Page 40 of Valentine's Slave

“Yes.” A sly smile spreads across her face.

“I hope you’re well rested for tonight,” I add.

“What’s tonight?”

“It’s a surprise, but you’ll be exhausted by the end of it.” I let my eyes fall over her low-cut dress. “I see you went shopping.”

“I did some work first,” she says, as if that’s the responsible answer. “And then I had some things to take care of.”

Perhaps she’s copying her master and learning to give vague answers.

“This slave contract,” she adds, voice low. “Have you ever done it before?”

“No. I have my yearly ritual, but this year is the first time it’s included a slave.”

“And have you ever repeated the ritual with the same woman twice?” she asks.

“Never. I cut off all contact after the fourteenth.” In fact, I normally just go on random or preprepared dates with different women for a week. This is one of the rare times I’ve been withonly one woman for the entire week and the only time that she’s ever lived at my place.

“I see.” Something flickers in Ava’s eyes, and though she tries to hide it, I catch it before it disappears. Someone is catching feelings, it seems. I considered that as part of the danger of the intimacy of our contract. But in order to get dark enough, deep enough—I had to have more time to let her open to me, to let me do all the things I want to do. And for the twenty-year anniversary, I decided it was the right move.

“What were you up to today?” I ask.

“Researching you.”

I wasn’t expecting her to say that. The correct answer would have been ‘dress shopping to look extra fuckable for my master’.

“Oh?” I drawl. “And what did you find out?”

“Your family was murdered twenty years ago.” Ava’s tone is now cold and hard.

“Correct.”

“I hope you don’t mind me asking, but I’m curious to know if you were always such a giant fuckboy.” Her voice is cool, and I wonder what has changed her temperament. She was so cozy, almost loving last night and then spunky and sexy this morning. Now she’s all fury and spitfire.

“I wouldn’t call having sex with delectable women once a year a ‘fuckboy’,” I reply.

“So, it’s normally more than one woman?” she asks.

I shrug. “It’s my ritual. It can be whatever I want it to be, whatever I feel like.”

“And what made you want to contract only one woman in such a specific way this year?”

I study her. She’s trying to read me, and I wonder if her burst of emotion is an attempt to repress her feelings.

“This year I wanted to be more . . . extreme,” I say, choosing my words carefully. “You can’t do that with a random date.”

Her faces flushes, slightly. I’m willing to bet that she’s also starting to get wet as we speak. The sex tonight will be wild.

“How did your family die?” Her words are an attack, and I will not be meeting her on the battlefield.

“That’s not your concern.”

“Why don’t you just get a girlfriend like a normal dude?”

I chuckle. “Do I seem normal to you?”

Her eyes narrow. “You’re avoiding the question.”

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