by Karin Tabke
“Let the rats have them. They don’t deserve anything more.”
She nodded and turned, trying to force the horrible image of what they had done to Lily from her mind.
• • •
The short drive back to Terra Oro was quiet, punctuated only by Lily’s wretched sobs. Mateo had no words of comfort. There weren’t any. He could only reassure her that she was safe with him and Sophia.
“Turn left at the first circle,” Sophia directed him as they passed beneath the high stone archway that signified they were entering the golden grounds of Dumas. “The clinic is down on the right. Go to the back parking lot, we’ll go in through the private entrance.”
Sophia went in first and was back before the door swung shut. “Come on, no one in but the doc and two nurses.”
Mateo gathered the traumatized girl in his arms and carefully walked with her to the clinic. Her body tensed in the new surroundings.
“Thank god, Doctor Trish is on call tonight,” Sophia said.
A good thing indeed. Lily would not let a strange man touch her, he was sure. Not even a benevolent doctor. Mateo set her down on the bed in the examining room just as the good doc came in and began to speak in a soothing tone to Lily. Having no place among the women under these conditions, Mateo left Sophia with Lily and the doctor. He had a little mission of his own. Sacred Heart church was just across the street. He needed to go confess to the padre.
As Mateo entered the quiet sanctity of the church he felt instant calm. He wasn’t a religion guy. He believed in something. But he wasn’t quite sure what. And even less now after what he had just witnessed.
He nosed around until he located the rectory in the back of the church and knocked on the door. Father Hernandez looked surprised when he recognized Mateo. His brows crashed together. As he looked back and forth behind Mateo, he pulled him in and then hastily shut the door and locked it.
“What can I do for you, my son?” he nervously asked.
Mateo removed the vial from his jeans pocket and handed it to the padre. “I need you to get this to my team ASAP and have them analyze it. I’ll be back in two days to confess all of my sins at four in the afternoon. I’ll expect a full report then.”
He turned and let himself out, not staying and giving the nervous padre any more information than he had to. It kept them both safer that way. As he walked back to the clinic, Mateo rubbed his fingers across the bulge in his other pocket. It was the other vial. But it wasn’t empty. He’d only given one of the three yellow pills to the padre. He’d show Dumas one and ask if he had any idea what it was and who was pushing it. His reaction would be interesting.
Mateo heard the screams before he crossed the street. Sprinting to the front of the clinic he rushed in, but stopped short when he heard Sophia’s soothing voice, “Lily, it’s okay, the doctor just wants to help you.”
“No,” she sobbed. “Please no.” Lily’s voice had grown hoarse and raspy from so much screaming. Mateo felt sick to his stomach. How could anyone sleep at night knowing the drug they created and peddled was so destructive, not only physically but emotionally? Lily would be haunted by what happened to her tonight for the rest of her life.
Mateo moved to the door of the exam room and as the nurse came out he said, “Why doesn’t the doc give her something to calm her down?”
“She just did. It should kick in soon.”
Silence infiltrated the hallway, and Mateo let out a long breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. Sophia slipped from the room. Her clothes were ripped and smeared with blood, and he noticed for the first time in the bright light that she had not escaped unscathed. Cuts and fresh bruising marred her skin. He pulled off his shirt and quickly covered her bare shoulders and half-naked breasts. “I’m sorry, in all of the commotion I didn’t realize you were hurt, angel. Why didn’t you say something?”
“My scrapes are of little consequence considering what happened to Lily.”
“I hear what you’re saying but still, I want the doc to look at you.”
Shaking her head, Sophia moved past him to sit in a chair. “I’m fine. Lily isn’t. She’s going to need more than just her body healed. She’s somewhere else entirely.”
“I don’t know what those guys were taking, but whoever’s manufacturing it needs to be skinned alive. I’ve seen a lot of shit in my life, but that was brutal.”
