. And then what? Lock herself in permanently? Have a delivery guy bring a key to her in the morning, maybe with a pizza? She hated being dependent on anyone. But she could no longer ignore the fact that she’d been emotionally dependent on Carter since they’d met. She’d let herself become a perpetual victim and forced him into co-dependency. It was wrong. So much of this was wrong.
If her life was in tatters, she could accept it. Somewhere in her mind, she figured she deserved this. And Mitch? He was offering her nothing more than a prison bed. Whether that was enough for her or not didn’t really matter.
Keep it just business. She laughed at the absurdity of that thought. The sound was foreign to her ears. When was the last time she laughed? Mitch was . . . a very confusing personality she tried not to spend too much time thinking about.
Carter was different. Carter is— She searched for a word other than the one that always appeared in her mind to describe him, the one Mitch had poked fun at with a steel finger. He was more than good, he was . . . great. Okay, that just sucked. Why was it so hard to pinpoint who he was? Why had she never thought of more than that before? He was honest, loyal, and brave. He was also too generous, with his life and his heart.
He’d never walk away, never open himself up to anyone else without a big shove. She could give him that. Having something to focus on helped push back the fear pulsing through her veins, taking a ride-along with her infected blood. Yes, that’s how she saw it—infected. With whatever brought Chastity out.
On day four, while Carter was at work, she dialed Mitch’s office number.
“Good morning, Mitchell—”
“Jolie? It’s Eden.”
A sigh answered her across the line. “Mitch isn’t here.”
“That’s okay. I wanted to talk to you.”
Another sigh. “What?”
What had she done to piss the woman off so badly? “Are you doing anything tonight?” she stammered.
Jolie laughed. “Are you asking me out?”
“Sorry, but you’re not my type. It’s for . . . Do you remember Carter?”
“Yes.”
“Well, he’s too chicken to ask, so I’m going to do it for him.” She played with a thread hanging from the couch, feeling like she was asking someone to the prom.
“Do what?”
Stop stalling and speak, Eden. “I saw the way you two got along at the party, and I’d hoped you might want to continue the conversation you were having.”
“You want me to date your boyfriend?”
“He’s not my boyfriend anymore.”
“I do
n’t date cast-offs.”
“You know he’s never really been my boyfriend. Jeez, Jolie. Help me out here. I want him to be happy.”
“You think I would make him happy?”
“It’s worth a try. Maybe both of you could get something out of it.” Eden waited for a response. And waited. She opened her mouth to declare the entire idea had been the result of a momentary lapse in brain-function.