She slapped my hand away before I could touch her, the crack of her hand against mine echoing through the silence around us. "Don't fucking touch me," she growled. There was no fear in her face, no moment of recognition where she realized I'd killed people for less. I lifted my hand to stare at the pink skin where she'd struck me in surprise, before turning a smirk back her way.
"You shouldn't have done that, mi reina," I purred, tilting my head to the side as a sick smile transformed my face.
"Sorry to disappoint the great El Diablo," she said mockingly. "But I don't live to please you." She planted her hands on my chest, shoving me away from her hard enough that I stumbled in a moment of shock. She spun away from me, moving to walk back toward the house and leave me staring after her in the night.
I stepped forward, snatching her arm up in a tight grip. She twisted it and slapped me away again, glaring at me as if she could tempt me into her trap.
But she already owned me, and Isa was slowly realizing the depths of my obsession.
"You don't get to touch me anymore," she snapped, her glare faltering for a moment as she wondered how far I would push the envelope. The truth was, even I didn't know the answer to that.
I suspected there were no boundaries I wouldn't cross when it came to her.
"Another pretty lie. We both know this is going to end with you coming on my cock, mi reina," I said, tugging her into my chest. She pushed me away again, unwilling to give up the fight so easily.
It was a good thing her resistance and the fire that burned inside her turned me on. Anything was better than the empty shell who'd stared at the water, but watching her come into her own and become my equal was unparalleled. The Queen I’d always sensed hiding beneath the surface and smothered by everyone else’s expectations of her could finally be free.
Because their opinions no longer mattered.
"Fuck you," she hissed, jerking in my grip.
Chuckling, I lifted her into my arms as she struggled. She buried her fingers in my hair, gripping the short strands with all her strength and pulling so harshly that my scalp burned beneath her assault. Nails dug into my head, but I persevered to get her to our bedroom. I kicked the door open when I made my way through the labyrinth of hallways designed to give us time to escape in the event of an emergency, using my foot to close it behind me.
"That is the idea," I chuckled, dropping her onto the bed. She landed on her back, bouncing as she stared up at me where I stood at the foot. "And you'll love it, just like you love me," I said, my confidence in her feelings growing every time I said the words. No matter what she said to me, it was never a denial of our connection.
"There's something wrong with you," she hissed, watching as I stripped off my suit jacket and tossed it to drape over the back of the chair next to the bed. "Why did you bother with that charade in Ibiza if we were always going to end up here? What was the fucking point?”
I unbuttoned my shirt, sensing the vulnerability in her words as I watched her. The vague traces of the brokenhearted girl peeked through the cracks, trying to return despite her resolve and her evolution. As much as I loved her innocence, Isa would need to be stronger than that if she was going to stand by my side through everything I'd put her through in the future.
"I gave you the chance to fall in love with me. To choose me," I said, giving her a rare moment of complete honesty. "You didn't."
"Of course I didn't," she laughed, her face twisting as if the thought was absurd. It probably was. "I met you a week ago. I can't just abandon my family for a man who will toss me aside the moment he finds a new toy."
I glared at her, stripping the shirt off my chest and tossing it on top of my jacket. Her eyes tracked down from my face, gliding over my chest and to my abs as I gripped my belt and kicked off my shoes. "That isn't going to happen. I waited sixteen months to have you. I won't be so easily distracted from my obsession with you."
My pants and boxer briefs followed as I kicked them off, standing naked in front of Isa. "How the fuck was I supposed to know you were some kind of stalker?" she asked, rolling her eyes as she huffed in disbelief.
"Not some kind of stalker. Your stalker," I corrected her, reaching out for her. I grabbed her by the ankle, dragging her over to the edge of the bed. She kicked at my hand, but nothing would change the fact that she'd laid there and watched me strip.
Nothing would change the fact that she wanted me, in spite of her better judgement.
