At least not until he grew bored, had to use the bathroom, or found something more entertaining than keeping her locked in the closet.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Chase asked, really enjoying himself.
“No, I want you to open the door!” she snapped, further expressing her desire for freedom with more pounding.
“Why would you want me to do that? Don’t you like it in there?” he asked innocently, starting to see the benefits of having an aide.
“No,” she bit out evenly, making him smile.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes!”
“Oh,” he said, making sure to sound confused even as he continued to smile.
“Are you going to let me out?” Sloane asked after a slight hesitation.
“Probably,” Chase said around a yawn and a shrug, wondering if she’d notice if he rolled away for a few minutes to grab a drink.
Then again, he could probably get her to grab him a drink if he let her go…
“Chase,” Sloane bit out his name coldly, absolutely making his day.
“Yes, Pookie?” he asked, deciding that she needed a nickname.
“Let. Me. Out.”
Chuckling, he flipped the locks off his wheelchair and rolled away, wondering what other fun things that he could do with his aide.
*-*-*-*
“You know what I’m in the mood to do?” the epitome of evil asked while Sloane sat there, glaring at the man whose wheelchair she wanted to shove in front of an oncoming train.
“No, no, I don’t,” Sloane said evenly as she slowly sipped from her water bottle, seriously contemplating suggesting a ride to the train station to work out some of the uncontrollable rage leftover from her time spent in the linen closet.
Smiling, Chase reached over and plucked the bottle of water out of her hand and took a sip. “I could really go for a walk, couldn’t you?” he suggested, sighing long and loud as she shifted her glare from him to the kitchen window that she could barely see out of thanks to all that rain beating against the glass.
“It’s raining,” Sloane said as though she really thought that would make a difference.
“Perfect weather for a walk,” Chase said brightly while she sat there, staring at the window and wondering where she’d gone wrong. One minute, she’d been reaching for a blanket on the top shelf and the next, she found herself pressed up against the shelves, trying to negotiate with a mad man for her release.
“It’s raining,” Sloane found herself repeating, because really, what else was there to say?
“It will be refreshing,” Chase said, looking happier than she’d ever seen him, which of course, scared the hell out of her because she honestly wasn’t sure how much more of this she could take.
She could deal with asshole patients, depressed patients, belligerent patients, grouchy patients, demanding patients, but she drew the line with patients that started exhibiting the signs of the devil. He was still an asshole, but now he was an asshole who was going out of his way to torture her for his own sick, twisted pleasure and she really wasn’t sure that she was going to survive this without giving in to the urge to slap the bastard.
“No way in hell,” Sloane said evenly, barely aware that she’d started rubbing her temples to alleviate the tension.
A heavy sigh immediately followed, sending a chill up her spine. “I guess I could go for a walk by myself,” the manipulative bastard said with a heartfelt sigh as he reached down, released the brakes on his wheelchair and pushed away from the table.
When she just sat there, rubbing her temples and glaring, he shrugged and released another sigh, this one smaller but no less effective as he slowly rolled his way toward the front door. She should just let him go, Sloane thought, rubbing her temples a little faster. He wasn’t really going, she told herself as she watched him disappear around the corner. If anything, he was just trying to screw with her head and even if he wasn’t, he’d be fine.
Just fine…
In a wheelchair, in the freezing rain with muscle loss, no real physical therapy since his accident, which meant that he probably wouldn’t make it far before he had to give up, but with his muscles spent and locked up from the cold he would probably be stuck out there where he would catch pneumonia and die a miserable bastard. It would serve him right, Sloane told herself even as she pushed her chair back, grumbled about cranky assholes, and headed toward the open front door, noting that he was nowhere in sight.
Great.
She should be happy that he wanted to do something besides sitting in front of the television all day, Sloane reminded herself as she stepped outside and found herself immediately drenched. She just wished that his sudden need to leave the confines of the living room didn’t involve her developing pneumonia.
She also wished that she’d made sure that he was outside before she’d stepped outside, Sloane thought when she heard the telltale sound of the front door clicking shut behind her, followed by the sounds of the deadbolt being thrown.
“I really hate that asshole,” Sloane said, nodding to herself as she crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back against the front door to wait out the storm, deciding that perhaps sleeping in a room full of boyband memorabilia wouldn’t be so bad after all.
*-*-*-*
“I quit,” his little ray of sunshine growled somewhat viciously after he’d so kindly opened the front door so that he could get a better picture of her freezing her ass off for the group following tonight’s events on Twitter.
So ungrateful, Chase thought with a chuckle as he uploaded the latest picture before dropping his new phone in his lap so that he could move out of the way of the furious woman who was completely soaked.
“Is something amiss, Pookie?” he asked, feigning innocence even as he continued to smile.
There was just something about fucking over this woman that put a smile on his face. He couldn’t put a name to this overwhelming feeling of joy, but it was definitely something that he could get used to. Hiring her was the best decision that he’d ever made.
Granted, it hadn’t been his decision, but that didn’t really matter, not when he was enjoying himself for the first time in months. As he watched the woman standing in front of him, trembling with rage or hypothermia, whatever, he couldn’t help but take in the sight before him. Knowing that it would piss her off, and only because he wanted to piss her off, he took his time looking her over from top to bottom and everything in between.
He took in her normally spikey short hair matted against her head, the homicidal gray-eyed glare, the gray T-shirt clinging to her skin and emphasizing the full curves of her perky breasts, the hard nipples pressed against the wet material and his favorite part on a woman, the soft underside of her breasts. Somehow, he forced his eyes away from those enticing curves to the flat belly, the cute little navel ring decorating the lightly tanned skin peeking out from beneath her shirt to the slight curves of her hips, and finally down to the decent legs that she probably wanted to kick the shit out of him with. When he was done, he decided to do it all over again.
“Are you done?” Sloane bit out, rudely interrupting him.
“No,” Chase said, smiling, but he was done for now, especially since she’d decided to turn around and storm off, ending his fun for the night.