by Lana Sky
It’s the best chance I’ve had to question him. So I’ll take it.
“Tell me what you want? Who is Jaguar? Why were you fucking Alexi? Why is she even here? How—”
“So greedy,” he scolds, flexing his hands against my waist in punishment. Beneath the water, his heat is neutralized by the colder temperature, meaning that I’m forced to contend with the texture of his touch in a way I haven’t before. He’s strong, every finger resonating a subtle pressure that warns he could easily hurt me if the mood strikes him.
And it already has more than once.
His eyes are unreadable, shrouded by heavy lids that cast shadows over those imperceptible green irises. I can’t tell if he’s annoyed by my barrage of questions or amused.
“One at a time like the good girl you’ve been so eager to be.”
His tone makes his meaning clear—choose wisely. Piss him off or push too far, and he’ll stop.
I lick my lips only to realize that his eyes drift down to track the movement of my tongue from one end of my mouth to the other. His throat lurches, betraying a hard swallow, and I nearly lose track of what it is I’m supposed to be doing.
Right. Learning whatever he’s willing to give.
“Tell me about Jaguar.”
“Julian,” he corrects, putting a harsh emphasis on the name. “Tell me something, have you ever heard of Carlos Domingas?”
I frown, recalling the many acquaintances my father had circling around his orbit at any given time. There are too many to keep track of, their names a blur.
“No—”
“You should have,” Domino cautions in a way that recalls a disapproving teacher during a complex lecture. “Though I wouldn’t be surprised if you haven’t. Carlos Domingas was a man your papa knew very well indeed. They were partners, long before Don Roy slipped across the border and became the polished, savvy politician he presents to the world.”
I’m curious despite myself. He could be lying, but I don’t have the privilege of ignoring him. To his credit, I don’t know enough about my father’s past to challenge anything he might assert. It was a time in his life he rarely spoke about, not even among family. In fact, he only ever referenced himself as a boy when boasting about his scrappy instincts and cunning that led him to crawl from poverty to where he is today.
My father, the ultimate survivor, fashioning himself as the city’s savior.
“Carlos Domingas was a tough son of a bitch. He ran a whole series of enterprises that your daddy would swear now never to have been a part of. That doesn’t erase the fact that when Don Roy first entered Terra Rodea all those years ago, he did it hand in hand with Carlos Domingas and the full backing of his cartel.”
It’s a blunter retelling of the same rumors that have plagued my father’s entire career from its inception. That he was a puppet for drug trafficking and used his cozy position with those in power to force the authorities to look the other way or outright ignore corruption.
He’s always denied as much, publicly, anyway.
If I had to be honest with myself, the man whispered about in those rumors sounded closer to who I knew my father to be than the way he portrayed himself during his campaign speeches.
“When Roy got too big for his britches, he tried to turn on Carlos Domingas, arranging a hit on him. It was clever, of course, and he covered his tracks. But Carlos Domingas was a man who thrived on revenge. Before Roy ever got the thought in his head of betraying him, Domingas already had ten plots of retaliation set in motion.”
“You?” I ask, hazarding a guess.
He grunts out a sound that might pass for a laugh were he anyone else. “In addition to a wealth of cutthroat allies and ‘associates,’ Carlos Domingas had two sons that he started training to replace him before they were even out of diapers.”
His tone prompts me to take another guess.
“Jaguar?” I ask.
He nods. “Julian and a younger brother named Juan. Under the alias, Jaguar, Julian has been amassing his own realm of influence over the ashes of what his father left behind.”
“And his brother? What about him?”
His eyes cut away from me, darker than ever. “Dead. Jaguar runs his little kingdom alone.”
“But what about you?” I recall a fragment of their conversation I overheard. “He called you little brother—”
“A sick attempt at a joke on his part,” Domino says, swatting away the insinuation. “He meant nothing by it.”
“So why me?”
