Glass Cage Read online

  I move backward on the bed, watching her watch me. When I stop and reach for the hem of her white dress, she tries to pull away, wiggling those hips back and forth. Damn, watching her body writhe only makes me harder. I move her skirt up slowly, pushing my hands along her toned thighs as I go. Her breathing is starting to speed up, but still she tries uselessly to fight my possession. When my hands reach her panties, a teasing lace thong, she finally stills, freezing at my touch. God, I want to touch the meeting of her thighs so badly, need to find out how wet my princess is for me, but I swallow back the urge. Instead, I lean my face in close and exhale against the spot. Even through the fabric of her panties she must feel it, because she lets out a thin whine, a quiet sound that screams of the battle in her mind, in her heart. Her body, however, has long given up. Holding her thighs firmly in place, I run the tip of my nose along the pale lace, inhaling the musky scent of her feminine warmth. Fuck, she is wet, soaked for my touch. It makes me want to rip those panties to shreds and plunge my starving cock into her, claiming what is mine without one more moment of patience, but that’s not what we’re doing tonight. Tonight, I’m teaching her body how good it feels to belong to me, conditioning her to crave my touch. This is how I finally break her, by making her feel like I’m putting her shattered pieces back together again.

  I take the lace in my teeth and pull, letting the warmth of my breath tease her flesh as I ever so slowly work those panties down her thighs. Her legs are spread so wide that they don’t make it down very far, so I break my own rules for a moment and reach my hands up, tearing the lace forcefully and tossing the torn garment aside. Selina jumps at the movement, but stays stubbornly silent. That’s fine. She’ll be screaming by the end of the night, and it won’t be because of a nightmare.

  Using my fingertips to steady her legs, I kiss the inside of her left knee softly, then the right. I work my way up her inner thighs, and when I reach the juicy spots of flesh closest to her pussy, I give it a suckle, hard enough to leave a mark. Selina inhales sharply, hips bucking, but I grip her legs tighter and go in again, soothing the sensitive spot with a gentle lick, then cooling it with a light blow, then viciously sucking on it again.

  “Javier,” Selina moans at last, unable to stop herself. Fuck, that sound goes straight to my cock. I let myself look at her pussy for the first time, bare and stretched out before me. I’ve been inside it, of course, but that was a rushed affair. Tonight I’m taking my time, getting to know each fold of her intimately. Her cunt is a pinker shade than the rest of her, glistening with need, clit swollen already, inner channel clenching hungrily around nothing. The soft curls I felt last time aren’t there anymore, she must have waxed recently. Did she do that for me?

  My tongue darts out, giving her a long, artless lick. I just need to know what she tastes like, I can’t wait a moment longer. Her hips buck again, taking her nearly out of my reach. I don’t think she’s fighting me anymore, not purposely, which means she simply cannot control herself. It makes me smile, the thought of my ever-poised, perfect princess being a wiggler. But I don’t have the patience to wrangle her tonight. That first taste was intoxicating, and I’m desperate to feast on her delectable body. I hook my arms around her legs, resting my elbows on the mattress and locking her down, then go in for more. God, I almost forget that I’m doing this for her, the feeling of her velvet folds against my tongue is so luxurious. But then the heady moan from above brings me back to my cause. I’m making my wife cum tonight, as many times as she can handle. And if we go all night, well, then we go all night.

  She’s so worked up, it only takes a few more moments to send her over the edge, her body thrashing in its binds, lips moaning wordlessly through her release. I don’t pause, though, pressing a finger inside her and curving it against her g-spot, suckling on her throbbing clit.

  “Javier— Don’t— I can’t—” Selina stutters out in gasping breaths, but I do, and she can. I give her a moment, pulling back and rubbing her clit with my thumb gently as she spasms through her orgasm, watching her toes curl and her lashes flutter over unseeing eyes.

  “Who made you cum like that?” I ask as she settles down, her breathing still ragged and eyes glazed. “Tell me.”

