Hearts On Fire (The Santiago Trilogy Book 3)

by Catherine Wiltcher

  He goes very still as the gasoline takes affect and then he’s on his feet and sparking anger from every pore. “How many came?”

  “I don’t…There was a helicopter–”

  “Give us a minute,” he barks at the recruit who backs out of the room. “How many dead?”

  “About half I think.”

  “No wonder Joseph nearly took my jaw off. Are you okay?” He crouches down to my level and frowns. “Is the…” he tails off and indicates to my stomach, and I blush.

  “The baby’s fine, Dante.”

  There’s a pause. “How long have you known?”

  “A few days.” I brace myself as those dark clouds move across his face.

  “I knew you were hiding something from me.”

  “Are you happy?”

  He shifts from the floor back to the chair with a grimace. “There’s one of those relative terms again… Are you?”

  I bite my lip and nod, and then watch in quiet fascination as the corners of his mouth start to lift and rare light spills out across his face. I live and die for his smiles. I can count on my hand the number of times I’ve seen one.

  “Then I guess I am too.” He runs a finger down my cheek.

  “Second chances, Dante,” I whisper, leaning forward and gently placing my arms around his neck.

  He presses his forehead to mine and exhales slowly. “I thought men like me didn’t deserve them.”

  “Did you kill him?”

  “Can I fuck you?”

  I roll my eyes and slide my arms from his neck. “It’s good to hear you have your priorities in order, and yes, you can still fuck me.”

  “My priorities never shifted. It just got a little crowded at the top.” He rises to his feet with that predatory look on his face I know so well. “You and this baby are the only things that matter.”

  “And Sevastien? Your daughter’s vengeance?”

  He pulls me up gently, only to hurl me backward onto the bed with enough force to send me bouncing off the pillows. His hot contradiction brings a wave of arousal to my core and my legs part instinctively.

  “Joseph read something about a car accident online?” I scoot up to make room for him but he grabs my good ankle and flips me onto my front.

  “There was a chase. We both crashed. He ended up facedown in a canal.” He pulls my T-shirt up and traces my lower spine with his tongue as I groan and arch into the mattress. He yanks my jeans down below my hips and moves lower himself, following the crease of my ass. God, his touch feels divine – wet and wild, exuding the filthiest kind of intent.

  “Is he dead?” The gray quilt muffles my question.

  “Here’s hoping.” He slides a warm palm upwards to unclasp my bra.

  “So you didn't come back because of the baby?”

  He must have read something in my tone because his lips disappear from my skin and he’s flipping me over again. Removing his T-shirt, he pulls my jeans and panties off, yanks my legs apart and settles between them, holding his weight off my belly with his hands and forearms. I moan again as he grinds his erection against my naked sex, jerking in delicious agony when the cold metal of his belt catches my clit.

  “I had my gun out, my angel. I was all set to finish him and then I walked away. For you.” He lets that sit between us for a moment as he continues to grind against me. “Like I said, my priorities never changed but it was hard to remember what I was fighting for in the heat of the battle. Joseph’s message was the slap I needed. If Sevastien’s still alive, I’ll finish him another way.”

  He rears up on his knees to undo his belt and jeans and I catch sight of the red-stained dressing taped to his abdomen. “Are you sure you want to–”

  I’m silenced by the look in his eye as he stands there, naked and erect. Drops of pre-cum glistening at the end of his cock. “You know how much killing turns me on, wife.”

  Revulsion and desire ripple through me in equal amounts. “Then fill me up with your hate, Dante,” I whisper, flattening my back against the mattress and opening my legs wider for him. “If that’s what it takes for you to let go of tonight.”

  “Not hate, only love for you, Eve.” His eyes fix on my mouth before slowly moving down my body. Any minute now he’s going to pounce and have me screaming out his name. “Are you ready?”

  “Yes.”

  “If it hurts, I’ll stop.”

  “I’m not made of glass, Dante.”

  “Everything breaks, my angel. But only on my command.”

