by Karin Tabke
Unsurprised, Sophia smiled, feeling giddy from his dominance, and stepped into the shower. She was crazy. Most women would be running for the hills. Not her. She was loving how the man in her bed relentlessly stood by her, fought for her and made it clear he wanted her.
She took her sweet time in the shower, telling herself that if she took long enough, maybe her husband would fall asleep by the time she was done. Still, part of her imagined him awake and aroused. And that aroused her.
Leaning back against the tile of the shower stall, Sophia closed her eyes as she remembered the most amazing thing she had ever experienced in her life. Her first and only orgasm.
Oh, she’d tried herself before, but as close as she got, she never quite made it. Surprise, surprise, Mateo had no problem. He knew things about her body she didn’t. Just where to touch. How to touch. And the way he talked to her? Holy hell. She closed her eyes, imagining his warm breath on her ear, telling her how much he liked fucking her. His words alone could make a girl come.
She forced herself to tamp down her high school giddiness. She wasn’t fifteen experiencing her first crush. Ugh, worse, she was twenty-four experiencing her first crush! The more she thought about her situation and the way she felt, the more ludicrous it sounded. That man out there was a killer. He had killed her fiancé, and there was a part of her that was sad for Javier’s loss of life, but Javier was still a criminal, just a more highly evolved one than most. So was her husband. He was an infamous assassin! And he’d had the audacity to walk into her home like he already owned her and everyone in it, and then demand her body as if he had the right to her. Her heart pounded. No one had ever fought for her before. Not even her mother. She just ran away.
Sophia wanted to be angry with Mateo for his ballsy move to claim her, but she felt the complete opposite. It excited her. He’d bested Javier, who never would have stood up to her father for her, then Mateo challenged the almighty Dumas and Tony for the right to her! He was truly loco. But could she blame him for his power play?
The person she should be angry with was her father for handing her over to a complete stranger. What if he was diseased or deranged? Papa didn’t care so long as she produced an heir. Angrily she turned the water off and yanked a towel from the hanger. She wasn’t a piece of property. She was a proud woman with feelings. She deserved to pick her husband. To choose who she slept with. Choose if and when she wanted children!
Not her father and not Mateo.
The two sides of who she was were often on opposite ends of the vengeance scale. Like love and hate, only a thin line separated the two. On one hand, because she was programmed to be a Dumas, she was honor bound to marry Javier. But as a modern woman, her anger and frustration with her father and his archaic ways, which included forcing her to marry a man she did not love, much less respect, made her want to shed everything Dumas and go somewhere where she could live her life on her terms. All her life her father had made her choices for her. She didn’t want him or her husband, regardless of the circumstances of their marriage, to make decisions for her. She wanted the freedom to make them herself.
She looked over at the closed door and thought of the man on the other side of it. He was the key to her leaving this life behind her. He just didn’t know it yet. But how to convince him? He’d sacrificed so much to get here and in her bed! She shook her head, still stunned at his audacity. He wouldn’t give it up simply because she asked him to. He would need a reason, one that was as enticing as the power her family could bring him. But what?
And time was of the essence. She couldn’t continue having unprotected sex with Mateo. She had no doubt his sperm were like little swimming tanks. Her egg would never stand a chance if one of them came close. She’d just gotten over her period the day before she’d gone to the nightclub so she figured she had three days tops to play it safe. Then what?
She’d insist he cover up or refuse him. Ugh, refusing him sex when it was all she wanted from him was going to be near impossible. But she had to. Because a child was out of the question. If she bore Mateo a child, the child would be used against her, just as her father had used her against her mother. It broke her heart the day her mother kissed her good-bye. It broke her heart every day since.
So why, Sophia asked herself, did she stay?
At first it had been easy. She had been indulged. Though heavily guarded—for her protection, her father said—she went to the best schools. Could buy whatever she wanted. She traveled with her father and she saw the world. And each day she stayed it was because she knew that if she left, her sister would be alone. And that she could not do to her. Though Fatima and her brothers were from her father’s first wife, she and Fatima were as close as full-blood sisters. They were all they had left in the world.
And then Fatima disappeared, and Sophia was alone anyway.
Now she was trapped.
Sophia smirked as she briskly toweled her long hair. She’d read a book in which the sassy heroine told her friends that men thought they were in control, but it was really the wily women, the ones who understood the power of their vaginas and the dominance it wielded over the penis, who controlled all. Because the penis would do anything to get the vagina.
And one thing was for certain, the penis taking up space in her bed wanted her vagina. She tossed the towel into the hamper. Problem was, her vagina wanted the penis just as bad.
She wasn’t experienced in this subtle game of sexual chess. She was a girl who wore her feelings on her shirtsleeve.
When Mateo took her in the atrium, it took every fiber of her self-control not to give in to the pleasure of him. She hated that. Her weakness for him. He made it doubly difficult to despise him when he was so respectful of her feelings. She didn’t know what to do with that.
