“Why you?” he murmurs. I feel his lips brush against mine, and I squirm from the touch.

Come closer, I silently dare him as I clench my fists. Come closer and I’ll bite your tongue if you try to kiss me, you fucker.

“Ahhhh,” he sighs, tapping a finger against my curled hands. “The fighter in you returns, no? Why fight what deep down you know you want? I doubt your husband will ever fuck you like I will. I doubt he takes the time to make your body ache so much it hurts.”

His finger slides down the column of my throat before he presses his hand there. My pulse pounds against the pads of his fingers, a physical manifestation of the emotions rioting within me. His grip tightens as he leans in and uses his tongue to trace the outline of my trembling lips. When he finishes, he pulls away, but I can still feel him there, his presence so formidable he might as well be touching me.

“Does he know how turned on you are by being at my mercy? How your body craves to be violated, dominated, fucked hard, used at my every whim?” He chuckles low and deep. “I doubt he’s fucked every inch of your body like I will.”

My muscles tense, his threat causing my breath to catch in my throat, my mind visiting places I don’t want it to. Images flash of wants and desires too taboo in Anderson’s eyes, and I chastise myself for being turned on by this man’s words.

By my captor’s words.

Anger fills me and begins to consume my every fiber, but the most confusing part of it all is whom the anger is directed at. It’s not at him—no, it’s at me. Because as hard as it is to hear the words and the truths they cause, in the end, he’s right. My body trembles with the acknowledgement because as much as I deny it, this is what I’ve wanted from Anderson.

Dirty talk.

Provocation and domination.

Curiousity edged with a nervous excitement as we push limits.

I try to shut down my mind, attempt to ignore my body and recall the reserved woman I am, the one I used to be—because hell if I know who this woman is that wants this stranger to fuck her how he’s promising—and gain back an ounce of the fight and determination that I need right now. I shove the unwanted thoughts out, try to clear my head and it takes me a moment but I find it. At least my words say that I have, my mind on the other hand is still left to be convinced.

“Go to hell,” I grate out between my gritted teeth.

That laugh again. Amusement mingled with superiority rings through the room. “Bella, by the time I’m done with you, you’ll be begging me to fuck you again. You’ll beg to suck my cock, to fuck your mouth. You’ll yearn to please me, crave my touch. You’ll cry when I leave you to go back to your everyday life.”

His words cause an intense, unfathomable ache to unfurl in my core. Blood swells the tender flesh there, and even though I have this man in front of me holding me against my will, the oddest feeling comes over me. I believe him when he says he doesn’t want to hurt me. I have no basis for this belief, just my gut instinct, but in some fucked up sense I trust him.

Now what does that say about me?

I divert my thoughts elsewhere. I don’t have the wherewithal to look closer at myself, a surefire way to fuck my head up even further. But all I can think is that this man captured me. He captured me and then brought me pleasure by licking me to orgasm. He hasn’t even penetrated me yet. He could have thrust into me with complete disregard to my readiness or my pleasure, as I assumed would’ve happened, and gotten off.

But he didn’t.

He hasn’t used me and tossed me aside how I’d have expected. I shiver as the air conditioner kicks off, and I strain to hear the sounds of life outside of the room. A car honks in the distance but not a single sound in the room. My thoughts run wild again, my attention so schizophrenic that I welcome their distraction. I hold onto that—the disorder, the confusion—so that I can lose focus, lose myself, in order to hold onto the hope.

And then the pain hits.

Pain sears.

Fire ignites against my flesh.

I scream out, my body jerking, back arching, and nipples tightening, as something singes my chest spot after spot. My mind races—a flash of coherency between each bite of pain—and focuses solely on where I think the next place will be.

Hot wax.

My skin chills but then burns.

Drip.

“Pain can bring pleasure, mia bella,” he murmurs as another drop falls, and I hiss to combat the hurt. “Pain can make your nerves sensitive.”

Drip.

“Can make your body overcompensate in other ways.”

Drip.

I struggle to pull myself from the hypnotic fixation on where it will drop next. I want to scream at him to stop. Want to ask him how he can say no pain and then he does this. Why he lied.

My mind finally forms the words, my tongue readies to say them when they are knocked clear off my lips.

His mouth closes over my nipple. The unexpected move—the warm, wet feeling of him adding tantalization to my torment—has my back bowing and a strangled sigh falling from my lips. I relax some, relieved the drips of wax may be on hiatus? my mind focused for so long on the pain that the pleasure is unexpectedly heightened. The movement of his tongue, the contrast of sucking hard and then laving softly, mainlines an electric current to my core that I don’t have an ounce of strength to fight.

And the difference this time is that his body is against mine, pressing me into the softness of the mattress beneath us. The taut muscles of his abdomen rub between the juncture of my thighs when he moves up my body so his mouth can pleasure my right breast. His hand squeezes my other one, fingers pinching, manipulating, and then a pressure edging on pain closes around my nipple.

My mind is yanked cruelly from concentrating on his mouth, my breath hissing in, my head angling up as if I would be able to see what he’s doing. The sting is slight, but combined with the wax and his mouth, every inch of my body hums and rides on a high alert. His teeth nip and tug again before he releases my tightened bud, and then I feel matching pain there as well.

He pulls justly on whatever connects the two nipple clamps.

My breath catches in my throat.

Drip.

I cry out at the unexpected sensation when I thought it was over.

His chuckle resonates in the room, scarring its way into my memory just as the wax singes my flesh. His body lifts, my own easing up from the mattress without his weight on me. The bed sways and then stills.

And then nothing.

The silence hits again, smothers my mind and heightens my anticipatory fear. The floorboards announce his movement and something clatters onto the floor

And I wait.

The ice cold chill hits my skin, a gasped “ahhh” falling from my mouth.

“Silence,” he commands. And I fight the urge to gasp when he rubs the ice cube around my nipple. It hardens to the point of pain and the sensation mixed with the clamping causes a bewildering surge of arousal. He continues his tantalizing torture of the cubes around my breasts, up to the hollow of my throat and then back down.

He circles my navel and then lets it rest in the hollow of my belly button. The chill of the cube sitting idly begins to burn subtly, causing me to squirm.

“Ah, bella Lilly,” he murmurs, and I can hear the smile I remember from my glance at the bar in his voice. “Do not move. Do not let the water spill over. Not one drop. The only other thing allowed to be wet is this pussy of yours.” His fingers are on my opening, spreading my sex apart. I tense at the feeling—invading fingers on my most intimate parts—and I can feel the growing drop of water on my stomach fall over the dip of my navel and run down my stomach.

“Ah, you are dripping for me, no? You like fire and ice?”