Take

by Pam Godwin

  He gave Boones a tight nod, willing to give the man anything he wanted. The last twelve years had been painful for both of them.

  “Thank you for sharing that with me.” Kate glanced from Boones to him and squared her shoulders. “I didn’t mean to open old wounds.”

  “Don’t worry about that. Tiago has been opening a lot of wounds lately.” Boones pointed his cloudy eyes at the cuts he’d treated on Tiago’s arm two weeks ago.

  Tiago hadn’t touched his razor since then, but he wanted to. He longed to draw blood, fantasized about it constantly, and it wasn’t his flesh he imagined cutting.

  His gaze shifted to hers, and his groin tightened.

  Boones ambled toward him, obstructing his view of blue eyes and flawless skin.

  A bony hand gripped Tiago’s neck and dug in with surprising strength. “Let her see you,” Boones said in Tigrayit. “All of you. Even if it invites her pity. Then she can decide whether to love you. And you’ll know if she’s worthy of the man in here.” He tapped Tiago on the chest.

  His hackles bristled. “Semira was worthy. She was just ambitious, focused on her career. She was a good woman.”

  “I loved my daughter, but she wasn’t good for you.”

  With that, Boones left the kitchen and slipped out the front door.

  “I’m willing to bet some of that exchange was about me.” Kate rose from the table and gathered the dishes from lunch. “It’s rude to talk about people in a language they don’t understand.”

  “Leave that.” He snatched the platters from her and held out his hand. “Come with me.”

  Ignoring his command, she walked past him and headed for the sink. “I figured out why there are no mirrors upstairs.”

  He caught a fistful of her hair and yanked her around. He wanted to look into her eyes while she called him out on his shit. “Tell me.”

  “You hate your reflection.” She jerked in his hold, swinging and kicking until he released her. “Not your appearance. You know how damn…” She growled and waved a flippant hand in his direction. “You’re ridiculously good-looking. It’s not that. You don’t like what you see in your eyes. The cruelty. The hypocrisy. Your family was murdered, and what did you do? You went to Caracas and became a kidnapper and murderer. Your cold eyes are windows into that hell, and I have to stare into them every time you fuck me. Because you hold my head and make me look and…” She spun away, fists clenched at her sides. “You’re pure evil.”

  Fucking Christ, she was fiery today, itching for a fight.

  There were no guards around to witness her disrespect, so he let her continue the rampage, because she wasn’t wrong.

  She stormed to the sink, clanked a few pots around, and charged back. “And another thing. I’m over the whole mine declaration. That’s something an insecure guy says to a girl when he doesn’t want her fucking other guys. When you say it to the woman you abducted, it’s psychological warfare. Not sexy.”

  He laughed, loud and deep, because fuck him, this woman had balls. Huge fucking lady balls. “I don’t give a fuck whether it’s sexy. You won’t be fucking anyone but me.”

  Her spine went straight, and her cheeks burned into an angry shade of red.

  But this wasn’t anger. She was scared. Beneath her surly bravado lurked a deep sense of dread. She feared what it meant to belong to a man like him. She feared for her friends if she tried to break free. And she feared the day she would stop thinking of escape and yield to the force that knotted them together.

  Every time he entered her body, he wanted their roles to disappear. But how could he move them away from being captor and prisoner when he was unwilling to let her go?

  He didn’t just want to keep her. He wanted to bind her, spank her, cut her, and fuck every hole. He wanted to share every depraved fantasy with her and earn her trust at the same time.

  He didn’t need a woman’s love. He’d survived thirty-seven years without it.

  But he ached for her to love him.

  Him, a thing that couldn’t be loved.

  He wanted the impossible.

  All humor gone, he extended his hand again. He’d told her to come with him, and he wouldn’t repeat himself.

  The atmosphere shifted and tightened. She stared at his mouth, his chest, his hand, and shifted her weight from one foot to the next.

  Then she ran.

  Kate bolted toward the front of the house, the perfect curves of her ass flexing in denim shorts, and all that blond hair swinging around her tiny waist.

  Energy swelled, heating Tiago’s muscles. His cock lengthened and hardened for the chase. The thrill of the hunt.

  She veered around mattresses and tripped over backpacks, her noisy breaths spurring him into motion. When she reached the front door, she fumbled with the handle, and it cost her.

  He caught her from behind, an arm against her stomach and a hand around her throat.

  “What did I say about trying to escape?” He sank his teeth into her shoulder.

  “I wasn’t! I just need…” She twisted in his hold, an attempt to break away, but ended up with her chest against his and her mouth so close he tasted lemon tea on her breath. “I just need some air.”

  “What’s wrong with the air in here?”

  On an exhale, a pleading look seeped into her eyes. “You.”

  Gripping the backs of her thighs, he hitched her up his body. The position forced her to hug his neck and hook her legs around his waist.

  “Explain.” He tangled a hand in her hair and seized her molten blue gaze.

  “How can I explain you? This?” She feathered her fingers along his whiskered jaw, cupped the side of his face, and touched her forehead to his. “You make me crazy.”

  “Goes both ways, Kate.”

