“No. No. He played the game like before, but I threw a knife at him. I am like you now. I killed him. And Julio. And I do not give a damn. They were bad men. And they deserved to be killed.” She couldn’t stop touching him, smoothing his frowns, combing his silky waves, stroking his jawline.
“The game? What game?” He shook her again.
“He shot you.” She tore apart his hospital gown and blanched at the wide bandage covering one shoulder.
“It’s nothing.” He pulled the green garment back into place.
“He shot you. For that alone, he deserved to die.” She crumpled, her legs curdling like milk boiled too furiously and for too long.
“Aw, kitten. Don’t cry.” He swept her off her feet.
“No. Don’t. You’re hurt.” She turned her face into his neck, smelling him, finding an unfamiliar, astringent fragrance mingling with his musk and manly scent, uncaring of the tears pouring down her face.
He slumped onto the bed and nuzzled her hair. “Stop crying. I can’t handle that. You need to tell me everything.”
Jacinta drew back. Swiped at her cheeks. “I never cry. Never. Three days with you and I am a weeper. See what you do to me?”
She feasted on him, unable to stop drinking him in, tracing his eyebrows, following his hairline, fingering the whorls of his ears.
He captured her wrists. “Jacinta. Breathe. Settle down. You need to tell me what happened.”
“Can you just hold me for a while?” Their glances locked.
“For as long as you need.” He hugged her to him, and they stayed like that for long moments.
Jacinta hadn’t been able to concentrate, to stop her mind’s disjointed tumbling since throwing the two knives and following the blood spurting from Julio’s big belly. To her absolute horror, she started to sob and sob and sob. Anguished wails erupted unbidden, unwanted from her mouth. She cried and cried and cried until there was no energy left in her body.
Until she lay limp and useless and draped across his body, her legs and arms seeking consolation of any kind, squirreling and wriggling in an attempt to worm under his skin. And he soothed her through it all, caressing her spine, kneading the knots in her shoulders, kissing her temples, hair, cheek, the corner of one eye.
“Better?” He touched a fingertip to her chin.
His eyes were the color of burnt sugar—molten, glowing, and hot.
She nodded. “I thought he had killed you. I was so afraid. What’s that?” She hadn’t noticed the bandage on the side of his head.
“Nothing. Talk to me. Tell me everything.”
“No. You tell me first.” Jacinta leveled her chin.
“Little Amazon.” He nuzzled her neck. “Not much to tell. Emilio shot me in the shoulder. Julio GLOCKed me. They set the hotel on fire. Luckily security noticed the fire early, found me unconscious in the room, and brought me here. Your turn.”
She recounted everything.
“Are you sure they’re dead? You may just have wounded them.”
“My half brother and Julio will not walk this earth again. And I do not regret ending their time on earth. Not for a minute.” She glared at him.
“Let’s go over everything again. Where was this village?”
“About twenty miles north of San Carlos.” She snuggled closer to his uninjured arm.
“It must have been the article in the newspaper.” He combed her spikes into submission.
“What article?” She rested her chin on his shoulder.
“You remember that young idiot who tried to interview me?”
“The one you literally threw off the boat? Yes. I felt sorry for him.”
“I went to the newspaper’s offices and exposed the film, but the fool had taken a shot on his phone. He published a picture of you and me in the afternoon newspaper.” Demon laid his head back and stared at the ceiling. “Obviously Emilio’s been tracking us. Somehow he got wind of that article, and he staged that ambush. He had to have bribed some of the hotel staff. Crap, did I screw up again. No more.”
“You couldn’t have anticipated any of it.” She forced him to meet her gaze. “None of it.”
“Wrong. It’s my job to anticipate any- and everything. I screwed up. It won’t happen again. Guaranteed.”
She didn’t like the way he averted his gaze and the way the tic under his eye twitched.
The door banged open, and a white-coated man wearing a stethoscope walked in. He glanced at the chart in his hands and then looked at Demon. “Mr. Jones?”
“That’s me.”
Jacinta blinked and focused on a dark stain on the far wall. Mr. Jones? She resisted the temptation to check out Demon’s groin.
“I understand you’ve been demanding to be released. I’m here to tell you that your wish has been granted. I signed your release not ten minutes ago.”
