Take

by Pam Godwin

  “Yes, but that would be selfish. Livana was raised by her and—”

  An urgent, rapid knock pounded on the door.

  “Kate.” Van barged in without waiting, and his silver eyes cut through the room until they landed on her. “He’s here.”

  “Who?” She leapt from the loveseat, staggering to right herself as her heart pounded out of her chest. “Who’s here?”

  But she knew.

  She knew before Van said his name.

  “Tiago Badell.”

  A gust of dizziness hit her sideways.

  He was here. What did it mean? Was he hurting? Angry? Completely insane?

  Her blood pressure skyrocketed as she sucked in breath after breath. She was going to hyperventilate. Or pass out.

  She needed to go, run, get to him right now.

  “Where?” She sprinted to the door, her voice rising to an explosive shrill. “Which way?”

  “The west wing.” He followed her into the hall and nodded to the right.

  The hairs rose on her nape as she bolted in the direction he pointed her.

  She hadn’t visited the west wing but knew enough about the horrors Matias imprisoned there. Slave traders, traitors, and rival cartel members—the captives were the worst of the worst and deserved every punishment they received within those walls. She heard that Frizz, one of the men in Matias’ inner circle, often sewed up their mouths to match his own.

  If Tiago was there, did that mean he’d been captured? Were they torturing him?

  Her stomach threatened to empty as she picked up her pace, racing through the halls with no idea which way to go.

  The sound of sneakers gave chase, and a moment later, Van caught up with her.

  “Turn left at the next bend.” He directed her through the halls, sprinting easily alongside her.

  “How did Tiago get here?” She panted, her legs burning through the strides.

  “The crazy motherfucker broke in.”

  “What?” She faltered, recovered, and sped up her gait. “How did he find this place?”

  “Fuck if I know. Another left here.” He raced her down a long corridor, his breathing so much calmer than hers. “He came in with guns blazing, ready to take down the whole goddamn cartel.”

  Her chest tightened painfully, and her lungs wheezed for air. “Did he get hurt? Is anyone dead?”

  “Don’t know.”

  Her limbs trembled with terror and anticipation as she skidded to a stop at the entrance to the wing.

  The guards let them pass, and she followed the sounds of shouting through two more corridors.

  Up ahead, Lucia leaned her back against the wall with a hand clutching her throat. When she spotted Kate, her eyes widened. “Kate! Wait!”

  “Where is he?” She ran to the steel door across from Lucia and peered through the small window.

  In the concrete room, Tiago lay on his side on the floor, eyes closed, dressed in only a pair of briefs. He bared his teeth and jerked his arms, going nowhere with his hands shackled behind him.

  Her heart splintered, and she grabbed the door handle, shaking it. Locked.

  Tate paced through the cell, shouting furiously as he demanded answers about Lucia and everything that had happened over the past eleven years.

  Blood trickled from cuts on Tiago’s face and chest, but there were no visible bullet or stab wounds.

  Why was he bleeding and lying on the floor?

  A rabid sound wrenched from her throat. She needed to get to him and hold him and let him know she was here.

  “Open the door!” She shook the handle harder, more frantically, losing control when it wouldn’t budge.

  His eyes opened and unerringly found hers through the glass.

  “Tiago!” She pressed her hand against the window, and a sharp burn stabbed through her chest.

  He’d lost weight, his muscles radically leaner, his jaw more angular and covered in a full beard. What happened to him?

  Tate’s hands clenched at his sides, his face and neck bright red as he prowled a circle around Tiago’s body. He looked as if he were seconds from murder.

  “Let me in right now!” She pounded on the tiny window. “Swear to God, if you hurt him—”

  Matias appeared on the other side of the glass and narrowed his eyes.

  “Open the door,” she screamed, banging her fists against the steel.

  He slammed a metal cover over the window, blocking her view. Shutting her out.

  She lost it.

