I was just about to come up with a name for him — Bandito — when he slowly took a few steps toward me, head down, seeming to hone in on the hay. I carefully held out my hand and he took the hay from me.
“Aren’t you handsome?” I asked him, wondering if he’d run if I tried to pet him.
But before I had the answer, he suddenly raised his head, the whites of his eyes showing, and then turned on a dime, galloping off and leaving me in the dust again.
I coughed and turned around, wondering what had startled him.
Coming down the slope was Esteban, his eyes sharply fixed on me.
“What are you doing?” he asked, jogging the last little bit. I was having a hard time pretending not to notice that his shirt was off and slung over one shoulder. He was fit, all sculpted abs and a deep tan. I looked to his feet and saw that he had slip-on sneakers instead of flip-flops on for once.
“I was getting to know the horses,” I told him as he stopped right in front of me. He smelled liked sweat. It wasn’t a terrible smell, it was actually rather primal. His skin glistened and I looked up at his face, the brim of my hat shielding me from the intense sun.
“You shouldn’t wander too far,” he said. “The desert is no place for a woman like you.”
My brows rose. “A woman like me? And what kind of woman am I?”
“One that shouldn’t be so bold, not in places like this. There are many things out here that can kill you, hey.”
I rolled my eyes and turned, heading down to the wash, seeking the shade. “Oh please, you think I didn’t grow up with the desert in my backyard?”
“I’m sure you did,” he said, and I could hear him trailing after me. “But you’re not a little girl on the Baja anymore. You’re a queen. And you need to treat yourself like one.”
“Queen,” I muttered, and sat down on a large, wide rock beneath a tall mesquite. “I doubt a queen would have contemplated escaping on a horse across the desert.”
He sat down beside me, his arm pressing against mine. I stiffened, trying to relax with him so near but I couldn’t.
“Oh, I bet many queens try to escape. Few make it. Didn’t you ever see Roman Holiday?”
I gave him an incredulous look, trying not to smile. “With Audrey Hepburn? Badly dubbed in Spanish?”
“Yes,” he said, grinning at me. “She was a princess, and she wanted nothing more to escape. I think it’s very common.” He leaned in closer, his gaze suddenly intensifying. “I could be your Gregory Peck, hey.”
I managed a weak smile. “You’re not handsome enough,” I told him.
I thought he would have looked insulted at that, but instead he put his hand on the back of my neck, holding me there. “I may not be handsome, but I sure can fuck better than him.”
I couldn’t respond to that. I couldn’t do anything as he leaned in and kissed me hard and wet on the mouth. His tongue slipped in through my lips, and I found myself opening my mouth to let him in.
This was so terribly wrong and I knew I had to stop it.
It was wrong.
It shouldn’t happen.
It couldn’t happen.
But for that one second, I kissed him back. The feel of his tongue against mine was slick, hot, and electrifying, and every nerve in my body was on fire, like the sun above the mesquite.
I couldn’t remember the last time Javier had kissed me.
Just that thought made my heart knot up, bringing me back to reality. I put my hands on Esteban’s shoulders and pushed him back, breaking off the kiss.
I wouldn’t play this game with him.
I wouldn’t give in to my urges, the same urges he was preying on, trying to get me to break, to offer me affection and attention when I’d had none.
His gaze was just as intense as before and he was breathing heavily. “Don’t tell me that you didn’t want that. That you haven’t thought about it.” He took my hand and placed it on the crotch of his shorts so I could feel how thick and hard he was.
I felt dizzy, out of breath. The sun, the heat; it was too much.
I couldn’t let this happen.
I pulled my hand back and got to my feet, unsteady. “I have to go back.”
He got up too, grasping my wrist tightly so I couldn’t walk away without a fight.
“Let go or I’ll scream,” I said, wishing my voice didn’t sound broken.
“We both know no one will hear you,” he warned. “We also know that you won’t. Because I’m not doing anything wrong. And neither are you.”
