The devil had a name—Cristiano de la Rosa—but from this day forward, I would call him husband.
The cozy church where I’d spent Sunday mornings over a prayer book with my parents stood still and quiet except for the echo of broken promises and ripped lace. Mid-day, sunlight flooded the pews around us, but only candlelight touched the darkened aisle.
In a sharp, tailored suit, my new husband stood before me, waiting for me to finish stripping off my wedding gown so he could thoroughly claim ownership before we’d even left the church.
Cristiano had forced my hand in marriage, and the man I’d envisioned spending my life with had agreed to it. Had tricked me into it.
“My new bride is shy.” Cristiano smiled tightly, finding pleasure in the designation, likely just because he’d imposed it on me. “But I only required my brother meet two terms to validate this arrangement, and you’ve already broken one.”
Cristiano had expected me to come to him a virgin, but Diego hadn’t delivered me that way. The implication was clear—would I break the second term, too? I couldn’t. Cristiano had already invited me to walk away from all of this, but there would be a price for that, and the people I loved would pay it.
Consummate the marriage, or the Maldonado cartel would obliterate all of us.
“I’d hoped our first time might be different,” I said, grasping for a way to change an inevitable outcome. He’d asked me to marry him when he could’ve dragged me down the aisle. He’d respected the ceremony, lassoing us in a show for our few onlookers. If there was a shred of humanity within him, I had to try to tap into it.
“As had I.” He tilted his head, his eyes scanning my front, as if I was a puzzle to be solved. “But you chose to give your virginity to another. I was prepared to take you to bed and handle you gently, but it seems I no longer have a need for that.” He stepped toward me, six-foot-five inches of suited muscle and dark beauty with a clean, masculine scent. “You have been thoroughly broken in . . . haven’t you?”
I shivered as I slipped one arm through the wedding dress, mourning the beautiful, ruined lace my mother had worn to wed my father. “No,” I whispered.
One thick eyebrow arched. “I’m sorry?”
“I haven’t,” I insisted. “Diego and I did it once. He was gentle. I’m not . . .”
“Broken?” he suggested. “Like a wild horse.”
I turned away from his penetrating gaze as his black eyes danced. To sully the wedding altar, to slap God in the face, to force Diego to endure my ruination from the other side of the door—it was what I’d sold Cristiano in exchange for our lives. Not just mine, but my father’s, Diego’s, and anyone else close to the Cruz cartel. Men who’d protected my family, who’d raised families under my father, and who’d helped raise me after my mother’s death.
I drew my other arm through its sleeve and pushed my dress down until it pooled at my feet.
Cristiano wet his lips, his eyes drifting to the ivory lingerie I’d worn for a wedding night I’d planned to share with Diego. Diego and I had made love, but tonight, I’d been ready to give in to the passion we’d been forced to bridle for years. How naïve.
Cristiano dipped his head. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought it was in reverence. “Beautiful.”
I shifted from one heel to the other. “You’ve seen me in my underwear before.”
“In your bathroom, after the warehouse fire.” He nodded, his angular jaw firming. “But I didn’t let myself look at you this way. All I’d have seen was what I couldn’t have.” His broad chest expanded with an inhale as he raised his chin. “Now, all I see is everything I own. Every last inch of you, my darling.”
My heart skipped. We’d been married mere minutes, yet he acted as if I was his possession. “Just because we’re married doesn’t make this consensual.”
“As I’ve said before, you always have a choice. You can walk out of this church now and into my brother’s arms. I’d ask you to stay, but I wouldn’t force you.”
As irritation flickered in me for his word play, I retorted, “But you would allow a rival cartel to exact revenge for the money Diego lost them.”
“It cost me a great deal to call them off. More than Diego can ever repay.” Cristiano shook out his wrist and adjusted his steel watch without breaking eye contact. “But as long as I have you, his debt is forgiven, and they won’t lay a finger on you or anyone you love.”
His solid footsteps resounded through the pews as he circled me and stopped at my back. Perhaps he’d rip off my underwear the way he had my dress. I didn’t care—unlike my mother’s gown, they were worth nothing.
He parted my hair, drew it forward over my shoulders, and spread a hand against my bare upper back. “Not until this moment have I allowed myself to want you.”
I swallowed dryly. Something new had entered his voice. Longing. Desperation. As if he’d been in need of something I was now offering. I waited for him to push me down, bend me over a pew, and conquer.
