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The next time she speaks, her voice is slow, dazed-sounding. “You’re good at this.”

“I know.” I watch the gleam of her tits as I rinse the suds from her hair, soap running like a stream down her chest. I’m in the middle of applying a thick leave-in cream when I ask, “What does Lex do when he turns the lights out?”

The question visibly throws her off, shoulders tightening. “What?”

It’s a point of annoyance for me. A lot of the old analog cameras were built into the ceilings before infrared technology was a wider consumer option. Father refuses to let me retrofit them at such a critical time since it’d bring the system offline for days.

“I know he fucks you,” I clarify, smoothing her hair back. I’d have to be a fucking idiot to think he’s still held to the agreement. But Lex is smart. He won’t leave evidence. “I just want to know how.”

She shivers, the bath water probably lukewarm by now. “I’m cold.”

So it’s gonna be like that.

Bracing my hands on the lip of the tub, I push to my feet, snagging the thick white towel from a bar nearby. I grab her by the arm. “Stand up, and let’s get you rinsed off.”

Her skin does things to me.

It’s silky smooth, alabaster perfection. She has these little spatters of freckles that fascinate me. I can’t see them on the cameras so well, and I take them in slowly as I dry her. A spot on her chest. A patch on each shoulder. She can be so red sometimes, too. Like when I buff the towel over her back, a spotty flush rises in its wake.

Responsive.

That’s what her skin is. It reacts to me instantly, pebbling with goosebumps or pinkening with a flush.

And when I take her to bed, she barely seems to notice when I start undressing.

Her eyes are heavy with exhaustion and thought, that crevice never leaving her brow. I leave her halfway beneath the sheets as I push down my pants, my hard cock springing free. I’ve been thinking of this at night, as I watch her curled into Wicker or twitching toward Lex, and when I climb into the other side of the bed, I don’t bother bullshitting anyone like my brothers do.

I immediately clear the space between us.

She stiffens when I roll her to her side, so eager to feel all that bare flesh against mine that my breath grows choppy. “I don’t want to have sex right now,” she says, the words hard as steel, meant to repel.

But I grip my dick, slot up against her back, and whisper, “I know.” I peer over her shoulder as the crease in her forehead deepens.

“I mean it,” she insists as I spread her ass cheek, nudging her center with the swollen head of my cock. “I’ve had a really shitty day, Pace. I just want to—”

“Relax?” With a powerful push of my hips, the tip of my cock breaches her. “I know what you need,” I assure her, pulling her into me. She releases a long, strained hiss as I slide inside of her. Despite the protest, she’s plenty slick. Tight. Warm.

There’s a moment when she grips my wrist, tendons taut from clutching her hip, and I think she might begin to fight.

But she doesn’t.

There’s no fight left inside her.

Only me.

“Sleep,” I whisper, brushing my lips against her soft jaw. “Just like this.”

I can tell when she realizes this isn’t about fucking because her grip slowly loosens. I’m not Wicker, who’s starved for the release, or Lex, who’s feral for the catch. I’m here to fill the hungry, empty void inside her, and when her eyes reluctantly flutter shut, I content myself with holding her. Enveloping her. Possessing her.

I don’t expect to sleep, but I do.

Maybe it’s the scent of her all around me, or the way it feels to be buried so deep in her hot, wet cunt. Maybe it’s that I haven’t slept for more than random snatches of time in so long, consumed with the need to watch her every move. Maybe it’s having her right here, my arms locked around her like vises, and knowing that I don’t need to watch because Ifeel.

I feel every breath she takes, her back swelling against my chest. I rest my palm on her belly and think of the hidden mark inside of it. Once or twice, I even cup a heavy tit in my hand, just because there’s no one to stop me. Mostly, each point of my focus is driven down to my cock, feeling every sleep-twitch of her body around it, her pussy clamped around me just as tightly as I am around her.

She looks so serene like this, eyes closed, breaths shallow, not even squirming when I run the wet flat of my tongue up the column of her neck. When the unavoidable pull of sleep takes me, it’s all-consuming.

I don’t remember having a dream.