“I don’t have many attachments.” His tone remained firm, but softened at the edges. “My cartel is one, but its people can fend for themselves. As you did when you were forced to. It’s why I go overboard with the safety measures. When someone suspects my weaknesses, they attempt to exploit them.”
I hadn’t forgotten Jaz’s words to me—that Cristiano loved me, even if he didn’t know it. Did he love me? And did he know it now? He’d been ordered to care for my family and me in the past—maybe all this was because he’d never stopped. “I’m a weakness of yours.”
“Diego knew it before I did.”
My heart skipped painfully. Diego had used me; that wasn’t news. But Cristiano could easily do the same. I was here because of deals they’d made behind my back—how could I trust Cristiano after all that he’d done, after years of hating him? But the bigger problem was how I could trust myself. I touched my neck. “The last thing I want is to care about someone again—and have him betray me.”
“Then hear me.” He leaned forward. “I’ve been trying to tell you this for a while. You are more than a conquest to me. More than an exchange of power. You’re Bianca and Costa’s daughter.” Grabbing the arms of my chair, he dragged it forward until our faces were centimeters apart. “You’re the girl I was hired to protect, and would have, if I hadn’t been framed for Bianca’s murder and forced away. You’re my wife.” His breath teased my lips, and I resisted from closing the short distance between our mouths. “And if seeing me on my deathbed wasn’t reason enough to convince you of that, then I’ll have to get creative.”
I didn’t need more convincing. But his declarations and determination were too good not to indulge. I met his eyes. “Creative how?”
He ran the backs of his knuckles along the length of my throat. With that one touch, my mouth went bone dry, but I got very wet somewhere else—the tender spot Cristiano grew more and more impatient to claim.
“I believe I owe you a debt, Mrs. de la Rosa—and you’re about to collect.” He took my chin in a gentle touch that contradicted the hardness in his gaze. “You’ve sworn to be at my dinner table every night.” Rising to his full, intimidating height, he looked down on me. “Now I want you on it.”
8
Natalia
It was time to collect on a debt Cristiano owed me.
Words I’d never expected to think . . . and especially not in this context.
Dinner was over before it’d begun, and Cristiano stood above me, looking hungrier by the second. “Do I need to repeat myself?” he asked. “I said get on the table so I can make your cunt my next meal.”
Butterflies exploded in my stomach. I barely managed to contain my gasp at his vulgarity, but I couldn’t control the gush of warmth between my legs. “But your wounds—”
“My mouth still works.”
I rose from my chair. “The doctor said—”
“Your husband is hungry.” With a knuckle under my chin, he raised my face. “I’ve waited long enough to see how you taste, and you’ve waited patiently for me to pay my debt. You don’t have to tell me you want it—only if you don’t.” He stepped aside and nodded at the long, sturdy table that seated at least twenty people. “You have until my face is between your legs to object.”
Desire coiled in me. At one time, keeping him at arm’s length had been the right move, but the best part of resisting him up until now had been giving in. “I can’t object once you’ve started?”
“You can”—he picked me up by my waist and plopped me on the table—“but you won’t.”
“Maybe I should shower first.”
“I’ll take you any way, including ripe. Especially ripe.”
What? My mouth fell open. “That doesn’t bother you?”
He took my ankle to untie the straps of my leather sandals. “Nah,” he said, removing each shoe. “Some other time, I’ll make up for it by scrubbing you clean with peppermint soap. Just breathing on your pussy will make it scream.”
“Cristiano—”
“Don’t pretend you’re scandalized.” He slid my ass to the edge of the table. “Now, put your feet up and bare yourself to me.”
I stared at him for a moment. I wasn’t pretending. I’d truly never been in the presence of someone like him. The most Diego had ever demanded of me was a kiss. And what had I thought back then? That Diego and I would unleash our passion when the time was right?
It didn’t work that way. Heat had been smoldering between Cristiano and me since the start, and each time we struck against each other like flint, we came dangerously close to setting fire to everything around us.
