“I can see that,” I murmur and lean over him, then place his arms around my neck, so I can easily pull him up.
He gasps, eyes wide, and I’m eating it up in spoonfuls. He adores me. He’s obsessed with me. He’s thought about me for years and followed my career. Every time I think about it, my ego grows a little and I get a spring in my step.
Selling my work to anonymous buyers can feel like feeding a void. Victor is the opposite. He’s real. He’s here.
“I’m limping, but I can walk,” he assures me, but does nothing to suggest he doesn’t want to be carried.
“And I can take you to the bath,” I tell him, dragging myself up. For an adult male, he is unexpectedly light, and I suppose his thin form has a lot to do with that. “This way I will not only see but alsofeelthe shape of your body, and depict it more faithfully.”
I’m full of shit. I know it, he knows it, but it doesn’t matter. I want more of that rosy shade on his cheeks.
I even commit to memory the way he bites his lips. I don’t know if I’m this starved for human interaction, sex, or any touch, but I will gorge on him as much as I want. He’s the one who broke intomyhouse with nefarious intentions. He’s lucky he’s still alive and in one piece.
“Is the bath big enough for two?”
Is he… flirting?
“What is the point of a tub that can’t fit two?” I ask him and press his thighs to either side of my hips for a comfortable carry. His cock presses to my stomach, my own bobs against his buttocks, and when its kiss makes Victor inhale, I offer him a wide grin. “It has a mind of its own.”
“But you live here alone? You’ve not had…guestslike me before?”
“Not anyone as cute as you, no. It’s been four years of only assassins before you arrived.” Perhaps I shouldn’treveal how lonely I’ve been, but I want him to know. I want him to know he’s a ray of sunshine entering my cold, peaceful home.
I’m about to carry him outside when the familiar sound of a bell cuts through the quiet, and I face the exit from the plastic tunnel attached to the wall. “There you are. I bet you want to say hi!” I squee at my only companion, who now gets to his back legs, splaying its squishy little body against the tube. “You will have to follow us to the bathroom.”
When I start walking again, the rat happily jogs along.
Victor hugs me tighter, face against my ear, so I can’t see him. If he really wanted to, he could probably attempt biting through my neck to kill me or at least incapacitate me, but I don’t think that’s about to happen.
“That’syourrat? I thought I saw him last night, but couldn’t really work out if the piping was for that purpose.”
I whistle, prompting my little furry friend to march faster. “Of course he came to see you. I’m happy you’re already getting to know each other. Ratimir is very social.”
Victor snorts. “Ratimir? Really?”
“I was also considering Rat Ratinovich, since his father was obviouslyalsoa rat, but this one had more dignity to it, you know?”
We enter my favorite bathroom, and as the light automatically comes on, the ombre green tiles that look as if they’re made out of old-fashioned soda bottles come alive around the egg-shaped tub in the center.
I sense Victor turning his head to take it all in. “That is… actually pretty cute,” he says as if he expects me to be all killer and torture all the time. I have loving sides. Quite a lot of them.
“Of course it is,” I tell him and then lay him out on a chaise lounge where I rest whenever I deep-condition my hair. “I am handsome, talented, and very funny.”
The water starts filling the bath just as Ratimir alerts me with another bell. This time, I step toward the little shelf supporting the tube and unlatch the door. My pet crawls straight onto my bare arm, and I kiss his little head. “Hello to you too. This is your new daddy, Victor.”
Victor’s eyebrows shoot up, but then he has the softest little smile for Ratimir and extends his bound hands in invitation. “I never thought I’d have kids, yet here we are.” He doesn’t seem to be a psychopath who will break my pet’s neck to spite me, so I bring my baby closer. He puts both his tiny paws on Victor’s finger as he smells him.
“See? This kind of instinct?Very breedable,” I add, unable to keep a lusty darkness out of my voice. I can’t help it. I didn’t have a bed partner for years, and here he is, so... available, and so very pliant. I just need to work out how to make putty out of him, because the pictures in his journal suggest he is most definitely interested in anal fucking.
I drop a colorful bath bomb into the shallow water, never taking eyes of Victor and his pretty hair. I’ll give it a lot of love.
He chuckles. “Don’t say that in front of the baby.”
“You sure? Maybe he wants a little brother or sister?” I whisper, pressing my lips to his scalp as I lean over his stretched-out form and scratch Ratimir behind the ear.
Victor snorts as our hands meet over my pet. “Not before I see a ring on my finger.”
Did he... is he just...?
