Rogue Defender (Gone Rogue), page 18
Leo
Trevor and Austin play rock, paper, scissors for the first shift on the couch. “We can move next door,” I say when Domina closes herself in the bathroom to brush her teeth. “At least she has a couch that isn’t ripped to shreds.”
Trev angles a glance at the bathroom door. “She wanted to be here, so we’re here. I’ve slept on worse. Or have you forgotten the five-star accommodations at La Crypta?”
“Last time I was in the field,” Austin says, “I spent the night in an abandoned shell of a building in the Mexican jungle after getting soaked to the skin in a monsoon. Your couch is like a Five Points Luxury Hotel.”
Shoving my hands into my pockets, I try to figure out what to say to these two men who flew to Panama with a fucking arsenal and more support than I could ever imagine. “You need anything…?”
Trevor pauses his energetic fluffing of my mangled couch cushions to give me the side eye. “Yeah. If you and Domina are going to go at it again, put some music on first.”
“Fuck you.” My smile—lopsided as it is—feels foreign, but I’d forgotten what it was like to be around guys who understand me. My damage. My scars. My nightmares. Of all the men in the world who could have come to my rescue, Trev and Austin are the only ones still alive who were betrayed by the same man who sold me out to the Loma Collectivo—Austin’s adopted brother, Gil. “Don’t say a word to her, man. Not if you ever want her to look you in the eyes again.”
Trevor laughs and shakes his head. “Oh, I’m pretty sure she knows. Domina isn’t some delicate flower who’ll wilt in the sun. She reminds me a lot of Dani. Pretty sure you were on the receiving end of at least one of her death stares last year.”
I wince, then turn to Austin. “A little backup here?”
He holds up his hands. “Don’t look at me. I grew up with her. Why do you think Trevor calls her Danisaur?”
“Seriously?” Before I can tell Trevor the nickname fits, the room shimmers, and I brace my hand on the wall. “I need to crash. Hard. If Zephyr calls—”
“They will wake us,” Domina says, wrapping her arm around my waist and fitting herself to my side. “Come to bed, Leo. Before you pass out right here.”
I won’t refuse her a damn thing. Especially not a chance to fall asleep with her in my arms. “Don’t trash the place,” I call over my shoulder. “Though, that might be an improvement.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Leo
The sun beats down on my black baseball cap. Sunglasses hide my face, and the SR-25 sniper rifle is balanced on the roof of a three-story apartment complex. A bead of sweat rolls down my back under my t-shirt. I don’t look at my phone. I’ve watched this asshole for a week now. He never deviates from his routine. Coffee down at Siren’s from 9:00-9:30 a.m. A brief stop at a bakery for a slice of sponge cake. Then he shakes down a couple of local businesses and returns home.
Five minutes. Or less. Checking the sights, I line up my shot. With only one good eye, my depth perception is shot, but at this range, I’m still better than most.
The man, Armando Velasquez, whistles as he ambles down the street. The moment I saw his face a week ago, I remembered everything. He was the one who took my eye. Who crushed two of the toes on my right foot. With a hammer. And then he laughed. I’ll never forget his laugh.
Armando stops to fish his keys out his pocket, and I take a slow, deep breath. I don’t give a fuck how wrong this is. How I should be the better man. But while the Loma Collectivo might be gone, Armando and his cronies are no innocents.
He slides the key into the lock, and I pull the trigger. Once, then twice before Armando’s body has a chance to hit the ground. One down. Three to go.
“Tell us what we need to know, Basher. Who hired you? Who helped you bypass security at the rally? Was it Domina Sanchez?” Reyes aims a hard punch to my liver, and I spit bile onto the floor.
“Domina is innocent,” I wheeze. “Where is she? What are you assholes doing to her?”
“None of your business, American. Tell us about the gun.”
I jerk awake, unable to force the sight of Domina cuffed to another table, in another cell, in another secret facility from my eyes. But when I look down, she’s in my bed, her arms wrapped around a pillow, and her long, black hair tumbling over her slim shoulders.
