"You were going to brand me!" I yelled in his face. I pounded my fist against his bare chest once. Repeating the motion over and over, I wanted nothing more than to mark him for what he'd put me through. To make him feel even just a hint of the terror I'd felt knowing that he would hurt me.
He accepted the assault, not moving a muscle as he let me vent my frustrations into his skin. Only when tears fell down my cheeks did he reach up with both hands and cup my face in his grip. I wrapped my hands around his hips, staring up at him.
"I didn't," he murmured gently, pressing his lips to my forehead. The soothing sound of his voice shouldn't have felt like a comfort, not when he'd been the one who wanted to scar me, but the lack of all harshness from it reminded me of the hints of the man I'd loved in Ibiza.
The man beneath the monster.
He moved one hand to my neck, putting pressure there and holding me steady as his other hand dropped to his pants pocket. Pulling out a black switch blade, he pressed the button to free the knife itself as I reeled away from his grip. But he refused to release me, turning it in his hand until the point faced him.
"Show me your darkness," he murmured, pressing the hilt of the knife into my hands. He dragged it up and over his bare torso, the blade leaving a thin, raised pink trail as it slid over his skin. He stopped when the tip of the knife rested just over his heart, his hands pressed firmly into mine as he pulled it closer. The tip pierced his chest, the give of his skin popping beneath it vibrating up the blade and through the hilt in my hand.
"What are you doing?" I asked, my horror mounting as he held my grip steady.
"You want your freedom? The only way is if I'm dead, mi reina," he said, digging the blade in more firmly. I winced as blood coated the edges of the knife where it protruded from his skin. His eyes were gentle on mine, intense and probing as he lifted one of his hands off mine and cupped my cheek in his hand. "It belongs to you. Whether it beats or not."
"Stop," I gasped, pulling my hand back. He held me firmly to the knife, refusing to let me release it until he was good and ready. My freedom was literally in my hands, but tears stung my eyes as I tried to picture sinking the blade into his flesh. As I thought of what it would be to see the life fade from his stunning eyes. A tear slipped free, gliding down my cheek as he watched me intently.
"Eres el amor de mi vida, mi reina," he murmured as my hand trembled on the knife. His stare was trusting and resigned all at once, like it didn't matter to him if I killed him. "I won't live without you."
His hand moved the blade, carving into his skin as I stared at his chest with a strangled sob. He didn't flinch back from the pain, accepting it with nothing but affection in his eyes as he stared down at me. I clenched my eyes closed as the first letter came into view when he pulled our hands away, moving slightly to the side so that he could continue on. "Stop," I whimpered, watching him slice through the curve of the second letter. The last letter took more time as I fought his grip, trying to make him stop.
Only when he'd finished carving my name into the center of his chest did he lift the blade away one last time, centering it back to the space just below the word and pressing it into his flesh once more.
"I'm not a good man. I'll hurt you. I'll demand things of you that I have no right to ask, but I'm yours. If you don’t put this blade through my heart now, know that you're accepting all of me, mi reina. My way of life, my home, my cruelty. You will never get this chance again. So think very hard before you make your choice." He leaned down to kiss me gently, the knife pressing deeper into his flesh as he moved without a care. "If I live, you'll be my wife. You'll never be alone in the space inside your head again."
My lips trembled as he kissed away my tears. I stared at the knife in my hand as he watched my face, uncaring for the fact that his life could end with just a moment. "Aren't you afraid?" I whispered, glancing up at him.
"Why would I want to live if I don't have all of you?" He smiled sadly, dropping his second hand from the knife and lifting my empty one to wrap around it. I clenched my eyes closed, my palms squeezing around the hilt as I tried to force myself to end it all.
To take back the freedom he’d stolen from me.
"Meet me in the moonlight," he murmured softly, echoing the words that had started it all. The words I'd thought had brought me to him. Memories of our time in Ibiza fluttered through my mind. From our first meeting to walking on the beach after dinner.
And I knew I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill the only man I had ever loved, no matter what he’d done to me or would continue to do.
The knife clattered to the floor as I dropped it, landing inches from my foot as I stepped back hurriedly. His lungs heaved with relief as he watched me across the space between us.
"You made a mistake, mi reina," he said. "You fell in love with your nightmare."
I didn't deny the words as he closed the distance between us and crushed his lips against mine.
How could I, when I'd chosen him over my freedom?
20
Isa
Rafael spent the next day away from me, leaving me to ponder my choice and stress over the outcome relentlessly as Regina tried to get me to focus on anything but the void inside my head.
Freedom had been within my grasp. My family had nearly gotten the peace they deserved and me home with them where I belonged.
I stepped out onto the private terrace, my bare feet soaking in the warmth from the tiles even though the sun had set long ago. Rafael’s business had required him to work through dinner, and I hadn’t quite been able to convince myself that I would be welcome in his office. He might have thought my place in his life was clearly defined by the unrealistic expectations he had of what we would be, but I was less than convinced.
I couldn’t kill him, but that didn’t mean I should have stayed. That didn’t mean that I could let myself enjoy my life with him.
