The Bargain

by Lisa Cardiff

  Volcanic heat rushed up my neck, and I tucked my head against my chest. “I want to go home,” I whispered, ignoring the question entirely. “I really need to go home, Evan.”

  “As you can see, Hattie is alive and in good condition. When can I expect the exchange to happen?” Ignacio barked. Obviously his patience with Evan’s questions had expired. I didn’t care. Mine had too. As much as I wished otherwise, I didn’t have any information to help them rescue me. I suspected I was still in Mexico, but I wasn’t 100 percent certain, and Mexico was a huge country.

  “We’re working on it. Things like this don’t happen overnight. Hattie’s father is pursuing it from his angle, and I’m doing everything in my power to facilitate the prisoner exchange.” Senator Deveron cleared his throat and reclined in his chair.

  “I’m running out of patience. This needs to happen within the next week,” Ignacio persisted, shifting impatiently from foot to foot.

  “No way.” Evan vaulted out of his chair. “That’s impossible. We’re not some third world banana republic with a dictator who can snap his fingers and make things magically happen.”

  “Figure it out.” With those three words, Ignacio hooked his hand into the top of my hair, yanking it back, exposing my neck. His other hand curved around the front of my neck. Unfortunately, in that hand, he had a knife. He slid the knife across my neck up the side of my face. “I’d hate to have to hurt her or cause any permanent damage to this pretty face.”

  I squeezed my eyes closed, bracing myself for the moment his knife penetrated my skin. With each centimeter it slid along my skin, he pressed harder…deeper. I cataloged his movements.

  Cheek.

  Below my ear.

  The underside of my jaw.

  I wanted to scream, but my lungs constricted, preventing me from inhaling one molecule of air. I bit the inside of my bottom lip so hard the copper taste of blood flowed through my mouth. And then it happened…the sharp point of the knife bit into the side of my neck and a warm liquid trickled down my skin.

  A piercing scream echoed through the room, and it took me a few seconds to realize it came from my mouth. Ice ripped through my muscles and my heart froze in my chest. It took every ounce of control to suck in another breath.

  “What the fuck! You promised not to hurt her,” Evan screamed, his voice cracking, but I didn’t open my eyes. I didn’t need to see his stricken face. I already had a shitstorm of emotions racing through my mind without adding his fear to mine. I was going to die…maybe not today, but soon. The Vargas Cartel had no intention of letting me live.

  “I think you understand how serious this is now. Maybe you’ll figure out how to make the wheels of justice churn a little faster,” Ignacio warned. His voice vibrated through my body, as he withdrew the knife and stepped back.

  “That’s enough,” Ryker said. I smelled his spicy, sea salt scent as he leaned over and shut off the computer monitor. The noise from the video conference halted mid-shouts. “We’re done here. Everyone needs to leave.”

  Distantly, I heard the shuffle of feet as they exited the room, but I still refused to open my eyes. My brain was fuzzy with fragmented thoughts and racing fears. I wanted to go to sleep and wake up when I had my life back, and if that never happened, I didn’t want to wake up at all.

  When the heavy door slammed, I slumped down in the chair and opened my eyes. Everything was out of focus, coated with a dreamlike haze. Nothing seemed real. I couldn’t comprehend how my vacation to Mexico had ended with me as a hostage.

  Ryker crouched in front of me. “How do you feel?”

  Not able to talk, I meekly shook my head.

  He lifted my hand and held two fingers on the inside of my wrist, checking my pulse. “Shit,” he murmured. “You need to lie down.”

  In one swift movement, he lifted me out of the chair, cradling me against his body. Like human chains, I wrapped my arms around his neck as though he was my one and only lifeline, and everything would fall apart if I let go.

  Chapter Twelve

  One.

  Two.

  Three.

  Four turns and Ryker halted in front of a door at the end of the hallway in the villa. He pushed it open and kicked it closed behind us. Maneuvering through the large room, he carried me with ease. Instead of white walls and dull concrete floors like my prison cell, the room danced with vibrant color—warm terra cotta floor tiles, honeyed wood furniture, a black and red Aztec looking coverlet neatly folded at the bottom of a creamy duvet. Bright photographs of Mayan villages hung in a block of nine on the heavily textured wall above the headboard. A lamp molded from a twisted wooden branch casted a yellow glow over the room.

