The rest of the night panned out according to expectation, with a lot of banter and laughter. Time flew by after that until it was 10PM and the real games were about to begin.

Shocker, Leonie totally took Drio home. It was a good thing she could use the excuse of wanting privacy to never come back to Demon Club, because as a half-goblin she couldn’t cross the wards without help from one of us. One bounce off those invisible shields and Drio would know the truth and kill her. I didn’t think that his feelings for her outweighed his intense hatred of all things demons.

Rohan dropped me off in front of the Robson Plaza Hotel, a snazzy boutique accommodation at the bottom of Robson Street, our main shopping district downtown. It was within walking distance of Stanley Park and my favorite beach, English Bay.

I retrieved the suitcase from the trunk and handed him a gift bag. “Come back in one hour.”

The suite I’d reserved was perfect for my needs. I hurried to set everything up and get myself ready.

Rohan knocked on the door sixty-one minutes later.

I smoothed down my clothes about four times more than I needed to, resisting the urge to run for the bathroom and change. This was our chance to step out of being us for a night. To connect without all the other bullshit and reset things, get back to what was great about our relationship without the stress.

I opened the door, only sticking my pigtailed head out.

He held up the mask I’d gifted him with. The rest of the costume was nowhere in sight. “Whatever are you up to, Sparky?”

My heart sank at the sight of his regular clothes, but I mustered up a smile and stepped aside to let him into the short entrance hallway of our suite. “Call me Harley.”

Rohan gaped at my red and blue satin short shorts with the black hip belt and T-shirt reading “Daddy’s Lil’ Monster.” Blessings for online cosplay stores. “Harley Quinn hates Batman,” he finally said.

My cheeks flamed. I toed at the ground but it didn’t conveniently open to swallow me whole. “Plenty of fans ship them.” I’d checked.

My boyfriend stepped back like I might infect him. “We’re roleplaying fanfic? It’s not canon. It’s wrong. I mean really wrong. Weirder than that alternate universe with the zombie Alfred.”

Save me from fanboys and screw you, buddy. I’d subsisted on Chickeny Delight to save up the cost of hotel rooms and cosplay outfits, not to mention stepped way outside my comfort zone in dressing up in the sexual foreplay miscalculation of the century. We needed this night.

I needed this night.

Except Rohan was still frowning at me. I wasn’t getting this night.

“My bad.” I gestured for him to head into the main part of the suite, ripping out one of my pigtails. Would it be too much to skip the glass and just stick a straw directly into the champagne bottle chilling in the stainless steel bucket over in the corner on a stand?

He did a double take at the bed’s spiffy little addition of an under-the-mattress restraint system. Four nylon and Velcro cuffs, one for each arm and leg, were connected with cords under the mattress. No headboard or footboard needed. “You were going to let me tie you up?”

“Yup.” I slingshot a blindfold onto the bed.

“Fuck canon.” He turned the Batman mask over in his hand, then stuffed it in his pocket, and poured us each a splash of champagne. “Breaking into my home? You can’t get to Wayne Enterprises that easily, Dr. Quinn.”

Bruce Wayne, the guy who didn’t want to reveal himself.

I accepted the glass. “I never thought anything about you was easy, Bruce.” I swallowed my champagne, savoring the fizziness dissolving on my tongue, and ran a finger down his chest. While he was distracted, I whipped out the miniature wooden toy bat I’d had tucked against my back.

Rohan disarmed me in a second. He spun me, pulling me tight against him, the bat to my throat. “Nice try.”

His voice vibrated up along the base of my neck, into my skull.

My nostrils flared, my empty glass bouncing onto the plush carpet. I rubbed my ass back against him. He was half-hard, his biceps tense as he kept himself in check.

“Safe word,” he whispered.

Ms. Clara had discussed this with me, had patiently answered my many, many questions about what I could expect, but happily imprisoned against him like this, damned if I could remember the word I’d come up with. “Chair?”

He chuckled, then his grip on me tightened, back in character once more. “Didn’t think I could get to you that quickly?”

“No,” I said hoarsely. “I thought I had more of a chance against you.”

“This game was decided the moment you invaded my space.” He forced me to the bed, cuffing my wrists above my head. “Too tight?”

I tugged on them. “No.”

I swung my legs in a scissor kick, catching him around the waist and locking him tight. “I’m not that easy.”

“I never thought you were.” Rohan pulled the metal, bat-shaped throwing star that had come with his costume out of his pocket and sliced my shorts off me. I was so surprised I dropped my legs, allowing him to catch my feet and cuff me, spread-eagle.

My heart pounded.

Rohan stood at the foot of the bed, his hooded gaze on me.

