Until the Dawn (8 page)

He lifted her legs and pulled them over his shoulders as he knelt on the floor.

Opening her labia as if he were peeling back the petals of a flower, he blew softly on her cunt, a stream of warm air that made the muscles of her pussy quiver in response. There was something so erotic about lying there so totally exposed to him.

When he lapped at the wet pink flesh of her cunt she jerked as if tiny thunderbolts had shot through her system. He teased at her, flicking his tongue lightly, tasting her and covering her with an open-mouthed kiss.

“Oh, god,” she cried, thrusting her hips out at him.

“You like that?” He stroked his tongue over her again. “I like it, too.”

When he rose to his feet she cried out in disappointment. Surely he wasn’t going to leave her like this? But when she opened her eyes and looked at him, he was grinning at her and rolling on the condom.

With two firm hands, he pressed her knees to her chest and touched the head of his cock to her opening. She cried out in expectation. He teased her again, then flexed his hips and thrust into her, ramming home with one hard stroke. His balls slapped against the curve of her ass as he drove into her again and again. She could feel her orgasm rising low in her belly, a beast of desire clawing its way up through her body.

“Pinch your nipples for me,” he ordered through gritted teeth. “Do it, Maddie.”

Obediently she took them between the thumb and forefinger of each hand and squeezed them hard, until the knife edge of pain became a sword of pleasure.

“God, I love your tits. They are so beautiful. That’s it. Pinch harder.”

His words stoked the carnal flame blazing inside her and it flared higher.

“Fuck me hard,” she whispered, pushing her hips up to match his rhythm.

He increased his speed, pounding madly into her, the head of his cock rasping her sweet spot with every deep thrust.

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She pinched her nipples as hard as she could and her climax burst over her, just as Dan found his own release. The walls of her pussy clasped around his cock, milking him, pulling every drop of cum from him. They shuddered together, their bodies slick with sweat, until the last spasm faded away. Then he collapsed forward, keeping as much of his weight off her body as he could.

At last he levered himself upward and slid carefully from the wet clutch of her pussy. Maddie lay there spent, listening to the sounds of him in the bathroom disposing of the condom and running water. Then he was back, stretching out beside her and pulling her against him. He let out a soft, uneven chuckle.

“I hope we don’t kill each other before we get to the bottom of this mess.”

She tweaked his nipples, loving it when even his tired body jerked in response. “I’ll try to keep that in mind.”

* * * * *

“Before I do anything else,” Dan said, “I think I need some clothes.”

They were all in the kitchen drinking coffee. Dan was leaning against the counter dressed only in his jeans. Maddie had to force herself not to keep staring at his bare chest. How was it possible that not ten minutes ago they’d fucked their brains out and already she wanted him again? No man had ever affected her this way. She just hoped it wasn’t leading her down the path to disaster. Dan had told her he’d be there for her, but she’d learned long ago that trust was a very fragile thing.

Nicole laughed. “If we could just get Maddie to stop ripping your clothes off you we’d be okay.”

Maddie felt the heat creeping up her cheeks. Not a person who embarrassed easily, she still wasn’t the type to have her sexual activities discussed in front of others no matter how tight the friendship was.

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Until the Dawn

“I’ll do my best to restrain myself.” She sipped her coffee. “Seriously, Nikki. We scrammed out of my house without taking a thing with us and we can’t exactly go shopping in public.”

“Not to worry.” Nikki fluttered her fingers at them. “Give me sizes and I’ll have my ranch manager’s wife take care of it. They won’t be high fashion but they’ll cover your bodies.”

“We appreciate you getting us out of D.C. the way you did,” Dan told her, “and bringing us to your ranch. Also it may be the best place for us to work from, besides being off everyone’s radar.”

Maddie raised an eyebrow. “How so?”

“We need to take a field trip to Del Rio and talk to the Border Patrol agents at the Del Rio crossing.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “That particular area has been a hot spot for all kinds of illegal activities.”

“You think any of the officers there are involved?” Nikki wanted to know.

Dan shrugged. “Hard to tell. I’d like to say no, but money is a powerful incentive.”

He set his mug on the counter. “I want to take a run down there and check it out.”

