A raspy groan rolls up my chest. I’ve washed my hair and pampered my skin with the luxury body wash Dexter handed me when he entered the bathroom to “supervise” my progress, but no matter how hard I’ve fought to control the hazardous conditions between my legs, the situation has worsened.

On Dexter’s advice, I went for a smooth edge, grassy inland cut. Instead of my pubic region replicating an island in the middle of paradise, it resembled an out-of-control jungle in the Bermuda triangle. Believing I could make it better, Dexter suggested I trim it into an even strip.

That only made matters ten times worse.

I know what the issue is. I’m so afraid of cutting myself, I’m mowing the edges instead of removing the weeds altogether.

With a shrug, I exit the bathroom. I can’t be expected to perform miracles when I have no clue what I am doing. My lazy strides come to a stop when the heat of a gaze freezes me in place. Dexter is sitting on the edge of his bed. His jaw is ticking, and his icy blue eyes are arrested on my bare legs. Since the shirt he purchased is two sizes too big, I’ve twisted it into a knot in the middle of my stomach. Match that with knee-high socks and a pair of scant panties, and I’ve got what Ashlee likes to call the “naughty school girl look” down pat.

She warned me against it, said men are more violent when they think you’re innocent, but with my sexual experience made up of two kisses and a heavy penis braced on my backside for ten hours straight, I can’t help but display virtue.

Dexter eyes come up to mine. “Come here,” he demands with a jerk of his chin.

I go without a thought crossing my mind. I wouldn’t if he were the one clutching a razor blade in his hand. Since the shoe is on the other foot, I want to find out if he sees me as an enemy or an ally. Threat is a great way to discover whose team someone is on, so how about we find out?

Dexter sweats—just not in the way I anticipated. Beads of moisture mottle his dark brows, but I’m certain the sweat is not from fear. Even though he was a stranger weeks ago, I’m confident in my assumption. His eyes divulge many secrets, let alone the rapid rise of a sinfully wicked region of his body.

“Let me see.” Just like he didn’t seek permission before entering the bathroom, he doesn’t wait for approval before slipping my panties to the side.

“Hmmm.” His throaty purr rumbles through the area he is inspecting. “It’s still not right. We’re not in the seventies. Bush went out long before your mother died.”

I freeze as horror shreds through me. I still can’t think about her without tears looming in my eyes.

Dexter takes advantage of my frozen state to snatch the razor from my grip and flop me onto the bed. With my emotions fixated on the last time I saw my mother, I don’t protest him sliding my panties down my thighs. His closeness enabled me to sleep an entire night without a nightmare, so who’s to say his touch won’t be just as effective at dispelling negative thoughts?

I’m so busy calming my spiking pulse, I fail to notice Dexter exiting and reentering the room until the slickness of shaving cream smothers the heated region between my legs.

I prop myself on my elbows, mortified and in awe. His touch is gentle, but the spasms it sends rocketing up my spine are as violent as the devil.

“I knew I wouldn’t need water,” Dexter murmurs under his breath.

He dips his head to press a toothy kiss to my thigh before scooting closer to the area suddenly throbbing in agony.

“Keep those thoughts in your head, Megan,” he warns. “Or your mouth won’t be the only section of your body feeling my bite today.”

I peer down at him, wondering how he heard my thoughts when he wasn’t looking at me.

Feeling the heat of my gawp, he raises his eyes to mine. “You’re wet,” he informs me, like it should answer all my questions. It doesn’t. Not in the slightest. “And your clit is pulsating with need.”

I’d press my thighs together to ease the ache his raspy tone caused if his thick body wasn’t lodged between them.

A knot low in my belly tightens when he growls, “Once we’ve dealt with this mess, I won’t need to see your cunt to know it’s dripping.”

After snickering at my hanging jaw, he gets back to work, the strokes of his fingers more probing than his earlier ones. Once he has my vagina covered with a generous helping of cream, he flicks open the razor and commences shaving me. He glides the blade over the patch of hair at the top of my pubic region before tracing it down the edge.

“Stay still,” he warns when my legs wobble from the heat of his breath fanning the slippery surface. “I don’t want to nick you. . . yet.”

Now I’m shaking in fear. He has a razor-sharp blade butted against an extremely delicate area of my body. Only the clinically insane wouldn’t panic. I freeze as morbid fear makes itself known. I was diagnosed as mentally unstable at the age of twelve. The last emotion I should be sensitive to is panic.

Feeling my balk, Dexter raises his eyes from my hack job to my face. His eyes are dark, his pupils so wide they’re swamping his entrancing baby blues with pits of black. “Did I cut you?”

I glare at him, shocked by the hope in his voice. Does he want to cut me?

When he raises a brow, demanding I answer him, I briskly shake my head.

“Hmm. . . pity. I would have lapped up the blood if I did. It is, after all, the right thing to do.”

His deep timbre vibrates through the area he is shaving, adding to the wetness. He continues shaving me for the next several minutes. Sometimes he gets right up close to ensure he doesn’t miss any areas hidden by tiny folds and crevices. Other times, he leans so far back, the long rod in his jeans becomes exposed.

His attention amplifies the pleasing zap shooting up my spine, and his occasional glance into my eyes makes my stomach knot tighter, but not once does he nick me.

After a few more minutes, he pats the silky smooth surface three times with a washcloth, then rises to a half-seated position. “Done.”

His eyes stray to mine. They are more effervescent than ever. “Want to take a look?”

I nod a little overeagerly. If the visual is as wondrous as his eyes are portraying, I don’t want to miss out. Anyone would swear he was gawking at a rare eclipse, his pupils are so dilated.