  He sat me down on the bed, and my eyes drifted lazily over the room absorbing the details. “Where are we?”

  “My room.”

  I shivered. “Why?”

  He didn’t answer. “Get under the covers and warm up.”

  I glanced at my hands. Blood stained my fingertips. My eyes widened, and I thought I’d be sick. On a good day, the sight of blood made me lightheaded, but today it was so much worse. I didn’t have my usual armor. I’d been stripped bare by the events of the past week and the past hour. “Oh my God,” I breathed as I leaned against the mountain of pillows on his bed.

  Ryker sat next to me on the bed. “Are you going to be sick?” he asked slowly.

  I closed my eyes and took deep breaths. “No,” I whispered, not opening my eyes. “I don’t like blood.”

  “Shh,” he said, taking the hem of my dress and lifting it.

  “Get away from me,” I yelled, swatting my hands at him like a loose helicopter rotor system. Whatever calm I felt in his arms melted when I saw my blood. Ignacio Vargas, Ryker’s dad, had sliced my neck. I gasped for breath repeatedly, but my lungs forcibly repelled the air. It was like someone had stuffed a ball of plastic wrap in my mouth, slowly but inexorably suffocating me.

  “Calm down,” he said, restraining my arms.

  “Calm down!” I screamed. “How am I supposed to calm down? I’m being held captive by a band of deranged murderers, one of which sliced open my neck and threatened to kill me.” He snorted, and my eyes popped open. Summoning every inch of fiery anger from every corner of my soul, I glared at him.

  “Nobody is going to kill you.”

  “Don’t lie to me.”

  “I’m not lying. Ignacio is first and foremost a businessman. He’d sell you into the sex trade before he’d kill you.”

  My mouth hung open, and my hands dropped onto the mattress like limp noodles. “I’d rather die.” I had read the stories. Being sold into the sex trade was a death sentence, albeit a long, torturous one where I’d become a shell of myself before I took my final breath.

  “Good thing you won’t have to make that choice in the near future.” Without an explanation, he picked me up again and carried me to the bathroom adjoining his room. My sandals fell off my feet as he dumped me in the shower, still fully dressed.

  Cold, then hot water beat against my skin. Joining me in the partially enclosed shower, he stripped my soaked dress over my head and scrubbed every inch of my skin. I stood there, unmoving and trembling from his touch and the tsunami of emotions assaulting my brain. His hands moved in efficient, asexual strokes, coating every inch of my skin in a thin veil of white foam. Then, he moved me under the spray of hot water again.

  With tightly closed eyes, I tipped my head to the ceiling wishing I could follow the water down the drain and get the hell out of this place. “I want to go home. I want my life back. Is that too much to ask?” I whispered, more to myself than Ryker.

  “No.” He turned off the water and wrapped a big, white terry cloth robe around my body, directing my arms into the oversized sleeves.

  Again, he lifted me and placed me on the edge of the countertop. Using a white washcloth, he gently cleaned the laceration on my neck. “It’s not too deep,” he whispered, his face only inches from neck. His warm breath licked the side
of my face, making me too aware of his proximity. “It won’t leave a scar.”

  I scanned every feature of his face, studying him as though he were a single cell organism under a microscope. Searching for what? A flaw? Kindness? Redemption? I didn’t know. I didn’t find any clues or secrets hidden in the details of his flawlessly sculpted face. He had one of those faces where if I separated any feature from the whole, it wouldn’t be perfect, but together they were a study in rugged, masculine perfection.

  Water marred his starched white linen shirt making it transparent, hinting at the muscles my hands freely explored over a week ago. His almost black hair brushed the collar of his shirt. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled to his elbow, exposing his golden and thickly muscled forearms. As usual, dark stubble highlighted the chiseled angles of his face, and my mind taunted me with the memory of it abrading my neck as he devoured me. And in that stretch of time, with Ryker tending to my injury, I felt like a rare rose blossoming under his attention. My lips twitched at the silly analogy.

