I should close for now, though, for I have been in the bathing chamber quite long enough. I do not know if I ought to have done what I did last night, but I do know it gave me extraordinary pleasure and I cannot help wishing to repeat it.
Isla closed her diary and nibbled the end of her pen. She could hear low murmuring coming from behind the closed doors, though she couldn’t make out the words. Was Sark out there speaking to someone? If so, who?
She decided to get dressed and find out.
SIXTEEN
From the recorded logs of Sark, Hybrid Kindred Warrior and Security Specialist for Hire:
Gods, I hardly know what happened last night. I was sure that Isla wouldn’t want me touching her after the attempt on her life and I wouldn’t have blamed her one Goddess-damned bit. So you could have knocked me over with a fucking dendris fern frond when she came out in her towel again and asked me if I was going to give her a massage or “treatment” as she calls it. Then she dropped her towel again and told me I could look at her if I wanted to.
Then she asked why I was really here.
“To protect you, my lady,” I told her, my voice going hoarse. She was so beautiful with her full curves and her lovely, dark eyes, she looked like a goddess. “And to serve you—I only want to serve you.”
It was the absolute truth. I had taken the interview with Le’rank as just another job but somehow it had become more than that. I knew that as I saw her standing there, the firelight flickering on her ivory skin and her silver hair around her shoulders.
I understand now—I’m not here for the paycheck or for her asshole of a husband—I’m here for Isla. To protect her—to serve her and keep her safe. I don’t understand why or how the Goddess knew she needed me, but she was absolutely right to send me.
Anyway, Isla asked me then if what I had said about Kindred loving Elites was true and I told her that it was. There was a vulnerable look on her face as she asked me and I remembered that asshole of a Prince saying things to hurt her, right to her face. I wanted to make her forget his words—to help her understand how gorgeous she is.
I wanted to fucking worship her.
It’s possible I’m mixing up some of these details, but what I mostly remember is how beautiful she was, standing there naked in front of me. Of course, she’d done the same thing the night before, but the mood couldn’t have been more different.
The first time I massaged her, she was tight and tense and miserable—which made me pretty Goddess-damned miserable, too. I don’t like touching a female who doesn’t want to be touched—it feels like a violation. But last night it was different—last night Isla offered me an invitation. In fact, she practically begged me to touch her.
Anyone who hears these logs in the future might wonder if she was just trying to get things over with—and I certainly wondered that myself at first. But that was only until I caught her scent. Kindred have sharper senses than most humanoids and her sweet, feminine fragrance was perfuming the air like the sweetest temptation.
The mesmerizing scent of her desire made me want her every bit as much as the sight of her naked body, so curvy and beautiful. I helped her onto the table and started to massage her.
She was much looser than she had been the first time and I was actually able to dig in a little and loosen up some of the knots in her shoulders. But it wasn’t long before she turned over and asked me to touch her front, too. She told me that in order to make her glow, I needed to stroke her all over very gently—which I was more than happy to do, since her scent was still telling me she wanted it.
Gods, I’ll never forget filling my hands with her lush breasts—they’re so round and full and her nipples are big and pink and incredibly sensitive. She asked me not to “pinch or twist” them, which gave me an idea of what that asshole, Le’rank has been doing to her. I asked her about the faded bruises I’d seen on her, but she didn’t want to talk about it. I let it go, but I’m damned if I won’t find out where those came from eventually—I already have my suspicions.
After stroking her breasts for some time, she opened her legs and asked me to pet her pussy—only she calls it her “forbidden area.” With a name like that, I wasn’t very surprised when she told me she’d never been allowed to touch herself before.