Violent Triumphs

by Jessica Hawkins

  That rounded out his third reason for offering help. Logic, heart, and motivation for a better life. Ay, and thwarting death, of course. Looking to Alejandro, I cracked my knuckles. “Diego’s not the one we’re trying to find right now.”

  “Max,” Gabriel stated. “Alejandro told me.”

  I rubbed the bridge of my nose. My hands were tied. I had to do whatever necessary to help Max. I’d be a fool to turn down help and a fool to accept it. “You have until my patience runs out to help us find everything you can on Belmonte-Ruiz and Max’s current location,” I said.

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  I nodded once at Alejandro. “Hand him over to the IT team. Eyes don’t leave him for a second. Get him a new pair of glasses. And Alejo?”

  “Dime,” he said, inviting me to continue.

  “Don’t fucking disturb me again. I don’t care if the sky is falling.”

  Now, I would go fuck my wife.

  That was, if I could find her. Because when I returned, she wasn’t in the bedroom.

  Or the library. Or by the pool.

  After I’d been all around the house, I found myself knocking on Pilar’s door.

  “Adelante,” came two female voices followed by a bout of giggling, and, “¡Embrujado! Jinx!”

  I entered the room and found Natalia on the tips of her toes in Pilar’s closet, trying to reach a purse on the top shelf—and wearing jeans, socks, and a sweater over her top. Not naked as I’d left her when I’d ordered her to stay put.

  I walked in, plucked the bag from the shelf, and handed it to her. “Going somewhere?”

  Her fiery eyes met mine a moment before she turned away. “No. We’re reorganizing Pilar’s closet.”

  I blinked around the space. It looked as if Pilar had hardly touched a thing since her arrival. “Seems pretty damn organized to me.”

  “Well, Jaz’s method doesn’t quite make sense to us,” Natalia explained.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Because it doesn’t,” she snapped.

  Pilar’s puppy-dog eyes stayed on me, waiting for my reaction—for the explosion. In deference to her history with violent men, I inhaled a breath to control my temper. “I need to speak to you, Natalia.”

  “After we’re finished.” Natalia stepped back, pinching her chin as she assessed a row of sandals. “These should really be arranged by heel height.”

  Ah. This wasn’t about Pilar’s closet. Natalia was punishing me for leaving her in bed. As if it had been easy for me. As if the thought of fucking her wasn’t always top of mind.

  I needed to clear my head. I needed the space to think straight. I needed to fuck so hard that there was nothing left in my mind but answers. “Excuse me, Pilar,” I said, keeping my eyes on Natalia, “but my wife and I were in the middle of something that needs resolving.”

  “Oh . . .” Natalia looked over her shoulder and winked. “I resolved it on my own.”

  If her smirk was any indication, I must’ve looked as dumbfounded as I felt. The thought of her getting herself off in my bed when that was my job . . .

  I stepped up behind her, and by the way she stiffened, she knew I was done fucking around. “March your ass upstairs before I do it for you.”

  “He expects me to come when he calls,” she said to Pilar. “The way he goes running whenever Jaz needs him.”

  I let a short chuckle free, though I was only amused by the prospect of dreaming up ways to punish her for that comment. I scooped her up, threw her over my shoulder, and gave Pilar a friendly smile. “We’ll see you when we’re finished. Don’t wait up.”

  To Pilar’s credit, for once, she didn’t look scared. “Have a good time.”

  16

  Natalia

  Cristiano the Brute dropped me on my feet in our bedroom, seemingly oblivious to my fuming. I’d begun to sweat under all this clothing, but that was part of his punishment for leaving me alone, naked, and more aroused than I’d ever been. “Pendejo,” I said.

  “You’re awfully brave to call me an asshole,” he said. “Considering you were shaking in your huaraches when you arrived here.”

  “I was not. I stood here, in this room, and invited you to fuck me that first night. You’re the one who walked away,” I accused.

  He didn’t deserve that; my gratitude for his restraint during that time knew no bounds. Cristiano could’ve taken what he’d wanted on our wedding night. How many men in his position would’ve? I shuddered to think. I’d be a different woman if he had, married to a different man.

