“What are you doing here?” Soraya asked..

Joaquin Martinez-Ruiz stood up as she entered the room, quite strapping in his pressed suit. His dark eyes lingered inappropriately low as they danced across the scintillating neckline of her dress. His hair was so black it hinted blue in the light, the thick locks growing in a wave at longer lengths. He met her displeasure with a smile. He was not due for another two weeks. Her cousin’s presence brought no comfort, and she couldn’t help but wonder what nefarious plans roamed his narcissistic imagination. 

“Come now, bonita, no need for such a tone,” he said, his hand immediately wrapping around her hip to draw her close.

Joaquin’s lips touched the corner of hers, lingering just too long for comfort. A moment before his hand moved southward, she laid a hand across his chest and swiveled out of his hold. Unseen panic coiled in her belly, an alive sensation she didn’t know how to suppress before he sensed her anxiety. He always seemed to know what she felt before she did with unnerving accuracy. A quick breath taken, she imagined Malcolm locked in his cell. Hers. Only hers. It calmed her pulse and drew her back into the present. 

“I don’t have a tone, cousin. Your flight is quite early, no?” Soraya’s accented words drifted, as nonchalant as she could stand. As far as meeting places, she would have preferred somewhere outside of the Botwin building. Instead, Morgan chose the 24th floor conference room, a statement in itself. A statement Soraya chose to not point out to the man who owned the company—for now. Like all other rooms, it offered refreshments and snacks, but there was a stark difference in brand and quality down here in the 20s. 

She poured drinks, added a lemon wedge to the vodka mix, and handed him the drink. Joaquin’s smile lost its charismatic edge, but not for long. He pulled it right back into place, though it never reached his eyes. At least, she’d never seen him genuinely smile, and she’d spent ages with the man. 

“So, I’ll ask again,” Soraya said, her voice too loud in the stark room. “Why are you here early?”

Joaquin pulled an envelope from his inner pocket and set it on the table. A first-class ticket back to Mexico City. Home. She removed the glossy ticket from the envelope, eyebrow quirked. 

“You just arrived,” she said, and held the ticket out to him. “Why would you give me your ticket home?”

Joaquin’s laughter filled the room. Derisive and cold, it sent a shiver down her spine.

“You are going home, Soraya. Not me. You’ve made a mess of everything here. Production is down, prices are plummeting. Go back home, marry someone rich, spread your legs and pop out babies.”

It had only been a week. She might have called him on the farce, but something in Joaquin’s expression cracked when he mentioned her spreading her legs. She couldn’t read it, mottled as it was. Longing, perhaps. Anticipation, most certainly. How often did he dive down the rabbit hole with such thoughts? She wondered…

Once upon a time, when she was much younger, the boyish Joaquin wanted his hands all over her. He succeeded once, and only once. 

“What if I don’t want to go?” 

Her cousin sighed, but the sound cut off when she stepped around the table and back into his personal space. Her hand reached out to touch his chest, the gesture full of false promise. She despised her own actions, but throwing him off guard, and quickly, became essential. 

“What if I don’t want you to go back, either?” she teased.

It was too easy. Beneath her palm, she could feel his pulse rise. Each shallow breath lifted his chest against her hand. Her cousin’s pupils dilated, the smarm in his earlier smile vanished, replaced by a masculine hunger she’d grown accustomed to on the face of her asset. Malcolm’s invasion of her thoughts came uninvited, and Soraya shoved the man’s existence out of mind. Too late, but she replaced the body slave’s presence in her erotic dreams with the tall, dark and handsome trope Joaquin fulfilled.

“You have never wanted me before, Soraya,” he said.

Joaquin’s hand brushed through the fallen tendrils beside her cheek, coming to rest alongside her face. She lifted her chin beneath his touch, and nothing could have prevented his conquest via kiss, the taste of lemon hinted on his tongue. He seemed satisfied with the way she kissed him back, unknowing that Soraya’s thoughts were flitting back to how wet Malcolm made her the evening before. The kiss ended and he continued down her throat, teeth nipping on his journey toward her shoulder. 

“Mm, I was too young then, Joaquin. Now I want to know what I was missing.”

Joaquin’s eyes were dark enough for the chocolate to seem black. They closed as he explored her, and Soraya’s fingers twisted into his ebony curls. A man of distinguished, dapper looks and manipulative personality, she knew the snake beneath every charismatic smile and velvet word. It did not stop her caramel flesh from reacting with goosebumps as he nudged the strap of her dress down.

