Manipulate Read online

  The light press of his knuckle lifted her chin, igniting tiny shocks of electricity across her skin.

  “I’m going to thank you now.” His rich brown eyes darkened as they dipped to her mouth.

  Oh, God. He was going to kiss her. She ached for it as much as she dreaded it. He scared her. This scared her. She didn’t know what the hell she was doing.

  Her teeth sank into her bottom lip, causing his breathing to accelerate. He angled in and pressed his thumb against her lip, tugging it from her bite.

  His cheeks rose with amusement. Or pleasure. Maybe both. Then he grabbed her and crushed that heart-melting smile against her mouth.

  Warmth flooded her chest, and her pulse burst into a gallop. It wasn’t just the hot glide of his lips. It was him, breaking through the walls she’d erected two years ago.

  His hands tingled down her spine and skimmed around the shape of her butt. They rested on the backs of her thighs, his fingers tucked between her jean-clad legs. He used that grip to hold her tight against him.

  He didn’t open his mouth to deepen the kiss, but a promise breathed past the seam of his lips. When he decided to take her, it would be explosive and unstoppable.

  “Thank you,” he murmured against her mouth.

  Her entire face tingled as she stepped back.

  Martin’s presence felt like a pulsing beacon in the small space. When she peeked at him, she was surprised to see a soft smile in his eyes.

  “I brought a bottle of tequila to wash that down.” She motioned at the spoonful of rice he lifted to his mouth.

  He took a bite and chewed slowly, his throat bouncing as he swallowed. Watching him eat felt strangely suggestive. The flex of his jaw and the groan in his chest conjured images of twisted sheets and whiskers scratching inner thighs.

  “It doesn’t need to be washed down. It’s really good.” Martin passed the rice to Ricky.

  “Okay, well…” She reached for the door. “If you need anything else—”

  “Stay.” Ricky gripped her hand.

  “Oh, I—” A tremble hijacked her voice. Damn nerves. “I thought I woke you.”

  “We couldn’t sleep.” He tugged her away from the door and removed the blankets from the box.

  Within minutes, they had the beds made and the food devoured.

  “You guys were starving.” She sat at the end of the mattress, watching Ricky sort and stow the supplies.

  “Not anymore, thanks to you.” He grabbed the tequila and three plastic cups. “Let’s drink.”

  Ricky projected a smile no woman could refuse. She wanted to feel it against her lips again. And other places. All the places.

  She squeezed her thighs together.

  “Confession.” He sat beside her on the bed and poured three shots of alcohol. “Before today, I only consumed tequila using the lick-swallow-suck method.”

  “How very American of you.”

  “That’s not how you drink it in Mexico?”

  “No way. We don’t need salt or lime. No licking or sucking. We sip it straight—”

  “Say that again.” Martin shot her a good hard stare.

  “What?”

  “Licking and sucking.” He curled his lips around the words, drawing out each syllable in his sexy American accent.

  Her pulse pounded in her throat, and Ricky fell still beside her.

  A palpable hum charged the air, skittering along her arms and rousing the tiny hairs on her nape.

  “Sip.” She reached for one of the cups and took a deep breath.

  Ricky followed suit, holding his up. “One…”

  “Two…” She lifted the shot toward her mouth.

  “Wait. Martin’s not ready.”

  Martin, who sat on the other mattress looking underwhelmed by the prospect of drinking, picked up the third cup.

  “One…” Ricky grinned at him. “Two… Three.”

  He and Martin threw the tequila down their gullets and gagged.

  She sipped hers, and her throat closed in protest. She swallowed the rest and breathed through her nose as the liquid burned all the way to her stomach.

  “Shit.” She slammed down the cup and wiped the tears from her eyes. “That’s horrible.”

  “What the fuck is this?” Ricky inspected the faded half-torn label on the bottle. “It tastes nothing like what we drank earlier today.”

  “What you had earlier is almost gone, so I got a new bottle, which is always hit and miss. Sometimes, it’s watered down. Other times, it’s mixed with something.”

