by Karin Tabke
So her husband was an assassin with a noble cause? It still made him the criminal he was.
She looked up and around the shower for a camera or bugs.
Reading her thoughts, he bent to her ear and said, “This room is clear of any video.”
“Why would my father do such a thing?”
“Protecting his bloodline.”
“He doesn’t trust me. He’s afraid I’ll run away like my mother did.”
Mateo’s lips drew tight into a thin line.
Sophia’s radar immediately caught on. “What? Why that look?”
Dread shimmied along her spine when he continued to look as if he knew something terrible that would hurt her.
“I don’t think your mother went missing.”
Sophia gasped. “You think—” It made perfect sense, of course, but she had denied it. Why else had she not been able to find even a shred of her existence anywhere? And Sophia had tried. She had gone so far as to hire a private investigator to look for her. He’d come up with nothing. But what if Mama hadn’t wanted to be found?
Touching her arms, Mateo gently squeezed her and nodded. He didn’t have to say the words. She didn’t want to hear the ugly truth.
Sophia sank to her knees. Water cascaded down her cheeks, blending with her tears. Her head denied the words, but in her heart, she knew it was true. “Why? Why would he do that? He loved her!”
“Maybe she’d had enough? Maybe she knew too much? Maybe his pride would not allow her to just walk away?”
Sophia trembled even though the water was warm. “The last night I saw her she was terrified. She told me she had to go, that she didn’t want to be a wife and mother anymore. I knew she lied. I could see it in her eyes; hear it in her voice. She loved me! I begged her to take me with her but she refused. She hugged me and gave me her pendant. As she clasped it around my neck she said, ‘My sweet girl, you hold the power, one day you will know what it is and how to use it. At your darkest hours, call upon the Blessed Mother, in her time she will reveal her secrets to you.’ ” Blurry eyed, she touched the pendant that hung from Mateo’s neck. “This is all that is left of her.”
Mateo’s big, warm hand wrapped around hers as he settled down beside her in the steamy shower. “Do you want me to take you away from here?”
Her heart slammed against her chest. It was what she wanted more than anything. But she was kidding herself with her fantasies of freedom. “I can never leave here.”
“I have connections, Sophia, I can get you out of here. You can start a new life anywhere in the world you want.”
“If I abandon the people of Terra Oro now, my father will take his wrath out on them. He knows I know that. I won’t be responsible for even one of their deaths.” Her situation, she realized, was hopeless.
“What if your father were no more?”
She backed away from him. “Is that why you’re really here? To kill my father?”
He shook his head but fixed his gaze on hers. “I told you why I was here. I want you. I still want you, but I want all of you, and I can’t protect you here.”
“I don’t need your protection. My father is a lot of things, but he won’t allow any harm to come to me. He wants a grandchild and only I can give him that.”
“You’re in denial.”
She shook her head, pressing her hands to her ears.
“He killed your mother, brother and sister. He’s killed dozens if not hundreds more.”
“No! He would never kill his family. Only a monster would do that. Yes, he’s hard, but not a monster. He protects his people. They stay for him.”
“He terrorizes them into compliance.”
She could not, would not listen to his accusations, because if they were true, how could she continue to live under the same roof with such an animal?
“Let me help you, Sophia.”
She stood, knowing in her heart there was not an army big enough to protect her from her father’s wrath should she run. “If I killed my father I could never live with myself.”
He stood with her and said, “Sleep on it. Tomorrow I’d like you to show me around this town you call home. We’ll be free to discuss what we need to without fear of being listened to.”
As they exited the shower they stopped short—they were not alone. Alexander Dumas had stopped by to say good night.
chapter eleven
“It’s customary to knock,” Mateo growled.
“I knock for no one,” Dumas said, striding into the bedroom.
“Father, really!” Sophia huffed.
As she wrapped herself in a big, fluffy towel and made to move past him, Mateo grasped her hand and pulled her to his side. He eyed the cartel boss, who stood arrogantly challenging him to push further. Even if Mateo didn’t know what the old man was about, he still wouldn’t like him. He was a terrorist in every definition of the word. And if there was one thing Mateo could never tolerate, it was a bully.
“It doesn’t matter that your father has no respect for you or your privacy, because we’ll be leaving tomorrow,” Mateo said.
“You’re welcome to leave, but you leave alone,” Dumas threw back.
“What do you mean, we’re leaving?” Sophia asked, panic rising in her voice.
Mateo looked at her and wished that she could read his mind. He’d tell her it was a power play, and to win, he needed her fully committed to him, at least on the surface. “You’re my wife. I refuse to live in a house where we have no privacy.” He looked at his furious father-in-law. “You overstep your bounds, sir.”
“But—” Sophia sputtered. He tightened his grip on her hand.
“What about you, Daughter? Do you feel the same?” Dumas asked.
Mateo scoffed at the question and answered for her. “Does it matter if she does? You don’t respect her feelings. Why do you even ask?” As he challenged the old man he saw something he had not expected, a blink. “Leave us, but before you go, remove the cameras and the bugs from our rooms.”
Dumas growled. Mateo pushed. “If you don’t, I will.”
