Chapter Nine
Beatrix
My breath lodges in my throat as Santiago gathers my dress slowly in his fist, his black gaze burning into mine. It’s all challenge, all fire, making my heartbeat race and the ache between my thighs intensify.
I shouldn’t let him get to me the way he does. I shouldn’t let him needle me, but he trapped me in my lie about my virginity, and now I’m furious. Both with myself for being so susceptible, and with him for being so awful and yet so bloody hot at the same time.
Perhaps you shouldn’t have let yourself soften when he asked you if you needed something to eat.
I wish I could deny that, but I can’t. For a second, I actually thought he was being conciliatory, but when he turned around I could see he was forcing it. That he didn’t actually care. He was only concerned with the health of his ‘incubator’.
Which shouldn’t matter to me. I shouldn’t care about my importance to him or otherwise, since he’s right about one thing: the health and wellbeing of our child is what truly matters.
Yet, to my continued fury, there’s a part of me that does want more, that wants to matter to someone in some way, though why I’m fixating on him, I have no idea.
Now, though, what I know is that I can’t allow him to take charge of this. He did so in the church, and I got so lost in what he did to me that I didn’t even realise we hadn’t used protection. I can’t afford to get so lost again.
I’m alone and pregnant, and in his house, and I need to take back some of the power I left behind when he dragged me here.
I need to be the one who undoes him, rather than the other way around, so, while I’d love to prove to him that I don’t want him, I won’t. Because it’s not true and we both know it. The time for lies is over. Now it’s time for me to embrace the truth and ruin him with it.
So I look up at him, into his hot black eyes, and at the same time I pull my dress out of his fingers. ‘You want to know what I really want?’ I ask. ‘I’ll show you.’
I put my hands on his strong thighs and push him back slightly to give myself room. Then I slide from the window seat, and go down on my knees on the pale carpet.
His breath catches, I hear it, and when I look up at him I see that his midnight gaze is full of flames.
He’s not bothering to hide how he wants me, and the needy part of me glories in it, even as a deeper part is afraid of it.
Afraid I can’t trust it. Because I’ve thought people wanted me before, and have been proven wrong, and I can’t go through that again. I won’t.
Except a man’s sexual desire is difficult to hide, and I can trust that if nothing else. Though this isn’t about his desire for me. This is about my desire for him, and, since he’s demanded the truth, I’ll give it. But in doing so I’ll wreck him the way he wrecked me, and that’s only fair.
I lift my hands to his belt and begin to undo it, and he doesn’t say a word.
He lets me open the buckle, then the button of his trousers, and then I’m drawing down the zip of his fly.
He’s already hard, the outline of his cock pressing against the black fabric of his boxers, and the sheer size of him makes my mouth dry.
It also sends a fierce burst of satisfaction through me, that I’ve made him this hard and so quickly, just by kneeling for him.
I reach for him, drawing him out then looking up into his face, wanting to see the effect my touch has on him.
His expression is ferocious with hunger, his skin drawn tight over the exquisite bone structure of his face, and his eyes are like cut jet, glittering and dark. He’s powerful like this, towering over me at his feet, yet that power is an illusion.
I’m the one with the true power as I run my fingers over his hot, velvety skin, watching the pleasure flare in his eyes. I wonder if he knows, and whether he cares, but then his fingers thread into my hair, his touch almost gentle, and the triumph in me wavers as my own hunger rises in response.
You’re playing with fire. You need to be careful.
I know this, yet the thought is a dim one.
Reality is the hard length of him in my hands, and the guttural sound he makes as I lean forward to take him in my mouth.
It’s the salty, masculine taste of him as I draw him deeper, and the way he reaches for me, his fingers curling in my hair and gripping me tightly.
‘You’re hungry for me, aren’t you?’ His dark voice is low and rough, his Spanish accent pronounced. ‘So desperate to have me in your mouth.’
I nod again, giving him the truth, because my sexuality is power. It’s the power I had over his father, and it’s the power I’ll have over him, too. It’s the only power I have. And I have no compunction in using it.
He wanted you first. All this time he wanted you. That’s why he’s so angry with you.
He did want me, but I didn’t choose him, and there’s a reason for that.
I need to remember that reason now, because it would be so easy to lose myself in him.
To get lost in his taste and his touch, and the glory of his own hunger for me.
Antonio wanted me, but I could have been any pretty woman to him, it didn’t need to be me.
But Santiago didn’t want any other pretty woman, he wanted me. And that feels good. Too good.
‘That’s it,’ he purrs, his voice deepening even further as I run my tongue along his length, use my teeth against his skin. ‘Take all of me like a good girl.’