“How was he with you?” Cristiano asked quietly. “Did my brother destroy you, or did he leave me the pleasure of that task?”
“Diego was . . .” Words to describe the man I loved, once at the tip of my tongue, didn’t come as easily now. He had betrayed me, but how thoroughly? If he’d been willing to trade me, was there a chance he’d also taken my virginity knowing what was in store for me? He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. Only a monster would do that, and the de la Rosa family already had enough of those. I’d known Diego practically my whole life, and I’d know if he was that evil. “He was sweet and caring,” I continued. Even if doubt entered my memory of that night, I couldn’t let Cristiano see that. Weakness was one thing I could no longer afford to show around him. “At least I’ll know that kindness once in my lifetime, and I will cling to that memory every time I’m with you.”
Cristiano chuckled deeply and lowered his mouth to my ear. “I look forward to watching you try. Your lips will know one word when I’m inside you—my name—and you’ll feel only one thing—the pleasure I’m giving you.”
I shut my eyes as the inevitable closed in. “Please make this quick.”
“Never.” Starting at my shoulder blade, he slid a finger up under my bra strap. “Quick is not the way to fuck a woman like you, at least not until after I’ve thoroughly explored you.”
I drew a small breath at his bluntness. What kind of torture would it be to have such a controlled, dangerous man explore me with his full attention? Sweet or cruel? A mix of both, I guessed. That wasn’t the terrifying part, though. By the tone of his voice, he intended for me to enjoy my undoing.
He pressed his hands to my shoulders. “Stay here,” he said before walking away.
I stared down the aisle toward the discarded pillows where we’d kneeled, which were backdropped by paneled, stained-glass saints. Our Lady of Guadalupe silently stared at me. I’d never given her my bouquet in exchange for her blessing of our union, but then, we didn’t deserve it.
Some of the candles had gone out, likely with the way everyone had rushed out of the building with Cristiano’s command to leave. Was Diego envisioning Cristiano shredding my clothing at this moment? The merciless way he’d use me? The fervor with which Cristiano had promised to take me after our first kiss as man and wife?
I hoped he was, and that each and every one of Diego’s thoughts tortured him.
Any suffering he endured would never match my own.
This was his fault.
Cristiano’s footsteps returned, and with barely a touch at my back, my bra popped open. He slid it off, dropping it on the ground. We were starting. My heart beat in my stomach as I anticipated his callused palms on my skin.
“Is quick really what you want? For me to tear through you hard and fast?” His voice deepened with unmistakable lust. “Or would you prefer I draw it out? Make you enjoy it? Crave it? What would be worse?”
I shuddered despite the warmth of the church. To enjoy it would be a betrayal to myself—a crime I had a feeling I’d commit. Already, my nipples stuck straight out, tingling in anticipation of his hands. Every time he touched me, my body responded—from our dance at the costume ball to his wandering fingers as he’d bandaged up my feet after the warehouse fire. But no matter the draw that existed between us, I would never admit to craving it. I’d sure as hell never ask for it.
What would be worse? I could comprehend pain, resistance, and hatred in a moment like this.
But to be pleasured by the devil and enjoy it? That felt like the highest sin.
“Get it over with,” I said.
“I only ask out of curiosity,” he said, pressing his hand to my back and guiding me forward. “It won’t change the course of things. Now, my little butterfly, brace yourself on the pew.”
I inhaled deeply, bent forward, and gripped the lip with both hands, offering my backside to him.
“What a sight,” he said. “My imagination is getting the better of me. Maybe if you ask nicely, I’ll sodomize you this way sometime.”
Reflexively, I clenched my cheeks. I’d be naïve to think he had any limits, but my mind hadn’t yet wandered to the sordid details. He made it sound as filthy as possible, so different than I’d ever heard.
Considering how he might use me, might violate me in such a forbidden place—my breath came short. It was what he wanted, to inspire fear. Being at his mercy in the most vulnerable ways possible, surrendering to him, was like falling at the feet of a hungry beast.
My body answered the thought with a sharp but pleasurable pang somewhere in my depths. Oh, God. What was wrong with me?
“I suspect you’ll even like the feeling of surrender,” he’d said to me on the horse days earlier.
Could he have been right? Maybe I had the same dark nature inside me that he did, a craving to be bent to a man’s will. But I wasn’t an animal. I wouldn’t allow myself to enjoy it just because it satisfied some carnal desire.
