by Bethany-Kris
“Get out!” she screamed.
If he heard her—and there was no way he didn’t—Andino acted like she didn’t say a thing. He slammed that door behind him, and swung around on her. Haven was already reacting; her emotions hit their limit.
She broke.
Her palm connected with his face with a slap that echoed and sent his head snapping to the side. The red imprint of her hand left behind said he had to feel it, and all Haven felt was the greatest sense of satisfaction at that fact.
Good.
He should feel it.
Like she did.
Andino sucked air in through his teeth that sounded like a hiss before his hands were on her. One grabbing firmly to her waist, and the other curving around her neck. She couldn’t even protest before his lips crashed against his.
She didn’t want to respond. She wanted to push him away, and hit him again. Yet, her anger was only stroked tenderly from a small flame into a raging inferno with his kiss. The rage wrapped tightly around the lust and love she always felt for this man whenever he was near.
His kiss was not like it used to be, though. It was something wilder—something more desperate. Hard enough to hurt, and crazy enough to take her breath away. His fingers dug into the back of her neck like his hand on her waist, and he dragged her impossibly closer.
If he wasn’t such a good liar, she might think he was trying to give her his soul with that kiss. Like he was offering it in bleeding, blackened hands for her to take.
Except he was who he was.
She believed nothing.
“I love you,” he said hoarsely when he finally pulled away. “I love you so fucking much, Haven. I love you too much. I love you enough to destroy everything, but you don’t know that at all because I haven’t been able to tell you. I love you, woman. Let me explain—let me show you. Don’t you get it? Just let me—”
Sure, and quiet, and strong, Haven whispered, “You don’t love me at all. Love doesn’t do these things to someone else. This isn’t love.”
“Haven.”
God, why did he have to sound like that?
Fuck him.
“What you’ve done to us is not love,” she said, refusing to budge even an inch. She was not going to give him that, not for this. “You’re not love.”
“Haven, listen to me.”
“There’s nothing to listen to because there’s nothing to say.”
“There is!”
Haven shook her head slowly. They were so close that she could see the darker flecks of green and gold in his eyes. God, she had loved those eyes of his once. Loved how they seemed to only see her even in a room full of others. Deep, and expressive. Even when the rest of him was as cold as ice.
But right now?
She didn’t love them at all.
A lot like him.
All she wanted to do in that moment was hurt him in the way he had hurt her. Make him feel the same kind of pain, or even a fraction of it so that maybe he could understand the hell he had created in her life. She was fine before him; she was going to be fine after this man, too.
Haven kissed him again. The same way he’d kissed her—like the world was gone, and she was handing her sound over with every stroke of their lips, and tangle of their tongues. She kissed him like nothing else mattered, and nothing ever would.
Because it would be the last time. That was her promise.
She was going to use him like he’d used her time and time again. She wasn’t going to regret it for even a second—nothing after everything.
Haven reached for Andino’s pants, and it was the only time he hesitated to answer her back. His wariness lasted as long as it took for her to get his pants undone, and slip her hands beneath the waistband. She found his cock hard, and heavy inside his briefs. Against her lips, he grunted out her name followed by a soft apology as she stroked him with a tight fist.
That apology only pissed her off more.
It was enough to make her want to hit him again, but she didn’t even have time for that before Andino was lifting her against the wall. His mouth attacked the column of her neck—tasting and kissing all those spots he knew she loved—as she wrapped her legs around his waist.
The hard ridge of his erection pressed against the thin fabric of her panties. Damp panties. She was already wet, ready to take him, and willing to so they could finally be done with this dance that had been going on between them for far too long. Unashamed, she arched her body against his, and used the grinding of her hips to ease some of the ache between her thighs by rubbing against his dick.
Flames licked at her body with every touch of his mouth or hands against him. His palms slipped under that too-large T-shirt, and found her bare breasts. Haven tipped her head back, and let out a hard gasp when his thumbs and forefingers tweaked her hard nipples. His tongue lapped at the hollow of her throat, his hips flexed forward to grind his cock against her wet panties, and she was flying.
For a second, she did forget how much she hurt, and all the things this man had done to her. Even through her lustful haze, she could feel how frantic and desperate they were in their movements. Shaking hands, and hard breaths. Hard kisses, and stinging bites.
Haven all but blinked, and Andino was moving them again. His fingers dug into her ass as he moved into the kitchen. Her backside came to rest on the counter, and he spread her thighs wide. He only let her go long enough to peel those panties down her thighs. He wasted no time—there was no slowness in his actions. He loved to tease her, but not today.
His mouth was back on hers when he shoved his pants down. Then, his hands were on her thighs again to squeeze tight, and widen them until her muscles protested and her bones ached.
But fuck her, because she loved it.
“Just fuck me, and be done with it,” she rasped.
Done with her.
With them.
Just done.
