She’d only been gone a moment, but it felt like a lifetime.
I’d lost my real sister long ago. The Eva that had gone missing was a dim echo of the girl she used to be. The last heart to heart we’d had she was crying in my lap in a moment of sobriety, telling me this wasn’t her.
The odds of her being alive were slim. I was doing a damn good job of fooling myself otherwise. Painful truths were never easy to swallow. The moment I wavered and began to believe she was gone I felt the need to apologize for letting go. Did it make me a bad person to even consider it?
I glanced to my right and gave a tight smile. Mateo was on the opposite side of the balcony, watching me in a deeply predatory way. I had no idea how long he’d been there.
“I wouldn’t have let you leave the house like that,” he said, after perusing every inch of my body.
“Well, that’s not sexist at all Mateo,” I laughed, crossing my arms over my breasts.
“I meant I wouldn’t let you walk around like a billboard seeking to be fucked.”
“Maybe dressing like this makes me feel pretty.” I shrugged and looked away.
“Don’t,” he said, sharp enough to regain my attention. “You’re not that woman.”
I wanted to ask how he knew what type of woman I was instead, I sipped down the rest of my drink.
“You’re right. I was supposed to be getting fucked, but you wanted to come here instead.”
“Were the multiple rounds earlier not enough?” he asked, suddenly right in front of me. My eyes drifted up to his and my breath caught. Had he smelled this good all night? And why the hell did he look so, so good right now? It was late. His golden skin and tiger eyes looked even more enticing beneath the dark club lights.
Every time I looked at him lately a feeling of confliction restricted around my neck like a noose.
What if I didn’t use him as my in for finding Eva? What if I told my grandmother to fuck off? What if I just let this be whatever it was going to be? Did that make me selfish?
It was his presence that made my mind seem to shut up. He stood in front of the door inside my head that led to a room full of darkness, and kept it closed.
We were such an unconventional couple. I knew he was a killer, but I couldn’t help the way I felt about him. I knew I should stop this from going any further. I was too close. I was falling for a man who sold the poison that killed my sister. He was a complicated evil.
Reaching up, I smoothed a hand over his face, studying it for a millionth time.
I wasn’t allowed to love him, but I still imagined I could. I found myself wondering, what if it happened the other way around?
How immoral would I have to be for a kingpin to fall in love with me?
With a slight shake of my head I slowly dropped my hand to rest on his chest. That way of thinking wouldn’t do me any good. The habits of my heart were going to tear me apart. I needed to be readying a parachute because there was no doubt in my mind this was going to go up in flames. I felt it in my gut.
All I needed to ask myself was one question.
Did I wait until the very end to jump or did I come clean with the truth and burn the bridge myself?
“What are you thinking?” he asked, trailing a finger down the side of my face, pulling me out of my melancholy reverie.
I’m not who you think I am. I’m a liar, a user, and the idea of loving you makes me sick inside. The truth was weighing down on my lungs ready to spring from my mouth.
I couldn’t. I was a coward–keeping my skeletons buried away. The same reason I had hesitated so long to search for Eva. I was terrified of the unknown.
I was terrified of his world. It had tried and failed to take my life once already. The scars on my wrists were a botched job to make it look like I wanted to kill myself.
Someone had been looking for Eva and found me instead. I didn’t know who ultimately saved me, but I was grateful.
“Come with me,” Mateo coaxed when I didn’t respond, taking my hand.
We entered a lavishly appointed suite with a secluded bedroom. I didn’t feel any jittery nervousness now that we were alone, only an uncomfortable sensation between my thighs.
“I’ve never actually been to Vice City before,” I admitted partially to distract myself, looking out the window at the lit up skyscrapers. Mateo slid his hands around my waist, coming up behind me.
“So what’s it feel like?”
“What does what feel like?”
“That.” I nodded my head so I could keep my hands intertwined around my waist with his. “That’s all yours.”
He was quiet so long I didn’t think he was going to answer me.
“I see past, present, and future years of blood being spilled, drugs being imported, and women selling themselves in the shadows of luxury and exuberant wealth.
I see my family’s and friends’ families losses and dedication to make Vice City everything people flock to it for.”
Hanging off his every word, I understood his description perfectly. Many people would see his wealth and assume he had a silver spoon in his mouth.
What I had seen in the Player’s Lounge wasn’t even a pinch of his operation. I couldn’t fathom having control of a whole city.
“How does this feel?” he asked after a minute.
“Hmm,” I snuggled back into him, smiling at our reflection. “This feels natural. I feel safe.” I wanted to reel the last word back in and replace it with something else.
That was a little too deep. Then again, wasn’t us standing like a regular pair of lovers gazing out at his city just as equivalent?
“I’ll always keep you safe, amada.” He turned me so that I was chest to chest with him. I wanted to ask how he could be so sure about that, but oddly enough, I believed him. He wouldn’t let anyone hurt me, he just forgot to extend that rule to the one person who could do me the most harm.
He took me to the bedroom where a queen bed waited with white linens begging to be dirtied. Knowing what was to come I silently stepped out of my dress and then turned to face him in nothing but my heels.
