The guard closed his eyes and sighed.
Carter looked back and forth between Beefcake and Santiago. “Um, no. That’s not… no. I need your blood, sir. His blood will not show me what’s going on inside your body.”
As Carter spoke, Santiago realized how stupid his order had been. His face turned florid with embarrassed anger. I stepped forward to be ready to protect Carter, but Carter himself seemed to realize the danger that was brewing.
“Although,” he said nervously. “Actually, I misunderstood you. You mean this man could give me a baseline from which to compare yours to. Excellent idea! I will take blood from both of you. You are so thoughtful, sir. Thank you. I should have been the one to think of it. I apologize.”
Santiago’s tension deflated somewhat, but he still looked peeved. “Yes, exactly. That is what I meant. Of course.”
He nodded at the guards who’d brought us in. “Go. Get rid of them.”
Carter made another sound of despair at Santiago’s poor choice of words, and Santiago seemed to realize his mistake. “Not like that,” he said imperiously. “Like… like show them to their rooms. You may return this evening for the blood after I have had time to eat my dinner properly. I will need my strength, you see. Red meat for iron. Fried yucca for potassium. Bacon for sodium. I know my minerals.”
I could tell Carter was having to hold himself back from lecturing the man about eating all that with a suspected heart problem, but then he must have remembered Santiago didn’t, in fact, have a heart problem.
“Yes, sir,” he said instead.
We followed the men out of Santiago’s room and down several hallways until entering what appeared to be a two-room suite. “Quédate aquí,” one of the guards said. Stay here.
We both nodded and waited until they left and locked us in before we took a deep breath.
Three seconds later, I lost all the air in my lungs again when Carter lunged at me for a panicked embrace.
I closed my eyes and held him tight.
How the hell was I going to keep this sweet man safe?
8
Carter
I pulled back from Riggs long before I was ready. Leaning on him was too easy and felt way too good. Scary-good. I hated feeling needy, and I especially hated feeling needy with someone who blew hot and cold like Riggs did. It also didn’t escape my notice that I seemed to always be the one to initiate contact between us.
Maybe humoring me was part of his job description.
I turned away to get my bearings and saw that we were in a little suite with two bedrooms and a living area. The living room was outfitted in modern jungle lodge, complete with a velvet leopard-print couch. I peeked into the doorway on the left side of the room and saw that it contained a king-sized bed in heavy wood, covered with velvet hangings, like we were in a medieval castle and not the middle of a South American jungle. I couldn’t imagine how they managed to keep fabric like that from moldering in the heat and humidity, but I guessed being a crime boss meant you didn’t have to worry about stuff like fabric… or coordinating.
Through the door on the right, there was another bedroom that seemed to be outfitted the same way.
“So… this is fancy, huh? I mean, as prisoner accommodations go?” I thumped the back of a sofa and swallowed like my heart wasn’t pounding hard enough to shake the mountain. “Could be worse. No chains in the wall. No torture rack. You want the room on the right or the left?”
“I want the one on the right.”
“Easy peasy! Then I’ll just…”
“Also take the one on the right.”
I turned to face him and blinked. “What?”
Did this mean he wanted a repeat of the previous night? And if so, how did I feel about it? My dick was a hundred percent on board, despite the danger we were in, but the rest of me had concerns. Like, there would have to be ground rules so feelings didn’t get hurt, and—
“We’re sharing a room, Carter. What if they come for one of us in the night?” Riggs kept his voice low and eyed the suite door cautiously. “I can’t protect you if I can’t see you. We need to stick together. Safety in numbers.”
“Oh.” I ran a hand over my throat as unreasonable disappointment and very reasonable fear warred inside me.
The fear won, though I tried not to let Riggs see it.
“So what do we do?” I whispered, unsure whether Gustavo’s men were standing right outside.
Riggs dragged me through the bedroom on the right to a tiny en suite bathroom. Then he locked the door and turned on the shower. “They might have listening devices out there,” he explained in a low voice.