by Edie Harris
“No ransom demand. This shit is so fucking convoluted, we’re scrabbling back home to make sense of it.” Casey scrubbed a hand over his face, but never shifted his position from her side. “All we know is they took Adam, and they don’t seem in any hurry to give him back. If they intended to kill him, it would be to send a message, and as far as I’m aware, his body hasn’t turned up on my mother’s doorstep yet.” Hard, harsh words, said with so little inflection, but Ilda knew it must have cost him to speak with such cool rationale.
Axel obviously sensed the same. He gripped Casey’s shoulder in a show of support. “How do I help? How do my people help?”
But Casey shook his head. “We’ve got to keep this quiet for now. If the press catches wind, any chance we have of extracting Adam without incident is lost.”
“Why would the press care?” Hostages were taken in South America all the time, individuals in the wrong place at the wrong time on a continent stricken with every manner of social disease. Ilda couldn’t recall the last time the mainstream media had bothered to report on it.
Both men stared at her as though she’d spoken gibberish, but Casey’s expression once more turned vaguely uncomfortable. “I am... I...my family is the single largest arms manufacturer in the world. We supply the US government and the myriad American military branches with their weapons, ground vehicles, aircraft and body armor.”
Ilda could do nothing but blink up at him. Not just a spy, but a bloody warmonger. Quick calculations told her that if his family was truly as he said, his worth—and his kidnapped brother’s worth—was in the range of billions.
She crossed herself.
Casey scowled. “Stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?” she croaked, leaning more of her weight against the wall, clammy palms pressed to her thighs.
But he didn’t answer. The muscles in his carved jawline bunched as he switched his focus to Axel. “I hate saying this, but we have a more immediate threat than the status of Adam’s well-being, and I’m glad I don’t have to track you down.” His hand left the wall to settle on her waist, and though she tensed, she didn’t push him off. “Pipe knows he has a leak.”
Axel lost any hint of humor. “Explain.”
“I’ve just come from a tour of Pipe’s prison block. He’s got a former brigadier by the name of Vicente shackled up and tortured to within an inch of his life for purportedly snitching and causing the DEA to crack down on shipments going into the Port of Los Angeles. Any of that sound familiar to you?”
Ilda felt the blood drain from her face as Axel swore.
Casey squeezed her hip in reassurance. “You know how this works, Moreno. The moment the DEA makes another move on Marin cartel cross-border activity, and so long as Vicente is locked up and...not speaking, Pipe’s gonna know he didn’t plug his leak. That means he keeps looking. Eventually, he’ll look in the right direction.” His fingers flexed against her. “Stop using Ilda.”
Massaging the back of his neck, Axel glanced from her to Casey. “The intel...she does good work for us. We’ve learned more about Pipe’s movements in the past two years than we have since you were under with the cartel.”
The hits simply wouldn’t quit coming. Logically, she knew Casey must have reported to his agency on what he’d seen and done four years ago, but each reminder was a slap in the face, proving once again that she hadn’t known a damn thing about him aside from what he made her feel in bed. “I don’t want to stop helping Axel.”
Casey’s glare was a fierce thing. “Why the hell are you doing this, Ilda? Do you have any idea of the risk you’re taking as an informant?”
She refused to let him frown her into obeisance. “I already told you. It’s the right thing to do.”
“That can’t be it. No one’s that altruistic, baby, not even you.”
“Who said anything about altruism?” Now she did shove at his hand, no longer liking his proprietary manner. “Two years ago, I was tucking Arlo into bed and realized it was the anniversary of Théa’s death. My daughter will never know her aunt. My sister will never hold her niece. The two most important people in my life will never meet because some matón with a gun wanted to prove a bloody point against Pipe.” Her whisper shook in her throat. “He is to blame. The cartels are to blame. This culture of sick corruption is to blame. I will not sit idly by and raise my daughter in a war zone. I need to do my part to bring an end to the violence.”
“That violence will never end,” Casey said quietly. “To pretend otherwise does you a disservice, fénix.”
Her hands turned to fists at her sides. “What did I say about that word, marido?”
