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“That was a tight spot,” Mia said gently, reminding her partner. “But we got out of it alive—we’ll get out of this, too.”
Sev looked at her for a long time.
“I hope you’re right, he rumbled at last. “I really do, Mia. But I’ve had a bad fucking feeling about this from the first.”
“If it’s really that bad, we’ll leave,” Mia promised him. “But let’s at least go through the Induction Ceremony tomorrow and see if we can catch a glimpse of the Prophet. Can we at least do that?”
Sev sighed heavily.
“Yeah, I guess so. But if they want me to hurt you, we’re out of here. I mean that, Mia—I saw enough of that kind of thing growing up.” There was a haunted look in his golden eyes that squeezed Mia’s heart.
“Was there…abuse in your home when you were a kid?” she asked, trying to be delicate about it. It occurred to her that while she considered Sev to be an excellent partner and probably her best friend, the two of them really didn’t know much about each other’s childhoods. It was something they simply never talked about. Now she wondered if maybe Sev was hiding some secret pain, similar to her own.
“It’s the whole D/s lifestyle—the Dae’mon people call it‘Ger’prex’—which means to hold down, to force someone to submit completely,” he told her. “If it’s consensual, it can work beautifully. But it can also go too far.” He sighed again. “And it went too far in my housea lot.”
“Oh Sev—I’m so sorry.” Impulsively, Mia hugged him. He was so big she was mostly hugging him around the waist, but her partner leaned down to accept and return the hug, taking the comfort she was offering without question.
Mia pressed her cheek to his, noting in the back of her mind how good he always smelled—spicy and hot and completely male. CompletelySev, somehow. She could feel his immense strength in the hug but he held her carefully, as though she was delicate china and might break if he squeezed too hard.
“I was so damn ashamed of where I came from—I swore to myself I would never be like my father,” he murmured into Mia’s hair. “I don’t want to treat you that way—don’t want to hurt you, baby.”
“I know you don’t. Youwon’t,” Mia promised earnestly. “I’ll be careful, Sev—a lot more careful than I was with Brother Jonash—I won’t give them any reason to say you ought to punish me.”
“You’d better not,” he said dryly. “Since it sounds like if you do, you’re going to wind up ‘suckling on my shaft’ afterwards.”
Mia laughed nervously.
“Oh, so you heard that? I thought you weren’t paying attention to that part.”
“How could I not?” He pulled back, looking down into her eyes and this time his golden gaze was filled with something else—some emotion that Mia had never seen there before and it was directed all ather.
A shiver ran down her spine and an image raced through her mind’s eye—a picture of her on her knees before her partner, taking his long, hard shaft in her hands and sucking it deep into her mouth as he groaned and ran his fingers through her hair, telling her how hot and wet her mouth was, saying what a good girl she was to suck him so deep…
What’s wrong with me?she asked herself, trying to push the disturbing image away.I’m not interested in that kind of thing—I’m frigid. Michael always said so and he was right. Wasn’t he?
“Sorry—did I make you uncomfortable?” Sev asked, and Mia realized she’d been staring at him silently for too long.
“Oh, um…” She dragged her eyes away from his, trying to laugh. “Of course not. Those stupid rules—as if we’d actuallydoany of that stuff!”
“Of course not.” Sev laughed too and they stepped quickly apart, as though by mutual unspoken agreement. “You’d better take your bath before the water gets cold,” he remarked.
“Uh, yeah. I should.” Mia nodded. “Um, did you find any of the cameras?” she asked.
He nodded grimly.
“They’re all over the fucking place. Afraid we’re not going to have much privacy except in the fresher or when we turn the lights out, like Brother Jonash suggested.”
Mia sighed.
“This place is so fucked up.”
“Yes, it fucking is. Take your bath,” Sev told her. “I’ll see you later.”
“See you later,” Mia echoed.
But as he left, closing the door behind him, she couldn’t help replaying the hug they’d shared.
They had hugged before—mostly after moments of stress, like the armed robbery at the gas station. After they’d gotten the robber cuffed and safely stowed in the car, Sev had surprised her by sweeping her into his arms and nearly crushing her.
