by Candice Owen
This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons--living or dead--is entirely coincidental.
No Second Thoughts copyright @ 2014 by Candice Owen. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
CHAPTER ONE
If she started a fire, she would be spotted for sure. The chill of the mountains felt good on her fever. She drank her fill of cool running water from a small, rushing creek, but her body was fatigued and she might, indeed, have an infection.
A bullet grazed her arm and she was sore. For all Blanche Herrera knew, she had gone around in circles. Bits and pieces of that night in the jail when big hulking men came to get her while the deputy on duty slept like a baby flashed in her mind.
She was a trained assassin for the Norte Mexicali, a ruthless cartel of drug dealers and cut throats so she knew her situation very well. Caught off guard, she realized she could take one but not two. These men were Norte Mexicali--the very people who trained her to kill someone with the slice of a credit card if she had to.
She only killed once…to save the man she loved. He would never believe she wasn't on the run. He would think she was a willing accomplice to the escape. Eventually, that was what her captors believed, too. That was how she got away and ran deep into the mountains. She felt ill. She was weak from hunger and wounded by gunfire and heartache. She slept.
Maybe it was a dream. Maybe she was dead and she didn't know it. Blanche felt her body being lifted. She peeked through a lid to see what was what but all she could see was the mountain forest ground. She was being hefted by a man. So, little mattered. She just went with it.
He carried her into a sweet, rustic cabin. She still had not looked at him. If he left her right now and she was later asked to describe him, she couldn't. He carefully set her down on a feather mattress. She was ailing, for sure, but she had to note to herself that it was a cool bed. The frame was of oiled redwood logs bound together by hemp rope. It was set upon wide, planked floors and a rough-cut stone fireplace.
She heard the creak of a chair fashioned liked the bed. He had taken a seat, casually. Peacefully. She summoned her courage to look at him. She collapsed. She didn't know if she should laugh or cry. A giddiness overcame her. Perhaps she was crazy. She looked again.
"Took you long enough," said Jason Fowler. He had a cup of something hot in his hand. She couldn't read him. He appeared neither angry nor glad to see her.
“Why?” she asked. Why would the man whom she came to town to kill--a man whom she betrayed--rescue her? “Why not just leave me for dead? That was probably my fate.”
“Because El Salvador,” he said, emphasizing each syllable, “You have the Norte Mexicali drug cartel, the Gold Creek sheriff’s department, and the Seven Devils Motorcycle Club on your tail.”
“I see,” said Blanche, enjoying the view of his beautiful self. Jason Fowler was extremely good looking. She loved his dark, disheveled hair that wisped around his face. It was like he was trying to have a haircut, a style, but he couldn’t quite conform. His perfectly proportioned frame, with its god-like musculature was positively mouth-watering. The vision of him, the notion of him made her entire spirit bright. She decided she would play the “best of” their sexual encounters while they talked. She could not help but smile.
“Something funny?” he was at a loss.
“No, I am listening. Go on. You were saying I was a wanted woman,” she curled up. That was a mistake. She started in pain. Real. Horrible. Shooting pain. She was so happy to see him that she forgot she was ill. He was up on his feet immediately to attend to her. “I think we better get me to a hospital. I think this bullet graze is not doing so well, not to mention my shoulder tear…or whatever it is.” Blanche had slipped and jerked her body when she was dashing to the aid of the town of Gold Creek when it was under attack from the Norte Mexicali. She was also nicked by a bullet.
He reached for her arm. She pulled it away. He glared at her sternly and demanded, “Let me see.” She complied and he removed the tape from her arm. “It actually looks okay,” he said.
“Okay, Dr. Fowler,” she scoffed.
He met her eyes with yet another scolding gaze. He raised his brow, “You have no idea what I am, do you?” He got up from the bed to retrieve a satchel, a first aid kit. He poured something onto a cotton press and dabbed the wound. “How’s that?” he asked.
The relief was instant and amazing. Whatever he put on her arm radiated cooling comfort throughout her. “Good. Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” he said ominously. “Let’s take off your clothes.”
“No,” she said curtly. “We are not like that anymore.” It killed her to say that but she had to stay strong.
He stalked over her like a panther. She was completely caged in by his shoulders and arms. “Listen to me. You were injured. You’ve been on the run and, no doubt, not taking care of yourself. I will bet you’re dehydrated –”
“I drank water,” she interrupted.
“And good for you,” he said sarcastically. “They had bottled water out there in the wilds of the San Gabriel Mountains?”
“No, but they have the stuff that they put in the bottled water. Ever hear of a cool mountain stream?” she challenged.
“Ever hear of giardia?” he rebutted. “Know what that is?”
