by Olivia Fox
Mateo could have done me a solid and given me a courtesy heads up if he was going to attempt a double-cross tonight of all nights.
Horrified, I watched Daphne slide a vase from a side table into her hand. “No!” I wanted to scream at her, paralyzed with fright. Ever so slowly, she clocked the urn behind her head, not drawing attention to herself since Mateo’s back was to her. She rose from the couch and threw the ceramic container at him so it blasted against his skull.
The distraction was enough to gain the advantage, and Maximilio’s thugs pounced on him.
Then chaos ensued.
A shot rang out, and I dove at Daphne and her sister. Mateo’s bullet hit one of Maximilio’s men, buying him a chance at escape. He fired off one more and rolled behind the sofa. The Sinaloas shot at him, pulling their boss into the safety of a side room. My contact slipped through the exit of the hallway.
Taking advantage of the distraction, Daphne pulled her sister out the side door into the courtyard. The shots continued. “Run!” I yelled, following close behind. Darkness was on our side once we left the enclosure of the compound.
“I can’t leave him,” Maggie declared, rooting herself in place.
We stood on the same path, now dark, the one we’d walked from the convent, gunmen seconds away from discovering us—and Daphne’s sister was digging in her heels.
“I don’t believe what I’m hearing,” said Daphne. “We almost had our heads shot off in there. You’re with child, for God’s sake. What about the baby?”
“I am thinking about the baby. Maximilio can provide for us. Am I supposed to go back, as a single mom in Briarville, scraping by on a reporter’s wages? Didn’t you get your fill of poverty when we were growing up, Daphne?”
“We can’t leave you here with these killers. If we go back, they’ll lock us up, or worse!” I said.
“Come on, Maggie.” She tugged her sister’s sleeve, encouraging her down the path.
I was renewing my faith in all things holy. We made it to the nunnery alive, but I knew Maximilio and his crew wouldd be close on our heels. Sister Cuca greeted us at the door, and they began a frantic conversation that was too fast for me to understand.
“The nuns have a Friendly House not from here. It’s not safe for us to stay at the resort or the convent. Those men saw us dressed as a priest and a nun. They’ll suspect us return to this place in search of shelter.”
Maggie was rocking back and forth on her feet, deliberating her next move. “You two go on. I’m going back. He’ll never hurt me.”
“You don’t know that. I can’t let you walk back into danger,” I said.
Sister Cuca’s wrinkles lit up with the dim glow of flashlights which shone as Maximilio’s men came up the trail behind us.
“Oh my God, they’re here!” Daphne said.
Before I could grab her, Maggie bolted back down the path towards the bobbing lights in the distance.
“Ven,” Sister Cuca beckoned with her hand, leading us into the convent. The older woman was spry and took the steps two at a time to the back of the building. Once there, she begged me to help her open a heavy wooden door. Daphne and I followed her through it to the other side where a dirt road let us towards a village. It was an effort to keep up. She led us to a modest house with an interior courtyard and a barn.
“We can stay here for the night and the owner has a weapon for you,” Daphne added. She turned to the nun, speaking rapid Spanish, and gave her a fierce hug.
“Gracias,” I said, wishing I could say more to express how grateful I was for her putting her life on the line.
Daphne translated Cuca’s words, “The sister says the Sinaloas would never harm a member of the convent. She has immunity of a sort. She’ll be safe even though she helped us.”
Never let it be said there is no honor among thieves.
24
Daphne
Tony spread out the blankets over the tarp in the stable and said, “Christ, we’ve got a real biblical theme going here, don’t we?”
“What do you mean?” I looked around the wood-enclosed room we were in. There was clean straw on the floor, and a heavy bolt on the door so we had privacy.
“We’re sleeping in a manger after finishing up our adventures as a nun and priest.”
“I don’t feel too holy at the moment. To be honest, I could have shot those men myself. Imagine, firing off a pistol with a pregnant lady in the room.”
Tony obsessed over getting the corners tucked and the pillows fluffed to perfection in a way that revealed he was concealing something.
“What?” I asked
“What, what?” he repeated.
“Don’t be cute. I can read you like a book, and you’re hiding something.”
“I’m not hiding anything; I’m avoiding saying something to dodge an unnecessary argument.”
A crash from the stall behind us caused me to jump out of my skin and of course, I crashed right into Tony’s chest, disconcerted by the manly, clove scent of him which bopped me over the head, and reason took a back seat to the fact I wanted to have him in my mouth twenty-four seven.
“Just spill it, Tony, we’re not getting any sleep with a cow kicking the wall. Might as well stay up all night talking it out.”
He scrubbed his forehead with his palm. “I appreciate you’re worried about your sister’s safety. But what’s your position on her returning to the compound with Maximilio’s men? What next?”
Mr. Bossy in bed was asking my opinion?
Antonio was always there, insisting I take vitamins every day before school, and bringing me Italian wedding soup when I had a cold.
He cared about my feelings. A tender, alpha male who treated me like the most interesting thing on the planet, even when I was going over my favorite lines from Pride and Prejudice.
