A Taste like Sin Page 10

  Another kiss drowns me in him. His scent. His touch. He steers me back until I’m trapped between him and a wall of glass, his to devour. Consume.

  “And your smell,” he breathes as his hand travels lower, dancing down my belly, hunting for the hem of my dress. “It’s so damn easy to tell when you’re aroused.”

  He succeeds in lifting my skirt, finding my thigh without preamble. Featherlight caresses track his progress upward, nearing the space between my legs. I stiffen. He pounces, plunging a finger beneath the gusset of my panties.

  “Sí,” he croaks, inhaling the air while curling his finger in the same cruel motion. “It’s like you were designed for me. To entice me. To challenge me. To humble me… You’ve punished me, haven’t you?” He practically hisses the words. “Every sin. Every transgression. You’ve made me repent.”

  His thumb roughly encircles me—my only warning before he plunges the tip between my folds. My sharp cry almost drowns out his next words.

  “Dulce niña.” He slides his hand around to my back and the faint hum of a zipper sounds as the fabric of my dress loosens. Falls. Exposes.

  Trembling knees threaten to collapse beneath me. I grab his shoulders tighter, marveling at the ease with which he supports me. One hand braced against my ass allows him to steady me while guiding my hips against his at the same time.

  A gasp rips from my throat at the dangerous pressure kicking against my belly. He returns his attention to exploring my body, his touch bolder. He spreads my legs apart, tracing soft, nonsensical patterns into my inner thigh. The gentleness with which he does so sends my already drifting thoughts scattering further. There’s reverence in his touch and I have an uncomfortable inkling why so many women have been willing to strip naked for him in the first place.

  Someone else could never offer this level of intimacy. A vulnerability found only by having a stranger peer beneath your skin with every stroke.

  I close my eyes, savoring the small nuances he can’t disguise. The low grunts interspersed with his breaths. The pulsing heat. The thick fingers tangling in my hair, making knots and chaos in the strands. Eyesight would only be a hindrance to him—because without it, he has no trouble sensing the secrets within I’ve hidden from myself. Sex extends to more than physical pleasure where he is concerned.

  It’s knowledge.

  It’s power.

  It’s primal.

  “You wanted to be kept, and I’ve decided…that I’m keeping you.” He slips an arm around my waist, wrenching me even closer.

  My legs part as he muscles in between them. My knees capture his waist, holding tight—and I’ve surrendered to his strength completely.

  “Maybe I would have played your game before,” he admits before grinding his lips into mine, marking them. “Perhaps. I’d let you go. Let you taunt me like you have. I could withstand it.”

  “And now?” I’m copying him, grazing my lips along his jaw in return, sensing the barest hint of stubble.

  “Too late.” He sounds almost as if he pities me. “I want too much, so I’ll take all of you.”

  “By spying on me again?” How I’ve formed a coherent reply, I’ll never know.

  “I won’t have to.”

  Oh? A morbidly amusing thought comes to mind, even as my thoughts dissipate as he slides his fingers along my core and mutters something that makes my cheeks flame. Something about wet, mingled with broken words in Spanish. “Will you tie a bell around me?”

  He laughs. “Maddening woman with maddening ideas.”

  He finds my panties again and tugs them aside. Every slow, deliberate stroke he inflicts reminds me of a musician playing an instrument only he bothered to learn how to tune.

  And I’m pathetic enough to beg for more. “Damien.” My lips seek out his earlobe. “Please…”

  His breath stutters. The hum of a zipper pierces the air and then he’s inside me. Sharp, sweet pleasure instantly displaces any pain. God, he feels so raw from this angle. There’s nothing between us but sweat and skin. I can feel his heartbeat hammering a melody mine has no choice but to match.

  Thump.

  Stutter.

  Thump.

  He goes more slowly than any man has the right to, sensing every curve and ridge of my body, learning me inside and out. Too thoroughly. It’s a violation I never in a million years thought I’d crave.

  Teeth gritted, thighs clenched, I let him explore, thrust after deliberate thrust.

  Far too soon, he loses his polish, gripping me hard enough to leave marks. Bruises. Brands.

