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What was she giving her heart to?
10
For the past three weeks, Brian had moved down Mina’s list, eliminating a few unnecessary genes from the evolutionary pool every few days until it was taken care of. Some of them had lived in different states. That helped. And he never killed the same way twice. Killing the same way twice was stupid. No sense in hitting law enforcement radars. They were drawn to big body counts like flies to corpses.
Three weeks. It seemed an impossible length of time to keep his attention on a woman without hurting her. Not only had he not hurt her, he hadn’t fucked her, either. And although she hadn’t yet attempted another blow job, he hadn’t pushed her.
Each time she trusted him more, he wanted to put a bigger wall around his heart. He feared what this new vulnerability could mean for him, the power she could hold over him because he cared for her. He couldn’t stand this free fall with nothing to hold onto, no steady solid ground on which to stand. He hadn’t been this vulnerable since he was a child. The moment he’d gotten big enough and strong enough to fight back, he’d sworn he’d never allow himself to experience a moment of vulnerability or weakness with another soul. No one would ever have the chance to gain the upper hand again. No one would ever get the drop on him.
And yet he’d allowed another person to sleep in his bed, unchained, with full knowledge that during his vulnerable hours of sleep, if she wanted to, she could find a way to end him.
But Mina let him sleep at night. Her warm body wrapped around his kept the nightmares away. Except for that first night, he hadn’t had a bad dream from his past in the entire time he’d had her. And since he’d started disposing of the men who’d hurt her, she hadn’t either. He was unwilling to mess with what worked.
He stepped out of the bathroom to find Mina lounging on the bed, a sheet draped over what he could tell was a nude body. She didn’t speak, but she beckoned him to her with an uncertain gesture. He let the towel drop and joined her. He couldn’t bring himself to speak either.
She slid down his body, kissing a trail from his neck, down his chest, over his abs, and to his cock. Her hot tongue began to lav the bundle of nerves there. Brian gripped the edge of the mattress with one hand, and petted her hair with the other. He couldn’t stop touching her to make sure she was real, to reassure her she was safe with him.
Brian stayed very still as she took him fully into her mouth. He inhaled sharply as took him in deeper and sucked.
He didn’t make demands or orders, afraid to break the bravery she’d found. He could barely focus on the physical pleasure, instead consumed with the fact that she’d come to him on her own, that she must have worked up to this to push all the images of other sadistic men before him out of her head. Their taunts. Their cruelty. All the things Brian unapologetically was—with everyone he’d ever touched but her.
He refused to break the spell or give her another flashback. He let out a hiss when he came and stroked her throat as it worked to swallow his release.
When he was spent, he pulled her to him so that her head rested on his chest. He ran his fingertips over the scars on her back, pausing over each one as if his fingers pressing against them enough times could erase them. He wanted to make them go away. He wanted to make her history go away.
“Y-you can fuck me if you want to. I-I mean, I know you need to recover, but… then after that… if… if you want,” she said.
“No.”
“Why? Do you not want me?”
“Not like that.”
Brian continued trailing his fingertips over her skin while he tried to figure out how to express the thoughts in his head. “I don’t want to fuck you, Mina. Fucking is not a compliment. Maybe others can do it and call it making love, but for me it’s an act of aggression. I’m afraid if I dominate you in that way that nothing will hold me back from the other ways I could hurt you. I can’t separate it from how I am with other women down here. I can’t go there with you. I didn’t think you wanted me to.”
She released a sigh. He was sure it wasn’t meant to be heard or discerned by him, but it was relief. What could have gotten into her head to make her think that the contract had changed? Or that he wanted it to?
“I thought maybe you were getting bored with me, or maybe it made you angry… the limits in the contract… and that you would just… take it.”
Oh. She wanted to feel like she had some control.
The contract held no power over him. There was no one to enforce it. Brian was the only enforcer at the house. He had no one to answer to. It was just a piece of paper with words that he could choose to follow or not. The only reason he chose to follow them was because he couldn’t be his own tormentor. And whatever evil crawled beneath his skin demanding satisfaction, passed over her when it saw her as if sacrifices had already bled to spare her his wrath.
The intercom came on, breaking the moment.
“We’re sending someone down to you,” Lindsay said over the speaker. “She’s new and too rebellious. She’s causing chaos up here with her demands. Where do you want her?”
“Put her in cell A. I’ll deal with her in a few minutes.”
Mina tensed beneath him. He knew she hated what he was. He wished that just being with her could soften his edges and make him good—for her. He wished he wasn’t so broken and damaged. If she could understand what a miracle it was that he could be gentle with her—just one person in the entire world—maybe she would accept what he had to do. What hewantedto do and could muster no guilt for.
She should count herself lucky that she didn’t ping his radar as someone it would be fun to harm.
He eased out of the bed. “Go upstairs for a while.”
He’d been open with her. She had to accept it. Period. And yet, lately he found himself trying to shield her, to hide it. Each time, he grew more irrationally angry. As if it were her fault he was turning so soft. She was making him a liar.
“Yes, Master.”
