Page 66 of Bad Blood

She’s a fucking Santiago.

Less than an hour ago, I was telling RJ, I’d never touch her.

My hate is all twisted up. I feel it more for myself than I do for her right now.

“Beg me to finger fuck you, Thalia Carrera,” I demand, looming over her like the devil I am.

“W-what?” Her eyelids flicker open in surprise.

“Beg me,mipequeña seductora.”

“Okay then, fuck me,” she whispers.

I offer her a smile with the warmth of a sheet of black ice, and then I drive my finger deep inside her, right up to the knuckle.

She opens up wider—letting out a helpless moan as I swipe her needy clit with my thumb.

“Now, beg me to make you come.”

As I say it, I start pumping in and out, waiting for her words to become a triumphant melody to my ears.

“No.”

I pause, feeling her soft muscles pulling me in deeper. “No?”

She’s so fucking close already. But if she refuses to submit to me, I’ll make us both suffer.

Fisting her hair again, I hold her head prisoner as I slide my finger out of her tight heat and smear her desire for me across her lips.

“W-why did you stop?” she rasps in confusion.

“Because, despite what’s written on a piece of paper, you’re still a Santiago, Thalia,” I murmur, leaning in extra close to deliver my truth. “And if you won’t beg for it from a Carrera, then I’m not fucking interested.”

Running my tongue across the seam of her mouth, I taste her addictive sweetness before I’m pushing her away.

“Pleasant dreams,” I say, turning on my heel and swinging a goddamn hammer into her guilt machine.

For one brief moment, I touched her light. I imagined another version of Camelot.

Then I saw it for what it really was—a beautiful bullet in a spinning chamber.

I lost sight of what’s important.

I lost sight of the end game.

I will never lose control like that with her again.

Chapter Twenty

Thalia

Shame isa cloth held tight across your face as you’re splashed with cold cruelty. Pride is the air you try desperately to suck back into your lungs, even when it’s an elusive prize.

An hour later, I still haven’t moved from the kitchen counter. I know what and who I am now. I’m one of Santi Carrera’s torture victims, but instead of missing fingers, my scars are on the inside, like survival lines scratched into a prison wall.

The seconds tick.

I think I’ve forgotten how to move.