Somewhere deep inside, Stavros recognized the dream. Somewhere deep inside, alarm bells clanged, determined to rouse him. But he was too tired. In too much pain. Too hungry. Too thirsty.

Too everything.

Which made his defenses crumble to dust when she came to him.

The last time she tried to take this route, he’d shot her down. Pushed her away. Unable to handle what changing their relationship from brother and sister to lovers could mean to their parents.

But she came to him now and he did nothing but watch her get on her knees for him. He’d fantasized about that. She touched him, surprisingly callous fingers.

Unfamiliar hands.

But she smelled…like Annika.

Like sex. Intoxicating heat that circled his throat, choked him, and roused the hairs on his nape.

“Stav.” She didn’t sound like Annika. This person’s voice was too throaty, too thick. And there was the accent.

But she touched him, rough grip on his naked and bruised-up hip. He arched. Still, he managed to croak, “No.”

“I’m here, Stav.”

Except she wasn’t. Annika was dead. He had to keep repeating the words, letting them fill his fogged brain. Annika was dead. So how could she be splayed between his thighs, warm breath on his lower belly, strong hands gripping his rapidly hardening shaft?

“No.” He couldn’t move, except his hips jerked forward, pushing him firmer into that grip. “No, Annika. Stop.”

They couldn’t do this. Their father had forbidden it, and Stavros didn’t want Annika to ever feel the kind of punishment the old man liked to inflict when someone went against his edict. She couldn’t handle it.

Dry fingers drifted between his ass cheeks, rubbing his taint. His belly contracted as he tried to twist away. He couldn’t. Nowhere to go, except deeper into the hot mouth that descended around his now fully erect shaft.

Surrounding him.

Stavros choked. “Stop.” His chest heaved. She didn’t understand. She didn’t know what awaited on the other side of this. She didn’t seem to care, sucking him hard, pulling on him as he begged her to stop.

His body wanted it, the hazy heat spreading quickly to warm his frozen limbs. Making his entire body throb in pain. His heart raced, cock pulsing fast. But his mind refused to succumb. He didn’t want this. Not that he didn’t want her. He’d always want her. But he had to protect her from herself, from their father.

“Nika, please.”

“Mmm.” She licked his crown, and he hissed out a breath. She breached him dry with two fingers. Another thing that hurt, but his body liked it. Was accustomed to it, and grew harder from that painful burn of invasion.

He cried out, bucking hard. “Fuck.” She never failed to turn him into someone he hated. Just like now. He hated that his body needed her so badly, that he couldn’t stop himself from thrusting deeper into her hungry throat.

He hated that she was the weakness he never managed to shake. He hated that he couldn’t touch her.

His hands.

Bound and chained.

Daniel’s dungeon.

Oh fuck. Oh fuck.

Not Annika.

Who?

Fingers sawed in and out of him, burning. So damn good. Anger got twisted up with the pleasure and pain he was helpless to escape. It wasn’t Annika. He couldn’t see anything with the blindfold over his eyes, but the fingers inside him were thicker, palm rougher.

Warm, wet mouth tightened around his cock, sucking him hard. Intent on pulling everything he had left straight through his dick.

“Stav.”

His heart lurched. She sounded like Annika. Smelled like her. How was that possible? “Annika.” The words croaked from a throat turned raw by the lack of hydration.

She’d died, hadn’t she? Killed because she betrayed him, betrayed their family. He’d mourned her, hadn’t he? Images crowded his mind, of him sitting next to her tombstone, punishing himself with the what-ifs. The what-might-have-beens.

But he loved her, and in this space he couldn’t deny her.

Or himself.

The fingers rammed into him harder, deeper. His body clenched around the digits, ass pushing back. Mind and body were two separate things. Acting independently of each other. His body needed the sloppy suction of mouth bathing his throbbing cock in slick saliva that dripped down to soak his crack.

His mind kept trying to refuse to accept the pleasure. “Fuck. No. No.” He choked, trapped by his body and the pulsing desire that upped the pain factor.

Too good. This was his thing. What he liked, all wrapped up in a bow and handed to him. Pain thinly disguising the pleasure. Both sensations a noose around his neck.

Robbing him of breath.

Drained of strength, he went. Body tight, every inch of his skin bruised and battered. His moans, he couldn’t decipher if they were of the pained variety. Or stemmed from the heady thought that he finally had Annika touching on him like he’d dreamt for so long.

He craved her. For years he’d had to make do without her, and now she was here.

“Please. Nika,” he begged, hoarse and slurry, until his delirious mind turned itself right side up again and he remembered she wasn’t there. She couldn’t be.

He raged, roaring, smothered by the inability to do anything more than feel what he’d wanted for so long.

But this was the wrong place. Wrong time. And whoever it was stretching his ass wide with thick fingers and soaking his dick in saliva was the wrong person.

