I had no air. I couldn’t breathe. I started to squirm and he pulled me back harder with his hand, yanking my hair with the other, still thrusting into me in a frenzied rhythm.
“You think I don’t know how to handle you?” he groaned into my ear. “Well I’m handling you now.”
I brought my hands up to my throat, trying to pry his fingers off.
“Stop,” I managed to eke out.
“You don’t tell me when to stop,” he grunted.
I decided elbowing him in the chest was better.
He let go of my neck and I collapsed onto the bed, trying to breathe, my throat tender and sore. He pressed down on me, keeping me flattened. “Angel?”
I coughed, not able to speak yet. What the fuck just happened?
“Angel, I thought you were tougher than that,” he said, his voice a tad apologetic. He put his hand underneath my stomach, rubbing my clit. But the moment was gone and for once my body was responding to my head.
“I couldn’t breathe,” I said, trying to turn over. He hesitated, as if deciding whether or not to let me move, then he backed off, pulling out of me. His eyes flashed in a mix of lust and concern, an odd combination for anyone but not for him.
He leaned back, sitting upright and pulled me on top of him, my legs going around his middle. He cupped my face in his hands. “I’m sorry. I should have been more … considerate.”
You scared me, I wanted to say. Instead I nodded, wanting to forget the whole thing.
“Oh, my beautiful Ellie,” he whispered once he noted the expression on my face. He kissed me gently. “There I am talking about how you give me a soul and then I go and do a thing like that. I’ll need to take it slow with you, won’t I? Build up your tolerance, until you are strong enough for me.”
I frowned. One minute I was strong, the next minute I wasn’t. “I am strong enough for you.”
He smiled delicately. “We’ll see. For now, I’ll fuck you gently.”
Then he lifted me up around my waist and lowered me onto his shaft. Javier was nothing but precise.
We fucked sitting up, me riding him in waves, long enough for me to forget, for my thoughts to disappear, for the confusion to lift. We were only our bodies, only our lust, and, maybe, just maybe, only two tortured souls.
The next morning, he and I had breakfast on the balcony. Raul and Peter totally knew what was up after we’d spent most of the evening locked in our bedroom. I was never good about being quiet in bed. Now that it was out in the open, Javier was being very affectionate and physical with me.
Especially around Raul. The moment the slime-ball stepped out on the balcony to join us, Javier’s arm went right around my shoulder. I was glad for it, looking straight at Raul, daring him to do or say something. I wanted him to. I wanted him gone. And, I figured I’d have that happen one day.
I don’t know if it was my upbringing or a sick sense of romance, but I had to admit, that despite everything, there was something incredibly … thrilling … about having Javier’s affections so publicly. Here was a man with an empire, one of the most dangerous drug lords, someone with immense power and sway, and there I was, the apple of his eye. I felt a little like Michelle Pfeiffer in Scarface … although that movie didn’t really end well for anyone.
So what was going through my head then? Did I really think that we could off Travis and I’d be with Javier? Was that what I even wanted, to be his queen, his consort at his side?
I didn’t know what I wanted anymore. I didn’t have anything and the longer I was in Mexico with Javier, the more hazy my future became. I’d wanted to be good, to be better than I once was and even though I was trying, even though I’d been blackmailed into this whole mess, I felt like I was kidding myself. The future I had with Camden was gone, a daydream that was ripped away when I stepped inside Javier’s SUV. That me, that Ellie Watt with her new hopes and fresh starts must have died that day.
Maybe I never really was trying. Maybe I’d been kidding myself this whole time. Maybe a con artist from a family of con artists can’t really change.
Maybe I had to accept that I really wasn’t good and I deserved someone as bad as me.
I’d start at the nightclub. Javier had gone out in the afternoon to get me clothes, coming back with a lovely, albeit skanky, dress. It reminded me a little bit of Camden dressing me in Vegas, the way his strong hands had put me in that scrap of material that hugged my every curve and made me feel invincible with his fresh ink on my leg.
No, I told myself sharply. I had to stop thinking that way. The past had to be buried. There was no Camden anymore.
Javier suggested I curl my hair into ringlets, producing a curling iron he picked up along the way. Dark smoky green eye shadow. Pale pink lips. He’d gotten everything for me.