by Pam Godwin
The absence of light disorientated Kate, but she stayed close to Tiago’s familiar frame. Not that he would let her drift out of arm’s reach.
He didn’t glance at her, hold her hand, or touch her the way he did when they were alone, but the weight of his attention never left her. Whether he was navigating winding passages or briefing dozens of guards on business deals, he knew where she was and what she was doing at all times.
His awareness of her was an unexplainable sense in her gut, one that had evolved from a collection of shared experiences during their inseparable months together.
Strange as it was, she seemed to be constantly aware of him, too, in the warning tingle across her skin, the rash of heat in her cheeks, and the hum of energy in her chest.
Outside his inner circle, however, no one was privy to the constant storm between them. No one knew she was the object of his dirtiest, darkest, most intimate desires, that she wore his scarred artwork, that she slept in his bed, or that he would kill anyone who tried to take her from him.
Her role at his compound was simply to look the part of Lucia’s replacement.
When he’d strapped an unloaded gun on her hip before they left, his expression had been strained so tightly with worry it bordered on anger.
He couldn’t stomach the thought of leaving her in the penthouse, where he couldn’t watch her. At the same time, it terrified him to take her into this world. He told her none of this, but words weren’t necessary. She read it in the intensity of his eyes and felt it vibrating from his anxious posture.
Maybe his protectiveness was a symptom of obsession. Or maybe it came from a place of twisted love.
He’d said the words. Three words no man had ever given her. But she couldn’t let his declaration sink its poisonous hooks into her psyche.
As long as he was her captor, love didn’t have a damn thing to do with it.
But as she followed him through the dark halls of his lair, she soared on wings of gratefulness. After being locked up for months, she was finally out, even if it meant wearing an unloaded gun and pretending to be one of his guards.
None of his men questioned her presence. In fact, they couldn’t seem to take their eyes off Tiago.
It had been three months since he’d shown his face here. Three months since they’d seen their leader alive and breathing, and he was really something to behold.
The dark stubble on his jaw accentuated his masculine bone structure as he spoke to them in Spanish, the soft J’s and double R’s rolling off his tongue with seductive authority.
Inky black hair raked back from his strong brow in tousled, spiky rebellion. Deliberately rebellious, as if every strand had been commanded into perfect disorder. She felt a disturbing urge to tangle her fingers in all that sexiness.
She’d recently trimmed the sides of his head, making the scars stand out in stark relief. They added a dangerous edge to his appearance, as if he needed more of that with his black jeans, leather jacket, and shit-kickers.
Strength and power radiated from him, and it wasn’t just for show. He’d returned to full health, exercised daily, and stood before his adherents with all the potency of a confident, merciless crime lord.
And so he was back to work. For the next week, he spent every waking moment at the compound, catching up with his men. She remained at his side from the second they left the penthouse to the moment they returned, sitting through business meetings held in languages she didn’t understand.
The night Tate walked out of the shack, Arturo returned to Caracas and resumed his position as her constant shadow. Between him, Tiago, and the hundreds of guards in his regime, escape was impossible.
By the second week, the bustle of Tiago’s return had calmed down. He found some time to give her a quiet tour of the old hotel floors, including the basement cells, where he’d held Tate and Van and countless other victims.
As his monotone voice recounted the things he’d done over the years, his expression lacked smugness and aggression. She hunted for hints of regret in his eyes, hoping to glimpse something human during his narration, but he remained guarded and closed-off.
Until he took her to the room where he used to sleep.
“This is it.” He shut the door behind her, leaving Arturo in the hall.
She paced through the sparse space, marking the empty safe, the bare mattress, and the wooden chair at the center.
“It’s almost an exact replica of your room in the desert.” She paused beside the dumbbell on the scarred floor, and her stomach caved in. “Except this.”
He leaned his back against the door and tilted his chin down, wearing a pensive, darker-than-usual expression. “She should’ve hit me one more time and made it count.”
“What?” Her head kicked back. “Why would you say that?”
“You think I deserve to be alive?” His jaw flexed, and his eyes lifted, glowering from beneath thick lashes. “Look around. This room sums up the last twelve years of my life.”
She scanned the impenetrable lock on the door, the empty bed, the scarred surfaces, the suffocating darkness, utter vacancy, and isolation.
Maybe the space defined his experiences, but it didn’t personify the man.
He’d committed unforgivable crimes. Heartless acts. But over the past few months, she’d come to realize Tiago Badell was in full possession of both a conscience and a heart.
Complex, sentient, and deeply honest, he had the capacity to hurt and love in equal intensities. He gave and received all ranges of emotion, more so than any person she knew.
And to think, he spent twelve years in this empty, lifeless, dispassionate cell.
She hated it.
Even as she knew it was a means of self-punishment, it hurt to imagine him sleeping here alone for so damn long.
She rubbed her chest, and her gaze landed on the dumbbell, a symbol of his constant drive to be strong and invincible. It also represented his pain.
Lucia had every right to attack him with it, but from his perspective, it probably felt like a terrible betrayal. His closest confidant had turned on him, and from what Kate understood about his wife’s death, it wasn’t the first time he’d been betrayed.
