The Revelation (9 page)

“Third, all participating women must be extremely
fit and natural blondes. This is non-negotiable.

“Fourth, at least three hours in advance of each
date, each woman will leave a signed nondisclosure agreement and
consent form for me at the hotel front desk (templates of both
forms will be forwarded to you under separate cover once my
membership is approved). The consent form shall detail the woman’s
understanding of and agreement to participate in all activities
detailed above, especially the nonconsensual role-play, plus her
understanding of the safe word and its function, and her consent to
participate in all activities, without limitation. In addition,
I’ll also require a copy of each woman’s medical testing, dated no
earlier than two days before our meeting, establishing she’s tested
negative for pregnancy and all sexually transmitted diseases.
Again, if these requirements necessitate payment beyond your usual
monthly membership fee, please contact me to negotiate the
increased fee. I do realize I’m asking you for services above and
beyond your typical matching services, and I’m amenable to paying a
premium for your individualized attention.

“Finally, if room service and/or an in-room massage
is desired by my date (or dates) before I arrive at eight o’clock
sharp, she/they should feel free to charge any desired expenses to
the room. My primary concern is her (their) comfort and
enjoyment.

“As far as which of the two scenarios is scheduled
in each city on my itinerary, surprise me. As long as each scenario
is represented equally over the course of the month, I’ll be more
than satisfied.

“So there you go. These are my sick-fuck fantasies.
I wound up losing the only woman I’ve ever loved over them—and I
hadn’t even acted on any of them yet. So fuck it. Let’s do this. If
my fantasies are gonna ruin my life, then I should at least get to
do them, don’t you think?

“I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you.”

I can’t stop staring at my laptop screen.

I turn off the music. I need silence. I’m
overwhelmed.

Holy Not What I Was Expecting, Batman.

This is a lot to take in. I feel like my brain is
short-circuiting.

My head hurts.

And so does my heart.

That Emma girl really did a number on Josh, didn’t
she? Wow. What a bitch.

I read the entire application again, my heart
racing.

Wow. It’s no less overwhelming to me the second time
around.

I sit and stare at the wall for ten minutes, a
thousand emotions bombarding me.

My eyelids are drooping. God, I’m so damned tired, I
can’t think clearly. And I certainly can’t formulate what I wanna
say about all this to Josh just yet.

Now I understand why Josh didn’t want me to read his
damned application. For him, our tug-of-war over his application
wasn’t a game—not the way it was for me, anyway. For him, it was an
act of emotional self-preservation.

No wonder he called me a terrorist.

He must have hated me for how hard I pushed.

Shit. I should have let the man have his privacy. I
should have left him alone.

I grab my phone off the bed next to me and tap out a
text to Josh. “I’ve read it,” I type. “Gonna sleep now—about to
keel over. Let’s talk later, after I wake up.”

Josh’s reply is instantaneous. “Is it worse than
being chained to a donkey?”

I roll my eyes. “You said I didn’t have to tell you
my thoughts right away—you said I only had to text that I’ve read
it.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know I said that,” he writes. “And I
totally meant it. But just tell me one thing now, just so I can
fall asleep: What are all your thoughts about my application?”

I grin. He’s so cute. “Too many thoughts all at
once. I’m too sleep deprived to think. Just let me catch a couple
hours of sleep and then we’ll talk.” I press send.

Josh’s application has made me feel a thousand
different emotions, all at once, but mostly, I feel a horrible pang
in my heart for the rejection Josh endured at the hands of someone
he loved and trusted.

I sigh. Oh, Josh. I really can’t let him twist in
the wind for hours while I sleep.
I
know his application
doesn’t change a goddamned thing between us, but
he
doesn’t
know that. I don’t want to talk about all this in detail just yet,
but I certainly don’t want him to feel anxiety, either.

I pick up my phone and call him.

“Hi,” Josh says, picking up my call after one
ring.

“Hi.”

There’s a long beat as Josh waits for me to say
whatever I’m calling to say. I can hear him holding his breath on
his end of the line.

“All I wanna do is sleep,” I say evenly. “That’s
all.”

He still doesn’t say anything.

“I don’t wanna talk just yet. I really need to
process exactly what I wanna say to you. Okay?”

“Okay,” he says softly.

“But... I was thinking... will you come to my room
and sleep with me tonight? I don’t wanna be alone—I want to be with
you.”

He lets out a loud puff of air. “Hell yeah. I’ll be
right there.”

Josh

I’m jolted awake by a banging at the door. My eyes
spring open.