  She remains silent, so I give her red-hot clit a little flick, snapping my fingertip against it roughly. She whines at that, rolling her head back in defeat and closing her eyes. “You did, Vega. You made me cum. Twice.”

  My ego and my cock inflate at her words, but if she thinks that her punishment—and pleasure—ends here, she’s sorely mistaken.

  * * *

  I don’t notice the marks on my wrist until I’m washing my face the next morning. Tender, painful, and undeniable: just like the point Javier proved last night. I glance down at my feet and find the same marks around my ankles. Fuck. Summer is over, but we’re still stuck in the hellish vortex of a southern fall, where days can blaze hot with no warning. I pull on jeans and a sweater, hoping the next couple days will remain reasonably cool. I already fear that the other members of this household heard my cries last night. The last thing I need is to raise further questions about what’s been going on in my bed. Our bed. For some reason, that’s the thought that makes me blush, the idea of a body warming my bed for longer than a night, or at most a couple weeks. My captor, my husband, is here to stay. My nightmares brought him here, but what transpired between us last night will surely make him stay. Right? For a moment, my heart slows at the thought of spending a night alone, and then it stops completely at the thought that I would even care. What the fuck is wrong with me? Just because he made me cum a couple times—okay, a lot of times—doesn’t undo any of the horrible things he’s done to me, continues to do to me. Just because my panties are already dampening at the thought of letting him between my legs again doesn’t mean my mind wants it. And just because my mind definitely fucking wants it doesn’t mean it should.

  Fucking Stockholm Syndrome. It’s claimed my pussy and the weaker parts of my brain. Now all I can do is save my heart from succumbing to the same fate.

  Screwed up as it may be, sleeping in my captor’s arms seems to be the only thing that keeps the nightmares at bay, a task no amount of meditation or self-medication has ever been able to accomplish. Though he may be the cause of all my misery, Javier has also become the only solid thing to lean against through my trauma, the only constant in an ever-changing world of chaos. That’s why I keep fighting him every step of the way, because I am only too aware of how easily I could fall fully into him. Not in love, of course, not real love. Even my fucked up heart is incapable of such betrayal. But perhaps a partnership, like he said. A symbiotic relationship, where I’m the tiny fish living in the toothy big fish’s mouth. He needs me, and I need him, to survive him.

  An army of Georgia’s best psychologists couldn’t figure this one out, and I certainly don’t have the time or mental energy to sort it out for myself. So I do what I do best, and shove it deep inside, behind a door whose only key is a full bottle of merlot, maybe even two. If I survive this living nightmare, much less escape it, I’ll unpack my deep-seated emotional issues then. And to survive it, I can’t let myself fall into the spiral of self-hatred that is the inevitable next station on this train of thought. For now, my mind is busy enough with wedding planning and revenge plotting.

  Well, maybe my mind isn’t busy enough, judging by the way my pulse jumps into hyperspeed when Vega gets back to the house for lunch later that day. I force myself to relax, taking some subtle deep inhalations, then place his plate in front of him at the kitchen table as calmly as I did everyone else’s. I almost get away with it, too.

  “Gracias, princesita,” he says, and when I glance down at him, he’s smirking at me. Fuck. One of my sleeves has rolled up a bit, revealing angry pink markings. I pull it down quickly and look around fervently, making sure no one else saw. Thankfully, I seem to be in the clear.

  I’ve just sat down with my own lunch when Miel bursts in, not panicked but definitel
y with a wilder look than usual in her eye.

  “Kate, um,” I begin, sensing that the mood in this room is about to change from something that is safe for her consumption to something that is not. “Can you… Do you mind…”

  “I’ll just eat this on the patio,” she says knowingly, sparing me the need to come up with an excuse. “It’s a nice day out, anyway.”

  As she leaves, the older woman shoots Miel a disapproving look, which Miel returns all too eagerly.

  “What happened?” Vega asks once Kate is safely out of earshot, but Miel cuts her eyes my way this time. I move to stand and leave, more out of habit than anything else, but Javier shakes his head at me. “It’s okay. Go on, Miel.”

