Nowhere else to go with that, so her mind boomeranged back to her body’s humming needs. Bringing herself to climax would definitely disturb Evan’s rest. But if she disturbed his sleep often enough, maybe he’d learn to give her a to-do list.

It was a nasty idea, one that appalled her. Her thoughts were like children pinned up in a schoolroom too long, their energy and wildness out of control.

Shoving it all out of her head, she slipped off her shoes, plunked down on the couch, curling her feet beneath her. She’d set the romance on top of the plant book. Considering both, she lifted the romance novel. Well, she wanted to give the story a try. There. She was acting on one of her own wishes, small though it was. Hooray for free will, something she’d never desired but Evan seemed to be forcing upon her.

Damn it. She closed her eyes. She’d kneel on rice for an hour for that one, but Niall had made it clear Evan had to order any punishment.

Just stop thinking and read. She opened the book.

In her current state of mind, she wasn’t expecting much, but after struggling through a chapter or two, she found her focus. The characters were engaging, the historical setting well drawn. As the chapters progressed, she was absorbed more deeply into their romance . . . as well as the overload of sexual tension between them.

She was a swift reader, but on certain passages, she slowed down. A lot. Her mind started returning to the moment Evan and Niall had trapped her against the ladder to give her that first mark, two sets of male hands on her. Niall, fondling her breasts as they lay on the ground together, the wind rippling her hair across his forearm.

She stroked her cheek, her chin, down her throat, like this hero was doing to the heroine. Like Evan had done to her before he gave her that mark. Stephen rarely touched her face or neck, and now she did it again, feeling with some amazement how it roused nerve endings far below the range of that touch. The intensity of Evan’s gaze had captivated her, the way he watched her every reaction like it mattered. Mattered for reasons that had nothing to do with how other vampires perceived his power over her.

Sliding her hand down to her breast, she curved her fingers around it. That bare contact brought the nipple to an aching fullness, enhanced as she thought of Niall suckling it with the strong, heated pull of his mouth. Evan, holding her arms, biting into her throat as her hips rose in a plea to be filled by them both, shameless begging.

She’d been taught to masturbate to prepare her body for penetration if the vampire had no desire to arouse her himself. She’d also learned how to do it for the viewing pleasure of others. This was more than that, a desire to make Evan and Niall hard, to please them, to please herself, but not in a way that felt self-serving. It was something she’d never considered, let alone experienced. Yet it felt so familiar.

Even though she knew she should put the book away, she turned back to it. She wanted to finish it.

Whenever you think “I want,” immediately do something else.

The number one InhServ rule snapped into her head so fast, it was as if the training Mistress was right in front of her. The book fell onto the floor, facedown, crumpling the pages. Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath to steady herself, she bent, retrieved it. Smoothing the paper, she mulled it over for several moments. She needed to follow the rules she’d followed all her life. Faced with a path back to them or toward uncertainty, the right choice was obvious. The rules couldn’t be wrong.

Rising, she replaced the novel on the shelf. She stood there for a while, though, her fingers on the spine, thinking of that picture on the front. The heroine on her knees, the hero bent over her. She could imagine his hand sliding down from her face to collar her, hold her still as he sipped from her mouth, teased her tongue, bade her to be so still. Every nerve ending focused on what he was doing to her. Overwhelming her so it felt like he held her heart in his hand.

Backing away from the bookshelf, she forced herself to return to the chair and sit down. Feet flat on the floor, back straight, buttocks on the edge. Since her Master had no tasks for her to perform, and she couldn’t meditate, then she’d simply sit here, waiting as if commanded to do so. Like at a vampire dinner, where she’d stood behind Stephen’s chair, motionless for hours until called to perform for the entertainment of his guests.

As a result of that thought, an even better idea struck her. She rose and went to the kitchen. Positioning herself on the wall behind the chair where Niall had sat, she assumed that silent, waiting posture. To help her remain still, she imagined she was back in Berlin, in the opulent dining room with two dozen place settings and chandelier lights. The room full of Council members and their servants, ready to do and be whatever their Masters desired.

When Niall returned several hours later, she was still standing there. She’d left the door open to allow fresh air in the cabin, and the sounds of the mountain—birds, bugs, the wind—had been a quiet symphony playing in the white noise of her head. They couldn’t suppress the anxious tendrils of feeling, but they’d helped her manage them. Even so, she felt an almost dizzying flood of relief when the screen door creaked.

