by Maren Smith
She tried to shake her head, but he must have thought she was trying to turn away again. He caught her lower jaw, his fingers digging in to stop it. It didn’t hurt, but the hold was firm.
“You did as I told you,” he said. “There was no wrong in that. I’m proud of you. What sense does it make for us to live as enemies, with nothing but pointless anger to bind us? Is that really how you want it to be?”
Did she want it to be like that? Sniffling, Brinley shook her head.
“No more tears,” he told her and gently brushed them away. “Not for this reason, anyway. Weep for me later, in a way we’ll both enjoy.”
“Ha.” She almost laughed. Locking her lips together, she kept it back, but not very well. A flicker of amusement danced back into his gaze, turning his stern mouth smug with another crooked smile.
“That’s my human,” he said, satisfied. She sniffled again as he pushed back off both her and the bed. “I’m going to bring you another tablet, and you aren’t going to break that one.”
She groaned, grinding the heels of her palms into her eyes to make the lights flash in her head. “Uh, please. Enough with the tablets already.”
“It’s too important,” he told her.
She dropped her hands, smacking the bed as she demanded, “Why? What do you want me to see? More newsfeeds where my friends get darted and dropped off second floor balconies?”
For the first time, Rowth looked startled. It shuttered quickly into that emotionless mask she found so maddeningly impossible to read, but it startled Brinley just as much that she’d seen it at all.
“I would not do that,” he told her, and with such quiet sincerity that she actually believed him. Rowth took a breath, striving for a patience she knew damn well he didn’t have before choosing the most asshole argument he could possibly think up. That it should follow this close after sex was just a blueprint to the giant suck-hole that was her life. “I am the parent. You are the ‘child’—”
“I am not a child!” she roared.
“I am going to give you another tablet,” he continued, his voice rising over the top of her objections. “You have two hours before dinner.”
“Fuck you and fuck your food!”
“If you feign obedience,” he said, steadfastly ignoring her tantrum, “and complete your first lesson, then I reluctantly promise not to kiss you again tonight. Or suckle your nipples. Or tie your fragile legs to the canopy hooks, hoist your ankles well above your head, and fuck you with the throb wand until you howl.”
Furious as she was, her nipples tightened, her breasts swelled and her greedy pussy shuddered all the way up to her womb. God damn him. Thankfully, his fingers were no longer in her to feel it. So as long as she kept her perverse desires from betraying her, then he never had to know how good he’d just made that sound.
“We call them ‘meat missiles’ back home,” she said drily. “And if you think for one second you can make me howl tonight, or any other night, you can think again.”
He cocked his head, then arched both eyebrows. He started to say something, but just as abruptly cut himself off with a shake of his head. “Don’t issue me your challenges now. I haven’t the time to show you just how badly you’ll lose. Don’t you see what I’m offering you?”
She was too busy bristling right now to see anything but red.
“You are going to be here for a very long time. I don’t know how long your people live, but I do imagine at least a few years. Years stuck in this house, staring at naught but the wrinkles in the drapes above your bed and whatever amusements you can wring from your fingers and toes.”
She would have looked away again, but his fingers caught her chin and even more gently than before, turned her back to him.
“I am trying to teach you how to read our language,” he told. “You do not strike me as a stupid woman. Would you not rather spend your days working in your own field of expertise, doing what you do best?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Are… are you saying you’d let me get a job?”
“I am saying, I’m willing to try to make that happen. Yes.”
Damn, he was good. Presented with that, it was almost impossible to hold onto her anger.
“I could escape,” she pointed out, calmly now. “I could run amuck in the city, climb the Empire State building and swat down planes.”
Bless him, he actually tried to puzzle that one out. Again, he dismissed it with a shake of his head. “Take my offer,” he cajoled.
She folded her arms, not yet willing to be mollified. “And if I don’t?”
He shrugged with his expression alone. “Then you don’t. There will be no punishment for that.”
Something in his tone caught her ear. “For that?”
“After supper,” Rowth promised. “After Rog has settled for the night, then you and I will take our first trip together down into the cellar. I told you what would happen if you misbehaved and still you broke my tablet. Actions have consequences, Brinley. Tonight, you will learn exactly what my consequences entail.”
Her sex convulsed, quivering to the strains of what felt like another orgasm. You will scream your want for me. That was what he had threatened. That was what he was going to do to her and, heaven help her, just the thought of it was enough to make her want to come all over again.
What the hell was wrong with her?
CHAPTER TEN
She had to be losing it. Teach her to read. Yeah. Right. As if he’d ever let her out of his sight long enough to get a job. He wanted something from her. What, she wasn’t sure, but she was bound to find out eventually. And in the meantime, he was right about one thing: it did give her something to do other than lie on her back, counting curtain wrinkles and fixating on how horny he made her each time he waltzed in and out of her room—which, now that the dead guard had been removed, she’d been brought back to—growling threats he’d probably never carry out anyway.
She bet he didn’t even have a cellar.
