Captured by You

by Amber Hart

  Raven moans, head falling back against my chest. I slide two fingers into her, moving slowly at first.

  All around us, the waterfall rushes; it’s the only noise I can hear besides Raven’s moans. And suddenly I need to see Raven up close. I edge in front of her.

  “Come with me,” I whisper.

  Raven follows as I lead her to a rocky ledge that has just the right amount of visibility. I hop out of the water for a moment and run over to my pants, which I’d laid on a rock. I return with a crinkle of a wrapper. Raven looks down at the condom and smiles. The water reaches my thighs. I lift Raven onto the ledge and fit myself between her—Raven mostly out of the water, and me still in it—before feeling for Raven’s feet beneath the dark surface. With my palms wrapped around her ankles, I guide her legs up until her feet are resting on the flat rock as well.

  This leaves Raven’s legs open, bent at the knees, feet planted solidly. She is completely exposed to me. My heart races as I look at her. I don’t worry that anyone else will see. I’m too busy staring at my girl.

  “Raven,” I rasp, as I crush my lips to her mouth.

  My hands are everywhere. Along her spine, over her stomach, squeezing her thighs. I drag my lips down her neck, feeling her swallow as I roll one of her nipples between my fingertips. I tug, and Raven begins to squirm. I tug harder, and Raven bites my lips.

  “Yes,” I say into her mouth.

  Raven pulls me completely against her. She’s wet, grinding her hips slowly. And then she reaches down and takes me into her hands. Smoothly, she teases a thumb over the tip of me. I groan. I feel her touch all the way down my shaft and back up again.

  “Do you like it?” she says, all sexy.

  “I don’t know, Raven,” I reply, dipping two fingers into her. “Do you?”

  Her voice loses its teasing edge, replaced by a throaty whisper. “Yes.”

  And then Raven pushes my fingers aside and rubs the tip of me against her instead.

  “How about this?” she says, and licks her lips. “Do you like this, Jospin?”

  I love her sly smile. There is a wicked promise in the curve of her lips. I love her boldness. She takes charge and looks me in the eyes and knows that she’s driving me crazy.

  “Yes, Raven,” I answer honestly.

  Raven continues to move me against her. She doesn’t want me inside, not yet. And it’s killing me, the zinging pleasure. I want to bury myself in her, but first I’m going to let her finish what she started.

  Raven moves faster, and I cup her breasts. My lips press harder into hers. Slickness coats the tip of me, glistening when I look down. I almost can’t take it. The need to feel her all around me is heavy, but I hold back. Raven is close; I can tell by the way she starts whispering my name.

  “Look at me,” I say.

  I want her eyes open.

  Raven bites her bottom lip and opens her eyes. She glances down to where I am hard for her, and she whimpers. I watch too, the way she moves the tip of me against her, lips open, swollen and ready. Her legs begin to tremble and her breathing deepens. She pauses to move me down to her entrance, where she is the wettest, then back up again. She strokes me as she circles herself.

  “So fucking sexy,” I say, my stare dipping back down to where she controls us.

  “Come for me, Raven,” I say, gripping her hips.

  I kiss her hard. I can feel the throbbing between Raven’s legs as she says my name. She rocks and rocks and rocks against me.

  I grab the condom and fit it on seconds before I sink into her. Raven tightens around me, still lost in the aftereffects of her orgasm as I press all the way in. I wrap my arms around her, bearing her weight.

  My hands toy with the base of her hair, along her neck, as I move slowly in her. I want to spend hours with Raven. I wish we had the time. I relish the quiver of her soft skin against mine. Raven lowers her teeth to my neck and nips. Her nails scrape at the muscles of my shoulders as I move faster.

  “Oh, God,” she says.

  Raven and I create the perfect rhythm, her hips thrusting up and mine pressing deeply. Her gaze travels down to where we are connected and then back up to my face. I like when she watches us. I love the look on her face, what I do to her.

  “More,” she breathes.

  Our rhythm turns into a fierce heat. Raven’s words descend into deep moans. Her legs abandon the rock and wrap around me. There is no space between us. There should never be any space between us.

