Selena

 

I couldn’t imagine a worse way to get woken up than this: handcuffed, cold, half-naked, sore from head to toe, and with the leering faces of two creeping men taking up my entire field of vision.

 

“Buenos dias, chica,” cackled the taller man. He had a greasy mustache that looked like an underfed rat had crawled on his upper lip and died. The teeth between his chapped lips were brown and rotting. All in all, not a face I wanted anywhere near mine.

 

I shot backwards, scooting as fast as I could away from them, although my bound hands meant I only got a few feet away before the shorter, fatter cartel member wrapped his sausage fingers around my ankle and pulled me towards them.

 

I came tumbling out of the container box in which I’d been imprisoned. The light of the day coming in through the window overhead hit me in the eye like daggers. I squinted and tried to block out the sun. Just as I raised my hands, the tall man pinched my ass. I jerked away from him, shrieking, only to fall right into the arms of the other one, who took the opportunity to seize a palm full of my breasts through the raggedy remnants of my silk shirt. I yelped again and jumped away from both of them.

 

I was scared to death, disoriented, and in the midst of being manhandled by these disgusting pigs, thousands of miles from home. How the hell had I ended up here?

 

One answer: Daddy.

 

It always came back to that, sooner or later. My whole life, that man had been at the heart of misfortune after misfortune. Every time a guy was actually interested in me, Daddy stepped in. Every time I was on the verge of reaching something I’d been dying for, Daddy stepped in. The only times he didn’t intervene to ruin everything were when I needed something from him. Whenever that came around, he was nowhere to be found.

 

Like now, for instance. Where was Daddy when I needed him to get me away from the pudgy man currently trying to insert his fingers down the back of my jeans?

 

I sprang away from him, on the verge of tears. The two men saw the waterworks brimming in my eyes and laughed harder, jabbering between themselves in Spanish that I didn’t understand.

 

Maybe it wasn’t just Daddy who disappointed me. Maybe it was every man, ever. None of them ever stuck around for long. They were just like the two goons who were hauling me down the corridor towards God only knew where – groping, shallow monsters.

 

I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror as I was being pushed and pulled through one door after another. My hair was long, blond, and messier than a rat’s nest. Mascara was streaked down my face in big raccoon eye drips. What the hell did these men even see in me?

 

“Que bonita, si?” said one to the other as I tripped in front of them and caught myself on the ground. I felt my jeans slip down my ass while I fell. Hurrying to my feet, I tugged the edge of my shirt back down to hide my curves from view.

 

That didn’t help, though. It only made my breasts that much more apparent at the top of my low-cut blouse. It was shitty of the cartel to capture me on a day when I wasn’t wearing a bra. Without it, my shirt was threatening to let everything spill out if I kept getting shoved around like this.

 

I’d never thought my face was anything all that exceptional, but I’d always taken a quiet pride in my body. I worked out hard to keep everything toned and tight. My chest was still perky and smooth, and in the right pair of jeans, I had a butt that wasn’t relatively awful. I couldn’t even begin to count how many hours I’d spent, naked in front of my mirror, trying to encourage myself to flaunt it just a little bit. But I never managed to convince the doubters in the back of my head, so I inevitably ended up sticking to loose mom jeans and blouses that were big enough to deceive the prying eyes of all the would-be molesters who seemed to hang out on every street corner that ever existed.

 

Yet despite all my effort to fly under the radar in my normal life, the guys who had snatched me and brought me down to this godforsaken desert saw right through my flowy clothes. More to the point, they felt right through them, reaching their hands down my shirt to feel me up. I’d never felt so violated.

 

“Ass like a peach,” Tall Man chimed in. He slapped my right cheek and laughed.

 

“And these tetas!” added his friend, bouncing a breast in his hand as the tall one pinned my elbows back.

 

Fighting them off was no use. Whenever I managed to knock one back to arm’s distance, the other swept in to pinch and prod me. I was just a piece of cattle to them.

 

Men. I hated them all.

 

“Boludos!” came a new voice. I spun around to see a broad-chested man looming in the doorway. He had his shoulders squared back like a man in charge. Hearing his words, the two men in charge of shepherding me to wherever we were going dropped me immediately. I stepped carefully away from them, huffing and trying to rake my hair back behind my ear.

