Page 158 of Love Me in the Dark

But it wasn’t the jungle keeping me awake.

It was him.

Lying just feet away, that mountain of a man, glowing with sweat and semen in the dying light of the fire, radiated heat and something more dangerous than body warmth—power.Raw, unchecked, absolute power. He could’ve done anything to me. Still could.

And he knew it.

I stared at him for hours, watching the rise and fall of his bare chest, flinching every time he stirred or grunted in his sleep. My wrists burned from the rope. My mind spun in circles, fear and arousal tangling so tight I couldn’t tell one from the other anymore.

What would he do if I slept?

Touch me?

Take me?

Kill me?

I didn’t want to find out.

So I didn’t sleep.

Not a single goddamn second.

At some point, my body gave up.

I didn’t mean to sleep, just meant to rest my eyes. But the next thing I knew, I was floating, my head against soft moss, the night sounds quieted to a hum. And he was there.

Brute.

But not as he was in the cave.

In the dream, he was clean. His hair, still long, fell loose like silk down his bare chest. His eyes glowed in the dark, and he moved toward me slowly, reverently, like I was some sacred offering he couldn’t wait to desecrate.

He didn’t tie me up this time.

He knelt between my thighs and kissed the inside of my knees. Licked the sweat from my belly. His fingers brushed over my nipples and made me gasp. Gasp loud enough I startled myself awake.

My wrists ached.

My chest rose and fell in quick, shallow bursts.

And my thighs…

Wet.

I was fucking soaked.

I lay there, horrified and humiliated, pressing my legs together to stifle the heat still burning between them. I turned my head. He was still sleeping, unmoving, his body bathed in early morning shadows.

But even asleep, he looked like heknew.

And I hated the part of me that hoped he did.

While he left for the day, I stayed in the cool cave. I felt safer than out in the open in an African jungle. Every time I stepped out past his camp, I saw a reason to stay inside, like a giant fluorescent bug or weird, scary reptile.

When the savage returned, he escorted me outside to relieve myself. I was starting to think he had some weird fetish of listening to me pee, when a poisonous-looking snake slithered right over my polished red toenails. I screamed bloody murder. Brute caught it with his bare hands, conked its head with a rock.

I thanked him profusely. Maybe the big guy just knew how dangerous the jungle was.