Page 59 of Blood Diamond
He would do so brutally, biting me hard enough to draw blood.I’m the only man who can taste you like this,he’d say.
Even if he were working with Jaguar, he could never stomach such a direct insult. Never. He would storm out of hiding and do more than leave dead butterflies for me to find. He would punish me.
And I doubt Jaguar would do so in full view of witnesses if he knew the man. Rather than pull away, he invites me in, matching the slow, sensual movements of my mouth in his own twisted rhythm.
I stiffen.This isn’t right.
The second I do, he draws back first and runs his lips from my jaw to my ear. “Ah… You think I don’t see what you’re doing?” he asks me, his voice a grated rasp. “Oh, Lupe, you yourself claimed that I am smarter than I let on. If a woman who shies at the idea of fucking a man in front of his boys kisses him so openly, affection isn’t what she’s after. She wants to prove a point. I’ll let it slide this one time, but if you suspect me of something, you ask me outright.Claro?” he adds, before I can turn away. “If you truly want to continue this conversation, go wait for me in my suite like a good girl. Run along. I will join you shortly.”
My face heats at his dismissive tone, but there’s another facet to his request that I don’t miss. A carefully concealed promise for answers. He saw this ruse for what it was. Perhaps he knows Diego after all, and is unwilling to provoke him outright? Will he tell me if I ask?
Or…
Perhaps in his suite, Diego himself will be waiting for me.
I tell myself that hope isn’t what makes me climb off Jaguar and stagger toward the house. Relief is. Finally, we can end this chase here, and I will know for sure whether or not the monster from my nightmares has returned.
If he has, I can face him. I’m ready.
Or not. My steps falter as I mount the stairs inside the air-conditioned villa and near the entrance to Jaguar’s private suite. My knees buckle, my breaths shallow. I can’t even reach for the doorknob, and I sense—as quiet as ever—Horatio is lurking down the hallway, watching me.
Even if it makes me a coward to hesitate, I don’t care. If Diego is here… What will I even say to him after all this time? Will I even get the chance to?
After all, he’ll be after only one thing—revenge.
When it comes down to it, I don’t have a choice. As advancing footsteps come from the direction of the staircase, I open the door myself. If this is a trap, I won’t be blindsided by both men at once. I’ll face Diego alone. Only he is entitled to view my initial shock, after all.
As I enter the large lounge area that serves as the first part of Jaguar’s interconnected rooms, I find no one waiting for me. Neither is he in the bedroom or the office. A spacious bathroom serves as his lone potential hiding place, but when I tip-toe inside it on trembling legs, I find nothing but polished gray marble and a massive walk-in shower.
Despite the opulence he has on display for his cohorts, Jaguar prefers simplicity, it seems. Harsh colors and sleek modernity. Cold, crisp surroundings.
“I like how you think, Lupe,” the man himself remarks in a low rasp as he comes up behind me. “I, too, could use a nice shower.”
What feels like his hand nudges my hip, inching me inside so he can close the door behind us. Then he grabs my shoulders and steers me into the shower stall. There, he surprises me by finding the buttons of my borrowed shirt and undoing them one by one.
“I think you’re entitled to some pampering after what you’ve been through,” he tells me, his voice unnervingly soft. At the same time, I feel what must be his lips graze my throat in a terrifying caress. “Normally, I would have one of my harem women attend to you, but I don’t think you’d like that very much, would you? It seems you think they’re beneath you, Lupe.”
“I don’t,” I admit, staring straight ahead at the blank wall before me. “I know better than anyone what it means to be a kept woman. To both preen for and fear the man holding your leash.” Real bitterness leeches into my voice. I can’t help it.
“Ah, but Braulio kept you well compensated, chica. I’ve heard the rumors. The houses. The pretty dresses. The cars. You didn’t seem too fearful, locked inside your gilded cage.”
And maybe Tiena wasn’t all that fearful. My captivity, on the other hand, was not so comfortable. Diego didn’t supply me with pretty things and endless luxury when he had me. We lived in a tiny one-bedroom apartment in the middle of nowhere, and I would be lucky if he gave me enough money to buy the odd pair of earrings or a book now and again. The truth is, I don’t relate to Jaguar’s women, and I certainly don’t see myself as better than them.
In a way, I think I envy them. Interacting with such a man willingly must employ a skill of endurance that I simply don’t have. The fact that Jaguar mentioned them at all brings up an avenue of genuine curiosity I have yet to venture down.
“You’re upset with what I did,” I say, reading the barely concealed tension in his fingers. “You kiss them in the open, I’m sure. Why not me?”
To be fair, I haven’t seen him be affectionate with them. I’m assuming.
“You mean besides the fact that you’re barely capable of standing upright?” He laughs as he tosses the shirt outside the shower’s glass barrier. Then he begins to strip his own clothing.
I blame delirium for avidly watching him. His body is a thing of perfection.
“Oh no, Tiena, you aren’t as slick as you think. That wasn’t a kiss—that was provocation. You think Braulio is watching you always. You wanted merely to prove a point to him alone. I was your gun in that instance, to fire the warning shot.”
“Because you are working for him.” I eye him carefully, awaiting his reaction.
He doesn’t even blink. “Now, why the hell would I do a thing like that?” he wonders, letting his pants fall. He steps out of them next and kicks them from the stall. Then he turns to a metal panel built into the wall.