Double the Price (SeXlection #2) (9 page)

We stared at each other as we tried to get our hearts to calm down again, and as much as I wanted to go again, I was about to suggest it was time for bed. Before I could, Cecil slowly leaned down and licked my lips and then kissed me gently, his fingers tangling in my shorter brown hair.

“I love you, Neil,” he rasped against my lips before sitting back up.

“What?” I gasped, my heart picking up speed again.

“I love you,” he repeated, watching my reaction closely.

“Cecil, I know we don’t have the typical master/slave relationship,” I hedged, clearing my throat. “But just because I ask and make sure you
want
to have sex, we kiss during, and I care for you, doesn’t make this love.” Then my earlier thoughts back in the kitchen came to the front of my mind. “Aren’t you mistaking this for love after all you’ve been through? Do you even know what it
is
after growing up in a brothel?”

He turned his cheek away as if I’d slapped him, and I realized how badly I’d handled this the moment the words left my mouth. Cecil moved just enough so my cock slipped out of his ass. Yeah, something a man should never say to someone he was still inside of. Then he looked back at me with such rage I flinched. Not anger as earlier at the idea I might ever be with another cat shifter, but
rage
.

The murderous kind.

“You never read the extra information and instructions on ocelots Bob gave you, did you?”

“No, I forgot about it until earlier,” I admitted, wincing when it wasn’t just rage but
pain
in his eyes. “I swear I had planned to take all tomorrow and read it. We’ve had so much going on, I forgot. I thought you told me everything, but of course, it’s my fault.”

“I am not stupid, mentally handicapped, or daft in anyway,” he informed me coldly, slowly, and evenly which was why it was almost more scary than if he had growled it. “I am a
whore
by profession because of
where
I was born and what I am. If I had been born in certain parts of Europe, I would be a free man, but because I was born here, I’m a sex slave. I
obey
because I have imprinted upon a master when I was sold. If I were a free man, that’s how ocelots
mate
. We weren’t always enslaved.

“There would be no need for it besides to obey our mates who we
chose
. That has been turned into another selling point by your government that I would never be anything but loyal.” I felt the need to vomit. Fuck, I screwed up. “My love and who I give it to is the
only
choice I have left to me. I know the difference. The only
mistake
I’ve made is giving it to someone who didn’t care enough to know he bought a
mate
even if it was called something else and won’t ever see me as anything but a slave.”

He flipped off me in an impressive move that left me speechless until he reached the door. I called after him but he kept going. I heard the door to his room slam shut seconds later.

Shit, he was fast. Had he been curbing that from me like his reaction earlier with the teeth and eyes thing? I knew he didn’t shift around me ever because it still freaked me out some, but what else could he do?

I was up and out of bed, wondering just that before I even realized it, reaching for pajama bottoms and yanking them on. As I walked through the apartment on the way to my office, I snagged from the fridge a plate of goodies the caterers had wrapped—one of many. We had enough leftovers for at least a week.

Then I paused outside Cecil’s room, debating going in there and trying to talk to him. I simply didn’t know what to
say
. The only thing he was wrong about was that I
did
see him as more than a slave. And I did care enough to know more about him, but I got distracted. I knew he was smart, however after all that had happened that day, I just—I was confused, and it was
not
the time for him to drop that bomb on me! He didn’t know that of course, but—yeah, bad timing.

I rubbed my chest when I heard him sobbing. I didn’t know how to walk in there and make this better. It wasn’t like I could declare I loved him too. Deciding I needed booze,
lots
of booze, I plucked up a bottle from the bar on the way to my office again.

But don’t you? Don’t you love him? You don’t get diamond and gemstone anklets for employees.

A person did for mistresses, or whatever the male equivalent was in Cecil’s case. That might have been a better fit for our relationship. Was there really a fit for what we had?

Maybe that was what I simply had to come to terms with. There
wasn’t
a definition for us and that was okay. Not everything had to fit in one of my little boxes and placed in my mental category so I always knew how to handle situations. Sometimes things were just messy and unexplainable, unfileable.

The problem was I’d avoided those things all my life. I liked structure and always being on solid footing. I didn’t like messy—I’d had enough of that in my childhood to last five lifetimes.

I poured myself a
very
tall glass of expensive bourbon, neat, when I was at my desk and unwrapped the food. Then I found the overstuffed envelope I’d shoved in my tux the night I’d bought Cecil and pulled out the packet of information. It only took about three paragraphs of reading before I missed my mouth with the cold appetizer I was trying to eat I was so shocked at what I’d found.

Cat shifters were more than just flexible humans that could turn into some type of feline. Fuck, had I gotten that wrong with all I’d ever been told. He was faster and stronger than I was. We were on the twenty-fifth floor and the information said he could scale down the building without practically a scratch because his hands could turn into claws even if his animal was a tiny cat.

Cecil could hear hundreds of times better than me, read faster, was probably much smarter—which explained the languages thing—and overall was just
better
.

How the fuck did we enslave them?
I flipped back through the first few pages again and shook my head. They really had to have been disorganized to have let this happen, because by all accounts, they rocked and should have kicked some serious human ass. I knew the information was more like a warning brochure but it almost read like an outline for a hero comic book with what all cat shifters, and Cecil in specific as an ocelot, could do.

