“You pay me well already, Don Miguel. I am grateful. I do not need a reward.”
“You do. For yourself, of course, but also to set an example of what good, loyal employees may expect to receive from Don Miguel Ramos. Go on, look inside.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Ramos watched Juan open the envelope, watched as his eyes widened, and then held back a smile when the man thumbed through the American one hundred dollar bills, counting them quickly.
“Thank you, Don Miguel! You are very generous.”
“You are welcome. I wonder, if you would be interested in earning another envelope with twice that amount of money in it?”
“I am at your service, sir.”
This would be more than business, this would be personal. Alvarez had made it personal when he’d come after him. It did not matter to Miguel Ramos that the man had not been a part of the operation that had stormed into his El Paso home just minutes after he’d escaped. All of his problems had begun the day that American federal agent had stolen his diamonds.
“You stood as an observer for me in Dallas, when Alvarez and his compadres hit our base last month.”
“Yes, sir. Then I came here, and verified the information that the gringo driver had given you.”
“And you saw Special Agent Alvarez with your own eyes. You would…recognize him?”
“Yes. Yes, I would recognize him anywhere.”
“My understanding is that he is assigned to the Dallas office of the American Drug Enforcement Administration. This is your understanding as well?”
“It is.”
“I also know that he lives in a small town well outside of the city. That he has recently become engaged to be married.”
“Yes. I also know this. One of the young
Príncipes
was boasting that he was staying in the same town as the cop, and that he was going to kill him for you.”
Ramos felt his temper rise. So that little bastard Manuel Ramirez had boasted of his deed before the fact? Had he known that, Ramos would have dealt with the man severely and found another to kill the cop. Instead of carrying out his assignment, Ramirez had failed him, and had been shot by the very man he was supposed to kill.
“Special Agent Alvarez has cost me a great deal of money and inconvenience, Juan.”
“Yes, sir. Do you want me to kill Alvarez for you?”
“No. No, I have something else entirely in mind to get my revenge on Alvarez. I do not want you to kill him. I want you to find him, and I want you to follow him, and I want you to watch him.” Ramos turned and met Pecos’s gaze.
“And then I want you to steal his woman and bring her to me.”
* * * *
Julia fully intended to push away from the big, brutish man holding her in his arms and ravishing her mouth with his. For about a half a second. Then she gave up all pretense of protest and sank into Devon Wakefield’s kiss.
Oh, God, how could she have forgotten the taste, the almost overwhelming addictiveness of this man’s kiss? Julia wrapped her arms around Dev, and even the imprint of his hard body against hers felt achingly familiar.
How could I be so hungry for them after just one time
?
She felt the sweep of a hand down her back, and the heat of a male body standing so very close behind her.
She whimpered. Her need to taste Drew James exploded, fierce and immediate.
Somehow, Dev understood her feral communication. He eased his lips from hers, and kissed her cheek.
“He’s right here, baby doll. Shh, we’re going to take such good care of you.”
It was ridiculous how easily Dev handed her over to Drew. Her heart raced and arousal burned in her, hardening her nipples and making her pussy clench, as if it was already searching for cock.
“There you are at last. Give me that sexy mouth, kitten.” She might have forgotten their silly pet names for her, but she had forgotten nothing about the flavor or the heat of them. Every female hormone inside her began to sing the
Hallelujah Chorus
. Unable to resist her body’s craving, she wrapped her legs around Drew.
Or rather, she tried to. She’d forgotten she had a skirt on, one of those snug pencil skirts that looked so good on her.
Dev’s hands made quick work of the button and zipper at the back of her skirt, and in seconds the garment was pulled off her. Then Dev’s strong male hands urged her legs around Drew’s waist.
“Lord, honey, you look hot and you
feel
so hot.” Dev’s voice reverberated in her belly. He trailed his hand along her bottom, then reached up to brush back and forth over her panty-covered slit. Those actions fuelled her arousal but also ironically pulled her mentally out of her erotic haze. Her body screamed in protest, yet her mind, and her will, prevailed.
Julia broke Drew’s kiss. “No. No, wait. I…I can’t. I don’t wa
nt—”
“You can, and you do want. Your pussy is wet, baby.” Dev’s voice took on an edge of machismo.
Julia cursed her horny body that found that tone of his arousing as hell. She also bit back on the urge to say “to hell with it” and shed the rest of her clothes. She used every scrap of will at her command to bear down on her arousal and hold it in check.
Let go, Jules, you know what you really want to do is
bare
down
.
Julia consigned her inner imp to hell.
“Your nipples are hard, too. I can feel them drilling holes in my chest.” Drew spread kisses on her cheek, his words whispered against her flesh.
Julia leaned back just enough so she could look into Drew’s eyes. Since Dev stood so close, running his hand back and forth across her bottom, it proved a simple matter to turn her head and meet his gaze, too.
“You know you have my body ready to do whatever you want. My head’s not there yet. Please, give me some space here.”
“Damn. We were so close.” To punctuate his statement, Drew pushed his hips forward. The bulge in his pants fit damn near perfectly against her feminine folds. Julia felt the lips of her pussy thicken and spread, getting ready for his cock.
