From Evil: Books 4-6
Page 47
“No, he hasn’t. He’s safe, because you don’t owe each other anything. Is that what you want? To spend the rest of your life surrounded by risk-free bets? If that’s the case, stay far the fuck away from love. Growing close to someone, becoming attached to them, that shit doesn’t come with a guarantee.” His voice roughened, haunted by the reality of his past. “There’s no guarantee they’ll outlive you or love you back. It’s a fucking risk that could end in a lifetime of hurt.”
Her breath cut off as she searched his face. He didn’t expect her to risk anything for him, but he knew she felt something. He wasn’t alone in this unfathomable connection.
“I hate when you say things that make sense.” Her heavy exhale cumbered the space between them. “It feels manipulative.”
Fatigue fanned in lines from the corners of her eyes and hunched her shoulders. The conversation wasn’t helping.
“Come here.” He guided her to lie against his uninjured shoulder and used the washcloth to clean away the long night.
When he started to shampoo her hair, she took over, lathering and rinsing and teasing him with all that velvety blonde cascading around her arms and back.
She was such a pleasure to watch. The fluidity in her movements, the nuances of her expressions, and the sweeping dips and arches of her nude form—all of it sent a rush through his veins, invigorating him.
“If I knew then what I knew now…” He let his head fall back on the edge of the tub, regarding her beneath the weight of his eyelids. “I would do things differently.”
“Like what?”
Everything.
No, not everything.
He would never regret taking her.
“I’m sorry you didn’t see Tate before we left the desert.” He handed her a towel from the rack beside the tub.
“Me too.” She rose from the water and dried off. “I know you can’t go back now that the house is compromised, but doesn’t that mean he’s in danger there?”
“He’s safely hidden behind a monastery.” He grabbed a towel and followed her out of the tub. “No one will find him unless they’re looking for him.”
Once they had a full sleep, he would show her another video and ease some of her worry.
In the bedroom, a tray of breakfast food steamed from beneath metal domes. They ate quickly. Then he directed her into the massive bed and slid in behind her. She didn’t roll toward him but didn’t pull away, either.
Lying on his uninjured side, he tucked her backside into the bend of his hips and held her close.
Within minutes, her breathing evened into the steady rhythm of sleep. Every bone and muscle in his body thrummed to join her in slumber, but his mind refused to shut down.
With his entire world in his arms, he lay awake and made plans.
CHAPTER 25
Recovering from a gunshot wound was a bitch.
Tiago should’ve been thankful the through and through injury had missed bones, arteries, and internal organs. It healed fast, and within three weeks, he could move the damaged flesh and muscle without nauseating pain.
But three weeks of recovery meant no exercise and no leaving the penthouse.
Word had gotten out he’d fled the gunfight on a motorcycle. Since that was the last time he was seen, there were all sorts of rumors in the air about his inability to maintain his power in Caracas.
Many assumed he was too weak or too dead to be a threat. His allies dwindled with every meeting, dinner, and party he failed to attend, no matter what excuses he gave.
His rivals launched attacks against his operational locations and smuggling routes, thinking they could overtake his syndicate. His men managed to hold their ground, but the constant fighting was wearing on them.
Still, he wasn’t ready to announce his location. Not until he was one-hundred-percent confident the city and its constituents would stand against Matias Restrepo when the capo attempted to retrieve Kate.
Tiago spent his days on the phone, barking orders, making deals, rallying new supporters, and repairing relationships in the criminal underground. Business as usual.
His evenings, however, belonged to a blonde spitfire.
Blindfolded and naked, she lay face up on the bed, with rope crisscrossing her body from neck to feet.
She hadn’t gone into the restraints easily. After all her thrashing and cursing, he could still feel the burning scratches from her nails on his face.
“Untie me! Right now!” Her hands flexed under the net of knots as she swung her head, trying to knock off the blindfold. “Where are you, motherfucker?”
Across the bedroom, he reclined against the wall and devoured her sublime anger.
The redder her skin flushed, the faster his heart beat. The louder she screamed, the harder his cock grew. He should go to her, calm her, but he couldn’t stop staring at the beauty of her distress.
He might as well have been a psychopath. Most of the time, he could control his urges and find a release valve in his workouts. But without exercise, he didn’t have a way to burn off the need for pain.
Did he think about whipping her, spanking her, applying clamps or constriction bands?
Nah. Not his thing.
Did he want to cut her skin, piss on her tits, and insert needles into her tender female parts?
Fuck, yes.
Blood, come, and urine—any or all of it covering Kate’s body made him painfully hard.
“Tiago!” She tried to arch her back but couldn’t gain a millimeter in the restraints. “I won’t surrender to this, you son of a bitch. Let me go!”
Although she had no idea what he had planned, she still wasn’t receptive.
In his estimation, it took some level of mental scarring for a person to be open to the indulgences of a sadist.
He didn’t buy into the delusion of a power exchange that was prevalent in the BDSM community. People abused those positions of power, and he was no different.
Kate was smart enough to understand this, and maybe that was why she wanted no part of it.
That didn’t mean he would change. Not that he could, even if he wanted to. He was warped beyond hell, with warped problems that had no simple solutions.