“Fuck,” Andino snarled when his cock was right there. All it took was one hard flex of his hips, and he was buried deep in her slick cunt. Sensitive flesh became all that much more tender as he filled her full, pulled back out, and then slammed right back in again. Another brutal thrust came right after that one, and then again. Until he was just pounding into her with a tempo that drove her insane. “Look at me … look at me.”
She didn’t.
Couldn’t.
Instead, she watched his cock slide through the wet lips of her pussy until his hand curved around her throat, and he forced her head back. Like this, she was forced to stare into those eyes again. She was forced to see things she didn’t want to.
“Hate you,” she breathed.
Andino’s fingers tightened. “Don’t.”
“I hate you.”
If anything, he just fucked her harder for that. Haven wished she could say that she didn’t like it, but that would have been a lie. She loved it.
She raked lines over his back with her fingernails, and dug her heels into his back to force him closer. Even as she wanted him gone, she needed more of him, then, too.
She was such a fucking mess.
“Don’t,” he said again, shoving her head back against the cupboard. “Don’t you ever lie to me.”
Haven laughed breathlessly. “Like you do to me?”
She was so close to coming it was crazy. Almost at the edge, and ready to jump the hell off. Her nerves snapped with every meet of their hips. Trembling like a fucking leaf, and aching between her thighs.
His fingers dug in again, and he kissed her before biting down on her bottom lip. The shock of pain was enough to finally do it. It sent her tumbling over the cliff of bliss. The orgasm ravaged her senses, and made her numb to everything else.
She felt him grunt, and two hard thrusts later, empty himself deep inside her cunt, too.
Haven breathed.
She took a second, and just breathed.
Then, quietly, she said, “Now, please go.”
The devil wasn’t a man with red s
kin, hooves for feet, and horns on his head. No, the devil was the most handsome, charming man with hands that could make a woman sing, and lies on the tip of his tongue. The devil was a man who made her want to die for him, but all he did was fucking kill her instead. And he did it without a second thought, or regret. He did it unashamed of the heartache he caused.
He was sin, sure, but pain, too. He was not what the devil should be, but he was still his own kind of hell. He burned like it, too.
And right then, she was staring him straight in the face.
Andino, only a breath from her and trembling from head to toe, looked like agony materialized into a being. He looked like pain in the flesh, but she couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t believe anything from him anymore.
“I can’t go until you let me explain,” he finally said.
Haven shook her head. “That’s the thing—I don’t want you to anymore.”
“That’s not fair.”
Life wasn’t fair.
Nothing ever was.
“You’re so good at this,” she whispered.
Things that loved you shouldn’t hurt you. Things you loved shouldn’t hurt you. That wasn’t how this was supposed to work. He needed to understand that.
“Haven, please—”
“You’re so good at hurting me, Andino, but I don’t want to be hurt anymore, okay? I don’t want to hurt.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I am.”
Haven shook her head, and more tears slipped from her eyes. The ache between her thighs, and his cock still hard and heavy there would have usually meant satisfaction and love. Right then, it only felt like shame and sadness.
“Just …” Haven dragged in a hard, ragged breath. “Just leave. Just go, please.”
His hands on her thighs gripped tighter. Like he wasn’t going to let her go for anything. His fingers were going to leave bruises, but she couldn’t find it in herself to care about that. For now, she just needed to get this man away from her.
She’d wanted him close; now she needed him to go.
“You won’t even let me explain,” he uttered through a clenched jaw with his eyes blazing. “Let me fucking explain. This is not what you think it is, I swear it isn’t.”
“It’s just another thing on an already huge pile, Andino. Please go.”
“Baby—”
“The club is sold. The house is next to go. I’m leaving, and you’re going to let me. You’re going to stay far away from me in the meantime. You’re going to do that, Andino, because I want you to. Do you understand?”
“Haven.”
Saturating his voice was pain. She was almost happy about that. She took a small sense of satisfaction in the fact that just maybe this man might understand all the hell he had put her through.
But who knew?
“Go,” she said.
Barely above a whisper.
Barely there at all.
“Just go, Andino.”
It took a second, and then two. It took another squeeze of his hands on her thighs, and his gaze nailing into hers—a silent plea. She answered none of it. She couldn’t if she was going to somehow survive this crash and burn, and come out better for it.
Haven knew that much.
“You might not think so,” he said quietly, “but we’re not over, Haven. This can’t be over. It was always real for me; it still is.”
Finally, he moved away from her. Well, it was more like he tore himself away from her as though he had to force his body to move. All the while, even as he fixed himself and she remained half-naked on the cupboard with her thighs opened and leaking with the proof of their last mistake, he never once looked away from her.
That was fine.
She didn’t look back. She didn’t move, or breathe, or think until he was gone. She didn’t cry, or beg, or break until he was already gone.
He couldn’t see it, then. She wouldn’t let him.
He didn’t deserve even that.
Haven met the gaze of the man sitting across the table from her. It was almost amusing because he looked like the stereotypical private investigator. Right down to the rounded stomach, old leather jacket tossed over a cotton dress shirt with the top two buttons undone, and the aviator sunglasses that he’d pushed high on the top of his head. She’d never seen him actually have a camera in his hands, but if he did, he would fit the bill perfectly. She assumed he did have a camera, and whatever else he needed to do this job, but she never cared to ask.
