Chapter 12
Bella
He washes me first. Draws a bath, adds a ton of my favorite honeysuckle bubble bath.
My breath catches when he returns to my side and whips off my shirt, but he’s quick, his movements impersonal as he undresses me.
He uses a knife to cut off my bra and undies, but I don’t notice it until they’ve fallen in pieces to the floor.
My heart speeds up, but he gives me a break, going to check the water temperature before carrying me over and setting me in the bath.
I sink into the water, staring up at him. He’s naked and huge, leaning over the tub. His muscles are distracting, but not enough to make me forget the sinister black gloves. If this were a horror movie, he’d be about to drown me.
But he only takes a washcloth and gently cleans my face. He focuses on my lips, frowning like he’s trying to solve a puzzle. He’s trying to figure out how I was able to lick the poison sap from the manchineel tree, but that’s my secret. It makes me smile, which makes him frown more.
Then he runs the washcloth down my neck and over my collarbone. My body tightens and I gasp, remembering that I’m naked. Then it’s his turn to smirk.
He’s got me right where he wants me. He’s rubbing me all over, and I know what he’s doing.
He’s trying to lull me into a sense of complacency.
The thing is… It’s working. I’m mesmerized by the flex of his muscles, his dark tattoos.
I dreamed of the chance to study his ink up close, and now it’s here, and I’m hypnotized.
He smells like my own lemon sugar body scrub, a familiar scent, which relaxes me further.
He maneuvers me around so he can wash my front, my back. He’s intent, like he’s tending to a prized orchid.
I keep waiting for him to do something sexy. He barely brushed the washcloth over my breasts or between my legs. But all this scrubbing and gentle stroking is working me up more than watching him strip. Slow burn style.
I start squirming. His gloved hand comes around my neck. “Be still.” He squeezes a little, reminding me of when he had his fingers in my mouth. “If you need help with the voice restriction, I can gag you. You’ll have to thank me for it, without using your words.”
I blink. What does that mean? I’m curious, but I don’t want to try a gag. My throat is a bit raw. Maybe next time.
If there is a next time.
He sets me against the side of the tub so my back is supported and spends a long time picking leaves out of my hair.
Then he washes it properly, massaging shampoo into my scalp until I’m limp in the water.
I’m half asleep when he uses my homemade chamomile rinse.
He applies a purple mask to my mids and ends and leaves me to relax.
It’s not until he’s back that I realize he washed my hair perfectly. He even towel-dries my hair before applying leave-in conditioner and a touch of oil on the ends.
How did he know?
He’s been watching me. Closely. And he’s right… I never knew. Not until he let me see him.
Does he have cameras in here? What else has he seen?
I felt so safe in all my secrets, but he might know them all. And then I’ll have nothing. No defenses. All my scheming won’t save me… or my father.
My skin prickles with the cold. He wraps me with a towel warmed by the heated rack, but the cold sinks deeper, to my bones. The sugar rush is over, and reality is setting in. Reality and regret.
I thought I could outsmart him, but now I’m here, naked in front of him, obeying his commands, when not a few hours ago, he and his thug friends were shaking down my father in his own office.
He’s playing me. I like it, but I can’t forget what this is. I can’t forget he threatened me and my father, then had the audacity to claim he was protecting me.
I will make him live to regret it.
I will keep pretending to be the fragile flower the world thinks I am. It won’t fool him at first, but eventually he will lower his guard. I’ll be his perfect bride if that’s what it takes. I will study him as he’s studied me. I will poison him from the inside out.
Kaiser and his friends will pay for messing with the Bosco family. My victory over them will be the talk of two cities, and destroying them will cement my status forever.
I will be the one who brought down Fraternitas. The ultimate supervillain.
But first, I have to survive the night.
Kaiser
Her forehead is wrinkled when I dry her off and lead her to bed. She let down her guard and now she’s regretting it.
She doesn’t need to be on guard. I’ll protect her from everyone who would hurt her.
But there’s no protecting her from me.