He slowly turned me around his gorgeous eyes devouring me whole. “I imagined you like this…what you would be like. You sure as hell didn’t disappoint. You’re pure perfection, minha beleza.”
I smiled so big I could see the tops of my cheeks, warming from his compliment and the hungry look on his face.
He studied me a second longer before he lurched forward and sealed his mouth over mine. With barely any effort he cupped my ass and lifted me up onto the bed, depositing me on my back.
“I want to feel your pussy,” he rasped, pulling away and then kissing me sweetly.
One hand slowly roamed down my body, taking its time feeling up my curves. Painstakingly slow, his thumb traced up and down my slit. He leaned up to watch me, smirking when a small whimper escaped my swollen lips as he eased one digit slightly inside me.
“You’re dripping wet,” he noted quietly, sliding his index finger inside next, palm facing up.
I bit my lip to stifle a moan, feeling completely exposed.
He adjusted himself and added another, beginning to move them faster. He gently slapped my clit with his free hand, forcing a set of moans from my chest as he finger-fucked me, curling his fingers into my G-spot and continuing to toy with my swelling nub.
My hips began to move involuntarily on their own, chasing a release my body yearned for. He grinned and got off the bed, leaving me with a groan of frustration.
“Move to the headboard, touch yourself.”
With only brief hesitation, I adjusted so my back was against the tufted headboard, spread my legs, and dug my heels into the duvet, and slid a hand over my freshly-waxed pussy.
Keeping my eyes locked with his, I began rolling my clit, slowly slipping two fingers in and out of me knuckle deep.
“So beautiful,” he murmured, at the end of a sentence in Portuguese as he removed his own clothing.
I trained my eye
s where a dark patch of hair surrounded the base of his large, thick dick that was fisted in his hand.
He began pleasuring himself as I pleasured myself. His solid, perfectly defined body complete with dips and ridges of a chiseled torso served as the ultimate visual pornographic material. “Mateo,” I moaned, pulling my lower lip between my teeth.
“Louder,” he commanded, moving to the edge of the mattress.
“Mateo,” I repeated, a note higher as my body began to tense. Before the orgasm fully hit, he grabbed my heeled ankles and dragged me towards him. He hooked my legs over his arms, balancing my ass partially off the bed.
With no preamble, he buried himself inside me. The scream that tore from my lungs was from both pleasure and pain, seeming to encourage him. “Don’t stop saying my name,” he demanded.
He proceeded to fuck me as if his life depended on it. His thrusts were rough, hard, and just the right tempo to make me feel an edge of hurt.
“Your pussy’s so fucking tight, Ley,” he soughed, taking hold of my ankles and hooking them both over his left shoulder, making me feel more of him than I already did.
“Mateo,” I half whimpered half groaned, trying to reach his torso so I could push him back some. I felt like he was about to tear me in half.
“Relax and take it,” he growled, thrusting harder. The bed began to react to our harsh abuse of it, the tufted headboard slowly rocking in place until it was bouncing into the wall. The blanket and sheets were half on the floor half wrapped around a corner of the mattress.
I lost the ability to speak. Perspiration misted my skin as he made me repeatedly come with his cock buried inside my pussy.
My back arched and my toes curled in the heels he refused to take off.
He watched my every facial expression with a raptness, that if I was all the way lucid, would have been slightly terrifying.
The sound was him moving in and out of my heavy arousal, mixed with my vibrant moans, our skin slapping.
“You feel so good,” he soughed.
I began to wonder if the man ever came. He fucked me raw. He fucked me sore. Fucked me until I was so bruised between my legs it hurt to move.
When I thought my chest would cave in from trying to make any more noise, he gripped my legs and flipped me over with his dick still inside me.
He was seated so much deeper. I instantly tried to wriggle away but his hand came down on my ass, making me yelp.
“Listen to how wet you are.” He grabbed a fistful of my wild hair.
He jerked my head back, forcing me to arch. I cried out fisting the sheets.
“Your tight little pussy is so fucking greedy for my cock, amada.” He continued talking to me, saying the filthiest shit that only made me wetter as he rode me––hard.
The sounds coming from my mouth with his name heavily among them were indecipherable. A mounting pressure burst in my core as yet another orgasm sent white-hot pleasure spiraling through me. I collapsed beneath him, a heaving exhausted mess.
“Fuck,” he barely mumbled, burying himself to the hilt and coming inside me.
He stayed that way, forcing me to turn my head. “You’re perfect, Ley.” He swooped in and captured my mouth, greedily, swallowing my ragged breaths.
As if those three words were the bat signal to the universe, his phone began to ring. He ignored it. It immediately started again.
On the third ring, he cursed and pulled out of me.
“I’ll be back.” He kissed my cheek and snatched his slacks up with his cell in them, shutting the door behind him. I laid down spent, feeling his come between my legs but not caring enough to move.
I thought back to that shitty diner and how easily I let him have me, how quick he was to take. What if I never let him fuck me in the bathroom? Hindsight.
I should have been more in-tune with what was going on around me.
Specifically, the phone call Mateo had just received. I naively thought it was just a regular business thing.
