Dishonorable

by Natasha Knight

  I gasped, but he swallowed the sound, his hand at the back of my skull holding me in place as his lips moved over mine, slow and soft, tasting me. When his tongue probed, I opened, and he slid inside. I tilted my head, and he pressed against me. When he did, I felt him, his hardness, at my belly.

  I would have stopped the kiss.

  I did.

  But he held me and reclaimed my mouth, and this time, urgency replaced the gentler exploration of moments ago. His kiss was hungry, ravenous almost, and his desire only seemed to wake the same inside me. I raised my hand and laid it against his arm, liking the feel of hard muscle there. Feeling somehow safe for it. My body eased, relaxing into him, and my eyelids fluttered closed.

  But then he broke the kiss and leaned his forehead against mine.

  His breath came heavy. His hands moved to my hips, holding me.

  “I’m fucked up right now,” he said. “You need to go upstairs.”

  I raised my head to look at his face, into his eyes. They told so much he didn’t say, and it felt strange that I’d only known this man for days. I should hate him. Fear him. And I did fear him, but there was something else, a pull too powerful to ignore.

  As dominant as he could be, as much as he commanded me, Raphael’s vulnerability seemed to touch the edges of his hardness, to soften it, even if he tried to hide it, to bury it, and all I could think was that he was lost.

  With trembling fingers, I touched his face.

  One of his hands moved lower, then rose upward, sliding over my stomach, his skin burning through the thin cotton of the dress as he caressed belly then breast, and when his knuckle brushed against my hardened nipple, I felt it at my core, as if he touched me between my legs.

  “I want you, Sofia. But I’m drunk, and I need you to go upstairs to your room and lock your door, understand?” His warm whiskey breath tickled my face.

  “You won’t hurt me.” Was I so sure?

  “I will. You don’t know me.”

  “You keep telling me that.”

  “Maybe you should start believing it.”

  He cupped my breast over my dress, and I gasped, watching his hand move, fingers playing with my nipple, neither the dress nor the bra offering protection.

  “You could have hurt me the other day, but you didn’t,” I said.

  Eyes locked on mine, he tweaked my nipple, as if to prove his point. When I made a sound, he released it and stepped back to pull his T-shirt off with one hand.

  “Touch me.”

  I looked at him, swallowing, something inside my belly fluttering. We both watched as my hands shook, as my fingertips touched his skin damp with rain. I caressed him lightly, softly. I wondered if he’d laugh at me, at my inexperience, but he didn’t. He stood letting me touch him, letting me feel his heart beat beneath his skin. But when my exploration emboldened and my fingers trailed downward over ripped muscle to the trail of dark hair that disappeared inside his jeans, he grabbed my wrist roughly.

  I gasped, my head snapping up.

  “I told you to go upstairs to your room and lock your door. I’m drunk. I’ll hurt you.”

  “You also told me to touch you.”

  He squeezed my wrist.

  “You were right the other day. I want it. I want you.” I swallowed, not sure what the hell I was doing, where this was going. “Kiss me again, Raphael.”

  A fire burned behind his eyes. My lips parted, and I licked them. Raphael pushed me against the wall, his mouth crushing mine in a kiss so intense, so full of everything, it hurt, it seared. It was as if he were leaving his mark. Claiming me. He pressed the flat of one hand against my belly, the back of my head against the cold, painful jagged stone.

  “If you weren’t a virgin, I’d fuck you here and now, against the wall.”

  The words came out in a ragged, hoarse voice. He didn’t give me a chance to answer. To tell him to do it. Because some part of me, it liked this side of him. This damaged, dark, broken soul. It longed to touch him. To touch that fractured part of him. The one that left him open and lost and dangerous.

  Instead, he smashed his mouth over mine again. I made a sound, not a protest, but also not a yielding. I knew he was drunk. I could taste it on his tongue. I liked it, I wanted it. I wanted him. But not like this. Not the first time.

  Raphael drew back, his breathing hard. He gave me one hard glare then stepped away, turning his back to me. Even from behind him, I knew his gaze locked on that pillar.