She cringed. She did, indeed. With it came horrible, incapacitated stomach issues as a result of water-born bacteria. It could be a completely unflattering, humiliating experience. She was quiet. She let him remove her clothes. She had locked up and there was no way she could refuse.
He stepped into that same room where he got the first aid kit and turned on some bath water. She also heard what sounded like the rush of flames inside a fireplace. She was looking at a fireplace in the main room, which was also her bedroom, and it was still.
“Up,” he ordered as he returned. It was more a word to let her know what he was going to do next. He lifted her grimy, naked form into the side room that was the bathroom and set her into a deep, claw-foot tub, bellowing with the sound of water crashing into it. There was, indeed, a fireplace in the bathroom.
Between the luscious hot water and the flames, Blanche’s chills were finally gone. She leaned back against the generous back of the tub and nodded off. Jason reached for a pitcher and spilled water through her hair. He was washing it. He picked up a bottle and poured almond scented shampoo in his palms, rubbed them together, and, with the most magical touch, massaged her scalp and long ebony locks into a rich lather. Blanche hummed from head to toe with complete relaxation. It was so soothing. So healing. As he let the foam sit in her hair, he spilled contents from another bottle into the water. It turned the surface of her skin to silk.
“I don’t know why you’re doing all this for me. Why not turn me in?” she said meekly.
“Turn you into what?” he regarded her sternly.
“Turn me into the police. I did kill a man,” she said. She touched her hand to her forehead and cried. But then it morphed into full-blown sobbing.
She craved a sympathetic touch from him, but it did not come. It was a lot that she was in this neutral zone of a magical cottage…for now, at least. When the wave of emotion passed, she took in a deep breath and dunked her head. She was going to get out of the tub. It was, without a doubt, the most comfort she had had in quite some time, but she wasn’
t going to get used to it. She was clean for all intents and purposes. I'm done, she thought, and gripped the sides of the tub.
“What are you doing?” he asked plainly.
“I am getting out. When the tub is dry, I will scrub it.” Blanche stood, completely naked, the light of the fire glistening on the curves of her body.
“Knock it off,” he scoffed. “Get back in the tub. I am not asking you. I am telling you.”
“What is your reason for holding me here? I would like to know that,” she demanded, still standing.
Jason was clearly disturbed by the sight of her. His face was tortured and smoky. “I am counting to three and if you don’t do as you are told, you will be punished,” he said.
Blanche flinched, “Okay that sounds a little freaky. I am sitting down now.” She could kill a person about ten different ways – at least do some serious damage. But she was drained. She had no fight in her.
He chastised her, “Don’t get up again until I say.” He didn’t put an “or else” on that. He walked around behind her and leaned her forward. If the fireplace hadn’t been going, she might be shivering. As it was, the warmth on her back was like a blanket. He began kneading her flesh, not in a sexy way but as though he was feeling for something.
“May I ask what your intentions are right now? What are you doing?” His touch sent tendrils of erotic electricity throughout her body, lighting her up from deep inside of her to the tips of her nipples, which were erect.
He turned her on so intensely that her arousal knocked her in and out of consciousness. It took away her pain for the time being. She floated in the deep tub-water, aroused from his touch and aching to be filled as he prodded clinically in places he used to caress. She took deep breaths to try to contain the emotion that filled her. A tear trickled down her face.
“Is that where it hurts?” he asked.
“No. That is not where it hurts,” she could barely speak. “I really want to get out of the tub, please.”
He took her head into his hands, gently, firmly and looked at her directly, “Tell me why. Please.”
“Because I am going to lose if it I don’t get out of this tub,” she said through gritted teeth.
His voice was smooth and even, “I need you to be more specific,” he said.
“I have feelings for you and I am having a tough time being here and being touched by you,” she cried out, gushing now with emotion.
“Thank you,” he said in a cold sterile voice and he assisted her to her feet.
CHAPTER TWO
As she quietly cried, Jason lifted her limp body up and over his shoulder. The passive weight of her body as it hung over him actually relieved her injury. And the warm soothing contact of her nakedness to his hard muscled back was salve to her bruised soul. She greedily basked in their chemistry.
He brought out the animal in her. With him, she was base, wanton and graphic. She wanted to spread her legs and let him exploit her fully. She wanted to cup her breasts and play with them for him.
As a trained killer for perhaps one of the most powerful drug cartels, Norte Mexicali, Blanche never once considered having a life other than the materialistic one that being on the payroll provided.
She never thought ahead to the consequences until now. She was so close to her life's passion and yet so far away. Jason Fowler wanted her once as much as she wanted him still, but not now. Maybe it was because she was injured and tired of being so powerless. So tired of being on the run, but Blanche was heartbroken for the first time ever.
