Chapter 12: Luis

I watch her as she looks around my bedroom, a quick assessing glance, before she lets out a shallow breath, squeezes her eyes shut, and rolls to her side. She folds in on herself, exposing her back and ass. The livid crisscross of marks from my belt stand as my accuser, my inability to manage my anger. I wonder at the regret that sits hard in my chest, an unusual emotion for me.

In the stark light of my bedroom I see she's not perfect, not flawless. She has a body well-used. Cigarette burns on the back of her bicep and both her thighs, several scars from whipping or belting on her back, her ass and her legs. Faint lines on her wrists and her ankles where she'd been restrained in past. The pucker of a bullet hole in her shoulder and another further down, just below her rib cage. And three deep scars down her right side. Clean slashes, the first a long one, then a shorter one, then a small one. Deliberate. To mark her as property.

Anger burns in me as I clench my hands, but not at her for a change. At the disgusting bastards who did this to her. At me, one of those bastards. As I think this, I wonder if it's not the grief for my father fucking with me. She's disposable, would be long dead by now if not for Manuel. He saved her in his own perverted way, to exploit her, to use her as a shield, use her beauty as a trojan horse. So effective. So deadly.

In my grief, I hadn't considered how close I came to dying. Now, the image of the gun swinging towards me as I am helpless to defend myself makes me shudder. If not for her, I would be dead. I trace my eyes over her wild mass of hair, the bones jutting from her spine, the small curve of her waist and I find myself wanting more. For me, for this woman. My satisfactory life up to now seems hollow, shallow. A shadow of what it could be. I have this overwhelming need to fix her, make her whole again. I wonder what she would look like happy, healthy and confident. But how is that possible with someone so damaged?

I touch her back with my fingers, softly run the tips over the scars, not mine, my belting will heal. The deeper ones etched into her back like an abstract painting. Carved into her soul. Some are raised and as I slide a finger down one, goosebumps rise across her skin and she shivers.

"Don't." Her voice is muffled, distant, soft and defeated.

I bring my fingers up, just an inch as I consider her. Consider what's next. I need to make a decision, go forward, with her. Or put her down here and now, end her suffering, move on with my life. Of course, I know which path I'll choose before the thoughts even filter through my brain. If I can bring Lena to my side, get her to trust me, we might have a chance at the murky but alluring future that's starting to take shape in my mind.

I slip the tie out of the bathrobe laying on the bed. She doesn't fight me, doesn't resist as I pull her wrists together and over her head, winding the tie around them, knotting it, then tying it to the bed frame, intricately tethering it close to the bars, then again and again so she can't easily reach the knots. Despite what I might want, what I believe, I still think that underestimating her might get me killed.

I leave her and walk downstairs to the housekeeper's room, knock on the door, wait a beat for her to answer. Theresa opens the door, her features alert. "I need some antiseptic, lotion. Is there something that numbs pain that I can rub on?"

She keeps her eyes steadily on my chest, not looking me in the eye, but listening with her sharp intelligence. Theresa has been in this house as long as I can remember. She knows never to question an order. "Yes, a cream."

She doesn't move quickly enough for my taste and I lose patience, snapping, "Now. Get it and bring it to my bedroom."

She scurries around me and jogs down the hall, then moments later reappears with her hands full. "I have the numbing cream and some lavender oil. The oil is healing, will help prevent scarring."

As she hands it off to me, I say, "Bring some water, some food, something gentle on the stomach. Bananas, hot porridge, I don't know."

"Shall I bring it down –"

"Up. To my bedroom. Knock on the door and leave it in the hall."

When I return to my room, Lena's exactly where I left her, no signs of a struggle, no indication that she even tried to untie herself. She doesn't move until I drop down beside her, then she flinches as I run my hand up her ass. She's scarred, but she's toned and she's beautiful. I know why men would want her, but my gut roils when I think of it. All the men who have touched her.

I uncap the numbing cream and squeeze the tube along her back.

She jumps and shudders as she shrinks from me. Belatedly, I realize I should have warmed it with my hands first, maybe warned her I was about to touch her wounded back.

"What are you doing?" Her words are thready and her muscles tense under my touch.

I don't answer as I rub the cream into the welts, into her skin in gentle, smooth caresses down her shoulders to her back, to the cheeks of her ass, to the backs of her thighs. Her breathing evens out, a soft sigh as the tension leaks from her body.

Then the oil, a vial smelling of lavender. This time I pour it into my hands first, but it's not like the cream. It's warmer, the scent of it subtle, drifting, intoxicating. Again, I start at the top, at her neck this time, moving her hair to the side and massaging the oil into her skin, rubbing my fingers into the muscles, feeling the second they unknot and relax.

