Page 77 of Worse Than Wicked
“He’s here,” Mabel says. “Go on, get in the bathroom.”
“You sure you don’t want to leave him waiting a few minutes?” I ask, taking her hand and pulling her in. “All this scheming has been an aphrodisiac.”
I circle her slender body with one arm, drawing her against me. A soft, quick inhale is the only indication that she’s uncomfortable. After all we’ve done, the thousand times we’ve fucked her, she’s used to being touched, but she still doesn’t like it. I smile down at her, proud of how far she’s come.
“I don’t want him to have time for second thoughts,” she says. “It was harder than I expected to lure him here. He’s paranoid about losing his job.”
“He’ll be losing a lot more than that soon enough,” I say, giving the tip of her nose a quick kiss before I release her.
“I know,” she says, her blue eyes bright in the dimly lit motel room. A little grin flashes across her face, but she quickly hides it. “Now go.”
Reluctantly, I step into the bathroom and pull the door closed. She suggested the closet, but I couldn’t bring myself to lurk in there. She really wanted me to stay outside, but there’s no fucking way I’m leaving my girl with a predator. He could hurt her before I got inside. This is the compromise.
I lean against the counter and open my phone, pulling up the feed from the camera I placed in the room. Hiding is not inmy nature. Dolces like to be known. But when a situation calls for stealth, I can perform it well enough.
I watch Mabel open the door. I can’t have the sound on, in case the man hears the echo and gets suspicious, but the walls are thin, and I can hear them better than I expected.
“Wait,” Mr. Harris says. “You’re not—Hey!”
Mabel has grabbed him and dragged him a few steps into the room so she can slam the door before he backs out. She stands with her back against it and smiles at him. “I’m not what? Seventeen?”
“What is this?” he demands, looking around the room. The bottle of wine he promised hangs forgotten in his hand.
“It’s the place you chose,” Mabel reminds him. “Don’t you like it?”
We offered to meet at the Hockington, but he said it was too conspicuous. When she suggested the seediest motel in town, he was more agreeable, but now he looks with distaste at the thin, polyester cover on the bed, the cheap wall art, the paneled walls, and dim lighting.
“Is this… Some kind of sting operation?” he asks. He pushes up his thick glasses—Duke called them ‘serial killer style’—and licks his lips nervously. “Are you a cop?”
“No,” Mabel says. “I’m a college student.”
“Because you have to tell me if you are,” he says. “You know that, right?”
“Actually, that’s a myth,” Mabel says. “But I’m not a cop, and I’m not working with any cops. I just wanted to talk to you.”
“About what?” he asks.
“About us.”
He doesn’t speak for a long minute. Finally, he smooths his fingers over his short, neatly trimmed beard. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”
“Sure you do,” she says, pushing off the door and moving past him. She snags the wine bottle from his hand as she goes.
He turns to watch her walk to the bed, checking her out behind her back.
My fingers clench around my phone, and I have to resist the urge to throw open the door and show him what happens when he messes with the wrong girl.
Our girl.
“I should leave,” Mr. Harris says. “I think there’s been some kind of misunderstanding.”
“Right,” she says. “You thought you were meeting an underage girl, but you got a whole adult. Don’t you want to reminisce about the good old days with one of your favorite students, Mr. Harris? Or am I too old for you now?”
“I’m just going to go,” he says, turning to the door.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Mabel calls, all the teasing gone from her voice.
He stops. “I thought you said you hadn’t involved the police.”