“Domina,” I whisper, sliding back down next to her. “I need you, baby.”
She blinks up at me, her eyes half-lidded with sleep. “Leo?”
Everything about her is so pure and good, I can’t possibly expect her to put up with my darkness. Yet, she hasn’t batted an eye. At anything.
“Let me taste you.” My back and legs are locked up tight, but I don’t need them to make her fly.
Shoving at the duvet, I struggle to slide down her body. “Leo, stop,” she says, grabbing at my arms. “You are in pain.”
“Please…” I can’t explain why this is so important to me. Why I can’t go another minute without reforging our connection.
Domina gently urges me onto my back. “Lie still. Let me take care of everything.”
Hooking her fingers into the waistband of my boxers, she eases them down my hips. My dick stands at attention, and if I were whole, I’d flip our positions and take control. But I never will be.
“Sometimes, you can let go.” Domina straddles me, wearing only a thin, gray tank top. Her nipples pebble against the material, begging to be touched. Leaning down, her hair tumbles around my face, curtaining us from the rest of the world.
Soft kisses to my lips, my jaw, and down my neck to my shoulder. My balls ache. But from the way she moves, she’s not interested in quick and dirty.
“My turn to be in control,” she murmurs, pulling back with a shy smile.
“I’m yours, baby.” The urge to add “forever” is almost too strong to ignore, but I swallow the word when she slants her mouth over mine.
Fuck. I have to be inside her. Now. But Domina has other ideas. She explores every inch of me—tracing the worst of my scars, touching me with something close to awe in her eyes, and swirling her tongue around my nipples. God, I never knew I could feel this much.
“Relax, mi amor,” she whispers. My eyes, which I’d let drift close, snap open. Did she say…? But before I can ask, she wraps soft fingers around my shaft.
“God, Domina…”
She smiles, guiding me to her entrance. Her tight heat envelopes me, and I groan. How can I want her this much? Be this close to blowing my load like a horny teenager when this isn’t our first time?
Domina starts moving her hips, her gaze locked on mine.
It’s her. It’s all her.
Domina isn’t like any other woman I’ve ever known. Brilliant, strong, beautiful, determined…all the things I never thought I deserved.
She braces her hands on either side of my shoulders, leaning down so her nipples brush against my chest with every thrust.
“You feel so good,” she whispers. “I cannot get enough of you.”
I want to tell her she’s my everything, but before I can, she increases the speed of her thrusts, swiveling her hips in such a way, she’s taking me even deeper.
“Oh, God…I’m so close, baby.” I curl my fingers around the soft globes of her ass, holding on with such desperation, my hands shake.
Domina rests her forehead against mine. “Touch me, Leo. Make me come with you.”
Fuck me. Reaching between us, I find her clit and trace circles around the small, hard nub. She shudders, her eyelids fluttering.
“Yes…yes!” she cries.
Her inner walls clench around me, and when she throws her head back and her entire body tenses like a string about to snap, I let go.
Waves of pleasure so strong, they border on pain surge through my dick. With nothing between us, everything is more. So much more.
I love you.
I don’t say the words. I can’t. They die behind the thick lump in my throat. But I know the truth. Domina is it for me. I hope to all that’s holy in this world, she feels the same.
The scent of bacon and eggs filters into the room. “What the hell?” I push up on an elbow, Domina tucked in the crook of my other arm. “I don’t have bacon. Hell, all I have left is pizza and protein bars. We ate everything else.”
Domina laughs, the sound so relaxed and happy I forget all about the danger surrounding us. This is the life I want. Her in my bed—our bed—every night. Making her coffee in the morning. Hell, I’ll learn to cook more than spaghetti, steaks, and pressed sandwiches if that’s what she needs.
“We should get up,” she says, her cheeks flushing a deep crimson. “I think they know we are awake by now.”
“Fuck. I should have put on some music. Trev’s going to give me shit for days. But I need to loosen up first. Otherwise I’ll be walking like I’m a hundred years old.”
“Go on.” Domina extricates herself from my arm and stretches out on her side. “I like to watch.”
