Shattered (32 page)

“Yes, I wasn’t about to make her carry that up here
, but we both agreed you could.  Come help me wash.”

Nathan turned towards the sound of her voice
but hesitated again at the sight of her.  She stood near the window and looked out to the city beyond.  The floor beneath her feet sloped ever so slightly to funnel out to a hole at the base of the wall, a single stone left misplaced and no larger than her fist.  It was her movement that left him still though, as she stripped away her shirt and tossed it aside, then her pants, as her thick black curls gathered around her shoulders and bounced with every small shift.  Only when she stood completely naked did she turn back towards him.

He caught the smirk on her face
just he averted his eyes from her naked body.  The image of her curves, of her hips, of the lower round dip of her ass, then her breasts as she turned and the patch of dark hair nestled between her thighs – it continued to be what he saw in his mind, even as he stared at the floor.  Blood pulsed between his legs and he tightened the muscles in his groin to chase it away.  Adara had denied him yesterday, and again this morning, though she teased him every chance she got.  She’d finally found her own way to control him and he knew, on some level, the two women conspired in that.

Robin’s voice cut through his thoughts. 
“Are you really going to make me ask you twice?”

“No
,” Nathan replied, and his voice cracked.  He swallowed that lump and stood, retrieved the bucket of water from near the door and brought it over, only to kneel again before her.

Robin let him remain there for a long moment, without her
touch or her voice, but that pause didn’t leave him anxious.  He liked this spot at her feet.

“Why di
d you come up here Nathan?” Robin asked quietly.  She ran her hand over the outside of his cheek and he leaned in closer against her thigh, shut his eyes, let his mind wander over a dozen different reasons that all felt incomplete.

When her hand
left his face cool air rushed in.  He felt the absence of her most strongly there.  It reminded him too much of being at court, the way the summer sun failed to penetrate the stone hall and left it cold, the way he sat upon the gilded throne alone.

“I
wonder what might’ve been if I never left,” Nathan answered.  But then he looked up and gave her half a smile.  “I wish I could forget everything I’ve done, just for a little while.”

Robin stroked his cheek again
and used her thumb on his chin to force his face down.  “Eyes down then, prince.”

“Yes Mistress,” he whispered.

She draped a rag over his shoulder and he reached up for it.  His hand glanced hers and sent goose bumps up his arms, and he banished them by plunging his hand into the water.  Nathan started at her feet, her ankles, and each careful touch he was allowed submerged his mind deeper in submission.

He worked up her calves and to her thighs, and she spread them just enough that he
could dip his hand between.  Water dripped down his arm and soaked his sleeve as worked, but he didn’t mind that.  It made him happy just to have a purpose.

She let him continue on unrushed.  Nathan was thorough, taking each of her hands in his and washing between her fingers
, over her palms, her wrists.  His let the cloth fall away a few times, so that his fingers might graze her skin instead.  He kissed her palms and she touched his face, but it was so light it offered no respite from the burning urge to please her.  It only fanned it deeper.

“Ta
ke off your shirt,” Robin said, and pulled his thoughts back a little.  Nathan complied, though now there was nothing to hide the bulge in his pants, and her attention went to that immediately.

She crouched down in front of him, her knees pressed to both sides of his legs,
the core of her sex spread and exposed if only he looked down.  But he kept his eyes on hers, for as long as she held his gaze he wouldn’t look away.  He felt her hand slide down his chest though, over his stomach, until she rubbed the underside of his shaft through his pants.  And he moaned again, shuddered as more need coiled in his muscles.

Robin traced the outl
ine of his erection a few times, rubbing over it with her thumb on each completed pass.  After the third her hand slipped down to his balls.  She grabbed him through the cloth and squeezed until distress replaced the absentminded pleasure on his face, then a little harder, until he let out the breath he held.

She sought something out in his face, her light grey eyes danced back and forth, and when she found it she squeezed again.  Nathan
drew in a thin breath and let it go as he held his face up.  He was desperate to maintain that connection with her eyes, even as the muscles in his legs quivered, as pain spread to his stomach, out to his limbs, as it swallowed up his vision and made him see black around the edges.  He felt like he was on the verge of crumbling when she finally let him go.

Nathan blinked back the haze from his sig
ht.  She looked radiant.  Her well-controlled features had blossomed into the most wicked expression, a smirk that left her cheeks round and slightly flushed, eyes shimmering with power, lips barely parted.  A lump form in his stomach, even as his cock throbbed.

“What is it about
this that gets you off?” Robin asked, and he could hear in her tone the sincerity of the question.  For the moment he was free.

He
reached up and touched her face, soothed her cheek with his palm, cupped it with his hand, and she gave a little to the caress.  “It’s your eyes,” he began, but as he scanned them he wasn’t sure. “Your face maybe,” and ran his thumb over her lips.  “In the way you square your shoulders, the way you look like you could withstand anything.”  He shook his head.  “I wish I had a better answer for you.”

She looked up at him from beneath the black mass of her hair and Nathan leaned in to kiss her.

“Or maybe it’s because you need me too,” he whispered as he pulled away. “Because I can take some of that pain from you.”

It was she that kissed him this time, full mouthed and with none of the softness that had passed between them a second ago.  Nathan’s hand fell away from her face.  He knew he no longer had permission to tou
ch her.

She locked her lips against his and tightened her grip around his balls
, and the suddenness caught Nathan by surprise.  He let go of the breath he held and her mouth prevented him from drawing another.  Shooting pain twisted his stomach, gripped his chest, but it mingled with the hot taste of her tongue.  His heartbeat raged in his ears.

