Saving Sara (Masters of the Castle) Read Online Free PDF

approach her. She couldn’t really blame him. Not after what she’d done.
    “Can you stand?” he asked, and headed for the sink.
    Sara nodded, but his back was to her. She had to use the urinals, but she managed to get her feet under her and leveraged herself back up off the floor. Her skin felt too tight. Her scars pulled all the way down her left side; probably no worse than normal, it was just now her senses were heightened—an effect of the adrenaline—and now she was more aware of it.
    She must really look pathetic. He couldn’t even look at her. He just turned on the water, keeping his head bowed and his back to her as he checked the temperature with his fingertips.
    Sara tested her weight carefully, and when she was sure her watery legs would support her, she started toward him. But she hadn’t taken more than a few steps when he abruptly stopped her again with a curtly ordered, “Strip. Everything. Take it all off.”
    Startled, Sara stared at him. “What?”
    “You heard me.” He still didn’t turn around, though he did steal a peek at her in the mirror. Separating a stark white washcloth from the matching towel, he soaked it under the warm running water. “Strip.”
    A slow flush of warmth unfurled in the pit of her stomach. They’d been friends once, though right now it felt like a lifetime ago. The longer he spent soaking that washcloth so he could avoid looking at her, the further in their past that friendship began to feel.
    “Are you angry with me, Jackson?” Her voice quavered. She swallowed hard, as if that could steady it, but he still didn’t look at her. “Jackson?”
    “No.” He shut off the water, wrung out the cloth and finally turned around. Now he looked at her, but there was no more friendship on his face than in his tone. “I mean it. Take it off.” He cocked his head and took a single step toward her. “Or would you rather I remove your clothes for you?”
    No, that was definitely not what she would rather, but to get naked right now, in front of him…Once upon a time, she wouldn’t have thought twice about such a command. If she were to strip right now, this wouldn’t be the first time he’d seen her naked. They’d played together once. Just once. And it had been so…so perfect, and so devastating. She had almost fallen in love with him. Three years wasn’t long enough to make her forget how frightening it had felt not to know who she was losing her heart to: Jackson, the man who was her friend, or Jackson the Dom, who saw her as simply another sub to play with.
    Oh, the illusion of a well-played game in a BDSM dungeon. They had clicked on so many levels, but Sara had seen what happened to girls who lost their hearts to the illusion. She didn’t want to ever be one of those crying in a corner on the day Jackson decided to play with someone else, doing to her all the things that had felt so right when they’d played together, bringing someone else to writhing orgasm beneath fingers that had made her burn so hot and hard. No. No, at the time she had decided it was better to just stay friends than to play together and risk making a fool of herself that way.
    Then the accident had happened. Of all the people who had come to see her in the hospital, Jackson was the only one who had come every single day. He’d slept for three days in the chair by her bed. His face was the first she’d seen when she finally came up out of the anesthesia to find her world transformed into a hellish, burning nightmare. He’d been the one to hold her hand when she found out her hair was all burned away, and the next day he’d shaved his head to match. And when it came time for her to be discharged, he’d offered to take her home with him so she wouldn’t have to recover alone.
    She had known then, with all the same certainty that she knew it now, if she had dared to go with him, she’d have fallen in love with him. She’d have lost herself. She’d have been that girl, crying in the