Bailey
I sip a cocktail in a quiet restaurant a few blocks away from Bourbon Street. It’s a quiet Friday night because of the rain, but I don’t mind.
Tanner leans back in his seat with an empty plate in front of him. That man can eat, that’s for sure. No one has ever complimented my cooking like he does, and tonight he’s already spoken to the chef of this little establishment twice, showering him with praise.
I smile at the thought and slide my leg against his under the table. He opens one eye and smiles softly at me.
“You look like you had a long day,” I tell him.
He shrugs. “Yeah, well. It’s been a long week. You’ve been gone, I’ve been splitting time between the job site and my shift at the firehouse.”
“Well, we’re home all weekend.” I grin. “I think staying in bed until Monday is just what the doctor ordered.”
“That sounds like heaven,” he says, but his voice is wistful and withdrawn, like his mind is elsewhere.
I’ve known Tanner for a year. I’ve known him to be steadfast, stoic, and emotionally sound, but when I came home this morning after my night shift at the Wilsons’, he seemed… off.
The memory of the other night when we slept together and he was… well… how do I describe it? I liked the sex. I really liked it, but Tanner and I have been sleeping together since a few days after we met, admittedly, and while he’s always been generous, and I’ve been more than satisfied, his sudden shift threw me for a loop.
We’ve fallen into a routine. A kind of easy, mundane loop everyday that feels safe, secure, and something I like. But something is different now. A new kind of energy ripples between us, and honestly, I’ve been a bit on edge.
I’ve chalked it up to working for the Wilsons and my increasing suspicions about how Robert got hurt, but it’s been on my mind all week, and I really don’t want to think about it anymore.
My phone buzzes in my purse, and I quickly glance at it, making sure it’s not Helen needing my help tonight. Her sister is in town, as planned, to help on the weekend, but she’s not a nurse.
“Oh, it's Layla,” I smile, checking the text. “She’s going to be coming here in a few weeks to visit. I guess she has to sign off on some paperwork with the historical society.”
“It's probably because the new owners of the property want to drain and clear the marsh behind the backyard.”
“Really?”
Tanner nods. “They want the cemetery out of there. I bet your friend has to sign off on allowing the bodies of her ancestors to be dug up and moved to lots at Hahnville Baptist.”
I squirm. “I don’t like that. That feels… wrong.”
“I agree, but what can we do?”
I shrug, setting my phone on the table and resting my chin in my hand. “I think Layla will sign off on it. She seems more than ready to put that whole mess behind her.”
But as I’m talking, Tanner straightens. His relaxed demeanor shifts, and the soft look in his eyes hardens, going dark around the edges.
Now I’m straightening up as a chill skitters down my spine. “Are you okay?”
“Why was Layla so willing to let go of that property? It’s been in her family for over a century.”
“She didn’t feel any connection to it. Miss Penny was a distant cousin of hers, I guess. Not an aunt. Layla’s family line wanted nothing to do with it, but Miss Penny made her the heir, and when she died, Layla and Dalton–”
“Dalton,” Tanner says, low in his throat. It’s an odd tone of voice that makes me narrow my eyes at him.
“You remember Dalton, right?”
“I haven’t talked to him in a while,” Tanner says, looking out the window at the rain. “Didn’t know him well before that, either. I only know him as your friend's boyfriend.”
“Okay… well, that’s what he is. Yeah. Anyway, Layla wanted it to go to someone else, someone who actually wanted the property. When your client came in with an offer the first time, the historical society refused. I don’t know why. But then they decided they couldn’t do anything with it anyway. They wanted it when there was a house, but Penny leaving them a smoldering pile of rubble did nothing for the society. So they finally accepted the offer..”
“What happened to Layla there?” He says it in almost a whisper.
“Tanner, I don’t really know. I’ve told you everything–”
“Tell me again.” There’s so much command laced through every word. It does something strange to my body. A mingled sense of desire and uncertainty wraps its way around my spine and tugs.
“She asked me often if the house was haunted. I said no, but looking back on it, I’m sure it was. She’d sense things in the house–see things. Then Vera started acting strange, and everything went downhill from there.”
“How?”
“So many questions tonight,” I try to tease, but he looks at me sharply. I sigh heavily. “What’s wrong, Tanner? Is something going on over there?”
“You know about the power tools and all that mess. I just feel–feel uncomfortable there. Increasingly so. Like I’m being watched all the time.”
I nod. It’s all I can do, because the memory of the shadow I saw in the cemetery earlier this week flutters through my mind and forces me to suck in a breath.
“Do you think somebody’s out there, in the marsh?” I ask quietly, reaching for his hand.
He allows me to curl my fingers around his thumb. I squeeze, and he seems to pop back to reality.
“Do I think someone is hiding out in the marsh?”
“It would explain all the weird things happening at your job site, right? The vandalism. I think–I think I saw someone out there the other night. I was out walking around Helen’s property, trying to stay awake. I swore I saw someone standing in the middle of the gravestones. And, you know, that’s where Robert got hurt. What if someone is out there, and they hurt Robert, attacked him, and have been messing with your job site?”
“I doubt Robet got attacked. He’s old, but not old enough to forget getting jumped–”
“I’m not sure he was meant to remember,” I say as steadily as possible, trying to stay calm as I voice the inner turmoil that's been floating through my head all week while tending to his wounds. “I think whoever did this to him was trying to kill him, Tanner.”