  He slipped a long elegant finger underneath my chin. “What are you thinking?”

  I blinked repeatedly as though the motion would somehow scrub away the dangerous direction of my thoughts. “How I’d kill for a spa day,” I lied. But what was one more lie between abductor and abductee? He didn’t need to know my mind was freefalling into Stockholm syndrome.

  “When in doubt, choose the massage over the facial.” He didn’t make eye contact as he smeared an ointment on my cut. I flinched, and his gray eyes snapped to mine.

  “Does your girlfriend agree with you?” What was wrong with me? Did I really go there? Yes, I went there. I mentally bitch slapped myself. I didn’t care if he had a girlfriend. I didn’t care if he had a whole harem chained in the dungeon of this villa or wherever he spent the bulk of his time.

  Ryker’s hands stilled, and he lifted one dark eyebrow, a hundred questions dangling from the tip of his tongue. “My girlfriend?” he said dryly as he smoothed a few butterfly bandages on my neck.

  “Yes. You know what one of those are, don’t you?”

  “Hm.” He trailed his finger along my neck, to my collarbone. His eyes flickered to mine as he slid the top of my robe down my shoulder. Goosebumps scattered across my skin, but I didn’t budge. I didn’t take a single breath. I couldn’t.

  “What are you doing?” My voice was strangled.

  His eyes never leaving mine, he ran two fingers down my exposed shoulder and along the side of my breast. “Touching you,” he admitted, his voice soft, his hands drawing circles on my needy skin.

  I liked it. It made me feel alive as I teetered on the cliff of madness. I closed my eyes and bit my lip to stifle any sound that might betray my thoughts. I pictured his touch like a flame and myself like a piece of paper reduced to ashes under the pads of his very capable fingers. Not good. I searched my mind for any remnants of hatred or repulsion, but his touch must have turned those emotions to ash too.

  His breath hovered near the tip of my breast and…what the fuck? My nipples pebbled. If he touched me, I’d explode. Air escaped my mouth in uneven, jagged pants, and I didn’t know whether it was from arousal, fear, self-loathing, or just an all-around mind fuck.

  Then, he did it. He captured the tip of my nipple with his mouth as he shoved the robe off my other shoulder. I expelled a long, guttural breath and my back arched of its own volition. I was like a stupid zebra offering my heart to the lion for a Sunday afternoon snack by the water hole. I blamed my reaction on temporary insanity brought on by extreme stress.

  “Do you like this?” he asked as his mouth shifted to my other nipple and drew the peak into his mouth with a hard suck. And reminiscent of the last time he touched me, both pleasure and pain swirled together creating something bigger…better. “Do you want me to continue?”

  My brain scrambled to process his question, but it came up empty. I should’ve been focused on a plan of escape, but Ryker’s attentions didn’t leave room for plotting. Instead, I concentrated on the heat of his mouth, branding my sensitive flesh, speculating what his mouth would feel like pressed on other parts of my body.

  He parted my thighs and positioned himself between them. I should’ve pushed him away, but I spread them further, rolling out the welcome mat. Come and get me. I’m so stupid.

  His hand slid from my breast all the way down my stomach, hovering, teasing, and waiting for I didn’t know what. Then, I remembered I never answered his question, and I wouldn’t. I’d never give voice to my lust for him. Never.

  One of my hands found his shoulder and the other circled his wrist, sliding it lower. He resisted, and I felt like dying. And then his eyes caught mine, holding me hostage. “Answer,” he murmured, his finger dipping less than an inch lower.

  I shook my head. “I can’t say it.” My eyes pleaded with him, locking us in a silent tug of war. Eyes flashed. Lips curled. No other words were exchanged. He refused to give me what I wanted, and I refused to give him what he wanted. I would have rather burned up in flames than surrendered the last sliver of my dignity to him.