“Finish up,” Robin
instructed, too cheerfully, and she pulled away and released him in the same moment.  As though nothing had happened she lifted her hair off her shoulders so that he might clean the rest of her now that she was level to him.  Nathan took only a few breaths to compose himself and, though his hand shook as he returned it again to the water, he focused on her skin to push past the memory.

Robin
stood and twisted her hair up into a loose bun, tucking the ends and leaving her shoulders exposed.  Water made thin lines down her body, hugging her curves in ways Nathan knew he wasn’t allowed.  He followed the progression of one down her stomach, over her hips, the outside of her thigh and down her leg, to the floor where it was funneled away from her body and out through that hole in the wall.

She walked around behind him and ran her hands over his shoulders
.  He felt her fingers travel down his back, over the swaths of scar that buried the earlier lines she’d left, the ones she’d carved in anger.  His back still stung as her fingers traced over it, but next to everything he’d endured, next to everything he’d done to her and to his brother, it was physical and it was nothing.

“
You’re healing well, but I’m afraid your back may end up matching my hands,” she said, and Nathan had to turn to see her face.  He couldn’t resist, it’d never been his intention that she should feel bad for what she’d done to him.

Robin looked down at him and
smirked.  She’d read all that in his face, he saw it now in hers.  “You were expecting me to apologize to you?” She laughed.  “A few weeks with a crown and you think you have power over me.”

Nathan felt his cheeks burn as he returned his face to the floor.  He heard her continue to move around but now that she no longer stood before him he knew better than to watch her.  Silence lined with anticipation nagged at his thoughts now.  She’d punish him for that slip, or
so he hoped.

“Show me how this works,” Robin said, from somewhere behind him, and Nathan’s attention came up once more.

She touched at an open iron manacle secured just above eye level to the far wall.  It’s partner sat a little more than shoulder width away and Nathan could see she was examining the lock on one of them.  His mouth felt dry and each step he took across the room made it worse.

“It’s simple,” Nathan began, but Robin interrupted him.

“I said show me prince.”

Nathan swallowed and reached up
.  He placed his left wrist against the cuff mounted to the wall and swung the other half shut.  Cold iron raised goose bumps on his arm as he lined up the holes on each and slid the metal dowel in place.

Robin pushed against his shoulders until his back was to the wall.  She took his free hand in hers and brought it up to her lips, kissed at his fingertips and watched his eyes. 

“You designed this whole place so that I might do this to you, didn’t you?”

“Yes Mistress,” Nathan said.

“You’re my prisoner then.  Until I release you, you don’t control any of this.  Do you understand?”

Nathan could only nod this time, but it was enough.  Robin pressed his other hand into the empty cuff and locked it.  She ran her hand down his arm, followed the bend in his elbow and continued on to his chest, where her touch grew lighter and lighter until she
lifted off just above his waist.

He dropped his gaze to the floor when she stepped away, but out of the corner of his eye he followed her as she crossed the room and retrieved his shirt.  She took it and pulled it over his head,
adjusted it until he couldn’t see.  Sight was certainty and without it he found his mind wandering back to her room.  This was what he wanted, he told himself, but without knowing what she was going to do he couldn’t be completely free of anxiety, and that too was familiar.

Robin
laid her palm over his chest and he tensed involuntarily, flexed his arms forward and tugged at iron that didn’t give.  He heard the soft breath of a chuckle as she lifted her hand and replaced it lower, just above his hip and against his side.  This time a light sting accompanied the warmth of her touch, as she ran her fingers over a place he was still healing.

Her hand disappeared and reappeared a dozen times, all over the front of his body, and each caress was as gentle and light as the first.
  She ran her hand across his chest, down his sides, around the waistband of his pants, over his stomach.  Sometimes it lasted for only half a breath, other times she rode the rise and fall of several.

It was torture not to know when or where the first shock of pain would fall. 
He wondered if it’d be enough that he screamed or if she’d want tears from him as well.  He knew he wasn’t supposed to try to control this but the anxiety of not knowing left a persistent tension in his muscles.  The strain of it made him sweat.

When her hand slid down to his groin again he actually relaxed.  He was more than ready for it
, he wanted it.

But pain never came
.  She rubbed him through the fabric, traced the outline of his shaft, touched the whole length of him, up and down, until his legs felt too weak to hold him.  It made his body burn and he clenched his jaw tight to fight it down.

Her hand
left him and Nathan re-found the strength in his legs, but when she touched at his chest again he could no longer suppress his frustration.  It came out in a whimper.

If Robin
heard him, and she must have, she ignored it.  Her palm over his nipple sent a jolt down his spine, but she had no sooner touched him there than her hand wandered elsewhere.  There was no pattern to it and the only consistency was how gentle it all was.

His whimpers turned to groans and he no longer cared.  His legs burned
and he ached with a need that was both sexual and something more, and it was the latter that scared him.  All that tension threatened to rip free.  It was primal and frenzied, and Nathan flexed his arms to put pressure on the shackles, to control it, but it wasn’t enough.  He needed pain.

Her hand glided down, feather-light, from his collarbone
and to his chest, only to tapered off over his stomach.  With one finger only she went further, leapt from his stomach to the base of his cock, to just barely slide up the underside and flick off at the tip.  A surge of pure emotion, of pleasure and rage and everything in between followed the path of her finger a moment later.

It wa
s so agonizingly powerful that Nathan let out a groan.  He tensed the muscles in his thighs, in his abdomen, and let it take him.  Without strength he fell forward.