Brows sky high, Axel cut in just as Casey opened his mouth to argue. “Tell you what, we’ll cool it on our meets for a while, and I won’t have the task force move on any intel Ilda alone has provided us. Anything we’ve had corroborated by other sources, though, is fair game. Sound like a plan?”
Casey nodded, grudgingly, and Ilda followed suit. It made sense, even if she didn’t like having her decisions undermined by men to whom she owed nothing. Her choices were her own, and when Axel had initially approached her with the intent to turn, she’d acquiesced not because he was such a slick operator, but because she knew this was her chance to give Théa’s death some meaning.
Her choice, her risk. She could not survive in a vacuum of inaction and ignorance. While Arlo’s safety would always, always come first, from now until Ilda’s final breath, she couldn’t count herself as any kind of mother if she didn’t fight to make the world a better place for her daughter, even if that meant subversively working against the only father figure Arlo had ever known. “You will let me know when it’s safe to meet?” she asked Axel, ignoring Casey’s forbidding stare.
“I will, but hide the mobile I gave you for now. Turn it off, remove the battery, put it in a waterproof bag and bury it in the garden. Dig it up in a month and check for messages.” Axel reached out to grasp her hand, lifting her knuckles gallantly to his lips, and while she was unwillingly amused by his obvious flirtation, she remained unmoved. “Take care, amiga. And Casey?” He released her hand, grasped Casey’s for a hearty shake. “Anything you need to get Adam safely home, I’m your guy.” Mounting the stairs, he paused. “Oh, and say hi to Gillian for me, next time you talk.”
Ilda watched as Casey’s throat bobbed in a swallow. “When are you coming home for real, buddy?”
Axel’s chuckle was devoid of humor. “When the violence is over. So...never.” With a quick wave, he hustled up the steps to disappear into the vestibule above, leaving Ilda and Casey standing in tense silence.
Which Casey promptly smashed in the most high-handed manner possible. “Don’t worry about digging up that burner a month from now. You and Arlo are coming home with me.”
Just like that, all of Ilda’s earlier anger rushed to the forefront. Shoving at his upper body with both hands, she propelled herself away from him until her shoulders hit the opposite wall of the narrow hallway. “No,” she hissed. “No, you don’t get to decide what I do, and you most certainly don’t get to decide what my daughter does. Do not argue with me,” she snapped under her breath when Casey started to interject. “You have no claim to us, not unless we decide to give you a claim. Our home is here. Our life is here.”
“With a drug lord?” he spat, incredulous.
“At least Pipe has never pretended to be someone he’s not.”
Casey’s jaw firmed. “Neither did I, not when it counted. And I can prove it.”
Without warning, her heart leapt into her throat. Something in his tone, the certainty, the unyielding confidence, warned her to tread carefully. She would be wise to remember that this man was a trained spy who’d once successfully infiltrated the most powerful cartel in Colombia to work his way up the ranks of Pipe’s brigadiers and gain the boss’s trust and respect. “How?”
“I’m going to find a copy of that marriage certificate.” His eyes implored her, mirroring the gr
uff demand in his voice. “I lied about a lot of stuff, Ilda, but the name I wanted to give you was mine. Really, actually mine—I need you to believe me.”
A knot formed in her chest. “God, it’s all about you, isn’t it? How you feel, what you need. Your wife, your daughter, your lies, your mission.” Disappointment, foreign and unpleasant, settled in the pit of her stomach; she hadn’t known Casey was capable of disappointing her any more than he already had. “The depth of your selfishness appalls me, Señor Faraday.”
“Ilda—”
“Here’s your first lesson in parenthood, Cay-zee.” She pointed to the stairs as she backed down the hallway toward the committee meeting still going strong only a few meters away. “Your needs come second to whatever is in the best interest of your child. Always.” Flattening a hand over her midsection, she blinked away unexpected tears stinging her eyes. “When you’ve figured that out, then we’ll talk.”