“I’m married,” I said feebly.
I took my vows under oath, under god.
If I didn’t have my morals, what did I have at all?
“I know,” he said. “And is this what you want for the rest of your married life? The lonesome queen who pines in her castle for someone she can’t have — her husband? All while the king has his share of whoever he wants to fuck.”
The truth hurt. And it didn’t matter how many times I heard it, it still had that fatal sting, like the scorpions in the shadows.
But I couldn’t do this. I had to be good. I had to honor my vows. Without them, I had nothing. Someone had to believe in love.
I had to believe.
Even if I was a fool.
“I have to go,” I told him, but Esteban held tighter, till my wrist began to ache. Why were all the men around me so set on pain? Why did I always feel so powerless against them?
Why did they stir up trapped, dark feelings inside me, the ones I always wanted to bury?
“I wouldn’t go back if I were you,” he said, his look cautioning. “Not while Javier is occupied.”
The mention of his name made me flinch a little, and I wished I couldn’t still feel Esteban’s rough lips on mine, taste his sweat. So much guilt already for so little.
“I can handle it,” I told him. “Sadly, I’m used to torture.”
“Oh no, Luisa,” he said, tilting his head sympathetically. “He’s done with Evaristo for today. It’s the women …”
My throat felt like it was starting to close up. “Women? What women?”
“You didn’t see the cars pull in?” he asked, and when I shook my head he sighed. “I guess it was good you were out here, then.”
“What cars? From where?” I asked, alarmed.
“He had them brought in from Durango. Can’t have a proper finca without the putas for everyone. Especially your husband. Don’t take it too personally, though, I’m sure it’s no reflection on you.”
It was stupid and foolish to feel as devastated as I did, like my heart was being cut from my chest. I didn’t even know I had a heart left after everything already.
I looked away and Esteban tugged me toward him. “Hey,” he said softly, finally releasing my wrist and putting his hands on both sides of my face. It took everything I had not to break down. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you. I didn’t think this would bother you anymore. But your heart, Luisa. You have such a good, big heart. And it breaks me to know you wasted it all on him.”
I couldn’t meet Esteban’s eyes. I didn’t want to see my reflection in them.
“Javier is patron now,” he said. “He’s got everything he wants. And what do you have? What do you deserve? I’ve seen him around you. I know you sleep in separate rooms. He won’t even touch you. It’s like you disgust him.”
“Esteban, please,” I cried out, feeling my eyes fill with tears. “I’m hurting enough.”
“I agree,” he said. “And it’s time to stop. Look at me.”
I couldn’t. I shook my head and the tears spilled.
“Look at me, Luisa.” The pressure on my face increased, and finally I let my blurry vision meet his intense stare. “Javier is a changed man and he’s not coming back. You’re stuck in this marriage with him for the rest of your life, chained to a monster. His pride is too big to let you go, and if you go anyway, you won’t last long.”
I didn’t want to believe any of that, but I knew it wa
s true. I was sewn into this life now.
“And no other man is going to want to fuck you, to be with you, when you’re married to one of the most powerful and dangerous men in the country. No other man but me.”
My eyes widened and his gaze seared like the desert heat. “I can give you everything that he can’t,” he said. “I can give you more than he ever could.”
He kissed me again, holding me in place, and this time I fought more, because to give in would be to believe all the horrible things he’d just said. But Esteban was relentless, his tongue fucking my mouth as he pressed his erection against my hip. One hand reached under and pulled up my dress, his fingers trying to slip between my legs.
But I couldn’t, I couldn’t.
“No,” I told him, my words muffled against his lips, realizing we were in the damn desert of all places.
“There is no more no anymore,” he said. Suddenly he shoved me down so I was on my knees, and I cried out in pain as the rocks cut into my skin. “Shut up,” he said, and I raised my head to see him take his cock out of his pants. “Suck it. See what I taste like.”