Tanner’s eyes meet mine and hold my gaze for what feels like a very long time.
“I’m not sure I like you being at the Wilson house every night during the week.”
I exhale deeply through my nose. “They need my help. It’s not forever.”
“Yeah, well,” he sighs, leaning back and sliding his hand from mine. “I don’t think anyone is in the marsh. I would’ve caught them by now. Someone on my crew would have seen them.”
I nod and fall back into my own head as a waitress comes with the check. I don’t even attempt to pull out my wallet because Tanner always pays, no expectations.
I’m trying to believe him. To believe, and to convince myself, that nothing is wrong, and the person I saw was only a trick of the mind–a mind exhausted by pulling a night shift for the first time in years.
But still, when we arrived back home forty-five minutes later, I feel… overwhelmed and a little scared.
I sit at the vanity Tanner built for me a few months after we started dating and slowly take off my earrings, my necklace, and the clip holding my hair away from my face. Through the mirror, I watch him sit on the edge of the bed and pull off his shoes and socks then his shirt.
I feel that tug again–that thing inside of me that’s new and hungry.
He catches my gaze in the mirror and motions for me. “Come here, Bailey.”
I stand on legs that don’t feel like I have any control of them anymore and walk to him, slowly, wearing nothing but a camisole and the boyshorts I wore under the dress I had on during dinner tonight.
“What’s wrong?” he whispers as I straddle his lap, wrapping my arms around his neck.
“I’ve just been… it’s just been a weird week. A hard week.”
“I know,” he replies, brushing the words against my cheek as I close my eyes and let the world around us fade away.
His hands glide from my waist all the way up my back, and down again. It’s a smooth, reassuring touch.
“Bailey,” he says against my neck before kissing and sucking my skin. Through his jeans I can feel his hard cock twitch. I let out my breath, my heart skipping a beat as arousal surges through my body and settles in my core. “I’m going to fuck you,” he rasps, dragging his teeth over my shoulder.
It’s not a question. It’s a promise. It’s a command to obey, just like the other night when he folded me over the dining room table and took liberties with my body I’m not sure I would have allowed in any other circumstance or with anyone else.
But I don’t expect him to flip me over. My back hits the bed, and then he’s pulling his belt from the loops in his jeans and securing it tightly around my wrists before winding the rest of the length of leather around gaps in the headboard, tying it in place.
My wrists ache from how tight it is. I almost say something about the unwanted pain, but the words are stolen from my mouth as he unclasps his jeans and lets them fall to the floor along with his boxers.
His dick is hard as he crawls to me, kneeling above me, locking my legs in place beneath him. His eyes are dark, unreadable in the dimly lit room.
I gasp as he tears my camisole in half and roughly clutches my breasts. “Tanner–”
“Hush,” he commands and leans down to kiss me.
I lose myself in his kiss, like usual. He is a drug, and I am desperate for anything I can get from him, but he pulls away briefly, reaching across the bed for his discarded jeans, and pulls out a pocket knife.
I hold my breath as the blade glides out and flashes in the fractured light coming from the lamp across the room.
I turn my heavy gaze from the knife to Tanner.
Am I scared or excited?
He holds my gaze as he lowers the blade and cuts through my boyshorts until I’m exposed to him.
He takes a deep breath, closing his eyes. I watch him curiously, noticing the way he seems to be… fighting something.
“Tanner,” I whisper, wishing I could touch him right now, but my hands are bound, and I am completely at his mercy. “Tanner, are you okay?”
He blinks, his eyes remaining dark and hooded, and says nothing at all as he leans over my body and grips my thighs, wrenching them apart. The knife rests beside my head–so close I can see the raw blade in my peripheral vision.
The head of his cock splits me open, and he thrusts hard, sheathing himself in my pussy so deep I buck off the bed.
“Take it,” he rasps against my neck, thrusting harder a second time, “Be a good girl, and take it all.”
I choke out a moan as he grinds his hips against mine.
Whatever’s gotten into him isn’t a bad thing. I like it. Deep down, I want this. I want everything he can give me and more. It's like an obsession, like something dark and twisted that I’ve buried, and is now coming to life thanks to him.
But I close my eyes as my climax starts to roll through me, punctuated by each hard, deliberate thrust of his cock, and I feel like I might be passing out, because the edges of my vision go dark, and the man on top of me isn’t Tanner anymore.
No, I’m… this isn’t Tanner. This is–this is–
My scream echoes in my ears as the belt around my wrists is suddenly released, and Tanner is crushing my body against his. “Bailey? Bailey?”
I shove him away, rolling to the far edge of the bed and grabbing the pocket knife. My feet hit the floor, and I nearly topple over, my entire body numb and prickling back to life.
But I’m looking at Tanner. My Tanner. The man I’ve slept beside for a year. The man I know, inside and out… until recently.
I’m pointing his knife at him, and he’s looking at me like he’s just as confused as I am.
I drop the knife, my heart racing out of my chest.
“Bailey, what happened?” he asks, frantic. “You looked like you were passing out!”
“I don’t know,” I say hurriedly, stumbling back until my back hits the wall. I slide down onto my ass, and flinch away from him as he approaches me.
“Bailey, it’s me–”
Somewhere outside the room, a song plays. The melody creeps into every air molecule and seeps into my brain like a virus. I’ve heard it before, but I can’t place it.
“Where is that coming from?” I demand through tears.
“What are you talking about?”
“That song!”
“There’s no song, Bailey.”