Chapter Six
Lourdes cuddled into her lover’s embrace.
Enrique had taken her twice already, and now, he spooned her from behind with his arm clamped over her belly as though he couldn’t bear any space between them.
She sighed contentedly and snuggled deeper under the quilt as the flames flickered low in the hearth.
The sound of the crackling, burning wood would sweep her away to dreamland if she let it.
Dios mío. The rumors were true. Sex could be incredible.
No pain. No humiliation. Just pleasure. Pure feeling.
He’d touched her like he was starved for her, that he wouldn’t survive unless she exploded around him like a starburst in the black of midnight.
He didn’t just make love to her; he branded her soul. Her heart.
Her plan worked perfectly, and not at all.
She’d expected a bit of pleasure before he took his own and left her unfulfilled.
What he gave her, she’d never dreamed such a thing existed, let alone that she would experience it.
If only she could repeat this wonderful night for the rest of her life.
Not possible with her father waiting in the wings.
As Enrique’s breathing evened out, the strength in his arm slackened.
She slipped free and stood on wobbly legs.
A parade of goosebumps rushed down her arms. The firelight and shadows obscured the details of the tattoos on his muscled chest and arms. But wow.
All that ink shouted danger if nothing else could.
Had the situation been different, she would’ve spent hours exploring and maybe even licking each mark.
Instead, she drew the quilt over Enrique’s shoulders.
Hopefully, he wouldn’t wake with the loss of her body heat.
Her head swayed, demanding she forget her harebrained scheme.
Stay strong, Lourdes. You have to go.
Barely daring to breathe, she tiptoed to the trunk at the end of the bed where she’d moved her suitcase and the clothes she wore earlier.
She quickly pulled on her blouse, jeans, and shoes, then withdrew the key fob from Enrique’s jeans, which he’d tossed haphazardly on the armchair.
Once she slid the pieces of his phone back into place, she crept to the door.
The red LED light on the mounted keypad glared at her, daring her to open the door without feeding it a set of numbers first.
She had just one chance to jump into the driver’s seat before he caught her. To drive away, leaving him stranded. Furious.
Heart thudding, she unlatched the deadbolt and turned the handle. She paused, staring back over her shoulder.
He slept peacefully, oblivious to her betrayal.
Maldita sea. That’s exactly how he would see it. As betrayal, not as her trying to protect him. After rolling her tight shoulders, she pulled open the door and ran.
An alarm blared behind her. Shrill. Mechanical. Impossible to ignore.
Frigid mountain air kissed her skin. Motion-sensor lights lit her escape in stark white. Adrenaline quickened her pulse.
“Lourdes?”
Enrique’s groggy shout escaped the confines of the cabin.
Fear skittered down her back. She smashed a button on the key fob, and a double beep echoed as the vehicle lights flashed in the driveway.
The cabin alarm fell silent. Gravel crunched.
Her eyes burned. The breeze lashed her hair across her face.
Owls hooted, and crickets chirped somewhere in the forest, oblivious to her mad dash toward freedom.
Don’t look back.
Footsteps pounded behind her. Closing in fast.
“Lourdes, stop!”
A heavy weight barreled into her, slamming her into the side of the vehicle. The SUV squeaked and jostled as she grunted, the jolt knocking the air from her lungs.
“Goddamn it. What is the matter with you?” Enrique whipped her around. “You fucking seduce me, then run? Was that your plan all along?”
She flinched in the light of his fury. Something like shame or admittance must’ve crossed her face because the anger morphing his into a tight mask tripled right before her eyes. She swallowed hard. He crowded close to her, and the sharp teeth of his unfastened jeans scraped against her waist.
“Now, I’m disappointed.” He snatched the key and phone from her, disassembled the cell, and tossed the items onto the hood of the SUV. “You think you’re such a seductress? I told you the cabin was wired, yet you test me. Do you know what happens to girls who misbehave?”
Her heart skipped. Jacobo had once said something similar before his fist hit her cheek. She raised her hands to ward him off. “Enrique, please. Try to understand. This has been a wild day. An amazing night. But we have to face reality. Let me go.”
“To do what? Be sold again? That’s the future you’re so desperate to run back to. How do you expect me to stand aside and let that happen? I’m not that strong of a man.”
His raw pain skewered her. His brutal, honest words broke her.
A sob split her lips. Every bit of anger, misery, shame, and hatred that she’d pushed back for so long poured out of her in one great swell.
She was through. She couldn’t be the obedient daughter anymore.
The pawn to be traded off. Knees crumbling, she collapsed into his waiting arms and hugged him as though he were her life preserver in the storm.
“I’m sorry,” she croaked, crying into the crook of his neck and shoulder.
She had been sold before. To Jacobo. Her father called it diplomacy.
She called it a sentence. The day Enrique had approached her after Jacobo’s death, he saw what she had become.
Disgraced. Scared. Weak. He’d looked at her with pity, like she was damaged goods, but he still offered his love and protection.
He deserved a strong woman. Not the mess she’d been then. Or was now.
Enrique clutched the back of her head and buried his nose in her hair. “Let me love you. It’s all I ask.”
“I don’t want you to die.”
