Este made an elegant gesture with his fingers for Juanito to turn around. A current of fear passed over his eyes, and it made Este immediately hard.
Juanito knew the drill. He shuffled out of his boxer shorts — a stupid pair with bananas on it — and got on all fours, his small, flabby ass facing Este.
Este didn’t admire his body, didn’t admire anything except his compliancy. He knew he was going to cause him a lot of pain and that helped with the hard-on.
Thank god the room was soundproof. Este slammed into him, his grip merciless on his hips. Juanito cried out in horror, in pain, a scream that would have made anyone’s dick shrink in an instant, but it did the opposite to Esteban. Besides, now he wasn’t even thinking about Juanito. His thoughts were all on Luisa. On what he would do to her. This same thing. She was going to go along willingly at first — that was part of the plan. Get her desire, her trust. But in time, that desire would turn to fear.
And when Este tired of the fear, he’d fuck her with his gun. He did that to a woman once, the only woman he remotely had feelings for. He would do it again. Luisa would love the danger of it all. He knew she liked fucked up shit like that.
And then Este would pull the trigger while it was deep inside her.
And then he would rule the world.
CHAPTER FIVE
Luisa
Sometimes, lately anyway, when I thought back to the day I had married Javier, my mind got all lost and jumbled. Confused. I brought up images of my wedding to Salvador Reyes. Perhaps because I was terribly nervous before both.
Of course I was nervous with Salvador, because I knew how powerful he was. I knew he had the capacity to hurt me, I knew I wasn’t in love — or even “in like” — with him. And I was a virgin. But I hadn’t expected to be nervous with Javier.
It was only a month after he killed Salvador and I joined Javier at his compound — this same compound — that Javier proposed to me.
We were in bed one Sunday morning. Sundays were the best days. We’d awake when the sun rose in the east and streamed in through the windows, then we’d spend a few hours under the covers. Sometimes we’d make love right away, other times we’d wait until coffee was delivered. But we never got out of bed unsatisfied.
That morning, Javier was in a quiet mood. This was nothing new — sometimes something dark and heavy would befall him. I could see it in his eyes. They didn’t quite have that intensity anymore and he seemed to be tortured subtly by some inner demons. I knew he had a lot of them.
We made love slowly. He took his time, not in a torturous, teasing way? but as if he were trying to memorize me, hold on to every second, every moment. It unnerved me because I wasn’t used to it. I was used to dangerous, rough, wild sex, or quick and passionate sex. But not this forlorn, pensive emotion. Not from him.
After we both came with soft cries, he slid out of me from behind then flipped me over so that I was on my back. He climbed on top of me, his weight on his elbows on either side of my shoulders. He brushed my hair off my damp face, the sun and our sex heating up the room, and those wonderful eyes of his peered down at me.
They were searching, like a hawk, golden in the light, but they were sad. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him sad. It made me hold my breath and I wrapped my hands around the small of his back, brushing gently against his skin, holding his body to me.
“Do you love me?” he asked, his voice low, almost hesitant.
I stared up at him in surprise. Of course I loved him. With everything I had. Didn’t I tell him that all the time? Even though I had yet to hear it back, I still told him because I was unashamed of the truth.
“I love you,” I told him.
“Do you want me to love you?” he asked, fainter now. He ran the tip of his fingers along my forehead, down my cheekbones, across my jaw, more gentle than a feather.
I didn’t know how to answer that. Did he not love me?
Could he?
Would he?
So I said, “Yes.”
He carefully licked his lips, brows furrowed slightly in thought.
“Do you want me to marry you?”
Now I was really surprised. I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. My mouth dropped open and my brain and heart battled each other for a moment, wondering if my answer would set me up for some sort of humiliation.
But still, the truth. “Yes,” I whispered.
“Good,” he said, and only then did he give me the quietest of smiles. “Because I love you, Luisa. Even when I thought I didn’t have it in me, I do. I love you. And I want you to be my wife. My queen. My everything. Rule with me.” He leaned closer and kissed me delicately on the lips. “Marry me.”
And I said yes. The room grew brighter. The sun filled my soul. And I thought I could never be happier.