“Cameras? Bugs?” Sophia pulled her hand from his and squarely faced her father. “What is he talking about, Papa?”
“They were installed for your protection.”
“My protection? How so?”
“You are my only child. After your brother’s and sister’s disappearance and Javier’s death, I leave nothing to chance.”
She moved closer to him. “What does that have to do with spying on me in my own bedroom?”
As if he had every right to do what he did, Dumas pragmatically continued, “Unbeknownst to you, there have been several attempts over the past years to kidnap you. Twice the hoodlums have breached the hacienda. If they made it as far as your room, I would know.”
“But the camera in my sitting room, it wasn’t there before.”
Dumas nodded.
“It was just installed so that he could spy on me,” Mateo accused. “All the more reason for us to leave.”
“I can protect my daughter.”
“As can I.”
“You are one, I am many.”
“I may be one, but she’s not a chattel to me.” He pulled Sophia back toward him. “I would protect her with my life. Would you do the same?”
Dumas made a nasty snarling sound, his face twisting furiously. That this man had never been challenged fascinated Mateo as much as it incited him to call the old bastard out every chance he got. “I would sacrifice all for my daughter, including my life. Never question my intentions again.”
Dumas speared Sophia with a glare but before he could speak, she held her hand up and said, “I give you fair warning right now, Papa, if any harm comes to my husband, I’ll hold you responsible. He’s worthy of me and in so being, he’s worthy of Dumas.” She lowered her hand and her vo
ice to a more amicable tone. “I understand your worry, and I love you for it, but I won’t have my privacy invaded.”
“Which brings me to the reason for my visit.”
Sophia waited. “Which is?”
“I would like you to consider taking a leave of absence from work for the next few months.”
“Why?” She loved the children.
“As a precaution.”
“What’s going on that she needs to be hiding out here?” Mateo asked.
“Just a fatherly instinct,” Dumas said.
“Thank you for your concern, but I’m not taking a leave of absence. Now, please leave us so that we may finally have some privacy.”
When the old man reluctantly withdrew, closing the door behind him, Mateo and Sophia made quick work of clearing out a total of three cameras and a handful of bugs. Once they were disposed of, Mateo pulled her into his arms and smoothed the frown from her brow. He was grinning ear to ear.
“What?” she asked.
“So I’m worthy of you now?”
She smiled sweetly but said, “Don’t flatter yourself. I need you if I’m ever going to get out of here.”
“Ah.” He released her and grabbed his chest as if he were in pain. “I am but a mere means to an end.”
“Don’t forget it,” she said, poking him on the back of the hand.
She moved past him and hurried into the bathroom, locking the door behind her. Not that that would keep him out. She needed a cold shower. If she didn’t get one soon, she’d jump his bones.
His sheer animal magnetism aside, his willingness to stand up to her father on her behalf turned her on as much as his touch. More, actually. He was a man’s man who fought for what he wanted. And he wanted her. That it was most likely for something other than riding off into the sunset with her didn’t change the fact that he was highly attracted to her and refused to back down from a man whose authority had never in his life been challenged by another man.
It was heady, sexy stuff, and try as she might to tell herself Mateo was using her, she didn’t care. For the first time in her life, she felt alive. All cylinders sparked when he looked her way. When he touched her she shifted into high gear. And when he went toe to toe with her father, she took off. It was crazy, exhilarating, and she wanted more because with Mateo, she felt like the sexiest woman alive. But her father’s tolerance was not a wide-open space. He had his limits and he was close to pushing back. Hard. He would make the statement in the form of grave bodily harm, that not even for his daughter would el patrón allow her husband to disregard his word, which was law. For her not to become a widow anytime soon, Sophia would have to temper the protective streak in her husband. And to do that she needed to be stronger.
Once she had toweled off, she smiled as she picked her sleeping attire with extreme care. Mateo’s actions all day long had her thinking of one thing: sex. She wanted to feel the power of him inside her again. The rush that came with his possessively claiming her. The feel of his hard body against her soft one. Yes, she wanted sex again. Mateo’s description of what he wanted to do to her on the kitchen table, spurred by her vivid recall of the mind-blowing pleasure she had experienced when he had taken her from behind earlier, fueled her raging libido. What he did to her was indescribably delicious. Her body thrummed in remembrance. She wanted him that way again.
To make sure that happened, she chose a long, sheer powder blue number that Arabella had given her for her wedding night with Javier. It had an empire waist with a silk corset front. The skirt was car wash–style, which gave her easy movement. So that she didn’t appear so blatantly wanton, she slipped on the pair of matching thong panties.
As she stood in the doorway between the bathroom and the bedroom, she didn’t hurry to turn the light off behind her. Instead she gave the man in her bed time to savor her. He made a low groaning sound and she knew it wasn’t from the pain in his shoulder. What felt like electrical pulses sparked in her vagina. The sensation startled her.
“Is there anything you need before I come to bed?” she asked, a raspy edge to her voice.
“Just you in it.”
Turning the light off behind her, she softly padded into the bedroom, and the only light to guide her was the low glow of the lamp on her side of the bed. Mateo’s eyes were fixed on her. Her breasts grew heavy as desire flushed hot through her veins.