Tugging on my boxers, I half roll, half fall onto the floor and crawl over to the yoga mat. “Why?”
“Because you are mostly naked. Do I need another reason?” Her smile helps me ignore the pain as I slide the first therapy ball under my right hamstring.
I want to tell her she needs her eyes checked. That my body isn’t worth ogling. That even without all the new bruises, I’m still almost fifty with a mangled leg, a prosthetic eye, and facial paralysis that makes me look perpetually sad, dazed, and hungover.
But she stares down at me like I’m a Greek god—or at least a man in his prime—and my protests fall away. Maybe love, lust, or being thrown together by extreme circumstances changes how you see the other person. What did Austin say? It cuts through the bullshit.
I reach for The Stick, then roll it over my quad with as much pressure as I can muster. I’m so focused on not screaming in pain, when Domina kneels next to me, I drop The Stick in surprise.
“Let me help?”
I hand Domina my most hated torture device. “My life is in your hands, baby.” Showing her how to angle The Stick, how much pressure to use, when to stop…it’s intimate in a way I didn’t expect.
When my muscles are as loose as they’re going to get, I wrap my arms around her. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you, but whatever it was…”
Domina silences me with her kiss, and she’s right. It doesn’t matter. Because we’re together.
Domina
Austin brings a huge plate of bacon to the table. “Pancakes are coming up next.”
At my side, Leo shakes his head. “Have you two lost your minds? Going shopping? Spycraft 101. Don’t take unnecessary risks.”
“You were out of coffee,” Trevor says. “Spycraft 102. Don’t attempt a complicated mission without caffeine.”
A stack of pancakes taller than my head lands next to the bacon and Austin joins us at the table. “And we’re not in the middle of the fucking jungle. MREs are a last resort. I was careful, Leo. No tails, no obvious surveillance anywhere around the building. President Garcia might not have operational authority over the Ministry, but his orders carry weight.”
“How long do you think that’s going to last?” Leo shovels half a dozen slices of bacon onto his plate, then offers me the fork.
The idea of food turns my stomach, and I shake my head. “I cannot.”
“Domina, you need to eat something.” He rests his free hand on my shoulder, squeezing lightly. “Please. Cold pizza? A disgusting but surprisingly filling protein bar? I think there are still a couple of Huevos de Leche left unless the assholes who tossed my apartment ate them all.”
I sigh, suddenly so weary, I want to curl up in a ball on the couch and never move again. “Two pancakes. Anything more and I will throw up.”
He nods, then leans in and presses a kiss to my temple. “We’re together, baby. Remember that. Whatever happens with Cortez today, we have each other.”
Tears sting my eyes. I know he meant the words to be reassuring, but now all I can think about is how everything we have—the connection we have forged, how we are dangerously close to falling in love—could change in a heartbeat.
The conversation carries on around me and I only catch bits and pieces. How Zephyr is going to call in half an hour. How Trev and Austin passed a couple of hours running various tactical scenarios. Leo’s injuries and whether he should stay in the SUV when we meet Cortez.
“No fucking way!” he snaps, slamming his right fist down on the table so hard, Austin has to grab his glass of orange juice to stop it from toppling over. “I’m staying with Domina.”
“Calm your shit, man.” Trevor shakes his head. “We both get it. But you were so fucked up when we found you, Austin had to carry you out of there. We had to ask the question.”
Leo scrubs his hands over his face and runs his fingers through his hair. “Sorry. I spent most of my career on my own. Trusting a team is…new to me.”
“As long as you understand we are a team,” Austin replies. “Everyone at this table, Zephyr, Ripper, Hidden Agenda, Second Sight, whatever the fuck I’m calling my group…”
“You don’t have a name?” Trevor starts laughing so hard, he snorts and presses a napkin to his nose. “Shit.”
Austin stares down at his plate, now mostly empty. “Zephyr said we should call ourselves ‘Austin’s Network of Badasses.’ But there’s no way I’m agreeing to that.”
