I teased her pussy lips with my tongue first, slowly running it back and forth until I used my fingers to part her further. She groaned, her nails digging into my skull, as I dipped the tip of my tongue in, probing at first and then sucking her into my mouth.
“Oh god,” she said, her breath hitching. “You’re going to make me come if you keep doing that.”
You wouldn’t see my complaining. I didn’t stop. I kept at her with my tongue and mouth, sucking at her swollen little clit until she was coming into me. Her legs nearly gave out but I held onto her, keeping her upright.
“But how about we see what we can do with this new leg of yours,” I said to her as I pulled my mouth away, wiping it with the back of my hand. As usual, her taste was to die for.
“Oh I know what I’ve been waiting to do,” she said, still trying to catch her breath. I stood up beside her and grinned proudly at her pink cheeks, her dilated pupils and sated look.
“Is that so?”
“Take your clothes off and lie on your back,” she said. “I was never able to do this with the cast on, but you’re about to get ridden by a cowgirl.”
I did as I was told, stripping quickly and lying back on the bed. My dick had been hard since the moment she came out of the shower and I held its thickness between my fingers, stroking the length lightly. She fished a condom packet out of the bedside drawer and she climbed on top of the bed with a saucy grin.
“Allow me,” she said while she slipped the condom on. I bit my lip, grinning at the sight.
When it was on securely, I tried to grab for her gorgeous breasts but she swatted me away. But since she immediately rotated, turning around, her ripe, round ass displayed in front of me like a bronzed peach, I couldn’t complain much.
She grabbed hold of my dick hard, wonderfully hard, and then while propped up in a half-kneeling position, slowly lowered herself onto me. Fuck me, she was so fucking wet it was like I was being covered in the tightest sheet of the world’s softest silk.
“Fuck, oh, fuck,” I hissed between my teeth as she began to lower herself up and down. I reached up and grabbed hold of her soft hips, holding her tight, fighting the urge to fucking impale her on me. God she was so fucking good at this.
“Don’t stop,” I managed to say. She shot me a look over her shoulder and then began to lightly stroke my balls as she fucked me
I’d always been good with my stamina before but this time I had no power, no control.
“I’m going to come so hard,” I moaned.
“Yeah you fucking are.”
Just that was enough. My balls tensed up as I balanced on that edge between pleasure and oblivion. Then I was over, falling, drowning in a million emotions, a million feelings. This was all so much and I as I pumped my cum hard into her, feeling like I couldn’t stop coming if I tried, I realized how deep I was in. Not just physically but in every other way.
I had tried to play it cool with her tonight, to skirt around my real feelings. It wasn’t easy to admit, out loud, that I was falling in love with someone else. It’s not easy to give yourself over when you don’t even know who you are half the time. It’s not easy to start again when you’ve lost so deeply.
But this was beyond what was easy. This wasn’t something I had a choice in. I was in love with Alana and it was going to take every part of me, but with any luck, she would give every part right back. She would give me my humanity.
The next time we talked, I would have to tell her. I could only hope my love was something she wanted.
I hoped our love could survive the lies.
***
The next morning we made our plans. We would stay in Mazatlan two more days, then head up north in a rental car. By then, Esteban shouldn’t be looking for us around this area, if he was even looking at all. We would take the rental car up to a smaller border crossing going into Arizona, return it there and catch a bus across. The only problem was that Alana didn’t have any ID on her and it was too risky to call someone like Luz and get them to mail her passport. No doubt her apartment was still being watched and that would only put her friends in danger.
I decided I would email my old friend Gus, someone who owed me a big favor, and see what he could do for her. There were illegal ways into the US that I knew he might help with too but we wanted to do everything as legit as possible. Alana wasn’t even all that keen on the idea of having a fake identity but I wanted to at least make sure her last name was changed. If it got out at all anywhere on the news or in DEA channels that she was Javier Bernal’s sister, there was a chance she wouldn’t be allowed in the US and could even be detained.
While she was out at the pool, determined to tan the shit out of her now-free leg, I sent the email to Gus from the free computer in one of the hotel’s business stations, mentally crossing my fingers. I hadn’t seen the guy since I helped rescue him from Javier’s safehouse, all on behalf of Ellie Watt and her boyfriend Camden McQueen, but I hoped he was okay, and most of all, willing to return favors.
I went and grabbed a beer from the bar and came back to the room, glad that no one had taken my spot. I checked my email, thinking maybe Gus had already responded.
There was a new email in my inbox. But it wasn’t from Gus.
It was from “A friend” and the subject simply said, “Nice to see you again.”
I sucked in my breath. It felt cold in my lungs. I already knew who this was from and what it was about.
I clicked it.
It read:
Hello Derek, or should I say Hola? You’ve been living here in the country for so long now, I guess it doesn’t really matter.
It was nice to see you last week. You haven’t really changed since we last were together, though maybe you’ve lost a few pounds. Still have that meathead look going for you though but I was pleased to see that you knew how to take a shot. Not that you hit me. That was your girlfriend, Alana. Perhaps that explains why you failed to kill her in the first place. Maybe you’re not as good as you used to be. Well, you know what they do with old racehorses, don’t you? Send them to the glue factory. Yes, I wouldn’t mind that happening to you – I’d mail Alana my condolences and use your glue to seal the envelope.
Or perhaps she’s what the problem is. Somewhere between you accepting the job and the money (remember, you still have our deposit), you decided to fall in love with her. Or maybe you fell in love with fucking her. It’s all the same, isn’t it? I know what it’s like. I met a girl once too, nice thing, had a husband. It wasn’t to be but we had our fun. You’re having fun now, aren’t you? So much younger, different, than that wife you once had. Plus there’s that element of danger that gets you all hard. I know all about that. You’re fucking the person you were hired to kill. Don’t you think that might bite you in the ass one day, like one of those mosquitos you just can’t kill? Or maybe not. Maybe this will all blow over. Maybe this will all end and I’ll go away. Just like the mosquito does when you fail to kill it.
