Kiss of the Cartel Read online

  “Suck me, Lena.” His voice is cold, but I can hear the strain in his tone. “Use your teeth and I’ll put a bullet in your skull.”

  I stare at him. This is it. I can take him in my mouth and then bite, injuring him permanently. I would die, but I’m probably going to die anyway.

  He reaches for me again, burying his fingers in the tangle of my hair. Luis drags my head back and forces me to look up at him. His face is emotionless but the fire in his eyes tells me how much he wants this, how much he’s willing to risk just to get it. My heart thumps faster.

  He drags my head toward him and my cheek rubs against his cock. Precum smears across my face. I gasp, and he uses the opportunity to shove me onto his cock, forcing his flesh into my open mouth. I barely register the taste and texture of him when he jerks my head back again and then thrusts me forward, shoving himself deep into my mouth. I cough and gag, spit pooling in my mouth. I don’t have time to adjust, to find a rhythm. He uses my face, thrusting himself inside over and over while ramming my head forward.

  I bring my hands up, reaching back, in an automatic attempt to defend myself. Maybe grab his thumb and wrench it back. I’m fighting blind though. My eyes can only see his flat, hard belly and the cock that’s being forced into my face.

  “Hands down,” he barks.

  I instantly comply, dropping my hands to the floor and bracing them on my bent thighs. I don’t know why I do as he says, just feel that I must. Involuntary tears pool at the corners of my eyes then release, trickling down my face. His movements are brutal, rough. I gag on him, spit dripping down my chin. I’m grateful I haven’t eaten much because I would throw up all over him if I had. The thrust of his hips grows jerky and I think he might be close.

  I wrap my lips around him, protecting him from my teeth. I am afraid that he’ll kill me if I accidentally bite him. But also… I am intrigued. I’ve never seen Luis so undone. In such a moment of raw vulnerability. I roll my eyes up, look past the gun and the arm that's reaching behind my head. I look at his face. His eyelids are heavy, his eyes intent on me. They don’t hold the hatred I’ve grown used to. They hold pleasure. Pure, glowing pleasure. He drops the barrel of the gun away from my forehead and slides the fingers of both hands into the hair at my temples. As his orgasm begins to crest his hands grow almost gentle. They guide me in the rhythm he wants, but they are no longer rough.

  I should bite him now. Should reach up, grab his gun hand and bury my fingers into the tendons. I should use this opportunity to escape. But I do none of that. Instead, I watch with fascination and a little awe as he jerks his cock from my mouth and masturbates himself, sliding his palm over the wet flesh, the gun is pointed down, but the metal is touching his cock. I am breathless at the sight. The visual of this powerful, beautiful man, masturbating himself with a gun in hand. So visceral, primal, real.

  He grabs my hair again, twists my head up and to the side so he can look at my face. I feel something hot hit my breasts, striking my hard nipples. He's coming on my body while staring down at me, our matching brown eyes clashing in a silent but heated exchange. The sensations running through my body are unbelievably erotic. As he finishes, I lift my hand from the ground, run my finger through the cum that bathes my chest and lift it to my lips. I close my eyes as I taste him.

  “Look at me.” His voice is strange, a guttural demand.

  My eyes fly open to meet his, which hold surprise. Surprise at my action. I should be angry and fearful at the awful way he's treating me, like a whore he’ll eventually use up and throw away. We both know it. But I’m not either of those things. I feel… good.

  I only have a few seconds to bask in this feeling before he’s dragging me up to my feet. I sway as my body protests, weak from lack of food and the beating. He bends over, his shoulder coming toward me. I try to move away but he grabs me before I can and tosses me up and over his shoulder. My breath whooshes out and I get only the briefest glimpse of my prison as he spins around and strides from the room.

  My mouth opens in shock as he takes the stairs quickly and walks without pause through the house. I’m buck naked and his cock is still hanging out of his pants. Anyone can see us this way. He doesn’t seem to care though. Again, he runs up another set of stairs, to the top floor of the house, holding onto me as though my weight is nothing. He’s not even out of breath while I’m panting like a racehorse from simply holding on to him. He throws a door open and strides through.

