Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 97134 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97134 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
I stood up and piled our dishes back on the tray before reaching for Carter’s hand. “Come on. I’m going to draw you a bath. You need to relax. I know it’s not easy, but I think a bath will help.”
He nodded and followed me into the bathroom, where the large tub on clawed feet stood waiting. I filled it and helped him strip down before watching him sink into the hot water. The cool air from the mountains had dropped the temperature in our rooms significantly, so Carter let out a sigh of pleasure as he sank into the hot water.
“You’re going to contact your team?” he asked, closing his eyes and inhaling the steam.
I reached over and brushed his hair back before leaning over to kiss his cheek. “I’m going to do it right now. Just relax.”
“Mm-hm.”
I left him there while I went back out to the main room of our suite and found the game device. The Horn booted right up on the message page.
KevsCuz: Hux, you there?
HogMasterHux: Yeah, man. Been waiting for you. Still ok?
KevsCuz: No. It’s gone to shit. We need extraction. Time to read Champ in and come up with a plan. Working on getting you GPS coordinates.
HogMasterHux: On our way. Sitrep?
KevsCuz: I’ve got the magic seed man. He’s been injured. Flesh wound in thigh. Will make escape a challenge.
HogMasterHux: What happened?
KevsCuz: TL;DR: man we thought was Gustavo is actually brother Gianluigi. When Gustavo returns, shit will hit fan. I have to get him out of here.
HogMasterHux: The seed man?
Buck Nutter wasn’t my priority right then, even though I hoped to save him too.
KevsCuz: I meant the doc. I’m worried about him. Of course, Carter’s all worried about everyone else, cause that’s the kinda guy he is. Hanging on by his fingernails so he can take care of people. He’s exhausted.
HogMasterHux: Who are you and what have you done with my man Riggs?
KevsCuz: Explain.
HogMasterHux: The doc is a grown-ass man with a high-stakes job. I’m sure he can handle it. Since when do you worry over the guy you literally called a “spoiled silver spoon” when Champ gave you this job?
I winced and wondered how to erase the message history on this thing. It was Carter’s Horn, after all.
KevsCuz: I was wrong. Carter’s a good man. Generous and kind. Funny as hell. Smart as fuck. And when he smiles… he makes people feel like they can do anything. I like him, Hux. He didn’t deserve to get caught up in this.
HogMasterHux: Dammit, if this thing had emojis, there’d be pink hearts flying at your face right now. Someone’s in lurve.
I frantically searched for the erase function, but I couldn’t find any way of deleting the messages.
HogMasterHux: Don’t get pissed at me for giving you hell. But maybe distract the doc for a while. We can leave Tennessee for Venezuela w/in the hour, and I’ll try to trace private flight plans filed at the airport in Caracas to see if I can figure out your general neighborhood. Stay cool.
“Riggs?”
I spun around and saw Carter standing in the doorway to the bathroom with nothing but a towel wrapped low on his hips.
“Yeah?” I squeaked in my least masculine voice. I cleared my throat. “Yeah? Ah, you good?”
The edge of his mouth came up in a teasing smile. “I could be better.”
He pulled the corner of the towel out from where it had been tucked. It fell to the ground in a heap, revealing the doctor’s perfect fucking body. I stared at him.
“I… I, uh… I could help you with that,” I stammered, tossing the Horn down on the velvet sofa.
Hux had suggested distracting the doc.
And I aimed to serve.
14
Carter
I hated feeling out of control.
I’d hated it as a child, when my parents had died and left me behind, and I hated it as an adult, which was why I tried to take charge of things whenever possible. But I had never felt as out of control as I had the past couple of days, and I could feel the strain of it catching up to me.
I’d kept my fear at bay fairly well while I’d focused on treating Buck and then Santiago. I’d tried to knock it down when the guards had led us upstairs. I liked to think I’d only lost my composure a little bit when Riggs had spun me a half-assed tale about how another Tennessean had become a prisoner here in Venezuela and how Gustavo wasn’t Gustavo—which explained a whole lot, the more I thought about it, like the whole third-person talking thing, and how Lucrecia had “miraculously” gotten pregnant with Gustavo’s baby, and how an egotistical, possibly infertile hypochondriac with big-brother issues and chronic indigestion could also be a highly placed leader of a notorious drug cartel. (Answer: he wasn’t.)
But the second Riggs had left me soaking in the bathtub, all of that overwhelm had come roaring back, stealing the breath from my lungs and making me feel like I was drowning with my head above water.