Javier clears his throat, startling me from my thoughts; "Daydreaming?"
"Something like that," I smile, sipping the lukewarm coffee in my cup.
"You know, you can just say the word, princess, and I'll drag you upstairs and tie you back up again if you don't think you've gotten enough."
He winks at me, the dimples of his grin curving up and making me warm in all sorts of places beside the blush on my face.
Uh, yes please.
I'm about to open my mouth and tell him to throw me over his shoulder, take me upstairs, and fuck me like he just did before; where I could barely remember my own name afterwards. But he stands from his chair before I can say a word.
"Lets go for a drive. I want to show you something." I'm frowning at him quizzically, but he grabs me by the hand and leads me out of the hotel garden, through the lobby, and out to the battered pickup from yesterday.
The one I assumed is his. Or maybe stolen. I realize I don't know anymore and I that I also don't really care, because I'm too busy caring about - well - something else. I'm tied up and twisted around with this man who is the single last person I need to have any of these feeling for. This whirlwind of whatever this is has me looking at things differently; has me seeing myself differently.
Yikes, three days in paradise and I’m falling for a criminal. What is fucking wrong with me?
*****
We leave the bigger town around the hotel and the beach scene behind as we drive up the coast and into the trees. Javier hasn't said a word since we left the hotel, but I'm too preoccupied with staring out the window at the villages, the towns, the fields, and the incredible vistas that pass by as he he switches us off paved roads to less paved ones to a deeply rutted dirt one.
Thirty bumpy minutes later, we pull into the main square of a village that time and people seems to have forgotten. Javier shuts off the engine and jerks open the creaky, rusted door of the truck, stepping out on the hot-baked earthen ground of the village square. I climb out, standing there in the deserted town, silent but for the wind rustling through the empty windows and the ocean waves in the distance. The whole place is empty, but it's almost beautiful in it’s silence and it's emptiness.
"Where-" I look around, finally turning back to meet Javier's eyes; "Where are we?"
"We're home," He says quietly, a sad smile on his face as he looks across the crumbling town, the houses with the caved-in roofs and the forest slowly reclaiming them, and the sprigs of weeds growing through the stone of the square; "My home."
My eyes go wide as I stare at him.
"I grew up here, a long long lifetime ago. My mother, she- well, she couldn’t take care of my anymore, back in Spain. So I came here to my abuelo and abuela’s house; my dad’s parents.”
Wow. I guess whatever "this" is, it's intimate enough that he's taken me here.
It's intimate enough that I'm so glad he did.
He turns and smiles at me, before stepping around the truck and taking my hand; "Want the grand tour?" he says with a wink.
"Definitely."
*****
We finally make our way to the old, steepled Spanish-style church perched on the edge of a cliff at the far end of the main square; its crumbling glory looking out over the rocking waves of the ocean.
"What happened here?"
He shrugs; "Governments change, people change; people move on." He nods somberly as we stand on the church steps, looking out over the ancient ruins of his youth; "I moved on long before the rest of them did, but you sort of always think someone will be there with the lights on when you come back someday."
"Why'd you show me this?"
He chuckles; "I thought you needed a change of scenery from just the ceiling above the bed back at the hotel."
I stick my tongue out at him and punch him playfully in the arm; "Dick."
"Oh, tired of that already?"
Uh, no.
All this charm and this sarcasm is just a covering though; I know that. I can see that it's the armor he wears to protect himself, to always stay aloof and one step ahead of whatever fate he thinks he's shackled to, or whatever demons from his past are still chasing him.
"You know, you can drop it around me."
He arches a brow at me; "What?"
"The whole bad-boy thing."
He grins as he grabs my hand and brings it to the front of his pants, making me grin as I feel him; "You think I'm a little boy, princess?"
I blush and roll my eyes; "Hardly. C’mon, you know what I mean."
"I know what you mean." He says quietly, dropping the cockiness as he moves closer to me, kissing my cheek and making me close my eyes and lean into him.
"What are we doing?" I whisper quietly into his ear as his lips move to my neck and nibble at the skin there.
"I have no idea, beautiful, but I don't care." He husks back, kissing my ear.
"Well- I mean what happens next?"
He pulls back and shrugs as he meets my eye; "Why worry about it when we have right now?"
"Because you need to think about the future, Jav-"
He silences me with a soft, perfect kiss on my lips, and I melt.
