by Karin Tabke
“I’m clean.”
Her eyes rose to his and she smiled a half smile. “Thank god for small favors. So am I.”
He reached a hand to caress her cheek, but she flinched.
“I won’t hurt you.”
“You can’t hurt me. I have nothing left to hurt.”
Before she proceeded to undress, Sophia picked up his T-shirt, thinking how warm it was from his body heat. It was also damp with his blood. Giving the garment no consideration, she tore it in strips then tied them snugly around the deep cut along her husband’s upper arm.
“When we’re done here, you need to have that tended before it gets infected.”
“I’ve had worse,” he said roughly, his eyes never once leaving her as she ministered to him.
Catching his hot gaze, she smiled, feeling shy yet oddly in control. His desire for her she could not question, it was written over every inch of him. Knowing that gave her a sense of power. And with that, her back to the glass wall that physically separated her from the witnesses, Sophia let the shirt slip off her shoulders. Her bra followed.
Her husband’s sharp intake of breath stirred her passion.
chapter eight
Jesus, she was beautiful, Mateo thought, unable to take his eyes off her. Creamy, caramel-colored skin, full breasts with succulent nipples just begging to be sucked—his dick thickened as every ounce of blood in his body drained to it. He watched her slowly slide her skirt down her lush thighs, her hand modestly covering her soft mound. Her heady essence swirled around him, and he could guess the witnesses were stirred too.
He bit off a curse, wanting to smash the glass and every one of them with it. But for her, he would make this obscene show-and-tell as quick and easy as possible.
When she shook her long blond hair from her bare shoulders and stood tall and proud before him, with her chin high, her eyes moist with frustrated tears, he lost a piece of his hard heart to her. She was beautiful. Breathtaking and proud. She deserved so much more than him.
And yet—Jesus Christ, his dick hurt it was so swollen. He reached out to her and pulled her into the circle of his arms. He fought a colossal battle. His body ached for her. But going through with this was just wrong.
“Sophia,” he whispered against her bruised cheek, “I will challenge your father on this.”
She made a funny noise—half sob, half laugh. “Do it, Crazy, and you die.” She inhaled deeply, then slowly exhaled. “Let it be done so that I can wash the stench of Javier’s blood from between us.”
Something ugly and possessive reared its head at the mention of her fiancé’s name. “Don’t speak his name again,” Mateo growled. His fingers dug into her arm, then softened when he realized what he was doing. Jesus, what was wrong with him? He was not rough with women. Why was he with Sophia?
“You promised not to hurt me.”
His dick swelled painfully. “I know.”
There was only one recourse for relief. But if he took it, his marriage would be consummated and there would be no going back. He didn’t want to hurt her but hurt feelings were collateral damage in this deadly game of cat and mouse he played.
His lips swooped down on hers, forcing them open, plundering their silky softness. She bit him. A last act of defiance before the inevitable. But instead of pulling out of her bite, he licked her, eliciting a sharp moan of desire from her. When he pulled away, he licked his bloody lip and smiled. He could play rough too. Her smoky eyes glittered as if she knew his thoughts and liked them.
“I made no such promise.” She nipped at his chin. “You make me crazy. I want to hurt you as much as I want to kiss you.”
Mateo growled and pushed her down onto the sheet-draped chaise, oblivious to the voyeurs on the opposite side of the glass wall. He yanked off his boots and then shucked his jeans and boxer briefs. As he moved over her, the heavy weight of his straining cock dragged along her thigh causing them both to start.
He caught the glisten of tears at the corners of her eyes. Reaching out, he gathered her long hair in his hands and spread it over her breasts so that at least that part of her was shielded from the stares of the witnesses.
“Take her before I give her to another!” Dumas roared from the doorway.
Mateo glared at the angry man and clamped his mouth shut. It was futile to continue the pissing match with the bastard until his daughter was completely his, and when she was . . . he would kill the prick. And with Dumas gone, his mission would be a piece of cake.
He hissed in a short breath when Sophia slid her hand along his forearm.
“I’m afraid,” she whispered.
“Don’t be afraid, angel.” He kissed her nose. “Remember how good it was between us?” His lips brushed across hers. “How much you enjoyed what I did to you?”
He felt the warm rush of her breath against his cheek. “How wet you were for me?”
“Yes,” she said.
He sank his fingers into her hair. “Close your eyes and think of how you felt then, and I promise you it will feel as good now.”
She closed her eyes and nodded.
“Spread your legs.”
When she did, he settled between her knees. “A little more. Good girl, now wrap your arms around me and take a deep breath.”
When he nudged his impatient cock against her opening, he found her wet and warm. “Ah, I see you remember quite well how you lit up for me.” His body shuddered with excitement. He had wanted to do this the moment he laid eyes on her in the club. Not in a million lifetimes had he expected he would be doing it like this.
Hesitantly, she tipped her hips to him.
“Jesus,” he breathed as he nudged the wide head of his cock into her, trying to keep himself from thrusting balls deep into her. He was big and granite hard. She was virgin tight. He wanted to get her out of there as soon as possible but he didn’t want to hurt her just to expedite things.
