Page 15 of Shameless in Vegas

His words indicate that he’s about to oblige me in a way that nobody ever has—obviously. It’s never been aboutmypleasure, and my breath does a treacherous hitch of anticipation. “You think so?”

“Yep.” A sexy, devilish grin pulls his lips away from his perfect, white teeth as he hovers the whiskey glass above my stomach. “And I’m about to find out that I’m right.”

With one hand he deftly unfastens the front clasp of the bra, freeing my breasts and diamond-hard nipples, while his other tilts the glass above my sternum. A cool stream of amber liquid splashes against my skin, running in a thin rivulet down the center of my breasts and pooling in my belly button, traces of it spilling over the sides of my waist.

Joaquin sets the glass on the coffee table and inches down the loveseat so he can lower his face to my navel. He laps up the shallow pool of whiskey, his tongue circling and dancing over my skin, and I claw my nails through his thick hair, arching into him. His fingers bury into the flesh of my hips, slipping under the sides of my panties and tugging them down. I arch again, lifting my hips so he can slide the small scrap of lace down my thighs and all the way off.

Hunger permeates his eyes, brown darkened black with lust, and he stares at me while he lowers his face to my navel again. Staring back, I feel my eyes go lidded and heavy as he presses the flat of his tongue on my belly button and draws his hand up the inside of my thigh. My lashes flutter as his fingers glide between the wet, aching folds of my pussy, and he leaves a trail of kisses, nips, and licks all the way down.

“Nobody’ll hear you scream in here,mami,” he husks, and the only thing that tethers me back from descending into disorienting panic is that tiny little flirtatious term of endearment appended to his warning.

Because nobody who might’ve helped me could ever hear me scream before. And then I surrendered to the fact there was no point in screaming.

But every thought ofthatdisintegrates from my mind as Joaquin’s thumbs spread my hot, wet lips before he drags his tongue up my slit. I’ve obviouslyheardabout oral sex performed on a woman, but have never received it, and holyfuck.

It. Is.Glorious.

My eyes flicker shut, and I gasp through the first few long, slow strokes of his tongue. It’s so foreign and admittedly a bit strange, but in a way that stumbling upon a magical, unicorn-infested oasis in the middle of the Sahara Desert would be foreign and strange. The sensations snake through my veins, surfacing in my fingers, toes, nipples, and the top of my head in hot, glittering, electric tingles.

An involuntary whimper spills from my mouth, and I’ve suddenly lost my grasp of English and default into my native tongue. “Amor…Dios mio… no pares… por favor… ay… papi...”

“¿Te gusta que?” he murmurs back, his breath hot against my sex.

I answer by grabbing fistfuls of his hair and arching into him. “More.”

In one frenzied movement, Joaquin sinks his fingers inside me, sucking hard on my clit while his free hand thrusts forward to grab one of my breasts. With the rough pad of his thumb grazing circles around my nipple, his two fingers strum at that magical spot deep inside, and my eyes fly open even though I am effectively blind right now.

The waves of a powerful orgasm crash over me without warning, and I wrench my head backward to—you guessed it—scream.

But right now, I’m not screaming in stark terror and desperation for rescue. It’s a scream of bliss and release with his name on my lips and an explosion of stars behind my eyes.

And he’s not even done with me yet.

Dragging his fingers out of me, Joaquin raises up on his knees to tear off his suit jacket and toss it aside. Jaw hanging, I breathe rapidly, moans from the powerful aftershocks punctuating the oxygen, and watch him pull out his wallet and grab a foil condom packet.

“You don’t need it,” I blurt out, still drunk on the orgasm, and I probably shouldn’t have said that because now he might ask,why not?And he can’t knowwhy not.

But he doesn’t.

Instead, he smirks and tosses aside the wallet, then reaches for my waist and hoists me up. He drops himself to sit upright on the loveseat and pulls me to straddle his lap.

“You’re on the pill or something,” he guesses, bracketing my hips with his hands and drinking me in under hooded eyes while I frantically claw at his belt and fly.

If this were a real marriage, one built on love, and devotion, and hope for a shared future, this would be the moment when we would have a heartbreaking conversation. A conversation in which I would have to inform my new husband that sadistic men stole my ability to bear children shortly after my first period. And for a microsecond, I wonder what his reaction would be.

Would he rage?

Would hecry?

I cried after the procedure was over.

One of the last times I ever cried real tears that weren’t a show to manipulate my targets.

But I’ll never know what Joaquin’s reaction to such information would be because we will never have that conversation. Because this isn’t a real marriage. There is no hope for a shared future, because there’s no future for him at all once I’m finished with him.

And on some level, that bothers me.

Just not enough to deter me from the work that I have been conditioned to do.

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