The Vargas Cartel Trilogy (Vargas Cartel #1-3)(22)
“Nobody is going to kill you.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not lying. Ignacio is first and foremost a businessman. He’d sell you into the sex trade before he’d kill you.”
My mouth hung open, and my hands dropped onto the mattress like limp noodles. “I’d rather die.” I had read the stories. Being sold into the sex trade was a death sentence, albeit a long, torturous one where I’d become a shell of myself before I took my final breath.
“Good thing you won’t have to make that choice in the near future.” Without an explanation, he picked me up again and carried me to the bathroom adjoining his room. My sandals fell off my feet as he dumped me in the shower, still fully dressed.
Cold, then hot water beat against my skin. Joining me in the partially enclosed shower, he stripped my soaked dress over my head and scrubbed every inch of my skin. I stood there, unmoving and trembling from his touch and the tsunami of emotions assaulting my brain. His hands moved in efficient, asexual strokes, coating every inch of my skin in a thin veil of white foam. Then, he moved me under the spray of hot water again.
With tightly closed eyes, I tipped my head to the ceiling wishing I could follow the water down the drain and get the hell out of this place. “I want to go home. I want my life back. Is that too much to ask?” I whispered, more to myself than Ryker.
“No.” He turned off the water and wrapped a big, white terry cloth robe around my body, directing my arms into the oversized sleeves.
Again, he lifted me and placed me on the edge of the countertop. Using a white washcloth, he gently cleaned the laceration on my neck. “It’s not too deep,” he whispered, his face only inches from neck. His warm breath licked the side of my face, making me too aware of his proximity. “It won’t leave a scar.”
I scanned every feature of his face, studying him as though he were a single cell organism under a microscope. Searching for what? A flaw? Kindness? Redemption? I didn’t know. I didn’t find any clues or secrets hidden in the details of his flawlessly sculpted face. He had one of those faces where if I separated any feature from the whole, it wouldn’t be perfect, but together they were a study in rugged, masculine perfection.
Water marred his starched white linen shirt making it transparent, hinting at the muscles my hands freely explored over a week ago. His almost black hair brushed the collar of his shirt. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled to his elbow, exposing his golden and thickly muscled forearms. As usual, dark stubble highlighted the chiseled angles of his face, and my mind taunted me with the memory of it abrading my neck as he devoured me. And in that stretch of time, with Ryker tending to my injury, I felt like a rare rose blossoming under his attention. My lips twitched at the silly analogy.
He slipped a long elegant finger underneath my chin. “What are you thinking?”
I blinked repeatedly as though the motion would somehow scrub away the dangerous direction of my thoughts. “How I’d kill for a spa day,” I lied. But what was one more lie between abductor and abductee? He didn’t need to know my mind was freefalling into Stockholm syndrome.
“When in doubt, choose the massage over the facial.” He didn’t make eye contact as he smeared an ointment on my cut. I flinched, and his gray eyes snapped to mine.
“Does your girlfriend agree with you?” What was wrong with me? Did I really go there? Yes, I went there. I mentally bitch slapped myself. I didn’t care if he had a girlfriend. I didn’t care if he had a whole harem chained in the dungeon of this villa or wherever he spent the bulk of his time.
Ryker’s hands stilled, and he lifted one dark eyebrow, a hundred questions dangling from the tip of his tongue. “My girlfriend?” he said dryly as he smoothed a few butterfly bandages on my neck.
“Yes. You know what one of those are, don’t you?”
“Hm.” He trailed his finger along my neck, to my collarbone. His eyes flickered to mine as he slid the top of my robe down my shoulder. Goosebumps scattered across my skin, but I didn’t budge. I didn’t take a single breath. I couldn’t.
“What are you doing?” My voice was strangled.
His eyes never leaving mine, he ran two fingers down my exposed shoulder and along the side of my breast. “Touching you,” he admitted, his voice soft, his hands drawing circles on my needy skin.
I liked it. It made me feel alive as I teetered on the cliff of madness. I closed my eyes and bit my lip to stifle any sound that might betray my thoughts. I pictured his touch like a flame and myself like a piece of paper reduced to ashes under the pads of his very capable fingers. Not good. I searched my mind for any remnants of hatred or repulsion, but his touch must have turned those emotions to ash too.
His breath hovered near the tip of my breast and…what the f*ck? My nipples pebbled. If he touched me, I’d explode. Air escaped my mouth in uneven, jagged pants, and I didn’t know whether it was from arousal, fear, self-loathing, or just an all-around mind f*ck.
Then, he did it. He captured the tip of my nipple with his mouth as he shoved the robe off my other shoulder. I expelled a long, guttural breath and my back arched of its own volition. I was like a stupid zebra offering my heart to the lion for a Sunday afternoon snack by the water hole. I blamed my reaction on temporary insanity brought on by extreme stress.
“Do you like this?” he asked as his mouth shifted to my other nipple and drew the peak into his mouth with a hard suck. And reminiscent of the last time he touched me, both pleasure and pain swirled together creating something bigger…better. “Do you want me to continue?”