“Exhale, angel, and relax.”
Air rushed from her lungs. When he moved deeper into her, she made a soft moaning sound that trailed off into a choked sob.
“I’m sorry, baby,” he whispered, barely able to contain the need to thrust deeply into her. Clasping her head he brought her lips to his and kissed her, his tongue slowly thrusting as his hips moved reverently against hers. He closed his eyes, reveling in the sublimity of the feel of her. Hot, tight and wet.
Sophia’s hips finally loosened and nature took over. As her arms tightened around his shoulders, she returned his kiss with surprising fervor. With each slow push he moved deeper into her. It took everything he had not to indulge himself at her expense.
“Jesus, Sophia . . .” He exhaled when he was buried to the hilt inside of her. The hot, tight sheath of her velvety lining hugged him. He was so close to losing it all and he had yet to thrust once into her.
He didn’t want to move, afraid that if he did the spell would be broken and he’d unload into her.
Mateo growled, wanting to take her away from the prying eyes to a private place where, despite his duplicity, he could make love to her properly, as a bridegroom should. He felt her body tremble beneath his and knew she was doing all she could to keep her composure. This was wrong, his taking her this way. She was his wife, and she deserved the respect of privacy. As he smoothed her hair from her damp cheeks he slowly withdrew then slid back into her and watched as her eyes opened in wonder, and gathered her tightly to him.
“Tell me what to do, little one, and I will do it.”
“Just get it over with.”
He grit his teeth and closed his eyes. “How”—he groaned as he thrust into her—“do I show blood proof?”
He couldn’t help himself; his hips moved slowly and rhythmically against her. He couldn’t stop now. Not even if that bastard Dumas commanded it. “Please, Sophia,” he groaned, “tell me what to do.”
“Don’t stop,” she breathed. “Don’t stop.”
On the verge of coming, his body tightened. His teeth sank into the tender spot on her neck. Her nails dug into his back as her hips met his, thrust for thrust.
His vision clouded as her exotic essence engulfed him.
Ravenous for more of her, he thrust deeper. Her whimpers of need as she dug her nails deeper into his back spurred him forward.
Their bodies strained furiously. He could hold back no longer. He arched, thrusting so deeply into her he lost himself. He groaned loudly as hot streams of semen exploded in long thick bursts inside of her. Somewhere in a deep, dark recess of Mateo’s tormented mind a tiny part of him hoped his seed struck home.
The orgasm shattered him and his resolve to quietly and gently deflower her. He could no more have politely fucked his wife than he could have kept himself from coming.
Breathless and hungry for more of her, Mateo held Sophia’s trembling body in his arms for only a moment before he slid from her, pulled up his pants, then grabbed a hank of the sheet and carefully wiped it between her thighs.
He held up the blood-smeared sheet to his father-in-law, who stood scowling behind the glass wall. “Is this what you wanted?”
Dumas nodded. Mateo threw it from him in disgust. Wrapping her shirt around her shoulders and gathering a stunned Sophia into his arms, Mateo strode to the door and kicked it open, then asked her father, “Where is her room?”
When he did not immediately answer, Mateo repeated his question.
“Up the stairs to the right, last door at the end of the hall,” the old man answered.
Mateo took a few steps in that direction, then stopped and faced Dumas squarely. A powerful sense of possession and protection overcame him. The hows and whys of it were irrelevant. Mission or not, Sophia Dumas and everything that came with her belonged to him now. “She’s mine. In her world, in your world and in my world. Interfere on any level and I will kill you.”
Dumas’s face clouded angrily. “Do not threaten me.”
“It wasn’t a threat.”
chapter nine
As soon as the door closed behind them, Sophia turned on her husband. It was her only line of defense against a man who was using her to get to the top of the power food chain, but more important it was the only way she knew to protect her heart. Because despite the craziness of the last few days there was something about him that pulled at her. Hard.
Since the moment Tony dragged her out of that room at the club she had not stopped thinking of this dark and dangerous stranger who made her feel things she had only dreamed of.
She thought of how clean and virile he smelled, how his rough hands felt against her smooth skin. Of the deep, powerful timber of his voice and the way he took control of everything around him but lost all of it with her.
God help her but she hadn’t wanted him to stop in the atrium! Had they had some privacy when he took her, there was no telling how wantonly she would have responded to him. As it was, even knowing they had an audience, there had been something sublime about the way he took her. He wanted her body in spite of all the BS that came with her. He had been thick and ready, and gentle until he couldn’t be. And she had liked it. She liked it a lot. So much that she wanted more, which was precisely the problem!
Her body had a will of its own. Sophia gnashed her teeth. She had been wet and ready for him despite her inexperience. She wanted him inside her again, to feel the ultimate release she knew came with the kind of sex her husband could give her.
And then what?
She glared at him standing there looking at her like he didn’t have a clue in the world of what he did to her.
Didn’t he understand that she reviled him for using her status as a Dumas for a power grab yet she wanted him to use her body for her own pleasure? She was the pawn being used by two powerful men. The least she deserved was some happiness. But if she gave herself to him, she would want more and more after that, and when he had what he wanted, like most men he would look for a new conquest and she knew that would hurt most of all.
