No.
He was just telling me where he was.
I wasn't supposed to come.
I knew that because as I walked in, I saw him standing in his shower bay, under the steaming spray. Naked. Yes, naked. But more so than that, his hand was wrapped around his hard cock and he was stroking it.
Jesus.
Alright. I needed to quietly and slowly enough to not draw attention to the motion, back the hell right out of that room before he saw me.
"Don't," his voice called as soon as I moved one foot backward. I froze, my pulse pounding hard in unusual places: wrists, throat, and, um... another place.
"Sorry, I, ah .... I'll go," I said, dropping my head to look at the floor, squeezing my eyes so tight that it hurt.
"Miss. Marlow," his voice called, a little rough, a little sex-raspy. And the sound had a physical effect. Crap. Crap crap crap. "Eyes up," he commanded and I felt my head shaking since, one, I didn't hear the water shut off so he was still under the spray, and two, I was pretty sure my cheeks were beet freaking red. "Eyes now, Miss. Marlow," he snapped in such a cruel tone that my head jerked up and my eyes opened. As I had expected, he was still in the shower, under the spray, naked, his hand still around his cock. The only difference was, his eyes were on me. They were heavier than usual but just as intense as ever. "Right there, like that. You move, you blink, and I am having one of my men go find your father."
The deadness in his voice forced a cold sliver up into my heart and I knew, I just knew he meant that.
If I didn't stand there and watch him jerk-off, he was going to round up my father and either hurt or kill him.
It was the first time I felt real, genuine fear with regard to him since I moved into his house. Sure, he was an asshole one-hundred and ten percent of the time, but he hadn't out and out scared me like he had with the gun incident two days before. I had almost forgotten how dangerous he really was. But he was a man who was equally happy killing a man or taking his daughter as a... slave? Servant? Whatever I was. Normal, sane, safe people didn't do things like that. So that made him abnormal, crazy, and incredibly dangerous.
It was right that second that I realized how jolly well fucked I was in the whole situation. I understood why my father wanted to run away, why he was so hellbent on getting me away.
He knew what I was just finding out.
He knew that I had just become property. That I belonged to Byron St. James.
And if I didn't mind my p's and q's, there was no telling what could happen.
I felt my lower lip tremble and I bit into it as I fought the sting of tears at the backs of my eyes.
"Understood?" he barked and I jerked my head in a tight nod.
He looked back at the shower wall, no doubt having no worry that I would disobey his command, and continued working his hand on himself, his rhythm getting faster, rougher, almost violent as his toned, perfect body went taut. His fist slammed hard into the wall, making me jump as I watched his body jerk as he came.
He stood there for another minute, deep-breathing, then rinsing off before he shut off the water and wrapped a towel around his waist, not bothering to dry off and just dripping water all across his bathroom floor as he made his way toward me.
I felt myself frozen in place, every inch of my body tight and ready to flinch away as if he might pounce. He came right up in front of me, his mostly-naked body radiating heat and it made me do a full-body shiver against the coolness I felt inside. His head tilted slightly, his hand raising. His thumb moved out, stroking across my cheek, catching a stray tear I hadn't realized slipped over. Then his hand dropped just as quickly and he moved away and into his bedroom.
I swallowed hard, collapsing back against the wall, bringing a hand up to my slamming heart and trying to take a few deep breaths and remind myself that Byron, for all his faults, had made a promise to my father and me.
He wasn't going to hurt me... like that.
He wasn't going to put his hands on me.
He wasn't going to force himself on me.
But I was just starting to realize that there was something to be said for emotional and psychological abuse being just as bad as physical.
Because the only thing I had that mattered in my boring, sometimes shitty life... was my father.