Page 65 of Bad Blood

Her fork clatters back to her bowl. “This is officially the worst week of my life,” she mutters, “and there are still six more days to go.”

As far as she knows…“You’ll live.”

“I need to breathe, Santi,” she pleads. “Can’t you at least try giving me an inch?”

I flash a salacious smile. “I’d give you all ten, but I doubt you could handle it.”

“God, you’re such an arrogant…” The next thing I know, I’m wearing a fistful of spaghetti—the tomato sauce spreading like blood stains all over my Tom Ford dress shirt.

No one speaks until the spaghetti finally loses its traction on the eight-hundred-dollar material and hits the tiles by my feet with asplat.

“You really shouldn’t have done that,” I say slowly.

Thalia’s dark eyes sparkle with triumph. “Why? What are you going to do about it? Force me to marry you? Too late, you already—”

She shuts up pretty fucking quick when a fistful of my own spaghetti hits the front of her white T-shirt.

“You’re a bastard,” she hisses.

“And you’re a spoiled Colombianprincesa,” I snarl.

“At least when I marry for real, I won’t have to blackmail my fiancé up the aisle!”

“You’re not going anywhere,mi amata,” I growl, an unfamiliar emotion rising up inside me as I circle the island to reach her like I’m an animal stalking my next meal. “When this week is over, you’ll be begging me for a key to the Carrera castle.”

“Stop calling me that! I’m not yourbelovedanything. In fact, when this week is over, you’ll be beggingme to leave!” She seals the promise with a flick of her middle finger before swiping the lingering strands of spaghetti off her chest—a move that leaves a wet smear across her breasts, turning her T-shirt transparent. I can see the hard outline of her nipples beneath, but it’s nowhere nearly as hard as my dick is right now. “I’ll never forgive you for what you made me do today!”

“I don’t remember asking for your fucking forgiveness!”

“You’re a cruel, heartless, murdering—”

“You’re running out of words there,wife.” I crowd her up against the counter, and she shoves both palms into the mess on my chest, freezing as I emit another low growl.

She opens her mouth, and I’m not sure if it’s to scream, apologize, or hurl another fucking insult, but my self-control has heard enough. Her warmth, her scent, her spirit…It’s all too damn much.

Fisting the ends of her long hair, I yank her head back and crash my mouth onto hers before I can talk myself out of it.

I feel her softness turn to stone, and then her fingers become twisting vines in my hair. But when I drive my tongue past her lips...? That’s when shit gets really messy.

“Fuck…Me vuelves loco.” Hooking my arms underneath her thighs, I hoist her onto the counter and roughly part her legs.

“Say it in English,” she gasps out.

“You make me crazy, Thalia. So fucking crazy.”

I slide a trail of heat to her breast, feeling her pounding heart beneath my fingertips as she grinds against my dick. “Did you do this on purpose,pequeña seductora? Parade around my penthouse in those shorts just to tempt me?”

“No… I…. Oh God…”

“There’s no God, here,mi amada. He left my life the day your family entered it.” I feel her reaching out to touch me again, so I pin her hands to the counter, resisting the urge to sink my teeth into her pouty lower lip just to taste the flavor of Santiago blood.

“You like to break rules, don’t you?” Smirking down at her, I feel her flinch. With just one kiss, she’s mine for the taking. “Lift your hips. I want to know if your pussy feels as good as the rest of you.”

I catch the beat of her hesitation before she complies, and then I’m ripping denim down her long legs. Dragging her to the edge of the counter, I tug the crotch of her panties to one side and rest my middle finger against the entrance to her soaking-wet pussy.

Wet for me, and only me.

This is wrong.