Take (Deliver 5)

His eyes lost focus through a long, slow blink, as if he were fighting to stay awake. “Sit on my cock.”

“You’ve lost your damn mind. How can you think about that right now? You just killed like fifty men, drove an hour on a motorcycle while bleeding and half-dead. Not to mention you don’t even have enough blood in your body to get it up. Oh, and we’re probably surrounded by snakes, spiders, and random other venomous—”

“Shut the fuck up, Kate.” His pale lips failed to form the T in her name.

“Shit.” She reached for the red-soaked gauze on the side of his chest. “You’re still bleeding.”

“Apply pressure.” His voice was weak, reedy. He was fading fast.

Flattening her hands against the wound, she pressed hard and held it. His lashes lowered, hiding the agony in his eyes.

“Tiago.” She didn’t know if his injuries were life-threatening, but keeping him awake seemed important. “Stay with me, dammit.”

His eyes snapped open, sharpened, drilling into hers. “Need to tell you something.”

“What?”

“I love you.”

Her heart skipped. “You’re insane.”

“Love is insanity.”

Desperate to keep him alert and talking, she leaned in and asked, “What do you love about me?”

“First off…” He lifted his unshackled hand to her face. “Everything.”

His eyes fluttered shut, and his arm dropped.

Passed out.I love you?

Kate blew out a ragged breath.

Maybe those words would’ve meant something if Tiago weren’t caught in the delirium of blood loss, but right now, he didn’t know what he loved.

“Tiago.” Pressing against his wound with one hand, she pried open his eyes with the other. “Wake up.”

Nothing.

Her nerves rioted, quickening her pulse. “Tiago!”

When he didn’t stir, her anxiety burned to anger.

She was shackled in the middle of a jungle in Venezuela. At any moment, she could be ambushed by a rebel group, attacked by a man-eating panther, or strangled by an anaconda.

If he died…

She eyed the machete sticking out of his backpack, recalling how he’d freed her from the last dead body.

Fucking hell, she didn’t have the stomach for that.

“Wake up!” she shouted in his face.

Was he even breathing? Her heart raced as she scanned him for signs of life.

“Damn you, Tiago. Nothing says I love you like handcuffing me to your dead body.” She pressed shaky fingers against the pulse point on his throat, panicking. “This is sick and fucking twisted, even for you.”

A breath huffed past his lips, and he cracked open an eye.

“I’m not dead.” He shifted, groaning in pain. “Would drag my ball sac through ten miles of broken glass for another chance to be inside you.”

“Oh my God.” She groaned with a mix of relief and annoyance.

“You’re so beautiful.” His eyes glossed over and faded beneath the descent of thick lashes.

“No, no, no. You need to stay awake.”

“Did you fuck me unconscious?” The corner of his mouth crooked, but his eyes remained closed.

“You wish. Where’s your phone?”

“Boones will come.” A slurring whisper.

“Before or after you die?”

No answer.

She gripped his square jaw. Too slack. Too cold.

Too unconscious.

Fuck.

If he survived this, she was going to kill him.

She eased the leather jacket from beneath his lolling head and located his phone in the pocket. It was locked, of course, with a passcode she couldn’t hack. She couldn’t even tell if there was a signal.

What if they were in a dead zone? Was cell service required for tracking?

She checked the bullet wound, and it appeared to stop bleeding. Turning her attention to the backpack, she removed all the knives and tried each one on the handcuffs. None of them made a dent in the chain. Not even the machete.

She tried to pick the lock. That only ended in cursing, screaming hysterics.

Her mouth felt like stale toast, despite the mugginess in the air. There was no water, no way to hydrate. She hadn’t had anything to drink since last night.

Out of options, she turned her anger to the unconscious man at her side. “I hate you.”

The words tasted sour and made her stomach hurt.

She needed to hate him, but she couldn’t. She needed him to live, because if he didn’t, she would feel that loss in ways she didn’t want to examine.

An ache burned the backs of her eyes, and her chest caved beneath the constriction of fear.

“Don’t die.” She stretched out beside him and snuggled in under his uninjured shoulder, pressing herself so tightly against him she felt the slow thud of his heartbeat.

“Don’t you dare give up.” She buried her face into his neck and let the tears fall.

With her free hand clinging to the hilt of the machete, she forced herself to stay awake, her awareness heightened with every rustle and buzz in the jungle.

As the residual effects of adrenaline abandoned her, exhaustion barreled in. She fought the overpowering need to close her eyes, perking her ears, watching the trail, waiting.

When the rumble of a distant engine broke the silence, she shot to her feet and heaved the machete out in front of her.