His lips found my clit, sucking me, nibbling me. He licked there insistently with the hard, insistent press of his tongue, and I cried out softly and came in small shudders, feeling wetness spill from my sex into his mouth.

When I had come, I tried to move away, but he held me in place, leaving bruises in the soft inner flesh of my thighs as he held me open for more of his mouth. The curl of his tongue, the lightest touch of his teeth. My fingers ached from holding onto the counter, but I thrust my hips madly, wildly, until I came again and a tear ran down my cheek.

He released me then, but only to pull me over to the bed. He tossed me onto the sheets like I weighed nothing, like I was nothing, and I splayed there, waiting patiently for whatever he would do. He shrugged down his jeans, and even in the dark I admired his form. Now I could only see the lean lines of his silhouette but I knew from experience how his abs were marked by the muscles there, his hips sloping inward, his body beautifully formed.

He climbed over me, straddling my face with his knees. He liked it this way, I had learned. He liked the control it gave him, and maybe now I understood better why. I could do nothing but take the broad head and thick shaft into my mouth. He controlled the depth, the angle-everything. I couldn't even move my hands, my arms trapped tightly to my sides.

He pushed into me again and again, rocking and rocking, muttering about how fucking sexy I was, how he couldn't control himself around me, how he wanted to do everything to me, everything, everything and I would let him, wouldn't I?

"Wouldn't you?" he asked me, but my mouth was full of him, and I could only mumble a muffled answer, my tongue undulating futilely against the underside of his cock while I said yes, anything, everything.

"You trust me, don't you?" he asked. His eyes were black in the dark light, glittering down at me. He pulled out so just the tip was in my mouth and leaned down so that his mouth was closer to my ear.

"You trust me not to break you?" he whispered.

And it was ridiculous, of course, because I couldn't trust him at all. I knew that and so did he, but I nodded, rocking the hard, pulsing flesh in my mouth as I did so. He released a small amount of precum, salty and sharp on my tongue. The taste of it made my sex clench and liquefy, because we were in tune like that. Even when our mouths spoke lies and our hearts cried out, our bodies knew how to communicate with each other.

At my acquiescence, he reached back and pushed my hands to my sex.

"Touch yourself. Make yourself come."

I rubbed the same way he had rubbed me, fingers pressed against the hard nub and pushing, frantic.

He pushed back inside my mouth, deeper this time. Slow and steady but farther in. In fact, I hadn't realized how far he could really go-that he must have been holding back all this time. He hit some barrier, and I felt my eyes widen, panicking.

"Keep fucking yourself," he muttered, and my fingers sped up.

With a grunt, he pushed deeper, popping back into my throat, and I felt my eyes roll back. It stretched and pained me, but my sex throbbed with the entry, welcoming him. I kept rubbing my clit, and it felt almost like an orgasm but instead of a few short pulses, it seemed to climb even higher.

He reached down and covered my nose, pinching gently.

"We're going to do this," he whispered, though I wasn't sure who he was talking to.

Tears streamed from my eyes and fell down the sides of my face. He was blocking all my air, with his cock, with his fingers, but the weirdest part of all was that my fingers never stopped.

Everything grew hazy and dreamlike, like the whole world going out of focus except for the sharp and blinding pleasure of my sex. I might have screamed around his cock as I came, shuddering and begging and feeling more than I had ever thought possible.

I was reborn in that moment, burst into flames like a phoenix and floating in pieces to the ground. There was scorching pain and hope for a future unknown. I felt his cock pulse in my mouth, felt the seed flow down my throat, filling me up and keeping me warm-giving me sustenance to rise up from the ashes.

He released me, pulling his erect cock from my mouth and curving his body around mine as if to protect me, but from what? From him, came the answer deep inside me. Tears slipped down my cheeks-no longer mine. His.

"Your story," he said hoarsely. "The book got it wrong."

"What?" My tongue was heavy in my mouth, half-drugged on euphoria.

"It's an old Native American legend but the explorers who came through changed it to make the natives seem more barbaric."