"Sometimes it's best just to live in the now, Chelsea," He says gently as he pulls back from my lips; "And the now, here with you, is the only place I ever want to exist.”
*****
We sit on the crumbling alter steps inside the church later, watching the sun set over the ocean through the missing back wall of the building. With how nature is slowly reclaiming the place, it's almost like being in a cave, with the moss creeping up the sides and the tropical birds quietly chirping in the rafters.
We're sipping on rioja and munching on the cheese and crackers that Javier surprised me with as I let myself lean back into him.
“You know I talked to Koufax yesterday.” I almost want to swallow the words back up the second they leave my lips. Somehow it seems even worse saying them here in this perfect setting, even if they are inevitable.
“I know, and I figured the clock was ticking.”
“I don’t want it to.”
“Death and taxes, princess,” He chuckles behind me, “The only two certainties in this life.”
“There are others, you know,” I say quietly, slipping my fingers into his; “Certainties, that is.”
Javier growls and rolls me over on top of him, my legs around his waist and his hands on my hips; “Oh, I can definitely think of some other certainties, beautiful.” He leans up to gently bite my earlobe, making me groan against him; “Certainties, like me making you come like you’ve never come before.”
He starts to slip his fingers into the waist of my shorts, and my eyes go wide as I stare down at him; “What, here?” I say, biting my lip and darting my eyes around the space where we are. I’m hardly the most religious person in the world, but it seems like sacrilege somehow, to do that here.
Javier laughs; “What, never had sex in a church before?”
“No!” I say, blushing before I look at him; “Wait, have you?”
Javier makes an exaggerated face like he really has to think about it, and I punch him in the arm before he starts laughing and leans up to kiss my pouting face; “I’m kidding, Chelsea. No, I’ve never done that.” His fingers grip my skin harder, and I can feel his cock pressing hot and hard against me through far too many layers of clothes; “Too much?” He says, nodding at the church around us.
I shake my head, trying not to moan as he grinds his hardness into my mound.
“Good,” He growls, fire sparking in his dark eyes as he starts to push my shorts off the curve of my ass; “Because I’m going to make you see God, princess.”
He rolls us over as he pulls my shorts off my legs and runs his fingers over the damp gusset of my panties. He’s pushing my tank top up over my body, his lips hungrily moving to my sensitive nipples as they’re freed to the air. I gasp as his tongue flicks across one and then the other, sending bolts of electric desire buzzing thro
ugh me as his fingers begin to move in circles around my pussy through my panties.
His mouth trails down my body, biting and licking and dragging his tongue down my skin until he gets to the waist of my panties. He growls like an animal as he strips them off of me, and I gasp as his tongue finds me dripping wet and ready for him. He’s slow and teasing with his mouth, despite the fierce look in his eyes, and he’s got me riding that wave higher and higher as he slowly guides me towards my release with his tongue working magic across my clit. When I come, it’s his name I’m crying out, raking my nails across his scalp and shoulders as he licks me all the way through my orgasm.
“Get up here,” I gasp, dragging him up my body and mashing my lips against his. I’ve never tasted myself before, but I find my body reacting with even deeper arousal and need for him as I taste my sweetness across his lips.
I’m spreading my legs wide for him as he yanks his shirt and shorts off, revealing that chiseled, hardened body that has me question my very sanity. Because whatever happens next - whatever happens later - we’ve got right here and right now. And as crazy as it sounds, and is, I just want to exist right here with this man that has me looking at the world in entirely different ways.
He reaches for the pocket of his shorts, but I grab his wrist; “Wait, no.” He turns, a questioning look on his face; “Leave it,” I say quietly.
Javier’s eyes blaze as a grin begins to spread over his face; “You got me, princess. Never in a church, and never without-”
“Me neither.”
He grins; “Church or condom?”
“Neither,” I say, rolling my eyes and reaching down between us to wrap my fingers around his impressive girth; “Now are you going to give me this gorgeous cock or what?”
“You’re the boss, agent,” He growls. I yelp as his hands grab my thighs and spreads them wide as he eases the head of his cock inside of me. We both cry out and he slides through my wetness deeper and deeper; raw and bare as he sheaths himself inside of me.