Maddie shook her head. “They’ll be on alert, Dan. It’s too dangerous. You’ll be putting yourself in too much jeopardy.”

“Not if Nikki can continue to work miracles.”

Nicole narrowed her eyes. “What exactly are you asking for?”

“Some fake ID and anonymous transportation.”

Nikki burst out laughing. “You do have instant confidence in my abilities.”

He dipped his head. “After that exit from D.C. you have definitely made a believer out of me.” He paused. “Can you do it?
Will
you do it?”

Maddie slammed her hand on the table. “If you go, I go. I’m not letting you off on your own again.”

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“Maddie, be reasonable,” Dan argued. “This is what I do. This is what I’m good at.

You’re an amateur here.”

“You can’t be too good at it if they found you out and you’re hiding out here,” she snapped back.

A deep flush stained his cheeks and a muscle twitched in his jaw. “Maddie, I—”

She jumped up from her chair and went to stand in front of him, winding her arms around his neck. “I’m sorry, Dan. That was a terrible thing to say. I’m just so worried.”

“It’s okay.” His voice was soft. “I understand. But you have to let me do this.”

“Only if you take me with you,” she insisted.

“She’ll give you a better cover, Dan” Nikki interjected. “A couple—especially two people who can’t keep their hands off each other—will make you harder to ID as well as raise fewer suspicions. Plus Maddie can be frightening when she goes into her Krav Maga routines.”

Dan’s brows knit in pained delight. “She almost made mincemeat of me a while ago in her foyer.”

Maggie grinned.

“But if I agree to this and you come with me, Maddie?” Dan stared at one woman and then the other. “My rules. No exceptions. No arguments.”

“Yes. Absolutely.” She kissed his cheek. “Whatever you say.”

He gave her a lopsided grin. “Yeah, right. We’ll see.”

Nikki rinsed her mug and stuck it in the dishwasher. “Let me get busy on personal items and identification for the two of you. Dan, I think we should spend time today planning this out and looking at every eventuality. And I’ll see where my agency can help. You should plan on leaving tomorrow morning.”

Dan nodded. “Thank you. I—we—appreciate this very much.”

“Just remember,” she laughed. “Payback can be hell.”

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Until the Dawn

“Dan, are you sure this is the best way to find these border crossings?” Maddie rubbed her sore left thigh as the two of them sat atop horses they’d hired at a Del Rio dude ranch two hours ago. She had thought she knew this terrain from travels down to Speaker Trask’s district office years ago. But now she wasn’t sure where she was.

“Sorry, baby. This is the best way we could travel along this part of the Rio Grande without arousing suspicion
and
find the route these truckers carved out. You haven’t ridden in a while have you?” His green eyes ran over her in sympathy and a devilish light dawned in them. “How’s your saddle?”

She caught the trend of his thoughts and capitalized on any humor she could wring from the situation. “Honey, you
know
how my saddle is.” She squirmed in her leather seat atop her roan mare, feeling how sweetly swollen her pussy still was from Dan’s repeated possession. “Hot and—”

He chuckled as he spurred his stallion beside her. “Sweet.” He leaned over and kissed her on the lips. “And I do miss being in there, so let’s check out this curve in the riverbed quickly, shall we?”

He led the way along a bare, rocky path that he said was really the dry bed of the mighty Rio Grande. “The drought has been so bad the last few years,” he went on as he secured his Stetson against the brutal August sun, “that the river has disappeared in many places. Here, over in Big Bend by Lajitas, and on to El Paso, there are dozens of areas where someone can walk across and kick up the dust.”

“For those coming over on foot,” Maddie added as she followed Dan’s winding trail, “these crossings are gifts.”

Dan turned to shoot her a look of surprise.

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“Oh, yes, I know about the crossings, even if I haven’t ever seen them. Working for Trask, with him representing this district in Congress, you learn the statistics.

Discussing smuggling of drugs and prostitutes, or illegal immigrants means you have to know how and why they come through here. But wow,” she whispered as she pulled her mare to a halt to watch a group of five teenage boys, dirty and sweaty, rise up suddenly from the brush. “I never thought I’d actually witness illegals trudging north.”

