by Pam Godwin
“If you wanted a virgin—”
“I want information about the woman I’m paying for.” His hand captured her nape, fingers closing around her hair, restraining her as he breathed his threatening words against her lips. “We can go round and round, but eventually, you’ll tell me what I want to know.”
“No one touched me tonight.”
“But Vera—”
“Is a goddamn liar. They raped the girl on the hook instead.”
An anguished look stole across his handsome face. Didn’t he know that any show of emotion would get him killed?
He didn’t belong here. Which begged the question… Who the hell was he?
“How many times have they forced you to fight?” His hands held her so firmly against him her neck smarted.
“I don’t know. Maybe a dozen.”
“You’ve never lost.”
“You know the rules. If I lose, I’m dead.”
“How do you rig every fight?”
“Shoestring and fishing line in my pocket make good garrotes. Same with a belt. Then there’s the stolen switchblade I buried in the dirt. A hidden nail file works well in the eye socket. Sometimes, I’m just lucky.”
Damn lucky she was still alive.
He released her and shifted down her body. “I want the names of every man who raped you.”
For what reason? To avenge her?
Just like that, she was a wishful, simple-minded teenager again. Oh, that pathetic girl.
The cynical, realistic woman knew better. He simply wanted to know the state of her used-up pussy before he shoved his dick in it.
“Their names,” he said.
“Marco, Omar, Miguel, and Alejandro.” She turned her head, refusing to look at him.
The cartel brothers had been passing her between them for almost three years. They never fucked her at the same time, but they shared her, nonetheless.
John was so quiet she thought he would push her away with disgust. She waited, hoping he would. Concussion or not, she just wanted to sleep.
When she finally dared a sideways glance, he was ready with one of those ice-cold expressions.
“Hector’s sons kept you to themselves?”
“Until tonight.”
Maybe they were finally done with her. Maybe John was, too.
“Are you going to send me back to them?” she asked.
“Should I?”
“Don’t care.”
His jaw turned rigid. “You watched them butcher a girl.”
“Still don’t care.” She knew what she was getting with the cartel.
This guy had a mouth on him. Full, pillowed lips that would wrench ungodly screams until he wore her out. Screams of pain were one thing. They fueled her hatred and kept her focused. But she feared they would be screams of pleasure. Then she would only hate herself.
“Roll over.” He shifted lower, straddling her knees.
So we’re doing this.
Go directly to anal. Do not pass go.
Her stomach hardened. “I want tequila first.”
“No.” He smacked her thigh so hard it sent shock waves down her leg.
Was this a battle worth fighting? Unfortunately, no. Sex from behind was impersonal and would be a thousand times easier than looking this man in the eyes.
She flipped over gingerly and tried to relax her sphincter. There were worse things than being plowed in the ass.
Like watching a girl get her foot sawed off.
Tomas passed a tube of ointment to John, and she focused on her breathing. In. Out. In—
A lubed finger pressed against her rectum. “They fuck you here?”
“Every time.” She clenched, unbidden. “Use a condom.”
“I’m clean.”
“They’re not. Use a fucking condom.”
She didn’t have an STD, but she couldn’t trust John’s claim about himself. Not that he’d listen to her demand.
He adjusted his weight on the backs of her legs. A wet squirt belched from the tube, and she held her breath.
Make it hurt.
Make me want to gut you.
His hands came down on her buttocks, soft and sticky and warm. Oh, God. She tensed. Not from pain. No, his touch was pure heaven.
The sensual slide of palms, the hypnotic rhythm of his caress, and the sinful friction of skin on skin made her pulse sing and belly quiver.
Talented fingers kneaded her flesh, working antibiotic ointment—not lube—into her welts. Trickles of bliss crept up from her toes, melting her joints and turning her bones to sludge.
She’d never had a massage but imagined this one exceeded every touch ever set upon the human body. She felt heavy, hot, and under attack. He lay siege to her senses, wrecking her ability to think as his hands parted ways, dividing and conquering the length of her.
