Mila denied it. She refused to acknowledge her feelings, and whenever it became clear that she would miss him with it was done, she tried in vain to convince herself that they were platonic feelings. She refused to take that leap again. Friends. That’s where it would stay, except maybe friends with benefits. No deeper connection. No love. No pain.
The date to the trial was set later than expected—about a month away when it was supposed to be a week or two at the max. Mila didn’t complain. She gave up the login information for her security footage. All she had left to do was physically testify to what she’d seen. She wasn’t supposed to twist anything around. She didn’t know who the fighters were, only that Fang had been inside at the time and it was likely as hell that he was one of the werewolves.
About four days before she was supposed to testify, Maurice got word that Reuben was coming back.
* * *
Mila waited impatiently in the elevator with Maurice at her side. The Khan had arrived moments ago and now they were headed up to greet him.
Watching the buttons illuminate floor by floor brought a smile to Mila’s lips. The first time she’d been in that elevator, she was afraid. She was worried about coming face-to-face with a Khan and had quite frankly been concerned for her life. She’d watched the floors tick by with fear, not excitement.
This time was different. She wanted to see Reuben again. She needed that influx of energy, and also, anytime she was with Maurice was a good time.
Mila snickered under her breath. “Remember how you told me all those stupid-ass things to do and not do before meeting him?”
Maurice softly laughed. It had become easy between them. As friends. Yup, as friends. “You believed me, too.”
“Of course I believed you!” She punched his arm playfully. “You’re my bodyguard, ya big jerk.”
Ding. The elevator stopped, one floor below the last time. Mila paused. “Are we on the right floor?”
Maurice strode out as the doors slid open. Mila followed him, albeit a bit slowly. She’d been prepping herself for another giant meal like last time. They weren’t doing that this time? Someone could have warned her so she wouldn’t be hungry. Dammit.
The new floor seemed just as interesting as the top one. A massive opening sat in the room, stretching upwards easily a dozen floors with railings on each level and various rooms off to the side. Mila could go right or left but going forward meant plummeting. Aesthetically, it was amazing. For Mila, someone terrified of heights, it was enough to draw her stomach up into her throat, especially with the glass railing and pathway that she could too easily imagine snapping.
Maurice waited for her as she cautiously treaded her way out of the elevator. “Scared of heights, huh?”
She didn’t look down. “Scared of falling,” she whimpered. People acted like a phobia about being too high up was a silly one. No, it was nature. Falling off something high would kill someone, so obviously it made sense to not want to be in that kind of predicament. She could barely handle a couple stories. She made the mistake of looking over the edge to see a number of people wandering around on the bottom floors like ants.
Mila closed her eyes. Oh god. “How far do we have to go?”
“Twenty meters.”
That wasn’t as bad as she’d worried, but twenty meters was still a lot harder than just getting back on the elevator and returning to ground level. She swallowed. This wasn’t some act for her. She truly couldn’t stand the sensation of being about to fall. Even while driving over bridges, she’d keep her eyes on the road.
“C’mon.” Maurice’s hand grasped her arm while his other arm went around her waist. He held off a snicker. “I’ll guide you.”
“Shut up,” she hissed. This wasn’t any better, but at least if she died, she’d die with a strong, handsome man holding her.
She took a step onto the glass platform. It had to be one-sided or something so people couldn’t look up a woman’s skirt, but to Mila, it felt like she was standing on thin air.
Very slowly she put another foot down. She wasn’t dead yet. That was a start. She refused to look down, so she focused on Maurice’s eyes. He wouldn’t let her fall. Even if the glass broke in some freak accident, he’d catch her. Of course, they’d both fall through, but still, it brought her some relief, and before she knew it, he was holding open the door of the room they were to enter.
Mila jumped in immediately, leaving behind the sketchy pathway and moving back onto non-transparent flooring. She’d chased down some normal clothing so she wouldn’t have to deal with the absurd robes or the uptight suits everyone seemed to wear. Maurice was always in a suit unless he was training. It didn’t matter what time of the day it was, he’d be dressed to impress. At first, it made Mila suspicious and she wondered why. After a while, she gave up on trying to figure it out and just let herself enjoy it. Who cared what he wore? It was what was underneath that mattered, and Mila didn’t mean just personality.
She didn’t have time to admire all his pros and cons because she realized where she was: a sauna. More precisely, she stood in the waiting room before entering the sauna, but she recognized the scent and the humidity. No doubt about it; she was about to get nice and sweaty.
Seeing the door that led into the sauna gave her momentary flashbacks to why she hated them. Back when she was younger and before she got a job at the Cheeky Sprite, she worked at a human gym on the weekends. It sounded like a great gig, but the truth was that it was a pain in the ass for a lot of reasons. One fateful day the steam sauna had broken and she, as the only worker on duty, had to try to fix it. She’d spent entirely too long cooking in that stupid room without the faintest idea what she was doing. The thermostat had broken and the heat soared, making it a far cry from comfortable and a lot closer to visions of fast-approaching death and unconsciousness.