Had I known what was going to happen the second the call ended I would have ran. I would have left the whole damn city behind in a cloud of dust.
It’s truly amazing how calm it can be before the storm. That one damn phone call was the beginning of my sanity’s end.
It was the catalyst for how my life blew apart in fragments of glamour and heartache––blood and riches––obsession and addiction.
Chapter Fourteen
An insistent buzzing sound woke me up.
I wrapped my hand around my cell-phone and popped my head up to see who it was.
“Peyton.” I winced at the sound of my voice.
“Are you still in the suite?”
“Yes,” I croaked. “What’s wrong?” I asked, hearing the blatant worry in his voice. I saw the multiple text messages and missed calls on the notification pin.
“Meet me in the lobby, pronto,” he rushed out, hanging up on me.
I shoved the blanket off my naked body and stumbled around the room, redressing as fast as I could. Mateo not returning the night before was a hint that something was wrong.
My aching body screamed at me as I hauled ass to the lobby of the hotel. I was snagged by Melody and Peyton the second I stepped out of the elevator.
“What’s going on?” I asked, not missing the stares we were all getting.
“Um that’s a loaded question,” Melody replied, keeping a firm grip on my hand.
We made our way through the parking lot to Peyton’s Telsa––me taking shotgun.
“What’s going on?” I asked again, rolling down the window to let some heated air out.
“Look at this.” Peyton grabbed a manila folder off his dash and handed it to me. I flipped it open.
My brow wrinkled and my neck stiffened when it finally registered what I was looking at.
It was a deed. A copy of a deed to my parent’s estate with both mine and Mateo’s name on it, giving us joint ownership.
Before I could question it, another copied document joined it. This one was a promissory note with a sum that made my head spin and my name written beneath it.
“I was told to bring you straight to him, and if I didn’t, he would have you brought to him by his own methods.”
“I don’t––what the fuck is going on?” I flipped the folder shut.
“Did something happen last night?” Melody asked as Peyton pulled out of his parking spot.
“Besides great mind-blowing sex? No. Wait, he got a phone call, and then he never came back.”
“So we need to figure out what the call was,” Melody enthused.
“No, take me to him.”
“What?” Echoed around the cabin of the car.
“I’ve been here for weeks being a little bitch about everything going on and clearly something has happened. Regardless, he has no right to my parents’ home.”
“You have no idea what is waiting for you,” Melody protested.
“I have no idea what will happen if I don’t go,” I levelly retorted.
And so it began. The pros and cons of me walking like a slab of meat into the wolves den or stalling until Mateo sent one of his gooiness after me.
“You’re right,” Peyton reluctantly agreed after a tense silence had befallen upon us. “Because there’s a big ass Yukon that’s been trailing me since I left the parking lot.”
I looked in my side mirror and immediately spotted the truck in question. It wasn’t even bothering to be discreet.
Hitting send on Mateo’s number for what had to be the fifth time I was once again greeted by his voicemail. There’s no way he would turn his phone off so I could only assume he blocked my number, which led me to conclude he was ensuring whatever conversation we needed to have would be done in person.
So I told my best-friend to take me to him.
I didn’t think of it as him and I.
Or me and him.
I thought me verses. him.
My mind was oddly calm, my nerves buzzing with only slight
worry.
The gates to his estate were already wide open when we arrived.
They closed as soon as Peyton’s car made it through with the Yukon right behind us.
An expect the unexpected energy took hold of my psyche at precisely the right moment.
“Is that…” Melody’s voice trailed off.
“That’s my car,” I confirmed. “Or pieces of it.”
My PT cruiser had been sitting in the garage with the same flat tire it had gotten the night all this started. It had been towed to Remmington Hill and shut away. My uncle wouldn’t allow such a cheap car to sit out in the open. His words not mine–I loved my little humbug. Or I did. Now it was in Mateo’s driveway dismantled to the point of being nothing other than a plum frame.
“Elena–––.”
“Stay in the car,” I demanded, grabbing the folder and stepping out, going straight to the front door.
Without knocking, I pushed it right open, not bothering to shut it.
I headed towards Mateo’s office where voices were coming from. They all ceased when the sound of my heels reached their ears.
“Give me a moment, please.” I heard Mateo say just as I reached the threshold.
They came out as I went in, two younger men in suits.
“What the hell is going on?” I demanded to know, skipping all casualties.
“Ah, my twisted angel. Shut the door,” he lazily replied, raising his brows when I kicked it closed with my heel.
“My father was shot and robbed, left to die ass naked on his bedroom floor. He’s alive, though his pride is a bit disintegrated. No man wants to admit a whore bested him.”
I waited for him to go on, not seeing what any of that had to do with me.
“Do you know what my father almost died for?” He circled to behind his desk, unzipped a small duffel bag, and dumped it out.
Blood tinged bundles of cash hit the wooden surface. “And this.” He picked up a black leather book, holding it high for me to see. “Do you know how many people died because of this?”
Keeping hold of the book he circled back in front of his desk. “I hired a man to find it. After some…negotiating the other night, he didn’t stop until he had an interesting easter egg not so easily handed over to him.”
Old Money Roulette: Complete Trilogy Page 10