Enemy Sworn (15 page)

There was, he thought, witness protection. It was the only way she could disappear and start a new life. And the thought of never seeing her again made him sick to his stomach.

chapter thirteen

S
ophia's skin warmed as a ripple of energy swizzled through her when she looked up from where she stood at her desk to see her husband's molten eyes locked on her. Her lips curved into a shy smile. It bothered her on every level that her body reacted to him the way it did. She had no control over it. And really, she didn't want to control it. Her husband was the most exciting thing that ever happened to her. She was going to ride it for as long as she could.

“Hello, beautiful.”

His low, husky voice sent crazy shivers sprinting up and down her spine. Raking him with her hungry eyes, she caught her breath. Mateo Juarez was one intimidating, extremely sexy male. He sauntered toward her like one of the powerful black panthers that still roamed the surrounding forests of Terra Oro. Tall, muscular and dangerous, his golden eyes shone possessively as he moved toward her.

He wore a long-sleeved white linen shirt that was unbuttoned at the throat, accentuating his tan skin, a pair of low-slung acid-washed jeans and distressed black leather boots. With a black leather backpack slung casually over his right shoulder, he looked like he could either be going to a rodeo or stepping onto a movie set. He smiled, flashing perfectly straight white teeth.

Her knees shook and she needed to sit down, but she resisted. She might teach kindergarten, but she was no longer a shy schoolgirl. Straightening, she raised her chin and cocked a brow. “Hello, handsome.” Immediately she wanted to take back the words when his smile widened and his hot gaze singed her from head to toe.

“Did you miss me?” he asked.

“I was hoping you'd get lost.”

“Oh, Sophia,” he crooned. “And here I thought you were starting to like me.” He stopped in front of her and dropped the backpack to the floor. Sliding his arm around her waist, he gently drew her against him. Her heart thumped rapidly in her chest. “I missed you,” he whispered, lowering his lips to hers but not touching them. “I could not stop thinking about you all day.” His breath was warm, caressing her lips, which were suddenly dry. She licked them, the tip of her tongue catching his top lip.

His body tightened and she felt him rise against her. “You mistake my duty for affection, Loco.”

He traced his knuckles along her throat, brushing her hair from her shoulders. “Really?”

He brushed his lips along the pulse of her jugular.

She pushed him away and straightened her top, horrified that her hard nipples were clearly outlined against her blouse.

He chuckled and bent down to pick up his backpack. “I'm hungry as hell. Let's get dinner now.”

She didn't want to go home. She wanted to stay in town away from prying eyes. She had a little apartment just down the block. It was her safe place when life with her father became too much.

His brows furrowed. “We don't have to go straight back.”

“Thank you.” Stepping past him, Sophia thought how nice it would be to spend a normal evening out with this extraordinary man. Yes, there were the sexual lightning bolts between them that no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't turn off, but there was also an honest decency about him that made her feel like she wasn't some trophy to be held up for the world to see.

“I have my car but there are several nice places within walking distance.”

He took her elbow and guided her out of the school. “You lead, I'll follow.”

They walked in silence until they came to the little square down the road. “We have some of the best Chinese food outside of China, if you're in the mood,” Sophia said. She loved Chinese food, but when she'd asked her father to hire a Chinese chef for the hacienda he refused, insisting that it was important to give his business to indigenous peoples. He insisted he was not a racist but a purist.

“I haven't had good Chinese food in a long time, that sounds good.”

Smiling, she took his hand and pulled him toward the Golden Dragon.

As they walked, Mateo said, “I didn't know you could sing.”

She smiled. “There's a lot you don't know about me.”

“Tell me something else I don't know about you.”

“I'm a third-degree black belt in karate.”

“Impressive.”

“I have a masters in child psychology and speak four languages.”

“More impressed. Now tell me something shocking.”

As they entered the restaurant Sophia asked for a private table toward the back. She was surprised to see so many diners at such an early hour.

Once they were seated with menus, Sophia cocked her head to the side, reached out and touched her fingertips to Mateo's hand on the table and said, “I'm probably going to regret admitting this, but, as crazy as it sounds, I have feelings for you.”

