The Gigolo's Bride (The Necklace Chronicles) (9 page)

“Oh.” Her hand went to her mouth and she
swallowed a scream born of guilt. “Can you, uh, take me to
him?”

“You can’t do anything for him until he’s
released from Kasimir’s quarters. If you want to mate with him when
he recovers, you can, but until then he’s a sex slave.”

Shaking her head, Ashleigh stood up and went
to the tall cupboard where he kept the clothes he’d picked for her,
neatly folded and hung on metal hangers. She chose a crimson halter
top in a fabric that felt like satin and a matching pair of slacks
and ballet style slippers. “Help me get to him, Sloan, please,” she
said as she turned around, dumped the clothes on the bed and pulled
off his tunic.

“I don’t know why you’d want to see that, but
I’ll take you to Kasimir’s.”

Ashleigh wasn’t sure she could explain it
either. She just felt like he needed her, and if she sat in the
room until he was released from his duty, then she would be failing
him. It was her fault that he had been taken, and she had to try to
fix it. She dressed quickly, and Sloan helped her apply some light
makeup to hide the fact that she’d been crying and brushed her hair
until it shone. Taking her hand, she stepped out of their room and
turned to the left.

She and Sloan entered a transport and Sloan
spoke their destination. As it swiftly moved them through the
levels of the ship, Sloan said, “Kasimir is a big man with a bad
attitude. His mate, Anca, is from the Ghrakin world. She has eyes
like diamonds, and pointed ears. I think the only reason she wanted
to come along on this journey is because she wanted to use Eden
before he became mated."

Ashleigh felt nauseous. As Sloan spoke about
Kasimir and Anca, she realized how foolish she’d been. If she’d had
an open mind with Eden from the beginning, she would have seen him
for what he was. And she really did like being with him. And she
was powerfully attracted to him. And more than that, she knew that
she loved him. She'd tried to keep herself detached, but he was
impossible not to love.

The door to Kasimir's quarters opened after
Sloan pressed a pad and requested entrance. Kasimir was huge. Tall
and broad, he had a scar down one side of his face that looked like
it still hurt even though it was clearly healed and old. Sneering
at them from under a dark brow, his thin lips curled up
slightly.

“Lovely Sloan, who is this beauty?”

“This is Eden’s bride, Kasimir. She wants to
see him.”

“He’s not done with my wife.”

“Please.” Ashleigh looked up at him. “Let me
see Eden.”

“If you’re really his bride, if you care so
much, why have you been on board for eight
dins
and he’s
still got blue hair? That makes him a
brokah;
I don’t care
what the
Bordelayz
says.”

Ashleigh didn’t know how to answer that. “I,
uh, needed time, and you took him from me. Let me see him,
please.”

Kasimir seemed to be considering things and
then finally he said, “What’s one more person enjoying the show
anyway?”

Much to her dismay, the scene that waited for
her in the large bedroom was much worse than her mind could have
invented. Eden, hair matted to his head with sweat and with fresh
whip marks across his back, was thrusting into the body of a woman
lying on her back while she played with her small breasts and
licked her lips. Couples and groups of men sat around the room on
lounges, some watching intently while others laughed lightly and
whispered.

She hadn’t meant to make a sound, but a
small, sad gasp left her lips. Eden’s head shot up, and he froze,
eyes locked to hers.

The woman under him shrieked, “Kas, he’s gone
soft! Do something!”

The look of utter humiliation on Eden’s face
made Ashleigh’s heart break even further. She barely heard Kasimir
say, “Get the whip,” but the words registered when one of the men
watching stood up and grabbed a lethal-looking whip from a hook on
the wall. Ashleigh screamed, “No! Wait, wait!” She raced to Eden,
to protect him.

Kasimir regarded her coolly. “You have no
standing here, little Earth girl. You’re not his mate yet and until
he finishes fucking my bride, he’s not going anywhere.”

The whip unraveled with a slithering sound,
and her brain spun. She absolutely couldn’t watch him get beaten.
Not when she’d been so foolish. “Wait, uh, I can help him.”

“Help him?” Kasimir asked with an arched
brow.

“Yes, I can help him get hard again so he can
finish. Obviously I broke his concentration. You don’t need to whip
him.”

Shrugging, he said, “Suit yourself.”

