by Pam Godwin
Turning his attention to the phone, he opened a screen and held it out to her.
“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 hel
d her to the bed and snatched the rope, making quick work of the knots around her wrists and the cast iron 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.”
It was a moot point. He didn’t ask permission when he fucked her, and he wouldn’t ask permission for this.
“I won’t surrender to that blade. Not ever.” Her lashes fluttered, and her eyes flicked back and forth before pausing on his. “But I’ll make a deal with you. We’re leaving for Caracas in…?”
“Three days.”
“What will you do there? Kidnap more people? Torture them and hold them for ransom? Kill them if their families can’t pay?”
She knew what he did. He didn’t need to fuel her hatred with a response.
“Retire.” Her expression morphed from fearful to determined. “You don’t need the money.”
“No.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Both.”
“Then change your business model. You want to live a life of crime? Fine. Stick to victimless crimes.”
He laughed heartlessly and stopped short when he realized she was serious.
“No more kidnapping. No more hurting innocent people. Make me that promise, and I’ll…” Her nostrils widened with a slow, deep inhale. “I’ll be whatever you need me to be.”
“No deal. I want you exactly as you are.”
“If you don’t make me that promise, all you’re going to get from this point forward is a plastic, hollow version of me.” She leaned up, as much as the rope allowed. “Don’t forget. I was trained how to please a sadist. I can make this a memorable experience for you or I can turn it into a robotic musical of fake moans and cheap quivers.”
“You said you wouldn’t surrender.” He rubbed his brow. Christ, this woman. Why was he even entertaining this conversation?
“I can’t surrender to this. Pain doesn’t turn me on. At all. But I can give you the real me.” She pulled on the restraints, trying to lift her face closer to his. “I know you, Tiago Badell. You need this to be mutually honest. No games. No bullshit. Just you and me.”
Heat surged to his balls and swelled his cock.
She jutted her chin. “Stop. Kidnapping.”
“What you’re asking for is ridiculous.” He sat up and hardened his eyes. “Caracas is the kidnapping capital of the world. You don’t survive Kidnap Alley without playing by the rules.”
“If you’re the king, you can do whatever the fuck you want.”
CHAPTER 19
No more kidnapping.
Was it as easy as just deciding to stop? Tiago never had a taste for abducting people off the streets, but he had a reputation to uphold and hundreds of powerful men in his pocket, including law enforcement and politicians. If he so much as appeared weak, he wouldn’t just lose their protection. They would turn on him and everyone loyal to him.
The deaths of his family had led him to this corrupt life. His last revenge kill was in Caracas, and when he finished, he stayed.
He’d slunk into the deepest, darkest corner of Kidnap Alley and became one of them. One of the irredeemable who lurked in the shadows, smuggling contraband, kidnapping tourists, and killing at will. Within a year, he’d become their leader.
His fate was sealed. He was hunted by government agencies, cartels, crime lords, influential people. They wanted him imprisoned, tortured, dead, dismembered, his head on a stake in town square. Didn’t matter. They wanted him gone.
If he left his life in Caracas, he left the protection of his crime syndicate. Walking away was the same as walking toward death row.
But he could make a minor change to the business. If he refocused his efforts on gun smuggling and expanded his routes, he could make the argument to his money-hungry constituents that it was more lucrative than kidnapping for ransom.
He could give her this one thing. He wanted to, and not because he was receiving something in return. He wanted to give her this because it was the right thing to do.
It might be the only good thing he could ever offer her.
“No more kidnapping.” He ran featherlight fingers down her neck, eliciting a shudder in her breath. “Consider it done.”
“Thank you. And you’ll take me to visit Tate before we leave.”
“You have my word.”
All she had was his word, and he could break it at any time. But he wouldn’t. She seemed to know that. She trusted it.
“Untie me.” She stared at him, a silent bid to trust her.
“No.” He climbed off the bed and collected the blade and Boones’ medical bag.
The air between them assembled and charged, a palpable battle of her fear against his anticipation. As he readied the supplies, her anxiety pressed against him, the shallow sounds of her breaths accelerating his.
She deserved so much more than the sickness inside him. But she would remind him of that. The hatred in her eyes, the derisive words from her mouth, she would never quit fighting. He counted on it.
Moving back to the bed, he climbed over her and shimmied her tank top over her head, up her bound arms, and left it gathered around her wrists. Then he lowered his hands to the button on her shorts.
“Do you already know the design you’re going to cut into me?” A sheen of wetness spread over her eyes.
“Yes.” He released the fly and dragged the denim and panties down her legs and off.
“You planned this.”
“Weeks ago.”
“Of course.” Her jaw set, and a quiver raced along her nude body. “How big will it be?”
“The size of my hand.” He splayed his fingers over her thigh, magnifying her shivering. “It’ll wrap all the way around your leg.”
This twenty-two-year-old, petite wisp of a woman, whose hair tangled wildly around her bare chest and bound arms, didn’t flinch.
Life hadn’t been kind to her. She was abandoned by her parents, betrayed by her brothers, tortured by Van Quiso, and now this. Life should’ve broken her, but instead of shattering, she became her own hero. She didn’t even realize she’d saved herself. And in doing so, she saved him.
He cleaned the blade with Boones’ antiseptic and rubbed the homemade compound into the skin on her thigh, something he never bothered to do with anyone, including himself.
And because he couldn’t control the impulse, he leaned down and kissed her pussy, dragging his tongue through her velvety flesh and taking generous sips of her intoxicating essence.
Her hands fisted around the rope, her eyes never leaving his as he worshiped her body.
He needed her in ways he didn’t understand. She satisfied every sexual craving, but this wasn’t just lust. He needed her strength, her defiance, every nuance of her ferocious spirit.
If there was ever a woman mighty enough to break her restraints and stand as his equal, she was it.
She was the one.
With the preparations finished, he fitted the sharp blade onto his finger. The custom-made scalpel extended like a claw, enabling him to cut detailed swirls and precise lines.
Kneeling in the spread of her legs, he lowered the blade to her thigh.
His nerves fired and exploded with excitement. He wanted this too deeply, too vehemently. He could see the finished image in his mind, imagined her wearing his scars for the rest of her life. He was overcome.
“It’s beautiful.” Her shaky voice drew his gaze to hers.
“I haven’t started yet.”
“Doesn’t matter. I have a choice. I can spend the rest of my life loathing the scars every time I remove my clothes. Or I can decide right now they’re as beautiful as the ones that cover you and Boones.” Her eyes flashed. “I already made up my mind about it. Every time I look at the scars, I’ll remember that a crime lord gave up kidnapping in exchange for art.”
Fuck him, she was remarkable. Rare. Perfect.
Mine.
“Hold still.” He steadied his hand and spread her skin taut beneath the scalpel. Then he drew the first cut on her upper thigh.
Her bleak blue gaze creased with pain, but she didn’t look away. Didn’t twitch or scream. She watched him with the eyes of a tortured goddess. Proud. Fierce. Distressed, but not defeated.
Gathering the gauze he’d set aside, he went to work, focused on the design, and dabbed at the trickles of blood.
He dragged the blade the way a tattoo artist dragged a needle—hunched over, breaths calm, eyes glued to the art, every mark deliberate and meticulous.
