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What did happen to slave girls, anyway?
Was he going to beat me? Force himself on me? The shock of Este’s death and the past twenty-four hours were still clinging to my consciousness and making me act in a kind of weird, detached way that was completely foreign to me. I was normally feisty, determined and demanding. Not a meek, quiet girl who let herself be blindfolded and led into the pits of hell.
Este. I ached to weep for him, to unleash my anger with fists to the walls, to smash my knuckles into something until they bled. I wanted to hurt something, or someone. I wanted to hurt my father. But he wasn’t here, so maybe I could hurt Dornan, instead. A door slammed and the helmet was finally removed.
‘You didn’t tell me you were taking me to the Hilton,’ I drawled, turning my head to take in the small room we were in. Dornan set the suitcase Murphy had purchased and filled with clothes in my size on the ground. I guessed one of the other bikers had brought it. ‘I gotta take a piss,’ he said, turning to leave the room.
‘Nice,’ I replied, my eyes burning under the single bare bulb that hung from the ceiling. ‘Thanks for the information overload.’
He smiled, one hand on the door knob.
‘Wait,’ I said, sounding much too desperate for my liking.
He stopped, but didn’t turn around.
‘Will you . . . will you come back?’ I didn’t want to be with him, but I wanted to be alone even less. And I figured I was going to be here a good long while, so I’d better start off on the right foot with Dornan before Murphy reappeared or Emilio decided I was better off dead.
There was something about Dornan, something different. I was afraid of him, but not in the same way that I was afraid of Emilio or Murphy. It was a different fear.
How silly I was. I should have feared him the most, because he would be the one to destroy me in the end.
But I was silly, and foolish, and grieving. I didn’t want to be alone.
‘Do you want me to come back?’ he asked.
I did. But why? Because I liked him? No. I hated him and everything he stood for.
But I was afraid. Of the dark. Of the quiet. Of the possibility that once he left the room and slammed the door shut behind him, I’d be forgotten, clawing at the walls for days and weeks until my throat stopped being able to scream and I lay down and died. What if they just left me here to rot?
‘Yes,’ I whispered.
He let his hand drop from the door handle and turned slowly, meeting my eyes with what could only be described as a predatory gaze. He had something on me, even if it was as insignificant as my terror of being alone, and he knew it. He trailed his eyes down to my chest, over my waist and down to my feet, before repeating the journey in reverse.
I stood rooted to the spot as he dragged a pack of Marlboros from his pocket and lit up, drawing in a long, apparently satisfying breath. He took two steps, bridging the gap between us as he offered me the cigarette, blowing smoke in my face.
He grinned, rolling the cigarette between two fingers in front of my face.
‘You know,’ he said slyly, ‘I’m not here to save you, Ana.’
Devastation squeezed at my chest as I accepted the cigarette, my skin burning where it touched his. Nobody can save me now.
Placing the cigarette to my lips, I took a long, steady drag and blew a cloud of smoke right back at him.
‘That’s okay, Papi,’ I replied, tapping ash onto the ground as unexpected spikes of something ran down my spine in a shiver. ‘I’m not here to be saved.’
He took the cigarette back, smiling at me in the dark.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
DORNAN
He didn’t care that he was married, or that she was his captive. When she stuck his cigarette between her lips and inhaled, it took every ounce of Dornan’s willpower not to press her up against the wall and suck the smoke right out of her mouth as he devoured her. Instead, he settled for studying every inch of her with his ravenous eyes, as she spoke in that sexy little accent and slow-blinked those big eyes at him.
And she had asked him to come back. His dick was practically trying to jump out of his pants and into her, and he bit the inside of his cheek to distract himself.
He found himself dreaming up scenarios to extend his father’s business trip in Bogota, ways to have this girl to himself for a few days instead of just a few more hours. He wanted to touch her. He wanted to run his hands down those smooth brown arms that’d been wrapped around him for almost an hour, and he wanted to brush his fingertips against those lush rosebud lips that made the difference between her being pretty and being beautiful.
Beautiful. He realised it had been forever since he’d thought a woman beautiful. He’d seen plenty of pretty girls, plenty of sexy women. But truly beautiful women were few and far between in his world. It was too violent, too bloody, too masochistic for beautiful women to survive, and so they somehow knew to stay away.
