Page 123 of Riv's Sanctuary

She needed to regain control or what happened that night might just happen again.

A girl needed to learn from her mistakes.

"Come." He stood suddenly.

"Come?" Her brows furrowed a little.

"You need a warm cleanse.”

Ah. The shower.

"Right," she said, standing and trying not to wince with the effort. Was she really that unfit? She’d tried to keep exercising while in the terrarium. It hadn’t been the greatest way to spend her time but it had helped her keep her sanity. “I guess I do need a bath, don’t I?”

“Why do you ask questions you don’t wish for me to answer?”

Lauren huffed out a short laugh. This was the Riv she was used to. The grumpy, slightly irritable, blue alien.

“They’re rhetorical questions, Riv. It’s in the definition. I already knew the answer before I asked.” She pushed the chair so it moved back under the table and took a step toward the corridor, sucking in air as she did.

Shit. Her muscles were really effed up.

“Then why ask?”

She paused.

“Conversation? I thought we were having a conversation.”

He grunted, his eyes softening a little.

Lauren turned away from him and took one step and another, wincing as she did. It seemed the walk to the bathroom was going to take much longer than usual at the rate she was going.

These last few days had really taken a toll on her, more than she'd realized even, for her body to be reacting like this.

Before she knew what was happening, she was lifted off her feet by strong arms.

A yelp left her lips and the next thing she knew, her view was of Riv's taut trouser-clad ass.

An ass she'd had the pleasure of viewing in its most natural form.

“What are you—”

"Don't resist," he said as he began walking down the corridor. “When you resist, you writhe, and when you writhe…”

Lauren stopped moving, his words rendering her silent and a heat beginning to grow between her thighs.

Falling limp against him, she took a deep breath to calm herself.

This close, his musk filled her nose.

It was the type of smell that made a girl want to kiss a guy and then tie herself up, legs splayed, mouth gagged, so he could delve deep into the center of her universe and make her scream.

Yea, she was thirsty alright. Considering he wasn’t the nicest or friendliest of persons, she was really thirsty.

Her senses came back to her when he set her down in the bathroom.

Moving over to the wall, he pressed a series of small squares embedded into the wall itself and a sort of whirring noise began.

In front of her eyes, one section of the wall began curving forward, forming a tub.