by Pam Godwin
He kissed her, and she lost herself in the thirsty strokes of his tongue, the heat of his breaths, and the promise of his hunger. She kissed the boy who haunted her and the man who filled her with dread. And somewhere between the shadows of her past and her future, she surrendered.
Whether he saw it on her face or felt it in her kiss, he knew, his eyes sparkling with flickering fire. His hands cupped her head, his fingers shaking and hips ramming as he groaned through labored breaths.
“Swear to God, Camila. I’m trying not to come.” He slammed his mouth against hers and devoured her lips with frenzied bites and licks. “I’m not stopping until you’re trembling around my cock.” He ground against her clit and hardened his voice. “Come with me.”
His command triggered a swell of electric heat between her legs. He captured her moan in his mouth, kissing her deeply, assertively, and undoing her completely.
She broke the kiss with a hoarse gasp as the orgasm rolled over her in pounding waves. He rode her through it and followed her off the edge with something akin to awe widening his eyes and slacking his mouth. Without releasing her from his gaze, he came with a rumbling groan that faded into breathlessness as he slowly dragged his cock in and out, drawing out his pleasure.
Remnant vibrations twitched and jerked between them, their breaths jagged, bodies damp with sweat, and his cock still inside her. Once her pulse returned to normal and her lungs caught up, he loosened the knots on her arms and kissed each wrist with heartbreaking affection.
His tenderness made her want impossible things. Happy endings didn’t exist in a cartel compound that housed slaves with sewn lips. She was here for them, not him, and he knew it. So why the devotion in his expression? Why bother giving her pleasure at all? Maybe he genuinely loved her. Or maybe he wanted to destroy her. Both options terrified the hell out of her.
She tensed to push him away, his weight suddenly too hot and heavy, but her liquid bones refused to move.
“Camila.” He studied her face for a moment then sighed, and pulled out of her.
He left the bed, but didn’t go far, disappearing into the bathroom and returning with a washcloth.
Numb and suspicious, she lay still while he gently cleaned between her legs. Then he tossed the towel on the floor, rolled her on her side, and curled around her possessively with his chest against her back.
Caring for her. Cuddling with her. Her chest tingled with warmth, longing for more.
It was too much. Too wrong. She wriggled and shoved. “Why are you doing this?”
He refused her the distance she needed, holding her against him with an arm hooked around her ribs and a leg wedged between her thighs.
“I’ve been deprived of your touch for twelve years.” He found her hand in the bedding, twined their fingers together, and kissed her shoulder. “Now that you’re finally here, I’ll deny myself nothing.”
“If I fight and tell you no, will you fuck me anyway? Would you have raped me tonight?”
“Yes.”
It wasn’t his answer that shot a violent tremor through her body. It was the way he delivered it—swift, cold, and with unwavering conviction.
“Shh. I know you’re scared.” He tucked her hands against her chest and massaged the blood back into her fingers.
“Because you’re a raping, slave-trading monster.”
“Yes, but once you fall in love with a monster, you no longer fear them.”
SUNLIGHT WARMED CAMILA’S LEGS through the bedsheets. She lifted her gaze toward the glass wall and squinted at the brilliant blue backdrop. Maybe Tate or one of the others was looking up at that very moment, beneath the very same sky, thinking of ways to find her. The likelihood that she’d never see them again made her heart sink, but determination charged through it, energizing her blood.
Except she couldn’t move. She could barely breathe in the solid arms that restrained her more effectively than chain or rope.
“When are we leaving this bed?” She pushed against Matias’ shoulder, fingers grazing the tattooed branches.
“Someday, never,” he said in a sleepy voice, pulling her impossibly closer, chest to chest.
He’d woken earlier and fucked her in the spooning position. She hadn’t told him no, hadn’t said a word when he’d roused her from sleep, rocked slowly into her from behind, and refused to come until she did. And she did come, with the same snarl of emotions as the first time.