  In an explosion of rage, she threw her body against the door, yelling at the top of her lungs, kicking, and pounding until Van’s arms locked around her and yanked her away.

  “They’re going to torture him.” Tears blurred her eyes, and great sobs shook her shoulders. “They’ll kill him.”

  “Kate, listen to me.” Lucia gripped her face, capturing her attention. “Only reason Tiago’s alive is because of you. Matias and Tate know you love him. They’re not going to hurt him.”

  “He’s bleeding.” She yanked on her arms, where Van held them at her back. “Let go of me.”

  He released her and stepped to the side, studying her with those bladed eyes of his. “He’s bleeding because he broke into the secret headquarters of a Colombian cartel and attacked the guards.”

  “Did anyone die?” she asked Lucia.

  “No. But they had to subdue him by physical force.”

  She wiped away her tears and pulled in a steeling breath. A little calmer now, she stepped back to the door and pressed her ear against it.

  “Why won’t they let me in?” She couldn’t detect sound through the thick steel. “What are they doing to him?”

  “Just talking.” Lucia stared at the door, her expression tight. “Tate needs a resolution.”

  Tiago had tortured him, forced him to have sex with Van, and separated him from Lucia for three months. Kate wasn’t sure there was a resolution for that.

  “Why aren’t you in there with him?” She flexed her hands, unable to quell the shaking.

  “I’ve made peace with what he did to me.” Lucia leaned her back against the wall and gazed at the door. “Hearing about your relationship with him helped. It gave me a sense of understanding, like maybe everything happened for a reason. I mean, I got Tate out of it.”

  “What about you?” She turned to Van. “I know what he did to you.”

  “Hm.” He removed a toothpick from his pocket and rested the end between his lips. “I’m the last person to throw stones. I don’t like the guy, but I’ll get over it. Forgive, forget, move on—any of that is better than holding on to hatred.”

  He gave her a knowing look, and for the first time since she’d met him, she stared directly into his razor eyes and didn’t wince.

  She didn’t know whether she forgave Van or had simply moved on, but she no longer felt fear or hatred for the man.

  “Tate’s not in there for himself.” Van rolled the toothpick to the corner of his mouth. “He’s in there for his girl. He needs to flex his strength, make some threats, and prove to Tiago he’s willing to do anything to protect her.”

  “Men,” Lucia mumbled.

  Kate shifted back to the door, aching to be on the other side. “Is there a first-aid kit around here?”

  “I think so. Hang on.” Lucia strode down the hall and returned a few minutes later with a bag of supplies, water bottles, and clean towels.

  “Thank you.” Kate gathered it in her arms and waited.

  Another five minutes passed before the door swung open.

  Tate stepped out, and his bloodshot eyes darted to Lucia. As Kate tried to squeeze past him, he caught her around the waist and enveloped her in a hug.

  “Get him out of here before I start hating him again.” He kissed the top of her head and let her go.

  That sounded promising. Kind of.

  Matias exited next, his expression brooding as he pressed a keyring into her hand. “He doesn’t leave this cell.”

  H
er heart burst into a gallop, and she darted into the room, swallowing down a month’s worth of stress and tears.

  Don’t cry. Don’t fall apart.

  Matias closed the door behind her and sounded the dead bolt.

  Her attention turned to Tiago, and her entire world filled with his harsh, imposing presence.

  “Kate.”

  That deep, rich, dark timbre resonated in her soul. She felt his voice, really felt it, and in that moment, she experienced the truest form of freedom.

  She had choices, endless choices and paths, and she picked him, willingly, freely.

  Sitting on the floor with his hands shackled between his back and the wall, he watched her with an intensity that sucked the air from the room. The weight of his abrasive gaze ground against her, rubbing and heating her everywhere, his silence thick and penetrating, sinking inside her and pulling her toward him.

  “What if I told you I tried to let you go?” He licked his lips. “Would you believe me?”

  She shook her head, more in confusion than in answer. “Did you try to let me go?”