  I fist my fingers into her hair, continuing to work my lips over every bit of her flesh. I kiss her neck, her lips, her breasts. Raven lifts her hips higher and moves with me. Propelled by her moans and her lips and body moving with mine, I thrust inside her. With Raven lifted off the rock, I hit the perfect sensitive spot that makes her crazy.

  “Raven, yes.”

  Pressure explodes into pleasure as Raven and I come together. She continues to move with me until every bit of us is sated, until we’re breathing heavily.

  “Incredible,” I say. “You are so incredible.”

  —

  We leave the pool and spend almost an hour lying on the forest floor, drowsy and peaceful. And then our time is up. I have no idea where Clovis is, but I know he’s close. He wouldn’t leave Raven here alone. But I don’t want to let her go, so I try again to get her to leave the compound, though I know it’s probably futile.

  “Please run with me, Raven,” I say. “We can leave now, tonight. I’ll take care of you.”

  Raven smiles and smoothes hair out of her face. “We’ve been over this.”

  “Let’s go over it again,” I say. “You don’t have much more time. Just come with me.”

  She shakes her head, a small refusal. “I can’t. But I will meet you here in another week, on my next day away from the compound.”

  “You know I’ll meet you, of course. And I want you to know I’m proud of you, Raven,” I say. “I only wish I could protect you there.”

  “Clovis protects me,” she replies.

  “Clovis shouldn’t be the one protecting you.”

  “He’s right,” comes Clovis’s voice. He steps out of the shadows. “I cannot protect you forever, Raven. Mr. Tondjii is growing more impatient with you. We need to find what evidence we can.”

  Then, so softly that I almost don’t hear him, Clovis murmurs, “And then we need to get out of there.”

  Chapter 29

  Raven

  “Stop hitting me so hard!” I yell, frustrated.

  “I’m sorry,” Clovis says, but he’s not sorry at all. “Did you think that fighting would feel good?”

  This is how we’re spending the day. Heat seeping into my skin. Flies and mosquitoes and so much humidity.

  “No,” I reply. “But if you don’t ease up, you’ll leave bruises.”

  Clovis charges me again. I send an elbow into his stomach, careful to avoid his arm, though it’s recently healed.

  “You’re not really trying,” Clovis says.

  He pins my arms behind my back, sparing the scarred one no mercy. I struggle to get free. He stands there as if this is easy, boring, tedious for him.

  We are not alone; Mr. Tondjii’s watchman is somewhere in the trees. Luckily, learning to fight is a normal activity for pack members—it looks like I’m just trying to fit in, be one of them.

  “Let me go,” I say.

  “Nope,” Clovis replies. “How about you make me?”

  “Stop taunting me.”

  I struggle more.

  “Seriously,” I say, feeling a creeping numbness. He’s cutting off the blood flow to my arms. “What the hell, Clovis?”

  “Seriously, Raven, you’d be dead by now,” he says. “Right now you have several ways to injure me. Think.”

  “I can’t think! You’re hurting me.”

  I try to head-butt him, but he dodges it.

  “Good, very good.” But he still doesn’t release me. “What else?”

  Another option: my legs.


  I bring a foot up and kick his kneecap. He drops my hands and curses.

  “Excellent,” he says, rubbing his knee. “I knew you could do it.”

  I massage my arms. Watch as color flows back into the white his fingers left behind. My injured arm hurts much more than the other one. No sympathy, Clovis has taught me.

  “You’re a jerk,” I say, stretching my arm.

  “A jerk who will save your life,” he says.

  I’m only half mad. “What next?” I ask.

  Clovis glances around the trees. “Next you will stand here and count to ten with your eyes closed. When you open them, I’ll be gone. Your job is to stop me from capturing you.”

  “Where will you be?” I ask.

  He laughs. “That’s the whole point, Raven. You cannot know where I’ll be at all times. You cannot know your enemy’s every move.”

  “Fine,” I agree.