I’m tangled up with Kat in her bed, in my briefs,
and I’ve got a gigantic woody. I was having an awesome dream—a
totally awesome dream about Kat. It was so blatantly symbolic, so
obvious
, I feel like slapping my subconscious for being so
lacking in imagination. In my dream, Kat was giving me an
incredible blowjob and Emma walked into the room. But rather than
jerk out of Kat’s mouth and rush to smooth things over with Emma, I
just said, “Oh, hey, Emma. I’m kinda busy right now.” And then I
looked down at Kat, at her blue eyes looking up at me, and I
smiled.

There’s another loud bang at the door. “Hey, are you
guys in there?”

Kat lifts her head, bleary-eyed. She looks at the
clock and rubs her eyes. “Oh crap. My alarm didn’t go off.”

I leap out of bed and bound to the door. “Yeah,
we’re here,” I call out.

I open the door to find Henn standing there. His
eyes immediately train on my gigantic boner. “Well, good morning,”
Henn says cheerily, staring at my crotch. His eyes snap up to my
face. “Dude,” he says. “We’ve gotta be on-call to save the world
today, remember?”

“Sorry,” I mumble. “Our alarm didn’t go off.”

He motions to my dick. “Mmm hmm. Time to get your
other head in the game, Faraday.” He peeks past me into the room.
“Kat?”

“Yep,” she calls from inside the room. “Come on in,
Henny.”

I open the door wide and Henn strolls past me. He’s
definitely got his swagger on today—which makes sense: I suppose
Henn’s playing in some sort of Hacker Super Bowl today.

“Hey, Kitty Kat,” Henn says. “Sorry to intrude on
your optometry appointment
again
, but Jonas texted ten
minutes ago, asking me to confirm all the money’s still in place
and we’re ready to move at his signal. I told him we’re good to go
any time, boss, of course—and then I ran around like a chicken with
my head cut off looking for you two losers. Jesus, guys. You’re
gonna give me gray hair, and I’m much too young and pretty for gray
hair.”

“Sorry,” Kat and I say in unison.

“I know you guys are busy falling in love and
all—”

My eyes instantly dart to Kat’s face, my cheeks
bursting with color, and she looks like Henn just stuck her finger
into an electrical socket.

“—but we’ve gotta keep our eye on the job,” Henn
continues. “Jonas and Sarah went into their meeting with the feds a
few hours ago and we’ve got to be ready, just in case. Once we’ve
delivered the money, then you two can go off and do whatever the
hell kind of eye exam you want, all night and day, but right now I
need both of you to keep your eyes on the prize and your heads in
the game.”

I look down. This is exactly why I’ve stayed friends
with Henn for so long: he’s one of the few people in my life that
calls me on my shit. He’s right. I’ve been letting myself get
hopelessly distracted from what we’re here in Las Vegas to do.

“To be honest, the odds are low we’ll be asked to
make the transfers today,” Henn continues, his tone much softer,
“so I’m sure we’re okay—Jonas is ninety-nine percent sure his
meeting’s gonna go ’til the end of the banking day today—but he
wants us to stand by just in case. No room for error.”

“You’re totally right, Henn,” Kat says. “We’ll stop
acting like complete idiots.”

“Not you, Kitty Kat. Just
him,
” Henn says,
winking at her. “You can do no wrong, pretty lady.”

Kat grins at Henn. “Hear that, Josh? You’re a
terrible influence on me
.
” She laughs. “Do I have time to
take a quick shower, Henny?” She sits up and the bed sheet slides
off her torso—clearly revealing the outline of her nipples under
her thin, white tank top.

Oh shit. I don’t think she’s ever looked sexier than
she does right now.

“I think you’d better just throw on your clothes and
be ready in five, just in case,” Henn says, averting his eyes from
Kat’s skimpy tank top. He looks at his watch. “The minute banking
hours are over here in Vegas, then we’ll be off the hook ’til
tomorrow morning and you can shower and all that. But, in theory,
Jonas could call literally any time now so we’ve got to be ready to
move on a dime.”

“Okay,” Kat says, rubbing her face. “Sorry, Henny.
We’ll pull our shit together and get our heads in the game from now
on. Right, Josh?”

“Absolutely,” I say.
Holy fuck, Kat’s nipples
look amazing in that tank top.
I look away, my cock
tingling.

Kat picks up her phone. “Oh, I’ve got a text from
Sarah. She says one of the guys in the meeting looks like he could
stuff her into the trunk of his car and she’d never be heard from
again.” Kat chuckles to herself. “Oh, shoot, I’ve got another
missed call from my friend Hannah. I should give her a quick call.
She’s probably got a question on this big account she’s handling
for me at work. Do I have time to make a quick call? Super-duper
quick?” She bats her eyelashes.