The straps were pretty comfortable. And strong. No matter how much I jerked and strained against them, I couldn’t get free. Believe me, I tried. Laying here, naked from the waist down was a vulnerability I hadn’t counted on.

“Any time you need to, say it.” That was my boyfriend, not Bruce.

“Got me where you want me?” I asked in a throaty murmur.

“Not even close.” Ro wielded that throwing star like a pro. Okay, more professional chef than ninja, but he got the job done. The rest of my clothing fell off me in tattered shreds, leaving me in only the hip belt. Remarkably, there wasn’t a mark on me. He picked up the blindfold that had fallen off the bed, twirling it around his finger.

I jerked my chin up. “You can strip me but I won’t break, Wayne.”

He slid the blindfold over my head. “I don’t want you broken, Harley. I want you desperate.”

I took a deep breath, my ribcage tight.

My lack of vision made everything more intense: Rohan’s cologne, the air conditioning humming over my skin, the scrape of the belt along the base of my spine.

Rohan ran a finger down the side of my neck and along my collarbone. I suppressed a gasp at the contact. He whipped the belt off me, using it to stroke me everywhere: toes, hands, stomach, legs, breasts, mapping my body.

Goosebumps trailed in its wake.

The leather creaked and then the buckle clattered against something. “Next time, Harley, bring leather, not this cheap shit that falls apart.”

“You seem pretty sure there’s gonna be a next time.”

He gave a dark laugh that shivered through me. “I’m fairly confident.”

My nipples hardened.

I canted my hips. His hand splayed over my stomach, pinning me in place. A bite where his hand had been, then nothing. The sting of his teeth faded quickly. I strained to hear a footfall, to pinpoint his location, but the carpet was too thick and Rohan too practiced at moving silently.

The minutes ticked by. I rubbed my ass against the mattress, seeking relief and finding none.

My stupid boyfriend crunched ice instead of getting me off.

“Desperate yet?” His cold tongue swiped a line from between my breasts to my pubic bone.

Ooh. I arched off the bed. “You’ll have to work harder than that.”

“Can’t ever be easy with you, can it?”

“Wouldn’t want you losing inter-eeest.” My voice jumped two octaves because he’d rubbed an ice cube against my clit.

“Not a problem.” The ice against my clit disappeared. “More? Use your words.”

“I’m not begging for anything.” Didn’t need to. My writhing worked just fine as consent.

“Your first strategy doesn’t have to be war.” He ran the cube over Cuntessa in slow, even strokes. “Haven’t you heard you can catch more flies with honey?”

Cuntessa pulsed with a vengeance. The ice was rapidly melting, running down and out along the crack of my ass. “But you don’t want honey. Maybe you did at one time, but now? It’s too sweet for your tastes.”

My thighs were soaking and I had no idea how much of that was the ice. I dug my heels into the pillowy mattress top, muscles clenching.

The ice melted and his strokes stopped, leaving me on the brink. I arched my back, clamping my mouth shut so I wouldn’t whimper for more. My pulse thudded in my ears.

He drizzled sticky grape-juice-smelling liquid over my tits. The champagne. “You think you know what I want?”

I barely had time to register the fizzy booze sticking to my skin before the cool liquid was replaced by the heat of his mouth, licking and suckling in exquisite torture. He squeezed and pinched my breast, thrusting the fingers of his other hand between my lips.

Like he didn’t want me to answer.

I sucked on them greedily until he withdrew them, lavishing hot, messy kisses along my body.

The sting of his teeth nipping my skin, his rock-hard cock pressed against me through his pants, his lips worshipping me, Rohan was branding me and it still wasn’t enough.

My fingers flexed, wanting Ro but closing on thin air.

The warmth of his body disappeared. A thud and rummaging. “Trying to discover my secrets by going through my purse?” I said.

“No. Looking for… ah.” The squirting sound of lube and skin moving on skin.

“Are you jerking off?” I bucked against the cuffs. “Without me?”

“Definitely not without you. I’m staring at every inch of you spread open for me.”

I rocked my hips and moaned.

“Are you picturing me?” he growled. “Shirt open, one hand running over my abs.” His slaps grew louder, faster, his breath quickening, his harsh exhales matched by my own. “I’m so hard for you. I can see how wet you are and all I can think about is plunging into you.”

“Scared you won’t measure up if you actually try it?” My voice wasn’t so much sultry as frantic with sexual anguish, but he sounded too far gone himself too notice.

He laughed. “I’m not scared of anything you can dish out, Harley.”

I tugged the restraints. I didn’t want to be anybody else. Not with Rohan. Not now. “Chair.” I was practically thrashing against the bonds, my heart trying to punch its way out of my ribcage. “Chair.”

