Tabula Rasa(58)

His eyes narrowed. “We’ll deal with the candles later. What was the stationery for?”

“It’s stupid.”

“Tell me.”

So I told him the whole inane thing about the letter to my professor, just wanting to scare him, and ripping it up and throwing it away because I didn’t want to risk Shannon’s location. He smiled at that, obviously pleased. At least I’d done something right. I didn’t tell him the nightmares were getting worse. I told myself it was because I didn’t want him to go do something about it. But really, I was afraid if I told him, he would barely react again and not care and refuse to do anything at all except tell me to stop whining about it.

“Is that all you bought?” he asked, oblivious to my internal struggle.

I felt heat flood into my face. “I bought some lingerie,” I mumbled.

An eyebrow raised. “Oh, really? Put it on. Now. Then come back downstairs. And bring the candles with you.”

My heart was nearly throbbing out of my body. I felt like I was vibrating from the inside out as I changed out of regular clothes, and into the lingerie. I added a swipe of cherry red gloss to my lips. I put the candles in the paper shopping bag the lingerie had been in and descended the stairs back to Shannon.

But he wasn’t in the living room.

“Shannon?”

“I’m in my office. Come on back.”

He glanced up when I walked in. “Are those the candles?” he asked, indicating the bag I carried.

“Yes, Sir.”

“Good. Put them there on the side table.”

There was a large glass table next to a window with a white leather chair beside it. On the table stood various decanters of alcohol that appeared to contain different types of whiskeys—bourbon, scotch, all the usual suspects. Next to that were glasses of varying shapes to allow the flavors to do whatever magic thing they seemed to do in just the right glass. Next to all this was an empty space where I put the bag.

“You can sit,” he said, indicating the white chair I stood beside. I sank into the leather. On the ground at my feet was a thick black shag rug.

Meanwhile Shannon clacked away at the keys on his laptop. Every now and then he’d make a hmmm sound, but other than that, he just stared intently at the screen. I had no idea what he was looking at, and although I was deeply curious, I wasn’t foolish enough to ask.

I also tried not to be too put off by the fact that he hadn’t had any strong reaction or even any discernible reaction at all to the lingerie. Did he not like it? I hated the way this made me feel. For weeks before our relationship had changed, I’d felt comfortable and safe with him. But the moment things had shifted... he made me so nervous now. Those nerves were no longer about what he might do to me but about what he might not do. I couldn’t stand the idea that he’d lost interest in me, not because I thought he might get rid of me in some gruesome way but because I couldn’t stand the idea of losing him.

Shannon’s eyes narrowed, and he looked up at me, accusation in his gaze. “You drank red wine in my bathroom.” When he spoke, the words came out in that scary dead calm of his.

“I-I’m sorry. I was taking a bubble bath.”

“Yes. I can see that.”

“What?”

“Oh, you thought I’d just leave you alone in my house without monitoring the situation? There are hidden security cameras all over this house. I’m watching the footage. Additionally, I’m confirming all the places you’ve said you’ve been. I can’t know what exactly you said or did while there, but I know everywhere you went and when you went there.”

“How?”

“I put a tracking device in your shoes.”

“But... when?” He’d left so fast that day.

“The night before I left. I set up the money and everything else the night before as well.”

So... if I’d run, he would have just brought his little computer with him and tracked me down that way. I had no doubts that Shannon could find me anywhere. I just hadn’t thought he would do it in such a literal tracking device way.

“I can’t believe you put a tracking device in my shoes.”

“Be glad I didn’t insert a chip under your skin. I’m still considering it.”

This was the kind of thing that always brought home to me what an idiot I was where Shannon was concerned. I thought he had no malevolent intentions and that I could trust him, and yet he was calmly considering implanting me with a tracking device. Wasn’t that evil? If Trevor had done it? Yes. If Professor Stevens had done it, no question. But my mind went out of its way to give Shannon a pass for everything. As long as he was feeding me, caring for me, not hurting me, and giving me orgasms, my brain refused to register him as a threat—at least for more than a couple of minutes at a time anymore.

And he wasn’t hurting me. Outside of sex games, he’d never raised a hand to me. He’d never lost his temper in any measurable way that would give the average person pause. And I really, really liked being here with him, despite all the fluttery nervous f*cked-up feelings he made me feel. And half of that I would have felt with any man I was so attracted to.

Shannon closed the lid of the laptop and slid it into the middle desk drawer. Then he opened another drawer and pulled out some scary looking chains and cuffs and a collar.