“
Buenos Dias
,” Dan greeted them as they froze in their tracks. From the startled looks on their faces, they certainly did not think it was a good day. But Dan went on in very good Spanish, asking them something about autos and roads.

One of the young men answered rapidly in his native tongue, pointing Dan toward the southwest. Then he scowled, asking Dan a question. Dan answered and from his expression, Maddie got the drift of his reply. Dan told them, no, he was not interested in arresting them or making them turn back to Mexico. He and his wife were out for a ride. The five young men shook their heads, as if to say,
crazy gringos
, then waved, smiled weakly and trudged onward.

“Okay!” Dan grinned at her. “Come on, baby. If they’re right about the dry bed road over here, we’ve struck pay dirt.”

He had told her that before he could begin a discussion with the local Border Patrol agents, he had to have an idea where the trucks loaded with weapons might come through. This made sense to Maddie, even though with the Texas border over five hundred miles long, that was like finding a needle in a haystack.

Dan’s reasoning was strong though. “The trucks were eighteen wheelers,” he had told her yesterday. “You can’t carry heavy assault weapons over terrain that rough without destroying the merchandise. And when it’s expensive goods like this—and illegal to boot—a trucker needs to be certain he’s going to deliver goods intact so that he can receive his payment.”

What Maddie couldn’t figure was why they chose the Del Rio area, when a sector even more sparsely patrolled was around Eagle Pass or Presidio. Both of those towns 62

Until the Dawn

had very small Sheriff’s Departments and the Customs and Immigration checkpoints were one man operations. Bribery had often been a problem among all those in law enforcement. She didn’t expect it had changed much just because people in Washington got their panties in a bunch about security after 9/11. In fact, she’d read reports that declared corruption among locals had gotten worse.

Maddie winced as the horse picked her way down a ravine, following Dan’s horse which had disappeared into a thicket of mesquite and live oaks.

“Maddie!” Dan called to her. “Look at this, honey.”

She ducked her head, pushing back limbs and leaves as she made her way toward his voice. Then she reined in her horse. “Good heavens.” Covered on two sides by brush, a road followed along the dry riverbank. She stood in her stirrups to see that the road snaked on for four or five miles, but shifted off to the west. “This is where they come to hide from the patrols.”

Dan swung down from his horse to examine the tire tracks. The drought had created a fine dust that heavy gauge tractor-trailer tires had clawed into. The ridges on either side protected the roads and no winds had come along to erase the deep impressions in the riverbank.

“Question is,” Dan said looking both ways along the concealed roadway, “where are they coming from?” He tipped his head toward Mexico. “There is no road there that can support these big babies.”

“Oh, my god. Hold that thought.” Maddie dug her heels into her mare and turned her about. “Don’t move.”

“No! Honey! You shouldn’t—” Dan yelled.

But she lost the sounds of his objection in the rush of adrenalin and horse’s hooves leading her toward Del Rio where they’d come from. Not more than a mile from the concealed dirt road, she ground to a halt at what she saw. She wheeled the mare and they were off again, meeting Dan along the path chasing her.

“Do not do that again.” He grabbed her reins. “Do you hear me?”

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“Yes, but I—”

“I don’t want to lose you.” He cupped her chin. “My rules, remember?”

“I do. But I think you will like the fact I broke this one this time.”

He cocked his head, ruefulness and humor playing around his firm mouth. “And why is that, Boss Lady?”

She batted big, wide, blue eyes filled with mirth. “I found the reason your trucks stop here.”

Dan frowned, then smiled like a fiend. “Show me.”

“This way, Boss Man.” She clicked for her mare to turn and take them back the way they’d come. At a canter, the two of them were gazing at Maddie’s discovery within two minutes.

“Railroad track,” Dan said in awe. “I’ll be damned.”

“I’d say it is the remains of one of the old lines of the Atchison, Topeka and the Sante Fe.”

“But it’s in perfect condition.”

“Tell me about it,” Maddie agreed, proud as punch of her detective work. “Cleared, clean and unbroken,” she added, wondering where the line ended, who was using it and how much contraband had come this way for how many years.