Page 21 of Speechless

It was light when she stirred again, her nose pressed firmly into heated flesh and his familiar scent already embedded in her system. She’d know him by smell alone, even if she was blind and deaf.

His hands were already in motion, keeping her balanced on the fine line of slumber and awareness. Aside from the slow rise and fall of his chest beneath her cheek, his body didn’t move. He didn’t speak.

It wouldn’t take much for her to drift off again, content, if she didn’t need to pee.

Urgently.

As her brain jolted fully awake, her bladder protesting, she scrambled off Connor with all haste and no grace. She nearly crashed chin-first into the floor, would have if his arm hadn’t banded around her waist and caught her mid-topple.

“What’s your hurry, baby?” he chuckled.

Desperately, she glanced at the bathroom, back at Connor. He lost some of the amusement as her legs crossed in the universal sign.

“Gotcha.” Smooth as a panther, he was out of bed and pulling her toward the bathroom as she danced along beside him. He urged her toward the toilet, pausing to grab a small plastic pot from a cupboard. “You can manage by yourself?”

Jenna nodded, grateful he offered her privacy.

The pot was cool when he set it in her hand. “Pee in the pot, baby. I need a urine sample; might as well do it now as wait until later.” He closed her fingers around it, gave her a smile. “I’ll be in the bedroom.”

Mortification welled, but she knew the humiliation would only hit harder if she peed herself while standing on the tile. She’d done so more than once in front of Sire, but no matter how many times she suffered the indignity of it, the embarrassment always burned deep.

Somehow she managed to fill the pot without getting herself and the surrounding area covered in urine, then found blessed relief in just being able to sit and function normally like any other person.

How stupid was it that she was exhausted just from that mad five minutes? Elbows braced on her knees, she set her face in her hands and breathed. Apparently peeing had turned into a marathon, sucking her energy like an unsanitary vampire.

“You okay in there?” A gentle knock on the door and Connor’s head poked around the jamb. Concern crossed his features and he was beside her in an instant, his hand checking her forehead. “No temperature. Tired, baby?”

She gave him the affirmative and watched as he took the pot she’d set on the floor, capped it efficiently and put it to one side. Heat worked up her cheeks as he patted her dry between her legs and urged her onto her feet, flushing the toilet before they washed their hands together in the sink.

“Back to bed,” he decreed as though the intimacy of the last five minutes was an everyday occurrence. In the mirror over the sink, she caught a flash of something worrying in his eyes before he smiled at her and took her hand, leading her slowly into the bedroom. “I have some errands to run for an hour, okay? You catch some more sleep, then we’ll have breakfast.”

Jenna stopped, stared at him suspiciously. Her interaction with people might have been limited, but she’d learned how to tell when things weren’t right. It was self-preservation. Prey was quick on the uptake, and she’d had more cause than anyone to teach herself how to read a situation.

She jerked her hand out of his, grimaced as her wounds felt as though they’d been attacked with a blowtorch. Her mouth opened in a silent cry of pain. Breathing through the burn, the truth hit her faster and harder than any physical blow.

She raised her hands in a pleading gesture, shaking her head frantically. She couldn’t bear to see the compassion in Connor’s eyes, the unhappy set to his mouth.

“Jenna, trust me.”

Oh, she hated those words. It put her on such an uneven level. Trusting him meant walking willingly into a situation she couldn’t stomach. Denying him that trust opened a chasm in something she was starting to cherish.

Her hands clenched into fists. Her toes curled into the carpet.

“It’s not something I want to do, baby. I hate doing it. Those cuts are infected. Most of them are starting to heal but there are four deep ones I need to deal with.”

Jenna knew which ones he was talking about. She remembered the bite of the electrical cable as it bit into her flesh, how the pain had bloomed darker than she’d ever known. They’d bled and bled, her life dripping onto the rotten floor of the shed until she thought she might bleed dry. The thought hadn’t been unwelcome.

Connor stepped closer. He’d dressed while she’d been in the bathroom, she noted now. Jeans and socks, a plain blue T-shirt. He was prepared, while she was naked, defenseless, and at his mercy.

She flapped her arms at him, warning him to back off. Her decision hadn’t been made yet, and she was adamant it was her choice even if she didn’t have a voice to state it.

And with the choice in her hands, she was too broken to make it.

Too much time had passed with everything taken out of her control. How and when she ate, what she wore, when she slept. The chores she did, the punishments she took.

Overwhelmed, Jenna bolted into the bathroom and locked the door before Connor could slam through it. He’d hurt her for it, for shutting him out, disobeying him. Petrified down to the bone, cold settling into her body like death, she sank down the wall and stuffed her fist into her mouth, biting down hard on her index finger.

The pain of her back sliding down the wall didn’t register.