There'd come a time when she wasn't afraid of my darkness, where she welcomed it as part of her because she was just as twisted as I was. There'd come a time when she accepted that was who she was.
For now, I held her squirming legs still long enough to shove her dress up her hips and tear her panties down her legs. They bunched at her knees as she fought me, but it didn't matter for what I had planned. If anything, the restriction at her knees only helped as I pinned her legs to my chest and drove inside her.
She screamed from the sudden invasion, her pussy clenching around me to protest the brutality of it. I reached around her legs when she rose up onto her hands, pulling down her dress until her breasts sprang free from the fabric so I could watch them bounce as I fucked her.
With hard drives, I bottomed out inside her as her ass hovered at the edge of the bed. She grunted with the force of my thrusts, taking what I demanded of her without a verbal complaint.
Even while she glared at me, her pussy clenched me like a vice and tried to keep me locked inside her. As if her body needed it as desperately as I did.
When I wasn't inside her, I was thinking about it. When I was, I already dreaded the moment it ended. Her lush mouth twisted with pleasure as I struck the end of her, her hips rising to meet my thrusts as she sought more pleasure.
Wanting to feel her pressed against me, I tore her panties down her legs since she was feeling more cooperative and spread her wide so that I could lean my body over hers. I crashed my mouth against hers, tasting her as my tongue swept inside and claimed what was mine. I cupped her breast in my hand, squeezing it gently and working her nipple with my fingers while she moaned into my lips. "Tell me again how much you hate me, mi reina," I teased, pounding deep enough to shift her on the bed. I slid a hand into her hair, pulling her back down so I could drive into her with furious strokes as she glared at me.
"I hate you," she hissed, wrapping her legs around my waist to defy her confrontational words. Her arms followed, wrapping me in her embrace as she pulled me tighter to her body. With only the fabric of her dress bunched at her stomach between us, the lines of my body touched hers.
Every inch of skin vibrated as if electricity pulsed between us, the same shock of knowing I'd felt the moment her eyes connected with my own.
We were made for each other, no matter what I had to do to get her to see that.
She twisted her body, pulling me forward into the bed with her and rolling me to my back while I grinned at her. Instead of moving to separate us as I might have thought, Isa rolled her hips and took me deep. I tore the dress off her head, wanting to see every line of her body as she moved on top of me. The traces of the innocent girl who was insecure in her body were gone, replaced by the temptress who knew how deep my obsession ran.
I'd seen every inch of her, and I was still as obsessed with her as the first day I'd touched her, if not more.
Her body trembled and she ground her clit against my pubic bone as she rode me, chasing after her own orgasm with a brutality that threatened to make me explode before she had the chance. But I watched her dance on me, watched her face morph with pleasure as her pussy clenched down on my cock.
I'd thought to flip her to her back when she came, but she rode me through the orgasm despite her panting breaths. I groaned as my release approached, gripping her hips as she rocked hers back and forth on me. With her eyes intent on mine, the intimacy of the moment seemed unparalleled. My teeth sank into my bottom lip, and Isa shifted her hips suddenly to pull me out of her. I coated m
y stomach in my cum as she rubbed her pussy along my shaft to work me through the rest of my climax.
"Next time, wear a fucking condom, asshole," she hissed, swinging her leg over my hip and standing from the bed.
She disappeared into the bathroom, leaving me to laugh alone in her absence.
12
Isa
I woke up the next morning, the early sunshine streaming through the floor to ceiling windows making my eyes peel open. In the suite, Rafael had rarely slept later than me. He'd often been awake and working in the living room by the time I stumbled out of bed to eat a quick breakfast before he shared his plans for the day.
I'd naively thought he was some kind of sales manager, and I still didn't understand if that lie related to how he was a murderer or if it had been a complete fabrication. I got out of bed and moved to the windows, staring at the private little dip pool on the private terrace with a roll of my eyes. Given the extravagance of the main pool, having a separate one was just wasteful. It disappeared over the side of the cliff this side of the house rested against, the water of the pool blending in with the water of the Mediterranean. I touched the button on the side of the glass, jolting in surprise when the window whirred to life with a quiet murmur and retracted into the ceiling.
