“You can get out of that,” he said, nodding toward my tethered hands. “If something were to happen, you could wriggle and yank them out. It’s safe.”

Safe? Was that really a consideration here? This whole thing was unsafe. That was too mild a word. It was devastating.

A tear slipped down my cheek. “Why?”

His face darkened. “We aren’t back to that again, are we?”

“Please,” I babbled. “I won’t tell anyone. Just don’t hurt me, please.”

He pulled a knife from his pocket. My eyes widened and I squirmed. Instead of using it on me, he cut a strip of the damp towel and slanted it over my mouth, tying it behind my head.

At my pleading look, he shook his head sadly. “We had an agreement. You can’t just change your mind. There’s a word for girls who do that.”

A low, mournful sound left my throat.

“Is that really what you want, girl? To make me angry? To leave me with this?” He gestured jerkily to his crotch, at the bulge in the denim.

I shook my head—no, no. I didn’t want him to be angry.

“That’s right. It will be okay. You let boyfriend number one touch your tits. You let non-boyfriend number two fuck your cunt. Now you’re going to let the dangerous stranger you met on a road trip tie you up and fuck you. It’s a fantasy, sunshine. Just a dream.”

Though it seemed very real when he stood and took off his clothes. I couldn’t see very clearly in the dark, just angled shadows and sleek lines. A light dusting of hair on dusky skin. My vision was blurry, but I felt his presence, touched by the hawk-like gaze on my body and battered by his arousal pulsing in the air.

I couldn’t move my hands. I couldn’t talk. So I tried not to think either. I wanted to become a purely physical being, one who could feel and be felt but didn’t have to analyze any of it. Why had I ever agreed to this? How much of this was my fault and how much his? But if I were just a body, then it didn’t matter. If I were just a warm tumble of limbs and curves tacked against the bed, an unholy amenity in this godforsaken motel, then it couldn’t be my fault. I could just let it happen.

He touched his palm to the inside of my thigh, and I let it fall open. The idea of refusal was ludicrous now, with all of my power taken from me, all willingly forfeited in a game I’d been destined to lose. But he didn’t enter me with that dark, thick erection that jutted from between his legs. He leaned down and breathed in deep. A soft tingle ran up my core. He lapped at me with a tenderness that hurt worse than violence. The first time a man had ever done this to me, and it was against my will. But how could this be against my will, when I wanted it so very badly? It felt so good, so right, like huddling up to a campfire on a winter’s night.

I panted into the towel cutting across my mouth. My breasts heaved obscenely, the small twin mounds obscuring the sight of him below, leaving only a half-circle of dark hair between my thighs. He pushed a finger inside me, the intrusion so stark that I grunted.

“Ah fuck,” he said. “I meant to make you come this way, but you’re so tight. I need to be inside you.”

He reached for his pants and grabbed a small packet—a condom, something I felt thankful for at least. I was aroused from the illicitness of the situation and from his tongue on my cunt, but not so far gone that I lost my sense of self. I wanted to get out of this safely. That had to be my goal.

When he leaned back over me, his cock sheathed and breathing labored, I cringed back.

“No, pretty girl.” He rained kisses over my forehead, on my nose. “You want this, don’t you? You want this cock inside you. You’re all the same.”

I bit down on the towel, unable to answer. I was almost thankful for the gag in that moment, because what could I say? I may have gone along with this, but I hadn’t really wanted it. This wasn’t something I had chosen.

“Please,” he said.

It was a role reversal, him begging instead of me. He wanted me to do more than allow his use of me, he wanted me to want this too. I couldn’t though, and it wouldn’t matter anyway. If I said no, what then? He was unpredictable even when I cooperated. I didn’t want to make him angry.

I nodded quickly.

Unappeased, he pulled the towel down from my mouth. “Say it.”

“I want your cock inside me,” I said in a deadened voice. It didn’t even sound like me. I had gotten my wish. I was purely physical—a machine with no emotions. Skin with no heart.

His face twisted into a sneer. “I don’t believe you.”

“Please put your cock inside me. I want you to fuck me.”

He sat back on his heels, his cock rising between us. “Fuck. You’re not even a good liar.”

Letting my eyes fall shut, I finally spoke the truth. “Make me come. Please. Show me what it could be like if a man could make me come.”

The bed rocked gently as he leaned back over me, though I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t see the smugness again, the triumph. A blunt head fitted to my opening. I gasped and writhed on the bed. It felt too large. It had been so long.

In a sudden stroke, he entered me, stretching my walls wide and far. I cried out, helpless to quiet the pain that wrenched me in half. He didn’t give me time to adjust, just pulled out and slammed back in. Tears ran in rivulets down my face. Stunned, I realized it wasn’t the pain that made me cry, or the violation, but the betrayal. He’d said he wouldn’t be like before, but this was the same. It was hard and painful and fast.

“So fucking tight,” he said, panting. “You’re going to come for me.”

I shook my head. Just another betrayal, that empty promise. I would spread my legs for him, but I wouldn’t fake it.

He wouldn’t even notice if I did. Despite his words, he was far away, his gaze focused on the horizon of his own pleasure. The look on his face was pure ecstasy, his movement jerky and desperate. It stirred me, his need, enough that I felt myself twinge around his cock.

At the contraction, his breath caught. There was a pause, a heartbeat of tortured stillness. Like a dammed force unleashed, he sped up, thrusting wildly. A long, pained sound escaped him, punctuated by his grunts as he forced himself deeper and faster.

His mouth sought out my skin as if it were sustenance, as if it were air. He drew open-mouthed kisses along my collarbone, my neck, breathing me in. I could feel the secret muscles tightening and convulsing. In a sort of feedback loop, his harsh plunder forced them to quiver. The vibrations sent him even higher, spurred him ever faster. It turned the tables too. I was bound and spread open but he was helpless to the squeeze of my sex, to the lure of my skin.

He rammed into me, pulling me down onto his body as if I were a toy, a tool, something to be used well and then put away.

His eyes glazed over. “Oh God.”

He reared up over me, so that all I saw was a blur of hard-packed shoulders. His whole body was racked by the force of each entry, as if he were a ship battered up against rocks. I feared for him then, maybe more than myself. It was almost inhuman, the rage with which he fucked me, the tempest of his lust, and yet wholly vulnerable. Fierce and thick and uncontrollable—neither of us were master now.

My pain became his, twisting his face into a mask of helpless agony. Every jolt of my inner muscles, every slap of flesh against flesh was reflected in his eyes. He stared at me, some of the intensity slipping, reflecting back fear. What was he afraid of?

Tears streamed down my face. Didn’t he like it? Wasn’t this what he wanted?

“It’s okay,” I whispered.

He spoke with grunts. “Shut up.”

“Let it happen.” The words were a mockery, but they were the truth.

He barely paused in his wild thrusts, as he reached up to slap my face. I blinked against the sting. My head jerked against the pillow, and he held it there, stretching away from my body as if he could separate it, as if he could split my mind from my body, and God, if he could have, it would have been a mercy. I didn’t want to think or feel—but I did. It was inevitable, and I knew what he needed with the bone-deep certainty. There were so few things we knew for sure, and mercy was one of them.