Scarred Queen (The Queens Book 1) Read online

  He tore his face to one side, away from her nipping teeth, gripped her by the throat and pushed her down on the table. “You want to play, nena?” he growled down at her, his eyes glowing molten fire at her.

  She licked her lips and nodded, peeking up at him from beneath her lashes. Slowly she spread her legs against the edge of the table, wiggling them past his thighs until she could inch her knees up his hips and grip his waist. Her skirt fell back, revealing a tiny thong. She knew what he saw when his eyes moved from her face to her pussy. She was very wet for him and her panties would be soaked through. She moaned and reached a hand down her body, drifting first between her breasts, fuller now from his care and attention, over her belly and across her hip.

  She touched the pads of her fingertips lightly against her panties. His own hand tightened on her throat, his fingers biting into her skin. She choked a little, though she doubted he even knew he was gripping her so tight, he was so focused on what she was doing to herself. She didn’t care. She loved the things he did to her body; the way he ruthlessly brought her alive before sending her tumbling into the dark abyss of searing surrender. She slid her forefinger along the edge of her thong and then dipped it inside the sticky fabric. She smiled slightly when he frowned because the cotton crotch of her panties obscured his view.

  Casey slid her finger further along the folds of her slit until she reached the entrance of her dripping vagina. Her eyes rolled back at the look of utter, ferocious worship on his face as he watched every, minute movement she made with barely leashed restraint. He was so beautiful, so perfect. His face, so savage, each scar taut as he strained with the effort it took to wait and see what she would do next.

  She maneuvered another finger inside the thong, careful not to disturb the fabric, rather enjoying the control she had over him. She liked to tease her dark captor until he finally broke. She slid her fingers up and down her labia, rubbing the pads in circles along her clit whenever she reached the top, sparking waves of heat and pleasure through her quivering body. His burning eyes only made the sensation more intense as her orgasm built.

  Just as Casey was about to tumble over the abyss and into the glorious arms of her orgasm, Reyes gripped her wrist and slammed her hand against the table. Her eyes flew open and she uttered a gasp of dismay. He stared down at her with a combination of fierce hunger and, now unrestrained, furious lust.

  “You think to play games with me, cariña?” he growled. He pulled her fingers up to his lips and sucked them into his mouth, licking the juices from her before releasing her wrist. Then he reached between them and tore her underwear away. She cried out as stinging heat slashed across her thigh where the fabric futilely resisted his strength. “You will take your orgasms from me only if you want to play naughty games.”

  He unbuckled and unzipped his pants. She felt him shift and tried to see, but he still had her pinned to the table by her throat. He shoved his cock past the barrier of his underwear, yanked her closer to the edge of the table until her thighs were forced wide against his hips. She squirmed against him. She was dripping wet for him and they’d engaged in non-stop sex for almost four weeks, but when he was like this his entry was always rough. She knew she would be sore after.

  Casey cried out as he slammed full length into her, arching her chest upward as much as she could while still being held down against the hard, unyielding table. Reyes grunted as pleasure coursed through him. He leaned over her, placing a hand next to her waist and began thrusting, using her aggressively while she writhed on the table, both seeking relief from the invasion and reaching for her own building orgasm.

  Reyes never failed to fulfill Casey when they came together. She didn’t know how he managed to make her come as often and as hard as he did, but she’d become greedy for everything he could provide. Soon she was begging for it, gripping the arm that still pinned her by the throat, using it for an anchor and lifting her hips to meet his thrusts as he slammed into her. She felt him approach orgasm, felt the tightening of his fingers around her throat as her pussy tightened around his body, gripping him hard. Streaks shot through her head and she chased after them, her hips lifting slightly, only to get slammed against the table with each snap of his own. She wondered if the sparks in her vision had colour or if it was her imagination.

  “Ahhhh god, Reyes!” she whimpered as she exploded, digging her nails into his arm.

  He grunted, his body stiffening over hers, his fingers flexing against her neck, but not tightening enough to actually cause damage, proving to her that he knew exactly what he was doing all along. He cared too much about his precious queen to ever cause harm. Tears flooded her eyes as that thought filtered through her head while she floated down and the hot gush of semen bathed her cervix. She blinked the tears back so he wouldn’t see them and think he’d hurt her. He must never think that.

  Reyes carefully released her throat, trailing his knuckles across the delicate skin and over her breasts through the fabric of her shirt as he moved away, pulling out of her. She felt a trail of cooling semen on her thigh and, glancing around at the scattered dishes, giggled at their desecration of the breakfast table. She decided it was probably for the best that Miguel had taken a walk. Casey wasn’t entirely certain Reyes wouldn’t fuck her in front of an audience. He was definitely enough of a caveman to stake his claim in front of other men and then murder any witnesses.

  Reyes backed away, rebuckling his belt and admiring the sprawl of his woman over the breakfast table with warm smugness. As he turned to stride from the room he said over his shoulder, “If the doctor touches you, he dies. If he leaves you to suffer in any way without immediate relief, he will wish for death long before he dies.”

  “These death threats are getting old, Reyes!” she called after him, shoving herself up on an elbow and reaching for another piece of melon.

