He was a teenage boy. He had to look. But there were times since he’d wished he could unsee what he’d seen.

  Daralyn had been standing in the middle of the floor, changing her shirt. She’d been turned toward the window, her back curled as she found the sleeves with her narrow hands. What came to mind instantly, disturbingly, was the skeleton in his biology class. Every vertebra was visible. Her ribs were painfully prominent. Until then he hadn’t realized the extent of her malnourishment.

  He should have, but he’d been an idiot high school kid, caught up in his head. At just over five feet tall, she’d weighed less than ninety pounds when the police took her out of her family home.

  She’d filled out now, he reminded himself. Still thin, but not scary thin. Yet he could see it, the image of the past overlaying the present, as she faced away from him, smoothing invisible wrinkles out of the dress. There was nothing deliberately sexy about her pose, yet he couldn’t take his eyes from the wave of her hair on her shoulders, the pull of the panties across one buttock, how the bra strap followed a horizontal line beneath her shoulder blades.

  “Turn and face me.”

  She did, but he could tell something was unsettling her. He reached out, palm up. She came to him and laid her wrist in it, the way she’d done the other day. When he closed his grip over it, she settled. His surge of reaction, impossible to describe, was the exact right feeling for the moment.

  “Bring me that throw pillow on your bed.”

  When he released her to do that, he bent and removed his feet from the foot plate, spreading them out to either side of it. She returned, holding the pillow before her midriff, and he nodded to the space between his feet, in front of the plate. “Put the pillow there, and kneel on it, facing me. Put your hands on my thighs.”

  Every time he doubted whether this was the right path or not, he’d get a reaction like the one she demonstrated now. The flush climbed higher on her chest and throat, and she moistened her lips, her fingers tightening on the pillow. As she obeyed, he noted something else, equally important. She settled once she was down there, her breathing evening out. He was about to disrupt that some, but they had to go down this path. He knew it.

  Her eyes closed as he stroked her hair, threaded his fingers through it, over and over. It was nice just to do that, watch the way she swayed and moved with him. The dark and quiet held them, so when he spoke, his voice was husky. “Put your head on my leg.”

  She scooted in and did so with a little sigh, her arm curling around one of his calves. He kept stroking, following the smooth path between her shoulder blades, down to the strap of the bra, and back up again.

  “I want to know what was happening the other night. When we stopped.”

  She tensed, as he expected. But instead of letting his own guilt about whatever had happened derail him, he sharpened his focus on her reactions. What she was struggling with, yes, there was shame, but it was balanced by those same elements of desire. He saw her knees tighten and would have bet money she was replaying it all in her head. He decided to confirm it.

  “How much have you thought about it, Daralyn? What we did? How I took control of you?” And damn if saying those words didn’t feel good.

  “More than I should. I was bad, Rory. I couldn’t…not feel the way I felt. I couldn’t control it.”

  As the words sank in, a terrible realization filled his mind. Asking a question just the right way could solve a mystery, but if her answer meant what he thought, it was unthinkable. Since that made him wonder if he’d interpreted what she’d said correctly, he’d proceed with the assumption of what anyone else would think had gone wrong, and be ready to exit off that highway as soon as he was sure.

  “That’s okay,” he said. “Whatever it is, we can work through it. Do you want to try? Do you trust me?”

  She traced circles on his leg. “Of course I trust you. It’s…not about that. It’s about me. I can’t…not feel the way I feel when you touch me. I don’t know how.”

  “Okay. Tell me how it feels. Maybe I can help you with that.”

  “I start to feel things…”

  “Between your legs?”

  She went damn near rigid. Rory stroked her nape, massaged.

  “Daralyn, we’re adults. We know what parts we each have. And trust me, I consider all of yours lovely.”

  She swallowed, her head bobbing. “It gets so strong there, that feeling, when you touch me. And it…radiates out to other places. Radiate. That’s a new word this week.”

