Page 39 of Undercover Redemption
Mateo shut his eyes. The pained expression that crossed his face was complex, filled with longing and fear. The lantern light moved across his features—shadow and gold, darkness and warmth—and she watched him breathe through it. One breath. Two.
“I've wanted you since that first night we lay out on the beach counting stars,” he said, his voice low and rough, stripped bare of pretense. “I've wanted you since the moment you smiled after I saved that turtle from fishing wire. I've wanted you ever since I saw you step into the conservatory, sunlight dancing through your hair.” He opened his eyes. The darkness in them was complete. “So yes, Gabriella. I want you. I want everything you stand for and who you are. I am not worthy of you.”
Gabriella chuckled at that, the sound surprising her—rising up through all the fear and grief and want like a turtle breaching dark water. Her fingers slid to the crease of his neck, and she felt him shudder beneath her touch, running through him like a current finding ground.
I do this to him.The realization was devastating in the best possible way.
“So show me, Mateo. Worthy or not, I am choosing you.”
And like a storm crashing into the rocky cliffs, Mateo met her lips with the force of a raging tempest. His mouth claimed hers, devouring and consuming, his tongue finding hers with a skill that made her fingers curl into his shoulders. He pulled her tongue into his mouth and sucked on it, and the sound she made was not one she recognized as her own.
Oh, that’s different.Her brain tried to catch up with the speed of the descent she was falling, but was failing. Her moan reverberated through her entire body, sending jolts of pleasurecascading downward as she drenched the borrowed clothes, her thighs pressing together against the ache building between them. She was panting, hands roaming the hard planes of his body with a greediness she'd never allowed herself before—running her palms over his chest, his shoulders, the column of his neck, learning the layout of his body. Methodically.Hungrily, as if she were starving and he was a feast.
“More,” she pleaded. Her arms wrapped around his neck, the old bed creaking its protest beneath them as he moved over her. “Touch me Mateo. Kiss me. Lick me. Tell me everything you want. Give me more,” she begged, the words scraped raw from somewhere she hadn't known existed.
“Fuck, you are gorgeous, Gabriella. Everything about you. Your heart, your joy, your passion. Not to mention, your body is sinful.” He bit down where her neck met her shoulder, and she let out a small, pained gasp that dissolved immediately into something else entirely—something she felt in her toes, her fingertips, the backs of her knees.
No one has ever made me feel like this.
“Yes, that's it. Please.” She squirmed under him, her hips tilting towards his, her body making its requests without thought.
He sat up, removing his shirt in a single, efficient motion that revealed the dark, muscled landscape of his torso in the lantern light, and began to pull off Gabriella's shorts. Lifting her by her ass, he palmed her cheeks with an appreciative groan that vibrated through the close air of the room. “God, you fit my hands perfectly. I always loved watching you walk away.”
Gabriella laughed at that, the sound bouncing between the muddied walls. “Is that why you would walk behind me?”
“One of the many reasons,” he murmured, his voice thick and warm like honey being poured on her. He kissed her again, just as dizzying and savage as before, then pulled away. He flashedher a wicked grin before he dove down, spread apart her legs, and took her in his mouth without warning.
Gabriella nearly vaulted off the bed.
Her cry echoed in the room as she rushed to cover her mouth, the sound muffled behind her palm, her eyes wide and streaming. The jungle still hummed. The camp still laughed and drank beyond the thin walls.
The whole world is carrying on, she thought wildly,while he does this to me?
“Oh, god, wait, Mateo!” she pleaded between biting her knuckles in restraint, her free hand fisting in the rough blanket beneath her.
He made a questioning noise against her—not stopping, not even slowing—his tongue pushing deeper as her walls contracted around him, her body beginning to shake with the violence of pleasure she hadn't allowed herself in so very long. A teasing lick and nibble of her clit left her legs twitching, and her heel pressing helplessly into the mattress.Did he just bite me?
“Mateo,” she hissed, caught between pleasure and the last shredded remnants of her sanity. “It's been almost a year. Can you please be gentle?” She felt heat rise at the confession, the tips of her ears on fire.
Pleasure-drunk eyes lifted to meet hers from between her legs, holding her gaze for a long, devastating moment before he pulled away. A trail of him and her glistened between them as a slow, knowing smile lit his face. When he spoke, his voice roughened to gravel. “I don't plan onevergoing easy on you, Gabriella. I will mark you and fuck you until you can’t sit or walk straight. At the end of tonight, my brand will be permanently etched into your very being with my cock buried in your sweet cunt until morning.”
She couldn't breathe. She stared into his eyes as her chest heaved with the effort of processing words her body had apparently already decided to accept completely.
“And that's it? I don't have a say?”
He chuckled at her, low and satisfied, the sound doing absolutely nothing to help her composure. “Maybe in how long you ride me for.”
She laughed. She couldn’t help but laugh.This is happening.She may have been kidnapped, dragged through a jungle, and nearly assaulted at a hot spring, but she waschoosingthis. Choosing him. The man who had stolen her heart without her realizing it—not all at once, not in a single dramatic moment, but slowly, the way the tide comes in. The way a fresh-hatched turtle finds the ocean.
He found me, she thought.Even when he was lying, something in him was looking for me.
“Fine, but make good on that promise,” she said as she took off the shirt he’d given her. Her breath caught as the warm air of the room settled against her bare skin. The sudden self-consciousness arrived swiftly, her hands moving instinctively inward before Mateo's voice stopped her cold.
“God, you've got perfect fucking breasts. I can't wait to come on them.”
She sputtered, a startled laugh breaking free once more as heat rose from the top of her ears down to the tips of her toes.Was sex always this much fun and joyous?Despite how erotic they were being, despite how much she was teetering, everything this man was doing was so sinfully sexy and sweet. The complete opposite of the serious exchanges she had. The rawness of it, the complete and unashamed want in his voice—nothing about it resembled the clumsy, obligatory attention Justin had occasionally paid her body. This was something else. Somethingthat made her feel seen in a way that had nothing to do with simply being looked at and everything to do with beingwanted.
“Then prove it, Mateo.” She took one breast in her hand, rolling the nipple between her thumb and finger, knowing her body well enough to coax it to a taut bead. The look on his face was worth every shred of vulnerability it cost her. “Make me come, please.”
