A woman with short black hair knelt before him. Her mouth pressed against his abs, teeth scraping skin and tongue tracing the V-shaped indention near his hipbone. Her hands wandered everywhere, gliding down his back, kneading his ass, and trailing his waistband back around to the swollen bulge between his legs.
Every muscle in Kate’s body tensed to turn heel and run. Her vision clouded, and adrenaline flooded her system. If he wanted to fuck his security guard, fine. Good. Better that woman than Kate. But why leave the door open? What the fucking fuck?
She burned to smash his face in. With one of those heavy barbells. At the same time, she trembled to scurry away like a simpering, prissy, little virgin.
Fuck.
She hovered in the doorway, holding his sneakers and gym shorts, while Arturo breathed down her neck. Her chest hurt. Her throat filled with cement, and nausea seared her stomach.
There was no rational explanation for her raging disgust. But as his breathing grew deeper and roughened his voice enough to affect his phone conversation, she saw red. The whole fucking thing was making her stabby as hell.
The woman lowered her hand to stroke along his rigid length, and thoughts of murder were eclipsed by the need to vomit.
Tiago’s eyes snapped open, and he stepped out of the woman’s reach before she made another pass over his cock. Then his gaze flicked to the doorway, locking on Kate.
Fuck him.
She rolled her shoulders back, lifted her chin, and stepped into the room.
He barked a few Spanish words into the phone and tossed it aside.
“Sorry to interrupt.” She set the clothes on the rack beside him and met his hungry stare head-on. “Boones got you some clothes, and… You should really wear foot protection while working out.”
What the fuck was she saying? She needed to get the hell out of there.
She turned toward the door.
“Kate.” His stern voice pierced through her. “Come here.”
Her ribs squeezed, and her fingernails pierced into her palms. After a few slow, deep breaths, she relaxed her hands and forced herself to face him.
“This is Iliana.” He glanced down at the kneeling woman. “Stand up.”
Iliana didn’t just rise to her feet. She slithered up his body in a sexual undulation of hips and tits. With a nip at his chest, she pivoted and held out a hand to Kate. The same hand that had rubbed his dick.
No, thanks.
“Do you shake hands with all the prisoners?” Kate asked.
“No, I…” Iliana dropped her arm. “I guess not.”
She smiled sweetly at Kate. It seemed genuine. As did the lust in her eyes when she sidled up to Tiago and tiptoed her fingers across his flat stomach.
The woman embodied all the allure of a gorgeous Latino fantasy. Fit body, great skin, beautiful hair, exotic accent, and sexual confidence. She and Tiago looked outrageously perfect together.
“You didn’t come in here to bring me clothes.” He grabbed the shorts, lifted them for inspection, and slid them on. “Tell me what you want.”
She wasn’t inclined to ask for anything in front of his lover, but Iliana didn’t appear to be leaving.
“I was hoping…” She smoothed a hand over the coarse tangles of her hair. “I want to see a live video of Tate.”
“No.” He shifted away, punctuating the finality of his answer.
Making the rejection even more unbearable was the woman pressing up against his back and pawing at his body.
Hatred sizzled in her gut like a hot ember.
She hated him.
Hated Iliana.
Hated her illogical jealousy.
She held tight to that hatred, let it carry her out of the room and into the hell that followed.Every day was the same. Same prison. Same guards. Same hell.
The ruler of hell spent most of his time working out. When he wasn’t grunting and clanking weights in the backroom, he was holding meetings with Boones and his minions in languages Kate didn’t speak. Every foreign word was meant to exclude her, to keep her isolated and uninformed.
Her hatred for him endured, strengthened, and all that animosity sharpened her focus.
The problem was, while she never took her mind off escape, her captors never took their eyes off her.
Arturo trailed her relentlessly. The other guards formed a vigilant wall around the property. Then there was Tiago. He ate his meals with her, shared the second-floor with her, and watched her with an awareness that raised the hairs on her neck.
Even if she managed to sneak past his sentinels, he would hunt her down before she made it to safety. Then he would kill her. Slowly and horrifically.
She thought a lot about her phone conversation with Liv. Had she been too convincing? Had her friends completely given up on her? They probably had all their resources tied up in looking for Tate, as they should. Thinking about him sitting in that shack made her heart hurt.