Drug Lord: A Bad Boy Baby Romance (8 page)

W
hen I woke up
, I opened my eyes to see that Emilio was fully dressed. I could smell coffee.

“Wake up, sweetheart.”

I turned to look at the window. It was still dark outside.

“What? Come back to bed.”

He came over and kissed me.

“As much as I would like to get tangled up with you again, you set a condition for your acceptance of my proposal. We’re going to fulfill it now.”

I sat up and his gaze immediately went to my breasts. I blushed and reached for a sheet to cover up. I guessed that if we were married, I’d have to get used to be being naked around him, but I wasn’t used to it at the moment.

“We’re going back to America?”

“Yes. This is all of your luggage, right? You have your passport with you.”

“Of course.” I didn’t go anywhere without it.

“Then we can get going.”

“I’m sticky,” I protested. “And I have to get dressed.” And I should probably tame my hair, if I wanted to go out in public.

“I’ll wash you,” he said, his eyes blazing. Without warning, he pulled me out of bed, one arm beneath my knees and the other under my back.

I squealed as he brought me into the bathroom. He slipped me into the tub and turned on the water. After he put a bunch of soap on a loofah, he began drawing big soapy circles on me. I wondered if he had ever washed anybody else before, because he didn’t seem to be very experienced at it. He was only washing part of me.

“Be careful,” I warned. “You might get wet.”

He put the loofah down at the side. He took off his clothes as if they were rags and not ultra-expensive custom-made Savile Row couture.

“Not a problem,” he said smugly.

He climbed into the tub and reached for me. I slid into his arms in the soapy water and kissed him lightly.

He didn’t seem to be satisfied by the light brush of our lips. His hand was in my wet hair holding me in place as he ravished my mouth.

With a groan, he ripped our mouths apart.

“We don’t have time for this. I promise, we’ll have more time in the jet.”

He bit the side of my neck savagely, and my body jerked against his as I moaned in pleasure.

He put soap on his hand and headed straight between my thighs, delving inside of me.

I screamed as he quickly stimulated me into an orgasm that I didn’t expect. My back arched backward and my head tilted back as I panted hard.

While I regained sanity, he briskly rubbed the rest of my body with the loofah.

“Clean. I scheduled take-off for an hour from now.”

“You realize that my hair is an absolute mess right now? Do you have any idea how long it takes to dry?”

“We’ll just wrap it up. No problem.”

He had all the answers. He turned on the shower attachment and rinsed both of us off.

I climbed out of the tub and wrapped myself up in one of the fluffy towels. He dried off and then tied his towel around his waist, snagging his clothes before going back into the bedroom. I dug around for the hairdryer and stared at it hopelessly. If we were taking off so soon, I didn’t really have time to properly blow-dry my hair.

I did the best I could in a few minutes, then I tied it up in a simple bun. I was embarrassed to do such a sloppy job, but he was rushing me, and I still had to pack up.

I went back into the bedroom, where there was a red dress waiting on the bed with a scarf sitting next to it.

“I already packed for you. Get dressed.”

I looked at the suitcases waiting next to the door.

I didn’t know if I liked how bossy he was, but I supposed that he was used to being in charge. He worked very fast. I’d told him that I wanted to go home right before we…well…eventually ended up going to sleep. And here he was, with my things already packed and a jet ready to go.

I put on my dress and tied the scarf around my hair.

“Did you pack my makeup bag?”

“The silver one? Yes.”

“But I need to put on makeup! I can’t go out in public like this.” My mother would faint if I went outside with my face bare. When I turned 12, she had given me a full makeup kit from MAC and told me never to come downstairs without makeup on again.

He quickly crossed the room and bent me backwards as he kissed me so hard that I nearly fell over.

“You look luscious,” he told me. “Totally perfect. We need to get on the plane.”

Then his hand was in mine and he was opening the door. Someone else must be getting our suitcases to the plane.

We walked out to his car, where his driver was idling.

“Ready, sir?” he asked in Spanish.

“Ready.”

He kept his hand in mine as we drove through the empty streets of Quito. It was hushed and quiet at this hour, not the noisy mass of humanity that it normally was.

I was still half asleep when the car stopped at the private hangar of the new Quito airport.

He pulled me gently into the plane. Breakfast was waiting, and I looked out the window, unable to see any Ecuadorian officials trying to prevent us from taking off this time. I was grateful that I wouldn’t be arrested and handcuffed again.

I wasn’t very hungry. I reached gratefully for the steaming mug of good Ecuadorian coffee and drained it.

“Strap yourself in,” he said.

I might not like taking orders normally, but it was definitely helpful when my brain was this foggy. It was too early in the morning for me to function normally. At this hour, it would be a miracle if I could brush my own teeth.

I clicked the buckle. He took my hand.

“We’re ready,” he called to the pilots. I could hear the murmur of a radio as they communicated with the air control tower.

Then we were taxiing on the runway. I squeezed his hand a little. I wasn’t a bad flier, but we were in a pretty little jet and I felt us tilt backwards. It was a lot more obvious when we were in a small aircraft than it would be in a commercial airliner.

