River laughed as she wiped the shine of sweat from her forehead. She and Yamien twirled and danced their feet off for long pulsating beautiful moments. And it actually worked!

Yosemite took notice of her almost instantly. He offered to dance with her the next few rounds and the squeal she gave was enough to make River beam.

There were camu rumberry crushed into juice served in a large clay bowl. Açai, maracuya and bacaba fruits were stashed in piles. Meats charred cooked in shreds were doled up in clay plates. Various exotic bear fruits also laid along with it.

The feast was huge and luxurious. People danced around, bathing in the warmth of the fire glow. It was truly one of the happening moments River found herself holding on to.

Piling her hair back on top to cool her neck, she noticed Chris furtively disappearing behind the main tent. Determined to find out what this idiot was up to, she traces his steps.

As she heads towards the back of the tent and saw thin greenery pastured lane. It was too dark to see within the passage but she couldn't help notice a movement inside. She was sure that had to be Chris.

She went in, her steps brushing against the crispy deadened leaves. She tried to keep her feet light to not startle anything that would jump at her.

When she reached the end of the lane, it was blocked by a thickened dome shaped wall covered with arrays of thick stocky vines and creepers yet no sign of Chris. How odd.

Where did he vanish to? The sides were covered with thick vegetation, nothing but shadows and a hush.

She turned back around to return to the village when she heard a distinctive rustle. Moving around the wall, she finally saw Chris at the other end of the dome.

He had his magnifying glass, inspecting the scribbles through the wild climbing hemp weeds. He was so engrossed that he didn't even notice her.

She quickly hid in the shadows before he sensed her presence. Standing behind the thick tree, she peered around to see what he was up to.

What was he doing? This looked like a place not allowed to be seen by foreigners like them. It rose like a warning. Maybe Chris was searching for the stone.

A warm breath then touched her neck from behind and her eyes fluttered close. The way poetics waxed about sex, that feeling raced in filling her lungs and expanding her chest.

Lips touching the same exact place she felt him inhale her.

"You smell of dark feminine musk. Almost like fire."

Good heavens, this man talks the talk and walks the walk. When she turned around to meet his stony gaze. They merged with the hot dark embers of their surroundings.

It was the type of dark you find yourself slip away into the depths of unconsciousness where you remain blissfully unaware as you sleep on your bed. The type that blocks the sun in a complete solar eclipse where it leaves the world in seconds of silent serenity.

Everything about him radiated of sex and sun. Despite his darkness, there were nascent rays emitted from him that illuminated her soul. From the strength of his body to the forestry smell of his skin.

"Kiss me, Yisrael." On impulse, her hands went to the brawny shoulders of his but she didn't pull him down.

No, she won't because she wanted him to come and meet her there. Her fingers tip toeing up his neck, she had to raise on to her toes.

He captured her hands in his one wrist. "Easy."

She manipulated using his hold by arching her back, making her breasts strain against her dress and she rubbed her thighs together, the wetness already meandering in between.

"Don't you want to know what's it's like?" She moaned.

The scent of her arousal hit him hard. He bent down over her, their breaths hitting each other in seductive combination but he didn't touch her lips. There was that one miserable space that was withdrawn between their two mouths.

And it was coquettish manipulation on both ends.

No one wanted to give in. It was heightening the heat, in the haze of smoke the acute common senses dimmed away and only primitive needs were left.

"Your tongue will stroke mine like how you stroke my pussy lips."

His hold on her wrist tightened like a snake constricts his coil around his prey and just when it exhales, the reptile will prevent its exhalation soon meeting the prey's end.

"Your lips devouring mine and you know I won't let you breathe."

His arm comes around her, yanking her body to his. The inch of space still remaining like a stubborn mule.

"You are doing this purposely. Hot and cold. Hot and cold." The snarl that wafted over her made her lips tremble.

"But you get off on it."

He growled back. "You tease me because it's gets you off."

"I tease you to make this exciting. We go after things that is denied to us."

"So you want to delay my satisfaction. Delay your surrender to me." He wanted to conquer her in every way possible but it seemed now she had been holding the cards.

She lifts her knee up, wrapping it around his hip. Like cat, she climbed him up.

Knowing well, he wouldn't drop her.

As she raised to his height, she pressed her breasts into his neck. "It's a sure sign of enslavement."

"I'm not the one begging."

With a sexy lift of her brow, she lowers her head and licks a slick line over his plump lips before he could rear back.

Pulling back to see his expression, she gives a nasty smirk, tasting him on her tongue. "Aren't you?"

Suddenly Yisrael feels the world going upside down.

All the games they played, the orchestrating of the back and forth movement between hope and frustration, the bait with the promise of reward hidden in the murky manipulation proved to be elusive.

She had been playing him. All the damn time.

This was how she was wired. She kept her victims in thrall, waiting. No wonder she seemed so self sufficient at times. Everything about her was languorous and sensual.

Watching him finally understand how she worked, River plopped down. Yanking her hands away, she slants her eyes at him like a rogue.

Like Ovid said, she who would long retain her power must use her lover ill.

All of River's life she had seen giving in doesn't solve anything. Her mother gave in to her dad's charms and see where they were now. Hurting each other with bouts of anger and hatred. They didn't let each other go because her mother didn't dare let her father get away with what he had done and her father wouldn't come clean with his crime of affairs.

Cheating on her mother repeatedly and repeatedly while she had waited for him in bed.

The hard cold truth hit her that once she had made his bed warm, he forgot her.

Her mother, Elaine had never been an easy woman so when Gunner Stone, her father chased her down till there was a ring on her finger and the vows were said out loud, did Eliane Stone give up her virginity to him.

That's when Gunner began to lose interest, her mother's value lost and that's when the affairs commenced.

She hadn't known at first but then the hints were becoming more obvious. The stain of female's perfume on his lapel, the rashes on his chest were lover's bites, the constant late nights and early morning returns.

Elaine started to shed. The love that still flowed for Gunner burned but now it was acidic. Yet she didn't ask for a divorce. No, she wouldn't let him get away so easy.

Her mother didn't have her own means to support and finance River's schooling so she made it a point to stick with him and squander all his money.

Child support and alimony was sweet spots too but to make her husband's life a living hell as she stuck by him was masochistic. It was actually stupid, if one thinks about it but who knows what goes on in a woman's mind when her heart has been scorned.

They do things which don't make sense. They were vindictive and even if it means to rot away with that same person, they would do it. Because? There was no reason.

It was plain bland retribution.

River took a lot from her parent's marriage. That's why she moved away so as to never depend on anyone. She didn't go to college because she refused to take money from her father.

Instead she made her own money, ate food she bought, slept on her own paid bed from her being a guide.

Like all, she didn't get her mother's reason for staying with her dad even till now. She knew her mother had said she kept up with her father because for her, to give her proper education and make her life comfortable.

And she gets all that but honestly, no comfort was promised. Her mother lost in her own venom for her dad, her dad lost into his own self, there was no loop for them to get out even if it was stark clear.

The only she thing she remembered was what her mom told her: never give in.

The ultimate seduction is to never offer total satisfaction. It was a risk because there was no end for her. She would never meet the end of the game because she broke away right in the middle.

Just like now, as she moved around the shocked tall man.

"You will never reach the finish line with me, Yisrael."

Except when she was about to walk away, she was pulled back and tossed onto his shoulders.

"You see that's where you are wrong, River. You forget one thing. I'm the only man who will take you to the end."