Page 38 of Bared

As if he had extensive experience with helping a woman get dressed before.

As if he had done all of this, in a lot of places like this, before.

“You still okay, Princess?”

Her chest clenched. Princess. Not Pixie or Gorgeous or even Good Girl. Probably because he had used those endearments a thousand times before, as well. On other women he had taken to the stars and back. Other women who were probably better at this stuff than her.

Especially this part. Where she still had to stand in front of him, one leg out of her pants and a T-shirt with a large drool spot. Where she had to pretend like she did not know how all that had happened. That just five minutes ago, she was ready to take off more if Brickham had asked. That she would have done a lot of insane things had Brickham but asked.

But at this point, she could not even meet the man’s gaze. “I—I am fine.” Nor summon anything to her voice besides a rigid monotone. If she veered from that, it would mean certain disaster. Wavering would mean emotions, and emotions would bring tears. And were those going to help anything or anyone?

She was a grown-up, damn it. She had fled Arcadia from a desperate need to make that point, among others. And she had just been flown to erotic Eden as a woman, not a girl. She could not beg to be reverted back and held like a porcelain doll just because of her tender fallout from the experience.

Get it together, Jayd. You know what self-composure looks like, even if you are falling apart on the inside.

The new resolve was the perfect hit at the perfect time. With its help, she repeated, “I am fine, Brickham. And I can do this myself.” She snapped the other half of her leggings from him.

“Wasn’t implying you weren’t.” He was not defensive about it, though she had given him many excuses to be. Instead, there was an indulgent underline in his tone, reminding her of how Evrest had been with Camelia during the testier moments of her pregnancy. Those times had always warmed Jayd but also made her ache. Had her wondering if she would ever receive the same kind of patience from a man. She was a lot to handle sometimes and could be a mouthy, mulish princess due to holding her own against three equally obstinate siblings.

But she and Max Brickham were nothing like her big brother and his queen. No way had Evrest ever taken Cam to a place like this before. Or tried anything close to what Brickham just did. If he had, Cam certainly would not have reveled in it. Nor wanted so much more of it, all over again.

Oh, rahmie Creacu. What had she done?

More exigently, what would she do now?

Especially as Brickham stood there with one clear intent. He was fine with standing clear to let her get dressed, but not any further. Protectiveness seemed stamped into his very DNA, defining him like an aura.

A delicious, hard-muscled, all-male aura.

An aura she could not ignore as he stepped close again and spoke.

“We should get out of here. No telling if our friend might come back for another look around. The Dungeon Monitor told me about a loading dock out back.”

Dungeon Monitor. The phrase, and all its adjoining context, struck her in visceral places yet again. Well, that and the tied-down naked people. And the flying floggers. But nobody really sounded like they hated being here…

“Jayd?”

“Huh? What?” She ripped her stare away from a man in leather pants and spiked boots, who also seemed to enjoy running spikes across the back of a pretty redheaded woman. From the gist of her moans and sighs, she liked spikes too.

“Come on, Pixie. Now.”

She wheeled around, compelled by his gritty undertone. She did not protest when he reached for her hand and tugged her along the perimeter of the big room. As much as Jayd longed to stay for another hour and watch everything in here, it meant more to have Brickham’s hand around hers.

So much more.

What was happening to her?

Never before had she been affected so fast and so violently by a male. To be honest, she had thought herself immune by now. That was what happened after being the tagalong for three of the most swaggering men on the planet. But things were different now. She could no longer be Evrest, Samsyn, and Shiraz’s adored angel. Thanks to the Pura, she had become their iron albatross.

But at this moment, she felt like neither. No way could she be an angel with such wicked heat still invading every cell of her blood. But despite the molten weight of that fire, her mind and limbs felt as light as feathers.

The odd inner battle continued as they emerged outside and she breathed in the midsummer Paris air. The mixture of metro steam and night flowers was not enough to recenter her. She was quite afraid that nothing would, except maybe her own trip to a special dungeon again.

But damn it, princesses never got to go to the dungeon.

Only…she was no longer a princess.

For the first time ever, Jayd actually welcomed that thought with a full, real smile.