I tensed. He had known the story all along? It made me wonder what else he'd kept quiet about. His breath puffed against my neck where his face was buried.

Dread filled me. "So what really happened?"

He murmured the words so rapidly. They washed over me like rushing water.

"She wasn't running away from being a sacrifice, she was going off to kill herself. That's the girl you identified with, that you saw as yourself. She was going away to die."

Pain clenched my heart. It didn't matter, some story that had been told and retold hundreds of years ago. It had nothing to do with me and yet everything. She'd had the courage to run away, and that had bolstered me to do the same on my birthday weeks ago.

The truth was she'd given up. Whatever had happened in her life had been too heavy, and she'd sought the end over a waterfall. It made me wonder if I should have done the same.

It made me wonder if I already had.

How did he even know this story? He'd claimed not to. Or had he? I asked if he knew it, and he'd asked why he would.

Not a denial.

He presented himself as a crude, cold trucker, and it wasn't that hard to believe. But sometimes, a certain light would shine in his eyes, something intelligent and burning bright, and I was convinced he was faking it. There was nothing to say a trucker couldn't also be cunning, but in those moments, I became convinced that he was dumbing himself down to play the part.

The bigger question was why. Why did he feel the need to live this life, to be this man? What invisible shackles were on his wrists and ankles?

I swallowed. "The rest of the story was the same?"

"Almost. There are some variations on the love story, but in every Native American version, the girl returns to her people. She conveys the message of the god, and so her people are saved."

Hot tears sprang to my eyes. "And the god is alone."

His arms tightened around me.

"Yes."

I couldn't breathe within his embrace, but I wanted it anyway. Too hot, too sweaty, but I wanted his heat. I was a caterpillar, my many limbs held tight to my body, wrapped up in a cocoon. He paved the way, eased me from a small and ugly life to a beautiful one. The transition had been painful at times, but never more than it would be to leave him. But that was the path of a butterfly-to fly away from the one who had made her.

Chapter Twelve.

Only three people are known to have lived going over the falls without a safety device.

After a time, Hunter moved off me. I woke staring up at the knotted oak ceiling of the basement. Anger welled up in me, making my breath come shorter. Hunter sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, head hanging low.

"You bastard," I said, breathing hard.

I hit him, right there, the back of my hand against the hard muscle of his arm, and again-my hands clenched in fists, pummeling the impenetrable shield of his body.

He let me.

He never moved to defend himself, barely moved at all except on impact from each small blow. I let loose my rage, expecting a storm and found only a light rain. I fell still, my breath heaving as I knelt on the bed.

"You're angry."

My laugh was caustic. "Damn right, I'm angry. You could have killed me."

"I wouldn't have."

"Just like you wouldn't hurt your friends, you wouldn't ever hurt a woman," I said sarcastically. "You're so fucking full of virtue that I can't even breathe."

I stared at the golden skin of his back, his arms-completely unblemished. He wasn't hurt by my blows, but maybe my words could wield more damage.

"Who hurt you?"

His shoulders tensed.

"Who bent you over and fucked you in the ass?"

"You shouldn't talk like that." His voice was deceptively mild.

"Oh, you don't like it when I use bad words, is that it? You like me innocent and compliant, right? Is that how you were when someone shoved their...their cock in your asshole? Did it hurt?"

"Yeah."

I blinked, surprised he had answered me. "How did he do it?"

"They. How did they get the jump on me and hold me down? That's what you want to know?"

No, not really. It sounded horrible, even if I had cause to hate him. I would never wish that on anyone, not even Hunter. Especially Hunter.

"How?" I whispered, some demon inside me, some spirit who knew he needed to tell me.

He shrugged slightly, a lift of one muscular shoulder. "It's not that hard when a man isn't expecting it, when he's caught unaware and alone. When there's no one to help him. They were experienced, and I wasn't as tough then. I didn't need to be."

A deep breath. "Did no one hear you?"

He looked back, his gaze hard. "I didn't scream, Evie. I prayed."

