Page 49 of Until Retribution Burns (Beauty in Lies 3)

22

Isa

His eyes glimmered with the dark promise of all the things he'd wanted to do to me the first time he'd chased me. Even the knowledge that this wasn't real, that it was all a game, couldn't detract from the fear coursing through my body.

My heart thudded in my chest, and my soul felt like it would be ripped free with the realization that this was no more a game than it had been then. Rafael might be my husband, but he was stillEl Diablo. No matter what he'd made me into, he would never stop enjoying the pain of breaking me.

Of taking me to the edge of my limits and then putting the pieces of me back together to form the woman he knew fit at his side. The woman who could look the devil in the eye and not be afraid. I wasn't her yet, and I still very much feared the consequences of disobeying Rafael in his twisted game.

I bolted off the bed, racing for the bedroom door so quickly that my heart felt like it stopped in the moment when I made it through. I slammed into the wall on the opposite side of the hallway, my bare feet unable to get the traction I needed as I skidded to my hands and knees and then sped down the hallway and toward the stairs.

Glancing over my shoulder, I put a hand on the railing to steady myself as my feet thumped down the stairs one by one. I paused when I reached the bottom, sucking back frantic breaths and listening for the sound of my husband following. Of the devil in a ski mask who would hunt me through the night, taking everything that he knew belonged to him without a thought for what that might mean to me.

I moved to the French doors to the terrace, unlocking them with frenzied fingers that couldn't seem to grasp anything. The taste of Rafael's blood still lingered on my lips as I licked them in an effort to concentrate, tugging the door open and then pausing. I turned to stare back at the steps, closing the door and leaving it unlocked before I turned to the kitchen and looked for a hiding spot within the house itself.

I was under no illusion that I would be able to keep Rafael from fucking me, and if I was entirely honest with myself that wasn't even what I wanted despite the fear consuming me. I'd grown addicted to his darkness, to the adrenaline he gave me and never knowing just how far he would take it.

If one day he'd kill me while he fucked his rage out on my body.

But something about his hunt made me want to defy him, to make it as hard as possible for him to finally get what he wanted. I scrambled into the kitchen, sliding myself into the cupboards in the kitchen island. Pots jangled as I settled into a position at the back, holding as still as I possibly could as I listened. He moved like a panther, so quiet that it was impossible to tell where he was.

Until the sound of the shower curtain ripping back in the downstairs bathroom sounded through the room. I jumped despite myself, even knowing that it put distance between us. Covering my mouth with my hand, I tried to still my lungs and quiet my breathing to a normal pace while I waited.

As I'd hoped, the doors to the terrace closed. Still, I stayed put. Waiting to find out if it was a lie for him too. When no other sounds came through the house, I slipped out of the cupboard as quietly as I could and looked around to see if he hid in the shadows. I padded through the kitchen on quiet feet, making my way to the stairs barefoot.

Halfway there.

My spine tingled with the feeling of eyes on me, and I stilled my body as my heart leapt into my throat. Turning to look over my shoulder, I froze the moment my eyes landed on Rafael's shirtless form standing in the doorway to the terrace. Bathed in the shadows from the outdoor lights, he tilted his head to the side and studied the prey he would devour soon enough. His head was tipped down, his eyes gleaming from the holes in the ski mask as his lips twisted into a cruel smirk that took my breath away even through the mouth hole.

Sprinting for the steps, I pushed past the fear as I heard him follow. His bare feet slapped against the floor as he caught up to me quickly, his long legs simply too much for my shorter ones to overcome. I was halfway up the steps when he grabbed me around the thighs. I toppled forward, wincing as I prepared for the landing on the steps, but it never came.

He supported my body, adjusting my balance for me as he pressed into the back of my knees until they folded for him. I dropped, the collision of my knees with the stair vibrating up through my body. He gave me no time to react before he shoved my dress up over my ass, grasping my panties in his hand and yanking them down my thighs. They caught at my knees, restricting my movement as I tried to scramble up the steps. Those powerful hands of his grabbed the top of my dress, tearing it down the back until it fell around my sides in scraps.

