Page 109 of Twisted Enemy
“I won’t fuck you here,” she warns. “Not tonight.”
“Two,” I say, even though that’s one thing I’d never ask her to do.
“You feckin’ arrogantarsehole,” she says.
“Three. And please. Let’s keep counting.”
She flushes, sparking my heart as her cheeks go ripe. She pulls her blood-stained top over her head and drops it on thefloor, near the sheet. She toes off her shoes and socks, then shimmies out of her yoga pants. Daring me, staring straight into my eyes, she unhooks her bra and adds it to the pile. Her panties are last to come off.
I leave her there for a moment, ignoring her nipples, which are already hard in the chill of the room. I cross to the armoire, where a white terry robe is folded in one of the drawers. I shake it out before I drape it over her shoulders, helping her with her right arm first, then her left. I knot the fabric tight around her waist.
I keep one hand on her elbow as I guide her across the room. The dungeon floor is designed to protect against falls, but it’s well after midnight, and she must be exhausted. I close the door firmly behind us, then lead the way to the second floor and the room we’ve shared since the day I put a ring on her finger.
I only turn on one light in the bathroom, the one on a dimmer, over the tub. I keep the glow soft, barely enough to pick out the emerald color of Kate’s eyes. Grateful for the circulating pump that makes hot water flow immediately, I turn the faucet for the rainfall shower head. The air immediately begins to steam.
I strip Kate out of the robe as easily as I put her in it. She’s left bloodstains on the sleeves, and the tips of her hair have painted abstract crimson paintings over the back. I dump the soiled terrycloth in the tub, covering it quickly with my shoes and my shirt, my trousers and my boxers and my socks. All of it will end up back in the dungeon. All of it will be destroyed, the same as the bodies we’ve left down there.
Despite the warm clouds rising from the shower, Kate is starting to shiver. I hold out one hand and help her to move beneath the spray. Stepping in beside her, I shield her body with mine as I add two of the jets built into the wall.
Her head tilts back as the hot water melts her frozen muscles. I reach beyond her for the foaming bath gel I added when she moved here, the orange and bergamot that I love smelling on her skin. Lathering the soap between my hands, I work it over her shoulders, down her arms, around her wrists and her palms and between each of her fingers. I take the time to discover her nails, as if each one is a precious gemstone waiting for me to polish.
Her legs are next, more lather bubbling between my palms as I measure the jut of her hip bones and the slick planes of her thighs. Kneeling before her, I feel a twinge in my gut, a remnant ache from the beating I took a week ago. But my bruises are fading to green and gold; I’m on the mend. So I’m able to pay close attention to her knees, knowing they were stained by that pool of blood. I let her balance her weight on my shoulders as I measure her ankles, the arches of her feet, her toes.
I save her hair for last of all. I use my own shampoo, amber and sandalwood, because I want to claim her; I want her to smell like me. I work from her scalp to the tips of her hair, watching the muscles of her spine release all the way from her nape to the dimples above her ass.
I use the hand-held attachment to rinse her clean, chasing white ribbons of suds down her breasts, her belly, her thighs. Once the water runs clear, I work conditioner into her curls. My thumbs find pressure points in her temples and behind her ears. My fingers linger at the base of her skull.
As I rinse her hair, she melts against me. Her brittleness, her raw animal energy, her frantic despair at breaking rules no human could possibly keep, they all swirl down the drain.
I consider all the ways I could have her now. I could trap her against my chest and get her off with the handheld, changing the gentle massage to punishing needles. I could press her against the warm granite walls, folding my fingers around her wrists as Itake her from behind. I could put her on her knees and fuck her flushed lips, pulling her slick hair to make her comply.
But it’s late now, long past midnight. She’s ended the most devastating week of her adult life, measuring out everything she is today against a miserable creature who should have died decades ago. She’s slaughtered demons and nightmares and a man she didn’t want to kill, although a part of me knows that was always her intention, her need, her right.
So I turn off the water. I collect one towel for her body and another for her hair, wrapping her like the precious thing she is. I walk her into the bedroom, and I seat her on the edge of the bed, and I dry every inch of her because I’m not a monster. I’m a man. I’m in absolute control.
But when I fold back the corner of the bedclothes, she looks at me, her eyes suddenly wild. “You promised,” she says.
“Promised what?” I plump her pillows.
“Downstairs,” she says. “You counted.”
“You’ll pay me back another time.” I turn on her nightstand lamp, the one she needs to sleep.
“Three,” she says. “Youcounted.” She repeats the word like it’s some legal obligation between us.
“Kate…” I say, because I counted in the dungeon, where I keep my tools, and neither of us is going down those stairs again, not tonight. Not for days, maybe even weeks. The type of mess we’ve left down there takes a long time to make right.
She raises her chin. “Youoweme,” she says. And then, holding my gaze with perfect defiance, she adds, “Master.”
I wanted that word. I forced it on her by giving her an impossible choice—call memasteror I wouldn’t take her downstairs.
But when I did that, I didn’t know she’d been forced to say it years ago. I didn’t know the word carried extra weight for her, a burden Tarasov settled on her when she was just a child.
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “NotMaster.” I’m her Dom, and down the line, she can call meSir.She can kneel and she can bow her head and she can submit in a thousand other ways. But I won’t ever have her call meMasteragain.
Before I can explain all that, she takes my hand. She slips my fingers into the perfect V between her thighs, shifting her weight just enough that I can feel the hot, ready slick of her need.
“Please,” she says.
