“Yes…” she moaned.
Oh, god, she was soaking wet. He was eating her up, sucking down everything she gave him. And still, he seemed hungry for more. These foreign sensations he gave her made her feel powerful and sexy and right. She started rolling her hips with every brush of his tongue, pushing toward him, forcing him to tongue her harder as she silently begged for more. He could make her come. He could give her everything she’d secretly craved. And she would thank him because she’d never felt more free.
So close. As he rubbed her clit with his tongue, worrying the perfect spot over and over, she fisted as much of his hair in her hands as she could. Her eyes were going to cross. She held her breath. Soon—in seconds—she was going to scream his name. She was going to find that bliss everyone talked about and shout her pleasure from the heavens.
Suddenly, he gripped her hips, caging her against the wall and stilling her movements. Her brain blanked and readjusted. Memories catapulted her to a different place. Pleasure vanished.
No love. No affection. Just chains and pain and heartache.
Fat bitch. Stay where you are. They were always telling her how ugly she was. How she wasn’t worth the food they gave her. How some day they would just slit her throat and leave her to the dogs.
She could hear the sound of that hand coming for her. They slapped at her stomach because the skin was thin there. They caned her feet so she couldn’t walk, much less run, for days.
“Lea! Lea, baby, stop!”
She couldn’t. They would kill her, rape her. They told her she was nothing. A piece of trash. Worthless. And they would annihilate everything inside they hadn’t yet destroyed.
A stupid princess without her own family. She was cursed and useless, and it would be better if she’d died.
The worst part was, those words were her own. It was her own voice in her head, in her sleep…when she considered how much easier it would have been if she’d rotted in that jungle.
“Lea!”
Strong arms caged her, and Alea fought harder. She kicked out, determined to get away. They wouldn’t take her this time. She refused to let that happen. No way was she going back to hell. She would rather die. She heard a long, tortured scream, then realized it was her own. She refused to go quietly. Never. She would make them kill her before she’d go back into a cage.
“Please, baby. I won’t touch you again. Please come back to me. Please.”
“What the f**k is going on here?” A deep voice cut through everything.
Authority dripped from that voice. Authority decided how she was punished, how and where she would hurt that particular day. Authority meted out “justice” swiftly.
“Fuck you!” Alea shouted. She was done. They could kill her, but she wouldn’t go meekly. They wouldn’t shove that needle in her arm and make her compliant again. They wouldn’t make her crave the drug that made her kidnappers’ job easy.
Not again. Not again. Please not again.
“Alea!” That voice was insistent, pulling at her. “Alea, you’re in Bezakistan. You’re safe. You’re here. No one is going to hurt you.”
Strong arms shook her, forcing her to open her eyes.
Dane? When had Dane come to South America? Had he come for her? He couldn’t see her this weak and pathetic. She tried to push at him, but he was a massive brick wall. “Go away.”
He refused to budge.
Tears ran down her face as she thrashed violently for freedom.
A sharp shock hit her skin, and the fleshy part of her ass flared with a stinging heat, forcing her into the present.
Then reality hit her harder than any smack to her ass.
She was in the palace, and she wasn’t alone. She was surrounded by all three of them. Cooper was on his butt on the floor, staring up at her, guilt carved into his face. Lan had a hand on Coop’s shirt as though he’d pulled his friend back. And Dane stood in front of her, his gorgeous face stern and tormented as he stared down at her. His blue eyes were steady as he braced his big hands on her shoulders, seemingly ready to shake her back into reality. He was the one who had slapped at her ass, jarring her long enough to return to the present.
And suddenly, Alea realized that she was naked in every sense of the word. “Get out of here!”
None of them moved.
What had she been thinking? What the hell had she been doing? A sob formed in the back of her throat. She couldn’t handle this. Panic was still there, rolling in the pit of her stomach. Those memories were so close to the surface, she could smell the dank sheets and hear the cries of the women around her. She shoved out at Dane, but he was a tower of pure muscle.
He didn’t even register her pitiful attempts at freedom. “Calm down, Princess. Do you know where you are?”