  “It’s a good one,” he said. “And does something start to go wrong then?”

  She lifted her head just long enough for him to see her anguish, the struggle in her features, before she ducked her head down again. “That is the wrong. The bad.”

  “What?”

  She bit her lip. “It’s wrong for me to react that way. Once, when I felt that way while my uncle was touching me, something happened I couldn’t stop. It just kind of took over, and made me stiffen up. It felt good, in an overwhelming, shocking way. It was short, just a few seconds, but intense. I got really wet…between my legs. My uncle was so angry. He told me I was really bad. When I misbehaved, they punished me by putting me in the cellar without food or light, usually for a few hours or overnight. The punishment for that was a lot worse. Three days, I think. I lost track.”

  It took indescribable effort to keep stroking her the same way, not to haul her into his lap and hold her tight while emitting a stream of vile curses. Jesus fucking Christ.

  He’d been right about something being off about her reaction. Sex didn’t frighten her. Pleasure did. They’d taught her it was wrong for her to feel it, embedding the lesson so deeply that, when she’d started to get aroused by Rory’s touch, she’d thought she was doing something bad. Something that would disappoint him.

  As often as they’d used her, it was inevitable, especially during puberty, that an orgasm would sometimes happen. Inescapable biology, no shame.

  “My uncle said…I was his brother’s daughter.” Her voice was a whisper. “That was one reason it was wrong for me to react that way to him touching me. But he also said a man is weak, and a woman is supposed to not encourage his weakness. She remains chaste in thought and deed, even when he’s rutting upon her. Otherwise, she’s encouraging his uncleanness.”

  She was reciting, and the hair rose on his neck as he heard the child behind the words, behind the woman at his feet. As he imagined a big-eyed adolescent, her too-thin arm held in a human monster’s bruising grip as she was berated, the universe wasn’t big enough to contain his rage. If Burton Moorfield had been where Rory could reach him, he’d have blown the bastard’s brains out with his hunting rifle.

  He also now knew that cellar door had been left in place for reasons other than preserving food.

  There’d be shrinks who’d have lengthy discourses on whatever disorder her father and uncle suffered from, blah blah blah. Crazy was just crazy, and when it resulted in the abuse of a child, that kind of crazy needed to be put down, end of story for him.

  He wasn’t controlling his rage well enough. She looked a little pale. “I’m not mad at you,” he said. “Not even slightly.”

  She started to get up, but he tightened his grip on her wrist.

  "Stay here. I want you to stay here." When he reframed it, he felt that surge Marcus had talked about. He was doing this on his own terms. Following his gut. "Put your head back down on my leg. Be easy.”

  As she complied, he started to stroke her hair and between her shoulder blades again, light caresses that made her shiver and unconsciously press closer to him. While he did that, he calmed himself and thought about what he wanted. What she might want.

  “I need to tell you something, Daralyn. I need you to believe me, even if everything in your life has told you different.

  “Okay.” Her voice was a whisper.

  “Your uncle, what he told you? It’s the exact opposite of what a man wants from the woman he desires. He wants to see her pleasure. When I see you're getting worked up by what I'm doing, nothing makes me happier. Because your pleasure is what increases mine. The more you're enjoying yourself, the better it feels to me.”

  As he watched her struggle with it, he drove down his anger, his impatience. Not with her, never with her, but with his aching wish that she didn’t have to deal with this pain, this conflict within her, fifteen years of conditioning by soulless family members.

  “Do you still brush your hair before you go to sleep?” he asked. “Like Les taught you?”

  Surprise flitted across her face. “Usually, yes.”

  “Good. I’m going to do it tonight. I’m going to brush your hair, tuck you into bed, give you a good night kiss. A kiss that might go on about a half hour or so, but that’s all I’m going to be after.”

  Pain fractured her features. “Because I’m too messed up to do what a woman could do for you,” she said dully. “Like Amanda.”

