Chapter 27
Jasmina
WHY DID HE HAVE to go and say something he shouldn’t have? Why did he have to act like he cared when he didn’t? And why did I have to believe him?
My heart wanted to … my body already did, and my mind was yelling at both of us to stop being stupid bitches.
Even so, I sighed in his grip. I was so freaking tired and so confused over what I’d found out recently that I gave in more easily than I should have.
I wanted to know how he’d actually found out I was hurting. He seemed genuinely concerned, and it made me consider how I would feel if I found the same thing out about him.
No one was allowed to hurt him but me. I was his viper, after all.
It was a revelation I knew I shouldn’t have had but did anyway. My guard was down, my head muddled, and my libido in full force.
The wounds were almost healed. I’d been taking good care of them over the past three weeks, but the fucker had cut deep, and I knew if Callahan saw them, he’d jump to conclusions.
He sighed. “Take your sweater off, Jas, or I’ll take it off for you.”
I glanced behind him at the men still in the room.
He didn’t even look behind him as he commanded them, “Leave us.”
“Cal, knife at the foot of the mattress and potentially one in the holster on her thigh,” Archer grumbled as he walked toward the door.
That bastard.
Cal’s jaw ticked before he barked out, “How do you know about the one on her thigh?”
“Yeah, Archer, how?” I taunted him, glaring at him now. I thought we had been making progress on being friends the past week, and instead he was selling me out immediately to his boss. What an ass.
He looked almost like he was apologetic before he said, “It’s my job to know.”
It wasn’t exactly an answer, and it seemed Cal wanted a very direct one. “How?” he asked with more authority.
I was so annoyed at Archer that I didn’t care about Cal’s tone. Instead, I grumbled, “See if I invite you into my room again or offer to finish making your sweater.”
“Jas.” Archer’s tone was pleading, which lifted my spirits a little. At least he seemed hurt that he wouldn’t have access to our late-night talks or to Romeo’s purring in the future.
At that point, Cal spun around, giving me his back as he ground out, “How many times have you accepted an invite into her room?”
Archer’s eyebrows raised but he didn’t seem at all apologetic. “A few. It’s just to talk.”
“And you saw me undo my holster one of the last times,” I whispered. It’d been a month of me having my guard up, and the second I took it down, the one person I thought I could trust just a little used it against me.
I didn’t see how fast Cal pulled his gun, but I heard Archer swear profusely, and when I glanced up, Cal’s stare was locked on Archer, his finger steady on the trigger, holding his pistol under Archer’s chin. “Have you no respect, Arch? I told you to stand outside her door.”
“And what? You intend to fight me because I didn’t?” Archer’s eyes danced now with that darkness, like he might enjoy a fight. “Be happy I cataloged intel for you.”
“Along with staring at my fiancée’s thighs.”
“You’re losing it, man. I swear to Christ.” Archer shook his head, not at all concerned with the gun at his head.
“I have women around the country that would spread their legs for me willingly, and you think I want yours?” Archer met Cal’s anger just as fast. “That’s the type of loyalty you think I have toward you? ”
Cal held his gaze for a long time before he shoved him back with the barrel of the pistol on his throat. “Don’t come in my fiancée’s room again.”
“Oh, believe me. He won’t. He’s not allowed in anymore.
” I gnashed my teeth together at the invasion of privacy, at the fact that no one seemed to care they were invading my space, the little freaking amount I had here, and that my life had been completely upended since the moment I’d agreed to this charade.
“Matter of fact, I think it’s time my fiancé let me lay some ground rules.
” I glanced at him, knowing he owed me that much.
“Everyone get the hell out, and don’t come back in here unless I ask you to. This is my room.”
Callahan’s eyes sparked with a little humor before he turned to his men. “You heard her. Leave.”
They all filed out, and that’s when I got the smirk I should have been looking for. “You happy, Viper?”
“As a prisoner of marriage under your roof? Never.” I crossed my arms.