 

“Lo siento, jefe,” murmured the fat man, not daring to make eye contact. I hoped the pieces of shit were in trouble. It seemed like this was their boss, and judging by his tone, he wasn’t happy with what he’d seen them doing to me. He began to rattle off a lecture at lightning speed. I heard random words that I recognized. Idiotas was the main refrain.

 

After a few minutes under his stern gaze, the men apologized and turned back to me.

 

“This way, senora,” one gestured. I eyed him cautiously, but followed where he was pointing. Neither of them touched me as I walked outside.

 

The heat was oppressive. I could feel myself sweating the second I stepped outdoors. Behind me, the two men grumbled between themselves, throwing an occasional fiery glance in my direction. We walked up to a truck that was parked a few hundred yards away from the isolated building we had been in. I scanned the horizon as we approached, wondering where the hell I was.

 

I knew I was in Mexico, that much was for certain. And I had some vague idea of how I’d gotten here. I’d heard Daddy on the phone throughout the last few weeks with men speaking in harsh Spanish. They didn’t seem particularly happy with him. I could sympathize; I knew the feeling. I’d seen that stubborn lip curl of his more times than I could count. When Daddy got that set in his jaw, there was no swaying him. He’d spite the nose right off his face before he let other people convince him to do something he didn’t want to do. A more hardheaded man had never been born.

 

Tall Man helped me into the backseat of the truck. I could almost feel the tension roiling off of him as he forced himself not to grope me while I passed in front of him. Once I was seated, they both got in the front, twisted the key in the ignition, and we took off, bouncing down the dirt road.

 

In the three or four days since I’d been kidnapped, I’d already been transported to a few different nondescript buildings on the outskirts of various towns. I assumed this was more of the same, so I closed my eyes and rested my head against the window.

 

I was surprised, then, when we pulled off the road in the middle of nowhere, next to the shade cast by a sign declaring some illegible warning to passing motorists. And I was even more surprised when I was helped down from the truck, pulled around to the other side of the vehicle, and planted in front of the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen in my life.

 

For a moment, I forget where I was and what I was doing here. The desert disappeared and the world narrowed down to the mysterious man standing in front of me. I could feel my jaw hanging open as I drank him in.

 

He wore boots and black jeans that fit tight around muscular legs. The leather jacket he had on in spite of the Mexican heat fit snugly around his shoulders and biceps, which strained the material until I could practically hear the fibers screaming. And that face! His jaw looked like it was milled from steel. Blond stubble ranged over his chin and cheekbones, surrounding plump lips. His eyes glinted bright green in the sun, and the messy cut of his golden hair hung shaggy over his forehead. I couldn’t have made a more perfect man if I’d drawn him myself.

 

The vibe he gave off reminded me of tigers I’d seen in the zoo. His limbs were stretched across the motorcycle gleaming behind him, as relaxed and careless as the big cats. But there was a sense that, if he wanted to, he could’ve leaped forward and dispatched the greasy men on either side of me with minimal effort.

 

He raised a cigarette to his lips and took one long drag. “Gentlemen,” he said as he exhaled. Both men grimaced. I could see beads of sweat shining in the disgusting mustache of the tall one. They were under the same spell I was. This man cast off dominance without even trying.

 

“Dinero,” spat the shorter guy. He wanted to sound tough, but the tremor in his voice was obvious to all of us.

 

With an easy motion, the biker hurled a backpack into the stomach of the fat one. He wheezed as he caught the bag of cash while stumbling back into the truck.

 

The biker then turned and fixed his gaze on me. I froze.

 

“Let’s go,” he commanded.

 

I didn’t budge. It was like I’d forgotten how to move.

 

He jerked his head towards the bike. “C’mon, let’s go,” he said again. At this point, I didn’t even know where my feet were, or if they were still attached to my body. Moving them was practically impossible.

 

“Girl, are you deaf?” he said, eyeing me like I was an idiot. When I still couldn’t manage to form words or walk where he pointed, he let out an exasperated sigh and crossed the distance between us.