  Hissed words of Spanish meet their doom in the crook of my shoulder as his body tenses, slamming into mine and knocking the air from my lungs. God, the friction…

  I’m ashes beneath the onslaught. Fire. Heat. Sin.

  My world is a collage of sensation of blinding white.

  Then silence and a slow descent back to reality.

  “Damn,” he grates between panting breaths as my senses reassemble. “That’s not quite how I imagined the second time we met like this would unfold, Ms. Thorne.”

  My heart flutters, walking that dangerous line between dread and excitement. “What…what do you mean?”

  He laughs, and any doubts are shattered. “I’d thought for sure we’d at least make it to the goddamn bed.”

  “I should be taken out and shot,” Damien growls as his fingers dance along the flat of my belly. As if supplying accompanying percussion, a series of garbled, protesting noises rumble from it. “You’re starving.” He sighs against the back of my throat. “Perhaps I should have insisted on dinner first after all?”

  I echo his sigh and lean further into him, relishing the feel of his chest against the curves of my back. Given the warm temperature of the greenhouse, his heat should be an unwelcome addition—but I shift closer, aching to extend the burn of his flesh on mine. Even the floor, slightly damp from the humidity, feels more comfortable than it has any right to.

  “I don’t want to move,” I admit, cringing from the idea of putting my dress on and reentering the real world. Or pretending that what just happened didn’t. “I want to lie here naked and never get up again.”

  “Never?” he wonders in a throaty chuckle. “May I propose a compromise?”

  More like an ultimatum, it seems as he pulls away. I turn to watch him sit upright in a graceful arrangement of limbs. Seemingly from nowhere, he withdraws a headset from the tangled mass of clothing beside us.

  “Julio,” he says into the device. Spanish deepens the distance between us as he dishes out what I assume are a multitude of commands. Then he sets the headset aside and reaches toward our clothing again. “You do not have to move,” he says, “But I would like you covered por favor.”

  He feels through the fabric and retrieves not my crumpled dress but his tailored suit jacket. Sitting up, I shudder as he drapes me in the fabric, easily maneuvering my arms into the sleeves.

  He doesn’t extend the same modesty to himself, however, not even as Julio calls from the door minutes later.

  “Sir?”

  “Yes,” Damien replies. “The atrium, if you please.”

  Heavy footsteps advance across the far end of the greenhouse, but I never see the faithful bodyguard enter this section at least. A few moments later, the steps retreat.

  “All done, sir.”

  “Thank you, Julio.” Once he’s sure his servant is gone, Damien stands and extends his hand toward me. “Slight movement, I’m afraid,” he admits. “But I promise it will be well worth the effort.”

  I grasp his hand and allow him to pull me to my feet. Showing no concern for our discarded clothing, he starts forward, fearlessly navigating the aisles of flowers. I notice his hand feeling along the various stands, orienting himself, I suspect. But there’s an unmistakable familiarity that makes me envision him spending so much time in here that he’s memorized every inch.

  “How is this for compromise?” he wonders as we reach the threshold of a large, open space beyo
nd the main greenhouse. The same area he brought me the first time we had dinner here. Then, it served as a makeshift pizza parlor—and a chilling backdrop to a lurid conversation revolving around my virginity and his insane brother Mateo.

  Now, the place reads Damien Villa down to the black tablecloth draped over a wooden table, laden with steaming plates.

  “Five-star French restaurant to go?” I inquire, eyeing the pastries and extravagant cuisine.

  He laughs and advances toward the table, angling one of the chairs toward me.

  Once we’re seated, we eat in relative silence, him unabashedly naked still. Observing him now reveals more than ever before. He lazily munches on the end of a croissant, but his true focus is tracing the veins on the back of the hand I have braced on the table.

  “You are so beautiful,” he murmurs heatedly. “Hermosa niña—”

  “How can you tell?” I blurt, only to realize how rude it sounds. “I mean… Are you merely aiming to flatter me, Mr. Villa?”

