“She loves him,” Camilla said softly.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Matías asked. “Don’t you think that by now she has seen what manner of man he is?”
“Unfortunately, I think she knew from the beginning. I...I had a conversation with Diego before the wedding,” she said, twisting her hands together.
“Were you going to tell me if I had not brought him up?”
“Possibly not. The whole thing made me nervous. He was clearly trying to intimidate me. Trying to scare me away. But he has never met me. So he did not know that was a losing proposition.”
“I almost feel sorry for him,” Matías said. “What did he say to you?”
“He confirmed that he did kidnap Liliana. Their marriage, however, is legal, so whatever happened after that, she consented to it. He talked her into it, he says. I imagine there was blackmail involved. But... I see the way she looks at him. I spent a good portion of the ceremony looking. I don’t think she wants to be rescued,” Camilla said softly. “Though I’m not entirely certain she’s happy.”
“How could she be happy with a sociopath? How could she love him?”
“Oftentimes these things don’t make sense,” Camilla said, her voice hard. “And why do you care? Just for her happiness? Or are you wishing that you had married her today?”
Frustration roared through him and he growled, pinning Camilla up against the wall in the penthouse. “I don’t give a damn about Liliana. At least, not beyond her safety. Of course I don’t want my brother holding her against her will, but as she traveled with him, and obviously married him, and has not fled him, I think it’s safe to say that’s not what’s happening. I don’t want her. I want you.”
“Well, you seem awfully concerned about her.”
“And you seem jealous,” he said, taking a step back.
“I am,” she confirmed.
He looked at his wife, standing there in the flowing white gown. His wife. She was his. Legally. A binding agreement. And suddenly, he wanted, more than anything, to hold her to that. To hold her to him. Wanted to do what Diego had done. To take her away, to hold her captive. To make her his, however that looked, whatever that might mean. Suddenly, being right, being good, didn’t seem half so important as it had before.
Only having her.
And he could see just how thin that line that separated himself from Diego, Diego from his father, and his father from their grandfather, really was.
It was in his DNA, whether he wanted it to be or not.
“I married you,” he said, his voice hard.
“Yes,” she hissed. “And the inescapable truth is that if Liliana had been available you would have married her.”
“Why do you want a fight?” he asked, moving nearer to her, closing the distance between them and wrapping his arm around her waist. “I can think of much better uses of our time.”
He consumed her then, capturing her mouth with his own and pouring all of his frustrations, all of the intense, crushing feelings in his chest, out onto her. His pulse was pounding angrily, mirroring the heat and fire moving through his veins, the hardness, the desire coursing through his groin.
He wanted her, but that was not all.
No, it was not all. He was not a stranger to sexual desire, but this was entirely foreign to him. This was sexual desire mingled with something else. A need so fierce, so ferocious, that he thought it might destroy them both.
If he acted on it, certainly they would both go up completely in the conflagration. But if he did not act on it, he didn’t think he would survive it.
He was all out of control. That control that he prided himself on, that he was so convinced made him a good man. A better man than his brother, better man than his father.
All of his certainty was gone. Every last bit. All that remained was need. Need for Camilla, for his wife. His bride. The woman he had spoken vows to, in front of his townspeople, in front of his grandfather.
They might have an understanding. They might have an agreement that was supposed to make things clear, that was supposed to make them easy, but right now it felt anything but.
Again, in this moment, they were nothing more than Camilla and Matías. The world outside them didn’t exist.
Here, in his penthouse, this place that was his and his alone, she belonged to him only. Here, he had his bride on his wedding night. And whatever the future held for them, whatever the reasons for this marriage, he intended to claim this night for them. For himself.
Suddenly, he could wait no longer, his patience growing thin. He grabbed hold of the flimsy fabric of the bodice of her dress and tore it wide, letting the material fall loose around her waist.
She sucked in a shocked breath. “That was a beautiful dress,” she said, faintly admonishing, but she did not pull away from him, neither did she look as scandalized as she was attempting to sound.
No, her eyes were dark, filled with desire. He could see that she was as tested for control as he was. That she was as hungry for this as he was.
That he was not alone in his desire.
And that only made the monster inside him growl even louder.
“Yes,” he agreed. “It was a pretty dress. But your body, mi tesoro, is the most beautiful prize of all. Anything that gets in the way of that... I’m afraid I cannot allow it to be.”
As if to prove his point he grabbed hold of the lacy bra that covered her breasts, concealed them from his view, and he tore it away from her body, as well, leaving those high, perfect breasts exposed to him.
He lowered his head, taking one perfect nipple between his lips and sucking hard. He was starving for her. And it did not matter that he had been with her every night that week. It did not matter that he had sated himself on her whenever he desired since that first night he’d had her. It was as if it had been years. As if he had been kept from her.
Perhaps it was simply that she was his wife now. No matter that neither of them intended for it to be permanent. Perhaps it had changed things somehow. Made him more possessive. Made all of this somehow more.
It seemed impossible, and yet, with all that heat and fire pounding through his body, he wondered. If somehow, she truly had become part of his flesh as they had spoken those words to one another at that altar. If somehow, there was a sacred bond here that could not be manipulated, that could not be fooled.
He dismissed those thoughts as he ripped the dress the rest of the way from her body, and took her panties with it, leaving her beautiful, golden form entirely exposed to him.
He examined those slim, perfect curves, her taut, toned belly, her womanly hips and shapely thighs. That glorious thatch of dark curls between them.
She was beautiful. A work of art. And she was his. All his.
He was still fully dressed, still wearing the suit he had worn to the wedding, and he quite liked that. This woman, completely naked before him while he remained fully clothed. It made him feel powerful. Gave him some semblance of control in the moment.
And it also made him hungry for more. To expose her to an even greater degree, to exert that power.
To do something to deal with that yawning, endless ache in his chest, and the rest of his body.
“You are mine,” he said, words coming out on a growl. He picked her up, her lithe form soft and warm in his arms. “You are mine, and no other man’s. Is that clear?”
“Yes,”