 

His smell was overpowering. It was a musky, deep cologne, with just a hint of sweat lingering on the edge. I’d never been this near to anyone like him before. The few men I’d been close to in my life didn’t have any of the masculine power that this one had. I flipped through my memories, holding them each up one by one to compare:

 

Donald, who’d tried to kiss me during a sex scene of the rom-com he took me to see and instead spilled his drink all over my lap…

 

Ricardo, who’d stuttered throughout dinner and told me halfway through that he’d bought condoms on his way over, “just in case…”

 

Simon, who had been blandly attractive enough that I convinced myself to follow him upstairs to his room and even let him take my clothes off, only for him to fail to get it up enough for us to go any farther…

 

The comparisons were laughable. The man standing in front of me was a different breed. One look at his hands told me that he’d had plenty of practice using them to explore, and a quick stolen glance at the front of his jeans was enough for me to believe that plenty of girls had taken their turn doing some exploring of their own. In spite of myself, I let my gaze linger on the massive bulge pressing against his zipper from within.

 

He put two fingers on my chin and lifted my eyes to meet his. God, they were so green. I stared back, doing backstrokes in them, getting so lost that I only heard the end of his question.

 

“…mute, or just stupid?” he demanded.

 

I fumbled to answer. “I, uh, um…”

 

“Never mind, doesn’t matter. Get on the back.” Before I could protest, he plucked me off the ground by my hips and planted me on the back of his motorcycle like I was a piece of cargo. I looked down at the beast between my legs. It was all exposed pipes and slick leather. This thing looked capable of chewing up miles like candy. I wondered what it would feel like when the engine kicked in.

 

“Adios, pendejos,” he said, raising a middle finger to the cartel assholes as he swung a leg over the back and settled down in front of me. He brought the motorcycle purring into action and used his heel to push the kickstand away. We began to wheel towards the road, right as I found my voice.

 

“Wait!” I cried out. I held up my wrists, still confined in handcuffs. “What about these?”

 

The man looked over his shoulder and frowned. He turned to the sweating men still standing and pouting by their truck. “Keys,” he said, extending his open palm to them. The short one scowled as he waddled over and deposited a rusty key in the biker’s hand.

 

He nodded, then placed a pair of aviator sunglasses over his eyes and faced forward again. The bike eased towards the road, mounting the asphalt.

 

I tapped him on the back. He spun around again to look at me. “What do you want?”

 

“Aren’t you gonna unlock me?” I asked.

 

“Nope,” he replied.

 

“What? Why not?” I yelled. But he didn’t turn back around. Instead, he lifted his feet from the pavement and twisted the handlebars. The engine roared over my protests as we took off down the highway.

We didn’t talk as we rode for the next few hours. I was confused as hell by the man in front of me, the man I was clinging to for dear life as we sped through the desert at lightning speed. I tried asking who he was or where he was taking me, but he ignored every question I asked, threw me around like cargo, and refused to unlock the handcuffs latched around my wrists. In that sense, he was every bit as bad as Daddy or the scumbags from the cartel who’d taken so much pleasure in pinching me like I was meat at the butcher’s shop. I was just an object to be tossed around at their leisure.

 

But there had been something in his eyes that was just a shade different. It wasn’t the same callous stupidity I saw in the fat man or the tall one with the mustache. I kept coming back to the tigers at the zoo. This man had the same eyes as them, full of purpose and strength.

 

Or maybe I was just too exhausted to think straight. It had been an insane few days, after all. One minute I was walking down the sidewalk in New Orleans, the next I was being bound and blindfolded as sweaty men hauled me into an unmarked van and smuggled me a thousand miles away from the only family I had left. After that had been a blur of masking and unmasking, being shuffled around from one place to another, and the endless groping by the two pigs we’d left in the dust.

 

I was thankful to get away from those animals. But part of me wondered if I’d been picked up by something worse.

 

I looked at the man in front of me. I could feel his abs flex against my hands every time we hit a bump in the road. His back was broad beneath the leather he wore, and muscular to the touch. Stitched across the back of the jacket was a massive winged skull, with the words “Inked Angels MC” blocked over the top.

 

I felt the growl of the bike lower as the wind downshifted a notch. We were slowing down. I looked up to see we were pulling into the parking lot of a diner. The sun was setting behind the mountains over in the distance. My ears were ringing and my body ached from the hours spent on the back of the bike. I groaned as I awkwardly stumbled off the bike and tried to start working out the kinks in my neck.

