He was trying to make this impersonal. He was trying to kill those feelings that she claimed to have for him. But this... Even his darkness was beautiful to her. Even now he appealed to her body in ways that went beyond logic.
He curved his fingers inside her, stroking some deep pleasure center there she hadn’t been aware of before, making her shake and shudder. He smoothed his thumb between the crease of her bottom in time with that motion, pleasuring her there, making her face hot, shock nearly overtaking her pleasure. But not quite.
All she could do was submit to it. Submit to him.
And by the time he positioned his arousal at the entrance to her body, tears were filling her eyes. Because even now, even in his anger, his denial over what was between them, he was working to pleasure her first.
He thrust into her, deep and hard, deeper than he had ever been before, his grip on her hips tight as he rode her roughly, desperately. Like a man trying to exorcise a demon.
She felt it. That desperate need and effort he was putting forward to rid himself of the feelings that he had for her, of the fear. But the harder he pushed, going deeper inside of her even as he tried to get away, the softer she let herself become. She rocked back into him, taking everything he gave, finding a deep, unimaginable power within that decision.
He thought he could use anger to frighten her. He had likely done it all his life. His safety. His protection. That rage that he had learned early on could be so terrifying. But only in the hands of a madman. A sociopath who didn’t truly care about anyone or anything but himself. And that was not Diego. Whatever he wished to pretend. It wasn’t.
He might have convinced himself, but he would never convince her of that. Fevered, desperate words escaped his lips. Some in Spanish. Some in English. All of them, she had no doubt, profane. But to her, they were a prayer. Because he was fighting a losing battle. One that she would win. One that love would win.
He pressed his hand between her legs, toying with the center of her pleasure as he thrust in deep. And she stopped thinking. Gave herself over completely to the moment. She could feel his anger, almost blinding with its power, could feel his need. In the dark, deep emotion that lived down in the bottom of his heart that he feared more than anything else. His need for love.
“I love you,” she whispered, as her pleasure burst inside of her, white light shining behind her eyelids as her orgasm rocked her.
He growled, a feral denial, even as his body surrendered, as he slammed inside of her one last time and gave himself over to their need.
Then it was done, and they were breathing harshly, both of them reduced by everything that had just happened.
“Liliana...”
“Don’t say anything,” she said. “Let’s not speak.”
“Let’s go home,” he said.
She nodded. “Yes. I want to go home.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DIEGO DID HIS very best to forget the day of his brother’s wedding. And most especially the night that had followed. The way he had taken Liliana back to the penthouse and tried to push her away from him. The way she had clung to him, even while he had played the part of villain in a way that far surpassed his behavior at the wedding.
He didn’t understand. He didn’t understand how she could know everything she did, about Karina, about the baby, and still say that she loved him. He didn’t understand how she remained. It made no earthly sense to him, and yet, while he had been on the verge of sending her away when he had finished making love to her, she had said they should go home.
She had meant the island. The place where he had taken her by force the first time. Home.
As if it were hers too.
And he had been utterly powerless to turn her away. They had not stayed in the penthouse suite. Instead, he’d had his helicopter readied, and the two of them had flown back to the island that very night. They had spent the dusky hours of the morning in bed together, and then when they had arisen, he had found Liliana at the breakfast table eating pastries and looking cheerful, as if none of the previous night had happened.
He didn’t know what to do with that. With this woman who stayed.
Who stayed even though she knew exactly what manner of man he was.
He had been an abominable monster to her the night before, and this morning she was just sitting there, unaffected and cheerful.
She looked up at him, her blue eyes shining, her smile brilliant. Did she really love him?
The thought made his stomach turn violently.
And even so, there was a dark, unsavory part of him that thought it was a good thing. If Liliana wanted to lock her own manacles, keep herself prisoner in his world, why shouldn’t he let her? He wanted her. He could not foresee a future where he would tire of her or her body. So why shouldn’t he have her?
Why shouldn’t he allow her to bind herself to him?
“I have been thinking,” he said, taking a seat at the table next to her. “I have been thinking that perhaps our agreement is...outdated.”
“How do you mean?” she asked, giving him an impish look as she lifted her coffee mug to her lips.
“I am not certain either of us wants this to end.”
The smile that earned him lit up her entire face. “No,” she said. “I don’t.”
“Are you certain? Because you were quite enamored with the idea of your freedom...”
“I’m free here,” she said. “With you.”
“We will not stay here forever. I have houses in major cities all over the world. And that is typically where I conduct my business.”
“I’m happy with that,” she responded.
“Do you like Paris?” he asked.
“I love Paris.”
“London?”
“Yes,” she said happily. “I would love living in London for a while.”
“We can do that. All of that and more.”
She was happy. He was making her smile. He could not recall the last time he had made another person happy. It was so foreign, so unexpected and oddly...satisfying.
He had never much cared for the happiness of another person. Mostly, he had looked to the happiness of himself. Or perhaps happiness wasn’t even the right word. His own satisfaction. The temporary satiation of his desires, however dark. He had never taken into account what another person might feel. It was just one of the many reasons he had been an awful husband the first time around. One of the many reasons Karina had left him for the sniveling coward she had gone off with. Because at least—by all accounts—he had been a pleasant man.
Even if, in the end, he had been selfish enough to leave his lover to bleed to death on a roadside.
Seeing Liliana’s happiness rearranged something inside of him. And he found the corners of his own mouth lifting into a smile. One that lacked cynicism, one that lacked any sort of edge.
He felt her happiness.
That lightness... He felt it in him.
He had been affected by her from the moment he met her, and always, her touch had done something strange to him, something that went beyond the sexual. But this was... This was something else. It was something quite singular.
That moment when she’d come down the stairs in her wedding gown he’d had that momentary desire to place her up above him and give her whatever she wished.
This, he realized, was the reason for that instinct.
That nothing would ever truly satisfy him except for Liliana’s joy.
“Good,” he said. “Then it is settled.”
“We’re married,” she said, her smile turning soft and dreamy. “Forever.”
The idea didn’t terrify him. Not in the least. It was what he had wanted from the moment he had first taken her.
The strength of the obsession that had gripped him from the first moment he’d seen her had been beyond anything he?
??d ever known, and nothing had come close to dimming it. He doubted time ever would.
There were cursed objects all throughout literature that bewitched men and took hold of their better instincts.
He would call Liliana his own personal cursed object, except...
He was the one who was cursed. And she was simply...
She was everything good and beautiful.
Everything. And he ignored everything inside of him that said it was wrong to know that and claim her anyway. Everything that reminded him that he was the opposite to all that goodness.
He had made her smile. He had made her happy. He could continue to do that. He would.
The important thing was she was his now. She had agreed to it.
And now, he would never lose her.
* * *
Liliana was so happy with her new life on the island. With her husband. In the fragile bubble they’d created in this isolated manor, on an isolated island.
It felt so fragile, this little world. Like any intrusion at all might spoil it.
She knew that eventually they were going to have to see how their marriage worked and functioned in the real world, but for now, it was something quite like bliss. For now, she wanted to stay here.
No, he had not said he loved her. But she had known that would be difficult for him. She was prepared to wait. She was prepared to wait for as long as he needed.
She went to sleep with him every night, woke with him every morning, and they shared breakfast. Then, he went off to work, and she set about her day.