  Just when I convinced myself he’d leave me unfulfilled, he dropped to his knees, and I whimpered realizing exactly what he planned to do. His tongue grazed the length of my slick entrance and a surge of forbidden electricity ripped through my body. “Oh,” I moaned as my head fell forward. At that instant, my body welcomed the diversion he promised in his wicked gaze.

  He licked, nibbled, and everything between until I became a boneless, moaning version of myself I didn’t recognize. I pressed my eyes closed, so I didn’t have a visual to go with my body’s betrayal of my soul. I couldn’t explain why I let him—no, begged him to do this—but the words or desire to stop him evaded me, shimmering so far out of reach I had no choice but to surrender.

  Lost in the moment, I lifted my hips to encourage him. I started to slip off the counter, but his hands dug into my hips, shoving me back until my back hit the mirror. His finger circled my sex, and I clenched so tight the sugary bliss of pleasure spiraled through me, but it didn’t compare to the second when he closed his mouth over me again, stealing my very essence. My body no longer belonged to me.

  Tremors cascaded down my spine, and any last ounce of willpower I possessed splintered into a million pieces. Desperate, I buried my hands in his hair, squirming toward him, making sure he didn’t renege on the promises he made with every indecent stroke of his tongue and flick of his skilled fingers.

  Blood pounded through my head, and I forgot everything but the wildfire raging inside of me. Then, out of nowhere, he slid two fingers inside of me, and I came apart. My body shook with spasms of pleasure so deep that I felt it in my bones. Every time I thought it was over, another tremor rocked through me until I was utterly exhausted.

  And there it was…another orgasm courtesy of Ryker, my captor. My enemy. My tormentor. It didn’t take more than a few seconds for the guilt and self-loathing to swallow me. Unbidden, tears erupted from my eyes, and emotionally, I was right back where I started after Ignacio cut me; except now, everything was worse. Much worse.

  I inhaled, trying to pull giant mouthfuls of air into my lungs, but it felt as though a vise grip was slowly, inexorably tightening around my chest with every passing tick of the clock.

  “Nice work,” I snarled, shoving him away from me with wild, shaky hands. I stuffed my arms through the discarded robe, squeezing it closed at the base of my neck as though it were a bulletproof vest, sheltering the last pieces of my dignity from his eyes.

  He wiped the tears from my face with the palm of his hand, and at any other time, with any other guy, I might have believed the gesture was thoughtful…romantic even. The little I knew of Ryker told me there was a far simpler answer. Most likely, he didn’t appreciate the inconvenience of my tears.

  “Work?” he questioned, his voice deceptively soft, his gray eyes mesmerizing.

  “Yeah, like the night at the bar you used sex to distract me.” My body trembled from
the overwhelming emotions poisoning my mind and body.

  “Did it work?”

  With those words, he destroyed me. Silence would have been better than that. My flash of angry rebellion melted into pathetic sobs. I dropped my head to my chest, and my arms circled my body, trying to hold the shattered pieces of my soul together. I’d rather he sliced me with a knife over and over than use sexual warfare as his weapon of choice. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  Without hesitation, he wrapped his arms around me, comforting me, and I let him. Slowly, he rocked me back and forth for I didn’t know how many agonizing seconds, then carried me once again to his bed.

  The minute my body touched the mattress, I curled into a ball, a limp effigy of my former self. I closed my eyes, shutting out the world around me and welcoming the darkness whispering my name.

  The mattress dipped under Ryker’s weight as he stretched out beside me. I braced for his touch, but it never happened. Gratitude and disappointment collided inside of my heart, confusing me even more. I funneled my anger toward him, tossing silent accusations in his direction from the safety of my cocooned mind and shuttered eyes. And yet, he didn’t notice. Like a seductive menace, he lazed next to me, unmoved and uncaring, his very presence stealing my air and safety.

  “Sleep,” he said after few minutes, his voice hypnotic in its intensity, musical in its beauty. “You need to rest.”

  Minutes stretched into an hour or more as I drifted in the world somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, neither state fully claiming me, because I was too busy drowning in the murky waters of regret and self-loathing. A life preserver couldn’t save me at this point. I’d need a coast guard fleet.

  Then, it started.

  Feather soft touches along my face.