His first touch came as a grip around my ankle. “Lift your foot,” he said.
I looked down between us and did as he said. Kneeling behind me, he held a black lace garment in his hands. “What is that?” I asked.
“Step into it,” he instructed, waiting until I did. “Now the other foot.”
He stood, sliding a long, floor-length dress up my body. The skirt fell to the ground with a small chapel train, almost like a wedding gown itself. “You’re dressing me?” I asked.
“Regretfully.”
“But . . .?”
He waited. I couldn’t bring myself to finish the sentence. He’d sworn to defile me. Why wasn’t he?
“We’ll get to that,” he said, reading my mind. “I quite like the idea of your thoughts running wild with all the things I’ll do to you tonight—mine will be doing the same. By the time I put my hands on you, I’ll have violated your sweet body every which way in my fantasies.”
Another throb between my legs, harder this time. To cancel out my body’s traitorous reaction, I challenged him. “You told me once you have no need to force a woman,” I said.
“I don’t.” He zipped up the dress. “But, when I’m through with you, any shred of innocence, any scrap of the girl you were, will be gone—and that’s a pretty thorough violation if you ask me.”
“Why would you want that?”
“Because you’re no longer someone’s sweet, pure, naïve princesa. You don’t live in the ivory tower anymore. You own it. You’re going to learn to rule from it, because that’s what it means to be Calavera royalty. And this dress is far more suitable for a queen.”
Chills spread over my body with the threat and promise that I was one of them now. A Calavera. Like a crown, black lace turned me from eager bride to the cartel’s first lady. The intricate bodice molded to my chest and waist, and the wide neckline stopped at the top of each shoulder, nearly baring them.
From behind, Cristiano skimmed his hands down the fabric clinging to my breasts and settled them at my waist. “The thought of nothing but lace between us all night is enough to drive me mad.” Grit hardened his words, and the rawness in his voice vibrated in places that shamed me. “But I don’t want any other men lusting after you. Perhaps I should warn them before we arrive that should their gazes linger, I will carve out their eyeballs.”
“What men?” My breath came faster with his suggestive touch and graphic threats. “Arrive where?”
“I suspect they already know.” Cristiano continued his thought, pressing his hips against my lower back and announcing his need. “After the trouble I’ve gone through to get you, and the sacrifices I’ve made, they won’t question that what’s mine is mine.”
I was helpless in his grip, his large hands tightening around my waist, his erection strong against my back. Could there exist a certain kind of contentment in giving myself over to the inevitable? In submitting to a man who was so strong and sure of himself and his plans for me? By the way his command made my heart race, I suspected there was some beauty to be found in resignation.
But I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
I couldn’t afford to remember that there was a time when I’d felt safe with him. Even eleven years earlier, as a scared little girl who’d walked in on Cristiano standing over my mother’s dead body, I’d found an odd and unexpected sense of comfort in his arms later, as he’d carried me down into a pitch-black tunnel.
“You say what’s yours is yours,” I echoed back to him. “But I’ve heard the rumors about your men. Will you let them touch me? Use me? Tell me now so I know what to expect—do I belong to you or to the Calavera cartel?”
He ran one palm up my chest, his skin warm on mine, and loosely wrapped it around my throat. “Whatever happens, mark my words—you will love it.”
No. The idea of serving multiple men made me want to run more than anything had up until now. And the suggestion that I’d enjoy it? Equally obscene and horrifying.
“I’m going to let go of you now. If I don’t, I’ll take you in God’s house, and I may not be able to stop until dawn breaks.”
He released me, leaving me breathless and confused. My legs shook as I stooped to gather my pile of things.
“Leave it all,” he said. “My men will discard it.”
I picked up the precious ivory lace of my abandoned wedding dress, running my bare fingernail over the long rip. “I want to bring it.”
“You won’t need it where we’re going. Max already put your bags in the car.”
“It was my mother’s,” I said quietly.
I looked up at him as I had eleven years earlier when he’d stood over her as she’d bled out. Over me. With blood on his pants and a gun in his hand. I remembered him as the most vicious yet protective man in my world.
His power and strength had only multiplied since then.
Pressing his lips into a line, he crouched and took the fabric from my hands. After gathering it and my bra into his arms, he stood. “Come.”
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Home.”