But I’m also poised on the brink of something… understanding, the drop, the crash as I hit the bottom… as I wait for him to hurt me.
Zeb
Slow. Gentle. Never moving away nor giving her room. Heat radiates off of her. Her pulse flutters under my fingers.
I’m here, baby. I’ve got you. I’m going to take care of you. I’m going to get you out. Make sure no one ever hurts you again.
But I can’t say any of that. Not here. Notyet.
“You caused a lot of trouble, omega.”
She swallows. Goes to answer, maybe to offer some excuse or denial, then thinks better of it.
“That wasn’t a question. I’ll let you know when I want you to do something with your mouth. But here’s a hint. It won’t be talking… moaning in pleasure is fine. Expected. Are you going to purr for me?”
She snaps her mouth shut.
I almost want to smile. This isn’t playing out how she expected. Her eyes are still on mine, and the calculation is back. She’s wondering if she can manipulate me into stopping, maybe helping her to escape.
Oh, I’ll help you to escape.Our lives didn’t depend on me making the show good. But I’m already too deep into this, and I don’t know if I could hold back either way.
The thought of what might have happened to her if I hadn’t been here, if I hadn’t gotten on the ship, has a mask coming down over the gentleness in me.
She disobeyed me. That’s the bottom line. And I can’t have that. Omegas obey their controllers and their mates. She’s not my mate yet, but that’s about to change.
I’ve got a lot of rage to work through.
She needs to atone.
She needs to be punished.
It’s my duty, it’s a compulsion. She doesn’t know it yet, but I’ve already claimed her, and I’ll do whatever it takes to keep her safe… and make sure she never disobeys me again.
But first, I have to at least try to get through to her who I am. I can’t be the man who rapes her. I fucking can’t. Even this much, this light, almost touch must be horrifying her.
I drop my voice to a whisper too low for monitoring to hear. “Stay here, I said. Don’t leave, no matter what you feel, I also said. Disobey me, and I’m going to be giving you an ass fucking you won’t forget… after I’ve brought a pretty pink blush to it under my belt. Any of this familiar, Esme? Any of this ringing a bell?”
Chapter Fifteen
Esme
His lips skim close to my ear. “Stay here, I said. Don’t leave, no matter what you feel, I also said. Disobey me, and I’m going to be giving you an ass fucking you won’t forget… after I’ve brought a pretty pink blush to it under my belt. Any of this familiar, Esme? Any of this ringing a bell?”
Absolute blankness invades my mind, then everything comes rushing in. Were the Uncorrupted watching us? Did they have spies… I mean, there are always rumors…
“Look underneath, little fool.”
Underneath? Underneath what?!
“I can still smell my cum on you. They didn’t wash all of it off with the chemical shit they sprayed over you. But your scent is coming back now.”
I’m having an out-of-body experience, and my thoughts and emotions are going haywire.
His cum? Have they done something to me? Wiped my memory.
Look underneath at what?
Out of the madness comes a single thread. It settles like a flower blooming in the center of my chest. It steadies me. It shocks the hell out of me, too. It’s pulling me under… underneath, tethering me to another soul… a soul that I recognize.
