hard.
“Yes,” she hissed. “And the inescapable truth is that if Liliana had been available you would have married her.”
“Why do you want a fight?” he asked, moving nearer to her, closing the distance between them and wrapping his arm around her waist. “I can think of much better uses of our time.”
He consumed her then, capturing her mouth with his own and pouring all of his frustrations, all of the intense, crushing feelings in his chest, out onto her. His pulse was pounding angrily, mirroring the heat and fire moving through his veins, the hardness, the desire coursing through his groin.
He wanted her, but that was not all.
No, it was not all. He was not a stranger to sexual desire, but this was entirely foreign to him. This was sexual desire mingled with something else. A need so fierce, so ferocious, that he thought it might destroy them both.
If he acted on it, certainly they would both go up completely in the conflagration. But if he did not act on it, he didn’t think he would survive it.
He was all out of control. That control that he prided himself on, that he was so convinced made him a good man. A better man than his brother, better man than his father.
All of his certainty was gone. Every last bit. All that remained was need. Need for Camilla, for his wife. His bride. The woman he had spoken vows to, in front of his townspeople, in front of his grandfather.
They might have an understanding. They might have an agreement that was supposed to make things clear, that was supposed to make them easy, but right now it felt anything but.
Again, in this moment, they were nothing more than Camilla and Matías. The world outside them didn’t exist.
Here, in his penthouse, this place that was his and his alone, she belonged to him only. Here, he had his bride on his wedding night. And whatever the future held for them, whatever the reasons for this marriage, he intended to claim this night for them. For himself.
Suddenly, he could wait no longer, his patience growing thin. He grabbed hold of the flimsy fabric of the bodice of her dress and tore it wide, letting the material fall loose around her waist.
She sucked in a shocked breath. “That was a beautiful dress,” she said, faintly admonishing, but she did not pull away from him, neither did she look as scandalized as she was attempting to sound.
No, her eyes were dark, filled with desire. He could see that she was as tested for control as he was. That she was as hungry for this as he was.
That he was not alone in his desire.
And that only made the monster inside him growl even louder.
“Yes,” he agreed. “It was a pretty dress. But your body, mi tesoro, is the most beautiful prize of all. Anything that gets in the way of that... I’m afraid I cannot allow it to be.”
As if to prove his point he grabbed hold of the lacy bra that covered her breasts, concealed them from his view, and he tore it away from her body, as well, leaving those high, perfect breasts exposed to him.
He lowered his head, taking one perfect nipple between his lips and sucking hard. He was starving for her. And it did not matter that he had been with her every night that week. It did not matter that he had sated himself on her whenever he desired since that first night he’d had her. It was as if it had been years. As if he had been kept from her.
Perhaps it was simply that she was his wife now. No matter that neither of them intended for it to be permanent. Perhaps it had changed things somehow. Made him more possessive. Made all of this somehow more.
It seemed impossible, and yet, with all that heat and fire pounding through his body, he wondered. If somehow, she truly had become part of his flesh as they had spoken those words to one another at that altar. If somehow, there was a sacred bond here that could not be manipulated, that could not be fooled.
He dismissed those thoughts as he ripped the dress the rest of the way from her body, and took her panties with it, leaving her beautiful, golden form entirely exposed to him.
He examined those slim, perfect curves, her taut, toned belly, her womanly hips and shapely thighs. That glorious thatch of dark curls between them.
She was beautiful. A work of art. And she was his. All his.
He was still fully dressed, still wearing the suit he had worn to the wedding, and he quite liked that. This woman, completely naked before him while he remained fully clothed. It made him feel powerful. Gave him some semblance of control in the moment.
And it also made him hungry for more. To expose her to an even greater degree, to exert that power.
To do something to deal with that yawning, endless ache in his chest, and the rest of his body.
“You are mine,” he said, words coming out on a growl. He picked her up, her lithe form soft and warm in his arms. “You are mine, and no other man’s. Is that clear?”
“Yes,” she said, the word hushed. For the moment at least, he seemed to have tamed her. He was not sure how to feel about that.
“And if my brother were to come in trying to carry you off, I would chase him to the ends of the earth before I let him keep you. I hope that is clear.” He gripped her chin, holding her face steady, looking into her eyes. “I would chase that bastard to hell to bring you back to me. Do you understand? He would not be allowed to lay one finger on you, and if he did, it would be the last thing he did. He would lose that hand, and then he would lose everything else dear to him. Everything.”
Honesty. Always with her it was that damned, unguarded honesty and he did not possess the strength to fight it on any level. Not now.
She shivered in his arms, and he wondered if perhaps he had gone too far, and then he decided he didn’t care. Not at all. Not in the least.
If he was possessive, then so be it. If he was untamed, then so be it. If he was no better than any of the other men in his family, then he supposed he would have to accept that, not fight it. Not anymore. Not with her.
It simply was.
Suddenly, he understood the nature of that violence that coursed through Diego’s veins. He understood that rage in his father. Because he felt it now all the same. It wasn’t anger. It was something different. It was big. And it was hot, and it was something that owned him, body and soul. A possessiveness that he could not fight.
Possessiveness he would not fight, here and now.
He set her down on his couch, positioning her toward the back of it as he knelt on the cushions, spreading her thighs wide. And then he examined her femininity, all of that gleaming beauty, and the pearl that was the center of all her pleasure. “Beautiful,” he growled, stroking his fingertips over her sensitive and responsive flesh. “And all for me.”
“I am not the one who was supposed to marry someone else today,” she panted. “I am not the one who deserves to be caught up in such a fit of possessiveness.”
He tightened his hold on her thighs. “This is not about what either of us deserves,” he said, his voice rough. “This is about what is. About what I’m going to take.
