Take (Deliver 5)

Plop. Plop-plop.

Was the ceiling leaking? It appeared dry.

Was he crying?

She craned her neck, straining her senses, listening.

The wet sounds sped up. More liquid. A slow trickle.

“What is that?” Chills swept across her scalp as she stood from the bed.

Scanning the room, she scrambled for the closest thing she could grab. His shirt. She spread the crisp material against the front of her body and slowly stepped around him. And lost her breath.

Blood.

Oh God, it was everywhere.

Rivers of crimson snaked along his forearm, forking stained lines down his fingers and dripping to the floor.

Hot red splatters. There were so many dots between his feet they overlapped.

She teetered, lightheaded, and focused on the source of the bleeding.

A razor. He wore that damn finger blade like a claw, dragging it over old scars.

“What are you doing?” she whispered.

He was cutting and not answering her, because it was a stupid question.

She took a shaky step closer. “Why?”

“Punishment.” His voice lacked all emotion, and the blade continued to carve.

Balling a fist in the shirt, she clutched it tighter against her chest. “Punishment for what?”

“You.”

She flinched, and her gaze flew over the scars on his arms. So many marks. Faded ones. Newer ones. “Do you do this every time you fuck a woman?”

The razor paused. He lifted his head, his expression empty, voice emptier. “The last person I had sex with was my wife.”

“What?” Her naïveté plummeted to the floor and shattered. “That was—”

“Twelve years ago.” He returned to his cutting.

“You haven’t had sex in twelve years?”

“That’s what I said.”

She recalled how incredibly experienced he was in bed and stared at him in disbelief. “You’re lying.”

His nostrils flared, and he dug the razor deeper into his arm.

Thick droplets oozed free, flowing off his skin and soaking the flooring.

Dark red against dark wood.

The scent of copper in the air.

She wished it would stop. She needed it to stop.

“Tiago, can you just…” Now within reach, she stretched an arm toward him and held the other against her chest, trapping the shirt. “Please, just stop for a second and talk to me.”

He looked up, stared blankly at her face then her outstretched hand. She wanted to yank her arm back, but she refused to look scared, even if everything inside her screamed to run.

His bladed finger twitched as he raised his slashed arm and curled a bloody hand around her wrist. He pulled, forcing her to shuffle into the space between his legs.

The soles of her feet sopped up the gore on the floor. She tried not to think about that, and instead focused on what he’d said.

“You fucked Iliana.” She held her arm still in his grip. “In the backroom, every day.”

“I’ve never touched that woman.”

Cycling through her memories, she couldn’t identify a single time he put his hands on Iliana. Not even tonight in the kitchen. It was always the other way around.

“She’s all over you,” she said.

“Iliana throws herself at everyone.” His fingers tightened around her arm. “She will never touch you or me again.”

“What about Lucia?” She squinted. “She was your captive for eleven years. You can’t tell me nothing happened.”

“I touched her body and imagined my wife, but I never kissed her. Never fucked her.”

He released her wrist and yanked the shirt from her grasp. Blood-soaked fingers curled around her hip, and he lowered his head, touching his brow to her stomach.

Was he staring at her pussy? Or were his eyes closed? She kept her attention on his bladed finger and held her breath.

“When I was with you tonight, I didn’t think about Semira. Not once.” He pressed his lips to her belly button. “Celibacy was my penance for failing her. It was my choice. Until you.”

He broke his twelve-year abstinence. For her.

It means something to me.

As if pulled by an invisible string, her hand floated toward his head, where his soft hair lay against her abdomen. Before she made contact, she snapped out of the enchantment and dropped her arm. “Why me?”

In a swift glide of powerful muscles, he unfolded his body and rose to his full height, towering over her, completely nude. “You’re mine.”

Mine. That fucking word set her teeth on edge. He could say the same about this house, his security guards, the stupid blade on his finger. He could take his property and all his precious little possessions and shove them up his ass. She refused to be one of his belongings.

Stretching her spine, she tried to add length to her height, to stand taller than eye-level with his chest.

“Why did you cut yourself?” She lifted her face. “What was the punishment for?”

He narrowed his eyes.

She narrowed hers back. “For everything you’ve done to me?”

“No, Kate.” He cocked his head. “For everything I’m going to do to you.”The heat in Kate’s cheeks gave way to numbing chills. She didn’t have a chance to stammer a response before Tiago grabbed her hand and hauled her into the bathroom.