  Everything is a blur. I have no idea where he’s brought me, though I can already tell that it’s warmer and more comfortable than my prison. Then I’m falling backwards. I brace my arms out, ready for the impact of my back against the floor. I land on something soft, a billowing blanket embracing my naked body. I stare up at him for a moment, my mouth still open in shock. This was the last thing I expected. He’s looking down at me, his gaze inscrutable.

  A glance around confirms my suspicion. He’s brought me to his bedroom.

  11

  Luis

  I watch her as she looks around my bedroom, a quick assessing glance, before she lets out a shallow breath, squeezes her eyes shut, and rolls to her side. She folds in on herself, exposing her back and ass. The livid crisscross of marks from my belt stand as my accuser, my inability to manage my anger. I wonder at the regret that sits hard in my chest, an unusual emotion for me.

  In the stark light of my bedroom I see she’s not perfect, not flawless. She has a body well-used. Cigarette burns on the back of her bicep and both her thighs, several scars from whipping or belting on her back, her ass and her legs. Faint lines on her wrists and her ankles where she’d been restrained in past. The pucker of a bullet hole in her shoulder and another further down, just below her rib cage. And three deep scars down her right side. Clean slashes, the first a long one, then a shorter one, then a small one. Deliberate. To mark her as property.

  Anger burns in me as I clench my hands, but not at her for a change. At the disgusting bastards who did this to her. At me, one of those bastards. As I think this, I wonder if it’s not the grief for my father fucking with me. She’s disposable, would be long dead by now if not for Manuel. He saved her in his own perverted way, to exploit her, to use her as a shield, use her beauty as a trojan horse. So effective. So deadly.

  In my grief, I hadn’t considered how close I came to dying. Now, the image of the gun swinging towards me as I am helpless to defend myself makes me shudder. If not for her, I would be dead. I trace my eyes over her wild mass of hair, the bones jutting from her spine, the small curve of her waist and I find myself wanting more. For me, for this woman. My satisfactory life up to now seems hollow, shallow. A shadow of what it could be. I have this overwhelming need to fix her, make her whole again. I wonder what she would look like happy, healthy and confident. But how is that possible with someone so damaged?

  I touch her back with my fingers, softly run the tips over the scars, not mine, my belting will heal. The deeper ones etched into her back like an abstract painting. Carved into her soul. Some are raised and as I slide a finger down one, goosebumps rise across her skin and she shivers.

  “Don’t.” Her voice is muffled, distant, soft and defeated.

  I bring my fingers up, just an inch as I consider her. Consider what’s next. I need to make a decision, go forward, with her. Or put her down here and now, end her suffering, move on with my life. Of course, I know which path I’ll choose before the thoughts even filter through my brain. If I can bring Lena to my side, get her to trust me, we might have a chance at the murky but alluring future that's starting to take shape in my mind.

  I slip the tie out of the bathrobe laying on the bed. She doesn’t fight me, doesn’t resist as I pull her wrists together and over her head, winding the tie around them, knotting it, then tying it to the bed frame, intricately tethering it close to the bars, then again and again so she can’t easily reach the knots. Despite what I might want, what I believe, I still think that underestimating her might get me killed.
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br />   I leave her and walk downstairs to the housekeeper’s room, knock on the door, wait a beat for her to answer. Theresa opens the door, her features alert. “I need some antiseptic, lotion. Is there something that numbs pain that I can rub on?”

  She keeps her eyes steadily on my chest, not looking me in the eye, but listening with her sharp intelligence. Theresa has been in this house as long as I can remember. She knows never to question an order. “Yes, a cream.”

  She doesn't move quickly enough for my taste and I lose patience, snapping, “Now. Get it and bring it to my bedroom.”

  She scurries around me and jogs down the hall, then moments later reappears with her hands full. “I have the numbing cream and some lavender oil. The oil is healing, will help prevent scarring.”

  As she hands it off to me, I say, “Bring some water, some food, something gentle on the stomach. Bananas, hot porridge, I don’t know.”

  “Shall I bring it down –”

  “Up. To my bedroom. Knock on the door and leave it in the hall.”

