I tell him how I started following Ivy’s brother after Santi was poisoned. I go into details about the storage unit I tracked him to several times and how it seemed suspicious. I had no way of knowing it at the time, but I suspected Abel had something to do with the attack that almost cost my brother his life. The attack he blames me for, regardless of who really gave the order. I explain how I broke into the storage unit to see what he was hiding, and as I do, both Judge and Santiago glower at me in unison.
Ignoring their silent disapproval, I continue, hurrying to get the words out. I talk about the evidence of the doctor’s demise. The bloody wallet I found. All the files from his office. Abel was hiding them for a reason, and I need my brother to know that regardless of his feelings for Ivy, her brother can’t be trusted.
“He’s dangerous, Santi,” I croak. "And I overheard him say something on the phone. Something I can’t stop thinking about.”
"What was it?" His rough voice betrays his concern.
"He said he would sooner rot than let you impregnate Ivy,” I confess. “And if you did, he would cut the baby out of her himself.”
22
Judge
Once Santiago leaves, I rejoin Mercedes. She’s standing beside the piano still watching the spot where her brother was. I saw the hope in her eyes when she first saw him. And then the disappointment that followed almost immediately.
“Are you all right?”
She shakes her head as if to clear it, then looks at me. “Fine,” she says coldly. She turns away from me and closes the piano lid.
I go to her and place my hand over hers, pressing my front to her back. There’s a moment when she softens against me, leaning into me. But it’s brief, and I think she’d pull away if she wasn’t trapped between me and the piano. “Mercedes.”
“What?” she snaps, trying to take her hand from mine.
I tighten my hold and brush her hair off the nape of her neck, setting it over her shoulder. I’m so close I can smell her shampoo, and I hear her short breaths as my fingers play over the IVI tattoo. The space above it. She shudders, and I draw in a deep breath before taking a step backward.
One time. It was allowed one fucking time. Looking Santiago in the eye was already hard today. I can’t complicate things more.
Mercedes sighs and walks away from me.
“Why didn’t you tell me about Chambers earlier? And why in the world would you think it was safe for you to pursue this alone? To follow Abel when you know how dangerous he is?”
She folds her arms across her chest, her defenses up again. I’m sorry for it because this space, this room and the piano have become a haven for her. Watching her when she plays, listening to the music she makes, it’s, in a word, sublime. She is at ease. Relaxed to the point she drops her defenses, her anger, her hurt, and is perhaps herself more than at any other time I see her.
“It’s fine. Nothing happened. I’m fine. Excuse me.” She walks toward the exit, but I capture her arm.
“I don’t excuse you.” And there it is again, the friction between us. A charged tension I’ve never before felt with any other woman. “And you don’t walk away from me until I do.”
She looks down at my hand, then up at me, and I see how her eyes darken as she licks her lips. It makes my dick twitch, and what I’d like to do most in the world right now is rip off her clothes, bend her over the piano, and fuck her until her knees give out and my name is the breath she breathes.
A low rumble from inside my chest breaks the silence. The beast is rattling its chains. It wants out. It wants her.
One. Fucking. Time. That was all.
“And what will you do if I don’t obey your command, your honor? Is that what you make them call you in the courtroom?”
I grin. “I like that. You may start using the honorific, Mercedes.”
“Fuck off.”
“Careful.”
“I won’t be careful.” She tries to jerk free. “What are you going to do about it? Bend me over the piano and spank me?”
“Close.” I tug her to me and let my gaze drop to her mouth, to the expanse of skin exposed by her top and the soft swell of her breasts in the push-up bra.
She grins. “Do it then. I dare you.”
I grit my teeth. “Be careful, Mercedes. I mean it.”