He shrugged and nodded toward my clothing. “My ultimatum still stands. Shirt off yourself, or I do it.”
Shaking my head at him, I tried one last-ditch effort. “What do you think you’re going to find? Archer already told you where I hide my weapons.”
“I’m not concerned about your weapons. I’m concerned about why you flinched in pain.”
“Maybe I just don’t like being touched by you.”
He chuckled. “Such a good little liar you are. You take your shirt off, and I’ll forget you’re lying to your future husband.”
“I don’t care if you think I’m lying or not.”
He hummed. “Stop stalling, Jas.”
I knew this wasn’t going to end well. And so I slowly pulled the sweater over my head and then started to unzip the tennis tank top as he watched. I felt exposed, uncomfortable, and like I was revealing a vulnerability that I didn’t have space to deal with.
I was raised with my aunt and uncles telling me that weakness would be used against me, and maybe that’s all I knew, maybe that’s all I believed.
I didn’t want Callahan to see any of my flaws, only my strengths. Not because he was supposed to be an enemy, but because he’d become something more in my heart and my mind. I wanted to stand beside him as the equal he was treating me as, not a wreckage.
So, I started to babble, trying to take away from what he was about to see. “Honestly, what you’re going to see isn’t as bad as it looks.”
His gaze hardened as I stopped mid-zip over my belly.
“What isn’t as bad? You said it was nothing before.”
“It is nothing.” I bit my lower lip. “But … well, to us it’s nothing. You’ve been hurt a time or two before.”
“I have,” he said cautiously, like he wanted me to continue. “You’ve inflicted some of those wounds.”
“Right. So you know most are minor and heal completely.”
“Okay.” He nodded toward my fingers. “Unzip the rest of the shirt.”
I took one breath and then another before I let the fabric go so it could fall loosely at my sides.
To Cal’s credit, he didn’t gasp, and his jaw didn’t drop or anything like that. Yet, I saw his skin tighten over the muscles tensing in his face and his neck. His shirt seemed to become smaller.
He took a cautious step forward like he wanted permission to come inspect me himself, and I nodded but looked away. For some reason, the hard bravado I carried with me felt shaken under his scrutiny.
Or maybe it was the soft touch he used as he brushed his fingers under the collar of my open shirt and pushed the fabric over my shoulders so the sleeves could fall, leaving me completely exposed except for my sports bra.
His fingertips traced the first slash on my stomach. It was a bit higher than the other two.
Only a deep breath was released as he cataloged the injuries. When his fingers got to my abdomen, he glanced at me and then back at the stab wounds.
“It’s almost all healed.” I tried to wave off his concern.
“Who the fuck dared to do this to you, Viper?” His voice shook with rage.
I couldn’t tell him we’d been robbed, that I’d been overpowered and almost completely at their mercy.
I was trained to have that never happen.
I was supposed to be the best at fighting, and instead I’d been held down and outnumbered by stupid men.
I tried to laugh, but it came off canned and fake. “It doesn’t really hurt that bad.”
“That’s not what I asked you.” He bent to catch my gaze again and used one hand to lift my chin so I’d look at him. “Who did this?”
I shrugged. “Does it matter?” I didn’t think he’d care so much about who. I thought he’d care about the repercussions, about the fact that I was damaged, and so my mind just scrambled to make a believable story. “All in good fun, right?”
“Fun?” He blinked twice as his hands went to my hips to either steady me or himself. “What the fuck is fun about this?”
“I just … you know, like it rough sometimes.”
“Bullshit.” His voice was visceral and mean as he stared at the scabs where I’d been stabbed.
He swore again louder this time before he leaned in close to me and said in my ear, “I know what you like, Jasmina Ruiz, and it’s not this.
I’ve let you have me as roughly as you wanted, and it never included stab wounds. ”
“Well, maybe I thought you were too much of a baby to handle it.” I lifted my chin to look down my nose at him.
He swiped a thumb over my healing skin before kneeling before me slowly.
