“You mean that? You’ll let me resume my lessons?”
“I don’t waste words, Isabelle.”
“Okay.”
He nods, then closes and locks the door and turns back to me. “If she wants to swim later, take her. Just don’t take your eyes off her.”
“I know that. I know not to take my eyes off a child in the pool.”
“Remember what my brother said yet?” he asks, eyes boring like lasers into mine.
I’m caught off guard and hesitate. “No,” I finally say.
“Nothing at all?”
I shake my head.
“Liar.”
His gaze moves over me, and he reaches a hand around my neck. The next moment the top of my suit drops to the floor as the backs of my knees hit the foot of the bed. He looks at me, reaches one hand to cup the back of my head, fingers weaving into my hair as with his other hand he weighs one breast, thumb flicking over the hardening nipple. He dips his head and licks that nipple, then sucks. I gasp when his teeth close around it and he draws it out, the sensation just on this side of pain, sending heat between my legs.
He watches my reaction, releases my nipple and straightens to kiss me hard, the hand that was just at my breast sliding down over my back to push the bikini bottoms to the floor.
Cupping my ass, he draws back. His pupils are dilated, and his breathing is uneven. I feel him against my stomach, skin cool, cock hard through the still damp swim trunks.
He moves the hand that’s got my ass around to my belly and gives me a nudge. It’s all it takes for him to have me on my back and he stands over me, spreading my legs with his as he strips off his suit.
I’ve seen him before. Or more I’ve felt him. But now to see him like this fully naked in broad daylight, it’s different. New. I’m greedy as I search his body, broad shoulders, muscular chest, ink wrapping around powerful arms. He grips his cock and I feel it in my core when he pumps in his hand. He’s big. I’ve felt that already.
He bends, nudging my legs up, opening me to his sight as he sets one knee on the bed while still pumping his cock. And I think I’d like to see him come. I’d like to watch him make himself come.
The thought sends a flush of heat to my cheeks. I glance away before he sees. But then his free hand wraps around my thigh and he’s pushing me wide, his cock at my entrance. I’m ready for him. Hungry for him.
I let out a moan when he enters me. It feels good. So good. But I try to cover my mouth, afraid to make too much noise.
“Sound proofed,” he says, leaning down to lick my nipple, the one he neglected last time. “You can scream, and no one will hear you.”
He looks at me when he says that part and his grin is wolfish. His words have a double meaning. I hear that. But when he draws out fully to thrust into me again, I don’t think about them. I don’t think about anything. I can’t, not when he’s moving inside me like this, his weight partially on me, our bodies falling into a rhythm, everything fading but this, him inside me, my legs winding around him as I lift myself toward him for more because I want more. Deeper. Closer.
I want to come.
My arms wrap around his neck.
“Look at me,” he says.
It takes me a minute.
“Isabelle.”
When he says my name, I do it. I look at him.
“What do you say when you come?” he asks and just as he says it, he slips a hand between us and slides his fingers from my pussy to my other hole. I don’t have time to react, don’t have time to put up any resistance. When he presses the moistened finger to my ass it only takes once, twice for him to push inside me and then I’m lost. “What do you say?” he asks as he thrusts one more time and I come.
I say it. I say what he wants to hear. His name. Because it’s all I can do as I feel him thrust one last time before he stills, pressing deep against me, inside me. The sensation of having him inside me like this, having his weight on me so different than anything I’ve ever felt. All I can do is cling to him, nails digging into flesh, moans that sound foreign to me coming from my chest, and him so close, so close.
He pulls out slowly when it’s over and I come back to reality as I feel his seed slide from inside me. I feel embarrassed as he lays on his side and splays one hand on the flat of my stomach.
I watch him as his gaze moves to my belly and I wonder what he’s thinking. Wonder again at the different sides of this man. One brutal, an unforgiving devil. The other this. A gentler beast.
But still a devil.
He must feel me watching him and when he shifts his gaze to mine, I feel my cheeks burn.
“Always say my name when you come. I want to hear it every time. Understand?”
I swallow, nod. What do you say to that?
He gets up, looks at me, then goes into the bathroom. I’m not sure what to do when I hear the water go on but a moment later, he’s back with a washcloth. He sits beside me, opens my legs to clean me.
“I can do that,” I say quickly, grabbing his hand, embarrassed again.
He moves my hand away and makes a point of opening my legs to look at me. He meets my eyes and watches me as he thoroughly cleans me. I can’t look away even though I want to, and I feel my cheeks burn with embarrassment.
“I will take care of you, Isabelle. You’re mine,” he says when he’s finished. “And even if you can’t remember what Zeke said to you, remember this. If anyone touches you, I will cut off their hands. That includes him.”
He gets up and casually walks back to the bathroom where I hear the shower switch on. I don’t hesitate to get up, gather up the scraps of my bikini, grateful for that door between our rooms. I scurry to mine like a little mouse, not sure how to react to him, to how he is, unable to meld the two sides of this man together. The brutality and rage versus the gentle father. The sometimes lover. The man who would cut off his brother’s hands should he touch me.
I don’t know and the hardest part of all is that I can’t make sense of my own feelings. Last night at the cemetery, I hated him. But then when I said what I said, when I saw his face, I don’t know what happened. Like my feelings got all twisted up inside. Then him carrying me back, washing me gently, asking me how he can fix the damage he’s doing to his daughter? It shifted something inside me and all I’m left with is confusion.
38
Jericho
I pull through the gates of De La Rosa Manor, Santiago De La Rosa’s family home, park my car and walk toward the front door which is already open. A woman is standing just inside.
“Mr. St. James,” she says. “Good morning. This way.”
I walk in and I take in the place. It’s huge and old but very well maintained if a bit dark. I’ve heard rumors about Santiago De La Rosa though. The dark is on purpose. Or it was for many years. After the explosion that killed his father and brother and ruined his face, he became a sort of recluse. Although he wasn’t hiding away licking his wounds. He was, like any good Sovereign Son, plotting his revenge against the Moreno family.
“Elena!” a woman calls out and I see a flash of a little girl running, giggling as the woman comes into view behind her. She doesn’t see me. Her attention is on the baby she’s carrying in one arm as she chases the runaway who can barely be two.