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“What’s the point of you telling it to me?”
“Does there have to be a point? I’m simply trying to put you at ease.”
“Why?”
“Because it satisfies me. I find pleasure in yours. Some men find fulfillment in hurting others, and some do not.”
“But you’re using me, just like they did, so what’s the difference?”
“I’ll leave that to you to decide,” he said.
That confused her, but she didn’t press it. And maybe he was lying. Maybe his kink was to lure her into relaxation and then spring something terrible on her. She would try to be ready. Or maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe she’d take what she could, too, while she could. Maybe a back massage would better prepare her to fight.
He paused in his machinations, as if expecting something, but then continued, her body sinking into the mattress beneath her. “There was once a man who collected things, very fine things,” he said. “Jewels. Rubies. Emeralds. Diamonds. And he draped them on the women he stole.”
“Stole? What do you mean?”
“He took them, Noelle. Much like you’ve been taken. He took them and he used them.”
“Used them for what?”
“Sex. Violence. But mostly, he took them for power. All those half-drugged girls, naked and draped in gems. They made him feel like a king.”
“If he could afford all those gems, it sounds like he already was a king.”
“Peculiar, isn’t it? Or maybe a better word isgluttonous.”
Gluttonous? What did he mean by that? Her mind defined it for her before she’d even decided to try.Greedy. To want more and more and more. Never enough.
His hands moved down the backs of her arms, kneading and then feathering lightly. She pretended to be merely enduring his touch. How would he know if she wasn’t? Why not take what comfort she could? Wasn’t this the same as the nourishment she was provided each day in the form of bread and water and small treats? Who would she be punishing if she turned away the food?I need it if I’m going to find a way of escape.“Are you a second tier of torture?” she asked. “Here to bore me to death?” He couldn’t read her mind. In this moment, it was one of the only things that was hers.
“On the contrary,” he said, his hands moving over her buttocks, lingering, squeezing gently. She came out of the half trance she’d allowed herself to be lulled into. Of course this wasn’t just a massage. But she’d known that. “Others have told me I’m quite interesting.”
“That’s not exactly the word I would use, considering the circumstances,” she said.Pervertandsickocame to mind.
He only hummed in response, his hands continuing to run over her skin. She distracted herself by going over the plan she and Evan had been discussing for ... a week? She thought it’d been about a week, though who really knew? Time was somewhat irrelevant where they were. They spoke in staggered strings of words inserted “incorrectly” into simple jingles, leaving out any that were obvious and therefore unnecessary.The,and,if,or.
“Man tie clip. Reflect,” she’d told Evan, meaning the man in the black suit who escorted them to and from their cages wore a silver tie clip that might reflect the keypad at the top of their cages. As she’d sung, she’d pretended to rub a sore spot on her chest where the man wore theclip. Thank God Evan was quick. Thank God he got almost everything she conveyed the very first time. Of course, a little earlier, when the man had come to escort her to the room she was in now, she’d not only been too far back in her cage but he’d been turned slightly so she couldn’t make out the numbers he pressed on her lock, not even one. The rub was that with each chance they had to read the numbers, it meant one of them was being removed and taken here to be further victimized. And yet, it was an outcome they had to hope for nonetheless.
The man was running his short fingernails up and down the backs of her legs, and without her permission, her mind began to drift again, a moan rising in her throat. She swallowed it down as he went on, blathering on probably just to hear himself speak. “Anyway, this man was well equipped to ensure none of his girls got pregnant, but, well, nature is quite adept at asserting her superiority where she can.” One hand kept stroking her leg while the other parted her thighs. “Children were born. Twins. A boy and a girl,” he said, leaning in close to her ear. “They grew up in the house of gems as well. The king had a court, other men with interests such as himself and their offspring. Generations of gluttons raised with the knowledge that they should take as they wanted from those with less and that every whim be satisfied.” He leaned in closer, exhaling the next line on a murmured breath. “But the boy and the girl? They had only each other.”
She clenched her eyes shut, turning her head to the mattress as his fingers moved delicately along the inside of her thigh. He leaned in close to her, and even though her face was pressed to the mattress and she was barely able to breathe, she could still smell him, and though she was loath to admit it, it was another pleasure she wanted to take comfort in. He smelled expensive, yes, but he also brought to mind dim, secret, wooded places where sunlight streamed in muted beams of light and wild sage grew. She’d smelled only her own funk for so long that the clean scent of him felt like a luxury. How could a scent convey all that? She didn’t know, and yet it did. His scent had ... layers.
She felt like she was losing her mind. In a sense maybe she was, her brain doing cartwheels as her thoughts merged with the relaxation of her body, as she both enjoyed it and hated it. She tried desperately to suppress her pleasure. She despised this man. Whoever he was, she hated him even more than the others. She hated herself for her body’s betrayal. Hated herself for wanting more of what he was giving her.
He kneaded the backs of her thighs and then dragged the pads of his fingers down them, making her toes curl. He let out a soft chuckle. He’d seen her reaction; the laugh had told her so. “Is this wrong, little rabbit? I suppose it is. But when so much is wrong, sometimes you must find what rightness you can.”
He came over top of her. She felt his heat, and she braced for some sort of invasion, but then he applied both hands to her shoulders, massaging deeply, his thumb moving up the back of her sore neck, releasing the tightness and tension she’d held there for so long.Oh God, yes.Despite her attempt to bite it back, a deep moan came up her throat, breaking free of her mouth as she pressed her face more firmly into the bedding so that her air was all but cut off.No, no, no.
“That’s it,” she heard him say through the fog of pleasure. “Let it make you angry, Noelle. You’re sohotwhen you’re mad.” After a moment, she turned her face, gulping in a breath, warm tears soaking her blindfold. He’d broken her. That moan meant he’d won.
Somehow, of all the shames she’d endured, this one was the worst. She’d let a monster give her pleasure. She’d all but admitted to him that he had.
“It all ended,” he murmured, continuing on with whatever story he’d decided to tell her for reasons unknown, “the night of the king’s annual ball—his version of one anyway, even if the scheduled merriment was unusual for a ball. That’s when the massacre happened.”
She attempted not to move, not to let him know in any way that, even now, she wanted his hands to start stroking her flesh again. Instead, she focused in on his story to distract herself from her painful desire.Massacre?What was the point of this? “One of the women displeased the king, and he slit her throat right in the middle of the ballroom. The others, fueled by drugs and the sight of blood, went just a little wild, and the killings began. It didn’t stop until the eleven women they’d stolen and three members of the household staff were dead. And still, little rabbit, the music played on.”
He removed his hands from her skin and got off her, and God help her, she suddenly missed his warmth. When he spoke, his voice was casual. “Like the man I told you about, and yet very different, I collect things as well, little rabbit,” he said. “As you have nothing to offer that I might take with me, I should like you to create something. A poem. A note. A drawing, perhaps. Something personal to frame and hang in my gallery. Something to make me smile and remember this interlude.”