He didn’t want them, but his body wanted the touch. The deep scour of nails along his upper thigh that made his balls ache. He needed that. The dig of teeth on his cock. He’d pined for it.

Every single time the word no scratched at his throat, the person between his legs jammed the fingers deeper.

He writhed.

Teeth sank into his length.

He bucked.

The sounds Annika made when she had a cock in her mouth, or in her cunt. He heard those sounds now. She’d tortured him back then too, fucking his friends, his lovers, holding orgies with him in the same room. She used him, debased what he felt for her. And for all of that he loved her more.

Craved her more.

When she pushed him away, he always found a way to stay close. And her depravity? The thought of it inflamed him now, turning his already hard shaft into something capable of smashing diamonds.

“Not Annika,” he panted, struggling to separate his fantasies from reality.

Her mouth went away, hot breath burning his wet crown as she breathed against him. Rough-hewn hands gripped him, tugging, squeezing so hard he wheezed, ass lifting off the cold floor he’d long stopped feeling.

“Stav.” His name. Her lips.

His climax, violent and unending.

“Stav.” She chanted his name, teasing, testing him the way she always did. Intent on pushing him far beyond what he’d allow.

Always, he’d resisted.

Not today. The old man would find out, because he always did. And their punishment would be swift. Father believed in the scorched earth approach. He had to protect Annika. Had to keep her safe.

His head lolled back onto the floor, head spinning, body spasming from the cold, from the loss of body heat, and his orgasm. Something was wrong. He felt it, but he was so tired.

So cold.

“Annika.” He tried to reach out a hand, but couldn’t. He was shackled, chained.

Captive.

No. A trick. It was all a trick. His chills got worse, but there was nothing he could do. His head spun and every single wound on his body pounded in pain.

Daniel Nieto.

This time the ice that encased his spine was all fear. Daniel knew too much. Before, Stavros had been sure there was no way his captor could break him.

Now?

He’d begged. He’d pleaded. Daniel had known exactly what to do, which buttons to push, to get those responses from him. Stavros breaking didn’t seem like delusions of grandeur on Daniel’s part anymore.

It was looking more and more like a foregone conclusion.

* * *

He wasn’t sure how many days passed since the Annika incident. Henan was the only person he saw. Henan, who fed him twice a day now, and lengthened the chain to allow Stavros to move about. He also washed Stavros. Although wash was a bit nice. He pointed a hose at Stavros and blasted him with cold water for a few minutes.

He got clothes. Thin sweatpants, and a cotton t-shirt.

So, he’d been rewarded for the Annika thing?

Her name was Wilhelmina, the woman who’d given the pleasure his mind refused to accept. Pleasure his body soaked up like a sunbather soaking up sunshine at the beach. Stavros had wracked his jumbled brain in an attempt to figure out why she’d felt strange yet familiar.

She’d been the one to strangle him before, playing the same Annika role. It appeared Daniel kept her on the roster. She was beautiful, he remembered thinking that the first time she’d strode into the cage. She’d reminded him a little of Annika even then. Same dark skin, commanding physique, and ruthless personality.

Of course, unlike Annika, Wilhelmina had a size 38D chest, and a cock between her legs. She worked for Daniel. Did she also sleep with him?

A rattle of the cage jerked his head up. His breath hitched.

Daniel stood just outside the cage, watching him. Expressionless, but his eyes. They mocked Stavros.

He knew.

“Mr. Nieto.” Stavros licked his lips. “Back from your vacation?”

The corners of Daniel’s mouth twitched, like he was fighting a smile. Stavros tried to act like Daniel Nieto smiling on the regular wasn’t something he’d pay good money to see.

Daniel motioned with his head to Henan, who rushed to unlock the cage. “Take a break, Henan.” Daniel dismissed his henchman then waited until Henan disappeared before he walked into the cage.

Not walked.

More like stalked, because Stavros felt very much like his prey in that moment. Daniel’s gaze stayed on his face, examining him as he crouched down so they could be face to face.

“You know I like that,” Stavros murmured, lifting his chin slightly. “Daniel Nieto on his knees for me.” He couldn’t help himself, poking the hornet’s nest, but Jesus, Daniel’s very presence baited him. “I dream about it.”

“What else do you dream about, Greek?” Daniel’s teeth appeared briefly. “Or do I already know?”

Humiliation, so foreign, shivered in Stavros’ belly. Still, he shrugged with all of the nonchalance he didn’t feel. “We should allow some mystery between us, don’t you think?”

“I think, the way you beg—” Daniel put his mouth to Stavros’ ear. “Es espectacular.”

Stavros shivered, and it might have had everything to do with the rolling of the ‘Rs’, mixed with Daniel’s wrecked voice and warm breath on his skin. His captor aroused him, and Stavros didn’t care to hide that fact.

Not anymore.

