And marking her was exactly what he wanted to do right now. He wanted to rip the fucking bathroom door off its hinges, pick her up, throw her onto the bathroom vanity and fuck her until she screamed and he had to gag her. He wanted to kiss those soft, dewy lips, get them wet and swollen, and then push her onto her knees so that he could slide his dick right into her wet mouth. He wanted to come all over her face, her beautiful tits, her ass. He’d been waiting for the day when he could have her freely, when his father would finally allow their union to be official . . . But there was one problem.
She was locked in the bathroom.
Had been for the better part of an hour.
She wasn’t coming out.
He smashed his fist against the bathroom door.
Inside, he waged a war. Against her. Against himself. Against every shitty thing he had ever done.
He lifted his fist to smash the door again, even though his knuckles were already a bloody mess, even though he didn’t deserve her forgiveness. He craved it. He’d stood in the sunshine of her love once, and now on the other side, it was midnight, and he was cold.
Fist in the air, he almost hit her in the goddamn face when she yanked the door open abruptly and stood there, wearing her pretty strapless white dress, her tattoo angry and red-black around her ring finger.
‘What?’ she snapped.
He felt the angry wall inside of him collapse, if only for a moment. He was just tired.
‘I want to go back to that first time in your apartment,’ Dornan said gruffly, flexing the fist he’d just about driven into her face by accident. He reached out a hand, cupped her face tenderly with his rough skin.
‘Why?’ she asked tightly.
He sighed. ‘I want to do better. You deserve better.’
Her eyelashes fluttered as she looked at him briefly, and then back at the ground. She was fucking beautiful. She was his wife, and he couldn’t quite believe it. She smiled wryly, and for a moment he thought she might have been going to drop this shit.
The words that came out of her mouth, though, were like a cold pickaxe she was jamming into his heart.
‘I want to go back to that night your father came for me,’ she muttered, ‘so that I could shoot him in the fucking face, and never have to meet you.’
Mariana smacked his hand away from her face like it was fire, and he was burning her skin. He saw red. He saw Mariana on the floor of her apartment, as he laid his fists into her for daring to defy him, and he saw the puddle of blood that had greeted him afterward, when she was already in the hospital, their baby long dead. The sting of her rejection was acute; it was utterly unbearable.
‘When are you going to stop punishing me?’ Dornan roared, slamming his palm against the wall beside her head.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
MARIANA
I saw red.
‘You think I’m punishing you?’ I screamed, pushing him. ‘I can’t even fucking look at you without feeling like you’re beating me against a wall!’
And maybe I was goading him. Maybe I wanted him to force me, so then at least I could say it wasn’t my fault. That he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Because I could already tell, from that psychotic glimmer in his dark brown eyes, that he wasn’t taking no for an answer tonight. He’d claimed me on paper, and now he wanted to claim my body with his.
‘I’m sorry, I’m SORRY!’ he raged. He started to pace in front of me.
I watched, not daring to leave the safety of the bathroom doorway. If he came at me, if he tried to grab me, at least I had a chance at shutting him out and going back to my safe room.
But he didn’t grab me, or try to kiss me, and that surprised me. If anything, the pacing seemed to calm him.
At least, I thought he was calming down, until he spoke.
‘You’ve been avoiding me for months,’ he said coldly, levelling his black gaze at me.
‘What?’ I tried not to squirm under the spotlight of his words.
He just raised his eyebrows. ‘I know you, Mariana Rodriguez. Mariana Ross. You are a woman who demands to be fucked. You used to be addicted to my cock. So if you haven’t been fucking me, who have you been fucking?’
My stomach dropped. ‘What?’
‘Who. Huh? Guillermo? I’ll slit his dirty throat and screw you beside him, in a puddle of his blood.’
I grimaced at the visual. I didn’t doubt him for a second. ‘No, I haven’t been fucking Guillermo,’ I replied. As if. ‘I’d rather sew my vagina shut than fuck him.’
‘Who, then? Someone from the club?’