The sky faded into deep purples as the sun disappeared behind me, leaving me to consider the impossible choices I’d need to make. What the fuck would I tell my family?
Would he let me tell them at all?
The fact that he hadn’t been able to follow through with branding me meant there was something there, and I might not speak much Spanish, but I knew what amor meant. In some way, Rafael had admitted he loved me.
I hadn’t given him the words back, and I didn’t know that I would ever be able to.
His arms wrapped around my waist as he stepped up behind me suddenly, moving through the bedroom with the kind of stealth that would never cease to amaze me. Like he was one with the darkness and it was his to claim.
His mouth touched the mark on my shoulder where he’d drawn blood, the wound pulsing to new life under the gentle pressure. His tongue ran over the healing flesh, somehow erotic when it should have been nothing short of gross.
When he pulled away, he unbuttoned his dress shirt and held my eyes as he revealed the inches of his flawless skin. The moment my eyes landed on the red marks where he’d carved my name into his chest, I couldn’t help the surge of possessiveness that came over me. The satisfaction in knowing that it was my name on his skin.
He was a beautiful enigma, a devil that no one could control. And yet he’d willingly carved my name into his flesh for all to see, unconcerned with the fact that other women might see it.
Because he was mine. Just as I was his.
His hands went to his pants, unfastening them with an arrogant smirk as I watched. “Take off your dress,” he ordered.
I swallowed back my nerves, instinctively knowing that Rafael planned to take me into the pool. Even if I knew how to swim, I would never be free of the panic I felt at just the thought.
At the reminder of what the water could do.
“Will you be faithful?” I asked, slipping my dress off over my head as Rafael shoved his pants down his legs and stepped out of them and his socks and shoes. He stood naked, without care for the fact that we were outside. Entirely confident in the pri
vacy of his little haven within his home.
He smiled as he stepped up to me, reaching behind my back to unclasp my bra and help me pull it down my arms. He was meticulous about the way he touched me, carefully controlled and making sure to only trail his fingers over my arms lightly enough that goosebumps rose on the flesh in his wake.
His body stayed a hair away from mine, the warmth from his body kissing my flesh as he raised my hand to touch my name. “I always have been,” he murmured, his dark smile hinting at the truth to what Joaquin and Regina had told me.
Rafael hadn’t been with anyone else since the first time he saw me. It was fucked up. It was baffling. It was far sweeter than I would have thought him capable of being. “I’ll put your name on me permanently if it will help convince you,” he said, dropping to his knees in front of me. He drew my panties down my thighs as he stared up at me, tossing them to the side and then standing so he could take my hand and guide me into the water.
I hesitated slightly before walking down the steps, enjoying the cool water against my skin even if it made me feel a moment of panic at the first touch. But somehow, some way, the moment he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me into his chest, it all faded back into my memories.
“I love you, mi reina,” he murmured softly, touching his lips to the top of my head as he moved us through the water beneath the stars. “All I could think of today was the fact that I never said it in English, and you might not have understood. There will be no other women for me. All that I am is yours, for better or worse.”
I looked up into his eyes, gliding my hands over his chest and the wound I half hoped would scar. “How do you know you won’t get tired of me?”
“Never, Isa. I’m yours,” he said sternly, lifting a hand to cup my cheek. “Until forever ends.”
21
Rafael
The tattoo gun buzzed as Elías worked. With my left arm extended and braced on the edge of the chair he'd dragged into the office, I didn't bother to glance down at what he inked onto my skin.
He'd hand-designed it with me at his shop the night before, setting everything into motion before I returned to Isa and put the knife in her hand. It might have seemed like it could have been an unnecessary waste of time, but I knew mi reina too well.
She loved me, and now even she couldn't deny it despite the fact that she hadn't given me the words. They would come in time. I'd left her in my bed in the very early hours of morning, making my way behind the closed doors of my office so Elías could get started on the tattoo that would take him hours to complete.
There needed to be time remaining for him to do Isa's on the same day. Before she could see my tattoo and ask questions.
I picked up the stencil for hers from where it rested on the desk, staring down at the intricate design that was a perfect match for mine. The black King chess piece, surrounded by flowers and flames that bled into shadows and darkness would wrap around her entire left forearm, fitting against mine like a puzzle piece. The words El Diablo would be etched into her skin in permanent ink, marking her as mine in a way a generic brand wouldn't have done.
Penance and a promise, all in one.
"You’re sure you want to do this?" Elías asked, raising an eyebrow to me as he put the finishing touches on the white Queen wrapped in barbed wire and surrounded by black waves that bled into the same shadows as Isa's tattoo. He moved to the position of the words Mi Reina beneath the Queen, pausing as he waited for my response. Undoubtedly, it seemed unusual for a man like me to mark his body with the ownership of a woman.
But Isa wasn't any other woman.
"I promise," I said with a sarcastic smile. He set the tattoo gun to my skin, inking her claim on me into me permanently.
Soon she'd wear my name in return, in more ways than one.
She just didn't know it yet.
22
Isa
Regina plied me with food to try to pull me out of the mood that had consumed me since I’d woken up alone that morning. Rafael and I hadn't spoken since we'd fallen into bed the night before, and I was left with the feeling that I'd made a grave mistake.
