Violent Triumphs (White Monarch 3)

My face warmed at his bluntness. “I’ve removed any temptation—for your own good.”

“We’re hardly alone. And when we are, you’re always moving around. There are constantly people in my room, and at night, you go to the couch.” One eyebrow rose. “Perhaps if you treated me like your husband instead of a pariah, she’d get the message.”

“I don’t treat you that way.” I frowned. “I’ve been a good wife to you. On one point, I won’t back down—your recovery is my priority. I won’t allow you to risk your health for Max, or so you can get laid.” The hint of a smile on his face only spurred me on. “If that makes me the villain while Tasha treats you like a superhero, then fine. But I want you alive and strong.”

He ran one hand down his chin, his eyes unnervingly fixed on me. “Get laid?” He chuckled. “You don’t have to sit on my cock to make me feel wanted around here. All I ask is to have you at my dinner table and in my bed.”

I inhaled through my nose. It hadn’t been my intention to spurn him, only to make things less difficult. As it was, the heat of his stare could conjure all the promises he’d made over the past few weeks—to erase Diego. To show me what it was to have my virginity taken. To wreck me. “I don’t . . . I don’t trust myself to sleep by your side.”

He ran the tip of his tongue over his bottom row of teeth, then wet his lower lip. It glistened in the warm light of the overhead chandelier, full, sexy and tempting. “And why not?”

This went beyond sex, but I hadn’t given him much on the emotional front, either. Both topics were scary. I sighed. “When you called me from the political event, I was about to ask you to come home,” I said. “I was worried.”

“I know,” he said. “Had you asked, I would’ve come running. I’m here now.”

“But so is she. I wouldn’t have been so daring over the phone if I’d known you were with a woman you’ve been intimate with. So answer me—did you sleep with her that night, or any time during our marriage?”

“You’re jealous.” He didn’t bother to hide his grin. “My god, it’s even more spectacular to witness than I could’ve ever hoped.”

He was enjoying this too much. With a sigh, I started to get up from my seat.

“Tasha’s an old friend I met early on in the second part of my life—after I left Costa,” he said. “She comes from a very powerful familia Rusa-Méxicana.”

“I have old friends, too,” I said, sitting back down. “If that’s your excuse to fool around, I should get the same pass.”

He snort-laughed. “Any man who tries with you can’t value his own head too much.”

When he stood, I looked up at him. “Does that mean I get to decapitate Natasha?”

He froze as one corner of his mouth twitched. “During our short marriage, you’ve accused me of sleeping with Sandra, Jaz, and now Tasha. While I sit here celibate and desperate for release—and no, not the kind of release you’ve already given me.” I moved against the back of my seat as he stepped forward until his feet met the legs of my chair. “Although, I do dream of the moment you’ll swallow my cock again.”

My cheeks flamed. Well, Cristiano was certainly back to his old self. The vulgar but hot picture he painted made me squirm—and reminded me of what he’d told me about Tasha before all this. “She did that for you, too.”

“But not like you. Nobody will ever do it for me like you. I don’t want to get my dick sucked or handled or anything of the sort.” He dragged out my chair, with me in it, and stood over me. “I want. To fuck. My wife.”

I was finally ready for it. He wasn’t, but by the look in his eyes, I wasn’t sure I could stay him any longer. If he was willing to put himself in surgery to have me, he would. I’d tasted the power of unraveling him before, and it was just as sweet now. He only wanted me. At any cost.

“But . . . I can’t,” Cristiano said finally. “Not how I plan. I don’t know what kind of sex Doctor Sosa has, but she’d probably never clear me if she had any idea what I’ve got in store for you.”

Oh, God. I didn’t know what to feel—relief? Disappointment? I wanted him. Having all of him, without reservation or an injury to slow him down, scared me. But there’d be no other way with him.

Gripping the edge, he sat back on the table. “You want to know about the women in my life? I’ll tell you, and then we’re going to drop this bullshit about whether I’d keep a mistress when I have perfection at my fingertips. Understood?”