by Karin Tabke
Mateo scowled. “I’m your husband. You will obey me.”
Shaking her head, Sophia put her hands on her hips and cocked her head disdainfully at the arrogant man. “You’re no different from my father or Javier or any man, for that matter. When you can’t have your way, you resort to bullying.” She made a disgusted sound as she shook her head. “I had no choice but to make that promise!” She grabbed a robe from her closet and shrugged it on. It was short and made of fine, sheer linen. It didn’t hide much but it made her feel less exposed.
“Are you saying you lied to me?”
Fisting her hands she shook her head. Her breasts bobbed against her chest and she caught the drop of his gaze. Her skin flushed warm, and despite everything that had happened, her anger and her distrust for the man she was married to, her body responded ardently to his attention. The flush continued across her sultry skin, warming her in all of her erogenous zones. She swallowed hard when her gaze dropped below his waist and saw that he was clearly aroused. “No—” she stammered, grateful that he promised not to touch her, because if he did at that moment her traitorous body would kick her pride in the teeth and have at it. “It just means I— You must release me from my promise.”
Mateo nodded. “I’ll release you from your promise, but I will not release you from your wifely duties.”
“You’re no better than my father!”
“When it comes to you, Sophia, I’ll dance with the devil to be inside you again.”
His words stirred her deeply. Her nipples tightened, and the heat that had never left her flared at her core.
• • •
Mateo tsked and shoved his hands into his pockets, afraid that if they were free he’d touch her. Her nipples tightened beneath the sheer fabric and it wasn’t cold in the room. She stood there taunting him with righteous words he ignored. Call him a dog, and he’d bark. He wanted inside of her again, damn it. But he needed her to trust him, and he’d go as far as he had to but not as far as giving up the one thing he wanted almost as much as he wanted to destroy the Dumas cartel in its entirety.
Sophia. She was in his blood, literally. Under his skin, figuratively. And he wanted inside her head and her body, physically and emotionally. One, because it was a means to an end, but more, he wanted her selfishly, for himself.
And one way or another he was going to bind her to him, so much so that she would give up the national treasury if that’s what he asked her to do. And as hardened as he was, there was a part of him that cringed when he thought of using her the way he was. She would discover his duplicity, and when she did, promise or no promise, honor be damned, she’d eviscerate him.
He moved closer to her and saw the glitter of tears on her cheek. Something inside him softened, but he quickly squashed it. He would not allow his emotions to intrude on his mission. “Never compare me to him again,” he said softly but firmly. “I am nothing like him.” And he knew it was a lie. He was worse.
“Why did you kill Javi?” she asked.
“He killed my brother.” At least that was the truth, and the one other truth that he could tell her, that he wanted her for herself and not because of what she could bring him, she would never believe. How could she when it was wrapped around so many lies?
At least his reason for killing her fiancé she could understand. Respect, even. Would she even care? He doubted it. She might be naive in some ways, but there was no way she was clueless as to what her father was doing. Had been doing and would continue to do if left unchecked.
“Your brother must have deserved to die,” she said, her chin high, her words full of bravado.
“No more than your precious Javier deserved to die. You’re better off without him.”
“He was my promised!”
“Did you love him?”
She blanched at his question. “No.”
“That sounds like duty to me. Is that why you married me? Duty?”
“It was my duty to honor the blood-for-blood code. Had I not, I would have disgraced my father and the family. I would never do that.”
“Or were you afraid your father would beat you to a pulp if you refused?”
“He would never do that!”
Touching the bruise on her cheek, he traced his finger down to her swollen lip. Raising a brow, he asked, “Who’s lying now, Sophia?”
“I married you because I respect my father.”
“Even if that respect isn’t returned? Because it causes you misery?”
She laughed, pushing his hand away. “Causes me misery? I find no greater honor than upholding my family’s honor.” Her eyes narrowed. “But since you asked for the truth, I’ll tell you the real reason I agreed to marry you.” She moved toward him, a predator locked on her prey. “I married you because my other choice was a life chained to a man so despicable the sight of him made me sick to my stomach. I would have had to submit to him until he impregnated me. I’m not a broodmare! I’m a woman with feelings!”
She shoved him against the wall. “Anyone would have been better than the man my father chose to replace Javier.”
She shoved him again. “But don’t think just because you were the lesser of two evils you can treat me like some kind of possession.”
She shoved him again. “I swear by all that is holy, I will kill you if you do.”
Instead of fending her off, Mateo bear-hugged her to him. She twisted to get away, but he was stronger. Changing her tactic, she dropped. They went tumbling to the throw rug on the tile floor. Mateo rolled her onto her back and sprawled over her nearly naked, squirming body. Her short robe had come undone, exposing every lush inch of her.
When she tried to twist out of his hold her tits slid across his bare chest, and the blood shot straight to his dick. Her eyes widened as she realized the trigger she had just pulled.
“Try all you want, diablita, but know that each time you attack me, my word not to touch you is null and void. I will strike back.” He nipped a tight nipple. “And you will not like my tactics.”