I glanced over my shoulder at Rafael, amazed that he would have slept through the noise. He always woke up so easily that I fully expected him to spring from the bed before I could step outside. I wrapped my arms around myself, eyeing the tall partition walls that kept the private terrace free from wandering eyes as people moved around the house.
I hadn't seen too many of them the day before, not with how quickly Regina had led me outside and I'd seen the brothers, but as I stepped outside I heard the soft murmur of voices on the other side.
There were none that I recognized, but the unmistakable sound of men and women conversing couldn't be denied. I imagined if the entire island was loyal to whatever El Diablo did, they were probably a fairly regular part of his life. Stepping onto the deck, I stared at the sun as it rose over the water. My body protested every movement I made after sitting for so long the day before, drawing a groan from me as I inhaled the fresh air.
I knew the moment Rafael woke up behind me, the sudden commotion of his body as he sprang into action when he found me missing from his bed. The movement stopped when he spotted me, and then the faint sound of footsteps came as he slowly made his way across the bedroom. His nude form pressed into the back of mine and the nightgown I'd thrown on before coming to bed the night before. Sweeping the hair off my shoulder, he touched a light kiss to the skin there.
My flesh raised in response even though I wanted nothing more than to hate the way his lips felt on my flesh. I'd seen him with blood on his hands. I knew one of the people he'd murdered. His crimes weren't innocent, and his sins were unforgivable. He’d forced me to grieve the loss of a friendship that had never really been mine to begin with.
"I thought you'd run," he murmured.
"Where would I go?" I asked flatly, wincing when his arms squeezed me tighter. He'd made certain I knew that there was no escaping him. That he would cross over oceans and all boundaries in his pursuit of this twisted obsession he had with me. He didn't respond, because there was no answer to that question. There was nowhere I could run. "Why do they call you El Diablo?" I asked. He nuzzled his face further into my neck, breathing in deeply as if he could draw me into his lungs.
"More questions? Is mi reina ready for the answers?" The sound of his voice rumbled against my skin, the vibrations pulsing through my body. I knew what it was to have all that power between my thighs, to have his mouth worship my flesh as if it was his favorite meal, and I could never seem to separate myself from the physical response he elicited in me. Was that how it was for everyone when they lost their virginity? Was it something that was unique to us or was I just too naïve to know the difference?
"I don't see how it matters if I'm ready for the answers at this point. You took that choice away from me when you brought me here," I murmured, stepping out of his grip to turn to face him. His multicolored gaze fell on mine, searching my face for something I didn't know that he'd find.
I felt like a stranger, like the cold had crawled out of the depths to embrace me in a shroud of emptiness and only my moments of rage could bring me back to life. Nothing about my life back home felt safe. He'd tainted that with his stain before I'd ever known he existed.
He could and would have my body, but I had to find a way to shield my heart from the pain he caused. Rafael was a raging inferno, consuming everything in his path without regret.
He turned my mind into chaos, threatening to make me need him in a way that I never should have. I needed answers to the burning questions circulating in my head if I was ever going to shove him out of my soul. If I'd ever find a way to cleanse myself of his darkness.
"El Diablo means the devil," he said.
"I knew that much, thanks," I said sarcastically. "That doesn't tell me why they call you it. What do you do, go around the world murdering innocent people for fun?"
"I do a great many things, mi reina," he said, grasping my chin in his grip so that he could hold my eyes with his. "I own legitimate businesses like Lotus and Moon in Ibiza, but I also own the underbelly of the island and some of the territory on the mainland."
"The underbelly?" I asked, squinting my eyes as I tried to understand what he was saying. I'd lived a sheltered life, so caught up in the safety of my routine that I couldn't help but feel like I was outside my realm of comprehension.
