“My deepest and most abject apologies for that unpleasantness, Jacob,” Sorenson said earnestly. “I promise it will not happen again. From now on, Tainer will be forbidden to come up here.”
“Too late. Damage has been done.” Jake turned his head away. “Fucking crazy assholes,” he muttered, his voice thick with emotion.
I had a lump in my throat too. What we had done—what I had done—just felt so wrong.
At that moment, Ophelia came scurrying back up the stairs, with a thick pile of blankets.
“Here we go, here we go!” she chanted, as she began to spread the blankets over our naked, shivering forms. “There—good as new!”
I had moved away from Jake by that time—he didn’t seem to want me near him and I guessed I didn’t blame him. The blankets—which all smelled like they had been freshly washed and dried—were a welcome relief from being naked all the time. But I still felt horrible.
I curled on my side, facing away from my stepbrother and waited for Sorenson and Ophelia to leave.
“Come, my dear,” I heard him murmur. “Let us give them some time to collect themselves.”
It wasn’t until I heard the muffled thump of the trapdoor closing that I let myself cry. And even then, I tried to keep my tears quiet. What had I done? I had hurt Jake exactly the way he’d been hurt and abused before, and he would probably never talk to me again—not that I blamed him.
I just wanted to die.
EIGHTEEN
There was silence between us the rest of the day and when Ophelia appeared with a supper tray filled with dainty gourmet sandwiches, neither of us ate very much. Jake wouldn’t look at me, even when I offered him a roast beef on rye—which I happened to know was his favorite—and he didn’t say a word when I asked if he wanted something else instead.
All of this just made me feel worse, of course. Like I had abused him in the worst way possible and now he was making me pay for it.
Ophelia gave our almost untouched tray a worried look when she came back to collect it and shook her head. She had me come into the bathroom and pee on another stick. Her face fell when she saw that the Heat Cycle box had gone from yellow back down to green—a definite regression.
“Oh, no,” she whispered. “The Professor was right! You’re Cycle’s going in the wrong direction.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have forced me to molest my stepbrother then!” I snapped at her. “Or put on a damn creepy sex show at gunpoint.”
“That wasn’t me—it was Tainer!” she protested. “I was just trying to get the two of you to get a little romance started. If the two of you could just come together and see the beauty in your relationship—”
“Right, because it’s so beautiful and romantic for me to abuse Jake the same way you bastards abused him when you kidnapped him before!” I snarled. “He probably hates me now—and I don’t blame him after what you made me do to him! Now go away and leave us alone!”
Abashed, Ophelia took the mostly untouched tray and left us alone in the attic again. I huddled in on myself, wrapping a blanket around my shoulders and feeling completely alone. I had meant what I said—Jake probably hated me. He wouldn’t talk to me—hell, he wouldn’t even look at me. He gave every indication of a man who hated my guts and even though I knew it wasn’t true, it felt like this was all my fault.
The sound of Ophelia’s footsteps faded below as I stared at the opposite wall. The sun was going down, marking the end of our first full day in this hellhole with no end in sight. And then Jake’s voice—low and soft—murmured,
“I don’t hate you, Ani.”
“What?” I turned my head to look at him and saw that he was twisted towards me once more. Ophelia had uncuffed his right hand so that only the left was cuffed to the bedstead and he was looking at me with an unreadable expression in his eyes.
“I said, I don’t hate you,” Jake told me. “In fact, I’ve been lying here thinking that you must hate me.”
“What?” I glared at him. “What are you talking about? I’m the one who…who sucked you off when you didn’t want me to!” I had to force the words out.
“You had a gun to your head,” Jake pointed out. “And besides, I’m the one who sucked your nipples and fingered your pussy until you came. If anybody molested anyone, I was the one who hurt you.”
“You couldn’t help any of that,” I objected. “Like you said—they had a gun on us! Look…” I wrapped my blanket more firmly around myself and sat up so I could look in his eyes. “I think we’re forgetting what we promised ourselves last night—that no matter what they made us do together, we wouldn’t hate or blame each other.” Reaching out, I cupped his scratchy cheek. “I don’t blame you, Jake,” I said softly. “You…you had to suck my nipples and…and finger my pussy.” I felt slightly breathless, remembering how intense the pleasure of his touch had been. “I could never be mad at you for something someone else made us do.”