“Thank you.”
They both waited until the doctor finished with his small talk and exited.
“What happens now?” She rolled to one side when Demon sat up and swung his legs off the bed.
“Once again—we’ve no clothes or supplies. It’s near midnight. I did ask Xavier to restock the boat, but who knows if he got around to it. Our options are limited. I say we go back to the houseboat after I scrounge up pants and a shirt and a pair of shoes.”
“I’ll go down to the gift shop in the lobby. They are open because of the fire. They must have something.”
“Won’t work, kitten. No money. Every cent that I have was in my duffel bag. Which went up in smoke.”
“I have money.” She scooted off the bed and kept her gaze on the oval, dark brown stain. “I will get you clothes.”
“Hold it right there.” Heat laced his growl.
She didn’t wait for the inevitable confrontation but walked around the bed and craned her neck to meet his fierce glower. “I stole money and two knives from you. I didn’t believe you would let me go back to the cloister, and I planned to take the early morning bus there. If I hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have been able to get free, and Emilio and Julio would have raped me and probably killed me.”
He folded his arms. “I hired Xavier to fly you to Manaus. I fully intended to drug you and stow you on his plane.”
Jacinta stumbled back. She squared her shoulders and jutted her chin. “Again the drugging? Why are you telling me this?”
He didn’t look the least bit sorry, nor did his body language speak of anything but anger and aggression.
“Are you angry with me again?”
“Yes. No. Damn it. Why can’t you trust me to take care of you?” He dragged his hands through his hair. “Don’t answer that. It’s obvious. I failed to protect you. I’ve done nothing but drag you into danger.”
“Stop it.” She grabbed his hospital gown and rose on tiptoe. “I am
not
helpless. How many times must I tell you that? Why won’t you trust in
me
?”
“You’ve spent all your life in a cloister. You are so damned innocent that being in the same room with me probably contaminated you forever. You’re in danger. You’re a woman. A small,
defenseless
woman. I
have
to protect you. From yourself if need be.”
“If you once more bring up the cloister, I will throw things at you. You are worse than the mule. And Sister Helen whipped him. Sometimes I want to whip you.” She stamped her foot. “Did I not rescue myself from Emilio? I killed two men this day. I am
not
helpless.”
He shook his head. His hands swung loose. “I’m such an asshole sometimes. Such a stupid jerk. Aw, kitten, come here.”
She went into his outstretched arms and closed her eyes when he crushed her to him. He kissed the top of her head. “You did great. You’ve been nothing but great. Let’s get out of here. Go get me some clothes and let’s get back to the houseboat.”
Her energy seemed to evaporate with each trudging step. The smells and sounds of San Carlos, which had once fascinated her, had soured, and nausea sat heavy and leaden on her stomach. When they reached the boat, she rushed onboard and raced to the toilet in the bunk room. The stew they’d fed her earlier in the village spewed right back up. She vomited until even her spit dried up. And sat there hugging the porcelain until Demon came and got her.
“I killed two human beings.” She had no tears left, no moisture left in her body, no bones left to support her flesh. “My other sins I can accept—the fornication, my greed—but taking another’s life? It is a mortal sin.”
He shook her. “Look at me. You defended yourself by the only means available. The last thing you are is a sinner. Leave that label to someone like me. The Demon Seed. You’re not greedy. Not in the slightest. You’re all that is pure and innocent. And sex is not a sin.”
“I am so tired.” She leaned her forehead on his sternum. “Did you feel like this when you killed? So much remorse and so much hate for yourself?”
“It’s a normal reaction.” He framed her face, and the intensity of his stare made her blink. “Taking a life changes you forever. But you did it because you had no other choice. That’s excusable. What’s not excusable is setting fire to a house filled with young, homeless children and smiling at the sounds of their agony. Are you hearing what I’m saying?”
She nodded, too choked up to chance speaking.
“Will you let me help you through this?”
Again, she nodded.
“First things first. I don’t want to stay in this town a second longer. If Emilio found us, then so can Hugo and Brio and Pedro. Can you hold it together long enough for us to get to a safe harbor?”
“Yes.” She turned her head and kissed his palm. “I do not want to be alone, though. Not for a second.”
