“Yeah?” He sounds shocked.
“God, yeah. Do it again.”
He thrusts again, and my toes curl with delight. Oh wow. Wow. “Rafe,” I moan. “Oh Jesus, that feels so good—”
“Ava,” he groans, and there’s urgency in his tone. “I don’t know if I can last—”
“It’s okay,” I tell him. “Do what you need to.” I’ll just sit over here on your big cock and like, revel in how fucking glorious it is.
A feral sound rips from his throat, and two seconds later, we’re rolling and he flips me onto my back. His hands grip my shoulders and he presses a kiss to my mouth, then begins to thrust into me. Deep, hard, incredibly powerful thrusts that shake my entire body with the intensity of it. And oh, sweet Jesus, it’s amazing. It’s the deep dicking I’ve been craving, but times a hundred. “Rafe,” I moan, clinging to him. “Oh God, yes. Fuck me harder.”
“Ava,” he snarls. “Fuck!”
“Yes,” I shriek when he bucks into me again. “God, yes!”
But he groans and I feel the heat of him wash over my insides a moment later. His body shudders against mine. He’s come, and I’m . . . almost there.
“No,” he groans. “Ah, fuck. I’m so sorry—”
“Give me your hand,” I tell him, still wriggling under him. He adjusts, leaning heavily on one elbow, and I take his hand and put it on my clit. He’s still stuffed inside me, so deep I feel changed, and when his fingers start to play my clit, it takes me mere moments until I’m over the edge with him, my nails dragging up his back and his name shrieked at the top of my lungs.
As his fingers slide away from my clit, I give a soft sigh of contentment, wrapping my arms around his sweaty shoulders. There isn’t an inch of us that isn’t covered in either sweat or semen or my juices.
I’ve never felt better, either.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
RAFAEL
It takes more willpower than I expect to extricate myself from Ava’s warm embrace. She’s fallen asleep on top of me, and moving out from under her soft body isn’t high on my list, but a knock at the door tells me time is up.
I’ve made Garcia wait too long as it is. I swipe my pants off the floor and shrug into a cotton camp shirt. I stink of Ava and sweat, but Garcia will have to suck it up.
“You done?” he snaps with irritation when I step out into the small space outside the bedroom.
I’m too satisfied to be able to summon any irritation at his tone. “For now.” I pour myself a cup of water. The post-fucking glow is going to hang around for a while. By U.S. standards it’s primitive in Campoverde, but compared to the jungle, the dusty water tastes like sweet tea. “What have you got?”
While Ava was punching my V card, Garcia had been busy. There is a new pack in the corner, which suggests he’s loaded up on supplies. Outside the window, I see the VW Golf we bought, and on the table, he’s fieldstripped the handbag.
“I didn’t find anything else in the pockets or lining except for the GPS chip.” The leather shell is on a chair, and I run my fingers around the inside. It’s smooth except where glue adhered the felt.
“No memory card? Those fuckers are tiny these days.” I’m grasping at straws. If Garcia says that there’s nothing here, there’s nothing here.
He shakes his head. “All we have are the folders, which are just teasers for the buyers. Information that is harmless but intimate enough to lead the buyer to believe it’s genuine.”
“You think it’s a head fake? That Duval is selling false information?”
“No. That would be too dangerous. The North Korean crew would disembowel him and send pieces of his body to all his relatives. And the Libyan group would take his family and crucify them in front of him.”
Pulling a chair out, I flip open the folders. The first one contains email exchanges discussing gifts for a newlywed royal couple. One contains a bawdy, off-color joke that would create a seven-day news cycle of defensiveness followed by an apology that would be pushed aside for the next drama. It’s not worth enough to pay eight figures for and it’s not worth enough to kidnap a U.S. citizen and then threaten to kill him if the information isn’t intercepted. The next one is a transcribed phone call between another politician and his lover. That one is more damaging but nothing that would require this kind of payoff. There are sticky notes stuck to the papers, but they don’t seem to flag anything in particular.