  “Then let me go.”

  “Never.” He turned and climbed the stairs.

  Her limbs tightened around him, and her breathing accelerated. She thought she knew what would happen when they arrived in their room, but she didn’t have a clue.

  “I won’t surrender,” she whispered fiercely against his mouth.

  “You always say that.”

  “I don’t want this.”

  “Always say that, too.”

  She lowered her head to his shoulder, resting her cheek there, with her warm lips against his neck. “I’m tired, Tiago.”

  Tired of fighting him.

  She’d been here for two months and spent every second of it resisting, defying, spitting, and fighting. Always fighting.

  He didn’t intend to break her down or defeat her. He wanted her arguments, her wrestling matches, and her rebellious spirit.

  “Don’t give up.” He pressed a kiss beside her ear.

  “Never.”

  There’s my girl.

  In the bedroom, he locked the door and set her on her feet.

  “I need to use the toilet.” She backed away and vanished into the bathroom.

  While she did her business and washed her hands, he removed the rope and blade from the locked safe. Then he grabbed the bag of medical supplies Boones kept near the door.

  When she stepped back into the room, Tiago was sitting on the mattress, holding his phone.

  She stood there in little jean shorts and a tank top, with her arms rigid at her sides and her head held high.

  Just like the first time she walked in here and raised that chin at him, he was sucker-punched with the fiercest, rawest form of perfection. She was so much more than he could’ve ever fathomed.

  Except now, he knew that devastating beauty ran through the deepest parts of her, and his heart longed for it, hammering and stretching to sink inside of hers.

  He could make her come on his mouth and fall apart on his dick. But he couldn’t make her love him. He couldn’t even hope for such a thing.

  Nevertheless, he wouldn’t stop fighting for it, knowing he would lose in the end.

  Turning his attention to the phone, he opened a screen and held it out to her.
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br />   “What is it?” She inched closer, her long lashes hooding the curiosity in her eyes.

  “I had a camera installed in the shack.”

  She erased the distance in three running strides and snatched the phone from his hand.

  Arturo had placed the solar-powered recording device on the roof and angled the lens through a hole to capture the interior. Tate didn’t know it was there, and no one would spot it from the outside.

  “Oh my God.” She clutched her throat, eyes wide and glued on the live streaming video. “That’s Boones. How is he with Tate?” Her gaze snapped up and landed on his, the depths clashing with relief and accusation. “Tate must be close by.”

  “Within walking distance. Come here.” He leaned against the wall, stretched out his legs, and opened his arms.

  She came right to him, somewhat absentmindedly as the video held all her attention.

  Gathering her on his lap, he tucked her back against his chest. With a hand stroking through her hair, he watched her watch the live footage.

  “That’s where Boones goes every day.” She pulled in a serrated breath and released it. “He’s been taking care of Tate.”

  “Yes.”

  On the screen, Boones knelt behind her friend and applied a balm to the man’s back. He would do the same with the arm injury, the new tattoo, and check for any health issues.

  “This is so much better than I’ve been imagining.” Her fingers tightened around the phone. “It’s still horrible and inhumane, but knowing he has Boones, that he’s so close, it means everything.”

  “I installed the camera so you can check on him. Before we leave for Caracas, I’ll take you to see him.”

  “What?” She spun on his lap to face him, dropping the phone in her excitement. “Really?”

  “I can take it away just as quickly as I’ve given it.” He locked the device and set it aside. “Remember that.”

  She looked up into his face and adjusted her legs to straddle him, to stare a little closer, a little deeper, with a strange tumult of emotions flitting across her expression.

  “You tortured my friend and chained him in a shack for two months. I can’t forgive you for that. But…” She swallowed, breathed in slowly through her nose, and placed her soft hands on his jaw. “It’s funny how you throw me a few scraps, a video, a chance to visit him, and follow it up with a mean threat, and all I can think is… Here’s a glimpse, a tiny peek of goodness. This is the moment when I don’t see the fearsome, ruthless gang leader you created twelve years ago. I see you, the man who mourns his wife and family. The man I want to know. The man I want to kiss.”

  Erratic and unstable, his pulse careened through his veins. “I’m not a good man, Kate.”

  “No, you’re definitely not that. But you’re not the one-dimensional creation you show the world, either.”

  “I believe your exact words were pure evil.”

  “I was angry.”

  “And now?”

  “I’m moved.”

  She leaned in slowly and skimmed her fingers into his hair. A puff of breath. A gentle brush of lips. Everything inside him clenched and locked.

  It was the first time she initiated intimacy, and the kiss was so delicate it shivered with fragility. It took every bit of strength he could muster to stop his hands from flying to her head, to stall his tongue from sweeping in and taking over.

  She was such a sexual creature she couldn’t breathe without radiating the sizzling, ignitable energy that lived beneath her skin. His entire body recognized it, fed on it. But he wrestled down the need to control this and closed his eyes, savoring the tenderness, the exquisite affection.

  The peaks of her supple, braless tits dragged against his chest. The heat of her cunt burned against his cock through their clothing. Her tongue found his with licking, curling, divine sweetness, and perspiration formed on his spine. She was killing him.

