Page 56 of Born a Queen

Finally, after they'd been sparring for hours and Raina hit the mat for probably the dozenth time, she threw her arms up as he came at her and yelled, "Stop!"

Mateo ignored her scream, took hold of her wrist, flipped her onto her stomach and kneeled on her back, twisting her wrist up behind her until she felt as though her arm would break. This was the third time he’d done this to her and so far, she hadn’t been able to break the hold.

It was at this point that an exhausted Raina burst into tears. She lay helpless beneath Mateo’s bulk, sobbing her heart out. He moved quickly off her and fell to his knees beside her. He reached for her. She didn't trust him to be nice to her, if his intent was to comfort, so she shoved his arms away. She huddled on the mat, dropping her head to her knees, and allowing the tears to fall unchecked.

Mateo tried to touch her again and she jerked back violently, yelling at him, "Leave me alone, don't touch me!"

Mateo didn't touch her. He watched as she continued to cry, wiping the tears on the hem of her shirt. Finally, as the tears slowed and her hiccupping gasps stopped, he attempted to offer an explanation.

"You must learn, mi amor," he said urgently.

"I'm not your love," she lashed out, her voice wobbly with tears. "If you loved me, you wouldn’t have done that to me. I'm going to be covered in bruises from head to foot. This isn't you teaching me self-defense, this is abuse."

He flinched when she said the word abuse, the look on his face suggesting she’d gutted him. Through their sparring session he had lost the emotionlessness that he'd been exhibiting before; he'd released some of the violent tension from within. Unfortunately, he'd chosen her as his punching bag.

"You have to understand, Raina, I – " he began, but she interrupted him.

"You're right, I don't understand!" she shouted at him, rubbing her shoulder. "You’re impossible to understand. Sometimes, you're so sweet to me, I can't imagine a life without you. But then you do things like this. I watched you kill men in cold blood in my apartment. I could justify it because you were saving my life, but I'm coming to realize, there are two sides to you. And I don't feel like I can deal with that. I can't deal with this again."

Raina tried to stand up, intent on storming back to the house and locking herself inside. She’d go find a guestroom to sleep in so he wouldn't know where to find her and pick her up again, but Mateo stopped her with a hand on her arm. He gripped her and forced her to sit back down. She landed on her butt with a thump and glared at him, sniffling back more tears. Was he going to force her to fight again? If that was his plan, then he may as well beat her up, because she was done pretending to defend herself.

"Listen to me, Raina," he began, his voice hard, taking on that tone that she knew meant she wouldn't have a choice. She bit her lips to keep herself from screaming at him again. Maybe if she let him get whatever this was out of his system, he let her go back inside. "I will admit, I shouldn't have come straight to you tonight after what I'd seen, but I had to make sure you were okay. I had to set eyes on you myself."

"I was perfectly okay, sound asleep in my own bed before you dragged me out and beat me up," she snapped scathingly.

Mateo grunted his annoyance but didn't contradict her. He continued, "As you know, I've had my work cut out for me during this takeover. I knew it wouldn't go smooth, though things have been going better than I expected. Sotza is well respected in this area, and as his right-hand man, that respect seems to extend to me. However, there is some resistance coming out of Mexico."

Raina knew that Mexico had been the point of contention for her mother when Vee was boss in Miami. Mexico was the reason that Sotza had come to Miami to end her reign and install his own regime in the area. Miami had gone through many bosses over the past several years, Mateo was meant to become a permanent fixture.

"I had a liaison here, a Mexican-American who acted as go-between for me and several of the cartels. For the most part, the cartels have fallen in line. They’re pleased that we intend to keep our trade routes intact, to allow the flow of goods to continue through our ports. But there is one, the cartel that Casey and Reyes were supposed to have crushed. Somehow, this cartel continues to have power, though the figurehead and his progeny are dead. They went after my middleman and his family. I knew the threat was coming, but I arrived too late to his house. It was a slaughter."

Raina's heart pounded in her chest. Sympathy, horror, terror. This was the shadowy mob life she feared, that she wanted no part of. "Who did they kill?" she asked tentatively.

He confirmed her fears. "My man was killed, his wife, his mother, their three kids. It was brutal. It was a message."

Raina felt sick. “My god, Mateo. I’m so sorry.” She understood what he was not saying. This family wasn’t just executed. If there was a cartel attempting to send a message, then they would have done it in the most gruesome way possible to ensure that the message was received.