But that was a couple of hours ago. Now he seemed content to do nothing but hold her. It felt almost…safe. Almost.
The dull pain pulsing deep beneath the welts on her thighs and butt helped her remember what he was capable of.
“Don’t you have henchmen to recruit and women to sell?” She lifted her gaze to his.
“You’re supposed to be a slave, not a slave driver.” His voice was stern, but the glimmer in his eyes betrayed his amusement.
She guessed her own expression wobbled somewhere between go to hell and oh well. Truth was, she preferred this…this mellow, amicable Matias. He reminded her of the boy she used to laze around and laugh with. If she kept him in a jovial mood, maybe he’d open up enough to talk to her. Civil conversation would be major progress after yesterday.
As her bladder twitched with pressure, an odd thought struck. “I haven’t seen you use the bathroom since I’ve been here.”
“I went while you were sleeping. Even brushed my teeth.” He touched his lips to her forehead. “Are you concerned about my bathroom habits?”
“No, it’s just…” With her arm resting along his ribs, she traced a finger across the bottom edge of his pectoral, which felt a whole lot like steel. “I guess…I don’t know. It’d be nice to see you do something human.”
“Look closer then.” He lifted her chin with a knuckle and gave her a good look at the hazel swirls of life in his eyes. “I feel pain and hope and fear, just like you.” He moved his hand from her face to hold up his wrist with the pockmarked scar. “To this day, I’m afraid of big black dogs. I take melatonin because I have trouble sleeping. I get indigestion when I eat too many empanadas.”
Her heart thudded and twisted.
“And I dreamt about this, Camila.” He touched her cheek oh-so delicately with the pads of his fingers. “I dreamt about waking up with you for as long as I can remember.”
That was… Wow. He was sharing, and she liked it. Liked it so much it made her uneasy and fluttery, her lips teetering on the verge of a weird smile.
With a ragged inhale, she lowered her gaze to the dense stubble on his jaw. “Remember when we sneaked into the faculty room at school and photocopied our faces?”
“That’s not the only thing we photocopied.”
“That was all you.” She jabbed a finger at his chest, fighting a grin. “You yanked your pants down and sat your butt cheeks on the glass top. My poor innocent eyes.”
“You looked?” He leaned back, eyebrows arched.
“Well, um…yeah.” It’d been her sixth grade year, so they’d been twelve and fourteen. She’d seen him nude as a child, but that day had been the first time she’d ogled him in all his postpubescent glory. “I don’t really remember.”
“You’re lying.” He bit her neck playfully. “You definitely remember.”
A full-blown smile stretched her cheeks as she recalled her shock. He’d looked like a man to her then. All that pubic hair—black like the hair on his head. And balls that hung low beneath a cock she’d fantasized about every night for the next three years. To think, he’d waited until she was fifteen before he let her touch him beneath his boxers.
She shrugged. “Too bad we didn’t save the evidence. When the Xerox machine spit out that grainy picture of your ass…Oh God, do you remember? I’ve never laughed so hard in my life.”
“Yeah, you peed your pants.” His shoulders shook with laughter.
“Down my legs and all over my flip-flops. I had to wear your gym shorts home.” She groaned. “I was so embarrassed you saw that.”
>
“Why?” His brow furrowed. “Did I say something—?”
“No, you were cool about it. You were always…” So tender and protective and perfect in every way. “You had my back.”
She sighed, holding on to the memory and her smile.
“This is what I missed more than anything else.” He trailed a finger across the curve of her lips. “You’re so goddamn beautiful, Camila, but when you smile, you light up the whole fucking world.”
Her lips fell beneath his finger, her chest tightening with the weight of the huge, indescribable thing between them. She couldn’t pretend this bond didn’t exist. It’d been there her entire life. Even through twelve years of separation, she never stopped sensing it, thinking about it, and now, it sang with his words and vibrated with his touch.
