My lips tingled from his absence and I tried to regain my footing in our battle.

But I couldn’t think and there was no time.

His eyes sharpened with intensity, and suddenly he grabbed me again, this time one hand behind the back of my head and the other around my waist, jerking me toward him. My chest pressed up against his so tightly I could feel the rapid beating of his heart through his shirt and tie.

His lips engulfed mine, hungry, eager and wild. He kissed me deeply, thoroughly. Luxuriously wet. I felt like my feelings were sediment at the bottom of the sea, and he was shaking me loose, stirring me free, until it was swirling around both of us, clouding everything. I kissed him back, my pace easily matching his frenzied one, an appetite unleashed. Our tongues and lips melded like satin and sparks, and the more I got, the more I wanted.

My hands found their way into his hair, and I gripped his thick, silky strands, tugging on them until he whimpered softly into my mouth. He spun me around so I was leaning back against the desk, and I found myself writhing against him, trying to alleviate some of the pressure that was building between my legs.

He pulled away briefly, his eyes heavy-lidded, his mouth wet and parted, and quickly lifted me up in the air, placing me on the edge of the desk. He pulled down my camisole so my breasts were free and tended to them while he started ripping off his tie.

I grabbed the back of his head and yanked him closer to me as his lips encircled my nipple, sucking deeply at one then the other. I felt like I wasn’t even myself, or maybe I was myself and I was just waking up. But I wanted things more dearly than I’d ever wanted them before. I didn’t even ask for them, I made them happen. Javier was awakening me.

He worked my nipples into hard peaks, flicking them until I was gasping with need. Then he stopped and looked up at me, that wonderful mouth of his grinning at me while he ripped off his shirt. “Is this what you want?” he asked hoarsely before continuing.

“It’s what I need,” I said, my words punctuated by my own groan.

“Then I’ll give you everything,” he said. He yanked the camisole over my head and kissed me passionately again, his mouth snaking down my neck, washing me with his tongue as he pushed me back on the desk. My head was resting uncomfortably on a stack of papers but I didn’t care.

When his lips got to my stomach, I expected him to pull down the thin, lacy shorts I had on. Only he stepped back. I looked up to see him swiping a letter opener off the desk.

My eyes widened, and before I could say anything, he reached between my legs with the blade and made a quick slash down the center of my shorts. The edge of the metal didn’t even come close to grazing my skin.

“I told you it was a hard-earned skill,” he said slyly, stabbing the letter opener into the desk so it was sticking straight up. My god, even during foreplay there had to be knives around.

While I marveled over that with a mix of trepidation and excitement, he undid his pants, which only made those emotions double. He brought his cock out into his hands, hard, long, and judging by the look in Javier’s eyes, somewhat dangerous. I breathed out slowly as I took in the sight of him. I thought by seeing him naked, he would be vulnerable in my eyes, but he was the complete opposite. His body was a fine-tuned machine and he owned it one hundred percent.

“You do realize,” he said huskily, removing his pants, shoes, and socks until he was totally bare, “that once I go down this path with you, this is all I’m going to want, all the time.”

“So I better like it then.”

He grinned and it did funny things to my heart, just as the sight of his cock was doing funny things to my body. “My beauty queen, you know you’ll like it. What you don’t know is how much you’ll love it.”

Then his smile vanished and his expression was replaced by greedy lust again. He came forward, spreading my legs wider and climbing on the desk between them. “I’m going to fuck you and fuck you hard. I’ll make sure you come, but I’ve been wanting to do this for a fucking long time and it’s going to be rough. Do you understand?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“Yes, Javier.”

“Yes, Javier,” I said, though I couldn’t help but smile.

“That’s my good girl,” he murmured as he started nibbling on my neck, sending shivers over my skin. His fingers entered the slit he created in my shorts. He slid his thumb over the swell, swirling it around until I let out a guttural moan. “But,” he went on, biting my earlobe now, his breath hot, “what I really want is for the bad girl to come out.” He paused and moved his face so it was right above mine, our lips inches from each other. “So, if you’re feeling particularly … passionate … I invite you to hurt me the best that you can.”

Before I could say anything to that, he reached down and wrapped his hand around his cock, positioning himself at my entrance. Instinctively I clenched up, afraid.

He put his hand to my face, his fingers trailing lightly over the bruises. “I’ll go in slow,” he said, assuring me with his confidence. “If I went in fast, this would be over in a minute.”

With my heart in my throat, I nodded, and he slowly pushed himself in. Because I was tense, there was pain, but his movements were steady and controlled, and I soon found myself expanding, letting him inside. I ended up wrapping my legs around his waist.

“Good,” he whispered, his eyes shutting in concentration. “Keep your legs and hips up, it will make it easier for you.” He exhaled loudly and groaned. “Oh, Jesus, you feel so tight, it’s like fucking an angel.”

“I’m no angel,” I said breathily, letting his width fill me.

“No. You’re a queen.” At that he thrust himself in, all the way to the hilt. My eyes flew open and I stared up at him while the realization that he was deep inside me hit. I didn’t know what I was doing. But it felt so damn good, and so strangely right, that I didn’t care.

I had let this man inside me.

It was going to be hard to get rid of him.

