“Shhh.” He picked me up, and I wavered on my feet.
With his help I stumbled over to a bathroom. He set me down on a toilet and held my face against his leg while I peed. The sound was loud, and I didn’t even care. He’d seen me bleed, so what did it matter if he saw me pee? He’d torn into my soul; nothing he could do to my body would hurt anymore. That was probably another lie.
He wiped me himself, and I sat blankly as the water ran and he washed his hands. Then he ran a stinging wipe over my cuts. The chemical smell pierced my sinuses. Antiseptic. He was taking care of me, looking after my health. How ironic. I could have laughed. I didn’t.
After, he laid me back down on the bed. Under the sheets this time. Not tied up this time.
He climbed in behind me, and for a moment, I was surprised. The haze lifted, and I wondered why a warm, hard body had nestled in around me, the fabric of his shirt soothing on my overheated skin. He was spooning me, for Christ’s sake. But then I remembered the parody we were making. First came sex and then the cleanup routine. Now would be cuddling.
And pillow talk?
The time when men were vulnerable because they’d just had an orgasm. Except he hadn’t come.
“Why are you cold?” I whispered, cringing because I expected a blow. For talking at all or for asking a personal question.
He answered easily, though, as if we were lovers instead of a criminal and his pet FBI agent. “A brain injury when I was a child. I’m fine now, but the part of my brain that figures out if you’re cold, that makes you put on a jacket or go back inside the house, that part’s just broken.”
“So your temperature—”
“Is normal. But my brain doesn’t know that, so I’ll keep wearing layers and turning up the furnace until I overheat myself.”
How was that for lies we told ourselves? He couldn’t trust the messages his own brain was telling him. And he really had told me the truth. He hadn’t even seemed surprised by my question.
It was worth it. The thought came to me suddenly that if I had to endure an hour of pain for a single confession, it was worth it. Not only for the job, but also for myself. Some personal quest I couldn’t quite admit yet. And maybe it was a fair trade after all. Who knew what the admission had cost him? He’d sounded so at peace with it, as if remarking on the brown of his eyes or the tan of his skin. And yet, he wouldn’t know how to show any weakness. Not this man. He would have been dead by now. By his own hand or someone else’s.
I could understand him. I didn’t have to like him.
He lay holding me as I drifted off, only the mockery seemed less and less fake. And more real than any embrace I had known. Only then did I remember I’d had my blindfold on. The entire time he flogged me, even in the bathroom. But he’d directed me the entire way. And somehow, I’d pictured him. His body. His face. As if I could see it without looking, so I hadn’t even noticed the barrier across my eyes.
Maybe it was his presence—an overriding charisma that would give him the power to speak in a room full of terrifying criminals. The power to rule them. The presence painted a more defined picture than most people’s actual appearance did.
Was I in awe of him? Did I like him?
No. He’d been bullied as a kid. He had a small penis. He was overcompensating for something. But the old explanations felt empty now, more of a mockery than his sex-like beating had been. This wasn’t a man who reacted to things. He molded the world in his image. He was god-like after all, whether he saw himself that way or not. So what did it mean that I was no longer afraid when he held me? The pain warmed me across the front of my body, and he from behind.
Was he cold, though? He might feel that way. I snuggled deeper and tucked the blanket over my shoulder, making sure it covered him too. Jesus, I was comforting my captor. Crazy. Insanity. A madman holding me in bed, and I had to appease him or he’d hurt me again. A lie, but then what was wrong with that? Sometimes you could take comfort in a lie. You could nurture it and hold it close to your heart. Right up until it turned on you.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
My body draped a bench, hands tied down. Ankles tied down. Cushions supported me. It was almost like a massage chair. Except I wouldn’t be getting anything as nice as that. I was naked, blindfolded, gagged. My uniform for my position as his slave. A prerequisite before he would touch me.