Next I read over how ocelots in particular were hyper-sexual compared to humans and craved attention. They were also very tactile and liked constant contact. I felt my cheeks heat as I thought of how I knew that and all the ways I’d
learned
that. But according to this and what it took to make an ocelot
truly
happy, I still wasn’t giving Cecil what he needed.

I almost puked when there were suggestions on how to subvert that, including but not limited to allowing the ocelot to sleep with clothing that smelled of their master. So we were back to the comparison between brothels and animal shelters because that was what they told new pet owners to do with their animals to help them acclimate to their new homes. For fuck’s sake.

Then there were two pages about what the cat side of an ocelot needed, mainly how often they would need to shift, what environment was required once they did—and they didn’t mean a damn litter box. I felt my heart sink as it became more and more apparent how badly I’d failed Cecil. He basically needed a sunroom and indoor garden built for him with trees he could climb in and stuff since we didn’t have an outdoor terrace or roof access.

Or at least I’d have to check to see the rules on letting him run around somewhere. I didn’t think they just let shifters take a jog through Central Park like humans did. But there had to be
something
set up. I took some notes as I kept reading.

Finally I reached the section on imprinting and mating. That was when I tossed back the complete contents of my glass. Not that I doubted Cecil, but some things a person needed to see in black in white. We were basically half married. I’d bound him to me in marriage but he hadn’t completed the process since he hadn’t bitten me. There was some vague reference of two becoming one if that was to happen but that was it, as if it wasn’t important.

Well of course, what master would give a fuck about that because they’re just slaves!

My stomach was so sour I didn’t even look at the plate of food again. I was disgusted to be a human right then. What we were doing to these poor creatures was unforgivable. Forcing them to practically mate us and then doing with them as we pleased was perverse.

And we weren’t even
told
the truth until after we’d imprinted with them!

I had to read the next part three times. If I ever took a partner, it would cause Cecil physical pain. So men or women who bought ocelots, imprinted with them, and then married were causing their ocelots pain. How was that not
torturing
? We treated lab monkeys better than that! The instructions assured us it wasn’t much pain but to expect our slaves to not preform as they once had.

I replayed Cecil’s words to me from earlier in the evening. He’d expected I’d find a man and have a human partner in my life when he’d agreed to my deal, he simply asked I never take another shifter. Cecil had
known
it would cause him pain but still expected it. To live a life like that, with so few options or choices… And I threw the only one he had back in his face.

Which made me a complete, total, and shameful bastard. I hadn’t meant to do it didn’t cover the pain I’d caused him and I couldn’t fix this.

But I swore right then I would find a way. For one, I would never take a partner. Cecil was more than enough for me. Even if he could never be my public husband because of the laws or whatever—shit like that didn’t matter to me. I’d made a commitment to him, and while I hadn’t known all of this, I would
never
hurt him, especially
physically,
by dating and finding someone else just so I could show up at events with a fucking plus one.

I wasn’t that big of a fucktard. I was simply dense at times, never cruel.

When I was finally done reading it all, I tied one off big time. The bourbon was gone sometime after three in the morning, and I stumbled out of my office as I swore I would do more research of my own when I sobered up. I swung by Cecil’s room on the way back to mine and listened at the door. It was quiet in there at least, and as much as I wanted to see him, talk to him, drunk and in the middle of the night wasn’t the way to do it.

Besides, he deserved to rest.

I tumbled into bed distraught at everything that had happened and passed out, wishing my fine ocelot was there with me. Be he wasn’t. I really needed to make sure I fixed what I’d broken because I wasn’t sure either of us would survive life now that we were bound if I didn’t.

* * * *

Needless to say Cecil didn’t wake me up in his normal manner the next morning. I hit my alarm when it went off and, for the first time in as long as I could remember, ignored it, rolling over and going back to bed. When I finally
did
get up, it was after eleven and I was hung over like a mother fucker. I threw myself in the shower, hoping that would help, and trudged out to the kitchen. I popped in a K-cup into the Keurig and stared out at the kitchen, thinking of which room to change into a sun area for Cecil.

Then I listened—nothing. The apartment was silent. Granted, he wasn’t loud but he at least made some noise as he worked out or taught himself languages or
anything
. Coffee forgotten, I walked into the living room and found it empty. Moments later I was at his door pressing my ear to it. I still didn’t hear anything but he kept the door open normally and it was shut.

Gently, I knocked. “Cecil?” Nothing. “Cecil, are you all right?” Still nothing and I felt my stomach go more sour than just from my hangover. I opened the door and poked in my head to find a lump about his size under the covers. “Cecil, can we talk, please?”

But he didn’t move, didn’t even acknowledge me. So I entered the room and walked over to the bed, my heart twisting when I saw him staring at the wall with red, puffy eyes.

“Cecil, did you hear me?” He didn’t even seem to register I was there so I knelt down in front of him. “Answer me, Cecil.” I saw the slightest flicker of something before his eyes focused on me and I did a double take because they were basically lifeless, dull, not his sparkling, bright ones.

“What do you require of me, master?” he muttered. “How may I service you?”

“Nothing,” I whispered, horrified at what he’d said. “That’s not why I’m here. I came to check on you, talk about last night.” I reached out to touch him, and when my hand made contact with his hair, he flinched away from me. It was slight but I’d seen it. “Cecil, please talk to me. I read everything and I’m sorry I didn’t—”

“Tell me what you wish me to say, master, and I will.” He focused back on the wall and snuggled further into the bed. “I will obey always, forever.”