  But enough was enough. I needed him to finish what he’d started and consummate this goddamn marriage.

  “I wasn’t going to rape you the way my brother did.” Cristiano stalked up to me, taking my chin in his large paw of a hand and forcing me to look him in the eyes. “And that is what he did, Natalia. He said whatever he had to in order to coerce you into his bed. I wasn’t going to do the same, and I never will, so you’d better learn how to ask for what you fucking want.”

  “I did. I told you not to leave this morning, but you didn’t hesitate a second before running off when Jaz called.” Smug satisfaction settled in me at the way he flinched. I’d offered myself to him twice in twenty-four hours, and he’d turned me down both times. The unrelenting need to be relieved by him and only him pushed me to poke him until he reacted. “My husband turns his back on his wife when another woman needs him. Jaz, Tasha, Sandra—is there anyone I come before?”

  “How dare you say I haven’t put you first!” He took his hand back, towering over me. “Have you wanted for anything since you stepped foot inside these walls?”

  You.

  My desire for him had been simmering since our first dance, I just hadn’t wanted to admit it. Now that I could, it overwhelmed me, and I hated that I could be flipped so easily. I trusted Cristiano with my body, but it didn’t erase Diego’s violation.

  “I thought I knew what you wanted, but maybe I was wrong,” I said, my lips pinched as I dropped my eyes to the bulging crotch of his sweats. “Or maybe I wasn’t. There must be some other reason you keep your hands to yourself.”

  “Watch your mouth, chiquita,” he warned.

  Being referred to as a little girl only infuriated me more. I stepped up under his nose. “I think I hear Jaz calling. Perhaps you should run along so I can return to my friend.”

  “People’s lives are on the line. You expect me to laze in bed when they need me and let them fend for themselves?”

  “Yes.” I was being unfair, but so was he. It wasn’t just my heart that had been aching since yesterday, but my body, too. Cristiano had promised to fuck me into oblivion more than once, and he had yet to follow through. Did he expect me to beg for it?

  He stepped forward until we were toe to toe, his eyes darkening as his composure fissured. Finally, his anger matched mine. “Heaven’s finest symphony is just noise compared to your pleas for me to stay in bed. I couldn’t ask for anything more. But understand—you cannot command me. I don’t answer to anyone. I have a duty to fulfill.”

  “You took me, you put me in this role, so, yes—now, you do answer to me.” I nearly vibrated with rage. “And I won’t come second to anyone, especially Jaz. She’s trying to come between us.”

  “Nobody gets between us unless we allow it. And since when do you care?” Heat flashed in his eyes as he tilted his head, provoking me. “Why does my wife suddenly give a fuck where I go and what I do? What could be the reason, hmm?”

  “Because . . . because . . .”

  Love. That was why.

  Because I had run out of reasons not to love him. It had bloomed unexpectedly and brutally. The soil for it had been rich, the foundation laid before I knew what it was to love a man. My mother had trusted him, and so had I. Cristiano had been nurturing that seed all along, and the vines had overgrown my heart without my realizing it.

  And he knew it.

  “You don’t need to pick a fight, mi amor,” he said smugly. “I
f you need me to fuck you, just ask—and mean it.”

  I needed it so badly, I ached with it. I grabbed his cheeks and pulled his mouth to mine. For a moment, he seemed too stunned to react, but then he gripped my hair by the root and backed me up against a wall.

  “You thought all these clothes could keep me out, eh?” he said.

  “It almost worked.”

  “You have no idea how wrong you are. Say it,” he demanded into my mouth, then yanked my cardigan down around my biceps, trapping me with it. “Ask for it.”

  My breath stuttered along with my pulse. I was too needy, too aching, too far gone to anything but the carnal pull between us. “Please, Cristiano. Please, will you?”

  “Will I what?”

  “Do as you’ve promised. Destroy what’s yours to destroy. Take my virginity as it should’ve been done. Please, fuck me. Please.”

  His hands fisted, tightening my sweater around me. “What a way to ask,” he said, his chest rumbling with promise. “You’ve made it worth the wait. And I’ll answer in spades, mamacita.” He tore off my sweater and shoved a hand down the front of my pants, bypassing the fly, then my underwear. His fingertips slipped and glided against my opening but didn’t enter. “Have you been wet this whole time?”

