Tender Savage Read Free Page B

talk freely is when we’re taken to theshowers. None of the guards or officers speak English except Jurado, but I never know when he’s listening.”
    “Showers? When is that? Never mind, there’s no time.” She dashed across the cell, threw herself on the cot, and turned her face to the wall, curling up in fetal position just as Jurado burst into the cell followed by two guards.
    Jurado’s cheeks were livid with fury as he looked down at Lara’s cringing form. “You disappoint me.” He strode to the cot, grabbed Lara’s arm, and jerked her to a sitting position on the cot. “No man likes an hysterical woman. Get hold of yourself.”
    “I don’t want to be here.” Lara whimpered. “I can’t stay with him. I don’t know what to do. Can’t I—”
    Jurado’s palm cracked against her cheek.
    She cried out as her head snapped back from the force of the blow.
    “That’s enough, Jurado.” Ricardo took an impulsive step forward, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. “Can’t you see she’s too frightened to know what she’s doing?”
    “Then she’ll have to learn.” Jurado took a step back from Lara, and the annoyance disappeared from his demeanor as he saw Ricardo’s expression. He nodded approvingly. “It goes well. Your protective instincts are already aroused and you’ve barely met the girl. What will you feel after you’ve taken her to bed?” He motioned to the microphone one of the guards was examining. “How long will it take to fix that?”
    “It will have to be replaced. I have to remove this one and then go to the storeroom and get another one.” The man shrugged. “Perhaps an hour.”
    “Then do it. I have an idea we may hear some very erotic sounds coming from this cell in the next few days.” Jurado glanced back at Ricardo. “And then I’ll have you, Lázaro.”
    Ricardo didn’t trust himself to speak. He should have remained silent when Jurado had struck her, but rage and possessiveness had risen like a red haze. Possessiveness? The thought sent a chill through him. “She means nothing to me,” he said without intonation. “Do what you wish with her.”
    “I will.” Jurado strode toward the door. “And with you, my fine rebel.”
    Lara forced herself to remain quiet until the guard disconnected the broken microphone and left the cell.
    “What’s this all about?” She sat on the cot, her hands folded in her lap, her gaze on the rigid line of Ricardo’s spine. He had turned his back to her again and she could sense he was trying to distance himself from her, as he had done when she had entered the cell. “Oh, Renalto told me the reason he thought Jurado would throw us together, but I don’t understand it. Why does Jurado want us to—” She stopped and then started again, “I mean, I would guess that the junta doesn’t permit prisoners—”
    “Sex?” He turned to face her and she found herself experiencing the same ripple of shock that had surged through her when she had first entered his cell. Ricardo Lázaro was different from what Lara had expected him to be. She had seen newspaper photos of him, but they had only depictedhis classic good looks, the glossy dark hair with just a hint of curl, the glittering intensity of the ebony eyes. The pictures had failed to reveal the burning vitality, the air of controlled power he exuded. Ricardo’s hair flowed past his shoulders and his green army fatigues were faded, ragged, and hung loose on his six-foot frame. Yet the man stood arrow straight and the bearing of his slender, sinewy body was quietly indomitable. “Sex is only a tool for Jurado. He believes I’ll feel affection for a woman who shares my bed. He wants a weapon to use against me.”
    “How?”
    “Torture. Jurado didn’t succeed in getting the information he needs by torturing me, so he thinks to win the day by using someone else’s pain against me. It’s a common practice here to torture a man’s family before his eyes to make him