disgusted. If I weren’t afraid of what the stomach acid would do to my teeth, I’d have stuck my finger down my throat and thrown up after I’d sought refuge in my bathroom.
I have no idea what she did after I left her.
Did she finger every surface of my house? I make a note to have my maid, Greta, do a massive sterilization. She hates when I go on my benders but when I triple her pay those days, she quickly quiets down. My mind craves to consider every single thing Baylee touched but I force it away and burst from the room. I’m shocked to find her curled up on the couch sipping on some coffee.
“The couch is white!” I hiss out in greeting, instantly hating the words that came out.
She blows on the mug and arches a perfect eyebrow at me. “I know I’m a teen and all,” she mutters sarcastically, “but I’m not a toddler. I won’t spill it. Good morning, by the way.”
Once again she throws her age at me, causing me to feel like more of a bastard than I already am. “Morning,” I tell her gruffly, this time less angry. “Did you sleep well?”
Her brows furrow together and she sighs. “Best sleep I’ve had in two weeks to be honest. With Gabe, I didn’t really get to sleep.”
I run a hand through my hair. Last night, I tossed and turned wondering about what that man did to her. When she mentioned the cucumber, I was disgusted. And not because it was food—but because he hurt her. I may be fucked in the head but I’m not a virgin to the female anatomy. Before my world closed in on me, I quite enjoyed sex.
If I’m being truly honest and not dwelling on the dirtiness of the act, I fucking miss it.
But then images of exchanging bodily fluids—fluids which another person has shared with another and so on and so on starts to fester in my mind. I can’t even watch porn without wanting to scream.
“What did he do?” I don’t want to know the explicit details, and yet, this is why I bought her. To entertain me. To accompany me. To talk to me.
She sets the mug down on the end table and stands with her back to me while she faces the wall of windows overlooking the ocean. My mind momentarily frets over whether or not she’ll leave a coffee ring on the wood. But when she stretches, arms high over her head, my mind blanks.
The white robe she’s been given lifts and rewards me with a view of her lean upper thighs just below her ass. Her arms fall back down and with it, the robe covers more of her flesh. My fingers crave to lift the edges of the fabric and reveal her perfect skin to me again.
I want to touch her.
The thought alarms me.
I don’t want to touch anyone. Ever again.
“What didn’t he do?” she mutters and steps close to the windows. I’m afraid she’ll put her fingertips on the glass and smudge the crystal clear view. It sets my jaw on edge but I bite my tongue. The despair in her voice distracts me and I find myself eager to know more about her. “After he kidnapped me, he took me to some remote cabin. For days, he trapped me in his cellar. I was forced to climb out on my own only for him to beat me and tie me to his bed.”
A sob catches in her throat and her shoulders hunch. I take one, two, three, four steps toward her. When I notice my hand is stretched out, reaching to comfort her, I jerk it back.
“Then what?”
“It’s kind of confusing. I mean, I have a boyfriend and I love him dearly,” she murmurs and crosses her arms across her chest. Her back remains to me and I wonder if it is difficult for her to say these things directly to me. “But Gabe was my neighbor. I’d trusted him for so long. In fact, I’d always had a bit of a girly crush on him.”
“He hurt you?”
She turns to look at me, as if I just asked the most ignorant question, especially after last night’s admission about the cucumber. My neck tightens with stress as I wait for her to mar the untouched glass. Instead, she drops her hand, leaving the glass in crystal clear perfection.
“He gave me orgasms. Plenty of them. I didn’t want them, War, but