So no, she wasn’t thrilled about seeing another one.
Maurice closed the door behind them so that just the two of them were inside the waiting room. There were a few chairs and a small coffee table with some magazines on it. Soothing background music chimed through hidden speakers softly. This didn’t look like the sort of place to meet a Khan. This looked like the sort of place you might go to work off some stress.
“Reuben—” she caught herself. “The Khan is meeting us here?”
“You can call him Reuben.” Maurice strode to the door of the sauna. “And this is where he said to meet.”
“But…” She tried to summon a protest. Why here? Why, of all places, this one? It wasn’t so much that she had a problem with it, she just didn’t understand. It was like meeting with a mafia boss at a McDonalds. It just didn’t add up.
Maurice paused at the door with a mischievous grin. “You’ve never been in something like this.”
Mila hesitated. “In the, wow this is so cool sort of way, or the immediate death sort of way?”
“Immediate death.” He tossed his head to her. “C’mon.”
Mila smiled despite herself. Ah, what the hell. Did it have to make sense? She walked over to him. “What do I have to do?”
Maurice opened the door for her. “Nothing. Just clear your mind and let your body do the work.”
About half of Mila hung up on that statement. Her body? What was her body going to be doing? Was this some sort of weird fetish thing? She wasn’t into it. It wasn’t so much that she was against making love with Maurice again, because she was certainly interested. Since their first time, it had been a dry spell that Mila would love to see broken. It was that if she was going to be doing naughty things, she preferred to not be sweating to death. When she was trying to be sexy, desperately wanting some Gatorade ruined the mood for her.
Saunas were useless. What was the purpose? Why not just go stand outside for a while and do something? Why sit uncomfortably and worry about having a heat stroke?
All these questions were still going through her mind when she walked in and realized that it was nothing like what she expected.
Chapter 16
The first thing that Mila noticed was the lack of heat.
She’d always been under the impression that it was supposed to be roasting in there to get anything done, but when she walked in, she felt no change in temperature. There was, however, a change. The air hung lighter and heavier at the same time. A strange, sweet scent wafted through the small room. Was it small? Was it large? Even though she was pretty certain she could reach out and touch any wall, every time she looked it stretched on forever.
She remained in perfectly clear mind even as she entered the peculiar environment. Maurice appeared beside her. When she looked at him, her heart soared. She was so lucky to have him with her. No, it wasn’t about the physical side of it. It was the partnership he gave her, the way he made her laugh and feel loved, the way she knew that she was safe. All of it.
Maurice’s body remained in perfect clarity and yet it shifted to and from. She felt closer to him than she’d ever been, like their souls were intertwined. She saw nervousness in him, but mostly amusement. “This isn’t a normal sauna.”
Mila blinked, hard. This wasn’t drugs. She’d, at one point or another, been in contact or tried nearly everything known to man. This didn’t feel like any of them. “What’s going on?”
“It purges negative emotion,” he told her. “It takes a few moments, but it cleanses whatever you’re upset about.”
Mila wanted to demand why the hell he’d kept this from her for so long. Why have something like that and not share it with the person kidnapped and scared for her life? But, at the same time, maybe he didn’t want her to be uncomfortable. Was it such a big deal? In about twenty seconds, it made plenty of sense.
As her mind cleared, her surroundings sharpened into focus. It looked like a normal sauna, with gorgeous, smooth wood all over and something in the corners burning and emitting the scent. Mila couldn’t help smiling. Why would she be upset? Was there anything to be upset about? She knew there were problems, somewhere, but they weren’t in there with her and she couldn’t care less then.
She returned to her normal mind slowly but surely. Even when everything faded and she was quite sure that she was seeing everything properly, she felt inexplicably happy. She wanted to break out and dance, to tell Maurice all the best things that had ever happened to her, and she had the strangest urge to listen to songs her parents used to play before they broke up.
Maurice had stripped. When? She wasn’t sure, but he was no longer wearing the suit and now was chilling on the other bench with nothing on but a smile and a towel draped over his crotch. His eyes were closed, and he’d folded his brawny arms across his chest. Mila blinked, hard. What? A closer inspection showed his clothing resting at the door, and an even closer inspection showed that the towel was barely big enough to cover the important bits.
Mila had waited an awful long time to get Maurice out of his clothes. She hadn’t been terribly blunt about it. She’d come as close as possible to telling him that she wanted to make love with him again without tearing off her clothes and ordering him to take her. He’d gently turned her down time again because of the same reason—he was afraid of transforming. Mila had grouchily given up because even if she won and they did naughty things, if he turned into a werewolf halfway through, things would get bad in a hurry.
That being said, apparently all it took to turn Mila on was seeing him like that. Since he had his eyes closed, she could take all the time she wanted to check him out, and check him out she did, from the delicate and strong features in his handsome face to the way his muscles all tightened. She could’ve written a ten page research paper on all the things she saw that she liked.