But none of that mattered tonight. The sexiest, most desirable woman in the world was trussed up in his bed, and he intended to put a smile on her angelic face. And maybe a few tears.
Pushing off the wall, he prowled toward her on soundless feet. With the blindfold on, she didn’t sense his approach, didn’t know he leaned over her until he fisted her hair and yanked her lips to his.
She gasped at the sudden contact, and he swept his tongue in with hungry lashes, kissing her hard and deep. His need for her raged, and he didn’t hold back.
His hands went everywhere, pulling, bruising, and grabbing at her beneath the rope. He consumed her lips, licked the graceful column of her neck, and sucked the rise of her perfect breasts before returning to her mouth.
She whimpered beneath the harsh strokes of his tongue, fighting and yielding, giving and taking, drowning and resuscitating, and no doubt hating him to the end of hell and back.
People like him should never fall in love. His wife couldn’t reciprocate. Kate was smart enough to guard her heart. But it was too late for him.
He loved her at a deadly, explosive, unstoppable level.
He came up for air, his mouth hovering a fraction away.
“Please, Tiago.” She panted. “I need to see.”
“The blindfold stays.” From the bedside drawer, he removed the jewelry he’d sterilized and the supplies he needed. “I have three gifts for you. The first one will make you angry as hell.”
“I’m already angry.” Her chest heaved, causing the rope to pinch her tits. “Gifts are supposed to make people happy.”
“This might bring you happiness someday.”
“Oh God.” Her face paled. “You’re going to cut—?”
“Shhh.” He pressed a finger against her mouth and sat on the bed bes
ide her hip. “No cutting tonight.”
She looked so breathtakingly erotic lying there on her back, with her legs and arms tied to the mattress.
He’d stretched the rope across her torso in an X pattern that made her breasts accessible while preventing movement in her core. She couldn’t lift or twist or do anything below the neck.
He leaned down, examining the three new cuts that sketched along the side of her ribs. He’d added those swirls a week ago, without her consent. Nothing like the one on her leg, the small carvings had only taken minutes, just a few quick turns of his blade before he’d buried himself inside her.
“What are you doing?” Fear trickled into her voice.
He pinched her nipples and tugged hard, elongating the peaks. “Tonight, I’m going to pierce these.”
“Fuck,” she said with a gulp. “Can we talk about it?”
“No.” Bending close, he spoke at her ear. “This gift means the most to me, Kate.”
“Why? Because it’s going to hurt the most?”
“That has nothing to do with it.”
Maybe someday he would tell her exactly what he was giving her.
“Stay still.” He squeezed her left breast, letting her know which one he was starting with.
Boones had instructed him on how to safely clean and pierce the area. With the preparations done, he didn’t draw it out.
Hands steady, he stabbed the back end of the barbell into one side of the nipple. The front of the bar pierced the other side.
The pain was probably so intense she felt it in the pit of her stomach. But she didn’t scream or fight in the restraints. Her hands balled in the sheets. Her teeth dug into her bottom lip, and the sinews in her neck stretched taut.
Goddamn, she was devastating.
As he repeated the steps on the other nipple, heat simmered beneath his skin. Just imagining the sharp puncture of her sensitive tissues made his cock swell.
It wasn’t a fast pain. He’d never done this before, and each nipple took about a minute to pierce the ruthless rod all the way through.
He thought her stoic composure would snap by the end, but she persevered without crying. Anyone else would’ve screamed bloody murder beneath his inexperienced hands.
When he finished, he put the antiseptic away and pulled off the blindfold.
Her watery eyes went straight to her chest and widened. “Gemstones? Are they garnets?”
“They’re called painites.”
The double-prong barbells held a one-carat precious stone on each end. Four stones in total. He had the pieces custom-made so that her nipples would fit snugly between each pair of deep red gems.
“Fucking beautiful.” He circled a finger around her breast, eliciting a shiver.
She twisted her neck away and stared across the room at nothing.
“If you don’t like the piercings, too damn bad.” He roughly cupped her tender breast, making her gasp. “You will not remove them. Understand?”
“Yes.” Her jaw set.
He turned his attention to the knots and spent the next few minutes untying her. When the rope fell away, so did some of her indignation. She really didn’t like to be restrained.
Scooting to the headboard, she sat with her back against it. Her nipples would be sore for a few days, and though the jewelry wasn’t heavy, it would feel like a constant bite, an ever-present reminder of him.
“Will there be more?” She pulled the sheet over her lap but didn’t try to cover her chest. Instead, she stared down at the piercings with bitter curiosity. “Will you cover my body with jewelry until I look like a pincushion?”
“No more piercings, but there will be needle play in your future.”
She closed her eyes and choked. “Sorry I asked.”
“The second gift is some news I want to share.” He shrugged out of his shirt, grimacing at the tightness in his shoulder.
His shoes and jeans hit the floor next. Then he joined her on the bed.
“I finalized some negotiations today with three of the largest gangs in Caracas.” He leaned his head back against the headboard, watching her sidelong. “I traded some of my smuggling routes for their kidnapping operations.”
