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“That’s what I like to hear. Eat up,” he murmured and scooped some more food onto the fork. “I don’t care if you only eat half a dozen forkfuls, Caera. At least I’ll know you have something in your belly.”
The look on her face had nothing to do with obedience. If anything, she looked like she was at war with throwing up and letting her temper swing hard and fast at him.
Good, he loved a spitfire sub. She was going to be so much fun, he just knew it. If she gave herself to him, let him hold the reins of her life, he would have all of her. He would let her hide nothing from him; her anxiety, her fear, the feistiness she’d cleverly buried beneath the rabbit…they would all belong to Master Saul, to be handled appropriately.
When Caera bared her teeth at him, Saul stroked fingertips down her pale cheek. The softness of her skin tempted him to touch more, to follow the graceful line of her throat, to press against the throb of her pulse. He wanted to lean forward and caress that spot with his tongue, to hear her moan, feel the rhythm of her heart so intimately.
The way she flinched at the contact, shrinking back from him, he knew he’d run solidly into the barrier of her no-go area. She was a study in contradiction—her body stiffened, yet her cheeks filled with the lovely and very recognizable hue of arousal. A soft, petal-like pink, Saul mused with satisfaction. The color of temptation, potential, and possibilities.
Smiling, he poked the loaded fork into her mouth. Over and over again until she’d nearly eaten the full plate. As she ate, healthy color started to seep back into her sickly pallor, not unlike the brief flush passion had produced but hopefully longer lasting.
As her hunger was sated, her eyes grew heavy, the lids drooping. She could barely keep her head upright as she placed her palm against Saul’s wrist when he lifted the last forkful to her mouth. She pushed gently and shook her head. “No more. Please, no more.”
The Dominant in him was pleased. Taking care of her, seeing to her needs, was part of the allure of having a submissive. If she agreed to be his, she would want for nothing and be rewarded greatly for her trust. She would be cherished and adored, treated like a queen on a throne.
“Good girl, Caera. I’m proud of you.”
Her head jerked up, those pretty green eyes narrowing. “You’re strange.”
“Not as strange as you think. Maybe you’re just not used to praise.”
This time she closed her eyes and sighed tiredly. “That’s an understatement. I’m not used to a lot of things, human interaction being one of them.” The hand still on his wrist flexed, the fingers squeezing gently. “If I’m rude, I will apologize. I don’t spend a lot of time socializing and…I forget there’s an etiquette to being around people.”
“That’s okay. If you forget, I’ll just remind you with a spanking,” he replied easily.
Caera snorted out a weak laugh. “I’m too big to lie over your knees. I think I need to go make some coffee.”
“You’re just the right size, actually.” Saul gathered the plates together on the table, then stood and lifted his charge from her chair. No exertion required. If not for her restless squirming, he wouldn’t have known he held her. “No coffee for you, little rabbit. You’re exhausted. It’s time to get you tucked up under that nice duvet, your head on the pillow. Time for sleep.”
She struggled weakly. “No. No sleep. Nightmares.”
“Stop. Caera, enough.” He carried her through to the bedroom and managed to turn down one side of the bed after ordering her to put her arms around his neck so he could use the supporting arm from behind her back to whip back the covers. Setting her down carefully, he gently brushed away a lock of blonde hair from her cheek. “I’m not leaving this cabin in the next twelve hours. I’m a stranger, I know, but I promise you, nothing and no one will hurt you while I’m here. Okay?”
Sweat beaded along her hairline, an indicator of just how strong her anxiety could be. He caught a glimpse of tears and sat beside her hip, taking her hand in his. “Don’t cry, sweetheart. Just close your eyes and drift away. How long has it been since you last slept properly? A full night’s sleep, not just a catnap here and there.”
Her fingers curled around his like a lifeline. “I don’t know. A few days, a week? I lose track.”
Something tightened around his heart. She was playing such a dangerous game with her life. Fatigue could kill, he was well aware of that even if Caera wasn’t. It was going to stop, he vowed. Together, they would work toward building a healthier sleep pattern. “Then tonight you’re going to let me look after you.”
He left her clothes on, unwilling to start an argument she could use as a delaying tactic, and simply pulled the covers up to her chin. He watched her fight the pull of sleep for a good ten minutes, reading and learning her body language.
It was obvious she’d had a lot of practice avoiding what came naturally to most people. Whenever her mind breached the lip of slumber, she automatically threw herself away from it.
Saul started humming under his breath. Nothing special, just something he’d heard playing on the radio on the way up to the cabin. It worked long enough to distract her from dodging the inevitable, and he stroked her hair as she slipped into sleep peacefully. “Well now, that wasn’t so hard.”
He rose and slipped out of the room into the office, almost closing the door fully before he changed his mind and left a three-inch gap. Sitting in the big black chair behind the desk, he leaned back and let his thoughts spiral around in his head for a while.
There were things he had to do but it was good to take some time and reflect on the shitshow he found himself in. He sure as hell hadn’t expected to be making friends with a troubled young woman when he’d climbed into his jeep that morning.
Saul laughed quietly to himself in disbelief. The big bad wolf he frequently believed his Dominant to be—an almost separate entity to the rest of him most of the time—had taken one look at the sickly yet gorgeous blonde with luminous green eyes and fallen.
Fallen, for fuck’s sake, for the most unlikely woman he could imagine.
Saul rose and padded back to the bedroom door. Cautiously, he peered in and checked his sleeping beauty remained firmly in dreamland. Reassured, he left her to sleep and headed to the kitchen for clean-up duty, then retrieved his bags from the living room.
Carrying them into the office, he set them down and rifled through them for his laptop. Laptop in hand, he made himself comfortable in the chair again, with soft light from the desk lamp and the screen keeping the shadows at bay.
The first thing he did was bring up the barely written article he’d been trying to finish for the past week, and deleted it from both the hard drive and his mind. What the hell had he been thinking—the subject was all wrong, and he never completed a project when he couldn’t sink his teeth into the thick of the damn thing.
