Page 32 of Savage Sin

He drops the sponge on my quivering abdomen and trails the tips of his fingers up the valley between my breasts. His fingers find my chin and the bastard tilts my face until my eyes find his and breaks his long silence. “Understand me, Persi. I get what I want.”

I struggle to pull my wrist free, but it’s caught in his grip. “Funny thing. So do I.”

Not really. Not even once, actually. But that is for me to know.

“I don’t take you for a junkie. Why did you take the baggie of E?” His tone is casual, but the tick in his jaw is anything but.

I’m done giving free answers. “You need to let me go. They’re not going to just accept I fell off the face of the earth. Cortes is worse than my father. And Cortes Junior wants to please daddy so badly that it’s only a matter of time before he scouts us out. You’re a solo man in the woods. You can’t win here.”

He considers me for a moment. “Cortes. Joaquin Cortes and son. Who else,malyshka?”

Red spills over my vision and I yank my hand from his hold. I ball my fist up and slam it into any part of him I can hit. He takes the blows, one after another.

“Stop,” he orders roughly and catches my wrist again. “Stop, or you’re going to bust the stitches.Basta,” he says in Spanish.

My heart races. Nothing stands between the fury in me and him. Tattooed fingers hold my hand against his chest. Rapid pounding of his heart matches the fire in his eyes.

I drag my nails over the taut, inked skin and see the register of pain in his deep gaze. But he doesn’t flinch as I draw blood with my nails.

“Don’t ever call memalyshka. Ever!” I roar at him. Every inch of my body shakes with the need to see blood. “I will murder you in your sleep the first chance I get.” The curled, cruel sounds of the Russian endearment twist into something evil inside my head and make my insides sick to the core.

“He hurt you. This Russian. Didn’t he? Did he help put those scars on your thighs?” Shock at the tone of vengeance in his voice cools the raw anger in me.

“Tell me.”

His intense gaze burns through me and eats at the borders of my resolve. “Yes, and no.” And I leave it there.

Rage’s massive weight lingers over me.

“Is he the one who did this to you?” His fingers find the scars again.

“You don’t fucking give up, do you?”

“How do you think I got my name?”

“Yes, the Russian hurt me and no. Joaquin didn’t need help slicing me up.”

“And yet you protect him.”

I understand his bewilderment at my refusal. But he doesn’t know about my sister and I will keep it that way.

“You have to realize you can’t go up against an outfit as big as my family’s and win. Some lone wolf in the woods? You must be insane.”

With a knee on the side of the mattress, the bed dips to my right and when that happens, my body shifts into his touch. Rough, callused fingers brush against the swell of my breasts. Goosebumps bloom over my skin and the hard tips of my breasts respond.

My stomach drops and my heart stutters inside my chest. I don’t mean to sigh so deeply. It’s so inappropriate, but…it felt nice. This man affects me in infuriating ways I don’t understand. I am experiencing a bewildering attraction to my kidnapper.

Stockholm syndrome. That is what this is. He’s showing me kindness but not delivering on his threats, and here I am, taking pleasure in the way he’s bathing me. I am seriously broken.

I’m going to hell for thinking I liked the touch, unintentional or not. How long has it been since someone touched me with anything but malice?

Suddenly my feet are free. He pulls a knife from his back pocket and slices through the ties. He moves to the top of the bed before I can yank the last of the ties off and recaptures my free hand.

No preamble, just a couple of slices through silk or whatever he is using for bindings, and a window of opportunity opens up like the Grand Canyon.

I haul ass.

My feet are under me and I’m off the bed. But the muscles don’t respond quickly and my knees have a hard time bending. Then there’s the fact that one hand is still tied to the bed. I slam to the floor and groan through the pain. Not only from my knees meeting hard flooring, but my stitches scream.

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