Sophia stood. “Father’s hosting a dinner at the hacienda Saturday night. While he didn’t tell me, I overheard him speaking with the mayor about several of the guests who will be in attendance. Several cartel heads.”
“How do you know about them?” he asked carefully.
“I might be a kindergarten teacher, Mr. Juarez, but I’m not dumb and I’m not blind. I know more about my father’s business than he thinks I do.”
“If your father is such an upstanding businessman, why would he have cartel bosses dine with him?”
“I think he knows about this drug and wants to know who’s behind it.”
“And what do you think he would do with that information?”
“Insist they stop.”
Mateo shook his head. She really had no clue about who her father was. “Why would he do that?”
Sophia looked at him with a shocked expression. “While my father might be an overbearing, interfering, grumpy man, he’s a humanitarian at heart. He’ll be shocked when I tell him what happened!”
“I’m sure he will be. I want to be there with you when you tell him.” He dug into his pocket and removed the vial. “I have a pill. He can send it out to be analyzed.”
“He won’t have to send it out. He has a full lab belowground with a full-time staff.”
Bingo. The lab location was huge. But did she really have no idea what kind of man her father was? “Why would a businessman have a subterranean lab?”
“My mother had a rare form of leukemia. It was discovered right after I was born. It was managed with treatment, but Papa promised her he would spend every last cent he had to find a cure.”
Mateo wanted to scream to this beautiful girl that her father was a monster and not worthy of her love and respect, love and respect she still had for him despite his rough treatment of her.
“Over the years his research teams have branched out, looking for cures for other fatal diseases.” She cocked her head and asked, “I would have thought you’d have detected the faint chemical smell that occasionally permeates the village. It’s from the lab.”
Did he mention the stench that came from those three guys tonight was the same stench as her father’s cancer research? Mateo bit back the comment. He was going to have to lead Sophia gently to the truth, and once she saw for herself what a monster her father was and what he had done to her mother, only then would he be able to use her as his tool of destruction.
One of the nurses came out of Lily’s room and said, “She’s quiet. Doctor Trish is going to do her exam while she’s out and then clean her up.”
“What happens if she wakes up while—”
The nurse smiled reassuringly. “She won’t wake up until sometime tomorrow morning.” She pointed to the cut across Sophia’s collarbone. “You should have the doc stitch that up before you go.”
“Thanks, but I’m okay.”
“Sophia . . .” Mateo said. “For me, please.”
She looked up into his concerned eyes. “I just want to get a shower and go to bed.”
He nodded, knowing she was not backing down. But neither was he.
Twenty minutes later, after the doc decided she didn’t need stitches, Mateo carried her out of the clinic and drove her home.
• • •
Mateo slipped his arm around Sophia’s waist as they dragged themselves up the stairway to her room. Suddenly Sophia’s father called out from behind them. Sophia stiffened. Mateo tightened his arm around her wa
ist.
“Now that you have a husband can you not say good night to your father?” he asked.
Sophia didn’t want to turn around and face him only because she was too exhausted to relive what had happened. And he would want to know what happened when he saw the condition she was in.
Mateo swept her up into his arms and half turned with her. “She’s not feeling well, sir, I think she may have food poisoning from dinner.”
Sophia stared at her father from beneath lowered lashes. “Papa,” she moaned, “please, I just want to go to my room and—” She put her hand over her mouth as if she were about to vomit.
“Sir,” Mateo said as he turned and ran with her up the stairway and into their room.
As he slammed the door closed with the heel of his boot they both started laughing.
“Thank you for that, I don’t think I could have faced him.” She shivered, suddenly sobering. And honestly, her dinner did roll in her belly when the horrible vision of what happened to Lily sprang into her mind’s eye. “I need to shower.” He moved to follow her but she turned and put her hand on his chest. “Before dinner I would have loved for you to join me, but now I think I need to be alone for a few minutes.”
He nodded and stepped back, and it took more determination than she thought it would to close the bathroom door behind her.