  When I return to my room, Lena’s exactly where I left her, no signs of a struggle, no indication that she even tried to untie herself. She doesn't move until I drop down beside her, then she flinches as I run my hand up her ass. She’s scarred, but she’s toned and she’s beautiful. I know why men would want her, but my gut roils when I think of it. All the men who have touched her.

  I uncap the numbing cream and squeeze the tube along her back.

  She jumps and shudders as she shrinks from me. Belatedly, I realize I should have warmed it with my hands first, maybe warned her I was about to touch her wounded back.

  “What are you doing?” Her words are thready and her muscles tense under my touch.

  I don’t answer as I rub the cream into the welts, into her skin in gentle, smooth caresses down her shoulders to her back, to the cheeks of her ass, to the backs of her thighs. Her breathing evens out, a soft sigh as the tension leaks from her body.

  Then the oil, a vial smelling of lavender. This time I pour it into my hands first, but it’s not like the cream. It’s warmer, the scent of it subtle, drifting, intoxicating. Again, I start at the top, at her neck this time, moving her hair to the side and massaging the oil into her skin, rubbing my fingers into the muscles, feeling the second they unknot and relax.

  Another minute, then I move gently down her back, too late for the burns on her arm, the old scars, but I massage the oil into them anyway, a belated gift of regard. I run my hands down the sides of her body from her ribcage to her waist, resisting the urge to draw them under her body, to her chest. Resisting the urge to cup her breasts, squeeze them, touch her nipples.

  I’m hard again. How can I not be? She’s beautiful and her body is so malleable under my strokes. I flatten my palms against her shoulder blades as I fight to control the hunger that’s raging through me, fearing if I unleash it now, I will devour her.

  I inhale a jagged breath, then let it trail out slowly as I touch my fingers to her back again, to her waist, small strokes, skin on skin, her softness, her toned muscles, her strength. She’s motionless and silent as I work my way down, a wary cat that likes the petting but is ready to bolt at the slightest sign of aggression. She tenses as my fingers bridge the crack of her ass, as they stroke down to her pussy, through her folds. She’s wet with desire.

  She jerks at my touch, shrinks from it. “Don’t.”

  She tries to shift away from me, but I stop her, my hand to her hip, my fingers biting into her supple flesh. She stills and I relax my grip, wait. It’s as torturous for me as it is for her. So quiet in the room, just the trace of our breaths, pacing each other. When she settles, I pick up small rivulets of oil on her back with my fingers and bring them down to her folds, gliding through them to her clit. I hear the intake of her breath, a sob stuck in her throat. “Please don’t.”

  I keep touching her, listening as her breathing deepens, watch as her body subtly shifts towards my fingers. “Why not, Lena? Why don’t you want to come for me?”

  I drop my body down beside hers, turning towards her so she can’t hide from me, so I can see her beautiful brown eyes, see the truth behind her words. She doesn’t answer and I push a finger into her vagina, moving my thumb off her clit so she doesn’t come yet. I want my answers first. “Why Lena? Tell me.”

  I'm thrusting the finger inside her, raking her g-spot with enough pressure to make her jerk. Her eyes flutter as I thrust in and out, touching her tight walls with my rough finger, lighting her up with pleasure.

  “I don’t do this.” Her words are a plea, but to stop or keep going? I don’t think she knows.

  “Don’t do what?” I slide another finger into her, stretching her, filling her with my flesh. Still I don’t touch her clit. Her lips tug down at the intrusion, and then a small breath escapes her.

  “I don’t come. Please don’t make me come again.”

  I’m intrigued. The little bodyguard doesn’t come? “Never?” I can’t help myself, maybe because I’m a man, maybe because I can’t understand why someone wouldn’t want come as often as they could. It’s the best fucking feeling in the world. Those fleeting seconds, the build, the release, the perfect drifting sensation after spending oneself. My balls tighten at the thought of it and my cock strains against the zipper of my pants.

  “No.” her voice is small, her eyelids squeezed shut. She doesn’t want me to see her confessions.

  “But downstairs—” I forget that I don’t want her to come, that I wanted her to wait as I rake my thumb across her clit, gently at first, then a little harder.

  “Yes.”