Duval has more, but exactly what it is and where we can find it, we are still in the dark.
“They never told you what it was we are supposed to steal?” Garcia asks.
We came too late in the game to find out how the offers went out. By the time the government had blackmailed me into cooperating, the buy was being set up. We had only a couple of weeks to mobilize, locate Ava, and then get our asses down to Peru.
“No. You were there when I got the message that they wanted me in Virginia ASAP. I get there and learn that Davidson is being held in some remote prison and that he doesn’t get out until we bring the goods.”
He sighs. “Yeah, I know. I was hoping we’d missed something.”
“Do you think it’s a red herring? Got there by accident?” I point to the table full of folders. “We’ve got a GPS-chipped purse with five folders. The folders contain printouts of phone calls and emails that have somewhat scandalous information, but nothing that is worth this kind of elaborate buying scheme. The folders themselves are plain cardstock.”
He rubs his head because obviously he’s thought about this a lot while I was getting my pipes cleaned. “I’ve got nothing. If they didn’t have Davidson and there weren’t fifty mercenaries running around Pucallpa ready to fire at anything that looks at them crosswise, I’d think we were being trolled for some elaborate hoax. But Duval’s got something that makes people believe it’s worth a lot of money and effort.”
“What about Ava? What’s the angle there?”
“She’s just a Kleenex.”
“A what?”
We both turn to find Ava standing in the doorway. She has a sheet wrapped around her body, which does almost nothing to hide her curves. Garcia’s eyes linger too long on the upper part of her chest until I growl in annoyance.
He swipes a hand down his cheek and across his mouth before turning back to the contents of the table. “Disposable, like a Kleenex. You use it and you don’t care if you trash it because there are plenty more where that came from.”
“Ouch,” she says and hitches up the sheet. There’s a lot of hurt in that one word, and like the besotted fool I am, I need to soothe that pain away immediately. I kick Garcia under the table in a not-so-subtle gesture for him to clarify and take the hurt away.
“Garcia’s not saying he thinks you’re Kleenex, and I sure as shit don’t.”
“Before you got roped into being a mule, they were using another girl. College student who’d been fucking one of Duval’s underlings. She got her throat slit in an alleyway by the Chinese contingent. I don’t know the reason why. Could be because she got mouthy. Could be they didn’t like the perfume she was wearing. But they needed another disposable mule, and you were it. They could keep you in line because of your friend Rose, and if you died, oh well.” He shrugs and spreads his hands palms up.
Ava blanches at Garcia’s recitation. Even a few days in the jungle and being a mule hasn’t really prepared her for this chat.
“Are you saying Rose isn’t safe?”
Garcia and I exchange a look. Rose wasn’t safe the day she allowed Duval to stick his dick in her, but that’s not what Ava wants to hear.
“She’s in Pucallpa and she looks healthy,” Garcia says.
“Oh, thank God,” she breathes, and then wobbles over to the table to collapse in my lap. “You’re going to get her out, right?”
Her mismatched eyes are full of hope, and when her ass wiggles against my hardening dick, I can’t help but wonder if she fucked me because she thought that is the only way I’m going to help her. I make the
mistake of looking at Garcia, whose narrowed eyes are accusing her of the exact same thing. But then do I really care about her motivations? If saving Rose is the price of having Ava by my side, it’s a small price to pay and one I’d offer a thousand times over.
I press her face into my neck. “You got that right, baby.”
Over her head, I glare at Garcia, who rolls his eyes.
“You’re pussy-whipped,” he mouths.
Don’t care if I am, I decide. It’s time to get moving. The longer we stay here, the more likely it is that Rose gets her throat cut and Ava decides to leave me. “Why don’t you get dressed?” I tell Ava, reluctantly pushing her upright and off my lap. “We need to get on the road.”
She sucks the edge of her lower lip between her teeth and throws a sidelong glance toward Garcia, who is busy packing everything but the GPS locator. “I don’t have a shirt,” she whispers.