“I’ve been thinking about it, Tony. We’d best head home. There’s no convincing her once she’s made her mind up.”
Relief made my chest float when he asked, “Are you sure? You were so set on finding her.”
“And I did, with your help. I can’t thank you enough for coming to my aid.” I stood up on my tiptoes and kissed his full lips, realizing they were just one of the million things I was going to miss about him.
“Baby girl,” he gave my body a bold, sweeping gaze, “you look so good. How can it be after all we’ve gone through today?”
“Oh, how you flatter.” I climbed on top of the covers, buck naked.
“I’m hoping it will get me somewhere.” He slid his hand to where I ached. “Like here.” He ran the same hand up my center and veered right to caress my breast. “And here.”
He positioned himself in a pushup over me, and ever so slowly lowered himself to hover millimeters above me and kiss my lips. “Guess the first thing I’m going to do when we get back.”
“Go to baggage claim?”
“You know what I mean.”
“What?” I asked.
“Eat a cheeseburger and fries.”
“Mm, that sounds…” I stopped speaking when he pressed his erection into the cleft between my legs.
Then he dropped his forehead to my chest and rocked his body back and forth against me.
“What is it?” I asked.
The hunched posture and drooping head wasn’t like him, but made sense when he quietly said, “The Perez family shot my father.”
“How could I forget?” I brushed the hair back from his forehead, wanting to ease his sorrow.
His beautiful brown eyes gazed towards a place, seeing something, which caused his lips to press flat, and his eyebrows to pull together. “My heart stopped in my chest tonight when they had you. I was too young to save my father that day, but I still blamed myself. After his death, I swore no one would harm a member of my family again.”
“Tony, they abducted us at gunpoint. There’s nothing you could have done.”
“Those men, Daphne. The way they looked at you.” He shook his head. “Men like them
are capable of anything—murder, rape.”
I smoothed back the silky hair from Tony’s temple, wishing I could have done the same for him as a young man when he lost his father. There was so much he’d seen as a child.
He grew up fast, taking care of me in high school, the same way a parent would.
Our breath mingled in an intimate confession while he gazed into my eyes.
“It makes sense the situation would bother you. It reminded you of what you went through, unable to protect your father. Is there something I can do to help you feel less frustrated? Less helpless?” Tony specified his ’stipulations” early in our journey, and he needed to know I loved his ordering me around.
I noticed he watched the gentle rise and fall of my breasts. His eyes settled there, and my skin burned where his stare touched me. I lifted them towards him. He squeezed and caressed them at first, then got rougher, blowing a hot breath in my ear, and whispering my name.
“Yes, Tony?”
“You’re always such a good girl. Now show me you’re also a good little slut.” He nuzzled my breasts, savagely licking and sucking at the tips, and it caused a zing of pleasure which zapped a line of fire up from my pubic bone to my belly button.
“Take me out, baby.” He made a rough-voiced request.
His zipper came down, and I slid the elastic band of his boxers over his swollen length. “Like this?” I whispered.
“That’s just right.” he swallowed a hungry groan. “Now, put your hand around it and guide me in.”
The hard length of him throbbed in my hand, and I lifted my hips off the floor, angling myself to receive him.
The blunt head of his erection sat at my opening, shoving its weight against me, but it was too big. Tony gripped my waist and lifted me up onto his swollen cock, forcing himself inside.
We moaned into each other’s mouths.
“Holy fuck,” he said, filling me deeper, stuffing his thickness inside me. He made a sensual sound, a low rumble of desire, and my breath grew ragged as he had his way with me. “It feels amazing.”
“Mm… you like that?” I asked, rotating my hips in slow circles around his cock.
“Yes. I’m getting so hard it almost hurts from needing to cum in you.”
He crawled towards the wooden wall of the stall, resting his palms overhead for balance, and placed a knee on either side of my head. I was eager to take him into my mouth. His hardness bobbed above me, and he wrapped his hand around the base and lowered the tip into my mouth. His muscled hips filled my view as he thrust towards the back of my throat.
I did my best to open it and take him all in.
“Do you like having my dick in your mouth?”
I made a sound around him, soft and full of need, gasping as his invading thickness filled my throat. “You want me to give you every drop of my cum, is that it?” I shook my head.
“No?” he asked and pulled back.
“Take my pussy right here, right now, with your cock. I need you inside me.” I rubbed my clit for good measure, and Tony clutched my wrist.
“Don’t you dare touch yourself unless I tell you to.” He lowered himself to the apex of my thighs again, which was slippery with my arousal. His commanding words made my body a bundle of need. This time, he shoved himself wildly at me. I was so slick, there was no resistance, and he soon found my opening and jabbed at it with his persistent hard-on.
“Punish me, I’ve been naughty! Suck my nipples until I say it’s too much.” While his thick erection filled me up and stretched me wide, pounding me fast and slow so I couldn’t anticipate how he’d slam into me next, he lowered his head to my breasts and watched them as they bounced with each one of his savage thrusts. He caught one nipple between thumb and forefinger, and the other, he sucked into his scorching mouth, where he nursed and suckled at the sensitive flesh.
The spot at the top of my pussy grew fevered.