  “Your back, Raphael,” I said, stepping closer, touching the bumpy, uneven skin. Scar tissue.

  He whirled around and grabbed my wrist so hard I stumbled.

  “Don’t. Touch. Me.” He squeezed. “Not my back.”

  “You’re hurting me now,” I squeaked after a moment.

  It was as if it took him time to process my words, because it took him time to release me and step away. He dropped his gaze and ran a hand through his hair.

  “I told you I would,” he mumbled, then straightened and pulled the flask out of his back pocket. “Whiskey?”

  He wasn’t really offering it, but I shook my head anyway. He swallowed a large gulp. Hardness was slowly returning, laying concrete over broken ground. I watched it happening before my eyes.

  “You shouldn’t be down here, Sofia. This place,” he looked around, shaking his head. “It’s haunted.”

  “Haunted?” I wanted him back, the man I’d just seen, the one I’d glimpsed for mere moments. He wasn’t making sense, and he wouldn’t look at me. Something told me I needed to get him upstairs. Get him out this cellar.

  “Too much pain and suffering and hate.” He spat the last word.

  “Come upstairs with me, Raphael.”

  He shook his head. The light glistened against his too bright eyes. “Go.”

  “Not without you.”

  “I belong here.”

  He drank.

  I went to him again, tentative this time as I raised my hand to touch his arm, the back of his hand. He watched it, watched the progress of my touch.

  “You don’t belong down here. No one does,” I said.

  He only looked at me.

  “Come upstairs with me. Please.”

  “You don’t know me. You don’t know anything about me. You don’t have the first fucking clue of what I’m capable of.”

  “I think I may know you better than you think. And you’re right. There’s too much hurt here. You need to come upstairs with me.”

  “Why? Why do you care? I mean, look what I’m doing to you.”

  I didn’t answer that. I couldn’t when I didn’t know the answer myself. All I knew was that I couldn’t leave him down there alone. Not now. Not ever.

  “It’s cold.” I took his hand and dragged him, or tried to, toward the stairs, but it was like trying to move that pillar. “I’m cold. Take me upstairs.”

  He didn’t answer, just watched me. I wasn’t sure how much of the whiskey he’d already had. He didn’t seem drunk, but he wasn’t himself.

  “Come on, I’m cold.”

  Just then, Charlie’s yappy bark came from the top of the stairs. I looked up at him. He stood at the edge of the stairs still too small and maybe too frightened to take that first leap down. When I turned back to Raphael, I found him watching me with the strangest look in his eyes. I couldn’t name it. Couldn’t put my finger on what it was.

  “Come with me, Raphael.” This time, he let me lead him up. “Charlie will get hurt if he tries to come down.” Slowly we went up, and Charlie circled our ankles when we got to the top. I turned out the light and closed the door behind us. He let me lead him through the house and up to the second floor. “You’re freezing,” I said when we got to my bedroom.

  He just stood watching me.

  I opened the door and pulled him in with me, not sure it was the best idea, not with that strange look in his eye. From the bathroom, I grabbed a towel and dried his hair, shoulders, and chest and set the towel on the bed. Unsure what I was doing, unc
ertain I should do it at all, I began to undo his jeans, first the button, then the zipper. He stood still, and I knelt to take off his shoes and socks so he stood barefoot, bare-chested, his jeans open, the dark gray of his briefs visible.

  I pushed the jeans down off his hips, the wet denim sticking to his thighs. Swallowing, I bent again, and he stepped out of them.

  “Sofia,” he said once I straightened.

  “Shh.” I pulled the covers back. “We’re just going to sleep.” I meant it. Nothing would happen. Not yet.

  His forehead had furrowed, and his eyes had lost some of their strange brightness. He nodded, and when I pushed on his chest, he got into bed. I drew the covers over him, watching how the thick muscle of his arms and shoulders bunched when he turned to his side.

