Page 96 of Bastard

My pulse is still racing, and I’m wound up tight as a spring.

Mustafa eyes me, then makes a clucking sound. “I had the basin filled with water before all the trouble began. Go take a soak, girl. You will feel better afterward.” She spins me around and gives me a gentle push forward.

I do just that, washing away the dirt and my panic. I’ve seen men killed far too many times to count. Even the poor bartender in Cabo, who followed me back to my room, was killed—and by one of Hayden’s men. Does it make it any easier? No.

He warned me, didn’t he? “This is the life I lead.”

¿Quiero una vida como esta?

I scrub my skin until it turns pink. By the time I’m done, the answer to my question is clear. No matter how violent a world we live in, I want whatever life this man has to offer me as long as he’s a part of it. Normal is overrated.

Wrapping a teal towel around me, I enter the hut. My eyes search the darkness, but in vain. He’s not here.

But when I spot what’s been carefully folded and placed on the bed, it’s clear he must have returned while I bathed.

My Rome T-shirt.

Why would he leave it on the mattress for me to see?

I roll my bottom lip between my teeth, then give into the urge to put it on. I sigh, too tired to wonder about the whys and why nots. I pull on a pair of clean underwear and crawl into bed.

Sleep doesn’t come, so I simply lay still and stare up at the thatched roof.

It takes forever for Hayden to return. His gaze falls on me the second he steps inside yet he says nothing. Not when he tucks his weapons inside his bag. Not when he removes the bath towel wrapped around his waist and tosses it over mine. Not when he prowls toward the foot of the bed like a naked warrior prepared to pounce.

He grabs hold of my ankles and drags me down the mattress. I’m on my feet, spun around, and bent over the bed with my ass in the air in seconds. My underwear is shoved aside, before he pushes two fingers inside me. Curling them just so and caressing that mysterious spot that always makes me wet.

“Please. I need this. I can’t calm down.”

He scissors his fingers, spreading me wide like he’s opening me to take his big cock. Preparing me to take what he promised earlier—the fuck of a lifetime.

“You’ve never experienced an adrenaline rush?”

“Yes. But never this intense.”

“Too much glucose has been released into your blood.”

“And you? Are you feeling it too?”

“Yes. And I know how to take the edge off.” He pushes his thumb against my clit then rolls it.

I moan and press my forehead into the mattress.

He works a third finger inside, then begins slowly finger-fucking me. “That’s it. Take what you need.”

Madre mía.

“Yes, milk my fingers, just like that.”

His filthy talk is like adding oil to a fajita grill. My body sizzles with awareness.

“I could do this all night.” He drags his fingers out then thrusts them back inside me.

“Ah,” I cry out. Feeling the rise of my orgasm.

“Let go. Come on my fingers, Luciana.”

And I do, hard at his command. My knees buckle and my body shakes. I brace my hands on the mattress as a glorious sense of relief washes over me.