Born Sinner by Cora Kenborn

Chapter Fifteen

Lola

The pulsein my neck beats a furious rhythm. It’s him.

He was here, inside my apartment again.

But how? When?

When the mouse strays, she gets punished.

Lifting my head off the glass, I stare out the window. One that gives a perfect view of the parking lot. Right where Alex’s car was parked.

I fist my hands, the note crumpling in my damp palm as I stumble backward.

He saw us.

Common sense tells me to feel violated again. Instead, my cheeks heat with desire.

It’s exactly what you wanted…

Thoughts swirl in my head of Sam standing where I am now, watching Alex kiss me. Watching him try to undress me. Watching as I fought back, the Carrera in me surfacing like an uncaged animal.

Did it infuriate him?

Did his dick harden as he watched?

Images spin through my mind faster than I can control them. It’s sick and twisted, but I can’t stop. The more I think about him—his jaw tight, his need strong, and his hate for me, a barrel of gasoline with my taunting a lit match—the wetter I get.

I can’t breathe.

“Lola?”

I jump as my brother’s voice rumbles behind me.

“Shit!” Quickly shoving the note into my bra, I turn around, trying to mask arousal as annoyance. “Stop sneaking up on me like that!” As soon as my heart starts beating again, I shift a nervous glance back at the window. “How long had you been here before I walked in?”

“A few minutes. Why?”

No reason. Just wondering if you crossed paths with my stalker.“Never mind.” With as much dignity as possible, I walk past him toward the bedroom, when he grabs my arm. “What the hell, Santi? Do you or do you not want me to pack?”

He holds out his hand. “Give me your keys.”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“Do I look like I’m kidding?”

No, he looks like he’s about to throw me over his shoulder and carry me back to Mexico.

There’s no hope in changing his mind. I’ve been a part of this family long enough to know a losing battle when I see one.

Sighing, I gesture toward the far wall where the contents of my purse lay scattered across the floor. “Help yourself.”

Rolling his eyes, he crosses the room and bends down to sift through the strewn contents. After pocketing my keys, he runs a hand through his unruly hair. “I have to make arrangements with RJ. I’ll be back in half an hour. Be ready.”

Once again, I heave out a heavy sigh.

Santi tips my chin with his forefinger, the hard lines in his face softening. “Chaparrita, I’m not doing this to punish you.”

“It doesn’t feel like it.”

“You’re my baby sister, Lola. My responsibility. I couldn’t live with myself if anything happened to you.” His hold tightens. “You have to understand that family is everything to me. I’ll kill for you. I’ll die for you. And any man who hurts you will suffer until his last breath.”

Damn it.His fierce loyalty is making it hard to hate him right now. “I know.”

And therein lies the problem. I do know. His words aren’t just idle threats. He won’t rest until Sam pays. Not only for crossing territory lines, but for drawing Carrera blood.

For daring to taint the innocence of Valentin Carrera’s daughter.

The gold flecks in Santi’s brown eyes glitter with affection. “I love you, kid.”

“I love you too,” I mumble. It’d be so much easier if I didn’t.

With a brotherly kiss to my forehead, he leaves me alone with my wayward thoughts and a ticking time clock. Closing the door behind him, I turn and slump against it.

Half an hour.

Half an hour and then it’s goodbye freedom, hello shackles and chains. I love my family with all my heart, but they’re slowly suffocating me.

“You’re in over your head, Lola. You’re drowning, and you don’t even know it.”

How the hell am I supposed to learn to swim if I’m never allowed to sink?

But you did sink, a voice in my head whispers. You sank hard, just like the enemy’s blade did into your skin. You moaned for him. You chased the ruthless path of a loaded gun as he dragged it against you. He did more than slice your skin—he sliced through your last shred of restraint.

Biting my lip, I reach into my bra and pull out the Post-it Note. Smoothing out the wrinkles, I read the words again, memorizing each slanted line as I wander back across the living room.