“I don’t beg for you,” he said.

Daniel pulled back, lips curled into a condescending smile. “No?” He shoved one hand into his pocket then pulled out a small, black device almost swallowed up by his large palm.

“Please. Please.”

Stavros’ cries filled the cage. They’d taped it. Heated anger had him seeing red. Still, he swallowed it, affecting a bored expression as Daniel watched his face and listened to him beg.

Jesus.

“Annika. Please.”

“Espectacular.”

“I don’t beg for you,” Stavros told him again. He thrust his head forward, forehead barely touching Daniel’s. When his captor’s eyes flashed that homicidal fire, Stavros dropped his tone, making sure to hold Daniel’s gaze as he said, “I beg for Annika, and I might even beg for your weak copy of her, but I don’t beg for you.”

Daniel’s gaze was all fire, setting Stavros’ skin to sweating. “Such denial.” He clicked his tongue.

“Es la verdad,” Stavros said. It’s the truth. “But you’re welcome to try, Daniel.”

Daniel tensed.

“Try and make me beg.” Stavros sank his teeth into his bottom lip, arousal a living thing in his lower belly, getting hotter by the second. “I welcome it.” He dropped his attentions to Daniel’s cruel mouth. “But you will have to do more than the last one to make me beg for you.” He wanted to push this man beyond any boundary he’d set. Ruffle him. Disable his control.

So Stavros touched his lips to Daniel’s chin.

Daniel’s sharp inhale was music to Stavros’ ears. Gasoline to his fire. A waving red flag in front of the bull.

“But you won’t, will you?” He flicked his tongue out, licked Daniel’s chin. Stavros’ own breath stuttered for a moment there as the other man’s taste swept along his taste buds. Salty skin. “You prefer to hide in the shadows and watch, with your hand on that pretty cock, whispering my name as you break. Because you do, don’t you?” He grinned. “My name breaks you. Every. Time.”

A strong hand wrapped around his neck so fast, Stavros saw stars. He choked, forcing out a chuckle as he met Daniel’s dark gaze. Anger, yes. The blood thirst, too.

But lust was also crowded in there, wild and uncontrollable.

Daniel Nieto wanted him.

“Did you watch?” Speaking was difficult with the vice grip at his throat, but he forced it out. “Did you watch her suck me and wish it were you? Wish you were brave enough to suck off the man who killed your precious Petra?”

Daniel’s head cocked, and a muscle throbbed in his jaw, but he didn’t speak. He simply watched Stavros while squeezing his throat.

“You want to.” Stavros coughed. Jesus, he was so hard. Cock tenting the sweats, dampening the front with pre-cum as he throbbed and dripped. This was beyond any foreplay he’d engaged in. The danger, intoxicating. “And I want you to.” He twisted his mouth into a smile. “Get on your knees for me. Let me put it on your face,” he whispered. “On your tongue. And I’ll beg for you. Todos los pinches días.”

A smile crept up Daniel’s features. Genuine. Brightening his eyes for a second. “Are you propositioning me, Mr. Konstantinou?”

“Stavros. Mr. Konstantinou is a lot to say, especially when you’ll already have your mouth full.” Stavros winked. “And I’ll tell you a secret. I taste even better than you’ve imagined.”

Daniel snorted. He didn’t move away, but his grip loosened.

Stavros didn’t have the use of his hand otherwise he’d grab onto him, prevent him from taking away his hold. He used his words instead. “I’m hard for you.” With Daniel’s grip not as tight as before, he could speak easier, but his voice got raspier as he spoke the truth. “For you, not for fake Annika. Not for the real one, either. For you.” He dropped his gaze to the other man’s groin, covered in dark slacks. “And you’re hard for me.”

Daniel’s hand dropped away and he stood. “Using your body to buy your way out. I expected more from you, Mr. Konstantinou.”

Except that had been nowhere on Stavros’ radar. He’d wanted Daniel’s hands on him. Wanted to watch his captor lose control the way he stole all of Stavros’ control. Fuck. “And I expected to ride your face,” he shot back. “We can’t all have our way, Daniel.”

Daniel fisted Stavros’ hair and yanked him upright, or as far as he could go with the chains restricting his movements. “That’s Nieto to you, Greek.”

Stavros smiled up at him. “Me gusto tú boca, Daniel.” I like your mouth.

Daniel stared down at him, nostrils flared. His eyes, though. He battled himself behind those dark bottomless eyes.

“Jefe.”

Henan’s voice had Daniel’s shoulders tensing slightly, before he released Stavros and walked away without looking back. Heads together, the two men conversed in rapid Spanish, too hushed for Stavros to understand. Then Henan unlocked the gate and Daniel exited.

Stavros watched him go, groin throbbing, biting his tongue to keep from calling him back. Then he realized Daniel hadn’t denied being hard for him.

Stavros grinned.