  In a mere few words, she reminded him how much she noticed, as well as how complicated she was. Just like any other woman. Her face was filled with so many conflicting emotions it tore things apart inside him.

  He brushed her cheek with his knuckles, did it slow, and she tipped her head into it, her lips resting against them. He ran his thumb over the dip of her chin. “One of your smiles does more for me than anything any other woman has. You make me want to give you the world. Don’t say something like that to me again, or I’ll give you another spanking. I may do it anyway, send you to bed with a smarting backside to help you remember.”

  The quick flick of her eyes up to his, her parted lips, said he’d distracted her. And that she wasn’t exactly averse to his threat. It changed the direction of his reaction as well, but that direction was no less volatile than his fury.

  “So,” he persisted in a calm voice—with effort. “Go get ready for bed, except for the hair brushing part.”

  She rose, but at the bathroom door she stopped, fingered the jamb, her eyes on it. “Is there something you’d like me to wear, other than what I usually wear?”

  Was it normal for new Doms and subs to have a whole other language happening underneath the spoken words? In the carefully posed question, he heard exactly what she was really asking.

  What does my Master want me to wear?

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’m really glad you asked.” Translation: You pleased me. You please your Master, with every fucking thing you do and say.

  “A robe. Nothing else.”

  She bit her lip. “If…I get wet like that again, I won’t be able to hide it.”

  “I don’t want you to hide it.” He sent her a direct look, and at her uncertainty, he spoke to her gently, but with firmness. “Go do what I’ve asked.”

  She nodded.

  What he wanted to say was, I hope you’ll be so wet you can’t hide it. Because I want to see it. Taste it. Smell it. Watch it bathe my cock, feel it on my tongue, have you rub it against my body.

  None of that would happen tonight. But he hoped he’d be able to get them closer to the moment and day it would.

  As he shed his suit jacket and pulled off the tie, opened up the top couple buttons of his shirt, he was in an optimal position to watch her preparations, all the tempting views. Because though she now knew the appropriate times to close the bathroom door for privacy, she’d recognized, blissfully, that this was not one of those times.

  She removed her bra. Hooked her underwear, took it down over her backside. A heart shape he wanted to cradle in both hands, knead that softness. She was killing him.

  She put away the bra, rolled the panties into a neat ball and dropped them into a clothes hamper. She was standing in her bathroom naked. He noted a slight tension to her, but other than that, she didn’t seem self-conscious. Les and Elaine had taught her what was socially appropriate, and that was what guided her when it came to nudity.

  He wasn’t going to think any more tonight about the why of that, because too big a part of his soul was still howling from her latest revelation, thinking her sexual pleasure was a punishable offense.

  Modesty was one thing; a lover’s regard was another. That tension, and how she had her back to him, suggested him looking at her naked had her a little unsettled. His gaze devoured every inch of pale skin. She was still too skinny. The doctor said she’d been malnourished for so long her metabolism might take years to right itself. And her indifferent appetite didn’t help.

  Well, he had it on good authority that sex stimulated the appetite.

  Despite the thinness, the curve of hip and breast, the rounded shape of a buttock, was all woman. He wanted to press his mouth to her shoulders, her throat, every bump of her spine. He wanted his mouth between her legs. He imagined spreading her on her mattress and feasting on her sweet pussy as her hands tangled in his hair and she strained up to him.

  Going down on a woman fascinated him. She became so helpless and full of passion at once, writhing, begging, clawing. Needing what he could give her with his mouth and tongue, the edge of his teeth.

  He pulled himself out of that. One thing at a time. Brushing hair.

  She’d retrieved her robe from the back hook of the bathroom door and was shrugging into it, the plush pink thing with hearts on it. Her shoulders disappeared under it, and the shape of her body reappeared as she tightened the sash, turned toward him.

  “Brush.” He nodded to the dresser. “And the wooden foot stool from your kitchen.”

  When she brought those, he had put his feet back on his foot plate and adjusted his chair so he was square with her floor length mirror.