“Hey.” He tore the blindfold off.

I blinked, my eyes adjusting expecting a harsh brightness, but he’d turned the lamps off in the room. Any light spilling in from outside was dim enough not to hurt, but having my sight again, being rooted in a physical space instead of the sensual one I’d floated in was disorienting.

He stroked my hair back from my face. “Sweetheart, it’s okay.”

“Is it?” I arched toward him. “I don’t want to be Harley. I want to be me.”

His face was inches from mine, his gold eyes wild and fiery. “And who am I in this?” His hands curled around my biceps.

A wild laugh tore out of me. “You think I don’t know it’s you? Always you? Rohan. Liam. Mitra. My Ro. My Snowflake.”

He ripped my cuffs off me, plundering my mouth. Under the coolness from the ice, was the taste of licorice thanks to the candy-coated fennel seeds he always popped.

Rohan plunged his cock into me in a single ferocious stroke. “My beautiful girl.”

He pulled out an inch, pushing forward again slow and filthy until the exquisite fullness of him so deep inside me made me tremble. “Fuck. Being inside you like this?” His expression was full of dizzy wonder. He cupped the back of my head, nipping my bottom lip.

“Oh God, Ro. Please.” I wrapped my legs around his waist, scrabbling at his shoulders. I sounded unhinged and didn’t care so long as he kept going. I pled incoherently for more, sweat trickling between my breasts and down the backs of my knees.

He fucked me into the mattress, riding me in short, hard pounds, my shredded costume floating through the air with each bounce, like streamers at some kind of sex parade. With each thrust, he danced in and out of the slanted shadows: his muscles contracting, his eyes slits of gold, and his hands a dark caress of my slick, hot skin from my shoulders to my waist and back again.

I raked my nails down his back, thrilling at his hiss. Blood roared in my veins and static buzzed my brain. We were tangled up, taking up residence under each other’s skin.

His hands fisted in my curls, and growling low, he bit the hollow of my neck. “You taste like music, you know that?”

I whimpered, my body caving into his touch.

He grazed his teeth along my neck. “This tastes slow and dreamy like one of Chopin’s piano concertos. But here?” He palmed my breasts, sucking my nipples into his mouth. “Mmm. A fat R&B groove.”

My breath came in greedy gulps. “Yeah?” I ran a hand down my side. “What about here?”

Ro held my hands over my head, and ran his lips along my skin, his thrusts slow rolls. “Bouncy Top 40. The infectious kind that you find yourself humming all day.”

I wrapped my legs around him, drawing him in even tighter. I’d spent so long convincing myself I didn’t want this connection, this attachment, and I’d been right. Wanting meant craving something that could be taken away without catastrophe, like candy or alcohol, something you liked, something that maybe even had its hooks in you, but that ultimately, you could survive without.

I could not survive without this.

“I think we’re both music,” I said. “We’re like two different parts of the same piece: separately we’re cool and interesting, but together we’re transformative.”

“God, Nava.” His eyes blazed molten gold. “I meant it. You’ve slain me. I–” Rohan shuddered and came, his face twisting in ecstasy and his fingers clutching mine.

My orgasm slammed me sharp and hard and bright, sparks erupting off my skin to singe the blanket.

Rohan watched me with those expressive fucking eyes of his and chasing hard on the heels of my dreamy flying state, came the sensation that I was unbound. Unmoored. My entire being undone for him.

I buried my face in his neck, light-headed and shaking, like a butterfly had been trapped in my chest, its wings madly fluttering, except it had just revealed that it was really a pterodactyl, its teeth bared.

Rohan gathered me into his arms, wrapping himself around me, and pulling the blankets half over us while he stroked my hair, whispering how incredible I was. My breathing slowed. Every heartbeat drove me closer to him.

Rohan kissed my eyelids. “How are you?”

Threadbare, I could only nod, unable to speak in the wake of these emotions breaking wide-open inside me.

He didn’t let go of me and I was grateful, letting myself succumb to his embrace. “It’s intense,” he said.

Understatement. My eyes hadn’t fully slid back into focus yet and my soul ached. Role-playing was supposed to be an escape from all these feelings, not something that made me feel them even more. Not something that forced me to tell the truth to myself when I wanted to pretend.

I tried to get up, but my arms wouldn’t support me.

Rohan kissed me, slow and sweet. “Stay there. Let me take care of you.” He wiped me down with a warm washcloth. “Are you dehydrated? Do you want water?”

“Juice box. In my purse.” I motioned with a shaky hand.

“Someone came prepared.” He pulled the straw free with a crinkle of plastic and punctured the top.

“Ms. Clara was very thorough about what I could expect.” I sucked about half the juice back in one go.

