“Please,” I whispered. “Help me.”

“Yeah. Oh yeah.”

He sounded incredulous, and why shouldn’t he? How many captives would have been willing participants in this? How many captives had he had? But I had learned early on to make the best of my situation, to flourish even under hothouse lights, within glass walls.

“You’re so good, pet,” he said, climbing down my body. My legs were already open to him, already damp. He bent his head, pressing a kiss to the top of my mound. “This is your treat.”

With unaccountable tenderness, he licked me, first around the soft lips, and that was shocking enough, but then he slipped his tongue into the damp crevice and swirled higher to the tight bundle of nerves. My legs shook where he had hooked them over his shoulders. I cried out, but he didn’t relent, didn’t let up until another blinding light overtook me, this one painful too, but also wonderful. There was no air in that place, no thought or fear in the pleasure, only his tongue and my skin and the shudders that racked my body.

He turned me over so that my face and breasts and belly pressed against the musty mattress. I waited for him to enter me from behind, as he had done last night. Instead, I felt him rustle behind me, heard the quiet snick of plastic. Coolness shocked the heated skin of my bottom as his fingers rubbed a sort of gel. But not where I thought it would go. He was putting it there, on a hole I never imagined could be violated.

I let out a soft cry of protest.

A light slap hit my thigh. “Quiet now. Just relax and it will be fine.”

But I couldn’t. I tensed against the invasion. It felt like stretching, like burning, and I knew it would only get worse. “Please.”

He bent his mouth to my knee, speaking softly. “Am I shocking you?”

“I didn’t know—”

“Well, now you do, sunshine. And you know what else? I think you’re more adventurous than you let on. You’ve been sheltered, that much is clear. Well, you’re going to expand your horizons with me.”

I sobbed against the coarse blanket, feeling pinned but also freed. There was nothing I could do in this position, no way to get free.

“You need a good cry,” he said thoughtfully. “Yes, I think so.”

I wished he were more certain. I liked his aggression better than his twisted consideration. I wanted him to hurt me, not help me.

“Do it already.” I balled my hands into fists. “Just do what you’re going to do.”

He froze for a minute. I felt his surprise. Then he chuckled softly. “You are perfect, aren’t you? It’s like you were made just for me.” He shifted, pressing the blunt head against my puckered skin. “Don’t tense or you might tear yourself up.”

His words grated on me. I might tear myself up, as if this were my doing, as if I’d asked for any of this. Oh God, had I? Had I secretly longed for a cage to replace the one I’d left? Something inside me whispered yes. He was right about me being made just for him. I was an animal bred in captivity, unprepared for the harshness of the wild.

Pressure built behind me as he forced himself farther. I knew he’d only just started but it felt like far too much, like he’d split me open, like he was pressing the butt of a baseball bat inside me. I squirmed, fearful and impatient all at once. I wished he would do it quickly, ripped off like a band-aid—shove it in. But then I’d tear, and he cared enough about me to prevent that. That hurt worst of all, that small bit of respect. It showed he could feel compassion if he wanted to. It showed me how little I really had from him.

It burned, drawing out shuddering sighs and rasping sobs from my throat. With a burst of pressure that brought tears to my eyes, he pushed his way inside and sank in with a deep, satisfied groan.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he said. “Oh, sunshine.”

He sounded strangled, hoarse with the pleasure he took from my body. Beneath the physical sensation, I heard the gratitude in his voice, the awe, and I felt a perverse camaraderie over that. Weren’t we both so surprised, weren’t we both a little shell-shocked to find ourselves in the middle of a felony sex act in the back of an eighteen-wheeler in the middle of nowhere?

This hadn’t been on the calendar. Appease kidnapper with butt sex hadn’t been on my life plan, but then I’d never really had a plan. That had been the point. I had wanted to wander, to flit, and I’d flown right into a spider’s web.

His hand slipped around between my legs, searching and probing until his fingers lit upon the tight nub that made me buck my hips and groan. It did more than ease the pain, it swung it around and upside down, turned it into a razor-sharp pleasure. I rutted against his fingers, seeking relief in the form of ecstasy—they came together, a package deal.

I felt a little nauseous too. My body was overwhelmed, and it wanted to lose whatever was in my stomach. I shuddered, forcing myself to swallow the muted bile, as my body was wrenched forward and back, impaled and fondled, used and taken in ways I had barely ever imagined, hardly ever thought of except in my room when the blanket of night shielded even my thoughts. I would touch myself exactly this way, face-down on the bed with my hand underneath, rocking my hips until my mouth became dry and my toes curled up tight and my mind exploded into white-hot bliss.

I cried out, lost in the heat of it, the all-encompassing pain of it as my stretched skin contracted and pulsated around his cock.

“Yes, that’s right,” he muttered thickly. “Milk me. Use me. Take it all.”

A sudden warmth bathed my insides, the salt stinging the raw flesh. I shuddered at the pain of it, the price of my own pleasure. He rested his weight on me, and I absorbed his contented sigh with my body, cradled him as best I could while facing away. At length, he pulled free.

He gently rubbed the abused skin in the crevice of my ass. Slow strokes, tender strokes.

“Feel better?” he asked.

I would have expected that to make it worse. It had already been pummeled. This would be like pressing on a bruise. But his touch was sure and knowing, and some of the tension eased.

“Yes. How did you know?”

My speech came out slurred, and only then did I realize how tired I was. Strange, since I had slept for so long. It was a stupid question, too. Of course he had done this before, had sex with women, some willing, some not. He was only taking care of me because he wanted to use me again, putting away his toys so he could play again in the morning.

Everything seemed fuzzier, softer. He’d drugged my drink again, I realized, but I couldn’t summon up the will to care. Here in this place there was no pain or fear, and the whole idea seemed just grand. Yes, keep me and play with me. Do the things I never would have the courage to do on my own and keep me safe in the process.

“Because it always helped me,” he said in a low voice.

It took me a minute to realize he was answering my question. This had been done to him. Had he liked it? Who’d done it? But the questions were too heavy on my tongue, and I drifted away to sleep. The last thought before I lost consciousness was to wonder if he had been willing.

Chapter Six

The longest vertical drop is over 165 feet.

The next time I woke up, my head was much clearer. Unfortunately, my body was coming apart. I felt every bump and rattle of the truck from my pounding headache to the rumble of my stomach. But that only fueled my determination.

What was happening to me? This needy girl, desperate to please with sex and obedience—that wasn’t me. I wanted freedom, but freedom wasn’t worth much if I let other people take it away with a snap of their fingers, with a passive-aggressive threat or a pill dropped into a soda. I had escaped once before, from my mother’s house, and I would do it again.