  She’s fighting me, fighting her desire. It’s in the clench of her fingers as she tugs on the rope binding her wrists. In the strain in her neck. In the furrow between her eyebrows.

  “Never before?” I search her face, disbelieving.

  “Please stop.” Tears leak from eyes, down her cheeks.

  “Lena, answer me. Never?”

  She sobs. “No. Not ever.”

  It’s a revelation for me and I’m lost in the moment, this damaged woman, a fighter, a killer, a sex slave, a victim. And a virgin to pleasure.

  “Let go, Lena.” I speed my strokes up, my fingers thrusting, bringing her higher as she moans, fighting me, fighting it. “Let go,” I say again. “Just let go and accept the feeling. I’ll catch you.”

  She moans, a single, hard gasp of air as her orgasm hits her. She cries out, shatters, the walls of her pussy tightening around my fingers. Like a bullet, crashing into her, speeding through her, I prolong the orgasm, gliding my fingers in and out as she shudders against me. I have the image of it ricocheting off her damaged soul, destroying her past. Letting her start over.

  I watch as her shoulders shake, as tears run down her face, her nose leaking. I feel savage. I want my tongue on her pussy, her clit, sucking her, licking her, smelling her, tasting her. I want to climb up behind her, pull her ass in the air and sink my cock into her wet pussy. I want to take her deep, hard, unrelenting. I want to pull her up again, make her know what it’s like to come while being licked, eaten, fucked. I want to claim her in a way no man ever has.

  But I don’t. I roll onto my back next to her and stare at the ceiling, rubbing my forehead with my hand. My fingers are shaking. All the things I want to do and all the things I should do. And I can’t seem to find my way back to who I believed myself to be.

  I'm granted a reprieve from my thoughts by a small knock on the door and Theresa’s voice floating through it. Food and water for Lena. The means to this woman's survival.

  And then I know. I know what I need to do.

  12

  Lena

  I watch warily as he opens the door. I wonder if he’s going to let someone in. My brain, dulled by exhaustion, tries to understand what’s happening. Why am I in his bedroom? Why is he taking care of me? All I can come up with is that he’s playing me. He wants something and he’s going to be nice until he gets it. Then he’ll kill
me.

  He doesn’t let anyone in. Instead, he picks something up, closes the door and brings it toward the bed. He sets a tray on the night table. The scent of chicken broth washes over me and my mouth instantly grows watery with anticipation. He’s brought food.

  He turns, reaches for me. I flinch. It’s an automatic response, though I’m not sure if it’s because I fear the pain or the pleasure that those hands can give. He rests his fingers on the belt tying me to the bed.

  “Promise you won’t attack me, Lena.”

  I open my mouth to promise, to tell him what he wants to hear. Then I close my mouth. I’ve lied before, many times in the past. Either telling people what they want to hear, “Yes master, I love your cock in my ass,” as I lay broken and bleeding, biting my lip to keep from screaming my pain. Or, later, with Manuel, I lied to protect him. Enabled the image people had of me as his beautiful, dumb, younger girlfriend. Luis knows this, knows that I’m capable of lying to his face. Yet, he still asks me to promise. As if I would keep it. For some reason I can’t fathom, this feels significant.

  “I promise.”

  He doesn’t hesitate, he unties the belt, unwinding the fabric from my wrists. Gently, he lowers my arms, his thumbs gliding over the slight indents the belt created. Tiny sparks of pleasure sweep up my arms at his touch. I jerk, but I don't move away. I'm becoming used to his touch, though the pleasant sensations he invokes still jar me.

  He helps me sit up. I’m aware of my naked breasts, but not ashamed. I’ve probably spent half my life naked. The time before Manuel picked me up anyway. Luis’ gaze strays down my body and he frowns, his brow doing that twist I’ve become so used to. Only this time his look isn’t contemptuous.

  He rises and walks swiftly to the closet. He returns with a T-shirt. Instead of handing it to me, he scrunches the fabric and pushes the collar over my face. I wonder if he’s doing this on purpose, so I’m not blinded by the fabric, not even for a second. Then I dismiss the thought. I’ve never known Luis to take such care with anyone. He lifts each of my arms and guides my hands through the short sleeves, then he tugs it down my torso, covering my breasts.