  Charlie tried three times to jump on the bed. I picked him up and lay him at Raphael’s feet before grabbing my tank top and shorts and changing in the bathroom. Raphael lay watching me when I returned. I drew the covers back and climbed into bed, turning my back to him, taking care not to touch him. But then his heavy arm draped over my waist and pulled me to him. My heart raced and my breath hitched as he tucked himself around me, his big body wrapping around mine, his arm settling, his hand splayed open at my belly, holding me tight to him.

  Neither of us spoke, but I knew he didn’t sleep for a long time.

  Eventually, his breath evened out, and I closed my eyes, my body too tired to fight the fatigue any longer, his body too warm for me to not curl into, to soften against.

  “I haven’t slept holding a woman like this. Ever.”

  I blinked my eyes open but didn’t speak.

  “I never wanted them to stay,” he finished. He pulled me in tighter.

  “Raphael—”

  “Sleep, Sofia. Nothing’s going to happen.”

  I reached my hand down and touched the back of his and closed my eyes and slept, and when I woke in the morning to sunlight coming through the curtains, he was gone, his side of the bed cold.

  Chapter Ten

  Raphael

  I sat in my study with the door locked, reading for the hundredth time the amendment to the contract that her grandfather had made. As much as I hated him for it, part of me wanted it, rejoiced in it.

  That was the sick part. The part I tried to warn her about. The part she felt sure didn’t exist.

  I shook my head, my thoughts wandering again to last night. I should put a lock on that cellar door. I couldn’t have her go down there again. I couldn’t have her see what lay beneath those sheets. Hell, I should seal that door. Maybe then I could forget the things that had happened in that room.

  Last night was the first time I’d been there in more than six years. It was raining, and I had needed to go to the chapel. To the cemetery behind it. I hadn’t shown Sofia that part when I’d shown her the small church. It seemed too personal, too private. My excuse to use the tunnel had been the rain, although it was flimsy. I didn’t care about getting wet, and if I did, I could have driven.

  I wanted to see if that room still held power over me. If the horrors of it still haunted me. I thought I was stronger. That time would have toughened my skin. That six years in fucking prison would have squashed those memories, but they hadn’t. Nothing ever could. Whenever I went down those stairs, I would become that little boy again, that scared little boy pissing his fucking pants.

  I gritted my teeth.

  It could be worse. I could be like him instead. Like my father. Hell, I wasn’t sure I wasn’t. Wasn’t it better to be the victim?

  No. Fuck, no. It was never better to be the victim. I needed to remember that, and maybe what I needed were more fucking visits to that hell, not less. Maybe what I needed was to have someone take the whip to me again. To teach me. To harden me.

  Sofia’s warm body pressing against mine all night, the sound of her quiet breathing, the feel of her softness as she finally relaxed in my arms, had finally let me exhale.

  In my arms.

  Fuck.

  She’d surprised me when I’d returned to the cellar. That was the last place I ever expected to find her. I ever wanted to see her. She didn’t belong in that world. I meant what I said, the past haunted that cellar, and that past was full of horrors. She did not belong there, and I’d be damned if I’d let it touch her. Dirty her. Take her innocence.

  But wasn’t I doing the same? Stealing that from her? I didn’t need the past to dirty her. I would do a fine job myself. I wanted her. And the way I wanted her was different than what I expected, what I had planned. She was supposed to be afraid of me. That was the plan. But holding her last night, holding her in my arms, her taking care of me…taking care of me? Why had she done that? I didn’t understand. It made no sense.

  I stood and walked to the window. In the distance, far enough from the women to not be intrusive but close enough to do his job, stood Eric. After my talk with Lambertini, I’d thought about hiring a few more men.

  From behind the curtain, I watched Sofia. She wore a short turquoise sundress, her long hair in a clip wet from a shower. I’d have to talk to her about her wardrobe. The thought of anyone else looking at what was mine bothered me.

  She’d just walked outside. Charlie, whom I’d let out at five this morning while she’d slept, ran to her, and she grabbed him in her arms. A smile lit up her face, but I saw how she looked around, and when Nicola went outside and Sofia spoke with her, I knew she was asking about me.

