“You betrayed me. We both know that.” Cesar grimaced, stifling a groan as he shifted his leanly muscled frame against the crude wall of his makeshift jungle prison. Fuck, he’d give anything for a chair right about now.

“Cesar, you don’t know everything. Eventually, you’ll see that I didn’t betray you.”

“Amata, you’re my sister; I know you and you don’t only lie to me, you lie to yourself. You are as into him as he is into you. It’s fucking disgusting,” he muttered, lifting his manacled hands as if showing her proof of her transgression.

“First of all, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not into Amicus and he barely knows who I am.”

“Bullshit. I don’t know what the hell he thinks he’s accomplishing by keeping us here, but I do remember him. And yeah, he’s into you…you were just too young and clueless to notice it. Everyone else did. Father sure fucking did, and he didn’t like it a bit, I can tell you that–”

“What are you talking about?!”

“Your Quinceañera, that’s what I’m talking about. He was there, working security. Couldn’t keep his fucking eyes off you. And you, there in your fluffy pink dress, wearing makeup for the first time. Looking so grown up. Fifteen fucking years old,” he snarled. “I mean, he didn’t even bother to hide it, always managing to be nearby, staring at you like you were on the damn menu and he didn’t want anyone else to have any. I couldn’t believe Mama put you in a strapless gown. He couldn’t keep his eyes off…everything. Fucking pervert.”

“I don’t remember any of that,” she said, her cheeks heating. “He didn’t do anything inappropriate, regardless of what you think you saw.”

“Ha! You do remember him!”

“Cesar, it doesn’t matter!” she huffed. But she did indeed remember the man; remembered him doing all the things her brother had described. She turned away, closing her eyes against the memory of a silent, moonlit dance that had haunted her dreams ever since.

She had slipped away from the party to catch her breath and enjoy a moment to herself. She had been serenely stargazing when the skin at the nape of her neck prickled and she knew she was no longer alone. And without turning around, she knew without a doubt who had joined her on the balcony.

In the next instant she was in the handsome stranger’s arms, slowly waltzing to a song that didn’t last nearly long enough. He held her closer than her uncles and cousins had in the countless ‘official’ dances she had endured that evening – but he always maintained a proper space between them.

Dancing with him was effortless. Her body responded to his slightest cue as he led her around their private dance floor: a squeeze of his hand, a slight tightening of his arm around her. He never said a word, but there was no mistaking the heat in his eyes as he held her gaze. She remembered the unexpected pang of disappointment as the last notes of the song faded away. She remembered gazing up at him with innocent wonder, and how he had frowned, then slowly leaned down until his lips brushed hers lightly once, twice. At some point, she had closed her eyes as she waited for, hoped for, more. When she opened her eyes, he had given her a slight bow and returned to the ballroom, leaving her alone in the moonlight once more.

Amata shook her head to clear her thoughts. She turned to face her brother, as much to change the subject as to remind him of the grim reality of his circumstances. “The only thing that matters is that I’m what’s keeping you alive right now,” she said stiffly.

“Oh, really? Funny, I think you’re probably the reason we’re both here in the first place. You, keeping me alive? For how long? As soon as he finds a buyer for that fucking diamond, he won’t have any reason to keep me around. But he’ll keep you though,” he muttered. “You can fucking count on that.”

Her heart ached as she looked down at the bedraggled man who meant so much to her. His beautiful dark eyes were shadowed, his long, dark hair hadn’t been washed in days, and his clothes were filthy. She loved her brother more than anyone, and for that reason, she felt certain Amicus wouldn’t harm him. But, still, how had things gone so wrong so fast?

So much about cartel life had always been confusing to her, mostly because of her Colombian-Sinaloan heritage. Her father was the black-market king in the Colombian cartel. Her mother was Sinaloan. Both cartels wanted a piece of her, wanted to use her as a pawn, as chattel whose only purpose was to one day marry a man of her father’s choosing and forge an alliance between the two groups. No one truly cared about her or what she wanted out of life.

Even if Amicus’ original purpose had only been to steal the canary diamond from her father, Amata suspected that his mission had expanded to include her. In fact, she wondered if Amicus had been patiently lying in wait until he decided the time was right to finally track her down. She was convinced that the canary diamond had been nothing more than an excuse. But had he really been so obsessed that he would cross the cartel for the sake of a ridiculously big yellow diamond…and her? Regardless of his intentions, he had sealed his fate. The cartel was probably already gunning for him. It was just a matter of time now.

