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“Because what you were doing was out of your control,” Seline pointed out. “Master Lendrex was making you do it. But to be honest with you, I didn’t dislike it until the very last part, where he made you whip my, uh, whip me between my legs,” she admitted.
“What?” Nox looked confused. “You liked it when I beat you with the crop?”
“Let’s just say I found it…exciting. Exhilarating and scary and hot all at once,” Seline told him. “I think knowing I was being watched by so many people while you punished me was part of it. But it was also knowing that you were the one holding the crop. I don’t think it would have done anything for me if someone else—say Master Lendrex—had been beating me with it.”
A low growl came from Nox’s throat.
“I would never allow him to touch you!”
“I know you wouldn’t.” Seline put a hand on his arm. “But when you acted as my Master, well…I enjoyed it.” She looked at him anxiously. “I hope that doesn’t make you think I’m weird or sick or disgusting. Because that was the kind of thing my ex, Mitchell said, when I tried to get him to ‘play’ with me. You know—to act out a scene?”
Nox shook his head.
“I do not fault you for your desires,” he said slowly. “But I experienced so many negative emotions when I was hitting you with the crop. Self-hatred…shame…doubt…”
“I’m so sorry, Nox!” Seline squeezed his arm. “And here I was getting off on it! I feel terrible that it gave you so much emotional trauma!”
“You didn’t think I could feel emotions,” Nox said. “I didn’t either until we came here and were forced into this situation. Though I should have known they were coming, because of my dreams. I should have warned you—should have tried to arm myself against them somehow…” He shook his head. “I should have done so many things differently.”
“Want to hear an old saying of my dad’s?” Seline asked him. When he nodded, she said, “You can’t saw sawdust.”
Nox frowned.
“I do not understand.”
“It means you can’t change the past,” Seline explained. “You can’t go back and alter things you did. So while you can learn from your mistakes, there’s no point in spending all your time on regret. You have to move forward and just try to do better in the future.”
“All right.” Nox nodded firmly. “In the future, as soon as we get back to the Mother Ship, I will have Yipper implant an emotion damper so that I will not have emotions any more.”
“What?” Seline exclaimed. “Oh Nox, no! You don’t mean that!”
“Of course I do.” He looked at her quizzically. “Why would I say it, otherwise?”
“But how can you do that? Just when we’re finally getting together!” Seline asked. “I mean, if you want to get together with me,” she added uncertainly. “I thought you did, because you said you almost Bonded me to you.”
The look on Nox’s face cleared.
“I do want to be together with you,” he said. “But I did not believe you would want the same thing, after what I did to you. After the way I broke my oath to protect you and hurt you instead.”
“Nox, you’ve got to try and get over that—move forward into the future, remember?” she asked. “We were put in an impossible situation where everything was beyond our control. I don’t blame you for it, so you shouldn’t blame yourself either.”
He frowned.
“But my oath—”
“I don’t think you broke your oath at all,” Seline said calmly. “You’ve never stopped protecting me, Nox—not even when you used the crop on me.”
“How can you say that?” he demanded.
“Because you only hit me with the crop to protect me from being put in that awful Ghost Box,” Seline reminded him. “And believe me—I would rather endure a beating that was twice as bad as the one you gave me than go into that awful Box! You protected me from that and I’ll always be grateful to you.”
She thought Nox looked confused but at least he was no longer saying he wanted to get rid of all his emotions.
“I know you’ve had a lot of negative and bad feelings lately,” she said gently, running her hand up and down his muscular, bare arm. “But there are a lot of positive ones, too. Would you let me show you?”
“Show me?” Nox repeated. “How can you show me how to experience positive emotions?”
“Like this.” Hoping she wasn’t overstepping her bounds, Seline rose from the passenger seat and settled herself in his lap. She put her arms around his neck and leaned forward, to give him a gentle kiss on the mouth.
After a moment, Nox reciprocated. He kissed her back tentatively, his arms sliding around her waist to draw her closer. Seline ran a hand through his thick hair as she opened her mouth to deepen the kiss and felt a shiver go through his big body.
