More time passed between us as he watched me finish my shower.
He didn’t rush me or bark orders for me to come to him.
It was almost civil in the way he stood like a gentleman, granting me his every thought and desire through the heat in his blackened gaze.
Beneath the chilly water, my core clenched despite myself. It reacted to his severity, his strength, his savagery. He was a man who would never survive in society because of whatever had happened to him out here.
What did happen to him?
Was I once again making things up? Was I romanticizing a situation that had nothing romantic about it? Whatever tales I came up with about his background, they were all wrong. The most logical explanation was, he was a wanted convict who’d been hiding from the law for whatever crime he’d committed. Judging by how easily he’d strangled me and continually threatened to take my life, he was probably wanted for murder.
Whatever heat had threaded through my core dissipated, leaving me shivering even harder beneath the spray.
Almost as if he knew I’d reached my limit, he stalked in bare feet to the rack and plucked off a fluffy cream towel. Silently, he came closer to the shower and spread it wide, ready to wrap around me.
A white flag perhaps?
A sign of truce between us?
Never looking away from him, I turned off the shower and gingerly stepped across the wet tiles. I paused before him. More naked than I’d ever been before someone. His eyes once again fell to my breasts and lingered on my pebbled nipples.
I was confident in my body. I’d trained it to keep me safe while climbing and to stay healthy in all my risky endeavors. I was toned. I was strong. Past lovers had appreciated my hard work and commented on muscles they didn’t even have.
But no man had ever watched me as he did.
No man had ever given me his utmost attention.
No man stopped breathing or began to tremble the longer he studied me.
The way he watched me was borderline worship. He made me feel both like I was his for the rest of my life and that I was the ruler for the rest of his. He made no attempt to hide such fervency. No masks or quips to keep the upper hand. No games that so often existed in the bedroom between new partners.
Silently, I turned and gave him my back.
His sharp inhale sent my skin prickling, followed by the almost unfightable reaction to crumple at his feet as he draped the soft towel around my body and wrapped me tight.
I froze as he rubbed my arms, drying me off. Such a simple kindness. An unthought moment of sweetness.
But then his fingers dug into my biceps as if remembering our dynamic, and he stepped away from me. He backed up so quickly, I swayed as if he’d removed a wall from behind me.
Grabbing the towel, I turned to track him.
His jaw was clenched beneath his thick shadow of scruff, his long hair kissed his shoulders, and the tattered condition of his trousers hinted I wasn’t the only one in need of a shower.
He needed a shave. A haircut. He needed someone to groom him and teach him and perhaps, someday, remind him that whatever life he’d been living out here wasn’t a life at all.
It seemed whenever we were close, our eyes refused to unlock. I couldn’t look away from him—partly out of wariness in order to react quickly if he tried to hurt me, and partly because...despite everything—despite the two nights in a cellar drinking tap water and peeing in a bucket. Despite him shattering my cell phone and PLB. Despite the two strangulations and the forced blowjob, there was something inside him.
Something I’d been seeking ever since I was stupid enough to type up a dating profile. Something that no longer existed in men bred in today’s world.
That intoxicating blend of danger and doting. The ability to hurt but also to heal.
He kept watching as I dried off. I ought to have been embarrassed to rub the towel over my breasts and between my legs. Ought to have turned away and hidden all the pieces of me that I could.
But...if his lust could be harnessed—if I could do the unthinkable and make him free me, then I wasn’t embarrassed to use my body as a weapon.
The cold water and bathroom break had rejuvenated me.
I’m ready to fight again.
The longer I wiped off every droplet, the harder he trembled. Pain etched his eyes as his cock tented his trousers until the zipper strained and the button popped free. He looked in agony, yet he didn’t touch himself.
Licking my lips, I said in a voice that shook against my will. “I don’t have any other clothes. Do you...” I glanced past him to the bedroom. In my uninvited traipse of his home, I’d noticed wardrobes full of clothing. Some for men. Some for women. All rich and decadent and unused. “Would you allow me to borrow something while I clean mine?”