Chapter 11 Marfil #2
I remained still. Shamelessly, part of me liked knowing that he was still capable of falling under my spell. “You missed your chance,” I said, so close to his lips that I could smell the whiskey and cigarettes on his breath.
“It’s not about chance, Marfil. This is about the score we still have to settle.” He moved his hand up my side and wrapped it around the underside of my left breast.
It was then that I decided to put an end to this interaction. I placed my hand on his chest and pushed him away. His body was hard from how built he was, and instead of doing as I said, he simply smiled.
“I’m not moving an inch until you let me taste your lips again.”
“I’d rather become a nun before I ever kiss you again, Regan.” I pushed him harder, but his legs pressed into me, trapping me in place.
“Nuns are chaste, baby, and you and I both know you’re anything but.”
What an idiot.
Then, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that Sebastian had appeared, making his presence known by calmly leaning against the kitchen wall. His expression said it all: He was asking me if he should get this guy off me or keep his distance.
I wanted to prove to Sebastian I was capable of handling things on my own. So I tried lifting my knee in order to hit Regan in the balls, but the idiot saw it coming and blocked the hit, using incredible force to hold my leg.
“Let go of me. Now,” I said through clenched teeth. The joke had stopped being funny, and the fact that Sebastian was witnessing something so pathetic made me embarrassed and angry in equal measures. I didn’t want to need him; I didn’t want to have to ask him for help.
“Or what?” Regan whispered in my ear, blocking my view of Sebastian.
Before I could even think of a comeback, a shadow fell over us, giving Regan no time to react. In a matter of seconds, he was on his back, looking up at the gigantic man who had just pushed him off me.
“Get lost,” Sebastian said, surprisingly calm.
Regan clenched his teeth in response. “Who the hell are you?” he asked, jumping to his feet and stepping in front of Sebastian.
He looked down at Regan without blinking and calmly answered his question. “Your worst fucking nightmare.”
Before anything else happened, or rather before Regan attempted to punch my bodyguard, Sebastian had pinned Regan’s arm behind his back and pressed his head into the wall.
“Come at me like that again and you’ll be crippled for life. Do you understand?”
Regan let out an unintelligible grunt, and Sebastian, after twisting his arm a bit farther into that unnatural position, let him go.
I won’t deny that I enjoyed seeing someone put that asshole in his place.
Luckily for Regan, there was no one else in the kitchen; if it had happened in the main room in front of all his teammates, it would’ve damaged the bad-boy reputation he had so carefully cultivated.
It was pathetic how quickly Sebastian had been able to pin him against the wall, and I was reminded that my bodyguard was much more skilled than a spoiled college athlete who lifted weights in the gym to bulk up and tighten his pecs.
Sebastian was trained to kill, and thinking this, a strange sensation crept up my skin.
Regan looked at us with a look of loathing on his face, first at Sebastian, then at me.
“One more for your list, huh, Mar?” he said, walking backward and smiling, despite being short of breath from the shakedown Sebastian had just given him.
“Hot tip?” he said now to my bodyguard, who appeared annoyed.
“Stay away from her—she’s so frigid, she’ll freeze your cock. ”
I didn’t see Sebastian’s reaction to Regan’s last words, because I turned around and walked out the other door.
I had once believed I was in love with Regan. Opening my heart had been a mistake I would not make again.
Frigid. That word haunted me.
Feeling like shit, I crossed the crowded living room to the drinks table.
I took three tequila shots in a row. The last one almost made me gag, but instantly, a curtain lowered on the thoughts crashing around in my head and allowed me to focus on the party happening all around me.
I hadn’t come here to be insulted. I’d come here to have fun.
I don’t know how it happened, but I ended up on top of a table surrounded by guys who kept shouting how hot I was. I couldn’t make out what they looked like—they were all blurry to me—but I liked being high above them, where they could look at me but not touch me.
I chanced a glimpse at Sebastian in a corner of the room, then continued to dance for what felt like hours. When I finally grew tired of dancing, someone helped me down from the table, as I struggled to do so on my own, and guided me to the bathroom.
“Are you okay?” Sebastian asked me before I shut the door in his face.
I looked at myself in the mirror and tightened my ponytail, which had come almost completely undone.
I ran my hand under the faucet and wiped cool water across the back of my neck.
