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“Lupita—” Sternly gentle, Jaguar’s voice breaks through my daze as I feel him take the hammer from my grasp. “I think he’ll be open to my questions now, chica.” His lips press a kiss to my cheek as I realize that I’m on my knees. A whimpering noise reaches my ears, sounding like a whipped animal.
When I eye the man tucked into a fetal position in front of me, I realize what I’ve done.
“Oh, God—”
“You don’t owe him your guilt,” Jaguar says, helping me to my feet. “You owe him nothing.”
He steps in front of me and stoops to lift the hammer from the floor.
As he lunges toward his prey, I don’t flinch away. I watch every last second of how a man like Julian Domingas offers up an apology.
CHAPTERSEVENTEEN
Jaguar once quipped that I look beautiful in red, but he was woefully mistaken. Standing in the master bedroom, casually wiping droplets of scarlet from his cheek, Julian Domingas resembles an avenging angel. A warrior, bathed in bloodshed.
Strangely, he doesn’t wallow in the gore, crazy-eyed and ranting like Diego would.
He stands tall. His eyes are crystal clear as he meets the gaze of his own reflection and holds it. He doesn’t cringe from the remnants of his violence or brandish them like sparkly adornments.
He is calm and careful as he washes all traces of Bastian Cortez away and, as much as a part of me hates to admit it…
He is so damn beautiful.
“Don’t misunderstand what just happened,” he says, turning on the faucet to wet his hands. “That wasn’t a show put on for your benefit. You heard the bastard yourself.”
I did. Unless, Bastian Cortez had been willing to lie until his dying breath, someone else had pulled the strings and made him bold—or desperate—enough to take the risk of kidnapping a woman from under Jaguar’s nose.
Should that relieve me?
It doesn’t.
“Why do you even care what I think?” I manage to rasp. I’m leaning against the wall just outside the shower, my knees trembling, adrenaline racing through my veins.
“Why?” He shakes his hands dry and turns to face me. Three steps bring him close enough to press his open palm against my cheek. “You expect a man to use you as a toy. A trophy. I have more than enough of those tokens already. I want my woman to understand the world I dwell in and know her place in it. By my side. You can’t stand there with your head held high if you doubt my intentions for you. But after tonight… I won’t be so understanding if you continue to second-guess me.”
A terrifying thought comes to mind. “This is your idea of atonement?” There is no judgment in my voice. As if I were trying to grasp a foreign concept, I sound rather quizzical instead.
“Oh no, chica,” he breathes out, his breath hot against my skin. His fingers caress me, running over my forearms in featherlight touches. “This is just the start. An opportunity to brand my idea of loyalty into that beautiful hide. You will never doubt me again.”
It doesn’t sound like a threat, but something far more sacred. Both a warning and a promise. A statement as obvious as “the sky is blue.”
I won’t ever doubt him again.
Even if it means more carnage on my behalf. He wasn’t the only one drenched in the remains of Bastian Cortez. My hands are red, I realize, looking down.
A sound of disapproval rumbles in the back of Jaguar’s throat as he follows my gaze. In a low, rasping tone, he says, “Let me wash you.”
In the mirror, I catch a glimpse of myself. As I stand there, stunned, Jaguar begins to strip me of his borrowed shirt.
He’s bathed me before, even gently, without that mocking wall he likes to keep up between us. This feels different for a milieu of reasons that go beyond his stern, serious expression. There is a possessiveness in his grip that makes my head swim.
Unlike the last time, he doesn’t make me submit to his ministrations. He sits me on a bench built into the wall and crouches between my legs, forcing near-constant contact. His eyes sweep over me with the bold, unashamed nature of a predator taking stock of the territory it’s claimed and fought for.
They tell me what he doesn’t bother to say out loud—I own this.
When he nears the bruises smarting on my face left by Boaz, a growl erupts from his throat. Real anger in him is nothing like what I’m used to seeing in other men. He doesn’t snarl and swagger—only when he’s putting on his narco act. The real Julian lets his rage simmer.
“They touched you,” he tells me, manipulating a rag and a bottle of soap. “I saw them.”
