Chapter 16
Lyse
My head felt like it was filled with cotton. That was the only explanation for why I was begging Omar Castillo to stay. To, maybe, kiss me again. My mouth tingled at the thought.
“I shouldn’t stay,” Omar said and broke out of my grasp. “If I do—”
“What?” I pressed. A part of me, probably a bigger part than I would like to admit, needed to hear him say how much he wanted me. Especially after he so callously threw me away before.
“I might kiss you again.” A dark look filtered across his face. “I might do more than kiss you.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, steeling my nerves. “Maybe you could finish what you started last time.”
Omar smirked, dangerous and amused. “Shameless,” he taunted. “You are absolutely shameless. What would your Apá say?”
It was like a bucket of cold water had been dumped over my head. “He wouldn’t say anything at all. He would just beat me to death.”
A frown marred Omar’s handsome face. “You sound like you know from experience.”
I spun away so that I could look out of the massive picture window, but I hummed in agreement.
“My father told me that I was going to be engaged to Felix when I was fifteen. I hadn’t even met him yet.
” I wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly cold.
I hadn’t told anyone this story; the only ones who knew about it were my father, mother, and me.
“I didn’t want to be promised to someone so much older than me. ”
I glanced back, and Omar had a complicated look on his face. Like he was picturing his sister in my place. “That’s…understandable.”
Arranged matches weren’t an unheard-of practice for families like ours. I knew that my marriage would most likely be an alliance made between my father and someone who had something he wanted. It was my role as a daughter.
“I begged to be allowed out of the marriage,” I said.
“I asked them to send me to a convent; I had all of the paperwork printed out to show them.” I shook my head.
“It took weeks for my bruises to fade after that.” I held up a piece of my hair and showed him a scar that traced the edge of my hairline and my temple.
“It was only my mother’s begging and promising that I would comply that kept me alive. ”
There was a long pause, and when I looked at Omar, his whole body seemed clenched with tension. Violence against women wasn’t absolutely unheard of, but I was the daughter of the man in charge. I should have enjoyed a certain level of security. “I’m surprised that you’re so…pious.”
A laugh bubbled out of my chest. “I’m not…
but at fifteen, I thought it might be the only thing that would save me.
I had a cousin who chose to become a nun, and my father still speaks about her like she’s a saint.
” Annaliese had come to visit exactly once after taking the habit, and she was so horrified that she cut off all contact.
Still…our family canonized her. She had a “noble” calling.
I was the ungrateful puta who wanted to shirk her duties.
Omar broke into my thoughts. “I have a cousin, Zara, doing the same thing right now,” he said and shook his head. “You didn’t consider what you’d be giving up by becoming a nun?”
Giving up? “My family? I was trying to escape them at the time.”
Omar smirked at me, and his eyes dragged down my body. I shivered: I could almost feel that look like a touch. “That’s not what I meant, conejita.” He stepped closer to me. Heat radiated off him in waves.
Understanding flashed through me, and I took a step away from him. “I wouldn’t have missed it,” I insisted. “Why would I miss something like that?”
Omar was grinning now, and I knew he was going to touch me moments before he actually did. He backed me up against the window so that my back was pressed against the sun-warmed glass. “You seemed to enjoy my hands on you before.”
I scoffed and tried not to struggle in his grip. It would probably just excite La Bestia, after all. “You left before I could enjoy it fully,” I spat back. “Should I hope that Felix has better luck at pleasuring me?”
Omar’s grin morphed into a snarl. “As if he could.” He reached up and ran his thumb over my bottom lip; it was a possessive gesture that made me gasp as heat shot through me.
“Do you know why men his age go after virgins?” The question was rhetorical, and even if it wasn’t, I didn’t have an answer.
“They want some inexperienced girl who won’t be able to tell if they’re shit-poor at what they’re doing. ”
I should be quiet. I should get away from him as quickly as I possibly could…but I didn’t want to. He was dangling that dangerous, delicious pleasure that I’d only glimpsed before, and even though it could be another trick, a cruel prank to further break my spirit, I wanted it.
“Well, how am I supposed to know the difference?” It was a challenge, and I saw the recognition spark in his eyes.