 

The biker didn’t look at me as he snatched the key from the ignition and strode towards the door. I stood where I was. I needed some answers, and I couldn’t keep getting ignored. Just before he reached the entrance to the restaurant, he stopped and looked back. He raised an eyebrow when he saw I hadn’t followed him.

 

“Coming?” he asked sarcastically.

 

“Not until you tell me who you are and where we’re going,” I shot back. “And unlock my wrists, too.”

 

His eyes surged. I wondered if I’d pissed him off. He could break me without a second’s hesitation; I knew that without even thinking about it. It was obvious that he knew how to handle himself, and it was equally obvious that he didn’t tolerate any shit. I gulped. He paced back to where I stood planted and shivering in the dusk.

 

He came to stand in front of me. I could feel his breath on my face.

 

“I’m Ember. I’m taking you home. And I’m not unlocking your wrists.” His tone left no room for arguing. “Now, you can either come inside and eat with me, or you can stay here and freeze to death. Whatever you want is fine with me, but those are your only two choices. Cool? Cool.”

 

He pivoted on his heel without another word and walked inside. I could see him settling down at a table by the window, leaning back and cracking open a menu. The hostess gave him the most obvious doe eyes I’d ever seen in my life. This man – Ember, I thought to myself, his name is Ember – really did command attention everywhere he went.

 

A shiver raced down my spine. I wasn’t sure whether it was from the growing cold or the man who’d rescued me. Before I could chase my mind, I hustled through the door.

 

No one except the hostess looked up as I entered. She gave me a once-over and, aside from a weird glance at the handcuffs around my hands, seemed to deem me non-threatening. I lowered my eyes and kept walking, sliding into the booth across from Ember as the chains clanked against the plastic table top.

 

He didn’t look up from the menu. “Was starting to wonder if you were coming in or not,” he said after a moment. His voice was cool and measured, like he did this kind of thing – escorting strange girls across the Mexican desert – all the time.

 

“Is this fun for you?” I asked. I was feeling more aggressive than usual. The whirlwind nightmare of this whole experience had put some fire in my belly. Forget being the same old passive Selena. It was time to stop letting the world push me around.

 

Ember looked up. He shrugged. “Parts of it.”

 

“Which parts, exactly?” I demanded. “The part where I get kidnapped and driven into the middle of nowhere? The part where two creepy men I’ve never met before point a gun at my head and feel up every inch of me? Or the part where I get traded for a bag full of money in the middle of the desert like I’m some whore?”

 

His eyes flashed. “You’re cute when you’re angry.”

 

I nearly exploded. “Have you been listening to a word I just said? Are you insane?”

 

“In fact, if you pulled your hair back, you’d be pretty damn sexy.”

 

I was flabbergasted. Here I was, clearly on the brink of a breakdown, and this crazy moron was giving me style advice.

 

“Do you think I care what you think of how I look? I just want to go home. That’s all. Take me home now.” The bossy voice coming out of my mouth felt a little strange, but I felt good about finally taking the reins. Enough getting pushed around by things I didn’t understand. Enough of men doing whatever they wanted with me.

 

Ember leaned back, shrugged, and returned to looking at the menu. “Can’t do that.”

 

“Why not?” I exclaimed.

 

“I’m tired.”

 

“You’re tired?” I wanted to pull my hair out by the roots. This was worse than being trapped with the cartel. They at least were understandable in what they wanted. This man sitting across from me was an infuriating mystery.

 

A waiter walked up and stood by our table with a pen and pad, ready to take down our orders. “What do you think?” Ember asked me, “Pancakes or eggs?”

 

“What the fuck do I care?” I snapped back.

 

“You’re right. Eggs it is.” He turned to the waiter. “I’ll have the scrambled eggs. And she’ll have a bagel and a coffee.” Ember eyed me, measuring me up. “Sugar, no cream.”

 

The waiter nodded and left. “Is this your thing?” I asked Ember. “You just pick up kidnapped girls and take them to a diner and then order their food for them? Like we’re on a date?”

 

“That’d be a pretty shitty date, if you ask me.”

 

“Does this work for you often?”

 

“Depends.” He leaned forward. “Is it working?” A cocky grin was smeared across his face.