  I’d told Maria I wasn’t to be disturbed. I told her to say I was gone.

  I was truly fucked up. An asshole, really. Last night, she’d seen me. Really seen me. And she hadn’t run. Not even when I’d let the darkness own me, just for a little while. The opposite, in fact. She’d stayed with me and refused to leave me behind in that place. She’d told me I didn’t belong there. That no one did.

  She doesn’t know you.

  She sat down at the outside patio table and sipped her coffee. When she glanced toward the study, I ducked behind the curtains.

  I wanted her. I wanted more than just to fuck her. I wanted to have all of her.

  Maybe it was prison. Maybe it was being locked up like some animal.

  I’d told Sofia this would be a marriage on paper, but then I’d started fantasizing about her. About our wedding night. About prying her legs apart, making her mine. But I didn’t want that. If she said no, I would stop. I wouldn’t hurt her, not like that. But it made me fucking hard to think about it, and that was the part that scared me the most. I couldn’t let it take hold of me, no matter what.

  Maybe it wasn’t prison after all that did it to me. Maybe it was her innocence. Her purity. Maybe it was some feeble attempt on my part to cleanse myself. Hell, maybe I sought absolution all along and didn’t even fucking know it.

  All I did know was that this wasn’t how this was supposed to go.

  But why couldn’t it? Why couldn’t I have her ? She belonged to me already. Why couldn’t I have all of her?

  I shook my head and returned to my desk. I picked up my pen and signed the amendment, then lifted the phone off its cradle to call my attorney. I needed to get things in order. Prepare. I needed to force myself to focus on that, not on the things Sofia had said, not on the look in her caramel eyes, not on the softness of her touch, the smoothness of her skin.

  Not on the thought of how much she would hate me when she learned what I had just agreed to.

  Chapter Eleven

  Sofia

  I didn’t see Raphael for three days after what happened in the cellar. Maria just said he’d gone out on business. I don’t know how I’d missed him leaving the bed that morning. I wondered what time he had left. I hadn’t even felt him move when he’d climbed out of bed. All I knew was I’d slept like a rock in the warmth and safety of his arms. This man who would steal me away—he was the one who made me feel safer than I’d felt in years. Ever since my parents had died.

  I’d been so young, but with Lina being younger, I’d become her
protector, in a way. It wasn’t even a conscious thing. It felt good to finally let go. So good, it made me realize how I’d been holding on for so long.

  But what about Lina now? What would happen to her, now that I was gone? Who would protect her?

  This idiocy about feeling safe in Raphael’s arms, what was that? Shouldn’t I feel the most afraid there?

  But the image of him that night in the cellar, of his eyes, I couldn’t get it out of my head.

  Raphael Amado was broken. I wondered how long ago he’d been broken. Who’d done the breaking. The marks on his back told a horrifying story. How old had he been when it had happened? Judging from the scar tissue, it wasn’t a one-time thing. Not even close.

  It was late afternoon on the third day and the shadows had begun to grow long. When Eric went inside to eat dinner, I snuck away, tired of constantly being watched. I needed fresh air and exercise to clear my head, and quite frankly, I hoped I’d run into him. I wanted to see Raphael, to face this—whatever this was.

  I didn’t realize I was heading to the chapel until I got there. I wondered about the tunnel that led from the house here but shuddered at the thought of being underground for that amount of distance. I’d never been claustrophobic, but that scared me.

  Instead of walking to the front door of the church, I headed around back. It felt a little wrong to do so, to come here without Raphael knowing, but I wanted to see his mother’s grave. See where he’d been that night.

  The overgrown path didn’t help my progress, but I pushed open the creaky little gate around the side of the church. I wondered how I’d missed the graveyard the first day we’d come here, when he’d shown me the chapel, but with the thigh-deep grass, the grave markers were well hidden. Pushing weeds aside, I counted over a dozen grave markers, most of them flat stones in the ground, some taller. Finding his mother’s wasn’t hard. It was the only one with the weeds and overgrown grass cleared—literally pulled apart—and a single wilted dandelion lay before it.