by Pam Godwin
Her heart burst into a gallop, and she darted into the room, swallowing down a month’s worth of stress and tears.
Don’t cry. Don’t fall apart.
Matias closed the door behind her and sounded the dead bolt.
Her attention turned to Tiago, and her entire world filled with his harsh, imposing presence.
“Kate.”
That deep, rich, dark timbre resonated in her soul. She felt his voice, really felt it, and in that moment, she experienced the truest form of freedom.
She had choices, endless choices and paths, and she picked him, willingly, freely.
Sitting on the floor with his hands shackled between his back and the wall, he watched her with an intensity that sucked the air from the room. The weight of his abrasive gaze ground against her, rubbing and heating her everywhere, his silence thick and penetrating, sinking inside her and pulling her toward him.
“What if I told you I tried to let you go?” He licked his lips. “Would you believe me?”
She shook her head, more in confusion than in answer. “Did you try to let me go?”
“Fuck no.” He laughed, a cruel, humorless sound. “Never, Kate. Not even in death.”
The tears she tried to keep in check rose, blurring her vision as she lowered to her knees beside him.
“I have so many questions. Things to tell you.” She dumped the supplies on the floor and fumbled with the key. “I don’t know where to start.”
“Start with getting me out of these fucking restraints.” He shifted, giving her access to his arms. “I need you. Christ, I just need to feel you.”
She twisted the key into the metal cuffs, and the instant they fell off, he dragged her onto his lap and captured her mouth with his.
The contact burned flames of hunger and energy around them, powering through her in billows of panting breaths.
Their tongues swept together, connecting, releasing, and chasing in frenzied lashes. Hands sailed everywhere, exploring and reacquainting with every muscle, scar, and curve of bone.
How strange and wonderful to feel his beard scratching her face. To feel his hands on her body. To taste his dark, minty essence on her tongue.
He was actually here.
Alive.
Growling.
Biting.
Mine.
When they came up for air, their gazes clung, neither of them blinking or speaking. There was so much to say, but she wanted to bask in the moment, let it settle through her, and commit every glorious detail to memory.
She sketched a thumb along the puckered, lifted scars that curved from his eye to the side of his skull. Her touch lowered to his beard, scraping through the thick, wiry black hairs.
Questions bubbled up, spooling and unraveling in her throat, but what came out first were the most important words she’d ever spoken.
“I love you.”
“What?” He stopped breathing, his expression stark and unbelieving.
“I love you.”
His eyes closed, and his head tipped back, as if the impact of her confession was too much.
“I love you, Tiago Badell.”
He pulled in a broken breath. Relief melted across his face, and his shoulders and back lost strength and tension.
No lover had ever given him those words. It was perhaps the one thing he’d always wanted and never thought he could have.
When his eyes found hers again, he opened his demanding mouth, but no sound came out. It seemed she’d stolen his voice.
Straddling his lap, she gathered the water, towels, and antiseptic. Then she cleaned his wounds, starting with the cuts on his face.
She glided the towel across his wide shoulders, down the lines of his strong neck, and around the deep cut of muscles that sculpted his chest.
His weight loss was most evident in the flat terrain of his abdomen. Fewer ridges lined his lower stomach, and his hipbones protruded from his narrow waist, sharper than normal beneath the waistband of his briefs.
But the strength of him wasn’t defined by bone and muscle. His power circulated behind his eyes and charged through his voice. She’d never come in contact with a more overbearing, viciously beautiful man.
Running a clean towel over every inch of his torso, she mourned the raised bumps of new scars. Some etched into the skin on his chest. Others lanced down his side and leg. Most would’ve required stitches. All of them hurt her heart.
As she examined him, he did the same with her, his hands caressing and probing, his breaths growing deeper, faster.
“You were injured in the explosion.” She traced the slash on his ribs.
“Just cuts. You made it out unharmed?”
“A few bumps and bruises and a sprained ankle. No scars.”
“I’m so fucking sorry, Kate. I failed—”
“What happened?” She searched his warm brown eyes. “One second, you were carrying me. Then you were gone. I didn’t want to leave you, Tiago, but you were no where. It killed me.”
“You got out. That’s all that matters. And no thanks to me. I was knocked unconscious, unable to protect you.” His jaw clenched. “I came to, buried under concrete.” He gestured at the scar along his side. “When I couldn’t find you and Cole, I knew he had you. You were safe. It made it easier to focus on saving my own ass.”
“What about Arturo?”
His eyes shuddered. “He didn’t make it.”
“Fuck. I’m so sorry.”
“Me, too.” He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.
“Cole said your names were on the deceased list.”
“How the fuck did he get that list?” His dark eyebrows formed an angry V.
“I don’t know.”
“Jesus, Kate. I didn’t want you to think I was dead.”
“I didn’t. I decided you were alive, because I couldn’t… I couldn’t accept anything else.”