Getting warmer. He was pacing and pacing and this was so very bad. He’d never been suspicious before. Ever.
He stopped dead in his tracks, lifting his eyes from the shitty red and yellow checkered carpet. ‘Did my father touch you?’
I thought of all the times Emilio had touched me – pinched nipples, pulled hair, slapped cheeks. He’d been rough. Threatening. But in all these years, Emilio Ross had never once tried to have sex with me.
‘No,’ I snapped. ‘There’s nobody. You’re being paranoid, Dornan.’
He chuckled, the gesture devoid of any joy. He was in pain, I realised. He was crying out for me to love him in the way I showed him love – with pain, and sex, and blood.
‘I know what you want,’ I whispered through gritted teeth. ‘And you’re not going to get it from me. You don’t deserve it.’
‘WHO ARE YOU FUCKING?’ he roared, raising his hand as if he were about to hit me.
‘Nobody,’ I replied calmly, refusing to cower under his physical threat. I would show no weakness, even though inside my alarm bells were screaming, Get out! Get out!
There was nowhere to go. There was never anywhere to go.
I stood my ground against my dark lover, glaring at him as emotion rose thick in my throat. And then, in an act of entirely false bravado, I slipped underneath his arm, still braced against the doorframe, and headed for the minibar.
The hotel we were staying in wasn’t amazing, but the minibar was. They’d laid out a selection of spirits that made my mouth water, and I ran my fingers along the lids, selecting a small bottle of vodka. Opening it, I poured half the bottle over my tattooed finger, squeezing my eyes shut as they teared up. I gasped, blinking away the hot moisture that had gathered at the corners of my eyelashes, as I slammed a mouthful of vodka and felt it burn all the way down inside of me. All the while, I felt Dornan’s eyes drilling into me, his questions, his suspicion.
He came to stand beside me at the minibar, running a hand through my long hair. I still had the damned flower wreath in it, and as soon as I’d finished the vodka, I was going to rip it out and throw it into the trash. I didn’t want to look pretty. I wanted to be left alone to scream into my pillow and sob until the sun came up again.
The fingers in my hair turned into a fist, the gentle caress turning into a tight tug as he wound strands around his fingers and pulled, hard. I didn’t resist, letting my head go with the swift motion. I didn’t fancy losing any hair today.
‘You’re telling me you’ve been fucking yourself? Getting yourself off?’ he asked, his breath hot on my cheek.
I nodded as much as I could with the way he was holding my head back. What else could I say without placing John under suspicion?
‘I don’t fucking believe you,’ he growled.
I turned my gaze to him, an open challenge in my eyes. ‘I’ll show you.’
He appeared to think about it for a moment, his eyes lighting up with what looked like lust. He let go of my hair, dropped his hand to his side. ‘You’d better,’ he replied, reaching for the vodka bottle in my hand and pointing to the couch. ‘Now.’
We stared off for a moment. Oh, this is actually going to happen, I realised. Well. Whatever. I’d give him a show he wouldn’t soon forget. I’d make his cock ache until it was painful instead of pleasant.
I snatched the vodka back, took a long slug, and slammed the bottle down on the counter, wiping my mou
th with the back of my hand. I stalked over to the couch, standing in front of it, facing away from Dornan as I hitched my dress up to my hips. I hooked my fingers into my white panties and tugged them down, bending at the waist until they reached my ankles. Then, without kicking off my patent heels, I turned, sat my ass down on the couch, and spread my legs, bracing my feet against the edge of the cushions.
Surprisingly, Dornan hadn’t moved from the minibar. I’d half expected him to grab me while I was bent and removing my panties, but it seemed my husband possessed restraint I wasn’t aware of. He’d left the vodka where it was, and selected a bottle of bourbon instead.
‘You have a very pretty cunt,’ he growled, squeezing his dick through his pants. His jaw was so tight, it looked like it might shatter if he clenched it any harder.
‘I know,’ I said, reaching down and spreading myself open for him to see. He let out a small growl in the back of his throat, his erection bulging through his pants, the black material stretched thin.
