Page 72 of No Sweeter Poison

He’s been gone since the day before yesterday and didn’t tell me where he was going. I assume it was for one of his secret mafia things and if that’s the case, I’d rather live in blissful ignorance. He was a criminal long before I got here and he’ll continue to be one long after I’m gone.

I try not to think about the last part too much.

When he breaks the kiss it’s too soon and I catch him by the lapels of his shirt, drawing him near. Alejandro brushes his lips against mine but pulls away again. “I have to go. I just wanted to see you before I left.”

“Again? Why?” My jaw tightens before I can let anything else slip.

He traces the shape of my mouth with his thumb. The touch is more intimate than I like or should allow but I can’t bring myself to pull away. “I have something to do at El Rey.”

Ah…the infamous El Rey meeting. I’ve been hearing whispers about it since what happened almost three weeks ago. Last Saturday after we cut a cake for Diego’s birthday, I was bringing dishes to the kitchen when I overheard Alejandro and Lettie talking. Apparently, the meeting was originally intended for a week after the incident but they couldn’t get all the families to agree on a time and place. Add that in with Alejandro’s leg injury, Lettie didn’t think it was a good idea for him to appear weak. He limped for about two weeks until the graze on his leg finally healed. Now most of the bruises are gone and the cuts have faded. All that’s left is the broken rib on his left side. Sometimes at night I can hear it when he struggles to breathe.

The politics of what Alejandro and his family do is a bit too complicated for me to understand, especially with just the bits and pieces I’ve overheard. From what I’ve gathered thus far, this meeting has to do with the attempt on his life and it’s important.

“Let me go with you—”

He’s shaking his head before I even get the words out. “No. I want you here, where you’re safe.”

“How safe will I be if you take half the guards in this house with you? Diego and Lettie are going to want to go and they’ll take Beni, Dimitrio, and Oscar with them. And the three of them have their people and it’ll probably be me, Manuel, Pedro, and Rodrigo. In a house this big.”

His jaw tightens as if to argue but I can tell he knows I’ve made a valid point. Whatever’s going on tonight is huge and he won’t want to be at El Rey with his family unprotected. But he also can’t leave me in the villa alone which means he’ll either have to split his security force or take me with him.

“This is serious, Dee. I can’t do what I need to do and worry about you getting into some stranger’s car—”

I shake my head. “I promise, I’ll behave. Assign me a babysitter and I’ll stick to them like glitter on glue.”

He cuts me a look. “This isn’t funny.”

“It was a little funny. Get it? Babysitter? Glitter and glue?” I poke his side and try to pull a smile from him.

“That terrible joke alone is enough to leave you home.”

“Not even if a promise to be good?” I hook my fingers through his belt loops and pull him closer. I climb onto his lap and kiss my way across his jaw. “Pleaseee? I’ll be a very good girl.”

Morbid curiosity and a sick need to be glued to his hip at all hours of the day are my main motivations for going tonight. That, and I suffer from this crippling fear that at any moment, someone could put a bullet through the back of his head.

His hands skim my bare thighs and slide under my dress. “Dahlia…” His voice is tight with restraint. “We’re outside.”

In broad daylight, no less.

I roll my hips forward and rock against him; he’s hard in seconds. God, men are so weak.

Let’s see how long it takes him to fuck me against this lounge chair.

“I promise I’ll behave.” I run my fingers through his hair, press my mouth against the shell of his ear as I grind against his erection. “And if I don’t, then you can punish me when we get home.”

He flips me onto my back in seconds.

His kiss is vicious and hungry and while he palms my breast through the fabric of my dress, I reach between us and unbuckle his belt. My fingers wrap around the hard length of him, his impressive size still a bit daunting in the beginning. As he kisses and sucks the tops of my breasts, his fingers still and a crease forms between his dark brows. I almost laugh when he reaches into my bra and pulls out a condom.

“Lettie told me you were coming home today.” I take it from him and rip the wrapper with my teeth. “I wanted to be ready. Just in case.”

“Just in case…” he grumbles, momentarily distracted as I roll the condom on. He hisses through his teeth. “You’re fucking poison for a man, did you know that?”

I smile against his lips. “The sweetest kind.”

He kisses me while he fucks me and each harsh thrust of his hips against mine send my eyes rolling to the back of my head. I cry out and he covers my mouth with his hand while the other grips my hip so tightly his nails dig into my skin. He rams down to the hilt, pulls out, plunges again, his strokes long and deep, reaching places inside me I didn’t even know existed. My back arches to meet him and I savor every ounce of pleasure mixed with pain.

I’m terrified this flimsy lounge chair is going to give out beneath us. Even if it does, I doubt it’ll stop him. He fucks me like a mad man, hips moving quickly, fingers stroking my clit until tears glide down the sides of my face. At one point, he lifts my leg over his shoulder in a position I had no idea I could stretch far enough for. Then he’s inside me again, even deeper before, and my entire body is shaking when the last stroke of his fingers against my clit sends me spiraling into an earth-shattering climax.