He smiles, but there’s no warmth in it. With his teeth bared, the expression resembles a snarl. “You, Ada-Maria, are here only by the grace of God. That ‘car crash’ hit on your father was never intended to kill him, merely distract. It seems, however, that even Roy Pavalos can’t walk away from such serious trauma without a scratch. When it seemed like he might die after all, Jaguar had no use for you.”
It sounds so cold to hear him state it so bluntly, reducing my worth to my mere designation as the daughter of Roy Pavalos.
“He was tempted, you see, to let Tristan Lucas put his little plan in action to hog the glory of your apparent abduction and claim the vacuum left by the impending death of Roy Pavalos. He would have been a very useful pawn to have under Julian’s thumb. However, I managed to convince him to sever such sloppy loose ends.”
His tone deepens, devoid of all emotion. It’s how he sounded while conversing with my father, accepting any and every task he would hand down. I used to marvel at how one man could seem so detached from the world. From emotions. From everything.
And yet, I hoarded over every brief glimpse I managed to catch of the real creature lurking beneath that mask. Perhaps I fantasized so much about that hypothetical Domino that I lost sight of the stark reality of who he was. Who he’s always been.
A soldier following orders, with no moral compass of his own.
“He’s let me keep you merely to placate me for the time being,” Domino adds, bringing his mouth near my ear again.
We’re still floating through the water, my thighs resting against his hips, his hands still on my waist to hold me steady. I think this is the longest we’ve been so close.
Apart from during sex.
“Why?” I ask him hoarsely.
His brows furrow as he returns his gaze to mine. “Your father’s condition, though critical, is rapidly improving,” he says, ignoring that I’ve spoken. “Which means that your usefulness to Jaguar has just skyrocketed. He’s let me keep you for now because I’m shouldering the logistics of keeping you hidden from the manhunt searching for you, and he doesn’t have to take the risk. Yet. But trust me, Ada, he’ll come for you, and he won’t be your knight in shining armor.”
“And you are?”
He frowns at the slight, but seems to let it slide without comment. Instead, he shifts so that my back is to the outcroppings of rock. I can feel stray droplets of moisture speckle me from above, and the gentle hum of the water is even louder here.
“I have my own uses for you,” he admits.
Suddenly, he lifts me from the water, and I scramble for purchase, gripping a firm surface in return. With a start, I realize that he’s set me down on a rocky ledge while remaining in the water, in between my legs.
Through his lashes, his eyes seem even more intense than usual. He’s like some fucked up, masculine version of a merman, his damp hair clinging to his shoulders, body bare.
Without warning, he grabs my chin, balancing it against the palm of his hand.
When seconds tick by without him expounding on his statement, I once again get the feeling that he’s waiting for me to prod him for more. In this instance, he wants me to.
“What do you want?”
A dangerous smirk flits across his lips before a sterner expression replaces it. He’s scrutinizing me carefully, sizing me up by the time he’s done. And yet he’s not nice enough to voice his impression of me, out loud.
I have to guess from the way his fingers f
lex against my skin, startlingly soft... Until his nails tease my flesh to give me a taste of the pain he’s capable of inflicting.
“You once claimed that everyone wants to use you to get to your father. Well, you’ve gotten your wish. I want you—fuck Roy Pavalos. But unfortunately, Ada-Maria, I won’t just tell you why. I want you to guess.”
My eyes sting, and the moisture falling from them catches me off guard. Tears. As they lash down my cheeks, I realize why they’ve sprung forth now.
It’s so very cruel, the way he’s toying with me. Days ago, I would have died to hear those very words. I’d have done anything.
But now I know that beneath them lurks a million secrets and lies. They mean nothing on their face.
I want you.
I wish he’d claim to use me against my father instead.
“You hate him,” I point out, craving more than anything that I had the strength to shove him aside and swim away. I need to get away—because I can’t hide it. Not my pain or the grim reality that these tears are real and I’m not faking anymore. “Everything you’ve done to me has been retaliation against him. For Pia. For whatever you think he did—”
“This was never just about him,” Domino interjects, his tone cutting. “I warned you of that fact once. I suggest you listen to me, and that you never underestimate Julian.”
