Chapter 14 #2
My body was turning against me. I couldn’t control it. His head turned, enough for his gaze to catch me from the corner of his eye. He rolled his neck as confusion flickered across his features before it was contained.
So he’d felt that. Did he feel the same as me? I wasn’t going to ask.
Slowly, I placed my hands on his shoulders again. This time, I pushed through the feeling blooming at my ear. My hands lowered along the length of his arm, following muscle and tendon, before repeating the motion on the other side. I left no space untouched, no place unmarked.
I followed the line of his spine, working in slow, methodical circles downward.
This wasn’t intimacy. This was work . I repeated the words like a mantra as I smoothed the oil into his ass, swallowing as I did so.
My face had never been this hot, and I shut my eyes in mortification, knowing he would see if I stepped in front of him again.
I knelt behind him to tend to his legs, smoothing the oil along powerful muscles until I reached his calves. All the while, I felt him tense beneath my hands, never once relaxing into my touch.
When I was done with his backside, I stepped around him. “Am I doing this right? You’ve undergone this before.”
The heat in his expression was unmistakable, and it shocked me. His hands were clenched at his sides, his knuckles white, his body held rigid with restraint. I knew immediately what was wrong.
I looked down despite myself—and there it was.
Evidence I could not ignore, could not deny.
His cock, massive and hard as marble, rose against his stomach.
My gaze snapped back to his as the tension between us tightened to something perilously close to breaking.
I could hear my heartbeat in my ears as my breathing turned shallow, slipping out of my control.
Whatever had gathered between us, I had no idea how to break it, or even understand it.
His jaw was set hard when he spoke, his voice low and rasping as he closed his eyes.
“Continue.”
“Do you… require a moment? Should I leave? I don’t want this to become something it shouldn’t,” I whispered.
“Do not mistake this,” he said. “If the circumstances were different, if I intended to act on it, you wouldn’t be questioning it.”
The message was clear—if he wanted more, I would’ve known. But now I knew he was affected by me too. The thought calmed me. Every physical reaction betrayed what his posture and words tried to hide. He wasn’t all cold control. Not entirely.
I rose on my toes to reach his neck, my hands following the curve down his shoulders before smoothing across his chest. Beneath my touch, his muscles shifted and his pulse hammered.
Then I lowered to my knees, working carefully along his thighs, my movements professional. His eyes burned into the crown of my head, measuring my every breath. I could only imagine how it looked, me so close to him in the most intimate of ways.
As I massaged the oil into his feet, only one place remained untouched. I hesitated. Surely this wasn’t required. The scroll had been vague—deliberately so—and uncertainty flared. After a moment, I lifted my head just enough to speak, my voice quiet.
“Do I need to… anoint everywhere? Or is this sufficient?”
For a moment, the chamber seemed to narrow around us. Then he seized my arms and yanked me upright, the force stealing my breath. His fingers closed around my chin, forcing my face up until there was nowhere to look but at him.
“When I allow you to touch me—truly touch me. It won’t be because of some ritual. It will be because I chose the moment… and you’ll crave it.”
He leaned closer, his voice low. “Does that scare you?”
It should have. The way he said it—the certainty in it. The way my body betrayed me at his every touch. But I wouldn’t give him that.
“Release me,” I said, even as my pulse thudded hard against my ribs.
For a beat, neither of us moved. Then something shifted in his expression—subtle, but unmistakable. Not anger. Interest.
“You push back at every turn. You provoke me. This temper of yours…” His eyes flicked over my face, lingering a fraction too long. “It’ll get you burned.”
Anger flared and I didn’t look away. “You speak as though you know me. But despite what you think—despite calling me a whore when we met—I don’t yield easily.
Not to hatred. And certainly not to lust stripped of meaning.
Your bloodied hands won’t touch me. Whatever you think you see, don’t mistake it for desire. ”
His fingers closed around my throat, stealing my breath. “Delude yourself,” he said. “I know when a woman wants me.”
“Your confidence is impressive. Misplaced—but impressive,” I breathed through his hold.
His grip loosened. “I warned you not to speak to me that way… and yet you persist.” He tilted his head, studying me as if I were something newly discovered. “I can’t decide if you’re very brave… or very stupid.”
