Alejandro's Prey Read online

  Of course, she knew he lusted after her, he made no secret of this. He’d spent a year stalking her with both his eyes and his actions. He’d done his best to keep other men away from her. She’d always sort of wondered what kept him at bay since he didn’t seem like the sort of man to deny himself something he really wanted. At first, she’d been relieved that he hadn’t simply taken her, but as the months passed a part of her had become gradually disappointed and hurt. After all, Alejandro was a very handsome man. It was both breathtaking and terrifying to be the focus of his attention. Plus… if she were being totally honest, her options were pretty limited way up there in the mountains.

  According to the kitchen staff, he stopped touching any of the women on the mountain after Gina’s and Casey’s arrival. They assumed he must now be going into La Paz for his amusement out of respect for the women of the house. Another tiny shaft of hurt had quivered through Gina at the thought. She’d shrugged it off as simple annoyance because he was allowed to seek companionship elsewhere but was making damn sure the men within her vicinity knew touching her would mean instant death.

  Thus, she and Casey had hatched a plan to ensure Gina finally got a little off-mountain time with the friendly doctor. Of course, Gina hadn’t confided in Casey the part of her plan that included prodding Alejandro and courting his annoyance. She wanted to see once and for all if the second-in-command was actually into her. Well, she got her answer when Alejandro ruined what had been a perfectly pleasant date. Gina sent him a tiny glare and twisted her fingers in her lap. She really hoped Miguel would be okay. He wasn’t built for fighting. It hadn’t been fair of Alejandro to beat him so viciously.

  “I can see your thoughts, little mouse.”

  His deep, measured voice coming clear through the headset after such a prolonged silence made her jump. She glanced sideways at him and then turned her face away and looked through the windows. They were clearing the valleys and the first sight of sprawling La Paz was coming upon them.

  She jumped as Alejandro took her chin firmly in hand and forced her head around until she was facing him. His eyebrows were lowered over dark brown, snapping eyes. He didn’t look angry… exactly. More annoyed. Her breath hitched and she clutched the armrests of her seat. Alejandro had rarely touched her since her arrival in Bolivia, though he was always watching. Watching and waiting. As if for the perfect time to pounce.

  He leaned in until his lips were inches from her face. He spoke as though she could hear him naturally instead of through the speaker and headset. “It would be a mistake to ignore me, Gina. Our courtship dance has ended, and it’s time for us to get serious.”

  Her heart pounded furiously as his words and his intent came through loud and clear.

  “There are certain things I won’t tolerate from you, amor,” he said, his voice sinister and silky at the same time. She shivered as he slid his thumb across her jaw. “Your thoughts will no longer linger on other men.” His eyes snapped to hers, piercing deep, pinning her. “Entender?”

  She sat in place, not daring to move or speak. Her mouth felt dry and her palms were damp from clinging to the armrests like a lifeline. In that moment she felt fear like she hadn’t felt in the dozen years since Sosa, the Venezuelan Butcher, helped her flee the United States after a Mexican Cartel had targeted her family. She knew deep in her bones that her life was about to change significantly. She resented Alejandro for stripping away her new-found confidence and once more forcing her to feel such uncertainty. She’d loved the feeling of safety she’d found in Bolivia with Casey. Yet, she also knew that no man could keep her as safe as this one. He’d spent a year proving it as he helped Reyes run his empire. He ate, breathed and slept security. She knew beyond a doubt that Alejandro Morales would take a bullet for her and anyone in her family. It was one of the reasons she loved him.

  “You need to answer me, Gina,” he growled, speaking in English for her benefit, his accent sharp around each syllable. “Silence will never be an acceptable answer when I am speaking to you.”

  She dropped her eyes so he couldn’t see the anger that leaped into the grey-blue depths. Alejandro could and would read too much there. He was not second-in-command to Bolivia’s mafia kingpin for no reason. He was excellent at his job. Excellent at reading people. She jerked her head in a nod, pulling her face from his long, brown fingers.

