by Pam Godwin
“Like what?” She liked this, him sharing, her listening, even if the subject matter fucked with her blood pressure.
“The kind no one talks about.” He looked her firmly in the eye. “In time, you’ll see things as they really are, and when you do, I want you to come to me and no one else.”
Warning bells sounded in her head, raising the hairs on her nape.
Maybe he was working against the cartel? Except he seemed to be genuinely hurt by Gerardo’s betrayal. What the hell was he hiding? And who was he hiding it from?
They need to know you’re just the slave of the month. A fresh hole to fuck. You mean nothing to me.
She’d assumed he was just being a dick last night, but now… “Is your paranoia because of the spy or are there others here you don’t trust?”
“Trust is earned, and we have a process that vets members and residents. Backgrounds, ranks, and positions are factors in granting access to certain information, but a lot of it is based purely on gut.”
“Is that your job? To vet cartel members?”
“One of them.” His blank expression lacked all the clues she was attempting to draw from him.
“And your gut steered you wrong with Gerardo.”
He nodded, and somehow that tiny admission to making a mistake made him seem more human, more Matias.
His attention lowered to the raised bumps on her thighs. “Now I’m erring on the side of caution, even if it means risking more of your hatred.” He gingerly trailed a finger over the worst cut. “I can repair the pain I cause you, but I can’t bring you back to life.”
“Someone wants to kill me?” A chill coursed, wild and panicky, through her limbs.
“To get to me, they might try.”
Did that mean last night, with the cane…? She stared down at the welts.
I know what he did to you, and that’s not what this is.
Her throat thickened. “You beat me and scared me so I would look like an abused slave instead of your…your…whatever I am?”
“Yes. But don’t misunderstand me.” His expression morphed into cast iron and sexual heat. “I get off on bringing you pleasure while you’re trembling with fear.”
“What am I to you?” She glanced at the rope near the headboard and returned to him. “Am I a slave or something else?”
He cocked his head, his hands absently stroking her legs. “You’re my life, mi vida.”
She swallowed. “Do you beat other slaves like that?”
“You’re not asking the right questions.”
Jesus, fuck. What questions? Like who did he beat? How? When? Where?
She looked up. “Why do you do it? Why do you capture and torture women? Is it a kinky fetish? Or is this really just a business to you?”
“Right question.” His eyes hardened. “Wrong answer.”
“Qué mierda! Yesterday, you said this is business, supply and demand, and you don’t make the rules.”
“It is a business and so much more than that.”
“Then tell me!”
“The answer is right in front of you.” He dumped her onto the mattress and stood, his voice rising to a shout. “All you have to do is fucking look!”
“I am looking, but you’re a goddamn black hole.” She leapt off the bed, snatched the sheet, and wrapped it around her.
He growled and stormed toward the closet.
She chased after him. “How about you give me a straight answer instead of this mind-fuck game you’re playing?”
“Game?” He whirled on her and put his face in hers. “This is real. You and me. No games. No mindfuck. If you put aside all the other shit, you’d know with absolute certainty that every breath I take, that my fucking purpose in all of this is for you.”
His choked words, stiff neck, and pained, over-bright eyes stopped her heart. He stared at her as if he were desperate for her to not only hear him, but to see what he wasn’t saying.
Why wouldn’t he just tell her? Was someone listening?
Her eyes widened, and she jerked her head toward the camera on the ceiling. “Who’s watching us?”
“I’m the only person who has access to that feed.”
“What about listening—”
“There are no listening devices in my suite.”
Well, shit. She pulled the sheet tighter around her chest and met his gaze. “Fine. I’ll keep looking and figure out what you’re not telling me.”
“Where are you going to look?” His breathing started to return to normal, the tension in his face dissolving.
“All the answers are here, right?” She touched a finger to the outer corner of his eye.
“Muy bien, my beautiful girl.”
He bent closer and brushed his mouth against hers. Another brush and another, until his tongue swept past her lips. The gentle kiss deepened, turning breathy and earnest.
His hands sank into her hair, and his erection jabbed at her stomach. But she didn’t pull away, her tongue licking his with all the hope he’d planted in her. He’d opened up, and while she was more confused now than before, he’d given her enough to believe that there was something more than a monster behind those golden eyes.
He broke the kiss and cupped her neck. “We need to get dressed and eat. Then I’ll give you a tour of the property.”
Her pulse kicked up with excitement as he led her into the closet, activating a sensor light in the ceiling.
Rows of clothes on hangers and cubbies lined the walls on the left and right. Straight ahead was another door, this one with an eye scanner.
“What’s behind that door?” She nodded at it.
“Skeletons.” He grabbed a pair of jeans and pulled them on.
Her mind conjured a torture chamber with dead slaves hanging from chains on the walls. She shuddered, cursing her overactive imagination. “Do I have access to your skeletons?”
“Not until you’re ready.” He waved a hand at the racks of clothes on the left wall. “That’s your side.”
Kicking at the sheet that draped her body, she investigated the extensive wardrobe. Cocktails dresses, casual wear, and lingerie filled the space, all with tags and in her size.