It fell easily, his lips following the curve of the lace covering her breasts. A firm yank tore the fabric away, and he attacked her stiff nipple with a deep groan at the back of his throat. Soraya never released his hair, guiding him on his journey exploring a far more compliant body than he’d tasted in earlier years. 

They ended up on the plush carpet, Soraya’s ass lifted and his hands wrapped around her smooth backside, slamming her against each of his vicious thrusts. There had been little foreplay before he took the bait. Even as he speared past the swell of her sex, memories of pleasure wrought from her sessions with Dr. Book kept her wet and ready to play the damsel for Joaquin. It wasn’t that he did not know how to please a woman; his interests during the act of sex, however, did not extend beyond himself. His rut was selfish, almost clumsy in how he took her. Sweat on his brow and carpet burn on his knees; she’d never seen him this happy. 

Soraya’s hand slid between her thighs, rubbing along the sensitive throb of her clitoris as he growled against her ear. 

A light spasm. She was close to the edge. A tight jerk against his hold. He growled. The vibration sent her over. A fang grew, an incisor. She attempted to twist away. He grinned. A perfect moment. He bit down, piercing the engorged mound of her bliss…

Emptiness followed, leaving Soraya’s cunt dripping with his release, leaving her teetering on the edge of her climax. She lay still, naked and panting with need, but Joaquin was already putting himself back together.. 

“Dinner tonight. Seven. Wear the dress I like,” he said without looking at her. He straightened his shirt and tucked it back into his pants. Joaquin had never fully undressed, though he’d left her dress smudged when cleaning himself after he finished with her.

A few moments later, the second hand’s incessant tick-tick-tick informed her of times passing while she stared at the door Joaquin had left through, not bothering to close it behind him. She gathered her dress, knowing immediately she could not wear it through the hallways of even Botwin’s lower floors. A quick call beckoned Morgan, and she slid on a new dress, the assistant aiding with zipping it up her back. 

The two women did not speak. 

They did not need to speak. 

The silent language between women often said more than words ever could. 

Soraya returned to the Penthouse, a place she’d found more soothing than the office space she’d commandeered. It stretched silent but comfortable, her few items taken from home a marked reminder of ownership and not merely guest status. A sigh; she allowed the tension in her shoulders to release. If she was going to survive the four o’clock meeting, she needed to purge the pent up energy left behind when her cousin left her wet and wanting on the floor. 

She palmed the keycard from the table beside the door, and moved down the hallway to the converted guest room. The card weighed nothing, smooth plastic against her palm. The importance of the token, however, meant everything. 

The light turned green, and Soraya entered an empty room. Spotless and sterile, a meticulously made bed, a chair, an empty bathroom—where was Malcolm Book?!

She walked through the two rooms, her movements frantic, but the fourth time looking in the bathroom did not make the man magically appear. At first, she thought he had escaped. Then she feared Joaquin removed him from her care. She clawed a hand through her hair, but tore her fingers away from her face. The sweet scent of sex clung to her, and even her human nose could smell it. 

“He’s at the estate,” Cobra said.

She spun around to find the huge man standing in the doorway, blocking her sight of the penthouse beyond his squared shoulders. 

“The estate?”

“Yes, ma’am. It’s the week of the full moon. We transport him monthly. You can expect him back within five days.”

She stared at him, pulse too high and breath too shallow. Malcolm was supposed to be where she wanted him. When she wanted him. Protocol kept him out of her grasp, but she could not simply leave her cousin’s influence unchecked. As much as she wanted to go to this estate, she had dinner to get ready for. At seven. And she planned to wear the dress he liked. 

Malcolm’s absence weighed upon her in a way she didn’t understand or enjoy. Once Cobra left the premises, Soraya found the empty rooms too heavy. Dependence on a person’s presence was alien to her, no matter the status she’d forced upon the man. The knowledge that she could walk through his door at any time and he’d be there was an odd comfort. His collar kept him in stasis, but she knew the feel of his body, the scent of his skin, even the pleasure of his cock too intimately to be without it. The man, the servant to her pleasures, made her long for him, and now…

She wanted him back. 

Joaquin’s presence was dangerous. Fortunately, her early arrival gave her time to fortify herself, collecting allies and support from the board members. While she found it an easy gambit to garner the vote of the male members, the females were more likely to be swayed by her cousin’s coal pitch eyes and his serpentine tongue. It was time to consider alternatives for Joaquin’s place in the world.

She’d gladly dig the hole, shove his corpse into the ground, and never look back.