He tangled a hand in her hair and brought her forehead to his lips. “I called in a favor to the President of Venezuela, had him put my name on that list before he released it to the authorities. It’s not public information, but my enemies will get their hands on it, if they haven’t already. As far as the U.S. government is concerned, I’m officially dead.”
“They won’t hunt you anymore?”
“No active searching, but I still have to lay low. Change my identity. That’s if Restrepo ever allows me to leave this cell.”
She flinched. “He’s not going to keep you locked up!”
A rueful smile pulled at his mouth. “I know the location of his headquarters. No one walks away with that information.”
She would see about that. “How did you find me?”
“There was no question who Cole placed you with. Problem was I didn’t know where the fuck this place was. Took me a couple of weeks to narrow the location down to this section of the Amazon rain forest. I spent the next two weeks living in the surrounding jungle, tracking activity and listening for traffic.”
“That’s why you lost weight.” She gripped his jaw through the beard, soaking in his dark features and beautiful brown eyes. “You look like a Latino Viking.”
A feral growl vibrated in his chest. “I need you.”
“I love you.” She trailed a path of kisses across his cheek.
“Say it again.” His hips lifted, rocking his rigid length between her legs.
“I love you.”
“I want you.” He wrapped his arms around her and ground her body against his lap.
“Take me.”
“I’ll never stop.”
In the next breath, she was on her back, trapped beneath the hard concrete floor and his even harder body.
An addictive, burning desire inflamed her senses, and she writhed beneath him, desperate for his touch, his kiss, his heavy cock.
He didn’t waste time, his fingers fumbling with the fly on her shorts. He stripped her from waist to feet, came down on top of her, and shoved up her shirt and bra, baring her breasts.
His gaze made a greedy sweep across her chest, and a devious grin tugged at the corner of his mouth.
“You kept the piercings.” His eyes returned to hers.
“You told me not to remove them.” She gripped one between her finger and thumb. “Is it true? Did you give up your entire syndicate for these stones?”
“No, Kate. I gave up everything for you.”
Guilt pinched her stomach. “I was such a bitch when you gave me the piercings. I didn’t know what it meant.”
His lips crashed down on hers, hard and demanding. She arched against him, yearning for more contact, needing him closer.
Jolts of electricity shot through her as his assertive tongue swept in and out, doing wicked things in her mouth. Every nerve in her body electrified, and she moaned, grinding against the steel bar of his cock.
She ran her fingers down his strong, smooth back, pulling him closer, and her gaze landed on a black lens in the ceiling. “There’s a camera.”
“Let them watch.” He reached between them, his hand brushing her pussy as he shoved down the front of his briefs. “Thank you for believing in us.”
She could only nod. If he didn’t fuck her soon, she might start crying again.
He met her eyes and pushed slowly, achingly inside her body.
Blissful sensations rippled through her, stealing her breath and scrambling her brain. Her skin heated. Her nipples hardened painfully, a throb that intensified as he drove faster, harder inside her.
They held each other as close as possible, touching everything at once. She swirled her tongue around his earlobe, inhaling his sinful, masculine scent. He turned his head and took her mouth, devouring, possessing, staking his claim.
“I’m yours.” She met every thrust, surrendered every kiss.
“Say it again.”
“I’m yours.” She twitched, fighting the flood of stimulation, and started to come. “I love you.”
He fell with her, groaning her name, jerking his hips, his heavy body shaking with the force of his climax.
As he caught his breath, he rolled to his back, taking her with him.
“That was too fast.” His cock pulsed inside her. “Need to do it again.”
“We will. But first, I need to get you out of here.” With great reluctance, she pushed off him and dragged on her clothes. “Where’s Boones?”
“I sent him home.” He straightened his briefs and sat up. “Why?”
“Do you have a fake passport?”
“Several.” He narrowed his eyes. “Start talking, Kate.”
“Well…” She lifted a shoulder. “I have a plane ticket to go see him. I’m going to buy a second seat and have Matias arrange us transportation out of here.”
She strode to the door and knocked.
“You don’t know where Boones is.” He was on his feet with an arm locked across her waist before she could blink.
“I narrowed it down to a small country.” She angled her neck back and whispered in his ear, “Eritrea.”
“How?” His eyes widened.
“It was the only way I knew how to find you.” She twisted in his hold and lifted on toes to kiss his beard. “Desperation makes a woman dangerous.”
The door opened.
He flicked his gaze over her shoulder and returned to her face. “Hurry back to me.”
“Always.”
CHAPTER 34
One month later, Tiago leaned against a pillar at the entrance of a fish market in a small Eritrean village. His gaze hungrily tracked the beautiful blonde as she picked her way through stalls of fruits, vegetables, spices, chickens, and bric-a-brac.
The sunlight caught the white-gold strands of her hair as she gripped Boones’ arm and spoke animatedly about something she’d found on the vendor’s table.
Tiago’s pulse hammered, and he scanned the crowd, probing faces and clothing, searching for threats.
She wanted freedom and demanded to take these outings without him.
He was trying to give her that, even if it went against every instinct.
