“I love how you say my name,” I told her, suddenly unable to think of anything else but kissing her. “Come here.”
“I can’t move an inch. After horseback riding, plus training to fight off predators during the day and giving into one at night, I’m so sore.”
I’d worked her every muscle the past week. I wanted her strong and satisfied at the end of each day. “We’ll stop the training,” I said, massaging her shoulders with one hand. “If by some crazy chance you were pregnant—”
“I don’t want to stop,” she said, closing her eyes with a contented sigh. “I like it. I’d rather be prepared than pregnant.”
We should’ve had this conversation already. I’d just barely stopped to think about it. I wanted to be inside her all the time. To come as deep as I could. To see my child growing in her belly. “Do you not want a baby?”
She opened her eyes to study my face and grimaced as she got up on one elbow. “Not yet. This has all been so . . .”
“So what?” I asked quietly when she didn’t continue. “You can be honest.”
“So fast. I’m grateful for it, but sometimes I still feel shame.” My stomach clenched before she added, “Ashamed at how happy I am. I spent so long viewing cartel life as evil. You’re supposed to be the devil. I feel like I’m living someone else’s life.”
Alarmed, I also got up on my elbow. “What does that mean?”
“Just that everything flipped so quickly. And at the same time, it didn’t. I’ve always felt something strong between us. At first, I thought it was just sexual chemistry. And hatred. A twisted kind, where I also couldn’t stop thinking about you.” Her eyes darted between mine before she rolled onto her back and looked at the ceiling. “I’d wonder if I was betraying my former self, but after Diego’s manipulation I don’t even know who I am. So what if none of this is real?”
It pained me to hear her question herself. Was this what had been running through Natalia’s mind since that day with the Valverdes? She’d just assured her father that Diego had fooled all of us, and it didn’t diminish Costa’s judgment of character.
“I would rid that shame for you if I could.” Her hair splayed over the pillow, and I picked up a handful of silky strands to run them through my fingers. “But you will overcome it in time. His betrayal is still raw. In the meantime, I ask that when you can’t trust yourself, trust me to know who you are. And you’re right where you’re meant to be.”
She turned her head to me. “How do you know?”
“When I returned home from eleven years away, I saw what you didn’t. That Diego was fooling everyone. And that he had you in his grasp. I went to great lengths to get you out, did I not? I knew. Trust in me. The path wasn’t clear or easy, but I had faith we’d end up here.”
“Here,” she repeated. Simply. With no inflection or enthusiasm.
Natalia had given me no indication recently that she wanted to be anywhere else. But if the truth of Diego’s deception had her doubting herself—if it had changed something for her . . .
I swallowed, trepidation sinking in along with a question I needed to ask. I’d faced many fears in my life, and I’d always come out stronger. But not since I was a teenager, standing before Costa, had I been confronted with the fear of willfully giving up someone I loved.
“Right before you confronted the Valverdes and learned the truth, you told me you were done with your old life. Has that changed?”
Her answering silence made me sweat. How tragically ironic it would be. I’d fought hard to bring her the Valverdes so she could finally release any doubts about me and let herself fall for me completely. But she’d begun to fall already. What if learning she couldn't trust her judgment would have her doubt us? Doubt me?
“I want to be here more than anything, but . . .” she said so slowly, it hurt.
My heart pounded just as hard as it had during sex. I wasn’t sure, if faced with the decision, that I could let her go. Now that she’d glimpsed the life she could have with me, the right thing would be to release her and let her decide for herself.
But then, the right thing would’ve been not to take her in the first place.
“But can you understand why it’s hard for me to admit that?” she said. “That I choose this?”
She chooses this. That was what I needed to hear to assuage my fears—for now.
“Is it possible that even when I didn’t trust you, I did, deep down?” she continued.
“Yes. It’d been my job once to watch over your family.”