Jason carefully let her weight roll off him. She was sulking for sure. His face was sympathetic. He drew his lips up and tisked her, "Shhh," he said. Jason toweled her body off. "Why don't you settle in for a nap? I am going to put your clothes in the wash. I'll cut up some fresh fruit. If you are still awake in a few minutes, we will share some."
"Come lay down with me," she whispered. "You are what I need," she said. Blanche reached up and pulled on him.
He was resistant but then he seemed like he would cave. "Lie back," he said. The fire was still a blaze in the bathroom fireplace and it made her turned on body hum. Jason stroked the dewy folds of her sex teasingly.
She lasciviously rocked against the gentle pressure of his hands. She moaned. She never craved anything so much in her life. She could see him like he had been so often before, above her, feel him settle between her legs. She wanted to hold him completely. Wrap her legs around him, pulling him into her as deeply as he could go. Binding him with the vice of her thighs so he had to basically grind into her.
But he did not rise above her, or encourage her over on her belly. He pinned her inner thigh gently while he worked her to powerful climax. When the pleasured waves washed through her, he penetrated her with two fingers, twirling, teasing, and intensifying her bliss.
Then he waited until that moment when the climax had fully subsided, to minister to her all over again. Her body was readied, still so sweetly sexually stimulated that he brought to life another orgasm quickly, this one more powerful and pleasurable than the last. So intense. So consuming. So complete. Physically, anyway.
She felt so empty that he was not really with her. She wanted him inside of her, their bodies touching either from behind or on top of her. To the side of her. With her legs splayed out wide, making a super tight entrance for him to create the most sensual friction ever for her.
She needed his beauty. His masculinity. She needed him. So the exquisite pleasure that he gave her was coupled with this distance that she could not figure out. He tucked her body with light cotton spread. Finally she blurted out, "Why are you doing this? You have already expressed your dislike of me and yet you are caring for me, pleasuring me? What is up with this?"
Jason took his time in answering. His movement was slow and casual. He stepped into the next room and turned the fire off. He sat back down in the overstuffed chair. hey regarded each other for some time, he with his steely piercing scolding gaze. "You have no thoughts as to what I am doing?"
"No. I am completely confused," she said sitting upright quickly in her bed without care of her nudity. She was completely comfortable and oblivious of it. The light cotton drape covered her from the waist down but her round full breasts were exposed. She thought she looked a little like a mermaid in bed.
"Well Blanche, simply put, you are my captive. I mean to keep you here until the dust of the damage you caused settles. While I don't like liars or women who mean to kill me, you did kill Hortensio Jimenez, Hawk, and therefore saved me. I owe you.
"But I believe you need to be punished and punish you, I will. I will also give the district attorney time to sort out the facts. They wanted to indict you on first-degree murder since you are a trained assassin and all. I wasn't forthcoming on your behalf, but since they asked, I did tell the truth.
"You did save my life. It does appear that you did not break out of the jail, but rather you were kidnapped, so I am willing to take care of your every need until it's time to turn you over.
"I am hoping that the facts that you were just a misguided, brainwashed member of the Norte Mexicali who showed intentions on fighting for the good guys will at least take the bounty on your head placed by my guys, the Seven Devils Motor Cycle Club. And then once they cool off, they can offer you protection against the employer whom you also betrayed."
"Good thing I did," she said quietly. As soon as she said that she felt him stiffen.
"Let me explain to you how this works. I am in charge. I call the shots. If you want to be snide with me, like you were just now, you can forget about any conversation from me. Now, have I answered your question sufficiently?"
"No. I have more," she answered, now angry and less in love with him. "So if I leave?"
"There is the door. Let me re-cap that you are wanted by two groups and the law. You may succumb to a life ending ooopsie at the hand of two of them. But good luck all the way around, because you don't get your clothes back. I am keeping them."
/> "So I have to say naked indefinitely? That's just creepy. And another thing, the difference between us is that I realized killing was wrong; you think it's justified. The thing that motivated me in the first place was that they built you up as this smarmy, self-righteous guy and after I got to know you, I thought they were wrong." She sat up a little straighter. "The very things I love- liked about you were that you were caring and protective. You get your ego bruised and you seem to be okay with killing," she stared at him, wondering if she had him all wrong when she fell in love with him.
"Let me ask you a question. Are you comfortable?" he asked matter-of-factly. "Is that bed better than the mountainside? Do you feel a little safer?"
"Yes," she said, but that wasn't the point and she wanted to tell him so.
He didn't let her. "Focus on that. And I will try to remember you saved my life," he said curtly.
Blanche could not just leave it. As much as she hated giving up the rustic luxury, she would suffer the harsher elements of the San Gabriel Mountains if she had to just to make a point. She stood up in a flash, floundering momentarily under the pain.