When the mouse strays, she gets punished. Slowly, painfully, until she begs for mercy. This time, it won’t be steel that draws it from her. The hunt is on, dulzura.

The hunt is on.

What does that even mean? Is he watching me right now?

Before I can stop myself, I wander back to the window. Scraping my teeth over my bottom lip, I lean against the wooden pane and scour the parking lot.

He’s a Santiago associate—my family’s sworn enemy. I’m meant to hate him and everything he stands for. According to Santi and papá, he wants nothing more than to hurt me.

To kill me.

So, why simply mark me? Why use his gun in that alley instead of his cock? He’s had every chance to taint Valentin Carrera’s daughter. To take my virginity and leave me bleeding until I gasped my last breath.

So why didn’t he?

I stared across the room into those intense, dark eyes the night of his party, and then again in the nightclub. They weren’t drenched in hate. If anything, they radiated lust.

And something else...

Something more unsettling.

Obsession.

I know because it courses through my own veins, too.

I think of his cool demeanor and that midnight black hair, wild and a little long—as reckless and chaotic as the man himself.

He’s a silent predator, stalking with beauty and grace and then devouring with the appetite of an entire pack. Just like he did in the alley when he blurred the line between desire and death.

He saved me that night from Troy Davis. I can’t remember it or prove it, but I know in my soul he did.

As if pulled by a magnetic force, my fingers trail down my dress, between my breasts, down my stomach, and hover just inside of my hip. I trace the still tender S with the tip of my finger. Over and over, I trace the brand he gave me, each pass hardening my nipples to stiff peaks.

I wonder if he’s outside this window watching me right now?

“What game are you playing, Sam?” I muse, imagining him standing in the parking lot looking up at me through the window.

When the mouse strays, she gets punished.

Maybe in another lifetime, yes, but in half an hour, I’ll be on a plane to Mexico. Our cat and mouse game is over. There will be no punishment. No begging. No hunt.

No more butterflies to catch.

I’ll never see him again, and he’ll never see me again.

Unless I let him see me now.

I don’t know what possesses me to unbutton the first button at the top of my dress, but the moment I do, a rush of heat pools between my legs so unbearably strong, I can’t control myself. I unbutton another…then another…then another…until the entire thing is barely hanging onto my shoulders. I can’t see anything outside the window. It’s too dark, but I feel him. He’s out there watching…waiting.

What I’m doing is dangerous. RJ could have left with Santi, or he could be standing guard right outside cataloging my every move. I don’t see him lurking about, but that’s hardly comforting. Cousin or no cousin, as my brother’s right-hand man, he wouldn’t hesitate to throw me under the bus.

Electricity sizzles down my spine at the contradiction. Two dark knights—one here to protect my purity, the other here to destroy it.

Thisis what being a Carrera means. Daring to walk into fire. Balancing on the thin wires tracing my name. Risking the fall just to satiate an innate need to shatter society’s perfect ideals.

If I’m going to be convicted, I might as well commit the crime.

My fingers travel up my arm and curl around the strap resting on my shoulder. I’m lightheaded as it slides down my skin, ashamed of my own wantonness, but too far gone to stop. Trailing my hand across my chest, I reach for the strap clinging to my other shoulder, when a faint ringing sound catches my attention.

Turning, I stare across the room at the cell phone lying face down on the floor by my purse, and my stomach clenches.

I don’t have to look to know it’s RJ. There’s no doubt in my mind he’s caught an unintentional glimpse of Sam’s private show, and he’s calling to warn me of my brother’s impending wrath.

My heavy footsteps carry me across the room, where I pick up my phone, my indiscretion searing the metal into my palm. The screen is blank, save two words.

Unknown Caller.

Of course. My family uses burner phones. Always helpful when avoiding the DEA. Sighing, I hit the accept button. “RJ, come on… I thought we had a deal? I’m already in enough trouble. Can we just keep this between—?”

A rough breath hisses through the line, licking my ear with its forbidden tongue.

“RJ?”

He doesn’t answer, but the breathing grows heavier…lethal…more insistent. There’s an underlying growl hidden in the silence that ignites my skin.