I closed my eyes against the turmoil in his gaze but that only gave canvas to the horrible picture of his words. Hunter on his knees, Hunter held down, Hunter praying...for help, for mercy? It didn't matter. It made me want to throw up.

"Besides," he said as casually as if he were speaking about the weather. "It isn't muscles that make you strong. It's how much you want it. Those guys at the diner? I won that fight because they didn't want it as badly as I did. They didn't want you as bad as I do."

"Why?" I asked evenly. "Am I some sort of revenge against the world? Or we're all animals so who cares anyway?"

"Doesn't matter how it started. I'm not letting you go."

"But you said...in the kitchen...not much longer. You said so."

He paused, at war with himself. "You want this as much as I do."

My breath left me for a minute.

"You're delusional," I forced out. "You're telling yourself that so you feel better about what you're doing."

"Who the hell else are you going to let touch you now?" he burst out. "Even before I got to you, you were so damn tied up in knots that I can't believe you actually drove all the way out there. Now I've..."

Broken me. I remembered his question from earlier. Did I trust him not to break me? But he believed he already had. He believed I would never fight back, and maybe he was right to think so. Even if I'd had a good reason not to fight in the beginning, when I'd thought he might truly hurt me, why not now?

Strangely, I realized that he wouldn't really harm me. He'd physically restrain me from getting away, but he wouldn't kill me for trying. So what was stopping me? Unless I really did like this. Not fighting had become a choice now. If he'd ever stolen my free will, it had surfaced completely now. If I wanted to get away from him, I could.

How much did I want my freedom?

Enough to fight a man I'd come to care about? Enough to break my promise to him not to flee in exchange for the places he showed me? As wonderful as these weeks had been, I was still his prisoner. I'd been given toys for my cage, been taken on walks to sniff around, but in the end I was put away at night on the mattress in his truck where he used me for his pleasure-and for mine.

Carefully, I scooted down in the bed and rolled over, pulling the sheet up over me. After a minute, I felt the bedsprings shift.

"That's it?" he said, and I knew I'd surprised him.

It wasn't hard to sound tired. "We can talk about it tomorrow."

He chuckled softly. "Are you shutting me out like we're an old married couple? Should I go sleep on the couch?"

I ignored him, snuggling deeper against the pillow and tugging the sheet up to my chin.

He muttered something I couldn't understand. The bed dipped, and then I heard his steady footfalls creaking the wood across the floor. He reached the small bathroom where he'd grabbed me earlier-and gone down on me.

The door closed.

A squeak and shudder as the shower turned on.

He'd already taken a shower-we both had-but he'd seemed agitated. Just like he had at the diner when he'd left me inside. His past was his vulnerability, an Achilles heel on a body otherwise flush with armor. Even thinking about it, talking about it, made him need to be alone. He left me alone.

Last time I had made a run for it and it hadn't worked out, because the people were too afraid of Hunter and whatever retribution he might hold for them. Would James and Laura be scared of him too? No, they seemed completely unafraid, but that was because they didn't know what he'd done to me-what he was truly capable of. They had more to lose, considering Billy.

I didn't believe Hunter would take retribution on Billy or any of them. But it was a gamble and for once, the stakes weren't only my life.

It isn't muscles that make you strong. It's how much you want it.

I threw back the sheet and stood, glancing wildly around the room for something to knock him out...or lock him in. A couple of wooden dining room chairs were piled in the corner of the room. Out of place in a bedroom but most likely kept in the basement for storage. I hooked one under the doorknob, hoping he didn't hear the thump over the water, praying it would hold.

The shower kept running, so I tugged my dress over my head, covering my panties and tank top. My heartbeat thudded in my ears. Like before, there was a moment of doubt: was I doing the right thing? Maybe I could have reasoned with him. But like before, it was too late. I had crossed the Rubicon. I was committed.

I climbed the stairs and emerged in the darkened hallway. I crept into the living room, scanning the side tables for a phone to call the police. Nothing. Creeping along the walls, I moved toward the kitchen. Walking through the darkened doorway, I ran into a warm chest. My scream came out muffled.

"Hunter?" I breathed.