It wasn’t his business, but Malcolm Book would find out about her relationship with Joaquin, a man who blundered back into her life and took control. At least, her cousin thought he had control. A brief flare of fear rushed through her writhing body. It faded quickly, as if the emotion never existed. She surrendered to the dominance of the werewolf pinning her to the desk with an obvious shudder.

Clothing ripped and sensation blossomed, torturous desire wetting her sex enough to glint on her inner thighs. He had her hair clenched in his fist, a moan stifled behind Malcolm’s kiss. Soraya complied, plush lips parting in invitation for a touch of tongues. She barely noticed how she spread her legs. The skirt rode higher, and the scent of sex permeated the space around them. 

Malcolm claimed her with his fingers, and the world fell apart around the Latina. She didn’t realize his hand enclosed her throat until it tightened, her pulse a rapid butterfly whispering its wings against his grip. Her eyelashes dipped across her dark eyes, but Malcolm’s beast pulled her from the submissive gesture. He left Soraya in rapture, and nothing could stop the languid rock of her hips against his fingertips. The tighter his hand clenched her throat, the deeper the digits sank into her cunt, the closer Soraya came to climax. A release she desperately craved, no matter how many times she denied her want of his dominance. 

It was a strange need. Joaquin entertained her bed several evenings each week, but his attention left her wanting—and bruised. He did not instill emotion or infatuation. The way Malcolm touched her, enslaved werewolf or not, crafted a unique addiction to his presence, something made even more dangerous by extending to his caress. A touch she fantasized about when she manipulated her fingers between her thighs at night. 

Higher and higher the need for release climbed, Soraya at last submitting to her desperation of a release across his hand. It was a solitary and confounding revelation. She squirmed, throat twisting against his hold, and her tousled hair falling haphazard around her flushed cheeks. The mottled sounds of pleasure were delirious whimpers, drowned in the lewd slide of his fingers within her sweltering sex. 

Right there. She was right there. And then, in perfect cinematic timing, a lesser man’s growl laced the air with fury. It overpowered the passion she’d caved to, the carnal need to lose herself in orgasmic bliss. When Soraya saw her cousin approaching from the periphery of her vision, her full lips parted in a silent “No.” Malcolm’s swift thrusting of his fingers into her sex never ceased, even after a bare glance in Joaquin’s direction.

The remote in Joaquin’s hand flashed red, sending the highest level of magical current through the wolf’s body. Malcolm immediately collapsed, his cheek colliding with Soraya’s thigh before he fell to the ground. His body seized, spittle splaying as the collar’s pain setting crafted an excruciating agony from skull to toes, which she could imagine curled uncomfortably in his shoes. 

It took her all of three seconds to shove from the side of the desk, tug down her skirt, and launch at her cousin. 

“Joaquin! Turn it off! You’ll kill him,” she said, desperation in her shrill tone. 

He turned it down—to five—but also grabbed her bare breast in his free hand. She winced when he twisted the perky mound, sensitive from Malcolm’s foreplay. Her eyes locked on his for a pregnant pause. Using the womanly curve as a handhold, he yanked Soraya close, and she smelled the toxicity on his breath when he smirked against her throat. 

“Maybe that’s the best thing we could do for him,” he slurred..“Kill the Bastardo who wants to take you away from me.”

All the while, Malcolm lay at her feet, muscles involuntarily twitching. 

Soraya could still feel the pressure of Malcolm’s fingers around her throat and the ache between her legs as he edged her closer to ecstasy. Toward unhinged bliss.

“He could never take me from you, querido,” she said, a trembling hand lifting to stroke his cheek. Joaquin swatted her away and grabbed her by the torn blouse. 

Still on the ground, Malcolm growled. Joaquin pressed the button on the remote again, and the downed werewolf twisted, his vocalization morphing into a sickly sound of agony. It ended in a throaty groan as he succumbed to unconsciousness.

Soraya’s panic swelled when her cousin dragged her close, rank breath trailing the length of her neck. The fear intertwined with her arousal, and she knew he could not tell the difference. As he pushed himself on her, taking advantage of her torn clothing and heightened sensitivity, she could only think about the damage the collar might do to Malcolm. They had not yet tested prolonged exposure, and it was the first time she realized she cared about the consequences of the device she’d help create. 

“Luis!” Joaquin bellowed through the open doorway. 

A man appeared within the doorway, smaller than Cobra but no less menacing in his stature. As if waiting for the beckon the entire time. His dark hair lay slicked back from an angular face, accenting its starkness compared to his bulk. He made her cousin seem small, the ripple of Luis’ musculature beneath the tight shirt an obvious statement about his ego. Perhaps she’d purchase the guard a new wardrobe. One that fit better. 

It was a thought for another time, as Luis’ arrival led to him heaving Malcolm’s dead weight over his shoulder, a feat she didn’t think should look so easy. Joaquin’s menacing gaze returned to Soraya, leering. 

“See the perro is placed in chains he can’t break. It’s time for him to know who I am,” he said, all the while looking down on her, a wicked glint in his eyes on a sallow visage.

She despised the weight of his eyes. How they left her feeling exposed down to the core of her person. Their invasion drowned her in a sense of unsettledness, of wanting to hide from their unnatural intrusion. 

Soraya shook her head. The movement halted when Joaquin’s fingers wrapped around her jaw and forced her neck into a harsh upward tilt. 

“We have business to attend, bonita, and then I will deal with him. Come.”

Appearances proved deceiving. He shrugged out of his jacket and wrapped it over her shoulders to hide the tear in her blouse. By the time they walked into the hall, she’d shorn her expression of all emotion, all ill-will, and they made their way toward the elevators with neutral smiles. Soraya knew what was to come, and none of it would be pleasant. To an outsider, however, nothing seemed amiss. It was just another day.