“OK.” She smiles. It might even be a genuine smile. Kinda sweet, actually. “Then go check. I’ll wait here.”
I walk in, flip on the light. It’s a nice bedroom. What you’d typically find in a house like this. Professionally decorated in neutral colors. Large, king-sized bed. En suite bathroom.
I pull the closet doors open, find a walk-in. Empty. Then turn back to Lyssa.
She’s leaning against the open door, hand out for my jacket. “Told you.”
I take off the jacket and give it to her.
She doesn’t put it on.
I laugh. “You’re too much, you know that?”
I follow her down the hallway to the next door. She throws it open, and says, “Nope. Not this one either.”
I walk in, flip on the light. See another version of the last bedroom. Take a deep breath as I walk over to the closet and open it up.
Empty.
I turn back to her. She says, “I think I should get your shirt for this one.”
“Ha,” I say. “Good one.” Then push past her, go to the next door, throw it open, turn on the light, and wait for her decision.
“Nope.”
“How do you know that?”
She frowns. Then shrugs. Her tits bouncing a little as she does that. “I just do, that’s all.”
“So which one is yours? I’m not in the mood to open all twenty-one bedrooms. Don’t you want to put something on and just… go to sleep?”
“I sleep naked,” she says. “Always have. So it doesn’t matter to me.”
“Jesus,” I say, running my fingers through my hair. “You tire me out, you know that?”
She says nothing.
“You know which room it is, don’t you?”
“I have an idea.”
“So go there.”
She looks down the hallway. Studies it for a moment. Then looks down the other one. The only difference between these two hallways, from what I can tell, is that there’s a large double door at the end of the one we’re not standing in. And this one has no double door at the end.
If I had to guess, I’d peg that as the master.
God, she’s really distracting. Because I could’ve avoided all this bedroom hide-and-seek if I had just been more aware of my surroundings.
She heads that direction, stops in front of the double doors, and turns back to me. “It’s not what you think.”
“What?” I say, squinting at her. “What are you talking about?”
She grabs the handles of both doors, swings them open, and she’s right.
It’s not what I think. Because it’s a staircase.
“Where’s this go?” I ask.
“To the tower,” she says. “Where else does an evil stepfather keep his little corporate princess?”
“What the fuck?” I say, kinda laughing as I step through to go up and look.
But she puts a hand out and says, “I don’t think so, Mason. I’m going up alone. Thank you for the escort. I wish I could say it was a pleasure meeting you, but I’m afraid it wasn’t.” She looks over her shoulder at the staircase, Sighs. Then turns back. “But I’m sure you’ll be paid handsomely for your troubles.”
And then she throws my jacket at me and walks up the stairs to her tower.
Flashing her pussy at me with each step.
CHAPTER SIX – LYSSA
He doesn’t follow me immediately. It takes him a second to pull himself together.
But he does follow me. There was no chance he wouldn’t.
I saw the way he looked at me. I knew what he’s thinking. The same thing they all think. Lyssa is a little prize. A little princess prize to be had. Stolen, kept, owned.
That’s all anyone ever sees these days.
So he can tell himself anything he wants. He can pretend I’m not a woman, just a little girl. And that’s fine.
It’s just not true and the only person who needs to know this fact is me. That’s all. Never forget, Lyssa. Never forget that you’re not what they think and the only opinion about you that matters is yours.
I reach the top first, his boots thudding on the hardwood stairs behind me.
“I don’t trust you,” he says. Like this is the reason he followed me up. I roll my eyes.
“Nor should you,” I say, turning to face him as he reaches the top step and takes in my bedroom. “I wouldn’t trust me either. If you think I’m just gonna go to sleep, and wake up, and magically turn back into some sweet, innocent, polite little girl—well, think again.”
“What the fuck is this?” he asks.
“My room,” I say. “You don’t like it?”
“Yeah, well…” He laughs. “Did he decorate this room when you were six? Because…”
I look at it from his own fresh perspective. Make no mistake, it looks the same to me after all these years too. But I try to see it from the perspective of a grown man who doesn’t have a thing for little girls.
White four-poster bed with a frilly canopy. Matching white dressing table with an oval mirror and a padded stool. Matching white nightstands. Fuzzy, pink rug covering the dark, hardwood floor. A little dining set that I’d pay money to see this Mason asshole sitting at, sipping tea. And a crystal chandelier hanging over the center of the tiny table.