I put my bloody hand on her shoulder, marveling at how much of Esteban’s blood had spilled on us. I was going to suggest that we watch him die, then get back to find the others. The gunfire had stopped and I think I knew which side had won once more.
But she walked over to him and stood over his face.
His one good eye fixed on her.
It seemed to beg for mercy.
She held the knife above it.
In one swift motion, she plunged the knife into his eye, into his brain, right to the hilt.
Esteban Mendoza jerked once, twice, then finally stilled.
He was dead.
He was very dead.
I watched her carefully, not sure how she would react now that it was all over and the adrenaline would be sure to wear off. I may have been used to this, I had ways of separating the act from myself and I had ways of enjoying it too.
But she wasn’t used to torture except for the torture done to her.
“Luisa,” I said softly, coming up behind her. I placed my hand on her arm, slid it down over her grip on the knife and pried her fingers loose. I slowly pulled her back, leading her away from his disfigured corpse.
“Talk to me,” I whispered, turning her around to face me. I placed my hands on both sides of her cheeks, leaving sticky red handprints underneath.
She closed her eyes for a moment and breathed in deep.
She opened her eyes. They burned for me. “I love you,” she said.
My heart expanded, building with an internal fire.
“I love you too,” I murmured. “My beautiful queen.”
I kissed her sweetly, softly, not wanting to scare her off as I had before, unsure how she would take me.
But she kissed me back.
It might have been the best kiss I ever had.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Luisa
I didn’t know what I would feel when I finally got my revenge, when Esteban was finally dead at my own hands. I assumed I would feel guilt, maybe regret. The old lesson that revenge isn’t always so sweet, that it can cause you to lose your very soul.
But the moment I sawed off his tongue, cut off his dick and stabbed that knife right into his degenerate brain, I didn’t feel any of those things.
For one, instead of losing my soul in the process, I felt like I’d gained one. That whatever part of me I’d lost, the part he’d stolen from me, came right back to me.
I felt full, whole.
And I felt momentous relief. It was wave after wave of cool, freeing reprieve, soaking me to the bone, giving my tired spirit wings again.
No, I didn’t regret a god damn thing.
Javier was there, for me, throughout it all. It was his sister that died, his friend that screwed him, screwed me, hurt me. But he let me do what I needed to do, even though I knew he was dying to do it himself.
But he gave me the knife and he set me free.
I couldn’t thank him enough.
Or maybe I could.
He pulled me away from Esteban’s dead, disgusting body and held my face in his bloody hands and I felt nothing but pure, complete love for him.
I’d been reborn. I’d never wanted him more.
So when he kissed me, so soft and sweet, I answered with all the passion that had been buried away for far too long.
He moaned into my mouth, his hands touching my sides, so careful, so cautious.
“I need you,” I told him, breaking away as his lips went for my neck, a wet, warm caress. I placed my hands over his, pressing them into my body, no longer afraid of him, no longer afraid of anyone. “Now, I need you now. All of you. All of you, Javier.”
He pulled back, searching my eyes. “Are you sure?”
I know that he wasn’t talking about the location.
I rubbed my red-stained hand down over his crotch, feeling his hardness, his life pulse beneath me. “Fuck yes.”
Something ignited in his eyes, as if he were finally seeing me for me for the very first time. His lips crashed against mine again, mouth so hungry as if he needed to consume me to live and I gave it right back. This was a wild, unrestrained need and I thought I might die right there and then if I didn’t get enough of him. The passion crackled between us, electric, a million fuses waiting to be blown.
I wanted to set them all off.
His hands were all over me, clawing and desperate and I clung to him like a crazed animal, our clothes half torn, while the causality of our depravity and sweet revenge was just a few feet away. But I couldn’t see that, couldn’t see anything but Javier, didn’t need anything but him.
We were down on the floor, one way, then another, blood sticking beneath us. I got on my knees and grabbed hold of the back of the pilot’s chair while he yanked down my pants and thong. His fingers, feather-soft, like ghosts, trailed up and down my legs, over my inner thighs, making my skin quiver. But I needed more than that, I needed to be taken and claimed, devoured whole.
“Stop torturing me,” I cried out and he gave a wicked chuckle in response.
“Oh, but what beautiful torture this is,” he murmured, licking a path down my spine, his fingers still teasing like angel wings. His head lowered, tongue snaking over my skin and I was desperate, straining for him, pressing myself back.