“Fuck.”
Someone wasn’t happy, but I wasn’t sure who it was or why.
I lay there, my eyes screwed shut, hoping he would go away and leave me in peace so I could sleep. Instead, he fiddled with my wrists, and the cuffs came off. He carried me up the stairs, his warmth the most beautiful thing I’d ever felt against my skin even though I hated him, whoever he was.
I lost track, but it seemed like we went upstairs forever, and then he put me on the floor and there was the sound of running water. He picked at the cord around my neck, loosened it, pulled off the bag entirely. I blinked against the brightness in the room, feeling the furrowing of my brow. Even those muscles were sore, as if I’d been frowning for days.
“We fucked her up pretty bad,” Vandal said from the doorway.
“It was mostly me,” Zero admitted, as though absolving Vandal of the blame. “Besides, it was my idea.”
He stroked my hair, untangling something from it and dropping it to the floor. A twig? How long ago had I run through the woods trying to get away from them? A couple of days? A week? A lifetime?
Zero picked me up carefully and lowered me into the bathtub, insisting even though I hissed in discomfort at the burn of the water against my cold skin.
“Her lips are blue.”
“She could breathe okay, I made sure several times,” Vandal assured him. “Probably just cold. We’ll keep an eye on her.”
Vandal disappeared from the doorway.
Zero washed me, starting with my neck and working down, being careful with my pussy after I whimpered and tried to push him away. He was gentle. Insistent. Talking to me about inanities the whole time, his voice soft. He pushed me lower in the tub, and my legs folded to let my head get wet. I soaked that way for a few minutes before he pulled me up and washed my hair for me, dumping buckets of water over my head to rinse it, then washing it a second time, apparently not satisfied. He conditioned it too, then pulled me out, drying me carefully, then wrapping the towel around me and sitting me on the closed toilet seat, the pressure of sitting reminding me of the ache between my legs.
I felt numb and not only from the cold. Even after he washed away the trails my tears had left, I felt like I was still crying. My head hurt from the feeling and so did my throat and chest, and something about the kindness he was showing me now was making me feel conflicted—both better and worse.
He brushed my hair and blew it dry, then rubbed lotion into my skin. When he was done, he carried me to his room and tucked me into his bed, spooning up behind me and holding me close, but not groping me or trying to fuck me again.
I woke up in the dark, immediately aware that I wasn’t alone. Zero’s breath stirred the hair on the back of my neck and a shaft of light lay across the bed not far from the tip of my nose. A shadow moved through it, and I realized it was Vandal checking in.
“Do you need anything, Sadie?”
Mentally, I felt around, taking stock. “No.”
“You’re a tough girl.”
I swallowed, not feeling tough at all. I felt exhausted. Broken down.
“I knew you would stop if I asked you to,” I assured him.
“Would I have?”
“Are you saying I had more confidence in you than you had in yourself?”
A long silence hung between us. “Perhaps.”
The door closed and he was gone.
Perhaps? Who the fuck actually said perhaps?
I wished I could follow him out and pick a fight with him. Maybe punch him a few times to make myself feel better. Zero was warm, though. The blankets were warm. Leaving my cocoon would mean being cold again. If I was never cold again in my life it would be too soon.
Chapter 19
The dress I was wearing wasn’t nice enough for the restaurant, but it was the nicest thing I owned. The guys were dapper. Vandal still looked like Lucifer, of course, but this evening he was Lucifer in gray dress pants and a charcoal shirt rolled back at the cuff just to drive everyone else to distraction, I was sure. His forearms were beautifully muscular, like the rest of him, but with the sleeves rolled down he could almost pass for a normal human being. With them rolled up, and his demon tattoos visible, he looked less in disguise and more like he had dressed nicely for this evening’s soul reaping.
Zero seated me first, while Vandal remained standing until I was settled in my chair, as though I was a lady and this a three-person date.
I should have been acting the lady, but instead I noticed the way Vandal’s dress pants fit and the telltale bulge in the crotch advertising his concealed weapon of a cock. Good thing he wasn’t hard.
He caught me looking, of course, and gave me a lazy grin. “Poor thing. You’re obsessed.”
Zero took the empty seat, his long mane of hair tied low on his nape, looking like a roguish pirate—all he needed was a couple of hoops in his ears, and some black guyliner to highlight his sexy eyes. He was wearing dress pants too, and a crisp white shirt, both of which were tailored to fit his sculpted body, and my fingers wanted to unfasten a few more buttons at his neck to show off some of his dark chest hair.
It was hard to believe the two guys I saw day in and day out in ratty old T-shirts had so much fashion sense. Once Vandal paid me, maybe I could convince them to pick out a few outfits for me so I could go job hunting.
The waiter brought us menus, and I eyed the prices with trepidation.
“Don’t see anything you like?” Zero asked.
“Give her a minute. She’s probably trying to adjust to the idea that she can’t order chicken fingers.”
I hmmphed at him. “Chicken fingers and fries are good, you fucking snob. I’ve seen you eat fries.”
He gasped in mock offense. “Such language, and from a lady.”
“Considering what the two of you did to me a few days ago, I don’t think I’m a lady anymore.”
“Being a lady is a state of mind, just like being a gentleman is.”
“You speak with a lot of authority on the subject, considering you aren’t one.”
Zero laughed loud enough that a few people looked our way before he clamped his mouth closed. “She’s got you there,” he said in a more moderate tone that suited the atmosphere.
“Maybe haute cuisine wasn’t the best idea for tonight, considering none of us are used to being quiet anymore.”
“I’ve been perfectly quiet,” I reminded him. “The two of you are the rowdy ones.”
“We were quiet enough that you couldn’t tell which one of us was which.”
A lady at the next table slid her gaze our way, and my face started to burn.
“Shut up.”
“You’re not the one who gets to give orders. Actually, out of the three of us, you’re at the bottom of the food chain, I do believe.”
“What am I, then? A bunny?”
“You’re clover. You’re what bunnies eat.”
Heat was creeping up my neck, and I was imagining them wrestling me onto the table and holding me down, having their dastardly way with me. My appetite for their violence was growing over time instead of becoming sated.
How was I going to be content with a mainstream dominant when the situation with these two ended? How did one ask a nice, responsible dom to veer so far afield from maintenance spankings?