Everyone chuckles, and it feels so good to relax for a few moments. The conversation shifts to the most ridiculous ideas, and before long, I’m laughing so hard, my side hurts.
Maybe Leo is right. We’re together, and that means everything else will be okay.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Leo
“You look better,” Zephyr says when the video call connects. “Less ‘zombie apocalypse’ and more ‘bar fight gone bad.’”
I’d roll my eyes if I thought it would be effective. But though my prosthetic has some movement to it, the first time I tried the motion in a mirror, I decided no one ever needed to see it again. I look more like a cartoon character with a head injury than a human being.
“Arnica, ice packs, and sleep do wonders. Not as good as information we can use to put an end to this whole fucked-up situation, though. Got anything good for us?”
Domina and I sit together on the couch, her hand held in mine. Trev sits on the floor, and Austin leans against the wall, almost out of view.
“Depends on your definition of good.” She splits the video screen and throws the fake video from the rally on both halves. “Whoever did this knows their shit.”
The clip on the left plays, and damn. A crystal-clear shot of my face along with the Glock 19 in my hand, aimed right at Cortez. “You know the score!” the fake me on screen shouts.
“It even sounds like you.” Domina presses closer to me, and the worry in her voice is like a knife to my heart.
“That’s the easy part,” Zephyr explains. After a couple of clicks from her keyboard, Austin’s voice pours through the speakers. “Voice editing is for amateurs.”
“Shit.” I glance up at Austin. “Did you know she could do that?”
“No,” he says. “And I’d prefer she not do it again.” He shudders like he’s just seen—or heard—a ghost.
“Sorry, boss. But seriously…I can spoof anyone’s voice in my sleep. Video…that’s harder. Watch the clip on the right. Whoever did this is damn good, but I can show you where they spliced in footage from somewhere else.”
On screen, bright red arrows point out the slight imperfections. The hand holding the gun is a little lighter than mine. When she slows the video to half speed, my lips don’t sync up with the words. And behind me, the shadows are all wrong.
“So, you can prove it’s a fake, but not where it came from,” Trevor says. “Fuck. How are we going to convince anyone Leo’s innocent?”
“Here’s the thing.” Zephyr’s face appears on screen, and she tucks a thick lock of teal hair behind her ear. “The media doesn’t have this footage. If they did, they’d be running it nonstop. Because this shit is news cycle gold.”
“Not helping, Zephyr,” I warn. Domina has a death grip on my fingers, and while she hasn’t shut down like she did last night, she’s very much on the edge.
“If you’d let me finish…” She leans forward, her stare so earnest I shut up and listen. “This was crafted for Cortez or his campaign manager. No one wants this leaked because too many people at the rally would call bullshit.”
“So what do we do now?” Domina asks. “The election is tomorrow. If Muñoz is behind this, killing Manuel after the votes are counted will not do him any good. The presidency would go to Manuel’s vice presidential pick, Villanova.”
“He’s got to try something today,” Austin says. “Which means we need to get to Cortez and warn him. Zephyr, did you find anything on Rafael Perez?”
“He’s a boy scout.” His photo appears on screen, along with his resume. “I dug up some complaints from former coworkers on social media. He’s a ‘condescending jerk’ and ‘he thinks he’s better than all of us,’ but no red flags. At the rally, when Leo started shouting and the IPS converged on Cortez, Rafael looked as shocked as everyone else. Could have been an act, but if it was, he should move to Hollywood.”
“Fuck. So we have nothing.” Trevor pinches the bridge of his nose. “Keep digging. And see if you can get traffic camera footage from around the Presidential Palace. Cortez is holed up there for now.”
“Already on it. What’s the plan?” she asks.
Austin reaches for his phone. “We try to convince Cortez to stay at the palace until the votes are certified. It’s the safest place for him—I hope.”
Cortez answers quickly. “We are not being recorded.”
“Good. Any trouble last night?” Austin asks.
He clears his throat. “No. Other than Muñoz going on every national news broadcast to tell the people of Panama I am on my deathbed. I must show my face today and assure the voters I am fit to lead.”
