“I told you what I want, but it doesn’t change that you’re hurt.”

“It’s too bad. Because that means I’ll have to lay down on that nice comfy bed and make myself feel better.”

Pain. Darkness. Fear.

Every pull of his mouth went straight to my clit, and I writhed under the heavy weight of his body. Skin and muscle, friction and pressure. So, so, so good.

Metal and copper. Dirt and mildew. A faint medicinal taste under all of it.

“J, J,” I whimpered. “I need more. Harder, please. More.”

“I’ve got you.” His lips brushed across mine. “I’ve got you, Rona, and I’m not going to lose you again.”

Lost. Lost. Drifting in darkness. Surrounded by darkness. Cold. Cold.

His hips jerked upward, driving into me with the exact right amount of force to push me toward climax.

Head throbbing. Muscles aching. None of it with pleasant associations.

Being blindfolded required trust, handing over control, and that was what he was offering me. His trust, his control. The blindfold in his hands.

Thick darkness. Suffocating. Each gasp of air was work.

He stretched out beneath me, all tanned skin and rippling muscles. I could spend hours tracing every dip and plane with my tongue. Maybe later I would, but right now, I needed him inside me again.

My mouth was dry, my tongue swollen. The nasty taste made me want to spit, but I didn’t have any saliva in my mouth.

He groaned as I lowered myself onto his thick shaft, his hands flexing on my hips.

“I want to see you,” he said as I dropped down until he was completely sheathed inside me. “Gorgeous tits and those china-blue eyes. Please, Rona, let me see you.”

My temples throbbed in time with my heartbeat, and as muddled as I was, I could tell it was sluggish. This wasn’t a hangover.

I rocked back and forth, letting my body adjust. My hands went to my breasts, fingers teasing my nipples until they were hard little points. I tugged on them, the jolt of pain making me moan.

Pain in my wrists. My ankles. A different pain in my head. Something beyond the thick, stuffy feeling.

He surged upward, keeping on the blindfold even as his arms went around my waist. He pulled me tight against his chest, the hair there chafing my nipples in a way that made me want to squirm. But I couldn’t. His embrace was unbreakable.

I tried to move, but I couldn’t. My limbs were weighed down. Heavy. Restricted. But I didn’t feel safe, not like I did when he had me underneath him, his body essentially pinning me in place.

I whimpered as he bit the side of my neck. I’d never known that there was a part of pain that could be pleasurable, not until Jalen Larsen came into my life. His blunt nails scratched across my back, not doing any damage, but sending little pricks of near-pain running across my nerves.

The fog was starting to lift from my mind, giving way to a clarity that I suddenly didn’t want. It was better to stay with Jalen in my mind. When I knew what was happening, I couldn’t unknow it. The knowledge would always be there, and whatever it was, I didn’t want it.

“I love you,” he whispered against my lips. “You’re my home, Rona. The only woman I want, the only one I’ll ever want. Nothing can change that. Not even–”

The baby.

Shit.

Jalen’s supposed-to-be-ex-wife, Elise Marx, was pregnant. And Jalen was the father. So she said.

I didn’t want to be one of those women who automatically took her man’s side. The sort who assumed women were lying or that if a man was cheating, it was the other woman’s fault. Not that what happened between Jalen and Elise had been cheating. It happened before Jalen and I even met. And what was happening between Jalen and me wasn’t cheating either. He wasn’t the one dragging his feet in the divorce.

All of this came rushing into my mind in one nearly overwhelming flood, making my head spin. I didn’t try to stop it though. As much as I wanted to go back to that dream world where Jalen and I were making love, I knew this was more important because this was real. The first part of my half-dream had been based on reality. After sex, Jalen told me that he wanted me to blindfold him, a display of trust that had made my heart race. We hadn’t done it, though, because it was at that moment that Elise had come barging into the house with her news.

I’d left, I remembered suddenly.

Jalen had demanded a paternity test, saying that he didn’t believe the child was his, a statement that had reminded me of my father’s accusations of infidelity against my mother. I’d gotten my head on straight about that though. Jalen had caught Elise literally in the act of having sex with another man. His doubts regarding who she’d been sleeping with were completely founded.

But I’d still left. Why? I hadn’t been angry at Jalen, and my feelings about Elise were…multi-layered. I’d been invited into the house, asked to stay. Elise hadn’t. Even though Jalen had clearly wanted to talk through this with her, he hadn’t asked me to leave. I’d done it on my own.

Another memory clicked into place.

I’d wanted to give them time and space to work out all the ways their lives were about to change. And I wanted some space of my own. I hadn’t broken up with Jalen, but I had told him that I needed time to figure out how he would fit into my life differently now that he had a baby on the way.

Cold. Damn cold. Not surprising considering it was the beginning of December in Colorado. Snow in the mountains could come year-round. With Christmas on the way, I was surprised I hadn’t been snowed in yet.

I was cold because I’d been walking. I called for a car, but I hadn’t wanted to stay at the house with Elise and Jalen while I waited.

There’d been a car, I remembered. No, not a car, a van. A dark van.

Someone had gotten out of it.

I gagged, the memory of a damp cloth, the same sickly-sweet smell that was now coating my tongue. Shit. Chloroform. The name didn’t matter though. What mattered was that my brain had finally caught up to my surroundings.

I’d been kidnapped.

Someone had literally knocked me out and taken me somewhere against my will.

Saying it a different way didn’t make it any less surreal.

What the fuck?!

I let myself have a few seconds to panic, and then I forced myself to focus. I hadn’t gotten through hell with my father only to die here, alone, tied up in the dark. I’d lived through nearly being eviscerated. I would live through this.

With that thought in mind, I took inventory.

My head hurt, but it didn’t feel like I was bleeding from anywhere. I didn’t remember hitting my head. That was good. It meant I didn’t need to worry about a concussion or anything like that. My headache was just the after-effect of the chloroform. Unless whoever had taken me had dropped me on the floor, and I’d hit my head then.

I opened my eyes, but it didn’t make a difference. I really hoped it was because wherever I’d been stashed was dark and not because I was blind. My eyes didn’t hurt, but if I’d gotten hit hard enough… no, I refused to consider that. It was just dark in here.

That was fact number one. Fact number two was that my hands and feet were tied. Based on the lack of give and how sticky it felt, I was going with duct tape. I knew how to get out of it. I’d been one of the best in my class when it came to escaping various kinds of restraints. I needed to evaluate my situation more before I decided whether it would be advantageous to have my hands free or not.

I’d probably have only one shot at escaping, and I didn’t want to ruin it because I got impatient.

I wasn’t gagged, which meant I was most likely stashed somewhere isolated or soundproofed, maybe both. If they were worried I could attract attention, they would’ve gagged me even while I was out. Which meant screaming wouldn’t do any good, even if it might’ve made me feel better.

I cleared my throat, then coughed. The sound didn’t echo, but it wasn’t flat either. My gut told me that I was in a room, but not a huge one. No windows. I put my hand on the ground and felt something smooth, cold. Probably tile or concrete. Same with the walls. It reinforced my thought that I was in a basement.

Wonderful.