Relieved that Sin was okay, Lore relaxed and put on a nonchalant smile. “Sin likes to travel.”
“Good. So do I.” She held up her hand, and bless her little angel heart, she had a bag of fast food. The scent of burgers and fries made his mouth water.
The sight of a long, creamy expanse of stomach between Idess’s bunched-up tank top and low-slung jeans did, too. His stomach growled and his c*ck hardened as his body played tug-o-war with its two hungers.
“You hungry?”
“You can’t even imagine.”
Regret swirled in her eyes. “I really am sorry, Lore. I’m not practiced at holding anyone captive.”
“Yeah, your rookie is definitely shining through,” he said gruffly. He didn’t know how to deal with a captor who was actually nice. If she’d beaten him or taunted him or even just said nothing at all, he’d be right in the zone. But Idess left him in a state of what-the-fuck-do-I-do-now, when he normally knew exactly what to do in any situation.
She also left him in a state of arousal, and he definitely knew what to do in that situation.
He had to get her na**d. And chained up. And if the signals she’d given off during and after her feeding were any indication, she wouldn’t mind. No, she’d been hot for him—that much had been certain.
She sank down next to him, and her hand came up to cup his cheek. The gesture was so tender, so intimate, that once more, he wasn’t sure how to react. His head felt like a damned Ping Pong ball.
“I’m sorry I was gone so long. Believe it or not, I’m trying to find a way out of this.”
“Ah… keys?” he suggested. “That would get me out of this.”
One corner of her mouth cocked up in a flirty little half-smile. “Nice try.”
“So that’s a no?”
“That’s a no.”
He glanced at the bag. “Could I get something to eat then?”
“I wasn’t sure what you like, so I got a Coke, burgers, fries, tots, and a chicken sandwich.” She gave him a puppy-dog-did-I-do-good look that made something inside him melt when nothing should be melting for this woman. His dick twitched, and okay, not everything was melting.
“At this point, I’d eat a f**king cactus,” he muttered, and her shoulders slumped a little. And he actually felt bad about making her feel bad.
Welcome to Stockholm Syndrome.
She handed him the bag and waited as he wolfed down the chicken sandwich and fries. When his stomach stopped rebelling so loudly, he slowed down. “So. Tell me about yourself.”
She blinked. “Me? There’s nothing to tell.”
“You’re two thousand years old, and you’re saying you have absolutely nothing to talk about?” He downed half the soda. “Tell me something about how you were born. Were your parents human?”
For a long time she sat there, long enough for him to eat one of the two burgers. One delicate hand came up to worry her ponytail as she spoke. “I was born of an angel… I was switched out with my mortal parents’ true infant daughter. They were slaves in a wealthy Roman household.”
“So you grew up thinking you were human?”
“Yes.”
He had, too, but deep down, he’d always felt different, and in the 20/20 hindsight, he could see the neon signs. Like the one where his mother screamed, “You’re the spawn of the devil!” And, “I should never have let that demon plant his seed in my womb.” Sure, all the doctors in the sanitarium said his mother was insane, but her “delusions” never changed, and the friends who had been with her the night they’d “summoned Satan” had confirmed everything his mother said. They hadn’t believed the dark-haired stranger with the tattoos on one arm was Satan himself, but they were sure he was either some sort of demon, or a con artist.
They were right on both counts.
“Was there ever anything that made you stand out?” he asked, mainly to get out of the past. “Did you feel different from everyone else?”
“Not all.” She twisted one of the gold bands in her hair the way she’d twisted her palm around his cock. “I felt perfectly at home until my nineteenth birthday.”
“So you lived a normal life? Married? Kids?”
“Not even close.”
He wasn’t a historian, but he’d thought that back in those days, when lifespans were short and girls married young, Idess would have been a rarity. It was probably rude to ask, but it was also rude to chain someone to a bed, so f**k it.
“Why not?”
“It’s a long story.”
He tugged on his chains. “It appears that I have nothing but time.”
Idess shifted, but he had a feeling that no matter how comfortable she got next to him, she wasn’t going to get comfortable with this subject. He’d definitely poked a bruise here.
“At the age of sixteen, I was given as a gift to the son of a nobleman.”
“But wouldn’t you have to be of noble birth or something to marry?”
