Her muscles were knotted so tight. But then, he imagined driving into the middle of nowhere to find your kidnapped sister wasn’t the most restful activity. He went through the entire massage sequence: shoulders, back, arms and hands, legs and feet. He wanted her to get used to his hands on her in a way that wasn’t too threatening. If he could acclimate her to his touch, it would be better.
After a while, he felt something clenched inside her let go. Surely she couldn’t think he was only going to give her a massage, and yet she gave herself over to his hands anyway.
“Are you asleep, kiska?” Her breath had evened out in the way of sleep, yet he couldn’t be sure. She probably hadn’t expected to get a professional massage tonight. And he didn’t get away with charging the rates he did at Dome by being anything less than the best.
“No,” she murmured.
“Good girl.” He was about to go off script, and he didn’t want her to be asleep for it. He stroked and rubbed over the pert globes of her ass. She was firm, yet also soft and yielding.
“Do you work out?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Good. I will expect you to continue doing that for me.” No one got an ass like this just by sitting on it. And they didn’t keep it that way, either.
There was a sharp intake of breath as his hand moved lower, between her legs. “Roll over onto your back.”
At this point Anton usually held the blanket up and looked away to protect the client’s privacy, but this time there was no barrier between him and the woman he touched. This time he drank his fill of her. As she rolled over, their eyes briefly met. He couldn’t read her expression. There was a bit of fear in there, but it didn’t feel like the type of fear of only moments before.
“What are you thinking about, pet? What are you afraid of?” The answers to these questions seemed obvious, but Anton was sure there was something else in there.
“What if I start to like you too much? What if I like the things you do to me?” she whispered.
He could see where that would be a problem for her. It was one thing for her to sacrifice herself to him to protect someone she loved. Noble, in fact. It was another for her to want him. Giving someone your body wasn’t the same as risking your heart, especially to someone who’d threatened your family.
He’d seen this fear and vulnerability in a lot of subs before. In the end, consent didn’t make a difference when it came to risk and pain. A woman could happily agree to everything you did to her, and in the end, you could still break her beyond repair. Sometimes it was worse to happily choose your own demise.
The few subs he’d had for longer than short-term play had considered their heart a much bigger risk than their body. Trusting someone not to hurt you was almost never about the risk of physical scars. It was always easier to get the body to submit. But the mind? The heart? The soul? Those were precious things one couldn’t always reach, even if she said all the right things and obeyed perfectly.
There was a deeper thing inside a woman. And he wasn’t sure he would ever touch it with Annette—not just because of how they met, but because he was sure she was the type of woman who would always lie to him.
Anton wasn’t even sure if he wanted anything of Annette beyond her body. The simple novelty of the arrangement was probably enough. Besides, he would be very busy once things got up and running at the house.
She’d closed her eyes again almost as soon as she’d rolled over, erecting a different kind of barrier between them. But he’d told her to close them.
Again, he performed the normal massage protocol. Arms, hands, legs, feet. Then shoulders and neck and head. A small moan escaped her when he reached the side of her neck, and she leaned into him like a cat might—and like his little cat should.
But then, once again, he left the script and stroked her belly—and those perfect better-than-porn breasts. Even when he’d moved to such vulnerable areas her breath continued to move in and out of her in a slow almost Zen-like state.
“Are you going to fuck me?” she asked. She was looking at him now, less fear and more assessment. She was a brave one. Especially under the circumstances. If Anton was a psychopath, he was an accidental one. But she had no way to know that.
“Would you open your legs for me like a good girl if I did choose to fuck you?”
A breath. A sigh. “Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, Master.”
“If we do this, you will always address me that way, even around others, do you understand?”
A little fear, but then she said, “Yes, Master.”
Anton went to the sink to wash the oils off his hands. “Don’t move. I’m not finished with you yet.” He picked up the arousal cream. This was something he’d never used before—not just on massage clients, but ever. Michael had told him about it. His friend had used it a few times back when he’d had his own sub—before he’d met the straight-laced vanilla woman he’d married.
Michael had recommended a brand that he said was more potent than most, that it drove women absolutely wild, and it lasted a good full hour before the effects wore off. Anton was pretty sure this was all exaggeration. Maybe it was a placebo effect or old memory had heightened the perception of the cream. After all, he was sure Michael hadn’t used it on Vivian. Anton had never met her formally, but he’d seen her once from a distance across the way at a Japanese steakhouse they all liked. Stick up her ass didn’t even begin to describe it. There was no way she would submit to any of the things his friend liked. Not in a million years.
Anton picked up the cream and moved back to the massage table where Annette quietly waited. How could this woman even be real? In everything but looks, she was so different from her sister. Annette hadn’t fought and clawed at him like a wildcat. She didn’t try to run. And her few tears were for her sister.
“You might not have started kinky, but you will be when I’m finished with you. Spread your legs.”
Annette was a gift. A training test subject, someone all of them could train and teach and turn into the perfect slave. She could be a template for the others who would come after her—the ones who would later be sold.
She opened her legs until they fell over the edges of the table.
“Good girl. I very much like this view. And I love that you’re waxed.” The behavior had begun to become so common among women in their twenties that he was beginning to be shocked if he found hair when he took a woman to bed. Even so, seeing that bare, smooth skin always sent a jolt of pleasure through him.
Anton began to rub the cream between her legs. Her breathing deepened, and she arched her hips toward him the smallest amount. He was careful to cover every area that could become sexually excited. Her clit. Her labia. Her opening, which had already started to lubricate for him. He went back to the sink and washed his hands, then turned to watch the show Michael had promised would come.
It took a few minutes—during which he felt a bit foolish for believing his friend’s breathless review of the product. But then she began to writhe and squirm on the table.
“W-what did you do to me?”
“It’s just an arousal cream. The effects last about an hour. How do you feel?”
“Like I need to be touched right now!”