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He surely hadn’t expected that response. Neither had Mina.
“Finish your dinner, and we’ll go back downstairs,” Brian said.
The two of them continued to eat in silence. After a few moments of being ignored, Lindsay wandered off.
When Mina finished, she picked up her tray to take it to the counter.
“Leave it. We have people for that.”
He led her past the nosy bystanders and back down the stairs to their room. It was strange to hold Brian’s hand like that, as if they were some young ordinary couple. Inside, he didn’t immediately let go of her hand. Instead, he pulled her closer and held her against him. His warmth pushed through her clothes, through her skin, into her bones.
Finally he released her and sat in a chair across the room. “Undress.”
Mina shivered.
“Are you cold?”
She nodded.
He flicked on the gas fireplace. It only took a few minutes for the room to turn toasty warm, warm enough that she wanted to take clothes off. He smirked from the chair as if he knew exactly what she was thinking.
“Strip,” he said. “You have no more excuses.”
He’d seen her already… kind of. This was no different. But it was. It was so different. For a moment she was back with Jason being passed around like some whore. Then she was in the medical room at the house, freezing up, unable to do what was asked of her because she’d just… hit the wall.
Now the wall rose again. What if she couldn’t? What if she said no? What would he do to her? She’d seen what hecoulddo. He could make whatever promises he wanted—like the others had—but she’d seen his eyes through the cell window when he’d been fucking that girl he’d just beaten. Mina’s breathing went shallow again, and the room started to spin.
“Mina.” His voice rolled over her like thunder in the distance.
The tremble started in her lip, and she felt the tears and the panic ready to explode out of her. How had she ever thought she could do this again?
He motioned, and she went to him. He took both of her hands in his and looked up. His expression reflected her own pain—like he understood. “It’s okay. I just want to look at you. It will be okay. Give me this.”
She wanted to.
“I saw you in the cage. And in the bed. This is just… a little more.”
She couldn’t believe he was being so patient… Brian. It gave her the strength to take her clothes off for him.
“Turn away,” he said when she was exposed and bare before him.
He stood behind her and stroked her throat as he pulled her against him. Then he began kissing her neck. His mouth was so warm and soft against her skin that a whimper slipped through her lips. Despite how he’d been with her, she never could have imagined that his mouth on her could feel like this—a shocking tenderness that eviscerated her.
His other hand moved between her legs to stroke her most sensitive flesh. She found herself grinding against his fingers, forgetting whose arms she was in. It was impossible that Brian could touch someone so carefully. He must be the only person who could make methodical touch seem sensual. She worried he’d cross the boundaries laid out in her contract, but a part of her didn’t care as long as he didn’t hurt her. She had no illusions he’d honor the contract forever but held hope he wouldn’t lose control and start beating her or passing her around to the other men at the house.
She whimpered again as his fingers flicked over her swollen bud. He chuckled as she bucked harder against him. It was a desperate searching for life, for love, for meaning, for any bright spark in the darkness of being his. He kept up his onslaught until she came apart in his arms.
“Get in bed.”
She could barely make herself move in that direction half from the orgasm and half from fear of how he might now ruin it.
He removed his own clothing and joined her. “Let’s talk about the contract I signed.”
Here it was. How would he justify breaking it? How was he planning to wheedle around it. Perhaps now that it was clear Lindsay had no power to stop him, he’d outright flaunt it.
“The no-pain part, I understand. A lot of people don’t like pain—probably what one might consider thenormal people. But explain the penetration restriction. Were you sexually abused?”
He tried to sound nonchalant, but his jaw was clenched, and his hands fisted in the sheets.