Chapter Nine
Four Years Earlier
The thirteen gold arras matrimoniales jangled in his new wife’s pocket as Casey Faraday fisted the skirt of her white cotton sundress in both hands. His head still reeled from the shock of what he’d done, but his body—no, his heart—knew how right he was to sign next to his girl’s name on the certificate the priest had set before them less than ten minutes earlier.
Married. Holy shit, he was married.
Bending down, Casey dragged his parted lips over her jaw, breathing in the faint scent of gardenias that clung to her wild tawny curls. “You said ‘I do,’” he murmured in Spanish as his fingertips brushed her bare thighs. “Can’t believe you said yes to me, fénix.” His phoenix, who in the short time he’d known her had proven her ability to rise from the ashes and begin anew. She awed him, this woman.
“How could I say no, marido?” Husband. He felt her smile as she tipped her head back to give him better access. “You make me feel...”
“What do I make you feel?” His tongue flicked out to taste the pulse pounding in her throat as his hands spread to curve over her thighs. Soft and warm, taut with lithe muscle. God, he loved her thighs. He loved them so much, he needed them wrapped around his waist right now. “C’mon, baby,” he coaxed, tightening his grip. “Tell me how you feel.”
“So bad, Casí.” Her wriggling body trapped between him and the sacristy wall, she tugged at the collar of his black button-down, keeping his lips on the sweet spot beneath her ear. “So hot.”
“I do that to you,” he growled as he licked a path along her jawline to claim her plush lips in a searing kiss. “I get you hot, make you bad.” More jingling as her skirt bunched at her waist, and he lifted his head to stare down at his beautiful wife, heart swelling as the seconds sped by. “You’re gonna let me fuck you in a church, when the priest could walk in any second?” Casey tugged aside the gusset of her panties, stroked her slick folds from back to front before playfully tweaking her clit. “You dirty girl.”
Ilda’s dimples flashed in cheeks flushed bright with hectic desire, dark eyes gleaming in the faint glow of the flickering pillar candle. “But I’m your dirty girl, Casí.”
Fuckin’ right, she was. The pads of his fingers shaped the hard nub of her clitoris, enjoying how each small stroke aroused more and more wetness, calling to his throbbing dick until he couldn’t wait a single second longer. “Turn around,” he ordered as he reached into his pants pocket and produced a condom, managing to unbutton, unzip and unwrap one-handed—with a little help from his teeth to tear the foil—because he couldn’t bear to stop touching her, his other hand still bunched in the skirt of her sundress, thumb brushing against the warm skin of her toned belly.
She turned for him, of course, because his girl was so damn good at following direction when it came to loving, her slender hands splayed on the sacristy wall, her body arched to thrust her round ass directly into his groin. Too bad her underwear was impeding the view. “Roll those hips for me, baby.” He blew a harsh breath through gritted teeth. “Nice and slow, like you do when we dance.”
Her hips rolled. The coins clinked.
Casey thought he might legitimately die, right there in the room where the priests prepped for Sunday mass every week. Reluctantly releasing her after making sure her skirts stayed high up around her waist, he grabbed the sides of her panties in both hands and pulled them down over her writhing backside, lowering to kneel behind her as he helped her step out of the damp lace. White lace, because it was her wedding night.
His erection practically leapt toward her, but he maintained control, just barely, by sinking his teeth into the back of her thigh, licking the hot skin when her movements stuttered, stalled. Then he was standing again, her naked ass in his unyielding grasp as he kneaded, squeezed, spread. She had so much shape to her, his fénix, tight and compact and healthily curved, and it surprised him not at all that he hadn’t been able to keep his hands off her from the moment they met.
He was a dog that way. But, God, only with her from now on. If she wanted him leashed, he’d put the collar on himself. Call me to heel, baby. I won’t leave your side.
Flicking open the buttons of his dress shirt and adjusting the weight of his package to sit outside his fly, his balls heavy with need, he gripped his cock in one hand and ran the blunt, sheathed head up and down her slick lips, dipping into her opening in a cruel game of Just The Tip until she pounded one fist against the wall, mewling in frustration.
