“I have a meeting with Coraleigh today,” he says, pulling the top off the bin and tossing it onto the surface of his immaculately kept desk. “Ophelia is putting pressure on her to deflect to her side; she says she can protect her. I want to make sure she understands that isn’t the case.”

Oscar withdraws a long length of pale pink rope from the bin and then twists it around his hands, testing out its strength. He smiles. He said he was a master of knots; I can only wonder what his plans are for that. Will he hang Leigh up like we did Donald? Or something worse?

“Why even bother coming to school at all?” I ask, since neither of us even made it to first period.

“To see you, obviously,” he says, completely deadpan. It could be a joke, sure, but almost … not? I can’t decide either way. I lean my back against Oscar’s door, biting my lower lip as I try to puzzle him out, when he turns over his shoulder to look at me, the rope still wound around his long, inked fingers.

“Come here, Bernadette,” he commands. Oscar turns toward me and my heart jumps in my chest. I can't decide if I should be turned on or if I should run.

“What?” I ask, looking at the rope in his hands. I'm so shocked by the seemingly sudden turn of events that it takes me a hell of a lot longer to figure out that the pink rope in his hands is for me and not for Leigh. I take a small step away from him, putting my back against his bedroom door. “I thought you said you had a meeting with Leigh?”

“It's a flexible meeting,” Oscar continues, turning around and snapping the silky looking rope in his tattooed hands. “And you seem hell-bent on chasing me to the ends of the earth, so here we are. Are you afraid of me?”

Those words of his … they are very clearly a challenge.

I look back at him, holding that rope in his hands, knowing what he did to Donald, knowing what he did to the Kushners. There wasn't even a hint of regret in his eyes when he pulled the trigger on his revolver. Oscar Montauk does not operate under the same moral rules as the rest of society. Then again, neither do I.

Trust, Bernie, I tell myself, pressing my fingertips into the door for leverage. You said you'd trust the Havoc Boys. What's so different about this? If I want Oscar, then I have to accept him with every broken piece of his soul, the way he has to do for me.

“I'm not afraid of you,” I tell him, and he narrows his gray eyes on me. It's obvious that he didn't expect such an answer. “Should I be?” I cock my head to one side, remembering the feel of his fingers on my throat. There was violence in his touch, sure, but it was restrained and well-leashed, and clearly not directed at me. Despite his reaction toward me, I could tell that the only person he was angry with was himself. Instead, it was passion I felt in his fingers when he touched me. Passion that he's obviously terrified to embrace. “I am not human,” he said.

Fucker.

He has no idea how human his face was on the night we spent together. No goddamn clue. I wet my lips, tasting the waxy texture of my lipstick.

“We should message Vic to let him know we aren't coming back to school,” I say, and Oscar clenches his teeth.

“Already done,” he says, but not like he truly expected me to stay. “Shall I tell him we're about to fuck, too?”

I swallow the tight lump in my throat.

“We don't owe Victor an explanation anymore,” I say, feeling this flicker inside my chest. This is the way things were always supposed to be. Not Oscar being a dick obviously, but … me and the boys. They have always been mine. Always. “What are you planning on doing with that rope?” I nod my chin in the direction of it as Oscar scowls.

This is going to be a shitstorm. He has more intimacy issues than me and Hael and Aaron and Callum combined. Oddly enough, I don't think Victor has those sorts of problems. He's always seemed more than willing to admit his feelings to me.

“Punish you,” Oscar says simply, like this is the obvious response. “Now, get naked and get on the bed on your knees; put your back to me.” My eyes are just now adjusting to the semi-darkness of the room, and I have no problem seeing his face. Seeing and reading it are two different problems, however. Oscar's motivations remain carefully packed away and hidden from the world.

“You sound like a serial killer,” I joke, moving forward and pausing so that we're standing toe to toe. Oscar looks down at me as I slip out of my pink leather Havoc jacket and toss it onto his floor. His eyes find the pulse point in my throat, watching as it flutters like a trapped bird.

I slip my top off next, putting the black Harley tank top aside. Another gift from Victor. All I've got on now is the very first black lace bra that he got me. Oscar seems to recognize it, but says nothing, makes no move to touch me. I reach back and unhook my bra, letting it fall down my arms and drop to the floor.

“Bernadette, you have huge fucking tits. You must be kidding me? You were intended to read between the lines.”

I know he likes my breasts, maybe more so than any of the other guys. Yet, he makes no move to touch them. My skin prickles with need, but I'm not about to throw myself at him like a cat in heat. This is a careful dance between two hard-as-nails personalities; it was never going to be easy.

