Renegade with a Badge

by Claire King

  “If your ribs can take it, my arm can take it.”

  “My ribs can take it.” Though right now they were being pretty well battered by the pounding of his heart. How could she stand there in that damp dress, her hair slicked back from her face and her white bandage practically glowing in the night, and ask him if he wanted to fool around? He didn’t know that he’d ever wanted anything more in his life.

  He pulled a waterproof lighter from the pocket of his jeans and carefully lit a frayed length of dry sagebrush, cupping his hand around the infant flame until it was crackling. The rest of the wood caught quickly, and once it was burning nicely, Rafe turned back to the sea for their dinner.

  Olivia watched him. Fishing, he used the same economical motion of muscle and bone he used to do everything else. It was no wonder she felt so safe with the man, she thought. He could do everything. She lay back on the warm sand, watched the stars that cloaked the night sky. Drop him in the middle of the Baja desert, and in no time at all he was clearing caves of scorpions and buying dresses on Sunday mornings and catching fish in the dark.

  “Don’t fall asleep,” Rafe said, dropping cross-legged onto the sand next to her. He’d caught two more fish; they were already gutted and rinsed. “We can’t sleep here tonight. We need to be on the boat in case Cervantes shows up and we have to make a quick getaway.”

  “You know,” she mused, casually identifying star clusters in her head, “it’s amazing to me I didn’t peg you guys for Americans the first time I met you, the way you speak. ‘Quick getaway?’ You sound like an old movie.”

  “Horsefeathers,” Rafe said in English, making Olivia laugh. “How’s your arm?”

  “He just winged me, speaking of old movies. It burns a little when I move it, but I think the water did it some good. I hardly feel it anymore.”

  Rafe spitted the fish on a long, smooth stick Olivia had intended to add to the fire. “Fire’s pretty hot, but I’m too hungry to wait.” Rafe held the fish over the flames. “I’m sorry I didn’t see him coming. I should have. I’m used to watching for him.”

  “As I recall, we were pretty involved just then.” Olivia wrinkled her nose. “And he’s a sneak. I wonder that I never noticed that about him.”

  Rafe looked over at her. She was flat on her back, relaxed as a cat, staring thoughtfully heavenward. “You know, I called my office the first day he went down to the beach.”

  She turned her head to look at him. “Why?”

  “I asked them to call Scripps and get you guys yanked off the beach.”

  Olivia studied him for a minute, then looked back at the sky. “Huh. Lucky for you your foul plan didn’t work. I would have hunted you down and smacked you around if I’d gotten yanked from my first command assignment.”

  Rafe chuckled. “I figured I’d be tougher to kill than you. And Cervantes would have killed all of you if you’d gotten between us.”

  “I did get between you, and he hasn’t managed to finish me off, yet.”

  “Luck,” Rafe grunted.

  “Skill,” Olivia corrected. “Between your survival instincts and Bobby’s thievery and my experience on this stretch of water, we could elude that little weasel for another fifteen years.”

  Rafe gloated a little over the “weasel” comment. He refrained from mentioning he’d known Cervantes was a weasel since he was ten years old, while it had taken her getting shot at to come to the same conclusion. “We just need to stay out of sight for another thirty-six hours.”

  “Then what?” Olivia sat up, brushed the sand from her hands. “What happens on Tuesday, exactly?”

  “Exactly? I never know what’s going to happen exactly. Maybe nothing.”

  He slid one of the fish to the very end of the stick and blew on it until it was cool enough to touch. He then offered it to Olivia, who took it in her fingers and peeled the skin back. She took a bite.

  “Needs salt,” she said.

  “Stop poking the bear,” Rafe warned placidly.

  Olivia mumbled something too low for him to hear, then giggled to herself. Rafe couldn’t help but smile at her. She was pretty damn charming.

  Olivia ate steadily, picking out the bones of the fish and flicking them into the fire. “What do you think will happen, then?”