 

“Unbelievable,” I sighed, shaking my head. “Un-fucking-believable. Who do you think you are?”

 

“Didn’t we do this already? I’m Ember, I’m taking you home, I’m not unlocking your wrists. Yeah, I remember now – we did do this already.”

 

I felt a scream bubbling in my throat. The world was just too much to comprehend sometimes, and this was definitely one of those moments. I was sitting across from this enigmatic Adonis in who-the-fuck-knows-where, still handcuffed, and he wanted to flirt.

 

“You must be a big hit with the girls back… back wherever you’re from,” I told him.

 

“Houston,” he said. “And I’m a huge hit.”

 

“Is that so?”

 

“It is.”

 

“And why is that? The good looks? The charm?”

 

“So you think I’m good-looking and charming? That’s nice of you. This relationship is getting off to a great start.”

 

I had to bite my lip to stop from laughing. There was no stopping him. He was a force of nature. Cockiness rolled off of him in waves, but I was getting swept up in it, almost against my will.

 

I’d met his type before. There were always frat boys in college who strolled campus like they owned the whole place. Ember had the same impenetrable swagger as them, like he was God’s gift to women and you couldn’t convince him otherwise. The more he talked, the more I felt like I knew exactly who he was: a shallow user, someone who picked up and discarded women like outfits of the day. As much as his charm tickled part of me, there was a creeping coldness in my chest. I didn’t want anything to do with someone like this. I wanted to be brought home so I could resume my life. I felt sure that this overconfident bad boy had no place in it.

 

The waiter brought our food and set it down in front of us. “Can I get anything else for you and this… tramp?” he sneered.

 

Everything happened too fast for me to process at first. There was a whirl of motion as Ember leaped up from his chair, twisted the man’s arm behind his back, and slammed his head into the table. Dishes fell to the floor and broke, sending shards of porcelain skittering across the tile floor.

 

Heads whipped around to see what the commotion was all about. Ember pressed the heel of his hand against the waiter’s temple while he kept the arm pinned against his back with the other.

 

“What the fuck did you just call her?” he hissed in the sobbing man’s ear. The whole diner was silent.

 

“I’m – I’m sorry,” he blubbered.

 

“I didn’t ask you to say you’re sorry. I asked you what you called her.”

 

“I…I called her a, uh, a tramp.”

 

“That’s what I thought you said. You made a mistake, asshole.”

 

The man wailed as Ember applied more force to his skull. I could see tears streaming and pooling on the plastic surface of the table.

 

“Do you think she’s a tramp?” Ember asked.

 

“No! No, I’m sorry,” the waiter mumbled.

 

“She isn’t a tramp; do you understand that? She is a woman, and her pinky toe is worth more than your entire pathetic life. Do you agree?”

 

“Yes, yes, I’m sorry, please let me go.” The tears were fast and thick.

 

Ember hauled the man up with a fistful of his hair. “I don’t think so,” he said. “First, you’re going to get on your knees and ask Selena here to forgive you.” He kicked the back of the waiter’s knees. He fell to the tile as his body heaved with sobs.

 

“I’m sorry, ma’am. Please forgive me,” he said between hiccups and bubbles of snot. “Please, I’m so sorry.”

 

Ember still held the man up by his hair. “Lick her shoes,” he said. “Let her know that you are nothing compared to her.” He poked him in the back of the head and the man collapsed forward. He picked up my foot between his trembling hands and, extending his tongue, licked the sole quickly.

 

“Now get the fuck out of here,” Ember said, prodding a boot into the waiter’s ribs. “We’ll take our food to go.” He smoothed his hair back, settled his jacket on his shoulders, and sat down.

 

No one had said a word. Ember looked around, and everybody hurriedly stuffed their faces back into their menus, too afraid even to make eye contact.

 

He looked at me. I was in shock, too stunned to move or say anything. “I’m sorry you had to see that,” he said. “Are you okay?”

 

“Ye-yes,” I said, stumbling over my words. “I’m fine.”

 

My mind was racing. What the hell was that? This man had seemed so simple and clear-cut just moments ago. Now he was a mystery again. I didn’t know what to think. At first, I’d been just cargo to him, something to be shipped across the border. But you didn’t defend cargo’s honor when people insulted it, did you?