His eyes blaze. He means every word, displaying a hostility that I don’t think I’ve ever seen him exhibit, not even toward me.
“What about Alexi? How is she involved in all of this?”
Some of the bitterness leaves his gaze, and I hate that I react to that, my chest tightening. “She is a pawn of Julian’s, nothing more. I don’t feel strongly about her either way,” he adds, conveying a hint of mercy toward her that he’s never shown me. “But she works for him. Do not forget that, and I would advise against thinking of her as an ally.”
I let the jab pass unchallenged, fixated on the way he said that—she works for him. In his cold baritone, he might as well have said—she belongs to him.
“How did she meet him? How did you meet her?”
He strokes the length of my jawline as he withdraws his hand from my chin, returning it to my unclaimed thigh. “I’ll let you ask her those questions, if you’re truly that curious.”
I hiss in exasperation. “First, you warn me not to talk to her. Then you dare me to—”
“I don’t want you to forget…” His voice softens, and I have to strain to hear him. “I’m the only one you can trust.”
I recoil as far as I dare without risking my balance, crossing my arms over my exposed breasts. “My father said that,” I reply.
He laughs, but it’s a sharp, vengeful sound. “I think we both know for a fact that I am not your daddy, Ada-Maria. At least not in that context.”
My breath catches, my cheeks flaming. It’s suddenly hard to suck in enough air to breathe.
“I… You… You were fucking Alexi,” I say, latching onto the next topic demanding an explanation. “I saw the pictures.”
Pictures that he alluded to leaving for me to find in the first place.
His smile returns in full, ripening as his eyes take on a playful, wicked gleam. “You know better than anyone, Ada-Maria. A picture is worth a thousand words. Fake, useless words meant to spin a narrative. You yourself have starred in dozens of photos that might portray a reality that differed from the truth. Videos as well.”
I hate how easily he wields my own past against me. The worst part is that I can’t accuse him of lying. If anyone would know, he would. He was right when he claimed my father would want confirmation that I followed his orders. And, like a good dog, he gladly followed after me, gathering evidence as he went.
“Tell me, Ada, were your simpering smiles and moans genuine then?”
I flinch. He knows precisely where to prod to slip beneath my defenses. I can’t resist wondering if anything else he hinted at was true. Like that my father was indifferent to my impending kidnapping all along…
And my death.
No. He was lying, of course. Besides, I have to stay focused. Meeting his gaze, I look past my own fear and try to find a weakness of his to exploit.
“Whatever your relationship with Alexi is, you were with her,” I point out. “And yet, you don’t seem to have a problem with her ‘belonging’ to Jaguar now. But…”
His nostrils flare, conveying a warning I fail to heed.
“You don’t seem too willing to share me with him. Why is that?”
He spreads his fingers out along my inner thighs, and I suck in a breath, grappling for a better grip on the rock beneath me.
“Because I never wanted Alexi.” He lowers his head, leaning forward so that his mouth comes dangerously close to my breasts, his gaze fixated below my waist.
I gasp as he nudges my legs apart, easily claiming the space between them.
“I never claimed Alexi. I never spent five fucking years wondering what she tasted like. I never cultivated a kill list of all the men she casually fucked—” His nails dig in as he spreads my legs further, fully opening me to him. The heat of his breath lashes me in searing waves, and my eyelids flutter, my brain paralyzed by the sensation. He’s growling, real anger seeping into every single syllable. “I never wanted her so badly I could get hard at just the sight of her smile. I’ll let you parse over those words, Ada-Maria. I’ll let you decide what that means.”
He lunges downward, and I barely manage to throw my hands in between us, feeling his mouth brush my trembling fingers.
“W-Wait,” I croak.
Not stop.
He looks up, eyeing me through a fringe of black hair, his eyes so vibrant they practically glow.
