by Pam Godwin
“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.”
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.
She saw a heart worthy enough to take.
———————————————
Thank you for taking this chilling journey with me!
Ready for more?
The DEL
IVER series continues with:
MANIPULATE (#6)
Martin and Ricky’s story (MMF with a new heroine)
The Prologue of MANIPULATE is included at the end of this book.
Keep scrolling to read or CLICK HERE to buy it now.
Each of the Freedom Fighters gets his own HEA book.
UNSHACKLE (#7)
Luke’s story
CLICK HERE
DOMINATE (#8)
Tomas’ story
CLICK HERE
COMPLICATE (#9) - the final book
Cole’s story
CLICK HERE
———————————————
Join the Deliver Series Spoiler Group on Facebook:
CLICK HERE
Join my Reader Group, Read Between the Wines:
CLICK HERE
LOVE TRIANGLE ROMANCE
TANGLED LIES TRILOGY
One is a Promise-FREE
Two is a Lie
Three is a War
DARK COWBOY ROMANCE
TRAILS OF SIN
Knotted #1-FREE
Buckled #2
Booted #3
DARK PARANORMAL ROMANCE
TRILOGY OF EVE
Heart of Eve-FREE
Dead of Eve #1
Blood of Eve #2
Dawn of Eve #3
STUDENT-TEACHER ROMANCE
Dark Notes
ROCK-STAR DARK ROMANCE
Beneath the Burn
ROMANTIC SUSPENSE
Dirty Ties
EROTIC ROMANCE
Incentive
MANIPULATE
PROLOGUE
Two years ago…
What a suck ass day.
To think, it started out so lovely and perfect.
Since Tula Gomez didn’t have to go in to work, she decided to make it a bra-less, drink-wine-at-noon, binge-on-Hellraiser-movies, and masturbate-more-than-once kind of day.
Until her phone rang.
She should’ve sent her sister’s call to voicemail.
She should’ve let Vera ruin someone else’s day.
But she didn’t.
She answered the damn phone and surrendered to Vera’s demands.
Instead of slumming in her pajamas on the couch, she spent the past six hours on the road, driving toward the last city on Earth she wanted to visit.
When she crossed the New Mexico border two-hundred-miles back, her mood had spiraled past annoyance and straight into pissed-off.
Now in Texas, she eased her Jeep Wrangler forward in the stop-start traffic, trying not to ride the old clutch. If the manual transmission decided to go out, today would be the fucking day.
Wavy lines of heat rose from the scorched asphalt. Horns blared, and some idiot a few cars back blasted his bass so loud it rattled the frame of her poor Jeep.
She grabbed her phone and dialed her sister again. “Come on, Vera. Pick up.”
As it rang, she inched along with hundreds of other border-crossing commuters lined up at the Mexico port of entry.
The phone continued to ring. And ring. Why wasn’t Vera answering her calls?
“Dammit!” She gritted her teeth at the sound of the voicemail greeting. “This is bullshit.”
She disconnected and gripped the steering wheel, vacillating between turning back home and speeding toward hell.
Home was a one-bedroom apartment two states away in Phoenix, Arizona, where everything in her world was safe, normal, orderly, and stress-free.
Hell was her childhood colonia in Ciudad Hueca, Mexico, where Vera still lived. Her younger sister thrived in chaos, drama, and danger—all the things Tula ran away from when she moved to the states.
Her visits to Mexico were infrequent and made only out of obligation to Vera.
She didn’t shun her Mexican roots, but it had taken her a long damn time to go through the naturalization process to become a U.S. citizen. She was a proud American and a law-abiding taxpayer, who worked nine to five as a high school Spanish teacher.
Her peaceful, boring life suited her just fine. If she never stepped foot across the border again, she would be just fine with that, too.
But Vera was family. Her only living relative. And her sister needed her.
God only knew what sort of mess Vera had landed in this time. When she called this morning, the shitty connection had chopped up the short conversation into a few staticky words.
Some trouble.
Need you.
Come now.
Bring money.
When the connection had cut off, Tula called back, again and again, with no luck. None of her questions had been answered, and she had very little to go on.
Except Vera’s track record.
Last time Vera called, she needed help kicking her thieving, loser boyfriend to the curb. Time before that, she’d been abandoned a day’s drive from home without money or a ride back. There were dozens of other situations over the years, and Tula always, begrudgingly, came to the rescue.