"The criminal side of the city. The term you would probably be most familiar with is the mafia, but my ranks are not limited by the same kind of familial bonds as those are. My men work their way up the ranks by proving themselves loyal, not by being born to my father's men."
"The mafia? Don't they sell drugs and weapons? Don't they sell people?" I asked, flinching back from him. Those fingers held my chin steadily, refusing to release me as I struggled against his touch. Wayne had been an asshole, and I could almost convince myself that he deserved what he got. But there were some lines I couldn't tolerate, and selling people was so far beyond that limit I didn't know what to do with myself. "No wonder you thought it was perfectly acceptable to abduct me off the streets!"
"I assure you, mi reina, you are the first person that I have ever kidnapped in this way. Human trafficking isn't something I tolerate, especially after seeing you standing on the side of the road. Completely unaware that a war raged around you in Chicago when one side of the war fought for the right to sell young girls just like you into sexual slavery. My alliance with the Bellandis is what brought me to your city when I saw you, and my desire to stop trafficking only grew when I thought of what might have happened to you had I not offered you my protection." His words felt like they unlocked a piece of my heart, with the worst of the crimes he could have committed off the table.
"But drugs?"
He nodded. "I am not a good man, Princesa. My men sell drugs. I negotiate arms deals with governments all over the world, and I care little for anything beyond how much they will pay me. Women work for me willingly in the sex trade. My crimes are extensive, but I do what I can to mitigate the fall out on innocent people."
I shook my head as angry tears threatened my eyes. "Except for me," I whispered.
"Except for you," he confirmed, leaning forward to tease my lips with his.
The kiss was gentle as he willed me to feel something he couldn't say. I didn't know what there could be to say beyond the fact that he was a murderer. That he was a criminal beyond redemption.
It went without saying that he'd never let me go.
I just didn't know why.
"Fuck!" I screamed, clawing for purchase along the shower wall. Rafael's hands gripped the underside of my ass, lifting it up to give him a better angle as he powered through my tender tissue. The ridge of his cock stroked over my back wall as the rain shower head dropped water onto my
back and where he took me.
"You'll fucking take it," he grunted, shoving into me so harshly that my hands slipped along the wall and the side of my face planted into the tile. One of his hands left my ass, his massive arm stretching over my body to press the palm of his hand to the side of my head as he held me completely immobile.
Each thrust forced me up onto my toes, his balls slapping into the backs of my thighs in a sound that bounced off the shower walls.
"Touch my pussy," he groaned, using his other hand to grab my wrist and shove my fingers between my legs. I stroked my clit, building the pleasure higher and higher as he took me.
"Oh God," I whimpered.
His hand came down on my ass in a sharp slap, stinging the skin with his reprimand. "There's no God here, mi reina. Only El Diablo." My fingers stroked faster, pressing harder into my clit as something brushed against my other entrance. I jolted in his grip, trying to move away from the added sensation as he applied pressure slowly.
The water eased his way as he slid a finger in my ass, the burn of it drawing a ragged groan from my lips. "Rafe," I whimpered.
"Fucking come, Isa," he ordered, pulling his finger back and then sliding it back inside me. He thrust inside me sharply, pushing me over the edge into a blinding orgasm as my body felt too full. Too taken by him and consumed.
He groaned behind me, shoving deep as he flooded my body with cum before I came down from my orgasm. I groaned my frustration into the shower wall, trying to push off and dislodge him. But he held me still with his hand at my head, keeping me trapped as he slid through my pussy slowly.
He slid his finger from my ass as he released my head finally, leaning back to watch his length as he pushed in and out of me twice more before finally pulling free. "I think I won round one today," he murmured with a chuckle, wrapping his arm around my chest and pulling me up until my back pressed against his front. "We'll see who wins round two later."
Until Forever Ends: A Dark Mafia Romance Page 9
