Page 58 of Until Retribution Burns (Beauty in Lies 3)

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Isa

We could call it love or we could call it a toxic obsession that thrummed through our veins. Whatever the words were, whatever label I tried to assign to what we were, nothing would change. Deep and embedded in my soul, I’d lost track of where Rafael started and I began, until he seared himself on my soul in a way that I would need to tear part of myself away to be free of him.

What we had wasn’t healthy. It wasn’t defined by the conventional rules that marriage needed to adhere to. Maybe it was Stockholm Syndrome, or maybe it was just that Rafael’s darkness called to mine. That we were two sides of the same coin, meant to stand back to back and face the world as one.

That had been what I’d thought, at least. What I’d hoped was true in the moments when I’d abandoned the girl I’d pretended to be, for the entirety of my life.

Rafael’s lies had unraveled everything I believed about our marriage—that on the other side of his initial deception, we’d found a way to have a true marriage built on honesty.

It was flawed and raw, but I’d at least thought he would do me the favor of not keeping secrets. What did he stand to lose from being honest, when I couldn’t ever leave him?

Rafael moved around the lounge, kneeling on the edge of the cushion at my feet. His rough hands touched the sole of my right foot, gripping it firmly and running his thumb over the arch in a steady pressure. The feeling traveled up the muscle of my calves, forcing me to relax muscles I hadn’t even known I clenched. He lifted my foot, touching his lips to my shin and dragging them up the bone softly.

I swallowed, stifling back the moan that threatened at my throat.

The Rafe I’d fallen in love with in Ibiza had been gentle as often as he’d been rough, tempering the intensity of his physical ownership of my body with sweet touches and gentle teasing. I’d thought him lost to the devil I’d married—the lover who’d been my introduction to the sins of the flesh a thing of the past that had only ever been a figment of my imagination.

His fingers gripped me around the back of my knee, pressing into the sensitive point there so very gently as those sinful lips trailed over my skin and brought goosebumps to the surface. He made his way up my thigh, pressing easy kisses to my flesh as he worked to pull me back from the place where I tried to shut him out. “Mi reina,”he murmured, the warmth of his breath blowing against my panties as he eased my legs apart.

My heart thumped in my chest as he touched his lips to the fabric, giving only the slightest teasing pressure where I needed it. My hips rose to seek more contact, my eyes clenching shut to try to ignore the sensations I knew he would wring from my body.

Rough fingers touched the straps of my underwear, tugging them down my thighs and off the legs that he raised to hook over his broad shoulders. Spreading them once they were free from their confines, he shifted his weight and settled between my legs.

His mouth sealed over my pussy, a warm balm as he gently explored the outer part of me with his lips and tongue. When his fingers finally moved to spread me and his tongue slid inside me, I turned my stare down to the beautiful devil worshiping my body.

He consumed me slowly, tormenting me with each press of his tongue as he slid a finger inside me and pumped leisurely. As if he had all the time in the world to remind me exactly what our marriage could be if I stopped fighting.

If I let him have the control he so desperately needed.

“Tell me you love me,” he murmured against my flesh. The demand traveled through my body, drawing a shiver from me as those wicked lips wrapped around my clit and sucked softly. My thighs clenched around his head, my ankles crossing over his shoulders and pulling him closer in my desperation for everything I needed.

“Rafe,” I begged, tears stinging my eyes as I realized that he’d used my body to bring me back. To prove that the man I loved beneath the monster still lived inside him, and that our lives could be both addictive and full of love.

That he could be both terrifying and gentle.

He nipped my clit in warning, a gentle reprimand that he still waited for the words he wanted to hear. I thrust my hands between my legs, gripping the soft strands of his dark hair with harsh fingers and pulling him tighter. Humming against me, he kept me just at the brink of my orgasm. “Tell me,” he murmured.

“I love you,” I sighed, the knowledge that he already understood that what I felt for him wouldn’t just disappear with a lie easing the sting of my submission. I wanted his honesty, and I’d find a way to prove that.

Another day, when his mouth wasn’t working me to a frenzy between my legs and the sight of all that muscle and his beautiful face between my legs didn’t threaten to drive me to the edge of my limits. For that moment, I’d take what he gave.

He sent me spiraling over the edge, hooking his finger inside me to stroke my g-spot at the same moment that he intensified the press of his tongue against me. He moved his finger inside me rhythmically, his mouth sinful as it worked me through my orgasm that I bit my lip to keep from crying out for all the guards to hear.

His mouth trailed up over the fabric of my dress, his fingers continuing to pump inside me gently as he touched his lips to mine and swallowed my heaving breaths for himself. He slid his fingers out and guided his length to my entrance, pushing inside me slowly with gentle thrusts as my flesh quivered around him.

“Te amo tal cual eres,” he murmured, his lips brushing against mine as the words slipped free. “I love you just the way you are.” I felt the words against my skin, warming me from the outside as the meaning of them sank into me. I wrapped my arms around him as he gripped the back of my thighs, guiding my legs to surround his hips. Holding him to me, he took me in slow but hard drives of his cock inside me.

His eyes held mine, love swimming in his gaze as he stared down at me with all the intensity of his obsession. I felt every inch of him as he slid through the flesh swollen from my orgasm, his breath mingling with mine as he made love to me for what felt like an eternity.

There was nothing and no one around but the warmth of him surrounding me, the comfortable feeling of his weight on mine, until he finished inside me, sending me into a second, rolling orgasm that made me long for the sleep I’d missed the night before.

Only then did he take me inside and hold me as I drifted to sleep, knowing that the secret would need to be dealt with still, but needing the peace of a dreamless rest before I could function.

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