Working Stiff(102)
He knew what bleeding felt like, that cold wetness of seeping life. He had felt it too many times, and his heart ached with every thump in his chest.
Afterward, Rox had been limp in his arms, just like he had envisioned but for all the wrong reasons. Tears had streaked her face, and he had been sliced to his core.
He had carried her to the little bathroom off of the main playroom and washed her in the shower. After he had dressed her, he had brushed her hair to make her presentable.
Even so, Rox had felt like a broken doll in his hands.
He never should have brought her to The Devilhouse. He hadn’t realized that she was so emotionally fragile. He had known only resilient, resourceful Rox from his office, from all their escapades and escapes, and hadn’t understood that woman wasn’t who Rox was.
She was the woman who would go out and buy a fake wedding ring set rather than allow her heart to be broken because it would shatter her.
He held her close in the car on the way to the airport, stroking her hair and murmuring nonsense, while Arthur prattled on about the romantic comedy movie he had watched, repeating some of the funniest lines.
At the airport, Casimir led Rox into the private terminal, where the starlit night loomed outside the wall of glass that faced the tarmac. A slender jet sped down the runway outside, lights shining into the dark, and lifted its nose as if scenting the air.
Casimir settled Rox in a cloud of an upholstered chair and asked Maxence, who had been riding with his entourage behind them, to sit with her while he spoke to Arthur for a moment.
Maxence gingerly lowered himself into the chair next to hers and, with only the briefest of concerned glances up at Casimir, spoke to her about a concert that he had seen in Paris the year before.
Rox held her head in her hands, her fingers threaded into her hair, and nodded when she should.
Arthur followed Casimir away from them.
When they were far enough away, Casimir turned and said, “I need a favor.”
Arthur looked back at where Maxence was gently, kindly talking to Rox. “What the hell did you do to that poor girl?”
Casimir stuffed one hand in his pocket and stared at the ground. “I stayed within her stated hard limits, even her soft ones. I didn’t realize some other things that were going on.”
“Amateurs should not play these kinds of games.”
“I’m not an amateur.”
“I know, I know.” Arthur waved his hand, indicating he had been kidding.
“I wasn’t whipping her. That wouldn’t have been right for her.”
“Then it was?”
Casimir ground his teeth. “Edging.”
“Oh, God. I’d rather be whipped with hard leather than be brought to the brink and then not allowed to go over. Trust issues?”
“Yes.” Casimir could feel himself fidgeting, a despicable habit that he thought he had long since gotten over. “Could we change the flight plan to Las Vegas tonight?”
Arthur looked back to him, his gray eyes sharp as steel. “Why?”
“Because I need to do this.”
Arthur grabbed his shoulder. “I know that it seems like a good idea right now—”
“You don’t know what went on. You don’t know what she said.”
“It doesn’t matter what she said. You know what you have to do.”
“I’m out of it. I don’t have to worry about it anymore, ever again.”
“If something happens to them, you mustn’t give up your spot in the line of succession.”
Casimir flipped his hand in the air, irritated that anyone still thought that this was an issue. “Ana will be a perfect queen. She has four children. I’m not number two anymore. I’m sixth in line. There is no reason for me to protect my number in the line to the throne. I never even wanted it.”
“Planes crash. Terrorists make bombs.” Arthur grabbed his shoulder and stared right into his eyes. “Casimir, cars can blow a tire and roll down the side of a mountain.”
That wasn’t fair. Every abraded scar on Casimir’s body sliced him at the memory of it, even the ones sanded down to invisibility and inked over. Every healed bone ached. “You realize that you’re talking about my sister and my nieces and nephews, right?”
“It doesn’t matter whom I’m talking about.”
“She has four children, and I don’t know that she’s finished. She might go for a half-dozen, for all she tells anyone.”
“Willem must not be your damn king,” Arthur muttered.
“It wouldn’t matter even if he was. The monarch is a figurehead with ceremonial and cultural duties. We have a constitution. Even Willem couldn’t hurt anyone or do anything to actually damage the Netherlands.”