  “Put the stool in front of me and sit on it, facing the mirror,” he told her. “Tuck the skirt of the robe underneath you to give yourself a cushion.” It would also keep it out of the way of his casters.

  Curiosity in her gaze, she complied and settled on the stool, close enough his footplate was partly beneath it and she could lean back against his knees. He took the brush from her and left it in his lap.

  “Untie the robe and shrug it off your shoulders. Let it fall to your waist. I want to see you.”

  Her gaze met his in the mirror. “Rory…”

  “Nothing you feel is going to be wrong, Daralyn. Every reaction you have to what I’m doing is what I want you to feel. I want you to react this way. What your uncle told you was wrong.” Repetition might not fix it, but it couldn’t hurt.

  “It was good to react that way when he touched me?” Clouds gathered in her expression.

  A tricky question. Rory slid his fingers through her hair. As he did, he gripped and tugged. Tugged hard. Her body moved with his touch and her gaze went opaque, her lips parting.

  “That’s me, pulling your hair,” he said huskily. “Now, imagine if someone came up to you and yanked on your hair to be mean. Would it feel the same inside?”

  She shook her head.

  “Both reactions are normal. But it’s okay to like one more than the other. Our bodies don’t know right or wrong, good or bad. That’s our heads and our hearts. Our bodies react as bodies. Understand?”

  Slowly, she nodded. He saw an intensity to her gaze, the way she looked when she was learning something, trying to fully grasp it. That gave him another idea. Daralyn often came to truths by a different path than most people took.

  He leaned over to retrieve his phone from the jacket he’d laid on the bed. As he did an online search, he was aware of her eyes on him in the mirror. He extended the phone over her shoulder. “Read that. Aloud.”

  She looked at it, then looked up at him quickly. Back down. He molded his hands over her shoulders, the robe in the way, but his thumbs found her collar bones, rubbed. He noticed her breath rose and fell, a quick little response to the touch, as well as to draw in air to follow his direction.

  “Arouse…to evoke or awaken, as in a feeling, emotion or response. Also…to awaken someone from sleep.”

  “What you’re feeling when I touch you is arousal. And there’s nothing I want more than to wake you up like that.” He paused. “Didn’t I tell you to do something?”

  She jumped a little, remembering. He didn’t smile, just kept looking at her in the mirror. She handed the phone back to him and he tossed it onto the bed, never taking his gaze from her as she loosened the sash and worked the robe off her shoulders. She didn’t look at herself in the reflection; only him, so he made sure she saw what was in his expression as he dropped his attention to every inch of exposed skin. As the cloth tumbled to her waist, he gazed at her shoulders, her breasts. The nipples were tight little points that made saliva gather in his mouth. He wanted to suck on them, make her moan and cry out, get her even wetter.

  Putting a choke hold on his desires, Rory lifted the brush, and started working it through her hair, those thick and strong locks that fell in captivating waves around her bare shoulders. He threaded his fingers through them, following the brush. On each round, he gripped her nape, stroked, kneaded.

  Her fingers opened and closed on the pink terry cloth, her body swaying toward his. Her eyes were half closed, but he noted her breath was still shallow. “Daralyn,” he said in that same steady voice, “I want you to cup your breasts. Run your fingers over your nipples. The better that feels, the more I want you to keep doing it.”

  Her cheeks stained red against too much white. She was trembling. “But…I’m not supposed to touch myself…”

  He should have known the bastards would hit that one, too. No masturbating. No giving herself even a minute of pleasure.

  He set aside the brush. “Let’s do it together.”

  Sliding his arms in under hers, he cupped her hands and brought both sets to her small curves. When he molded her fingers over her breasts, his own were in between them. He felt the give of flesh, the different texture of the nipple graze his fingertips. She sucked in a breath when he did that. He had her fingers do it as well, playing them over herself. She shifted, her breath coming faster.