Hissing air between my teeth, I tried to fight the pleasure humming between my thighs. Stoked with every thrust of the powerful body above mine, which was only more confusing. The terrifying one, the one who had stared so intensely at me upstairs, had been the one to stop Diego.

Andre.

Tattooed, all solid muscle, and scary enough to make even the others back away — and now he was grinding against my clit with a kind of vicious precision that forced my hips to twitch to meet his. Arching, I yelped when his teeth nipped my breast, but he just did it again, and again, before switching to the other breast to start anew, and I didn’t understand the heat coiling low in my belly. The flood of wetness between my thighs as he rocked his hips, hard cock gliding over my clit again, and again, and again.

Why is he even doing this? Why did he stop Diego? And… why is he still doing it now that Diego is gone?

I’d turned my head away, biting my lip to stifle a moan that had almost slipped out, but that was when I’d noticed the vacant space of wall where Diego had been watching.

Tugging at his merciless grip on my wrists, I tried to speak up but it came out on a whisper, “He’s gone.”

“I know.” Andre surged above me, so big, and when he looked down at me, the thin barrier of the condom the only thing separating us, I couldn’t hide my fear. His eyes were dark brown, almost black, and his hair was falling across his forehead, but there was nothing in his expression. No emotion. Not anger, not lust, nothing.

I flinched when he moved again, hating the way my body sparked, nerves lighting up to pulse tendrils of pleasure through every inch of my skin. My hips lifted without permission, and I had the strangest urge to wrap my legs around his hips and give in. Give in to the pleasure he was torturing me with, but — no. I needed to get out of here.

“Help me?” I whispered, terrified that someone other than the monster above me might hear me. “Please? Get me out of here?”

“I can’t.” His eyes shuttered, nose buried against my throat again as he rocked and groaned against me, slowing his hips into long, devious strokes. Back and forth, directly against my clit, his body heat scorching me as he held me to the table.

“After they go to bed. Please,” I begged, the whine in my voice desperate.

“Shut up,” he hissed, and his next mimicked thrust was rougher, less controlled, his hand gripping my hip tight enough to hurt.

Tears pricked my eyes even as the pleasure rumbled through me. I wished that I could turn it off, ignore the constant stimulation, but his teeth nipped my shoulder again. Plucking the tension inside me like an instrument, amplifying the pleasure between my thighs, and I couldn’t understand it. Any of it. “Why are you doing this?”

“Being merciful?” he asked, and the way he said it made me swallow.

“Yes,” I whispered.

“I don’t know.” His hand slid up, cupping my breast so he could squeeze, and then he caught my nipple and twisted, the zing of pain rebounding inside me to join the heat pulsing behind my clit. “But I can’t stop them, Nicky.”

Tears burned my eyes as reality returned. Trapped in a basement beneath a fucking drug lord’s house, which I had walked into like a fucking idiot. Being half-naked under one of his lackeys, or guards, or whoever the fuck Andre was … this was just the beginning. Diego would be worse, José would be worse. Paulo would probably kill me. The sob escaped, ending on a whine as I tried my best to stifle it, but Andre growled above me.

“God, you sound so pretty when you cry.” Reaching between us, his thumb found my clit, rubbing fast until I was shaking my head, fighting the tension coiling at the base of my spine. His weight crushed my wrists to the hardwood, but I couldn’t even bring myself to care as he wound me higher and higher. “So beautiful, so pure…”

“Fuck!” I screamed as he thrust inside me without warning, arching off the table, but he pulled back and went deeper with the next swing of his hips, a low rumble echoing out of his chest. It hurt a little, the width of him stretching me at the deepest point of his thrust, a twinge inside, but then he would withdraw and every nerve ending would light up like a fucking runway. Urging him to return, my hips lifting of their own volition to welcome him — and I couldn’t fight it.

Couldn’t fight him.

He was too strong, too much, and I was too tense anyway.