But it was also murky and distorted with ugly truths. He’d purchased her, beaten her against a post, and refused to talk about his job. He was a slave trader, yet he’d helped her dispose of the bodies of slave buyers. Because he cared about her? He was an infuriating contradiction. As much as she wanted to luxuriate in their reconnection, doing so would be a death sentence for the women he preyed on next.
She needed to be smart about it. Nurture the bond. Manipulate it. Keep her fucking heart focused on the reason she was here. Except she wasn’t a manipulative person. She was better than that, and at one time, he’d been a better person, too.
She lifted her hand and clutched his. Their fingers entwined, grasping and shooting tingles up her arm.
With a sudden shift that made her gasp, he yanked her up the bed and put them at eye level on their sides, fingers laced between them and his arm locked around her back.
“I know you felt it.” He searched her face, lips parted. “Last night when I was inside you, and now. You feel us.”
Her chest ached. She tried not to feel anything at all, gulping down her breaths to stay quiet.
“Just stop for a second.” He rested his forehead against hers. “Give yourself this, Camila. Let it happen.”
“I can’t.” She leaned her head away. “It’s like dangling a prize in a trap.”
She desperately wanted to reach for it, to hold him, knowing if she did he’d break her, painfully and irreparably.
“What’s the prize?” He watched her intently.
“Happiness without fear. Love without cruelty.” She closed her eyes, voice raw with honesty. “You without slavery.”
He let go of her fingers and smothered her against him in an embrace that buried her face in his neck. She wished she could see his expression, but his deep, steady breaths told her enough.
“You like my answer.” She matched the pace of his breaths as if she wasn’t trembling inside.
“Mm.”
“What is Mm? I don’t understand you. You seem to want this, us, but you also want your disgusting profession. You can’t have both, Matias. Don’t you get it? As long as you’re enslaving women, I will never stop fighting.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Then explain it.”
“Not yet.” He pressed his lips to the top of her head.
“Why not?”
“You need to see it for yourself.”
Fucking impossible. “I need to pee.” She squirmed against him.
He kissed along her hairline, his thumb stroking against her spine. With her nose against his throat, the warm scent of his skin overwhelmed her senses.
She told herself he smelled like rusted chains and broken dreams. “I really need to—”
“Go.” He lifted the weight of his arm with a sigh and rolled to his back. “Return to the bed, and I’ll tell you what happened in the west wing yesterday.”
Images surfaced of him covered in blood, a cane in his fist, and death in his eyes. The cuts on her legs twinged in memory, and she shivered so hard she bit the inside of her cheek.
She slipped from the bed and scanned the floor. Every inch of marble was spotless—his bloody clothes, the broken lamp, corset, and panties nowhere in sight.
Without anything to wear, she made her way toward the bathroom. As she walked along the glass wall that led to the balcony, she spotted another balcony jutting from a separate entrance in the curve of the building. After hiking through the compound, she had a sense of its enormity, but seeing all that exterior glass covering multiple floors and balconies, it reminded her of an extravagant hotel with a steel beam infrastructure.
A table sat on the other balcony, the same one that connected to his living room where she’d scarfed down sandwiches yesterday. Now it was covered with domed plates and pitchers of juice. Her stomach grumbled.
If someone had brought breakfast into the suite and cleaned the bedroom, they had access to come and go. Were the servants around here armed? Maybe it was someone who could be overpowered and get her past the eye scanner.
She paused at the bathroom doorway and turned toward Matias.
He lay in a tangle of sheets around his waist, the white bedding aglow against his tawny skin and black hair. With his arms folded behind his head, he looked peaceful, almost harmless. But the way he studied her, his expression covetous and his eyes roaming her from head to toe, she knew there wasn’t a harmless fiber beneath all that muscle.
“How many people have access to your suite?” She held her hands at her sides, fighting the urge to cover herself. “You and…?”
“Three others. Nico, Anacardo—”
“Anacardo?”