I lay back and lifted my heels to the table. As if he hadn’t just affectionately removed my shoes, he tore a hole clean through the crotch of my leggings.
“What—”
“I’ll buy you new ones.” He kept his eyes on my face as he slid a finger under the fabric of my thong, his knuckle grazing me. Goose bumps exploded over my skin. He snapped the sliver against my clit, and I gasped at the sting. “That’s for arguing,” he said, “but don’t worry—I’m about to make it better.”
I bit my bottom lip, not bothering to hide my excitement. “What if someone sees?”
“They won’t, I promise you that.” He pulled up a chair like he was sitting down to a meal, then spread my legs and pushed his face between them. With the thong between his teeth, he let it snap against me again.
“As much as I enjoy making you squirm,” he said, picking up a steak knife, “the underwear has to go.”
I inhaled sharply. “What are you doing?”
With the serrated edge, he sliced through the thin strip of fabric. “Unwrapping your candy pussy like I promised so I can lick and suck until I find what I want—your sweet core.”
His black eyes bored into mine, beckoning me to the dark side. This was the submission he’d promised I’d enjoy, if only I’d listen to my body and give in. Warmth seeped over me, pulling me under.
Cristiano grew serious. “I understand why your guard is still up, but starting now, it comes down. I want you to think long and hard about the past several weeks, Natalia. To wake up by my side and know without a doubt that I mean it when I say I want you and only you here as my wife. That I’ve promised to care for you. That I’m trying to protect you and others from things no person should ever witness, much less experience. And in case none of that is a good enough reason for you to accept me once and for all as your husband, then tomorrow morning, you will remember how I ate your pussy so good, you can’t imagine a future without sitting on my face whenever you feel like it.”
He sank his mouth onto me like I was a juicy steak, obliterating any shock I might’ve felt over his declarations. Having only ever experienced Diego’s gentle tonguing, I wasn’t ready for Cristiano’s onslaught, the way he gripped my hips and pulled me onto his face so hard I wondered how he could breathe.
Nothing could prepare me for his animal growl vibrating through me.
Or how he thrust his tongue inside me and shredded the last of my willpower to resist him.
My feet jumped to his shoulders. He sucked on my clit. A whimper escaped my open mouth. Pleasure so severe it bordered on painful ripped through me, but it was due to more than a skilled combination of tongue and teeth. It was his voraciousness to devour me that made my spine arch to the point of snapping and my moans echo through the hall.
Consumed, I closed my thighs around his ears, but he pried them right back apart, holding them open. “Don’t close your legs again,” he said, licking his lips. “I need my hands.”
He spread me wider. With the unexpectedness of a long finger inside me, I sucked in a breath. He added another, easing both in as if testing me. He withdrew them, stuck them in his mouth, and grinned wolfishly. “Wanna taste?”
“No,” I nearly choked out, horrified at the suggestion.
“More for me.”
The faster his fingers slipped in and out, the wetter I got. I hadn’t known I could
even drip this way. His tongue sucked and explored my clit like it was his new favorite toy, lavishing attention on it until my insides flurried and contracted around his fingers.
“I understand why your guard is still up, but starting now, it comes down.”
With my surrender, bliss radiated from my core to the tips of my fingers and toes, scorching anything in its path.
He removed his fingers, took a bruising grip on my hips, and burrowed his face between my legs. His tongue invaded like he was mining for gold. His voraciousness brought on my climax, simultaneously spurring it on and easing the raw, agonizing pleasure with groans that vibrated along the waves of my orgasm.
By the end, I was pulling his hair as my thighs quaked. He kissed me gently, his tongue tender on my quivering pussy as he helped me back down to Earth.
He uncurled my hands from his hair and stepped away, taking me in. A satisfied rumble from his chest made me feel as if I’d pleased him.
Even in my haze, I wondered how he seemed as content as I was.