That was the saddest thing of all. She had no clue how to respond to a dominant man who gave her choices. As she dressed, much of her anger at the wounded man in her bed dissolved. If anything, she should thank him for breaking her out of the jail her father had constructed around her since the day she was born. Granted, she was in another jail, but this one held promise in the escape department.
Could she gain her husband’s trust before her father sank his hooks in deep and pulled Mateo completely over to the dark side, where she would forever be a prisoner with no hope of freedom?
Her heart tightened with emotion. Could she walk away from her father like her mother had?
Her life was in full-tilt mode and she didn’t know how to begin to right it.
After slipping on a comfortable white linen kaftan, she strode into the bedroom, but stopped at the threshold. Mateo was lying naked on top of the sheets, his bad arm oozing blood through the pillowcase he’d wrapped around it.
Exasperated with herself for feeling bad for him, she moved to the edge of the bed and sat down beside him. When she reached for his shoulder, he shrugged her away.
“You want another piece of me?” he growled.
“No, I want to look at the wound.”
He held her gaze with hard, glistening eyes. When she touched his shoulder, it was hot. “It’s getting infected. Let me take a look.” When he continued to glare at her, she exhaled and scooted closer to him. “I promise, I won’t intentionally hurt you.”
“I can handle the physical pain.”
She gently unwound the linen. “I forgot, you’re super loco Dark and Dangerous.”
“You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
Carefully she pulled the bloody fabric away. The cut was deep. Wrinkling her brow, she said, “This needs to be sewn up.”
“Why not let me bleed to death?”
Sophia smirked, but asked herself the same question. “I may have use for you yet, esposo loco. Until I know for sure, it’s in my best interest to keep you healthy.” And that was the simple truth, she told herself.
“Stay put while I call for Marta.”
Picking up the phone on the nightstand she pressed one button. “Please ask Marta to bring her sewing kit to my room, and ask Alma to make my husband and me lunch.” Sophia put her hand over the receiver. “Is there something special you would like?”
Despite the pain in his face, he smiled. “Yeah, but Alma can’t deliver it.”
“Just whatever’s on the menu today.”
When Sophia hung up she said, “You need clothes.”
“There’s some in my saddlebags. Have someone bring them here, along with my boots that I left in the atrium.”
Sophia took care of it and made herself busy when Marta bustled in and got to work on Mateo’s shoulder. Lunch came as Marta snipped the last thread, followed by Manny, her father’s, for lack of a better word, butler, with Mateo’s clothes.
When they were alone, Sophia sat down on the edge of the bed and handed him a glass of water and two antibiotics from the vial Marta had left on the nightstand.
He took them and relaxed back into the pillows. But his eyes were on her. He was flushed and, she could tell, in pain. “Would you like something for the pain?”
“No,” he groused.
Sophia nodded, feeling uncomfortable with the silence hanging between them.
“Would you have married him if I hadn’t shown up?”
He spoke of Tony. “No,” she answered honestly. “Although on the drive home from the club he made his feelings known to me.”
“Why not?”
“Because my father had already picked a man.”
Not wanting to continue the conversation, Sophia stood and, taking the blanket folded across the foot of the big bed, she drew it up and covered him. “I’ll be right back.”
• • •
As he waited for Sophia, Mateo wondered at her motives. One minute she was tearing him up and the next she was tending him like a wife should. It put him on guard. His shoulder burned like a motherfucker, but he’d be damned if he’d admit it.
He lay back into the soft, smooth linens. He could never remember being so comfortable in a bed. Hell, anywhere. It was like sleeping on a cloud with invisible support.
He fought the fatigue that stole over him, wondering what his reluctant wife was up to. She was an emotional yo-yo, and he wasn’t going to take any chance that between the time she left and the time she returned, she’d changed her mind about killing him.
The door quietly opened.
His heartbeat spiked as she closed it behind her. Her long hair moved in thick waves around her waist. The simple white gown she wore was sheer and shapeless, but her long legs and curves gave it life. Her hard nipples teased the fabric and his imagination. His dick began to thicken beneath the soft blanket.
Her nostrils flared in response.
“How do you know?” he huskily asked, not taking his gaze off of her.
Her cheeks pinked modestly as she set down the clay jar she carried in with her on the nightstand. Once again she sat on the edge of the bed and touched his wounded arm. “It already looks better.”
He brushed her hair from her face and cupped her chin. “Answer me.”
Her eyes darkened to black. “I . . . can see it in the way you look at me. Your face, it changes. It softens and your nostrils flare just a little.” She smiled sheepishly and looked down at the rising blanket. Damned if that bad boy wasn’t done for the day. “And there is that.”
He grinned. “Yeah, there is that.”
Her eyes softened but she looked sad. “What?” he asked her.
She took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled. “I had dreams of love in my marriage. Not of being forced to marry a stranger.”
“But you knew how it would be, you live the life.” As innocent as she appeared, she took his life as an assassin in stride. To do that she had to know what her father did.