  “This one’s laced with paint thinner.” Martin tossed his cup toward Ricky.

  As the fiery burn faded from her throat, she breathed a sigh of relief that it was over.

  Until Ricky announced, “Another round!”

  They repeated the process again and again. With each round, the tequila went down smoother, and their smiles grew bigger.

  Innocuous conversation filled the pauses between choking laughter. Embarrassing moments in school, favorite music, theories on dinosaur extinction—they covered a safe and wide range of topics.

  As the bottle of turpentine neared its final drop, her memory began to blank, and her skull pounded as if she’d been hit in the back of the head by a shovel.

  She remembered tipping into Ricky’s lap, laughing hysterically at something he said. Martin had cut them both off from drinking sometime before that, but not soon enough.

  She woke hours later.

  Lying face down in the running position, her brain wailed, Why, why, why?

  Oh, God, her stomach, her head, her unfortunate split ends… Everything hurt.

  Never again.

  She cracked open her eyes, immediately blinded by the light bulb over the sink.

  Martin lay on the other bed beside her, his oh-so-pretty features void of the tension he carried when awake.

  The weight of Ricky’s arm rested across her back. She took up most of his bed, forcing him to squeeze between her and the wall. He pressed so close to her side his soft snores ruffled her hair.

  The intimacy of it startled her tequila-addled brain. She did a mental inventory of her body. Still fully clothed. Still armed with the gun in her waistband.

  They could’ve forced themselves on her, beaten her, or killed her. But they didn’t.

  They still could.

  No, they were good people. Except they were convicts. More importantly, they were the sexiest men who ever walked the Earth.

  Hang on. What did that have to do with anything? And why was she thinking in English? Wait, that was Spanish.

  Shit, she was wasted.

  With slow, dizzying movements, she crawled out from between them and swayed on her feet.

  The room spun, and saliva rushed over her tongue. She was going to be sick.

  Neither man stirred as she opened the door and backed into the dark hallway. No lights. That meant it was sometime before dawn.

  Her senses heightened as she stumbled toward the stairway. It wasn’t safe to wander around alone.

  She always showered around three in the morning while everyone slept, but never when she was hammered. Her clumsy movements and foggy head made her paranoid and jumpy.

  As she rounded the corner to the stairwell, the sound of a pained cry hit her ears.

  A child’s cry.

  Her heartbeat banged in her head, and she staggered sideways, catching herself against the wall.

  She gulped down the next breath and held it in her lungs, listening, shivering, waiting.

  Nothing.

  Sometimes, she woke in her cell, convinced she heard a weeping child. The nightmare felt so real she often ran into the corridor, searching for an actual kid, only to realize she was chasing the haunting remnants of memory, the echoes of the little sister she once had.

  She heard it again and froze. The cry sounded so small, so scared and sad. She spun, overshooting her steps and crashing to her knees.

  Vera, Vera, Vera.

  Goddammit, she
missed her sister so fucking much.

  A sob crawled up, and she pushed herself into the stairwell, teetering, lurching, unable to escape the crushing pain.

  Tears spilled free as she wobbled on the top step. The stairs rippled beneath her blurred eyes. Maybe she would fall and break her neck.

  Awwwwesome.

  Would the eternal darkness welcome her? She was already in hell. What could be worse than this?

  Shouldn’t she have a legit reason to die, though? She needed a valiant cause with a colorful flag that she could wave as she rode off to face her death.

  She had no flags, no causes, no reason.

  But hey, if there was nothing worth dying for, there was nothing worth living for, either.

  She should just take that final step into the bowels of yonder stairwell and find out what came next. Maybe Vera would stop crying.

  A hand gripped her shoulder, and she jumped, releasing a yelp as she whirled.

  “Tula.” Ricky yanked her away from the stairs and clutched her shoulders, steadying her. “What are you doing?”

  “Shhh.” She tried to press a finger against his lips. Her hand knew roughly where to aim, but it landed on his jaw. “Do you hear her?”