Her stomach tightened, but she stubbornly refused to acknowledge those twinges of foreboding. Lying on her back, tapping at the most recent tablet Rowth had faithfully brought her, Brinley scowled at the squiggles and lines that made up the Pra’kirian alphabet. They appeared less like letters and more like hieroglyphics, but with a set number of thirty-one symbols which she hoped, once she got the hang of what was what, she’d be able to pick up fairly quickly. She wasn’t a linguist, but on the surface of it Rowth’s language didn’t seem half as complicated as, say, Chinese or Japanese, or ancient Egyptian. Of course, she was only on her second lesson and with the spicy smell of dinner percolating through the upper level of the house, wafting down the cliff-side stairs and drifting into his bedroom through the open windows to tickle and tease her empty belly and nose, Brinley knew the time she had for this lesson was likely limited. And once it was gone…
Once it was gone, she’d be hauled up to the main floor for dinner.
And once dinner was done, then she’d be dragged down to this grand dungeon of a “cellar” he seemed to think she ought to fear.
—her stomach clenched again—
Brinley refused to let herself dwell on what might happen. He’d threatened her with the cellar before. Just because he said it would happen, didn’t mean it would. Hell, if things actually happened when people told her they would, she’d still be in cryo-sleep with a good two-years of travel left before they reached Zeta-12. Which only proved that any number of things could occur to prevent vague cellar-threats from becoming physically uncomfortable Brinley-torments.
Her scowl deepened as she realized she’d just wasted several precious minutes lying motionless, one finger poised over the animated match game the tablet had her playing.
“Find the ‘eh’,” the woman’s voice coaxed via the tablet’s speakers.
Eh… eh… that was the funky sideways ‘D’ looking thing. She made three wrong choices before she found the right one. One more error, the voice gently chided, and the game w
ould be over. Which meant she would be graded, scored, and a note entered into the parental side of the game’s scholastic log. After which Rowth would no doubt receive a consolatory, ‘We’re so sorry your kid is an idiot. Here, have a 20% rebate on your next educational program purchase, because she’s going to need it.’
And there, that was her last error.
“Crap!” She jabbed at the screen, but it had already locked down and was now flashing that partially-transparent white symbol she was coming to hate so much. She tossed the tablet aside and dropped her head onto her folded arms to sulk.
She felt ridiculous. She hated being in this position, dependent on someone else for everything, but only half as much as she hated the fact that she was sulking about it. She was one hundred percent responsible for what she was doing, one hundred percent in control of changing her attitude much less her behavior (and yet, she knew that wasn’t going to happen), and so that left her one hundred percent sure she deserved to be here, with nothing left for her to do but wait for Rowth to come and unlock her tablet again. So she could be treated like even more of a child.
Her sulk deepened. She was starting to see the wisdom in learning how to read Rowth’s language. She one hundred percent hated that too, but she was going to be here a very long, long time. Reading was a useful skill to have.
A whisper of echoing footsteps on distant stairs caught her ear, and instantly a prickling awareness of her approaching ‘Master’ swept up the backs of both thighs. She shuddered, but it wasn’t an unpleasant sensation. It was, in fact, almost pure erotica. Her nerves woke up in a slow wave that crawled up over the lower curve of her ass cheeks to tickle at her spine. She one hundred percent had no idea how to feel about that. On the one hand, her perpetual horniness was so inappropriate. And on the other, she couldn’t help but hope Rowth came through that door like he owned the place, and then she hoped he’d grabbed a fistful of her hair, shove her facedown into the mattress and make it clear that he owned her too.
She hoped it hurt.
Because she was a freaking lunatic. That was the only explanation she could think of for why.
More footsteps, this time echoing off the tiles right outside her door. She lifted her head just as the door slid open and Rowth walked in. The wafting, nose-hair-burning smell of spices entered with him.
“I hate you and everything you stand for,” she said, by way of a greeting. She also flopped back on the mattress is sulky defeat.
But no, she was lying to herself. She wasn’t defeated. She was intoxicated. Enthralled. Infatuated with the possibility of what this man, whom she should hate, could make her feel. Maybe. If she was obedient, and he felt so inclined.
She wasn’t at all happy about that part, either.
“Good evening to you too.” Picking up his tablet, Rowth turned it on with a tap of his finger and entered the code to unlock the program. He read her progress updates, cleared it out, and without comment, dropped the tablet on the bed again. “Let’s get dressed. Sit up.”
Let’s. She snorted. He was already dressed, she was the only naked person here. Well, Rog was naked too, but he didn’t appear to have genitals, so it probably didn’t matter as much to him.
Pushing herself up on her arms, she watched him disappear into the closet and tried not to feel disappointed that she wasn’t right now being pinned by her hair to the mattress while he… What? Slapped her face with his cock until she opened?
Her pussy twitched.
Pure, unadulterated lunatic. That’s what she was.
Re-emerging from the closet, Rowth crossed back toward the bed with another of his gossamer negligees—this one a skimpy white-lace tunic, trimmed in bright pink—draped over his arm. “Would you like to freshen up before the evening meal?”
“Yes, please.” Brinley picked up each leg to lessen the inevitable shooting pain when her feet caught on blankets, her stiff ankles bent and her knees angled. None of which hurt anywhere like it had when she’d first been released from the hospital, but which was still bad enough to make her howl if she wasn’t braced for it. She edged towards the side of the mattress to let her legs dangle.
