“Kone,”he rasped, clutching his bowl to keep himself from attempting to crawl across the floor, chains be damned, “I promise you could never hurt me. Do your worst.”
Her brows, dark and angular over her striking eyes, drew together. He liked that she’d bound her hair into a complicated series of braids and red ribbons. It allowed him to see her face clearly, even when she wouldn’t look him in the eye, and it reminded him of his stolen token, tucked safely under his left wrist cuff. “I don’t want to try.”
“Perhaps you want to touch me in other ways,” he offered, half-joking. “I’ve heard I’m quite strokable in either form.”
“I can barely stand by your foot, yet you think I might be able to stroke you without fear?”
Godswilling.
Otto cleared his throat, trying to dispel the image of her long-fingered hand curling around his stiff cock. He would bet anything in the world that her skin was soft as silk. Softer even than the ribbon rubbing against the skin of his wrist.
Shifting to hopefully disguise the growing erection in the loose folds of his strange trousers, he managed to speak with only minimal huskiness. “Submissives respond well to touch. All pack beings do, but submissives especially. If you can trust me enough to hold still while you explore, it will build a foundation between us. Someday soon you will even be able to look me in the eye,kone.”
“Why would I want that? You are only going to be here for a few more days.” There was no mistaking the pain in her voice when she said that, as if she couldn’t bear to watch him go.
Perhaps she felt that way about all her father’s subjects. It didn’t seem farfetched to imagine this strange experiment was her only socialization. It would make sense for her to become attached to the only people she was exposed to — and why she would consequently put such hard limits on getting to know them. Still, Otto chose to believe it was because she felt their connection and did not wanthimto go.
Following instinct, he chose not to remind her that he promised to take her with him. Instead, he cajoled, “Then there is no harm in it, is there? Don’t you want to see if you can? Test my theory about what you are. If touch doesn’t help, then maybe you aren’t a submissive after all.”
Sass me,he silently urged her.Take my challenge. Act on your instincts, kone.
ChapterSixteen
Josephine sether bowl onto the tile with a hollowthunk.Appearing both conflicted and vexed, she twisted her hands into her shawl and muttered, “This sounds like a trick. The moment I come close you’ll strangle me or worse.”
“I will turn my back to you,” he offered, pulse thudding in his throat and, regrettably, his cock.
This wasn’t about sex. Obviously she was miles away from being anywherenearready for that, but the fever was unforgiving. He felt only its first licks of flame and already he worried about his control.
Desperate to get some contact, anything at all, he continued, “I’ll place my hands on the wall and be on my knees. Come now, sweet Josephine. Don’t you want to prove me wrong? You’re nolille mus.”
Several seconds passed before she said, almost as if baffled by the words herself, “I’m not supposed to touch you until stage two.”
Sensing victory, Otto set aside his own half-eaten meal. “And do you always listen to your father?”
“No.” She thrust her chin out. Bubbles of pure pleasure popped in his veins at the sight. Josephine was a submissive to her bones, but that did not mean she was a doormat. His mate had pride. He was willing to bet she had claws, too, when necessary.
Speaking softly, he pressed, “Then it is all the more reason to try, yes?”
“I…” Her expression moved through a series of different feelings, spanning the spectrum of confusion to yearning to fear and everything in between. She reached up to rub the side of her neck. “I shouldn’t. I’ve been tricked before.”
Otto forced himself to breathe slowly.Someday she will tell me. Trust first.
“This is no trick.”
“How do I know? You could say anything. People do that.”
It was a strange thing to sense so much innocence in her yet see a look of such jaded sorrow on her expressive face. “Do you want my honesty,kone?”
She made a soft, anxious sound his animal recognized on a fundamental level. “Yes.”
Since they were speaking animal to animal — or whatever Josephine’s other half was — Otto sucked in a deep breath before letting the other side of him surge up to the surface of his mind, close enough to see but not transform.
They mingled, man and animal, when he growled, “I need your trust. I need you to needme.Most of all, I need you to touch me.I feel like I might die without your hands on my skin,kone —and believe me, I know what being close to death feels like.”
It was easy to pick up on the way her breathing quickened. To his sharpened senses, it was as loud as a gunshot.
“I am— I will not be used that way,” she told him, voice trembling. “I’m not—”