Only it doesn’t does it? Derek, Derrin and whatever name you are using right now, I don’t think you quite realize what you’ve done. You think you’re helping this poor girl find her freedom but you’re only bringing her to her death. Doesn’t she know what kind of person you are? Oh right, she doesn’t. Even with Javier’s warnings, she still chooses to believe in you, in the person she wishes you are. Sure, you’re protecting her right now but you dug her grave the moment you signed onto the job. You may not think you’re pulling the trigger anymore but you are. You have been this whole time.
Of course, like last time, I have a backup plan. I was concerned that you wouldn’t do the job I hired you to do, that’s why I had the man in the car on hand. His instructions were to hit her if you didn’t take the obvious shot and then drive away. I would have paid him the remainder of what I owed you.
I suppose the poor soul panicked. That’s what I get for hiring the locals. And I really didn’t see that vigilante side of you coming out. My, that was like something out of a movie. Well done.
Here’s what I want from you. I like you Derek. That’s why I hired you. I knew you were a man who got shit done and I’d still like to believe that, despite all your hesitations. It’s harder now, after all you’ve done, to still trust you, to trust you’re the man you’ve been building up all these years. But I like to believe the best in people. I like to believe that you still can come around and do what you were meant to do.
You have twenty-four hours Derek. Put the bullet in her head or something much, much worse will befall the both of you. You’ll still get your money, after all, I’m the one that’s fair here. You’ll get to walk away and then you can decide if you can be a better person. Though I suspect you’ll end up right where you started. That’s the thing about people like us. The people that do the dirty work, the dirty deeds. We can’t really escape what we are meant to do. All we can do is become better at it. In the end, you can be the best by doing your worse. In the end, I can do the same. In fact, I am.
Kill her and kill her now, like you had promised to do. It will all be over soon.
All my best,
A friend.
It was from one of those email addresses that was just a bunch of numbers. I was sure even if I replied, it wouldn’t go anywhere. There was nothing to say anyway, nothing that even surprised me about this, except that Esteban was even crazier than I thought he was. Of course there was nothing here to prove he sent it but I knew. I knew that face, that scar, that laid-back attitude that apparently harbored the world’s most dangerous grudge. I should have known the voice, too, from when I first talked to him but I’d never even imagined him in that position.
The man had ambition. Too bad I couldn’t find it admirable. I deleted the email and sat there for a moment, stewing over my options. It was an email and I had opened it. It didn’t say anything about where I was. I didn’t really think there was a chance he knew where we were.
I had twenty-four hours to kill her which meant we had twenty-four hours to get out of here.
We had to do better than that. When Alana got back from the pool, I’d tell her we were leaving tonight. Getting a rental car and heading up north. We’d figure out our steps with Gus from there. We couldn’t take any chances here. I didn’t know what kind of technology Este had at his fingertips but if there was even a chance that he could trace where the email was opened, I couldn’t take that risk. I’d obviously underestimated him before. I wasn’t going to do it again.
I went back up to the room and quickly packed all of our bags. Then I hopped in the shower and tried to think about what to do. I had only been there a minute when I heard someone in the room.
“Alana?” I called out cautiously, sticking my head out of the water.
“Yup!” she called back, her voice muffled. “Hey, why are all the bags packed?”
I quickly jumped out of the shower, dripping all over the floor and opened the bathroom door. She was wearing a houserobe over her bikini, a margarita in one hand, staring at the bags with worry.
“I thought we should move on tonight,” I told her with what I hoped was an easy smile.
“Why?”
“Better to be unpredictable.”
She chewed on her lip for a moment before sighing and taking a huge sip of her drink. “And I was just starting to like it here.”
“You’ll like San Diego more,” I told her. “Trust me.”
She smiled at that and I told her I’d be right out.
I went back in the shower and had just rinsed the body wash from me when I thought I heard a knock at the door. “Alana?” I asked again, turning the taps off and listening.
I heard the front door shut and then quickly wrapped a towel around me, heading out into the bedroom.
Alana was standing by the front door, dressed in jeans and a tank top now. She was holding a large envelope in one hand, a stack of what looked like 8x10 photographs in the other. Her hands were shaking.
“Who was that?” I asked, coming over to her. “What is that?”
She looked up at me in absolute horror. After everything we’d been through, I’d never seen that kind of look on her face. It was of utter destruction, of deepest, darkest fears coming true.
“Who are you?” she whispered.
I took a step toward her but she shrieked. “Get away from me!” The sound ripped so loud out of her throat that I froze to the spot.
I raised my hands, everything inside me growing quiet and still, waiting for the blow. “Alana …”
She held up a photograph.
It was a photograph of me outside the fence to the Aeromexico employee parking lot. My gun was out and aimed in her direction. It was taken from the side and clear as day.
My attempted assassination.
It was all over.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Alana
I couldn’t believe it. Out of all the things that had happened to me recently, this was the one that was about to push me over the edge. This was the one that I could feel was spearing, stabbing me, burning me deep inside. I felt like whatever good things I had inside me were being torched to the ground and in its place only ugly ash could remain.
I was holding in my hands a bunch of photographs that placed Derrin at the scene of my car accident. Worse than that, it placed him there with a gun in his hand. A gun aimed at my fucking head.
When the door knocked and the bellhop handed me an envelope he said had come for this room, I didn’t think nothing of it. I thought maybe it was a package for a local tour or coupons for our stay. Maybe even our bill so far.
But when I opened it, I opened a world of lies and betrayal. I opened the end of us.