I canfeelmy cheeks flushing pink. That’s likely all the answer he needs, but I look away anyway, feeling embarrassed. I remember all too well that night after I’d seen him touching himself in his room, when I’d had my first orgasm fantasizing about a man who was keeping meprisoner. A man I should have hated—should still hate.
Instead, we only seem to be getting pushed closer and closer together.
“You don’t have to tell me—”
“Yes.” I look up suddenly, feeling almost defiant as I meet his gaze, which instantly darkens when I answer in the affirmative. “Once. Well—once until I…finished.”
“Before you came here?” His voice is still rasping, but it sounds as if it’s for a different reason. As if this conversation is turning him on again.
My arousal had faded with the awkwardness of the aftermath, but now I can feel that slow ache spreading through me again, my skin heating under his eyes. “No,” I whisper. “Well—a little bit. But never like…that. Not until—”
“Until what?” He pushes a little, making me feel my breath hitch at the thought of telling him my most embarrassing secret. The thing I thought he’d never find out.
His cock was in my mouth a moment ago, and I’m still hesitating over telling himthis?
“I saw you one night,” I whisper, my eyes flicking away from his for a moment. “In your room, with a picture. You were—” I lick my lips nervously, feeling my heartbeat speed up in my chest. “I watched you do it until you stopped. You looked like youneededsomething so badly, even though I wasn’t entirely sure what that was. I wanted to find out what came next. So I—I made myself come.”
His voice drops again, a little lower, rougher, raspy with growing desire. “What did you think about when you made yourself come, Noelle?”
My breath catches in my throat. I force myself to look up at him again, feeling my pulse beat harder, anticipating something I know is coming, even though I’m not sure what it is yet. “You,” I whisper.
I see him suck in a sharp breath andfeelthe tension in him at my admission. I know if I looked down, he would be hard again.
“And what about now, Noelle?” His eyes slide over me in a way that tells me he so desperately wants to touch me, if he could. If he weren’t so injured that he can’t move his hands. “Do you want pleasure now?”
I flinch, my eyes widening. It’s a bold question, one that I think I would laugh at if any other man said it, but coming from Alexandre, it sounds—different. Erotic. An offer that I want to accept, even as my cheeks turn red and I feel myself moving backward. “I—I don’t—”
“I won’t touch you.” His lips twitch slightly with that same dark humor as he looks at me. “It’s not as if I can, anyway. Not right now.”
“Then what—”
Alexandre nods to the side of the bed that I’ve come to think of as mine. “There,” he says softly. “Let me see you. Make yourself come while I watch.”
My face feels like it’s on fire, my pulse beating so hard in my throat that I’m sure he can see it. “I—I can’t—”
“Do you want it?” His voice feels like rough velvet over my skin, making me tingle everywhere.
“Yes—” I whisper the word, feeling a shiver go down my spine. I feel like I’m in some terribly erotic dream, something I could never have imagined on my own. “But I—”
“What will make you do it, then?” His lips twitch again, closer to a smile this time, but the heat in his eyes says something very different. “Should I order you to, my little pet?”
His voice is something between a purr and a growl, and a rush of heat goes through me, pooling between my thighs as I clench them together, feeling as if I’m trembling from the inside out. I can’t breathe, can’t speak, but as if something outside of myself is puppeting me, I feel myself nod.
“Then follow my instructions,petite souris, and you will have the pleasure you gave me.”
What does he mean?I think dizzily. Touching myself isn’t the same depths of pleasure as having someone else do it, I’m sure of it. But I let myself fall under his spell, knowing I can’t do it on my own, but wanting it so badly. Wanting to be told, so I can experience what my body is craving without having to make the decision.
I’ve been making decisions for days, it feels like. I want someone else to take over for a little while, to take overeverything.
“Stand on the other side of the bed,” he rasps, and I slowly obey, feeling as if I’m moving through warm molasses, heat spreading over me at the thought of obeying him. Under other circumstances, I would have hated him for this, but he’s no longer forcing me.We’re doing this together. He’s giving me what he knows I need.
As I move to where he’s looking, Alexandre’s gaze slides over me again, hot and almost hungry. “I want to see you,petite souris,” he murmurs. “Take off your top.”
I swallow hard, feeling a flicker of uncertainty go through me. I’ve never undressed for a man before, but why wouldn’t it be him? I try to imagine someone else in his place, one of the boys I used to work with at the restaurant, maybe, barely in their twenties and not even able to call themselves men yet, really, and I can’t. I can’t imagine someone else making me feel this heavy, weighted desire as if I’m flooded with it, drowning in it, my skin too tight for my body. Iwantto be unclothed suddenly, to be bare and free, and to not feel the pressure of the fabric against my skin. Even that feels like too much, touching me, and I grab the hem of my tank top, yanking it over my head before I can talk myself out of it, before I can worry if I’m too thin, if I’ve lost my curves, if my breasts are too small or my nipples too big, or any of the other things I’ve heard men complain about.
As I toss it aside, I can’t look at him at first.I’m not afraid of what I’ll see,I realize in a rush, my insides twisting at the thought.I’m afraid of what I might not.I don’t want to see that heat in his eyes fade when he sees me, see his arousal lessen. Iwantto turn him on.
When did that change?