"You're bleeding," Domitian said the minute she stopped speaking. "He hurt you?"
"What?" She paused in removing the chain to look down at herself. Her gaze stopped on her bloody chest and she shook her head. "You're the one who got me all bloody. While I was feeding you. Remember?" she said, trying to prod his memory.
"Not your beautiful breasts," he said solemnly, and was surprised to see her flush and appear a little flustered. Apparently, she was not used to compliments like that. A situation Domitian intended to change. "I was referring to your shapely legs and feet."
When she peered down at herself again, he craned his head to get another look at her blood-streaked lower body and feet.
Sarita scowled at her injuries and shook her head again as she returned to unraveling the chain. "That wasn't Dressler."
"Then what happened?" Domitian asked at once.
"I stepped on broken glass," Sarita said with a shrug as she drew the chain across his body again and let it drop.
That explained the bloody footprints and her hopping, he acknowledged. But-"What about the blood on your legs?"
Sarita was silent so long he didn't think she was going to answer, but finally she grimaced and admitted, "I stabbed myself with steak knives."
"What?" he asked with disbelief. "Why?"
"Well, I didn't do it on purpose," she said with irritation. "It was an accident."
"How the hell do you accidentally stab yourself with a steak knife?" Domitian asked with disbelief.
"Four steak knives actually. Well, a paring knife and three steak knives," Sarita corrected and then explained, "I had them tucked into my thong, forgot about them, bent to pick up something, and-" She ended with a shrug, and then suddenly stopped working to glance toward the door. In the next moment she'd grabbed the knife she'd set on the table and started to hop away toward the door.
"What are you doing?" Domitian asked with concern. "Stop that, you will hurt yourself. Finish unchaining me and I will see to your wounds."
"You aren't seeing to anything," she assured him sharply. "And I'm just getting my knives in case you go getting ideas once you're unchained."
"Do not be ridiculous," he growled, and then watched with dismay as Sarita reached the counter by the door and began to gather several knives off the metal surface. No doubt the paring knife and three steak knives she'd mentioned. Much to his dismay, she clutched them by the handles, pressed close to her chest along with the butcher knife, and began to hop back to the table.
"Stop!" Domitian bellowed with horror, visions of her falling and stabbing herself dancing in his head.
"Stop yourself," Sarita barked continuing forward.
It was all too much for Domitian. Positive she was about to tumble to the floor and impale herself on all five of the damned knives, he sat up abruptly, snapping the remaining chain surrounding him. Some part of his mind noted that he hadn't been left completely naked, he still had his boxers on. But most of his concentration as he lunged off the table was on getting to his life mate before the foolish woman killed herself with those damned knives.
Sarita released a startled curse when he swept her off her feet and pressed her to his hard chest. But she didn't protest, merely clutched her knives against her bosom, and scowled up at him as he carried her out of the room.
Four
Domitian carried Sarita upstairs before slowing and then it was only to look around the office they were now in. The moment he spotted the open door into what appeared to be a living room, he headed that way, only to stop once through it.
"A bathroom?" he asked.
Instead of answering, Sarita glowered at him and demanded, "Put me down."
Snorting at the suggestion, Domitian glanced around again. This time he spotted a door farther along the wall and instinctively headed that way. He didn't bother to ask Sarita to turn the doorknob for him when he reached it. Half-suspecting she'd refuse anyway, he released the hold he had on her legs and reached out to open it himself, leaving her weight to balance on his arm without his hand to hold her in place. It only took a second and then he was carrying her into the room.
As his gaze slid over the sitting area, table for two, and bed, Domitian at first thought he'd made the wrong choice. His footsteps slowed, but then he spotted the long counter with double sinks through the door to the right of the bed. He continued forward more quickly now, carrying her into an opulent white bathroom and right up to the sink counter where he set her down between the two sinks.
Sarita hadn't said a word since demanding to be put down. She'd merely glowered at him, her hands tight around her knives, her expression suggesting she'd like to plunge the lot of them into his face.