by Jianne Carlo
Shaking his head as he took the emergency stairs two steps at a time, Demon realized he hadn’t done his usual survey of all exits. Might as well kill two birds on this trip.
The hotel had four floors, and they had a room on the second by his request. He didn’t like wooden buildings in the tropics, and if he had to stay in one, he always took a room within jumping distance of the street.
San Carlos, established during the Brazilian rubber monopoly circa 1879, had never experienced the wealth of the city named after the mother of the gods, its closest neighbor, Manaus. When the citizens of Manaus were building their publicly funded opulent opera house—Teatro Amazonas—the citizens of San Carlos had been embroiled in a down-and-dirty hillbilly-style feud between two different Yanomami tribes.
Combine that history with the modern battles between gold and diamond miners, drug lords, factions like FARC squads, and the natives and you had a town that reeked of the Wild, Wild West. He’d chosen the city because someone like him would blend in seamlessly and no one would take notice of his movements.
The rescue had fucked that scenario off the planet. Demon’s mouth flattened. After he’d finished escorting the last group of the wedding party to the medical center, he’d made a detour to the local newspaper offices, found the idiot reporter who’d taken his picture, and exposed the film in the camera. Las Vegas luck had shined on him, and no one else had been present. He’d soothed the reporter’s ruffled feathers with a hundred dollar bribe and left.
Demon finished walking the square block housing the hotel. Three concrete structures and six wooden buildings made up the block, and every single one of the wooden edifices were in danger of falling apart. What a fucking fire hazard. But because the hotel occupied the middle of the block, ambush would take some doing. Satisfied the architecture posed no real threat, he made his way to the pharmacy, bought two dozen boxes of rubbers, headed to the stairs, and took them two at a time.
The second floor hallway was deserted, and nothing appeared askance. When he reached their door, the strand of hair that he’d placed between the door and frame remained in place. His bunched neck muscles relaxed, and he knocked. “Jacinta?”
“Coming.” The thin walls allowed him to track her footsteps to the door. No roaring his climax in this place. An image of Jacinta gagged and bound and a sweet little pirate-wench role-play had his dick hard and aching in a blink. Walking the plank had a whole bunch of appeal if she was the one guiding him—by the prick.
The door opened, and he scanned from her plump bare toes to the cute dry, inky spikes of hair. She hadn’t showered. Fucking great. Soapy foam and her olive skin was an image more mouthwatering than any Michelin-rated five-star meal.
“I like your outfit.” He gestured to his T-shirt.
She waved him in and glanced at his empty hand. “Didn’t they have any?”
“Two dozen.” He held up the bag he’d tucked into a belt loop.
“Twenty-four?” She opened the bag and flashed him a wide grin. “Boxes. Now that I comprehend. I put the condom on this time.”
Demon slid the chain into place, locked the door, and placed the key on the far side of the dresser. “You can put the rubber on every time, kitten. Let’s get wet.”
He’d never survive her putting a rubber on his dick.
It had taken him less than two minutes to get them naked and under a hot stream of water. Then she’d knelt to put on the condom, and the damn thing kept curling in on itself and she went into a fit of the cutest giggles in the universe. Five minutes; he’d counted each agonizing nanosecond. No rubber, Jacinta’s nose brushing his dick, her fingers grazing his balls, cupping the base, and holding the skin tight.
“Kitten.” He dropped to his knees. “Give me that rubber.”
“You promised.”
Water plastered her spiky hair, and his prick went ape shit at the sight of her. Cheeks flushed to a delicious pink by the spray and steam, eyes all natural, the mesmerizing color of her irises more blue than green, he had never seen anyone, anything, more beautiful. He fumbled with the rubber, and she gave a delighted shout when it flew across the stall.
Demon grabbed for the condom, rolled over, and jammed the sheath down his cock.
“I have you at my mercy.” She looked like a pagan goddess, and he knew in that moment that they’d fuck in the backyard of his cottage during storms. Setting her hands on his belly, she clambered over him and straddled his thighs, kneeling on the wet tiles.
