Page 28 of Lesson In Forgiveness

“Don’t trust anyone.”

Understandable, he supposed, but fucking frustrating. Beneath the cloth, he felt her nipple budding into his palm. “Need you to give me an inch. Just an inch. Can you do that?”

Revulsion marred the peace on her face, straining her features. It was a big ask, a test he wasn’t sure she was ready for, so it was a delightful shock when she acquiesced with a whimper.

Quickly, lightly, he washed one breast, then the other while she bared her teeth and kept her eyes squeezed tightly shut. “All right, that’s good. Done now, little tiger—you can stop snarling at me for the time being.”

Breathing ragged, she repeated, “Don’t like being touched.”

“And yet you’re handling this well. Lean forward.”

If anything, she pressed back further against the tub. “No.”

“Please,” he added in a firm tone, pushing her limits to see which inflections appealed to her more.

Tabitha clamped her hands on the edge of the bath and hunkered down.

“How old are you, Tabitha?”

She blinked. “Um… twenty-seven? Twenty-eight, maybe?”

“You don’t know?”

“Birthdays aren’t something we celebrate.”

No, the mad scientist and her husband probably hated celebrating the birth of their many test subjects, Grit thought bitterly. Why would they when most of the children under their care were disposed of via unspeakable methods? Rita likely marked the birth dates in whatever records she kept for her research.

“When was the last time you kissed someone?”

Her mouth twisted in disgust. “Kissing is a means to an end.”

“How about sex? For… work or for pleasure?”

Bitter laughter filled the room. Icy blue eyes opened and met his. “Dominic taught me how to use sex as a weapon; it isn’t one I use.” A muscle under her eye twitched. “I disarm my prey before…”

Grit’s cock shriveled slightly at the implication. The little tiger apparently spent a lot of time amputating vital parts of the male anatomy in order to protect herself. Although amputating didn’t feel like the right word when her victims presumably didn’t survive their encounter with her.

“How long?” he repeated, keeping his tone casual.

“I think I was seventeen?” Her brow furrowed. “There was the Russian… oh, and that French diplomat who had the preteen kink.” Some of her usual madness shimmered in her eyes for a brief second, reflected in her smile. “That one caught me off-guard, got me tied to his bed and…” She trailed off, shuddering as the memory resurfaced. “They sent him back to France in a couple hundred pieces.”

“That’s my girl.” He brushed the back of his fingers over her cheek, catching the tear he doubted she knew was there. “So you’ve never had a positive, painless sexual experience.”

“Sex is pain. I hate it.”

“It doesn’t have to be.” Deciding to avoid a fight, Grit changed his plans slightly. His thoughts drifted as he began washing her hair. “Your father was a child predator, you get that, right?”

“It’s one of the reasons I cut off his dick and made him choke on it.”

“Hmm. So you understand that everything he did to you, everything he made you do, warped your view of sex? Guys like him get off on pain because it gives them pleasure, Tabitha. We both know that fear has a scent and causing pain can be almost euphoric in the right context; they feed off that, use it to pump their egos and feel like their tiny dicks are worth something.” He dumped a puddle of shampoo on her head, started kneading it through her silky hair. “Men like me, we might enjoy catching a whiff of fear in our subs, tasting that euphoria when we add pain into the mix, but the biggest turn on for us is nurturing trust and giving back pleasure in exchange.”

Tabitha hummed softly under her breath as his fingertips found a sensitive spot at the base of her skull. “I’ll never be that vulnerable to a man again.”

Barely suppressing a snort of amusement, Grit refrained from pointing out she was as vulnerable as she was ever going to be right now. While she wasn’t defenseless—she’d never be that, seeing as she was a walking, talking weapon—she was exposed in more ways than simply being naked in the bath.

“Don’t you want to know what it feels like to be cut free, Tabitha? To trust someone so implicitly that you place yourself in their hands without question, let them guide you through fear to where you don’t have to think for a while?”

“No.”

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