  “No.” His tone dips an octave, suddenly serious. He captures my hand entirely, lifting it for his physical inspection. His thumb grazes the flat of my palm as if the divots and swirls there can tell him all he needs to know. “Your body is a masterpiece. One I hope to explore in full.”

  “You do still owe me a painting,” I point out.

  He laughs. “Yes.” He lifts his head in my direction. “And answers. You can demand them from me now, if you want.”

  “No,” I say, surprising myself. “Not now. Tomorrow. Just let me have a few more hours of pretending if it’s not too much trouble.”

  “Trouble?” He brings my hand to his lips, pressing them along my knuckles. “Never.”

  “Let’s just hope we aren’t interrupted this time,” I say. The way his jaw twitches is the only clue I need to know I’ve said the wrong thing. “I’m sorry—”

  “Don’t be.” A heart-stopping grimace twists his lips, part frown, part…smile? “Mateo is, let’s just say slow to warm to new people. He was always that way. But there is no malice in his hostility.” He shrugs, his jaw softening a fraction. “In some aspects, he is like a child. Painfully demanding, but affectionate to those who earn it. Though it seems he is more of the former around me lately.”

  “He made you trade him something to stay away from me,” I surmise, licking my lips. “Didn’t he?”

  His head shoots up, cocked to the side. “It seems I didn’t give him enough.”

  “Did you?” I press.

  “Perhaps.” A muscle in his neck flutters, and he shakes his head. “Fine. I gave him control over a facet of our mutual business arrangements. Let’s leave it at that.”

  I look down, eyeing the table as an uncomfortable sensation floods my belly. Gratitude? “You didn’t have to—”

  “You don’t know Mateo,” he says over me. “It appears we both have complicated relationships with our family members, ¿sí?”

  “That sounds…relatable,” I admit, fighting to sound cordial.

  “Pardon the cliché, but I would blame our upbringing,” Damien admits. “Our father was not an easy man to live with. Mateo learned that more than most.”

  “Oh?”

  “What is a polite way to say… He favored corporal punishment.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Again, you do not have to be. It wasn’t a terrible life in a sense. I’m grateful for it.”

  “H-How did you leave?”

  A thoughtful grunt catches in his throat. “Our mother was American. So my brothers and I had dual citizenship through her—making us technically citizens, not immigrants. The media tends to skew some facts.” His cold, quick smile takes my breath away. A heartbeat later, it’s gone, smothered into a flattened line.

  “You grew up in Colombia though,” I point out, recalling what my father mentioned. “Supposedly, Mr. Villa, you are linked to the drug trade.”

  “Sí, supposedly,” he admits. “My father owned a ranch of sorts. We tended the fields. He grew an array of unusual crops. Only later did I realize that the plants we grew supplied a criminal enterprise. Allegedly, of course.”

  Like his supposed links to cocaine.

  “I’m sure you did what you had to do to survive,” I say carefully. “I know what that’s like.”

  “Oh?” He chuckles. “Maybe I’ve lost that ruthless drive. After all, I’ve just alluded to illegal activity in front of the daughter of an ex-judge.”

  He expertly mingles fact with the veiled threat. Though a part of me suspects it’s more of a test. He’s deliberately spoon-feeding me key bits of information that, if leaked to the press, don’t confirm or deny the rumors. Smart man. Perhaps too smart.

  “I think you’re calculating, Mr. Villa,” I tell him truthfully, still tracing an invisible path over the back of his hand. “You wouldn’t let anything compromising slip around a potential threat, no matter how much you may enjoy getting her naked.”

  “Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong, Ms. Thorne. It seems I repeatedly find myself saying things around you that I shouldn’t.”

  “Like?”

  “For instance, would you believe that I have never mentioned my past to anyone?” His tone lowers in an accusatory fashion. Like I’m to blame for his slip of the tongue. “Even in such admittedly sparse detail.”

  “You mean you’ve never told your past women”—I deliberately pick three names at random—“Christina, Babina, and Martina, about your childhood?”

  “No.” He slides his hand from beneath mine only to capture my fingers entirely. As I watch, he runs his thumb along my palm. “I haven’t. They never held my interest beyond what I sought to learn from them.”