She gave a meaningful look at Sloan, who
nodded but looked worried. She turned and climbed up the bed next
to Eden, ignoring the naked woman sprawled out under him. He sat
up, his limp cock sliding from her as she made an angry noise.
Ashleigh cupped his sweaty face with her hands.

Whispering, she said, “I’m so sorry, Eden,
I’m such a fool.”

He blinked tear-filled eyes. There was such
pain and loss there. “I deserve this. It’s what I am. All I’m good
for.”

Shocked, she gripped his face harder. “No,
that’s not true!”

“If I can’t get my own soul mate to love me
in a week's time, then it’s just proof that this is all I can
offer.”

“Oh, Eden, I do love you. I do. I swear.
You’re too good for me; I’ve been so awful to you. Please, finish
so we can go back to our room and make love so I can be yours
forever.”

“Ashleigh?” His voice quivered as disbelief
warred with hope in the depths of his chocolate-brown eyes.

“I’m not going anywhere until you’re done.”
She slid her hand down his sweat-soaked stomach to the base of his
cock, which was thick enough that her finger and thumb didn’t meet
as she circled it with her hand. He tilted his head and dropped his
mouth to hers with a moan, and she opened her mouth to his tongue
and savored the sweet taste of him. As she stroked his cock, it
grew quickly, and he pulled away from her mouth for a moment and
flipped Anca over onto her knees and plunged into her. As he thrust
hard and fast into her, he said with halting whispers, “I couldn’t
look at her anymore.”

Ashleigh slipped slightly behind him, curling
one arm around his side possessively and pressing kisses to his
shoulder and arm. He clearly hit a good spot inside her because
Anca shrieked in climax and he pulled out of her body, his cock
still hard.

“Ooh,” Anca purred, rolling to her back and
facing them, “that was wonderful.”

Ashleigh moved off the bed, grabbed the
slacks that Sloan was holding out and helped Eden dress. When he
stood up, his knees buckled slightly, and he leaned heavily on her.
“I didn’t say you were done,
brokah
,” Kasimir said
blandly.

Sloan stomped over to him and pushed her
finger into his chest. “They’re mates, Kasimir. Even you can’t deny
that. You’ve used him as your personal sex toy for far too long,
and now he’s done with that life. If you try to keep him here when
his bride is asking for him, I’ll have you brought up on
charges.”

His lips curled into a snarl, but Sloan’s
threat must have carried some weight, because he stepped aside and
didn’t try to stop them.

Eden was quiet all the way back to their
room, and Ashleigh didn’t know what to say to him. When Sloan left
them at the door with a smile and a kiss on the cheek, Ashleigh
took him straight back to the bathroom and called for the pool to
fill. She helped him undress and get settled inside as the heated
water rose quickly. Stripping, she joined him, settling on her
knees between his legs. She reached for a thick sponge and gel
wash, lathering the sponge and lifting his hand gently from the
swirling, hot water.

“Are you okay, Eden? They whipped you, didn’t
they?” She began to wash away the evidence of the sex from his body
with gentle motions.

“Someone saw me in the market last night and
told Kasimir that my hair was still blue. I was on my way back here
when he met me and refused to allow me to come back. I couldn't
deny that nothing had happened between us. He, uh, said that my
blue hair meant I was still a
brokah
and that he didn't care
how much I had paid to leave the
Bordelayz
, that I would
always be one. I left the fruit outside the door and when I got to
his chambers, he let me call Sloan and ask her to take care of you
this morning. I thought I could talk my way out of it, ask for more
time with you so I didn’t have to do that with Anca, but he
wouldn’t agree to it. When I refused, they whipped me, and then
they drugged me so I would be more compliant. The night is kind of
a blur after that. I don’t know when he brought in the
audience.”

She swiped the sponge across his shoulder and
the front of his chest. “I’m so sorry for all of this. I was being
stubborn. Even after I knew it wasn't possible to go home, I still
kept myself away from you. But you being gone last night made me
take a hard look at myself. I should have asked you about yourself
more and I should have been more open about myself. If I hadn’t
been trying so hard to keep you at arm’s length, I would have asked
about your hair, about our future. Kasimir took you from me, and I
hate him for it, but I’m the one who set you up to be taken. I was
selfish and awful. Can you forgive me?”

