Page 111 of Trove’s Purpose

Like she was weak and worthless and had no use but to serve him.

Except she thanked him. She looked so happy. Though he hadn’t pleased her, she was still so joyful for what he had done.

“Why?” He asked again, searching her expression for clues. For understanding.

She brushed his hair back, making sure she could see his face as she smiled. “Because I love you. Because I want to make you happy. Because giving you pleasure is something I get to do and no one else. Just like you’re the only one who can make me happy and give me pleasure.”

It was an honor for her to pleasure him. Just as it was an honor for him to pleasure her. That was their right to each other as mates. And she was happy because just as his purpose was to serve her, she considered it hers to serve him. They serviced each other.

“I am worthless,” he said, but it was more like a question.

She shook her head quickly. “No, Trove. You’re amazing. And I’m so happy right now. Thank you for feeling good for me. Thank you so much. I love you.”

She pressed a kiss on his nose.

“I love you.”

She kissed his cheek.

“I love you.”

She kissed his other cheek.

“I love you.”

She threw her arms around him, holding him close as she laughed. It was such a happy, relieved sound. Like this was the best thing she could have imagined happening to her. She said she loved him for using her like this.

No. He hadn’t used her. And she wasn’t using him.

They were adoring each other. They were giving each other gifts.

That’s why she was thanking him. Because his pleasure to her was a gift. Just as hers was a gift she gave to him.

A gift that others had perverted in his life. One they had stolen and traded and treated like an object to be claimed and conquered.

She was right. This was something beautiful and special and it was everyone else who had turned it into something rotten and worthless.

And it hurt.

That realization hurt so much.

He clung tight to her. Hating them all. Hating everyone who had dared to make this gift they shared something sour and bitter like the shame he still felt swirling low in his gut.

“Thank you,” he mumbled against her neck as she continued to stroke and hold and love him.

Chapter 36

Chee

Things were different this morning.

Last night had been such a rush of emotion and pain and love, she woke up somehow still exhausted. It had been difficult to see Trove so broken before her, to hold him in her arms, and not break down into tears at the injustice of everything that had been done to him.

She wasn’t sure Trove was capable of understanding yet just how badly he had been hurt and abused in his life. By nearly everyone in his life. Sure, he knew it was abuse now, he must know he had been tortured, but he didn’t have the experience of a loving family to compare it to that would really allow him to understand the full depth of the betrayal against him.

Maybe one day, he would. As he healed, as he learned the love of family and the bonds that should exist between them, he might really grasp what had happened to him.

But last night, she thought, was probably the first time he’d ever actually allowed himself to feel the pain of his past. And it was painful. It hurt him, it hurt her. But this, as much as his determination to heal, was necessary for him to grow.