Page 40 of Faded Gray Lines
Curling my lip into a sneer, I knocked his hand off my chest. “What are you going to do, turn me over to your boss?”
He answered my sneer with one of his own. “I could. One phone call from me is all it would take to snap this pretty little neck. No DEA agent, police officer, or even a brother on the inside could save you.”
There it was—the proclamation I knew had danced on the tip of his tongue, waiting to be set free. Running my fingers through my hair, I pulled at the roots and squeezed my eyes shut. “God, you’re no better than them. The DEA, Luis...you’re all alike. All of you can go to hell for all I—”
The rest of my tirade became lost in a flurry of motion. Mateo growled low in his throat, and before I could open my eyes, he had me pinned against the island again. This time, he gripped my hip with one calloused hand while digging the other into my hair and winding his fingers around the strands. He pressed our mouths together, the closeness wreaking havoc on my equilibrium. Our lips barely touched, but I felt naked as if he’d already possessed me.
Stillness hummed between us, yet he made no move to speak. I wanted to fight, but the need to give into my craving was too strong. His threats of brutality should’ve scared me, but instead, I was seduced.
“Mateo—” I tried one last time to reach him. Or maybe I was reaching for myself—the one I’d left in a bloodstained apartment in San Marcos.
My breath, voice, and thoughts were cut off the instant his tongue invaded my mouth, probing with insistent strokes until I could do nothing but respond. Mateo’s nails dug into my hip and scalp, and his groin pressed against me, forcing my fingers to curl around the edge of the island to keep from grabbing him. Our mouths could tell a thousand lies, but our bodies betrayed them all. Heat surged between my legs with every frantic kiss, and each accidental moan I made hardened his cock even more against my stomach.
I thought I heard him groan my name, but with lust rushing through my veins and roaring in my ears, I couldn’t be sure. All I knew was that one minute I was standing, and the next, I was lying flat against the cold marble with Mateo on top of me. When his hand slid from my hip and cupped my breast, I cried out his name, the sound garbled by his scorching kisses.
Breaking for air, he trailed his full lips across my chin and kissed a path down my neck before settling them into the hollow of my throat. Sucking my skin into the heat of his mouth, he reached for the rim of my tank top. I knew what he wanted and why he paused. I could’ve stopped him, but I didn’t.
My silence gave him all the encouragement he needed. With a hard jerk of his wrist, he yanked the stretchy fabric of my tank top and bra under my breast, leaving it exposed like a prize. Sliding his hand farther into my hair, he twisted it with a hard pull, causing me to arch my back and gasp. It wasn’t accidental. The move situated me perfectly, my nipple less than an inch from his lips. With my head thrown back, I couldn’t see anything, but I felt the moment he wrapped his lips around the hardened peak and sucked.
I saw stars. Not the kind we’d search for in the night sky, but the kind that blinded me, leaving me gasping for air and numb with desire. Rolling his deadly tongue over the peak, he captured it between his teeth, and heat bloomed in every crevice of my body.
I couldn’t take it anymore. Wrapping my legs around his waist, I reached for him and dug my fingers into his hair. Whimpering, I moved against him, needing more.
“More?” he rasped, letting my nipple slide slowly between his teeth.
Shit, did I say that out loud?
“I...I...”
His hand danced a heated path down my stomach, and I groaned as he trailed a finger across the denim between my legs.
“You have to tell me what you want, Star,” he commanded, his voice raspy. “If you want me to touch you, you have to ask nicely.”
“Yes,” I whispered.
Mateo drew his hand back up my shorts and popped the button. Holding my stare, he pulled down the zipper and dipped his hand inside. “Yes, what?”
“Yes, please?”
His tongue invaded my belly button, sending my hips arching off the marble. “Not good enough. I want to hear you say my name—my real name.”
I ground out every syllable. “Yes, please, Mateo.”
Immediately, a switch turned off, and the man who’d been devouring me like his last meal became a block of ice, removing his mouth from my skin as if it were poison.
“That’s right,” he said, his words harsh and cold. “Mateo. Me.Mateo. Not Luis. We’re not all alike, and Iambetter than that motherfucker. See, here’s the difference between him and me, Leighton. He had no morals...no self-control. This is self-control.” Slowly, he made a show of pulling his hand out of my shorts and then braced both of them on either side of my face.
I gazed at him in shock, simultaneously furious and mildly impressed at how well I’d just been played.
Leaning down, he hovered his swollen lips over my ear, his smile evident in his voice. “Don’t ever compare me to him again.”
Fifteen
Leighton
We didn’t speak again.I lay on the island, catching my breath as the refrigerator door slammed, followed by the sound of a bottle cap hitting the floor. Speechless, I stared at the ceiling, listening to Mateo chug a beer while I gathered what was left of my self-respect.
I told myself it was a good thing he put a stop to what was happening between us. Too many mistakes had been made to cross that line. Regardless of who held the most blame, Mateo and I were forbidden from the moment we met. We should’ve known it would come to this.
