Convinced she’d won the argument, she allowed a small smile to slip across her lips. In seconds, I stood over her—the familiar scent of citrus and vanilla igniting and calming me in a twisted way. My hand found its way inside her hair and wound strong fingers around a bunch of candy colored strands until my knuckles hit the base of her skull.
“Would you like to know what they’d do next,Cereza?”
She bowed her chin and violently shook it side to side. She had an idea what they’d do, and I’m sure she didn’t need to hear me speak the words out loud—especially after what happened last night. I’d explored every inch of her body with determined, but careful intent. Right now, the electricity vibrating off me was an exposed fuse, waiting to be lit with sparks of fury dancing around it.
She let out a pained yelp as I jerked her hair backward to force her eyes on me. “They’d rip your clothes off before you even got out of the van. They’d take turns fucking you until you passed out. Then, they’d torture you until you died a horribly painful death.”
The corners of her eyes pooled both from the horror of my words and the extreme angle of her head. The images I fed her detonated, shattering everything the safe world she had left.
“Why?”
My eyebrows rose in question. “Why? You ask, why?” She nodded as much as she could with her head immobilized. “Because they’re immoral sons of bitches who think women are nothing but available holes for them to fuck on command.” Sweat rolled down my temple as it pulsed wildly beneath it. “And knowing you’d witnessed their hit, and you’d been here with me…well that’d make destroying you a hundred times sweeter.”
My fingers tightened again, and she lightly touched my arm with her free hand. “Val, you’re hurting me.”
I lowered us both to our knees and pulled her hair back again until she’d completed a full backbend. With her shoulders and head resting on my forearm, I brushed my lips against hers without kissing her. “And none of that will happen, Eden. Do you know why?”
She barely listened. Her instincts feared me and the vulnerable position I had her in, but our basic animalistic connection had her breathless with anticipation.
Eden opened her mouth to speak, but I cut her off by palming the back of her head. “Because,” I growled, my voice full of unreleased fury. “Nobody touches what’s mine.”
“What do you care?”
I dropped lower, our lips barely skimming. “I care, because they’ve wiped out my entire family, Eden. I care, because I’m tired of losing. I care, because once a man has had you, he doesn’t share.”
“Val…” Her body twisted at an unnatural angle, but her breathing had become so erratic, she seemed to hardly notice. Every inhale molded our chests perfectly and every exhale pushed logic further from our minds.
I moved a knee in between hers as my eyes roamed her body. The moment they locked with her half-lidded stare, I watched the blue in her eyes darken to the blackest night of a soulless sky. “I won’t share,Cereza. Not until I get my fill.” Skimming her throat, I licked skin at the base of her neck. “And getting my fill might take a while.”
“Fuck you. Just fuck you, Danger.” With receding strength, she attempted to push me away. “Fuck you.”
“I don’t think we have time for three, but I’ll see what I can do.” Picking her up, I fused my mouth against hers and dropped her on top of my cleared desk.
With an open hand that I didn’t see coming, Eden slapped me hard across the face. Reacting quickly, I captured her wrists in a strong hold.
“I’m not your fuck toy, Carrera,” she seethed between clenched teeth. “You don’t command me and take what you want.”
“No?”
Shoving her fists into my chest, she climbed off the desk, offering one last punch to the center. “No. The only thing you’ll get your fill of tonight is your own hand, asshole.”
Stunned, I watched as she flipped me off on her way out.
Chapter Twenty-Three
EDEN
I’d barely slept. Not that the paper-thin mattress and jail-cell sized bedroom enticed any form of restful sleep anyway, but somewhere in the past few days, I’d grown accustomed to sleeping next to an asshole.
Rolling over for the hundredth time, I threw my arms above me, wincing as the healing skin on my wrist pulled with the sudden move. From an outsider’s point of view, I’d lost my mind. Hell, from my own point of view, what I’d been doing was not only counterproductive, it was damn near suicide.
I’d been kidnapped by the most feared drug cartel in the United States. Once I’d come to terms with my captivity, I’d vowed to use it to my advantage, promising to an empty room to take every one of them down who’d had a hand in my brother’s death.
Then Val barreled into my room and my world, screwing up everything.
What have I gotten myself into?
My behavior wasn’t normal. Normal women didn’t consider crossing the border with a known murderer just because of some stupid crush.
