Which, his tone suggested, he didn’t think I could. I felt the flush in my cheeks caused by his amusement over what would be done to me, added to by his obviously low opinion of my way of doing things. I was about to be insulted all over again, but he didn’t give me the chance.
“If you’re finished with your little-girl pouting exercises for today, I’m still waiting for a final answer from you,” he said, a directness in his gaze despite the amusement he still clearly felt. “Do we do it my way without argument, or do we not do it at all?”
“I’d still rather be dead,” I answered, this time glaring at him. “If I can find any way of arranging that instead, you can consider our deal canceled. Until then, though—we do it your way.”
“Do you really believe that if you mumble the words binding you to an agreement, you won’t be bound as tightly as you would if you pronounced them clearly out loud?” he asked, his wide grin showing how funny he considered that idea to be. “I think I’ll have to try that some time, to see if it actually works. Right now, though, let’s celebrate our agreement by trying something else. Raise your face to me.”
He put a hand under my chin and bent his head to kiss me, and I couldn’t help but notice how much-ownership-there was in the doing. I had committed myself to agreeing to whatever he wanted of me, and I had a terrible, sinking feeling that even that quickly it was already too late to back out. I might have told myself I was imagining things, but I wasn’t given the time to indulge in false assurances. The kiss was a brief one, and as soon as it was over his hands went to the towel I was wrapped in. I could feel myself reddening and silently choking over the swallowed protests I wanted to voice but wasn’t allowed, and that made him chuckle.
“What a good girl you’re being,” he approved even while he laughed softly, taking the towel out of my grip to open it slowly and deliberately. “Not that trying to refuse would get you anywhere. Did I mention that they switched from giving me shots to adding to my food? It was all I could do to hold back while we were talking, no matter how important I knew the conversation to be. Being First Prime means I have a lot of women to see to, and they want to be sure I’ll be up for it. They also want to keep me too well occupied with thoughts of other things, to make sure I don’t start thinking about making trouble again. Isn’t it nice of them to help me out like that?”
His voice sounded as though it wanted to be a growl, but with his palm sliding over my breast it came out as a murmur. He had uncovered me completely and was slowly moving his hands everywhere, but when he reached my thighs I had an unpleasant surprise. Despite the fact that I didn’t want to be touched like that, I was very suddenly finding it extremely hard to sit still. The heat I’d earlier thought was gone had abruptly returned, and when his fingers left my thighs to stroke elsewhere, I found myself giving in to the urge to gasp.
“Trying to push my hand away isn’t being a good girl,” he said, his grin as strong as his hand was impossible to move. “Hold onto my wrist with both of your hands, as though encouraging me to do anything I like. After all the argument I’ve had out of you, you owe me some encouragement. ”
I didn’t in any way agree with that, and found that I couldn’t even try to go along with it. I struggled against the way he was touching me, fought to dislodge his hand, but couldn’t get free or make him stop. He was so much stronger than me that even trying to fight was a useless gesture, but instead of him becoming angry with me he started to laugh.
“I knew I could count on you for what I needed,” he said through the laughter, his tone and expression full of arousal. “None of them make the least attempt to struggle, all they want to do is give me everything. But I’m tired of being given, I’m bored with it, what I need is something else. You’ll give me that something else, and no one will get suspicious because they know I really do want it. You’ll learn not to behave like this with the others, to be sure they don’t do to you what I’m going to do, but for me you’ll continue on with it, and that will be my reason for keeping you as long as I can and taking you back when your assignments are over. One day soon we’ll beat them and be gone from here, but until then we’re going to have fun.”
He pushed me off his lap, then took my wrist and pulled me out of the bathroom with him, dragging me along behind as he headed for his bedroom. The towel had fallen to the bathroom floor to lie in an abandoned heap, and even with the burning in my body I couldn’t help but think how lucky it was.
6
He held me tight in his arms as he stroked with all his strength, grunting and moaning out the delight he felt. He’d worked me into such a frenzy, that I couldn’t have kept myself from moaning along with him even if I’d wanted to. I needed what he was giving me, needed it badly, and only distantly wished that he’d also let me hold him instead of him alone holding me. I wanted to feel that I was sharing with him rather than just being given what he wanted to give, but he didn’t care to allow that. He was making it my place to take whatever I was given, and I was in no state to argue even a little. I burned for what he was giving me, and would have done almost anything to get it.
It wasn’t over quickly, not until he had given me what I needed and had taken what he wanted, and then we both lay unmoving for a while in the wrinkled, sweaty linen. I’d felt fairly well rested from the previous night’s sleep before the bout had begun, but the end of it hadn’t left me with anything like the same impression.
“You’ll find the injections will do that to you,” Kel-Ten said when he’d gotten his breath back, turning to his right side to put a hand on my thigh. “Make you uncontrollably hot, I mean. Twice last night and once this morning, and if I started you up again you’d find you couldn’t refuse. But you’re going to try refusing anyway, aren’t you, ‘sweet thing’? Just to make Kel-Ten happy?”
I looked up at his grinning face, feeling no least urge to share in his amusement. Three times now he’d goaded me into trying to deny him, and then he’d laughingly gone ahead and done as he pleased. Once he was in me, my interest in resisting him was thoroughly stroked away, but by then it was cooperation he wanted and not denial. I no longer doubted that he really did mean to try escaping that place, and that was a shame. I was beginning to want very much to walk away from him, but I couldn’t afford to do that.
“I think I’ll have a shower, and then we can sit down to breakfast,” he said, giving my thigh a last squeeze before starting to get up. “I have training classes this morning, and you’ll be going to them with me. You won’t be able to appreciate them, but I’m not doing it for you. I want to show off my new acquisition to those who come closest to sharing my point of view, and maybe lure them into asking to borrow you. Whether or not I’ll agree is something you won’t know until it happens—or doesn’t happen. That should keep you on your toes. ”
His grin was chock-full of amusement, but during his speech he’d glanced at me in a way that said I was to pay close attention to what I saw in those training classes. His reasons for taking me there were more involved than the one he’d mentioned aloud, but that didn’t mean he’d overlook the spoken reason. Do nothing to arouse suspicion was his motto, and he’d stick to that no matter what I had to go through to see it done.
“Personally, Iii like a bath,” I said, pushing myself to sitting before running my hands through my hair. “You’ve made the one I took last night absolutely worthless. ”
“Not absolutely,” he contradicted, still enjoying himself. “We got rid of that reagent, which might have made you think twice about trying to argue with me. But don’t bother getting up. You don’t have my permission to take another bath.”