She swallowed her urge to pounce on him. Was she really that starved? Apparently so. Instead, she looked around for a towel, running off the assumption that she was supposed to be wearing that too. The inherent concern was that it was a lot easier for Maurice—one towel across his junk and blamo, he was decent. For Mila, she’d have to figure out a way to cover two areas.
Keeping a close watch on Maurice to see if he stirred, she stripped out of her clothes and snatched some covers from the rack she spotted by the entrance. She didn’t know if she preferred the idea of him waking up or staying motionless, but she got to paying too much attention to him and almost face-planted trying to get her shorts off. They were close to her right size, but not quite perfect, so they caught on her ankle and she almost wiped out before she caught herself.
Maurice didn’t move, which at first put her at ease. He hadn’t noticed. She slid her panties and bra off, at this point making sure to make enough noise that Maurice would notice and look over. Her heart pounded in her chest. There were hints, and then there was literally being naked in front of him. Worried about it or not, he was clearly attracted to her.
Four, maybe five feet separated them. That was it. Even though she was holding the towels, she hadn’t put them on yet and the truth was that if he opened his eyes, she’d be totally exposed to him. For whatever reason, he didn’t hear her. He was way off in the dream state, to the point where his eyes darted around under his eyelids.
Mila got closer to him and even faked a cough. She didn’t know why today she’d finally decided to just go for it and truthfully, she didn’t care. She wanted him. There was something about him that turned her on, both emotionally and physically. She wanted him to take her, to make love to her roughly then and there without a worry about who else might walk in and see.
She took a seat across from him, close enough she could kick him if she wanted to. His arms had unfolded while she changed, so they now hung lose at his side. Mila glanced around the sauna and saw what she expected: nobody. At all. It was just the two of them, and maybe it was the thrill she’d gotten from stepping inside, but something made her lift her foot up. The way his legs were positioned, the towel covered him pretty well but a well-placed nudge would let him know to wake up already.
Barely covered by the skimpy towel, she raised her foot towards his crotch in quivering anticipation of what might happen.
That was the exact moment that the Khan walked in.
Mila jerked her foot back so hard that she smashed her heel into the wooden bench. The sudden motion almost dislodged her covering. She snatched it and brought it to her chest, bright red. Oh God. She’d utterly forgotten that they were supposed to meet him! She’d gotten carried away and that important fact had faded away into the background. She tried to look like she was certainly doing nothing sexy and there was no reason to look at her, even though she was mostly naked and if she moved too much, either guy could check her out.
The sound of her foot hitting the bench was enough to wake Maurice up. He came to and spotted her there, arms hugging her chest awkwardly, as red as a tomato, and pieced it together. She pleaded with him silently—don’t say anything. It was already plenty obvious what was going on. He didn’t need to make it worse.
The Khan took a seat next to Maurice. Mila didn’t look at him. She couldn’t. She could already imagine what he would say, and she didn’t want to hear it.
“Mila.” It was the Khan’s voice. He remembered her name. “Don’t be ashamed. It’s perfectly natural.”
Mila had passed ashamed and moved straight to mortified, but she appreciated the sentiment. “I don’t know what you thought you saw, but…” she trailed off. But what? What was she trying to do?
This was simultaneously a nightmare and a lifelong fantasy. She was practically nude in front of not just one, but two handsome men. It was impossible to not notice the way Maurice’s towel was becoming less of a flat plane and more of a tent. A quick glance proved what she’d feared: Reuben was also wearing just a towel, and he looked damn good that way. She had two Adonises sitting across from her.
Mila wanted to crawl up in a hole and die. She was more humiliated than she had been in as long as she could remember. The other, more adventurous side of her had a different take. So what? So Reuben had seen her wanting to get
naughty. And? He was a dude. He wasn’t going to be judging her for it. If anything, he was probably turned on by seeing it.
What was stopping her from continuing?
Her breath caught in her throat. The idea had come out of left field, but it was true. What was preventing her from picking up where she’d left off? Reuben? She had to admit she had a thing for exhibitionism and danger. There wasn’t a lot more titillating than imagining making love to two men, especially with one being a stranger and one being someone she’d craved since she met him.
Maurice made it easier to decide. She’d been hitting on him since she arrived, and yet they hadn’t done anything since that first time. “If you want to, I will.”
Well, dammit.
Mila could have pulled the card of not wanting to make Maurice uncomfortable, but now that option was gone.
She cleared her throat and kept her eyes down. “How about you, sir?” She didn’t know why she added sir, except that he was still Khan and she wanted to stay on his good side.
She looked up at the two men. Both of them emanated hunger for her, and Maurice was standing tall already with Reuben at half-mast.
What.
The.
Hell.
Why not?
Mila’s sexual experiences had never covered something like this, where there were two guys and she was about to engage with both. They didn’t even have any condoms, and the mood wasn’t quite there. There weren’t any candles, no sweet talking and no foreplay. The truth was that Mila was wildly turned on by the idea of the whole thing and she wanted it desperately. But where to start?
The Deadwolves' Prisoner Page 13