“We’ll be fine,” he soothed. “Do you want some whiskey?”

“Is it a good idea to get drunk at this altitude?”

“Bottoms up.”

He poured us each a little bit of whiskey from a bottle that was in a small, ice filled container at the side of the plane.

I drank it. It helped a little bit with my nerves.

He put a gentle hand on my cheek and pulled me towards his shoulder.

“Sleep. By the time that you wake up, we’ll be back in America.”

I yawned and closed my eyes. He felt so solid. I knew that it was irrational, but I felt like he could save me somehow if anything happened to the plane. I slept on his shoulder.

I
was gently jolted
when the airplane landed at Reagan.

I looked at Emilio, who was sleeping, his head turned in an unnatural position. He was going to have a sore neck.

“Hey,” I said, shaking his shoulder.

His eyes suddenly opened and looked straight into mine. He was rigid for a moment before taking my hand and kissing my engagement ring.

“Are you happy to be home in the United States? Would you prefer to live here or in Ecuador?”

“A little bit of A, a little bit of B.”

I kissed the corner of his mouth. He had perfect lips. I traced them with the tip of my tongue before he grabbed the back of my head and slid his own tongue into my mouth.

The plane stopped moving.

“We better stop before we give the pilots a show.”

He bit my ear, then he let go of me.

“Come on.”

We got out of the plane. The sun was extremely bright.

“Did you order a car or are we going to take an Uber home?”

“I got a car. Well, my assistant did.”

I raised my eyebrows at him.

“I didn’t even notice you contacting your assistant.”

“My jet is fitted with Internet access, so I just sent her a message. She took care of it.”

I shook my head. It was as if fairies magically arranged his life to be completely perfect.

“It’s a security concern,” he said, shrugging.

“Security?”

“Just sensible security measures while outside of the country.”

I didn’t understand why he had to be afraid in America, but whatever.

“I can’t wait until you meet my parents. I’m sure my dad is going to be all alpha and tough, but they’ll love you.”

“If they’re anything like you, I’ll love them.”

I loved the glow in his eyes.

“I’ll take you home,” I said. It was a vastly different experience from getting on his jet and getting ready to go back to America this time. He was my actual fiancé now, and my mother would be over the moon.

I’d ignored her emails, but she knew that I was safe. Dad wouldn’t let his little girl be in real danger. I might’ve been on a different continent, but he always kept an eye on me. It was surprising that Emilio had been able to bundle me into a plane so quickly, but now that I thought about it, my dad could’ve had something to say about me getting into a private jet with someone that he hadn’t had time to vet. He had no way to know where we were going, unless somehow he’d been able to access the filed flight plans. But why would he stop me from coming home with Emilio?

Overabundance of caution, I guessed. The pilot easily could’ve done an emergency landing somewhere else. Dad wouldn’t have liked that.

I was glad to be home. Ecuador had been a strange adventure — I’d meant to stay longer, but here I was, back home again.

I was quiet as I looked out the windows at lots of cars going lots of places, all in a rush. The Ecuadorian way was so different from the American one.

The car eventually came to a stop.

“How did you know where I lived?”

Emilio just shrugged.

“My assistant took care of it.”

It was a bit weird, but I let it pass.

We got out of the car. I went up to the door of my townhouse and opened my purse, searching for my keys. I normally used them on a daily basis, now they were probably at the bottom.

When the door opened, my dad was standing there. He stepped to the side to let me in.

“Hi, Daddy!” I said. Both of us walked inside.

To my horror, I saw him draw his fist back.

N
aelle’s father’s
fist hit my face, and I twisted to the side to avoid as much force as I could.

He kept advancing as I blocked all of his strikes. He had good training, yes, but so did I.

He had the advantage here, because he wanted to hurt me and I couldn’t hurt him. Everything that I did was defensive.

“How dare you show your face here?” my fiancée’s father told me.

“Stop,” I told him before catching his wrist and spinning him before twisting his arm behind his back.

“Let go of him.” Naelle’s face was full of fury and confusion.

“Listen to me, both of you.” I tightened my grip on her father’s wrist.

“I didn’t know who Naelle was, or more importantly who you were. I fell in love with your daughter purely by chance.”

“Love,” he spat as if it were a foul taste in his mouth. “You’re not allowed to love my daughter.”

“What are you talking about?” Naelle asked.

“You knew who she was,” Naelle’s father said. “You manipulated her to get to me. You knew that I was investigating you and wanted to keep me from busting you for the drug lord that you are.”

“Is that true?” Naelle said, tears in her eyes. “You’re a drug lord, the kind of scum that my dad has hunted for years? You just played me?”

I looked at Naelle full in the face. “Naelle, I proposed to you because I loved you. Your ring…my promise…none of that has anything to do with your father. I didn’t know until I looked into your background a little more deeply.”

Her eyes were still filling with tears, but her voice was steady as she told me, “You need to go now.”

Her father took that moment to stomp on my instep. I let go of his arm and he whirled around the face me.

I opened my palms and raised my hands to show him that I was unarmed. I had a gun in my boot, of course, but I wasn’t about to use it on her father.