  Rafe swallowed a bite of his own dinner. “If he shows up, we wait until he makes contact with his suppliers. Both Mexican and U.S. authorities have known about Aldea Viejo and Cervantes’s operation since before Ernesto even took over for his father. The federales could have shut down the town, but they never had enough proof to convict Cervantes. We want the Mexican government to extradite him to the States, and to do that, we have to have evidence he’s connected to the shipments directly.”

  “Why extradite him? I mean, isn’t that a very complicated thing to do?”

  “Very complicated. But he’s wanted for crimes other than trafficking inside the United States, and we want him to stand trial on our turf, where his money and position and influence won’t get him off.”

  “What other crimes?”

  “He murdered a DEA agent twenty years ago,” Rafe said, the words sticking in his throat even after all these years.

  “My God, no wonder you want him so badly. He killed one of your own.”

  More one of my own than you know, he thought, the bitterness he’d held to him for so long rising in his chest.

  “He must have been just a boy when it happened.”

  “He was seventeen,” Rafe said tightly. “He’d already been a linchpin in his father’s organization for three years when he came across the border for the first time with a shipment of unprocessed heroin. One of our young officers was there to intercept, as part of a regular patrol near the Mexicali border crossing. The officer identified himself as an agent and asked Cervantes to step out of the car so he could search it. Eyewitnesses say Cervantes shot the officer before he had even finished his sentence.”

  Olivia was watching Rafael closely now. His face, in the firelight, was flat, expressionless. His knuckles were white around the stick he still held, however, and his eyes were blazing. Fury, she thought. But something else, too.

  Grief? For an unknown officer shot down so long ago?

  “Who was he? The officer Cervantes killed.”

  “My brother. George.”

  “Oh, Rafe.” Grief swamped her—for him, for the child he’d been when his brother had died. “How terrible. How old were you?”

  “I was ten, almost. Bobby was a year younger. George was his padrino, his godfather, as well as his cousin.”

  “And you’ve dedicated your lives to making Cervantes pay.”

  Rafe looked at her for the first time since he’d begun the story. “He was my brother,” he said fiercely, quietly.

  Olivia met his savage gaze. “You don’t have to defend yourself to me, Rafael. I am only surprised you haven’t killed him already.”

  Rafe’s eyes reflected the flames of the fire. Olivia could not tell which blaze burned hotter. “I don’t want him to die,” he said. He glanced meaningfully at Olivia’s bandage. “I want him to suffer.”

  “And so you became a drug agent. You and Bobby, both.”

  “We made a blood pact after George’s funeral. I don’t even know if Bobby understood it all at the time, but he came to understand it, and he’s kept the pact all these years. It’s taken us twenty years to get this close—ten years waiting to grow up, ten years working our way through the agency.” He laughed shortly. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve woken up in a cold sweat over the years, praying some son-of-a-bitch drug runner didn’t kill him before Bobby and I could bring him to justice.” He shook his head. “I know that must sound crazy to you.”

  “Not crazy,” Olivia said. She steadied herself against the rush of admiration she felt for him. “Not crazy at all,” she finished quietly.

  There were so many ways to exact retribution, Olivia knew. And Rafe deserved retribution, she thought, for himself and his
family. Olivia understood perfectly what an eldest son meant to a Latino family. More than just a means to ensure the name, an eldest son represented all that was strong and noble about a family. Her own younger brother, the eldest male Galpas offspring, was the apple of even her enlightened, modern father’s eye.

  But Rafael hadn’t turned into the kind of man circumstance and bitterness could have made him. He’d been patient, intelligent, resourceful. He’d followed the laws of both countries, and done his duty to his family at the same time.

  Olivia cleared her throat, willing herself not to tear up. “I respect you for it, as a matter of fact.”

  He blinked at her. “What?”

  “I respect you, Rafael. You could have killed Cervantes a hundred times, I’m sure. I know you could have killed him the other night, in his house. But you’ve taken this path. I respect you for sticking to it, despite the anger you must feel.”