  His anticipation is everything. It’s a starter for a main course that I know is going to ruin me. The dessert will see me pleading and begging for more.

  I close my eyes as he begins, his lips forming a hot wet circle on the inside of my thigh and when his mouth finally reaches my sex, he has to clamp a hand down on my mouth to stifle my screams. A familiar warmth blooms throughout my pelvis as he sucks and tastes, lapping at me like I’m the sweetest nectar and then driving his tongue into me until my inner muscles are quivering for release.

  “Oh God, Dante. Let me come!”

  He’s right. Everything breaks under his command, but he’s in a Machiavellian mood tonight. Before I know it, I’m on my hands and knees and he’s driving his tongue back into me, crushing his face against my ass to caress my G-spot and humming gently.

  “Shit!” The force of my orgasm has me rocking backward against him as my elbows give out.

  “So pretty when you come on my face,” I hear him murmur.

  Nudging me forward, he smears his cock around my entrance, soaking up my juices before parting my lips with his fingers and inching slowly into me.

  “I could fuck you all night with my tongue but my dick needs attention.”

  Craving more, I sink back onto him, impaling myself on his heat and his lust, spontaneously convulsing as his thumb finds the nook of my ass.

  “My greedy angel,” I hear him chuckle as the pressure on my back passage increases. “Relax, mi alma, you know what to do.”

  Pressing my forehead into the mattress, I concentrate on my breathing as he continues to rub tight circles, waiting for me to yield to him. All of a sudden a stinging smack to my thigh is sending me jolting forward.

  “Not quick enough,” he rumbles.

  “I’m trying!”

  The pressure on my ass is unbearable. That, coupled with the sensation of his cock buried deep inside my pussy, and I’ve just been elevated to a new sensory plane. With a soft cry, I open up to him and he hisses with satisfaction as his thumb slides all the way in to his knuckle.

  “Now we can start fucking, my angel.”

  23

  Dante – Afghanistan 2002

  “Captain Días…? Captain Días, can you hear me?”

  Días? Who the fuck is Días? And who put my head in a vise? Any takers?

  Somehow I force my eyes open. Straightaway I’m cringing away from the light, bringing my hand up to my face as a makeshift visor. And who hung a thousand-watt furnace in the fucking sky?

  I must have said the words out loud because there’s a snort to my left. I blink a couple of times. Fragments of memories are flitting through my mind like a series of disconnected images and thoughts with no clear linear…

  Afghanistan

  M-ATV.

  Rocket.

  I blink again and that’s when the pain strikes… Hell, it doesn't so much strike me, as knock me flat on my ass and kick the living shit out of me. My knee is in a whole world of hurt. A couple of razorblades are on a mission to see who can slice me to the bone first. Vomit rises up in my throat as I fight to get a handle on it.

  “Easy now.” I feel a comforting hand on my shoulder. His slow Texan drawl offers to pull me under again.

  “Get me some fucking morphine,” I croak.

  “You're shit out of luck there, sir. Taliban jail cells don't come with that as standard.”

  What. The. Fuck?

  “Where am I? Fill in the missing blanks fast, soldier, or I’ll bre
ak your neck myself.”

  The fact that I’m lying prostrate with a banged-up knee doesn't even dent my threat because he starts talking immediately. He heard about me, remember?

  “We were three miles out when one of their rockets hit the M-ATV. Most of your men were killed on impact. You and I were the lucky ones… A group of Taliban insurgents pulled us out and stuck us in The Hilton.”

  “Why don’t you shove your wisecracks where the sun don't shine? Tell me how long I’ve been out for?”

  “Two days.”

  “Get me some water.” I’m so thirsty my tongue is sticking to the roof of my mouth.

  A canteen in wedged between my fingers. “Take it easy. I’m trying to ration it. The shit they serve here looks like piss. Hell, it probably is piss.”

  A few sips of water revive me. The ache in my head settles into a dull throb and my knee is more a glut of agony now, rather than an avalanche. I find I can turn my head to survey my surroundings.