“Jesus…” he groaned, and released my hands, standing up between my thighs, his face unbelievably handsome as he stared down at me. There was a tilt to his lips, something almost like a smile, before he slid his thumb between us to find my clit once more. “Not going to beg me to stop?”

“Please—” I started to talk, but he yanked my ass off the end of the table. Buried deep, he held onto my hips, rolling his forward and back.

“Go ahead and beg, Nicky. I’m not going to stop.” With that, he started to fuck me hard, every inch of his ridiculously strong body following through on each thrust. And it hurt, but in a way that was addictive, terrible and incredible at the same time. I dug my nails into my palms, trying to hold back, because I hated that I wanted him to keep going, to keep pushing me, keep talking to me in that low, rumbling voice that made me shiver.

Lifting my hips to meet his, I whined, the deep thrusts making it hard to breathe, but it suddenly didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to stop anyway, and I bit my tongue to keep myself from asking him to keep going. He was so terrifying. So intense.

And it felt so fucking good.

The orgasm exploded like a hidden bomb, shrapnel of light and heat rushing through every inch of my body, and on some level I heard myself cry out, curse — but suddenly I was outside of myself. Feeling the pleasure and the pain in one cataclysmic wave, unable to process the way Andre leaned over me, watching me fall apart. I was blurry with heat, a tingling ecstasy that crushed the terror, blurred the dark future that awaited me.

None of it mattered when his hands landed on either side of my ribs, his body working above mine to achieve his own pleasure, pushing one of my legs over his shoulder to angle deeper, to fuck harder — and I just spiraled again. Another crescendo of euphoria that had me breathless and pleading, the tears from before still drying on my cheeks.

Pulling him down toward me when I knew I should have been fighting, pushing him away.

A dichotomy I couldn’t begin to process.

“Please!” I begged, and his hand landed on my throat, squeezing hard enough to make my pulse pound behind my eyes. Grabbing onto his wrist I struggled, arched my back, seeking air, but then he came with a shout, cock jerking deep inside me as his fingers tightened for a moment. My vision tunneled, ears buzzing, and I pressed my nails into his skin in a silent plea.

“Fuck, belleza…” Releasing my throat, he held himself still for a moment as I coughed, gasped, pulling in air that only seemed to amplify the spiraling aftereffects of the orgasms.

Delirious, exhausted, stunned.

Our harsh breaths intermingled, one of his hands braced beside me, the other trailing up my leg that was still caught over his shoulder. It was a brief brush with insanity that had caused me to lift my hips to his, to let him have me — but maybe it would be what fucking saved me.

He’s already saved me once.

“A-Andre?” His name stumbled off my tongue, but I tried to stay strong as he stared down at me, still buried deep. “Will you help me?”

“You want me to help you?”

I nodded, rubbing my neck where I could still feel the outline of his fingers, and for a moment his dark eyes locked on mine, dark brows pulling together ever so slightly. Reaching towards me, he brushed a thumb over my lips, and then my cheek, and there was no urge to pull away.

He’ll help me. I know it. He has to.

Then he shook his head and slid from me, tossing the condom on the floor as he tucked himself away. Eyes glued to his black pants, he spoke low, gruff. “There’s nothing I can do. I already told you I can’t stop them.”

“No!” I shouted, his words shaking me to the core. “You can’t, you can’t let them…” The sobs came back, my breath coming short as I sat up on the edge of the table, wheezing, my lungs tightening in my chest. All I could think of was José’s smirk as he shoved his gun into my mouth, Diego’s hands on me as he’d tugged at my clothes. The things the both of them had promised to do. “Oh God… they’re going to kill me.”

“I will not let them kill you.” Andre was in front of me again, broad and looming, and he grabbed my chin when I didn’t look up at him. “Got it?”

Shoving his hand away, I jerked my chin out of his grasp. “But you’ll let them fuck me? Rape me?”