  “Who?”

  “My little sister.”

  Her balance felt off because seriously, two legs weren’t sufficient in keeping a person upright in a wave. The thought made her thirsty. Could she get dehydrated while swimming? Why was she swimming?

  She wriggled her lips into the shape of a grin. “I’m drunk.”

  “No shit. You were about to take those stairs face first and…” He gripped her jaw, forcing her to meet his eyes. “Were you crying?”

  She touched her cheek, and her fingers poked through a soggy cloud. “I can’t feel my face. But…” She leaned in, and her nose collided with his concrete chest. “You should know that if I had a grilled cheese sandwich, I would most definitely, positively, accurately hit my mouth with it.”

  Laughter shook the warm wall that held up her head. “That so?”

  “Mm-hmm. A Ricky Martin sandwich would work, too, but I call the middle.” She gasped. “Oh, no. We lost Martin.”

  His hand guided her face to the hallway. She blinked, focusing hard until three blond Viking gods merged into one.

  Oh, dear lord, Martin was magical.

  He reclined against the wall a few feet away, fingertips resting in the front pockets of his jeans, looking for all the world like he could strip away her panties with only the intensity of his eyes.

  “Don’t do it.” She pointed at him. “Don’t you dare. My panties are mine.”

  “All right, querida. Here we go.” Ricky hooked his arms under her and cradled her against his chest.

  She floated down the stairs in a haze.

  “This is nice.” She hugged his neck and breathed in his intoxicating male scent. “Except whoa… My brain is moving slower, I think. By a half-second or so.”

  Ricky chuckled softly at her ear. “Slow down a little more, and you’ll be thinking at Martin’s speed.”

  A glance behind him gave her a direct view of Martin. He trailed at a distance, his gaze sweeping the perimeter.

  “Am I the only one who drank too much?” She dropped her hundred-pound head on Ricky’s shoulder.

  “We all drank the same amount, but Martin and I are a lot bigger.” He touched his lips to her brow. “You’re going to hurt tomorrow. I’m sorry.”

  He lowered her onto a bed, and she looked around, recognizing her room.

  Martin sat beside her feet and removed her shoes.

  “Don’t forget the toes.” She stared at the rotating ceiling and gagged on the toxins gurgling from her stomach.

  “What about the toes?”

  “They need polish. It’s been too long. I’m a girl, dontcha know?”

  “Yes, I’m fully aware you’re a girl.”

  Was that Martin talking?

  “The strong, silent type.” She waved a heavy hand at the silhouette beside her feet. “You just sit there and look pretty.”

  She lost Ricky in her periphery, but after a few long blinks, he was there again.

  “Drink.” He pushed her potable water jug into her hands, forcing her to suck it down.

  “My jeans…” Her waistband constricted her stomach, making her restless and itchy. “I can’t sleep in this.”

  “No, wait.” Ricky caught her hand on the zipper. “They need to stay on.” He cleared his voice. “For protection. Just keep them on.”

  “Protection is good.” She sank into the bed and drifted into a spinning, nauseating half-sleep.

  “Tula.” Martin’s rumbling drawl popped her eyes open. “Why did Hector make you a member of the cartel? How did that happen?”

  “I saved his life.” She closed her eyes against a hammering headache. “Then I taught him English. If you want to join La Rocha, I’ll make it happen. Just tell me you want in.”

  A hand stroked through her hair, brushing strands away from her face. “How long are you in for?”

  “I have three years left in prison. Forever with La Rocha Cartel.”

  “Are you involved in their human sex trafficking operation?”

  “It’s drugs,” she mumbled. “And guns. That’s what they smuggle. I stay out of that stuff.”

  “Hector abducts women and children, Tula.” Ricky’s voice penetrated her fuzzy mind. “He sells them as slaves. You know that, right?”

  “No, he doesn’t.” She tried to laugh, but holy hell, she felt severely tired and sick to her stomach. “He’s a nice old man and respects women. He respects me. Tula Gomez. A high school Spanish teacher from Phoenix. I was just a teacher, you know? I didn’t do anything wrong. I tried to help my sister, and she…” Tears burned her scratchy eyes. “I lost her. I lost Vera.”