  “Fuck no.” He laughed, a cruel, humorless sound. “Never, Kate. Not even in death.”

  The tears she tried to keep in check rose, blurring her vision as she lowered to her knees beside him.

  “I have so many questions. Things to tell you.” She dumped the supplies on the floor and fumbled with the key. “I don’t know where to start.”

  “Start with getting me out of these fucking restraints.” He shifted, giving her access to his arms. “I need you. Christ, I just need to feel you.”

  She twisted the key into the metal cuffs, and the instant they fell off, he dragged her onto his lap and captured her mouth with his.

  The contact burned flames of hunger and energy around them, powering through her in billows of panting breaths.

  Their tongues swept together, connecting, releasing, and chasing in frenzied lashes. Hands sailed everywhere, exploring and reacquainting with every muscle, scar, and curve of bone.

  How strange and wonderful to feel his beard scratching her face. To feel his hands on her body. To taste his dark, minty essence on her tongue.

  He was actually here.

  Alive.

  Growling.

  Biting.

  Mine.

  When they came up for air, their gazes clung, neither of them blinking or speaking. There was so much to say, but she wanted to bask in the moment, let it settle through her, and commit every glorious detail to memory.

  She sketched a thumb along the puckered, lifted scars that curved from his eye to the side of his skull. Her touch lowered to his beard, scraping through the thick, wiry black hairs.

  Questions bubbled up, spooling and unraveling in her throat, but what came out first were the most important words she’d ever spoken.

  “I love you.”

  “What?” He stopped breathing, his expression stark and unbelieving.

  “I love you.”

  His eyes closed, and his head tipped back, as if the impact of her confession was too much.

  “I love you, Tiago Badell.”

  He pulled in a broken breath. Relief melted across his face, and his shoulders and back lost strength and tension.

  No lover had ever given him those words. It was perhaps the one thing he’d always wanted and never thought he could have.

  When his eyes found hers again, he opened his demanding mouth, but no sound came out. It seemed she’d stolen his voice.

  Straddling his lap, she gathered the water, towels, and antiseptic. Then she cleaned his wounds, starting with the cuts on his face.

  She glided the towel across his wide shoulders, down the lines of his strong neck, and around the deep cut of muscles that sculpted his chest.

  His weight loss was most evident in the flat terrain of his abdomen. Fewer ridges lined his lower stomach, and his hipbones protruded from his narrow waist, sharper than normal beneath the waistband of his briefs.

  But the strength of him wasn’t defined by bone and muscle. His power circulated behind his eyes and charged through his voice. She’d never come in contact with a more overbearing, viciously beautiful man.

  Running a clean towel over every inch of his torso, she mourned the raised bumps of new scars. Some etched into the skin on his chest. Others lanced down his side and leg. Most would’ve required stitches. All of them hurt her heart.

  As she examined him, he did the same with her, his hands caressing and probing, his breaths growing deeper, faster.

  “You were injured in the explosion.” She traced the slash on his ribs.

  “Just cuts. You made it out unharmed?”

  “A few bumps and bruises and a sprained ankle. No scars.”

  “I’m so fucking sorry, Kate. I failed—”

  “What happened?” She searched his warm brown eyes. “One second, you were carrying me. Then you were gone. I didn’t want to leave you, Tiago, but you were no where. It killed me.”

  “You got out. That’s all that matters. And no thanks to me. I was knocked unconscious, unable to protect you.” His jaw clenched. “I came to, buried under concrete.” He gestured at the scar along his side. “When I couldn’t find you and Cole, I knew he had you. You were safe. It made it easier to focus on saving my own ass.”

  “What about Arturo?”

  His eyes shuddered. “He didn’t make it.”

  “Fuck. I’m so sorry.”

  “Me, too.” He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.

  “Cole said your names were on the deceased list.”

  “How the fuck did he get that list?” His dark eyebrows formed an angry V.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Jesus, Kate. I didn’t want you to think I was dead.”