 

Or was this all just normal for him? I didn’t know anything about the man I was now stuck alongside. His name was Ember, he was from Houston, he was in the Inked Angels MC. Besides those tidbits, I didn’t have much to go on. He’d seemed like your run-of-the-mill douche bag playboy, but after that whole display, he didn’t fit into any mold I’d ever come across before.

 

The waiter came running over to us, holding a bag with our food in it. His face was burning red with shame. He tried to drop the bag and scurry away, but Ember seized his wrist. He stared the man straight in the face as he wedged a fifty-dollar bill between his fingers. “Keep the change,” he whispered. I thought the poor guy was going to wet himself right there in front of us. He scampered back to the kitchen.

 

“Ready to go?” Ember asked me. I nodded and we stood up to leave. Ember offered the other diners a cheery wave as we walked out the door.

 

Was he a maniac? A thug? A playboy? A businessman? There was no way to know. I knew only one thing for sure: I’d never met anyone like Ember.

 

We mounted the bike and drove to a dusty motel a few miles down the road. He left me on the bike as he walked into the front office before emerging a couple minutes later with a key in his hand. “This way,” he said, extending an elbow to assist me off the motorcycle. I followed him to one of the rooms. He jiggled the key in the lock, turned it, and held the door open for me. I walked in first.

 

It was a standard hotel room. Bathroom, beat-up old TV, a nightstand, one bed. I turned to him. “One bed?”

 

“All they had,” he said.

 

“I can’t.” I didn’t trust myself anywhere near him, not after that little stunt in the diner. This man was unhinged and unpredictable, and I was gonna do my damndest to stay as far away from him as humanly possible. That sure as hell ruled out sleeping together.

 

“Suit yourself,” he shrugged, stripping off his jacket and boots. The shirt underneath hugged his biceps. I saw one vein winding along the shelf of muscle that flexed with every small motion he made. What a body… I had to cut that train of thought off before it even left the station. Who knew where it would lead? Nowhere good, that’s for certain. “Floor is gonna be mighty uncomfortable, though.”

 

“Why would I be on the floor?”

 

“Well, Princess Selena, I’m sleeping in the bed. If you’re not going to sleep with me, then I don’t see many other options besides the floor.”

 

“You’re sleeping on the floor. I get the bed.”

 

Ember laughed. “The day I let a woman tell me what to do is the day I drive up to the edge of a cliff and then just keep on going, honey.”

 

That fucking smile. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to slap it off his face or shove it between my legs – No. None of those thoughts. He was gorgeous, yes, and he had an energy that honestly made my insides squirm whenever he spoke, but no. Wasn’t gonna happen.

 

He examined a grease smudge on his t-shirt. “I’m gonna take a shower,” he announced. He swept a grandiose hand across the room. “Make yourself at home, darling.” Then he strode into the bathroom and shut the door.

 

I heard the showerhead spring to life as I sat down on the edge of the bed. “What a fucking day,” I muttered to myself. How was anyone supposed to cope with a day like this? From captivity to a literal Mexican standoff to witnessing a strange, beautiful man defend my femininity against a diner waiter in the middle of nowhere – this was one for the record books. And to top it all off, I was still handcuffed. Good Lord, I was a mess. I could barely keep the world straight.

 

I fell back on the comforter and closed my eyes. The shower droned on in the background. As much as I wanted to sleep and let unconsciousness take all my problems away, I was still too wired. Instead, images floated through my head.

 

Daddy, shaking his head and saying, “Not a chance, Selena. Don’t ask me again.” That lip curl of his.

 

Later, the twin adrenaline of fear and excitement pumping through my veins as I counted the bills in his wallet. One thousand, two thousand, three thousand… It was enough to buy the flight and still have plenty left over…

 

The scene in my mind’s eye changed.

 

Ember, pushing me onto the hood of a car. His hands, dancing up my thighs, urging my knees apart. His tongue, sliding across my hip, tugging aside the sheer mesh of my underwear to lick delicately at my hot center beneath.

 

The sound of the shower cutting off startled me. I tried to sit up straight and jerk my hand out from between my legs before Ember could see, but he emerged too quickly. The smile that broke across his face when he saw I’d been touching myself was maddeningly pleased.

 

“Thought so,” he smirked.