How did they take themselves seriously with these nicknames? Picar, Chispa, and Anacardo translated to Chop, Spark, and Cashew. Apparently, the use of sobriquets was a thing among narco-killers?
“He manages my domestic stuff—food, laundry, cleaning.” His gaze rose to her face. “You’re the third person.”
“Me?” A flush of excitement tingled through her, quickly followed by suspicion.
No way would he make it that easy to escape. It wasn’t like he handed over keys to the helicopter. Or a training manual on how to fly it.
“I can get past the scanner things?” She shifted her attention to the hall beyond the doorway. If she found a computer or phone, she could contact Tate.
“Your eyes were scanned before you woke yesterday. You have access to certain areas of the property, including my suite.”
“Can I go outside?”
“Of course.” With his legs spread wide and hands laced behind his head, he didn’t seem to have a care in the world. “I thought you had to pee.”
She slipped into the bathroom and used the toilet, buzzing with the new information. While she brushed her teeth—with his toothbrush because fuck him—she entertained scenarios of freeing all the slaves in the compound and leading them through the rainforest like a Rambo woman. She needed a badass rifle and a bandanna headband for maximum effect. Oh, and some survival skills, because she didn’t know shit about trekking through two million square miles of jungle.
The dangers that lurked amid those majestic palms were so beyond anything she’d prepared for. Not to mention, her escape would provoke a manhunt. If Matias was willing to let her go outside, the odds of getting out were probably not in her favor.
But her goal had never been to save herself or existing slaves. She’d come here to stop them from taking more women. If she couldn’t persuade the cartel to end that business, she would have to kill them.
Nausea curled in the pit of her stomach.
She rinsed out her mouth and stared at the wide brown eyes in the mirror. The anguish in those eyes was everything. Matias could be the most atrocious man on the planet, but there was no use lying to herself. She didn’t have the emotional strength to end his life. Not now. Not ever. As inconvenient as that was, it loosened some of the knots inside her.
When she returned to the bed, he’d shifted into a half-sitting position, his back leaning against a stack of pillows and a tube of ointment in his hand.
As she crawled toward him on the mattress, he tracked her movements and patte
d his thigh. His ever-present desire to be all up in her personal space might’ve been a coercive tactic, but there was more to it. Maybe that was the key. She just needed to find a way to peel back the layers, starting with his obvious attraction to her.
Reaching for his waist, she dragged the sheet off with a quiver of fear darting down her spine. She pushed through it, lifting a leg over his nude lower body and straddling his partial erection.
His hands gripped her ass before she sat down, holding her upright on her knees.
Confused, she looked down at his swelling dick.
“Hold still.” He squeezed a dollop of ointment into his palms and rubbed the icy balm over the backs of her thighs.
Instant relief shivered into her skin, and she swayed, dropping her hands on his chest.
“This is new.” She twitched her fingers, indicating the sprinkle of dark hair on his sternum.
“So is this.” He met her eyes as his caress glided over her ass, making wide circles to encompass the curves of her hips.
“Not the scrawny girl you remember?”
“You were never scrawny.” The corner of his mouth lifted, and his gaze wandered over her body. “I spent the majority of my teen years hiding a chubby from you.”
“You did?”
“You have no idea.” He added more ointment to his hands and massaged the fronts of her thighs. “Last night…” His chest rose, fell. “The empty chair at our table belonged to a close friend.”
The sudden somberness in his tone stiffened her muscles. She held still, focused on the movements of his hands, willing him to continue talking.
After a nerve-racking pause, he told her about Gerardo’s betrayal, the information leaked to a rival cartel, the dismemberment, the blood, and the spy who still lived among them. His voice became rougher, angrier, with every word, leaving her cold long after he fell silent.
With the nudge of his hands, he lowered her to sit back on his thighs, his semi-flaccid cock resting in the V of her legs.
“There are other secrets.” His jaw shifted. “Valuable secrets that Gerardo may or may not have released.”