And he kissed me gently.

My head spins.

The merry-go-round of confusion is endless.

Since when does a guy abduct a woman, fuck her senseless, and then let her go? If I’m crazy for liking this, then he surpassed my lack of sanity miles ago.

Or orgasms.

The laughter comes now. Hysterical bouts of it that don’t belong in this room where consensual is not an option. It bubbles up and over. My mind and body succumb to the desperate sound in its tone, just needing a disruption from the exhaustive, unanswered questions.

And therein lies the problem. Yes he is holding me against my will—fucking me, pleasuring me, punishing me—but my God, I got off on it. What in the hell does that say about me?

I try to turn my mind off, try to allow myself a reprieve because I have no clue how long this is going to last and I’m spent. I just want to sleep, shut down the thoughts and questions I don’t want answers to right now. The answers that just might tell me I’m not the person I thought I was. The answers that might unravel the truths I don’t want to face.

Time lapses. I lose myself in trying not to think. And then I drift off.

I’m not sure for how long when I’m jolted from my slumbered state. A warm wash cloth runs over my inner thighs and then parts me gently, cautiously, cleaning me up. When he finishes, I’m chilled from the room’s air hitting my wet skin, but my attention is easily diverted to the dip of the bed and the feel of one of his hands whispering over my bare backside. I hold my breath immediately, the soft caress unexpected but welcome. A simple gesture of tenderness amidst his never-ending dominance. His hand trails languorously over my hip and then crosses over my back. My skin is still tender to the touch so I try not to flinch when he connects with the welts.

He murmurs something softly under his breath that I don’t understand. I tell myself to relax, to just accept his bewildering tenderness, but it’s hard to not anticipate another whip of leathered roses against my skin. I withdraw from my thoughts when his lips press against the indent between my shoulder blades, yet another show of affection. I work a swallow over the lump of confusion in my throat as the ache in my core flickers to life.

I try to fight it this time, tell myself that I don’t want this, want him or the burn that’s beginning to intensify as he laces contradictory kisses to the base of my neck. But my body has other thoughts. It betrays me when goose bumps chase in the wake of his tongue as it slowly slides down the length of my spine. I exhale audibly when he reaches the dimples of my lower back and keeps going.

His hands are suddenly on the curve of my ass, pushing me up to my knees so my shoulders press into the mattress and my hips are in the air. He unabashedly grabs the rounded globes and pulls them apart so that his tongue can descend with ease. I suck in a breath, my sex clenching tighter with every inch he covers. We both groan as his tongue licks around the rim. My muscles tense and my breath hitches as my nerve endings set ablaze from the potent combination of his touch and the forbidden notion of it.

I can feel myself becoming wet, can feel the ache intensifying as his tongue skims downward, his fingers firmly kneading my ass. I involuntarily press my hips backwards, a silent plea for more of what I’ve been told for a lifetime is dirty and wrong. A notion that I don’t care about in this moment because the hub of nerve endings he’s rimming begs for more—to be experimented and manipulated.

A chair scrapes across the floor on the other side of the room.

What in the hell? I’m jolted from the euphoric edge I can sense my body is climbing toward. My heart races and stops. His hands remain on me, possessive, but his face withdraws from the curve of my body.

“Ahhh, so you want to get a better view Marco, no?”

What? My pulse races, pounding a frantic tattoo as it roars through my ears. I want to tell it to shut the hell up so I can hear, so I can figure out who in the fuck is watching me?

Be forced.

Become pleasured.

“No!” I cry the word trying to process why my nipples harden and pussy throbs at the thought of being watched. Of having someone sitting there observing me be taken against my will. Why am I aroused beyond belief at the thought?

My captor chuckles low and mocking, and my every nerve stands on end. His hand fists in my hair, his voice an immediate growl in my ear. He pulls my head back so my neck is exposed and the heat of his body blankets across my back, seeps into any part of me that is chilled from the thought of an onlooker.

“No questions. No denials. Remember the rules?” His tongue traces around the shell of my ear—my surefire erogenous zone—and I fight the urge to shift my hips and relieve the pleasurable pain he’s relit. “Behave, mia bella.” The heat of his breath hits my ears, the brush of his lips such a stark contrast to the warning he delivers. “I’m going to fuck you. By the time I’m done, you’ll beg me to keep going. Then you’ll beg me to stop. Regardless, you’ll take what I give you—all of it—and you’ll enjoy every single fucking moment of it. And Marco is going to watch. Understood?”

The dominance of his words excites me. The notion that someone is going to watch evokes a potent mixture of uncertainty and provocation. I’m so lost in the idea of being taken, being fucked without preamble, along with the feeling of his hardening dick pressed against the crack of my ass that I don’t even realize I haven’t answered him. His hand closes over my exposed neckline and presses there, forcing my head back and snapping me from my thoughts.

I give an incoherent sound of consent just as I hear Marco move about the room. My ears strain and body attunes to the raw physicality of two men—one I can physically feel, the other I cannot—but both dominating nonetheless. My nipples tighten and skin chills under the scrutiny of eyes I can’t see but know are studying my body.

“Brava, ragazza,” he says to me, hand tightening ever so subtly. “This man handles your fate. He decides what happens next. I told you I won’t hurt you, that I’ll let you go when I’ve had my way with you … but if you disappoint him?” He makes a soft tsking sound. I try to swallow at this new development, but the angle of my neck makes it difficult.

A sliver of fear snakes through me.

The hand on my throat slowly slides down over my collarbone as my thoughts race faster than my heart. His hand finds my breasts and palms one of them pressing its weight up against my chest and squeezes.

“If you don’t make it worth his while,” he chuckles, low and deep. His hand retraces its path back up so that he can insert two fingers into my mouth, forcing me to taste my arousal from earlier. “Well then all bets are off.”

I cry out as his free hand slaps my ass hard. The sting reverberates through my body and into my sex with a resonating effect. My hands grip the sheets as his fingers press down against my tongue and hold it still. I feel him move, the bed shifts, the heat of his body leaves mine—skin sliding over skin—and then the mattress moves again as he brings his face close enough so that his nose bumps against mine.

If I thought I felt vulnerable before, it’s tenfold now. At least I know the man in front of me doesn’t really want to hurt me, but the man at my back? Now he scares me.

His hold on my mouth tightens as he tilts my head up some to what I can assume is the same angle as his. “I’m going to kiss you now. I’m going to see if this mouth of yours tastes just as sweet as your pussy does. You will not bite me. You will kiss me back.” He leans forward and presses a pseudo kiss to my lips, slightly hindered by the placement of his fingers. His breath feathers over my lips as he pulls back. “And then I’m going to prepare you for what you want but refuse to admit.” He removes his fingers ever so slowly, drawing them down so my bottom lip pulls down with their descent. When my mouth is unhindered, his mouth meets mine, firm lips with a soft tongue pressing between. I hesitate allowing him access, giving him something that for some reason seems so much more intimate than everything else he’s done to me.