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He didn’t believe her. “Dry off and come back to me. I don’t want any water dripping on my furs.”
“Yes, sir.” Saskia took a towel off the rack next to the hot tub and carefully dried off. She left the towel wrapped around herself, even knowing that Ari probably preferred her to leave it behind. But he made no comment.
Instead, he pushed the tray toward her. “Eat whatever you want.”
Something had shifted in him, and the game was over before it had started. While she ate, Ari stripped off his pants and got into the water. He stood under the waterfall and used the peppermint soap. By the time she’d finished the food on the tray, Ari was next to her, a matching towel wrapped around his waist.
He offered her a helping hand up from the ground and led her over to the bed. He lay down and motioned for her to join him. They both wore their towels.
“What was that back there with you in the water? Seriously, where did you go? What’s wrong?”
Saskia shook her head. She couldn’t tell him. She was sure he’d only go behind her back and tell Quill, and then the two men would have a good laugh about it. No, Ari wasn’t like that. And when she really thought about it, Quill wasn’t either. Her master was hard and demanding and intense, but he didn’t make jokes at the expense of others. At least he never had with her, and she’d never seen any indication that such a thing was part of his character makeup.
Tears began to fall down her cheeks before she could stop or hide them. Ari pulled her against him and petted her hair. “You can talk to me. Whatever you say is just between us.”
Did he still think she was some unwilling captive? Was she? Was The Viking still trying to save her? There was nothing that could save her from her own self-destructive need to truly be Quill’s.
“What’s wrong with me? Why doesn’t he love me? He’s so distant. It’s like he doesn’t even want me around.”
“Kane?”
That ridiculous name. If Ari didn’t know any of Quill’s multiple aliases, how could he understand any of this? But then, maybe Kane was just who Ari thought of him as, like Saskia thought of him as Quill. There was nothing to indicate how close Ari truly was to her master or how much he knew or didn’t know about him and all his myriad lives which lay parallel to one another, trying desperately not to cross-pollinate.
“Saskia, you are the second person he’s ever put a collar on. Trust me, it means something.”
But did it? If Ari only knew the truth of how she’d come to belong to Quill, it might not look the same. Whatever Quill had with the last girl he’d collared... surely it had been voluntary and mutual. Saskia was certain that the unnamed mystery woman had held some true place in his heart, that she wasn’t just somethinghe possessed. She hadn’t been an impersonal acquisition... an asset. Not like Saskia.
Saskia couldn’t imagine him keeping that other woman locked away in the gallery away from him. If he had, how could he be surprised she’d left? If he was so empty inside that he couldn’t offer even the barest real connection... why did he care who stayed or went?
“Give him time,” Ari said. “Do you remember at the club when you screamed?”
She nodded.
“That look in his eyes when he confronted me about trying to take you out of there... I’ve only seen him that intense about one other person. Maybe he’s afraid you’ll walk out like she did.”
Saskia almost laughed out loud. As if Quill would ever allow that to happen. She’d lain inside her cage in the gallery at night when it was still and quiet, taking her master apart in her mind and putting him back together, making up all sorts of explanations for his behavior. She was sure he’d taken her and started their relationship with a felony just so shecouldn’twalk out. He’d already set the tone and pace for them with that one criminal act. So what the hell could he be so afraid of now?
She’d swung almost immediately back to the idea that he didn’t care. He just wanted to punish her for tricking him out of all that money and wounding his ego.
“Can I ask you something?” Saskia said.
“Ask, doll.”
“What happened tonight at the club? I thought he was going to sell me to someone, maybe permanently.”
“It was an auction, you’re right. But just for the night. I was there to make sure it didn’t get out of hand because he would never sell you—even for a night—to someone he didn’t know well. I jumped in and outbid them to get you out of there without any bruised feelings.”
“But I thought this was your rain check from... from before.”
“It is. But the others in the club don’t know that.”
“You still haven’t really done anything with me,” she said, beginning to feel guilty that he kept getting screwed over, when she really did want to play with him.
Ari pulled her closer, his lips brushing softly against hers. “Just forget about all those buzzing worries for tonight.” He gently pulled her towel away followed by his own. And then he proceeded to make slow careful love to her, the kind of thing people who paid for sex didn’t offer. When you paid, you were there to take, but Ari just gave... all the things she’d wanted to come from Quill.
Afterward, he stroked her back until she fell asleep.
Saskia woke with her back pressed tight against a warm, solid chest. But Ari was in front of her, perhaps a foot away. At some point in the night, Quill had slipped into the bed. It wasn’t his bed, but it was a bed with him in it, his arms wrapped around her like she was something he didn’t want to let go of. She wondered if he’d pulled her to him immediately when he’d climbed into the giant bed, or if he’d instead unconsciously reached for her in his sleep.
