Gargoyle: Kinswoman

Part 6

Instead of pulling away, her hands snaked slowly around his wrist, stroking the inner side of his arm for a long pause before her eyes rose back on his face.

"You signed yourself over to me, so you'll do whatever I say?" She asked and watched him flinch, but he didn't pull away, gripping tighter and nodded instead.

Whatever she wanted. God, one could get drunk on such power.

"I'd like to watch you groom yourself." She blurted absentmindedly.

His breathing hitched and he smiled. "Not that innocent after all, huh? It's nothing special – We go swimming, dive underneath, come out and done!"

"And what's not special about watching a six feet tall bat plunge into debts of a river? Sadly, we have no rivers here. Not in a mile."

The hand around his arm grew bolder, climbing up towards her elbow. Her instincts immediately told her to run, but she couldn't resist the feather light touch. It had been so long since anyone had looked at her with more than lust in their eyes.

That's it, she thought, fixing her gaze into his and holding it there while her mind tried to figure out exactly what it was he wanted. Her, that much was obvious, but why?

"Only if you allow me to watch you grooming yourself."

She blushed deep red, but he wouldn't back out now. "Deal is fair." he stated, closing the button nearest to his throat, as if to say he wouldn't show himself unless she did it too. She gulped. "If you get to watch, I get to watch too!"

She nodded, yanking her hand away, took the cups and made herself busy cleaning them out. She heard him get up and follow him in the kitchen. That scared her, no matter how bold she had acted by allowing a complete stranger in the most private circle of her life. Shivers ran through her body from the unconscious fear her body remembered despite her brain trying to reason it was an old instinct.

Bascun walked straight behind her and her brain blocked out every other thought aside one – he was too close.

"I won't be around." He said calmly, not a drop of lust left from the earlier. "No weird meetings on the street, no drunken phone calls, nothing you don't want. That makes me your best bet to try again." He explained calmly and she found herself drawn to this voice. It was so calculative and undemanding, so different from Robert's usual snarling. And so infuriatingly cold!

"Oh goody," she snapped, "I won't see you again."

She regretted the words the moment they left her lips, but instead of apologizing, she burst her lips and pressed the urge firmly down. She wasn't searching a relationship – her ex had cleared her of that blight. Then what was she so angry about?

Bascun closed in and she felt his palm rest between her shoulder blades. His fingers began massaging between them in small circular movements while he came in view on her right.

"Breath." He whispered, like a therapist and it both sent his mind in confused stupor and her body into shock, because suddenly she did not know what to do. She was expecting things she knew he wouldn't do to her, yet to give in seemed impossible, for that meant giving up herself to a complete stranger and...

Her eyes fell shut by themselves and she became aware, why she was angry. The way her body simply surrendered after not spending more than a day with him, had her mind go overdrive and simply shut down. The castle was taken over and she was expected to surrender and she didn't want to.

"How about we do it this way?" He offered, when her breathing was starting to come back to normal. "As long as nobody is threatening you directly, I will do exactly as you say."

What the hell was he playing at? Some kind of kinky game? She wasn't capable ordering anybody and yet he offered himself to follow her like a puppy?

She took a renewed look at this cocky young man and felt the panic return. There was nothing about him that spelled submissive. If anything, he looked like someone, who took charge, who was comfortable taking decisions and following them through without asking permission before! And now he wanted to play puppy games with her? Was he high? It wouldn't look right, to have such powerful gargoyle do her bidding like a lap dog. She shook her head.

"No, I don't want that." She said honestly. She didn't know what she wanted, but was it to have a random encounter in the hays followed by fake game? Probably not. "Is it really this severe?"

"Hm?"

"Following your contract? That you do whatever I say?"

The hand from her neck disappeared and he stepped back. He seemed to hesitate before he cleared his throat. "Yes."

"Whatever I say – you do?"

She almost enjoyed the questioning, seeing how flustered it got him. He looked ready to bolt, but the probability of being called a liar kept him in place. She hadn't ordered him to leave.

"Uh..."

She expected a joke on slipping his own throat on command, but either he'd already used it somewhere else, or there was something missing in this picture.

"Yes," he said after waiting some more, surrendering, "whatever you say."

And damn if that didn't start a whirl of ideas in her head.