Page 45 of The Beast Who Begged Me

Of course I didn’t miss a fucking bug. He just wants me in that damn shower with him, because he knows he can manipulate me better when he’s naked and wet. I lost control of myself too easily downstairs. He’s always goading me; I should have been on my guard. I should never have let him push me into…

Whatever that was.

But there’s no point berating myself while I’m standing here still staring at him despite my best intentions. And he knows it, too.

Smug little fucker.

A rush of affection is quickly smothered by guilt, and I finish undressing before letting him pull me into the shower, where the hot water sluices over my back. He stands there for a minute, letting the water wash over us, then he reaches past me to grab the soap. And he starts to wash me.

It’s not sexual, what he’s doing. But it’s not clinical, either.

It takes me a second to place it. It’s…

Care.

But as his hands move over me, he pulls me down so he can speak into my ear.

“Downstairs,” he breathes. “I want you to know—that was for the camera.”

Grisha.

It comes back in a rush: the way Caligula threw himself into that act for the Russian, enjoying it all. He got off on it, in fact. Got off on pretending to be forced, got off on being watched, got off on playing the part so well we fooled that fucker.

Fooled him with my dick in his mouth, just like today.

There’s a surge of pure fucking fury in my chest. I want to shove him back against the tiled wall, make him feel something real. “Just like you performed for that motherfucking Russian. Only this time, I wasn’t in on the act.”

He doesn’t deny it. “Part of it was for the camera,” he says at last, lathering up my chest with slow, deliberate strokes. “The other part was for you. And that part wasn’t a performance, Dami.” I shove the soap aside. He looks up at me, unafraid, a triumphant little glint in his eye. “I knew you’d like that idea.”

“What makes you think I like any part of this?” I spit out.

He simply glances down at where I’m already getting hard again.

“You’ve got some plan, and that’s fine. I’ll do whatever you want me to do. Kill whoever you want me to kill. Act however you want me to act.” I dip my head, my lips brushing against the shell of his ear, the water plastering his hair to his cheek. My other hand slides down his slick back to the tight curve of his ass. I grip one cheek hard, my fingers digging into the firm flesh. “But we both know you slipped up. That part where you begged? That part was real.”

I expected him to deny it. To push me away. To sneer and tell me I’m delusional.

But he doesn’t.

He squirms.

A full-bodied, delicious squirm that rubs his only half-soft cock against mine in a way that makes me go harder. His breath catches.

“You slipped up, too,” he mutters. “You’re the one who blew all over my face.”

“You really do want to torture me,” I marvel, taking a step back. “Enough to use my own body against me. You sure learned fast, didn’t you? For a virgin.”

He looks up at me, cool and unafraid. “I had an effective teacher, Dami.”

We stand there looking at each other, and my head is all jumbled up. All the guilt and all the need and all the regret and all the other things tumbling around inside me…

And none of it is fixable.

“What the hell do you want from me?” I ask again. “Just—just tell me.”

He reaches up and touches my cheek, a gesture so unexpectedly tender that I flinch. “I want you to stop with the goddamn guilt,” he says, his voice low and steady, cutting through the roar of the shower. “At least where anyone else can see it.” His thumb strokes my temple, a small, circular motion that’s making it hard to think. “Right now, you’re walking around like a kicked dog with its tail between its legs. And people see that. It’s dangerous.” He leans in closer, his body pressing against mine, the wet heat of him an undeniable temptation. “I need the old Dami back,” he says, looking me dead in the eye.

I stare at him, my mind a mess of conflicting signals. He’s asking me to be the monster he claims to hate. The monster I am. “You want me to act like I still own you?”