The Mule: An Erotic Romance in Colombia Page 7

  When his cup was empty, he stood up, towering over her. For a moment, Cleo thought he might take her back to bed. She decided she wouldn’t mind a replay but she was doomed to disappointment. “Your chores,” he announced. He handed her a list. “Start working your way through the jobs for Thursday.”

  He nodded and disappeared. Cleo examined the list. It was comprehensive: living room, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom, all to be cleaned in rotation. All the jobs were listed in detail. “Not just a sex slave,” Cleo sighed, “but a house elf too.”

  She started at the top of the list for Thursday, dusting the bookshelves in the living room and immediately freaked when she found a gun. It was lying out in plain view on top of a stack of magazines. She was afraid to touch it. She dusted over it and hoped it would do. Focussing only on the things right in front of her, she didn’t even notice a huge spider building a web on the ceiling.

  An hour later, she was only a third of the way down the list for Living Room but she was feeling very sweaty and the light looked funny again. Everything looked blurred and strange. She really, really wanted a line of coke. Not to get high but just to give her a bit of a boost. Her body was twitching with need.

  She had her eyes closed, trying to get the craving under control, so she didn’t see Connor come in. He saw the giant spider but said nothing. All his attention was on her face. He had expected this. “Come on. You can finish later.”

  He sat her down in the kitchen and gave her a chocolate biscuit and a cup of tea loaded with sugar.

  “I’m not seeing things right,” Cleo whispered. “If I could only have a line.”

  Connor was silent. It was her own choice to take the stuff but he felt sorry for her; that bastard Garcia Riviera had made sure the girl was totally hooked. She was a mess.

  Cleo was possessed by a terrible need but she could tell he wasn’t going to give her anything. He was going to let her suffer. She wanted to yell at him but was too afraid to do so. He may have given her biscuits and tea but she knew with certainty that he wouldn’t allow her to rage at him.

  “It’s not the coke,” he said finally. “You’re seeing things because you’re undernourished. It will go in a few days with decent food. The craving will be there for a few months.”

  “Are you some sort of expert?” she asked snappily. Then she shrank from him, looking up at him worriedly in case he was angry. She could see he was irritated but he didn’t explode.

  “Exercise will help,” Connor said calmly.

  The way she was looking at him, half frightened, half angry, worried him. He’d read up on cocaine addiction and was determined Cleo wouldn’t be one of those who suffered agonies for months. He decided that beasting was his best option. If he worked her until she was too tired to think, she would get over her problem faster.

  He didn’t have any more light gardening work to keep her happily occupied in the fresh air but he thought of something even easier to get her body working properly again. Connor stood up, pulled her to her feet and pushed her outside. “Strip, get in that pool and start swimming laps.”

  For a moment, Cleo wanted to rebel but his cool commanding tone and the way he towered over her made her change her mind. Cleo did as she was told.

  She didn’t even notice she was swimming in the nude. All her focus was on keeping her body together. She felt totally disconnected. Connor sat in the shade drinking a beer. When she completed ten laps and paused for breath, he looked over at her. “Keep going, ten more laps.”

  When she stopped again, she was panting but felt better.

  He was standing at the edge of the pool, holding a towel. “Out you come. Sit and have some more tea.”

  “Yessir!” she said sarcastically.

  He just smiled slightly. “You’ll get over it, Davidson. Just hang tough.”

  When he smiled, he looked nice, handsome even. He had good bones, and tiny laugh-lines by his eyes. He looked like someone she could have a giggle with, she thought confusedly. Except she didn’t feel much like laughing. She felt horribly shaky and still a little bit sick. But she was grateful for the care he was taking with her. Despite the anger she had sensed in him, he was gentle with her. He’d saved her life by taking her out of jail and although her bones still ached, she didn’t even have a bruise from last night. And it had been the best sex she’d had, ever.

  Cleo decided she wasn’t going to try and make sense of Connor. She’d better just take the good bits and learn how not to set him off. She’d get over this sick feeling first and then work out a way to work on getting Connor to let her find Juan. He’d give in eventually. Men always did if you got to them in the right way.

