“Your father left a blanket for you. I let you use it as a pillow for a while, but when you began to heal, I took it and rigged it in the corner as a curtain. For privacy . . . when you need to use the chamber pot he also left. I think that’s what it’s called.”
Heat flooded her cheeks. “O-okay. Thanks.” She shouldn’t be embarrassed. She actually deserved this. He and the others had had to endure that kind of violation since their capture.
“Just so you know, I bathed you,” he said, “but I never removed your clothing and I never looked where I shouldn’t.”
As she had done to him. The heat intensified.
She looked herself over and saw that she was wearing the same clothes she’d worn to confront her father, the plain tee, and the flowing pants. At least she was comfortable.
“Thank you, Solo. Really. For everything.”
A stiff nod. “You’re welcome.”
Her gaze swept over him. He still wore the loincloth, his big, beautiful body on display. His skin was a luminous bronze, each of his muscles so well defined they looked painted on.
Breath caught in her throat. “So, uh, how long have we been here?”
“Three days.”
Three whole days. Fifty hours rather than seventy-two, for time was not the same here. During those fifty hours, Solo could have bound her. He hadn’t. He could have threatened to withhold medicine and food until she swore to aid him. He hadn’t. He could have fed her to the Nolanders to save himself. He hadn’t.
I’m the monster in this relationship. “Are you all right?” she asked hesitantly.
He blinked, frowned. “Why?”
“You have blood on your face.”
He reacted as if she’d slapped him, spinning to hide the fact that he was scrubbing his skin with a vigor that astonished her.
“Let me,” she said, but he acted as if she hadn’t spoken. She sighed. “Did the monsters hurt you?”
“You know about them?”
“Yes. To keep them out of the trailers, Jecis had the windows removed, the walls reinforced with steel, and the doors padlocked.”
“He should have put us inside your trailer, then,” he said, still wiping at his face.
“And allow you to find and hide weapons to use on him later?”
He popped his jaw. “Do you know of a safe place to hide outside the cage?”
Hoping to bust out of here, was he, while there were no armed guards? “I don’t recommend fighting the Nolanders on their home baseball court. Now, will you stop doing that and let me help you?”
He stilled. His hand fell to his side. Slowly he turned and met her gaze, his eyes so frosted over she shivered.
Still, she held out her hand. “Rag.” He’d helped her. Now she would help him, even in so small a way. Despite the fact that he had scrubbed so hard he’d left a red welt on one side of his face, the blood remained.
Reluctantly, he gave her what she wanted.
“Lean down here.”
Inch by inch he obeyed, a mask falling over his features.
She gently wiped at the crimson streak. Her arm trembled, the action almost too much for an arm that hadn’t been used in three days, but still she persisted.
“People play baseball on a field,” he rasped.
“That’s what I said. Isn’t it?”
“You said court.” Solo’s gaze never left her. He watched her every reaction, as if . . . what? As if he wanted to know her every emotion? Well, he would discover that she liked tending him and looking at him. Especially at his lips. Those beautiful, lush lips.
Right now they were pink. When his appearance changed, they would turn as red as his skin. Would they still be as soft as she remembered? she wondered. As sweet?
“You’re staring,” he pointed out, his voice tight.
“Does that bother you?”
His tongue flicked out, swiped. “No.”
To have that tongue in her mouth . . . to know what it was like to press her own against it . . . She shivered forcefully. “It did before. You threatened to kill me.”
“That was before.”
Before . . . what?
“And I will never hurt you, Vika.” He reached out, his thumb tracing the seam of her mouth.
At the moment of contact, her lips began to tingle. They parted of their own accord, and a heated, needy exhalation escaped her. “I know you won’t. Just like I will never hurt you.” She forced herself to finish cleaning him—before she did something they might both regret. “See? I’m harmless.”
He didn’t pull back. He stared at her, the fire in his eyes intensifying. Finally, he leaned toward her. “I’m sorry,” he croaked, “but I have to do this.”
“What—”
He kissed her, silencing her. His lips pressed against hers, lingering for one second, two, as though testing her reaction. Yes! This was what she’d wanted. And no wonder. It was magnificent, his lips softer than before. When she offered no protest, he lifted his head and studied her face. Whatever he saw, he must have liked, because he lowered a second time. His tongue flicked out, and she eagerly opened for him.
Their tongues thrust together, and, oh, this kiss was so much better than the one before, when she had taken what she shouldn’t have. He went slowly at first, coaxing her, but she didn’t need coaxing. She needed more.
Somehow, he understood what she couldn’t vocalize. He increased the pressure, the speed, and forced her head to tilt, giving himself deeper access, dominating her mouth, branding her soul-deep, consuming her. She loved every second of it, was engaged body and mind, swept up, lost. Happy to be lost.
He was so hot, a fire against her skin. He was so necessary. Suddenly she couldn’t imagine trying to take a breath without him. He was here, and he was hers, and this was beautiful. A beautiful kiss from a beautiful man.
His hand slid underneath her shoulders, angled up and cupped her nape. The rough texture of his skin delighted her, tickling her. He massaged the muscles there, drawing a groan of pleasure from her. Then his hand began to lower . . . stopping midway down her arm, kneading . . . angling again, this time toward her breast . . .
Her aching breast. A place that had never been touched by another. She’d caught enough illicit acts in the shadows of the circus to know that once a man got his hands on a woman’s br**sts, he couldn’t stop himself from taking more, all.
Vika tensed, not sure she was ready for what “all” entailed.
He must have been attuned to her every nuance, because he jerked backward, severing contact.