She opened her eyes and sat up. This wasn’t helping anybody or anything.

It was time for distraction.

She returned to the kitchen to find Scott staring down at a tray of burnt goo. He looked like he was going to cry again. It hardly looked real, the way his eyes got all glassy so fast, like he was a toy with a string hanging from his back.

Casey giggled. “Have you ruined dinner, darling?”

“I…”

“Ruined dinner?”

“I ruined dinner.” He raised his hands, as though he thought she was going to attack him. “But I can fix it.”

She gestured to the tray. “With everything on the line, you couldn’t even cook a simple meal.”

“It’s hardly a simple meal, is it?”

“What a tone to take with your wife.” She walked around the kitchen divider, swished her hips as she got closer. She was wearing her dressing gown and her body tingled when she saw how difficult he found it to resist her, even now, the sick bastard. “But you’ve always had women to cook for you, haven’t you? First your mummy and then Natalie at university and then me.”

“I can cook,” he said. “Just not complicated stuff.”

“What are we going to do about this?”

He wanted so badly to be a tough guy. He was looking at her like he might start swinging. She wouldn’t have cared if he did. She’d left her phone in the living room. That was a problem, considering what she’d done the previous night; all part of the fun though, plus she could always change it back.

Passcode. And a tingle strummed in her, the string of an instrument. She was finally part of the drama somebody of her unique intellect deserved. She was filling it, stuffing it all in, right in the nothing; there was sensation, where before there had been only the absence of light.

“I know!” Casey turned to the Aga and switched on the boiler plate. “Be a dear and pop your hand down there. Don’t take it away until I tell you to.”

Casey was so fucking doing this.

“You’ve got to be joking,” Scott said.

Casey sighed dramatically, making it last a long time, properly huffing and puffing. “You’re boring me. You know how this ends. Don’t make me say it.”

“But–”

“Fine. Put your fucking hand on the fucking boiling plate before I release every fucking video I fucking have. Clear enough?”

“Casey, please.”

“Casey, please,” she imitated, whiny and annoying. Laughing, she gestured at the Aga. “Tick-tock.”

“I can’t.”

“You can. You will.”

She stared at him, and she knew he wasn’t the sort of man who could stand up to her. There was something so pathetically willing in his little doll’s eyes, the fake-looking fuck, staring at her as though she owed him something. After all the times she’d choked on this man’s dick, all the times he’d stuck it in her ass, then grinned at her like a complete moron. Oh my God, Casey, that was so crazy.