She mentally ran through the last twenty-four hours. She’d spent most of that time in this suite.
“When was all this brought in?” She narrowed her eyes at him.
“Does it matter?” He slipped a blue t-shirt over his head.
“Yeah, it really does. Was it here before I arrived?”
“What does your gut tell you?” He touched a fingerprint scanner on a small safe in the wall, unlocking it and removing the Glock he carried in his waistband.
“My gut tells me…” She studied his face, watching for a reaction. “You expected me to show up as a slave with Van.”
He seated the gun in the back of his jeans and stared at her, eyes and mouth giving nothing away.
“I can’t figure out how, though.” She snatched jean shorts from a cubby and held them up with a questioning brow.
“You can wear what you want during the day, but I choose your attire for dinner.”
Fair enough. “The thing with Larry…that was all kind of up in the air.” She dropped the sheet and slipped on the first bra and panties she found—white lacy things—then the shorts. “I followed him for months, knew he was involved in the trade, but I didn’t know exactly how I was going to infiltrate until I tortured him.”
He leaned against a shelf, legs crossed at the ankles, arms folded over his chest, regarding her with an unreadable expression.
“You must’ve been watching me for a while.” Her stomach clenched with that realization. “But you couldn’t have known my plan until I called you that night to pick up Larry’s body. And even then, I don’t know how you knew.” She put on a brown tank top while keeping her focus on him, examining every twitch in his body. “That would’ve given you two days to stock the closet with clothes in my size, which is really creepy, by the way.”
An
d immensely satisfying. How many men had that kind of attention to detail?
Stalkers did. And serial killers. Oh, and psychopaths.
She rubbed the back of her neck. “So am I warm on any of that?”
“You’re hot.” A panty-soaking smile filled his face. “Really fucking hot.”
“You’re not going to make this easy on me, are you?”
“The best rewards are the hardest to earn.” He straightened and held out his hand. “Let’s eat.”
Thirty minutes later, she swallowed down the last bite of egg soup and leaned back in the chair on the balcony. It was the best changua she’d ever tasted, filling every crevice in her stomach with rich, milky warmth.
A temperate breeze stirred the humidity to a comfortable level, and the landscape pulsed with the sway of large fronds and the bellow of frogs. But the high-pitched, repeating shrills in the distance sounded like something was dying.
“What’s that noise?” She reached for her coffee mug.
“Tinamous.” He wiped his mouth with a linen napkin. “Mountain hens. They lay freaky alien-looking eggs with an unusual iridescent shimmer that changes color at different angles.”
“So basically they lay eggs that scream, Hey, look over here! Eat me!”
The corner of his mouth curled up.
“Are they safe to eat?” She wasn’t still considering going Rambo, but a backup plan wouldn’t hurt.
“The birds or the eggs?”
“Both?”
“Yes.” He studied her for an unnerving moment. “Finding food would be the least of your worries out there.”
“Same could be said for in here.” She pushed away the soup bowl and met his eyes. “You never carry a phone, yet you always answered when I called.”
“I don’t need one anymore.” His timbre deepened. “You’re here now.”
He’d only carried a phone for her? She folded her arms across her chest, refusing to be sucked in by the sentiment in that.
“Every device on this property is locked down.” He touched his fingers together like a steeple. “To make a call or access the Internet, two-factor authentication is required—a pin number and fingerprint scan.”
Fuck, there went that idea. She pushed her shoulders back. “I want to call my friends and let them know I’m alive.”
“Not yet.”
Her pulse jumped. “Does the yet mean there might be a yes?”
“Yes.”
“Gracias.” Now for the hard question. “Can I get a private meeting with Nico?”
“No.” His tone was final, his direct eye contact impenetrable.
“Because you’re afraid to ask him or because you don’t want me to talk to him?”
“Neither.”
Interesting. He’d said the inner circle knew about her history with him and that he kept nothing from them. Maybe he just didn’t want to be left out of the meeting. Damn men and their egos. She couldn’t think of another way to go about this, though. It wasn’t like she could snuggle up to Nico’s chair at dinner and demand a meeting from the kingpin. Not without drawing the attention of forty scary-as-fuck hitmen.
“Okay.” She sipped her tinto, savoring the syrupy cinnamon-coffee concoction. “I want an audience with you and Nico. In private. No one needs to know about it.”
He leaned forward, chewing a bite of bacon, studying her. “Why?”
“To present arguments against human trafficking. Offer alternatives. A different perspective.”
“You think you can win him to your way of thinking?” His eyes squinted, lit with an inner glow.
“I want the opportunity to try.”
Determination and heart—that was what she was made of. If she could interest Nico in the cause, it might distract him from the effect.
If not, she’d paint the glass walls with his blood.
“All right.” Matias leaned back in the chair with a pensive look softening his features. “I’ll think about it.”
“Today?”
“Later.”
Later didn’t come when he gave her a tour of the property and made her kneel in a corset beside his chair at dinner on the veranda. There was no later when he fucked her against the post, in the bed, and any damn place he pleased.