  Connor stood up. That funny look in her eyes had vanished. She’d be all right for a little while and he had a commission to finish. “Sit and relax. If you feel a craving, swim ten more laps. I’ll check on you soon.” He walked off and vanished.

  Cleo put down the empty teacup. Being alone felt odd after being crammed in a cell with dozens of people day and night. Here, there was only the sound of the jungle. The peacefulness felt eerie, as if she were the only person left in the world.

  Cleo went into the house and looked out from the veranda. The jungle was beautiful but somehow repelling too. Cleo had the feeling that green gorge was stifling hot and packed with crawly, biting and maybe even scaly, poisonous things. She preferred to look at it from this distance. She looked for monkeys and parrots but couldn’t spot any. Feeling twitchy, Cleo decided to look for Connor. She wanted a bit of company.

  He wasn’t in the garden. Remembering how he’d appeared out of nowhere, she went round to the far side of the house. Connor was standing at the gate, talking to two men carrying rifles. Cleo hung back. Maybe those were the FARC Connor had warned her about. She waited until they were gone and then followed Connor. He disappeared into a garage at the end of the garden, that was camouflaged by trees. Tagging along behind him, she saw he’d converted it into a workshop.

  Cleo looked in with interest. It was very clean. A large bench stood in the centre. The walls were covered with boards loaded with all sorts of tools clipped into place. Cleo recognised screwdrivers, spanners, saws and hammers but the rest were totally unknown to her. Connor was leaning over something, rubbing at it rhythmically. Curiously, Cleo moved in closer. He was working on a rifle.

  Sensing her, he looked up. “This place is off limits.” He didn’t want her touching the guns or the explosives he had stored here.

  “I just wanted to see,” Cleo stammered.

  He gazed at her. The curiosity that emanated from her was irresistible. “Look but don’t touch.”

  “All right.” Cleo came forward to look closer. She started to reach out to touch the rifle’s shiny black stock and then quickly put her hands behind her back. When he grinned at her reflexive gesture, she smiled back. “Are you making a gun?”

  “Fixing it.” He looked down it at arms length. “Stay behind me.”

  He took it outside and aimed it in the air. For a moment Cleo wondered at his target. Then she saw the bunch of bananas hanging high up in a tree. Surely he wasn’t hoping to hit that? There was a crack and the bananas dropped to the ground.

  “Wow!” Cleo said amazed and impressed.

  “I missed,” Connor said calmly. “I was aiming at the fruit, not the stem.”

  “You were an inch out over that distance and you say it’s a miss?”

  “An inch out is an inch too much,” Connor said. “Go and pick it up.”

  He was a nutty perfectionist. Cleo shrugged. “All right.”

  She ran back to the garage to see what he was doing now. He was measuring the barrel with something that looked like a spiky pair of metal chopsticks. Then he went back to working on the weapon. Cleo was fascinated.

  Fifteen minutes later, he went outside again. This time a single banana at the edge of a bunch exploded. Connor heard her gasp and smiled. “We’ll have fruit salad after lunch,” he murmured. He aimed at a taller tr
ee and shot three more times. Three plump mangoes dropped to the ground. When Cleo picked them up, they’d been shot clean through the stems.

  “Did you learn that in the army?” Cleo asked him.

  “Yes.”

  “There’s a gun in the living room,” she offered.

  “I’ll put it away.”

  “How many guns do you have?”

  She was an inquisitive girl. Funnily enough, her stream of questions didn’t irritate him. She was an odd mix of skittishness and fearlessness, shyness and wonder. She gave the impression of approaching things sideways. It was what had attracted him to her that first time he’d seen her. That, and the way she’d played in the hotel pool, not realising she was being watched. She had a quality of freshness that fascinated him.

  Suddenly it came to him: she reminded him of Moreno. Adopted from the city pound, he’d been shy at first, but when encouraged, he’d been a delight. Poor Moreno. It was a shame.

