Violent Triumphs (White Monarch 3)

“Not your ass,” he agreed. “It’s not ready yet. I want to play with it first. Get to know it. Introduce it to my fingers. My tongue.”

I fisted the sheets, glancing back at him as my face flamed with heat. “You wouldn’t.”

“Oh, I would, mamacita. And I will.” He drew his t-shirt over his head, stripping down at lightning speed. “But understand one thing. When we do get there, I’ll never hurt you that way. Not ever, Natalia. When I take your ass, it will be to send us both to the moon.”

I closed my eyes, and instead of fear, satisfaction washed over me. I’d spent so long fighting to distrust every word out of his mouth, especially when it came to the pain he could inflict. I chose to believe him now.

“Your pussy, however,” he said, spreading my lips with his thumbs. He slid inside me from behind, his complete, staggering length impaling me slowly, until I’d taken him to the root. “That, I will use until I’ve filled you up with enough cum to make up for each night I’ve missed as your husband.”

The bluntness of his words cut through my haze. “But I could get pregnant!”

“Me vale verga. I don’t care. It’s too late. It’s already leaking out of me. And your sweet, thirsty pussy will swallow everything, won’t it?”

I had never wanted anything so badly in my life. I knew no other response except one. “Yes, sir.”

“Obedient little bride.”

He put one foot on the mattress, held down my hips, and drove into me so deep, I whimpered. “That’s it,” he said, his voice full of gravel as he hammered me. “I can feel the end of you now, and I’m going to fuck you there until even that gives.”

My face flushed. The utter and complete fullness of my pussy, the feeling of being more him than me in that moment, tapped into my basest needs. The pleasure intensified as he drilled away until all I could do was scream. I’d never heard myself do such a thing, but I was too gone to be embarrassed that my cries nearly shook the walls. “Yes!” The only words I could form spilled from me. “Yes, papi. Por favor—please.”

I wanted his release as much my own, and I even tried to meet his penetrating thrusts as I was pinned down.

Relief came quickly. He ground me against the mattress over and over until I came again.

My fatigued muscles shook as I relaxed into the mattress. Cristiano took me until the very end, until he delivered on his promise and erupted into my wilting body, breathing life back into me.

17

Natalia

Cristiano sat squarely in front of a large, majestic, burgundy velvet tapestry with golden thread that hung on one wall of the main room. At the head of the dining table, the open floor plan allowed him to see through the house, down the hall, and almost to the entryway. I couldn’t help thinking he’d designed it that way.

Remnants of our small feast, prepared in honor of a visit from my father, littered the table. Papá had been quieter than usual since we’d returned from a horseback tour of the Badlands. We’d invited him to stay for a few days so we could introduce him to the business he’d become a part of with our . . . merger.

And, in a way, it’d been an introduction for me, too. We’d made our way through the town square where Cristiano had bought my sandals, click-clacking down the road on our horses. From the outside, who would’ve thought the Badlands would have something as quaint as a Main Street? There were also fully functioning farms to keep residents fed—and even a distillery to keep them in good spirits. Doctor Sosa, who’d tended to Cristiano and me after Belmonte-Ruiz’s strike, ran a decent-sized medical clinic where she regularly saw patients.

It awed me how well they operated as a society.

I couldn’t quite read my father’s reaction, though. Today, he’d learned the truth about Cristiano’s business—that Calavera was involved in the flesh trade, but instead of trafficking in people, he was saving them.

Seated to Cristiano’s right, I took the last bite of chicken mole I could possibly stuff into my stomach and deflated against the back of my seat, covering my tummy. “I’m so full.”

“It was an excellent meal, Pilar,” Papá said from across the table. He always sat at the head, but there had been no confusion over who belonged there in Cristiano’s home.

In our home. I suspected it would be a while before it really began to feel like mine. I hadn’t picked out any of these things, or, like Cristiano, overseen its construction from the ground up. It was the people who felt more like home than the Badlands.

It was him, Cristiano.

“Should I get the dessert?” Pilar asked and dabbed her mouth with a napkin. When she stood, Alejo and Barto did, too. Her face reddened. “Oh, no, don’t get up. I can handle it.”