His brows shot up. Sophia nodded.

“See? Shocking.” Then she rushed on to explain before he could say something negative and derail her. “I know, go figure. I mean, I guess they're feelings because since I met you at the club I haven't stopped thinking about you, and . . . the thought of you using me to get to my father doesn't piss me off like it initially did, though the thought hurts me.” She laughed nervously when his eyes narrowed. Had she hit him with a little too much truth? “You're a bossy, rude, socially inappropriate stranger who killed my fiancé, stood up to the most powerful man in North America, then demanded my hand from said man, killed my cousin when I was threatened, then took my virginity in front of my family. You have done more in less than a week for me than any person has done my entire lifetime.”

His full lips twisted into a mischievous smile that was making her all melted butter inside. “But most of all, Mateo”—she lowered her voice, afraid the next words would scare him away—“you make me feel cherished, as if I really mean something to you.”

His fingers curled around hers. “You mean something to me. I want to protect you and I can't keep my hands off you.”

Waves of warmth spread through her.

“Hi, Señorita Dumas, can I start you and your friend off with a drink?” Lily, their server, asked, breaking the spell.

Sophia smiled at the owner's niece. “I, ah, yes—” She looked at Mateo, who looked up at Lily.

“How about two ice-cold Tsingtaos,” he said and looked at Sophia. “Will that work?”

“Yes,” she said, smiling; some decisions she didn't mind being made for her.

As Lily headed off to get their drinks, Sophia looked back at Mateo, who calmly stared at her, that twitch of his lips barely perceptible. “What?”

“I can't figure you out.”

“I'm pretty simple, really.”

“No, you're not. You're a knockout but play it down.” He grinned and trailed his fingertips across her knuckles, eliciting an instant response from her nipples. They tightened and she found herself crossing her legs. “You're inexperienced in love and lovemaking but you're a tiger in bed.” He raised her hand to his lips. “You want freedom but if given the choice, you'd stay here with the people you know and love to protect them.”

He turned over her hand and pressed his lips to her palm. “You want to love and be loved, but you don't trust anyone enough to let them in.”

Her body trembled. What he didn't say was that she wanted to love and be loved by him. The realization was sobering in its ridiculousness. He was an experienced man of the world. She was a simple girl with simple wants. There was nothing extraordinary about her except the man she called Father. Alexander Dumas was a titan among titans. She had always lived in his larger-than-life shadow. No one paid attention to her. It was always the beautiful Fatima, so much like her dynamic father, that men were drawn to. So it was hard to believe that a man like Mateo Juarez wanted a quiet, plain girl like herself.

“I'm not used to the attention of men.” Her eyes rose to his and she was glad to find him intently gazing at her. “Especially hot men.” His grin widened and he bit the fleshy part of her hand, sending hot shards of desire shooting through her.

“You underestimate your own hotness, angel, and exaggerate mine.”

Once again, Lily interrupted their intimate moment as she set their beers on the table. Then she said, “Uncle says, ‘Give Miss Sophia her favorite appetizers with her beer!' So here you go.”

Another server arrived with a tray full of yummy pot stickers, shrimp toast and spring rolls.

Smiling, Sophia said, “Thank your uncle for me, Lily.”

The girl smiled and nodded. “You ready to order now?”

“How about you bring out all of Miss Sophia's favorite dishes?” Mateo said.

Lily grinned and tapped Mateo on the shoulder with her order pad. “You a very smart man,” she said, then gave Sophia a wink and checked on her other tables.

Mateo poured their beers into the chilled glasses and handed her one. He raised it and caught her gaze. “Here's to you, kid.”

Sophia smiled and drank to that.

She looked at Mateo with new eyes. She felt her walls coming down. It was an indescribable feeling to know that she actually had someone she could unload on with no fear that any of it would get back to her father, especially when it was about her father!

“So tell me,” he said, picking up a pot sticker. “Something else about you.” He bit into it and nodded as he chewed. “Good. Really good.”

Well, since he was asking. “I'm furious that my father bugged my room and had cameras!” How dare he?