She paid him money, and he gave her information. That was the deal, or it was supposed to be.
“Hot day, isn’t it?” Wally asked, patting his sweaty forehead with a white napkin from the table. Haven was slightly happy that she had eaten before he arrived. That would probably make this whole meeting a little easier to handle. “June never gives me a break.”
Haven smiled. “I like the heat, personally.”
And she did.
She loved jogging on a hot day, and coming home to a cold shower. That was the best feeling in the world next to sex, she would swear on it. She wasn’t about to tell this man that, though. They were sitting in this café for other reasons today.
“You called me saying you had something for me?” Haven asked.
Anticipation and anxiety curled thickly in her stomach like coils tangling around one another. The tighter they wove, the more she wanted to fidget or move. She’d felt like this from the moment she decided to hire a private investigator to find information on Valeria, or even where her friend was right now.
It’d never really left.
Wally cleared his throat, and nodded. His gaze darted around to take in the other patrons sitting at various tables, and fully lost in their food or discussions. Some had their faces shoved into tablets or phones. None of them were paying any attention to Haven and the private investigator.
Why was he so nervous?
Haven could have easily shrugged that off by saying it was just the man’s ways. He probably preferred less public meeting spaces, or something like that. He didn’t like doing business where anyone could overhear, or something.
Her gut said that wasn’t it.
Maybe that should have been her first hint that this meeting was unlikely to go the way she had been hoping. Still, Haven refused to give up or give in to the anxiety that just wouldn’t leave her alone.
This—trying to find something, or anything—on Valeria and Maria was one of the last things she needed to get done before she could get the hell out of this city. The club was sold, and she hadn’t been back since the fucking ink dried. Her house had an offer put on it last week, and the paperwork was being started on all of that.
If all went well, she would be in Flordia with her mother and father by the end of June. She had a few minor things to tie up, but then she was gone.
Finally.
Haven was both sad and relieved about that fact. The heaviness that swelled in her broken heart every time she felt good about being able to put the distance between herself, and the man in this city that she knew she needed to leave behind was as confusing as it was infuriating.
It kept her up at night. And when she did sleep, she woke up with a tear-stained pillow more often than she cared to admit. Being alone was the most lonely place to be, Haven had come to learn.
This should be easy.
This was right.
Her heart didn’t seem to care about any of that. All it cared about was the fact it had been broken again. Not that she hadn’t expected to be hurt again, because she had. That didn’t exactly help to make the hole in her chest any smaller, though.
“Are you listening, girly?”
Haven blinked at Wally’s amused question. “Sorry?”
The private investigator waved the folder in his hand for Haven to see. He must have pulled it out of that black messenger bag he always carried around when she was lost in her thoughts. Silently, he set the folder on the table, and pu
shed it across to her.
“There you are,” he said, “have a looksie, and tell me what you think about the things I found on your little friend.”
Haven didn’t see the point of this whole charade. He could easily tell her what was in the folder, but whatever. She flipped the folder open, and quickly scanned the contents on the first page. Her brow dipped as she read familiar words that she already knew about Val, and where she had come from, who she was married to, and more. Flipping to the next page, Haven found similar information that Andino had already provided to her about Valeria.
None of this was even new.
Peering at the man, Haven said, “I already know a lot of this stuff.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“Then, I hope you understand why when I say I won’t be taking on this job beyond what I have already done and provided to you, Miss Murphy.”
Haven froze. “What?”
“You gave me a name, and some cursory information. You mentioned the cartel aspect, but I honestly thought that was simply another American who thinks every Mexican that comes across the border illegally must be involved with crime in some way. I did not expect to find that this woman is a runaway Cartel leader’s wife who took his child.”
A lump formed in Haven’s throat—hard, and hot. No matter how many times she tried to swallow, it just wouldn’t fucking loosen a bit.
“She didn’t have the child when she left—she would have been pregnant,” Haven forced herself to say.
“Fact remains, I am sure the man knew she was pregnant.” Wally shrugged his beefy shoulders, and folded those thick arms over his chest. His perspiration on his forehead had picked up a bit. “You seem to be under some kind of impression that just because I am a private investigator, I will do anything. That is not the case. My safety is a priority, and these people,” he said, reaching over to tap a finger against the paper, “are not the kind of people I care to find out I am looking into their business. I hope you understand.”
Haven’s jaw ached from how firmly she clenched it. “You’re telling me that you won’t look for her at all?”
“Listen, girly …” Wally leaned forward, and lowered his tone as his eyes scanned the patrons in the business again. “This is a stupid road you’re trying to walk down, and I assure you that unless a private investigator has a whole army of guns behind him to take care of him, he is not going to take on this job. For reference, so you can save yourself the money and the hassle of trying to find someone else. It’s a wasted effort on your part, Haven.”