  Learn. A nice way of phrasing sex. “And what about me? Do I hold your interest?”

  He frowns as if hating his answer before it even leaves his mouth. “I’m afraid to admit that you have my full attention.”

  “For now,” I say coyly. “But who knows how long that may last? Maybe as long as one of your pretty roses?”

  “I’m afraid not.” His grip tightens. “If only it were that simple, Ms. Thorne.” He stands.

  I balk. His free hand brushes the table for guidance as he circles it toward me, and a tug on my wrist urges me to my feet. One ruthless yank pulls me close and his lips flutter over mine. Once. Twice. On the third brush, mine fall open by accident, letting him in. Urging him deeper. My fingers are in his hair before I can help myself. God, it’s softer than his skin. Like silk. Vaguely, I’m aware of the edge of the table striking my hip as he steers me to face him. Before I realize it, I’m sliding back onto the ledge.

  “Wait.” I break the kiss, panting for air. “S-Stop.”

  He does, his breath feathering my throat in heavy, unsteady bursts as I curl my fingers around his biceps, intending to shove him off. Clear my head. Think. He muscles in closer instead. Silverware scatters, sliding dangerously close to the table’s edge.

  “I’m merely following your rules, Ms. Thorne,” he says into my throat. “You desire to be kept—as well as distracted. I aim to oblige.”

  I wake up twisted within the silk sheets of that infamous red room. As my eyes open, the mirror on the ceiling paints my appearance in stark relief: swollen, bitten lips, a nest of hair, and a hollow, sallow face.

  My phone is ringing. It has been almost nonstop for the past five minutes, but I can’t seem to move to grab it. At least not until the millionth ring when I finally crawl off the mattress.

  “Juliana,” Diane says when I answer, her voice strained. “We… Can you come to the hospital? We need to talk.”

  “What’s happened?” Fear rides a wave of nausea threatening to escape from my throat. “Is he—”

  “No, no, your father is fine,” she says quickly. “It’s just… There are some arrangements we need to go over. Just come down when you can.”

  After hanging up, I shower and then dress in the plainest items of clothing to be found in Damien’s mocking wardrobe: a white shi
rt and beige slacks. As I enter the foyer, I don’t find him lounging on the leather chaise or lurking in the corners.

  But on a table near the door, someone left a gray folder with a single rose draped across it. Printed in ominous black font are the words Borgetta Murder Case. Swallowing hard, I tuck the file beneath my arm and slip the rose behind my ear.

  Ten minutes later, I’m racing down the hall outside my father’s hospital room, my stomach in knots. Inside, Diane is sitting beside Daddy’s bed, his hand in hers. He lies motionless, his eyes open and unseeing—but standing nearby is a tall, mustached man I don’t recognize.

  At least not until Diane says, “This is Chief Harrison, Juliana. A good friend of your father’s.” Her strained, uneasy smile makes me force one in return.

  “Hello, chief.” I step forward, vaguely pairing the man’s stern features with a face I’ve only seen in the papers or on the periphery of Daddy’s lavish political gatherings throughout the years.

  He has a relatively prominent family from what I recall. His son is a promising lawyer, his wife a defense attorney. Dressed formally, he certainly matches his job title. A brown trench coat hangs open to reveal the badge pinned to his crisp white dress shirt, and the faint hint of cigar smoke tinges his imposing frame. My nostrils wrinkle and I can’t shake a chilling sense of déjà vu. Maybe I’m forgetting a more recent meeting?

  “Juliana.” He extends his hand for mine and shakes it before I can ponder my memories further. “I’m so sorry to hear about what happened. My men and I are doing all we can to help.”

  “The police would like your permission to secure your apartment, darling,” Diane says, cutting to the chase. “They’ve already been at the house. For our safety.”

  “S-Safety?” I raise an eyebrow.

  “Yes.” Chief Harrison steps back, his eyes downcast. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, Juliana, but your father’s physicians believe that his stroke may have been caused by something he could have ingested—they aren’t sure what yet. But I want to assure you that we are doing our best to get to the bottom of it.”