He pulled the edge of a towel over and
blotted the tears that dotted her cheeks. “There’s nothing to
forgive.” He put the towel back on the edge of the pool and fiddled
with the embroidered hem. “How can you love me, Ashleigh? You hated
the thought of whoring yourself to me, you were terrified of being
sent to the
Bordelayz
. I’m a whore, the lowest in our
society. I can’t give you the status you deserve.”

She hated his self-deprecation, but she
understood it. “You’re not a whore anymore, not a
brokah
. I
don’t care about status, Eden, all I care about is you. You’re
mine, my husband and my soul mate. I still don't entirely
understand how I was chosen, but I know that we fit together, and I
don’t want to go anywhere but with you.”

His brow arched. “You don’t want to go back
to Earth?”

She returned to washing his skin, plunging
the sponge under the water and moving it along one leg. “I did, but
even if I could go home now, I wouldn’t. I would stay with you,
Eden, because I love you.” She stroked up the inside of his thigh
and watched his eyes close and his body relax. “When you’re rested
up and healed, I want us to make love. Not just so your hair will
change color and no one will ever force you like that again, but
because I love you and I want to be your wife.”

He opened his eyes and smiled for a brief
moment before closing his eyes again in exhaustion. When she had
first heard he was having sex with another woman, her wounded heart
had screamed
no, not again!
But Eden wasn't willing. He was
a victim, plain and simple. And while it killed her to know he'd
been with that awful woman, she knew in her heart that it hadn't
been his choice. It had taken drugs and the bite of a whip to force
him to comply. That meant something.

She washed his body tenderly, dismayed at how
bruised and battered he was. After she rinsed his hair clean, she
helped him from the pool and dried him carefully. She found a
healing ointment in one of the bathroom cabinets for the whip marks
on his back, and when she tried to help him towards the bed, he
offered to sleep on the couch, which she soundly rejected. She
straddled his thighs and palmed some of the ointment, rubbing it
until it was warmed in her hands and applying it gently to the
wounds.

He groaned as she worked her way down his
back. "Did I press too hard?"

"No," he rasped, "your touch is most
welcome."

"I don't understand what happened last night,
Eden," she said, smoothing more of the ointment across one
particularly deep whip mark. They crisscrossed over the old
marks.

"What don't you understand?" He rested his
head on his hands and closed his eyes.

"Why wouldn’t Kasimir listen when you said no
last night? You set yourself free. You should be seen as free, no
matter what you used to do.”

He grimaced in thought and then said, "You
know that my parents sold me?"

"Sloan told me,” she answered softly.

Eden's eyes squeezed tightly shut and his
body tensed. Ashleigh kept her hands on his back lightly, hoping to
offer him some comfort. "That first time,
my
first time,
when the governor raped me when I was with his wife, I told my
parents I wouldn't do anything like that again. They had plans to
sell me nightly to the wealthy elite, who get their pleasures from
dallying with whores, slumming it. My refusal was a roadblock for
my parents, so they sold me to the
Bordelayz
for a large sum
of money. But the owner didn't just give them money for me freely,
he gave me the money he had given them as a debt against myself. I
was forced to work to pay off the debt of my own slavery while my
parents spent the money on a house in a nicer area."

Her heart cracked so sharply it took her
breath away. She struggled to rein in the tears. "How could they do
that to you?"

"I don't know if they truly understood what
they'd done in the beginning, but I know they only saw me as a meal
ticket. Sloan fought to have my debt returned to our parents to
force them to return the money and free me, but the owner of the
Bordelayz
had powerful friends, and I was too valuable to
him to let go.

"I hated it so much. I hated myself. I hated
my parents. I got hooked on drugs as a way to make myself forget
what I was doing, so the money I was making towards my release was
being eaten up by my addiction. If I wanted to leave the brothel I
had to buy my freedom. Seventy thousand
deenars
. I might
have been able to buy my freedom years ago if I hadn't gotten
tangled up in the drugs, but I didn't care. Sloan came to see me
frequently, and was even putting money towards my release, but I
couldn't stand to bring her down with me. I tried to take my own
life, but I was saved by one of the other slaves. That's when Sloan
paid for me to go on a
soul-walk
. She said if I didn't find
my soul mate, then I could do what I wanted. But if there was a
woman out there for me, then I was being disloyal to her by taking
my own life. When I saw you in my vision, everything changed for
me. I got free of the drugs, and I began to work harder than I ever
had before, to save enough money to free myself.