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Jamie folds down against me. His head finds my chest. His hair spills across my breast, still vanilla under the sweat. His mouth opens against my skin while he catches his breath.

I put one hand in that hair and the other on the back of his neck. I let him have me under his cheek. His fingers rest on my ribs.

I stroke his hair until he goes loose against me, damp at the temple, cock softening inside me.

After a while he says, “Heather?”

“Yes.”

“What happens if you get pregnant?”

I laugh. He lifts his head to look at me, and I push it back down. “I had my tubes tied years ago.”

He’s quiet for a moment. “Why?”

“Children are more difficult than dolls.”

He doesn’t ask anything else.

When his breathing evens out, I slide out from under him. He stirs and reaches for me. I tuck the blanket around his shoulders and put Duck against him. He curls around the duck without waking.

I turn on the mushroom light and step into the hall. I don’t lock his door. I go to bed and lie in the dark, listening to see what my good boy does with it.

CHAPTER 29

Simon

Iwake because my head is pounding. My cheek aches.

For a while, I lie still with my eyes closed and wait for the rest of me to catch up. My mouth tastes like the inside of an old pan, my head is too heavy for the pillow beneath it, and something is wrong with my legs.

I move one and fabric catches around my thighs.

I open my eyes.

A red mushroom glows on the table beside the bed. It throws just enough light across the room for me to know I’ve never seen any of it before.

I push myself onto my elbows and look down. “What the fuck?”

My shirt is gone. So are my boots and socks. My belt is open, my pants are unfastened, and whoever undressed me quit halfway through the fucking job.

I grab my pants and drag them up. My hands aren’t working properly, and it takes two attempts to get the button through the hole. By the time I manage the zipper, my head is swimming hard enough that I have to sit still.

“Fuck.”

The restaurant comes back in pieces that actually belong together. Heather feeding me dessert after everyone left. Her thumb pressing the burn on my wrist while the pain arrived too late to matter. The car.

No, Simon. You’re perfect.

She saw them. Heather saw every fucking one. I hate her for looking. I hate that some part of me needs to know whether she counted.

I get off the bed.

My knees almost send me straight to the floor. I catch the dresser with both hands and stay there until the room stops shifting around me.

She fucking drugged me. She took off my clothes while I was unconscious. She found the scars I’ve spent years making sure nobody sees, and somewhere in the parts of tonight I can’t fucking remember, she put her hands on them.

The door is six steps away. I make it in seven because the fifth one goes sideways. The handle doesn’t turn.