  “Since the start,” I admitted hoarsely.

  His free hand gripped the waistband of my jeans and tugged them higher and higher until the seam of the crotch wedged up against my clit. “How’s that?”

  Open-mouthed, I gasped as he massaged it back and forth. “Oh. God.”

  He cocked his head, assessing me with complete composure as his chest rumbled with a “Hmm.”

  “What?” I panted.

  “I’m deciding what to do with you. Based on how you just came at me, claws out, I think what you need more than anything right now is a good, hard fuck.”

  The prospect of inviting that from someone like Cristiano both thrilled and scared me—just like everything else when it came to my husband. The last few weeks had been building up to this, a passionate dance, each step becoming easier as we’d each given into faith. I trusted him to hurt me in the ways I needed without going too far.

  “I deserve to be punished for how I’ve treated you. How I’ve spoken to you,” I breathed against him. “Make me repent.”

  He yanked down my pants and underwear and left them in a heap as he lifted me against the wall. My legs wrapped around him instinctively, like a snake with prey, out of my control, squeezing him closer.

  “I’ll punish you, Natalia Lourdes, and you’ll beg for more,” he said, holding me up with one hand and reaching into his pants with the other to stroke himself. “Later, I’m going to ask you to put my cock inside you. I’m going to run my tongue along and inside every part of your body I can reach. But right now, I’m going to shove it inside you, and you’re going to let me like the good little doll you are. Understand?”

  If I hadn’t been pinned to the wall, I might’ve fallen over with need. Instead, I shoved at his chest, moving him only centimeters. “You don’t want a doll. You want the girl who pulled a gun on you. The one you’re teaching to fight back.”

  He trapped my wrists and held them over my head. After locking them there with one hand, he pulled himself out of his sweats, lined his head up with my opening, and started to press inside. “Then it’s too bad I haven’t taught you how to get out of this hold yet, isn’t it?” he asked and thrust his hips forward.

  He filled me all at once. “Fuck,” I cried.

  “Yeah, fuck,” he said, rooting himself there. “Fuck you and your too-tight cunt. How’s it feel to finally be broken wide open?”

  My chest heaved. He quenched a thirst that ran deeper than I’d thought possible. I was full, finally, for the first time in my life, physically—but also emotionally bursting with desire and love and everything else I couldn’t seem to get a handle on. “It feels . . .” Even the finest words couldn’t convey like the language our bodies spoke. “It feels like we should’ve done this weeks ago.”

  “No shit. All I’ve wanted is to watch your face as I claim you.” He used both hands this time to fasten my wrists above my head before he drew back and impaled me again. “As your pussy yields for me, then sucks me deeper.”

  “Ay, Dios m—” I cried. “Oh . . . my . . . G—”

  “Who are you talking to, mi vida?” He took my mouth for a hard, wet kiss as he moved in and out, making sure I felt every ridge and vein of his shaft. Trapping my bottom lip between his teeth, he pinched it until I moaned, then released it. “Nobody’s as divine as you,” he professed. “You’re the goddess in the sky the rest of us appeal to. Who could match you?”

  “You.”

  His tongue ran along my lip to the corner of my mouth as his hips picked up pace. “Does it hurt?”

  It was a simple question with myriad answers. Was pain always bad? Could it feel so good that it hurt? Was I allowed to crave physical agony to incarnate my soul-deep yearning for him? “Yes,” I said as my pussy contracted around him and my legs pulled him even closer.

  He pulled out until I had to engage my thigh muscles to keep from slipping down the wall. “I could be gentler,” he said. “Treat you like a real doll. Like you can’t handle it.”

  “I can take it. I want it to hurt, and I want you to make it better.” I met his gaze, the evident need in his eyes. Not to push me up against a wall—he could’ve done that any time. But a need to fill me in ways nobody else could and master this domain. To finally have me willing. I freed my wrists from his grip, hugged his neck, and pressed my forehead to his. “I know it hurts you, too.”