It wasn’t a secret Vera hung out with the wrong people. Living in Ciudad Hueca, it was easy to become entangled with cartels.
Tula’s nagging pleas to stay away from them fell on deaf ears, and their relationship became resentful and strained. But at the end of the day, all they had was each other.
She attempted several more phone calls while trudging along in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Rows of cars pressed in on all sides, filled with people whose frustration rivaled her own. Road rage simmered like the summer heat, all of it weighing on her with each passing minute.
An hour later, she made it through the port of entry and took the safest route toward her childhood home.
Not that there was a safe route. Ciudad Hueca was going through a volatile time. As a border city, it was perfectly located for drug distribution throughout the United States. This made it exceptionally important to cartels and one of the most fought-over territories in the country.
Since Vera refused to move to the states, Tula stayed abreast of the local news and crime here. Two big drug cartels battled for dominance, street by street, to control the lucrative drug-trafficking routes through Ciudad Hueca.
Driving through her hometown, alone and unarmed, was dangerous as hell.
She kept pepper spray in her Jeep just for these visits. But no guns. Given her inexperience with weapons, she’d end up shooting herself during an attack.
She’d topped off the gas tank in Texas to avoid an extra stop in Mexico. No lingering. No shortcuts.
The five-hundred dollars in cash she’d stuffed in her purse would have to be enough to fix Vera’s mess. Tula would stay three hours tops, confirm Vera’s well-being with her own eyes, and return to the U.S. before nightfall.
Around three in the afternoon, she arrived at her childhood colonia on the outskirts of the city. Rundown businesses, rugged streets, and a few trees encircled the tiny, concrete-block house where she and Vera were raised.
Between the two of them, Vera had a closer relationship with their mother. When they lost their only parent to heart disease five years ago, Vera kept the house.
That was right about the time Vera started her downward spiral into trouble.
Tula parked in front of the house and leaned over the steering wheel, inspecting the empty street and surrounding homes. No one lingered around the property. No gun fire nearby or in the distance.
It hadn’t always been this unsafe. She left home at age eighteen, and in the ten years she’d been in the states, Ciudad Hueca had grown chaotically. Its tax revenue went to Mexico City, and not much came back. Law enforcement rationed gasoline and bullets. Basic infrastructure—schools, roads, sewers, parks—went to shit.
The city was in a state of decay, much like the sagging roof of her childhood home.
She grabbed the pepper spray, her purse, and the house key she still kept on her keyring. Then she bolted to the front door.
The key turned the lock, and she stepped in without knocking. “Hello
? Vera?”
Silence hit her, along with the usual weight of nostalgia.
Good times. Bad times. No major trauma or tragedy, her childhood had been fairly uneventful.
She made a quick sweep through the sitting room, kitchen, and two bedrooms before confirming what she already knew.
Her sister wasn’t home.
Despite Vera’s haphazard approach to life, she maintained a tidy, clutter-free house. Not a single dirty dish in the sink. No dust on the furniture or cobwebs in the corners. Nothing lying around to indicate where she was.
With a sigh, Tula called her again.
No answer.
“Shit.” She stared at the front door, tapping the phone against her chin.
Vera usually had a job, but never a steady one. She bounced through employers as fast as she went through boyfriends. If she was at work, Tula didn’t know where that was.
Over the next ten minutes, she dared a walk outside, knocking on neighboring houses. Three doors opened for her, and all the responses were consistent.
No one had seen Vera in weeks.
Panic set in.
Why would she tell Tula to drive here, if she wasn’t home? Where the fuck did she go?
Indecision sent her pacing through the house, rifling through drawers and digging in closets. The hunt for clues led her nowhere.
“Fuck!” She lowered to couch and squeezed her fingers around the phone.
Should she leave? What if Vera was on her way here? Maybe she was staying with a new boyfriend and lost her phone after their call dropped this morning?
“Damn you, Vera.” Tula slumped deeper into the couch and waited.
And waited.
Three hours later, her blood pressure careened toward detonation. The sun dipped low on the horizon, signaling the darkness to come.
Vera still wasn’t answering the phone. Tula must’ve left over fifty voicemail messages, and she sure as hell didn’t want to be caught in this city at nighttime.
Time to go.
Nervous energy trembled through her as she opened the freezer in the kitchen and hid some money in a carton of ice cream. Vera would eventually call, and Tula would tell her where to find the cash.