“Hold still.” He lay the lace tunic over the edge of the bed. “I’ll carry you.”
“I’m not helpless. I can do it.” Easing off the bed, she endured the initial shocks as her legs were made to take her weight with little more than a teeth-gritted wince. It still hurt, but it was definitely getting easier.
“I said, I’ll carry you.”
When he reached for her, she blocked his hand with her arm. “And I said, I can do it.” Step by slow stiff-kneed step, she waddle-limped away from the bed. “I hate being babied.”
He didn’t reach for her again, so she was counting this as a victory. But she caught his heavy disapproval in the frown he leveled after her when—one Rog-paced limp at a time, with each long pause in between filled with lots of breathing and lots of bracing—she tried to go around him.
“What?” she finally demanded, but only because after only three steps she needed a break and that put her right beside him.
“I’m considering,” Rowth replied.
When he didn’t elaborate, Brinley leaned her hands on her own thighs. It didn’t help the shooting pains radiating up through her shins, but it did help mask how badly she was starting to shake because of them. Borrowing his frown, she gave it back to him. “Considering what?”
“Whether I find your stubbornness more endearing than aggravating, or the other way around today. Sometimes it can be difficult to tell.”
“I could say the same about you.” She forced two more stiff-legged limps forward before she had to stop again. Half the room still yawned between her and the bathroom, but she was determined. Eventually she might have reached it before her shaking legs collapsed out from under her, but Rowth lost his patience. He didn’t sigh, exactly, but the heaviness of his exhale was the only warning she had before he came after her.
He turned around, that was all he had to do before hooking his arm around her waist and lifting her off her aching shins. Her throat tightened in, choking off that half-second groan of relief, but not before it betrayed her.
“You’re welcome,” he said dryly.
And just like that, she was once more relegated into the position of a disagreeable toddler, with her back hugged to his chest and her legs dangling as he carried her the rest of the way. Her frustration swelled. “Stop treating me like a child!”
“Stop behaving like one,” he said as he set her on the toilet. Made for someone two feet taller than she was, her toes dangled off the floor there too.
“I do it on my own when you’re not here.”
“I know.” He retreated only as far as the sink. Propping his hip against the counter, he folded his arms and waited for her to void. “Believe me, I know exactly what you do when I’m not in the room.”
He had cameras. Son of a…
She grit her teeth. “I don’t need an audience.”
A corner of his mouth curled. “Few things in life are not instantly improved when completed to the sound of applause.”
She snorted, but only because his fleeting moments of humor always struck her unexpectedly. She wasn’t about to smile, though. Except then she peed and he applauded, and she lost that battle too. At least he let her clean up without trying to help. By the time he carried her to the sink to wash her hands, she had her frown firmly back into place.
Afterwards, she dressed. The tunic was too large for her. Once he’d pulled it down over her head and she figured out which straps were meant for her arms and which were meant to decoratively hug her ribs, Brinley looked down at herself to find the budding tips of her nipples were poking straight through the lace. As if it had been meant to frame, rather than to conceal.
“When I get a job, will I be allowed to wear real clothes?” She eased off the edge of the bed, catching his arm when he reached for her. She tried to waylay his attempt to pick her up by pretending to
accept his ‘offer’ for balance.
“That will depend on your level of obedience. At this point, it’s not looking likely.”
“Is everyone on your world as misogynistic as you or did I just win the pig lottery?”
Rowth cocked an ear as they walked, his pace slow and even with hers. “What was that word?”
“Misogynistic. It means, among other things, you subjugate your women.”
“I know what misogynistic means,” he drawled with a censuring frown. “Believe me, we’ll discuss your use of it after supper when I address the rest of your misbehaviors. No, I mean the other word.”
He slowed even more when they neared the door, urging her to step through ahead of him. With any luck, that put her far enough in front of him that he wouldn’t notice how her eyes widened the minute she realized which word might have confused him.
“Lottery?” she asked, wincing because she already knew that wasn’t it.
“Pig,” he corrected. “And judging by your reluctance to address it, I suspect your list of sins just lengthened by one.”
“There’s nothing wrong with pigs,” she defended.
“No?”
“Not at all. They’re very… well-mannered and… intelligent and… fry up nicely at breakfast with a side of eggs and toast.”
“And this is an insult on your world?”
“If you’d ever seen the toast, you wouldn’t need to ask.”
“Hm.” He considered that as they progressed slowly down the hall. Her grip on his arm had grown progressively tighter and her limping was more pronounced now than when they’d started. Her breath was catching too. Each time she took a step, she realized each breath she took came with either a hitch or a hiss, and sometimes both. This was pathetic. She’d just walked the length of one bedroom and one hallway. The veranda leading to the cobblestone walkway that overlooked the sheltered ocean cove and which connected this level of the house with the upper level was dead ahead of them. Oh dear God, she locked her eyes on the stairs—all those slabs of marbled stone cut directly into the cliff side, curving up as it followed the rock face, probably no more than thirty in all. Give her two working legs and she never would have looked at these steps twice. But, she didn’t have two working legs.