But nothing worth having ever is, am I right?

Sitting down on the edge of Oscar's bed, I get a strange feeling in my belly and do my best not to smile. Sure, my life hasn't been what it might've or should've been, but that doesn't mean being in the bedroom of a boy I've been crushing on for a decade doesn't affect me.

When Oscar isn't at Aaron's, he lays his head here. Since he was thirteen years old, he's been laying his head here. His energy is stamped all over this room; I feel like I'm drowning in it. I hear when you first go under, it's a struggle, then the water rushes your lungs and it's nothing but pain. After that … quiet bliss and an easy slip into the next world.

Yep.

Oscar Montauk is like drowning.

I take my boots and socks off, not bothering to hurry. There is no rushing this. My eyes lift up to find Oscar's, but he hasn't moved; his expression hasn't changed. He's stoic and quiet and dark as the night sky without stars.

Unbuttoning my leather pants (a different pair since Vic ruined my favorite), I slip them down my hips and reveal the fact that I was never wearing panties at all. Underwear lines and all that.

Now that I'm nude, I feel completely vulnerable in front of this man, the same way I did on Aaron's couch that night. The way Oscar's staring at me doesn't change, but I get the impression that he's close to breaking and revealing something important to me.

I climb onto the bed and turn around, perching on my knees.

“Hands behind your back,” he tells me, his words stitched with darkness and lust and endless, rolling desire. “Wrists together.”

Holy shit.

As much as I know I can trust the boys, this is a whole new level. Sex has been leveled at me as a weapon my entire life. My sister died because of sex. Sometimes it's hard to separate the hatred I have for my perpetrators and my feelings about the act itself. Letting Oscar tie me up puts this on a whole new level; it leaves me nearly helpless and trapped in his bedroom.

With a long exhale, I do as he's asked.

Oscar's long fingers tickle my skin in a pleasant way as he applies the rope, twisting and weaving it around my arms with just enough pressure that I find it comforting, like he's holding me in his arms. My body begins to shake as he puts his mouth up against my ear.

“Do you know what shibari is?” he asks me, nipping the shell of my ear and making me gasp in surprise.

“Tying someone up with ropes …” I hazard, which I'm sure isn't the correct answer at all. Just had to get a bit of snippiness in there before things take a carnal turn.

“Wrong.” Oscar yanks on the ropes holding my arms together, and I cry out. I'm glad we're outside of the main house, so Rebecca can't hear us. “In shibari, there needs to be an emotional connection between the person tying the ropes, and the one being tied up. If there isn't, then it's simply Western bondage.” He scowls and puts his head up against the side of mine. My eyes close against the touch as my heart pounds.

Oscar steps aside, moving around to look at me from the front. When I try to adjust my arms, they won't move, but they also don't hurt either. The ropes aren't too tight; they feel more like a long-lasting caress than some sort of BDSM punishment. I look up at him in his suit and evergreen tie, gray eyes focused on my face in just such a way that I have to resist the urge to squirm.

Bernadette Blackbird does not fucking squirm. Gross.

“You're not going to like me after this,” Oscar says, reaching out an inked hand and cupping the side of my face. His fingers and hands rank up there with the most beautiful things I've ever seen. His fingers are long and wicked, the hands of an idle devil, and his tattoos look to be poured from the inkwell of a mad god. When he touches me, his hand is surprisingly warm. “But I can't help myself. Despite what you might think, I do not have Victor's control.”

I keep my eyes closed for a moment, but when I open them, I find Oscar with his jacket off, tie loose, and slacks undone. He holds his inked and pierced cock in that gorgeous hand of his, stroking his fingers along its length.

“Sex is such a strange concept, don't you think?” he asks, his voice as smooth as that thirty-five-thousand-dollar cognac we drank at the Vincents' place. It goes down nice and easy, making my belly burn with the taste. Fuck, fuck, fuck. The tension in that room is so thick that I'm surprised it doesn't fog up the asshole's glasses.

“I think it's a double-edged sword, a perfectly awful execution of the soul in the wrong hands … and a melding of souls in a different set.”

“Which set of hands do you think I have, Bernadette?” Oscar asks me, slicking his thumb over the tip of his cock and making it shiny with pre-ejac.

“The hands of the devil,” I whisper back, closing my eyes. Oscar grabs me by the hair and yanks my head back, leaning down to put his mouth near mine. I can practically taste him, a strange poison that reminds me of night-blooming flowers and pain. He doesn't kiss me though, just laughs against my lips and pulls my hair a little harder.