Page 64 of Until Retribution Burns (Beauty in Lies 3)

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Isa

The front door closed.

Even though he moved silently, I felt the moment Rafe stepped into the bedroom. “You thought I touched her,” he said, his voice gentle as he came up behind me. I spun, refusing to let his hands touch me in the wake of knowing my sister’s mouth had been on his skin.

“You need to shower,” I said, storming away and into the bathroom. I turned the shower to hot, determined to watch him boil alive to wipe the stain of her touch from his skin. He walked into the bathroom, smirking arrogantly when I raised my hands and tore his shirt open with a brutality that felt foreign to me. Buttons popped free from the fabric, scattering through the bathroom as they pinged off the other surfaces.

I shoved the fabric down his arms, wincing when his hands came to rest against my cheeks. “Isa,” he said, tilting my head up until I looked him in the eyes.

“Please,” I whispered, dropping my hands to his belt when he didn’t move to take off the shirt. He sighed, stripping it off finally as I shoved his pants down his legs. He stepped out of them and his boxers, kicking the shoes off his feet and moving into the shower without me needing to ask. I followed, uncaring about the water splashing against the front of my dress as I picked up his loofa and squirted shower gel onto it. Rubbing it over his chest frantically, I removed all traces of Odina’s touch from his skin.

He took it from me, stilling my hand when he lost his patience with my scrubbing against the raw flesh of his wounds. My hand trembled in his, my eyes turning up to face him. “It’s okay,” he murmured, leaning forward to touch his lips to mine.

Shuddering against him, I touched a hand to his chest tentatively. Waiting for the slimy feeling of what Odina had done to cover my skin. For the questions to come about whether Rafe had encouraged it.

But they didn’t. I seemingly couldn’t trust him not to keep secrets from me. But after my rage had faded from the shock of seeing Odina’s lips on his skin, I knew without a shred of doubt that I could trust him not to touch another woman. Even when the wounds she’d caused in our lives before Rafe threatened to make me lose grasp of everything between us, somehow Rafe’s dedication came through.

He slid a hand beneath the curtain of my hair as the water drenched it, turning me until my back pressed against the wall. The sharp curves of his muscles pressed into my breasts, my name on his skin so close to my face as he leveled me with a stare so potent with need that the breath caught in my lungs.

He took my hand in his, guiding it to touch the wounds that I’d turned an angry red with my frantic scrubbing. Blood dotted the places where I’d rubbed away the healing flesh, turning the drops of water pink as they dripped down his chest.

The intention behind the contact was clear. He’d done everything in his power to tell me he was mine as much as I was his. The thought of my sister’s touch on my name on his skin made bile threaten my throat, an inability to process the severe, inescapable possession that flooded through me.

I knew without a doubt that I would kill her the next time she tried to touch him. What bothered me was that I wasn’t sure the realization worried me. It should have made me question everything I’d become.

“Eres la única estrella en mi cielo,”he murmured, dragging my finger to trace the name on his flesh.

A chuckle fought its way up my throat. After all this time, he still spoke Spanish like I could understand a word of it. I’d need to remedy that soon enough. “I don’t know what that means.”

“You’re the only star in my sky,mi reina. How could I want another woman when all I see is you?” he asked. I touched my forehead to his chest, inhaling the clean scent of him deeply into my lungs and holding him there until I relaxed. “If it helps, I would have killed her should the roles be reversed. You’re still less murderous than me.”

“I don’t think that’s as big a compliment as you think it is,” I whispered, tipping my head back. With his hand tangled in my hair, he leaned forward and touched his lips to mine. He kept his eyes on mine for the soft press of his mouth, a whisper of the things that would come shortly enough.

He pulled away, dragging the sleeves of my dress down my arms one by one as he waited for me to stop him. The darkness in him swirled beneath the surface, tucked away safely for the moment as if he could sense that the nightmare wasn’t what I needed then.

I needed Rafe, the lover who had shown me the wonders of life in Ibiza. Rafael could wait until the morning, consuming me with his darkness when I wasn’t soft and pliant in his arms but a queen ready to fight.

I was so tired of fighting, of being at war with my sister and my family while the battle between us continued on.

My dress fell to my feet in a wet mess, and I kicked it away. Reaching up trembling hands to unclasp my bra, I shoved it down my arms and tossed it to the side of the huge rainshower as Rafe guided my panties down my thighs. They joined the rest of my clothes, the movements between us slow and unhurried as he moved us toward the corner of the shower. His lips pressed to mine again, a skillful seduction of his mouth as he guided me to open for him. The taste of him overwhelmed me, the smokiness of his scotch a bite against my senses.

He invaded me, claiming my mouth for himself. I’d never have enough of his delicate possession, just as I’d never have enough of his darkness. My world would stop turning without him in it.

I moaned into his mouth as I wrapped my hands around his shoulders and pulled him tighter to me. He rewarded me by deepening our kiss, pressing me tighter into the wall as his strangled groan rattled against my mouth.

His hand left the back of my neck, gliding over my collarbone and cupping my breast in his massive palm. He kneaded the flesh gently, prying his mouth from mine and tormenting the front of my throat with the soft caress of his lips that drove me to the brink of madness.

When his mouth finally touched my nipple, it was a teasing, barely-there contact that sent a ripple of heat to my center. I moaned and arched my back, watching in fascination as his wicked lips wrapped around it and sucked. He stared up at me as he sank a hand between my thighs, slipping his fingers through my wet heat and pressing two inside me to pump slowly as he tormented my breast.

“Rafe,” I moaned, my hips moving instinctively. Begging for more, helplessly caught in his trap all over again. He pulled his fingers free, wrapping his hand around the back of my thigh as he lifted my leg to touch my foot to the adjacent shower wall. I dug my toes in, gripping it as hard as I could to keep the position as Rafe lowered to his knees in front of me.

His breathtaking stare held mine as he pressed a kiss to the top of my center, a teasing caress before his warm breath blew over the part of me that was so starved for his attention. His fingers dug into the skin of my thigh as he helped to support my leg, leaned in, and licked my clit slowly.

He took his time, touching every part of me with his mouth before he gave me what I wanted. Worshiping my flesh despite the pain of the stone tiles on his knees.

El Diablowas on his knees before his queen.

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