Lover Awakened (37 page)

He kissed her softly. And then he withdrew and got off the bed, yanking up the shorts as he went into the bathroom and closed the door.

Bella frowned. Had he finished? He'd seemed fully erect as he'd withdrawn.

She slid out of bed and looked down. When there was nothing on the inside of her thighs, she drew on the robe and went after him, not even bothering to knock.

Zsadist's arms were propped on the sink, his head hanging low. He was breathing uneasily and looked fevered, his skin slick, his stance unnaturally stiff.

"What,
nalla
," he said in a hoarse whisper.

She stopped, unsure she'd heard him right. But she had…
Beloved
. He'd called her
beloved
.

"Why didn't you…" She couldn't seem to gel the rest of the words out. "Why did you stop before you…"

When he just shook his head, she went over to him and turned him around. Through the shorts she could see that his arousal was throbbing, painfully rigid. In fact, he looked as if his whole body ached.

"Let me ease you," she said, reaching for him.

He backed up against the marble wall between the shower and the sink. "No, don't… Bella—"

She gathered the robe in her hands and started to kneel down at his feet.

"No!" He dragged her up his body.

She met him right in the eye and went for his waistband. "Let me do this for you."

He grabbed her hands and squeezed her wrists until they hurt.

"I want to do this, Zsadist," she said with strength. "Let me take care of you."

There was a long silence, and she spent the time measuring the sorrow and the yearning and the fear in his eyes. A chill shot through her. She couldn't believe the leap of logic her mind was taking, but she had a really vivid impression that he'd never let himself orgasm before. Or was she just jumping to conclusions?

Whatever
. It wasn't like she was about to ask him. He was teetering on the brink of bolting, and if she said or did the wrong thing, he was going to tear out of the room.

"Zsadist, I won't hurt you. And you can be in control. We'll stop if it doesn't feel right. You can trust me."

It was a long time before his grip loosened on her wrists. And then finally he let go and set her back from his body. Haltingly, he pulled down the shorts.

That arousal shot out into the space between them.

"Just hold on to it," he said with a cracked voice.

"You. I'll hold on to you."

When she wrapped her palms around him he let out a moan, and his head fell back. God, he was hard. Hard as iron, yet surrounded by skin soft as his lips.

"You're—"

"Shh," he cut in. "No… talking. I can't… No talking."

He began to move in her grip. Slowly at first, and then with increasing urgency. He took her face in his hands and kissed her, and then his body completely took over with a wild pumping. He was going crazy, shooting higher and higher, his chest and hips so beautiful as he moved in that ancient male surging motion. Paster… faster… jerking back and forth…

Except then he reached some kind of plateau. He was straining, the cords of his neck nearly breaking through his skin, his body covered with sweat. But he couldn't seem to let go.

He stopped, panting. "This isn't going to work."

"Just relax. Relax and let it happen—"

"No. I need…" He took one of her hands and placed it on the sac below his arousal. "Squeeze. Squeeze hard."

Bella's eyes flashed up to his face. "What? I don't want to hurt you—"

He wrapped his hand around hers like a vise and twisted their grips until he cried out. Then he held her other wrist, keeping her palm against his erection.

She struggled against him, fighting to stop the pain he was inflicting on himself, but he was pumping again. And the harder she tried to pull away, the more he crushed her hand to that most tender place on a male. Her eyes went wide and unblinking at the pain of the act, the agony he must be—

Zsadist shouted, his loud bark ricocheting around the marble until she was sure everyone in the mansion must have heard him. Then she felt the mighty jerks of his release, hot pulses dampening her hands and the front of her robe.

He sagged onto her shoulders, his massive body falling all over her. He was breathing like a freight train, his muscles quivering, his big body trembling with aftershocks. When he released his hand from hers, she had to peel her palm from his testicles.

Bella was cold to the bone as she bore the weight of him.

Something ugly had sprouted between them just now, some kind of sexual evil that blurred the distinction between pleasure and pain. And though it made her cruel, she wanted to get away from him. She wanted to run from the cringing awareness that she had hurt him because he'd made her and he had orgasmed because of it.

Except then his breath caught on a sob. Or at least seemed to.

She held her breath, listening. The soft sound came again, and she felt his shoulders quake.

Oh, my God
. He was crying...

She wrapped her arms around him, reminding herself that he hadn't asked to be tortured as he'd been. Nor had he volunteered for the aftereffects.

She tried to lift his head to kiss him, but he fought against her, drawing her close, hiding in her hair. She cradled him, holding him and soothing him as he struggled to mask the fact that he wept. Eventually he pulled back and scrubbed his face with his palms. He refused to meet her eyes as he reached over and turned the shower on.

With a quick yank he stripped the robe from her body, then wadded it up and threw it into the trash.

"Wait, I like that robe—"

"I'll buy you a new one."

He urged her under the water. When she fought him he picked her up easily, put her in the spray, and began to soap her hands with undisguised panic.

"Zsadist, stop it." She pulled away, but he caught her. "I'm not dirty—Zsadist,
stop
. I don't need to be cleaned because you—"

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."

"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.

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 him, and the rapes and the invasions had no new horrors to teach him. His existence was an even-keeled stretch of hell, the only real torture resting in the infinite nature of his captivity.

But then he'd sensed something odd. Something… different. He'd turned his head and looked at the stranger. His first thought was that the male was huge and dressed with expense, so he had to be a warrior. His next was that the yellow eyes staring at him held a shocking misery. Verily, the stranger standing in the doorway had paled until his skin was waxy.

When the smell of the salve assaulted the slave's nose, he went back to looking at the ceiling, uninterested in what would happen next. Yet as his manhood was manipulated, a wave of emotion surged in the room. He looked back to the male who was standing just inside the cell. The slave frowned. The warrior was reaching for a dagger and looking at the Mistress as if he were going to kill
—

The other door burst open and one of the courtmen spoke with panic. Suddenly the cell was filled with guards and weapons and anger. The Mistress was grabbed roughly by the male at the front of the group and slapped so hard she hit the stone wall. Then the male went for the slave, unsheathing a knife. The slave screamed as he saw the blade come at his face. A searing pain cut through his forehead and nose and cheek; then blackness claimed him.