He lifted his head. “Touch yourself for me now. Show me how sweet little Daphne strokes and pets her pussy.” He rammed forward, punctuating his words with the thrusts of his ass as he fucked into me.
“You mean like this?” I asked him, teasing the hard nub of my clit, making sure he had an excellent view.
He was panting in pleasure, lost in sexual heat. He clenched his hand in my hair and said, “Tell me whoese pussy this is.”
My heart thumped in my chest, and my pulse was racing. “It’s yours Tony. Since the second we met. It will always be yours.”
He bit my shoulder and the primitive, ancient part of me recognized him as my beast, the one who’d take me whether or not I wanted him to. The one who outweighed me could drag me by the hair and position my body so he could stab me with his rampant cock—his caveman teeth on my skin made me rabid with lust.
I’d make him an offering, giving him my most valuable possession. For shielding me from bullies and a selfish sister so focused on surviving, she cut down anything standing in her way.
If that possession was my pussy, so be it. This was our last night, and I wanted to make the most of it.
“Oh my God! Keep going.” His rough motions were taking me over the edge.
“You look so fucking sexy right now, baby,” he said.
“I love being your sexy little fuck slut.”
I was so close and squirmed around him, uninhibited, saying anything, knowing there was nothing to lose because I was going to lose him anyway.
He held me down and said, “Here it comes, baby. I’m going to make you shake.” Then kissed me to swallow my moans.
“I’m ready! I’ll come with you.”
“Yeah, baby, yeah. Right there.” He moved hard and fast, jackhammering toward a soul-rendering climax, and he let out a rough shout as he came.
He was still semi-hard as he lay panting beside me.
“Jeez. How many times already?” I asked.
“We have a lot to make up for. Trust me, I’m going to kiss your neck, bite you, pull your hair, trace your spine, pin you down, use my tongue, make you moan, spank you…”
“I get the general idea.” I chuckled. There were gangsters after us. My sister ran back to her prison, and yet having Tony love me on a barn floor filled me with joy.
The only problem, when he realized I used sex tonight to distract him from what I was thinking, plotting my escape tomorrow, there was going to be hell and a half to pay.
25
Daphne
I woke up the next morning with straw in my mane. A long-lashed, wet-nosed cow stared at me and huffed air through a knothole of the stall wall.
“It’s alright, Betsy. We’ll be out of your hair soon,” I told her.
“I think my good girl deserves a spanking first, don’t you?” Tony’s smug voice promised pleasure. “We have time before strategizing our next move.”
“A spanking. Why?!”
His mouth twisted and my stomach plunged. “You scared the hell out of me last night,” he said.
“We’ve been over this. Getting taken at gunpoint wasn’t anyone’s fault,” I plead, trying to reason. “Including mine.”
“That may be, but I’ll still feel better if I blister your bottom.” He hopped up on his feet, buck naked, his morning wood most impressive at this hour, and reached for the lead rope hanging from a hook on the stall wall. “On the floor like my little pony. Hands and knees.”
I did what he said, hoping no one came into the barn while he was punishing me, finding me exposed. It would be a humiliating scenario. The cow was visible through her peephole. What if some ranch hand played peeping Tom while I was getting disciplined?
Tony raised the soft, doubled lengths, and before swinging it at my buttocks, said, “Such a beautiful ass. I need to streak it scarlet, mark it as mine.”
Whoosh!
Oh, holy hell, the rope smarted. Heavier than the belt, it didn’t give when it landed on my skin. I yelped the first time and then gritted my teeth so hard it made counting impossible.
He must hav
e sensed this because he didn’t ask me to.
Tony tenderized my backside with the lead. Ten swings total. If he continued, he’d have me begging to stop.
“Let’s check how my pussy’s doing.” His fingers stroked my bare lips, sending pleasurable shivers through me. “Just as I thought. My dirty little girl likes it when I claim her ass like this and make it mine.” His hands traced the contours of my body, a complete contrast to the discipline he’d delivered with the rope. “I own it.”
The blood pounded in my veins from the way he touched me and talked to me. I wanted nothing but more. It was the only word my brain could formulate. “More. More. More.”
I said it out loud, “More. Please?” My frame twisted and writhed below him, trying to taunt him.
“Sorry, baby. We need to get out of here. But don’t worry, one day…” He dipped his fingers to my back hole, stroking the pleated skin there so I shivered with embarrassment and forbidden longing, “…soon, when we’re not in such an awful hurry, I’m going to open this up with my cock so you know what it is to be desired.” He shoved a single finger in my tightest of holes. “Taken. Claimed.”
El Día de Los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, in the streets of Ensenada was really bad fucking timing. From a cultural research perspective, I appreciated the colorful procession, the incense smoke filling the morning air, the skulls of humans, horses, devils, and mariachi singers designed in face paint or paper-mâché. But in terms of getting from point a to point b, the whole celebration sucked balls.
It slowed our quick trip to fetch the rental car back from the resort.
Tony held fast to my hand as we wound through the tight crowd, unable to hear each other over the sound of the music playing and the parade announcer, our vision muted by the incense smoke in the air all around.