“Argh!” she snarled. “You won’t have me like that again.” She head-butted him. He shouldn’t have been surprised by her tenacity of attack but he was, and in the brief second it took for it to sink in that she had head-butted him, his grip loosened long enough for her to swipe her arms up so that she could roll out from under him. She moved backward on her haunches, looking every bit the primal princess she was. His dick throbbed against his thigh. He stood, grinning from ear to ear. As he held her with his gaze, he stripped off his jeans.
Her eyes widened as she caught the thickness of his erection. “You don’t play by any rules but your own, Sophia. You want to kill me, and I want to fuck you. So badly I would gladly give my life for one more time inside you.”
“Liar,” she hissed, moving backward as he dropped to all fours and, despite the pain of his wounded shoulder, moved toward her like the hungry lion he was.
“I am dying to fuck you.”
“Liar!” she hissed again, looking to either side of her for escape. But she was wedged in between the back of a sofa and the wall. Riveted on her, he ignored her rising panic. Every time she moved her legs, her glistening pink sex peeked out from between her thighs. His dick lengthened at the sight and his balls tightened. He wanted her bad. And he was going to have her again. Just as soon as she realized it too.
“A man who takes what he wants by force risks nothing to get it!”
“I risk my life to take you again, my beautiful liar.” He moved closer and his voice lowered to a husky rasp. “You liked what I did to you at the club. You were so hot and bothered for me you couldn’t stand.” His dick jerked heavily between his legs. “And you liked the feel of me downstairs despite the fact that we had an audience.”
“Shut up,” she said.
“You were so wet. I felt it, the moment you gave yourself over to me.
If only we had had more time, you would have come. Hard.” He was within an arm’s length of her. “Have you ever come hard, angel?”
She swallowed and shook her head.
“Then you’re in for a treat, because your body was made for what I’m going to do to it.” His gaze dropped to the Y at her thighs. Her blond curls damp with her cream. “You’re wet now. Because you want what only I can give you.” He smiled, moving incrementally closer. She was mesmerized. Her wide dark brown eyes unblinking. Her nostrils flaring like a doe’s knowing she was in the hunter’s crosshairs and powerless to stop the bullet. Her plump lips parted and dewy. He groaned as he visualized their lushness wrapped around his aching dick. “The scent of your desire is strong. And you’re my wife. Stop fighting it.”
“You killed my fiancé.”
“He killed my brother.”
Mateo stopped inches from her. All he had to do was reach out and touch her. It was all he wanted to do, yet he would never force her. “Come to me,” he said softly.
She raised teary eyes to him. Unable to help himself, Mateo touched a fingertip along the high arch of her cheekbone and caught a teardrop. He lowered his lips to it and kissed it from his finger. “That’s what I want to do to your entire body. From the top of your head to the tips of your toes.”
When her body trembled and she shook her head, he moved closer, so close their body heat reflected off the other’s. Closing his eyes, he sank his nose into her hair. “You smell wild and untamed.”
She gasped in a small breath. His hand slid down her back to the rise of her ass. “Forgive me my trespass. I’m sorry the man who killed my brother was your intended. I can’t take back what I’ve done.” He slid his nose along her hair to the rise of her cheek. “Can you forgive me?”
She pushed out of his embrace and loudly exhaled. Not answering him. He knew she didn’t care about Javier, it was her pride that kept putting space between them. A way to keep herself from what she really wanted.
When she moved to turn away, he grabbed her around the waist and pulled her to him so that she was practically sitting on his lap. Not letting her go, he crouched behind her and pushed her forward so that she had to put her hands out to break her fall. In doing so, she was on all fours, her sweet ass brushing against his rigid cock.
He moaned as her scent wafted to his nose. His arm tightened around her waist as he moved over her and whispered in her ear, “Do you deny you want me?”
Her entire body trembled violently beneath his. He spread her thighs with his knee. It took everything he had to keep from sinking into her.
“I won’t deny it,” she choked out. “And I hate that I do.”
His cock throbbed painfully against her ass cheeks. When he pressed his lips to her shoulder, the head of his cock slid up between them. Gritting his teeth, he hoarsely said, “I want you so bad right now, Sophia.” He nipped her shoulder, causing her to moan and wag her ass against his erection. “Tell me it’s okay, angel. Tell me it’s okay to make you mine again.”
She made a low, stifled sound, and had he not been looking, he would have missed the slight nod of her head. He didn’t need permission twice. He moved back, grabbed his cock and steered it into her hot, slick pussy. She cried out as he slid slowly into her, and he thought there was never a better feeling.
“Jesus,” he rasped, grasping the cradle of her hips as he closed his eyes and experienced the sublimity that was Sophia’s pussy. “You are so fucking tight.” He pressed so deeply into her, he could not go farther. “So fucking wet.” He ground his hips into her ass. “So fucking hot.”
When he pulled back, almost completely out of her, then thrust deeply into her, she cried out again. It was a deep, primal sound of intense pleasure. When he did it again, she screamed. She screamed again and again, and he loved it. He loved that he was her first and that she loved the feel of his cock inside her, and despite their being virtual strangers she was as hungry for him as he was for her. There was something kinetically charged between them. He had no idea what the hell it was, and he wasn’t going to try and pick it apart and analyze it. He was just going to go with it. But one thing was for sure, whatever it was between them made having sex with her the best he had ever had.