“Wait,” Dexter demands when I attempt to scoot off the bed. “I’ll bring the mirror to you, then you can view it how I see it.”

He rolls off the bed before heading to the bathroom. My pulse pounds in my ears when the shattering of glass bellows into the room not even two seconds later. I would check on him, but he told me to wait, so I must wait.

When he reenters the room, he is clutching a shard of glass in his blood-soaked hand. The hunger in his eyes is as notable as earlier, but there is a dangerous edge to it now. I should be wary. I should be scared. But all I am is turned on. Dexter is a big, moody man, carrying a dangerous weapon and an even more hazardous smile, and I am without medication. My response is highly accurate.

My thighs spread wider when Dexter pierces the shard of glass into the mattress a mere inch in front of my aching vagina. I shoot my eyes up to him before dropping them back to the thought-provoking visual. Is that what it’s supposed to look like? It’s bald, void of a single hair.

“Do you like what you see, Megan?” Dexter’s long drawl of my name returns my focus to him.

My lips twist as I pause for thought. It looks okay, but it’s very exposing. There is nothing to hide the wetness. The folds of skin rippled down the middle glisten like Dexter’s eyes when he takes in the same visual.

After a few moments of silent deliberation, I give a half-hearted shrug, truly unsure.

“It will grow on you,” Dexter assures me before removing the mirror wedged between my legs and tossing it into the fireplace.

I sit up with the hope of finding my panties. I’ve barely risen to a half-seated position when a click sounds through my ears. I glare at Dexter, certain he is where the noise originated from. A jeering smile spreads across his face as he glances down at the sleek black cell phone in his hand.

“What do you think? Too risqué? Or tastefully seductive?”

He spins the device around to show me. There is a picture of me on the screen. Although the area Dexter shaved is on display, it’s partially hidden by my clamped thighs.

“I think it’ll work. Let’s send it, shall we?”

I dive for his state of the art phone when a swoosh noise ricochets through the dead-silent cabin. I don’t want my photo on the internet for the world to see. Especially not a partially naked one. If I still had my pubic hair, it wouldn’t be as demoralizing, but if they zoom in, they’ll see every inch of my ungodly region.

“Whoa, hey, settle the fuck down!” Dexter roars when my frantic lunge knocks his phone out of his hand.

While pinning me to the bed by my throat with one hand, his other darts down to grab his phone. I’m afraid he’ll squeeze my neck until I pass out when I spot the hairline cracks my violence caused to his screen. It was as smooth as my vagina ten seconds ago.

When Dexter’s furious eyes snap to mine, I swallow harshly. “Why did you do that? I’m trying to fuckin’ help you!”

I want to respond, but even if I weren’t mute, I wouldn’t be able to. His clutch on my throat is too firm.

So instead, I use my eyes and a windless grunt. I don’t want anyone to see that.

“If I didn’t send Nick proof of your existence, he wouldn’t know you’re alive. If he doesn’t know you’re alive, he won’t expect you. You want him to be prepared, don’t you, Megan? You want him to welcome you home with open arms.”

The vicious growl of his last sentence freezes my lungs as effectively as his clutch on my throat. I stop prying at his fingers so I can answer his question by asking one of my own. You sent the photo to Nick?

“Yeah, I did,” Dexter answers, reading me like no other. “But now I wish I didn’t. Maybe I should have upped the ante? Sent him one with my hand wrapped around your throat. . . or perhaps my tongue in your mouth.”

He leans in closer, bringing his lips to within an inch of mine. I lick them, still feeling the sting of our last foray.

“Or maybe I should send him one of your greedy little cunt swallowing my cock. Would you prefer that, Megan? Do you want him to see how wet I make you?”

He sucks in an exaggerated breath that makes my airless lungs envious. “I can smell how aroused you are, and I barely laid a finger on you.”

A groan rolls up my chest when he loosens his grip on my neck. I’m not grunting in anticipation; I read the warning in his eyes, and I know what is coming. He isn’t going to violate me like Nick did to Jenni. He’s releasing me from his hold. Freeing me from the torment. Leaving me hanging.

I’m snapped from my thoughts when Dexter’s feet slap the floorboards. After securing a pair of tiny jeans from a discarded bag, he throws them at my head.

“Put on these, then get in the car. We have a long trip ahead of us.”

Gone is the man who devoured me whole using only his eyes, replaced by a man who looks like he wants to carve out my liver and eat it for dinner.

Remaining quiet, I yank on the skintight jeans. I hate his silence, but I have no way of ending it. I haven’t uttered a syllable in such a long time, I’m beginning to wonder if I know how.

When Dexter spins around to gather the bags left on the floor, I sneakily close the razor and slide it into the pocket of my jeans.

“You’ll need more than a two-inch blade to take me down,” Dexter warns, startling me. After pivoting to face me head on, he continues, “But I’ll give you half a point for attempting to fight.”

I run my thumb over the razor’s blade. It is so sharp, I’m certain one nick to the artery pulsating in Dexter’s throat would drop him to his knees. But for some reason unbeknownst to me, I didn’t secure the razor to hurt him. I took it to protect him.

“There you go with that look again, Megan,” Dexter half-growls, half-moans. “A little angel with a heart as black as death rushing in to save me.” He helps me to my feet, his movements not as abrupt as earlier. “You already killed a man for me; you don’t need to prove your devotion any more than that.”

He taps my bottom in the same manner my father did to my mother before things went sour, then exits the cabin. “If you’re not in the car before me, find your own way to Ravenshoe.”

Trusting his threat, I snag my medication off the floor and skirt past him before he’s even halfway out the door.