Take (Deliver 5)

The words clogged in her throat, her mouth parched. It was in these suspended moments that he posed the most danger to her, when he made her want things she should never want from him.

Something had happened to him in his past, something deeper and more painful than the wounds on his head. Though he refused to discuss his life prior to Caracas, she ached to show him compassion. She just didn’t know how.

“I’m growing impatient.” His hand clinched around her arm, fingers biting into bone.

Her eyes felt too wide as the question fell past her lips. “May I touch you?”

He gave an inviting growl and guided her palm to his cheek.

Thick stubble shadowed his face, and beneath the tickle of hair, his jaw felt like solid metal. Not clenched. Just…hard.

Were all men so sharply cut and rigid to the touch? She’d only put her hands on Van Quiso and the few boys she fumbled around with in high school. The sensations from those encounters weren’t worth remembering.

She let her fingers dip, roving past the squared underside of his chin to explore the column of his neck. Sturdy and so very masculine, he felt as strong as oak and granite, any of nature’s most durable materials.

Her gaze darted to his, and the intimacy in that eye contact stole her breath.

“Don’t you get sick of looking at me?” She withdrew her hand.

“You have one-hundred-and-ninety-three eyelashes on the top lid of your right eye.”

“You did not count them.” She rubbed the lashes in question.

“Stop.” He gripped her arm and drew her gaze to the single brown eyelash stuck to her fingertip. “Now it’s one-hundred-and-ninety-two.”

A profound happening pulsed between them, a metamorphosis she couldn’t explain away. It flapped loudly in her chest and sizzled static across her skin, refusing to be ignored.

Maybe she was having a mental breakdown.

“You can’t say things like that.” She wiped her hand on her shirt.

“Things like what?”

“I don’t understand why I’m here.”

“We talked about this. You’re a payment—”

“No. Why have I been in this room for the past three days? Am I one of your experiments?”

“What does your gut tell you?”

“I only hear my captor, and not once has he told me I’ll survive.”

His expression closed off, and he rose from the bed. “I need to take a shower.”

He wore jeans today, and off they went on his way to the bathroom. Kicking them free at the doorway, he disappeared around the corner, wearing only boxer briefs. A moment later, the shower turned on.

Panic crept in. She’d pricked the bubble they’d been floating in and sent them plunging back to reality. This wasn’t some profound happening. He was her captor, holding her against her will. That was the ugly truth.

She climbed from the bed and paced, eying the door to the corridor, the door to the bathroom, and pausing on the jeans he left on the floor.

Her pulse sped up. It wasn’t uncommon for him to leave his clothes unsupervised within her reach, as if he thought she were too afraid of him to try anything. Well, fuck that.

She raced toward his pants on silent feet and searched the pockets. Phone, finger blade, keyring, wallet—it was all there.

The splash of water around the corner announced his movements in the shower. She focused on the phone, tried to unlock the screen and make an emergency phone call. It required a code, and after too many attempts, the keypad prompt locked her out.

Shit!

She tossed it aside, removed the cash from his wallet, and shoved it into her pocket, along with the finger blade. Arturo would follow her down to the ground floor. If she could lead him outside, catch him off guard with the blade, cut his throat if she had to, she might be able to make a run for it.

Her heartbeat shot into overdrive, nearly exploding. It was a risk, one that would either set her free or end her life.

Palming the keyring, she bolted out his room, down the hall, and paused at the door to the stairs. Pipes groaned in the old walls. He was still in the shower.

Her hand grew slick around the keyring. One key unlocked this door. The others could’ve been for the cars, the house, a safe? She didn’t want to tip off Arturo, so she tried the handle first.

It gave beneath her grip, and she sucked in a breath. Then she opened the door.

Arturo stood on the other side and leveled his eyes at her. Then they lifted, pointing at something behind her.

Sinister energy crept over her back. The hairs on her arms prickled, and her stomach rolled over in violent waves. Reaching through the paralyzing dread, she gathered the courage to peek over her shoulder.

“You disappoint me, Kate.” Tiago’s gaze, black as coal, burned into her face from a few feet away.