  Then she grew bolder. Her hands wrapped around the base of his skull, bringing him closer, angling his head for a deeper kiss. Her tongue slid over his, tasting, exploring as she panted against his mouth.

  It was the most exhilarating, most sensual kiss he’d ever experienced. All his senses telescoped to her lips, her soft, wet tongue, and the maddening way she tunneled her fingers through his hair.

  She transported him into a fantastic dream and smothered him in layers of emotion. She didn’t just kiss with her body. She fused to his mouth with her whole being, all tongue and breath and deep, swirling feelings.

  When she broke for air, her fingers clung to his neck, pupils blown, and lips swollen. For a moment, she seemed disoriented, stunned. Then she blinked, and her expression glowed with wonderment. Maybe even fondness.

  “I like you like this.” She stroked a thumb along his bottom lip. “Kind and unassuming.”

  His stomach hardened.

  She thought she was looking at him, but she was staring at a stranger. He wasn’t a man who let a woman straddle his lap and dole out vanilla kisses. There wasn’t a docile breath in his body.

  He needed pain to feel alive. Perversion to stay focused. He needed the razor-sharp edge.

  Let her see you. Then she can decide whether to love you.

  “You’re only seeing what you want to see.” He touched her cheekbone and traced a path to her perfect mouth.

  “I haven’t forgotten what you’ve done or why I’m here.”

  “You don’t know the half of it.”

  She ghosted a hand along the scars on his forearm. “What haven’t you shown me?”

  His brutal cravings.

  His darkest hunger.

  His deepest hurt.

  He pointed his eyes at the rope and blade beside the mattress, and she followed his gaze.

  “No.” She tensed and started to pull away, shaking her head. “You don’t need that.”

  He yanked her back by her hair. “There’s a lot of pain in the world. You can’t avoid it.”

  “If you endure it, accept it, it will stop.”

  His breath caught. That was his mantra, something he’d only ever repeated to…

  He narrowed his eyes. “You’ve been spending too much time with Boones.”

  “I adore him.”

  “He had his scars deliberately put on him. Does that disgust you?”

  “Not at all. They’re an important part of his culture.” She circled a finger around a raised welt on his wrist. “Did your wife wear scars, too?”

  “No. She thought it was outdated and crude. But many of the women still practice the art. I find it seductive, exotic, and beautiful.” He met her eyes. “I’ve never cut a woman.”

  In his mind, he’d carved countless elaborate illustrations on Kate’s body, but there was one in particular that made his fingers twitch for the blade.

  “You haven’t?” Her head flinched back. “But you said cutting a woman is different than a man. Something about a passionate hand and weeping and…” She choked on a gasp of realization. “You were referring to your wife. When she was…”

  “When I watched that knife slice her open, I felt it. I felt myself bleed. I heard myself weep. Then all I knew was rage. I emulated that exact cut on the man who killed her, the men who killed my family, and all the others associated with the attack. The more men I sliced, slashed, and carved, the more I liked it. Craved it. So much so I became less discriminatory about my targets.”

  “You turned the blade on innocent people. Like Tate.”

  “Yes. But I’ve never cut a woman.” He opened his expression and let her see every nefarious intention in his mind.

  “No.” She scrambled off his lap so fast she tumbled to the floor. Scooting backward on hands and feet, she screamed miserably, “Stay away from me!”

  He sprung after her and seized her ankle, yanking her back to the mattress.

  She went crazy, all flailing fists and snapping teeth. He held her to the bed and snatched the rope, making quick work of the knots around her wrists and the cast iro
n pipe.

  Then he sat back on his heels, his legs straddling her hips, restraining her lower body in place. The position reminded him of the night they met, the first time he tied her up.

  “We’ve been here before.” He planted his hands on either side of her face and leaned down, biting her lips.

  She tried to bite him back, missing his mouth in her outrage. “Let me go!”

  “I need you to listen.”

  A tremor rippled across her jaw. “Are you going to cut me?”

  “With pleasure.”

  “Fuck that.” She thrashed. “Fuck you. I won’t let you do this!”

  “Stop.” He grabbed her chin and held her head still.

  “Please, don’t kill me.” Tears spilled from her liquid blue eyes.

  He loosened his grip and glided his fingers along the side of her face. “I can’t lose you.”

  It was the most honest, vulnerable thing he’d ever admitted aloud.

  “But you’re going to hurt me?” More tears escaped.

  “God, yes.” He bent down and ran his mouth over her wet cheeks, kissing away the pain he’d caused her.

  “Why?” She gulped air and swallowed back her sobs, a noble effort to pull herself together.

  “It’s a need that drives me. A comfort I can’t live without.”

  Cutting was a purging, an outlet for the nightmares inside him. As much as he cut himself, it wasn’t the same. He needed the connection to her pain.

  Her arms trembled in the rope. “Does it arouse you?”

  “With you? Yes.”

  “You’re a sadist. I get that. It’s part of what makes you so intense, unusual, and terrifyingly captivating. But Tiago, there’s a difference between hurting a woman who gets off on it and hurting a woman against her will.”