But alone with him in this bathroom…
“I’m assuming there’s a reason you keep bringing those women back to your place. We should make sure this doesn’t interfere with your sleep tonight.”
I began moving my hand, watching closely for his reaction as I stroked it up and down his length.
I watched him. He just watched me back, meeting my unspoken dare with a careful smirk and a jaunty, “Alright, then. Merci beaucoup.”
Intimidation bottomed out my stomach like a drop on a roller coaster that turned out to be higher than I anticipated. But I kept going.
I studied him instead of chickening out. Gripped the throbbing thickness in my hand and adjusted my stroke and pace as his breaths became faster and shorter.
How good did it feel when he broke first? The smug look fell away, and his head tipped back with a helpless, “Fuck!”
Such coarse language. I inwardly smiled and fisted his erection even faster, sensing he was close. The sound of splashing water filled up the room. I hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol since my birthday, but I felt drunk. Drunk on the power I held over him as his erection jerked in my hand and he shouted out. His large body twisted and thrashed, displacing enough water to send it sloshing over the tub’s thin edge and soaking the front of today’s slutty cowl-necked dress.
Even then, I refused to stop. I kept on milking him until he was fully emptied out and deflated in my hand.
Only then did I finally answer his merci beaucoup with, “Pas de quoi.”
It was nothing—our regional version of “You’re welcome.”
I flashed him a grin and finally released him. But he grabbed ahold of my wrist before I could fully withdraw, his silver eyes clamping down on mine.
“Don’t touch me again unless you plan to let me in that pussy, ma belle. I don’t do hand jobs. I fuck. And I am not gentle.”
My chest jangled with alarm at his vulgar words. But my sex…
Oh, God, it flexed. With curiosity. And even more shamefully, with a desire to know what it would feel like to be fucked roughly by a beautiful monster.
I stood up swiftly.
“You should wash your face in the sink since the water’s, ah, compromised.” I supposed that was as polite a way as any to point out that it was full of his spunk now.
I didn’t wait for his response to my suggestion, just rushed out of the bathroom and prepared the room for Phase 2 of the No Nightmares plan.
He came out of the bathroom a few minutes later with a towel wrapped around his waist and stopped short.
Maybe because I’d turned off all the lights save for the bedside lamp. But more likely because I wasn’t in my cage.
“There have been studies,” I rushed to explain. “Studies show that sleeping next to someone reduces your chances of having a nightmare. It doesn’t have to be someone you’re romantic with either. I—”
I stopped short of telling him the origin of all my anti-nightmare bedtime routine knowledge—how I let my little sister sleep in my room for months after our mother’s death until Daphne felt emotionally strong enough to return to her own.
Love was vulnerability in Hades’s underworld. Something easily weaponized. And I’d accepted my fate, but I’d be damned if I let anything happen to my sister.
He knew so much about me, but I assumed she was safe for two reasons:
1. She was adopted, with only my mother’s name on the paperwork.
2. Hades had no idea how much she meant to me. That all my pride ended with her, and I’d do anything to keep her safe.
I’d like to believe that even a monster like him wouldn’t threaten a little girl. But was I willing to risk giving him that extra bit of knowledge about me on that hope? Hell no.
“I read that somewhere,” I substituted, instead of telling him the full story. “Anyway, me sleeping next to you is the best way to ensure this works.”
He shifted his eyes to the open cage, and I held my breath. I know he’d served in the Army, and I sensed he might have a rigid sense of protocol somewhere under all that smoking-hot criminal. He might not agree to this on his messed-up principles alone.
“No touching,” he eventually said. “And you need to stay on your side of the bed. Or else it’s going to be what I warned you about.”