He laughed, amusement and pain knotting together because he understood exactly what that angry little fist meant. “I’m feeling like you’re mine, baby, so I’m gonna take you like I own you, and you won’t stop me, will you?” Except he would absolutely stop if she asked, and she knew that, had seen him prove as much to her during their short courtship. Nothing and no one would hurt his wife, especially not him.
“Never stop you,” Ilda whispered, big dark eyes gleaming at him as she looked back over her shoulder. “Love you.”
Shivers raced down his spine. “Fuck, baby, I love you, too.” He thrust into her in one swift, sure glide.
She whimpered, writhing, her pussy squeezing him so good and tight it was a wonder he didn’t spontaneously come. With a heartfelt grunt, he gripped her hips, lifting her onto her tiptoes to get a better angle for his next thrust. Wet, hot, so fucking hot, and every inch of him that entered her was held so greedily by her inner muscles that he had the hazy thought that nothing in the world—nothing nothing nothing—was more important than this. Nothing was more important than being buried deep inside the love of his goddamn life.
One hand left her hip to stroke up her torso, fingers covering a breast over the thin fabric of her dress before dipping inside to cup her soft flesh. The hard point of her nipple abraded his palm, and he squeezed, probably harder than he should. But his fénix didn’t protest, merely moaned, and God, that was a beautiful sound, so he squeezed her again, rubbing the pad of his thumb over her nipple, enjoying how she arched into his touch like she needed it, couldn’t breathe without it.
He couldn’t breathe without it, without having his hands on her, branding her with his skin, his scent, his personal stamp of ownership. When his touch no longer sufficed, and the pace of his thrusts into her exquisite cunt increased, he bent his head to lick along the curve of her neck, the smooth line connecting her strong shoulders to the lithe length of her throat. She tasted of sweat, salt, fresh air and citrus, tart on his tongue and making him ache to bite her like the beast he was.
His teeth sank into the sensitive tendon connecting neck to shoulder, and he listened with raw satisfaction to her cry out and grow even wetter around his cock. He growled against her skin, fucking into her harder than before. “You like it when I bite you.” But he already knew that, had given her the edge of his teeth before when he’d fucked her on all fours in the backseat of an SUV.
Her cheek pressed against the wall, hair wild and sweat-dampened at her temples, and though her long lashes sensually shaded her dark eyes, she managed to meet his gaz
e. “I want my hands on you, Casí.”
He wouldn’t last if she did, but he understood the urge, hating that there was any distance at all between them, any oxygen. Bending closer, his bigger body arched over hers, his bare chest pressed tight to her spine. Lifting her hand from the wall, he brought two of her fingers to his mouth and sucked them between his lips. His tongue laved the digits, getting them wet and nipping the tips with his teeth.
She shivered beneath him.
After seating himself deep inside her and holding there, holding and not moving and fuck, that was difficult when all he wanted to do was move, move, move and then come in a blinding rush, he gave her one last little lick. Pulling her fingers from his mouth, he guided her hand down, down, until her fingertips brushed over her clit, and her eyes finally closed, her lips parted and dragging against the wall. “Casí.”
His fingers over top of hers, he forced her to pet herself, stroke herself, get herself off. “We’re gonna make you come, aren’t we? You and me together, baby, we’re gonna make you come so good and hard.” Catching her earlobe between his teeth, he rolled his hips, withdrawing before pumping in again, and that, combined with their tangled fingers and his dirty urgings, pushed her over the edge into ecstasy.
Her orgasm rippled through her, then him, and his hips sped, slapping into her lush backside until he couldn’t hold off any longer. He came on a groan, wrapping both arms around her to lock her small body against his.
Nuzzling his face into her throat, he breathed in her scent, smiling when he heard her giggle through her heaving exhalations. “What’s so funny?”
“We’re going to hell.”
“Because we did it in a church?” His lips brushed her cheek in a soft kiss as he slowly, achingly withdrew from her tight clutch. He hated letting go of her, but the alarm clock at the base of his skull told him he didn’t have time to waste. It didn’t take much to right his clothing once he’d knotted off the condom, tossing it in a waste bin tucked into a corner of the tiny sacristy.