She whirled on him, her blue eyes burning. “You promised you wouldn’t kidnap anymore.”
“I keep my promises, Kate.”
“So you gave them your smuggling routes in exchange for…?” Her gaze flicked over his face, her expression etched in confusion. “For their kidnapping operations? What does that even mean?”
“Their territories are now mine. It’s a lot more complicated than that, but the gist is I control the bulk of Kidnap Ally and the surrounding areas. With the exception of a few rogue gangs, I’m the only one who can kidnap in Caracas.”
“Except you don’t do that…” Realization penetrated her voice, soaking the words with stunned tears. “You found a way to stop everyone from kidnapping.”
“Not everyone. But I’m working on it.”
There was the smile he’d hoped to see. It stretched her honeyed mouth, lifted her cheeks, and glistened in her eyes.
“That’s a great fucking surprise, Tiago.” She slid onto his lap, enticingly nude as she straddled his thighs. Her fingers braided through his hair. She touched their foreheads together, and her mouth closed over his gently, briefly. “You did good.”
“Sometimes I do the right thing, but it’s usually by accident.”
“How does it feel?” She ghosted her lips along his jaw and softly sucked behind his ear.
“Keep doing that, and I’ll skip the third gift and show you exactly how it feels.”
“I’m not afraid of you.” She leaned back and coasted a hand along the scar on his head. “The cutting and piercing and all the other pain you put me through really pisses me off. But then you do things that surprise me, like abolishing kidnapping in Caracas. Tell me that good deed doesn’t feel amazing.”
“It feels good to make you happy, Kate.” He stroked a thumb along her bottom lip. “That’s all that matters.”
She made a humming noise and ran her fingers through the messy strands on his head. “You have great hair. Who’s your stylist?”
“She’s a foxy little thing. Likes to put her tits in my face when she’s giving me a trim.”
“She also now knows how to stitch up your next knife wound.”
“Boones taught you that today?”
“He showed me. I haven’t actually held a needle.”
While Tiago spent the past three weeks running his business from the penthouse office, she passed the time with Boones, learning the basics of emergency medicine. She initiated the instruction, and Boones was more than willing to share his knowledge.
“If you ever decide to become a doctor,” Tiago said, “Boones would be an excellent mentor.”
“I know.” She gave him a small smile.
He clasped her tiny waist and lifted her to fasten his mouth to hers. After a few dizzying sips, he adjusted her legs around his and reached for his phone.
“One more gift tonight.” He unlocked the screen.
“I don’t think the last one can be topped.”
A swarm of energy buzzed in his gut as he handed her the phone. “The video is a couple of hours old.”
She glanced at him, directed her eyes on the screen, and stopped breathing.
CHAPTER 26
Tiago’s back rippled with tension as he absorbed Kate’s reaction.
She held the phone tightly, her gaze glued to the screen. Face contorted. Lips pinched. Tears breaching the waterline.
The recorded video showed Lucia entering the shack with Cole Hartman. Tate looked at her, and it took a moment for him to come to terms with her presence. But once he did, he pulled her into his arms and held onto her like he would never let her go.
“I’ve waited three months to see this.” A keening sob tore from Kate’s chest.
“I know.” He hadn’t expected to feel so relieved by the reunio
n. It put a strange warmth in his chest and shifted the shape of his mouth.
“You’re smiling.” Her own smile trembled beneath streams of drippy tears as she watched the video until the end. “I guess you’re happy about your experiment.”
“No.” He took the phone from her and set it aside, tasting the thick onus of his words. “I regret it deeply.”
She traced gentle fingers along his hairline, her eyes bright and wet as she watched his face, waiting for him to elaborate.
“I shouldn’t have separated them.” He reclined against the headboard, his stomach a hard knot. “If someone did that to me, if I lost you for three months…” He dragged a hand down his face. “I can’t even let my mind go there.”
Crushed by guilt and unbalanced with relief, he wanted to end the bleed of vulnerability and kiss her until neither of them could think straight.
“He’s free.” She touched her brow to his and breathed a blissful sound against his lips. “In the end, you did the right thing. You let him go.”
But she wasn’t free. She wanted autonomy more than anything else, and he couldn’t give that to her. He would never let her go.
“Thank you for the video.” She touched her lips to his cheek. “For putting a stop to kidnapping.” She kissed the corner of his mouth. “For never breaking your promises.”
She trailed a sensual path of sucking nips down the line of his neck, across his shirtless chest, and lower, arrowing straight toward his hardening cock.
“Kate.” Lust ran riot through his body, tensing muscles and tightening his balls.
She inched down the length of his reclined frame, nipple piercings glinting in the lamplight and blue eyes peering up through long lashes, drawing him in, pulling him deeper.
She’d never gone down on him, and he never forced it. Her ferocious temper and sharp teeth wasn’t a combination he’d wanted near his dick.
Her hands slipped beneath the waistband of his briefs, as if to relieve him of that last bit of clothing. But she hesitated, head down, hiding her face.
Images of his cock sinking between her pillowy lips heated his insides to a smoldering boil. He snared her by the hair and wrenched her head back. “Don’t fucking tease—”