“My brothers and sister were the ones meant to bear the heirs. Their mother was a Bourbon, a descendant of the kings of France. My mother was Papa’s second wife. A vivacious American heiress who he would do anything for. I was their only child. My purpose was never to bear an heir but to be the one to fly from the nest, not a care in the world. Because I was not of the correct blood on my mother’s side, I was never given a second thought, and therefore I was allowed to dream of a different life.”
“What do you mean ‘of the correct blood’?”
“Correct blood is blood that can be traced back to our European ancestors. Dumas goes back to Bonaparte, my mother is a Swenson, Danish, and not of the correct blood.”
“So if you are not of the correct blood how can your children be heirs?”
“My father is Dumas, he can change the rules or make new rules.”
He had no doubt Dumas would find some kind of loophole. “You talk about love; don’t you think you could love me?” he asked, wanting the truth and realizing her love would mean something to him. Mentally he slapped himself. Emotions fucked things up.
She shook her head and opened the jar she had brought in and dipped her fingers into it.
“No, just as I know you’re not a man capable of true love.”
Mateo cooled at the truth. “Why do you say that?”
Shrugging, she swept her fingers, full of some floral-scented gel, gently across his wound. Instantly it soothed the hurt. “It’s in your eyes. There’s a part of you that’s dead. No woman can reach that place.”
No woman had. Not even his ex-wife. Not before they lost their son and certainly not after. She held him responsible, and he shouldered that burden because it was solely his to bear.
He grabbed her hand, squeezing it harder than he intended. He didn’t deserve to love or be loved. Not a man like him. Quickly he released her. “I’m sorry.”
“We’re two kindred spirits in that regard. I will never trust a man enough to love.”
“Given who your father is, I’m not surprised.”
She bristled. “For all of his faults, he is a great man who I respect. As my husband, I expect you to respect my feelings on the matter.”
“Do you defend him because you feel you would be betraying him if you demanded he give you the same respect he demands from you?”
“I defend him because I am Dumas. And Dumas stands with Dumas.”
Mateo pressed his hand to her chest and felt the leap of her heart against his palm. “You’re Juarez now. And unlike your father, I won’t demand respect from you. I’ll earn it. And in turn give you the respect you deserve simply by the fact you are my wife.”
“Don’t make me choose between you and my father.”
“The choice was made when you said ‘I do,’ Sophia. Accept it.” Her heart beat furiously against his palm. “If I choose to walk away from here, I’ll take you with me.”
“He’ll kill you.”
“Would that be a bad thing for you?”
Her lush lips twitched as her cheeks flushed. “It would if my next husband couldn’t give me what you give me.”
His fingers splayed across her chest, brushing across a hard nipple. “Was that your first orgasm?”
The flush on her cheeks deepened. But her dark eyes held his. “Yes,” she exhaled.
“I want to give you more, angel.” He swept his thumb across her nipple, eliciting a moan from her. “I don’t want you to be too shy to initiate sex. Never think I would turn you away.” Her lips parted as he stroked her nipple, to hard. “I want you to learn what turns me on.”
Her lips parted into a slow smile as her dark eyes flashed with mischief. “Does this”—she pressed her lips to his neck—“turn you on?” She kissed him, then slid her tongue down his neck.
Mateo hissed in a long breath, the touch going straight to his dick. “Jesus, Sophia, I—” She licked him again. But this time longer, and deeper along his clavicle.
“Fuck me,” he exhal
ed as his dick swelled. He’d always been able to go a few rounds a day, but a third time in the space of three hours? He felt like a sixteen-year-old again.
Lifting her eyes to his, she smiled, and for the first time he noticed she had dimples. “I’ve already fucked you,” she reminded him. She pressed her lips an inch away from his wound, and licked the tender area. It hurt so damn good he was about to come.
“Are all men as easily aroused as you?” she asked as she licked and kissed him again; this time her tongue caught the side of his rib cage. Another few inches and she would have laved his nipple. It hardened at the thought. Squirming, Mateo groaned.
“Believe me when I tell you in all the years I have been sexually active, I have never reacted as quickly or as urgently to another woman as I do you.”
She smiled again, her dimples deepening. “If I were your wife by choice, I would be glad to hear that.”
“Does it count that you were my choice?” he huskily asked.
Her tongue stopped midstroke and she looked up at him. Something moved in her espresso-colored eyes. He’d swear she was touched by his words. Then her eyes frosted, shielding her true feelings.
“No, it doesn’t.”
“You’re a lousy liar, Sophia.” He smiled and glanced down at the unignorable rise in the sheet. “But that mouth of yours is spectacular.”
Shaking her head, she sat back, some of her frostiness gone. “Why are you even here?”
“I told you. Why can’t you get it through that crazy head of yours I came for you?” Though it was the truth, it wasn’t the entire truth.
“Because I can’t process what you say your motives are, because no man has ever wanted me for me. I have always been a means to an end.”
“I’m not like any man you’ve met. I didn’t know you existed until after I killed Bertram. And once I set eyes on you, I knew I had to have you. I followed you here.” He slid his knuckles along the smooth rise of her cheek. “So your only motive to heal me was because you felt like you owed me?”