"Stop it!" I hissed, turning to face him so my ass rested on the step. My palm connected with his mask-clad cheek, the dull thump less satisfying than the sting of his flesh would have been.

He'd take it too far if something didn't snap him out of the overwhelming darkness that had consumed him.

Where I'd hoped to discourage him, his eyes only darkened further. As if my fighting turned him on more. He grasped my dress in his hands, tearing it down my hands until he gathered the fabric in his hand and twisted it together. "I like it when you fight me," he murmured, leaning into my space until I lay back on the stairs. The steps dug into my spine, painful and intrusive as he gathered up one of my hands and wrenched it over head.

"Rafael!" I gasped, watching as he knotted the fabric around my hand and fed it through the posts and pulled it tight. My back shifted, the step scraping against my bare skin. With only a bra at my chest and my panties bunched around my thighs, Rafael grabbed my other hand and secured it with the same fabric while I tried to kick out at him.

When he seemed satisfied that I was secured according to his desires, he leaned back. His fingers trailed over my thighs as my lungs heaved, my back arched painfully on the steps. With his other hand, he unclasped the front of my bra, exposing my breasts to his eyes and the cool air conditioning in the house. My nipples pebbled under his scrutiny, his smile turning wicked as he lifted his hands to the mask and folded it up over his mouth.

His lips were parted, plush and seductive as his tongue darted out to wet them. He leaned forward, touching a gentle kiss to my nipple. The feel of his warm breath on my skin made my spine arch more despite how much I shouldn't have wanted it. I should have stabbed him for the twisted game, but the truth of what I'd told Chloe also threatened to consume me.

He made me feel. Good or bad, beautiful and ugly.

He wrapped his lips around my nipple, flicking his tongue over the tight bud and then nipping it gently with his teeth as his eyes held mine. "This is what I wanted to do that night when you left me," he whispered before he opened his mouth wide and sank his teeth into the flesh of my breast, sucking and kneading it harshly as his other hand yanked the panties down over my knees and off my feet. He shifted, the support of his body between my legs threatening to make me topple sideways with the awkward angle diagonally across the steps and no way to balance myself. “Do you see now how much I restrained myself?”

As he drew his mouth away from my breast and shifted down my body, his arms wrapped around the back of my thighs and spread me wide. Stabilizing me as those sinful lips hovered at the apex of my thighs, he leaned forward and dragged his tongue through my lips slowly with his eyes intent on mine.

I stifled the moan that caught in my throat, watching as he smiled up at me. Even with a mask covering most of his face, with the shrouding of most of his features, he was still breathtaking. “You’re so fucking wet for me,” he muttered, the sound tickling my flesh as his breath covered my sensitive skin. “I wonder if I’d bent you over the hood of the SUV and fucked you, would you have been this wet?” he asked, burying his face between my legs. His tongue slid inside me, fucking me with shallow thrusts that made me writhe on the steps despite the pain to my back.

I didn’t respond, because I suspected the answer would have surprised me. I’d been so consumed by my terror that night, by the reality that a killer stalked me through the streets, I hadn’t been able to focus on the effects on my body.

Knowing how quickly my body reacted, how he’d trained it to do his every bidding on command, I couldn’t expect anything else. I would have welcomed him inside my body, and then I’d have hated myself for it immediately after.

He drove me higher and higher, his lips wrapping around my clit and tormenting it with the pressure he knew I needed, only to ease off when my thighs started to tighten around his head. I whimpered, desperate for the release following the adrenaline that had consumed me. “When you come, it will be on my cock,” he said, rising up from between my legs. He shifted my body around to my hands and knees, maneuvering me like it was nothing to him to change the way a person moved. To control me entirely.

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