  I count to ten. Let my thoughts drift to Jospin. His rough hands. His soft lips. His—

  Something slams into me from behind. I fall to the ground and try to roll over. Clovis is on top of me. Pinning my arms to the dirt.

  “I hadn’t opened my eyes yet!” I say.

  “You had ten seconds,” Clovis says, and jumps off me. “Try harder.”

  It’s frustrating that I’ll never be as good at this as he is.

  I stand and close my eyes. This time when I get to ten, my eyes are open and I spin around, looking for him in the trees. He comes from behind. Yanks my hair so hard that my eyes water.

  I reach back for his arm.

  “You can afford to lose hair, Raven,” he says. “Don’t worry about your hair. Worry about how you can get away.”

  I count to ten again. This time I see him coming. I punch him in the face, send a knee into his groin, but he catches it and yanks my leg up so hard that I fall. My leg cramps. Tears prick at my eyes.

  “One second,” I say, waiting for the cramp to ease.

  Clovis hands me water. “You’re doing terribly.”

  “Thanks for the encouragement.” The water is refreshing.

  “You’re going to die in a second if you fight like this,” he says.

  “I always wondered what my future would be like,” I reply sarcastically.

  I stand. Make a show of closing my eyes and counting to ten loudly. When I open my eyes, Clovis is gone, an enemy in the trees.

  I listen to the forest and it gives me a clue. A sound to the right. I wait for it. He’ll charge me quick and fast. Only he doesn’t. He waits. Something is wrong. I turn to the right.

  And that’s when he crashes into me from the left. Pins my arms to my sides.

  I sigh. Beaten again.

  “Shall we?” I say, ready to go. I am determined to beat him at least once.

  I count to ten. Open my eyes and let everything else fade. I hear something behind me. I spin there. To the right. Spin there. To the left. Spin there.

  He’s messing with me. Making me do what he wants. This time, I don’t.

  I don’t turn when I hear him coming up—not until the very last second, when he is breaths from me. Then I turn around. Swipe his legs out from under him and jump on top of him as he falls to the ground. In one quick motion, I retrieve my knife and press it against his neck. He makes a move to get out from under me.

  A drop of blood is left on the blade.

  “You’re dead,” I say. Smug, because I did it.

  There’s a look in Clovis’s eyes. Like appreciation and admiration. His stare travels to my lips.

  “You’re so gorgeous,” he whispers.

  “What?” My hand trembles.

  Quickly, he flips me over, and suddenly it’s Clovis who has the knife pressed against my throat.

  “Now you’re dead,” he says.

  “You distracted me!”

  “Yes,” he agrees. “And it worked.”

  Clovis’s stare lingers a moment longer, and then he eases off me. I get up and once again count to ten. This time when I see him coming, I knee him in the side and uppercut him in the chin so hard his teeth rattle. My knife presses lightly on the soft part between his ribs.

  “You’re dead,” I say firmly.

  Clovis smiles. “You, Raven, just saved your own life.”

  My anger is coupled with appreciation for his distraction technique, for the way he keeps me on my toes.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  I’m alive and at the compound because Clovis has protected me. Clovis says I’ve saved my own life, but it’s only because he saved it first.

  Chapter 30

  Jospin

  I work feverishly at piecing together the message left behind by Raven’s father. When I get to the middle and realize that the words remaining do not work to complete the letter, I have to start all over again. This wouldn’t be so bad if it hadn’t already happened three times. I hit the desk in frustration.

  “What do you want her to know?” I yell in my tribe dialect to an empty room. “What is so important here?”

  It’s been another week of cleaning the sanctuary. Another week of talking mindlessly to volunteer workers who think I’m here to help the animals. Chopping food and bringing water and listening to the constant whoops.

  The habitat workers think poachers are monsters, but they’re wrong. A monster wouldn’t go through years of training to learn how to kill an ape quickly and cleanly. Poachers are given no credit. They don’t torture the animals. They don’t cage them. They find them in their own element and make it as painless as possible. One minute the gorillas are free, and the next they are dead. The gorillas don’t even know what happened. Of course, there are always the exceptions to the rule, apes that realize at the last second what’s happening—see the ambush—and try to run. Occasionally they get away with a wound. But it is never a poacher’s intention to torture the gorillas—only to kill, clean, and sell.