“I’ll go. Naelle, we’ll talk later. I’m so sorry about this.”

“Sorry,” she spat like it tasted awful. She shook her head. “There’s nothing to talk about,” she told me. Now, her voice was beginning to shake. “Goodbye.”

I looked at her eyes, which were full of unshed tears, and then I looked at her father, who looked like he was about to draw the gun in his shoulder holster. I could see the outline of it under his suit jacket.

“I’ll go. Naelle, when you’re ready to talk, I’ll be waiting.”

It was the hardest thing I’d ever done, but I walked out that door, leaving Naelle.

I
watched
as the door closed after Emilio.

“Do you know who that is?”

“Emilio,” I said, my salty tears falling down my cheeks.

“Emilio Gabria!” My father paced. “You brought home Emilio Gabria!”

“I had no clue who he was,” I protested. “When they found cocaine on the jet, he said that it wasn’t his. And I got the impression from the police officer that the police didn’t think that the Omega cocaine was his, either.”

“That’s because his cartel’s biggest rivals are the Omegas. If you found cocaine with their mark on it in his plane, then they’re trying to get rid of him.”

I blinked at my dad.

“So you weren’t the one who kept me from coming back to America?”

“You better tell me the whole story, pumpkin.”

He walked into our living room, which was as pristine as my mother always kept it. It felt surreal to walk into my DC life as if nothing at all had happened. I’d fallen in love like a ton of bricks, and all that it had earned me was heartbreak.

“There’s not much to tell, Daddy.”

“Humor me.”

“Well…I went to a trivia night where I met Emilio.”

I coughed, my cheeks heating up. I couldn’t talk about this kind of stuff with my dad.

“Skip over the embarrassing parts.”

I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.

My dad choked.

“Are you wearing an engagement ring?”

His face was flushing.

“Yes,” I said, blushing harder.

“How in… well, tell me about how you got there.”

“I met him, um, skipping over this part, then I accidentally went into his secret cabin in Quito.”

“Secret cabin?”

“It’s near the TeleferiQo.”

“Good to know.”

I saw my dad turn to look at a pad of paper on the side table.

“Dad, I don’t want you to hunt him down.”

“Pumpkin, I may not have a choice. I’ve been trying to hunt down Emilio Gabria for years…and then he showed up on my doorstep with my daughter, who was wearing his ring.”

I slid the ring off of my finger. At that moment, a ray of sunlight hit the emerald, making it light up.

“It’s beautiful,” I said, my heart heavy. I knew that I’d have to send it back.

“Okay, you accidentally went into his cabin, and then?”

“He was going to make me come back to the United States…he seemed really paranoid, thinking that I was some kind of spy.”

“Reasonable,” my dad said, nodding.

“Daddy!” I frowned fiercely at him. “Going to Ecuador was completely impulsive. I didn’t go there to hunt down a drug lord.”

“But that’s what you caught.”

I glared.

“Do you want me to tell you what happened or not?”

He held his hands up.

“Okay, I won’t interrupt anymore.”

“But they…like I said, they didn’t let us take off because of the baggie of cocaine that the police officer, Aguilera, found in the plane. Then Officer Ortiz let us go.”

“He has half of the police force of Ecuador on his payroll. It’s not like here, pumpkin. If you’re an Ecuadorian police officer, the entirety of the country is your jurisdiction, and half of them are on his payroll. The other half are on the Omega payroll.”

“You said you wouldn’t interrupt!”

“Sorry.” My dad pantomimed zipping his lips.

“And then we went back to his place. He didn’t seem to think that I was a spy anymore. I met his brother, who is a huge cocaine addict, and I freaked out. We went home. When I woke up, he had an engagement ring.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that,” I said, confirming it. “I told you, I fell in love like a ton of bricks. It was as if I couldn’t imagine my life without him. I don’t know, Dad. It was the strangest thing, but it felt so right.”

I was still holding my ring.

“I know I have to send it back.”

“Is that the whole story?”

“No.” I sighed and looked out the window.

“I made our engagement conditional. I said that he had to meet my family before I really agreed to marry him, but he gave me the ring anyway.”

“You’re definitely sending it back. Now that he’s met your family, there’s no way that the two of you can get married. Hell, if I were really doing my job, I’d use your information to nab this guy.”

“I don’t think he knew who I was early on,” I protested. “He didn’t hurt me, even when he thought that I’d been sent to spy on him. Don’t go after him.”

My dad just shook his head.

“How about this? You go down to the DHL Store and I make some calls, okay?”

“Okay.”

I went to get my purse and walked to the nearest DHL Store.

When I got there, I headed straight for the free envelopes and a piece of paper. I used one of the DHL pens, the kind that are attached to the countertop. It only took a little while for me to send it back to Ecuador. I didn’t really know Emilio’s address, but I did know the nearest intersection. In Ecuador, the address system wasn’t as exact as the American one. Often, the best you could do was the nearest intersection, so it would have to be enough.

I nearly cried when I handed over my beautiful engagement ring. All of those dreams were gone. I felt like I had a hole in my heart, even though we’d known each other for such a short period.

Easy come, easy go.