  She damn near terrified him, this woman, Rafe thought. She sat innocently next to him, and just when he thought he could handle the way he felt about her, she said something that terrified him. Respected him? How the hell was he ever supposed to let her go, when she said things that made his heart swell in his chest and made every single hurdle he’d overcome in the past twenty years seem worthwhile, even honorable.

  He gave her a scornful look. For his own protection, as much as anything. “My brother was a police officer, Olivia. How could I avenge his death by doing something illegal?”

  Olivia smiled gently. This was the other Rafael, now. With his hard face and his sharp eyes. She scooted across the sand until she was plastered against his side, and took the stick from his hand. She tossed it into the fire, gripped his hand in hers.

  “That’s true, Rafael,” she said softly, laying her head on his shoulder and watching the fire with him. “I’m sure, wherever your brother is right now, he respects you, too.”

  Rafe felt the oddest sting at the back of his throat. He tried to swallow it down. He slammed his eyes tightly shut before anything unforgivable happened, and held onto Olivia’s hand for dear life.

  “For a scientist,” he said roughly after a minute, “you have some very unscientific ideas.”

  “I’m a woman, too,” Olivia murmured comfortably. “And a Latina.” She smiled wryly. “You cannot kill the passionate heart of a Latin woman with anything so simple as science.”

  Rafe kissed the hair at the crown of her head. Lucky thing, he thought. He’d hate to see Olivia lose her passionate heart.

  They sat together for a while, watching the fire die down. Rafe knew they needed to get back to the boat, but he was loath to make any move at all. He felt relaxed, contented almost, for the first time in months, without the perpetual simmer in his gut that reminded him constantly of his duty and his promise to his long-dead brother.

  Olivia kept her head on his shoulder, equally unwilling to move. Her dress had dried in the heat of the fire and the breeze that had blown up after dusk. She was thirsty, but otherwise perfectly comfortable. Not cold, not hot. Just…happy.

  She’d spent hundreds of nights like this in her life, even before she started working for the institute. Beach fires and clothes stiff with salt and sandy hair were nothing new to her. But she’d never been with Rafael on any of those beaches.

  “Are you ready for another swim?” Rafe asked after a while.

  She stretched her shoulders, sighed. “I don’t think so,” she said, and pushed him back into the sand.

  The woman crawled on top of him as though she’d belonged there all her life, without a moment’s hesitation or abashment. He wrapped his arms around her instinctively.

  “Olivia.”

  “I want you, Rafael.”

  “I know,” he said. He laughed thickly. “I can’t believe it.”

  Olivia smiled. “Me, either. I’m normally a very cautious woman. If we were back in San Diego, you’d have to court me for months before I’d lie on top of you like this.”

  “I love Mexico,” Rafe breathed. “I want you, too, Olivia.”

  Her toes rubbed the still-damp denim at his shinbone. She framed his face with her small, competent hands, and kissed him with all the passion and tenderness she felt in her heart. “Show me,” she whispered.

  He didn’t need to think how. His body took over, touching her, sliding her dress up her thighs until he could feel the swell of her bottom under his rough hands. He moaned—or she did—when he cupped it solidly; he couldn’t tell which of them made the sound.

  The calluses on his hands snagged at the delicate nylon of her panties. They were pink, he remembered. He’d bought them only this morning, not allowing himself so much as a single image of her wearing them as he’d stuffed them into the paper sack.

  Now he allowed himself an image or two. “Olivia,” he said frantically. “Sit up.”

  Olivia sat up, straddling his waist, careful of his sore ribs. “Take your dress off. I want to see you.”

  His voice was thick, raspy, sexy. And so deep. It had fallen another octave. Olivia thought she might climax from the sound of it alone.

  She took the hem of the dress in her hands and slowly, slowly raised it to her waist. “This dress?” she asked.

  Rafe looked from her half-lidded eyes to the pink panties he could now see, quite clearly, in the firelight. “Oh, man.”

  Olivia laughed lightly at his desperate groan. She’d never done anything very wicked before, and she found she enjoyed the risk. She raised the dress another inch.

