Take (Deliver 5)

His fingers tightened around her wrist with bruising pressure. “I despise that ceremonious BDSM bullshit.”

“There was nothing sane or consensual about it.” She twisted her arm in the shackle of his fist. “You’re hurting me.”

He released her, and she rolled away from him. But his arm hooked around her midsection and hauled her back against his chest.

“What are you doing?” She shoved at the bar of muscle across her stomach, unable to move it an inch.

“Go to sleep.” His breath caressed her hair.

“Release me.” She squirmed in his grip. “I’ll go get your girlfriend, and she’ll make it real good for you.”

God, she sounded snarky, but she couldn’t stop picturing him fucking Iliana, pile-driving her against a wall or whatever they did together. Her jaw stiffened, and her insides boiled. She needed that venom to remind her she didn’t want to be here, cuddling with a gang leader.

“You’re jealous.” He dragged his nose along her neck.

She flinched at the sensation, confused by his gentleness. “Captives don’t get jealous. They get Stockholm syndrome.”

Soft laughter vibrated his chest. “Tell me about Texas.”

A safe topic. She calmed down, as much as she could in the iron bands of his arms, and shared some impersonal details about home, highlighting scenery, culture, and local food.

She missed it, her friends, the simplicity of everyday life. The more she talked about it, the heavier her heart grew. He listened without comment, and eventually, the effects of the drugged soup pulled her into a heavy sleep.

When she woke, Boones was standing over the bed with a peculiar look on his scarred face. Tiago stirred behind her, his arm still locked around her waist.

“I brought dinner.” Boones pointed a gnarled finger at the tray of tacos on the floor and squinted at Tiago. “Rate your pain on a scale of one to ten.”

“What’s the rating for drugged?”

Boones flattened his lips and blinked. “You’re staying in bed.”

“Good idea.” He pulled her to his chest, fitting her buttocks tightly against his hips and upper thighs. His cock, neither soft nor swollen, rested along the crack of her ass.

And so that was how it went for days. Every hour sanded away the distance she so desperately tried to maintain. She couldn’t avoid him, couldn’t breathe without his eyes on her.

Because he didn’t just confine himself to his room.

He locked her in there with him.Kate’s demands to leave his room were met with silence. Tiago Badell and his goddamn smugness incited a level of anger unlike anything she’d ever felt. But she’d agreed to obey him. The night she met him, she’d agreed to do anything in exchange for Tate’s freedom.

For days, he abstained from exercise and limited his activity to eating, showering, and napping. There was no Iliana. No business meetings or phone calls. And no fucking freedom.

It wasn’t the confinement that made her feel restless and trapped. It was him.

This lazy version of Tiago was suspiciously pleasant, talkative, and sometimes, he was clingy. Not clingy in a dependent, insecure way. But in a growly, aggressive, bring-your-ass-here way.

The next three days came with some startling revelations. Behind the face of a crime lord was an intelligent conversationalist. They talked for hours on end, analyzing Venezuelan politics, arguing about American football, and while finishing off the tequila, he shared his thought-provoking views on religion, extraterrestrials, and the future of technology.

She philosophized with him late into the night, floating in a bubble of complacency, where she let her guard down and basked in his company.

When he flashed that infectious smile, her bitterness dissolved. When he held her tight against the heat of his skin, she didn’t pull away. At some point, her brain decided he wouldn’t hurt her, not here in this quiet one-room world inhabited by two.

Even as she knew he hadn’t earned that kind of trust, she struggled to maintain distance. Meanwhile, he seemed to have no trouble keeping his defenses in place.

He napped with her tucked in the curve of his rock-hard body, but he didn’t sleep soundly. Whenever she thought he’d fallen into a deep slumber, she would move ever-so-slightly, and those sinful eyes would pop open without fail.

Like now.

“I thought you were asleep.” She lay on her side, her legs trapped beneath one of his, and his mouth so close she smelled mint tea on his breath.

He grunted softly and stroked a knuckle along her cheekbone. Heat rolled off that touch, and the air around him vibrated with power and dark suggestions. Her body tightened in response, fearing what he was while aching for what he could offer.

“Christ, you’re stunning.” He said it spontaneously, vehemently, his expression unguarded.

“Thank you.” Captivated, she leaned closer and hovered a hand over the wound near his eye, too scared to touch him. “How’s your head?”

“Fine.” He curled his fingers around her wrist. “Ask my permission.”