“I know you’re just toying with me,” I rasp, but it should be the least of my concerns at the moment, his approval. His lust.
Besides, my sloppy phrasing was a pathetic way of avoiding what I really mean—I know you’re lying to me.
“Good,” he says, his voice gruff. “I want you to think of that while I have my tongue buried inside of you. I want you to tell yourself that over, and over until it hurts, Ada. That pouty face you make when you doubt me… It’s sexy as hell.”
Chapter Thirteen
I can’t stop him this time. My hands are easily batted aside, and I wind up grasping for the nearest source of stability I can find as his heat sears the flesh between my legs. It’s so soft, whatever it is, like I’m grasping at silk—his hair, I realize.
It’s my turn to rake my nails over his skull and pull as he does exactly what he warned he would.
He buries his tongue inside of me.
In this instance, I have no frame of reference to compare him to. As it turns out, most of the men I’ve slept with were only interested in their own pleasure, never mine. I was just a smiling, warm sex doll. The closest anyone came to attempting to get me off manually was Tristan, and only with his fingers, sloppily with no real effort put into the act.
But Domino…
Eat is such a dangerous word—so vulgar to describe simply putting your mouth on someone. When a woman sucks a cock, it’s not described so viciously.
But the feeling assaulting me now can only be described by terms that should never apply to something like sex. Devoured. Swallowed. Choked down. Worshiped...
He turns my body into his altar, and then he douses me in sin. After sin. After sin.
I scream, writhing as his lips press against my inner flesh, while his fingers come to spread me open. Ruthlessly expose every inch and fold. Then his tongue lashes, hot and violent, irritating every single nerve to a painful degree.
His teeth graze me next, and I jerk, trying to push his head again. Then gripping him for dear life as my eyes roll back.
It would be one thing, if he could abuse me in this way, and I’d have to endure it. Suffer through each slow, savoring lick. Keep my senses. Hate him and hate him.
He turns my body inside out instead. Every bit of twitching muscle and he
ated flesh becomes my enemy, rebelling against the faint sliver of my brain fighting for control.
I whimper, realizing it’s too late to shut him out. His tongue easily slips inside of me, molten hot. My body welcomes him, each drop of moisture flooding like gasoline toward the lips and tongue working in tandem like a match and tinder.
I’m on fire. Too hot. Burning alive. Melting. Ashes.
Then, just when my stomach stops flipping, and I can breathe again, he keeps going…
Shame is a concept that feels harder to grasp with every brutal, gut-wrenching orgasm he wrings from me. My spine is his toy, my limbs jelly, my voice so hoarse and broken I can’t speak.
Hurting him is the only language I have left to communicate with him. Raking nails and tugging fingers.
But he’s impervious, no matter how hard on his scalp I pull.
“…faking.” I feel his voice vibrate through me; it’s so guttural, overpowering every other sound to ripple through my skull. “So good at faking. My Ada. Keep faking.”
He’s taunting me, and I don’t even have the sense of mind to counter him.
My moans are shameless, reduced to whispered gasps as my voice breaks. I see stars by the time I start to believe he’ll finally take mercy on me. He’s stopped, his head resting heavily on my thighs, his pants basting the drenched skin between my legs.
“I imagined roses,” he rasps, tilting his head so that his eyes find me.
I’m too sensitive. Too raw. With one look, a pulse shoots down my spine, and I flinch; it’s damn near painful. One look, and it’s like he’s touching me all over again.
“Or bubblegum, or some shit,” he adds, his eyes narrowing. Slowly, he trails his tongue across his wet lips, tasting whatever moisture is there. The flavor must anger him. Infuriate. He glowers at me, through damp strands of black hair that frame his face like scorch marks. My devil, enraged by my taste. “How is it possible that you taste better than that?” he demands.
“Please,” I croak as he lowers his gaze, crouching between my legs again.
I’m panting, my back on fire, ass scraped raw by the stone beneath me. “Please... Enough.”
