Mastered By Love (8 page)

And after, when the last
shudders had ceased and he clutched her, panting, she kept her arms
around him. Strange. He’d half expected her to slap him and instead
she held onto him like the most faithful slave.

She put first one foot down and then
the other. Dario pressed her to him. He bent his head and kissed
her on her crown.

“
You please me very much,”
he whispered.

She didn’t answer. But her
arms remained around him, her body pressed tightly to his, still
quivering in the aftermath of what he’d done to her.

Dario reached for one of the cloths
piled next to the tub. He wet it, then rubbed it over the cake of
soap. When he slid the soapy cloth between her legs, she startled
with a squeak of surprise.

“
It’s all right. I’m just
washing you.”

“
Why would you do that?”
Her voice sounded shaky.

“
It pleases me to take care
of you.”

He carefully stroked the
folds and crevices of her sex with the cloth, then worked the suds
between her ass-cheeks. She trembled. He murmured to her, replacing
the cloth with his fingers, and she leaned against him, shivering.
At least she wasn’t fighting to get away. They were making
progress.

Dario moved the cloth up her ribcage
to her armpits. She tried to take it away from him.

“
I will wash you,” he
said.

She turned her face away as he
continued to clean her body.

“
Don’t be embarrassed.” He
moved to her other arm. “You’re mine and I enjoy caring for
you.”

“
I’m not yours,” she
whispered. But she didn’t sound very sure of herself.

He put some soap on his hands and
gently cleaned her face before using a fresh cloth to wipe away the
soap. She stood quietly as he worked, her eyes closed, her body
shivering ever so slightly. Dario finished removing the soap and
bent to kiss her lips.

“
All done.”

With quick, efficient movements, he
soaped his own body and wiped away the suds. Tariza stood waiting,
her eyes downcast. Finally she looked like a proper female, like a
slave.

Why was she refusing to
look at him? The bathing seemed more upsetting to her than anything
he’d done previously, except perhaps the tattoo. It made no
sense.

He wanted her to lift her chin and
look him in the eyes. But that would be impudent. A punishable
offense, according to some Saturnian men.

Make up your mind, Dar.
Either you want her submissive or you don’t.

It seemed that where Tariza
Concordia was concerned, he didn’t know what he wanted ... except
for the sex. He wasn’t conflicted in the least when it came to
fucking her.

He set aside the cloth he’d
been using. “Now, we soak.”

They settled into the water. Dario
tugged her against him, with her back to his front and his arms
around her. She sat upright, her back straight and tilted away from
him, her arms clasped around her knees.

“
This is a time to relax,
Tariza.”

“
I can’t relax.”

“
Yes, you can. Lean against
me.”

“
No, thank you.”

Dario sighed. So, they were back to
this, were they? He took her by the elbows and pulled until she
reclined stiffly against him, his legs bracketing hers. Then he
wrapped his arms around her to keep her there.

“
As your master, I’m
ordering you to relax.” He smoothed her hair from her forehead, the
gesture pushing her head gently back against his chest.

“
As you wish.” But her body
remained stiff and tense.

He continued stroking her –
first her forehead, then her shoulders and arms. Slowly, slowly the
tension left her body until her shoulders stopped resisting the
soft pressure of his hands and her head rolled slightly to the
side.

“
You must be pleased with
yourself,” she said in a flat voice.

“
I must?”

“
You did what you said you
were going to do. Capture me.”

“
I don’t remember saying I
planned to capture you.” He bent his head and pressed his lips to
the side of her neck.

“
At the banquet, you said
I’d be yours someday.”

“
Ah. Yes, I did.” But that
had been more of a wish than a plan.

“
So you’ve gotten what you
wanted.”

“
Not entirely.”

She dropped her head
forward. “What more do you want?”

“
Your capitulation, of
course.”

“
I thought I’d already done
that.”

He smiled. “It seems to me
you’re fighting me at every turn.” Dario slipped his hand up her
belly and cupped her breast. “I want you to really submit to me. In
your heart, not just your body.”

“
I can’t.” She whispered
the words so softly he wasn’t sure he’d really heard
them.

“
Someday you’ll learn
how.”

Tariza said nothing.

They sat in the water until it began
to grow cold. They got out and he toweled her off carefully before
turning to his dressing table in order to shave. His beard itched
intolerably and it was time to remove the cursed thing.

He assembled his razor, soap, and
other tools, sending a furtive glance into the mirror to see what
Tariza was doing. She sat huddled on his bed, still wrapped in the
towel and staring at her hands as if they fascinated her. Anything,
he supposed, to avoid looking at him.

Dario poured a little hot water into
his shaving bowl and stirred with his brush. She continued not
looking at him as he spread soapy lather over his face and
neck.

He began to scrape away the
beard. A movement reflected by the mirror caught his eye. Now she
was looking at him. He couldn’t read the expression on her face,
but she looked uncomfortable.

Dario suppressed a grin.
Maybe she’d never seen a man shave before.

When he finished, he splashed more hot
water to wash away the remaining soap and toweled his face dry. She
still watched him, her face remote and still.

“
Much better,” he
said.

Tariza shrugged. “Makes no
difference to me.”

“
Because you adore me with
or without a beard?”

She snorted. “Because I
loathe you with or without a beard.”

“
Your sweetness overwhelms
me,” he said with a grin.