He stood frozen, that empty gaze burning as he breathed deeply, slowly, and then his eyes flicked away from me to the stairs. “You’ll survive.”

“I don’t want to survive that! I want out! I want out of here, dammit! Just let me up, let me go!” I hit his chest, trying to push him back, to get him away from me, but he caught my wrists and tightened his grip until they hurt. The tears were scalding my cheeks, my sobs turning into hiccups, and I couldn’t control it, couldn’t stop it.

“You. Will. Live.” Andre shook me by his grip on my arms. “Do whatever they say, and you’ll live.”

“NO!” I screamed, and when I couldn’t break my arms free I tried to kick him square in the balls, but he blocked it at the last second with his thigh, and suddenly I was face down on the table, one arm wrenched high between my shoulders. Pain. His body weight pressed me down, my ribs aching, shoulder throbbing, and all I could do was cry. Scream into the wood of the table.

Rage peppered his voice, as cold and vicious as he’d been when he’d spoken to Diego. “Shut up. Right now. You need to think, be smart. You walked into Paulo fucking García’s house, what the fuck did you think was going to happen?”

“I didn’t even know who he was!” I sobbed, sniffling and twisting to try and ease the painful position. “My brother said his name when he woke up. I was asking him who hurt him, asking him why, and he said his name. I asked around his friends and got this address, and—”

“And no one thought you’d be stupid enough to actually fucking show up here.” His voice was mocking as he crushed me to the table harder, his rage showing in the creaking of my ribs.

“Andre, please…”

“Don’t say my name like you fucking know me. You don’t know me.” His grip tightened, shoving my arm a little higher on my back until I screamed. “I just fucked you. I did exactly what Diego was planning to do to you, why in the hell do you think I’d ever help you?”

Whimpering, I tried to breathe through the torment, asking as coldly as I could manage, “Do you really think that’s how Diego would have fucked me?”

Silence reigned for a minute, his grip not loosening at all, and then finally a low growl rumbled above me. “You’re too brave for your own good, belleza.” His breath brushed my cheek, and I kept my eyes on the wall. “You walked into hell all on your own, and now you’re expecting me to pull you out of the flames?”

“Yes!” I hissed, anger surfacing inside me through the fear and the lust and the desperation. “Why did you try to protect me from him if you didn’t want to help me?”

“I stopped him because I wanted you first.” His hips rocked against my ass, and I flinched, refusing to believe that. He would have fucked me immediately, wouldn’t have bothered pretending at first if he was anything like the others. Wouldn’t have told me to make it convincing.

“Liar.”

“You don’t know shit, Nicky Harris.” Releasing my arm he stomped away from me, his heavy boots crunching over the gritty concrete. “You have no fucking idea what you’ve walked in to.”

Gently lifting myself from the table I took the time to fix my bra, tugging my shirt back down, even though my underwear and shorts were somewhere on the floor. I could feel my pulse in my shoulder, wondering if something had finally torn as I stood up. He was pacing, one of those massive fists clenched in his hair as he wandered back and forth across the narrow room. It was worse because he looked so good doing it. All of that hard muscle I’d felt against me moving under his tight shirt, the long gait of each step due to his height. The bronze of his skin broken up by dark tattoos. Both arms, up his neck — he looked every bit the killer, the monster I’d believed him to be… but I was definitely hoping I was wrong.

“Are you really going to let them do this?” I asked softly, and his boots crunched to a halt. The grit on the floor scratched as he turned towards me. I could feel his eyes boring into me, as intense as they’d been before everything had gone to hell.

Nothing. There is nothing behind those eyes.

No remorse. No concern. Nothing.

He stayed silent as he marched towards the stairs, my lips parting to call after him, but I didn’t get a second glance as his booming steps moved upward. The hard clap of the hidden door was his answer and in a flash, my world collapsed.

The others would come next, and Andre’s words came back like a curse: You’ll survive.

As if I’d even want to when they were done.