“A clear conscience, perhaps?” I frown up at him. “Knowing that you freed me from slavery. Isn’t that reward enough?”
 
 He tilts his head to the side and laughs. “Nah, that's not enough.” The hand around my neck tightens until I’m sure he’s about to kill me. “How about you choke on my dick?”
 
 My nostrils flare as I try to suppress my panic. “No deal.”
 
 “Fine.” His dark eyes stare right through me. “Do you think your new husband would inflict pain and then offer pleasure to intensify it?” André continues in a thick cadence, unaware of how it scares me.
 
 A fear born from this unnatural craving I have for him. I squirm, conjuring my demons to help me from this nightmare, helplessly butting into the solid wall of tattooed muscle.
 
 “Can’t you just do the right thing? Please?”
 
 “Sure, I can.” The way he nudges my chin a bit higher gives him more authority. He’s so tall, the sheer height of him intimidating. “If you wrap your lips around my dick, then I’ll carry you off this boat and take you home myself.”
 
 “Don’t do this.” I swallow hard, too aware of his red-hot touch like a blazing noose. “I won’t fall to my knees for you.”
 
 “Fine. Don’t kneel then. It feels better this way.” He unhands my neck, only to shove his long fingers into my hair, so close to my skull that the roots burn.
 
 Before I know it, he’s manhandling me onto the quilt and pushing me flat on my back, perpendicular to the edge. My head hangs off slightly, turning the room upside down.
 
 When I catch his eyes, they fail to capture the pale glow from outside. They’re wholly black and rimmed with a gleam of ice white. A viciousness flashes in his obscure irises, the bottomless depths a hint of what's to come and how fighting against it would be a losing battle.
 
 No one rushes in to rescue me when I scream. Even Pup has put blinders on, having opted to ignore the beast unbuckling his belt and securing my wrists with it.
 
 I kick, thrash, and plead with him to let me go, but he overpowers me at every turn.
 
 “Think of this as fulfilling your debt to me for removing Acer from the picture.” He tightens the belt, making my clenched fists useless.
 
 “How do I know you’re not just doing this for fun, that you won’t still leave me here afterward?”
 
 “Oh, this is for fun.” The waspish sound of his zipper opening catches my full attention. “If you suck me off like the dirty girl you really are, I promise I’ll help you.”
 
 “And what’s your promise worth to me?”
 
 He cranes his neck to the side before lowering his jeans and boxer briefs to shackle his ankles. Strong muscular legs widen a fraction as he positions himself over the top of my face, the threat of him so close. I blink at the sight of his thick dick. It’s far bigger than Liam’s and appears rock hard as if it were chiseled from stone.
 
 “Freeing you from Acer is me having your back, Sin. It’s done. Now pay up.”
 
 It’s only now, when he lowers the soft, satiny tip to my lips, that I realize I’m about to make a shameful deal with the devil. I’m bargaining with one criminal to free me from another. Except this particular monster has the power to ruin me from within. Because he’s not the boy I once loved with my silly schoolgirl heart.
 
 All this man craves is supremacy, and this evening I’m the victim he’s chosen to rule over.
 
 My heart soars with the unrighteousness of his deviant request. This isn’t the path I would willingly choose, but it's the only fork in the road that’s visible to me.
 
 “Open up.” His spine bows and his hands are flattened at either side of my waist. The vertical magnitude of him suffocates any trace of light, and if I’m not mistaken, the deep tone of his husky voice is strained.
 
 “Promise me…” I say in a mindless hurry as he takes the opportunity to thrust his hips with brute force and spear my mouth halfway.
 
 “Fuck…” he hisses out the word. “I promise you won’t marry Acer.” And just as he spits out the declaration, he rises, slides his big hands under my head, and drives his dick the whole way into my throat.
 
 It's that basic act of brutally cradling my nape with such raw power that reaffirms who’s in charge. Yet somehow, beyond reasonable rationalization, I’m turned on. Which only gets worse after he snarls, “That’s it, Sin. Take it like a dirty fucking bitch.”
 
 Unflattering choking noises follow the gag reflexes that make my head bob involuntarily. I’m completely at his mercy, jaw lax to allow the intrusion, liquid humiliation flowing from my eyes as he punishes my mouth for whatever reason he deems necessary. I inhale through my nose in staggered intervals at every chance, aware of the strings of saliva leaking from the corners of my stretched lips.
 
 “Take every inch of it. I want to see my cum all over your beautiful pale skin.” He continues to fuck my face, his balls slamming into my eyes and nose as he picks up speed.
 
 While he’s vulnerable, I could clamp my jaw shut and inflict the worst possible pain, but where would that get me? Strangled and dumped in the ocean, never to be seen again.
 
 As if sensing the manic thoughts in my mind, he withdraws, roughly slots his hands under my armpits, drags me off the bed, and positions me before him. My knees dig into the plush carpet, my bound wrists fixed at my pelvis.