Unshackle (Deliver #7) - Pam Godwin Page 0,32
Rocha members force you to spend the night in their beds?”
“Never.”
“This is the first time you’ve slept beside someone since you’ve been here?”
“I’m not sleeping.” She squinted. “So that first hasn’t happened.”
“You going to stay awake for a week?”
The slits of her eyes become impossibly narrower.
“Tell me, Gina. Where do you wish to be right now?”
“A thousand miles away.”
“Only a thousand?” He kept his voice soft, tucking their privacy inside a whisper.
“More like eight-hundred miles.”
“That’s specific. Given your accent, your home is in Mexico. Exactly eight-hundred miles from here?”
“Where is here?”
“You tell me.”
“You writing a book?”
Irritatingly gorgeous pain in the ass.
“We can talk.” He reached beneath the covers and tweaked her soft, warm nipple. “Or we can fuck.”
As expected, instant hostility fired in her eyes, and she slapped his hand away.
She’d endured his level of douchery from countless men since she’d been here. Three years was a long time, fighting for survival night after night in a cartel compound. The fact that she was still breathing meant she’d learned not to show the slightest weakness.
He appreciated her strength and stood behind it one hundred percent. But to finish this job, he would have to break through that stubborn armor.
A foot of silence separated them. Might as well have been eight-hundred miles.
With a quick reach of his arm, he caught her around the waist and yanked her flush against him. Chest to chest, skin on skin, he felt every inch of her nudity along every inch of his.
Her gaze held, widening only slightly as he hardened against her thigh.
“Ignore it.” He pulled the sheet up to their faces and whispered against her lips. “Tell me the location of this place.”
Now she stiffened, and her breathing shortened. “I don’t—”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not. I swear, I don’t know.” She looked off-kilter and desperate—this woman who fearlessly stared down cartel gangsters.
She was telling the truth.
“What about Vera?” he breathed against her mouth. “Does she know?”
“Ask her yourself.”
He was hard. She was hours past passing out, and they were both gloriously naked. So flipping her onto her back and pressing his erection against her cunt required no effort. She struggled, her movements clumsy, and he waited her out, letting her breathing escalate.
She didn’t have to like him. By the end of the week, he’d make sure she didn’t.
At last, she stopped resisting and sank into the mattress. “Maybe.”
“Yes or no.” He kicked his hips, threatening her entrance with the head of his cock.
“Yeah, motherfucker.” She bared her teeth, a startling white contrast to her dark complexion. “She knows.”
That was the confirmation he needed. If Vera gave him the coordinates, he would leave. Let them put a hood over his head and escort him out. Then he would return with an army.
He slid off her hot body and adjusted them on their sides, settling into the same position as before. “Is anyone looking for you?”
Surprise popped into her eyes, and she jerked away as though she’d been burned.
He dragged her back. “Family?”
“I have one person. One person left in my family, and I won’t let you near her.”
His interest wasn’t in her family. He just needed to know her stakes in this, that she had something to fight for. A life she missed. Someone she loved. If she valued this person over the cartel, maybe he could trust her. Unless the cartel was using her family member to threaten her.
Shifting her lower beneath the covers, he whispered under the veil, “Is this person safe from La Rocha?”
In the dark, her inhale shuddered, and a sheen of distress wet her eyes. “No.”
Fuck. “Where is she?” He could’ve kept his whisper flat, but his anger got away from him.
She heard it, blinking rapidly, and seemed uncertain how to respond.
He needed to explain away his concern, but this girl was too smart. Too perceptive. And maybe, seeing someone pissed in her defense was exactly the kind of thing that would penetrate her shields.
So he remained quiet, watching, waiting to see what she would do next.
It took a year and a day before she reached for him. Tentative fingers crept over his jaw and pulled back when she felt the rigidness there. He tried to relax, loosening the tension in his face.
Inching closer, she touched him again. His neck this time, her warm hand sliding to the hairline on his nape. Her eyes didn’t waver from his until she set her mouth against his cheek and breathed in and out, deeply, slowly.
She was testing him. Or testing herself. How