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His dark brows lifted, his expression impassive. “I’ll take a beer, if you have one.”
I shot him the middle finger on my way into the kitchen. Adrián was a complicated man to be friends with, but so was I. That was probably the reason we got along: we both viewed friendship as a farce. We knew the truth about the world. People were inherently greedy and self-serving and capable of committing vile acts to get what they wanted.
Adrián and I were no different from everyone else. We just didn’t bother to pretend otherwise.
Somehow, our mutual cynicism and disdain for the rest of humanity had fostered a strange but unbreakable bond. There was an odd sort of trust that developed in agreeing that no one was trustworthy.
I grabbed two IPAs from my fridge and joined Adrián in the living room, dropping down onto the L-shaped couch across from him. He took the beer I offered, a slight inclination of his head his only acknowledgement of gratitude.
“Are you going to tell me what you did, or do I have to guess?” he drawled.
I blew out a breath and scrubbed my hand over my beard. “I was spanking her, and I pushed her too far.”
He took a drag from his beer, completely unfazed by my reference to corporal discipline. He’d been the one to introduce me to my darker perversions, inviting me to the decadent, kinky club he owned. It was a front for trafficking our product, but he still liked to indulge his sadistic needs there.
Until he stole Valentina for himself. Now, I was certain I’d never see him at that club again. She was the only one he wanted to hurt, to subjugate, to own.
I wanted to own Sofia, but my plan had been to slowly manipulate her into accepting my needs. I’d intended train her to love submitting to my perverted lifestyle. She already thrived on praise and physical affection. It should have been a smooth process to exploit her desire to please and shape it into a desire to obey me.
“You have to be careful with her, Mateo,” Adrián advised. “If you don’t want to break her, you can’t do anything unforgivable.” He cocked his head at me. “I assume you’d prefer for her to be willing.”
“Of course I want her to be willing,” I snapped. “Jesus, Adrián.”
He considered me for a moment, and I suspected he was choosing his next words carefully. “Are you sure she’s right for you? You’ve wanted her for years, but you don’t really know her. If she can’t handle a spanking, how can you think she’ll willingly engage in what you truly want from her?”
“The spanking wasn’t the issue,” I admitted gruffly. “You’re right. I didn’t really know her before. But everything about her is even better than I could have imagined. She was made for this, Adrián, even if she doesn’t understand it yet. She likes it.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“I saw… She has a scar. I didn’t handle it well.”
I rubbed my fingers together, as though I could still feel the puckered furrow that had been carved into her thigh. The wash of rage that had rushed through me at the initial discovery began to surge once again.
Adrián’s mouth pressed to a thin line, his eyes narrowing with disapproval. “You can’t put your own shit on her. I understand why seeing her scarred might have bothered you, but a lot of people have them. Accidents happen all the time.”
“It wasn’t from an accident,” I ground out. She wouldn’t have reacted so fearfully when I asked if someone had hurt her if it weren’t true. “I’ll admit, I let my own shit get in the way when I first saw it. I shouldn’t have made a big deal out of it. But when I asked about it, she panicked.” The nauseating memory of her desperate struggle to escape my restraining hold made my fury swell. “Someone hurt her, Adrián.”
His lips curved in a sharply satisfied smile. “Excellent.”
“Excellent?” I snarled, my control tested to its breaking point. My fists clenched at my sides as I resisted the nearly overwhelming urge to punch the pleased smirk right off his pretty-boy face.
He reclined, slinging his arm over the back of the couch like it was his throne. “I was hoping you’d be like this, once you manned up and claimed her. You should see yourself right now. Positively shit-your-pants terrifying. Much better for business than the stupid expression you used to have whenever you looked at her. I need a rabid grizzly watching my back, not a cuddly teddy bear. To be honest, allowing you anywhere near Sofia has been a liability until now. She’s finally yours, so you can focus on protecting her instead of mooning over her.”
My mouth opened and closed a few times, at a loss for words. The insult should have heightened my ire, but hearing him acknowledge my claim over Sofia aloud helped soothe my most volatile urges. I much preferred protecting Sofia to pining for her from a self-imposed distance. I didn’t have to bother with that shit anymore. I didn’t have to feel guilty for pulling her into my dangerous world. Her father had done that to her when he’d chosen to threaten Valentina.
