It was fast and physical, and big arms suddenly around her, no time to scream until the door slammed shut. But by then Amy was in a big man’s violent grip.

He tried to pin her to the floor of the van, thinly carpeted but not padded. But Amy scrambled, kicking and swinging her fists at him, a black-clad mountain of muscle and vigor. Her feet landed a few decent blows and managed to put some distance between them, but she couldn’t clear his reach. His hands kept reaching out, grabbing her flailing calves, ankles, pulling her closer by the inch.

A hard swipe of his massive arm pinned her legs and he crawled over her. But Amy was still facing up and her arms were free, a pair of blurred fists striking his face, shoulders, chest.

Amy looked up at him, teeth gritted. “Get away from me, you bastard!” But she knew he wouldn’t, and that her objections might even stir him on. But it was what she wanted, what she was there for, what they both were there for.

Her kidnapper seemed to know she couldn’t really hurt him. Amy wondered if he didn’t even enjoy it … as much as she was, maybe even more.

Camden grabbed Amy’s wrists and slammed them down onto the carpeted van floor, rumbling with the transmission beneath. Amy couldn’t pull free, and he loomed over her, low and close. She was insistent on rebelling, but he seemed just as ready to play his own role in their manufactured conflict.

They stared at each other, predator and prey, faces only inches apart, each one braced by their will to resist the best efforts of the other. He was bare-faced, and Amy knew instantly why. She wasn’t going to be reporting or identifying him, and she hadn’t requested it. Looking into his face, she was glad for her choice. He was just as gorgeous as his picture; this black-haired Adonis had incredible blue eyes, high cheekbones, a strong and dimpled chin. Those black strands hung long and thick over his face, wavy, almost shimmering. He looked down at her with a calm determination, a silent certainty that they were both exactly where they belonged. She could see in his eyes that he was looking at her face with as much scrutiny as she was absorbing his, and she hoped she was making just as good an impression. The moment between them stretched out in a long, strange silence, Amy feeling small and vulnerable beneath his considerable size and strength. But she could detect a humanity behind his steely facade, a tenderness that he dared not reveal, at least not yet.

Kiss me, Amy heard herself silently cry out, kiss me now, you bastard!

And he seemed to be thinking the same thing, his head lowering slowly, eyes dipping shut, hips grinding just a bit on her.

Yes, do it! Do it!

Instead, he flipped her over onto her stomach in a flash. His weight pressed down onto the small of her back as he grabbed her arms and pulled them back. “Ouch, stop it!” she cried, one arm bending against the elbow until she could shift a bit, his grip loosening so she could rotate her limb and he could pull it back to meet its partner.

The clink of the cuffs behind Amy told her what was going to happen next even without being able to see it, her vision dominated by the cheap carpeted van floor. But when that cold handcuff snapped around one wrist and locked tight with a series of little clicks, Amy was still taken off-guard enough to send a shiver through her body.

Amy welcomed the second clack of the handcuffs as they locked around her free wrist, chaining them together. Her arms stretched back in a way they never had before, and the feeling of not being able to use them was unfamiliar but strangely thrilling. It made the experience more physical, more lifelike, more real. As the cuffs’ sharp edges threatened to start cutting into the tender skin of her wrists, Amy began to wonder just how real this experience was going to get.

With Amy still face down, Camden pinned her kicking calved together and held them tight with one arm, the other clacking another pair of cuffs, one around each ankle.

“Please,” Amy felt compelled to say, “you don’t have to do that, I won’t run away.” But Camden just stopped and Amy knew he was looking at her from behind in disbelief. She turned her head to get a better view of him. “These cuffs are gonna hurt. We’re in a van, where am I gonna run?”

But after a brief pause, the last cuff closed down on her smooth, slender ankle, locking her legs together. And laying face down as she was, she couldn’t even use them as a single weapon to kick that hulking menace away from her, however little good it would do her.

Her thighs were pressed together, and they rubbed as she tested the strength of the cuffs. But with each pull, she could sense the cuffs getting just a little bit tighter.

Clack … clack … clack …

He said, “Comfortable?”

“Fuck you,” she spat back.

“You’re a real wildcat, huh? Just how I like ‘em!” That remark sent a chill through most of Amy’s body, but she couldn’t deny the warm rush it sent to other regions.

Camden rustled behind Amy, but she couldn’t see what he was doing. She had a pretty good idea though. Hands cuffed; check. Feet; done. Next?

A gag.

And just as the word struck her brain, the plastic screech of duct tape filled her ears. After a quick, thin rip, a sticky strip of the gray stuff was plastered over mouth, lips sealed. A shot of fear bolted through Amy, instinct and the need to breathe suddenly reminding her of how helpless she was. Her heart was beating faster, hands automatically jerking at her cuffs as he tore off a second strip to reinforce the first.

A third was pulled even tighter over the first two, just under her nostrils.

Amy shook her head, moaning under the tape, unable to beg for him to take it off. With her heightened heart rate, panted breath rushing through her nose, her senses began tingling, brain starting to hurt.

Amy was secured and silenced, but the big man was still on top of her. And the reason for his remaining on top of her soon became clear, even as everything else went dark. The black cloth had been folded into a wide strip and he pressed it tight over her eyes before tying it behind her back. Her world suddenly thrown into darkness, Amy’s heart skipped and started beating even faster, goosebumps rising on the backs of her arms.

Blindfold; check.

“All right, all right,” her kidnapper said, “time to hit the road.” He chuckled climbed off of Amy to leave her bound in the back of the van. Camden turned the engine over and Amy felt the van lurch forward, the rickety transmission sending every little flaw in the road jutting straight up into her head and her body as she rolled and shifted to lay on her side.