Maybe that was why she hadn’t been able to simply ignore his overtures during her captivity. His approach had been subtle, even stealthy, cleverly drawing her out of herself, gleaning details about the sheltered life she had lived in the years since that fateful night. And yet, he hadn’t touched her, not once. And she wanted him to.

Their current circumstances couldn’t be further removed from the elegant opulence of her Quinceañera celebration, but the attraction remained and had blossomed into something she couldn’t easily define. She wasn’t sure what was going to happen, but something was coming and her life was forever changed. She could feel it.

“Are you kidding me right now?” she scoffed. “I’m saving your life! You’re my brother, after all. I’d think you’d appreciate it a little more.” And with that, she stormed away from his makeshift prison, constructed primitively from trees found in the surrounding Colombian jungle. Its construction was simple but surprisingly strong, as Cesar had discovered. Judging by how angrily he bellowed her name as she walked away, she felt sure she had made her point.

Amata walked the short distance back to the camp, carefully navigating the well-worn path back to camp. The hair on the back of her neck prickled in the seconds before she encountered Amicus, the man who had tormented her mind and haunted her dreams for years.

He stepped toward her relentlessly, crowding her until her back encountered a hardwood tree. With nowhere to go, she closed her eyes against the sight of him. But she couldn’t do a damn thing about how good his body felt pressed against hers, or how perfectly his hand fit around her neck. Any traces of chivalry or decorum that had been present the night they met or in the week since he kidnapped her, were long gone now.

“When are you going to face the fact that you belong to me?” he asked as he gripped her around the neck and softly stroked her upper arm. “I had no choice, you know. I despised myself for wanting you that night. I knew you had been kept under lock and key, but I was consumed with the need to kiss you, to be the first to do so. You were such a bewitching woman-child, put on this earth to torment me. But you were too young. So, I stayed away. Then I saw you again…you’re all woman now.

“Yes, you forced me to do this, Amata, forced me to take you for myself. Left me no choice but to write my own death warrant with the cartel. You should have just come to me, Amata. God…you are so fucking beautiful. I can’t get you out of my mind. Every waking moment is consumed with thoughts of making you mine.”

He slid his thumb back and forth over the pulse beating frantically along her neck and ran the tip of his tongue slowly up her cheek, chuckling softly when she shivered. She felt his arousal as he slowly ground his hips rhythmically against her, and heard the soft groans that accompanied each long, slow roll of his hips.

God, how she hated him, she hated him so fucking much – and hated herself, too, as her body cried out to be taken by him, used by him. She was an innocent, protected by her parents from any opportunity for intimacy with a man.

She studied the face that had haunted her not-so-innocent dreams. He was brutally beautiful. The shadowed hollows and harsh angles could have been hewn by the gods of destruction themselves. Hazel eyes that promised pleasure as easily as death. Black hair, glossy and dark as a raven’s wing. His body, thickly muscled and brimming with lethal power. She knew now that there was nothing he wouldn’t do to have her, to taste her, to keep her.

“Give me what I want…you.”

“Fuck you, Amicus!” she blustered, completely out of her depth but unsure what to do about it.

“Yes, fuck me,” he whispered as he rested his forearms against the bark of the tree by either side of her head. “Give yourself to me, Amata,” he said, running his lips along her jawline as he spoke. “Let me finally kiss you the way you need to be kissed. Let me touch you. Take me inside you. Because whether you will admit it or not…you know as well as I do that, in every way that matters, you’re already mine.

She couldn’t take any more, knew she wouldn’t be able to resist the dark, forbidden images his words were conjuring in her mind. She broke away from him, but only because he let her. His laughter rang through the woods as she ran back to the camp and scrambled inside the main tent. They both knew she would never escape him. He was too far gone and, maybe, so was she.

Amicus followed her at a leisurely pace, having long ago learned the value of patience. There was no need to rush. After all, there was nowhere for her to go; nothing but jungle for miles. He had been biding his time ever since the night they had danced when she turned fifteen. It had been a stroke of luck to find her alone on that balcony. She had been surrounded by party guests all night: overprotective uncles, and skinny boys who couldn’t keep their eyes off her tits. But then neither could he. In the end, he had been unable to resist having her to himself, even for a single, stolen moment.

