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)
At first she thought the lines she saw were more paint but they weren’t shiny and they didn’t come off, no matter how hard she scrubbed. J’are watched her trying for some time. Finally he said,
“You scrub hard.”
“I know, I’m sorry,” Imani apologized. “It’s just…I can’t get this other stuff off your arm. See?” She pointed to the thick, black marks on his skin. “Is this some other kind of paint?”
J’are shook his head.
“No paint. Those are k’dra—my markings.”
Imani stopped scrubbing at once.
“Oh, so they’re supposed to be there?”
He nodded again. “My k’dra.”
“I see. I’m sorry,” Imani said. She couldn’t tell if the thick black markings were some kind of tribal tattoos or maybe just natural skin colorations but she didn’t think she could get the big Kindred to understand her question, so she didn’t ask.
“Let’s move on to the other arm then,” she said briskly.
Obligingly, J’are gave her his other arm and she scrubbed it free of paint as well. This was a bit easier, since it had been soaking for some time.
Imani did his chest and back as well, noting that the thick black markings—which looked very much like tattoos to her—ran up both arms and across his back and his broad, muscular chest as well. She wondered if they had some special meaning to him or the family he had been taken from as a boy.
There were so many questions she wanted to ask but she didn’t think now was the time to try to get through to the big Kindred. He was letting her scrub him, but he still looked rather wary. He especially didn’t like it when she washed his face and hair.
Remembering the long, flowing hair she’d seen on the evidence vid that had been recorded on the tiny drive, she wondered—as she scrubbed the short stubble that remained—who had cut it. Had he been shorn before he entered the Yonnite jail or was that something that had been done to him down in ‘the hole’ as he had put it? She wondered what else had been done to him there and felt a surge of pity.
At last his face and scalp were free of the black paint. To finish the bath, Imani had the big Kindred lean back and stick his feet out of the water. She noted, as she scrubbed, that he would probably wear a size fourteen or sixteen shoe—he was really just huge all over.
“There,” she said at last, throwing the sponge into the tub, which was now filled with floating strips and scraps of the shiny black paint. “All done.”
J’are shook his head.
“Not done.”
“Really?” Imani wiped her forehead with the back of her hand tiredly. “Do you have paint someplace else?”
“Not done,” J’are insisted. Then he stood up in the tub, naked and dripping wet.
Imani bit her lip.
“Well…all right,” she said.
Picking up the sponge again, she stood and went around to wash his lower back, where there were still a few patches of paint she had missed earlier. The markings he had called his k’dra extended all the way down to the top of his buttocks, she saw.
“There—I think I got all the paint off now,” she told him at last.
J’are twisted halfway around to frown at her.
“Wash more,” he said. “Wash everywhere.”
“What…you mean here?” Imani took a tentative swipe with the sponge over his round, firm ass which didn’t have any paint on it at all. This seemed to make J’are happy, however because he nodded.
“Keep washing.”
Bemused at the weirdness of actually giving her client a bath, Imani dipped the sponge in the water and washed some more, running it over the big Kindred’s muscular ass and the backs of his upper thighs until J’are seemed satisfied.
“There, finished,” she said and was about to throw the sponge in the water when J’are turned around to face her.
“Not done,” he said, frowning and pointed between his legs. “Not done—wash everywhere.”
“What?” Imani stared at the shaft between his muscular thighs. Even only half hard, it was absolutely huge.
He really is like one of the stallions I used to groom back at the farm, she thought and shook her head.
“No, J’are—not there,” she said firmly.
The big Nightwalker got a stubborn look on his face.
“You Claimed me,” he pointed out. “You wash me!”
“But I can’t…I shouldn’t…” Words failed Imani. How could she explain to him in a way he would understand that she was just his attorney and that she had already done much more for him than was strictly ethical? How could she make him understand that she really shouldn’t be washing him there?
“You wash me,” J’are said again, frowning. “Or you don’t Claim me.”
“I didn’t know that was part of the bargain!” Imani protested. But his pale green eyes were looking more and more upset and his fangs were beginning to show. She didn’t think he would bite her, but she didn’t want him to feel like she was rejecting him, either.