Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 88918 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88918 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
“Why are you keeping me alive?” she murmured.
He set the syringe aside and smoothed his hands along her body. “I enjoy you.”
The erection swelling against her backside said his enjoyment was sexual. Without sex.
“I don’t have much time left.” She rested her head back against his shoulder and closed her eyes. “What’s wrong with me, Tiago?”
He cupped one of her bare breasts and rolled the nipple between his fingers. “You’re perfect.”
Over the course of a thousand mornings, in his room, on his lap, she’d grown indifferent to his touch. The caress of his hands, the absence of her clothes, the arousal in his voice—it was all just part of her daily medicine.
But this morning was different.
The feel of his fingers sliding across her skin set her teeth on edge. She didn’t want him touching her, resting his gaze on her nudity, or telling her she was perfect.
What she wanted was Tate. Him on top of her, around her, locking her in the circle of his arms, and keeping everyone else out. Just him and her and the heady glide of their lips.
She’d said goodbye to him, but he wasn’t going anywhere. She was certain he wouldn’t leave until he got what he came for.
Her.
Not a future with her. No, his dream of the future was Camila.
Lucia just wanted a future. Period.
They were both fucked.
“Tiago?”
“Hm?” He nuzzled her neck.
“What if there’s a cure your doctors aren’t aware of? If you’d let me see another physician—”
“Did you know seventy percent of plants with anticancer properties exist only in the Amazon?”
Her blood turned to ice. “Cancer?”
“You don’t have cancer.” He slid a hand to her collarbone and traced the shape of it. “I’m feeling generous this morning. Would you like to hear a story?”
She doubted anything he told her would bring her comfort, but information was a weapon. “Yes. Please.”
“My father was a pharmacist and an expert in medicinal botany. When he died, I brought his medical team here, to work for me.”
Why would his doctors go from saving people to assisting him with kidnappings and torture? Maybe they were never the saving kind of doctors.
Except they’d saved her.
“The rainforest,” Tiago said, “produces thousands of variations of seeds, berries, roots, leaves, bark, and flowers that have healing attributes. Only a small percentage have been discovered by modern man. But as you know, my doctors aren’t modern.”
The medical team of four men were in their sixties and seventies, with thick indigenous accents native to a land she couldn’t place. Their skin, the darkest pigmentation she’d ever seen, bore picturesque scarification—different designs and words than that of Tiago’s, but the welts appeared to have been cut with the same brutality. They reminded her of an ancient civilization, rich in culture and ceremony.
“My doctors know what ails you.” He dragged the backs of his fingers across her abdomen. “And they’ve developed the only known antidote for it. Keep that in mind next time you try to seek a second opinion.”
She already assumed he had the only antidote and often wondered if her illness was a byproduct of the crash in Peru. While chained in the back of a truck with a dozen other slaves, she’d felt the jolting, crashing fall as they tumbled off a cliff, heard the twisting of metal and agonized screams, and smelled the blood. After that, she remembered nothing.
The year that followed had been a drug-induced haze of surgeries and coma-like sleep. She had a scar across her abdomen but didn’t know what damage lay beneath the marred skin.
The strange part was that her illness didn’t surface until three years ago—seven years after the last surgery. Maybe the fix Tiago’s doctors put in her was failing? The medicine erased the pain, but she couldn’t go longer than twenty-four hours without another injection.
“What did you learn at the sex club?” Tiago asked.
“It was a quiet night.” She’d been too busy riding a blue-eyed god to overhear the conversations around her.
“Tell me about the men you were with.”
“There was just one. One of my usuals.” The lie floated effortlessly off her tongue.
“Did he fuck you here?” He feathered his touch across her lips.
“Yes.”
“And here?” His hand spread over the front of her panties, his fingers pressing against the satin crotch.
She nodded.
“I envy him.” His voice, scratchy with desire, rasped at her ear.
Such an odd thing to say, since he didn’t do more than touch her. Did he ever have sex? She never saw him with a lover and knew he didn’t allow anyone else in his room. Yet he was so easily aroused and constantly hard.
He was also distrustful and paranoid and never took unnecessary risk. Maybe he thought sex was too risky. It was, in a way. At the peak of climax, when the body let go and the mind lost all reason, a man was at his most vulnerable.