“When we leave this room,” he said in a rough, heavily-accented voice, “I’m going to lock the door and never open it again.”
“Good idea.” She stepped toward him. “The past stays in the past, where it belongs.”
“I have a lot of regrets, Kate.” He rested the tips of his fingers in his front pockets. “Too many to fit inside this room.”
Agitated energy, his energy, swarmed around her in dizzying waves as he stared at something behind her.
She followed his gaze to the chair. Not just any chair. “That’s where you sat with Lucia on your lap every day?”
“Yes.”
Right there was where he gave Lucia the injections that counteracted the poison he put in her food.
Her insides constricted.
“You know my sins. I’ve disclosed them all in detail.” He pushed off the door and prowled toward her, quickening her breaths. “What I haven’t done is repent for them.”
She held still as he circled her, every cell in her body pinging at his nearness.
“I’m sorry for what I did to Lucia.” He paused before her and curled a finger under her chin, lifting her gaze. “I’m sorry I kicked you the night we met.”
Her lips trembled, and she locked her knees to prevent them from wobbling. It wasn’t his words that knocked her off-balance so much as the raw contrition shining in his eyes.
“I’m sorry for letting Iliana touch you.” His hand skimmed along her jawline, making her pulse sputter. “I’m sorry for raping you. I’m not proud of it.”
She sucked in a slow, shaky breath, bringing the dark scent of leather, cypress, and dangerous man into her lungs.
“I’m not asking for forgiveness.” His fingers wove through her hair and clenched. “I just needed you to hear it.”
She didn’t just hear it. She felt it stretch and pull inside her.
“Why now?” Swaying toward him, she burrowed into the warm den of his jacket. “What prompted this?”
“You.” He leaned back and cuffed a strong hand around her neck. “Your eyes. It’s impossible to feel heartless when you look at me like I’m not.”
“Tiago.” Her heart thumped heavily, catching in her throat.
“Also…” He brushed his nose against hers. “I’m in love with you.”
Every word was a razor, reopening the cuts on her body. Lancing pain shot beneath her skin, burning, aching, inflaming the wounds.
His confession of love had never hurt before. So why did it hurt so much now?
An inner voice begged her to ignore it, to hold onto her hatred and feed it with her need for freedom.
But he was in her face, infiltrating her breaths, and staring down at her with a foreboding glint in his eyes.
Dark and tempting, indecently gorgeous and sickeningly filthy in bed, he knew he could set her on fire with only the force of his will. He was always just one impulse away from nailing her against the wall and driving her to the sublime edge of pleasure and pain.
His physique alone was a chiseled altar upon which any woman with a pulse would sacrifice her soul.
But he would never touch another woman.
He belonged to her.
Mine.
Well, maybe not that.
But he was her protector. Her lover. There.
If you truly love someone, you don’t let them go without a fight.
Maybe she needed to be reminded of what she already had and trust that it was all she really needed.
She just didn’t know how to separate the horrible things he’d done from those glimpses of goodness she’d seen in him.
“You’re not heartless.” She sighed. “Just complicated.”
“And selfish.” He swooped in and stole a greedy kiss from her lips. “Because Kate…” Another kiss. And another. “I know you can’t love me, but I’m not sorry I took you. I won’t apologize for it.” His mouth sealed over hers, devouring her gasp before he pulled back. “If it came down to it, I would take you again.”
With that, he released her, leaving behind the hot imprint of his touch on her skin.
As he turned toward the door, a thought tapped at the back of her mind, something she’d been meaning to ask him.
“Tiago?” When he glanced back, she raised her chin. “While we were holed up in the penthouse for a month, I know you were making plans.”
“Go on.” He shifted to face her and clasped his hands behind his back.
“My friends know where I’m at now?”
“Yes.” A muscle bounced in his jaw.
“I assume some of your planning involved keeping them out of Caracas?” She stepped toward him, searching his unreadable expression. “Have they tried to enter the city or make contact?”
“Not yet.”
Because of her phone conversation with Liv? She’d told them not to come. “Can I just call them and see—?”
“No. Stop asking.”
Same answer he’d given her the last hundred times she asked to contact them.
“If Matias Restrepo comes for you…” He grasped her hand and pulled her into his space. “It won’t end well for him.”
“What do you mean?”
“I negotiated a deal with the President.”
“What? The President of…?”
“Venezuela. His armed forces will not allow Restrepo to cross the Venezuela-Colombia border.”
Her stomach sank. “What did you have to offer in exchange for that deal?”
“Nothing as valuable as you.”
“You’re evading the question.”
“For now.” He gripped the door handle and paused. “I accepted an invitation to one of his dinner parties. It’s a formal affair this weekend. You’re going with me.”
“You want me to go to the President of Venezuela’s party?” She gulped, seized by panic. “Will I be there as your captive? Your whore? Your fake guard?”
“You’ll be there as mine.”
Her growl came out as a choke. “I need to understand the landscape. Will you have enemies in attendance? Will I be expected to hold conversations? I don’t know the language, and I definitely need a gun or something to—”
“If I asked any other woman to accompany me to a Presidential dinner, her first and only question would be what to wear.”
