17. Chapter 17
Chapter seventeen
Lachlan’s words echoed in my mind as I dragged the wooden panel in the wardrobe closed behind me and arranged the hanging dresses across it.
I nearly tripped stepping out, too caught up in the rush of emotions he’d provoked in such a short time.
God, he was something out of a fantasy, like some impossible superhero made real. He was blindfolded, shirtless, and cuffed to a chair beneath my floor, and I wanted to crawl straight back down there because I hadn’t heard him say my name nearly enough.
No—
Because I wanted him to say it while looking at my mouth again.
I closed the wardrobe doors before I did something completely insane and crossed to my dresser. The key remained clenched in my hand as I pulled out a T-shirt and shorts.
I’d spent twenty-five years learning not to hope, not to want, and definitely not to rush toward a man simply because he made my heart race.
Lachlan Byrnes had wrecked all three lessons in one night.
I peeled off my dress and stepped out of it.
“And the cock you looked at twice.”
I bit my lip, but the laugh escaped anyway.
Twice was generous. I’d gotten a very good look at him, enough to know his cock was every bit as impressive as the rest of him, and I wasn’t remotely sorry I’d looked.
Apparently being a prisoner in a cartel cellar had done nothing to damage the man’s confidence. He’d actually had the nerve to tease me about staring.
I pulled on the shorts, but the image of him standing next to me flashed through my mind.
He’d seemed big sitting down, but I hadn’t understood exactly how much larger he was than me until he pushed himself upright and towered over me.
He was all battered, bare-chested Irish muscle, and even after everything they’d done to him, there was no hiding how powerful he was. My father’s men had gone after his thighs because they knew exactly how dangerous he’d be once he was free.
Even hurt, Lachlan had filled the room in a way Father never had. Father needed guards, guns, money, and everyone’s fear to make himself feel powerful.
I pulled the T-shirt over my head, then closed my eyes and imagined him fully healed.
Bad choice.
My imagination immediately ran wild.
Lachlan without restraints. Nothing holding those massive hands in check. His temper finally unleashed on the men who had tortured him.
I wanted to see it, and not from a safe distance either.
I wanted to be standing next to him when Father, Marcela, and her men realized the monster they’d chained had gotten loose.
My gaze fell to the key in my palm.
He could easily have taken it.
Once his wrists were free, there had been nothing between Lachlan and the hidden passage except me. I could never have stopped him. One of his hands could probably close around both my wrists. He could have taken the key, forced me through the wall and made me lead him out, or worse.
Instead, he’d casually placed both hands on his thighs where I could see them.
Then, when it was time to put him back into the restraints, he’d held one of those hands out to me.
“Come here,” he’d said.
I’d gone without thinking, like a moth to a flame.
Whatever Lachlan Byrnes was doing to me, I suddenly needed to sit down and get a grip on myself.
I dropped onto the vanity stool and stared at my hand as though some trace of him might remain on my skin.
His hand had swallowed mine.
Its size had done something ridiculous to me. It shouldn’t have felt that good. But it had. It was rough and warm, and when his thumb brushed over my knuckles, my knees had nearly given out. That one slow brush had sent a current through my entire body and straight to my core.
I couldn’t help myself; I wanted that enormous hand at the back of my neck while he kissed me. I wanted the other sliding inside my shorts and finding out exactly what he’d done to me by doing nothing more than holding my hand.
I wanted to hear him call me good girl again.
My thighs pressed together.
Good Lord.
The man had said two words, and my body had practically volunteered for whatever came next.
I’d kissed him before. Barely.
Tonight had been different.
Tonight he’d been looking at me too.
When his gaze dropped to my lips, his desire had been obvious. Lachlan wanted to kiss me. His green eyes had given him away, and his hand had tightened around mine.
I’d nearly leaned closer and taken the kiss myself.
Then footsteps had moved through the corridor, and somehow the man cuffed in my father’s dungeon had been the one with enough sense to remember what getting caught would cost me.
I should have been grateful for his good judgment.
Instead, I was still annoyed that he hadn’t kissed me.
Clearly I’d become unreasonable somewhere between freeing a mafia captain and agreeing to put my future in his hands.
I caught my ridiculous smile in the mirror.
This was supposed to be about getting out.
I’d gone into the dungeon to find out whether Lachlan Byrnes could be trusted and returned wanting his hands on me and his violence aimed at everyone else.
God help anyone who stood in his way when Lachlan got free.