  “Si, Alejandro,” she agreed quietly. “I understand.”

  He allowed her to pull away from him and settled back into his seat as the helicopter began its descent into Reyes’ private airport, located on the outskirts of La Paz. She felt his eyes on her but refused to lift her own. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. She wasn’t ready to reveal herself yet, not until she was sure of him. She needed to know, not just his plans for her, for them, but the way he felt for her.

  He might have her heart, but he didn’t need to see all or any of her cards. She intended to keep them close at hand. He thought she was a mouse? Fine with her. Perhaps she was. She didn’t deal in death and mayhem quite the way he did. She was quiet and sweet, a bookworm. The nanny. She would wait and watch, find out what she meant to him; if anything.

  The moment the helicopter landed he unbuckled himself, pushed the door open and reached for her. Gina pressed back in her seat and glared down but didn’t move. There was no point in fighting Alejandro; he was bigger, smarter and much, much deadlier than her. After he unbuckled her and pulled off her headset, he held out his hand. She frowned down at the long, rough fingers and tried to stand on her own, but he took her arm before she could slip by him. He leaned down so he could speak in her ear as the wind whipped up from the helicopter blades and flung her shoulder length blond hair up into their faces. His words were like dark silk as he spoke loud enough for her to hear over the noise of the engine powering down. “Do this the easy way, Gina, and I promise you’ll love being my wife.”

  His wife. There it was again. But this time his words were undeniable. He intended to marry her, and she wasn’t to have a say. He helped her off the helicopter and pulled her forward several steps until they were level with the pilot. She stumbled a little in her state of confusion, but he held her tightly ensuring she wouldn’t trip.

  Her legs felt like jelly, and she would’ve fallen if he hadn’t been holding her up. The implication of what life might be like if she fought his sudden possession of her was left unspoken but terrifyingly real. She knew what Alejandro was capable of. She had never seen it with her own eyes, of course. He was careful to shield that side of his job from her, but she heard the rumours, knew he wasn’t the second most feared man in Bolivia and beyond for no reason. Reyes often sent Alejandro places in his stead knowing the deadly man would accomplish whatever terrible and destructive job his boss set to him with ease and likely some relish. He excelled for a reason. He was more than just a thug in a suit. He was intelligent, persuasive, charming and utterly ruthless with a core of loyalty that was unquestionable. Each quality made him the man that helped build a king, the man that stood in front of and beside El Rey.

  Gina felt completely powerless as she stood at his side and waited while he spoke to the pilot. Listened to him command the other man to return to the compound and leave them in La Paz for the weekend. She wanted to protest, the words leaping to her lips, but knew Alejandro would crush her denial. Just like he’d spent a year systematically isolating her in the mountains. Not that she’d been unhappy, but it wasn’t exactly the life she might have chosen for herself.

  The warm air whipped around her, her skirt wrapping around her legs. She thought about spending the entire weekend with Alejandro. It was a daunting prospect. Did he expect her to share a bed with him? To have sex with him? Stupid Gina! Of course he did. Why else was she there? Why else was he talking marriage. She was so confused, so overwhelmed that nausea suddenly reached up to squeeze her stomach and close her throat. She would have folded in on herself if Alejandro hadn’t happened to look down at that moment, caught the paleness of her
face and realized that she wasn’t doing well.

  “You may leave,” he snapped imperiously at the pilot and wrapped an arm around her waist. He ran a hand across her back, cupped her neck and pulled her into a crouch right there on the tarmac. “Just breath, cariña.”

  She nodded, tucking her chin so he couldn’t see the humiliation brightening her face. She wished she could be more like her cousin. Braver, able to face terrifying men and uncertain situations with nothing but a bad attitude and maybe a gun. Instead Gina would either vomit or faint in response to this situation. Maybe she should point that out to Alejandro? Maybe he would realize she was going to make a terrible mob wife and just leave her to a solitary, boring existence as the nanny with her books and bubble baths. She snorted with laughter, her breathing coming easier now.

