Page 24 of Scarred Queen

Reyes grabbed her hand and pulled her forcibly behind him toward a massive open doorway off the bedroom. It was a huge tiled washroom filled with gorgeous frosted glass and light furnishings. She was used to luxury but nothing like this. She would have taken more time to stare around her in awe and touch the things in the lovely room, but Reyes began undressing right there in front of her, capturing her entireattention.

Casey started to back away from him toward the bedroom, but he snatched her wrist and swung her around until she was trapped between him and the rest of the beautiful bathroom. “I don’t think so,nena, we shower together so I know you won’t run away onme.”

She wanted to protest, to tell him she would do no such thing, but her ability to speak fled when his shirt dropped, revealing his upper body. She’d known his strength, he’s used it on her before, but seeing him without his shirt, the hot, chiseled muscles that rippled down the front of his body in flat ridges and flexed over his stunning arms gave her a reality check she was not expecting.A deep gouge, long since healed, but badly, now left a puckered slash down his side. She thought it had probably been deep enough to reach his ribs. Her fingers twitched to touch and sooth, but she smothered theimpulse.

Then his belt buckle and pants hit the floor. He wasnotwearing underwear. Sadly, her first thought was that he’d taken over an entire mafia operation and kidnapped her, all while commando, and that took some serious balls. Then her brain caught up to her eyes and she slowly started backing up again. The only man she’d ever been with was her husband and the last time had been well over a year ago. And sadly, Ignacio had not been built like this man. Not even close. Not in any way. She didn’t even know men came this different. Well, she’d suspected, given some of her reading material. But she didn’tknow,know.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when he closed the space between them and without hesitation, reached for the hem of her shirt and pulled it right over her head. She was still gaping at him when he unsnapped her bra and made short work of thattoo.

“Stop it!” she gasped, pulling away from him and covering her breasts with her palms. “Leave mealone!”

He used her momentum to knock her off balance and force her into a sitting position on the edge of the tub where he bent in front of her and swiftly unzipped and removed her boots. She just gawked like an idiot at his easy handling of her. Without thinking she smacked him in shoulder, the heel of her hand thumping against themuscle.

He lifted his head to give her a warning look but he didn’t make a move to stop her. He only said in a low voice while reaching for the fastening on her jeans. “Strike me in anger again,nena, and I will retaliate. I’m not a patient man or an easy man. You want a war, I can give you a war. But be careful what you askfor.”

Her hands fell to the edge of the tub and gripped so she wouldn’t be tempted to do anything stupid again. She didn’t know what he considered retaliation and she wasn’t sure she was ready to find out. He unzipped her jeans and maneuvered them easily down her hips while she sat in silence. Then it occurred to her how he was handling her with such ease. He was probably used to pushing people around physically as part of his every day existence. She guessed she was just lucky he was being so gentle with her. Sheshuddered.

Fear and embarrassment crashed through her once he’d pulled off her panties, the last item of clothing from her body. There wasn’t even an ounce of the usual lust she felt when she was around him. She was too unsure of him and the situation to beresponsive.

As if sensing her trepidation, he sighed, almost tiredly and held out his hand. “Come on, Casey,” he said in a low voice. “You’ll feel better after youshower.”

She stared at his hand and then looked up at him and shook her head. “I would feel better if you took me back home and stopped pretending this is something that Iwant.”

His eyes hardened and he let out a growl. He grabbed her arm and pulled her off the edge of the tub. She slammed into the heat of his rock-hard body. She brought her hands up to catch herself and then thought better of it when they slid along the warm steel of corded muscles. She tried to drop her hands but he jerked her closer and snarled in her face, “You don’t get it. What you want doesn’t matter anymore, if it ever did, Casey. You belong to me now,nena. ‘Spoils of war’ is how I believe you so inelegantly put it. It’s up to you whether you come to me as my queen or my slave. Now we will get in that shower and rinse off and then I’m going to fuck you, willing ornot.”

He didn’t give her a chance to respond, instead he dragged her toward the big beast of a shower stall and stood with her arm gripped tightly in his fist while he messed with the settings. Once he seemed satisfied, he hauled her in with him and shoved her under the spray facing away fromhim.

She gasped as he set about soaping her without any finesse or gentleness. She squirmed and cried out when his fingers violated every part of her body with quick firm strokes. She would have called the cleansing impersonal, but when she looked over her shoulder at his face she could see the lust blazing through his anger. His fury seemed to fuel his desire forher.

