Then it was gone, replaced with a scowl and an invisible wall. “I did not give you permission to stop washing.”

Sliding his hands up her backside, firm cheeks filling his palms, the spirit of her smile fluttered inside him. He’d found her. Behind perversion and tyranny was a girl who could enjoy the humor in being teased.

Still on his knees, he lowered his eyes and met her breastbone, paralyzed by a hammering need to press his lips there. He fought the impulse and continued his ministrations up and over her slender hips.

“I run.”

His hands faltered on her waist. He hadn’t expected a response but wasn’t surprised by the answer.

The angle of the shower head immersed them both in the warm spray. The tile floor dug into his knees, but it was nothing like the aches endured on the farm or during practice. He quickly shoved those thoughts away and collected more soap from the bottle. Angling his face away from the spray, he lathered suds over her ribs. Yeah, his attention skipped the body parts that guaranteed awkwardness and discomfort. Maybe she wouldn’t notice.

A sigh drifted down with the torrent of water, swirling around his ears. “I’m giving you back your voice. Use it wisely.”

Why would she do that? Because he made her smile? Because she was lonely? Please God, don’t let him mess this up. “What makes you happy, Mistress?”

Her back turned to stone against his splayed hands. “Why?”

Suspicion edged her voice. Not surprising given her line of work. If she kept company with genuine friends, they were probably as cautious with their feelings as she was. “Mistress, I love your smile. If I could free it once a day, it might make the next ten weeks bearable. Would smiling cause a conflict in your job?”

Her chest rose and fell with steady breaths. Would she punish him with silence or respond with something foul and shut him down? Or would she try out an honest answer and keep the conversation open? The way she stared over his shoulder, her brown eyes turning inward, he suspected those questions warred in her head, too.

She glanced down at him, studying his face. “Freefalling.”

Freefalling? Like spiraling into hell? Or leaping from a cliff for sport?

“Enjoy the fall, or nothing at all.” Her lips remained parted on the all, expression vacant. She must have recognized the confusion in his, because she shook her head. “Nothing seduces happiness like throwing yourself from a plane.”

Fascinating. And positively unhelpful. It had been a safe answer, since he didn’t have a plane to seduce her happiness. But he didn’t think it was a lie, either. Skydiving was sporty and dangerous. It fit her.

His knees slid over the floor as he shifted around her, washing her arms, neck, and hair with an effortless reach. If he were on his feet, the top of her head would stop at his chest, a reminder that he could crush her with his size alone. Perhaps that was why she preferred him on his knees. “What about singing, Mistress?”

She regarded him, and the molten depths of her eyes rippled, then stilled. “At first glance, you come across as a pretentious wannabe-psychoanalyst.”

Uncertainty pelleted his nerves. He nudged her chin, angling her head under the water to rinse. He’d never attempted to befriend someone so misguided, and he’d definitely never washed a woman’s hair. A breathtaking woman. A naked woman. With dips and mounds that molded to his hands.

Stop with the lusting, pervert.

“You’re not asking the usual questions, boy. Like what’s going to happen to you? How badly am I going to hurt you? Who am I selling you to?” She stared at his lips, beads of water clinging to her thick brown lashes. “I think you know those answers won’t help you. When you’re able to think beyond your hard dick, you’re focused on your Jesus-saves-all mission. Which I admit is more appealing than fatalistic whimpering. But Jesus isn’t going to save you from washing the two areas you’ve been avoiding.”

He bit back a groan. Apparently, ignoring her privates wasn’t going to make them go away.

“Eyes down. Mouth shut. Hands busy.”

Her commands hovered between them, protecting her like a raised gun. This girl required a lot of patience. And prayers. A megachurch full of prayers. He soaped up his hands. Knees quivering on the tile floor, insides tightening, he looked at her chest, really let himself behold her for the first time.

Symmetrical, round, heavy on the bottoms, and tipped with pale-pink nipples, they outclassed every pair he’d seen on screen or in magazines. They weren’t airbrushed or oversized or marred with tan lines. And because of his much taller height and kneeling as he was, her breasts were right at eye-level, waiting to be washed.

He started with circular patterns, both hands painting lather around and around the outsides. They were firm yet soft. Springy when he rounded the sides too fast. Heavy when he slid along the creases underneath. His heart rate kicked up, pushing his breaths faster.

He avoided the hard peaks, because did nipples really need to be cleaned? How dirty could they get? He pressed a little harder against the supple curves, tightened the circles, brushed the taut beads. Once, twice… Ugh. Where the hell was his will power?

“Are you washing them or checking for lumps?”

Wow, was he that awful at this? It wasn’t like he was trying to pleasure her. He clutched her waist and shifted her chest under the water.

“How often did you beat off?” Her voice sliced like a scalpel, dissecting.

“Once a day, Mistress.” At night, alone and dreaming of girls half as pretty as she was.

“I bet you think about touching titties when you stroke yourself. When you’re worked up enough, you fantasize about banging a pussy with your finger. Then you replace it with your cock. Probably missionary position. Hard, fast humping. You take her without guilt, because it’s only a dream, a fleeting thought that vanishes when you come.”

She only had it partially right. He didn’t want to take a girl. He wanted to give himself to her. He wanted to watch his touch soften her eyes, hear it in her breathy exhales, and feel it shudder over her body as she arched against him. The fantasy of a sated smile on a pretty face was what sent him spinning over the edge every time.

An inferno raged in his body, and his hands clenched on her waist. It was Liv’s face he’d imagined just now. It was her smile that made him tremble and harden. So very, very hard. Were his fantasies forever changed? The need to look into her eyes, to put a sated smile on her face, had his molars sawing together and his muscles straining to hold her.

He pushed his chin to his chest and focused on his breathing. Our Father who art in heaven…

“You used up all the hot water.” Her voice was soft, distant, then she seemed to snap out of it and rubbed a soapy hand between her legs. That done, she pivoted to rinse and twisted the lever. The shower stopped, and she breezed past him.

The sheen of water on his skin chilled. With his body flushed and battling arousal, he hadn’t noticed the change in water temperature.

She returned to his side with a rope of chain. “Well, you’re horny enough.” She snapped the ends on his wrist cuffs. “On your feet. Van is waiting.”

Chapter 16

Liv led the boy into the outer chamber and inhaled the intangible fume of rage seeping from Van’s fists-on-hips stance by the door. She steered the boy around him, her defensive hackles shooting her shoulders to her ears.

Anything could’ve set him off. She’d sneaked from his bed the previous night. She’d made him wait too long for her to emerge from her room, and she’d come out without clothes on. Or it could’ve simply been one of his cruel-for-the-hell-of-it days.