“You’re so sweet, Jace. Thank you.” My lashes blink, wet with tears. “But I can take care of myself.”
“Trapped isn’t care, Viv. It’s a cage.” His trimmed beard can’t hide the angry tick in his jaw. “What does he have on you? What’s so bad that you think it’ll ruin you?”
Tears brim again. The shaking starts. The shame spirals. The pit of my stomach twists. “Jace, please.” My throat tightens. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Then don’t talk. Just let me tell you…” He’s never stayed this close to me. Barely touching. Totally consuming. “There’s nothing you can ever say or do that’ll make me stop caring for you, Viv.Nothing.I mean it. You don’t know everything about me either. I’m flawed and fucked up. I have shit I hide too.”
I know.
Jace is in a secret society, a fight club, or something illegal.
Discretion is essential to my job. People expose their most vulnerable parts to me, trusting that I’ll reveal them in the best light. And I do.
Secrets are safe with me.
Because I hide them too.
So whatever Jace and his brother Grant, who works here as well, are up to with the brigade of hot, hulking, inked men who disappear to the third floor, hiding behind a locked black door—yes, photographers see everything—it’s fine with me.
Whatever it is.
It can’t be wrong if a man as right as Jace is involved.
“You’re not flawed.” I cup his hand on my cheek. “You’re my friend, and I value us too much to fuck it up with my problems. I got this. I promise.”
“Come on, Viv.” He doesn’t believe me, making me swoon with his sexy grin. “What’s so bad? You’re sharing passwords on your streaming channel? You cut a tag off a mattress? You defaced President Andrew Jackson on a twenty-dollar bill; don’t blame you. He was a racist fuck. Whatever it is, we work in a sexshop, remember? I know you take vibrators home, and you know I test male masturbators in the bathroom. Hit me with it.”
My smile is instant. It always is with Jace. I can’t resist joking. “Do some masturbators suck?”
His eyes twinkle, devilish. “Some suck, vibrate, thrust, and rotate. And one time, I got stuck in one.”
“Stuck!” Laughter bursts through my tears. “How? I mean…”Shit, don’t ask about his dick, Viv. It’s a huge, hidden no-no.“Never mind. I get the idea.”
“The idea?” He cocks a brow. “No, how about a vacuum hose. It kept sucking and tugging, and I kept growing and swelling until I was sealed into the damn thing like a lead pipe in curing concrete. The pressure was so bad, I thought my dick would explode.”
Okay, he’s going there, and I’m dying to know, giggling. “How’d you get it out?”
“Had to text Grant to come to the bathroom to help with my erectile emergency.” He laughs. “Because trust me, nothing will deflate a dick faster than your older brother laughing at it with a masturbator hanging from it.”
“Did it break it? I mean?—”
Whoops. What?Can dicks break? And why am I asking, worried about my friend’s penis?I bet it’s huge.And do I secretly want it to work for me one day?
In horny-lady la-la land, sure. All miserable, man-craving women hope for a hot, hung hunk.
But I truly care for Jace.
I cherish him, actually. He has no idea how I survived this past year because of him. He’s so special to me, I don’t want to tell him. I don’t want to burst the perfect bubble of our friendship.
He smiles, holding up his hand. “It didn’t break. Me and Rosie Palm, my OG masturbator, are just fine now. Thanks forasking.” His tone softens. “So you see. I won’t judge. There’s nothing you can’t tell me.”
There is.
There’s something that’s made my life so small. My anxiety so bad. My depression so difficult to manage. I don’t know what’s worse—the betrayal or the violation.
They call it revenge porn.
But it’s worse than revenge. It’s trauma that doesn’t end. It’s violence without an assault. It’s a demon haunting you for the rest of your life.