He circled her waist.
She batted at his hands. “My turn. Let me. Put your hands above your head.”
His stones did a couple of somersaults. Nothing he liked more than a bound-and-tied role-play. Even if he wasn’t in charge. Demon couldn’t take his focus off her face.
She slid him a peek and took his cock in a firm grip, sliding her hands up and down his on-fire erection. “Next time. No rubber until the last second. I want to feel you. To smell you. To taste you.”
“Honey. Mount me fast. You’re dirty talking me into a hard-rock place.” He clasped his twined fingers so hard that the palms burned.
He prayed for mercy. She positioned his throbbing prick at her core, and he bit his tongue when the crown slowly, millimeter by millimeter, disappeared into the honeyed heat of her pussy. His throat went dry, and his pulse jumped and spiked higher and higher until he couldn’t hear the drumming of the shower for the blood thundering in his ears.
She had the bluest-black pubes, and the contrast between the rose of her labia and the inky curls had his lungs straining. Halfway to paradise. He growled when her fiery sheath squeezed him, once, twice. On the third contraction, she moaned and let her full weight bear down on his dick, impaling him to the hilt.
His groin, every single muscle below his waist tautened to the point of pain. “Ride me, Jacinta. Ride me hard.”
Their gazes met. She licked her lips, braced her hands on the tiles, and never looked away as she slid up and down his length. He ground his teeth, and the tic under his eye twitched as she gained momentum, fucking him now, mouth set, eyes glazed. Her breathing hitched. Her walls clamped him like a vise, and she whimpered and threw her head back. His balls blued when her muscled fisted his cock, sharp, short contractions that had him grinding his teeth till even the gums ached. She dropped her head and stilled, palms on his ribs. He wanted to shout in frustration, grasped her hip, and started thrusting, driving up into her heat.
The release hit him like an electric shock. A sizzling explosion that had him arching and clamping his hands around her waist, ramming higher and higher until they were both suspended off the floor. Her climax sent him skyrocketing, the fierce, fast, squeezebox clenching of her tight pussy draining him dry.
She collapsed onto his chest.
He wrapped his arms around her.
And never realized that the shower spray had ceased until she shivered.
Cupping her ass, he levered to his elbow and kissed her temple. “Water’s gone.”
“We didn’t soap.” Her lips brushed his chest.
Demon chortled and sat up against the wall. “Guess we’ll just have to do it all over again.”
“I should like to know something.”
The phrase didn’t raise a neck hair, he was so replete. “Hmm?”
“How do lovers ever really shower?” She drew back to stare at him.
“Separately.” He chucked her chin. “Let’s get dry.”
Toweling off Jacinta proved sheer torture. She was so ticklish that they ended up tussling on the bed, and his prick had never been able to disassociate being on a mattress with a warm, curvy woman from an incoming fucking, and gallantly rose to the occasion. One thing led to another, and they needed to shower again.
Turned out the shower was on a timer—a quick phone call to the front desk restored the hot water—and Jacinta insisted on showering separately. Demon wanted to program the cell phones and activate them anyway, so he lost that battle before it even began. He’d
almost finished with the phones when she opened the bathroom door.
“I should like to place the room service order.”
Demon looked up to find her dressed in a skimpy tank top. Fuck, he’d had her twice in less than three hours, and his cock had gone hard with one glance. The wide white straps of her bra were clearly visible. Shit. Old-lady panties and bras turned him on big-time. What in piss would a sexy Fredericks of Hollywood number do? He didn’t have the time for distraction of any kind. Giving himself a mental uppercut, Demon refocused. “By all means. What happened to the red number?”
She shrugged. “It seems silly to put on a dress only to have it taken off.”
“You’re spoiling all my fun. That’s the whole point. Taking it off. It’s like makeup sex.”
“Made-up sex? I do not comprehend.” She sashayed across the room, and he couldn’t resist following the sway of her sweet ass.
“Not made-up. Makeup. Like after a quarrel.”