  Everyone shifts slightly at that, the air in the room thickening just the tiniest bit. My lungs expand, and I do my best to stay small, not draw too much more attention to myself. Could it be? Did my newlywed husband mean it, when he said I could be a part of things?

  “Um, they’ve found us,” Miel says, still glancing at me uncomfortably every few moments. “Not us us. But they’re outside our clients’ places, not all, but a lot of them. They’re not doing anything. Just watching. Making sure we know that they know, that they’re on to us.”

  “The police?” I ask, the words nervously slipping out before I can swallow them down. Everyone in the room turns to look at me—so much for keeping a low profile. Of course we’re not concerned about the police, they’ve been under Vega’s control since whatever happened with the mayor.

  “No, princesa,” Vega says. He doesn’t elaborate, but he doesn’t need to. There’s only one other entity that would be of concern to them. To us. My eyes drop down to the mark on Vega’s forearm, one long stripe and two short ones. The mark of El Sombrerón. His arms are crossed, drawing the muscle tight, and he’s rubbing his thumb over the tattoo slowly, nearly imperceptibly. I don’t think he knows he does that when he’s on edge. I don’t think I should care. “You know what? Let’s cut our losses. We’ve moved on to bigger things than those old clients, anyway. Let’s just forget about them.”

  “So just… what?” Miel asks what I’m thinking. “Stop collecting payments? Forgive their debts?”

  “Not forgiven, just forgotten,” Vega says, nodding at himself, shoulders rolling back decisively. “Let them, and him, know that we don’t need to worry ourselves with such shallow pockets anymore.”

  “And that we’re chickenshits,” Miel says, keeping her voice low. I swallow my reactions. I’ve never really seen her oppose Vega like this, not in front of me. I’ve never been here for a shop-talk discussion like this before, though. “Not to mention what it would do to our reputation with the rest of our clients. When the boss gets soft, word travels fast.”

  “So tell me, if I’m such a weak boss, what would you do instead?” Vega demands, a dangerous calm in his tone.

  “What would have been your first call, if you weren’t so worried about your pretty little princess getting her perfect skin carved off,” Miel says. Now I can’t help but let my brows shoot up. Is that really on the table? What the fuck kind of monster are we dealing with? Vega stands, a silent warning, and Miel shrinks visibly, but keeps her chin held high. “We send a message back, a louder one. Next time they show up at our clients’ places, all they find is bodies.”

  “You can’t just kill innocent people to send a message,” I say, my mouth voicing my thoughts before I give it permission to.

  “No one is innocent,” Miel says, staring me down, the ice in her eyes a screaming reminder of my own past sins.

  “That’s still insane,” I say, standing my ground. I don’t care if it costs me my seat at the table. If I’m going to be a part of things, the least I can do is try to save a life, even though I know my opinion means jack shit to these people.

  “You got a better idea, princesita?” Miel says mockingly. God, I hate it when she calls me that.

  Vega says nothing, just eyes me curiously, waiting to see if I’ll bite. Shit. Is this where I’m supposed to prove myself, show that I’m capable of contributing to the team? The only thing I know about their lifestyle—my new lifestyle—is what I’ve seen in movies. All I’m an expert on is high society bullshit.

  “I do,” I say carefully, an idea settling into place. My husband raises an eyebrow. “What if you… we just don’t do anything?”

  Miel scoffs, rolling her eyes at Javier. He ignores her. “What do you mean, Selina?”

  “I mean, instead of retreating, or fucking killing people for no reason, we just keep showing up, super casual, like we don’t even give a shit?” This is the same strategy I’ve used when dealing with various scandals over the years, or when boys broke my heart in high school, but I’m not about to tell these gangsters that. Not when Miel is already looking at me so skeptically. “That’s still a powerful message. That says that we don’t care, that we can’t be intimidated, that we’re not afraid of their passive aggressive bullshit.”

  Is it still passive aggressive if there’s a chance of my skin getting carved off down the line?

