Carefully, he handed me one and I sniffed the air, the smell of fresh ground coffee wafting toward me.
“I don’t remember the last cup of coffee I’ve had. It’s so hard to come by anymore out here,” I said. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he answered, his voice still groggy. He pushed himself backward, leaning against the headboard and gently pulled me to him. My head and back lay against his chest and I sighed with contentment.
This felt right.
The two of us sipped our coffee in silence then. The warm brew slid down my throat, warming me from the inside out and I shuddered with delight at the feeling. It felt like a giant hug after all the hardship I’d been through.
Well, not all of it had been bad.
Bane had found me and maybe, just maybe I could find my own little slice of happiness here. Maybe whatever connections he had would keep me safe.
Maybe. A girl could hope, right?
Fat fucking chance. The Association was never going to let me go.
I sighed and took another sip of coffee.
Bane must have sensed my tenseness, because his hand started to pet me, drifting up and down my naked skin in a way that comforted me. I leaned into him.
“Today, I’m going to teach you all about my world,” he began, and I turned my head, intrigued by his words.
“Will you tell me about it?” I asked and he grunted in agreement.
“Soon, not yet,” he answered.
For a while longer, the two of us lay together and enjoyed the peacefulness of the morning quiet. I sipped the rest of my coffee, feeling the first traces of caffeine work its way into my system and I enjoyed every second of it.
When I finished, I handed him my mug and he put into back into the robot, causing it to whir to life as it cleansed the cup before my eyes.
“Handy little thing, isn’t it,” I said, and he nodded.
After a while longer, he shifted and I sat up, reluctantly climbing out of bed and out of his embrace. I moved to cover myself and he batted my hands away.
“Don’t cover yourself. I want to see that beautiful body. I want to see what’s mine,” he commanded, his voice strong and I found myself wanting to please him. My hands dropped to either side, exposing my bareness to him completely.
He climbed out of bed and I couldn’t help but admire his own nakedness at the same time. His body was hard, chiseled even from the tops of his shoulders all the way down to his calves. His naked ass was round and solid. I kind of wanted to bite it.
He opened a drawer in an armoire and dug into it, rummaging around until he pulled out a few pieces of clothes that didn’t look large enough for a pillow cover. He tossed them in my direction.
I held out one piece and realized it was a skirt. Another was a bra and I looked back at him, lifting my eyebrow in disbelief.
“What is this?” I asked.
“It’s your new wardrobe. When you are ready to get what you want from men without using your charms, I’ll grant you something more modest to wear, in public at least,” he answered with the cockiest grin I’d ever seen.
“You can’t be serious,” I answered.
“I am. In private, you’ll wear what I choose, if anything at all,” he answered, and I scoffed back at him.
“I don’t use my charms to get what I want,” I muttered, and he chuckled.
“And just how did you plan on getting a job at the pub then?” he asked, and I turned away, hiding the blush that had inevitably risen over my cheeks. He wasn’t wrong, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.
“Do you deny it?” Bane pressed and I didn’t answer. Instead, I pulled on the tiny dark brown thong over my thighs and around my hips. I clipped the matching brown bra around my waist and pulled it up over my breasts. Next, I pulled on a cream-colored skirt that just barely covered my pussy and then a light brown ruffled top that only covered my chest, leaving my midriff bare. He tossed me a dark brown leather jacket—or rather the upper half of a jacket—which I pulled on, fastening the buckles at my neck and just below my breasts. The garment was split horizontally to expose, lift, and present my breasts, just like the skirt framed my ass. Two scandalously thin strips of cloth that passed for a bra covered my nipples but left most of my cleavage bare.
If I bent over, someone was going to get an eyeful.
