Page 8 of Hopeless Kingdom
It’s alright. It’s fine. I just won’t be using this room as an escape route.
A mantra of calming thoughts circles my mind as I stand and dust off my torn jeans. I don’t bother closing the door behind me. I want to fume on it a bit longer.
Storming across the room, I turn on the faucet to the tub. The white porcelain is too cold for comfort, and I turn the hot water on to its fullest. I undress as I pace. A trail of my clothes litters the room, and I continue to glare daggers at the balcony even as I slip into the deep bathtub.
The cold structure of the bath fights against the steaming hot water spilling into it. I sink low, letting my head disappear beneath the clear water. With my eyes tightly closed, my muscles relax and I let my thoughts drift.
Why would they do this? Why would they bring me here? Is the Hopeless realm really why we’re here?
They seem free while I’m living as a luxurious prisoner of Juvar.
A whore.
That’s what I’ll be.
I push harshly against the bottom of the slick tub until air meets my lungs. Water trails down my shoulders and chest as I push my hair from my face.
As soon as my eyes open, they land on his smile.
Daxdyn’s heated gaze follows a line of water that’s falling down between my breasts. My thighs clench together, and I force myself not to shy away from the look in his eyes. My fingers clench into my palms at my sides.
He sits on the edge of the tub, near my feet. Dark locks fall into his lashes as he stares at me with hooded eyes.
A thousand snarky thoughts drift through my mind, but only one seems to fit here in this moment.
“Pass the soap,” I say in a steady but breathy voice.
White teeth sink into his lower lip as his gaze trails down my body to the column of my throat, my smooth round breasts, my scarred ribs, heating across my navel. His attention stops as I bring my legs up slightly in the warm waters to hide what I know he’s looking for.
Surprisingly he doesn’t drop the soap like I thought he might. He hands the little white bar over, our fingers tingling with contact. A muted feeling of his emotions flows through me, driving right down to the center of my sex.
I shiver, but remain focused on the task of pushing the soap across my dirty skin. When it’s nearly overflowing, he turns the faucet off for me.
With rapt attention, he watches in silence. It’s strangely erotic. A tightness pebbles my nipples as I push the lathery soap across my chest and down my stomach. A heavy sigh drifts over my lips like a quiet moan, and my breath catches more when I see his hand fall to the crotch of his straining jeans. He adjusts himself stiffly.
Up and down his chest rises and falls. I pause, my legs angled closed, the bar held just below my hip bones. An energy burns between us as we stare hungrily at one another. In this moment, he’s at his weakest.
It’s then that I strike.
“Why did you bring me here, Daxdyn?” His name is a rasping breath on my tongue.
A smirk tilts his lips, and he clears his throat before looking away from me.
“Let me help you and I’ll consider telling you.”
Help. Never in my life has that word sounded less like a kindness and more like a kinky foreplay.
A pooling wetness that has nothing to do with the water heats between my legs.
“Fine.”
His brows raise high like it’s the last thing he ever expected me to say.
Without further warning, he begins pulling at the back of his white shirt. His slim waist leads up to panes of hard muscle. Inch by inch his body of lithe strength is revealed to me. He shakes out his hair and holds my gaze as he begins unfastening his belt. The light clinking of metal fills the silence before he lowers his black jeans to the ground. A thick hardness shadows beneath his dark briefs, and I shift involuntarily within the waters.
The strain he puts on the thin material of his boxers has me rising up a little as his thumbs hook into the elastic band around the veering lines of his hips.
“No.” The traitorous word blurts from my mouth.
