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How far had I fallen down the rabbit hole that his words made sense to me? Angel’s whole world was the family and the business that it had built. It made sense that he would protect it by any means necessary. It was like he was playing chess, and he was protecting the King.You’re a part of that now, I thought, and something warm settled in my stomach. I hadn’t been a part of anything in a long while, not since before my mother got sick, and even if everything that Angel was made me uncomfortable...I could figure out a way to belong here. “Will there be retaliation from the supplier? Because of what you did?”
Angel shook his head. “They need us more than we need them,” he said.
It was all so casual, as if he hadn’t taken two men’s lives and disabled another for the rest of his life…if he didn’t catch some kind of infection and die on the boat headed back to Venezuela. “Thank you for keeping the killing to a minimum on our honeymoon,” I said.
I could see from his face that I surprised him…I surprised myself, to be honest. But if Angel was playing chess, I needed to start playing as well. If this was going to be my life, I was going to do more than just survive it. “You’re welcome,” he said, and the words sounded clunky. Like he wasn’t used to anyone thanking him for anything.
When he was finished, I took his plate, rinsed it in the sink, and then made him a second cup of coffee. “Did you have any other business to do today?”
He shook his head. “My business is done,” he said. “Now, it’s just a honeymoon.”Just a honeymoon. As if being on a beautiful, private, Caribbean island wasjustanything. Angel set his mug back down on the counter and looked at me expectantly. “Well?” he asked.
“Well, what?”
Angel leaned against the counter and crossed his arms over his broad chest; his eyebrow rose in a challenge. “Aren’t you going to rush to rinse the mug out too?” he asked. “Keep up this perfect wife thing you’re trying on?”
“It’s not an act,” I rushed to defend myself. But wasn’t it? If you asked me a year ago what kind of wife I would be, I would have said that I wouldn’t be a good housewife. After caring for my mother in her final moments, the idea of waiting on anyone ever again made my stomach sour. “I’m trying to figure out my place,” I said when his eyebrow seemed to crawl even higher up on his forehead. “If this is going to be my life —”
“If?” Angel asked. “Ifthis is your life? Thisisyour life, Emma.”
“That’s my point,” I said. “I need to figure out what I’m supposed to be doing as your wife. What’s my place here?”
Angel scoffed. “You know where your place is,mi esposa,” he said.
“Do I?”
He made that soft, impatient sound again. “Do you want me to show you?” His voice dropped an octave, and a shiver ran down my spine. Angel’s look was smoldering, but he didn’t reach for me. He wanted me to come to him…and despite everything that had happened, I did want him. Even though I could barely get him to talk to me for more than ten minutes at a time, even though I barely knew him, Iwantedhim. He made me feel safe in this terrifying new world that I’d found myself in.
“Show me,” I breathed out.
Angel’s hands were on me before I got the words all the way out. He angled my face up to his, but when he leaned down to kiss me, I turned and gave him my cheek instead. He stiffened against me, but his lips quickly worked over my jaw to my ear, nipping my earlobe. I hissed at the small stinging pain, but there was something intensely exciting about it. “Go upstairs,” he told me. “Be ready for me.”
There was no question what he meant, what he expected, and while a part of me balked at the idea, I still pivoted on my heel and marched out of the kitchen. I climbed the stairs on shaky, colt legs.This is insane, I told myself. Not because it was crazy for a woman to have sex with her husband, but for me to want Angel so badly after what I saw.
Once in our bedroom, I pulled the sundress over my head and put it, my bra, and my panties on a chair. My heart pounded against my ribs as I tried to decide whether to get under the covers or not. It was warm and there was no immediate need for a blanket outside of my own discomfort.
After debating what to do, I finally sat on the edge of the bed and waited. Time seemed to slow to a crawl, and with each passing minute, my anxiety grew. What if he was just making fun of me? What if I had been annoying him, and he wanted to get rid of me? What if —?
The door swung open, and Angel stepped into the room. His eyes widened a fraction when he saw that I was naked, but then an absolutely wicked smile worked its way across his face. “Eager,mi esposa?” he taunted. “You didn’t seem to want to touch me yesterday.”
I could have acted cavalier, and maybe I should have, but with his eyes on me, my skin felt like it didn’t fit anymore. I wouldn’t feel right until his hands were on me. “Yesterday was yesterday,” I said. “Today is today.”
Angel stared at me for a long moment, but then his hands reached for the buttons on his shirt. “I killed two men today,” he said, finishing up the line of buttons down his chest and going for the ones on the cuffs of his sleeves.
I shivered, stuck in the confusing place between want and revulsion. “I know.”
He took off the shirt, and my eyes roamed his chest and abs. His bruises were yellow now, nearly nonexistent. “I’m not feeling particularly gentle today,mi esposa,” he said and started to unbutton the fly on his pants.
My whole body was trembling, and there was an ache between my thighs that only he could remedy.Fuck, what is wrong with me?“I don’t need you to be gentle,” I told him.
Angel’s smile turned wolfish. “Are you sure about that?”
I wasn’t, but the idea of himnotbeing gentle made that ache all the more persistent. With more confidence than I actually felt, I spread my legs and let my hand slip between them. I was already wet, and I let out a sigh when my finger brushed against my clit.
Angel let out a wounded sound, and then he was on me, pressing me onto the bed and batting my hands away from myself. With a thrust of his hips. Angel pushed himself inside of me. There was a sharp pain, but it quickly melted into heat and fullness, and my back arched off the bed. “Angel!”
He didn’t give me a chance to catch my breath. He hitched my knees up, practically folding me in half, and set a pounding, breathless rhythm. All I could do was hang onto his arms and take what he gave me. “Are you still confused about your place?” he panted. I could feel the rough zipper of his slacks digging into my skin; he hadn’t bothered to take off his pants, and for some reason, him being partially clothed while I was naked made everything all the headier. “Where do you belong,mi esposa?” he asked. “Tell me.”
I had no idea what he wanted to hear, and I was so close to the edge. “Please,” I murmured. “Please, please,please.” I needed him to touch me, or let me touch myself, but every time I tried, he would push my hand away.
