The Protected

“CARAJO.” He lifted his head, panting as he stared down at Vaughnne. She tightened around him yet again, the slick muscles of her pussy milking him in another tantalizing, teasing caress. That strong, sleek body of hers would drive him out of his mind, just as he’d expected. So many things he wanted to do to her . . . do with her. And there was just time for this.

“I won’t stop,” she whispered, looking at him with rich, dark brown eyes, a wicked smile on her face. “You’re trying to drive me crazy. I’m going to do the same to you. I—Gus!”

He drove deep, slamming home and shuddering as her cry bounced off the walls. Her head arched back, the slim line of her neck exposed. Her pulse beat a wild tattoo in her neck and he wanted to press his lips to that delicate spot. Wanted to lick away the bead of sweat he could see forming just there on her temple. But he couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. All he could do was surge inside her again, again, shuttling in and out as she tightened around his cock, until it was like he was working back and forth inside a silken fist.

Ragged breaths escaped them both and he could feel that rising tension inside her. This time, instead of trying to hold it off, he let it grab her, let it grab them both. It wasn’t enough. Wouldn’t ever be enough, he knew. Shifting, he let go of her legs and banded his arms around her, shaking as she did the same to him.

Locked in each other, he thought.

They were trapped, each possessed by the other.

Her ragged whimper echoed in his ear as she started to climax. He wanted to hear it again, and again. Blood thrummed in his head as he tried to hold back, but the need was a roaring dragon and it consumed him.

The inner muscles of her sheath gripped him, milking him convulsively, and he couldn’t fight it. “Vaughnne,” he rasped into her hair, clutching her tightly against him as he surrendered to that wild, almost painful need . . . to her.

TWENTY

IT had been a very long while since he had been forced to take action on his own.

Ignacio now had men who took care of things for him. But those men weren’t here now and there was simply no way he was going to let that little puta get away from him.

She wasn’t in the room now and he could finally think.

Finally. Every time she touched him, his ability to think just shut down, but she’d been gone for a little while and his mind was his own once more. His mind, his body . . . his rage. How long, he wondered? How long had she been controlling him?

His wrists were slick with blood, but the cable tie wasn’t coming loose. It wasn’t going to come loose, either.

He had to figure out a way to get free.

Of course, she had decided to do all of this in her room. Naturally, she had no weapons in here. A bunch of silly baubles and useless female sundries on the dresser but nothing he could use, even if he could get manage to get the chair he was tied to over there.

Think.

He had to think.

There was a way out of this; there had to be. He just needed to think it through.

His men, of course, would return in a few days and he would express his displeasure at them for so easily trusting what they’d been told. It didn’t matter that he was the one who had told them to leave. They should know he’d never order all of them away. It left him, the entire operation, vulnerable. Fear was a nasty, cold streak inside him as he thought about it. His rivals were many. Most of them wouldn’t dare come to his home, he knew, but if they had any idea how helpless he was right now . . .

Nala was going to pay for this.

She was going to suffer. Focusing on that forced the fear back where it belonged. Under control, where nobody else could see it. Wise men accepted fears, he believed. Accepted them, dealt with them. He’d accepted. He’d dealt with it. And now he’d make her suffer, because while a wise man might accept fear and deal with it, there was no reason to like it, and no reason to roll over like a whipped dog when somebody screwed him over.

Twisting his wrists against the cable tie, he shot another look around the room, ignoring the hopelessness that crashed through him yet again. The best chance, he thought, would be to try and get the chair over to her dressing table. There were a bunch of little trinkets there. Mirrors, heavy glass bottles. Not ideal, but the best option.

Watching the door carefully, he eased the chair over. One slow inch at a time.

He moved about a foot and stopped, waited. No sound of Nala. No sign of her.

He moved another. And another.

He was less than eighteen inches from the table when he heard a dull thud from downstairs. Swearing, he shoved closer to the dresser and tried to twist around, rising awkwardly, trying to claw for something.

Anything.

His fingers scrabbled against something that felt like cool, hard glass—

A footstep sounded outside the door.

“Senor?”

* * *

URGENCY rode her hard as they drove across the dark, busted road.

Vaughnne had used her passport at the border, sweating under her shirt the entire time, because she was absolutely certain they’d realize, somehow, that Gus had cleverly concealed the weapons he wasn’t supposed to be transporting. She was equally certain they’d suspect something about his passport. It wasn’t his name on it. Well, maybe it was. If it was, then he’d lied about his real name to her.

The name on the passport was Miguel Hernandez. About as typical as John Smith, she suspected.

But they’d crossed the border without a problem and she was that much closer to crossing a line. She’d already crossed some, but none of them were anything that would be the end for her.

Not yet.

But it was coming.

She swung back and forth between not thinking about it and trying to overthink it. Did she want to do this? Did she try to call Jones in and see if there were legal lines they could take? But what legal lines would actually work?

None. She tried to think it through. She knew for a damned fact that both the US government and the Mexican government had gone after Ignacio Reyes more than once, and each time, they’d failed to shut him down. There were no legal reasons to keep his child away from him. Alex could claim he’d abused him, but Vaughnne knew how that worked. It was a toss of the dice as to whether or not he’d end up back with his father, and this couldn’t be left to chance.

Nor could they try and have him arrested based on what he’d done to Alex.

She laughed bitterly just thinking about that one. You see, Judge, he used the boy’s psychic ability to track down and murder some people who were going to raid the drug compound he runs. No, no . . . we don’t have proof of it, but the kid’s mom and his uncle believe it happened that way . . . yes, we’re certain the boy is in danger . . .

What legal recourse did they have?

She couldn’t see one.

Reyes had a long, long reach, and if the boy didn’t want to spend the rest of his life running, Reyes had to be out of the picture. Some of her fellow agents would frown on her for this, but Vaughnne didn’t see things in black and white. Some people didn’t need to be on this earth. She wouldn’t cast judgment on the man simply for being a drug dealer and she wouldn’t have gone after a man on her opinions of him alone. But the man had abused his son. He’d used his son to kill. If he got his hands on the boy, he’d do it again.