AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’ve seen all of you, girl.”
Girl, again. I hated that. Gregor said it enough.
“Woman. Woman is the correct term.”
“Woman.” His smile was patronizing. “I’ll wait then.”
“Yeah, like maybe forever.”
At his movement, as if to come for me, my nipples tightened. I flashed into that state where I was bound and waiting for him...
Then he halted and gestured at the floor. “I’ll sit there. Okay?”
I blinked. “Okay.”
The floor looked so uncomfortable and when, after a few minutes, he shifted his backside, I threw him one of my two pillows.
Awkward. I sat with my hands in my lap. If I lay down I’d feel vulnerable. Just having him in the room was horrible.
I was worse than I’d ever been. Normally I could sit with people, shake hands, and be moderately normal. I eyed him, cross-legged and looking almost as awkward as me. Yesterday, for a strange hyper-crazy moment, I’d craved his touch. I’d wanted him.
I shuddered. Hypnotism or something. Being beaten had upset who I was. Of course. This was the backlash.
“I’m going to say a few things.” He glanced at me from under those dark, shaggy brows. If ever a man plucked, he was a candidate. He wasn’t Neanderthal or anything – kinda cute really, in a disheveled muscly...way.
“Jazmine?”
I jerked my gaze to his face. “Go ahead. I’m not stopping you.” Him saying my name made my stomach do evil flips. Names were possessions. He hadn’t earned the right.
“I’ve seen a lot of victims in my previous line of work. You’re demonizing me. I understand. You’re still in shock and processing it all. You don’t want me to touch you. Also understandable. But you need to try to work past that. If we’re to get away. We have to trust each other. If you won’t even let me look at your back...” He shook his head. “That’s square one. For trust. Plus it’s essential. You have to let me.”
Then he waited.
I dug under my nails.
With my hands, I pinched the sensitive area around my forefinger nail. The pain helped. I breathed and took the pain from all the bruises into account. If I shifted, my back skin did too. The small lancing pains all helped to distract me from the prickling tension that took over my head whenever I thought of him coming near me.
“Don’t you have something to say?”
Damn him for sounding so rational.
I dragged in a breath, released it. “I...” God. No emotion, remember? “I can see your points. Logically, you had to, uhhh, obey Gregor.”
“Yes.”
Ah, fuck. I needed to set boundaries. “You see, I’ve never liked people touching me. This is making it worse.”
Pieter nodded. A reasonable man. What a contrast to...
The man with the whip circling, hitting me, eyes like stone on fire.
I gulped. “I don’t think I will ever be able to let you touch me again.”
Except for when Gregor made him. I shivered, cold. My nails were aching and I made myself stop digging at them before they bled.
Calm. Calm, calm, calm. Calmitty fuckitty calm. He was looking at me like I was turning into a psycho before his eyes. Be calm.
“So.” I eyed the floor. “You’re going to have to sleep there.”