  A sob swelled in her throat, but she didn’t have the strength or focus to give into it.

  “Hey.” A strong pair of arms pulled her into a blanket of heat. “You’re not alone. Not anymore.”

  As it turned out, she had the energy to cry after all.

  Bracketed between two hard bodies, she wept until the pain faded into darkness.

  “We disproved one rumor.” Martin lay face down on his cot, his limbs heavy from sleep. “She can’t drink the biggest man under the table.”

  “It’s also safe to say…” Ricky rose from his bed and stretched, wearing only a pair of boxers. “She doesn’t know Hector’s secrets.”

  “Maybe not, but she knows him.”

  “It’s weird how she looks up to him like she’s forgotten he’s a cartel boss and all-around horrible human being.” Grabbing his toothbrush, Ricky lumbered to the sink. “Do you think she’s brainwashed?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The sight of all that flawless, nude skin made him lose his train of thought. He turned his face into his folded arms beneath his head and tried to concentrate on something other than his best friend’s half-naked body.

  They’d stayed in Tula’s cell until dawn, watching her sleep and keeping her safe in her inebriated state. Before Area Three began to stir, they’d hurried back to their own cell, relieved that none of the supplies she’d given them had been stolen.

  Slumber had come quickly and sucked away most of their day.

  They should go check on her, make sure she was okay. It was his first thought when he woke, a stabbing instinct in his gut.

  Was she still asleep? Did she have pain medication to soothe a hangover? Was she drinking water? Was anyone bothering her?

  Imagining her venturing out in her weakened state among two-hundred male inmates made him feel goddamn feral. He needed to be at her side, protecting her the same way he and Ricky watched out for each other.

  But she wasn’t his responsibility. No one had forced the alcohol down her throat. Even so, they’d deliberately coaxed her into drinking too much.

  When she’d told them she brought tequila, the idea had popped into his
head. He saw the same plan formulate in Ricky’s eyes right before he started pouring shots.

  Getting her drunk had been easy. Loosening her tongue had been even easier. But watching her cry herself to sleep? That had been fucking brutal.

  Her longing for her sister had bled through his skin. Her hiccuping cries lingered in his bones. Her tears fused her pain with his and messed with his head.

  He hated that she was hurting, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

  Ricky spat toothpaste into the sink. “We need to see how she’s doing.”

  “Yep.” Instantly on his feet, Martin brushed his teeth and splashed cold water on his face.

  They dressed and stepped into the hall. The short walk to the stairwell and down to Tula’s cell led them past throngs of glaring inmates.

  He didn’t look at the floor or aggressively return the menacing scowls. He kept his eyes focused straight ahead, determined to reach Tula’s cell without being attacked.

  When they arrived at her door, his relief was short-lived. Ricky’s knock was met with the violent sounds of retching on the other side.

  They stormed into her room. Martin scanned the empty space as Ricky raced to her kneeling position.

  Bent over the toilet, she dry-heaved uncontrollably. Tremors shook her shoulders, and her cheeks glistened with tears.

  Martin felt that unnerving instinct again. The one that compelled him to protect her from anything that might cause her pain.

  It wasn’t an unfamiliar urge. He experienced it every day with Ricky—the imperative to shelter, comfort, and take care of his best friend.

  Crouched beside her, Ricky slid a hand in her hair, holding the velvet curtain away from her face. His other arm supported her midsection as she continued to gag into the toilet.

  There was nothing left in her stomach.

  “You need to try to eat something and sleep it off.” Martin collected some of her clothes and located her toothbrush. “We’re taking you upstairs.”

  Ricky touched his brow to the back of her head. “You’re not alone.”

  “Okay.” She breathed out a ragged sound. “Thank you.”

  For the rest of the day, she drifted in and out of sleep in Ricky’s bed, curled up against his chest.