The Muscle Part Three (5 page)

H
e’d waited
outside the door at first. Wanting to give her time and space. But then he’d heard crashing from inside the room, the rip of canvas and the sound of wooden stretchers hitting the wall. His heart had about burst into pieces when he’d seen her, hair wild, eyes blank, destroying the work she’d poured her heart and soul into while Diego had tried to break her.

He’d never seen Isabel lose her cool. He’d seen her sad, even a little indignant, stubborn. But he’d never seen her lose sight of herself, lose her composure so completely that he might not have recognized her if not for the deep brown eyes he’d stared into time and again while he’d joined his body to hers.

He kept ahold of her hand, still raised over her head with the little knife, like she wasn’t sure yet if she wanted to give it up. Her back rose and fell against his chest, her breathing as labored as if she’d been running a marathon. Rage took a lot out of you. It could consume you, eat you alive if you let it.

Isabel was too good for that. She had already sacrificed too much in Diego’s name. She deserved a few minutes of abandon, but this wasn’t the kind of abandon that would do her any good.

He spun her in his arms and pulled her body tight against his. Her hips nestled tight against him, and his cock immediately responded, hardening and lengthening inside his jeans. She was looking at him with wild eyes, the knife still raised in the air, almost like she wanted to plunge it into him.

But he wasn’t afraid of her. She wouldn’t hurt him. She wouldn’t hurt anyone. He wasn’t even sure she would hurt Diego if given the chance. She was still breathing hard, her full lips parted as she stared up at him, daring him to stop her.

He didn’t spend too much time thinking about it before he crushed his lips against hers, taking her face in his hands and tipping her head so he could taste every inch of her mouth. She froze for a couple of seconds, and then he heard the knife clatter to the floor as she started pulling at his clothes, her tongue charting new courses in his mouth as she drank him in, her hands everywhere on his body all at once.

It wasn’t the time for words. He wanted to ease her pain, to bring her back to herself and the person she would need to be to get to the other side of this. To be there for Sofia.

He ripped her blouse off her body, the buttons falling soundlessly to the floor as he tossed aside the silk, and lowered his head to her bra, freeing her breasts from the constraints of the purple lace and covering one of her dusty pink nipples with his mouth.

She moaned, tipping her head back, still clinging to him. There was no gentleness to it. Not this time. They were all hands and mouth and fingers and bodies, frantic in their need to feel skin on skin, heat on heat.

He sucked on the nipple while he rolled the other one between his thumb and index finger. Her fingers plunged into his hair as he unzipped her skirt, letting it fall to the floor. He resisted the urge to stand back, to take in the body that set him on fire, the curves that he’d memorized with all the attention of a cartographer mapping a new land.

She needed his mouth and his hands and his cock — and she needed them now. She needed to forget, to lose herself in the passion that was always a guarantee when they were naked together. And he needed it, too. Needed to stop thinking about all the things he could have done differently to keep Isabel and Sofia safe. Needed to stop second-guessing himself so he could focus on getting Sofia back.

They needed each other. Needed the reminder of who they were when they were together, needed to find their piece in the puzzle by fitting themselves to each other’s bodies in a way that only they could do.

He moved his mouth up her throat, nipping at the delicate skin near her ear before ravaging her mouth. Then he spoke against her lips.

“Lay down,” he commanded.

She did, pulling him to the floor with her as she tore at his jeans, reached inside his boxer briefs to take his rigid length in her palm.

“Please,” she gasped. “I need you.”

“I know what you need, sweetheart. Don’t you worry.”

He ripped off her panties, then pushed her upper body back onto the floor and spread her legs with his hands. Her sex was glistening and swollen, the thick cream of her desire waiting to ease his way into her channel. He was going to taste it. He was going to bury his face in her pussy until she screamed. Until the only thing she could think about was his tongue on her clit, his fingers fucking her, the orgasm that would obliterate all her pain and fear.

He lay his hand against the heat of her center, then stroked her slick folds with his thumb, watching the way she got even wetter while he worked her open, spreading her lips so he could see the gloriously pink perfection of her pussy, the engorged tissue that told him she was already ready for him, the delicate clit straining upward for its turn with his fingers.

She was moving her hips now, making circles against his hand, working herself toward the release she craved.

“That’s right, sweetheart,” he said. “Get it. Take what you want.”

“Stop talking,” she said. “I want your mouth on me. Now.”