God help me when he turned all that attention back on me.
I was already half out of my mind over a man who’d barely touched me.
I tucked the key beneath the edge of the mattress, where I could reach it quickly, then went into the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth.
Cold water helped exactly nothing.
By the time I returned to the bedroom, I was still thinking about his rough hands and the way those green eyes had dropped to my mouth.
Maybe I’d made the worst mistake of my life.
There was considerable competition for the honor.
I climbed into bed and pulled the blanket over my legs.
For all the hope Lachlan had brought with him, getting beyond the compound was only the first unknown.
His people didn’t know I existed. When they found out who I was—or who they believed I was—they might see Ciro Delgado’s daughter before they saw me.
And Lachlan had a whole life somewhere beyond these walls.
Women who knew that world. Women who could walk into his club whenever they pleased, order a drink, wear whatever they wanted, and touch him without thinking twice.
I frowned at the ceiling.
That thought irritated me far more than it had any right to.
He wasn’t mine.
We hadn’t even properly kissed.
I still didn’t like imagining another woman putting her hands on him.
Especially after Marcela.
When Lachlan was free, no one would touch him unless he wanted them to.
And, heaven help me, I wanted to be the woman he wanted.
There.
Another humiliating truth.
I rolled onto my side and faced the wall.
Somewhere beneath me, Lachlan sat in darkness with his wrists and ankles locked down again.
Was he thinking about me?
About the way I’d touched his thigh?
About what might have happened if those footsteps hadn’t come?
I smiled into the pillow.
And now that I was safely in bed with no Lachlan nearby to catch me staring, my imagination became considerably less respectable.
I wondered what his beard would feel like against my breasts.
Against my stomach.
Between my thighs.
I buried my face in the pillow, laughing quietly at myself.
After twenty-five years imprisoned by the most dangerous man in El Salvador, I was lying awake fantasizing about a mafia man with a filthy mouth and hands I desperately wanted everywhere.
Sleep still refused to come.
Fine.
I readjusted, slipped one hand into my shorts, and let the fantasy from earlier have its way.
The wardrobe doors opened.
Lachlan stepped out of the darkness, but this time there was no blindfold, no bruises, no cuffs. He was healed and free, all that intimidating strength finally his to use, and those impossible green eyes locked straight onto me.
He held out one hand.
“Come here.”
This time, there was no reason for either of us to stop.
I went to him.
With one hand fisted in my hair, his other arm hauled me against all that hard muscle, and his mouth finally came down on mine.
In my fantasy, he did everything I’d spent half the night imagining. His hands moved over me, his mouth followed, and soon there wasn’t an inch of my body he hadn’t claimed.
My fingers moved faster beneath my shorts.
When I came, I slapped a hand over my mouth to keep from making a sound, his face filling my mind.
Afterward, I curled onto my side, still imagining being in his arms.
Sleep took me with dreams of Lachlan still kissing me.
A guard stood near the open doors of the veranda with a rifle slung across his chest as I tried to force myself to eat.
At the far end of the table, one of Father’s men complained about a truck that needed a new transmission. A radio crackled from the corridor, followed by a bored answer in Spanish. Plates landed on the table as lunch was served. Silverware scraped against china.
No one mentioned the man chained beneath the house.
I stared at the food in front of me.
Chicken. Rice. Beans. Fresh tortillas.
More than Lachlan had eaten since Father brought him here.
My stomach churned as I forced down one bite of rice and immediately regretted it.
I set down my fork.
“Are you ill?” Dona Teresa asked from across the table.
“A little nauseous.”
Her eyes narrowed as though nausea might be another form of disobedience.
“I think I’ll lie down.”
She gave a dismissive wave. “Go.”
I picked up my plate before a servant could reach for it.
“I’ll just take this to the kitchen.”
No one cared enough to argue.
The kitchen was already busy with preparations for dinner, and I slid my plate onto the counter near the sink.
Marta glanced over while sorting vegetables.
“You barely ate.”
“I know. I’m just not feeling well.”
“You want to take a little snack for later?”
“Maybe.”
She wiped her hands and disappeared into the pantry.
I hated how easily the lie worked when I wasn’t actually lying. My stomach was in knots, but I also needed to start preparing to escape, which meant gathering food and other supplies.
Marta returned with two packets of salted crackers, a bag of peanuts, and a package of butter cookies.
“Take these. Maybe you’ll feel like eating something later.”