  Alejandro, who was crouched beside her, took her arm and helped her back to her feet, steadying her on her heels when she rocked back a little. “Better?” he asked, his voice deep with an edge of concern. He tilted her chin so he could scan her face and body to make sure she was truly feeling well enough to continue.

  “Why me?” she asked, doing her best to swallow her panic and look him in the face. “Why do you want me, Alejandro?”

  Alejandro looked back at her, his serious gaze wandering the length of her, a wealth of unspoken words passing between them. She thought perhaps she saw an apology there, as though he were genuinely sorry to have disrupted her comfortable life with his presence before he shuttered his eyes once more.

  “It was always you, Gina,” he said, his voice somewhat grim. “It will always be you.”

  Chapter Four

  Alejandro wrapped an arm around her waist and held her tight as they walked across the tarmac toward the waiting vehicles. True to his word Reyes had sent four men with two armoured vehicles to meet them at the airport. The men would act as Alejandro’s security while he was in La Paz wooing and wedding his woman. He wasn’t entirely pleased with the interference, but he knew better than to question it.

  He held the door open and slid in next to her. Something in his chest seemed to relax and release slightly as he was finally able to look his fill. Soon he would touch and taste as well. No more waiting and watching, creating rules, corralling her; narrowing her world as he jealously watched over her from a distance. He’d known he wasn’t being exactly reasonable in his commands. He hadn’t cared. He’d wanted her to himself, yet he’d forced himself to wait. Gave the woman time to come to terms with her life in the mountains, come to terms with the brutal enforcer that would one day become her husband.

  He watched her face, his eyes caressing every part that he could see, unabashed that he had the luxury to stare since he wasn’t driving. She wasn’t a stunning beauty like her cousin. Gina’s loveliness was subtler, something that grew on a person with each meeting. Her face had a soft roundness to it, yet each feature was distinct in its own way. Her high rounded cheeks and wide lips were by far her prettiest features, drawing the eye immediately. Unable to resist, Alejandro reached out and ran a finger across the top of her cheek then down to the edge of her lip and over her chin. She jumped at first and then held stiffly still as he caressed her. He dropped his hand to her shoulder and held her. A quiver of awareness ran through her.

  He leaned toward her, brushed the blond hair from her ear and whispered for her alone, “You are not immune to my touch, Gina.”

  Her quiver turned into a full shiver, and goosebumps rippled up her bare arm. He smiled, flashing her a toothy grin and ran the back of his hand up her arm. She shifted in her seat in attempt to put space between them. Of course, there was nowhere for her to go. She was trapped by a door and her seatbelt.

  “It is good that my wife should perhaps want me just as much as I want her,” Alejandro murmured. “It will make our wedding night far more pleasant, don’t you think?”

  He was teasing her, trying to get a reaction. It worked. Her grey eyes grew stormy and she pursed those wide perfect lips. Jerking her shoulder out of his hold she said in her throaty voice, “You think there’ll be a wedding night?”

  He chuckled and grazed her chin with his knuckles. “I know there’ll be a wedding night, mi amor. And it will be so fucking caliente, you will never want to leave our bed.”

  Her eyes flashed and narrowed. He thought maybe he’d gone too far with his little mouse, but then she shifted ever so slightly and pressed her knees together. He grinned and moved back in his seat, trying to ignore the growing tightness in his trousers. He didn’t need to give his men even more of a show by dragging the nanny across the seat and into his lap.

  Then she made his day even better by saying in that perfect voice of hers, “You haven’t even asked me.”

  “Asked you what?” He was completely sidetracked by having her to himself for the weekend and her gorgeous, curvy legs peeking out from her too-short skirt, which she kept tugging down but couldn’t quite get to cover her thighs all the way. Then he remembered she wore that damn dress on her date with the doctor and his amusement fled.

  “Asked me to marry you,” she said sharply.

  He lifted an eyebrow and stared at her, dark eyes clashing with light. “Our marriage is a foregone conclusion, cariña,” he told her arrogantly. “It was such from the moment you set foot in these mountains and into my care. What we do here this weekend is a mere formality, binds you to me in the eyes of God, though His approval was never necessary to this devil.” He flashed her a wicked grin.