He had somehow kept his hands to himself as they had danced that night, knowing that she was far too young and far too inexperienced. He’d had no business even noticing her, but try telling his dick that. Her parents had protected her maidenhead with security akin to Fort Knox, and rightly so. He hadn’t had any intention of sullying her, had only wanted a taste. And he’d been starving for her ever since.

He hadn’t intended to kiss her that night, had planned to just walk away. But when she had gazed up at him like he was a god and slid that pretty, pink tongue across her plump bottom lip, he had known there was no way he could let her throw away her first kiss on some wet-behind-the-ears boy who would probably be hand-picked by her father.

Tonight, the time had finally come for them to meet their destiny and move forward together. He waited a discreet distance away from the tent, pacing restlessly like a caged animal eager to break free and run at full tilt. Finally, when all was quiet and he knew she was fast asleep, he made his move.

She felt his warm breath on her cheek first, the instant before he draped his massive body over hers in a smoothly executed move of brazen ownership. Her eyes flew open and she tried to move, horrified at the open and vulnerable posture she must have assumed in her sleep. Her arms and legs were spread wide and restrained. She couldn’t move, not to cover her breasts or even just draw her legs together. With a gasp, she understood; she was under his control yet again. All four limbs had been tied down; she was spread open for the taking. Her nightclothes had been sliced open and the fabric pushed away to reveal her bare body to his hungry eyes.

In her still somewhat drowsy state, she couldn’t ignore how her body responded to the situation with a rush of creamy heat between her legs. She didn’t want to face the reality of how desperately she wanted the vile things he would surely do to her, how she craved his control to help her own the choices she wasn’t yet ready to make for herself. But how could she avoid the truth of their attraction when he would surely see and, inevitably, feel the evidence of it between her thighs? All the more reason to keep lying to herself, to keep loathing him, hating him, anything to avoid the ugly truth: she craved a killer’s touch.

“This…yes, this is how I’ve imagined you,” he rasped, his breathing ragged and uneven.

Her chest heaved, her breasts bouncing slightly with her panicked efforts to take in precious air. She tried in vain to resist the lure of the big, work-roughened hands that roamed freely over her skin.

“Do you remember how we met?” he asked conversationally. She didn’t answer, merely turned her head to the side, unable to meet his penetrating gaze. “No?” he asked mockingly. “Oh, I think you do. Shall I kiss you sweetly to remind you? But first, how old are you now?”

“Twenty-one,” she bit out, certain that he knew perfectly well how old she was.

He considered her for a long moment, his head tilted slightly to the side. “Twenty-one, now. Well, I do believe I win the prize for sheer patience, hmm?”

Amicus rose onto his haunches, spreading his knees until they were tucked beneath her upper thighs. He ran his hands heavily along her torso, cupping and roughly kneading her breasts, circling her nipples with his thumbs. “Your breasts are perfect. They’re bigger, no? The breasts of a woman.” He seemed fascinated with the firm mounds, stroking and squeezing the velvety flesh, alternating between gentle caresses and a more demanding, possessive touch that bordered on painful.

As she grappled with the waves of pleasure his touch evoked, he reached down and clasped her mound in a possessive hold, staring at his hand as he stroked the soft flesh. Spreading her lower lips slightly, he pulled his hips back and notched the bell end of his cock just above her entrance, careful not to penetrate her. As he slid forward, he bore down and rubbed the length of his cock against her clit, then slowly pulled it back down. He repeated the move over and over, letting her incoherent cries and the arching of her back be his guide.

“Feels good, doesn’t it,” he whispered, enchanted by the sight of her head rolling side to side as she struggled to cope with the unfamiliar sensations. “You knew better than to give this pussy to some silly boy who wouldn’t know what to do with it, how to please it, how to fuck it. You knew you’d need a man to show you how to take your pleasure.”

Every move of his hands, every rolling stroke of his aching length over her clit, elicited a corresponding quiver of need deep within her core until, without warning, she groaned his name and her hips arched harshly toward him. She bucked wildly against the slick length of his engorged cock. Leaning forward, he braced on his hands and pumped his hips, rubbing harder and faster against her clit to draw out her pleasure, even as he gritted his teeth to stave off his own.

When she lay boneless beneath him, Amicus moved farther down the bed to kneel between her calves. His heavy-lidded eyes followed his progress as he stroked her slim waist, her belly button, and her hip bones along the way. Holding her sultry gaze, he ventured even lower. He laid his hand over her mound and stroked her clit with his thumb, smiling as her eyes widened and her lips parted. When the tip of her pink tongue ventured out to moisten her bottom lip, his nostrils flared. With a low growl, he pressed a thick finger to her pussy and slid inside her swollen, clenching channel. The slickness of her arousal eased his way until he was met with resistance.