I was too stunned, my knees throbbing, but he made a fist in my hair and yanked me forward. Nearly powerless to protest, I took him in my hands and into my mouth. His salt hit my tongue, but he thrust his hips forward until he was as far in me as he could go. I nearly gagged.
“God, you’re fucking beautiful,” he said through a moan. “Such a queen. You suck so good but I’m going to fuck you so much better. So much better than him.”
It was then that I realized how little choice I had. How little choice I’d always had. For my whole life I’d been stuck between a rock and a hard place. Working tirelessly for my parents — I’d had no choice in that, not really. I either did it or they died. Marrying Salvador, I’d had no choice either. He would have killed me and my parents if I had said no to him. Going off with Javier had been the best choice I’d ever had, because finally I had been in the position to go off on my own and live my own life.
But I was an idiot who fell in love.
Love turned on me and broke me. I lost the love of my husband along with his desire and respect.
And now I had another impossible choice. I could protest, I could try and walk away from this situation and pretend that I didn’t want it, that I hadn’t thought about it, that I didn’t need what Esteban was offering me. I could walk away …if he let me.
Or I could give in. I could let that bad, dirty part of me come out to play and toss my morals out the door. My morals that had done nothing but keep me frozen in time, a loser of the heart. My morals were nothing more than a fucking cage.
My morals would hold me hostage for life.
You don’t have a choice, I told myself, though deep down I knew I did, and I knew the one I was about to make was the bad one — the wrong one.
I thought about Javier and the women and the love I’d never have again.
That touch.
That intimacy.
I had something like that now.
To take it was my choice. Finally, I had a choice.
The guilt went and slithered off somewhere, like the snakes on the desert floor, taking my morals with it. My soul went on leave.
I took Esteban in, my hands pumping him, unsurely at first, but then my grip tightened as I shed all inhibition, filled with the perverse need to continue. I was getting off on this, despite how badly I needed to stop.
“Oh, so good,” he went on, slamming in harder, my teeth razing him, but he only seemed to get thicker. “Is my big cock making your little cunt wet? Is it? Don’t get too slick though, gorgeous, I want it to hurt a little. I want you to feel every single inch of me from the inside. I want you to scream.”
Suddenly he pulled out of my mouth, and with his hand on my forehead, shoved me backward into the dirt. My head struck the edge of a rock and I cried out again, feeling wetness in my hair. As everything swung around me in a dizzying wave, I looked at the rock to see blood on it. I was bleeding from the head.
But Esteban didn’t care. He was pushing up my dress around my waist and pushing my thong to the side, ready to enter me.
“Stop. I hit my head,” I tried to say, but then he was on me and my head was pressed back into the rough sand.
“You won’t care about that soon,” he said, his lips on mine and kissing me feverishly as he guided himself into me. He was right; it did hurt. The friction was painful as he jammed himself inside to the hilt.
I gasped, trying to breathe through it, but he was merciless and thrust harder, the rocks digging into my back, my ass, everywhere. I was aching sharply and all over until he put his fingers in my mouth, getting them wet, and then placed them at my clit. Just the simple pressure made the pain melt into pleasure.
“I’ve wanted you for so long,” he groaned against my neck, biting me. All I could think was that I was going to look like a real wreck after this, like a truck had hit me. I wondered what Javier would say. And then I realized how much I wanted him to say something; I wanted him to care.
My wants were very dangerous.
“So fucking long I’ve dreamed of this and all the things I wanted to do,” he said, nipping my lower lip between his teeth. “You do realize this is just the beginning and not the end. I will own you, Luisa. And you will be mine.”
I didn’t know how to feel about that. I didn’t know how to feel about anything until desire was throbbing through me, and all I knew was that I wanted it more, more, more. The sex, the wanting, the needing. I welcomed it through my veins, swept away by the passion, the delirious lust. It was making me feel something good for once. It was erasing all the pain on my skin and the pain deep inside.
