Scorch: A Soldiers of Fortune Romance (Military Bad Boy Romance) (18 page)

It's everything we never knew about what it is he did. Our father's company historically sold weapons, but it was a subject he always hated to talk about. For all his traveling to conflict zones- well, we put two and two together and got "making deals."

Except they weren't the deals we all thought, as I learn in the books; not by a mile. They aren’t deals of war at all.

He was dealing peace.

The diaries tell of building hospitals in war-torn areas; orphanages in places of sickness and strife, wells where there was no water. Logan and Hudson and Bryce are in there as well, off with him changing the world across the pages of his life sitting in my lap, as I cry here in the now.

So why is it a girl like me, from a family like mine, ends up in the C.I.A.?

Because my father wanted to save the world, in any way he could.
 

And apparently, so do I.

*****

"Oh, she's not as scary as she looks from the outside."

Esteban, Javier's pilot friend pats the fuselage of the rusted-looking single-engine plane with a big grin on his round, friendly face; "She flies like a dream; you won't feel a single bump.”

I can hear Javier snort behind me;
right
.

Esteban and Javier move off to the side, embracing again and cracking jokes as I skeptically eyeball the rickety-looking plane again. But hey, beggars can't be choosers, as they say, and Esteban was perfectly willing to take us out of Aruba and fly us to Venezuela without asking so much as a single question.

We've already established on the drive here that that it'd be best to keep the nature of our relationship - or, lack thereof - away from Esteban; or who I am, for that matter. He’s hardly prying, but as far as the portly pilot knows, his old pal Javier the criminal needs a lift under the radar to the mainland, and I'm just his - what, accomplice?

His girlfriend?

Don’t be weird.
 

"He's not really a questions guy, anyways,"
Javier says on the drive over; "We go way back; he owes me one.”

*****

"So how do you know Tio Torito?”

So much for not being a questions guy.

I start to respond, yelling and still not even hearing the sound of my own voice over the loudness of the prop engine, before Esteban grins and reaches over to turn my headset on. The sound of his friendly laugh coming through my headphones signals they're on.

“
What
?”

He snorts a laugh, grinning and shooting a quick look back at Javier sleeping in the cramped backseat of the plane behind where I sit up front with Esteban; “His- how do you- his
nick
name? My kids call him that. It means Uncle little-bull literally, but I think it loses something in translation.”

I grin, allowing myself to laugh into the mouthpiece which helps my nerves with the wild shaking of the plane; “I don’t think it loses a
thing
in translation, actually,” I say, laughing; “And I guess it’s complicated," I finish with a small smile and a shrug; “How I know him.”

He laughs, "Yeah, that sounds like Javier." He rubs his chin and grins to himself, as if reliving old times.

"So you guys are old smuggling buddies?" I cringe a little as the words tumble out of my mouth, wondering if I've just crossed some sort of criminal code by even asking.

Esteban just chuckles though and shakes his head; "Me? No, no, no, that’s not my business. I mostly do commercial jobs.
Todo
e
n los libros;
everything on the books. It’s all on the level.” He grins, pantomiming a straight line with his hand; “No bandito stuff for me, but sometimes, an old friend like Javier asks me to fly something, and I just decide not to look at what it is." He turns to me, his wide face smiling; "I thought it might be rude this time to ask you to sit in the cargo-hold." he says with a wink.

"He helped me, you know,” He says after another minute of rumbling, shaking silence in the plane.

"Hmm?"

"Javier; thats how we know each other." Esteban nods slowly to himself; "He was in Peru, during the uprising when the Communists were fighting the government. My wife and I and our three girls were hiding out by the docks, apparently in one of his holding warehouses. But when he found us, it wasn't even a question. He was small-time, back then; tiny boats, no planes, none of the tricks he used later. He was there to bring some crates of whatever he was moving then onto that boat and get away before the rioters got to the port, but he took us instead; no questions asked."

Esteban smiles to himself; "I asked him for a long time what was in those boxes that he'd left behind when he took us; you know, to pay him back. But he never told me, and that son of a bitch never lets me pay him back a penny." He turns to me with a shrug; "So, that's how I know him."

"I didn't know that part of him, I guess." I say quietly, turning to look out the window at the clouds streaking past us.

"He's a complex man. He's seen too much, I'll give him that, and he got in deep with the wrong people a few years ago, when he was up in New York."

He got in deep with the wrong people a few years ago, up in New York.
Like, around the time he started pressuring Logan with blackmail and ended up kidnapping him and my sister Quinn?

"In another world? In some other reality with different circumstances?" Esteban jerks his thumb over his shoulder at the sleeping Javier; “He'd probably be president somewhere, or a Saint."

I bite my lip as I turn and let my eyes linger on the man sleeping behind me; the man who's got me turned around and inside-out in ways I've never felt before.
 

"So, you two are…" Esteban trails off and gives me a conspiratorial wink.