  Once he left, she hastily scrambled off the table and rearranged her outfit before going to her bedroom for another pair of panties and then searching out the doctor. She was a bit worried he might be looking for an escape route off their extremely fortified mountain.

  She found him a few minutes later, but felt it wiser to keep Reyes’ stipulations for their forthcoming private meetings to herself. She did, however, outline where they were to walk and tentatively discuss which medications she should be taking and how she should get hold of the doctor when they weren’t together and she needed him.

  Miguel was surprisingly at ease in her presence and they became fast friends over the following weeks. He even agreed to accompany them to Casey’s appointment in Brazil, at Casey’s begging and with multiple promises that Reyes would be on his best behaviour.

  “I’m just going to be so much more comfortable with you there,” Casey enthused, her arm looped through Miguel’s as they boarded Reyes private plane in La Paz. “I want you to be able to give your professional opinion every step of the way. I trust you completely.”

  Reyes snorted from behind them. Casey tossed him a scathing look over her shoulder and lifted the frozen drink he’d bought for her to her lips. She’d craved a Slurpee since leaving America and bugged Reyes pretty constantly about it every time he said something extra awful to her new best friend as a form of revenge. He’d finally broken down and found her one on the way to the airport. His eyes went rapidly from annoyance over her grip on Miguel’s arm to blazing lust as her lips, now stained bright pink from the cherry-flavoured Slurpee, wrapped around the straw and sucked eagerly at the sweet treat.

  “Fuck,” he growled and reached for her other arm, yanking her back against his chest and away from Miguel’s touch. “You like to tease me and play with another man’s life, nena?”

  She giggled while the doctor pretended not to hear the exchange. Once they boarded, Casey made a point of sitting next to her doctor friend while Reyes sat with his men. The space was small enough that his razor-sharp gaze could watch his woman at all times. He was not remotely worried about her interactions with the relatively youth
ful neurologist, but he didn’t particularly like anyone near her for any length of time.

  As with their last flight, Casey watched everything about the takeoff with fascinated enthusiasm while Reyes watched his woman, his face impassive, his gaze hungry as always. After the plane lifted above the clouds and the beautiful mountain scenery no longer captured her attention, she turned to the doctor and asked the question that wouldn’t stop gnawing at her. Her anxiety increasing the closer they got to Brazil.

  “What if they find something in my head?” Casey whispered, her worried eyes on Miguel’s face.

  “You mean like a tumor?” he asked bluntly, addressing her worst fear. How could a person have such debilitating migraines and not have something seriously wrong with them? Yet he’d reassured her over and over that the likelihood of tumor was astronomically slim.

  She nodded her head, but his words did assuage her fears; she knew it showed on her face so once more Miguel went over the facts with her.

  “We’ve been over this many times, Casey. If you had a mass in your brain, there would be many more signs and your headaches would have gotten progressively worse over the years. But your coordination and motor skills are fine. Your vision is fine, except for the colour-blindness, which you’ve had since birth. You do admit to some memory loss, but this seems to be a by-product of your accident.” He covered her hand in his and squeezed. “Be brave, Casey. This is one of the best neuro-clinics in the world. The scans and the x-rays will only help to reassure you. Don’t fear what they’ll tell you. They’ll give us better ways to cope with the headaches.”

  Casey liked the way he said ‘us’. Ignoring Reyes’ typical murderous glare, she looped her arm through Miguel’s and held on to him for a while, needing his steady, calming reassurance. She’d gone from a complete lack of touch in her life to now basking in the glorious caresses of her lover and the completely plutonic, but nonetheless reassuring presence of her doctor. If Reyes didn’t like that she was giving her attention to both men, he could jump off an airplane. He’d gotten her a doctor for her safety and sanity and she was finding comfort in his gift.

  She snuggled back in her seat with a sigh and closed her eyes. She tilted her head slightly toward Miguel, though not completely leaning on his shoulder. After all, she wasn’t totally trying to get the man killed. She would accept his reassurances along with the solid, protective strength that Reyes surrounded her with and be brave for her upcoming ordeal.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Casey wasn’t happy. And when Casey wasn’t happy, Reyes wasn’t happy. She was sitting in a private room at the Brazilian clinic with her lover pacing close by and his men standing off to the side, watching over their charges. All these big men in the small room absolutely dwarfed the space, until Reyes finally growled at two of them to take a walk, leaving only Reyes, Alejandro and Casey behind.

  Casey gripped the edge of the uncomfortable plastic chair until her knuckles were white. She rocked back and forth, back and forth. Her ankles were crossed and tucked under the chair. She wondered why a clinic as expensive as this place didn’t invest in better chairs. Maybe they didn’t know. Maybe someone should tell them. Maybe they had a comment box. Maybe they spent too much money on their high-end lab equipment and couldn’t afford decent chairs. Perhaps she would get Reyes to donate better chairs once they flew back to La Paz and she was safely away from this place. Unless she actually did have a tumor. Then she was going to sue them; because she was vindictive that way, not because it was actually their fault she had a tumor.

