Maelea scrubbed the wet hair back from her face and closed her eyes tight. Good gods, she’d touched him. She’d rubbed his back. When he’d turned around and she’d seen that monster erection, she’d almost…
Nope. Not going there. Not even remembering it.
She flipped the water to cold and stood under the stream until her skin chilled and a scream built in her throat. She was not falling for her kidnapper. What did the news call it? Stockholm syndrome. That was it. When hostages twist events around in their minds until they have empathy for their captors. Gods, she was not that stupid. It didn’t matter that he’d saved her life in that tunnel…or that he’d killed those daemons before they had a chance to get to her. Or even that he’d gotten them away from those hellhounds. He hadn’t done that for any noble reason other than the fact he needed her for something.
A shiver ran down her back, so she turned the water back to warm. She could hear Gryphon talking to the kid out in the hall. He was probably mind-washing the boy again. Now there was a noble and heroic act if she ever saw one.
She picked up the soap and washed her entire body, needing to clean away Gryphon’s touch, to wash away any memory of his fingers brushing her skin. Relief bubbled through her at the knowledge he wasn’t going to rape her. He’d had ample time in the shower and hadn’t made a move. In fact, he hadn’t been aroused at all until she took the soap and started washing his back. Calling herself ten kinds of stupid all over again for that brilliant move, she scrubbed harder, cursing that miserable darkness inside that was so obviously attracted to him. He was psychotic, unbalanced, and he’d kidnapped her, for crying out loud. She had the bruises to prove it. Needed her? Bullshit. What he needed was a good, swift kick to the head. Preferably from steel-toed boots. He needed—
Her fingers stilled.
Did it really matter what he needed from her? As long as it wasn’t sexual, she was safe—for the time being. But between that kiss in the caves and this shower, it was obvious he was attracted to her as much as—no, more than—she was attracted to him. Why, she didn’t know. Whether it was her or just the fact she was the first female to get close to him in months didn’t matter. She could use that attraction to her advantage, if she was careful.
But…damn. She bit her lip as the warm water beat down on her body. She was so not good at the seduction game. It’d been years—way too many—since she tried to seduce a man. She’d given up sex when she realized relationships—even the short ones—caused too many complications and put her and those she even remotely tried to care about at too much risk. Keeping to herself had served her far better over the years than a few mind-shattering orgasms ever could.
But he didn’t know she sucked at seduction. After all, he’d been hard as stone after just a few minutes in the shower with her. And the way he’d kissed her in the tunnels like a man starved…well, hell. He was one, technically. He’d been in the Underworld for three months—no sexual pleasure there—then locked in his room at the colony for the two after that. She seriously doubted he’d had any kind of female contact of late. The females at the colony were too scared of him even to go near his door.
Which meant…she could do this.
Her pulse picked up speed as the idea took root. So long as she gave him just enough so he didn’t handcuff her again, she could trick him. It didn’t necessarily mean she had to have sex with him. She just had to…satiate him. Then she could figure out a way to escape.
All kinds of images flashed in her mind. Ways she could pleasure him. What he’d look like in the moment of release. What he’d sound like. What he’d feel like. And they all started with him naked, as he’d been moments before in this shower. Except this time without those soaking-wet boxer briefs.
Her blood ran hot, and her own arousal trickled from her stomach lower to spread between her thighs. Still remembering what Gryphon had looked like, how hard and hot and turned on he’d been from so very little contact, she brushed a hand against her aching breast, then lower to her stomach, her fingers heading for the spot that was now throbbing with the need for her own release.
The shower curtain jerked open. Maelea jumped and dropped the soap. Gryphon glared at her from the other side of the tub. “What the hell are you still doing in here? Time’s up. Rinse and get out.”
Her adrenaline surged. He stared at her with heated, knowing eyes. Eyes that seemed to sense what she’d been about to do. Eyes, she noticed as she looked closer, that were filled with frustration.
“I…Okay,” she managed.
He frowned, then his gaze traveled the length of her body, and when they lingered on her breasts and she saw the heat that erupted in his light blue eyes, she knew that frustration was purely sexual.