He finished programming the cells and checked for Internet access. Two bars. This was going to be brutal. He’d communicate faster with the squad with the radio on the boat, but first he had to repair it.
While Jacinta had been shopping in San Carlos’s lone department store earlier, he had wandered into a secondhand electrical supply hole-in-the-wall opposite and found the replacement transistor for the nonfunctioning radio. Later tonight, after she was asleep, he’d head back to the boat and set things in motion.
“So one must quarrel and then have makeup sex?” Head tilted, she speared him with a raised brow and shook her head. “Truly. I shall never understand the workings of the male mind. How do I start? The room service?”
He grinned. “The menu’s in the desk drawer. Whatever you order, double the portions. I’m starving.”
“You should be. You used up your caloric intake with all that fucking.” She colored fast and furious on the last word but dug determinedly into the desk drawer and retrieved the menu.
“Calories. More colloquial. Very daring of you, little Miss Cloister. Now, let’s hear you say ‘eat my pussy and suck my clit.’”
She snorted, though the dusky rose in her cheeks deepened, and then she opened the menu. “There are seven chocolate desserts. I cannot decide. Listen to this one, a Brazil-nut chocolate tart spiced with cinnamon and served with a whole-bean vanilla sauce.”
“Order all of ’em.” He checked the progress of his download on the phone. Complete. Crap. Five minutes for each picture. At this rate it would take an hour to download everything he wanted.
“Oh no. I cannot do that. It would be too devadent. So sinful to gorge and be so greedy. It’s one of the seven sins, you know.”
“Decadent. I’m of the opinion that in order to be good, you must sin.” Demon started another download with a long exhale.
He stretched his bare feet out and studied her intense concentration. If all went as planned, she’d be on a plane before midmorning tomorrow. Tonight he’d have to slip another sedative into her food and early in the a.m. smuggle her onto the boat. The landing strip was located about two miles downriver.
At last the odds seemed to be turning in his favor. Finding out Xavier was a bush pilot for one of the mining companies located in the area had been nothing but gold. The young groom hadn’t wanted to accept payment for flying Jacinta to Manaus, but Demon had insisted.
Satan, who was on standby in Trinidad, would meet Jacinta in Manaus and take her to the island’s capital, Port of Spain, where they’d both wait for him to finish this job. Tonight he’d revise his will, have a couple of hotel employees witness it, and fax it to Satan. Jacinta would never have to worry about money, and his soul, what was left of it, would rest easier if he didn’t survive his encounter with o Assassino Sorridente.
“Okay. I have made a decision. For me, the bolinhos de bacalhau, then the feijoada, and finally the bollo prestígio covered with brigadeiro.” She raised both brows, and her statement ended on a question as she handed him the menu.
Demon couldn’t repress his shit-eating grin. Jacinta’s taste in food mirrored her passionate nature. Cod croquettes, a rich meat stew, and a decadent-to-the-max cake with a coconut-and-milk filling covered in dark chocolate sprinkles for dessert.
“Tell me. How is it that in Brazil of all places, a country that exports chocolate, you end up never tasting it until you left the cloister?”
“Mother Superior believed that if you’re never faced with temptation, then you will not stray from the righteous path. We ate only those things that we could grow or hunt. Never meat or fowl. Mother Superior kept doves and parrots. And not pig because it was unclean. Fish, dried shrimp, root vegetables. Unleavened bread made from cassava flour.”
Each word stabbed him in the heart. He glanced at the menu. “I’ll have what you’re having and order every single chocolate dessert. Add in a bottle of wine.”
She scooted off the bed, knelt in front of him, settled between his legs, and nudged his thighs apart. Her warm palms cradled his jaw, and she kissed him, the scar at the side of his mouth, the tip of his mangled nose, and finally the cleft of his chin. “I love you. You are the kindest of all men. It makes me weepy that you would order all the desserts just so I can have them. But we must not indulge in such waste.”