Even as a pawn she would never settle for only part of him. She wanted it all. And that was impossible for two reasons: he was here under a lie, and even if he weren’t, even if they fell madly in love with each other, they could never live a storybook ending in the world of Dumas, even with her father gone. Because Mateo would be so seduced by the power that came with being el patrón that he would never give it up. Not for her, not for their children. Not for anything. She was doomed, doomed, doomed. And so was he.
Spitting mad at the ludicrous situation she was in, she took it out on the person who had turned her life upside down. She punched her husband’s wounded shoulder. “I don’t need you to fight my battles for me!” she shrieked. She knew she sounded like a lunatic, but he made her crazy.
“Apparently you do.”
“I don’t!”
Mateo growled, grabbing her arm and pulling it away from his throbbing shoulder, keeping a firm hold on her at the same time. “You don’t care that your father manhandles you?” He shook her. “Or that he dictates your life? That he forces you to marry a man you don’t know then forces him to fuck you in front of his cronies to prove to the world you’re a virgin? This is the damn twenty-first century, not fucking medieval Europe.”
“Leave my father out of this.”
“What if I had given you what you wanted in the club, Sophia?”
She couldn’t answer that question because she refused to admit what her father would have done to her.
He shook her. “What if there was no proof of blood to show?”
She looked past him. “What would he have done?” he yelled, shaking her again.
“I don’t know,” she screamed. “I don’t know.”
“I do,” he said, lowering his voice. “And I swear to god, I would have killed him for it.” Mateo moved in closer, his warm breath brushed her lips.
“Don’t touch me!” she hissed, yanking away from him. She hated that he was right about her father. That despite everything he had done or not done, she was still desperate for his approval. For his fatherly pride to emerge and for him to finally treat her with unconditional love and not like a prized filly.
Would giving him a grandchild finally trigger his love for her? It’s what she wanted. A family. But could she bring a child into the brutal world of Dumas? No, she realized, as much as she wanted children, she would not bear one as long as her father lived. She would not do that to someone she loved, and she would not live through it as a parent.
“Sophia,” Mateo softly said, “I’m not the enemy.”
Looking up at him, feeling sad resignation settle within her, she said, “You’re here under a lie.” When Mateo reached out for her again, she flinched, hating that she did. It showed fear. And, truth be told, she was afraid of him, but not the way she appeared to be.
Raising his hands in the air as if he were under arrest, he stepped back from her. “I give you my word, Sophia: I will not touch you again without your permission.”
Hot tears welled in her eyes. Now he was rejecting her. Be careful what you ask for, Sophia, you will get it.
Angry that he’d seen her weakness, and angrier that he’d sworn not to touch her again, she strode to the middle of the room as she swiped a tear off her cheek, trying to get a grip on her out-of-control emotions. What the hell was wrong with her? She never cried. Not since she was a little girl. She was as level as a balance beam.
Lowering his hands, Mateo’s eyes narrowed as she threw her thick mane of hair over her shoulders.
She stood naked and unashamed before him. Oddly, this stranger she had married instilled a level of confidence in her she hadn’t been aware she’d been missing. Perhaps it was knowing he would defy the most intimidating man on the planet for something as simple as respecting her wishe
s. He had been gentle and considerate when her father insisted they publicly consummate their vows. He’d just promised never to touch her again unless she asked him to. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. Her husband was not a weak man, physically or emotionally, she knew it instinctively. Why, then, did he treat her as if her feelings mattered to him? Like he actually cared about her? She didn’t know what to do with that.
“Why are you here?”
“I couldn’t get you out of my head.”
“That’s a lie. Tell me the truth.”
“The only truth you will believe is one that doesn’t involve you.”
She opened her mouth to deny what he said, but it was probably the only true statement he had made since he’d so brazenly walked through the door.
He made to step toward her but retracted his step. “Why is it so hard for you to believe that a man could simply want you for yourself, so much that he’d be willing to face death to have you?”
“Because that’s what fairy tales are made of, and in case you haven’t noticed, this place and everyone in it, including me, are hardly fairy-tale material.” She laughed caustically. “More like a horror show.”
“Part of the truth is ugly, Sophia. Are you sure you want to hear it?”
“Yes.”
“I killed Javier Bertram, then hunted down his woman, and much to my surprise she came on to me and begged me to fuck her. Before I could, her cousin and his thugs took her away. I chased after her, her father insisted I marry her, then I got to fuck her and now here I am wanting to fuck her more than ever but she won’t let me touch her because she doesn’t trust me.”
“Knowing you killed Javier, how can you expect me to trust you?”
“Because I’m your husband now, and it’s part of your job description as my wife to trust me.”
If the situation hadn’t been so serious, Sophia would have smiled. “I trust no one.”
“For your cousin’s life, you swore to obey me.”
“Obey and trust are two separate issues. You can’t command me to trust you. Trust is earned. This farce of a marriage will be over long before there’s time to build trust.”