Dario climbed into bed with
her. His camp bed was large enough to accommodate two sleepers; it
was Saturnian custom for military commanders to bring a favorite
slave along on campaign. Tariza stretched out alongside him without
a word of complaint or question. She didn’t even protest when he
put an arm around her and tucked her against his body before
pulling the blanket over them both.

Maybe she was learning. He laid his head on the
pillow and fell asleep.

When he
awoke again, the sun had filled the tent with the
thick, diffused light of midday. The sun hadn’t brought much heat
with it, however. His uncle was right; snow was coming to the
highlands, maybe in as little as a day or two.

Next to him, a muffled
choking sound came from Tariza’s throat. She had the blanket pulled
over her head, as if to hide from him. The blanket trembled as
another fit of choking came from beneath it.

He laid his hand on her
back. “Are you all right?”

She cringed, twitching the blanket
more tightly around herself. The choking sound quieted as the
shivering stilled. Dario rubbed her back in long
strokes.

For an instant she was
silent. Then the choking began again, even louder. He tried to pull
back the blanket. She clutched it so tightly he couldn’t pry it
from her fingers without hurting her.

His heart twisted in his
chest as he realized that she wasn’t choking; she was crying.
Sobbing.

Shit.

The words
I’m sorry
hovered on his
tongue. He forced them down his throat. He had nothing to regret.
Tariza was the enemy and as such he had the right to take her
captive. Besides, he was taking her away from an unnatural way of
life and restoring her to the proper place of a woman.

But if that were true, why did it hurt
so much to listen to her cry?

She sobbed so violently it
sounded as if she might tear herself apart. His heart and belly
grew heavy, aching with the pain of it. What was wrong with him?
He’d never brooded over the sniffling of a woman before, and a few
of them had certainly cried at some deserved punishment he’d meted
out.

He wrapped his arms around
her, blanket and all. “Shhh, little one. It’s all
right.”

She kicked him in the shin. The
blanket stopped her foot from connecting directly with his leg, but
she startled a grunt out of him. Dario threw his leg across both of
hers.

“
You’re safe with me. I
won’t hurt you,” he said firmly.

“
You already have,” she
snarled between sobs.

Under the blanket, she rolled herself
into a tight ball. He could hear her teeth grinding together as she
fought the tears. The little man-woman was determined not to cry,
to be as manly as possible, when everything in her body cried out
to be treated as a woman.

“
It’s normal to cry, you
know,” he said.

“
Fuck. Off.”

“
Regular women cry all the
time.”

She tried to kick him
again. “Do you think I want to be like one of those pathetic little
mice you call women? Do you think you can take a Concordian and put
her in a harness and instantly turn her into a sweet doormat of a
slave?”

“
No. I expect it’ll take
some time.”

“
It won’t happen at
all.”

He stroked her through the
blanket. “You’ll come around eventually. They always
do.”

“
I hate you.”

Her words stung. He peeled the blanket
away from her face, revealing red and swollen eyes, lashes black
and spiky with tears.

“
You didn’t seem to hate me
in the bath.”

“
Apparently I can lust
after a man and despise him at the same time,” she said
bitterly.

Yes, this one was going to
take special and intensive training. He’d have to become her whole
world, the source of all food and pleasure and security. He’d have
to be patient. But eventually she would learn to submit, and do it
gladly.

“
We have to be ready to
ride in the morning. We’re going back to Saturnios,” he said. “Get
up and we’ll have something to eat.”

Tariza gave him a sour look
and wiped her tears with the back of her hand. She sat up. Her hair
had dried in wild waves all over her head, giving her an oddly
comical appearance. He didn’t smile. It would only hurt her more
than she was already hurting.

Dario picked up a jar of
oil he kept on the trunk next to his bed. “We’ll oil that leather
if it’s dry. Otherwise it’ll go all hard and give you blisters
where it rubs.”

Another sour look. “I know
how to care for harnesses.”

“
I’m sure you do. But
you’ve never worn one, have you?”

Her lips pressed together until they
almost disappeared. She turned her head without a word. Dario
slipped his fingers beneath one of the harness straps, checking for
moisture. It was still damp where it lay against her
skin.

“
It’s not dry. We’ll have
to do it later.”

She still said nothing,
giving no indication she’d even heard him. Ah, the silent
treatment. He smiled to himself. If she thought that kind of
behavior would affect him, she was in for a
disappointment.

“
May I enter, milord?” Baso
said from outside the tent.

“
Yes. Come in,” he
called.

His aide pulled back the tent flap and
came inside. A slave named Lola came in after him, carrying a tray
heavy with food. She glanced at Dario with a demure smile before
standing, head bowed, waiting for orders while Baso grinned at
him.

“
Settling in with the new
one, I see.”

“
Thank you for bringing
lunch,” Dario said.

“
Set the tray on the table,
Lola.”

The girl instantly obeyed. With the
tray on the table, she once again assumed the attentive posture of
the properly trained slave, head bowed and hands clasped before
her. Her long, blond hair fell forward over her shoulders, the ends
just brushing her pale pink nipples. She wore a glossy red harness
and an ankle bracelet with tiny bells that chimed with every step
she took.

“
I thought you might want
the services of a real woman after wrestling with a Concordian all
night long,” Baso said.

Lola was one of the most
beautiful slaves belonging to the royal family and he’d been
privileged to bring her into the field with him. But now that he’d
had Tariza, he couldn’t seem to summon any enthusiasm for the other
blonde. He sat up with a sigh and shook his head.