I purse my lips. Resistant, stubborn, defensive. I can let these things slide. For now. She’s in unfamiliar territory. I’d be the same. I bring my hands up and hold them over my eyes. “I won’t peek.” I’m totally going to peek.
When I hear no movement for several seconds, I drop my hands. “Listen, sweetie, I get it. Big, scary stranger ordering you to get naked.Ahh…” I wiggle my fingers in front of me. “But seriously, I’m not in the mood for games, and I’m under orders. I’m giving you free will, which, if your dirty, matted aesthetic is anything to go by, is something you haven’t had for a while. But if you don’t do it, I will do it all myself. Including cleaning your naked body. And it won’t be nice – for you, I mean. I think I’ll have a great time.” I let my eyes drop to her middle and linger there.
She curls herself up, hiding herself away even more. “I don’t want you here.”
I chuck a hand towards the bath. “And I don’t really want to babysit, to be completely honest with you.” I fold my arms across my chest. “Do you want to be clean? Do you want to not smell like a skunk crawled up your ass and died a month ago?”
I see a hint of a scowl on her face then. It’s pretty ballsy.
I arch a brow at her. “Princess, I will restrain you if I really have to. We’re doing this one way or another.”
I see something flicker in her eyes at that. Something fearful.
As stiffly as possible, she pushes herself up off the ground, not taking her eyes off me. After a few seconds of our stare-down, she folds her arms and juts her hip out, waiting for something.
“Oh – whoops.” I bring my hands back up over my eyes and watch through the tiny slits as she strips the soiled nightdress off her teeny frame. She’s all jutting bones and valleys of sunken skin. Jesus Christ. My eyes widen in shock. She’s covered in bruises and marks. Literally from neck to ankle. Her face is the only thing that’s not been assaulted. Full pink lips and high-cheekbones unharmed. But then again, that’s probably where the most damage is. In that little, clever brain of hers.
It’s like she’d stood in front of a ball machine and just taken one hit after another. Her creamy skin is stained in yellows, browns and purples. Some a swirling black. She’s got scabs over lesions of all different shapes and sizes. Some look grossly infected. I’ll have to text Higgins to come and have a look at her. Antibiotics might be needed. I can see white lines all over her too, as well as pale and darker shades of pink. Scars. A fucking lot of them. She’s an abstract piece of violent art.
We’ve all got our work cut out with this one, there’s not a single doubt in my mind. We’ll have to tread carefully. She might be malleable, broken to the point of easy manipulation. Or she could have built up a barrier so thick and impregnable that it’s going to take a fucking miracle to break through it.
She’s wobbly and trembly, her tits jiggling as her skinny legs attempt to carry her weight over to the tub. Her tits are nice, despite a yellowing bruise the size of my fist on the side of one. She’d probably have a cute ass if there was one, right now it’s pure skin, running a straight line from her thigh to her back. We’ll have to fix that. I don’t mind my women petite, but there’s got to be something for me to grab onto while I’m ramming into her from the back.
She’s hairy all over, of course, fine golden hairs covering her slight frame, darker on her pussy. I dare not give this girl a razor though. Not until I’ve sussed out her intentions.
My body twitches forward on instinct to catch her when she stumbles and falls on her non-ass, but I remain in my seat. She picks herself back up quickly and hops in the tub, some of the water sloshing over the sides in her hurry to conceal herself again.
“Ready?” I drop my hands.
She’s positioned herself facing me, so she can keep an eye on me. She attempts to keep the hard expression on her face, but I can tell she’s just entered absolute bliss. Her head tilts back onto the rim, exposing that slim column of her throat, small purple circles on either side. She’s been strangled. That much is obvious. Her eyebrows fall away from that deep frown she’s had since she opened her eyes, finally giving her a more feminine grace.
I can’t help the question. “What happened to you?”
The feminine grace instantly evaporates. “What does it look like?”
Oh, boy. “It looks like you’ve been around some shitty people.”
“Bingo.”
“You don’t want to talk about it?”
“No.”
Fair enough.
I look down, inspecting the tatted letters on my knuckles, ‘PAIN’ written on my right, ‘GAIN’ on my left, letting her have one moment to herself.
“What’s expected of me here?” Her weak voice echoes in the bathroom.
I blow out my inflated cheeks with that one. What a question. I try to simplify it as much as possible. “Be a wife. Love your husband. Do your transactions. Be a good girl.”
“I don’t think it’ll be that easy with Caden.”
I frown. Then the lightbulb clicks in my mind. By the uncertain, uneasy tone in her voice, she was awake a lot longer before she opened her eyes.
I clear my throat. “What did you hear, exactly?”
She shrugs a bony shoulder. “That he won’t go near me. That none of you can either.”