His breathing hitched, then rushed out in a ragged exhale. He dropped his gaze to where the tip of his finger had disappeared inside her. He lifted his eyes to hers and pressed deeper, gently probing against the thin membrane blocking his way, softly stroking the smooth, soft flesh that, he knew, could mean only one thing: she had been waiting for him. He would take her virginity tonight, his mouth watering at the prospect of plundering her forbidden, most intimate depths, of knowing her in a way no other man ever had.

Her pussy quivered and rippled around his finger, drawing it in deeper, even as she grimaced at the intrusion. The expression on his face was that of a man well pleased by his lover’s anguish. He knew the impassioned battle raging within Amata was of his making. He would surely make their coupling as intoxicating and satisfying as he had always imagined it would be. He slid his finger out, stroking along her upper vaginal wall as he did so. He chuckled indulgently as she arched her hips as if to follow him.

He added a second finger and pressed forward once more, prodding and probing in a slow, smooth motion against the barrier. She winced and frowned as he explored, so he spoke soothingly to her. The silly, meaningless words became a hum of pleasure when he felt a bit of her hymen give way. Even as she mewled softly and clenched feverishly around his finger, Amata instinctively tried to wriggle her hips away from the intrusion, to no avail. He had her restrained all too well.

“Shhhh…” he whispered, softly caressing her breast as he withdrew his fingers from her tight, hungry channel. A trace of blood mingled with her creamy arousal, creating in a once-in-a-lifetime nectar he was powerless to resist. He slipped the glistening digits into his mouth. He licked and sucked, closing his eyes as he used his free hand to palm his engorged cock.

Her innocent flavor was everywhere, flooding his taste buds, filling his nostrils. She was sweet and tangy on his tongue, even when combined with the telltale metallic hint of her blood. His erection surged against his zipper and he wondered if his cock would taste the same way to her if he had her lick him clean after he took her. But, no, there was no way it could; her cream, her virgin blood, and his cum would combine to create something new.

Amicus leaned down slowly and flicked his tongue along her skin, licking slowly down her taut abdomen. He stopped only long enough to inhale deeply of the musky, sweet scent between her legs. Then he settled in with his shoulders between her thighs to feast on her, savoring her flavor and the silken texture of her flesh. He grinned to himself as he stiffened the tip of his tongue and, sealing his lips over her pussy, slid his tongue between her inner lips, venturing deeper until he was licking her from the inside out.

His groaned in pleasure as his tongue twisted and twirled within Amata’s soft, swollen inner walls. Her body bucked wildly beneath his mouth as she ground her core against his relentlessly ardent lips, tongue and teeth. It didn’t take long. She came hard against his mouth in a climax that was nothing short of shattering. Her broken cries of pleasure sent a rush of heat and a caveman-like possessiveness straight to his aching cock.

“Tell me what you want, I’ll do whatever you want,” she cried out as her climax reached its zenith. The words sent him into a frenzy. She had finally accepted that victory was his. He had won. But even as he groaned in sexual triumph, he knew Amata was the true victor. She was tied down and under his control, yes, but he knew as well as he knew his own name, that it was he who was at her mercy.

He rose up onto his knees, tearing out of his clothes and untying her ankles and knees. With his hands clasping the backs of her knees, he shoved her thighs up and apart. He fought for control. He couldn’t help but stare at the glistening, slick liquid heat pouring out of her pussy in the instant before he slammed into her, mindlessly breaching her virginal barrier like a conquering warrior. Her gasp of pain inflamed him. He held nothing back, thrusting hard and deep, wanting her to suffer for making them both wait so long, needing to somehow make her pay for the agony he had endured, even as he knew the combination of pleasure and pain would make her come again and again. And it did.

“I fucking hate you…want you…mine,” he growled as he thrust into her again and again. Her body arched and froze against him and she cried out, her orgasm an intoxicating mixture of agony and ecstasy. He was hurting her, yes, but still making her feel so damn good.

Much later, as her tongue slid over his balls and lapped eagerly at the base of his well-used, still semi-engorged shaft, Amata savored the evidence of their pleasure. With an agonized groan, Amicus clasped her head with both hands and fed his cock into her mouth. He had no idea if they would get out of this shitstorm alive, but in that moment life was good…so…very…fucking…good.