“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.
It was just a crush…wasn’t it?
Logic told me no future existed for Val and me. There couldn’t be. Morality couldn’t allow me to stand by the side of a man who remotely had a hand in what happened to Nash. The idea of doing so would be beyond disrespectful to his memory. It’d be unforgivable.
A hollow burn spread through my chest as my mind catalogued the failed relationships in my life. Every man I’d ever trusted or loved had hurt me or deserted me. Davis left me, my father turned his back on all of us long before this mess ever started, and Nash was literally ripped out of my arms.
Maybe Mateo and Emilio were right. Maybe I was a black widow. For all Val’s faults and reprehensible acts, the thought of harm coming to him tore a hole in my heart. Everything inside me warned me to back out now and save both of us mutual destruction. But as I asked myself the silent questions, one answer rang louder in my head than any doubt.
I’d fallen hard for Valentin Carrera, and I was more conflicted now than ever. My conscience knew he’d given the order to torture Nash, even though it wasn’t my brother he’d targeted; he admitted it himself. However, there had to be some humanity in a man who held a part of me so strongly tied to him that I couldn’t walk away. Surely, I hadn’t fallen so far off the line between right and wrong that I couldn’t recognize an irredeemable person from one whose soul seeped with evil?
Weaving my fingers through the metal bars in the headboard, I tilted my chin toward the ceiling, letting out a frustrated breath. “Damn you, Danger.”
“If you’re going to damn me before I get to hell, at least break down the list.”
I jumped at the sound of his voice, quickly releasing the metal bars and pushing up on my elbows. He stood in the doorway, his left arm and hip bent as they both rested against the frame. A half-smile played on his lips as his body shifted forward. An unstable surge of lust and emotion brewed inside me as I ran a heated stare from his messy hair to his bare toes. Clad only in a pair of draw string black sweatpants, the casual attire and bare chest threw me off.
Mesmerized, I mentally counted the defined rows of abs as they trailed down to the well-defined V that disappeared behind the low-slung waistband. “I thought I locked the door.”
“You did.” He opened his mouth to argue further, then paused as his eyes lingered on my bare legs, exposed by my long T-shirt. “That’s mine.”
I glanced down at the oversized, green shirt and smirked. “The shirt or me?”
“Yes,” he answered quickly. Moments of silence passed between us before Val sighed and pushed off the frame, folding his arms across his bronzed skin. “I don’t like the way things ended last night.”
I lowered my eyes, playing with a rogue thread on the pillow. “Me either.”
“Then let’s fix it.”
“Tell me about your mother.”
Cursing in Spanish, he rolled his forehead against the door. “Can we not—”
“Go back to your own room, Val.” Hugging the pillow to my chest, I curled into a ball, facing away from him. For some reason, I needed to know the human side of him. Before cartel life changed him. When he had a mother and a somewhat recognizable father.
A house. A family. Maybe a dog and friends who’d knock on the door and ask if he could come out to play.
To allow him completely into my life, I had to know if that version of Val Carrera existed. If he couldn’t, or worse, wouldn’t give me that, I’d walk out of his front door today and turn my back on him to save the last piece of myself from being lost forever.
Tears burned my eyes, and I closed them, willing the impending breakdown to stay forced behind closed lids. One rogue tear refused to obey and slipped through the cracks, trailing a telltale sign down the bridge of my nose. Before I could get rid of the evidence, the mattress dipped with his weight and Val’s hand gently wiped it away. Placing my hand in his, he shifted on the bed and pressed my palm between his shoulder blades. Swallowing hard, I slowly rolled over to face him. I had no idea what he was about to do, but the lull in the cadence of his voice demanded my full attention.
“Every word, every symbol, every color is for them.”
“’Them’?”
“My family, Cereza.” He traced my fingers over each symbol as he described them. “The number three on my left shoulder represents my family the day everything changed.” Trailing the pad of my index finger horizontally across his upper back, he rested it against his right shoulder. “The number two is what was left when a young boy doesn’t realize the difference between death and sleep.” Moving my finger once more, he dropped it to the middle of his upper back, equal diagonal distance from the other two. “The number one represents me—what was left after the last one had been taken away.”