Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 79603 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 398(@200wpm)___ 318(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79603 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 398(@200wpm)___ 318(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
She considered putting him in the shower but she wasn’t sure the black paint would wash off easily. Maybe it was better to give him a good soak in the tub—she might have better luck getting it off him that way.
“J’are, what is this stuff?” she asked, picking at the black paint on one arm after she had gotten the water running in the huge marble tub in the center of the bathroom.
He frowned.
“Makes safe. Need to keep safe in the dark.”
“You do?” Imani asked, puzzled. “Is it…very dark in the Yonnite holding jail then?”
He nodded.
“In the hole it is.”
“The hole?” Imani shook her head. “Do you mean solitary? Solitary confinement?”
But J’are shook his head vigorously.
“Not solitary. Not…alone. Other inmates in the hole. And…things. Biters…crushers…bad things.” He shook his head again. “Not alone. Never alone.”
“Oh, you poor thing!”
Imani’s heart went out to him. He must have been fighting for his very existence for months! And it sounded like the Yonnite jail was worse than even the worst prisons on Earth.
“Well,” she told J’are. “You don’t need this anymore, so we’re going to wash it off. Okay?”
He drew away from her, frowning mistrustfully.
“Need it to keep safe! Safe in the dark!”
“But I’ll keep you safe now,” Imani promised him. “I mean, I won’t let you get put back in jail. You’re mine—remember? I Claimed you,” she added, hoping this would help him relent and get into the bath. She couldn’t take him everywhere with her as he was now, covered in the shiny black paint.
“I’m yours.” Slowly J’are nodded. Since the fight on the bridge, he had regressed even more into his feral state but this seemed to get through to him. “You’ll keep me safe?” he said, looking at Imani hopefully.
She wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. The fact that a seven-foot-tall, huge, muscular Kindred warrior was asking for her protection seemed like a joke. But until she could get him completely free of the Yonnite court system, she was actually his best bet for safety.
“I’ll keep you safe,” she repeated. “So how about getting into the nice warm tub and washing this stuff off. Would that be okay?”
J’are appeared to think about it for a moment.
“You wash me because you Claimed me?” he asked.
“Yes, exactly.” Imani nodded her head vigorously.
“All right.” He shrugged, his broad shoulders rolling.
“Good.” Imani led him into the bathing area. “Okay now, take off your clothes and get in,” she said, showing him the big marble tub filled with steaming water and pink foamy bubbles.
Without waiting for her to turn her head away, J’are began stripping down the black trousers he’d been wearing. It was impossible to say if they were meant to be black or if they’d been painted with the same stuff that covered his skin but Imani could at least see that where they had covered him, he wasn’t painted. A firm, tan, muscular ass came into view before she could look away as J’are finished undressing and climbed into the tub.
“Warm,” he remarked as he sank into the pink bubbles. “No warm water in the hole. All cold all the time.”
“That sounds terrible,” Imani said. She tried to hand him a sponge. “Do you think you can wash that stuff off yourself?”
But J’are leaned away from the sponge.
“What’s that? Don’t like!”
Imani sighed.
“It’s just a sponge. It will help get you clean—see?” She knelt by the side of the tub and reached both arms into the tub herself. Then she made a show of scrubbing one hand with the sponge while J’are watched. “It’s soft—it doesn’t hurt,” she told him.
His suspicious frown lessened and he held out his own arm to her.
“Make clean,” he said, nodding.
Oh, so he was willing to get scrubbed as long as Imani was the one doing the scrubbing. Well, she didn’t really mind if it made him feel better about getting cleaned up.
“Here we go,” she said, taking his huge hand in her much smaller one and beginning to scrub his arm in long strokes. The black paint stuff seemed stubborn at first, but then it finally began flaking and peeling off in long strips.
As she worked, Imani was reminded again of her friend from high school and how the two of them had spent days on her dad’s farm. She wasn’t thinking of the wolfdogs this time, however, but of the horses. They had spent hours grooming their favorite mounts, currying and brushing the big animals. That was a little like cleaning J’are, because he was so big.
Not that I’d ever want to “mount” him, Imani thought and felt her cheeks get hot with a blush. Now where had that idea come from?
Pushing it out of her head, she continued to peel away the paint. But along with his firm, tan skin, she found something else under the thick, shiny layer.