  “I didn’t. I decided you were alive, because I couldn’t… I couldn’t accept anything else.”

  He tangled a hand in her hair and brought her forehead to his lips. “I called in a favor to the President of Venezuela, had him put my name on that list before he released it to the authorities. It’s not public information, but my enemies will get their hands on it, if they haven’t already. As far as the U.S. government is concerned, I’m officially dead.”

  “They won’t hunt you anymore?”

  “No active searching, but I still have to lay low. Change my identity. That’s if Restrepo ever allows me to leave this cell.”

  She flinched. “He’s not going to keep you locked up!”

  A rueful smile pulled at his mouth. “I know the location of his headquarters. No one walks away with that information.”

  She would see about that. “How did you find me?”

  “There was no question who Cole placed you with. Problem was I didn’t know where the fuck this place was. Took me a couple of weeks to narrow the location down to this section of the Amazon rain forest. I spent the next two weeks living in the surrounding jungle, tracking activity and listening for traffic.”

  “That’s why you lost weight.” She gripped his jaw through the beard, soaking in his dark features and beautiful brown eyes. “You look like a Latino Viking.”

  A feral growl vibrated in his chest. “I need you.”

  “I love you.” She trailed a path of kisses across his cheek.

  “Say it again.” His hips lifted, rocking his rigid length between her legs.

  “I love you.”

  “I want you.” He wrapped his arms around her and ground her body against his lap.

  “Take me.”

  “I’ll never stop.”

  In the next breath, she was on her back, trapped beneath the hard concrete floor and his even harder body.

  An addictive, burning desire inflamed her senses, and she writhed beneath him, desperate for his touch, his kiss, his heavy cock.

  He didn’t waste time, his fingers fumbling with the fly on her shorts. He stripped her from waist to feet, came down on top of her, and shoved up her shirt and bra, baring her breasts.

  His
gaze made a greedy sweep across her chest, and a devious grin tugged at the corner of his mouth.

  “You kept the piercings.” His eyes returned to hers.

  “You told me not to remove them.” She gripped one between her finger and thumb. “Is it true? Did you give up your entire syndicate for these stones?”

  “No, Kate. I gave up everything for you.”

  Guilt pinched her stomach. “I was such a bitch when you gave me the piercings. I didn’t know what it meant.”

  His lips crashed down on hers, hard and demanding. She arched against him, yearning for more contact, needing him closer.

  Jolts of electricity shot through her as his assertive tongue swept in and out, doing wicked things in her mouth. Every nerve in her body electrified, and she moaned, grinding against the steel bar of his cock.

  She ran her fingers down his strong, smooth back, pulling him closer, and her gaze landed on a black lens in the ceiling. “There’s a camera.”

  “Let them watch.” He reached between them, his hand brushing her pussy as he shoved down the front of his briefs. “Thank you for believing in us.”

  She could only nod. If he didn’t fuck her soon, she might start crying again.

  He met her eyes and pushed slowly, achingly inside her body.

  Blissful sensations rippled through her, stealing her breath and scrambling her brain. Her skin heated. Her nipples hardened painfully, a throb that intensified as he drove faster, harder inside her.

  They held each other as close as possible, touching everything at once. She swirled her tongue around his earlobe, inhaling his sinful, masculine scent. He turned his head and took her mouth, devouring, possessing, staking his claim.

  “I’m yours.” She met every thrust, surrendered every kiss.

  “Say it again.”

  “I’m yours.” She twitched, fighting the flood of stimulation, and started to come. “I love you.”

  He fell with her, groaning her name, jerking his hips, his heavy body shaking with the force of his climax.

  As he caught his breath, he rolled to his back, taking her with him.

  “That was too fast.” His cock pulsed inside her. “Need to do it again.”

  “We will. But first, I need to get you out of here.” With great reluctance, she pushed off him and dragged on her clothes. “Where’s Boones?”

  “I sent him home.” He straightened his briefs and sat up. “Why?”