“The day my mother died shook our foundation to the core, but maybe it never broke.” She cupped her hand to my cheek, and I leaned into it, rubbing my stubble over her palm. “I love it when you do that,” she said. “It makes me feel as if I’ve tamed a beast.”
“You’d call what we just did tame?”
She smiled. And then, “I trust you.”
Ah. There it is. Because I’d never felt such contentment, I slid my hand under her hair and bent to kiss her. And yet, in the back of my mind, I understood that I was as terrified as I was fulfilled—Natalia and her love came with even greater fears.
The fear of losing her would only grow as our relationship deepened.
“You’re the everything I went in search of,” I said against her lips. “That loyalty and devotion you showed Diego as a nine-year-old girl—I craved it. The love between your parents—you were a true family.” I scanned her face closely. I didn’t even want to blink. “Once Diego offered all of that to me, I wanted it so fiercely, I was willing to break all my rules to have it. To have you.”
“That’s why you were so insistent I come to you willingly. You wanted me to choose you. And I do.”
“All that I did, I did with the knowledge that I could give you everything you ever desired.”
“And if I desire freedom?”
I paused. The one thing I could give her that would destroy it all. “Then ask for it. See what my answer is.”
I didn’t know my response, but my gut reaction was never. If you love someone, set them free—fuck that. I wasn’t the type to crush something I coveted before I’d ever let it go—except maybe when it came to her.
Fortunately, she didn’t ask.
“My father told me once he wanted me to marry a ‘great’ man—not a good one.” She inhaled audibly. “Now, he demands grandchildren—he must think you’re great.”
I’d always believed Costa was a great man. To have the sentiment reciprocated after growing up with a snake for a father meant more than Natalia could know.
“I want a family,” I said, “and we’ll grant Costa his demands—but you’re right. It’s not the time. I should be more careful, but with you, and only you, I seem to lose control.” I ran my knuckles over the goose bumps on her arm. “The time for a child will never be right when everything around us is a threat, but until we’ve dealt with Diego and Belmonte-Ruiz, we’ll wait.”
“Agreed.” She reached out and touched one of the wounds on my abdomen with a warm, soothing palm. “You didn’t hold back anything tonight. Do you feel all right?”
I’d been riding horses, lifting boxes, and riding and lifting my wife any chance I got. “I’m fine.”
“You think you’re invincible, but you’re not, Cristiano.” She turned onto her stomach. “If I’m going to stay here with you, then I need you to stick around.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I promised as my eyes jumped to the perfect curve of her ass under the white sheet.
She shut her eyes and moved her cheek against the pillow. After a few moments, she said, “Cristiano?”
“¿Sí, mi amor?”
“Did you bring your gun to bed?”
Ah, the one cocked, loaded, and prodding into her hip. “I don’t control when the rooster crows.”
“I meant what I said.” She heaved a sweet sigh. “You’ve wrecked me. I literally cannot move.”
“You don’t have to. In fact, it would be better if you don’
t.”
“Why?” she asked.
I slid the sheet down to her thighs, then linked a leg through one of hers and drew it open. Salivating at the sight of her smooth, taut ass, I said, “I can break you in just as you are now . . .”
She laughed softly. “You’re like a dog with a bone.”
“Indeed.” I slid down in the bed to get closer to her, ran my hand up her back, and whispered in her ear. “I have to get it out of my system. This overwhelming need to fuck you raw. Then we’ll make love, I promise.”
“Cristiano, my sun, moon, and stars,” she said, her eyes still shut. “We have already made love.”
“I know. But I mean in a way that changes us each to our cores. I’m holding back so I don’t scare you.”
Her lids fluttered open. “You already scare me. Don’t you see how I reacted to the idea of you putting yourself in danger again? What if I let myself . . . and then I lose you?”
I inhaled and tried not to read too much into what she hadn’t said. “What if I lose you now that I finally have you?” I said. “Does that mean I shouldn’t even try?”
“Try what?”
