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“Thanks, but I…I’m not hungry.”
The affable, laidback guy she was warming up to disappeared in the space of a blink, revealing a man every bit as formidable as Jasper or Saul. It would have been fascinating to watch his body language transform—back and shoulders straightening, muscles tightening, stance…broadening, if that was even a possibility—but Caera was already backing up against the wall.
“Saul may not have mentioned much about the lifestyle, Caera, but you should know that honesty is one of our key foundation stones. Honesty, trust, communication.” Fuck, his voice was frighteningly, markedly not what she was used to, and she didn’t know how to respond. “Lying is a spankable offence. Luckily for you, that doesn’t fall under my control, so I’ll make you a deal—eat everything on the plate I deliver to you without complaint, and I do mean everything, and perhaps we can forget this infraction.”
Oh, infraction sounded bad. So did spankable offence, but that was more because it made her feel as though she’d let everyone down.
She slid along the wall, inch by inch, away from him. “I need to…”
Thane lifted his eyebrow. “Bathroom window won’t open more than a couple of inches, and the front door is locked. The food will be ready when you’re done.”
Caera darted off without waiting for another verbal spanking, the robe flapping around her calves as she almost broke into a run and bumped into the closed bathroom door, bouncing off it lightly in a comically humiliating fashion before she gripped the handle and pushed into the room beyond.
At the last second, she remembered not to slam the door.
Why did she like that tone of voice, that don’t fuck with me body language? It was scary and a little oppressive, but it made her sit up and want to please. If she transposed all that onto Saul, her goddamn heart rate tripled, and her pussy was ready and waiting for the invasion of his cock.
She was bad, dirty.
Defective.
Shuddering, she braced her hands against the thin barrier between her and the house full of Dominants, breathing deep. Beyond the section of wood was the answer to all her questions, in the form of a man who was her brother by blood, if she took his word for it. God knew she wanted to feel some kind of familial bond to someone, even if her family was…
Hell, she could only guess what her birth family was, and she hated them.
Did dominance turn her on because she’d spent her formative years being trained for some mysterious purpose? Had she unconsciously programmed her brain to enjoy a specific tone by reading BDSM books in the dark? Or was there simply something in her that felt like poking curious fingers into that particular pie to see if she’d get burned?
Maybe, she thought forlornly, she was just trying to come up with a reason that made her human and normal instead of defective and useless.
Christ, those two words were becoming the bane of her existence.
“Why do you have to be such a wreck?” she asked herself, thumping her forehead against the door a dozen times before her bladder fired a flare into the sky, declaring an emergency situation.
She peed, washed up, and rinsed her mouth out with water—the best she could do without her toothbrush to hand—and wondered if Thane was loitering out there, ready to shove something nutritious and devilishly disgusting down her throat, acting in Saul’s stead.
Adjusting the robe as though it was a suit of armor, Caera ignored the voices niggling at her, the memories desperate to surface, and opened the bathroom door prepared to be dignified and confident in the face of confrontation.
The goddamn hallway was empty.
Cautiously, she peeked to her right, noting the door to the master bedroom was ajar, then to her left where Saul was hopefully still in dreamland. She slid her foot over the threshold, expecting alarms to blare and summon Demon Thane—sorry, Dominant Thane—to her side in an instant, but the hall remained empty and the TV still murmured from the living room.
Feeling cocky, she made it three strides back toward the bedroom, only to be stopped in her tracks by a firm voice telling her, “In here, Caera.”
Damn it. She looked yearningly at the door leading to Saul, biting her lip as she debated her options. Pretending she wasn’t there seemed to be the clear winner, and she started to move forward again.
“Think very carefully about which direction that foot lands in, sweetheart.”
Okay, he was watching her. He had to be, the big sneak.
Thane’s voice was emanating from the living room, but somehow, he had eyes on her. Suspicious, Caera looked around slowly, searching the corners of the ceilings, the pictures on the walls, even the damn light fixture, for signs of a camera.
Her toes slid an inch to the left.
Thane cleared his throat meaningfully.
“Goddamn it, are you psychic?” she muttered, blowing a raspberry at nothing in particular. If there was a camera, she couldn’t see it.
Reluctantly, she made her way to the living room doorway, stopping before she entered. She couldn’t go in there, not with Jasper and Thane sitting like kings in the two armchairs, their eyes already locked on her as though they were a pair of security scanners, and she was a biohazard.