“Oh my God-“ I moan, throwing my head back and moaning before looking up into the eyes of this man who’s somehow gotten under my skin, into my head, and into my heart in ways I never saw coming. It’s just him and I, with nothing between us as he begins to rock in and out of me. His hands move to circle around me and cradle my body to him as I wrap my legs around his muscled torso. We move as one, rocking harder and rhythmically, building slowly until our tempo begins to move faster. I can feel every beat of his heart through his skin and through his thickness filling me so perfectly. We move faster and faster, and as I start to fall and let myself go completely I know that I’m lost in such a perfect way; in a place where I never want to be found again.
My body convulses as the burning,throbbing, rippling sensation begins to spread out from my core; his body grinding against my clit and making me shudder as his cock throbs deep inside of me.
“Chelsea, I’m going to-”
“Fill me, please.” I moan out. And as he roars out his climax, I can feel the heat of his release inside of me, and it’s more than I can possible withstand. I cry out as my orgasm tears through me like a roaring blaze, erupting out of every pore of my body as we come together, crashing against the other like waves on a shore.
Later, I’m pulling my panties back up and slipping his shirt over my head as I curl against him, letting myself drift into him as his arms move around me and draw me close. There are words I so desperately want to say, but I don’t since that would be absolutely crazy, given the whirlwind of the last few days.
I almost want to chastise myself for even thinking them, but I shake my head slowly, grinning to myself.
‘What’s wrong with me?’ Absolutely nothing.
I can hear Javier’s breathing begin to even into a steady pace and I start to close my eyes. There’s absolutely nothing wrong about any of this; because this is perfect.
Until, of course, it isn’t.
Perfection.
When I slowly wake to the melodic sounds of the birds and the slow crash of the waves with Chelsea in my arms, I know it’s the only word for it.
It's perfect.
I've got the freedom, and more importantly, I've got the girl. And for the first time in years there's actually a silence inside my head that I almost don't know what to do with. Is this what peace feels like? I feel like I've been at war of some kind or another for longer than I can even remember, to the point that I don't even know what to do with the sounds of silence.
I pull her closer to me, inhaling the scent of her hair and the warmth of her skin as she snuggles back against me. I'm not an idiot; I know the peace and the perfection and the freedom are temporary while we sit here in the eye of the storm waiting for the hammer to fall.
The freedom, the peace, and the girl.
Two of those things most definitely have an unavoidable expiration date in the near future. It's the third one I'm trying to figure out how to hold on to. Because after a lifetime of temporary friends, of fleeting familiarities, of burned bridges and torched relationships, I realize that for the first time ever, I'm with a person I simply can't imagine being away from.
And that scares the shit out of me.
But at the same time, when I allow myself to really think about it, there's another altogether new feeling spreading through me. Because really, I can't imagine letting her out of my arms. I mean, we could just stay here; right here in the stillness of the eye of the storm. Shit, we could stay right here in this village and raise chickens or something quaint and ridiculous like that. The bottom line though is, we could leave it all behind. I could leave all my bullshit behind once and for all, and for the first time since ever, I could just be happy.
Because with that life and this girl, I don't know how I couldn't be.
We'll just stay right here, and exist in this moment of peace for as long as we fucking want to.
I close my eyes and nuzzle back into her, and I must doze off for a second, because I don't hear a thing before it happens. I don't hear them, I don't see them, and I don't even know that our little sanctuary has been intruded upon until I feel the cold metal of a gun press into my temple.
Yeah, then I'm wide fucking awake.
"Rise and shine, sweetheart." Benson grins savagely as he leans over me; "Miss me, baby?"
Chelsea screams as she wakes to hands grabbing us. I roar and strain at the three men holding me down, fighting with every single ounce of my being as they tear her away from me.
This isn't supposed to happen like this.
The peace and the silence and the perfection isn't supposed to end here; not like this, and not yet.
Chelsea is screaming my name, shoving fists and heels and elbows at the men holding her. I'm lunging for her, but the men holding me back shove me to the ground and start to cuff my hands behind my back. It's the single worst feeling I've ever felt, watching them drag her away and knowing there's nothing I can do.
The feeling is helplessness, and it's almost overwhelming in its power over me.
I'm yelling; roaring like a wild fucking animal with every ounce of my soul as the one thing I've ever cared about - the one girl in the world I've ever love-
Chelsea.
Scorch: A Soldiers of Fortune Romance (Military Bad Boy Romance) Page 14