  The habitat will never see things that way. Perhaps if they spent some time on the other side, in the role of a poacher, they would understand what I mean. It is useless to explain, though. They will hear no such thing. And they weren’t raised the way I was. Killing gorillas is all I know.

  It’s noble of them; I’ll give them that. I simply don’t see the point. As long as there are gorillas, there will be poachers ready to kill. Habitat workers dedicate their lives to a problem that they believe they can rectify. But men like my father have always run this jungle.

  While I’m thinking of Father, I get my first break. I rearrange a sentence, take words from one, add to another. Something is shifting. I work harder, determined to finally have something to give to Raven.

  I think about what it must be like for her there. She told me she’s sleeping in Clovis’s room. I never thought I’d be glad to hear that, but his room is the safest place for her. The men in the pack are dangerous. But if I know Clovis, he’ll lock the door. He’ll guard Raven’s life with his own. Somehow Raven’s father is the reason for this.

  And I think that I know why. Clovis’s father is an evil man. A brilliant poacher, but a horrible human. That makes him perfect for the role of Father’s closest adviser. Like Father, he is ruthless and money-hungry. He will kill easily and have no remorse. He is a great asset to Father. But he is not good to his children. I can see how Clovis would become attached to a father-like figure who seemed to care what Clovis was doing, who wanted him to stop poaching.

  I continue word combinations as my mind races with thoughts of Raven, Clovis, and the pack I used to belong to. I glance at the clock in Ransom’s study—a few minutes past midnight.

  When the words blur into one another, I decide to take a break. I set down the pencil, stand, and pace the room. That’s when I think of something. I start trying the edges of the carpet to see if any of it lifts. Maybe the evidence is stored underneath. But the carpet doesn’t budge.

  Where could it be?

  I knock softly on the walls, careful not to wake the others, looking for a hollow spot. It’s
all solid concrete. I glance around the room. I see a desk that I’ve checked a hundred times. I see a clean floor—finally—but it’s no use, because the evidence isn’t there. I look at the bookcases. The bottoms are several inches thick. I bend down to each one and knock on the surfaces. These too are solid. I double-check the table with the microscope, but that’s clear. The small table with the lamp is too thin to hold anything, but I check the underside just in case. I go through every drawer in the chest. There’s nothing.

  I sit back down at the desk and try the words some more. I’m close. I can feel it.

  Turns out, I’m right. It takes me exactly twenty minutes to finally unscramble the message. I lean back in Ransom’s chair, rereading the letter.

  Raven,

  By now you understand what is happening in this jungle. I miss you. I’m sorry you had to be involved. I’m sorry I’m not there beside you. If your eyes are on this message, I can only hope that Clovis has found you. I knew fighting this fight could result in my death. But it was worth it for the gorillas. They are friends. They are family. Sometimes, when you truly believe in something, you give your life to it. And sometimes, people take your life because of it. Though it seems like there is a difference, there is not, because if your heart is in it, you will have already decided that your life belongs to this cause, no matter what. So, Raven, does it seem worth it to you too? I’m smiling as I write this, because I think the answer must be yes. You are in Africa, after all. Going through my things. Here’s your mission, Raven. Take down the poaching empire and stop the killing of the gorillas. Clovis will help you. Beware of Jean, head of the poaching empire, and his son, Jospin. Beware also of Clovis’s pack mate Mattius and his father, Simon. All of them. I have stored the evidence you need where time stands still. Be well, Raven. I am proud of you.

  —Dad

  I did it. The letter isn’t long, but it holds the answer to where the evidence is stored. Problem is, I have no idea where time stands still. Time. What is associated with time? I go through the possibilities. A watch, a clock, an hourglass. I glance at the clock on the wall. Quickly, I climb the bookshelf to reach it. But when I snatch it off the wall, I find nothing behind it. Though it’s small, I open the battery compartment. Nothing there either. I rustle through drawers again, looking for anything connected to time.