This new Isak with his attempt to fit into society in the best way he could – I liked him. I liked some of him. The bits he let me see that were not purely villainous had their allure.
I needed to see a psychiatrist. Stockholm syndrome had nothing on this.
CHAPTER 17
RED
By Friday arvo – I was getting the hang of this slang – we had the farmhouse well organized regarding food and functioning electrical things such as fridges, hot water, fans, and even the internet. Though for some reason, Isak was keeping use of that to a minimum. Did he fear me revealing something? How could I? I was forever in his mesmer thrall.
And so that Friday we visited the pub, just as Georgia had suggested. We waded through the hubbub of locals raising beers and snacking on hot chips aka fries, and pub meals, until we found her and her friends. Stockmen, pilots, workers off the various properties and farms, I supposed. Only one other woman, and she talked offhandedly about cattle and horses, same as the men, and Georgia.
The introductions went well. Isak could charm most, even the rare females he couldn’t reach as a mesmer.
And Georgia? She kept the men enraptured with the swing of her hair, with her smirks and her nudges at the jokers who teased her, with a bump of her shoulder or cutting remark. I think her almost manly assumption of dominance broke them a little – made them want to take her down a peg, in their beds. For Isak that would be a simple thing to do – to break her.
I had to wonder if I was actually jealous. Was my weird mind wanting a future with Isak?
Not really, I told myself, and fuck no.
I watched him laugh and raise a beer, swallow it down with the drip of condensation from his wrist staining his light gray shirt, with the solid way he filled out shirt and pants enough to even make me check him out. He was a man underneath that skin.
When he left to order a new round of beers, Georgia leaned back toward me. “You’re married?”
“Well.” Here was where that compulsion to conceal wrecked the truth in my reply. “Sort of.”
“A couple, hey? You’ve got a catch there then.” Her lips twitched in bemusement. “He is hot.”
Her girlfriend chuckled. “Not mincing words today, are we?”
Georgia swished that long hair and chortled too. “You know me. I call a hottie a hottie.”
“He is way out of your league, girls.” I said it to chase them off, of course, mostly for their own protection.
I raised my own cold glass of beer and silently toasted him as he walked back bearing alcoholic gifts for all.
The cheers rose, and people started in with the what’s this country like compared to yours sort of questions.
I answered them, even the old guy in the cowboy hat who called us yanks and looked as if he’d been in the last world war.
Then Isak placed his hand on my thigh. That was sufficient to make me want him. He’d been abstaining from truly fucking me. Was that a strategy of his? Probably.
Damn this. I wriggled my butt on the stool and half-wished he’d remove his hand, half-wished he would do more, somewhere, maybe once we reached the ute. Or before, against a building. My mind was so fogged, after that I barely noticed what was said to me.
Bastard. He was doing things. I scowled at him and he smiled and squeezed my leg, slid that hand up my thigh.
I shivered into a higher appreciation of lust.
When we left, I found out we had booked horse-riding lessons because of that pub conversation, and had a date to see a rodeo, when it came in a few weeks.
Isak unlocked the door to our stolen run-down vehicle and gestured like a chauffeur to the door. “Enter, milady.”
What was this? Was the local humor rubbing off on him? I slid in, and he leaned on the top of the door to talk to me. “There is a distinct leaning toward kink with her friend, Katie.”
Oh shit. I swung my gaze and found he’d locked on. I couldn’t think for a moment. Mesmer mode.
“The pill?” I managed to squeak out.
“Ah. It is due. Was. In my jacket.” He’d thrown it onto the footwell.
I was free of that mindlock. Panicking a little, I found the Keppra and punched out one pill, handed it to him then watched him swallow without water. Then I found myself wondering whether beer would interfere with the effect.
“As I said. The Katie one was interesting. I will be running that clue down. You want to go to one of those play sessions they have, don’t you?”
I nodded. What else could I do?
“Good, Good.” He sucked on his teeth. “It’d be fun to show you off to them.”
“Oh.” Fuck. My clit pulsed, slammed a tide of ecstasy through me, and I gasped. That pill would take a while to slide into his system.
“There are things beyond human comprehension.” He reached in and fingered the side of my neck as carefully as an executioner.
That sounded so evil. I shuddered, and I came.
It never ever left him. The pills only masked him.
“Time to go home. I like this place.” He strolled around the front of the ute and opened his door, slid in, slammed the door, started the engine.
Me, I was panting with my eyes opening then closing, watching him, feeling the aftereffects of being forced into orgasm like a piece of lumber shoved through a woodchipper.
“Fuck,” I swallowed, panted some