  Something passed over his face. He leaned in, and I drew back, keeping myself just outside his reach. With a growl that reverberated in my chest, he captured my mouth for a punishing kiss, the kind I’d expect of a deadly, passionate, dominant kingpin.

  Without disconnecting, he carried me across the room and lowered me until just my upper back hit the mattress. Holding my hips up, he brought them to meet each of his hard and fast thrusts. “Watch how your pussy takes me, Natalia—every inch,” he said, reaching out to press his thumb in my mouth. I automatically sucked. “I’d promise that by the time I’m through with you, you’ll be ruined for anyone else—but I’ll never be through with you.” He removed his thumb and bent forward to pinch my chin and keep my eyes on him. “And if that scares you—good.”

  I arched my back as his relentless drives hit me deeper and deeper. Warmth coiled in my core, another aching knot in me that Cristiano had inspired—one only Cristiano could relieve. “I’m not scared,” I said.

  He slid a hand under the hem of my t-shirt and spread it over my lower tummy as it trembled. His thumb dipped between my folds to my clit. “You were.”

  “I was.”

  “But now, you’ll take everything I have to give.”

  “How much more could there be?” I breathed as my muscles quivered around his cock.

  “I can get deeper—so much deeper,” he promised. “But I need you to come for me first and loosen up your cunt.” He took my waist, his grip so tight that his fingertips almost met as he lifted me higher. Pulled me onto each thrust. Fucked me so hard his balls slapped against my ass cheeks. “Give me that nectar only good enough for a god; let an unworthy man into the depths of Heaven.”

  I shivered with his words. This was what I’d always needed. Not to be coddled and pacified with Diego’s flat, emotionless, stupid-as-fuck poetry. I’d take the raw and profane from Cristiano over lifeless prose any day. I’d take his fast and hard screw over Diego’s sniveling lovemaking.

  I closed my eyes so I could feel every sensation as it washed over me, every nuance of Cristiano’s demanding fuck.

  “Eyes open, Natalia,” he said. “I know you’re afraid of the dark, but in my bed, you’ll face me.”

  I flitted my lids open to the beastly devil above me. The monster under my bed that had crawled out and mounted me. The one who knew my deepest fears and co
nquered them with me.

  I shook with the force of a sudden, foundation-splitting orgasm. He held me in the safety of his black eyes as I found rapture—not in the heights of Heaven but in the depths of his hell.

  “God. Fuck.” He stilled and groaned up to the ceiling. “You’re holding onto me so tight, it might be enough to keep me out of your ass for a few days.”

  I released a quivering breath as the aftershock of my orgasm rolled through me. Now, I was scared. I had come for the devil and enjoyed every second of it—and now I feared I’d give it to him any way he asked.

  He pulled out of me, his cock hard, throbbing, nearly purple between us—and covered in me. Before I could even register it, he leaned forward and ripped open my top. “Flip over,” he demanded, urging me onto my stomach faster, discarding the ruined shirt.

  His hands spread over the base of my spine and glided to the clasp of my bra. He got it open, smoothing his palms up and down my back. “Qué buena estas.”

  I wasn’t sure I felt sexy in that moment, bent over the edge of the bed, my ass in the air, wide open to him. The thought of taking him back there inspired more nerves than excitement.

  He slid his slick shaft between my cheeks and the veiny, soft skin rubbed the raw bud of nerves at my opening.

  “You got quiet,” he said, and I could’ve sworn I heard a smile in his voice.

  He was enjoying this, the way my body had gone as tense as the strings of an over-tuned guitar. With the curtains open and the sun streaming in, fucking like this in broad daylight felt obscene. “Not my ass,” I said, pressing the side of my face into the mattress. My voice pitched as I said, “I can’t . . .”

  “Not your ass,” he agreed. “It’s not ready yet. I want to play with it first. Get to know it. Introduce it to my fingers. My tongue.”

  I fisted the sheets, glancing back at him as my face flamed with heat. “You wouldn’t.”

  “Oh, I would, mamacita. And I will.” He drew his t-shirt over his head, stripping down at lightning speed. “But understand one thing. When we do get there, I’ll never hurt you that way. Not ever, Natalia. When I take your ass, it will be to send us both to the moon.”