When I went back out to the party, the heat felt dizzying, and I decided it was time to leave.
I went directly to the elevator, but as I reached for the button, a huge hand appeared and pushed it for me. I turned to Sebastian.
“Are you all right?” he asked, more out of duty than real concern for me, I’m sure.
“What do you think?” I answered, blinking to clear my vision.
“Get in the elevator, Marfil,” he ordered me, as if bored.
I hated his condescending tone.
“You know something?” I said, jabbing a finger into his chest. “What you did back there made you look like a total jerk, like a little macho man from the last century… I don’t need you to rescue me. I can do it all by myself.”
Sebastian nodded. “Understood. Now get in the elevator.”
I got in the elevator, not because he told me to, but because I needed to get some fresh air.
When we stepped outside, a light drizzle was falling onto the streets of Manhattan. I looked up at the immense skyscrapers surrounding us, lit up with different colors. The cool rain felt refreshing on my feverish skin.
After a few seconds, I opened my eyes and found his fixed on me, observing me without the slightest attempt to hide it.
“Let’s go home,” he said, and this time it sounded more like a request than an order.
Home… That ordinary word falling from his lips produced a sensation of warmth that I’d never felt when thinking about the apartment I lived in.
“I want to walk,” I answered, spinning on my heels and heading down the street. The buildings in that area were beautiful, majestic, with elegant entryways. It was horrible to think that just up the street people were dying of hunger.
I kept walking until a lighted storefront pulled me toward it like a magnet. I had always wanted to get a tattoo, but I’d never had the nerve.
I pushed open the door, and Sebastian followed me in with a sigh.
The place was painted entirely black, even the furniture was of the same color, and there were hundreds of different pictures displayed—some grotesque, others small and cute.
Before I could get a good look, a tattooed man with huge plugs in his stretched earlobes appeared behind the counter.
“Let me guess, you want matching tattoos?” the man asked.
“No one’s getting a tattoo. Marfil, can we go?” Sebastian said.
“He wishes,” I said, looking at the tattoo artist. “But nope, it’s just me.”
The man gave me a crooked smile, picked up a rag off the counter, and wiped his hands as he looked at me with an amused expression. “A body like that doesn’t need any art.” Then he looked to Sebastian. “Get her out of here—she’s drunk; she’ll regret it tomorrow and blame you.”
Sebastian tried to take my arm, but I pulled out of his grip.
“Actually, I’m not drunk, and I know exactly what I’m doing. I want a tattoo, okay? I’m tired of people telling me what to do. It’s my body. I’ll tattoo my entire face if I want.”
“That would be a shame,” the man answered, looking at me with lust, “but do whatever you want. What’ll it be?”
I moved to look at the catalog he had open on the counter, but Sebastian gripped my wrist and held my gaze, searching for some kind of inkling that this was a joke. “Marfil… a tattoo is for the rest of your life. Don’t do it just to prove something.”
I blinked several times, dazzled by how handsome he was due to the concern I could read in his eyes.
“You have your whole arm covered in them,” I said, challenging him with my gaze, “and I’m sure you have even more in other places, don’t you?”
Sebastian looked away and released me. His silence was enough of a response.
“Show them to me. I want to see them.”
“No,” he said, cursing between his teeth and running a hand through his hair.
What other tattoos did he have? And more importantly, where?
“So you can get tattooed, but I can’t?”
“A tattoo should mean something.”
He was right about that. But I did have something very important in my life, something that never ceased to amaze me.
I flipped the pages until I found what I was looking for. “This. I want this tattoo.”
Sebastian looked at me with pleading eyes. “Please, don’t do it,” he said in a kinder tone. “This man is right—your body doesn’t need any ink to make it prettier.”
Was that supposed to be a compliment?
“I’m just like you and him. I want a mark that will serve as a reminder of something I feel truly passionate about.”
The tattoo artist, paying no mind to the conversation, gestured for me to go into the little studio. I did as he said, Sebastian stepping into the room with me, which I hadn’t been expecting.
“You can wait outside,” I said.
“In your dreams.”
I rolled my eyes, and when the man asked me where I wanted the tattoo, I thought for a few seconds. “On my back, right in the middle, under my neck.”
“All right. I’m going to go make some sketches. In the meantime, you can take off your dress and lie down on the table.”