Thirty minutes later, showered, dressed in a light flowing nightgown, Sophia slid between the smooth, fresh sheets, and sighed. “Thank you,” she softly said to her husband, who sat in the shadowed corner of the room with his ankle over his knee and a dark, brooding look on his handsome face. Fatigue stole heavily over her. She would ask him what was wrong in the morning.
She dreamed of monsters chasing her. Of being surrounded by a rabid Javier who held his severed head in his hand, demanding she marry him.
“No!” she cried. The heinous vision burned into her eyelids. She could not escape it.
“Corazón,” her mother’s sweet voice soothed. “Shhh, I’m here now.” And then she sang the lullaby she always sang when Sophia woke screaming from night terrors.
“Mama . . . ?”
“She’s gone, Sophia, but I’m here,” a deep, familiar voice calmed. Her husband? Mateo?
The cut on her collarbone burned painfully. Several others throbbed. “Hurts,” she moaned.
Gentle lips brushed against her wounds. Then a warm, strong tongue softly licked each one, taking care not to hurt her. Yes. She moaned in sweet pain. The lips moved down her legs, where sharp fingers had dug into her calves and ankles.
A different type of pain washed in soft waves through her body. Her body writhed as the healing kisses and talented tongue methodically slid along her feverish skin until she burned for a different relief.
When she reached out to dig her fingers through his hair, he gently shook her off. “Relax,” he softly said.
“I don’t want to,” she pouted.
He chuckled against her belly. “Tonight you’ll listen to your husband for a change.”
She was about to tell him she wanted to be in control, but then he slid his hands up her legs to the junction of her thighs and torso, pushing the hem of her nightie to her hips, and ever so softly, slid his thumbs along her slick seam and parted her nether lips. Trailing his nose down her belly, he opened his mouth and blew hot breath on her. “You should see how swollen and sexy your pussy looks right now, angel.”
Closing her eyes, she fisted the sheet in her hands and arched, parting her thighs, giving him more access. He slid the pad of his thumb so lightly across her sensitive clitoris that she breathlessly exhaled. “Do you like that?” His thumb swept across it again, followed by his lips.
A strangled cry escaped her lips as she moved hotly beneath him. “Please, Teo. Give me more.”
“I like it when you call me that,” he rasped, dragging his tongue across her straining clit. “I’m going to give you more than you can handle, angel.” He sucked her between his lips, flicking her stiff nub with his tongue. Jarring rivets of fire shot through her, startling her with their intensity.
Sliding her nightgown higher up her belly, he grasped it with two hands and yanked it. The sound of it tearing as he pulled it away from her sultry skin, exposing everything to him, sent waves of heat shimmering through her. Sinking her fingers into his thick, dark hair, Sophia undulated against his ravenous mouth.
His hands glided toward her hips; one slid along her slick pubis bone and gently pushed back, exposing the hood of her clit, giving his hungry mouth more access. Digging her heels into the bed, her thighs spread farther apart.
“I love you like this, angel. Hot, wet, panting for more.” He slid a thick finger into her and she cried out. “So hungry for more.” He sucked her clitoris deeply into his mouth, rolling his tongue around it. “I want to watch you come in my mouth, angel.”
His words ignited something deep and primal inside of her, a fire that once lit had to be quenched. Digging her fingers into his scalp, she moved hotly against him. “Teo,” she gasped, gulping for air. She looked down to find his gaze locked on her, his face between her legs, his lips and tongue ravaging her as his finger pumped into her. When he slid a second finger into her, tapping a sensitive place deep inside, her eyes widened. “I—oh—god,” she crooned as her clitoris and vagina erupted in an overload of sensation. The orgasm shot through her like a bullet, hitting her hard, catching her off guard. She hadn’t expected it so soon. Its intensity and the ease with which she came stunned her.
“Teo,” she breathed, trying to sit up as the waves crashed through her. She needed him inside her, wanted to feel his power in and around her. “Please,” she begged. “Take me. Take me now.”