Taking a step away from the wall, she found her joints were stiff. As a third mark, she hadn’t had that issue with prolonged periods of immobility. In the future, she would stretch every once in a while to maintain flexibility.

Niall looked at her as he entered, then his gaze covered the rest of the cabin. His expression suggested he’d expected to see evidence of something that wasn’t there. She suppressed the desire to ask him what.

“I cut up some of the meat for sandwiches. Would you like me to make you one?”

“Ye can make me two or three. I’ve covered twenty miles of this bloody mountain. A couple beers would be bonny as well.”

The band around her chest loosened, telling her how much she’d dreaded the crushing weight of his refusal to let her do anything for him. As he put away the items he’d taken with him, she moved to put together his dinner.

By the time she had the plate ready, he was at the table with two large plastic cases he’d brought from the back bedroom. As she put his meal in front of him with the cold beer, he nodded toward the containers. “Evan keeps a lot o’ slides, but these are a shambles. He wants them organized into some useful system.”

“I’d be happy to do that.” In fact, she would be delighted to seize them and get working on them immediately, but instead Niall gestured to the kitchen.

“You look peely-wally, lass. Make yourself a sandwich as well and come eat with me. In the chair next to me,” he added. “Nice as ye feel on my lap, I’m sweaty as a winded horse. I’ll shower off outside after something’s between my gut and backbone.”

He was right. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast. After preparing a sandwich, she came and sat next to him as ordered. The kitchen table wasn’t large, and his legs were long. When she would have eaten sideways in her chair, so as not to encroach on his space, he grunted and reached beneath the table. Curving his fingers around her nearer thigh, he directed her to put her feet on his boot. She was barefoot, so her toes curled into the animal hide and laces. In that state of casual intimacy, they ate their lunch.

Mindful of Evan’s order to treat Niall as she treated him, she wouldn’t speak until Niall asked her to do so, but she wished he would talk. She’d been in her head for too long. No matter how much she tried to keep clear of it, Stephen’s torment, how much her life had altered, the fact that she could die at any moment . . . they closed in on her when things became too silent, too still.

“Tell me about your first kiss.”

She looked up, startled. The Scot’s brown eyes twinkled at her. “Was he a scrawny seven-year-old, besotted with your red hair?”

“Would you tell me about the first time Master kissed you?”

Niall looked surprised by the question, and she was surprised she’d asked it. But she was thinking about the book she’d been reading, the way the heroine had yearned for that very first kiss. Alanna had been kissed by servants when they were entertaining vampires, but it was usually a perfunctory stop before their mouths were put to good use elsewhere. In the romance, that amazing first kiss had taken two and a half pages to write. And it was only the first of many kisses the hero had given the heroine.

“No,” Niall said. “But I’ll tell you about my first kiss. If ye tell me yours.”

He gave her one of his wicked looks, but she thought it was a distraction. Why wouldn’t he want to talk about the first time Evan had kissed him? Surely almost dying on the battlefield would have been a more painful memory, yet he’d told her about that. “Will you at least tell me when he first kissed you?”

He gave her an exaggerated sigh, a mock frown. “Women. About two decades or so after we met.”

She blinked, not sure if he was serious, but it appeared he was. It also appeared he was waiting for her answer.

“My first kiss, outside of training practice, came from Lord Stephen.”

“Oh.” She’d given him a handful of thick, kettle-cooked potato chips, and he pushed several onto her plate. “You practiced kissing in training?”

“Yes. Though I came to Stephen pure, we were required to have extensive training in sexual practices.”

“So did you kiss a lot of other girls in training? Or only lads?”

“Both.” She arched a brow. “Would you rather hear about my experiences kissing the other girls?”

“As often and in as great detail as ye wish,” he assured her.

She bit back a smile, shook her head. “You said you’d tell me about your first kiss.”

“Eat those potato chips first.”

She gave him a look. “You’re just trying to make me softer.”

“You’ve not eaten since I left.” Picking up another chip from his plate, he extended it. “Open up.”

When she did, he brushed his fingers along her lips, making her think about tasting the salt and grease on his lips with her own.