  Casey sighed and reached for the end of the string on the neck of her hoodie and put it in her mouth to chew on nervously. She wasn’t actually going to sue the clinic or let Reyes do anything evil to the doctors. She wasn’t truly vindictive. She was just scared. She shifted in her seat again and pulled her long legs up to sit cross-legged, glad she’d chosen comfort over sophistication when she dressed this morning.

  They’d arrived last night in Rio de Janeiro and stayed in a luxury hotel. This morning she’d chosen a pair of leggings, a black hoodie with a rose dipped in blood on the front and a pair of Sketchers. She’d piled her hair on top of her head in a knot, which had long since come loose to tumble in waves down her back. She wasn’t sure where the elastic had gone and the loss was really bothering her. Was the hair elastic still in the break room? Or maybe it had fallen in the MRI machine?

  Most of her time at the clinic had been spent waiting to be called in between tests. Casey personally thought Reyes did a remarkable job of not freaking out with how long everything was taking and how many people touched her, though Casey was certain the doctors thought otherwise. His vicious caveman was firmly in place the entire time. He particularly hadn’t liked the MRI machine, nor anything that required her having to get undressed. He’d stood beside her for each procedure, his bulging arms crossed, his death glare firmly in place. When he was forced to leave her side, the poor doctor asked Alejandro to explain the procedure and then took off in case Reyes objected. Each needle, each test had to be fully and completely explained before anything was allowed to touch her and even then, it usually took Casey herself arguing him into compliance. She began to wonder how they weren’t kicked out of the clinic and asked never to return.

  Money and power.

  Casey lifted her eyes and watched the men in the room. A soft bubble of laugher erupted from her. Alejandro and Reyes looked as nervous as she felt, which, oddly, settled the butterflies in her stomach. Reyes, of course, looked fiercely protective as he paced from the window back to the chair where she sat, absently brushing his large, rough fingers across the fine strands of her hair as he passed.

  Alejandro had taken up a post by the window where he squinted with deadly concentration out into the parking lot two stories down, the set of his shoulders filled with tension. Casey could only surmise that her current situation was causing him worry since she didn’t think there was any worry of an imminent attack. She watched him with affection. The off-putting Bolivian seemed to soften towards her over the past several weeks. It was clear that he found her absurd statements hilarious and would erupt in a full-bodied laugh whenever she said or did anything that set the boss off. He’d even taken it upon himself a few times to poke the beast just to get Casey going. She’d known what he was up to and thought it was pretty funny.

  Miguel was with the other neurologists reviewing the test results. The clinic doctors had been kind enough to invite him as a professional courtesy to consult with them knowing that he would be treating Casey in the foreseeable future. Casey was extremely grateful. She’s grown to trust Miguel implicitly.

  Finally, after what felt like a decade had passed in that small, airless room, the door opened and Miguel entered with two of the clinic doctors. Just in time, she thought. She was positive that Reyes was about to start tearing heads off and demanding answers.

  The breath rushed from her lungs and Casey felt faint. She could tell immediately from the look on Miguel’s face that something was gravely wrong. His olive skin had an ashen tone and he refused to meet her eyes. Tears filled her eyes and she dug her fingers into her knees, attempting to pinch her skin hard enough to infuse some courage into her body. She wanted to open her mouth, to say the words and confront the truth. To be the first one to fill the silence. But the truth was, Casey was a coward. Her time with Reyes helped her to realize that she’d never been able to face the truth of a situation. She had avoided reality because it was too scary for her.

  Finally, she managed to square her shoulders and look up, her face hard. Reyes and Alejandro came to stand on either side of her, like sentinels. It was almost laughable how much support she had in these big, strong immovable men with a wealth of power behind them compared to before with Ignacio. Reyes would move mountains, burn cities and search relentlessly for answers if it meant helping her.

  Reyes placed his hand on her shoulder and without looking at her, demanded, “Tell us what you found.”

 
; “Señor…” the head neurologist spoke hesitantly. Casey began to feel faint. Did she actually have a tumor? Had the impossible really become possible after all? “Perhaps you would like to speak with us in the hallway first.”

  The panic rose up through her and waves of dizziness washed over her. But she desperately fought against fainting, she needed to know her fate. She carefully inched her hand up toward Reyes until she was clasping his hand where it rested on her shoulder. He still refused to look at her, but she could tell from the tension in his body that he was desperately worried. His body vibrated with the telltale signs of growing rage that threatened to erupt in violence.

  His voice betrayed none of this when he spoke with chilly precision, “Speak. My wife is a strong woman. She can handle whatever you have to say.”

  Casey closed her eyes, took a deep breath and slowly stiffened her spine, stacking it until she was sitting as straight as she possibly could. When she opened her eyes, she fixed them on the wall between Miguel, who stared at the floor between his feet in utter dejection, and the other doctor. She wondered if Miguel was regretting his decision to hang with the other doctors. His intentions had been good. He’d get to learn some new techniques, share some professional expertise and help in the decision-making process when it ultimately came to the best interests of his patient. Now he didn’t seem so keen on the idea. He looked ready to bolt.

  They all looked ready to bolt.