“We all face judgment someday. If I go in pursuit of your heart, then it’s a sacrifice I willingly make. You’re worth it.”
Shuddering, Lourdes drew back on her unsteady feet and wiped at her tears. “Why do you love me? I’m nothing special.”
“From the moment we met, I knew the truth in here.” He thumped his fist against his chest, above his heart.
“I didn’t care that you were in your wedding gown, an hour away from marrying Jacobo.
You were mine. The hows or whys didn’t matter—then or now.
Lightning has only ever struck once for me. You’re it. Simple as that.”
“Love at first sight is a fairy tale.”
“Then we have a fairy tale.” A smile curled his lips. “Because I know you felt the same for me. I saw it in your eyes. I see it now.”
No denying that, though at the time, she’d dismissed her feelings for him as infatuation or pre-wedding jitters. “What are we going to do? The trouble we’re in—”
“We’ll handle it, princess. Are you going to keep fighting me?”
Lourdes hiccuped and shook her head. The nippy air warred with the heat blazing inside her.
She rubbed her hands down Enrique’s arms to warm his prickled flesh.
Despite the stark glow of the floodlights, shadows reigned and blurred his tattoos into dark splotches.
She stared past the white glow to the sky where millions of stars glittered in the vastness of the night.
For now, they were safe.
She trailed her fingers down Enrique’s bristly jaw. “Let’s go in. You must be freezing, and your feet hurting.” She grimaced at his bare feet on the jagged gravel.
“Time for your punishment.” He jerked her back around and pressed her face-first against the rear door. The vehicle shook from the forward momentum.
She jerked upright, trying to turn. His hand on her lower back held her in place. “E-Enrique?” she stuttered, her belly clenching.
He reached around her, unfastened her jeans, and knelt to strip the fabric down and past her shoes one leg at a time. Then he stepped onto her pants to cushion his feet.
Shivering, she braced herself against the vehicle. The cold air raked her bare bottom and sliced through the tender folds between her legs. Fear and desire clawed through her with brimstone fingers. He stroked her center, his touch jolting heat into her core.
“Still wet,” he purred against the shell of her ear. “Brace yourself.”
Confusion reigned until his hand came down hard on her bottom. She gasped and bucked in his hold. “A spanking?” she squeaked in shock.
He slapped her again, the same now-stinging cheek. “You ran, broke my trust. Did you think I was going to let you get away with that?”
A third slap, the other cheek.
Breathing heavily, she closed her eyes and pressed the side of her fiery face to the cool window.
“Spanking as foreplay. Pretty unconventional,” she forced out, shuddering from lurid pleasure and self-righteous indignation.
He rubbed her sore bottom, easing the bite, then slipped his talented fingers back between her thighs. She wiggled, trying to impale herself.
“You like that? My fingers?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Ten slaps, then you can have my cock.”
Dios sálvame, she silently prayed, begging God to save her.
How could she like this? A spanking, of all things?
A fourth slap, then a fifth. Her mind floated on the sixth, and before she knew it, the kinky man slapped her for the final time and massaged her aching cheeks again.
His clothing rustled, then he plunged into her body.
“Oh! I-I, wait.” The words tumbled over her lips.
Sandwiched between her lover and the SUV, she palmed the door and window for leverage.
Maldita sea. She couldn’t grip glass. Giving up, she let the force of his weight hold her steady as he bit his nails against her waist and pounded like the devil possessed him.
Her heart thrashed. Every nerve ending sparked to life.
The mingled aromas of earth and heat swamped her in paradise.
“Who do you belong to?” Enrique sucked on her neck and slipped his fingers between her legs.
“You,” she gasped. Her clit flamed hot with his touch. She shivered as his breath tickled her earlobe. “You, I swear.”
“Damn right.” He rotated his hips, changing his rhythm.
“Oh, God. I’m almost there.” Desperation clawed at her. “Enrique, more!”
“That’s right. Beg.” He pushed in and out, harder, faster, locking them together.
Only the saints knew where he ended and she began.
Something snapped in her core, shooting her mind straight into the heavens.
A cascade of brilliant light exploded in her vision.
Tremors raced through her. She cried out and rode the waves until the trembling beneath her feet settled.
Dios mío. She needed this. Enrique’s touch.
His passion. His rough, perfect handling of her body.
“So good,” he muttered against her neck. “I’ll never get enough of you.”
Then he climaxed with a harsh bellow, the force of his release slicking her feminine walls. Once he withdrew, she turned and wrapped her arms around him. The smug, sated smile on his face quickened her already skittering pulse.
“Three times now, you didn’t use a condom,” she chastised, though no heat laced her words.
“Princess, I got news for you—I don’t have any condoms, and I’m not buying any.”
She wasn’t surprised, and despite everything, she didn’t care. “Let’s go to bed. Come morning, we’ll have to sleep in. I’m sorry about all this, that I woke you.”
“No apologies. You needed that spanking as much as I wanted to give it.” He tasted her lips with a gentle pluck of his. “Besides, I’d bury myself in your tight pussy at any hour of the night or day.”
Heat stirred in her middle, his dirty words a powerful aphrodisiac. Mother Mary preserve her for whatever he came up with next.