 

“You didn’t see anything,” I stammered. His grin grew another notch as my cheeks flushed.

 

“No? Because I’m pretty sure I saw you touching yourself. In fact,” he continued as he took a step closer, “I’m positive that’s what I saw.”

 

I watched as water droplets slid over his brawny chest. His abs stood out in stark relief. The tattoos that covered his shoulders were dark and winding. I thought about tracing my tongue over them while my hands stroked his length.

 

“No,” I protested weakly. I didn’t even believe myself at this point. I didn’t know why I was trying to continue to lie. “That’s not what it was.”

 

Ember reached out and pulled me to my feet by one wrist. He didn’t say a word as he brought me close to him. My chest brushed against his. Our breath mingled. My heart thudded hard in my chest.

 

He’s crazy, I tried to tell myself, but that thought slipped away easily.

 

He’s a pig, just like the men from the cartel, I tried again. But I knew that wasn’t true.

 

He’s beautiful. There, that was it; that was real. He was beautiful and I wanted him. I wanted to feel his lips on my neck and his hands teasing my clothing away from my body. He was everything dangerous and wrong, but I craved him anyways.

 

When he leaned down and kissed me, I let him.

 

I pushed my lips against his. The warmth was perfect, exactly how I’d imagined when I first saw him. His mouth was soft as I explored it with my tongue, letting it roam across his as our hands slid down each other’s bodies.

 

In a swift pull, he removed my shirt over my head. I sighed as I felt his touch move across the small of my back and shoulders before he enclosed one hand over my breast. I leaned back to expose myself to him, to let him have whatever of me he wanted.

 

He responded by suckling on my neck as he wrapped his fingers in the roots of my hair and tugged gently. My own touch moved over the mountain range of his shoulders, down his rugged arms, over his rolling abs. The towel around his waist fell away as I explored further south.

 

With one tentative hand, I encircled his girth. It was hard not to gasp out loud; the thing was massive. I could hardly close my fingers around it. The thought of him entering me filled me with equal parts fear and anticipation. We had to go slow. Otherwise, I would shatter like the plates at the diner.

 

Ember’s kisses on my neck and mouth were gentle, as were his hands as they moved up and down my body. He felt me, tested my skin with gentle strokes. Dropping his mouth, he sucked a nipple between his lips. I sighed as the gentle vibrations from his tongue on my flesh intensified.

 

I started to pump slowly as he hardened to his full length in my hands. As I did, he unbuttoned my jeans and pushed them down my hips. I stepped out of them, leaving me standing bare except for the sheer panties I had on.

 

I started to shiver in the cold air conditioning, but he pulled me closer into his embrace and let his warmth wash over me. I felt him begin to explore my opening. Just the possibility of his fingers against my button sent nervous waves ricocheting from head to toe. I spread my legs slightly as he probed gently at the lips of my slit.

 

“Go slow,” I whispered.

 

With exquisite patience, he began to finger me slowly. I was tight around him, but I tried to relax and let him push deeper into my core. Every easy thrust stoked the heat in my low belly higher. In return, I used both hands on his member to slide up and down it, twisting gently as I went.

 

We kept touching each other – him deeper, me faster. The heat in me grew. With a growl, Ember picked me up and tossed me back on the bed. My legs opened as he moved his face down my front and in between my thighs. Hot, wet kisses washed over my throbbing clit and wet pussy, intermingled with lashes of his broad tongue. Every stroke of it left nerves quivering with pleasure.

 

“You’re so good at that,” I told him between moans. I couldn’t help but talk. “Never stop.” He licked me higher. Like gears shifting, I sped up, racing closer towards coming as he ate me out and pushed soft fingers inside me.

 

Ember raised his head. “Fuck, you taste incredible.” He licked a glimmering streak of wetness from his chin. I could feel my heart thudding against my rib cage like a drum. I had a sudden desire to taste him, too. Just as I started to reach for his manhood where it stood erect against his belly, I felt his hands pick me up and spin me in the air like helicopter blades.

 

I landed on top of him, with my legs spread over his head and his cock shaking in front of my face. His hands spread my cheeks apart as he continued to lick me below.

 

Turning to face his dick, I ran one timid finger down its length, still awed by the size of the thing. I brought it to my mouth and touched the tip of my tongue to his head.

