But it seemed there was no escaping this conversation so she sat up in her seat and scooted a little farther away from the big Kindred, as subtly as she could.
“You, er, have two hands again,” she said, nodding at the way he was gripping the steering yoke with both hands.
“I do.” He nodded gravely. “I’m able to regrow lost body parts when I change to my other form. I didn’t want to change in front of you,” he added, casting a sidelong glance in her direction. “I was afraid that seeing my Ursus—my other form—would frighten you, the same way it scared Mistress Douchenbag.”
Well, you were certainly right about that, Jillian thought, but didn’t say out loud.
“Um…” To be honest, she didn’t know what to say. What could you say to a man who had massaged you and given you the best orgasms of your life, then rescued you from a Trollox, gone to court with you, gotten his hand cut off for you…and then turned into a giant green Grizzly bear and was still insisting that you owned him? There were just…no words. It was too, too much.
“You all right, little Mistress?” Kalis rumbled, raising an eyebrow at her. “Something you want to say?”
Surprisingly, Jillian found that there was something she wanted to say, after all.
“Yes—I’m not your Mistress,” she said firmly. She hoped this wouldn’t make him angry enough to come after her in his beast form, but she needed to get it out there. “Now that we’re going to the Mother Ship, you’re free of me—at least as far as I’m concerned,” she told the big Kindred.
Kalis frowned.
“What if I don’t want to be free of you, Mistress?”
Jillian shot him a “surely you must be kidding” look.
“You don’t mean to tell me you want to remain enslaved, do you?” she demanded.
He shrugged.
“Been a bodyslave longer than I’ve been free at this point. Suppose I’m used to it.”
“Well, I’m not used to it—having a bodyslave, I mean,” Jillian said firmly. “And I’m sorry, but I don’t have any room in my life right now for a relationship. Not that I’m not really grateful for what you did for me,” she added quickly, feeling bad. She started talking more quickly—almost babbling in her haste to get the words out. “I mean, you rescued me literally just in time and then you went to court with me and you even let yourself get maimed for me! But I just can’t…I mean, I’m running a restaurant and I have this big VIP dinner coming up tomorrow night that I haven’t even begun prepping for yet and now is just not a good time so—”
“This is about my beast—my Ursus—isn’t it?” Kalis rumbled softly.
“Of course not!” Jillian denied at once, but she found she couldn’t meet his eyes as she spoke. “It has nothing to do with the fact that you turn into a, uh, gigantic green Grizzly bear! It’s just that I recently got out of a really bad relationship and I’m trying to work on getting my life back in order and besides I can’t own another person—I just can’t.”
He frowned.
“So this is about you not wanting to be my Mistress?”
“Partially,” Jillian admitted. “I mean, I’m sorry if that, uh, hurts your feelings but I just can’t…oh look—we’re going through the fold in space!”
She pointed to the huge red gash in the blackness of space, relieved to be talking about anything besides the reasons she couldn’t have a relationship with Kalis. Because she absolutely couldn’t for so many reasons—not the least of which was the fact that he turned into a terrifying monster when he got angry.
They flew through the fold in silence and when they came out the other side, the Mother Ship was waiting—shining like a pure white pearl in the velvety blackness of space. It orbited the Earth’s moon and Jillian thought she had never been more happy to see it.
“Oh my God, it’s so good to get home,” she sighed. “The first thing I want is a long, hot shower.” She looked down at her grimy bra and jeans distastefully.
“I’m covered in massage oil and dirt.”
“Forgive me for using so much oil on you, Mistress,” Kalis rumbled softly. “If the massage had gone as planned, I would have bathed you in the bubble fountain and washed it away from your lovely curves at the end.”
Jillian felt her cheeks getting hot as she remembered, in detail, the feeling of his big hands caressing and massaging her bare body. But then she also remembered the huge Grizzly bear—its head bigger than her entire torso with its blazing red eyes and steak knife teeth—roaring in her face. At that mental image, the heat in her cheeks turned into a shiver that ran down her back.
“Mistress?” Kalis murmured, making her name a question.