The command in her tone sent a shot of adrenaline straight to the tip of his cock. He pulsed with his need to own her, to blot out every thought but her and the fire they made with their bodies. But it wasn’t time for that yet.

Instead he got comfortable between her soft, velvety thighs and spread her wide, then flicked his tongue against her clit just enough to make her lift her hips in a silent request for more. He repeated the action a couple of times — right up until she reached down, grabbed a fistful of his hair, and pulled his mouth toward her raised hips.

Her demand made him hot, and he moved his head back and forth while he sunk his tongue into her, wanting to occupy every bit of her swollen pussy. He hooked his hands around her thighs and buried his face in her moist heat, her musky scent making his cock pulse with the need to sink into her.

She still had a hold of his hair, gyrating her hips against his tongue, but he wasn’t anywhere near complaining. Her lack of inhibition only made him hotter, and he lapped at her clit before sucking it up into his mouth and sliding two fingers inside her.

She gasped, bucking under his mouth, but he held onto her tighter with one hand while he fucked her with his fingers and sucked on her clit, keeping up a rhythmic motion that had her moving against him in perfect time as her body spun toward the oblivion she needed.

“Oh god, Luca…” It was a moan, low in her throat. The kind of moan that told him she was out of her mind, that there was no room left for anything but the feel of her body threatening to come apart under his mouth, the instinct to move faster toward the moment of impact that would allow her to burst into a million tiny pieces. “I’m going to come.”

They were the magic words, and he fought against his own desire to raise himself over her body and bury himself to the hilt inside her, to fuck her like an animal until neither of them remembered anything but the feel of their bodies moving in unison, the release of her exploding around him as he poured his come into her.

He covered her clit with his mouth, lapping at everything — the little nub, her swollen lips, the secret crease at her center that promised him paradise — all at once as he plunged his fingers inside her, pressing against her G-spot until her hips rose off the floor, tightening as she clenched around him, shuddering against his mouth and fingers as the contractions wracked her body in a series of waves, never ending swells that just kept breaking and breaking until she finally lay back, letting her body go limp, her hands still in his hair.

But he was just getting started.

He moved over her body and leaned down to kiss her. He wanted to remind her that he was there. That this was them, and everything they did together was beautiful.

Then he flipped her onto her stomach and raised her ass in the air, spreading her thighs apart so he could see every contour of her dripping pussy, slick and waiting for his cock.

He rubbed the perfect mound of her ass, then gave a little swat to the lips exposed between her thighs. She yipped a little, and just when he was about to ask if it hurt, she spread her thighs farther apart and pressed back toward him. The motion told him all he needed to know.

He leaned his face down by her ass and licked the dripping juices from her pussy. She moaned, then leaned back even further. He positioned himself at her entrance, almost shaking with his need for her. The combination of her demand for him — somehow sexier for all her inexperience — and her willingness to take everything he was dishing out made his cock throb, almost painful with pent up desire.

“I’m going to fuck you like you’ve never been fucked before, Isabel,” he said. “I’m going to make you forget about everything but my cock inside you.”

“Yes,” she gasped. “Make me forget.”

He rubbed his thick tip against her entrance, letting his shaft slide along the dewy petals. When he couldn’t stand it anymore, he grabbed ahold of her hips and pulled her back toward him at the same time he drove into her, burying himself as far inside her as her tightness would allow.

She cried out, and he stayed in position a few seconds, let her stretch to accommodate him as he sunk another quarter inch inside her. The feel of her pussy opening for him was heaven. She was tight — so tight he could feel her walls clenching around him every time he moved — but she was also blooming around his cock, opening up, welcoming him deeper.

When he was so far inside her his balls were tight against her ass, he pulled out slowly, letting her feel every inch of him on the way out, stopping when just his tip was inside her before plunging into her hard and fast again. He growled, then dragged his cock out of her and thrust inside her again, establishing a rhythm that she matched by leaning into his thrusts, pushing her ass against him, making sure he occupied every inch of her.

He arched around her body, took hold of her lush breasts and squeezed. “Play with your clit, honey,” he said. “We’ll make you come together.”

She didn’t hesitate before reaching between her legs, and he felt a new rush of heat around his cock as she stroked herself. He pumped her hard, pinching her nipples between his fingers as he drove into her again and again, harder and faster until they were both in a frenzy, Isabel’s long hair streaming down her sweat-slicked back as she coaxed herself to orgasm.