“To love you or anyone. Nobody in my life is safe. Nobody ever will be.” I traced the faint tan lines on her ass cheeks from our afternoon at the beach. “Do you think your father regrets loving Bianca? He doesn’t.”
Her shudder, and the look of satisfaction on her face, nearly set off the gun between us. That was my cue to go.
Slowly, I withdrew from her and stood.
She lifted her head. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going to shower and jerk off, or else I won’t be able to sleep.”
“What about me?”
“You’re sore. And tired—I hear it in your voice. Get some rest. If I wear you out, I may not be able to enjoy you in the morning. I’ll finish you off then.”
She rested her cheek back on the pillow as I went and flipped on the shower. Seconds from now, in my fantasies, I’d be balls deep in Natalia’s asshole.
But as I stepped under the stream of water and took my dick in hand, that wasn’t where my mind went. Instead, I saw Natalia pregnant with my child. No question I was a sick fuck for getting hard over that, but El Gallo wanted what El Gallo wanted. God help her when she really was expecting—I already knew I’d be an overprotective mess.
It was everything I wanted.
I flattened a hand against the tile wall and was about to stroke myself to Heaven when a small, tentative hand beat me to it. I looked over my shoulder. Natalia placed her cheek against my biceps and smiled up at me. My body shielded her from the water, but her wet palm glided along my shaft.
“I thought you couldn’t move,” I said.
She stroked me gently, almost as if offering comfort. “You have already changed me to my core, Cristiano. And I love you.”
Something broke loose in my chest. I hadn’t expected . . . not yet. Even though I already knew she loved me, there was nothing like hearing it. Even though I’d kept the faith that she one day would, I almost couldn’t come to terms with my luck.
Warmth coursed through me. Warmth, and gratitude. I turned and took her face in my hands, suddenly overwhelmed. “You . . . I love you, too, my Natalia.”
I couldn’t express the magnitude of it with words beyond that, so I told her with my kiss—and she responded, her soft, plush lips taking every firm peck I had to give.
19
Natalia
As water soaked my hair, Cristiano backed me up against the shower wall and slipped a hand under my thigh to lift my leg. He slid inside me and rooted himself there, stilling as we kissed, becoming a part of me in irrevocable ways. His fingers curled into my hair. With my arms wrapped around his neck, I pulled him closer.
He slid in and out slowly, hitting me in a new spot, one that sent deep, satisfied rumbles of pleasure through me. I was already swollen, sensitive, and throbbing from my last orgasm, raw and aching.
I hadn’t known the meaning of lovemaking until this moment—I hadn’t known the meaning of love. I’d been foolish to think I had. I didn’t want to love Cristiano. It scared me, especially when I’d so recently feared him. Knowing him this way, when he could be taken from me, was more terrifying, though.
Everything he wanted to accomplish, everything he wanted to protect . . . I admired him for it, but it also put him in danger every day.
And yet, in a world of machismo and courage, Cristiano’s words earlier were the bravest I’d ever heard. Not just loving someone he could easily lose, but wanting love. Seeking it out.
I wasn’t as brave. Something told me that losing him would devastate me. And losing Cristiano was even more likely to happen than falling in love with a man I’d once wholeheartedly hated.
But it was too late now.
Cristiano groaned, moving into me, our slick bodies slipping against the other. He drew back, his expression pained as his eyes met mine, and his thrusts grew hard and firm, instead of fast and fevered like earlier. Water beat down on us, dripping from his nose onto me.
How could I love him so fiercely in so little time? And feel it returned without condition?
Our mouths met, savoring the taste of each other. “Don’t come inside me,” I said.
“I have to. I want to, Natalia.”
“But I want to taste you.” I pushed his chest, and he withdrew, his cock at full attention and bobbing between us. I got to my knees, took him in my mouth, and showed him my hunger, my desire to watch him unravel. With a hand in my hair and a groan on his lips, he spilled into my mouth without so much as a warning.
