Until Forever Ends: A Dark Mafia Romance by Adelaide Forrest (free children's ebooks online TXT) 📕

"So tell me, then I can understand," I said, leaning my weight back onto her hips as I sat up straight. I released my grip on her throat, staring down and waiting for the confession that would finally make me understand all the pieces of what made her, her.

She smirked, shaking her head at me. There were only two things she denied me, and both were just words. The confession of her love and the reality of her secret.

I didn't know which one grated on my nerves more.

She propped one of her elbows up beneath her, leaning closer to my space as she touched the opposite hand to my cheek delicately. Teasing me with what she knew I wanted to know, I understood with a sudden clarity that she would never willingly give me the answers I sought.

I'd have to force them from her another way, and my mind spun with the possibilities of how I could do just that.

"I don't want to be weak," she said instead of responding to my inquiry, touching her nose to the side of mine and teasing my face with a gentle caress as she mimicked what I did to her so often when I wanted something from her.

"And you think you will be if you tell me the truth?" I asked, narrowing my eyes into a glare.

"No," she scoffed. "I think I am weak because I have no defense against you or anyone else. Regina told me I should embrace who I'm becoming. You said something similar. I want to learn how to defend myself."

"So you can stab me more?" I asked with a chuckle. "I don't think so."

"So I can stab people who might want to harm me. You sent me away when that man showed his face in Ibiza, so I'm inclined to believe there are people who would hurt me. I don't want to be helpless," she pleaded.

I stared down at her, rage rattling the cages of my soul as I contemplated what she was saying without actually voicing the words.

Isa didn't trust me to keep her safe.

"I won't ever let anyone touch you, Princesa," I murmured. As much as I loved that the Queen was coming to the surface more and more, I couldn't deny the fact that she would be more difficult to contain. That she'd be more of a struggle for me and I would need to fight her to remind her of her place.

The place where she was mine.

"You put a gun to my head," she snapped, raising her eyebrow at me as if she dared me to contradict her. "You can't protect me when you're part of what I need to protect myself from."

"Ah, but you're my wife now," I said, anger leaking into my voice as I dropped it low and reached out a hand to cup her around the back of the neck. "I have everything I want in my arms. I have no desire to die, and if I killed you, I would have to follow you into the pits of Hell."

"So romantic," she hissed sarcastically. "You're fucked in the head, El Diablo. Regardless of whether you want to kill me or not, I want to know how to get away from a man if he wants to hurt me. I should think you would want that too, since I'm not sure you'd appreciate someone else touching your favorite toy."

"I forbid it," I growled, watching as her eyes went wide with the extreme reaction. Every word she spoke was a nail in the coffin, another insult to my ability to protect my fucking wife. "Joaquin is there to keep you safe when I am not, and there are emergency procedures in place to make sure you're protected at all costs." I released her, lowering myself off the bed and standing next to it. Even as I despised the distance between us in the moments before I left her, the inevitable reality of the conversation was undeniable.

Isa would always push back against being dependent on me, and her desire to protect herself was only a consequence of that shift in her life. Her independence no longer mattered, because as the wife of El Diablo, her only responsibility was to keep me happy.

To take what I gave her when I needed to fuck my frustrations out on her body so that I wouldn't murder those who disappointed me. To calm the nightmare inside me so I could function without burning the world to the ground in a rage.

"You forbid it?" she asked, raising her eyebrow at me as she flared her nostrils and sat up straight. There was something in those words that felt like a challenge, as if she wanted me to understand that the order had been a very grave mistake.

"Yes. I forbid it. I will not teach you to fight. If I discover anyone else has disobeyed me in this, I don't think either of you will like the consequences," I said pointedly, touching my hand to her shoulder. My thumb dragged over the spot where she would have a brand if I hadn't taken kindness on her, reminding her exactly what was at stake if she disobeyed her husband.

She glared at me, shrugging off my hand on her shoulder before standing in the tiny space between me and the bed. "I hope you like fucking your hand then, since I forbid you from touching me."

She moved to step away, rounding the foot of the bed to make for the terrace. I grabbed her around the back of her neck, holding her still with the weight of my hand as my thumb and forefinger dug into the flesh there. Stepping up behind her, I touched my face to her hair while she trembled with her fury. "It's cute you think you can deny me anything, mi reina," I murmured. "I know how much you love my hands on you. How much you love to feel my cock moving inside you." I