I blush furiously and shake my head; "Oh, no, no nothing like that," I say, way too quickly as my cheeks burn.

Esteban suppresses a knowing grin and just shrugs; "Hey, it’s none of my business, señorita. But as a friend to him?" He turns, looking into my eyes; "Be nice to that one. He's a better man than you’d ever know by just looking at him; remember that.”

If I was confused about everything with Javier before, I don't know
what
to think after talking with Esteban. It's a side of Javier I've never even considered. I mean, in my mind, he's a villain. I might've been having ridiculous thoughts as of late of him being
my
villain, or whatever, but a bad guy he remains in my head.
 

Except the story from the plane changes all that. The selfless, charitable Javier? I'm not sure I've ever met that side of him, and suddenly I'm curious what else there is to know about this man - this criminal - that he's managed to bury so deep.

We say goodbye to Esteban at a small airfield cut into the forest that can only be a remnant of Javier's smuggling days, and hop into one of the beat-up pickup trucks parked near the end of the crude runway.

We sit in silence as we drive through the trees. My mind is a blur as it spins with all the new thoughts and opinions about the man sitting next to me, and this whole crazy adventure we've been on for the last few days. And that’s what it is, really; a fantasy adventure. This whole beach-life existence of being on the run, with the threat of danger and the thrill of the unknown around every corner and in every shadow has been a
fantasy
. It's been like a joy-ride of avoiding real life and avoiding the inevitable for the last few days, and somehow that ride has culminated into crashing into one another in ways I don't think either of us expected.
 

Javier Toro is literally the last man on Earth I should have ever had anything to do with, let alone
sleep with
. I want to blame the craziness of our shared experience, or the adrenaline thrill of the chase, or hell, the tequila. But I know none of that's fair to blame for this.

Because really, I don't even know if "blame" is the right word anymore.

Maybe it’s “thank”.

He's like an onion, and I just keep pulling back layers to see just how deep this man goes. And just when I think I have Javier pinned down and figured out, I get a story like Esteban's about his past, and everything gets shaken up all over again.
 

I'm still stewing about the whole thing when we pull up to a hotel by the beach. I'm silent as he signs us in, paying with probably the last of his stolen cash. I say nothing in the elevator as we slowly rise. I can't talk, because I don't
trust
myself.

I don't trust myself to deny that I still want him, however wrong it may be.

My mind is honestly made up before we even make it off the elevator, but it's not until he closes the door to the room behind us that I turn on him.
 

Javier looks stunned as I shove him back against the door, hard, and slink into him as I mash my lips to his. It's fevered, and full of lust and pure need as I kiss him with everything I have; just needing to escape back into him and the fantasy he brings.

He growls suddenly and shoves me away from him, his eyes blazing as he wipes my kiss from his lips with the back of his hand; "Fuck you," He mutters, his gaze burning intently at me.

"Well fuck you too!" I explode at him. My pulse is pounding through my veins as I tense every muscle in my body.

“I’m not going to play this bullshit back and forth with you, Chelsea,” He says, his teeth bared and his eyes leveled on mine; “I’m not going to play ‘guess the fucking mood of the hour’ with you.”

“You know what, forget it,” I spit out; “Fuck you for bringing me into all your
bullshit
, for bringing me into all
this
," I choke out a harsh laugh as I jut my jaw out at him; “And fuck you for invading my life!" I hate him, and I also want him with every piece of my being, and the war between the two is making my whole body spin wildly out of control.
 

"Oh, I invaded
your
life?!" He roars; the muscles of his arms bunching and tensing; "Just who walked into
who's
life here,
Special Agent Archer
."

He steps forward suddenly, snakes his hand into my hair, and pulls me into him as he kisses me. His lips and his mouth devour mine, and for brief half-second I melt into him before the rage comes rushing back like a flood and I shove him away.

"
That
is
exactly
what I mean!" I yell at him, pointing my finger into his chest; "You can't just fucking
kiss me
you prick! It doesn’t work that way!”

Javier's dark eyes narrow at me; "You kissed me first," He growls. He takes another step closer to me, and when I start to back away, he grabs me roughly by the wrists and yanks me close; "But I
will
kiss you, and I
will
do anything else I want to you
whenever I damn well please
, princess."

"I dare you to
try it
and see what happens,” I spit out, feeling a tingling warmness inside at the rough way he's holding me still by the wrists.

He leans close;
“Watch me,”
He speaks darkly into my ear, sending shivers down my whole body.

“You’re a pig.” I whisper back, feeling every
inch
of his body press against mine.

“Don’t even
try
, princess,” He growls right into my ear, making my knees week as I hold back the moan threatening to fall from my lips; “Don’t even
try
to pretend that you’re not dying know what it’d be like for me to take you any way I please. To tie you up, to dominate you, and to make you feel every inch of my cock when I fuck you like you’ve never been fucked in your life.”