We walk into the bedroom. She stalls halfway to her king-sized bed, where I laid out some of my tools while she soaked in the bath. A ring gag. A box containing three sets of nipple clamps. Some rope and a suede flogger. Nothing too intense, but it probably looks scary to a novice submissive.
I stroke her hair from her face. I blow-dried it a little bit, the way she does after a shower. I followed her hair care routine to a T, and her hair looks like it always does, like it’d be soft and silky to the touch.
Her eyes roam over me. I took the time to dry off and change into loose black pants but left my chest and feet bare. She likes the look of my muscles. I have the urge to flex and show off, which I resist.
Her expression balks when she notices I’m still wearing the black gloves.
Even though I washed her, I haven’t removed them.
I want to touch her, but I’m not going to, not until I understand what’s going on with her.
She said she was immune to poison ivy, but she also licked the poison apple tree in front of me, so her immunity may extend to other plants.
My arm is numb where I had to scrub off the sap.
I know it hurts, but, like always, I have to concentrate to feel the ache.
This came in handy when I was a young man in the fighting rings.
Back then, I thought I was just learning to handle pain, but it went too far.
It’s like I turned off the part of my brain that connects to my skin.
The pain is there, but it doesn’t register. It feels far away.
I need to remember the lesson of the hogweed. The rash isn’t bad—I’ve lived through much worse—but it’s a good reminder that Bella is more than she seems to be. I’m dying to touch her all over, but I need to be careful.
Even though she looks very nervous right now. She bites her plump lower lip, and I have to bite back a growl. My dick is hard enough to pound nails, but I’m not going to pounce on her. Not yet. I have to go slowly, or I’ll lose control.
Some day I’ll be able to spank her hard, pull her hair, and bite hard enough to bruise and break the skin. She’ll wear my marks under her clothes.
But first I’ll have to break her in.
I have all the time in the world. No one will take her from me.
She’s new to all this, but if I do it right, she’ll crave the sensations I give her. I will master her until she submits to me fully.
“You don’t have to fight me, little one. I’m going to give you everything you want,” I murmur, using my thumb to smooth out her forehead. “What are you thinking? You can tell me.”
“I want to know what you’re going to do.”
“Why? So you can fight me? You don’t always need to be one step ahead. There’s great power in surrendering.”
She rolls her eyes. “Says the man who would never surrender.”
“You want to dom me?”
“Would you let me do that?”
“How would you do it? Talk me through it.”
She licks her lips, and my cock jumps in my pants.
“I’d tie you up?” She frowns when she hears the question in her voice. “To the headboard. And take off your pants. I want to see it.” Her eyes dart to my crotch.
My dick pulses. I’ve never fucked a woman raw. I’ve always sheathed up. My skin is so numb, so it was never a huge loss of sensation. I still feel the pressure, the build-up, the release.
I never longed for skin-to-skin contact, but I’m dying to sink into my soon-to-be-bride’s hot, wet pussy. Something tells me I’ll feel it with her. All the more reason to be extra careful. The predator in me is ready to be unleashed.
“Do you think you deserve to see it? I was going to make you earn it.”
“What were you going to make me do?”
“That depends on how good you are. I don’t trust you to touch me yet, so I was going to tie you up. Stroke you all over. You were good in the bath for me, so I won’t use the special oil on your clit. Just your bottom. But first… I want to play with your pretty nipples. See how sensitive they are.”
“Do you like them?”
Is this what she’s worried about? “They’re everything I’ve dreamed of.”
She looks excited, then a shadow passes over her face. “You’ve been watching me. You… were assigned to me.”
“To watch you come and go. Not to study your every move. Not to break into your room and read your copy of Viking Thunder.”
“You know about Viking Thunder?”
“The book with a blond like me on the cover. The one you read over and over? Yes, I know about it.”
She blinks and shakes her head a little. “So you watched me at night.”
My voice is thick when I admit, “Yes. And I saw everything.”
“That time in the garden… when Radley came at me. Were you protecting me?”
“Absolutely.”
When I lock onto something or someone, I get obsessive. And jealous. It’s the closest emotion to love I can feel.
