After dropping her clothes in the washer, she turned the corner and wandered to her room, heading straight for the bed. She could take off her bra and panties and don the huge T-shirt she’d bought in town. But that seemed like a lot of effort since she probably wouldn’t be able to sleep.

  When she was two steps from the bed of rumpled white sheets and colorful blankets, the door closed behind her with an irrefutable click. Laila whirled at the unexpected sound. She froze when she saw a face she hadn’t expected in her bedroom.

  “Trees,” she gasped.

  “Laila.” His frigid smile looked anything but happy as he prowled toward her.

  Her heart pounded. Instinct told her to back away. “What are you doing here?”

  “Did you think you’d seen the last of me?” His stare raked her up and down. His smile turned even more arctic.

  Laila swallowed. “We have nothing to say. Get out. You are not welcome.”

  “You don’t want to talk to me? Fine. But I’m not leaving without you.”

  He meant to take her with him?

  She scanned the room for an escape, but Trees had her trapped. Other than the window along the far wall, she had no way out of the condo since he’d blocked the door.

  Laila knew better than to believe she could run past him.

  “No. I have chosen to stay here.”

  “Alone?”

  He was asking her about Victor. “That is none of your business.”

  “Oh, you’re wrong. Everything about you is my business. So, we can do this the easy way. You can pack your things and come along obediently. We’ll board a plane and I’ll take you back to Louisiana. You can visit your sister and your nephew, show them that you’re okay. And then you’ll deal with me.”

  Fear surged through Laila. She was even more afraid to ask him what would happen if she chose the hard way. “I cannot go back. I would put too many people at risk.”

  “You will go,” he contradicted, teeth bared. “Or I’ll restrain you right now, transport you back to Louisiana, and toss you into my dungeon for some…corrective discipline. I won’t let you go until I’m convinced you’re done playing dangerous games with drug lords and cartels. What’s it going to be?”

  Corrective discipline? Laila thought about all the equipment—restraints, paddles, whips, floggers, and other things she couldn’t identify—in his dungeon. She shivered.

  But she’d be lying if she said she didn’t feel a disconcerting thrill, too.

  She studied Trees’s face. Those green eyes that used to gaze at her with warmth, that had reassured her as he’d searched her soul to see past her hurts and find the trembling girl underneath? They were glacial now. Raw and cutting. He looked terrifyingly eager to unleash his worst on her. He was so large, so powerful, so determined.

  “Trees…” she pleaded.

  His expression only turned chillier. “Whimpering won’t work anymore, Laila. How do you want this to go, easy or hard? You have ten seconds to decide.”

  Let herself be led like a lamb to slaughter or fight him with her last breath?

  Even five minutes ago, Laila would have sworn she would take any opportunity to throw herself in Trees’s protective arms and burrow her way to warmth and love in his embrace. But now? She saw nothing but terrifying wrath on his face.

  She slid her nervous gaze around the room again, this time in search of a way to protect herself.

  Her stare fastened on the guns she had swiped from his dungeon. She pounced for them, nearly knocking them to the ground in her trembling haste.

  Trees was right behind her, one massive arm wrapping tight to crush her. With his free hand, he ripped the weapons from her grip and swept them to the floor. “You want to kill me?”

  “I want to defend myself,” she panted out.

  With his chest pressed to her back, his mirthless laugh shook her body. A shudder went down her spine. “By killing me. But I guess since your lover didn’t manage the job, you thought you’d do it for him? Will he fuck you extra hard and raw as a reward for that?”

  “Do not do this,” she pleaded.

  “You did this, honey.”

  The sweet endearment that had once flowed off his tongue was now bitter. She quivered and held in a ridiculous urge to cry. Trees no longer loved her. He didn’t even care, not that she was surprised. She’d known that was the likely outcome. But maybe if she explained, it would defuse some of his fury. “I did not leave your house with Victor because I wanted to.”

  His fingers bit into her arms. His lips slid against her ear. Her heart rate surged—and it had nothing to do with fear. How could she burn for a man who hated her?

  “Since you walked out the front door with him, I’m calling bullshit. But I’m not here for details about your torrid fuckfest with Victor.”

  “You do not understand. I—”

  “Stop. You open your mouth, and lies come out. I don’t want to fucking hear them anymore. Easy or hard, Laila? You tell me how it’s going to be.” He sucked in a hissing breath as he pressed his erection against her backside. “I fucking hope you choose the hard way. My palm is itching. I want you strapped to my table, under my thumb, utterly helpless and unable to stop me until you learn to be a good girl.”

  Nothing about that should turn her on, but everything did. Even fear gave her desire an edge she didn’t understand. Her heart revved harder. She swallowed to moisten her suddenly dry mouth. Her nipples felt hard enough to cut glass. Her womb clenched. She got unbearably wet.

  “No,” she said more to herself than to him.

  “No?” The hand clamped around her waist lifted, caressing up her arm. Then his palm engulfed her breast. His thumb flicked the engorged tip.

  Laila sucked in a shocked breath of pleasure, then bit her lip to hold in a moan. “Stop.”

  He didn’t. “Your nipple is hard, Laila. Why is that?”

  “I am cold.”

  “You weren’t cold two minutes ago.”

  She hadn’t been, and he was too astute not to know. “I am now.”