Demurely she slid onto the bed beside her husband and lay on her back not touching him. Her heart thudded wildly in her chest. She was nervous. She wanted to be bold and reach out to him, but shyness overcame her. What if he said no? He made no move toward her. Maybe he was tired. It had been a hell of a day and he was not in peak form. Disappointment swept through her.
“My father will test you, repeatedly, until you fall,” she said, staring at the ceiling.
“Then I guess I’ll have to stay standing.”
She rolled over to find him facing her. “Even if I wanted to love you, I wouldn’t.”
His eyes widened in surprise. “Okay, that came out of nowhere.”
She leaned up on an elbow and traced a fingertip along his bottom lip. “Alexander Dumas is always the last man standing.”
“He never went up against me.”
“Your arrogance will get you killed sooner than later.”
“It’s not arrogance if it’s the truth.”
He rolled her over onto her back, pressing his hard body against her softer one. His arousal pressed hot and thick against her thigh. It heightened her own arousal, knowing she had not even touched him and he was hard for her. She didn’t fight it. She encouraged it.
“Instead of telling me how you won’t love me, tell me how you would if you could.” He grinned.
Instinctively Sophia knew he did not smile often. And it was a shame, because it lit up his handsome face. “There’s no point.”
Lowering his lips to hers, he softly said, “Then show me.”
She smiled as she looped her arms around his neck, and pressed her sensitive breasts against his chest. The friction caused her to gasp. She hadn’t planned on that, she was simply going to pull him closer and say, “Not on your life.” But the words never came. When she gasped, her lips parted and he plundered them.
“No, wait,” she said, tearing her lips from his. She wanted this, she did, but she needed to control it, and she was out of control. “Please, stop.”
He did and she wanted to scream at him to start again. She was crazy. Crazy!
Sliding his fingers deeply into her damp hair, his eyes narrowed seriously. “Sophia, I want you to trust me when I say I can get you out of here, and keep you safe. For that to happen I need to get in good with Dumas, and prove myself. As I do that, we need to show a united front. For that we need to connect where we connect the best . . .”
“We don’t need to have sex to show a united front.”
“Yes, we do. I want there to be no doubt among the family that we’re committed. Sex has a way of stripping down the bullshit and exposing the reality of our true attraction to each other. And say what you will, but there is something crazy between us that I’m not going to try and diffuse. I want you. If I have you again, it will show in my eyes to anyone who pays attention that I can’t wait to get you into my bed each night. And you will look at me with the hungry look that’s in your eyes right now.”
“As much as I want to be free of this place, I can’t leave my people.”
“Trust me to make sure that they will not come to any harm.”
“You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”
“Nor do you.”
He cupped her face in his hands. “Trust me, Sophia.” He kissed her again; this time, she did not resist.
• • •
Mateo lost himself in the kiss. The truth of why he was there didn’t come to mind because in truth, he would protect
her. The only thing he saw, felt, touched and smelled was Sophia. Her smooth skin, long, silky hair and lush breasts. Every inch of her being beckoned him.
Tracing his hands down her shoulders to her warm, firm breasts, he moaned when she arched into his palms.
“You’re beautiful, Sophia, beautiful. Let me make love to you.”
She moaned again and nipped at his chin, drawing blood. Heat flashed through him, changing his gentle mood to something more. Her eyes flashed a challenge, and he felt the change in her as well. When she nipped him again, harder this time, he growled a warning.
Grasping her wrists, he pushed her hands over her head. Holding them clasped in his hand, he lowered his face to hers. Their suddenly shallow breaths blew into each other’s mouths. Sophia’s nostrils flared, her sultry skin exuding wild come-fuck-me pheromones. “Do you want to play rough?”
She smiled seductively, narrowing her eyes, licking his blood off her bottom lip. His dick throbbed painfully. With his free hand, Mateo ripped the nightgown from her, moaning with satisfaction as her hard nipples speared his chest.
Grinning at her, he nipped one, not hard enough to draw blood, but enough to make his point. “Answer me,” he demanded before he licked the swollen tip. She moaned and arched then twisted around and as she tried to push him away he grabbed her retreating hips, bringing her back toward his dick. She was on all fours before him, and as he moved into her, he deliberately didn’t penetrate. But he did slide his cock along her slick, warm folds. “Jesus,” he hissed. “Your pussy is so swollen, and your scent so strong. Please”—he rocked against her, causing her entire body to tremble—“don’t deny either one of us what we want.”
In a total female move, she undulated her hips up and around, catching the wide head of his cock in her slick folds, then slid back on him, impaling herself to his balls.
“Holy hell, woman,” he groaned as her slick muscles grasped him. She was tight, wet and so damn hot, he nearly came at that moment. “Don’t move,” he groaned between clenched teeth. “Let me—” Jesus, he felt like he was fifteen and this was his first time. Her body pulsed and twitched around his, the sensation striking his cock like lightning. He ground his hips slowly against her ass, and took a deep breath then slowly exhaled as he pulled almost entirely out of her before plunging deeply into her.
