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“Now you know what that pipe does,” he said conversationally, before adding, “So… There are two ways this goes, and I am going to let you decide which one. That part matters to me.” My mouth dropped slightly at this, as the threat was obvious.

“Please”

“Option one. I put you against that wall, and I hold you there, and your arm goes where I decide it goes.” He let that sit a moment before continuing, “Option two. You hold on to me.”

I stared at him.

“What?”

“You put your arms around me and you keep them there.” He said it as though it were the most reasonable proposition in the world.

“That’s all. You hold on to me, and nothing in this room touches you that I do not want touching you. Including that pipe. Including the water.”

“That isn’t a choice,” I told him, frowning so hard it should have hurt.

“No, but it is the only one you are going to get,” he agreed.

I tried to slip sideways out from under his arm. It was a stupid, primal attempt and I knew it was stupid while I was doing it, but I did it anyway. As for him, he moved, and my forehead met his chest. He made a soft tsk against my hair and drew my wrist back toward the steel.

“That’s not the game, sweetheart,” he reminded me, his tone far too soft for such a brutal man, who was currently holding me captive.

“No, please… I…” he cut me off, telling me,

“You’re breaking the rules, little bird, and I have been very generous with the rules.” Then he moved my wrist another inch toward the scalding pipe and I threw back at him,

“I thought you didn’t want to burn me!”

“And I don’t, but if you continue to fight me, you will eventually burn yourself. I am merely holding it here, the rest is up to you,” he stated calmly, getting closer, and I closed my eyes.

“Okay, okay, okay.” I was crying again, hot tears mixing with the spray from the shower next to us, falling down my cheeks.

“I won’t… I won’t do it again!” I told him, knowing this time it was true, that I wouldn’t. He held my wrist another moment and then let it go, and I sagged back against the tile in relief.

And he stepped back half a pace and opened his arms in a strange welcoming gesture right there in a shower stall, with the water hammering down on his shoulders, like a man welcoming somebody home.

“Go on, little one.” His voice was almost kind, as if I were his girlfriend and not his prisoner. “Wrap your arms around me. Prove to me you can behave.”

About ten seconds passed before I moved. Because in those ten seconds I understood exactly what was being done to me because he glanced at that pipe, and the threat was there without him having to say it again. No, the look was enough.

As for the game, that was simple. Because a man who wanted to hold me could have simply held me. He had done it twice already, easily and without me having any say in it whatsoever. And if that was all he wanted, he wouldn’t have needed the pipe or any threats of using it.

But he didn’t want to take it.

He wanted me to hand it over.

I told myself not to do it. To test him and see if he would actually hurt me. Because I had the feeling that for a man like him, once you gave him something, he would own it forever.

Own my compliance.

But despite knowing this, I lifted my hands. Because the other part of me, the totally irrational side that had touched myself to the memory of him, wanted to see what he would do. What he would do if I gave him what he wanted.

My hands were shaking so hard I could see it in the steam, and I put them flat on his chest. My palms making contact with wet skin and solid, hard muscle. The black ink over his heart keeping my gaze locked to the winged warrior there as I slid my arms around as much of him as I could reach, which wasn’t very much at all.

And through most of it he didn’t look away from me, until he stepped into my arms and closed his eyes.

He tipped his head back into the water, kept his eyes closed, and let out a breath from somewhere so deep in his chest that I felt it move through my own arms. And every enormous hard line of him relaxed all at once. Like a man setting something down that he had been carrying for thirty years.

I stood there in the hot water with my arms around a killer, and I felt the whole of him settle. Not soften exactly, because there was nothing soft anywhere on that body of his. Just the sense of an enormous thing choosing to be still for me… just like he had when I treated his arm.