His thrusts built in momentum. He was so close, and she was sobbing, begging him not to stop.
He pounded into her, his heavy balls slapping her pussy lips, and he knew she was close to losing it. “Come for me, angel. Show me how much you love my cock inside of you. Come all over me.”
Her low moans of enjoyment grew deeper, longer, more intense. As they came closer together, he slid his hand around to her clitoris and plucked it, causing her entire body to shudder. He plucked it again, his hot breath on her back. “Now, angel, come for me now.” He pinched her clit and slammed into her at the same time and she launched. Her keens of release a glorious sound. Her pussy constricted tightly around his cock, and he let go. And for the second time in less than an hour, he came inside of the sexiest woman he’d ever met.
She collapsed onto the rug, her body shaking with the aftershocks of their sex. Mateo carefully withdrew from her, liking the feel of the warm rush of his seed that came with him. He moved to the side of her and pulled her knee up just enough to see his thick, creamy ejaculate ooze from her.
He smiled and pressed his lips to her sultry mound. “There’s something primal in me that gets off seeing my cum all over your pussy.” He slid his fingers along her swollen seam. “You’re so swollen and pink, angel, your clit hard and so sensitive.” He swirled his finger around her, eliciting a rise of her pelvis and a low moan. He looked up at her quivering breasts.
“You like what I do to you?” he asked, pressing his lips to her belly button.
“Yes,” she rasped. Her voice was low and husky from her screams.
“Do you want me to take you there again, angel?”
She moaned, and when she dug her fingers into his hair, it did something to him. He wanted her to come to him, to reach out when she wanted him. Not to have to seduce her each time he wanted her.
It was time he told her some of the truth of why he was there. Perhaps that would soften her damn pride some. He kissed his way up her belly, between her tits to her chin, then took her chin in his hand and gazed deeply into her eyes. “I want to be a part of this family. I’m willing to work my way up. To earn your respect and your father’s.”
Parting her lips as if to say something, she closed her eyes instead. “You don’t want this life.” She opened her eyes and held his. “I don’t want it.”
That surprised him. “Why not?”
“Do you really have to ask that after what happened out there? I’m civilized. What we were forced to do before the entire family is not.”
“Then why do you stay?”
Her eyes glistened with tears. “Because I’m the last Dumas. Because my father needs me. Because I respect him and his code of honor even though I’ve let him down.” A tear streaked down her cheek. “Because I have nowhere else to go, and even if I did, as the only living heir of the great Dumas, there’s not a rock on earth that I could hide under where I couldn’t be found.”
His fingers dug into her. “Would your father kill you if you ran?”
“No, but he would make sure I was never presented the opportunity to run again.”
“I’ll take you away from here if that’s what you want.” He meant that.
She threw her head back and laughed. “And die trying.”
Mateo dropped the conversation. The only way he was going to get her to trust him was to keep the sexual relationship constant and intense. Because even she could not deny the animal attraction they had for each other. It was an in, a chink in her armor he would exploit if it meant getting her close and keeping her close. He didn’t give a shit if she’d hate him for it. He cared about her safety more. And he would make sure
she was safe when this was over. He groaned, thinking how feelings complicated matters. But it was what it was.
He moved back and stood, offering his hand to her. When she took it he hauled her up, but when she moved to break their connection he pulled her into him. “I’m here for the duration, Sophia. Your father can’t scare me away and neither can you.”
He strode past her to a wide archway into what he assumed was the actual bedroom, because where they were was more of a sitting room. “I’m getting a shower, then I’m going to catch some shut-eye in your bed, which is now our bed and where I expect you to sleep beside me each night.”
“I won’t.”
“Then I’ll tell your father you’re an unwilling bride.”
“Only a boy would run crying foul to my father.”
He grinned and raked his fingers through his hair. Grimacing in pain from the wound, he said, “A little boy who will do anything to play with his favorite toy.”
Something hard hit the wall as he hurried into the bedroom, but he was smiling. Damned if he wasn’t intrigued by the enigmatic daughter of Dumas.
chapter ten
Sophia ripped the top sheet from her bed and wrapped it around one of the pillows and waited. When her husband strolled in from the steamy bathroom with a towel wrapped around his lean waist, she glared at him. She was hopping mad.
He’d seduced her, taking her to a place she had never been and, damn it, she wanted more. At that moment she knew what a crack addict felt like when they needed a fix.
Catching him wince when he dragged his fingers through his damp hair, Sophia noticed his shoulder was inflamed, raw and pulpy. Served him right. If she cared, she’d call for Marta, the family midwife, and insist he get stitched up. But she didn’t care.
As she walked haughtily past him, she slammed the pillow and sheet into his gut and said, “Your new best friends. Find a place in the sitting room to sleep with them.”
As she turned the showerheads on full blast, she heard him say, “They—like me—sleep where you sleep!”