Page 48 of Until Retribution Burns (Beauty in Lies 3)

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Rafael

The house was silent as I crept inside, the guards turning to watch me as I made me way toward the steps to our bedroom silently. In the wake of our attack, I couldn't escape Isa's plea to not be helpless anymore. As much as it killed me to admit that her knowing how to take care of herself might be useful, I would do whatever it took to protect her.

Even teach her to stab me more effectively than she had with her fork.

The bedroom door loomed in front of me, cracked open just the slightest bit to give her privacy without shutting herself off from the security in the house. I nudged the door open slowly, fully expecting to find my wife curled up in bed and lost to the depths of sleep. The fact that she stood staring out the window, her back to me but her eyes blazing in the reflection from the terrace, told me everything I needed to know about her conversation with Chloe. It hadn't gone well at all. I already knew from Joaquin's report of the day and what he'd overheard.

The ski mask covering my face made me feel like an invader in my own home, and only the call I'd placed to prepare the men to know what to expect when I came home kept them from treating me as one. They would hear Isa's screams, and that would damned well be the only time in her life they'd ignore them.

If she wanted to be able to defend herself, if she wanted to be anything more than a liability that I had to shield with my body, then she would need to first figure out how to fight through the pure terror that would consume her. In my father's days, the first part of training a soldier was desensitizing them to the screams of innocent people. To the fear of death and pain. Until nothing remained but the slowing, logical count of the brain as it processed the steps and strategy to gaining freedom.

Isa never took her eyes off the flames outside the window, lost to the same paralyzing fear that I saw in her face every time she looked upon the fire. After her confession, it was all I saw, no matter how hard she tried to hide it. I stepped up behind her, moving so slowly that the air didn't ripple as my body cut through it. The heat of Isa's back radiated through the room, reassuring me that she hadn't taken another ice shower and risked freezing to death to escape the memory of a kiss of flames on her skin.

When her breath left her in a heavy sigh, I lunged. Snapping my arms around her to wrap her up in my grip, I put one hand to her mouth and muffled her startled scream that bubbled up in her throat. My other arm wrapped around where hers were crossed over her chest, pinning them to her body as she jolted and thrashed in my grip. The muffled scream vibrated against my hand as I tugged her back into my body, stepping away from the window to move her toward the bed.

She dropped her weight to the floor, tipping me off balance until I had to compensate by shifting my grip lower on her waist and hauling her up off her feet. With her hands free, she launched a full scaled attack on my forearms, digging her nails in and shoving at my grip around her waist. The fabric of my suit mostly protected me from the wounds she would have inflicted, and regret claimed me.

I wanted her marks to gouge into my skin, evidence of the fighter I'd married and the vicious little demon hiding inside her.

I worked to steady her, guiding her to the bed. She lifted her feet, catching the edge of the mattress and kicking back into me as I stumbled back a few steps. A dark laugh bubbled in my throat, my grin hidden in her hair as it flew around her with her struggles. Sinking her teeth into the palm of my hand, Isa bit until she drew blood. My hand slipped along her mouth with the slickness of it when I tore it free from her tight grip, and her scream echoed through the room as soon as she was able.

"Let go of me!" she screamed, kicking off the edge of the mattress a second time when I approached it again. Lifting her higher, I tossed her onto the bed. She scrambled for the other side after her weight bounced and settled, her hand clawing around the edge as I grabbed her legs and spread her out on her stomach. Nudging her legs apart slightly, I stared down at the fawn skin of her thighs where her dress rode up.

What had started as a lesson quickly evolved into a dangerous game, my obsession with Isa knowing no limits. I'd lay her out and take her, torment her to the breaking point, and only when she acknowledged that she knew who I was and was as aroused as I was would I finally drive inside her tight heat and give us both what we wanted.

Toxic. Consuming. Obsession.

And what was love but a mutual obsession?

She was everything rolled into one, and I'd be damned if I ever stopped feeding the darkness inside us. I covered her weight with mine, pressing her stomach into the bed as my hips settled between her thighs. My cock touched her ass, nestling against the center, pushing her panties deep as I ground myself against her.

She stilled for a moment, the fear of what was to come locking her body solid. "What do you want?" she asked quietly, those fingers of hers gripping the bedding as she tried to find purchase. Her attempts to shove to her knees and dislodge me went nowhere, andmi reinawas well and truly caught.

She'd be fucked soon enough.

I grabbed her hair in a hand, wrenching her head to the side as I dropped my exposed lips through the hole in the mask to her shoulder and sank my teeth into the claiming mark I kept there. It would never be enough. My brand, my ring, my name. I wanted to imprint myself on her very fucking soul until anyone who looked at her knew who owned her. When I removed my teeth from her bruised flesh, I pressed a sweet, demented kiss to the skin of her jaw, trailing my lips over her throat. Goosebumps raised in the wake of my touch, her body recognizing its owner even when her brain hadn't caught up.

"This is why your sparring with Joaquin would always be useless," I murmured, feeling her body sag with relief at the sound of my voice. "Nothing can teach you to cope with your own fear."

"You fucking asshole," she gasped, her chest heaving with the exertion of trying to fight off a man twice her size. I nipped the side of her throat, tugging her head to the side even harder as one of my hands slid down to touch the side of her thigh.

"Don't stop fighting me now. We both know what I'll take when I win, and we both know how much you'll like it," I growled, smiling against the pink flesh of her neck where I'd bitten her. Removing my weight from her back, I stood at the side of the bed and stared at her as she spun to her back to glare up at me. Taking in the black ski mask on my face, she widened her eyes briefly as my hands dropped to my suit jacket and unbuttoned it before shrugging it off my shoulders.

"What are you doing?" she whispered, furrowing her brow as she watched me strip. My fingers went to the button at the top of my dress shirt as Isa raised up onto her elbows. Her body tensed, reading the language in my body as I prepared myself to relive my favorite game with her.

Another button, another twitch of her body as she moved to sit on the bed in front of me. I tilted my head, a dark smile consuming my face as fear swirled in her gaze. "Were you going somewhere, Princesa?" I murmured, watching as her brows drew together in confusion. I watched the moment understanding dawned in her eyes, her mouth dropping open as if she couldn't believe the words.

"No," she mumbled, licking her dry lips and pulling her legs up onto the bed to clutch to her chest.

I leaned forward, resting a hand on either side of her body and touching my lips to hers briefly in the mockery of a sweet, gentle kiss. There was nothing gentle about the things I wanted to do tomi reina,not after being starved of her touch for so long. Not after thinking she was dead and not being able to relieve myself in her body.

In the fact that my wife was still alive.

"You should be," I said, grasping a strand of hair between my fingers and twirling it as she stared up at me with fear filled eyes. Even loving me, even accepting the nightmare inside me as hers, Isa knew I would hurt her.

Part of me craved it; part of me needed the rush that came with watching her get off on the pain only I could give her.

"Rafe," she whispered.

I pulled back, standing and returning my fingers to the remaining buttons of my shirt, watching her stare up at my face in the mask, looking as if she might defy me in this game I wanted to play. I glared at her, promising without words that I would be even rougher with her if she didn't give me what I wanted. "Run,Isa,"I growled.

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