I can’t stop a stupid, delirious grin from stretching across my face, because her shirt is the one I tore off. “I got you covered.”
Standing up requires a not-so-minute adjustment of the woody in my pants. Garcia pretends not to notice but Ava smirks. Over by the wall, I pull another camp shirt out from the pack and toss it at her. “You best get dressed on your own,” I tell her when she hesitates. “If I come in there and I see your naked tits, we’re not making it out of the room for another thirty minutes, and that’ll make hard-ass here even grumpier.”
She turns a beet red color but disappears, clutching the sheet tight against her body.
“I’m a grumpy hard-ass?” Garcia asks as he rises from his chair.
“Also the best gun this town has ever seen,” I say and swipe the locator up and jerk my head toward the exterior door. “We’ll be back, Ava. Garcia and I are going to piss and then get rid of this GPS tracker.”
A muffled okay from the bedroom follows us out the door.
“Worried about you, man,” Garcia says as soon as we’re far enough away from the hut that Ava can’t hear us. “You seem awfully attached to this chick. Promising to save her stupid-ass friend? How’re we going to do that?”
“I’m thinking we make a trade. Give Duval all this shit in exchange for Rose, and then we steal it back before the buy just like we originally planned.”
“We’re making things extra hard on ourselves because you want to get laid,” he grumbles.
I stop because I need to address this shit before it gets out of hand. I lay both of my hands on his shoulders. “We don’t even know if we’ve got anything. Maybe it’s one part of the puzzle, maybe it’s the whole damn thing. But you and I and the rest of the guys are the best damn team ever assembled. It’s why the government came to us and not someone else. Duval’s got no chance against us in the end. He’s a two-bit criminal with a taste for high drama that’s going to bring him down in the end. We got this. Plus, aren’t we all about trying to help those who don’t have it in them to help themselves? Isn’t that the whole fucking point of the island and the home we’re building there? I want to save Davidson as much as you do. We just have a couple more strays to take care of.”
He drops his head to his chest and takes a few breaths. I wait as it sinks in, as his fear for me subsides and his sense of justice kicks in. It doesn’t take long. He chuckles, a rueful, rough sound. “Sorry. Got sidetracked there.”
“No worries, man.” I let him go. We let a comfortable silence settle in until we reach the river. Then we drop down the embankment and plant the locator in the mud and cover it with a few rocks.
Afterward, he says, “It’s been a long time for you, hasn’t it?”
“You have no idea, Garcia. No idea.” I slap him on the back.
Ava is ready for us, dressed in a camp shirt that has never looked so sexy, and a pair of loose-fitting pants that she’s holding around her waist. Garcia crouches next to the bag and pulls out a rope, which he holds out to Ava.
She stares at it like it’s a snake.
To Garcia’s credit, he doesn’t get mad. “It’s for your pants. To hold them up,” he explains.
“Oh, gotcha. Thanks.” She takes the rope and winds the length around her twice. I help her make a knot and then we pile into the sedan.
As Garcia guns the engine, I pop open the glove compartment and pull out the handgun.
“Nice. How much more we got?”
“There’s the AK you took off the villagers and two other long guns. There should be another magazine in there, too.” He pats the dash.
“Good to know.” I chamber a round and hold it loosely in my lap.
“Is the drive dangerous?” Ava tries not to sound worried, but fails.
“Just being extra cautious,” I reassure her. The road between Campoverde and Pucallpa is paved but completely dark at night. Only the headlights from the car illuminate the long stretch ahead. “Why don’t you try sleeping,” I suggest.
She nods and stretches out on the seat.
Garcia and I keep a watchful eye for oncoming traffic. The mercenaries have likely missed their check-in time with Duval, and if I was him, I’d have sent out a scout hours ago. But Duval’s not a mercenary. He’s a criminal with a lot of money and a thirst for more.
The road whips by, black against black blocking any meaningful scenery. We keep the music off so we can listen for oncoming traffic. In the backseat, soft whiffles signal Ava’s asleep.
