Kingpin's Property

“You like when I touch you.” Did that caveman growl come from me? “Admit it.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, frigid Carmen Ronaldo actually possesses female parts and is capable of feeling physical pleasure. Shocking, I know.” She shot me a cruel smirk. “What? Did you think you’re the only man who’s ever made me orgasm? Newsflash, Stefano Duarte: you are not special.”

Something hot and toxic boiled through my veins, and my world washed red. Suddenly, Carmen was beneath me, her delicate wrists ensnared in my fists. I pinned them to the table at either side of her head, leaning over her so she could feel how I controlled every inch of her delicious body.

“Who else have you been with?” I demanded, staring down into her wide, sparkling eyes, as though I could peer straight into her mind and read the truth. “Who else has made you scream their name while you come?”

“Stefano, you’re—”

“I want names,” I seethed. If Carmen thought she could find a better lover than me, I would simply eliminate the possibility. Any man who had brought her even a whisper of pleasure was as good as dead. “What about Miguel Armendariz?” I spat, remembering how the bastard had tried to take her from me only hours ago. “I know you were with him before. Did he make you scream?”

She paled, and her eyes began to shine with tears.

The toxic heat inside me swelled, flooding my chest. She cared about that fucker Armendariz. She was upset that I might kill her former lover.

“He came for you.” I taunted her with the knowledge that Armendariz wanted her, but he wouldn’t have her. “He came here and tried to make a deal with me in exchange for you.”

“Don’t.” She choked on her pathetic plea for her lover’s life, her tears spilling into her hair.

“Your tears won’t save him from me. I’m a sociopath, remember? You can cry as much as you want, and I’ll still gut him while you watch.”

“What?” she asked faintly, her lashes fluttering. The bronze glow had completely drained from her cheeks.

The sight of her extreme distress soothed some of the toxic heat in my chest. She looked as though she might pass out. I would feel no remorse over removing any other men from her life, but I didn’t want to damage her.

“Your tears won’t change my mind,” I told her gruffly. “I’m going to kill him.”

She heaved in a breath. “You’re not going to give me to him?”

My fingers tightened around her wrists, hard enough to bruise. “No.”

“Thank you.”

Her broken whisper stalled my brain, disorienting me. In my confusion, more of the poisonous heat in my veins cooled.

“You wouldn’t prefer to be with him?” My voice was still strangely rough, beastly. But my wits were beginning to return.

“No. Please, I…I don’t want to be anywhere near him.”

She trembled in my harsh hold, and her skin was too cool beneath mine. She’d responded similarly this morning when she’d thought I was going to rape her. I took a moment to assess how I’d gotten from my dining chair to having her pinned beneath me on the table.

Fuck. I’d attacked her like a mindless brute. No wonder she was terrified.

I shifted my weight off her, but I didn’t let her go. I lifted her up in my arms, cradling her trembling form against my chest. She was far too cold, so I pulled her closer to my body heat. Feeling her tucked against me purged the last of the toxicity from my system, leaving me feeling strangely wrung-out.

I carried her into my bedroom, leaving the mess on the dining table. Someone would come along and clean it up later. My only concern was dispelling Carmen’s unsettling physical symptoms.

I laid her down on the bed and settled in beside her, curving my body around hers. My fingers rubbed the goose bumps on her arms, warming her skin so that the sign of her fear dissipated.

Her eyes were closed again, hiding her from me even though I held her in my arms. After all these years, I finally had her in my bed, but this scenario didn’t satisfy me.

I cupped her pale cheek in my hand, tracing her delicate features with my thumb. She was so fragile beneath my much stronger hands. Why did I keep forgetting that?

“I’m sorry.” The apology dropped from my lips without a thought.

Her eyes opened, her brow furrowing as she studied my features. “You’re sorry?”

I rolled the words around in my mind, considering if they had meaning that I’d never quite grasped before. I’d given perfunctory apologies in the past in the name of decorum. And I’d definitely given innumerable sarcastic apologies. Even threatening apologies felt more familiar to me that what I was experiencing with Carmen at the moment.

“Yes, I’m sorry,” I said definitively. “I don’t like that I frightened you.”