Something inside me broke mournfully apart as I realised the only way I’d be able to keep up this pretence would be to keep fucking Dornan until the very last minute. I didn’t know how I’d be able to do that, not after what he’d done and what he’d put me through, but I knew it was the only way to evade suspicion. To avoid being caught out.
I slipped one finger inside myself, sliding it back and forth in my wet heat.
‘You fuck yourself like that?’
I nodded, never breaking our gaze. In my peripheral vision, I saw him squeeze his cock, moving closer to me, the neck of the bourbon bottle still clutched tightly in his hand. I sank two fingers inside myself, letting out a small moan, surprised at how wet I was. How fucking aroused I was.
It wasn’t about sex, I realised. This was about power. Being the one in power was getting me off. Having Dornan in front of me, knowing all he wanted to do was throw himself on top of me and push into me until I broke in half, that was power. The fact that he hadn’t touched me yet, but continued to watch my bizarre little show, that was power.
‘You want a front row seat?’ I offered boldly. Kicking the edge of the coffee table in front of me to make room for his bulky frame, I pointed with my free hand. Dornan smirked, dropping the bottle onto the carpet with a heavy thud.
Taking three steps, he didn’t stop until he was standing above me. He sank to his knees in front of me, his eyes greedily taking in my wet pussy, my swollen clit, my nipples that peeked out of my plunging dress.
Grinning, Dornan stuck two fingers into his mouth, wetting them as he watched me fuck myself. He took hold of my wrist with one hand, pulling my own fingers away from myself, his own fingers braced to enter me.
‘Hey.’
He stopped, his fingers millimetres from my entrance. He looked dazed, as if the lust inside him was consuming him like a virus in his blood.
I took his wrists and guided his hands to my ankles. He wrapped his fingers around my flesh and squeezed.
‘Keep them there,’ I said, gazing into his dark eyes, shocked at how complicit he was being. ‘Don’t interrupt me, or I’ll never do this again.’
He squeezed my ankles in response, breathing heavily.
‘You’re so wet,’ he murmured. ‘I want to be inside you.’
He licked his lips as he stared at my slick pussy, and I could tell this was killing him. He was dying to press me into the couch and fuck me into oblivion.
Wasn’t going to happen.
I continued to massage my swollen bud with my fingers, using my free hand to reach down and tilt his chin, forcing him to meet my gaze.
‘Look at me,’ I breathed. ‘I have some things I want to say to you.’
He didn’t look away. I was impressed by his restraint. I took a deep breath, preparing to relive the horrors of the recent past.
‘You put life inside me,’ I whispered, continuing to rub myself. I squirmed under my own touch, so close to coming. He nodded, slow-blinking.
‘You made me feel the worst pain imaginable,’ I breathed. I felt my words leak out of me, a confession of sorts, and settle upon him. They entered him, soaking into his soul. He wasn’t trying to make me stop talking. He was hanging on my every word, my every hitched gasp, my every touch as I brought myself to the brink of orgasm in front of him.
‘You put life inside me,’ I said, lifting my hips slightly as I slowed my fingers. If I didn’t settle down, I was going to come before he’d paid his penance at all. ‘You put life inside of me, and you turned it into death.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ he whispered, his expression so fucking anguished, so fucking bereft, that it took everything inside myself not to stop and pull him onto me, into me, to sate his sadness and his regret with my body, the same dance we had danced for a decade.
‘What do you want?’ I breathed, writhing as I continued to slowly finger-fuck myself. ‘You want to fuck me? You want to come inside me?’
He nodded, his eyes hooded with lust as he stared, mesmerised, at what I was doing to myself. He took one hand away from my ankle and used it to pull his dick out of his pants, squeezing it until his knuckles turned red.
‘Too bad,’ I whispered, withdrawing my fingers from my pussy and pressing them into his mouth. He sucked them until it hurt, getting every single drop of me from my skin. ‘You want to fuck me? You earn it.’
He was panting, hard, on his knees in front of me, and I saw the way he kept glancing at my bare pussy as he stroked his cock in his fist.
