I manage another bite of the eggs and then use the fork to cut off a delicate bite of the crepe, dipping it in the red jam. The flavors of sweet batter, fresh berries, and strawberry preserves burst over my tongue, and I almost want to cry. I can’t remember the last time I ate something this good. We ate well at Viktor’s safe house, but it was what could be preserved at the house or gotten quickly to a compound that deep in the mountains—certainly nothing this fresh or flavorful. Before that, I’d been subsisting off of what I could feed myself—mostly microwaved meals and food from boxes, nothing like what I’d once eaten on my ballerina’s diet. And Alexei certainly hadn’t fed us well.
“It’s good,petit?” Alexandre is looking at me with worried concern as I eat a few more small bites of the crepes and another of the eggs, washing it down with the orange juice, which tastes, quite frankly, like what I imagine sunlight would.
“It’s delicious,” I manage, swallowing hard as he strides towards me. My heart immediately stutters in my chest, the forgotten fears rising up sharply again. “Thank you, I—”
“We put a great deal of stock in our food; the French do.” He smiles at me pleasantly. “It’s a matter of national pride. None of that processed bagged and boxed garbage that Americans love so dearly. You are American, aren’t you? I can hear it in your accent.”
“Ah—yes.” I force myself not to scramble backward on the bed as he comes closer, my fingers gripping the edge of the mattress to keep them from shaking. “My parents immigrated from Russia. Or my mother did, rather—I—”
Without another word, he scoops me up from the bed the same way he had from the floor, sweeping me into his arms. “Russian, American, a little of both? It does not matter to me,petit. But we must get you feeling better.”
For what?I want to ask, but I don’t. I feel like I can’t breathe as he carries me towards the bathroom, my chest so tight that it hurts and my stomach in knots of anxiety that makes me feel as if I could throw up everything I just ate.
The bathroom is almost stiflingly humid, the claw-foot tub full of hot water with tendrils of steam rising from it and pools of oil floating on the surface. I can’t speak as Alexandre sets me down on a small stool in the center of the room, his hands going to my shoulders.
“Let’s get this nonsense off of you,” he says, his fingers sliding under the straps of the ballet leotard I’m still wearing. The ridiculous tutu and the pointe shoes are long gone, but I’m still wearing the flesh-colored leotard that Alexei had me dressed in—and nothing else. There’s nothing beneath it, and now Alexandre is about to undress me.
I can feel myself tense, every muscle going painfully stiff as Alexandre peels the stretchy material off of my shoulders and down my arms. I wait for him to run his hands over my bare breasts as he slides the leotard down, remark on the way my nipples are stiffening even in the warmth of the room, caress my waist and hips, slide his hand between my legs. But he does none of those things. He’s almost methodical in the way he takes it off, peeling it down to my hips and then coming around in front of me to pull it off the rest of the way. His gaze doesn’t linger either, not on my small breasts or my concave stomach or the apex of my thighs, nor does he comment on anything else.
Alexandre merely tosses the leotard to one side as if it’s something filthy, then picks me up carefully, almost as if he’s being cautious not to graze any spots that might be considered inappropriate. And then, as carefully as he lifted me, he deposits me in the water of the bath, which is so hot it momentarily takes my breath away.
As soon as I have a chance to acclimate to it, though, it feels so wonderful that I could cry. I can smell the floral scent of the bath oil that he added, the hot water and soft oils sinking into my skin in a way that feels as if it goes down to my very muscles and bones, loosening everything until I feel as formless and liquid as the bath itself, like I could slither down into it and disappear.
“Is it too hot?” Alexandre asks, his brow furrowing again as he opens a cabinet. “A hot bath is good for nearly everything that can ail a person, I think.”
“No, it’s—”It’s perfect,I want to say, but it feels like too much. “It’s quite good,” I manage. “Thank you.”
“You are mine to care for.” He strides back to the side of the tub, a sea sponge and a bar of some pale pink soap in hand. “I could hardly let you stay in those old clothes, unfed and unwashed, now could I? And besides, it’s clear that you have not been cared for in some time. Perhaps not even by yourself, no?”
The quick way that he cut to the heart of it stops me from answering. I look away, but Alexandre just pulls the stool to the edge of the tub, reaching for another bottle and pouring a thick white liquid into his hand. “Dip your hair into the water,petit,” he says, nodding at me. “So that I can wash your hair.”
“I can—” I start to say, but he fixes me with his sharp gaze—he has hazel eyes, I see now, eyes a greenish-brown and flecked with gold, bright beneath his shock of messy dark hair. The words die on my tongue, and I remember who I am, who he is, and why I’m here.
Mine.
Mine now.
Mine to care for.
He might not be hurting me, but he does have the ability to command me, and I need to remember that. I tilt my head back, sliding down in the tub to get my hair wet, and when I come back up, Alexandre turns me so that my back is to him, his strong hands sliding into my hair as he begins to wash it.
Somehow, that’s enough to momentarily make me forget all over again who he is and why I’m here. No one has touched me like this in so long, and it feels so fucking good, his long fingers against my scalp, scrubbing and massaging, like the best hairdresser you’ve ever had but then better than that still. I bite my lip to keep from letting out a moan, not wanting to give him the wrong idea, and that thought is enough to snap me back to reality.
There’s no giving him thewrong idea. If he wants you, he’ll take you. You’rehis.
But the strangest thing out of all of this is that there’s nothing he’s done yet that could even really be construed as sexual. He undressed me, but he didn’t so much as look at me in a sexual way, let alone touch me. He’s washing my hair, but it’s not a sexual touch either, more a strong and utilitarian one. He’s efficient at it, scrubbing deeply and getting every strand of my long blonde hair, then reaching for my shoulders and turning me again in the tub so that I can slide down and rinse it out.
When I come up again, my arms wrapped over my breasts protectively, Alexandre is soaping up the sea sponge, the scent of almonds and rose filling the air and mingling with the floral aromas of the bath oils and shampoo. I tense as he reaches for me, waiting for the moment when his touch will linger a little too long in the wrong spots.
But it doesn’t. He washes me with the same quick efficiency, not giving me a chance to do it but also not touching me in any way that feels even the slightest bit erotic. He reaches for my arm to pull it away from my breasts, and when I tense, the expression in his hazel eyes turns stern, almost scolding.
“I need to be able to wash you everywhere,petit poupée,” Alexandre says firmly, and I swallow hard as I let my arms fall to my sides, trying not to panic.
Petit poupée. I took French in high school, and I remember enough of it to pick up a little here and there.Little doll.I feel just as helpless as he reaches up to wash my breasts, the panic coiling in my stomach and rising up into my chest, making me shiver despite the warmth of the water.
But the sponge merely glides over my skin, catching briefly on my nipples before he moves it lower, down my stomach. He reaches down to lift my legs up over the edge of the tub, nudging my thighs apart so that he can run the sponge between them. Still, even that is as methodical as every other thing that he’s done so far. He doesn’t linger or even look overly long at any part of my body. If anything, it’s me that’s affected, both because of how strange it all is and the unfamiliar intimacy of his touch, even if he’s not trying to make it so.
Itfeelsintimate, the handsome man in the steam-wreathed bathroom, his hand between my legs as the sponge trails over my labia, brushing against my clit as he moves it up again, over my inner thigh. My nipples are diamond-hard, a sudden pulse of warmth between my thighs. I suddenly want him to bring the sponge there again, to rub it over that spot that’s unexpectedly warm and aching in a way that I’d almost forgotten it could.