He laughed, loud and deep, because fuck him, this woman had balls. Huge fucking lady balls. “I don’t give a fuck whether it’s sexy. You won’t be fucking anyone but me.”
Her spine went straight, and her cheeks burned into an angry shade of red.
But this wasn’t anger. She was scared. Beneath her surly bravado lurked a deep sense of dread. She feared what it meant to belong to a man like him. She feared for her friends if she tried to break free. And she feared the day she would stop thinking of escape and yield to the force that knotted them together.
Every time he entered her body, he wanted their roles to disappear. But how could he move them away from being captor and prisoner when he was unwilling to let her go?
He didn’t just want to keep her. He wanted to bind her, spank her, cut her, and fuck every hole. He wanted to share every depraved fantasy with her and earn her trust at the same time.
He didn’t need a woman’s love. He’d survived thirty-seven years without it.
But he ached for her to love him.
Him, a thing that couldn’t be loved.
He wanted the impossible.
All humor gone, he extended his hand again. He’d told her to come with him, and he wouldn’t repeat himself.
The atmosphere shifted and tightened. She stared at his mouth, his chest, his hand, and shifted her weight from one foot to the next.
Then she ran.Kate bolted toward the front of the house, the perfect curves of her ass flexing in denim shorts, and all that blond hair swinging around her tiny waist.
Energy swelled, heating Tiago’s muscles. His cock lengthened and hardened for the chase. The thrill of the hunt.
She veered around mattresses and tripped over backpacks, her noisy breaths spurring him into motion. When she reached the front door, she fumbled with the handle, and it cost her.
He caught her from behind, an arm against her stomach and a hand around her throat.
“What did I say about trying to escape?” He sank his teeth into her shoulder.
“I wasn’t! I just need…” She twisted in his hold, an attempt to break away, but ended up with her chest against his and her mouth so close he tasted lemon tea on her breath. “I just need some air.”
“What’s wrong with the air in here?”
On an exhale, a pleading look seeped into her eyes. “You.”
Gripping the backs of her thighs, he hitched her up his body. The position forced her to hug his neck and hook her legs around his waist.
“Explain.” He tangled a hand in her hair and seized her molten blue gaze.
“How can I explain you? This?” She feathered her fingers along his whiskered jaw, cupped the side of his face, and touched her forehead to his. “You make me crazy.”
“Goes both ways, Kate.”
“Then let me go.”
“Never.” He turned and climbed the stairs.
Her limbs tightened around him, and her breathing accelerated. She thought she knew what would happen when they arrived in their room, but she didn’t have a clue.
“I won’t surrender,” she whispered fiercely against his mouth.
“You always say that.”
“I don’t want this.”
“Always say that, too.”
She lowered her head to his shoulder, resting her cheek there, with her warm lips against his neck. “I’m tired, Tiago.”
Tired of fighting him.
She’d been here for two months and spent every second of it resisting, defying, spitting, and fighting. Always fighting.
He didn’t intend to break her down or defeat her. He wanted her arguments, her wrestling matches, and her rebellious spirit.
“Don’t give up.” He pressed a kiss beside her ear.
“Never.”
There’s my girl.
In the bedroom, he locked the door and set her on her feet.
“I need to use the toilet.” She backed away and vanished into the bathroom.
While she did her business and washed her hands, he removed the rope and blade from the locked safe. Then he grabbed the bag of medical supplies Boones kept near the door.
When she stepped back into the room, Tiago was sitting on the mattress, holding his phone.
She stood there in little jean shorts and a tank top, with her arms rigid at her sides and her head held high.
Just like the first time she walked in here and raised that chin at him, he was sucker-punched with the fiercest, rawest form of perfection. She was so much more than he could’ve ever fathomed.
Except now, he knew that devastating beauty ran through the deepest parts of her, and his heart longed for it, hammering and stretching to sink inside of hers.
He could make her come on his mouth and fall apart on his dick. But he couldn’t make her love him. He couldn’t even hope for such a thing.
Nevertheless, he wouldn’t stop fighting for it, knowing he would lose in the end.
Turning his attention to the phone, he opened a screen and held it out to her.