watching?”
With a sigh, he stretched out on his back and bent an arm behind his head. “Tell me something about yourself. Or about the world. Pick a topic.”
“What’s your interest in the cameras?”
“Another topic.”
“Fine. When you’re not raping women, what do you do for a living?”
“I invest in something important. Next topic.”
“Is your job legal? Do you work for the government?”
“No to both of those questions, and that’s the last answer you’ll get from me on that.”
“How many innocent lives have you taken?”
He remained silent.
Disappointment pinched in her chest.
So he was a criminal, which revealed nothing. Every man who walked through here lived on the wrong side of the law. He could be an assassin or an enemy spy. Or maybe he was just another well-funded, paranoid asshole, looking for a new sex slave.
“I’m giving you the chance to speak freely about anything you want.” He gazed up at the tree canopy, his handsome face speckled in drops of sunlight. “If you don’t pick a topic, I will, and it’ll involve you telling me who you are and how you came here. You’ll fight me, and we both know how that will end.”
He looked at her, and she turned away, feeling extra stabby. She wanted to claw his eyes out.
“You have every right to despise me,” he said. “When it comes to taking what I want from you, I’m no different than Hector’s sons. But have they ever taken the time to have a conversation with you? Do they know you at all?”
No. Not even a little. They came, and they went. Wham-bam-fuck-you-ma’am. Omar kept her around as long as she won fights. Alejandro was possessive, but he was like that with all his women. The other two didn’t even look at her after they fucked her.
That went both ways. She wanted nothing to do with them. But she did miss the simple act of sharing a conversation with someone. She had no one to talk to here. No one who gave a shit what she thought.
She shifted to her back, mirroring his position beside her. Despite the shade from the trees, the air felt unusually hot for autumn, clinging to her skin and making her sweat. Damn global warming.
“Greenland has melted beyond saving.” She threw the random thought into the humid breeze.
“Ah.” He caught it with a smile in his voice. “The tipping point debate.”
“If you look at the science, there’s no debate. The ice sheet has lost so much mass over the last two decades that even if global warming ended yesterday, the arctic island won’t recover.”
He turned slowly, stretching and shaping his body around hers without touching. “What are we going to do about it?”
“We, the human race? Nothing. There isn’t enough intelligence or concern on this planet to fix it. Future generations will have to use advancements in technology to adapt to the changing environment.”
“How?”
“They’ll modify their DNA. It’s the only way they’ll be able to inhabit a world our species isn’t designed for.”
“Designed? You believe in a higher power? Intelligent design?”
Oh, she had plenty of opinions on that. Her mouth ran away from her, and for the next few minutes, she stood on a soapbox and outlined everything she speculated on the subject. By the time she realized she was rambling, she couldn’t take it back. She’d engaged him in a conversation, doing precisely what he wanted.
The thing was… He listened. Actually kept his arguments to himself so that he could hear hers. Was this some kind of ploy to engineer personal information from her?
Except she hadn’t revealed anything confidential. He seemed genuinely interested in what she had to say.
Was she being naive?
Lifting on an elbow, he regarded her intently. “You’ve given this a lot of thought.”
Without access to a phone, Internet, or friends, all she had was time to sit around and think about shit.
She met his eyes, breaths defensively taut. “You want to argue my points? Bring it on.”
“Nope. I’m not an expert on climate change or God.”
“Then where is your expertise? What do you know?”
“I can offer some factoids on testosterone.” He bent his head toward hers, making her heart skip. “I’ve read a lot on the subject.”
She didn’t like where this was headed. Anything related to men and their bodies was dangerous territory. But she sucked it up and gave him her ear.
“A man’s testosterone peaks at puberty.” He brushed a wayward lock of hair from her face. “It declines immediately after then plateaus as he ages. Unless he gains weight.