Another minute, then I move gently down her back, too late for the burns on her arm, the old scars, but I massage the oil into them anyway, a belated gift of regard. I run my hands down the sides of her body from her ribcage to her waist, resisting the urge to draw them under her body, to her chest. Resisting the urge to cup her breasts, squeeze them, touch her nipples.

I'm hard again. How can I not be? She's beautiful and her body is so malleable under my strokes. I flatten my palms against her shoulder blades as I fight to control the hunger that's raging through me, fearing if I unleash it now, I will devour her.

I inhale a jagged breath, then let it trail out slowly as I touch my fingers to her back again, to her waist, small strokes, skin on skin, her softness, her toned muscles, her strength. She's motionless and silent as I work my way down, a wary cat that likes the petting but is ready to bolt at the slightest sign of aggression. She tenses as my fingers bridge the crack of her ass, as they stroke down to her pussy, through her folds. She's wet with desire.

She jerks at my touch, shrinks from it. "Don't."

She tries to shift away from me, but I stop her, my hand to her hip, my fingers biting into her supple flesh. She stills and I relax my grip, wait. It's as torturous for me as it is for her. So quiet in the room, just the trace of our breaths, pacing each other. When she settles, I pick up small rivulets of oil on her back with my fingers and bring them down to her folds, gliding through them to her clit. I hear the intake of her breath, a sob stuck in her throat. "Please don't."

I keep touching her, listening as her breathing deepens, watch as her body subtly shifts towards my fingers. "Why not, Lena? Why don't you want to come for me?"

I drop my body down beside hers, turning towards her so she can't hide from me, so I can see her beautiful brown eyes, see the truth behind her words. She doesn't answer and I push a finger into her vagina, moving my thumb off her clit so she doesn't come yet. I want my answers first. "Why Lena? Tell me."

I'm thrusting the finger inside her, raking her g-spot with enough pressure to make her jerk. Her eyes flutter as I thrust in and out, touching her tight walls with my rough finger, lighting her up with pleasure.

"I don't do this." Her words are a plea, but to stop or keep going? I don't think she knows.

"Don't do what?" I slide another finger into her, stretching her, filling her with my flesh. Still I don't touch her clit. Her lips tug down at the intrusion, and then a small breath escapes her.

"I don't come. Please don't make me come again."

I'm intrigued. The little bodyguard doesn't come? "Never?" I can't help myself, maybe because I'm a man, maybe because I can't understand why someone wouldn't want come as often as they could. It's the best fucking feeling in the world. Those fleeting seconds, the build, the release, the perfect drifting sensation after spending oneself. My balls tighten at the thought of it and my cock strains against the zipper of my pants.

"No." her voice is small, her eyelids squeezed shut. She doesn't want me to see her confessions.

"But downstairs—" I forget that I don't want her to come, that I wanted her to wait as I rake my thumb across her clit, gently at first, then a little harder.

"Yes."

She's fighting me, fighting her desire. It's in the clench of her fingers as she tugs on the rope binding her wrists. In the strain in her neck. In the furrow between her eyebrows.

"Never before?" I search her face, disbelieving.

"Please stop." Tears leak from eyes, down her cheeks.

"Lena, answer me. Never?"

She sobs. "No. Not ever."

It's a revelation for me and I'm lost in the moment, this damaged woman, a fighter, a killer, a sex slave, a victim. And a virgin to pleasure.

"Let go, Lena." I speed my strokes up, my fingers thrusting, bringing her higher as she moans, fighting me, fighting it. "Let go," I say again. "Just let go and accept the feeling. I'll catch you."

She moans, a single, hard gasp of air as her orgasm hits her. She cries out, shatters, the walls of her pussy tightening around my fingers. Like a bullet, crashing into her, speeding through her, I prolong the orgasm, gliding my fingers in and out as she shudders against me. I have the image of it ricocheting off her damaged soul, destroying her past. Letting her start over.

I watch as her shoulders shake, as tears run down her face, her nose leaking. I feel savage. I want my tongue on her pussy, her clit, sucking her, licking her, smelling her, tasting her. I want to climb up behind her, pull her ass in the air and sink my cock into her wet pussy. I want to take her deep, hard, unrelenting. I want to pull her up again, make her know what it's like to come while being licked, eaten, fucked. I want to claim her in a way no man ever has.

But I don't. I roll onto my back next to her and stare at the ceiling, rubbing my forehead with my hand. My fingers are shaking. All the things I want to do and all the things I should do. And I can't seem to find my way back to who I believed myself to be.

I'm granted a reprieve from my thoughts by a small knock on the door and Theresa's voice floating through it. Food and water for Lena. The means to this woman's survival.

And then I know. I know what I need to do.