Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 96167 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96167 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
She needed to be smart about it. Nurture the bond. Manipulate it. Keep her fucking heart focused on the reason she was here. Except she wasn’t a manipulative person. She was better than that, and at one time, he’d been a better person, too.
She lifted her hand and clutched his. Their fingers entwined, grasping and shooting tingles up her arm.
With a sudden shift that made her gasp, he yanked her up the bed and put them at eye level on their sides, fingers laced between them and his arm locked around her back.
“I know you felt it.” He searched her face, lips parted. “Last night when I was inside you, and now. You feel us.”
Her chest ached. She tried not to feel anything at all, gulping down her breaths to stay quiet.
“Just stop for a second.” He rested his forehead against hers. “Give yourself this, Camila. Let it happen.”
“I can’t.” She leaned her head away. “It’s like dangling a prize in a trap.”
She desperately wanted to reach for it, to hold him, knowing if she did he’d break her, painfully and irreparably.
“What’s the prize?” He watched her intently.
“Happiness without fear. Love without cruelty.” She closed her eyes, voice raw with honesty. “You without slavery.”
He let go of her fingers and smothered her against him in an embrace that buried her face in his neck. She wished she could see his expression, but his deep, steady breaths told her enough.
“You like my answer.” She matched the pace of his breaths as if she wasn’t trembling inside.
“Mm.”
“What is Mm? I don’t understand you. You seem to want this, us, but you also want your disgusting profession. You can’t have both, Matias. Don’t you get it? As long as you’re enslaving women, I will never stop fighting.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Then explain it.”
“Not yet.” He pressed his lips to the top of her head.
“Why not?”
“You need to see it for yourself.”
Fucking impossible. “I need to pee.” She squirmed against him.
He kissed along her hairline, his thumb stroking against her spine. With her nose against his throat, the warm scent of his skin overwhelmed her senses.
She told herself he smelled like rusted chains and broken dreams. “I really need to—”
“Go.” He lifted the weight of his arm with a sigh and rolled to his back. “Return to the bed, and I’ll tell you what happened in the west wing yesterday.”
Images surfaced of him covered in blood, a cane in his fist, and death in his eyes. The cuts on her legs twinged in memory, and she shivered so hard she bit the inside of her cheek.
She slipped from the bed and scanned the floor. Every inch of marble was spotless—his bloody clothes, the broken lamp, corset, and panties nowhere in sight.
Without anything to wear, she made her way toward the bathroom. As she walked along the glass wall that led to the balcony, she spotted another balcony jutting from a separate entrance in the curve of the building. After hiking through the compound, she had a sense of its enormity, but seeing all that exterior glass covering multiple floors and balconies, it reminded her of an extravagant hotel with a steel beam infrastructure.
A table sat on the other balcony, the same one that connected to his living room where she’d scarfed down sandwiches yesterday. Now it was covered with domed plates and pitchers of juice. Her stomach grumbled.
If someone had brought breakfast into the suite and cleaned the bedroom, they had access to come and go. Were the servants around here armed? Maybe it was someone who could be overpowered and get her past the eye scanner.
She paused at the bathroom doorway and turned toward Matias.
He lay in a tangle of sheets around his waist, the white bedding aglow against his tawny skin and black hair. With his arms folded behind his head, he looked peaceful, almost harmless. But the way he studied her, his expression covetous and his eyes roaming her from head to toe, she knew there wasn’t a harmless fiber beneath all that muscle.
“How many people have access to your suite?” She held her hands at her sides, fighting the urge to cover herself. “You and…?”
“Three others. Nico, Anacardo—”
“Anacardo?”
How did they take themselves seriously with these nicknames? Picar, Chispa, and Anacardo translated to Chop, Spark, and Cashew. Apparently, the use of sobriquets was a thing among narco-killers?
“He manages my domestic stuff—food, laundry, cleaning.” His gaze rose to her face. “You’re the third person.”
“Me?” A flush of excitement tingled through her, quickly followed by suspicion.
No way would he make it that easy to escape. It wasn’t like he handed over keys to the helicopter. Or a training manual on how to fly it.
“I can get past the scanner things?” She shifted her attention to the hall beyond the doorway. If she found a computer or phone, she could contact Tate.