Chapter 7

H oney. She tastes like sweet fucking honey, I could faintly taste her strawberry scented soap. She tastes better than I could have conjured up in my head, which I have done many times during the first couple months that I've been watching her. I hide the groan attempting to escape, as I get lost in the memory of her touch.

She's just as affected by me as I am by her, and I fucking love it. There's a fire buried deep in her soul waiting to be ignited, and I cannot wait to see just how bright her flame burns.

Kai had been the one to appear in the hallway. Each stomp of his feet getting louder was like he was providing me with a warning that he was getting close. Lina had pushed herself away from me, her body practically frozen to the wall. As much as the distance between us tore me apart, I know it's just for now. The blush that tinted her cheeks and neck was gone before she strode off the last step of the stairwell, walking us back to the dining room before she disappeared deeper into the house. The room felt empty without her in it, and my attention was no longer with the men in front of me. Thankfully, Kai took over the conversation to make sure that my lack of participation wasn't as noticeable.

"You'll reside in the pool house. There's three bedrooms in there and you'll have full access to our current security system and team. If you need anything else, please let us know," Julian says.

We all nod in agreement, then they all continue speaking a little more about the security, escape routes, and the number of cameras. I don't mention that I plan to add my own cameras inside the house so I can see every step Lina makes. This obsession with her has clearly gotten out of hand, but now that I've nearly had a bite, the natural taste of her has me salivating like a dog with a bone.

All I can think about is taking her in my mouth and devouring her whole.

Fuck me.

Rafael stands, grabbing a bottle of tequila from the corner of the dining room and a few shot glasses. He places everything down the way a bartender would at a bar, uncapping the bottle of Patron, and pouring the clear liquid in each one without pausing. Rafa passes the shots around, and raises his glass .

"To our sister, salud," he declares, clinking his glass against the table before bringing it up and downing it in one swallow.

"Salud," we all say in unison.

Hours have passed by since we returned back to our penthouses. Kai cracked jokes as many times as he could, trying to get the scowl to disappear from my face. Leaving her home proved to be harder than I could have imagined. I had decided not to visit her tonight, which put me in even more of a mood for having missed my nightly routine. I hadn't missed a day in the last couple months of watching her. My hands begin to shake, wanting to break my resolve and head straight back to her house. But I can't, not after being inside, seeing her up close, and tasting her.

This craving for her will only cause me to break into her home and take her before she's ready. I can't jeopardize our relationship before I even start the job.

Water cascades down from my shower head down my body, the images of Catalina fresh on my mind. I can still taste her skin on my tongue. I can still feel the way her waist felt between my hands, the way her breath picked up at my proximity, and the way she was trapped under my spell - the way I have been for fucking months. I groan in desire, in fury, in a combination of the two.

The little seductress has embedded herself in my mind so far, I can't seem to think straight. As if my hands have a mind of their own, I wrap them around my hardening cock, pumping myself to the images of her. I picture her plump pink lips on my shaft while I force her head down further, making sure she gagged for me.

"Fuck," I groan, picturing her tears run down her face mixing with the water of the shower pouring down from above me, while I continue throat fucking her roughly with every thrust of my hips. I picture her pebbled nipples begging to be in my mouth, the sight of her perfect pink pussy glistening with desire, and the water dripping off her skin. Everything about her is a goddamn seduction. I lean against the shower wall with my forearm holding me in place, I squeeze my fist as I continue thrusting, chasing my orgasm until cum lands on the floor and the wall at a rapid pace.

I rest my forehead on my arm for a moment, savoring the high of my orgasm with thoughts of her. I'm not sure how I even got to this point. I know I don't fucking deserve her.

Fuck. Her innocence. Her beauty. I just can't seem to get away.

I have yet to decide whether it'll get me killed or be the best thing that's ever happened to me .

Turning the water off, I dry off and dress in a pair of gray sweatpants. Walking towards my kitchen, I pull the black t-shirt over my head and continue walking to the fridge to pour myself a glass of water. I can't help but feel a sense of anxiety for not having gone to her house. For not watching her smoke from her patio. For not seeing her, even if for just a few hours.

The clicking of a door breaks me out of my thoughts. Reaching for the pistol strapped under the counter of the kitchen island, I place my finger on the trigger, readying myself to eliminate the dumbass that dare try to break in. The door flings open and smacks against the wall as Kai struts in with a case of beers in one hand and an already opened beer bottle in the other. It's almost midnight, so this fucker either can't sleep or just got back from the bar.

"Can't you fucking knock? I could have shot you," I say harshly putting the gun back in its place. Kai simply shrugs, and hands me a beer, clinking his with my unopened bottle before drinking the rest of the contents.

"You think we can do this? Work for the Cartel?" He sighs, reaching for another bottle from the case on the counter.

"I don't know. I refuse to watch her marry some asshole though. She's been mine since the moment I first laid eyes on her," I growl, wishing I could kill the fucker before he even has a chance to come close to her .

"She's not yours, and you are not killing the asshole. You heard Ry, you'll start a war."

"I don't give a fuck. If Julian doesn't figure it out, I'll hunt the asshole down before he even has a chance to start the fucking war." I explode, seeing red more and more at the thought of her with another man. I'm a selfish fuck. I goddamn know it and maybe a little delusional, but I know she felt it too. I knew from the moment her cheeks flushed under my gaze, the way she froze as she took me in, and the way she was biting those sweet soft pink lips of hers, like she knew of all the ways I'd imagined her. Like she knew she was mine .

"You're fucking stupid. You're going to get us killed." He blurts out. I don't know what more to say, so I change the subject. We talk about the future, about our past, reminiscing over previous jobs, and the stupid shit we used to do. Over the lives we took while we were in the task force, and taking a drink for those we lost. We used to do this more often, used to speak about the trauma of having killed innocent people all in the name of good for the government. It was that last one that did us both in, those explosions are the ones that still haunt my dreams. The cries of the children that were in the building that was supposed to be full of terrorists. Shaking my head of those memories, I begin hiding them back deep within my soul in hopes that the God that I don't necessarily believe in won't be able to find them when judgment day comes.

Kai remains silent, but his silence just shows that he's just as affected as I am. We both crave the violence, the adrenaline, and the high that comes with each kill. But we have codes,rules, and fucking standards, ones that we would never cross. Ones that our sergeants didn't have or care for. They knew, and they were okay with it. Their recklessness is what caused our decision to leave together and create a security business instead, to still be able to indulge in violence, legally.

We both knew if we stayed, this need for violence would have only been dormant for a small period of time before coming back three times worse and at that point, I can't even fathom what we would have done.

I may be a bad man. I may have made a mistake in trusting those who shouldn't have been trusted. I may be plagued by the horrors of our past. I may not be worthy of being with a woman like Catalina. But that won't stop me from claiming her, from starting a war for her . Because, although I may not be worth it, she is .

She is worthy of everything, if it meant she's happy. I'd happily kill every motherfucker in her proximity to ensure her safety.

And that's exactly what I plan to do.