“It wasn’t to marry.”
Her pained tone set his teeth on edge. “For sex? Like, a prostitute?”
“As a mistress. I was considered very beautiful,” she said, without an ounce of pride. “My virginity was the gift. I was with him for two years, but when he took a wife, I was sent to a cruel friend of his. If I pleased him, I was to become either his mistress, or a toy to share with friends.”
“Your master was a dick.” Man, he wished he could go back in time and kick that guy’s ass. Hard.
She laughed. “Before he could touch me, my brother Rami came for me, and the friend died a suitably horrible death in battle a few years later.”
He purred with approval. “God, I love a bloodthirsty woman.”
“Well, you are an assassin.”
“I wasn’t always.” A note of defensiveness crept into his voice. “I’m more than a killer.” Though, was that true? Even he doubted his own words. He’d been nothing but a killer since the day he got his gift. And when he’d gone to work for Detharu, his killer status had only been secured. He’d even earned the title of First Assassin. How special. Yeah, he was real proud to be so good at offing people that he’d won an award.
He was such a piece of shit.
“How are you more?” There was no condemnation there. Only curiosity, and he couldn’t answer. Her hand came up to his chest, right over his slave mark, and a sweet, balmy heat broke out over his skin. “Your master… he can summon you through this, yes?”
“Yes,” he said hoarsely. He concentrated on bringing his libido down, concentrated on the odd cooling sensation in her hand. It wasn’t working. “He’s been trying all day.”
Her hand froze, and her nails dug into his skin. The luscious pleasure-pain made his breath catch. “What will happen if you don’t go?”
“The pain will gradually get worse, until I need to go or suffer in agony.”
She sucked in a startled breath. “How long?”
“Depends on how bad he wants to see me. And I’ll tell you right now that he’s got a real burr up his ass about it.”
She closed her eyes and bowed her head. Her ponytail slid around, brushing his waist, and man, what he wouldn’t give to free her hair, let it shroud his body in silk as she kissed her way down. “How bad is it? Right now, I mean.”
“It burns,” he said, and it wasn’t a lie. He felt like he had a hot iron on his chest. “But your hand… it’s cool. It feels good.”
She lifted her head. “I can get you ice.”
“Doesn’t work.” He covered her hand with his—his right hand, partly because his left was in a precarious position in the loose-fitting cuff, and partly because he could touch her with his dermoire-marked hand as long as it was still braceleted in the Bracken Cuffs. “But this is helping. I don’t know why. Your touch is magic.”
He was supposed to be seducing her. Supposed to be making her believe she was beautiful and perfect and sexy. Supposed to be doing all of that to get the f**k out of here. But suddenly, he wanted to do it because she was all those things. He brought her hand to his mouth. Though his chest began to burn again, it was worth the discomfort to be able to brush his lips across the soft skin of her knuckles. “You make me burn far more than anything my bond can do.”
She made a small surprised sound, just a whisper of air, a catch of her breath. “If you’re trying to seduce me, I told you it won’t work.” And yet, she was breathless, and he could scent her spicy arousal. When she shifted, the neckline of her top gaped, revealing deep cl**vage that was at once too much flesh, and not enough.
“Oh, it’ll work,” he drawled. “It just won’t get me free.”
She bristled. “Then what is your plan? You have to have one. I would.”
He rocked his head back against the wall and watched her through half-lidded eyes. “Come closer.”
“So you can try to hurt me? I don’t think so.”
“No,” he murmured. “So I can touch you. Everywhere.”
She stared at him as if his words were a trick, but his incubus senses picked up the sound of her heart beating faster, her breaths coming in a rolling stutter, and he knew she was putting his audio to visual. “You’re a pig,” she said, with a lot less conviction than he knew she was capable of.
“You want me to turn into a raging monster?” Actually, he wasn’t in much danger at the moment, but she wouldn’t know that. He just… wanted her.
“You have plenty of slack in your chains. If you need release, you have a hand…” She cleared her throat. “The bathroom is right over th—”
“I need to touch,” he growled. “I’m an incubus, Idess. I need contact. A female. You. This is torture.” Sure, he was playing on her guilt, but he wasn’t lying. Having her so close and being unable to do anything about it was killing him.