Omar leaned into my space again; I could feel his breath against my skin, and I didn’t squirm away or try to push him. Instead, I tipped my head up so that I could meet La Bestia’s eyes. “Do you want me to show you, conejita?”
Say no, I commanded myself. It was a last-ditch effort from my brain to get my body to run, to be the girl that my father had trained me to be…but I wanted him. And if I was going to go into a marriage with Felix or die, I wanted to have something for myself beforehand. I took a breath. “Yes.”
Omar eased forward slowly, almost cautiously, and then his lips were on mine again. The kiss was soft at first, but then his tongue brushed against my bottom lip before pressing into my mouth. I gasped at the intrusion, but let myself be kissed. And kissed. And kissed until my head was spinning.
“Put your arms around me, Lyse.” His voice was commanding but not threatening.
I shivered and wound my arms around his neck, pressing my body against his. He was so big. It would be so easy for him to hurt me — he had hurt me — but his hands were gentle now, as if I were some precious thing. The difference was maddening.
Omar picked me up, wrapping his hands around the backs of my thighs, and I gasped. “Your shoulder.”
“It’s fine,” he insisted, and while I tightened my grip on him, there was no fear of him dropping me, even with an injured shoulder.
He walked across the attic to the counter that extended along the only wall that didn’t have windows. There was a sink that was clearly there for cleaning brushes and palettes, and my heart sang at the idea of painting again…but that could come later.
Omar set me down on the counter and laughed. “Even when you’re boosted up, you’re small.”
I flushed. “Shut up.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think I will.”
Before I could argue with him, he leaned down and kissed me again, though he didn’t linger at my lips for long, instead choosing to pepper kisses down my throat.
I trembled at the feel of his mouth on my skin.
My fingers tracked into his hair and wove through the silky strands, holding him against me as he searched out all of the places that seemed to send sparks through my veins.
Omar’s fingers curled around the edges of the too-big tee shirt that I wore, asking without asking if he could take it off. I pulled away and reached down so that I could pull the shirt off over my head. I could feel his eyes on the lace of my bra.
“Should I—?”
His eyes were dark, and he nodded. “Take it off.”
I reached behind me and unhooked the clasp of my bra, letting it go slack across my chest. Omar took it the rest of the way off. With my breasts bared, Omar bent and took one of my nipples into his mouth. I gasped as little zips of pleasure ran through me. I had no idea that I was sensitive there.
I felt the edge of his teeth and let out a little cry. “Omar!”
Omar made a pleased sound in the back of his throat.
“You make the sweetest sounds for me, conejita,” he murmured against my skin.
He reached for my shorts and I lifted my hips, allowing him to slide them and my panties down, leaving me bare before him.
On instinct, I tried to clench my knees together, but Omar stepped between them. “I want to see.”
I shivered at the deep timbre of his voice, and I leaned against the wall at his behest, parting my thighs for him. He had touched me before, but this was…more. I wanted more of that fire that he’d stoked days before. “Touch me,” I breathed out. “Please, touch me.”
He raised an eyebrow in question. “You’re sure?”
I was at the moment of betrayal again. I was spitting on my own family if I allowed this to happen…
but if it didn’t happen, if I walked away, I might shake out of my skin completely.
I needed to be touched. I needed Omar to be the one to touch me.
To make me feel alive in a way I never had before and probably never would again once I married Felix.
It wasn’t fair. Shouldn’t I be allowed to have this moment with the man of my choosing?
Why did Felix get to have that along with everything else?
No. I was taking whatever pleasure Omar was willing to give me and I would enjoy every minute of it.
I looped my arms around his neck and pulled him close; my breath shuddered when his clothed form pressed against my naked one. I kissed him; it was an inelegant thing, but he made a soft sound against my mouth. “I want you,” I said against his mouth.
Omar’s knees hit the floor, and he pulled me forward so that I was balanced on the edge of the counter. For a split-second, his touch was less than gentle, and heat pooled in my belly. But then he was almost dainty in the way he positioned his shoulders between my knees.
“Don’t hold back,” I blurted out.
Omar looked up at me, and I saw his jaw clench. “I don’t want to hurt you.”