NINE:

An unexpected shiver ran down his spine and his cock instantly lengthened. While his mind had doubts about what he wanted, his body apparently did not. He closed his eyes, trying to feel what she must be feeling as she stood a few feet away blindfolded and shaking slightly. He felt the cold tile under his bare feet, smelled the crisp scent of the candles in the air, and tasted the slightest trace of sweat on his lip. He wanted to taste her sweat. He wanted to do anything to distract him from the debacle at the kitchen table.

It had been a mistake to ask her all those questions. He didn’t really want to know. He especially loathed all that talk about mothers. He had said his mother was dead. And she could be for all he knew. Regardless, she was dead in all the ways that mattered. His passion instantly cooled at the memory of her pitying expression. Fuck pity. He didn’t need it. He didn’t need anything from anyone, least of all her. Liar.

Caleb potentially had a mother out there and according to the girl, she might still be missing him. Why couldn’t he remember her? He felt, somewhere, very distantly, he had once…loved her? But he felt nothing when he thought of her now. It was…unsettling. Breaking free of his frustrating and perplexing thoughts, Caleb refocused his attention on the girl.

He smiled to himself as he looked at her, standing in the grandeur of the oversized, old-world bathroom. In some countries it could be its own home. She stood a few feet away blindfolded and vulnerable. But this was her choice. Her shapely and tremulous form rekindled his softening erection. She couldn’t possibly know the effect she had; his little innocent captive. Her hair was absolutely unruly, having been left to dry on its own after their bath. It was as untamed as the girl, and almost as alluring.

Before entering his room she had become increasingly bashful. He suspected the reason. He had released his pleasure inside her, and then she had eaten a large meal and gotten drunk. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why she was suddenly talking her way out of his room, when she had worked so hard to get an invitation. She was very cute when she was drunk. But then, she was always cute, inebriated state aside.

But in the end, she’d gone with him. Trusted him to take care of her as he’d promised.

She gasped at the sound of him snapping the table into place, and he wondered what she thought it could possibly be. He nearly groaned when he spied her nipples tautly pressed against the satin of her nightgown, all but entreating him to take them into his mouth and suckle them until her body succumbed to remorseless shudders. He sighed. What the hell was wrong with him? After leaving Tehran he had glutted himself on women. Done everything he had ever fantasized about doing. He’d been with so many women and yet none of them had ever affected him the way she did.

If the first lesson every slave had to learn was to accept that their wishes did not matter, then the first lesson every master had to learn was not to be a slave to their own desires. The logic was simple, to command a slave, you must command yourself.

Over the last three weeks it had become easier to bend his captive to his will, to make her respond in ways Caleb knew she would. Yet, the more her body obeyed, the less her mind seemed to play a part. The less he knew of her thoughts, the more he wanted to get inside her in every way possible. But at every turn he remained locked out, denied, rejected - infuriated. His aggression toward her had escalated, but their dynamic remained the same. It had begun to bother him in ways he could not explain.

He should have been satisfied, relieved in fact. Vladek would have no part of her. In her mind, she would remain safe and untouched by him even as her body would not. Still, the thought of Vladek touching her repulsed him.

“Take off the nightgown,” Caleb said softly but firmly. He smiled, taking pleasure in her little startled jump at the sound of his voice. She fidgeted, shifting her weight from one hip to the other, trying to find something to do with her hands.

“Um…?” she hesitated. Her voice was nearly lost in the cavernous tiled bathroom. Caleb moved toward her, as stealthily as possible, wanting to enjoy the obvious tension that coursed through her tender frame. He truly was a sick bastard. She panted ever so softly and then sharply sucked in a breath as Caleb put his hand across her belly, gently forcing her back into the breadth of his chest. She was warm, deliciously warm.

“Are you afraid I’m going to hurt you Kitten?” he whispered into the shell of her ear, “because that’s not what I’m interested in, not in the least. I promised not to hurt you and I won’t, not as long as you keep your promise to do whatever I ask.” Her breath was forced and ragged and he suddenly wanted nothing more than to kiss her bottom lip, which she presently used as a chew toy. Instead he stepped back and simply repeated, “Take off the nightgown.”

The girl took a deep, but shaky breath, searching no doubt for resolve. Caleb felt both wise and devious for allowing her to partake of a shot of tequila after dinner. He wassurprised she didn’t sway more on her feet given the fact she was blindfolded. With a trembling hand, she slipped the right strap off her shoulder, shortly followed by the left, exposing her beautiful breasts as the nightgown slipped down to her waist. Caleb had to focus on his breathing, barely able to keep himself rooted in place.

Next she attempted to push the nightgown the rest of the way down, but her ample hips wouldn’t allow it. He thought it was all so fucking naïvely sexy. Exhausting the possibility of pushing the fabric down, which would have been more modest, she finally endeavored to pull the fabric over her head. Caleb’s body seemed to sway with the motion of her generous breasts.

His cock could not possibly be any harder. He grabbed it and adjusted it into yet another position that didn’t leave it so painfully twisted. “Stop,” he said huskily. “Just leave it the way it is.” He walked over to her and effortlessly hoisted her into his arms and laid her flat on the table he had prepared. She didn’t seem to know what to do with her hands, but Caleb wasn’t surprised when she instinctively went to cover her exposed breasts. He wanted to stay her hands, to correct her behavior, but he let her have her seductive modesty.Especially since her soft little sobs, barely audible over the rush of the water in the bathtub, let him know that tears undoubtedly hid behind the fur lined blindfold. Warm, salty, delicious tears that he suddenly wanted to feel against his lips.

“Turn over Kitten.”

“What are you going to do?” she gasped.

When she hesitated he added, “I promise not to hurt you.” She seemed sated with that and slowly turned onto her stomach. She cried out when Caleb reached for thenightgown and pulled it up to her waist. All at once she scrambled to get up, but he quickly used the weight of his body to pin her still. “This is for your own good, no pain.”

Caleb listened to the fear in her voice and though it made him the slightest bit heady, he felt somewhat uncertain. The truth was he hadn’t meant to do what he had done earlier, no matter how much he had enjoyed it. She wasn’t his to do with as he pleased. But it was that thought alone that had spurred his anger and his lust to begin with.

She had called him Caleb.

She had yelled out his name: in fear, in anger, in need of him and god help him – it had turned him inside out. He had reached the limits of his desire for her and in his mind there had been no alternative to cure him than to have her. He’d been made weak, just for a moment, for her. The way her body responded to his touch was simply unheard of, not under the circumstances. But her body was just naturally pliant, electric with its need to be touched. So he had hurt her more than he intended and he felt hesitant of his actions. It was a feeling all together new to him.