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I closed my eyes, reveling in the feel of her cheek, brushing against the sandpaper of my whiskers. “Would that matter?”
“Maybe.”
“And would that be a mark in my favor, or against me?” Arm wrapping around her narrow waist, I clasped her tight, filled with misery and the sweet, sweet torture of her warm body pressed up against mine.
Her lips nibbled down my jawline, pressing soft kisses there. “Do you still dream of me at night? Haunted by the pain of your past?" Her hand clutched my hair, yanking it to jerk my head to her lips. Then her teeth clamped down on my lower lip, biting it so harshly that the coppery taste of my own blood pooled in my mouth. "Or are you too busy lying to me, while you fall in love with another woman, giving her the dreams and the baby I always wanted from you?"
“What?”
Before I could react, her other arm snaked around my neck, and then, a sharp pinprick against my skin.
I gasped in surprise, my hands clutching the bedspread, then her thighs, digging my fingers into delicate skin. “Tati, what are you doing?” My voice sounded wobbly and shaky, as I slowly began to sink into an abyss of darkness.
She wrapped her legs around my waist, holding me still as she leaned back to stare into my eyes, her own filled with the signs of a surging storm. “My whole life, you gave me anything I ever needed. It’s my turn to give you a gift, Knight, brought to you by a little trick I learned from Antonio."
Drowsiness washed over me, a hazy, dreamlike sensation overwhelming my senses. Then my vision filled with blackness, the last thing to fill my eyesight was the twist of her lips, a smirk of satisfaction.
* * *
When I opened my eyes, pain pounded through my head like a pulsing, beating heart. I groaned, blinking.
The room was too bright and I squinted, trying to gain my bearings.
I was in a very familiar looking room, one I hadn't seen for years. With mint green walls, white flowing curtains, clashing navy blue and green tiled flooring, and rickety furniture.
Things suddenly clicked into place, an unused room in the building, paid several years in advance, suddenly becoming active again. I hadn’t paid attention, these things happened, but I should’ve known.
I was thrown back in time, when things in my life were much more simple –– with the exception of a small fridge in the corner, the room was an exact replica of hers in Cuba.
“Looks like you took a sentimental page from Rook's book." My words were still slurred from the drugs and it came out as an unintelligible garble, but she understood me anyways. She always could.
“It seemed fitting." Tatiana didn't smile. She was sitting on top of me, legs straddling my hips, her knees digging into the lumpy mattress. She was still wearing the black corset, her breasts tight and spilling from the top. The bullet wound in her shoulder only added to her alluring sexuality –– a dangerous siren, able to wrench my heart from my chest with a soft look.
"For what?" I asked.
"To bring you back to the beginning."
"Of what?” I shuffled to stop a spring from the mattress digging into my back. The sound of the safety clicking off made me still. I'd been ignoring the gun, once again, in her hands. Rope and scissors next to her thigh.
She hadn't decided what she would do with me by the time I'd woken, but it looked like she'd suddenly made up her mind.
"The beginning of your ending." She leaned over, shoving it in my mouth, and I could only stare up at her.
With her stark black hair and midnight blue eyes, she looked like a raven queen, a goddess.
Not because she literally held my life in her hands, but because she did, and always would, own my heart.
Suddenly, everything in my life zeroed in to focus on her.
All the troubles with the cartel, the deaths that had happened in my life, Coulter and Bourbon and their territory. Even Rook, who I knew was intimately involved in all this, was nothing when facing down my own death by the woman I loved. And yet, I didn't regret it.
Yes, I regretted all the terrible things I'd done to her:
Not saving her from her parents, or acting on my hatred for them, despite what she'd asked of me.
Not holding her hand, accepting her comfort when she approached me at the funeral.
Not taking her away from Cuba the day I left.