“Not fair.” She could feel the pout on her face and knew from experience it was a good one.
“Do you really want to talk about ‘not fair’, baby doll?” Dev asked.
Julia closed her eyes and sighed. “Do I want to? No. My head wants me to walk out that door and never look back. My body wants me to get naked and get between the two of you and fuck you both until none of us can see straight.”
“What about your heart, Julia?” Drew’s question puffed against her face, and she realized he still held her in his arms. Not only that, her legs were still clamped around his waist.
“My heart doesn’t know what the hell it wants.” She could tell them nothing more than the truth. Her body protested when she unwound her legs from Drew’s waist. Just as regretfully, it seemed to her, he set her on the floor.
She wasn’t going to nitpick about the fact that she was standing in front of them without her skirt on. All things considered, that would feel silly, even to her.
“Okay, we’ll talk,” Dev said. “Provided you are done pretending we don’t exist, and that you’re done running away from us.”
“Yeah, okay.” Julia ran a frustrated hand through her hair. “That wasn’t really working out for me very well, anyway.”
She looked up in time to see both men fight their smiles. Julia shrugged.
“How about I make us some coffee?” Drew asked. “We can sit in the kitchen. That’s a neutral enough place, don’t you think?”
Julia knew she wasn’t going to win any awards for eloquence when she shrugged again. Dev bent down and scooped up her skirt. Since he handed it to her, she went ahead and stepped into it. She shook her head when he reached out as if to fasten the garment for her. Reaching behind, she did so for herself easily.
Drew turned and walked off, and Julia followed him. It had been a lot of years since she’d been in this house. Her grandmother didn’t so much
own
it as it was one of the properties she supervised, even though she’d never actually lived here herself.
Every member of the family, when they came of age, had the opportunity to move into any available house, with the permission of the Town Trust. But there tended to be more homes than people, and often folks would come to Lusty to work, and would then either lease a house or rent an apartment. Because there were more homes than the administrator of the Town Trust—Jake Kendall—could manage on his own, they were divided up amongst the older family members. Sometimes houses did stand empty for a time—as the one she’d just moved into had done.
But whether a house was empty or not, it never fell into disrepair.
Dev held out a chair for her at the table, and she sat. It would have suited her to make the coffee. She liked to keep busy when she was nervous.
“You’re looking good, Julia, even with your clothes on.” Dev smiled. He tilted his head to one side. “We’ve missed you.”
Julia watched Drew move around the kitchen. His movements spoke comfort in the chore and an utter familiarity with his surroundings.
Since they’d only moved in the week before, she thought that was pretty impressive.
“Did you miss us, too, honey?” Devon asked.
“I thought I’d never see you again.”
“We know.” Drew finished the chore of putting the coffee on to brew, then turned around and leaned against the kitchen counter, arms folded in front of his chest. Dev had taken the chair to her right. Both men appeared at ease, but Julia sensed that neither of them was completely relaxed.
“Why did you leave New York?” Drew asked.
“It’s complicated.” She wasn’t trying to be difficult, but she’d never done well in situations where she felt emotionally vulnerable.
One of the side effects of having grown up in a family with so many bossy brothers.
“We’re not going anywhere,” Drew answered. “And we really want to know. We want to catch up on all that we’ve missed in your life.”
“Why? It’s not like we had a relationship, or anything.” It took a lot of focus for her not to cringe at the petulant sound of her own words.
“The hell we didn’t,” Dev said. “Four committee meetings, three dates and one night that we will
never
forget. Honey, whether you like it or not, that makes for a relationship.”
Laughter bubbled out of her that had nothing to do with humor. “It feels as if we’re speaking each others’ lines, here.”
“Why did you leave New York, Julia?” Dev’s tone caught her attention. For the first time she imagined how they might have felt, coming back to the city, looking for her and finding her gone without a trace. She’d left no forwarding address. For all intents and purposes, she’d vanished off the face of the earth.
What she’d said to them about their not having a relationship was kind of true, in a way, but then, so was what Dev said. The fact was she’d known deep in her heart that what they’d shared had been way beyond anything she’d ever experienced and everything she’d ever hoped for or dreamed of.
The intensity of the emotions and the power of the lovemaking had combined to scare her spitless.
She couldn’t just tell them that, though. Because while true, that was only a part of the reason she left. And if she told them
that
part of it right now, it would strip her bare and leave her feeling more vulnerable than she’d ever felt in her life. She was in no way ready for that.
Julia realized she’d been silent too long. “Part of it was that I was tired living in a city where, no matter how hard I tried, I didn’t fit in. I missed my home and my friends and my family.”
“Julia?” Dev’s tone shot right through the wall she’d been trying to shore up between these men and her emotions.
She looked over at the coffee pot, not so much because she wanted to watch it fill as she needed a moment to gather herself, get her emotions under control before she dared meet their gazes again.
But it was no use. These two men were going to be more like bulldogs than she had ever been in her youth. She’d sensed that about them in the small time they’d shared.
“In the three years that I lived in New York, I only dated a few times. The men were pleasant enough for the most part, but my emotions were never engaged.”