I went utterly still, except for the tremor in my hands. Horror and revulsion rolled through me in nauseating waves. But despite everything, I was angry. Angry that Raúl was capable of this; that his true nature was just as sick and selfish as all the other men who’d abused me.
I lifted my chin and stared defiantly into his burning green eyes. “Go ahead,” I spat, bitterness curling my tongue. “If you want things to be the same as they were with Daniel, just go ahead. Take what you want. I won’t fight you. It’s not worth the extra pain.”
His granite jaw went slack for barely a heartbeat. Then, his heavy brows drew together, shadowing his eyes. He ground his teeth, and a vein pulsed down his forehead in a bulging line.
Tense silence stretched between us, making the air grow hot with both of our heaving breaths. Fire licked through my body, and my fingers curled to fists at my sides.
“What are you waiting for?” I demanded, screaming in his face. “Just go ahead and rape me. Show me this one small mercy and get it over with.” My clenched fists raised to pound against his chest, struggling to inflict even a fraction of the pain that was ravaging my heart. “Just do it already!”
His brawny arms closed around me, and he pulled me against his chest. I froze, but a soft, keening sound slipped between my lips.
This was it. He was going to violate me, and I would never be the same. This would break me in a way that the other men hadn’t managed.
But instead of tearing at my clothes, one big hand splayed across my upper back, and the other slid up my nape to cradle the back of my head, tucking my face against his hard chest. His heart thundered beneath my ear, as though he’d been running for miles.
“I will never hurt you like that.” His chest expanded on a deep breath, and his hand firmed on my back, holding me closer. “I don’t rape women.” He uttered the words like a fervent, irrevocable oath.
A chasm opened inside me, all my rage dropping down into a black abyss. My muscles were weak and wrung-out, and it was far too tempting to lean into his strength. Tears slipped from my eyes, wetting his shirt.
Confusion muddled my mind, but I couldn’t stop my fingers from curving against his chest, clinging to him. Raúl was a drug lord. I’d seen his brutal capabilities. There was no law he wouldn’t break, no sin he wouldn’t commit.
Except this one. I don’t rape women.
I desperately wanted to believe him, but I didn’t understand. “Why?” The soft question was almost entirely muffled by the bulk of his solid chest.
The way he stiffened told me he’d heard. I waited for a response, but as the seconds stretched to minutes, it became clear that he wasn’t going to answer me. After a while, his tension eased, and he started running his thick, calloused fingers through my hair in a soothing rhythm.
In that moment, it didn’t matter that I didn’t understand. I believed him.
Chapter 8
Raúl
Why? Marisol’s soft, simple question hit me like a gut punch.
I don’t rape women. I repeated the oath to myself. I’d drawn that line in the sand a long time ago. It wasn’t a question of morality; it was a matter of defiance.
But Marisol didn’t need to know about that. I scarcely allowed myself to think about it. It was simply a rule, the only shred of a code I lived by. I didn’t have to contemplate it in order to follow it.
I definitely didn’t want to think about it now, not when Marisol was clinging to me. Impossibly, she was leaning into me for comfort, when only minutes ago, she believed I’d violate her.
I’d held her hostage for weeks. When she’d run from me, I’d hunted her down. I’d drugged her and dragged her home with me.
And I had no intention of letting her go.
Even through my rage at her betrayal, releasing her had never been an option. The moment she’d surrendered beneath my rough hands, leaning into my touch and moaning for more, I’d decided she would be mine. Her treachery didn’t change that.
Her deception—her willingness to put my life at risk in order to escape from me—would only make me that much harsher in my merciless, perverse games with her. She would suffer for defying me, but she would still be mine.
If she were thinking clearly, she wouldn’t be sniffling in my arms. If she knew what I planned for her, she’d rail at me and scream for release.
Because our kiss had been real. Her reactions to me had been genuine. Once she accepted that, she’d understand that I was keeping her for her own good.
No one could protect her like I would. She’d scarcely been out of my sight for twenty-four hours before being attacked by the thief in Juárez.