He stepped closer, his presence crowding mine until there was no space between us. I felt him against my belly through the silk, heavy and hard.
“Or perhaps just naive,” he whispered in my ear. “Untouched by what this world is.”
His thumb slid beneath my chin, moving upward in a slow line, stopping just short of my lips. “It doesn’t matter. If I decide I want you… you won’t escape me.”
My pulse jumped in my throat. His gaze dropped to it, darkening as he watched.
“I can already see it. Smell it. Your body answers me before you do. I wonder what it would take to make you submit to me… what it takes to break your resistance.”
I grabbed his hands, pulling harshly. He released my throat.
“You’ll never find out. You hold no claim over me. Nor will you ever.”
His lips twitched upward in an arrogant smile. “We’ll see,” he said absently. Then he turned and stepped into the springs, the water parting easily around him. “Light the incense,” he added over his shoulder.
He crossed the pool with unhurried confidence and seated himself beneath the great marble saber carved into the wall, settling against the stone bench as if he had all the time in the world. He waited there, composed and expectant.
I forced my mind to cling to the scroll’s instructions as an anchor. Precision. Order. Anything but him. I lit the incense and retrieved the concoction from the table, aware—shamefully—of the grim satisfaction it brought. Drinking it would hurt him.
Holding the vial, I stepped into the water, hating the way it pulled the fabric of my dress against me, how it revealed more than I’d ever intended.
I kept my eyes fixed ahead, refusing to acknowledge him as I waded through the spring.
Around me, faint traces of gold still swirled where the oil had lifted from his skin, drifting lazily through the water.
They brushed against the white of my dress, staining it in soft, gleaming patterns wherever they touched—an uninvited mark that felt almost deliberate, as though even this residue sought to claim what it had no right to.
I reached him and extended the concoction.
He didn’t take it. His eyes lingered elsewhere—on the way the soaked fabric clung to me, on what it revealed.
My jaw tightened. I grabbed his hand and pressed the vial into it, forcing his fingers closed around the glass with all the strength and disdain I could muster.
His response was laughter—low, brief, and entirely unexpected. I doubted I would ever hear it again. He uncapped the vial, flicked the stopper onto the marble, and drank it down in a single draught, his head tipping back.
The muscles of his neck stood stark beneath his skin.
His jaw tightened as the pain took hold.
His eyes held mine, and for the briefest heartbeat something flickered through the dark green, bright enough to almost eclipse it.
Then it vanished behind the wall of control I’d grown accustomed to. He endured the rest in silence.
I began the incantation. Measured words, spoken clearly.
His body followed. His mind was cleansed.
And with the final phrase, his spirit as well.
As the last syllable left my mouth, I felt the shift.
The tension eased, the strain draining from him along with the last traces of gold dissolving into the spring, yet something else took its place.
A pull. Subtle at first, then tightening, like a thread drawn taut between us. My breath caught as it settled in my chest, unfamiliar and unwelcome, drawing me toward him in a way I didn’t understand.
The ritual was complete. Not wanting to linger, I turned from him, wading out of the spring and stepping onto the stone.
I hastily gathered my leathers and clutched them to me as a shield, every instinct screaming for distance.
He rose from the water behind me. I glanced over my shoulder.
He seemed utterly unconcerned with his nakedness.
Even flaccid, his cock was impressive. The impression was unavoidable—nothing about him suggested shame.
It stood in stark contrast to my own feelings, and I despised him for it.
Pulling my leathers over my wet dress, I hid myself from him, denying him even the smallest fragment more than he’d already seen.
“Until next time, little Bondward,” he said, a faint note of amusement in his voice as I pushed open the doors.
This time, I didn’t look back as I ran through the corridor.
I’d grown complacent these past days, thinking endurance would be enough. I’d told myself that if I remained still and adapted, this place wouldn’t take more than I could bear. I was wrong.
What Thanor stirred within me was a line I couldn’t allow crossed.
If I gave in, I would lose more than I was prepared to surrender, piece by piece.
A slow breath left me as I halted, my fists balling as I stared at the marble floor.
I would find a way to leave. Before I proved Thanor right.
Before I gave in. Before there was nothing left for me to reclaim.