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are the only two people in this house who aren’t high as a kite.” His breath fanned her lips as he spoke. He let
     that sink in for a moment. “If you want to keep them out there—” He nodded toward the door. “—and away from you, then you
     need to strip and get into this bed.”
    He was serious.
    This was really happening. He was giving her a choice of sorts. Him. Or them.
    Her mind raced beneath his unflinching stare. She could suffer him or deal with an unruly gang of men. She scanned him and
     her stomach knotted at his immense size. He could break her. And then she thought of the rest of them—rough and foul, with
     eyes that lit up when they hurt her. Her cheek still throbbed where that one had slapped her.
    Another raucous shout went up from outside the room followed by the sound of glass breaking. She flinched and darted another
     glance to the door.
    “That’s right,” he confirmed, his deep voice steady and guttural. She felt it like a touch. “They’re not the most civilized
     boys. I had to tell them you’re mine just to keep them off you.”
    Her gaze flew to his face. Lifting her chin, she hoped she looked a lot tougher than she felt. Inside she was shaking . . .
     screaming. “I’m not yours. I’m not property.”
    He waved a hand around the room. “Here, that’s exactly what you are. This isn’t your world anymore, princess, and if you hope
     to survive, you need to play by my rules and do exactly what I say.”
    She exhaled slowly, turning his words over in her head. He meant to . . . help her. Could he mean that? “And that involves
     me getting naked?”
    He lifted one big shoulder in a shrug. “You can keep your underwear on. If they come in here, they won’t notice that under
     the covers.”
    “How generous,” she muttered.
    He looked at her blankly. “It is.”
    Turning away, he tucked his knife back in the pocket of his jeans. She breathed a little easier with that out of sight. “So
     just to confirm, you don’t plan to . . . touch me?” She couldn’t bring herself to say rape. As though putting a name to it
     would make it a possibility.
    One corner of his mouth lifted in a smile that did nothing to soften his expression. If anything it made him look more sinister.
     “You’re not my type.”
    “Rape isn’t about that.” This time she had no problem busting out with the word. She’d visited with women’s victims groups.
     She’d heard their stories. She could see their faces in her mind right now . . . their ravaged eyes.
    He sobered again, staring at her as though seeing her for the first time . . . and seeing something else, too. Something distant,
     visible only to him. “You’re right,” he agreed. “It’s not. I don’t get my rocks off breaking people weaker than I am. You’ll
     just have to trust me.”
    Trust him? Was he kidding?
    She stared at him. He looked back at her, his expression one of seeming patience.
    She exhaled. “You just dabble in kidnapping, then?”
    “I wasn’t in on this.”
    “But your friends took me,” she shot back. “I’m here because of them. And you’re telling me to get naked. That kinda makes
     you complicit.”
    He chuckled. Reaching behind him, he grabbed the back of his collar and pulled his shirt over his head in one smooth motion.
     “Complicit.” He shook his head. “College girls.”
    She could hardly process his words because his chest was all she could see. Broad, tan, and muscled, with ink crawling over
     one shoulder and bicep. It was an athlete’s body. Or the kind of body you’d see in a Calvin Klein ad. She had never seen a
     man’s body like this up close and personal before.
    His hands landed at the waistband of his jeans and her gaze flew away, determined not to watch. Heat crept up her neck to
     her face, burning her cheeks. She heard his jeans drop.
    The bed dipped under his weight, and she sucked in a sharp breath and scrambled to the edge of the mattress, still