And I do. I want to. I want to be his good girl, to taste him, take him, rip a growl from his throat the way I did back in the church. I want to watch him come apart, and all because of me.
‘Yes,’ he murmurs as I swallow him deeper and his hips move, thrusting into my mouth. ‘This is the truth of you, isn’t it? Kneeling at my feet, with my cock in your mouth. That’s what you want, what you’ve always wanted.’
The words should make me feel small and belittled.
Yet the way he says them, with the rasp of pleasure catching at all the vowels and consonants, I don’t feel either small or belittled.
I put that pleasure in his voice and he likes me kneeling at his feet.
If that’s the truth of me, it’s also the truth of him, because not only does he like it, he also wants it. It’s what he’s always wanted, too.
This truth is both of ours. We’re in it together, so when I look up into his eyes and see the pleasure I’m giving him reflected there I feel strong. I feel powerful. And more than anything, I feel wanted.
So I take as much of him as I can, unable to tear my gaze away from him.
Watching him come undone as his grip on my hair firms, the movements of his hips jerky and hurried.
And when he finally comes he doesn’t look away, letting me see the orgasm overwhelming him, his handsome face tightening, his mouth drawn in a snarl as he mutters something savage in Spanish.
Afterwards I lean my cheek against his thigh, the wool of his trousers prickling against my skin. My heartbeat is thundering. I can taste the salt of him in my mouth and I’m so turned on, I’m desperate. But this isn’t about my pleasure. This is me undoing him for a change, and not vice versa.
His grip on my hair eases, his fingers moving with gentleness, and a spike of longing hits me, so intense that I have to close my eyes as tears prickle at the inside of my lids.
I should pull away, get to my feet, put some distance between us again, yet I can’t bring myself to move.
I’ve never been touched like this before, with gentleness, almost with tenderness, and it’s undoing me even as the pleasure I gave undid him.
Antonio never touched me like this. My pleasure didn’t concern him, only the pleasure he received from me, and he never held me afterwards.
I’ve never had anyone else touch me like this, either.
Not since I was thirteen, when I used to get hugs from the foster parents who eventually ended up adopting Lisa, not me.
I once read that humans can die from lack of touch, and, with Santiago’s hand in my hair and the way my whole body responds to his light caress, I can believe it.
All too soon, though, he steps away and I hear him zip up his fly.
This time I don’t look up, painfully conscious that I’m kneeling at his feet, and that the moment of unexpected vulnerability has made my newly acquired power feel as if it’s slipping through my fingers.
I have to be strong. I have to be invulnerable.
I can never let him see what his gentle touch did to me.
Yet before I can find my usual calm he slides a finger beneath my chin, tilting my head up, and his gaze meets mine.
I’m expecting to see the normal hate, so I’m thrown off-balance when I see that his dark brows are drawn together in a frown, and there’s no anger in his midnight eyes, only puzzlement.
I try to pull away, not wanting him to see my weakness, but he anticipates it and his grip on my chin tightens.
‘Don’t,’ I whisper, unable to stop myself.
He doesn’t let go. ‘Why were you crying?’
Oh, God. He saw.
I attempt to pull away again, desperate to protect myself, but his grip is unbreakable.
‘Did I do that?’ he demands. ‘Did I make you cry?’
I blink the remaining tears away hard. ‘Why do you keep asking me questions?’ I can’t quite hide the shake in my voice. ‘Why do you even care?’
His gaze flickers and quite suddenly he takes his finger away.
I’m just catching my breath and armouring myself once again, when his hands settle under my elbows and he pulls me to my feet, and this time he doesn’t let go.
A startled breath escapes me, my heartbeat continuing to thud in my head. His hands are warm, his grip gentle, yet his gaze burns, demanding things once again.
‘I don’t want to make you cry,’ he says forcefully. ‘I don’t want to hurt you.’
‘If you don’t want to hurt me,’ I snap, ‘then maybe you should stop being such a prick to me.’
It’s too late to pretend that he doesn’t affect me or that I’m not hurt by the things he says, or by his anger. Too late to pretend to myself that his opinion of me doesn’t matter. Far, far too late.
Maybe it’s the pregnancy hormones, but it’s not that I care about him per se, it’s more that he’s just one more person who hates me, and I can’t bear it. I don’t have the bandwidth for it, not any more.
Defensive fury rises in his eyes in response, and I brace myself for whatever horrible thing he’s going to say. But just as my muscles tighten his fury flickers and dies, leaving behind it puzzlement again, and something else. Something that looks a lot like regret.
‘I… I’m sorry.’ He releases me and takes a step back, his expression shuttered. ‘I’ll send Helene in. Please let her know if there’s anything you need, anything at all.’
Then, without another word, he turns and leaves the room.