  Our prison cell is about ten by ten, no bigger than a bathroom, which isn't the worst analogy to use with all the shit smeared across the walls. There are primitive bars on the gaping wound that’s passing for a window, but the door is solid steel. Nothing else in here, except the grime of the floor, him and me and a filthy bucket in the corner.

  “Sit me up, soldier,” I tell him, and my cellmate finally steps into my periphery.

  The High School jock.

  His blue-gray eyes flicker over me as we figure out how best to manipulate my useless fuck of a body into a seated position. One hand slides under my shoulder and we work together with me moaning like a bitch until I’m propped up against one of the shit-smeared wall.

  “Thanks,” I mutter, daring myself to look down. I was expecting to see bones sticking out of the skin like a Sunday Roast carcass but the damage to my knee seems more internal. Thank fuck. There’s less chance of infection that way. “Grayson? That’s your name, right?”

  “Yes, sir.” He crouches down next to me and shoots me a wry smile. “I was calling you Captain Días when you were under but you kept contradicting me. Told me to call you Santiago something-or-other. Ring any bells?”

  “Probably some bitch who broke my heart,” I say, dismissing his words out of hand. “What else did I say?”

  “Spoke a whole load of Spanish but I’m not fluent in that. Probably just as well. No one wants to hear you talk dirty, sir.”

  I smirk along with him but I’m good at faking it. The jock is growing on me but it’s bad news that I talk in my sleep. He’ll be dead before dawn.

  “Any food?”

  “Not any that I’d eat.”

  There’s the sound of loud shouting from the hallway outside our door and we catch each other’s eye. I can see a hint of fear in his but he hides it well. The bolt is wrenched aside and three Taliban assholes wearing robes and light machine guns erupt into the room with their over-the-top vitriol, shouting in a language that’s nothing but noise. They grab Grayson by the hair and drag him toward the door as a strange possessiveness takes hold of me.

  “Hey dickheads, leave him alone!” I roar at them, picking up a handful of loose stones from the floor and chucking them at their turbaned heads. This man is part of my fucking squadron. It’s my responsibility to see he gets his plane ticket home.

  One of the men turns and grins at me before driving the butt of his machine gun into my busted knee.

  “You fucking cunt!” I scream, clutching at my leg before everything slides into blackness.

  It’s an endless night. I come around to blackness as well. The day has fallen and it’s fucking freezing, the frigid desert air squeezing out my senses like an anaconda, yet dulling my pain just enough to catch my breath. Everything around me is a variation of a void.

  “Hey Grayson,” I say loudly, tossing the name out into the room. “Hey, amigo, wake up.”

  There’s a groan from the corner and my head snaps in that direction.

  “Grayson… You okay?”

  He gives out another groan. They fucking waterboarded me for an hour.”

  Shit. “What did they want?”

  “Details about the mission. Potential targets. Weaponry. Drone schedules. The usual...”

  “And?”

  “I told ‘em they could kiss my royal Texan ass…sir.”

  A genuine laugh trickles from my mouth. “You married, soldier?” I ask him, remembering his wedding ring.

  “Yes, sir. Baby on the way.”

  “Name?”

  “Rebecca.” His voice softens as he says it, and for a fleeting moment I consider the unthinkable. What it must feel like to give yourself to a woman instead of just fucking her.

  Lucia’s face hovers in the darkness but I shove that image away like it’s the new kid in school. I don't do guilt. I don’t do anything. Except exist, even though I seem to be doing a piss poor job of that at the moment.

  “Due date?”

  “Four months from now.”

  There’s a pause. “Then we best come up with a way to get ourselves out of here, soldier. Rebecca will hang your balls around her neck if you’re not present at that birth.”

  “Yes, sir.” His voice sounds stronger again. “Any ideas?”

  “Not yet. But I’m working on it.”

  24

  Eve

  “Time to wake-up, mi alma.”

  He greets me with another of those knockout smiles as the aircraft starts its descent. I blink a couple of time and shake my head, just in case I’m still dreaming. He’s showered and dressed and sitting in the chair by the bed, watching me like he used to all those months ago, when my love for him was a precious mineral lying deep beneath the surface, waiting to be excavated.