It cut to his core to hear her say those three words. To want them so badly. And she’d hate his guts by tomorrow night. But he couldn’t afford a single moment of hesitation and decided an order of distraction was necessary. “Who says I’m ordering them for you? What if I told you that I intend to eat them off your belly and breasts?”
Meeting his stare without blinking, she whispered, “You cannot fool me, Demon mina. But it will be my great pleasure to eat them off your belly and cock, dick, booner, jonesy, wooding—”
He couldn’t hold back a hoot. “Stop. Stop. You’re making my dick cringe. Now repeat after me. Boner. Jones. Woody. I don’t care if you bastardize any other English words, but not those. Go on. Place the order.”
He captured her wrist when she began to walk away. “Where’re you going? The phone’s right there. No need for you to sit anywhere but here.” He patted his lap. “My boner, jones, and woody are anxious for your sweet rump.”
He teased her without mercy once she began dictating the order. Nibbled on her ear, rolled her nipples, slipped his hand under her panties, and toyed with her folds.
“You are a wicked man.” She dropped the phone like a hot potato when he pinched her clit. Flushed and a tad sweaty, she smacked his chest. “Suppose the operator heard? I will never be able to look anyone in this hotel in the eye.”
“How long did they say for the order?” Demon hated to spoil the easy camaraderie.
“Half an hour. Why? You cannot mean to fuck again?”
He stifled a wince, wishing she’d say make love instead. Wanting to hear her say it once before he stowed her on the plane.
“No. I want to go through all the photos I’ve downloaded. And make sure you know how to use that cell.” He angled his head at the two phones on the desk.
She sobered instantly. “You have the pictures of my father and mother?”
“And your uncle. Before we start—go put in your contacts and pull on your jeans.”
For once she didn’t protest about the contacts but glanced at the phones, nodded, and headed to the bathroom.
Demon used the time to pulverize the sleeping pill and hid the powdery packet under the menu. When she returned, he had changed positions and occupied the lone couch against the far wall.
She raised a brow, and her gaze strayed to the desk.
“The lighting’s better over here.”
When she sat next to him, he began with the phone. “I’ve preprogrammed three numbers. Mine. A friend in Trinidad. His name is Lorcan. If we’re separated for any reason and you can’t find me, call him right away. The third number is Fredo and Lucia’s. Let’s test them now.”
He made her ring all the phone numbers, starting
with his.
“Now Lorcan’s. You’ll get his voice mail. Leave him your name and the time and date.”
After she left Satan, aka Lorcan, the message, he advised, “Speak slower next time so if there’s static he can figure out what you’re saying.”
“I was nervous. I will be slower next time.”
“Now Fredo and Lucia. You should get them at the restaurant. Chat with Lucia if you want. She liked you. Go on, kitten. I’ll get the photos ready on my phone.” Demon listened with half an ear to the women’s conversation, only paying attention when Jacinta related the wedding and the rescue, and was surprised to discover that the gossip had spread faster than the Orinoco’s currents and Lucia already knew of their help.
His gritted his teeth. The news only reinforced his determination to get her on the plane pronto.
“Did you hear? That Lucia already knew about Maria and Xavier and…us?”
“I heard. Ready?” He folded her hand in his and noted the dampness on her palms.
She nodded.
He punched the camera roll icon. “This is Jose Genro.”
Her grip tightened, her mouth flattened, and her breasts rose faster as she studied the close-up of Genro’s face. The silence stretched and stretched. Finally she shook her head. “I see nothing of me. Or Emilio. This man’s face doesn’t tug at my heart. And yet, he is my father. I would never have known. I would’ve passed him in the street.”
She raised a stricken face to him. “Should I not feel something? Anything?”
He caressed her cheek. His chest felt battered and bruised, as if he’d gone a few rounds in the boxing ring. “For all intents and purposes, Sister Helen and the nuns raised you. They were your parents. Remember what I told you before—”
“You can’t pick your relatives.” She inhaled audibly. “I remember. Go on.”
“This is your uncle. Pedro Nunez.” He thumbed the arrow.