“Easy or hard, honey?”
Laila couldn’t remember why he was asking that question. All she could focus on was the molasses slide of his fingers over her most nerve-rich spot and the destructive pleasure he was undoing her with. “Trees…”
“Still trying to get away with not answering me? Maybe I can give you a little incentive to speak.”
He withdrew his hand. Without his touch, she felt aching and shaking and desperate almost immediately. Then he settled his hand above her mound. Even through her underwear, the heat of his palm enveloped her. Laila tried to restrain her shudder, but it was no use. Her body was hardwired to his. Her head told her to resist, but the rest of her wanted to beg him to lay her down and fill her with every one of his hard, veiny inches.
She hadn’t even begun processing the destructive arousal when the hand above her sex swept down, striking her with a short, sharp smack.
The blow against her most female flesh stung. Burned. Reverberated through her entire body. Shock replaced desire for a suspended moment. Then need boomeranged back twice as strong, roaring to hungry life. She couldn’t stop a trembling cry from slipping out.
Trees slid his hand back inside her panties. “Oh, so you like your pussy spanked?”
She shouldn’t. Laila knew that. She pressed her lips together and shook her head, refusing to validate his effect on her. He already knew it. “No.”
“You just keep lying to me. Bad, bad girl…” He strummed her clit again. Then again. Not stopping until her eyes slid shut and another moan, this one loud, escaped.
“You cannot…” Her attempt to scold him ended in a breathy exhalation that almost sounded like begging.
“Touch you? Oh, honey, I can. Anytime I want. Anywhere I want. Any way I want. This? You?” He cupped her pussy again. “All mine—until I say otherwise.” He punctuated his edict by plunging a pair of fingers inside her and thrusting deep. As she mewled with sensation, his thumb slid over her sensitive bud again. Laila felt herself melting against him as his lips blazed a path across her shoulder and up her neck, then back to settle against her ear. “Did your pussy sting when I slapped it?”
She didn’t dare answer.
“It did, didn’t it? And you loved it.”
Trees wasn’t the gentle lover he’d been when she had last been in his bed. This man made her tremble and fear that she would yield her free will to him for pleasure. Laila shook her head stubbornly, terrified to give him that power over her body.
But it didn’t matter. He removed his hand from her panties again, then popped her slick, swollen flesh through the silky fabric with a quick swat of his fingers.
The sensations were even stronger. Her knees nearly gave out. She couldn’t stop a warbled, desperate cry from filling the air.
“Your body is being honest,” he taunted. “Let’s see if we can get your mouth there.”
Without warning, he started grinding the heel of his palm over the puffy, sensitive pad of her sex, manipulating her clit in the process. The heat, the friction, the dark hunger of his touch… Laila didn’t know how much longer she could fight Trees and the screaming climax he seemed determined to force on her. And if she gave in, what would he do next? How would she ever convince him that she felt nothing for him? That she belonged to Victor?
“Your whole body is trembling. With need. For me.” He slid his fingers beneath the elastic of her underwear again and dragged his rough fingers over her clit. “You’re getting close to orgasm, aren’t you?”
Laila did her best to hold out, panting her way through a rise of pleasure that was lighting up her body and setting her skin on fire.
“Aren’t you?” He spanked her pussy again, this time even harder than the last.
Another strangled, shuddering cry slipped out against her will. She dug her nails into his arms and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to focus on holding back her peak, on not giving him the satisfaction of knowing that he could manipulate her body to respond to him so utterly and so easily.
“Come on. I want your fucking honesty,” he growled as he skimmed her bare sex again, his big fingers circling her nub once more. “Are you about to come?”
Yes. She ground her teeth together. Stubbornly, she shook her head.
“If you don’t want this, stop me. I taught you the word. You know it. All you have to do is say red.”
He would stop—everything. She might not know this aggressive, confrontational Trees, but she believed he would honor that safe word.
Laila couldn’t bring herself to say it. It was wrong and it was weak, but she needed his touch too much to make him stop. “Shut up.”
“Bad girls don’t get orgasms. They do without.” He ripped his hand free from her underwear again and landed three hard, rapid spanks on her pussy.
The air left her lungs. Her whole body jolted. Pleasure disintegrated her resistance. Her legs collapsed beneath her, leaving her no choice but to give herself over to Trees. Her head lolled back against him, her breaths hot, hard blades cutting through her chest as she went up in flames.
Climax was right there…
Then suddenly, his hands were gone.
Her eyes fluttered open. Disoriented, she blinked and tried to take a steadying breath. Her nipples felt beyond engorged. Her sex throbbed in relentless need. Laila didn’t want him to stop. But she didn’t want to let him go.
She was terrified.
Laila whirled on him with a frown, shocked when she caught sight of a syringe in his hand. Her eyes went wide. She tried to step back.
He held firm.
“What are you doing?” Her voice shook.
“You picked the hard way, honey. I gave you chances to be honest and you chose to lie. So I’m making sure you can’t run. Your sister wants you close, not in Mexico where you’re not safe. It’s time you stopped playing dangerous games with dangerous people. And I want you in my fucking bed, all to myself.”
Her eyes widened, and a protest formed on her lips, but he’d already pressed the needle into her neck. Seconds later, her world went black.
* * *