It’s him.

I don’t know how I know; I just do.

Closing my eyes, I imagine his gaze following my every move as that wicked tongue licks his full lips.

“Can you see me, Sam?” I whisper. “Do you want to see your creation?”

Wandering back to the window, I stare into the pitch-black night. Once I verify my cousin is nowhere to be found, my restraint snaps. Emboldened by lust, I push the remaining strap of my dress off my shoulder, not flinching as the material slips past my waist and pools at my feet.

I’m standing in front of my second-floor window in a black lacy bra and thong, breathing as heavily as if he were standing behind me, his lips brushing my neck.

Slowly, I run my fingers along the S puckering the skin on my hip, a strange pride filling my chest. “What does this mean?” I ask, placing a hand against the glass. “Am I marked for death? Or am I marked for you?”

As if in response, a bright orange glow ignites in the hazy dark, and then just as quickly, disappears. Startled, I take a few steps back, common sense trying to force its way through whatever spell I’m under.

However, instead of getting dressed as any sane person would do, I lick my lips. “Sam…?” I call out, testing him by slowly dragging a bra strap down my shoulder. “Do you like what you see? Is this what you thought about when you got yourself off in my bathroom? Do you want me, or do you just like to watch?”

The image in my head returns, bringing with it an insatiable ache between my thighs. As if commanded, I slide my other strap down, teasing a nipple through the thin lace of my bra. “Did you see me with Alex tonight? What would you have done if I’d let him touch me?” I’m growing delirious with lust, my pussy throbbing at the thought of my father’s enemy watching me… Hearing me… “Would you have stopped me? Would you have killed him for it? Do you want to punish me, Sam?”

Fuck, I can’t take it anymore.I slip my hand into my panties, gasping as my finger finds my clit.

“What if I’d let him fuck me?” I groan, rubbing furious circles. The pleasure is so intense it lifts me onto my toes, forcing me to bow my head. “What would you have done?”

In my mind, it’s no longer my finger torturing my clit. It’s his. Stars burst behind my closed eyes as the fantasy pushes me closer to the edge.

“I’m a virgin, you know. Does that get you off?” Shit! The glass fogs as I sink my finger inside my wet heat, pumping just like I know he would do. “I’m leaving, Sam.” My body is shaking with need, words tumbling out of my mouth with reckless abandon. “Your mouse is being taken away. You could’ve been my first. Now another will take what’s yours. Does that piss you off?”

Letting out a tortured cry, I return to my clit, chasing an orgasm carved in his image.

Pretending my hand is his mouth…his tongue…

“Would you take me hard? Over and over until I bled your name? Until there wasn’t a part of me that didn’t belong to you?” That’s it. The thought of him claiming and dominating me is too much. “Sam!” Collapsing against the window, I come hard, his name a hoarse cry on my lips.

When the euphoria of my orgasm finally fades, I slump against the window, my forehead and breasts pressed against the glass, and my hand still tucked inside my panties.

What’s even more pathetic?

The fantasy will never be enough.

Quickly ending the call, I block the unknown number in a panic and push away from the window, staring blankly at my reflection—at my half-naked body and the crude S carved into the inside of my hip.

“You’re in over your head, Lola. You’re drowning, and you don’t even know it.”

My brother is right. I’m drowning. I’m getting myself off in front of a window to the thought of my family’s sworn enemy, for Christ’s sake. The man who desecrated my body in the name of war, not desire.

“That is a metal slab at the medical examiner’s office… And that, dear sister, is the same scarlet letter carved into her chest.” Santi’s warning blares like a siren in my head.

“Dios mío, what the hell’s wrong with me?”

Shame burns my cheeks as I draw the curtains, gathering my dress from the floor and quickly buttoning it. Backing away, I disappear into my bedroom and pull my suitcase from the back of my closet, my mind a cyclone of self-loathing and sadness.

My family is right. I’m just a pawn.

A stupid mouse who took the bait.