What could I do about a life I didn't want, but hadn't chosen to escape? What I shared with Rafael was too dark and twisted to explain, but I couldn't kill him either. My poor family was probably worried sick about me, and here I was eating lunch in a glamorous kitchen while they thought I was lying dead in a ditch somewhere. Even with a day to consider my choice, I was no closer to coming to any real decision. It didn’t help that I spent more time away from him than I did with him. Was that what my life with him would look like?
He'd offered me my freedom. I'd stayed, despite everything I had waiting for me back home. We’d had sex in the pool, pushing me past all my limits that I would have thought I had for myself. And despite all of that and his words that he would be faithful, at some point in the middle of the night, he'd slipped out of the bed we shared to go do God knows what in his office. Music played over the speakers, drowning out any sounds I might have heard when I'd been brave enough to go looking for him.
It only drove my suspicion higher, wondering what he could be so determined to hide from me.
"It's not a woman," Regina assured me, reading the expression on my face as I looked down the hall toward his office.
"What?" I forced myself to shovel another skewer of melon con jamon into my mouth. The salty serrano ham complemented the honeydew perfectly as Regina turned back to the stove to stir a soup while I ate. Joaquin lurked in the breakfast nook, a smirk forming on his face at Regina's words. "What's so funny?"
"Rafe with another woman," he laughed, shoveling a bite of food into his mouth. "Even if he was tempted, he's smart enough to know you'd cut him before you shared him."
"That's not true! I'm not violent," I argued.
"Mi reina, did you know that Rafael allows the men to use his personal gym in the basement?" Joaquin asked with a broad smile. "He regularly displays your claw and bite marks for all to see. It is a point of pride for him that his woman marks him so."
I blushed as my eyes darted back to my plate. If those marks had been scandalous enough, my name carved into his chest was ten times worse. "Shit," I muttered, refusing to meet Regina's eyes as she looked between us.
"Love marks are not so bad," she said sympathetically. "Spanish women are passionate, and your mother is Latina is she not?"
"Do you often cut your name into your lover's heart?" Joaquin asked her, grinning broadly as I tried to sink down into the stool. My stomach turned suddenly, the melon and ham no longer seeming appealing as I thought about what he'd made me do.
"He made me do it!" I said in shame, shaking my head to protest the insinuation that it had been my idea. "I could have killed him, but I didn't. Surely that says that I am the exact opposite of violent."
"Ah, but if you were so against violence, wouldn't you have wanted to kill the criminal who murders without thought? You had the chance to rid the world of a monster, but instead you let him live. Because you do not blame him for his violent impulses. I would guess the very same ones run through you," Joaquin said.
I forced another bite into my mouth, knowing there was truth to his words. I wanted to be free of Rafael because it was what I should want, but not because I felt any level of disgust when he touched me. Not because I wanted to turn him in to the police or see him go down in a rain of gunfire.
He could murder someone right then and return to me with the blood of his enemies staining his hands. I'd still welcome him to my bed, and that was wrong. I'd become a product of what he made me, a demon to match his devil. But I couldn't cross that line and be violent myself.
Accepting it as part of him was one thing, becoming it myself was another.
Right?
The devil himself appeared at the entrance to the kitchen, leaning into the wall with a smile as if he hadn't abandoned me for an entire day and left our bed in the night.
The insecurity in me drove
me to ask the question that burned in my mind as I glared at him. "Where have you been?"
He crossed his arms over his chest, smirking as if he could feel the jealousy in the words. He was just the type to want me that way, to want to drive me mad with it until I had no choice but to verbally confess the words I'd withheld from him. I couldn't bring myself to say them, not when there was so much undecided and up in the air between us. I had no idea how our relationship could work, but it didn't seem possible for it to have a happy ending, given how we'd begun.
My eyes narrowed in on the skin of his forearm and the black ink that swirled and covered his flesh in an intricate design. The Queen chess piece stood out, the negative space of her not filled in and gleaming in contrast to the dark ink. The barbed wire wrapped around her made my eyes go wide as my hand drifted down to touch my thigh with a loud swallow.
He'd permanently inked my greatest shame onto his skin.
"I have something to show you," Rafael said, holding out a hand for me as he stepped into the kitchen. I glanced at Regina, nervous about going anywhere alone with him.
"You mean aside from that," I said, the breath leaving me in a sudden gasp as I stood from the stool and placed my hand in his. The tattoo bled lightly in the darkest areas as I looked down at it.
"Yes," he said with a slight chuckle, guiding me down the hallway. As we rounded the corner into his office, I looked around the room for the first time. If I'd expected trophies from his victims to line the walls, I was sorely disappointed.
The space was distinctly masculine, with a black built-in unit of shelves on one wall and the accent wall painted a matching ebony to contrast the stark white paint of the other three. Natural light flooded the room, from one end where Rafael's desk sat to the other where a brown leather sofa sat in front of the built-in unit. Two black upholstered chairs and a round table completed the sitting area, though I couldn't imagine many people spent their free time in his workspace.
Until Forever Ends: A Dark Mafia Romance Page 13