  “You know what I think?” He nipped her lobe with his teeth, sending another wave of sensation crashing through her. “I think you’re lying. I think you’re aroused as fuck.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. I think you’re wet for me, too.”

  Laila pressed her lips together. If she denied it, he would only slide his big fingers into her panties and prove she’d been dishonest. If she admitted it…then what? Would he toss her on the bed, strip her bare, and make her scream with ecstasy? Or would he laugh and ignore her?

  She remained mute.

  His growl in her ear sounded low, grating, and not remotely amused. “Nothing to say, little one?”

  “Let me go.”

  “Oh, that’s never happening, not unless I’m good and ready. You’re going to learn to stop lying, misdirecting, and obfuscating with me—and we’re going to start now. Are you wet?”

  Something in his voice warned against lying. He wouldn’t physically hurt her, but there would be consequences if she wasn’t honest. She felt too emotionally naked, too vulnerable to relinquish the truth. If he knew how much he aroused her, he would use it to his advantage.

  “It is none of your business.”

  “Tsk, tsk,” he murmured in her ear. “You just keep digging yourself a deeper hole. I’m starting to think you want me to punish you.”

  “I want you to leave me alone.”

  “If you did, you wouldn’t be so”—his hand slid down her ribs, over her abdomen, and inside her panties—“wet. Oh, fuck, Laila. This pussy…”

  She tried to steel herself against the desire, but his fingers diving between her folds and trailing through her flowing juices had her gasping, her back arching, her hips writhing. Now that he knew how much she wanted him, there was no hiding. Despite the dread and need clashing in a dizzying thrill, she twisted away from him, pressing her thighs together in an attempt to evict his hand.

  “No.” Her protest sounded far more like a panting plea.

  “Yes.” He used his free hand to hoist one leg into the crook of his elbow and spread her wide open. His free hand curled over her mound. “This is mine. You’re mine. The sooner you realize it, the easier this will be.”

  The objection on the tip of her tongue dissipated to silence when his slick fingers grazed her clit. He’d primed her for his touch, and she was beyond sensitive. Tingles erupted, melding with the heat of his skin. The new sensation mowed down her resistance and sent her up on tiptoe with a cry.

  “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.

  Lafayette, Louisiana

  Laila woke groggy and disoriented. Her head felt fuzzy. How long had she been out? She had no idea. She wasn’t even sure where she was except in a moving vehicle with the sun beating through the windshield, blinding her sensitive eyes. Every one of her limbs seemed to weigh a thousand pounds.

  “You awake?”

  That voice…it was familiar. She’d heard it in her sweetest dreams. But it also haunted a nightmare that tugged at the edge of her consciousness.

  Instinctively, her heart beat faster. Her breaths came quicker.

  It took all her concentration and most of her strength, but she turned her head and found the man who stopped her heart. “Trees.”

  The last time she’d seen him, at her condo in Mexico… It all rushed back. “Where are you taking me?”

  “Right now? To Valeria. We landed in Louisiana about twenty minutes ago. She and Jorge are eager to see you.”

  Panic filled her. She tried to swim through the thick cotton wrapped around her thoughts and remember why she shouldn’t want to see her sister. It was like casting a line into a yawning abyss. “No. I cannot.”

  His face softened. “You’re worried about their safety.”

  “Yes.” That was it.

  “We aren’t being followed. I’m making sure of that. You’ll have an hour with them.”

  Then what?

  Laila’s mouth felt dry and sour. A result of the drug he had given her. She swallowed.

  As if Trees had read her thoughts, he handed her an unopened bottle of water. His other hand was curled around the wheel. The sunglasses perched on his nose, his head-to-toe black, not to mention his size, all made him intensely intimidating.

  She took the cool plastic, screwed off the cap, and downed a few sips. It helped, but she still didn’t feel like herself.

  Laila shifted in her seat, startled to see that he’d clothed her in a bright sundress and a sweater. Where had these clothes come from? Had he dressed her himself?

  That wasn’t all she noticed… Despite the fact she’d been out for hours, her sex still felt sensitive, swollen. Memories rushed sensations through her body, as if every nerve ending remembered the pleasure only he seemed capable of giving her.

  Again, he read her mind. “We should talk about what happened.”

  “No. You should return me to Mexico.”

  “That’s not happening. Is your pussy sore?”

  She closed her eyes, an unwanted thrill burning her skin. He knew the answer. He must. The way he’d growled the question… She heard the pulse of his excitement. Giving him the truth terrified her. It would make him more feral. More relentless. More possessive. It would embolden him to lay claim to her. Best to come at Trees sideways. “Is Geraldo Montilla dead?”

  He pressed his lips together. “We don’t know. My gut says no. Injured, yes. I know that because I shot the bastard myself. Now answer my question.”

  She didn’t. Her heart went to her throat. “You were involved in Kimber’s rescue?”

  “How did you know about that?”

  Carajo, she had said too much, so she gave him the one answer that might shut down conversation. “Victor.”

  Well, his phone had given her the information. It wasn’t a total lie.

  “Why weren’t you with him when I found you? Last we heard, Montilla sent his hitmen after Ramos at some motel—I guess that’s where you filmed him fucking you—but by the time they arrived, Ramos was gone. So were you.”