"There's no need to lie.”
"It's not a lie, and you know it." She tightens her grip on me. "Stop projecting your own insecurities onto everyone else. People aren't afraid of you because of these scars, Santi. They are afraid of you because you stomp around like a fire breathing demon who will burn anyone who dares to look at him."
"It's... all I know," I confess, regretting the words as soon as they fall from my lips.
"No, it isn't." A small smile curves her lips as if she's recalling something. "I have seen your softness. You are capable of letting your guard down. Eva has seen it. Antonia too. I just think you are terrified of giving it away so freely, in case anyone gets the wrong idea about you. That you are actually good and decent inside."
"Well, that would be the wrong idea," I murmur.
“Give me an inch,” she says. "I'm not asking for leaps and bounds. All I'm asking for is that you try to trust me, like you asked me to do."
“Trust you like I did today, when you went to your father with one motivation in mind?”
“I wouldn’t have to sneak around if you’d just talk to me,” she retorts. “And I did want to see my father. It wasn’t just to interrogate him.”
"I suppose you want me to trust your word that your father wasn't involved too?" I ask. "That's what this is all about."
"Partially, yes. I know him, and I know when he's being truthful. I'm asking you to trust my intuition on this. At least until you have solid evidence to otherwise condemn him, and not just your own suspicions."
“How do you know I don’t already?”
“You would have brought it to The Tribunal if you had, surely.”
I have to give her that. She has a good point, but I wouldn’t have brought it forward because this justice will be doled out myself.
"You are too close to the situation to be unbiased," I tell her. "What you're asking me is to give up my revenge."
"I'm asking you to give my father time to prove his innocence. Now that everything is out on the table, we can all work toward the same goal together. Let me help you. As your wife and your partner."
I stare down into her eyes and swallow. She isn't in a position to barter for her father's life, but right now, I can't seem to tell her no.
"I will... consider it."
My voice is strained, but somehow it still manages to produce a relieved smile on Ivy's face. She presses her naked body against mine, the softness of her skin rubbing against my cock. I drag my fingers up to the base of her skull and hold her there while I lean down to kiss her.
Her hands stroke over the scars on my back as she parts her lips for me. I swallow her soft moans, pivoting her body toward the wall and walking her backward. She reaches down between us wrapping her fingers around my cock, greedy for it as our kiss deepens to something hungry and feral.
She's stroking me, driving me mad with need. I want to fuck her hard and rough, reclaim her all over again. But I don't know that it's safe.
I pin her against the wall, my fingers sliding down over her throat, her collarbone, and then stopping to pinch and grope her nipples. She arches her head back, biting her lip, and then sucks in a sharp breath when I lower myself to my knees before her.
Our eyes connect as I lift her legs and drape them over my shoulders, using the wall against her back as leverage. She tangles her fingers in my hair, arching her pelvis forward at the same time I dip my head between her thighs.
The first lash of my tongue seems to send a shockwave through her body, thighs clenching around my face as she tightens her grip on my hair. I groan and do it again, and again, watching her come undone for me, losing herself to the pleasure. But through it all, her eyes never leave mine. She's watching me watch her. It's an intimacy I am unfamiliar with, yet, neither one of us seems willing to break it.
"Tell me what you're thinking," I demand.
She pants broken fragments of her thoughts. "So good... it's so hot. Watching you do this."
My dick jerks in anticipation, and I squeeze the bottoms of her thighs in my palms, spreading her wider for me.
"Where do you want to come, Mrs. De La Rosa?" I tease her with my nose, dragging it along the seam of her pussy, inhaling her. "On my face, or on my cock?"
"Both," she answers breathlessly.
"Someone is greedy today." I thrust my tongue back inside her and she squirms against me as I bury my face deeper. Devouring her.