“Beautiful.” His voice was thick with lust. He leaned down and lapped at it, collecting a white puddle on his tongue.
Before she could analyze the come licking, he crawled up her body and captured her mouth. His salty kiss swirled past her lips, aggressive and consuming. She tried to fight it, but she was too weak, too lost to the drugging glide of his lips, the salacious pressure of his teeth, and the undivided focus of his desire.
He'd seen every shameful flaw, and still he kissed her as if he believed she was beautiful? She closed her eyes and could almost taste a man beneath the cruel lash of his tongue. The flavor bore a hint of cleanliness. Earthy. Carnal. Human. It gave her hope that a modicum of kindness might've been buried in there, too. No doubt it was a hope fabricated from desperation.
He broke the kiss, and his tongue darted out, trailing the seam of her mouth. “If turning off the lights is the only way you can get off, you need to replace it with something else.” His lips whispered over her cheek. “With trust.”
“Are you shitting me?” She twisted in the restraints, kicking and heaving against his heavy body. “You fucking raped me!”
A dark cloud rolled over his face, and his eyes grew unfocused, his voice eerily quiet. “To call that rape insults the brutality inflicted by the worst kind of man.” He blinked, and his eyes cleared. He rubbed his forehead, dropped his hand, and his mouth tilted in a crooked grin. “You liked it too much.”
Fire spread over her body, lighting up her nerves and burning her throat. “I'm tied down, dammit. I didn't have a choice.” She didn't have a choice to like it? Okay, not a whip-smart response. “Untie me.” She glared at him through blurry eyes. “Or do you plan on raping me again?”
“Maybe.” He winked. “If you beg.”
The fuck she would. “Is your name really Van?”
His fingers caressed a path around the outer swell of her breast, over her ribs and hip, and slipped between the raw skin of her lower lips. “My mother named me Van Quiso.” He shoved two fingers in her opening and curled them, coaxing her muscles to clench. “You'll refer to me as Master.” His timbre was a velvet sheath swaddling an obnoxious order.
He shifted down her body, hovering like a dark mountain of dread, and wedged his massive shoulders between her thighs.
Her heart rammed against her ribs in a violent protest. Oh God, she never wanted anyone down there. Not after Brent. It was her biggest shame, her eternal regret. “Please, don't. You don't understand.”
He bared his teeth, grinning, and bit down on her clit. White-hot pain pierced through her * in concentrated heat. She cried out as his teeth continued to pierce and yank the sensitive nub, his tongue flicking back and forth as swiftly as his thrusting fingers.
She screamed thick, sobbing shrills of agony. Hot tears rolled down her face, her cries garbled and raw. He released her, kissing the sore flesh. The tenderness only made her cry harder.
She was on display, naked and hurting, weak and defenseless. And her future would only get worse. What would happen to her without her routine, trapped in some unknown location, at the center of a madman's attention?
For two years, she'd hidden herself in the darkness of her self-pity. She wasn't living. She was barely surviving. The idea of returning to her house was as grim as staying here, with him. Was this the beginning of a new misery, where her days were consumed by a rapist who made her come? The thought trembled through her. That was a whole different kind of sick.
As the edge of pain dimmed, the pinch of something else took hold, a realization as spiteful and psychotic as the monster before her. It hardened her spine and sharpened her focus.
He might've had the upper hand, but he couldn't control the mess in her mind. If he planned to keep her around, he'd damned well better be prepared. She was going to make his life a living hell.
He reached for the buckles around her ankles. “You ready?”
She was ready, for what she had no idea. She'd been beaten, drugged, taken from her house, and raped. She was already fucked in the head, her dignity long gone, and now she was backed into a corner she couldn't escape. She had nothing to lose.
She raised her chin and met his eyes. “Yes.”
The shackles around Amber's ankles fell away. She yanked her legs together, knocking her knees, and the sudden movement sent stabbing pain through her hips. But it was anger—the sudden violence of helpless fury—that sharpened every nerve-ending in her body.
Van watched her from beneath hooded eyes and reached for her wrists. “You're an unforgettable fuck, Amber.”
She ground her molars, her voice low and harsh. “And you're a fucking rapist.”
His eyebrows pinched together. “You're pissed, but you went over the edge and exploded around my dick.” He freed one arm and murmured, “You needed that.”