I was almost too shy to look him in the eye. He’d transformed from man to beast, and me?
I’d loved it so much, I’d come as hard as humanly possible.
With a mouth like his, I’d be a fool not to chain myself to him.
If there’d been any question about whether I could learn to follow the devil . . .
I had my answer.
In our bedroom, I unbuttoned Cristiano’s shirt from my body as he watched from the bed, naked from the waist up. He stuck his arm behind his head. “If you take even one step toward the couch, I will carry you back to this bed—and you wouldn’t want to risk me opening my wounds, would you?”
I smirked. Suddenly his condition was a concern of his?
But the truth was, I didn’t want to sleep apart—I hadn’t for a while. I’d chosen the sofa the last week and a half to give him space. Let his body heal. Remove temptation.
And, if I was honest, this part was still new to me in many ways—not just because I’d had only one lover, one time. Cristiano had been right to call me out for having my guard up, but it was more about wading into unfamiliar territory than resistance. About moving past the shame of having fought so hard against him only to give in practically overnight.
“I didn’t see you take your antibiotics,” I said, holding the dress shirt closed over my naked body.
We’d already undressed his wounds, and now they breathed. I’d gotten used to the sight of them, but my anger still simmered over what they represented. “So give them to me, Nurse Natalia,” he said.
I went to the closet to change into a nightgown, discarding his shirt and my destroyed pants in a pile. In the bathroom, I washed my hands for thirty seconds like the doctor had told me to, soaked a gauze pad, and carried his pills, fresh bandages, and antibiotic ointment back to the bed.
“The first night I brought you here,” he said as I climbed onto the bed next to him, “I thought you’d instantly see how well we fit together once I got you in my arms. I’d already known from the moment I’d seen you at the costume party that there was an attraction between us. I assumed you’d fight it, resist it, but that once we were alone, you wouldn’t have to fear it anymore.” His gaze, nearly as potent as his touch, drifted from the hem of my short, slinky slip down my bare legs. “As my wife, you’d have the freedom to give in.”
“You didn’t know me as well as you claimed.”
He shook his head. “I don’t consider myself a naïve man, but when it came to you, I suppose I was.”
He’d never intended to force me. His only mistake had been overestimating his male prowess and underestimating my will to hate him. It made more sense that he’d stormed out of my father’s house after bandaging up my wounds from the warehouse fire. I’d made it clear that morning that I believed he had it in him to rape me. Or how he’d grilled me about whether Diego had been forceful with me by the fountain the night of the costume party.
I sat back on my heels. Ghosting my fingertips around one wound, I asked, “Does it hurt?”
“Much less than it did a moment ago.”
“What was it like?” I asked as I gently touched the wet gauze to his torso. “Were you scared?”
He watched me. “Terrified.”
My eyes jumped to his, surprised by his admission.
“Not for myself,” he added. “For you.”
“Do you regret any of it?”
He paused, digesting the question. “I can’t, Natalia. I never want to put you in danger, but so many lives have been bettered because of everything leading up to the attacks.”
I was glad to hear he’d do it all again. If I hadn’t survived, at least my death would’ve been in the name of something good. “Why?” I asked. “Why is helping these women so important to you?”
“Do I need a reason?”
I smiled sadly as I patted his skin dry. “In this world, yes. Nothing is free. Nobody acts with good intentions.”
After a few silent beats, he reached up and cupped my cheek in his large, warm hand. “You do, don’t you?” His thumb touched the corner of my mouth. “What do you think Bianca would’ve wanted for you?”
How often did anyone bring up my mother to me? Rarely, if ever—as if the topic of her death was off-limits, when really, I relished the chance to talk about her. “I don’t know what she’d want for me,” I said, “but it wouldn’t be to stay in such a dangerous life.”