Rohan winced, blushing. He sat naked and cross-legged on the bed and massaged my leg. “You told Ms. Clara?”

“Are you embarrassed? That’s adorable. Of course I told Ms. Clara. I needed to talk to someone about this.”

“It was good? For your first time?”

“It was perfect.” I smiled. “If I’d known I was going to get a spa treatment after, I might have signed on for this faster.”

“Think we can do that again sometime?” He said it with a studied casualness, pressing his thumb into the arch of my foot.

I flexed my toes against his hand. “Next time you’re paying for the outfit.”

Ro grinned down at me. “Do I get to pick the toys, too?”

“We’ll see. I’ll have to run your suggestions past my sex mentor. See if she thinks it’s a good fit.”

The full-body massage he gave me left me boneless. When he finished, he kissed the precise spot at the corner of my mouth to send shivers through my body. “Do you want a shower?” he said.

“If you’ll help me. Buddy system and conserving water and all.”

“We gotta do our part for the environment.”

“That we do.” And we did, though there was no more sexytimes. Both of us were too exhausted and shower sex sucked. Rohan lathered me up, letting me close my eyes as he massaged my scalp. Kissing me pressed against the tiles, his fingers laced with mine until the hot spray finished, and believe me, it took a long time in a hotel to make the water turn cold. The walls ran with rivulets of water, the bathroom now a steam room, but all that, including my pruney fingers, was worth it.

I dried off, wrapping a towel around my head and slipping into underwear and one of Ro’s T-shirts. I felt light as air and so very, very happy. Giddy even. I bounced on the bed. “Can I have room service?”

Rohan towel dried his hair. “Baby, you can have whatever you want.”

I kept bouncing. This mattress was pretty great. “Oh yeah? Will you get me a pony?”

“And rent a stable to keep it in. You gotta be practical when it comes to equine care, Sparky.”

I laughed. I didn’t care about Ro’s money, but after the past few days, silly teasing was a welcome relief. “Will you get me gadozens of fancy purses?”

“Gadozens?”

“A gazillion dozens.” Bounce. Bounce.

“A gadozen gadozens.” He pitched the damp towel into the bathroom and grabbed the boxers I’d brought for him.

“Will you take me to Paris for dessert?” Rohan stilled. I hadn’t meant to say that, especially since I only knew about this part of his romantic history because I’d been eavesdropping. Except, I guess I had meant to say it, to let Rohan know that I knew about the lengths he went to for Lily. I didn’t like that about myself. I didn’t want to be the girlfriend threatened by his past.

“Cheeseburgers,” I said gaily, to cover the impending awkward silence. I hopped off the bed, picked up the receiver, and hit the room service button. I ordered for both of us, then stared at the phone, wondering who else I could call so I wouldn’t have to deal with the loaded tension.

He wrapped his arms around me. “Do you want dessert in Paris, Sparky? You can have it.”

“I don’t. Not really.” I turned in his embrace and raked his damp strands of hair out of his eyes.

“I gave Lily that, but I never fully gave her myself. Not like I do with you.”

“It’s fine, honestly. I mean, Cole never had me like this, either.” I snapped my lips together against that final truth that had just slipped out.

“Phrasing,” Ro snickered.

I rolled my eyes, but I was secretly thankful to put things on a more lighthearted track.

Half an hour later, we were eating cheeseburgers in our underwear and T-shirts, watching an old Fugue State Five documentary that Ro had bitched about putting on. The mattress dipped under his weight as he returned to the bed and tossed me one of the two tiny bottles of Scotch he’d liberated from the mini bar.

“You’re one classy motherfucker, Mitra.”

“Right? L’chaim.”

We lifted our bottles in unison and clinked them. I shot back a hefty swallow, clenching my jaw against the burn.

“Cheeseburgers after bondage are the best.” I couldn’t shovel in the food in fast enough.

He licked ketchup off the corner of my lip. “Agreed.” He grimaced, watching his younger self talk at length about the poetry of his lyrics. “Please shut this off. It’s painful.”

“Your lyrics are beautiful.”

“My lyrics are fine, but I was hardly Leonard Cohen. Fuck, I was pretentious.” He polished off his cheeseburger and lay on his side, propped on his elbow, inching his hand up my thigh.

I snorted my laughter, pointing at the screen. “Oh my God! They did make you guys take dance lessons!”

He sighed and flopped back against the bed in resignation, pulling a pillow over his face to hide his embarrassment and deter further questions until the interview finished or I changed the channel. And it would have been the perfect night, cheeseburgers and lyrics and me and Rohan, all wrapped up in a warm bed with good jokes and music, except that’s when the Man in Black broke in.