 

Ember continued to lick me while I teased his cock. His tongue worked delicious circles over my clit as his hands massaged my ass firmly. I lowered my mouth over the head of his member and sucked slowly. I could feel him shake below me, pleased with the feeling of my tongue swirling around him.

 

I took as much as I could of him between my cheeks, although there was still enough left that I could wrap both hands around his base and stroke him as I sucked up and down. Below me, Ember laid wet, sucking kisses against my pussy. I was teetering on the edge of coming. But first I needed to feel him in me.

 

We licked at each other for a few moments more. His cock bulged against my cheeks while I grew wetter under his sloppy, winding tongue.

 

Then, without a word exchanged, we both knew it was time. He rolled me over and pulled one of my legs across his torso so that I squatted straddling him. His cock pressed insistently against my pussy.

 

I took hold of him with one hand and rubbed his head on my clit. He leaned his head into the pillows while I did, moans of pleasure escaping his mouth.

 

“Yeah, baby, tease yourself. Get ready for me,” he said.

 

I wanted him in me like I’d never wanted anything before in my life. No man had ever inspired this hunger in me. It was raw and animal, but there was something delicate and tender to it, also. I could feel the connection like it was a physical thing between us. Looking into Ember’s green eyes, I could see that he felt it, too.

 

With a sigh, I inserted his length into me. I groaned as he strained my walls, which were still so tight. The tension of his erection against my pussy was stunning. Deeper and deeper he went, until finally my hips met his. I eased forward and back, wriggling to open wider for him. Then I pressed into my knees and rose back up, inch by inch, until I was almost free of him.

 

The fullness had felt too good. I couldn’t stay away. Faster this time, I dropped down until he crashed back into me. We began to fuck like that, me rising up to his head before letting myself fall so that he filled me with a rush of sensation. Our hands grappled against each other, looking for a fold of flesh on the other to seize onto and ride out the electricity.

 

I wanted to be owned by him, and this was that exactly. He filled me like I’d never known was possible, opened me up like I never knew I could do, and I was struggling to find words for how fucking good the whole thing felt.

 

We picked up speed as I rode him. The heat was almost too much to bear, now, as it climbed in temperature and intensity deep within, just past where Ember was fucking me. Every stroke of him into me made it harder to hold on.

 

He sat up and brought his mouth roughly to mine. Our tongues sparred, our breath came heavy, and we slammed harder and harder into one another. The heat was everywhere: hands, toes, face, chest, and most of all, brimming behind or within my core. The new angle let me rub my clit against his abs, adding a shimmering layer of fiery sensation to the mix.

 

I was on the verge of exploding as he kissed me, fucked me, and held me. The bed creaked loudly. I was almost there – then, before I knew it, I tumbled over the edge, coming hard and squeezing down onto him inside me. The waves rolling through my muscles clamped and eased on his length, until it coaxed him to join me as we came together. I could feel his hot load splashing against me, but I didn’t care, it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but coming as hard as I was coming while I held onto Ember and bit down against his shoulder to keep from crying out too loudly.

 

I didn’t know how long had passed before I finally collapsed and the orgasm dissipated. I didn’t know what to think. I’d never come so hard in my life. But there was more to it than that. It wasn’t just a new physical peak. There was another layer, another thing deeper that I didn’t know how to describe and wasn’t sure I wanted to touch yet.

 

I looked next to me. Ember lay on his back, panting, eyes closed. I did the same, shutting my eyes and letting blackness seal out the fluorescent lights overhead. We laid there for a while, breathing in time with each other and not saying anything. After a while, I felt him moving, but I kept my eyes closed.

 

I felt like I’d run a marathon, but at the same time, my body was so alive. It was flooded with this bright excitement that was foreign to me. I wanted everything I’d just had, all over again from the start. What the hell was going on with me?

 

Ember’s rough hands against my wrists woke me up from my daze. I watched as he inserted the key into the handcuffs and twisted, popping them off of my hands. I winced as blood flowed back into areas that had been starved of circulation for hours.

 

I looked up at Ember. His chest rose and fell as he breathed. His eyes shined.

 

“I’m trusting you,” he said. “Don’t make me regret it.”

 

I tried not to let my face betray that he’d just made a mistake.