“She was raising a strong woman who wouldn’t allow fear or shame to rule her. Bianca would’ve approved as long as you were honest and unwavering in your choices.” He dropped his hand to my thigh and squeezed gently—not playfully this time, or even sexually. Just comforting. “If you truly want out of this life, then go, Natalia. But you’d be running away because wanting it scares you . . . and I think your mother would’ve made you question that. Confront it. If you want a place by my side, the way she stood by your father, then take it. Own it. Don’t feel ashamed that the cartel runs in your blood.”
Cartel life was maim, murder, and supplying evil with the means to tempt the good. “It is shameful,” I said, unscrewing the top of the pill bottle to shake his antibiotics into my palm. “Innocent people pay the price for what we do.”
“Was your mother innocent?” he asked. “Was mine? No. But they made no apology for it.”
I wished I could believe in my mother’s innocence the way I had as a child, but there was no such thing as a bystander in this business. But if my mother had helped Papá make decisions, or even stood by without protest—did that make her as ruthless as him? My father had killed, and so had she. I leaned over to trade the pill bottle for a glass of water on his nightstand. “The women in this world aren’t to be underestimated,” I said, handing him his meds.
“They’re good caretakers, too.” He tossed back the antibiotics with a quick sip and set down the glass. “I look forward to the day you finally realize what Diego is, and I pray all your mercy will have been used up by then.”
“I already know, Cristiano. He’s a coward and a manipulator.” Something that resembled pain passed over Cristiano’s face—but I hadn’t hurt him. His relief had. Perhaps because he wanted so badly to trust that I’d finally come to that conclusion after all his efforts to get me there.
Since Cristiano’s return, he’d never wavered in his hatred for his brother. “Diego told me once that you two could never trust each other again,” I said. “And he was right.”
“He blames Costa and me for our family’s demise. And if Diego can’t understand why our father had to die, then I worry what else he can justify.”
“He must’ve aided in the Belmonte-Ruiz attacks,” I said. Up until very recently, I wouldn’t have thought Diego capable of putting me in harm’s way, but I’d had no idea what I was dealing with. He’d already admitted his involvement with Belmonte-Ruiz, but if he’d fed them information, then he’d known I was a target as well as Cristiano.
“It’s . . . it’s my f
ault,” I said. “I brought the phone into the house.”
“True.” Cristiano rubbed his jaw. “But if that hadn’t worked, they would’ve found another way. Trust me.”
“Then I’m also to blame that the truth about your business is leaking.”
“No, mi amor. It was only a matter of time,” he said quietly. “It’s why I’ve formed many powerful partnerships over the years, amassed as much money as possible, and insulated my people. And if I were truly worried, I’d shut down my operation.”
“You’re not going to?” I popped the cap off the ointment and dabbed some on each of his wounds. “Where are the girls you rescued the night I was with you?”
“In a safehouse a few blocks from here. Trained staff helps them work through the stages of recovery. After, we set them up here, or somewhere else if they choose.”
He had an answer for everything. “So, what happens now, Cristiano?”
“I don’t know, but we’re not going to stop. Does that scare you?”
I chewed on my bottom lip. Both Diego and my father had said at different times that I’d be safest with Cristiano. Even California would leave me exposed if someone really wanted to get to me. Cristiano wasn’t trying to hide that I was in danger, and I appreciated that. More, I didn’t have to wonder if I’d risk my safety so Cristiano could help more women, men, and children. “No,” I said. “I’m not scared.”
“I thought by presenting our marriage as no more than a contract, people would be likely to leave you alone. They didn’t.”
“Maybe you should try the opposite approach,” I said.
A corner of his mouth lifted. “Not a bad idea. I said the Badlands were treacherous as well, yet they came for us anyway. So perhaps now I’ll make it clear that you belong to me in every sense of the word. And there’s no question that the rumors about what I do to those who fuck with my things are true.”
The scary way his voice dropped sent a bolt of excitement through me. Cristiano had warned me plenty of times that he was very protective, but it’d never felt truer than in that moment.
Violent Triumphs Page 9