“I don’t give a fuck about that. I’m more concerned about—”
He captured her mouth in a demanding kiss and smiled against her lips. “I’ll take care of the dress.”
The dress encased Kate’s body like liquid gold, as if each shimmering thread had been cut and woven in veneration of the female form. Fashion never meant one iota to her, but holy shit, this gown was empowering.
She paced to the full-length mirror in the master bathroom, nervously fluffing her long hair. She should’ve pinned it up or curled it or something, but the girly stuff was beyond her expertise.
Anchoring a hand on her hip, she extended a leg through the slit of the dress and gave herself a final once-over.
Her makeup was modest. A little mascara. A glide of lip gloss. But the gown and the heels and God, the whole look… She’d never felt so glamorous.
The satiny material clung to her slight curves from her chest to the floor. The cut up one side reached high on her thigh, enabling normal strides when she walked.
The slit fell along the leg that bore his artwork. No doubt, intentional. With each step, the fading pink welts of rope and petals peeked through the opening of the floor-length skirt.
Tiny shoulder straps held the top in place, and the deep scoop between her breasts exposed the length of her breastbone.
The gown and gold stilettos had been waiting for her in the bathroom when she exited the shower. No bra or panties. Not that she could’ve worn anything beneath the unforgiving material.
At first, she thought the gold color had been selected to match her hair. But it was much darker, more bronze-ish. Like the metallic hues in Tiago’s brown eyes.
She hadn’t seen him yet. Hadn’t worked up the courage to step out of the bathroom.
Stop stalling.
Adjusting a shoulder strap, she drew in a calming breath and opened the door.
Across the room, he sat on the edge of the bed, dressed in a jet-black tuxedo. Head down, he wrestled with a cuff link, his face pinched in concentration.
“I can do that for you.” She strode toward him, stepping carefully in the skyscraper heels, and slowed at the lift of his head.
He straightened. His mouth parted, and his eyes went from wide and stunned to heated and wolfish as he ate her up from head to toe. He made a few more passes, slower each time, lingering on the outline of the nipple piercings beneath the satin.
The heady caress of his gaze touched her everywhere, stroking, tingling, his breaths growing shallow and hungry.
She swallowed back a whimper. Swear to God, if he stared at her much longer, she could have an orgasm. Just from the potency in his eyes.
The tuxedo wasn’t helping. Sweet hell, the man wore the fuck out of tailored threads.
The black trousers and white collared shirt fit his hard body with mouthwatering precision. The dinner jacket cut a crisp outline across his broad shoulders. A gold square, the color of her gown, peeked out of the front pocket, and a black bow tie sat at the base of his tanned neck.
Every hair on his head fell together in unruly perfection. His cleanly shaved jaw showed off all his square angles and outrageously handsome Latino features.
Looking at him was a treacherous trap. He was too attractive, too addictive to take in all at once.
Desperate to break his spell, she focused on her feet and approached the bed. “Need help with the cuff links?”
“You’re blindingly beautiful.” A fingertip skimmed along her collarbone, te
ased the pocket of her throat, and dipped to follow the line of her breastbone. “I can’t think straight.”
“I could say the same thing.” She peeked at his face, and if she thought she felt pretty before, her self-appraisal didn’t hold a candle to the awe-stricken approval shimmering in his eyes.
His hand shifted to cup her breast, a possessive hold that turned wickedly mischievous as he flicked a thumb against the piercing.
Heat flashed through her, and she stepped back. “Let me see your sleeves.”
He held out the cuff links and offered his wrists. “I need to be inside you.”
“Too bad.” She attached the gold links through the buttonholes.
Despite her resolve, she couldn’t stop herself from glancing at his lap.
The outline of his cock formed an impressively long, rigid bulge that lay trapped against his thigh. Harder than hard, he looked ready to tear through the tuxedo pants.
A molten fever gathered between her legs, and her nipples tightened, the unbidden reaction further stimulated by the barbells.
She needed to stop melting all over the place and focus. He hadn’t answered any of her questions about what to expect tonight. She didn’t know what she would be walking into or how to conduct herself.
“Aren’t we supposed to be there at seven?” She secured the last cuff link and sidled out of his reach.
“We’re going to be late.”
“If we leave now—”
A rough hand grabbed her arm, wrenching her into the space between his knees. “I’m going to fuck you.”
Flames swept around them, from his gaze burning into hers, his fingers trailing heat up her arm, and the fire igniting inside her.
His other hand slipped through the slit of her gown and sank between her thighs, finding her embarrassingly wet.
“Fuck.” He gripped her waist, dropped his forehead against her stomach, and twisted two fingers inside her. “Fucking drenched. Dripping for a cock.”
“We’re not doing this.” She teetered in the heels and caught his shoulder for balance. “We’re already dressed, and I’m too nervous about the dinner.”
“I’ll take the edge off.” He thrust his hand, fingering her harder, deeper, until the line between yes and no blurred, and her thighs clenched together. “Sit on my cock, Kate.”