She shivers. “You wouldn’t have let him hurt me.”
“I would’ve killed him before he touched you. From now on, you’re off limits to everyone. No one else goes near you, little bride.”
“You won’t let Fraternitas hurt me?”
“They won’t touch you.” My brothers will respect my claim. She’s my reward. “You’re mine.”
“Even if my father disobeys?”
“He won’t. Not while I have you.”
“And that’s why you wanted me. To control me.”
“More than that.” But I do grab her hair and draw back her head. “I only watched you a few days before I knew… I wanted to own you.”
“And what will you do to me?”
“Give me one night to show you, little bride. One night. I’ll even make you come. Or…” I release her hair. “I can read you a bedtime story, tuck you in, and let you sleep.” My dick throbs. If I could feel it, I bet I’d be in agony, needing to fuck her now.
Go slowly.
She’s biting her lip. “You could hurt me.”
“You’re mine now. I don’t break my toys.
” Anymore. Hurting her, killing her, would be a breach of contract, so I’m going to have to practice restraint.
She’s unlike any other toy I’ve ever had.
I won’t just own her for a night. She’ll be mine for a lifetime, so I need to take care not to push her too far, too soon.
“Do you have a safeword?” Asking for a safeword is what a good dom would do. I might even honor it.
She nods. “Kumquat.”
Do not smile. Do not. This is serious. “Kumquat. Got it. What are your limits?”
She hesitates. Opens her mouth, closes it. I can hear her neurons whirring as she tries to figure everything out.
“It’s okay, baby.” I make my voice soft. “We can try some stuff and figure it out as we go.” Meaning, I’ll play with her the way I like and see if she can take it like a good girl.
“No kissing on the mouth.” She raises her chin. “If we kiss, the oxytocin will make us fall in love.”
I shake my head. “Not going to happen.”
“You’re not going to kiss me? Or fall in love?”
“I won’t kiss you until you want it.”
“I won’t want it.”
“You will. But if you do… don’t fall in love with me.”
“Don’t kiss me then,” she shoots back and tilts her head. “Maybe you’ll be the one who falls in love.”
“You don’t have to worry about that with me.” Love requires a soul. I lost mine long ago.
There’s nothing left of me but base desires. Food, shelter, sex. Life, liberty, and property. I take care of my own.
That’s why I don’t want a lover or a partner. I want a wife in the most medieval sense of the world.
A possession. A trophy. A toy.
But all this talk about kissing makes my cock weep.
“Come to bed, little bride.”
She shivers and nods, and I cup her small face and stroke my thumbs up her cheeks.
The black latex slips over her pretty skin.
The sight is jarring. Usually, I wear these gloves when I don’t want to leave DNA evidence on my victims, but I’m not here to choke her to death.
I want her to live a long, blissful life as my pet.
“You’re still afraid to touch me.” She sounds mournful, but it’s like a glove thrown between us.
Challenge accepted.
I hold her gaze as I peel off the gloves. My fingers ache with sensation. My sense of touch is coming back. I’ve never wanted to touch my toys before. But with her, I don’t just want it.
I need it.
If my hand shakes a little as I reach for her, it’s only from the force of holding myself back from leaping on her, ravaging her.
I bury my fingers in her hair and rub her scalp. The dyed strands slip over my fingers. I can’t feel the sensation, not really. I can’t feel things like other people do, not anymore. But I know the strands are soft. Her eyes half close like they did in the bath, and she’s practically purring.
I maneuver her to the bed and sit her down, then lay her out. She’s mine to touch, mine to torment. I set my hands on her shoulders, and they look large and rough compared to her small frame. All that unblemished skin, ready for my marks.
Tonight I’ll be gentle. I want to examine my prize. Her sweet little breasts with dark nipples. The small bumps of bone in her delicate spine. The soft, wet place between her legs.
“Do you think I’m pretty?” Her brown eyes search mine. Her scent rises between us, and I’m licking my lips, ready to suck the lemon icing flavor off her skin.
“Yes, little bride. I think you’re perfect.”