  “Listen, no walking about outside without shoes, understand?” He could see she didn’t. “Snakes,” he said briefly.

  Cleo jumped and looked around. “Here?” she squeaked.

  “Not often,” he soothed. “Hardly ever.” Just the one that got poor Moreno. He pushed the thought away. At least it had been quick.

  “Guns and snakes and pervs,” Cleo muttered. “It’s like a porno. Cleo’s Jungle Rigger Adventure.”

  He could tell she had no idea she’d spoken out loud. Connor stifled a grin. Cleo certainly was an original. He wondered what she’d say next.

  She looked at the rifle. “I didn’t know they could break.”

  “They do if you use them as a hammer. I do repair jobs.”

  “Oh.” Cleo looked around. “People come all the way out here for that?”

  “Everyone out here has guns.”

  “Hunting,” Cleo said knowledgeably. She’d met lots of country people in the London clubs and they were always going on about hunting, shooting and fishing. “I saw two of them leaving just now. I thought for a moment they were FARC. I’m glad they’re not.”

  He didn’t correct her. She might be frightened if he told her he fixed weapons for everyone from the drug lords and the FARC to the police and the army. Being neutral and asking no questions was the only way he could live here undisturbed. “Don’t worry about my visitors. Some look a little rough but nobody will touch you.” That was true, at least. Nobody would dare do more than look at her. His rep would make sure of that.

  Cleo was looking around the workshop. “Do you get a lot of work?”

  “Yes, but I’m done for today. Come on, we’ll have a drink before lunch.”

  She was smiling as they walked back to the house. Her delight in his shooting, in his company, reminded him of Moreno. Connor reflected that he must stop thinking of her as if she were a dog. Cleo was a human being, and she needed more than two meals a day and a pat on the head to be happy.

  “It’s good to have you here,” Connor said impulsively.

  As Cleo looked up and beamed at him, there was a splash in the pool and a distinct thwup. Connor reacted automatically, pushing Cleo down and underneath him as he covered her.

  “Acqui hay gente, idiota!” he yelled.

  There was an apologetic roar about half a mile away.

  “Fucking amateurs!” Connor said furiously. He straightened up, pulled Cleo to her feet and looked her over. “Did I hurt you?”

  She was shaking but she shook her head. “I’m ok. Did they shoot at us?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ohmigod!”

  “They missed by a mile.”

  “I thought it was a weird bee or something. I can’t believe they were shooting at us!”

  “They weren’t.” He could see she didn’t believe him. “They’re just careless. They fired a test round and didn’t realise how close they were.”

  Cleo shook her head. “Ohmigod,” she whispered.

  Ten minutes later, sitting on the veranda with a drink in her hand, she’d cheered up again. She was looking at the jungle below, searching for a sight of the cotton-tops.

  Sitting in the shade, determined to make the most of the breeze that had sprung up, Connor took off his shirt.

  Cleo stared at the scars that crisscrossed his chest. “Not enough unmarked hide for a decent lampshade,” she joked. Then she stilled and glanced at him sideways to see if he was annoyed. She was relieved when he smiled faintly.

  Cleo took another sip of her rum. She was dying to ask how he got those scars but decided to be diplomatic about it. Men liked to be asked about their work, so she’d start with that. “Where did you learn to repair guns?” She asked.

  “I was in the SAS.”

  “Oh,” Cleo gazed at him. “That’s like anti-terrorist.”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Can everyone in the SAS shoot like you?”

  “Some.”

  “How many?”

  “Not many. I was trained as a sniper.”

  “Is that shooting over big distances?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wow! And do snipers fix and make their own guns in the army? I thought they gave them to you. You know, along with the uniform.”

  He had to smile at the barrage of questions. “I had special training.”

  “Does everyone in the SAS know how to do that?”

  “We all have different skills.”

  “Did you get shot?” Cleo asked looking at his scars.

  “Suicide bomber,” Connor said laconically.

  “Wow! Where?”