His touch was everywhere, gliding over curves and wrapping around achy muscles. Each caress imparted authority, ordering her flesh to heat, commanding her nerve endings to dance, and teaching her body to crave.
He knew where to stroke her, how much pressure to use, and precisely which spots would make her sigh. And sigh she did, open-mouthed and collecting drool. Never had she felt this relaxed.
Until he lowered his head and curled his tongue along her spine.
“What are you doing?” Her blood spun hot at the shocking, wet caress along her back.
The sensation couldn’t have been produced by his mouth. She twisted her neck to see behind her, and holy fuck. His firm lips were right there, his kiss gliding up her backbone.
From the moment he’d flipped her to her stomach, she hadn’t anticipated anything remotely pleasurable nor half as sensual as the swirling possession of his hands and tongue.
Fear was always a glaring partner when she was alone with the brothers. But never arousal. Never this.
This destructively alluring man made her want more than a hurry-up-and-finish encounter. She wanted hours of him doing this. Touching, kissing, hungering… She didn’t want him to stop.
What the hell was wrong with her? She couldn’t accept this. Not from a slave-buying rapist.
“Stop that.” She tried to jerk free. “Don’t touch me.”
His teeth clamped down, holding her in place as effectively as his intimidating gaze.
With her chin to her shoulder, she stared back, scrambling to find footing in the stellar depths of his eyes. “Quit toying with me, and just do what you’re going to do.”
He licked her bitten skin defiantly. “I’m responsible for the care and feeding of my woman.”
“I’m not your woman, and unless I’m mistaken, you’re feeding yourself.”
“You’re mine for a week, and tonight, I eat first.”
He trailed his lips toward the curves of her ass, just as seductively as before, staring down at her nudity with those long thick lashes fanning over his cheeks. Then he glanced up, delivered another diabolical sweep of his tongue, and looked pointedly at Tomas.
His bodyguard nodded and paced off toward the door. When he opened it, he didn’t leave and instead took up a watchful position on the threshold.
What was happening?
John returned to his torture, sucking, tonguing, and nipping her backside. The delicious incursion pulled her insides this way and that. She thrashed beneath his greedy mouth, gasping at the overload of stimulation.
No one had ever taken time to warm up her body. It had been so long since she’d experienced anything akin to foreplay she’d forgotten it was even a thing people did.
The worst part? She was enjoying it. Allowing it to happen. Imagining other parts of her that would tingle and heat beneath his lips. Would he find her as hot and wet, as lush and needy as his wicked mouth?
Not possible. She didn’t get wet. Not anymore.
His affection was so fucking wrong it was cruel.
With renewed clarity, she met his gaze. He rolled his tongue, and her stomach seized up.
“Enough!” Sh
e exploded out of her skin.
Twisting to her back, she let her fist fly. Missed his face by an inch. Swung a left hook. Missed that one, too. Fuck!
“You’re off-balance, Gina.” He wrapped a hand around her neck and easily immobilized her.
“Release me!” She writhed on her back, kicking uselessly as he settled between her legs.
The pressure on her throat tightened. Dots blurred her vision, and she clawed frantically at his arms, his hands.
“You’re only hurting yourself.” He loosened his grip just enough to allow breath. “Surrender.”
“Never!” She coughed, gulping for air.
“Easy. I promise you’ll enjoy this. You might even thank me.”
“I’ll blow the devil in hell before I thank you for anything!”
“I am the devil, and while your offer is tempting, I don’t want your mouth.” He released her throat. “Unless, of course, you use it to scream.”
“I hate you.”
The look he gave her was arched and dismissing. His attention lowered to his shirt, his fingers opening the buttons. Then it was off, and her heart stuck somewhere between one breath and the next.
He bent over her, his torso as arresting as his face, strong and powerful, enough to cause serious ruination to her mental health.
