Page 3 of Until Retribution Burns (Beauty in Lies 3)

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Isa

Iwas only vaguely aware of Rafael boarding the yacht, of his deep command for his men to vacate and leave us in privacy. My back collided with something soft as he shifted me off his shoulder and dropped me, the bounce threatening to jar me out of the peaceful void I’d retreated to.

It had been so long since I’d gone there, so long since I tried to embrace the respite it offered. Rafe made me feel too much. He made me want things I had no right to desire, and the safe retreat in my mind had become nothing but a memory.

Until the realization that nothing I believed had been true once again. Until the need for retribution burned within me, impossible and unattainable in the face of the power that was Rafael Ibarra.

Men who claimed to care for me stepped aside when all was said and done, because no one could come between us.

No one except me.

I turned my head to the side, staring up at the house in the distance. The moonlight shimmered off the water in the pool, the blue and bronze of the tiles striking as the water rippled around the small waterfall at the edge. My head continued to buzz with the remnants of my blood rush, helping me drown out the sounds of whatever Rafael did while I worked to ignore him.

He spoke, the ripples of his voice coating my skin as if from a distant memory. The distance it gave me offered clarity of my mind, a separation from the sensations Rafael would undoubtedly pull from my body whether I wanted them or not. He wouldn’t care if I fought or if I cooperated, because he would take what he thought he owned regardless.

My body was his. He owned it, and there was no questioning that fact, even when I struggled to grasp the latest revelation in our marriage.

The vague sensation of hands trailed over my stomach, pulling the fabric of my dress up until my skin was bared to the moonlight shining down on us. The gentle press of his mouth against my skin should have been jarring; it should have been a reminder of everything that would come in a matter of months whether I was ready or not.

My eyes drifted closed, shutting away the image of stars twinkling in the sky. Stars that Rafael had counted as a boy with the mother his father had taken from him.

Was I a repaid favor? A way to wrong the father he’d hated so deeply?

I shook off the thoughts, clenching my eyes shut and burrowing myself deeper into the hollow inside me. That place where nothing hurt, where the lack of pain would welcome me hovered just out of reach.

There, but not. Just as I remembered it, but just beyond my reach.

Rafael’s mouth dipped lower, the treacherous touch of his flesh against my skin.

I drew in a fortifying breath. Sinking farther into that hollow, I felt my body grow heavy with exhaustion. A breath in and then one out, I focused on the feeling of my lungs stretching and the way each breath drew in through my nose.

I found peace in the way my stomach expanded, feeling it expel as I blew out through my mouth slowly. Rafael’s hands could do what he wanted, his mouth could touch whatever part of my body he pleased.

But I’d take away everything that made me,me.

If he wanted an obedient pet who wouldn’t run when he betrayed her, it wouldn’t matter much to him. “Do you truly believe I knew about my father?” he asked, his voice deceptively soft. Even sounding as if it came from the other side of the yacht, the darkness in that tone couldn’t be missed.

He wantedmi reina. He wanted the queen he claimed to value so much only to betray with secrets and lies that had plagued our relationship from the very beginning.

I’d been foolish enough to take him at his word when he’d told his uncle he had no secrets from me. I guessed that only went for business that didn’t matter.

I quieted my mind, shutting out the racing thoughts that kept me from going truly unaware. Rafael’s fingers dug into the skin of my hip, his short nails dragging over my flesh. The pain nagged at my senses, trying to pull me back to the world of light.

Darkness surrounded me. The very same darkness I’d called home long before the devil entered my life, letting it cocoon me in warmth when I needed comfort.

When I needed to feel accepted for the temptations and dark sins running through my mind.

Cold touched my hip, the bite of a shallow cut stinging as the lace of my panties snapped in two. The sting of metal against the other side followed, until Rafael’s harsh hands yanked the scrap of fabric away from my body. Touching his hands to the insides of my thighs, he pushed them open until he stared down at the center of me.

Knowing he watched me when I couldn’t see it, knowing his eyes were heavy on that part of me he claimed as his own, I scrambled to grasp the edges of the darkness to pull around myself like a protective barrier. I didn’t want to feel what would come next.

I didn’t want to hate him more than I already did.

Moments of time passed while he drew his hands away, and only the sounds of his movements filtered through the foggy haze that I pulled around myself and clung to. Curiosity tugged at the edges, but I refused to open my eyes to see what he might be doing.

I clenched my jaw as he dragged the flat of the knife over the inside of my thigh, the tip giving a kiss of pain when it curled toward the top. It was already wet, the surface of it covered with something thick and viscous.

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