“What are you doing?” I whispered as he pulled me a step closer so that his mouth was centimeters away from the marred skin.
He traced each wounded line with his lips. “You know better than to let another man hurt you this way. You promised me that.”
I whimpered at his soft touch.
I did know. Of course I knew.
And I had promised. It’d been over a year since that night we’d hooked up, and maybe I’d told myself enough times that he forgot, but it was clear he hadn’t.
Cal had saved me from enduring Tomás that night, and he hadn’t forgotten what he’d made me agree to.
And maybe I jumped his bones because he knew. Or maybe it was just because he was hot, but I was pretty sure it was the former. Callahan knew I’d held back and let that man wail on me.
I hadn’t let another man do it to me ever again after my night with Cal.
Although he didn’t know that.
And he wouldn’t, because I also knew there were monsters who would do much worse to me if they knew I was weak.
“Don’t worry, Cal. Even if I let a man touch me this way, I gave as good as I got.”
A vibration from deep in his chest skittered over me before his hand snaked up my skirt fast to find my knife and then he held it up to me as he murmured against my belly, “Show me, then.”
“What?”
“Show me how you like to fuck roughly.” One of his hands still held my hips close, and his thumb rubbed a sensitive spot there as he coaxed me. “Show me just how you like it.”
“You can’t be … no.” I shook my head, shaking away the haze that his hand and lips on me was causing. “I’m not that into you. There’s nothing about you I like enough to get me to that place.”
He sighed, and his forehead fell softly to my belly before he stood and put the knife in my hand. “Viper, I touch you, and you shiver. I kiss you, and you’re wet. I eat your pussy, and you scream my name. Don’t lie to me. You’re as into me as I am into you.”
“Your ego is way too big if you think—”
“My ego is about as big as my hard cock right now.” He took my wrist so that he could point the knife at himself. “I’m not saying you’re the only one turned on. I’m saying we both are, but there’s no way that continues if you’re stabbing me the way someone did to you.”
God, he was infuriating. I held my knife to his stomach on my own accord now. “You calling me a liar, Knight?”
“I’m calling you a liar, sure. But not a woman who likes to be hurt.
” He unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it off as he stepped into my space, and, when he did, I held the knife firm and it nicked his skin.
The blood that dripped from his perfect abs was a beautiful red, and it beaded down over his muscles.
Licking my lips, I considered if I could be into blood play.
I mean, Cal did look good with red staining his tattoos.
“Going to have to spill more than that to prove your point, Jas,” he rumbled, his hand now at my cheek, swiping over the bottom lip I’d just bitten.
“Fine.” I shrugged, trying to keep my voice steady. “You think I can’t?”
“I think you’ll do what you need to survive, Viper. But it’s not this. You don’t need to survive me when you can thrive with me instead. You get that, right?”
I glanced down at the knife and then at his skin, and that’s when I saw names tattooed that must have meant something to him.
All women.
All women on the man’s body I was supposed to marry.
For some reason, that sparked enough rage in me to continue. I shouldn’t have cared that other women got a spot on him when I didn’t. We’d only been truly together one single night. And I didn’t mean much at all, I knew that.
Even so, as he lowered his head, moving my blonde-and-blue hair over my shoulder so he could sprinkle a light kiss on my collarbone, on my neck, and then up to my ear, I dragged the blade to where I wanted.
He bit my ear as I scraped the tip of the knife against all his muscles and watched it draw a line of red. He sucked on my lobe before he moved back to my neck to take more time there. He let me move the blade how I wanted, cutting his skin again and again.
As I watched the crimson red spread and drip down, I knew my pussy was dripping just as much.
He glanced down and smiled at first. “Jas, you’ll have to do better than that.”
“What?” I whispered in a haze.
But his smile fell slowly away as he realized what I’d done. “Baby …” he murmured as he stared down. In sloppy writing, I’d carved my name over theirs, and I was sure he could read it—sure he saw that I was replacing all of them with only me.