Violent Delights (White Monarch 1)

Cristiano came toward me, and I backed away, suddenly aware of the glass wedged in my feet. When he was close enough that I could inhale his smoky mix of sweat and burnt wood, he said, “You can limp to your bedroom, or I can carry you there.”

My breath caught in my throat. “My bedroom? Why?”

“Use your imagination.”

I could think of no reason Cristiano would want to take me upstairs except for the obvious one. What chance did I stand against him? He might as well have been made of marble for all his muscle. Resisting him would be like fighting a statue. He knew that. Maybe he wanted my struggle. If it was he who’d tried this with my mother, her fight had cost her her life.

But if he touched me, he’d lose any shot at uniting our families. I had to believe that was reason enough to stop him from hurting me.

“My father would murder you in cold blood,” I warned.

“Understood.” He moved aside to let me pass.

With Cristiano at my back, I crossed the foyer to the dining room and made my way to the stairs. On the second floor, I stopped at my closed door, remembering how I’d skipped down the hall to my mother’s room. He reached past me, turned the handle, and pushed it open. “Inside,” he said.

I took a breath and stepped over the threshold. With the curtains drawn, my room was dark. He shut the door behind himself, stood at my back, and moved my hair over my shoulder before lowering the zipper of my dress.

“Strip,” he said.

Fear and curiosity warred inside me. Was Cristiano so weak that he’d risk his chance at an empire just to have me? If he raped me, killed me, or both, there’d be no question as to his guilt for doing the same to my mother. He’d be back on the run.

My trust in him was buried somewhere deep, and I drew from it now. I was hit hard with a memory I hadn’t thought of in over a decade—my mother and I encountering a young Cristiano while gathering flowers in the garden for one of Mamá’s parties. I had to have been five or six, which would’ve made him almost twenty. He’d never picked flowers, he’d told us, and we’d giggled as Mamá had made him carry our baskets of bouquets around for the afternoon. It was one of the only instances I could remember him without a scowl. Even when he’d promised me he was a monster far worse than any that dared hide under my bed, he’d spoken gravely.

“My mother is watching,” I said into the dark. If any part of him regretted what’d happened to her, maybe he’d soften.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said.

I supposed that was the best I could ask for. To come out of this no more wounded than I already was. I pulled down my dress and stood in my thong and strapless bra.

He placed his palm on my upper back. “Walk,” he said.

I raised my eyes to the bed in front of me. He could have me any way he wanted, and nobody would stop him. Everything I’d saved for Diego would be taken in a flash. Was there anything left of that man who’d been so devoted to our family that he’d carried baskets of flowers for us? There had to be. I wasn’t sure how I knew, but like the way he’d nonchalantly referred to Natasha, my gut told me Cristiano only wanted to see how far he could push me.

I straightened my shoulders and stepped toward the bed. When I neared the footboard, he applied pressure to my back, guiding me away from it and toward the en suite bathroom instead.

Inside, he flipped on a dim overhead light. I watched in the reflection of the mirror over the sink as he circled me, his eyes roaming over my back. He set his jaw, inspecting my body almost clinically. Just another Natasha.

He stopped at the counter to empty his pockets. With his attention diverted, I studied him back. His stark white dress shirt had been marred by smoke, ash, and what looked like blood. My blood, I realized, from when he’d carried me down the access ladder. Without thinking, I dropped my gaze and sucked in a breath at the bulge in his pants.

He glanced up at me, his watch clinking as he set it on the Italian marble countertop. He tightened the roll of one sleeve, securing it at his elbow, then the other. The mere sight of his powerful, sinewy forearms made me light-headed. They were weapons in their own right. Every part of him was, it seemed, down to the beast straining against his zipper. Most of the men I knew couldn’t match his strength. What chance did I stand against him if he tried to overpower me?