Hell no. My lips firmed.

He smiled, white teeth glistening from the shadows. He looked the Cheshire cat, that incorporeal grin, the unapologetic wickedness.

Except he hadn’t done anything to me.

So far he’d just sat in my room. Disturbing but not harmful. He’d done nothing illegal, if I didn’t count trespassing. All I had to do was walk out the door and leave. March straight to the office and demand a refund. A laugh wanted to bubble out of me, but I forced it down, knowing it would border on hysterical. This was only the rambling of a terrified mind trying to make sense of things that didn’t make sense, desperate to feel safe while so obviously in abject danger.

He hadn’t threatened me explicitly, but it was there. In his presence, in his casually arrogant words. If I tried to leave, he would restrain me. He would hurt me tonight, violate me tonight, the only question left up to me was how much. If I cooperated, would he be gentle with me? But it was too soon. I couldn’t bring myself to submit to this yet even if it might make my life easier.

I edged toward the phone on the nightstand.

He leaned forward. “What are you doing?”

“Just…just calling the front desk.” I forced a challenge in my voice. “If he gave you the key, then it shouldn’t be a surprise to him.”

It was a long shot, of course. If the manager had given him the key, he was an accomplice to whatever this was. But maybe if he heard my voice…if I seemed more human reaching out over the phone line, more scared, he might do something to help me.

I gingerly lifted the bulky plastic receiver as if it might bite. As if he might spring into action, finally revealing the violence that must be his intent. Instead he watched, eyes glittering while I listened to dead air. The line had been cut. Or maybe it had never worked. He seemed to expect that.

My hand trembled so hard that the phone clattered on the cradle before sliding to the side, useless, broken.

My voice cracked. “Please. I don’t know what you want from me.”

“Don’t you?”

I drew myself up. “You need to leave. I’m not going to…have sex with you.”

My words hung in the air, somehow worse now that I’d voiced them, as if I were the one suggesting it instead of him. He was as still as a deep pool, a limitless source of patience, allowing me to work myself up into panic while he watched in amusement.

“Enough,” I said, more firmly. “You want to sit there? Fine. I’m leaving.”

Clutching the towel to me, I strode to the door. I flipped the lock but before I reached the latch, his heavy palm came up against the door. He didn’t block the latch or the knob. He simply leaned his weight, his thickly muscled bulk against the door and waited. This close, I could smell the faint scent of aftershave, of musk at the end of the day. His heat seeped into my back, electrifying and strangely comforting after the cold chills of fear.

“Let me go.” The command came out soft, a plea.

“I’m not doing anything to you,” he said. “Yet.”

I was confined by the unopenable door to my front, penned in by his broad body from behind. Well and truly trapped, and he hadn’t even touched me yet. I wondered if that was the game. Maybe he was waiting for me to push him, to strike him. Then he could say his actions were self-defense, in whatever twisted mental world he lived in.

My throat felt tight. “I don’t want to fight you.”

“Then don’t. I think you know what I want. Do I need to spell it out for you? Ask me to.”

I swallowed. “What do I have to do for you to leave?”

“I’m going to spend the night here and we’re both going to have a good time. In the morning, I’m leaving.”

He spoke with authority, but there was a question inherent. Only one unknown. This was happening, but would I fight him?

God, I didn’t know.

I didn’t know if I could let this happen without a fight. I didn’t know if I could fight him, knowing I would lose, that I would only end up hurt. I saw my mother’s face, drawn and worried and accusing. Had this been her choice to make too?

Maybe he knew I was close because he continued, the low timbre of his voice rough and thick.

“I don’t get off on hurting women. Not too bad anyway. If you have any bruises they’ll be small and covered up by your clothes. No one needs to know what happened here. It’s nobody’s business but ours.”

He made it sound consensual. But that was what he was describing, wasn’t it? That I go along with this, that I would consent.

Or else.

And I was too scared to ask about what “or else” would mean.

“Oh God,” I sobbed against the peeling paint of the door. “I didn’t bother you. You’re a good-looking guy. You could get a regular date. Why are you doing this?”

“Thank you for the compliment. You’re a pretty girl too. We’ll be good together. This is a date, you and I. You wanted to skip the dinner part, and I allowed it. I’m not going to miss dessert.”

Chapter Four

The three waterfalls combine to produce the highest flow rate of any waterfall on earth.

A sick sense of inevitability slid down my throat.

Maybe this was a regular date—what did I really know of courtship? He seemed very certain. And maybe it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. If I agreed to this crazy proposition, if I didn’t fight him, it would be just a man and a woman having sex. Wouldn’t that be better than the alternative? Even without an explicit threat, plain old mildly-bruising sex had to be better than what he might do in anger.

Unable to submit, I searched desperately, trying to think of something that could help. But I was in the far corner of a deserted motel in a truck stop well off the highway. I had no practical experience to guide me, only empty words on musty pages. Like Alice, I had stepped through the looking glass into a whole new world, foreign and sinister.

The old rules didn’t apply to this musky hotel room. There was only this man, strong and confident. There was only his mercy, to be gained through pleasing him, not angering him.

“You’re thinking too much,” he said, and I heard the first rise of frustration in his voice. His patience had a limit after all, and it was approaching on the horizon.

“Please, please,” I whispered. “Is there something else I could…anything else…?”

He scoffed. “What else could I want from you?”

Nothing. There was nothing at all, no pride, no hope.

“There now.” His voice softened. Something stirred my hair. His hand stroked down, then toyed with a damp lock. “You’re making this a bigger deal than it needs to be. It doesn’t mean anything, you and I. Just casual sex. Have you had casual sex before?”

No, never. I shook my head.

He seemed amused, a little pleased. “So this will be your first time, in a way. I like that. It’s a turn-on.”

His fingertips drifted over my bare shoulders, leaving a trail of goose bumps in languid circles. I hugged the door, suddenly wishing that I were the kind of woman who had casual sex. That I could turn around and let the towel drop and pretend I wanted this too. It would make this easier. Instead I could only shiver against the door, shudder under his touch.

“Lock the door,” he murmured against my ear. “I don’t want to be interrupted.”

I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself.

There are some men you just don’t say no to. That was what the waitress had said to me, and I understood it now. I wouldn’t say no, and he wouldn’t force me. I would go along with it, and everything would be consensual.

Just like a date. Casual sex.

My hand shook violently as I reached up and turned the lock sideways. It didn’t change our situation at all. I couldn’t leave before it was locked, and I still couldn’t. But it felt different, as if I had exercised my choice. As if I’d consented, and I had. He had my permission, even though he’d proven he didn’t need it.