Every nerve in her body thrummed as he lowered his mouth to her breast, the harsh lines of his face unsoftened by the tenderness in his kiss.
She tried to push herself upright only to be shoved down by his forearm, the flex of muscle bulging against her throat. He radiated such an intense fusion of beauty and menace it sucked her breath. But that didn’t stop her from sinking beneath the tangled warmth that spiraled from the tongue against her nipple.
His lips moved from one breast to the other, kissing and suckling until she burned beneath the quickening rush of his exhales. Hot mouth. Expert tongue. He licked her in a way she’d never dreamed.
From neck to hips, he dealt relentless strokes, slowly, steadily, inch after inch down her body. Her fingers caught his hair, pushing, pulling, knuckled against his scalp.
When had she started trembling? Jesus, she’d lost count of how many times she’d gulped down a moan.
“It’s too much.” Another gulp lodged in the back of her throat. “Stop!”
Kneeling between her legs, he straightened and stared down at her, eyes glinting with cold sparks of lightning. Then he lifted her knees and forced them to her shoulders, spreading her wide for his gaze.
And his mouth.
“No.” She shook her head frantically, fighting the steely grip of his hands on her thighs.
“Tell me. Are you not the least bit passive in bed?” he asked. “Truthfully.”
“When it’s consensual, you mean? Like with a man I want to be with?”
“Yes.”
She contemplated her answer as his mouth took a meandering stroll along her ankle.
“I don’t remember.” She tried to kick his face and hit air. “Are you?”
“No.” He moved on to her foot, warming the arch with an open-mouthed kiss. “You don’t want a passive man.”
“I don’t want a man. Period.” She thrashed and swung her arms, going nowhere. “Let me go!”
“Your body betrays you.” His gaze dipped, bringing attention to the moisture chilling in the air against her folds.
No. How could that be? She didn’t want this. “Don’t—”
He buried his mouth between her thighs.
She bowed off the cushion and tried to roll away, but he stopped her. With his hands on her thighs, he ravished her pussy, plundering, conquering, until she was hoarse from screaming and dizzy with fatigue.
They’d been dueling in this position long enough for both of them to be covered in a sheen of sweat. She didn’t want to straddle his shoulders anymore. Didn’t want his tongue buried inside her. But there was no evading him. No interrupting that merciless mouth. No part of her left unexplored, unlicked.
Faster and hungrier, he ate, groaning against her, building the rhythm, and dragging her with him on a spiraling, breathless descent south of heaven.
Death would be waiting. At the bottom of the fall. At the end of his tongue. If she orgasmed, it would break her.
Every skilled touch felt like a sledgehammer crashing into her carefully erected shields. She wouldn’t be able to stop the flood of pleasure much longer.
If she harmed him, he’d said he would hurt another girl. But would he, really? After the mercy he’d shown the blonde in the basement and the peculiar adoration he was giving her body now, his threat didn’t hold true.
She decided to take a chance. A last-ditch effort of strength.
Balling a fist at her side, she swung and connected with the side of his head. Yes!
He grunted, reared back, and swiped at the moisture on his lips.
Oh, God. If looks could kill… There was no mistaking the haughty brows, tense mouth, and hawkish glare. He struck an impressive figure when he was calm. But when he was pissed, he was terrifying.
She couldn’t pull air into her lungs.
“Tomas.” He inclined his head, motioning his bodyguard forward. When his order was obeyed, he said in a wintry tone, “Pull out your cock.”
“What?” Her breath released in short, hard pants. “No!”
John clapped a hand over her mouth as Tomas unzipped. It took a moment for the man’s full length to spring free. Then it was there, semi-hard, growing harder, really goddamn hard to miss.
She choked at the sight of him, abandoning her fight to utter horrified shock. John removed his hand from her face, but she still couldn’t breathe. She’d never seen a man hung like that. Maybe in porn, but sweet Jesus, never in person. It couldn’t be real.