“I’ll stick to you like glue. Come on. Let’s get going.” He was true to his promise. Never let go of her hand unless he absolutely had to. And once they had left the boat-crowded harbor, he shoved a chair next to the throttle and draped her in his lap while steering the boat.
Resting her head on his chest, she asked, “Where’re we going?”
“Your English is really coming along. Do you realize you’re using contractions regularly?” He massaged her scalp and kissed one eyebrow.
“Contractions?” She only half listened to what he said, too soothed by his embrace, by his heat, by his smell to want words to intrude.
“Can’t instead of cannot. Where’re instead of where are.”
“Oh. I’m thinking more in English too. When I first left the cloister, I had to translate everything. Not anymore. Just with the mathematics. I cannot count or add in anything other than Portuguese.” She toyed with the fourth button on the fine linen shirt from the gift shop.
“That’ll change too, depending upon where you end up living. And who you’re living with.” Demon tweaked her nose. “We’re heading to La Abatapo. It’s a small resort about two hours north of the border.”
“What happened with Xavier?”
He met her gaze. “I was supposed to drop you off at a small airstrip about twenty minutes south of San Carlos before dawn yesterday. News of the fire reached his village long before that. He came to the hospital and waited until I was out of surgery. We spoke. I asked him to restock the boat and keep in touch.”
“Do you remember what I said about the puppeteer?” His fruity breath tickled her nose, and she traced his mouth.
He nodded.
“Maybe there are two puppeteers—a good one and a bad one. For if we hadn’t rescued the wedding guests, maybe those villagers today wouldn’t have helped me. They had heard of what happened. It was fortunate, no?”
“Very fortunate.” He kissed her fingers. “How far away is the cloister from Manaus?”
“A half a day’s journey. There is only a dirt road once you reach the mountains. Why?”
“That’s where we’re headed tomorrow. You can speak with Sister Helen, and then I’m putting you on a plane to Trinidad. Once I’m done with this job, I’ll join you. Then we’ll head back to New York.”
She held her breath. Was he speaking the truth? Were they going to the cloister? Trinidad? New York? He wanted her to go to New York with him? She wrung her hands. What
did
he mean? Her heart had gotten ahead of her thoughts, racing, sprinting across the finish line she so yearned for. A home. A family. The love of her life. Babies. She bit her lips. No. Her worst sin had her in thrall.
Temptation.
For he needed, deserved a real woman. A wife who understood American ways: proms, tennis, and country clubs. She had seen enough American movies to know, absolutely know she would never belong in a place like New York. She would shame him with her ignorant ways, her bastardization of English, her stupidity about evil people. No. He was a kind man. A man of honor. And he thought to help her because he had taken her innocence. No. A thousand times no. She would never accept his pity.
He wasn’t looking her way, had focused on the map, and that muscle under his eye jumped. The only illumination in the engine room came from the tiny desk lamp hooked onto the podium standing next to the throttle. The oblong shadow of the light fell across his hooded lids, and she couldn’t read his expression.
“No.” She touched his jaw. “Look at me, Demon mina.”
“I’m not giving you a choice, Jacinta. Not in leaving the country. If you don’t want to come with me to New York, that’s your decision. But not the rest.” He laid his hand on hers. “I want you safe.”
“Por favor. Look at me.” She desperately needed to see his eyes.
Brown as molasses, deep, dark, rich molasses. “I will go. After speaking to Sister Helen. For your sake. Because I distract you. But—I will
not
go with you to New York.”
Chapter Eleven
Demon hadn’t expected Jacinta to agree to anything. Yet she’d agreed to everything except the part that mattered the most. Going with him to New York.
Fine. Not New York. What was it that she objected to? The US of A?
Fuck.
What a choice—country or woman.
Shit. Shit. Shit
. He was a SEAL, damn it. A SEAL. He lived, breathed, sweated his country. The pledge, the flag, the anthem had been branded into his pores. He could no more renounce his country than he could change the fact that he loved her, unreservedly.
It didn’t matter that he hadn’t been born in the US. Not for a blasted second. It was where he’d grown up, where he’d grown to manhood, and becoming a SEAL had saved him from certain death. Because until he’d signed up for the navy, he’d been doomed to live the life of his father and forefathers. A petty criminal and addict dying a lonely, senseless death in some deserted alley.