He closed his eyes. "Please... I have to do this. I can't leave you all... covered with that stuff."
"Zsadist," she snapped. "Look at me." When he did, she said, "This is not necessary."
"I don't know what else to do."
"Come back to bed with me." She shut off the water. "Hold me. Let me hold you. That's the only thing you need to do."
And frankly, she needed it, too. She was rattled to the core.
She put a towel around herself and pulled him into the bedroom. When they were under the covers together, she curled herself around him, but she was as stiff as he was. She'd thought proximity would help. It didn't.
After a long while his voice came through the darkness. "If I had known how it had to be, I never would have allowed that to happen."
She turned her face up to his. "Was that the first time you ever came?"
The silence wasn't a surprise. That he eventually answered her was.
"Yeah."
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"You've never... pleasured yourself?" she whispered, even though she knew the answer. God... What those years as a blood slave must have been like. All that abuse... She wanted to weep for him but knew he would feel awkward about it.
He exhaled. "I don't like to touch it at all. Frankly, I hate the fact that it was inside of you. I want you to be in a tub right now, surrounded by bleach."
"I loved being with you. I'm glad we laid together." It was only what had come later that she'd had difficulty with. "But about what happened in the bathroom-"
"I don't want you to be a part of that. I don't want you doing that to me so I... do that all over you."
"I liked giving you an orgasm. It's just... I care for you too much to hurt you. Maybe we could try-"
He pulled away. "I'm sorry... I have to... I'm going to V's. I've got some work to do."
She grabbed his arm. "What if I told you I thought you were beautiful?"
"I'd say you were riding a pity wave and it would piss me off."
"I'm not feeling sorry for you. I wish you'd finished inside of me, and I think you're gorgeous when you're aroused. You're thick and long, and I was dying to touch you. I still am. And I want to take you in my mouth.
How about that?"
He shrugged out of her hold and got to his feet. With quick, jabbing motions, he got dressed. "If you need to cast that sex in a different light so you can deal with it, that's fine. But you're lying to yourself right now. In no time at all you're going to wake up to the fact that you're still a female of worth. And then you're going to regret the shit out of laying with me."
"I will not."
"Wait for it."
He was out the door before she could find the proper words to throw back at him.
Bella crossed her arms over her chest and seethed with frustration. Then she kicked off the covers. Damn, but it was hot in this room. Or maybe she was so worked up, she'd screwed with her internal chemistry.
Unable to stay in bed, she dressed and went down the hall of statues. She didn't care where she ended up; she just had to get out and walk off some of this heat.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Zsadist stopped in the underground tunnel, halfway between the main house and Vishous and Butch's place.
When he looked behind himself there was nothing but a row of ceiling lights. In front of him there was more of the same, a strip of glowing patches that went on and on. The door he'd entered from and the door he would exit out of were both unseen to him.
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Well, wasn't this a perfect fucking metaphor for life.
He settled against the steel wall of the tunnel, feeling trapped in spite of the fact that he was held by nothing and no one.
Oh, but that was bullshit. Bella was trapping him. Chaining him. Tying him up with her beautiful body and her kind heart and that misplaced chimera of love that glowed in her sapphire eyes. Trapped... He was so trapped.
With a sudden shift, his mind latched onto the night Phury finally got him away from the slavery.
When the Mistress had shown up with yet another male, the slave had been disinterested. After ten decades the eyes of other males no longer bothered