‘You taste so fucking good,’ he murmured around my fingers. ‘So fucking good.’
I stopped abruptly, and Dornan’s eyes widened, as if I’d broken the spell. Bullshit, I thought. I slid my hand into his short hair and pulled, bringing his face right up to mine.
But I didn’t kiss him.
‘Make me come with your tongue,’ I demanded. ‘Only your tongue. You want me to forgive you? You’d better start by making me feel good.’
My voice was suddenly thick with emotion. Why? Why now?
Maybe because, after ten years, I was finally starting to take some goddamn responsibility for my own fate. In the beginning I’d needed Dornan’s brutality, I’d needed his domination, but now I needed his submission, his reparation. I needed his desire to soothe me, to beg my forgiveness.
With my hand in his hair, I pushed his head down between my thighs.
His eyes gleamed up at me, full of lust, inexplicably calm. It was as if, by taking charge of the dynamic we shared, he was momentarily relieved.
‘I might be yours on paper, but this pussy belongs to me now, you understand?’
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
DORNAN
Her dark blue eyes gleamed with conviction, simmered with anger as she stared down at him. In her rage, she was absolutely stunning.
‘This body is mine,’ she whispered to him. ‘It was yours, Dornan, and you did what you did, and it’s not yours anymore. If you want it back? You earn it. You earn my love. You earn your place inside my cunt. You earn my fucking mouth around your cock.’
He nodded, breaking their stare, his eyes sliding down her beautiful tits, her stomach, before coming to rest upon her sweet cunt. He stilled for a moment, breathing in the scent of her.
He licked his lips, pressing the flat of his tongue against her swollen bundle of nerves.
‘Fuck!’ she exclaimed, her fingers pulling his hair to the point of pain. He didn’t care. He liked pain, especially with sex. The two belonged together. Pain and fucking. But, as he licked her he was gentle. She’d suffered too much because of him, felt too much pain, and it was time for him to reel it the fuck in and crawl his way back to her side. She was his now, legally, but she was broken. His bird was broken. And it was up to him to fix her.
‘You worship me,’ she moaned, as he sucked her clit into his mouth. ‘You make me believe in you again. You– Oh!’ She ground herself against his mouth desperately. ‘You make me remember why I fucking love you so much, Dornan. You’re t
he fucking kingpin in of all this– oh, fuck! And you just made me your . . . queen. You just tattooed my status on my skin. It’s time to start treating me like a fucking queen.’
And this time, when she came against his tongue, he didn’t try to cover her mouth or muffle her noises. There was no reason to silence his queen. No, as she cried out and writhed under his tongue, he revelled in the sweet noise of her unsuppressed joy, her exhilaration, as he sucked in a final breath and squeezed his cock, coming violently against his thigh.
***
The next morning, Viper called him. His LAPD contact had done some digging and found the call logs for Mariana’s secret cellphone. The contents of which were very interesting indeed.
She was still sleeping peacefully, out cold, when Dornan took the call in the hallway and then came back into the room. Seemed he and his new wife had some talking to do.
That was, if he didn’t kill her first.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
MARIANA
My hand hurt.
The pain had extended beyond my ring finger and my entire hand was just throbbing now. It pounded with the rhythm of my heart, relentless, nauseating. It wasn’t physically that painful, per se, but it was knowing it was there, wanting to rip it off with my fingernails but knowing I couldn’t. Laser removal was in my future, assuming I survived being the wife of California’s most notorious biker and the daughter-in-law of the most lethal drug kingpin of the entire Gulf.
I saw a dirt grave in my future, too.
I’d fallen asleep in my dress, my make-up still caked on. My eyes itched from the clumped mascara, and concealer streaked my pillow. I was beyond caring. Try washing blood out of a pillowcase and then come talk to me about a few smears of liquid make-up.
I sat up in the bed – the large, downy, luxurious bed – and immediately lay down again as the room began to circle me viciously. The vodka. The lack of food. The reminder that Dornan and I were married.
Empire Page 16
