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)
“When did you get sick?”
“During my isolation in that room. After the accident, the abdominal pain never went away. Then it spread, and new symptoms emerged. The headaches, nausea, muscle paralysis… It started happening about once a month. Increased to once a week. Then daily. Some days were better than others. It took his doctors months to diagnose me and develop a treatment. When Tiago eventually freed me from that room, I was sick every day and… Well, I was never free. Not with the guards.” She gestured at the door. “I’ve made several attempts to escape, only to get hauled back and deprived of medicine until the only thing that could save me was a ventilator.”
His nostrils widened with the force of his seething breaths. “Lucia…”
“I made contact with a doctor once, someone who didn’t have his hands in Tiago’s pockets. I met him at his house outside of the neighborhood. A gentle, kind man—he was willing to help me for free. But we didn’t get past the medical questions before Tiago’s men showed up and…” She clutched the hem of her shirt and stretched it to her knees, covering her thighs. “They cut off his arms and made me watch as he bled to death.”
His heart ached for her. She’d endured so much and had done it alone. How could she not be defeated and despondent and at the end of her limit? Her luck was in the red, her strife ceaseless. She had a never-ending shortage of anything good in her life.
Yet here she was, asking him about us and the future. She hadn’t given up, and it left him awestruck and overwrought with admiration.
“I think the antidote is derived from Amazon plants.” She told him Badell’s father had been a pharmacist and what little she knew about the team of indigenous doctors. “They’re experts in medicinal botany.”
“They’re also surgeons?” He stepped toward her and touched her shirt over the scar.
“Yes. Tiago won’t tell me what organs were damaged or removed, or how the sickness is related to the injury, or if—” She sucked in a hard breath, her expression blank. “Or if I can bear children. But hey, at least I don’t have periods.”
Her smile was hapless and heartbreaking, so utterly void of humor it tore him apart.
“I want you to do something for me.” He held her face in his hands and forced her to look at him.
She sawed her teeth together, and a glimmer of fight lit her eyes.
“Tonight,” he said, “I want you to not be so damn tough. Let it go. Give it to me. Let me be your strength.”
“Tate—”
“One night, Lucia. Everyone needs someone. Even me. Tonight, I’m yours. Your someone.”
“My person?” she whispered.
“Yeah.”
It was a sluggish, circumspect unraveling, her entire body shuddering, fighting the turmoil that rose behind her eyes. She visibly wrestled with it, battling an inner storm he couldn’t comprehend. But when she finally gave in, he was there, his arms around her, his lips in her hair, and his whispered words swaddling her in truths. You’re resilient and brave. I respect you. You’re not alone. I’m here for you.
She wept quietly, gracefully, and with every tear, he felt her muscles loosen and her joints give until she was pliable and spent and maybe even relieved.
As her tears slowed, he chased them with his lips, kissing them away one by one. He’d never been so moved, so absorbed in the emotions of a woman. He loved Camila, but she didn’t need him. She’d never needed him. Not like this.
And that wasn’t all. The taste of Lucia’s tears, the provocative scent of her skin, the directness in her questions, the glimpse of vulnerability beneath her strong exterior—it turned him on like nothing else. This woman was everything he never knew he was attracted to.
When her eyes dried, he leaned back and inspected her exquisite face for signs of pain. “How do you feel?”
“Better.” She placed a hand on his bare chest and idly stroked the muscle there. “Thank you.”
“Your stomach?”
“Settled.”
“Eat.” He placed the sandwich in her hand and stepped back.
She nibbled on the bread, ate a strawberry, and after a few more bites, she tore into the pork with voracity.
Satisfied, he rested his fingers in his pockets and caught her gaze. “You have questions about Camila and me. Ask them.”
CHAPTER 16
The last bite of the sandwich stuck in Lucia’s throat under the force of Tate’s stare. The intensity in his ice blue eyes, assertive growl in his voice, stillness in his confident posture—everything about his pushy, take-charge style made her blood throb and heat in places that had no business reacting at all.
He towered over her, a head taller and shoulders twice as wide. His expression was that of a man restraining his need, one who seemed to have everlasting patience. He adjusted his fingers in his pockets, shifting the front of his jeans to accommodate that huge, relentless erection—an erection that had been tenting his zipper since she removed her clothes.