In the aftermath of what he doesn’t realize is goodbye sex, Joaquin holds me on his chest and spends a veritable lifetime stroking back my hair and drawing his fingers across my face as though trying to commit them to memory.
As though he actually knows it’ll be the last time he sees me.
It is this behavior, along with his caretaking of the injuries I lied about, along with so many other things, that proves to me that hedoeslove me. And that’s what makes this feel so much harder than every unspeakable atrocity I’ve lived through. But because he does love me, and I do love him, the necessity to leave is all the more urgent. I meant what I said to him.
On my life, I will never hurt you.
Also, on my life, I will protect his.
I will go down swinging with all my might to derail the cartel’s plans for revenge.
I have believed since the beginning of this assignment that Joaquin’s killing of their top men was righteous and justified. And now, after all this time with him, basking in his unrelenting kindness, and simple concern, and gentle hands, I know it is righteous and justified to break my ties of loyalty to the sadistic men who have held me under lock and key, and be prepared to lay down my own life to save the one truly good man I’ve ever known.
Even if it means breaking his heart in the process.
At least, he’ll live long enough for it to heal.
Joaquin combs back my hair again, his hand sweeping down the length of it until his soft, warm palm settles on the small of my back. “Did the ointment help at all?”
I offer a small nod. “A little.”
“Good. But, here.” He gingerly shifts out from underneath me and sits up to grab a couple of small bags of ice, a towel, and an elastic bandage wrap. “I think you should put these on it overnight.” He glances at me while he folds the towel around the ice bags. “Tomorrow, I want to take you for an X-ray.” With a small, frustrated huff, he fixes his attention on the towel and ice as he presses them to my stomach and side. “I still don’t fuckin’ believe this was from a fuckin’ dress rack falling on you, but…” He exhales loudly as he unrolls the bandage and starts wrapping it around my middle, securing the ice and towel in place. “I’m just gonna have to trust you. We have the rest of our lives to work through shit like this, so I’m not going to harp on it now.”
I love him despite his oblivious naivete. After all, he’s proved over and over that he’s completely clueless about why I’m here at all and has no reason to suspect anything. I’ve been careful. Obviously not careful enough with myheart, but I can’t do anything about that now.
Except protect him.
“An X-ray would probably be good,” I say compliantly, wincing slightly as he secures the wrap around the ice, snug, but not too tight.
He affixes the two small, metal clips and smooths the edge of the bandage. “How’s that feel?”
I press my fingers against the ice in several places. “Good.”
He nods once. “Good.”
Holding the edges of my robe, which is hanging, disheveled and wrinkled, off my shoulders in the aftermath of making love—yes, that’s what it was, and yes, that sucks—he wraps it closed and ties the sash in a loose bow. He stands up from the bed and pulls on his boxer briefs, then gathers the rest of his discarded clothes from the bed and the floor.
I allow myself to drink in the sight of him; a towering pillar of striking male beauty. The carved, chiseled muscles of his well-maintained form flex and pulse amidst his commonplace, automatic movements. His thick, inky-black hair tousled and falling haphazardly over his dark brows and eyes, until he tosses the clothes onto a chair and then rakes it back with his fingers. The absent-minded sweep of those fingers over his sharp, strong, stubbled jaw as he reaches into the pocket of his jeans with his opposite hand for his phone and places it on the nightstand.
Strong fingers, strong arms, strong shoulders, strongeverything. He outweighs me by at least eighty-five or ninety pounds of pure muscle; has a solid nine inches of height on me. He is bigger and stronger and more capable of inflicting physical injury than I could ever be, regardless of how hard and long I might ever have trained, and yet, he has never laid a finger on me in a way that wasn’t gentle, playful, or seductive.
Joaquin is agoodman.
And the world needs a lot more people like him, and a lot fewer people likemeand those who sent me here.
He’s still absently raking back his hair when he turns to me. “I’m gonna give you a sleeping pill.”
I’m so caught off guard by the statement that my eyes do a rapid double-blink. “¿Qué?”
Joaquin gestures casually at my mid-section. “You need to rest, and the pain from that is just gonna keep you up all night.” He pivots and crosses the room toward the en suite in long-legged strides. “I’ve got some Ambien, and I think you should take one.”
He slips through the French doors, and about a hundred-thousand synapses fire off in my brain, connecting about a hundred-thousand little dots.
I consider all those nights and days when I was stricken with unprecedented and absurd narcolepsy, and a possibility I never considered is hurled against my frontal lobes so forcefully that I’m briefly rendered blind.
He’s been drugging me.
My eyes are stretched as wide as they can go, but then I collect myself and blink away the sudden dryness.