The wait for later plodded into days. Days twisted into unbearable impatience. But time was inconsequential, so she bade it by being a timid little slave when they were outside of the suite, watching and analyzing. When they were alone, she shared her past with him and didn’t push when he refused to discuss the present and future.
Later ended up being two weeks later, but the wait paid off.
He took her to meet with Nico.
MATIAS STRODE ALONG THE PATH on the east side of the property, his boots crunching gravel and an anxious hum in his veins. The gray sky chased away some of the afternoon heat, but the humidity hung on, pasting his thin Henley to his skin.
He released the buttons at his neck and glanced at the woman walking beside him.
A sheen of perspiration glistened on Camila’s adorable nose, her eyes sharp and focused on the path ahead. Her long strides exuded self-possession, though her rigid posture suggested she was beating herself with a thousand over-analyzing thoughts.
He hated the distance between them whenever they stepped outside of his suite. It was necessary, but she took it to the next damn level, refusing to look at him or acknowledge him unless he commanded it.
With an irritated huff, she pulled on the thick leather collar around her throat. While it was there as a statement for others, every time he put it on her, it made his dick hard. Even so, he always removed it when they were alone. Someday, she would choose to wear one, a permanent one—for her and him only, fuck everyone else.
“Camila.”
The command in his tone lifted those huge soulful eyes. He remembered the way they’d smoldered this morning, dazed with desire, glassy with uncertainty, her thighs trembling and hips rocking as he licked her cunt and fingered her to orgasm.
“I assume you have a speech prepared for this meeting.” He clasped his hands behind his back, head forward, and watched her at the edge of his vision.
Her eyebrows pulled together as she gazed back at the estate, zeroing in on windows near Nico’s rooms. “Isn’t Nico’s office that way?”
She scanned the perimeter of trees, pausing on each of the three armed guards who trailed out of earshot. There were five more chaperons she couldn’t see. If she knew they were following, she didn’t let on.
Matias’ suite offered the most privacy, but he wanted this meeting to take place in his personal, most cherished location on the property. He’d never led her this deep into the jungle. She had no idea this little piece of heaven existed.
He’d debated whether or not it was too early to show it to her, that maybe he was revealing his hand too soon. It was her rejection he feared the most. If she didn’t give him the reaction he longed for…
He’d man the fuck up and keep working on her.
“We’re meeting him off-site.” He steered her to the left at a fork in the trail, leading her deeper into the shadowed jungle.
The gravel thinned to dirt, softening their steps, and the thick canopy of smooth oval leaves created a cool shade. He’d taken her all over the property since she’d arrived, never leaving her side when they stepped out of his private rooms. She’d sulked about that for the first few days, as if she’d expected him to give her security access to the entire estate and just let her roam free.
As long as there was still a threat living among them, she wouldn’t be leaving his sight.
He stepped closer to her, resting a hand on the curve of her lower back. “Did you prepare a rhetoric of bullet points and pretentious language for Nico?”
The neckline of her t-shirt had slipped off her shoulder, exposing her bra strap. He wanted to set his teeth in the delicate dip between the collar and her ear and bite down just to hear her breath catch.
“I couldn�
��t pull off pretentious if I tried.” Her jaw clenched, released. “Never received my high school diploma, remember?”
Several times over the last two weeks, she’d spoken late into the night about her captivity with Van Quiso. Though Matias had learned the details years ago, she didn’t know that. It killed him to hear the specifics of her abuse all over again, especially whispered in her soft voice, but he’d held her tightly in bed, absorbing every word, every shiver and teary-eyed glance she shared with him.
She’d also told him things he hadn’t known, like how she completed the remainder of her high school curriculum on-line and lamented the fact that she couldn’t receive a diploma since she was still considered missing.
While her tenacity never ceased to impress him, it twisted a hellacious knot in his stomach. No matter what she said in this meeting, Nico was going to challenge her.
To what end would she go to succeed in her mission?
“You’re going to wing it, then?” His chest thickened with all the things he wanted to tell her.
“I’m going to stand before him as a slave, not a politician.”
“That’s your strategy? Persuade him with your heart?”
“I know it sounds illogical. I mean, he’s the Restrepo kingpin, for fuck’s sake.” She rolled her lips between her teeth. “But he’s also a person, and people aren’t rooted in logic. We’re creatures of emotion, bristling with selfish wants, preconceptions, and brutality. But inside every man is possibility.” She lifted a stiff shoulder. “I’ll just talk to him in terms of what he wants.”
While everything she said was smart and fascinating and maybe even partly correct, it sat in his gut like a red hot coal.
He slammed to a stop. “You didn’t take that approach with me.”
“Because you already had what you wanted.” She spun toward him, with a finger hooked under the collar and resentment in her eyes.
He grabbed her throat. “This”—he squeezed the leather against her neck—“is fucking window dressing, and you know it. I want the real thing, Camila. I want your submissive soul, sighing and replete, in my hands.”
Her face paled as she gasped and clawed at his fingers around her throat. “I can’t…I won’t survive that.”