Henn nods. “Yeah, really quick. But you might have
to get off if Jonas calls and gives us the signal.”

“Okay. Like lightning.”

I can’t peel my eyes off her. I’ve never seen her
first thing in the morning before. She’s turning me on. Especially
after what happened last night: after reading my application, she
opened her door, wordlessly hugged me, and led me to her bed; then,
without a word, the two of us lay down together, our bodies pressed
close, our arms wrapped around each other, and quickly drifted off
to sleep.

It was such a simple interaction, but I have no idea
how to put into words how much it meant to me. The woman had just
read my sick-fuck fantasies and she serenely fell asleep in my
arms. Whatever she plans to say to me about that application at
some point in the future will be icing. The way she fell asleep in
my arms last night? That was the cake.

Kat dials Hannah’s number and presses the phone to
her ear.

Her eyes drift to me as she waits for Hannah to pick
up.

“How’d you sleep, babe?” she asks softly, the phone
pressed to her ear.

My entire body buzzes. Has Kat called me ‘babe’
before? I don’t think so. But if so, she’s never said it quite like
that.

“Good,” I say, my skin electrifying. “You?”

“Good.” She beams a smile at me. “Really, really
good.”

Holy shit. I feel high. With one brief and seemingly
innocuous exchange, the woman just confirmed exactly what’s going
on inside her head: she doesn’t think I’m a sick fuck.

Kat’s attention is drawn to her phone. “Hi, Hannah
Banana Montana Milliken,” she says. “So what’s up?” She listens for
a minute. “Oh, no worries. Just tell them we’ll do a Twitter
campaign instead—that’s their demographic, anyway. We’ll make
lemonade out of lemons. No problem. We can set up a live chat with
a hashtag.” She pauses. “Oh, I dunno, how ’bout
hashtag-I’ve-got-your-pulled-pork-right-here?” She winks at me.
“And then we’ll select a winner,” she continues. “I’d say a gift
card. Yeah. That sounds good. But I can talk to them if you
prefer—I’ll probably be free later today to chat.” She laughs. “Aw,
anytime. Thanks for picking up all the slack while I’ve been
gone.”

Henn and I look at each other. The woman’s a PR
badass; there’s no doubt about it. I love seeing her like this,
kicking ass and taking names.

“Yeah, I am, as a matter of fact,” Kat says into the
phone, her eyes drifting to me. “Mmm hmm. Actually, yeah, he
is
.” She beams a huge smile at me.

Henn rolls his eyes and shoots me a smirk.

“Funny you should ask that, Banana,” Kat says, her
eyes leaving me and landing on Henn. “He
does
. And he’s the
coolest guy you’ll ever meet. Actually, he’s a
fucking
genius
.”

Henn shifts his weight.

Kat suddenly extends her phone toward Henn. “Henn,
my adorable and funny friend Hannah Millikin wants very much to say
hello to you.”

“To
me
?” Henn asks, his face turning red.

Kat laughs. “Yup. Come on, Henn.
YOLO
.” She
holds out the phone again, insisting he take it. “Hannah’s the
coolest girl you’ll ever talk to, I promise. A total goofball.
Loyal. Smart. Cute. Funny. The list goes on and on. Nothing to lose
by just saying hi.”

Henn waffles.

“Oh, and did I mention?” Kat says. “She got brown
hair and glasses.” She winks.

Henn takes the phone, his cheeks rising with color.
“Well, this isn’t awks or anything,” he says into the phone.
“Hello, Hannah Millikin. I’m Peter Hennessey—but everyone just
calls me Henn.” He pauses to let Hannah talk and then chuckles.
“Yeah, she
did
kinda make it sound like your idea,
actually.” He laughs again. “She’s a sneaky one, for sure.” He
pauses. “Um, you know, just working... I’m a computer specialist—a
freelance programmer.” He clears his throat and listens for a
moment. “L.A., New York, Toronto, Denver—I go wherever the job
takes me, and I can work from anywhere, so I travel a lot, but I
mostly live in L.A. in a crappy-ass apartment. Where are you? Oh,
yeah, duh. Kat just said she works with you. Yeah, sure, I get up
there sometimes—I love it there. Good salmon.” He pauses. “Me,
too,” he finally says. “Indubitably.” He grins broadly at something
Hannah’s saying. “Yeah, I hope so. Thanks.” He blushes and hands
the phone back to Kat. “Here you go.”