Trailing his fingertips along her thighs and tight belly, then to her eager breasts, he swirled them around her nipples, plucking each one as it hardened. Her body writhed, empty of him, needing to be filled. She locked her legs around his waist, pressing her hips against him, rubbing her mound against his thick erection.
He laughed low, the sound sexy and dangerous. “I had no idea when I saw you on that dance floor you would be so hot for me, angel.” He caught a nipple between his lips and suckled deeply. He let her go with a pop and smiled as he moved his hips lower, pressing the wide tip of his penis against her. When he made no move to enter her she pushed down, catching the head between her hot lips. “Greedy girl,” he rasped before catching the other nipple in his mouth. As he sucked, she moved ardently against him but he held himself from her.
She was ravenous for him. “Teo, please, I need you inside of me. Now.”
He grinned against her nipple then let it go with a farewell lick. “I don’t have a condom.”
“Ack! You should have thought of that before you seduced me!”
“I’m sorry, angel, I got a little sidetracked this afternoon and forgot.” He kissed her nose. “And just now, a little more carried away.”
Squeezing her eyes shut, Sophia tried unsuccessfully to stop her body’s demand to be penetrated.
“What do you want me to do?” he softly asked, just as he kissed the shell of her ear.
Pressing against him, she quaked with frustration. She wanted him inside of her. But she didn’t want to get pregnant. And if her calculations were right, she had two more days . . .
“I want you to make love to me,” she breathed, tightening her arms around his neck. He pulled up to look at her. His eyes were dark and stormy as they searched her face to be sure.
“Angel,” he started. “There are other ways we can satisfy each other.”
Hot tears welled in her eyes as emotion erupted within her. “I know, but I want you to make love to me. Like you mean it.”
He stilled and stared at her for a long moment. So long she thought his guilty conscience must have caught up with him. And because of that he was going to leave the bed because he didn’
t mean it. Had never meant it. And never would.
When his hips moved, and he slid slowly into her, a tear leaked down her face. “I’ve never meant anything more in my life, angel,” he whispered before he kissed it away.
“Teo,” she breathed as he moved deeply into her. “I think I love you.” His body stilled before he kissed her, grinding his hips into her, then withdrawing and thrusting deeply into her again.
More tears leaked from her eyes as emotions she had held locked away for so long came pouring out of her. He kissed her, holding her tight, telling her he would protect her and not to be afraid. And in his arms, for the first time since her mother left her all those years ago, she felt cherished.
Hugging him tightly against her heart, Sophia let herself go and reveled in his response. His hips went from slow, deep thrusts, to quick, hard ones. Their skin slickened as their balmy breaths mingled. Mateo slid an arm around her waist, pulling her more firmly against him as he slammed into her. Sophia cried out as the building tension in her body crested.
“That’s it, angel, come for me. Only me. Come for me now.”
Everything inside of her shattered as if she’d been dropped from a hundred yards. Digging her nails into his back, she screamed as the deep throbbing pulses of her orgasm shot through her, literally like a fireworks finale, one exploding after another, each more intense than the one before it. It was sensation overload at its most carnal.
Just as she was coming down, Mateo caught her lips in his, his body tightening as spasms wracked through him. She could feel the thick rush of his seed as he ejaculated deep within her, and her vaginal muscles as they contracted tightly around his thickness, milking him of every drop.
He collapsed on her and, still inside of her, he rolled over onto his back and pulled her to him. Sprawled on top of him like a fat, sated cat on a porch swing, Sophia smiled, closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.
• • •
Sophia woke to the aromatic fragrance of fresh-brewed coffee. Stretching, she opened her eyes to her husband watching her intently. Heat rose in her cheeks as their night in bed came back to her. Dear god, she had invited him to have unprotected sex then told him she loved him! And worse, he didn’t say it back. And why should he, for god’s sake? They’d only known each other less than a week!
