“Did you enjoy that?”I asked with a sated smile.
“Of course.I should have you strip off for me each morning when you wake and each evening before you retire.”
“Wouldn’t be a hardship,” I admitted, lolling on my back with my chin dipped, watching him.
He moved and bent over me, gazing at me with eyes full of emotion.
“I love you so much, Simon.My rooster.My loyal right-hand man.My faithful seed-bucket.You are everything to me.”
“All right,” I said, wanting to soothe him as he seemed moved.
“If anything happened…happened to you, I don’t know what—”
He blinked back tears, and I was too overwhelmed and amazed to think what to say.
Chapter Fifteen
Consequences
Iwokefeelinghalfdecentthe next day.As I blinked up at the smooth wood that made up the ceiling of our room on theArrow, I thought that perhaps Domingo had been right, and a good hiding was exactly what I’d needed.I shifted on the sheets and my arse hummed with residual soreness, reminding me of how lucky I was to have a man like Dinesh to distract me and keep me in line.
Rain pattered against the bank of windows and the sky cast a grey light into the room.I moved to rub my face and then cursed when Dinesh’s giant hand slapped me in the face.
“Fuck!”I yelped as his knuckles crashed into my eyes.
“Mmph,” he mumbled, “What the—”
He jerked his hand away, pulling mine along.
“Stop!We’re tied together.Jesus fucking Christ,” I muttered, the good mood from earlier dissipating.
We lay our hands on the sheets between us and twined our fingers.
“Getting up?Or going back to sleep?”he asked.
“Up,” I grumbled.“Ow, my bleedin’ eye.You punched me, you blackguard.”
He laughed but moved to untie us.
“Sorry about that.At least you’re safe.”
“Not from you, apparently.”
“Well, hopefully, I am the lesser of two evils.”
“Aye.I suppose so,” I yawned, wondering why Pearl wasn’t at the foot of the bed jumping up to join in our argument.“Pearl.Hey, girl,” I said, making kissing noises and looking toward her blanket.
She wasn’t there.I looked about the room and moved my feet under the blanket to make sure she wasn’t in the bed with us.
Dinesh tossed the soft rope that had bound us together onto the space between our pillows and got out of bed, stretching and grunting and otherwise greeting the morning.
“Pearl?Pearl?”I called.
Most days we could hardly get her to leave us be.
Dinesh realized her missing presence and scanned the room.“Pearl!Here, girl!”
“Is she under the fucking bed?”I asked, slipping off the mattress and ducking to have a look.The only thing there was the chamber pot.“What the bloody hell?”