  He could see her belly button now. Exquisite. His tongue flicked out automatically, so badly did he want to taste that little nub of skin. He stared at her, unable to so much as raise his eyes to hers. “A little more,” he rasped.

  Olivia bunched the fabric of her dress in her hands. “This much more?”

  “Higher, Olivia.” He could see the glimmer of nylon where her breasts filled the underside of her bra. “Higher.”

  Up the dress went, just a fraction of an inch. His fingers were twitching, his lower body jerking upward instinctively. “You’re killing me,” he moaned.

  She whipped the dress over her head and off.

  He stared at her for a minute, then reached up with one big hand. Olivia held her breath. Her nipples were already stiff inside her bra, her breasts full.

  But he didn’t touch her where she was dying to be touched. He traced the bandage on her arm with one finger. “I could kill him for this alone, you know,” he said, his voice nothing more than a low growl in the darkness.

  She moved his hand away from the wound, placed it on her left breast. He cupped her automatically, and Olivia watched his eyes dilate to pinpoints, following the motion of his hand.

  His other hand came up, then, and caressed her right breast. Olivia tipped her head back and let him play. He pressed his palms against her, rubbing, molding, pinching lightly, until her back was bowed and she was grinding herself against his abdomen, looking for relief.

  “Take off the bra,” Rafe ordered, his dark eyes fixed on her breasts.

  She reached back, unsnapped the hooks and let the bra fall to his chest.

  His breathing accelerated to a dangerous level. “You have the most perfect breasts,” he said. He cupped them again, whisked his thumbs across the dark, puckered tips. “Small and high and proud. Like a queen.”

  Olivia could do nothing more than whimper. She would have liked to tell him she was no queen, no woman to be treated like royalty, but she couldn’t get a single coherent word past her lips. He spent minutes playing with her, studying her, as though they had all the time in the world, as though he intended to make her climax simply from touching her breasts.

  But no. He sat up suddenly, scooting her into his lap by moving those amazing hands down to her bottom and clamping her hips to his. And then…oh, then, Olivia thought, dazed. He played with her breasts a little more. With his mouth.

  She was probably going to die. This kind of pleasure would kill her. He sucked, hard, unti
l she moaned out loud. Then he moved to the other peak, and sucked again.

  He was almost at the edge of his composure. One more wiggle of that panty-clad little butt over his fly, and he was going to embarrass them both. He dug his fingers into her hips to keep her still. The feel of her eraser-hard nipple between his tongue and the roof of his mouth was more than enough, without the added stimulation of her writhing.

  She was doing something with her hands now. Oh, man, taking off his shirt. Her fingers brushed his nipples as she pushed the shirt to his shoulders. He did five quick algebra equations in his head and tried to remember the batting averages of at least three San Diego Padres. Then, when she flicked at them again, on purpose this time, tried to recall the name of the Charger quarterback from 1976 to 1984. Dan Something.

  “Olivia, slow down.”

  “No, you hurry up,” she implored frantically. She yanked at the buttons of his jeans.

  Rafe grabbed her hands. “You’re going to hurt something,” he said, breathing unsteadily. He eased her to the sand next to him, where she knelt, nearly naked.

  He shucked his jeans and briefs in an instant, and knelt in front of her, taking her hips in his hands again.

  She looked stunning in the firelight. Her skin was the color of honey where the sun hadn’t touched her. He reached up, ran a fingertip from the base of her throat to her navel. “Beautiful Olivia,” he murmured.

  “You have bruises,” she whispered. She touched his chest gently.

  “I do?” he said, managing a smile. “Right now, Olivia, I couldn’t even tell you if I had ribs, much less bruises on my ribs.”

  “Then you’re okay?” She worried her lower lip, stared at his chest again. “For this?”

  “Look lower.”

  She did. And blinked. “Oh.”

  He had to laugh. “Olivia, are you sure about this?”

  She met his gaze. “I’m sure.”

  “Then finish,” he said.

  “Finish?”

  He gave her the slow once-over. She felt her skin flush, his dark eyes were so hot. “Finish.”