“Stop!” she begged when his soapy fingers slid between her legs, but he didn’t. He turned her around to face him, pushed her against the shower wall and then shoved a finger inside her. Casey tried to stop the whimper that erupted from her throat but it was useless. She was past the point of being able to control herself. Either physically or emotionally.Then his fingers slid through her folds and without warning he pushed the tip of his soapy finger into her ass. She screamed in surprise and jumped up onto her toes, trying to squirm away fromhim.

“Fuck, Casey,” he grunted. “So fuckingtight.”

She wanted to die of embarrassment but he removed his hands, turned away from her and began soaping himself in quick, efficient strokes. She crossed her arms over her wet breasts and just stared, caught somewhere between the pleasure of watching an extremely masculine, good-looking man wash himself and the terror of knowing what that man intended on doing to her when he wasdone.

He finished, turned the taps off, took hold of her arm once more without even looking at her and hauled her out of the shower. Casey followed him, the picture of docility, while attempting to cover herself with her remaining arm. Inside, she was beginning to both panic and seethe, the prospect of his bed looming closer and closer. When he picked up a towel off the vanity, shook it out and began drying her off, she got the sudden urge to bitehim.

Instead she took hold of the edge of the towel, stepped quickly back and snapped, “I can drymyself.”

His head came up along with one thick, black eyebrow. A clear warning was evident in his gaze and she thought he was about to back it up verbally or physically but some of her panic must have leaked through in her eyes, because he closed his mouth, gave her a quick nod and let her have the towel. She breathed easier and dried herself while simultaneously exposing as little of herself as possible, though he’d already seen everything. She wrapped the large towel around herself and allowed him to escort her back into thebedroom.

As they approached the bed, she shook her head and dug her feet into the thick carpet, pulling her arm away from him. She clutched the towel tightly over her breasts with her other hand. “Not happening, Reyes,” she said with as much authority as she could manage given her lack of attire or position within his household. He turned to her with a complete lack of modesty over his own nudity and stared, his gaze both icy cold and intensely heated at the same time. She shivered, sparing a thought for the talent it took for these mafia bosses to perfect those kinds of intensestares.

“Explain yourself. And do so carefully,nena,” he said with deadly calm. “This is your onlychance.”

She shivered, but lifted her chin and gave him her best mob wife stare. She knew how to give as good as she got. And so far, she’d negotiated herself out of sex with him twice. She could do it a third. She knew she wasn’t going to escape him forever, but she just couldn’t bring herself to hop into bed with the man who had killed her husband only a few hours earlier. No matter how much she’d despised Ignacio, his memory just didn’t deserve that kind of colddisrespect.

“You may have made me a widow, Reyes,” she said, ice dripping from each word, “but I’m still married to Ignacio Hernandez in my head. You haven’t given me any time to process this brutal situation. I am still Casey Hernandez until the moment you take that away from me too. And you are the man that murdered my husband in the only home I’ve known for ten years. You are the man that tore me away from that home, abducted me and took me to a new fucking continent! Now you want me to just crawl into your bed and spread my legs. No thank you, Reyes.” She thrust her chin out and glared at him for all she was worth. “No… you can go fuck yourself. I don’t care how many showers you take, you still have Ignacio’s blood all over you and I won’t forgetthat.”

He stood silent for a moment, just watching her. Absorbing her blatant disrespect and refusal to give him what he demanded. It took her several heartbeats to realize he was containing the rage that her words had provoked within him. She saw it in the clench of his fists and the ripple of his muscles. She saw in the impassive mask he struggled to maintain. She would stand her ground though. She reminded herself of who she was and why she wasthere.

“You want to see what I’m capable of?” he said, his voice grimly quiet, when he finally spoke. “Say his name again, Casey. Tell me you belong to a dead man one moretime.”

She glared at him and smacked her chest over her heart with her fist and snarled in his face, “I am the wife of IgnacioHernandez!”

Chapter Twenty

Without warninghe grabbed her by the neck with one hand, his fingers wrapping around the delicate column. She stumbled back. He followed, pushing her until her legs hit the bed and she fell backwards. He tore the towel away from her body with his other hand, baring her pale body to his sweeping gaze and ruthless touch. He kneeled next to her, throwing his weight across her body. She brought her hands up, bracing them against his hardchest.

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