  Connor was tempted to tell her the subject was off limits. He hated talking about his army days with civilians but then he changed his mind. He’d tell her once to satisfy her curiosity. Otherwise she’d pester him with indirect questions forever. “I worked in Africa, the Middle East and Afghanistan. And I was on loan here a few years ago. War on drugs.” And he wouldn’t mention the rest of it.

  “Did you retire after the suicide bomber? Was it in Afghanistan?”

  “No. That happened on my first tour. In Iraq.”

  “Why did you quit, then?” Cleo asked curiously.

  “I got fed up killing people,” Connor said flatly.

  Cleo stared at him. He really was a professional killer. It was a scary thought. But there was no sign of the anger she had spotted in him earlier.

  Connor decided she knew enough to shut her up on the subject of his past and changed the topic. “Right, so what can you cook?”

  “I can do beans on toast.”

  “And?”

  Cleo looked guilty. “I didn’t want to say I can’t cook,” she confessed. “Basically, I open packets and heat stuff up.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Are you mad at me?” she asked.

  Connor shook his head. “You’ll learn.”

  “I’m not very domestic.”

  “You are now.” It was that flat, commanding voice again.

  “I guess I’d better,” Cleo sighed. “I don’t want to end up under the lettuces.”

  Chapter Six

  A week later, Cleo was in a foul temper. Connor had let her sleep in and slack off the first day, but after that, he had her get up with the sun, make breakfast and do endless housework before making a late lunch under his watchful eye.

  She was allowed a break after doing the dishes and spent it swimming and watching soap operas on the television in her room. Afterwards Connor got her helping him in the garden. It wasn’t hard work but her energy levels were still low. She yawned over supper and was out like a light instantly after sex, sleeping through the night without waking once.

  At least bed was wonderful. In fact, Cleo had to admit she was thoroughly enjoying herself. Connor never jumped her until she was ready and his idea of ready was at least one orgasm. He knew every inch of her body, enjoyed turning her on and made an art of keeping her hovering on the edge of rapture. It had gotten to the point where he only had to say the word ‘bed’ for her to bec
ome breathless and creamy with excitement.

  Even his dislike of safewords wasn’t worrying her. Three nights earlier he’d tied her feet up over her head and when that uncomfortable position had resulted in cramp, he’d released her and was massaging the knotted muscles before she could even think of saying elephant.

  She should have been relieved that she was enjoying herself but Cleo discovered a basic tenet of the human condition: the strongest desire is always reserved for whatever is out of reach. When she was in prison, she’d been made miserable by the dirt, the crowding and fear of what the guards might do; now all that was behind her, all she could think about was that she wanted to talk to Juan.

  Knowing he blamed her for getting his brother into trouble was killing her. But Connor wouldn’t even let a mention his name. He seemed to hate Juan, which was odd because both Juan and Connor had said they didn’t know each other.

  For all she knew, Juan was in town or maybe even in that village down the mountain, checking up on the family business, not knowing she was only a few kilometres up the road. Being stuck here was driving her crazy. Worse, she really wanted a line.

  Cleo was tired and jumpy. She was certain that going cold turkey wasn’t a good idea. She knew it was better to taper off slowly. If only she could have a line, just every now and again, she’d be all right.

  She could see Connor in the garden, digging over a patch of ground. He had turned over the lettuce bed, and now he was preparing the rest of the plot, planning on growing root vegetables and herbs.

  Cleo decided she wasn’t impressed. Connor was a bully. He’d taken advantage of her troubles. She was nothing better than a slave and he was a slave driver.

  It was his damn mantra, she decided, anything that wasn’t perfect had to be done again. It was all right when they were in bed because he made a game of it and drawing it out was deliciously satisfying, ending in earth-shattering orgasms for both of them. But she wasn’t amused when he made her dust the bookshelves again because she’d only cleaned along the edge, or rewash the dishes because they were still greasy. Connor was a bully and the only reason she didn’t tell him so was because he was bigger than her.