They’d settled in a small fishing village on the Red Sea, several hundred miles from where his family was murdered. Didn’t mean his enemies couldn’t find him. He could live anywhere, and danger would follow.
But he let her have her shopping trips, her walks alone, and her quality time with Boones and his brothers. Kind of. He always followed at a distance. Always watching. He couldn’t stop.
Some people simply couldn’t change.
He would always tie her up, fuck her, cut her, and control her every move. And she would always fight him, challenge him, and fill his lungs with air.
Thank fucking God, because he couldn’t breathe without her.
Thirty feet away, she stopped talking and went still. He slipped into the shadows as she turned her neck and searched the crowds behind her.
After a few sweeps, her huge blue eyes homed in on his location. Shrouded in darkness, he was certain she couldn’t see him.
She bit her lip, said something to Boones, and strode directly toward his hiding spot.
His entire body tightened in anticipation.
A brightly-colored flowery sundress clung to her flawless, slender physique, and her pale complexion glowed beneath the Eritrean sun.
Africa looked fucking stunning on her.
A few steps away, she shook her head and fisted her hands on her hips.
“You.” She cocked her sexy head. “Need a hobby.”
“I have one.”
“Stalking isn’t a hobby.”
“I call it guarding.”
“You’re a control freak.”
“Control enthusiast.” He clutched her neck and dragged her to him. “I want to fuck your ass.”
“Of course, you do.” Her sassy mouth curved into a grin. “You enjoyed it too much last time.”
“So did you.” He laced his fingers through hers and steered her in the direction of their home.
“You’re a terrible influence.” She couldn’t contain her smile.
Hand in hand, they strolled toward the beach and followed the coastline. Slipping off their sandals, they let the waves lick at their feet as they walked.
“I love it here.” She lifted her face to the cloudless sky and sighed.
“I love you.”
She was his whole, his entire being, more himself than he was. If she ceased to exist, he would be a stranger, no longer part of this world.
She was his constant, his evermore, not just in the physical sense. She was the inexplainable something that made up his soul.
The two-mile stroll along the Red Sea brought them to an isolated beach house tucked away in a thick copse of foliage.
Boones and his brothers lived in the center of the village, with all the conveniences of the local shopping and transportation.
Tiago had installed heavy security in both places, relying on technology instead of the presence of armed men. Maybe none of it was needed, but he would never risk their lives. Never let his guard down. Never again.
He no longer had the protection of his syndicate or its allies in Caracas. Nor did he have the income from that business. But he’d saved a great deal of money over the years, enough to never need to work again.
She wanted to learn how to heal people and talked about pursuing a degree in medicine. Boones was beside himself when she asked for his guidance.
When they left Colombia, she told her friends it wasn’t a goodbye. She fully intended to return as a doctor, and Tiago would be with her.
He would take her wherever she wanted to go, as long as she never left his sight. If she could deal with his possessive, overprotective inclinations, he would handle everything else.
“What do you want for dinner?” He opened the door to their two-bedroom bungalow and followed her inside.
“Whatever you’re making.”
A few hours later, he made an Eritrean traditional stew served with flatbread and a paste made from
lentil and faba beans.
After dinner, they lay side by side on a blanket on the beach behind their house. The moon was bright in the sky, the tequila smooth as water, and the woman beside him more beautiful than the majestic landscape that stretched out around him.
“You’re always in my mind, Tiago.” She stretched out on her back and smiled up at the stars. “Perhaps not always a happy thought. Sometimes I’m plotting your demise. But you’re always there, always a part of me.” She turned her neck and looked at him. “Is that weird?”
“No.” He rolled toward her and slid the hem of the dress up her thighs. “I want to live in your mind, your heart, and—”
“Don’t say it.”
“—your cunt.”
“You said it.” She laughed.
“I meant it.”
“I know.” She drew in a breath and ran a hand across his shaved jaw. “Nothing’s ever felt more real than this. It scares me sometimes.”
“Surrender to it.” He gathered the dress above her waist, and the sight of her bare pussy made him painfully hard. “Open your legs.”
She let her knees fall open and looked at him with all the trust in the world. He deserved none of it, but he would spend the rest of his life making sure she never regretted her gift.
Removing the finger blade from his pocket, he fit it onto his finger.
She swallowed. Her eyes glistened. Then she lifted her chin and smiled.
Sweet surrender.
He made small shallow cuts that wouldn’t scar, and between each nick, he kissed her cunt until she came.
As the tide rolled in and warm water gathered beneath them, they fused together in a slow dance of seduction and heavy breaths. She stroked his cock. He made love to her mouth. She sucked him off, and he cut her again.
Perspiration slicked their skin, easing the glide of their bodies, the slip of hands, and the drive of his thrusts as they licked and fucked and bled together.
Some might consider their love dark and disturbing, but he thought of it as spiritual, unearthly, and wickedly filthy.
Despite all their fights and trials and mistakes, they never lost their sense of selves.
In the end, she saw something in him no one else had been able to see.