The girth, the length, the sheer fucking size… And it was still lengthening, thickening substantially in the fist of his slow, lazy strokes.
“I don’t need to hurt another girl when I have a solution right here.” John slid a finger between her legs and pressed farther back, testing the give of her tightest hole. “You can struggle and scream, but I promise, little fighter, if you strike my face again, Tomas will impale that monster in your ass, and you’ll feel all ten of those inches.”
Fully erect, Tomas stared down at her with absolute intent in his eyes. John wore the same expression. No lust. No smiles. Just single, unified purpose.
They weren’t fucking around.
The bitter taste of defeat filled her mouth. She swallowed, turned her head away, and ordered her body to relax.
“Hold down my arms.” She didn’t trust her impulses.
Tomas zipped up his fly and stood somewhere above her with his hands shackling her wrists. Then John pressed his mouth to the inside of her thigh. She shuddered.
He took his time edging his way back to her center. She whimpered as he explored, gasped as he bit, and sighed as he grazed on her flesh.
By the time he reached her pussy, she was strung out and panting. His finger was the first to sink inside, and her body jolted. He pumped that thick digit in and out, surging a torrent of honeyed lava through her system, sizzling, consuming, and rocking her through the invasion.
Her voice produced sounds she’d never heard, sobs of forced pleasure as he strained forward, thrust harder, and joined his tongue with his fingers.
“You taste like sin.” His hands trembled against her, his breathing erratic. “Fucking addictive.”
She liquefied, bones dissolving, and tears swarming her eyes. Raw, sexual heat flamed her skin. He probed deeper, licked her faster, and her whole body caught fire. She gripped Tomas’ wrists, digging fingernails into muscle and shaking from head to toe.
“You look like a warrior goddess.” John made a toe-curling lap around her clit. “Mottled with battle wounds and writhing on my tongue. So damn hot.”
If anything, she felt remarkably weak and pathetic. But the urgent demand of his mouth couldn’t be denied. He raided her senses and kept
taking and taking until every muscle and bone in her body was spent.
Sliding a hand between his lips and her drenched flesh, he assaulted her anew. Hard to tell what he was doing, but the intersecting stimulation of his tongue gliding around and through his caressing fingers made everything slip together wetly, erotically. It was beyond arousing, turning her into a quivering, moaning puddle, and soon, she was screaming.
His lips drove savagely against her clit, his tongue a hot weapon of destruction, burrowing deep as if seeking the limits of her resistance. Swirling, tasting, owning, he built her release, climbed higher, faster, and carried her to the peak.
A starlit bomb detonated in her core, exploded outward, and crackled across her skin. Euphoria spasmed through her, arching her back, skyrocketing her voice, and flashing vivid color behind her eyelids.
“There she is.” With a vibrating groan, he made a final, wet revolution with his tongue, teasing out the remnants of sensation.
“Stop.” She panted breathlessly, twitching with lingering convulsions. “Please, stop.”
His auburn head rose, and his body shifted up, up, up until he hovered above her face, gazing thoughtfully down at her. The lushness of his mouth glistened with her come. Then he licked it clean.
Ashamed to the pit of her stomach, she turned away.
He caught her nape, careful to avoid the bruises on her jaw, and hauled her close, his lips feathering against hers, touching… Or not touching? She wasn’t sure. The heat of his mouth was so close her breath stuttered. Her nostrils flared. He smelled too good and felt too hard, his chest a pressing wall of burning muscle against her.
Why was he in her face, his parted mouth on hers, but not? He was just breathing against her lips, aggressively so, as if holding himself back from kissing her.
Please, don’t kiss me.
“I’ve never witnessed anything more beautiful, and I haven’t even seen your face yet.” His words fell like a kiss over her gaping mouth. “Thank you for giving me your submission.”
Her head reeled, and her heart stumbled into a strange, fitful rhythm. “I didn’t—”
He pressed lips lightly against hers. “Don’t ruin it.”