“Do I feel good?” he asked me, his impassioned eyes searching mine as he slowly pushed in and out, taking his sweet, torturous time, getting in deeper and deeper.

“Yes,” I said, gasping, finding the need to both stare into him and look away. It was so intimate being able to gaze into his hypnotic eyes while he made me feel so alive and electric. “You feel good.”

I didn’t feel like I was very good at talking during sex but he didn’t seem to care. His nostrils flared at that and he grunted. His breath was becoming shorter as were his thrusts into me. “I can make you feel more than good,” he said.

He reached down between my legs and started stroking me. Now the pleasure was doubling throughout my body, from the wet swirls of his fingers to the thick fullness of him inside me. I loved watching his shaft drive in and out as he fucked me, loved the way his arms and shoulders rippled from the strain. I couldn’t take the bliss anymore. It wasn’t long before I was coming, crying out and digging my nails into his back.

“That’s it,” he grunted, “fucking scar me, mark me, make me bleed.”

I dug my nails in further and rode out the wave just as he started picking up the pace. He was an animal. He started fucking me and fucking me hard, as he promised. I held on, even as the desk started to move from his strong, sharp thrusts and my head began to thump against the surface. It was turbulent and rough and half-crazed, and yet I was loving it. I loved watching Javier lose all control because of me.

The power felt incredible.

It wasn’t long before he was coming and I made sure to take in every single detail. The way his brows scrunched up, his hair stuck to his sweaty face, and how he closed his eyes, his back arching. His jaw went rigid—every part of him went stiff—right before the violent release that had him groaning loudly and gasping for breath.

He collapsed on top of me, careful not to put his full weight on my body. His cock was still inside and I could feel the wetness start to trickle out of my legs. While he slowly regained his breathing, he propped himself on his elbows on either side of my shoulders and coaxed my hair behind my ears.

Javier was beautiful when he’d just come, when he was still inside me, softening. There was a gentleness to his eyes, an easiness to his smile. This was what I’d wanted to see all this time, just a glimpse of the boy behind the man, and the man behind the monster. He stared at me so tenderly and openly that I knew he had a soul. It didn’t mean it wasn’t stained and filthy, but it was there.

“So?” he asked, running his thumb over my lips. I could smell myself on his fingers. It was the smell of us together, good and bad, captive and captor.

I cleared my throat. “So,” I repeated, finding my voice. My world was still a million spinning colors because of that orgasm.

“So I’m going to pick you up and bring you to my bed,” he said simply. “And we’re going to do that all over again.”

I blinked. “Already?”

His mouth quirked up. “I warned you.”

That was true. Still, I thought I’d be heading back to my room to be alone again. Even though that’s not what I wanted last night, it was something I needed now. I needed time to separate myself from my hormones and reflect on what had happened with some distance and space. I needed to think about the power I earned and all the ways I needed to keep it, especially now that I knew my sex was his weakness.

But as I let him scoop me up into his arms and carry me, while he was naked, down the hall and into his bedroom, I realized he was my weakness as well.

I had the feeling that we weren’t through with ruining each other.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Javier


I woke up with a dry mouth and a pounding headache. I was hung over, something that didn’t plague me very often. I rarely got drunk—you couldn’t in this business, not when you were at the top.

But yesterday I had been a different man. I had become a man enslaved to shame. Not for what I did to Franco. I felt zero revulsion or regret over torturing that man. Even when he begged me to stop and I took out my dick and pissed on his gaping wounds, I didn’t feel bad about that in the slightest.

No, my shame was because of Luisa, because I had failed to protect her and because I had broken my promise. I never made them in vain. I had meant what I said. As strong as she was, I knew there was a fragile casing underneath that could crack under the worst circumstances. All this time I wanted to break her, and the only way that I could have was by doing something I would have never made myself do.

I guess that said something about me, that I had a limit to my ruthlessness. But if I didn’t have my own morals and my own code, who would? Someone out there had to lead by example.

I rolled my head over and took in the sight of Luisa sleeping beside me, pretty much hanging off the edge of the bed, her back to me. She was wearing one of my dress shirts, oversized on her petite frame, but I couldn’t recall why. Perhaps because it looked fucking hot.

She seemed to be in a deep sleep, her sides rising and falling, her hair spilled around her on the pillowcase. Part of me yearned to reach out and feel it between my fingers, to wake her up by kissing her shoulder. But I had to keep those urges to myself. I was surprised I even let her sleep in my bed and hadn’t sent her back to her room.

Memories of fucking her on the desk were followed by several rounds in the bed. That’s why I didn’t send her away.

In all reality, I made a mistake. A big one. I shouldn’t have succumbed to her. I shouldn’t have kissed her, shouldn’t have fucked her. I knew it was a dangerous road to go on for me, to allow myself to be intimate with her, to be inside her. Watching her come while I was buried deep in her pussy was like a religious experience and it flamed my devotion. It spurred an addiction and made me insatiable for the next hit. It was in my nature to crave sex like I craved water, and I knew too well how cravings could derail even the most solid plans.

I exhaled through my nose, trying to focus on said plan instead of her. There was nothing wrong with a man having sex with a woman at his disposal, provided he would still be able to get rid of her at the end. It was expected of me, in fact, to be using Luisa every way I could. Most captives were treated far worse. The complication came at the end of the week, when she would be gone, one way or another.