“Do you think those emails and shit have a code in them? And the buyer knows?” Garcia asks, his fingers tapping the wheel.
“Could be. Never thought of that.” I hate these fucking spy games. We’re mercenaries—soldiers for hire. We protect our people by killing others. We’re physical creatures, not thinkers. Have a target to take out? Have a body that is in need of protection? Have something you want destroyed or taken? We can do that. But we don’t decipher codes and we don’t think up elaborate schemes involving multiple buyers and red herrings.
I’m too straightforward. Maybe if Bennito were in charge it’d be different, but he’s not. He’s a twenty-five-year-old computer whiz we saved from a life of imprisonment because he hacked into a major website and played an ode to the current girl he was boning at the time. The relationship died a quick death after the police showed up at her house to question her.
If we don’t know what to steal, our plans—no matter what they are—aren’t worth shit.
We let the silence fall again as we contemplate how to deal with Duval’s information.
Or at least I was contemplating that. When Garcia opens his mouth, I realize something else is bothering him.
“What you plan to do with her?”
“I don’t know.” I hadn’t given it much thought.
“You can’t really think she’s going to want to come to the island. The only women there are those who’ve already been used up by life. They’re hiding. She’s the opposite of those women. She’s a model, for Christ’s sake.” He’s not saying anything that I haven’t tossed around in my own head. Doesn’t make it any more fun to hear them trotted out in front of me. “She’s not going to be happy picking fruit from the trees, planting crops, and weaving baskets.”
“Someone weaves baskets on the island?”
Garcia growls. “It’s just a fucking example.”
The darkness stretches endlessly in front of us. I set aside the levity for a little truth. Garcia deserves that. “I don’t know if she’ll come back with me. I don’t know if this is the only time I’ll have with her. But even if it is, it’ll be enough.”
“Bullshit,” he spits out, hands tightening around the wheel. One time when we were very drunk, Garcia admitted that he had loved a woman once. A girl, really. Her brothers hadn’t been keen on a wetback—their words—soiling their sister. They told him that he wasn’t good enough for her and he must have believed it, because Garcia hasn’t had a woman in his life for as long as I’ve known him. Bachelorhood was just one of the many things we had in common.
“You’re saying that if
you could, you’d go back and erase all those times that you had with your girl—the one from back home?”
He’s quiet for so long I wonder if he plans to ignore the question.
“No,” he says finally.
“What happened to her?” We don’t talk about this shit often—only when our defenses are low and there’s nothing to keep our mouths from rambling. I’m going to blame it on the fact that Ava fucked all the good sense out of me.
“She got killed in a drunk driving accident while in the car with her new boyfriend. He was handpicked by her brothers—one of their friends or something. He’d had a few too many to drink, got in and drove his convertible through a four-way stop, and crashed into a fire hydrant at about sixty miles per hour. Broke her goddamn neck.”
I let loose a long, low whistle. “What’d you do to him?” There was no way that Garcia didn’t fuck that boy up.
“I beat him into a coma. Because I was a juvenile, I was given the option of going into the army or going to prison. I chose the army. Or rather they chose me. I guess they like the fact that I didn’t mind hurting people.”
“Sounds like Uncle Sam. Come over here and have this gun. You want to kill people, here’s a fucking list. Go do it and don’t ask questions.”
Garcia gives a half grunt, half laugh. “That sounds about right.”
“You ever find anyone that means half as much?”
“Never wanted to. For some folks, there’s only one, and she was it for me.”
“Then why’d you leave her? Why didn’t you just run off?”
“I wasn’t it for her.”
Meaning he asked her to run away and she refused. I shift in my seat to look back at Ava. Her hands are tucked underneath her cheek and she looks like an angel kissed by the moonlight. I’m probably not it for Ava, either, but I’m going to enjoy the hell out of the time she gives me.
It’s because I’m turned around that I don’t notice how fast the oncoming traffic is approaching. I see only the lights and then hear Garcia curse. There’s a ping and then the car begins to skid sideways.
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