I put my hands on Esteban’s firm ass and drove my nails in, wanting him in deeper, wanting the feeling to never end. I felt wild and free and righteous. I had been owed this. The sweat poured off him and onto me, soaking my dress, the sun high in the sky behind him, waiting to dry it off.
Somewhere in the distance I think I heard a rattlesnake, but there wasn’t even fear anymore. There was just this yearning that might never end, and I was lost, lost, lost in someone else as they were lost in me.
“Fuck,” Esteban grunted, and I felt him strain as he came. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
It was enough to set me off. I came hard, crying out a bunch of nonsense that seemed to soar up into the sky, feeling so much heat expand on me and in me. I was yanked into an undertow, not knowing which way was up and which way would have me drown.
I was so sated that I didn’t care if I drowned or not. I just lay there, bleeding and broken and bruised on the ground, while Esteban lay on top of me, sweat pooling between us. We both tried to catch our breath, the air dusty and dry and filling our lungs. I felt like my heart would never slow down.
Finally Esteban raised his head and peered at me, a sloppy smile on his face. He tucked my hair behind my ear and said, “You certainly don’t look like a queen right now.”
I couldn’t help but smile back. “Some queens like getting dirty.”
“Dirty queen,” he mused. “That’s you all right. But from now on, you’re my dirty queen. No one else’s.”
I swallowed hard, trying to figure out just what he was expecting. Was this not just a fuck, a heat of the moment thing? Or did Esteban expect this to continue? Was I to keep him as a lover just as Javier kept lovers of his own?
I wasn’t prepared to entertain that just yet. Not now, when my emotions were high and my intentions were running away on me.
And then the guilt hit me straight on like a freight train.
I panicked and quickly got to my feet, pulling down my dress and wiping off the dust. I tried to get myself looking normal, but the dirt clung to me, as did the pebbles which were nearly embedded in my skin. I couldn’t get it off, couldn’t get clean. My hands whacked all over my limbs.
“Hey,” Esteban said as he got to his feet. “Luisa.”
I kept wiping at myself and eve
rything started to spin.
He reached out and grabbed my arms.
“I can’t get clean,” I said, my voice shaking. “I can’t get the dirt off.”
“Calm down,” he said. “Turn around, I’ll help you.”
I turned around, my eyes fixing on the bloodstained rock. What had I done? How would I explain the wound on my head? Javier would know, he’d know.
Este wiped down the back of me then said, “There. Some cuts and scrapes, but you can tell him you fell down, if he even notices.”
“He’ll notice,” I said. He’d see the guilt on my face, the guilt that was pouring over me like thick black tar. “Esteban, we can never, ever tell him. We can never tell him what we did.”
He zipped up his shorts and gave me a wry look. “You think he’d be hurt?”
I shook my head, even though I wasn’t quite sure. “He can’t know.”
“I know,” he said calmly. “If he knew, he would kill you.”
I swallowed, wondering if that was the truth. “He’d kill you too,” I pointed out.
But Esteban just smiled.
I reached behind my head and looked at the blood on my fingers.
He reached out and grabbed my hand, sticking my bloody fingers in his mouth. He slowly drew them out and said, “All clean. Shall we head back?”
Going back now sounded like the most dangerous prospect in the world. “I can’t,” I said. “I can’t.”
“You can, and you will. If he asks, if anyone asks, tell them you took a tumble.” He jerked his chin to the hill. “You go back first. I’ll follow later.”
I took in a deep breath and wished the pain inside me, that knot in my heart, would have stayed away after the sex. But it was back. “Okay.” I paused. “We won’t ever tell.”
“No, we won’t,” Esteban said. “Now go. And remember what I told you about him. Just go straight to your room and take a shower. It will be easier on you that way.”
I nodded, staring at him for a moment before I turned and headed up the hill. It took me a while to head back to the ranch house, but then again it felt like I was sleepwalking or in a dream.