“I…What are…?” I start, but something tickles the back of my neck, scratches the mark there. It makes my breath catch.

I swallow, my throat dry, a croaking sound coming when I try to speak and tell him to stop.

His hand slides down my side and over my thigh.

“What are you doing?” I ask, voice small as I look down at his big hand, the black glove working, fisting the fabric of the dress. “What are you doing?” I ask again, this time more forcefully. He hasn’t touched me more than he’s needed to since I’ve been here. What’s changed?

But it was only a matter of time, wasn’t it?

I just keep watching as my legs are exposed, my thighs, and I tug against the rope needing my arms to fight him when the fingers of that gloved hand brush against my clit.

“Oh god. Please don’t. Please.”

“No?”

I freeze. Even my tears seem to come to a halt.

He draws his arm around my middle and tugs me backward into his body with a jerk. He’s hard and warm and familiar, and my heart beats wildly as a thousand butterflies take wing inside my stomach.

I turn my head just a little, but he clucks his tongue, and I stop. I lick my lips.

“Santiago?”

Something cold and heavy drops over my head then, and I gasp, looking down at the rosary, the cross dangling between my breasts and over his arm, my feet off the floor as he takes my weight.

“Who else?”

I laugh. Almost. I mean, it’s the closest thing to a laugh. It sounds insane, and I feel fresh tears of relief. He’s come for me. He’s alive, and he’s come for me!

“Santiago! I was so scared.” I’m sobbing, trying to turn to him, but his arm is too tight, hurting me. I hear the tearing of fabric and feel the tugging of the dress at my neck before his other hand closes over my buttock and squeezes so hard that I cry out.

He rubs his chin against my face, his rough with scruff, mine unwashed and dirty and tearstained.

“Were you?” he asks.

I nod, my eyes wide in the darkness because this is not going as I expect. He’s not taking me down. He’s not wrapping me in his arms like he has before.

Of course he’s not.

He thinks I poisoned him. He thinks I tried to kill him.

“I didn’t—”

He lifts me a little higher, arm crushing my ribs which still feel bruised from when the other man took me. With his other hand on my butt, he pulls me open. And then I feel him, his hardness, and some part of me, some sick part of me wants this. Wants him.