We exited the shower, and after toweling off, I slipped my wedding rings back on as he took his razor from a drawer.
“You’re going to shave?” I asked.
“If I don’t, it’ll be twice the length by the morning. You’ll wake up next to a wild animal.”
“Imagine,” I said sardonically, as if I wasn’t at the mercy of one every night. I rose onto the tips of my toes for a quick kiss, then ran a finger over his chin. “Sometime, when I’m not so tired, I’ll shave it for you.”
“Sometime,” he agreed. “When I’m a hundred percent sure I can let you near my throat with a razorblade.”
I laughed. “A wise man once told me one-hundred percent confidence is a death wish.”
As I turned to leave, he took my forearm, drawing me back in front of himself. He pressed his lips together, hesitation in his eyes.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
“I want you to make me a promise.”
A breeze passed through the room, or perhaps it was just the chill of his grave tone that made my hair stand on end. “What?”
“If anything ever does happen to me, Natalia—and it could—tell me you’ll go on to live a full life. If your place is here, you’ll take the reins. You will be ruthless and gentle and prevail knowing you have my blessing from beyond. And if you choose another life, you will relentlessly pursue happiness.”
“I don’t want to think about that.” It hit too close to home. Of course I knew anything could happen at any time—it had to my mother. Death had almost caught Cristiano and myself. I was raw, physically and emotionally, both fucked and made love to tonight. And I’d conceded any last shred of resistance I might’ve had so I could love Cristiano with all of myself.
It was the greatest risk I’d ever taken because of how closely death hovered over him, and—
You will die for him, your love.
The soothsayer’s words shivered through me for the first time in a while. What was Cristiano saying? Why was he bringing this up now?
Because love wasn’t just a slippery slope; it was driving with no brakes and trusting you’d be safe at every hill, valley, and sharp turn. And Cristiano wasn’t used to being at the mercy of anything.
“You have to think of this,” he insisted. “It’s part of being a ruler. You need to promise me you’d pick up and move on if you had to.” He took my hand
in both of his, bringing it to his unshaven mouth, scraping my skin as he kissed it with reverence. He put it to his forehead, as if in prayer. “Por favor, Natalia. Give me some peace in the afterlife. Tell me you’d continue on, and pursue happiness, if I were gone.”
“Fine,” I said, irritated that he was pushing this on me when I’d like to live just one day without the anxiety that I might lose everything I’d just found. “But give me the same gift of peace. If Belmonte-Ruiz had succeeded in killing me, you would’ve gone on. You will go on.”
Calm pervaded him, and his oft-black eyes were closer to melted-chocolate brown just then. “I can’t make you that promise,” he said, the heavy words landing at our feet.
I balked. “You just made me say it. Why can’t you?”
“Because I will follow you.”
Frowning, I shifted and placed my other hand over his—so we made a fist like a heart. “What do you mean you’ll follow me, Cristiano?”
“Into death.”
With a sinking feeling, my eyes fell to our grasp on each other. I could barely wrap my head around what he was saying. I squeezed his hand, more out of a need to hold onto something rather than to offer comfort. “Don’t say that. You wouldn’t . . .”
His chocolate-brown gaze hardened to an opaque, unreachable void. “Nobody would get away with hurting you. I’d raise hell to avenge you, and if that meant risking my life to achieve it, I wouldn’t hesitate.”
“Cristiano—”
“I wouldn’t be allowed in Heaven, but I swear on all that’s holy—I’d rattle the gates until they let me have you.”
Goose bumps sprang over my skin with a new kind of dread. He meant it—and there was no changing his mind. My death would mean Cristiano’s.
I could not die for my love—or I would take him down with me.
Sometime around dawn, a firm, wooden knock came on our bedroom door. Cristiano left the warmth of our bed, and as I began to drift back to sleep, he roused me.
Violent Triumphs Page 19