  “Interesting,” Vega says, and I swear even Miel looks slightly less self-assured, but then she pops a stick of gum in her mouth and becomes unreadable again. “That’s still not enough, though. Miel, let’s do your thing, but only one body. Badly beaten will do, no need to go all the way. Selina’s right, killing them all is psychotic. Come talk to me in the study tonight and we’ll nail down a plan.”

  What? Is that it? Am I supposed to be okay with that, with letting some random stranger get nearly killed, or maybe totally killed, to prove a point? I know we’re not the good guys here, but damn, I thought we were at least better than this.

  I stay silent, picking at the rest of my lunch, appetite long gone. I should be grateful that they even let me contribute. I didn’t really believed that they’d take my advice. Nevertheless, it still hurt a bit, to be shut down so instantly. I didn’t think my idea was that stupid, though sure, I guess it lacked the guts and gore of Miel’s. And I’m okay with that. It’s insane enough that this is becoming my new normal. I’m not letting them break me down so completely that I become as soulless as they are.

  “Can I talk to you?” I say to Vega, again falling victim to a case of my mouth speaking before my brain has a chance to process the wisdom of such an action.

  Miel rolls her eyes and groans loudly, but I stand and grab Vega’s arm anyway, tugging him toward the laundry room just off the kitchen. I don’t know why my feelings are so hurt, why I’m being such a nag, but I have a sneaking suspicion it’s my stupid hormones, making too much out of what happened between us last night. I shut the laundry room door behind us and spin to face Vega, trying to get ahold of the conflicting emotions swarming inside me.

  “I thought you said I was part of things now,” I say softly, knowing it won’t take much to make my words sound whiny, childish. “But then you just shut me out, like I’m still just an annoyance.”

  “You are,” Vega says, making me cut my eyes at him harshly. I’m sure I’m an annoyance to him, but he doesn’t have to be such a dick about it. “Part of things, I mean. But you’re new to this. Hell, you’re even new to the running of Café Palacios. You don’t understand how these things work yet, princesa.”

  Maybe he has a point, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let him poke at my failings so easily. No, I don’t know how to run my own company, or a crime empire, or even most household appliances, but I sure as hell can run my damn mouth.

  “And how many weeks, months, years, until I am ready enough for you? Will I ever be? Or will you always have a new excuse, one more reason to brush me off, while still pretending that I owe you any kind of allegiance? Fuck, I know this is all bullshit: the marriage, the so-called partnership, me letting you in my bed like you’re not literally holding me hostage, but I thought—”

  “It’s not all bullshit,” Vega interrupts, and there’s a slightly mocking smile teasing his lips even as rage churns through me. �
�I thought we proved that last night.”

  For a moment I can’t breathe, caught up in the forbidden memories of his tongue expertly lapping at my pussy, and the overwhelming sense of indignation that he would dare bring that up right now.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” I breathe, and though his expression remains light, I see his nostrils flare. I’m pushing too far, overstepping my bounds, but I can’t stop myself. I can’t do anything else that my instincts scream at me to do, can’t run, can’t fight his ever-tightening hold on me. So I snap at him, let my attitude get the best of me even when I know it will only make things worse. “Is that what this is all really about? You just want to see me naked? You just want to get your dick wet, just want to brag to your guys that you took down the infamous Selina Palacios? That your prisoner, your victim, your fucking ‘princesa’ is also now your whore?”

  He doesn’t stop me like he did last night, doesn’t grab me and silence me with that special mix of passion and violence that he wears so well. He probably doesn’t feel like dealing with me, has better things to worry about, but his lack of response to my accusations pokes at an all-too-familiar wound. He’s not shutting me up because what I’m saying is true. I am just a piece of ass to him. A complicated, twisted, lots-of-strings-attached piece of ass. And damn if I didn’t make it easy for him. He didn’t even have to try, I spread my legs wide open for him at the first opportunity, and have continued to do so even as our situation gets more and more fucked up. I was an idiot to believe I would ever be more than a toy to him. Tears prick at my eyes, and I should walk away, get out of here before things get worse, but some dark, self-despising part of myself has been activated. So I do the only thing that could make me hate myself more than I already do in this moment.