  She raised an eyebrow to match his and he could swear that somehow his little mouse was raising the heat in the car. And though Alejandro did not enjoy any kind of challenge to his authority, he fucking loved the way Gina was looking at him right then. If they had been alone in the car, he would pull over to the side of the road, toss her skirt up around her waist and use his fingers to force husky screams of pleasure from that luscious throat. Unfortunately, he could already feel the dark eyes of at least one too-curious young security man on him.

  He lifted an arm and pointed his trigger finger at the rear-view mirror without looking to see who it was. He knew the driver was a veteran and smart enough to pretend he was deaf and dumb to Alejandro’s private business. He felt the moment the pup’s curious eyes snapped back to the passenger side window. Dropping his hand, he turned back to his prey and inhaled sharply.

  “Fuck,” he groaned. She was more beautiful than he could have imagined when she looked at him like that, her eyes filled with angry passion. He thought he knew every facet of Gina’s character, but now that he’d decided to press his suit, she was showing him something new. Dark excitement filled him as the vehicle pulled up outside the hotel he’d booked. When Gina reached for the door he dropped a hand to her arm and held her in place. “You don’t move before I say.”

  Used to accepting his orders as a matter of safety, she simply nodded without argument. Alejandro climbed out of his side and slammed the door shut. After glancing up and down the street, he lifted his head and enjoyed the heat of the sun and the cool caress of a mountain breeze against his skin before rounding the back of the vehicle. He nodded toward the two men who had pulled up behind them and were now flanking his vehicle, discreetly watching the street for hostiles.

  Alejandro opened Gina’s door and reached for her hand. A thrill ran up his spine when she placed her small hand in his, accepting his help without complaint. She stepped out onto the sidewalk and leaned into him as she steadied herself on her heels. She looked up at him, her grey eyes wide and guileless. She used a long, graceful finger to sweep aside a lock of pale hair that had drifted across her face in the breeze.

  “Alejandro?” she asked, tilting her head to the side.

  “Si, Gina, mi amor?” he answered, feeling generous. He had his girl on his arm, finally. He was in the city, about to take her for a night on the town. Life was good.

  “Unless you want to drag your bride down the aisle kicking and screaming, you’ll ask me to marry you,” she said pertly, turni
ng away from him to take several steps toward the hotel. Then she stopped and looked over her shoulder, a hard glint in her steel grey eyes. “And you’ll do it properly.”

  Chapter Five

  Same suite, separate rooms.

  Gina let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding and glanced at Alejandro through the connecting door between the rooms. He’d left it open after ushering her through to her room. He moved around his room with an easy fluidity, as sure of himself in the confines of one of the nicest suites that the fanciest hotel in La Paz had to offer as he was on the training field with his men. He stood half facing away from her, his strong profile highlighted by the radiant hues of the setting sun shining through the balcony windows.

  As she watched, fascinated and immobile, he reached up to tug the buttons of his shirt loose starting at his strong throat and finishing just below mid-chest letting his shirt gape open over his broad muscles. He placed those long fingers and strong hands at his narrow hips and stood solid, unmoving. She took a quick breath, trying to keep it as quiet as possible, but still needing to fill her lungs with air before she fainted from holding it for too long. He turned toward her anyway, though he couldn’t possibly have heard her inhale. The piercing look he gave her with those dark eyes shot a quiver of heat right through her body. She shivered and fisted her hands at her side, hiding them in the folds of her skirt so he couldn’t see what he was doing to her.

  She wanted to go to him. As she’d wanted to a hundred times before; no, a thousand. More. She wanted to put her hands on him, run them over the muscles that she’d seen working out dozens of times with his men. Touch the shoulders that carried the burden of his king’s empire and place her palms against his, touch her heat to his, because she knew now that he wanted her as much as she wanted him. The thought stole her breath. But now was not the right time.