  “Boy or girl?” he murmurs.

  “Are you asking me for my threesome preferences?” I stretch and wince as my swollen ankle gets tangled in the white bed sheet.

  The smile vanishes. “Never an option. Not in my bed.”

  “I don't mind as long as they’re healthy.”

  “Me neither, though a girl is more liable to make my life a fucking misery. She won't be dating until she’s at least thirty-five.”

  My laughter fills the small room. “You can't control everything, Dante.”

  “Maybe not. But at least I can fuck you around to my way of thinking. Thank God my island is so remote.”

  “With two hundred sex-craved soldiers milling about.”

  “You and that fucking mouth of yours…” He leans over the bed with a wicked gleam in his eye. “Speak that shit to me again and I’ll stuff it so full of my dick, your eyes will be streaming.”

  Lust hits my core like an express train. I’m such an easy conquest when he talks dirty like this. I look down and see a brown envelope resting between his fingers. “What’s that?” I say, neatly diverting him away from his revenge fuck fantasies.

  He hesitates and pulls away. “A discussion for another day.” I watch him slide it into his back pocket. “Time to get up. We’re landing in Nairobi in twenty minutes and I want Nate to bandage your foot before we disembark.” There’s a pause. “Joseph told me about your father. Back working for Sevastien, I hear? When we catch up with him, it’s best if I deal with him alone. There will be nothing pleasant about his screams.”

  And just like that, my happiness evaporates. “I don't want to talk about it,” I mutter, looking away.

  “I’ll add it to the list then, shall I?” he says mildly. “Is there anything you do want to talk about?”

  “Yes, you can tell me what happened last night.”

  He offers me a cold smile. “I suggest you watch the news for an unbiased account of those events.”

  I know full well what he does for a living but unless I’m physically in the room with him when he kills, he’d rather dance around the finer details.

  “I’d like to hear it from you.” But he’s heading for the door already.

  “I’ll give you ten before I send Nate in. I’ll se
e what I can find, food wise.”

  “Dante?”

  “Yes?” He turns sharply and my breath catches in my throat. Even with his cuts and bruises, he’s still the best looking man I’ve ever seen. Tall, powerful, golden skin glinting… He wears his black hair longer these days and there’s a slight wave to it. His brown eyes gleam with all the dark secrets of his underworld.

  “I love you.”

  He smirks. “That’s four orgasms and a sore ass talking.”

  “No,” I say, shaking my head. “That’s all me.”

  Nate tends to my ankle as quickly as he can, ensuring that the white bandage is wrapped securely, but not uncomfortably so. It seems less swollen today and I find I can put a little more weight on it.

  I enter the cabin to a strained atmosphere.

  Again.

  Anna is sat huddled in the far corner in exactly the same position I left her. She’s still swamped in Joseph’s jacket and the blanket from the bedroom but I can see her shivering from here. Joseph is working on his laptop across the aisle with Dante hovering over him, issuing instructions, and clutching a huge glass of Bourbon in his hand. Joseph’s drink is resting on the table next to him.

  The breakfast of champions for violent mercenaries.

  Still, it’s good to see that they’re back talking with their mouths instead of their fists. There are a couple of other soldiers seated nearby but I don't know their names. For a fleeting moment I wonder where Mateo is.

  Dante looks up as I make my way toward him. “My flight attendant is standing by to take your food order,” he says briskly. “Make it quick. We land in ten minutes.”

  The boat is lurching again, my waves of nausea lapping at the sides, but when I glance across at Anna, my appetite vanishes. “I might grab something a bit later,” I tell him.

  “Eat. Even if it’s just toast.” He turns back to whatever is so engrossing on Joseph’s laptop. “We’re getting you checked out at the hospital too.”

  Bossy bastard.

  With a pang, I watch my friend steal a furtive glance Dante’s way, only to shudder harder with fear and revulsion.