Nodding, Mateo finished off the pot sticker. “I hear you. Pissed me off too. And while I understand his reasons, I don't agree with his methods.”

Sophia shook her head, her lip curled in contempt. She was so sick of him interfering in every aspect of her life. What had happened to him? “As a little girl, I remember a man who smiled and who laughed. But he changed after my mother left. He could barely look at me.”

“Understandably he was upset the woman he loved deserted him. Did he search for her?”

“From what I remember, he did. But he sent me away to Europe to school. I didn't come home until I was seventeen.”

“Was it bad?” He picked up another pot sticker and held it out for her to take a bite. When she did, he ate the other half, then picked up a spring roll, dipped it into the sauce and did the same thing.

She chewed slowly, savoring the goodness of it. It was better tonight than ever. Or was it just because the hottest guy on the planet was hand-feeding her?

“Was school abroad bad?”

“It was lonely. Father wouldn't allow Nati, my maid, to accompany me. I couldn't stand being away from my family.”

“Hey,
chica
,” a male voice called across the room. “Don't run away. We don't bite.” Sophia turned around to see three men in business suits at a table across the dining room harassing Lily. They had pulled off their ties, were sweating profusely and they were drunk off their asses.

She wrinkled her nose and said to Mateo, “Is that odor coming from them? They smell gross, like sweat and chemicals.”

His eyes narrowed and he nodded. “I've been watching them. They were fine when we came in, but one of them, the guy in the blue suit, broke out a vial and passed it around.”

“Mexicali has the highest cost of living in Mexico. More disposable income per capita than in most modern cities. And where there is money there will be drugs.”

Mateo munched thoughtfully on a piece of shrimp toast then took a swig of his beer. “The cartels must have deep roots here.”

“Indeed they do, and they spend a lot of money keeping new muscle from coming in. They might be drug traffickers and gangsters but they're smart enough to keep their violence out of this city. I know that Mayor Paul looks the other way, but that's only because they keep their violence off Mexicali streets.”

“Have you heard of a new drug on the streets called O?”

Sophia shook her head. “No, is it bad?”

“It's very bad.”

Mateo had eaten most of the appetizers by the time they were served their scrumptious main courses. Poached lobster, Peking duck, honey prawns, spicy beef and crispy lemon chicken. Suddenly she was famished. She dug in but watched Mateo watch the table of raucous men.

“The old man just reassigned Lily to the front dining room.”

“Good, no reason to court trouble.”

“Are you aware of the increase in sexual assault crimes in the city?” Mateo asked.

“I had heard something but Father said it was just rumors.”

“More beer!” the men loudly demanded. “And bring us some a that sweet Chinese pussy.”

Sophia gasped, and very quickly the dining room thinned. Mateo stood up and tossed his napkin on the table and strode over to the men. Sophia sat quietly but rigid as a pipe, knowing he could take care of himself and dreading what she knew was going to happen.

Without ceremony, Mateo grabbed the end of the tablecloth, wrapped it around their beer and food and yanked it off the table, then tossed it onto the empty tabletop next to them. “Your dinner's over, boys. Time to go.”

“Fuck off, asshole,” the loudest of the three said.

Mateo grabbed him by the back of his shirt and tossed him halfway across the dining room. The guy face-planted into the carpet, landing with a dull thud. Mateo glared at the remaining two, who looked like they wanted to fight but were thinking better of it. “Which one of you is next?”

They quickly stood, moved to their buddy, who was trying to get his bearings, grabbed him under the armpits and dragged him from the restaurant.

Mr. Chow nodded, wringing his hands. “Sank you. Sank you.” He nodded to Mateo again, grabbed the tablecloth and said to the remaining diners, “Dinner on Mr. Chow tonight.”

Mateo sat back down without a sweat. He caught Sophia's amused smile.

“What?”

“Do you always just walk in and take over?”

He popped a juicy piece of lobster into his mouth and grinned as he chewed. “Always.” He leaned toward her and dragged a piece of the succulent meat along her lower lip. “Especially when I want something.”