She was close, clenching down on him hard, little gasps emerging from her mouth each time he drove into her.

“You’re going to come for me again, aren’t you, baby?” he asked, pulling her back by her hips until he was buried to the balls, his head slammed against her cervix.

“Yes!” she gasped. He knew she was stroking herself, and the image of it, the idea of watching her stroke the warmth between her thighs, tease the little seed of her clit, sent a fresh wave of desire whipping through his body. “Come with me,” she said. “I want you to spill it inside me.”

The words, combined with the pounding of their bodies, the frenzied motion of heir abandon, sent him over the edge and he grabbed her hips tight as he released his semen into her in a hot spurt of ecstasy, the light behind his eyes blinding him to everything but sensation — the heat of her enveloping him, gripping him like a vice while her body shuddered around him, wrapping him in a heat that was so unbearable it was pain made pleasure.

They rode the waves of their orgasm together, him thrusting into her while she slammed back against his cock, milking him of every drop until he was empty of everything but her.

“
T
his is
the one I’m talking about,” Luca said, turning his computer around and pointing to the screen. “Seaboard. Two weeks.”

They were in the media room later that night, going over the spread sheets that Luca had revisited in an attempt to figure out the time and place of Diego’s traitorous shipment. She and Luca had lain on the studio floor for a long time after they made love, Luca stroking her hair, saying nothing. She had been glad. She didn’t want to talk anymore about Sofia or Diego — not unless it was going to take them closer to saving her sister. Talk was just that — talk. It didn’t change anything. They needed action, and every second they spent rehashing how pissed off and scared they were was a second they weren’t trying to find out where Sofia was being kept, or how they could save her.

She looked at Luca now, big arms folded over his muscled chest, and was surprised to feel desire surge through her blood stream. It had only been a few hours since he’d fucked her into oblivion, but she was finally starting to realize that it didn’t matter.

She would always want him.

He’d done exactly the right thing in coming to her. She’d been out of her mind, tearing into the canvases like a rabid animal, trying to exorcise her fear and anger by destroying that which she held most dear. It frightened her to realize that in those moments, she hadn’t been unlike Diego, trying to soothe her pain with destruction.

But Luca had brought her back to herself, had reminded her who she was with the strength of his arms around her, the power of his body inside hers. She was never more herself than she was with him. Never more uninhibited, less self-conscious. She hadn’t needed his words then. She’d needed his body moving with hers, his mouth on her slippery heat, the orgasms that obliterated the thought of anything else. It was a kind of reset button, and when she’d finally opened her eyes to the studio ceiling, Luca’s hands running through her hair, she’d felt like herself again.

Elia leaned in while Marco narrowed his eyes. Isabel looked at the list of dates and places with a critical eye, trying to figure out why this one would be different than the others.

“How do we know that’s the one?” Elia asked, voicing her question.

Luca leaned back. “We don’t. Not for sure. But this is the only one within the next two weeks, and it’s the only one coming into the Seaboard terminal.”

Marco lifted an eyebrow. “So?”

“So all of Diego’s other shipments have come in through the South Miami or Pomtoc terminals. And Seaboard is the terminal Sanchez uses.”

“If Diego really is pilfering Sanchez’s source, it makes sense that it would come into the same terminal Sanchez has used in the past,” Isabel murmured.

She didn’t know a ton about the import/export business, but she knew from listening to Diego that only three companies controlled the Port of Miami. The terminal operators had lease agreements with the port, and anything that came into or out of the city did so under the authority of one of them.

“Exactly.”

“Still no guarantee,” Elia said.

Luca nodded. “True. But it’s all we have. We need to get to Diego before Sanchez does.”

“What if he doesn’t show?” Marco asked. “What if Eduardo or one of his other flunkies comes to supervise the arrival of the shipment instead?”

“Then we take Eduardo,” Luca said, his voice threaded with steel. “And we do whatever has to be done to get him to talk.”

“If Fuentes is undermining Sanchez with this buy, he’s not going to come alone or send one man to oversee the delivery,” Elia said.

“I know,” Luca said. “Which is why we’re going to need a couple more men — and a lot more guns.”

The determination in his eyes almost tricked Isabel into believing they had nothing to fear. That they would intercept the shipment, force Diego to hand over Sofia, and all would be well. But she knew Diego. And he wasn’t going to make it easy.