Raina took a deep breath and reached out to touch Mateo. "You want me to be able to protect myself." Now she understood why he dragged her from her bed and out into the yard where he could repeatedly beat her. "You know this isn't the way to do it. This past week, the patience you showed me, I've learned so much. Tonight, I learned nothing, except that my boyfriend doesn't know how to properly deal with grief."

He lifted his head, guilt bright in his eyes. "I should've realized this was going to happen. I should've protected him and his family better."

She shook her head and rubbed her hand on his arm. "My understanding is that the mob rarely goes after family, right? You couldn't have known that they would target everyone under his roof. There's only so much protection you can offer a person."

Though her words were meant to be comforting, Mateo's gaze became sharp and fierce. He brought his hand down on top of hers and gripped it so tightly that she had to bite her lip to keep from crying out.

"Nothing can happen to you. I will wrap you in so many layers of protection, that this will not even be a possibility."

She reached up to touch his cheek, running her fingers down the rough whiskers. Two years ago, when she learned who her mother was, Raina had reconciled herself to the idea that she was essentially married to the mob. Maybe not literally, but through her family connections. And though she'd only had a vague idea of the dangers involved, she was a realist, she never once deluded herself into thinking she would be safe forever.

Instead of telling Mateo that he couldn't possibly protect her the way he wanted to, she agreed with him, she told him what he wanted to hear. "I trust you. I know that you'll never let anything touch me."

The moment was so intense, so fraught with emotion, that what happened next seemed inevitable. They reached for each other, his hands on her face, her hands on his face and they kissed. Raina didn't know who started the kiss and she didn't care. All she cared about was erasing the events of that evening, for both Mateo and herself.

The kiss was instantly explosive, igniting the smouldering chemistry that they'd been trying so hard to suppress. She didn’t know why Mateo was waiting for the wedding. Perhaps he was giving her time to get used to him, or maybe he was a traditionalist.

For Raina's part, she had absolutely no problem with consummation. She had a normal libido and a healthy sex drive, but there was something about sex with Mateo that made her pause. He was so serious, so intense, even when he was trying to protect and love her. The idea of sex with Mateo scared her. Both physically, because he was a big muscular guy who kept himself in peak condition at all times, as well as mentally. She knew, without a doubt, that once they had sex there would be no going back.

But right then, their bodies dripping in sweat from the exertion of their workout, their emotions high, neither of them cared. They kissed each other with such intensity that Mateo's tooth sank into her bottom lip, cutting it open. Neither stopped as the taste of blood filled their mouths. It should have been gross, but Raina felt turned on by it. His love, his possession, was so fierce that it was like he couldn't contain it, even when he wanted to. It was a heady thought, the idea that she had this much power over him.

He pushed her back onto the mat and they rolled onto the grass together, their mouths still fused. Mateo's hands began tugging at her clothes, pushing her shirt up over her breasts. She cried out into his mouth as soon as his calloused hand covered her breast, squeezing, lifting, testing. His thumb brushed roughly over her nipple, drawing another cry from her. It was pure ecstasy. She arched up into his hand, silently begging him for more.

And he gave her so much more. His other hand shoved impatiently between their bodies, beneath the band of her sweatpants and into her panties. She gasped breathlessly as his fingers attacked her clit, then down to her opening where he gathered the wetness from her, dragging it back to her clit, rubbing furiously.

She shrieked at the intensity, but he caught the sound in his mouth as he smothered her with another kiss. She thrashed underneath him as he touched her in a way that he hadn't done before. It was too rough, too hard. When she masturbated, she touched herself lightly, drawing her orgasm out and tipping over the edge into a sweet ecstasy. This was so much different. She had no control over this. He drove her higher, higher, higher, until she was crying, begging, screaming for release. She wanted the orgasm, but it almost hurt.

He continued to hold her down, his fingers rubbing her, inside, out, all over her pussy. It was like he was attacking her with his brand of ownership. He was claiming her pussy for himself and she was helpless to stop him. With a piercing scream, her head flung back into the grass, her hair a halo, she came so hard that she felt the spurt of fluid into her panties soaking his fingers.

Tears trickled from her eyes, down her cheeks and dripped onto the ground. Mateo kissed her softly, his lips now caressing hers, no teeth or tongue. Though she could feel the imprint of his steel hard cock against her thigh, he didn't do anything about it. He wasn't going to fuck her right there in the grass as she thought he would. As she’d been half hoping.

He’d wanted to touch her, to make her come, to show her who her body belonged to. And after the way he touched her, she couldn't deny it. She belonged to Mateo Gutierrez.

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