With a deep breath, she twisted toward him and swung to hook her arms around his neck.
He didn’t move, but something caught her hands, holding them to the pillow. The fuck? She tried to yank free to no avail, and her pulse detonated.
The mattress bounced as he leaned toward the side table. The lamp clicked on, and a dim glow illuminated the bed.
Lying on her back, she angled her neck and spotted two skinny ropes between her hands and the headboard. Her blood turned cold.
She knew restraints intimately, had fought them and lost too many times. No amount of jerking and yanking would help her, and the ties on her wrists were the kind that constricted under pressure, the braided nylon so thin it blended with the white sheets. No wonder she hadn’t noticed it when she woke.
“Don’t test the knots.” He crawled over her, easily restraining her kicking legs as he settled his hips between her thighs. Then he braced his elbows on either side of her head, studying her with a predator’s vigilance. “They’ll only cinch tighter and cut off the blood to your hands.”
But her legs weren’t tied. She relaxed her arms above her head, her hands curling into fists. “Why am I restrained? I’m not—”
“I want you this way.”
“I have chlamydia and…and syphilis and—”
“You’re clean.” He rocked against her, gliding the rigid length of his cock along her mound, breaths slipping, and lids falling half-mast. “We both are.”
She turned her head away. “You don’t know—”
“Picar drew our blood and took swab tests on the plane.” He gripped her face and forced her gaze back to his. “I’ve never had sex without a condom.”
Neither had she, and she sure as fuck didn’t want to start now.
Except she had always wanted this, with him, without anything between them.
Not like this.
“Christ, Camila, I’ve waited—” His fingers slid into her hair and dug against her scalp, eyes searching and voice hoarse. “I’ve waited an eternity for this.”
Molten gold bled into emerald rings around his irises, the bones of his face sharp across his cheeks, square around his jaw, and exquisitely Matias. Women everywhere probably fell at his feet—with or without his command. How many had sampled his warm skin and tasted his firm lips?
Her heart twisted. Why did she care? She didn’t, but it still hurt like hell lying beneath him and staring into eyes that had once meant the world to her. And it was only going to get worse. He was going to fuck her and make this ugly goddamn mess of feelings a thousand times uglier and more painful.
A hot ember sat in her throat. She pinched her lips together, refusing to give voice to her weakness. There was no sane reason for her to feel anything but pure fucking rancor.
Yeah, that. The anger, the murderous hatred… She grabbed hold of it and let it consume her. Snapping her teeth together, she crunched her abdominals and kicked a leg up and over his shoulder. With a twist of her hips, she landed a knee hard against his jaw, using his shock to drive him to the mattress and into a cry-angle choke.
But without her arms, she couldn’t stop him from trapping her leg and rotating it. With her kneecap against his torso and the pressure of his upper body against his grip, her leg snapped straight, hyper-extending the knee joint.
She cried out against the unbearable agony, and the cuts on her legs protested against the strain. She slapped her hands on the bed, thrashing her arms against the rope.
When he released her, the pain ebbed. Until he tossed her onto her back and crushed her with two-hundred-plus pounds of ravenous need.
“Fighting me like that?” He buried his face in her neck. “A huge turn on.” His hands frantically stroked every inch of her he could reach. “You’re killing me.”
She shook with volcanic rage. “Then die already!”
A muscle bounced in his jaw, and his eyes flickered with…hurt?
Fuck his feelings. She dug her heels into the mattress and tried to buck off his heavy-ass body.
He let her struggle for the span of a few heartbeats, while he rubbed and caressed and kissed her skin, the fucking bastard. Then without warning, he wrapped a hand around her throat and pressed hard against her windpipe, instantly subduing her.
“If you kick your legs again…” He stared at her like a nocturnal predator, a creature at home in the shadows of hell. “I’ll restrain them to the bed, spread eagle.”
Flashes of white blotted out his scowl. She couldn’t breathe beneath his hand, couldn’t speak, but she opened her mouth in a plea for air.
He let go, and she gulped, lungs heaving. She yanked against the rope, unable to pull her hands to her aching throat.
As she caught her breath, he returned his attention to her body, fingers roaming, his mouth feeding on her skin, licking and biting.
“You’ve always been beautiful.” He kissed his way toward her pussy. “Your confidence. Your spirit. Your body.” He nibbled on her hipbone. “Look at you. Fuck, Camila. You can’t possibly be real.”
She deflated beneath him, and tears gathered in her eyes. She couldn’t fight against his words. Why was she even fighting at all? She’d known this would happen before she left Texas.
Because it’s Matias.
The same Matias who chained her to a post and caned her. And he could do it again if she continued to push his patience.
She blinked, and the tears knocked free, trickling down her temples.
His shoulders lowered between her legs, his hands spreading her thighs wide and baring her cunt for his gaze. But he didn’t look down, instead holding her gaze for a long, uncomfortable moment. Then his focus drifted to the tracks of her tears.
His expression clouded with an emotion she’d never seen there, not once in the countless times he’d witnessed her cry as a child. Was it guilt? Pity?
Whatever it was softened his features and wrinkled his brow, giving him a brooding, contemplative visage. It only added to his exotic beauty, the stubble on his face dark and dangerous against a complexion that glowed like bronze in the sun. His allure was so intoxicating it was painful to look at him.
“Don’t pity me, Matias.” She rolled her shoulders against the mattress, stretched her fingers to grip the bottom edge of the wooden headboard, and forced her gaze to his. “It’s the wrong feeling for what’s happening here.”
The muscles in his face tightened, all softness gone. “Pity is not what I’m feeling right now.”
He dipped his head between her legs and inhaled deeply. His fingers clamped tighter around the backs of her thighs as he smelled her, dragged his nose through her folds, then buried his mouth.
She arched her back, stunned by the assault of sensations. It took several seconds for her lower body to rouse, but when it did, her pussy throbbed hard and greedily, soaking her with a rush of arousal.
He moaned against her cunt, his tongue strong and firm as it lapped and swirled and dipped inside.
Shame coiled in her belly, and a whimper escaped her lips. This wasn’t supposed to feel good. It was wrong, sick, fucked up in the worst way possible.
His eyes stayed on her, his kiss aggressive, frantic, and so damn sexual. Then his fingers joined in, stabbing, curling, and stealing her air. His muscled shoulders contracted with his frenzied movements, pressing against the backs of her legs as he bit and sucked her delicate flesh.
Each lick was a rasping whisper, liquefying everything in its path as it penetrated deep, coaxing and seducing the dark cravings inside her. She didn’t want this. She didn’t. Yet her entire body hummed with pleasure. It had never been this good. Ever. Not when he was younger, not with anyone, and she despised him most of all for that.