Jo Robertson - The Traitor

Navarro took a deep breath and began again. "We have a serious problem. I do not know what to do, Jefe."

Santos threw down his pen and rubbed at the pain that began to radiate from the back of his neck. "What is the problem?"

"The girl from the van, she is dead, as El Vaquero ordered."

"At the sheriff's safe house , sí?"

"Sí, in the foothills to the north."

Santos' brows pulled downward at this confirmation of what Diego had done, and he felt a great white rage build in his mind. ¡Pinche cabron! Vargas was an animal with no sense of caution or finesse. He rampaged through a delicate situation like a bull gone mad with the lust of blood.

The girl could have been spared, shipped back to Mexico. She did not have to die. No one needed to have died.

"What else?" he growled.

"Ruiz is dead."

"¡Mierda, mala suerte de mierda!" Santos ranted, forgetting his own injunction about using English. "What other casualties?"

"Ruiz and the other deputy, but not el hombre negro." The black deputy.

"And Sheriff Slater?"

"Él está condiciones criticas, pero sobrivivrá."

"English!" Santos roared.

After Navarro left, he sat a long while at his desk, refusing to speculate about why he felt a strange relief that the sheriff might survive.

Several hours after Charles Barrington stalked out of her office, Bella closed up her files, grabbed her briefcase, and drove home. Rafe was waiting for her on the front porch, sitting on the cement landing, his fingers linked and dangling between his legs.

A warm thrill of pleasure ran through her when she saw him. She almost felt like she was coming home to… to someone who cared. Ridiculous, but the feeling made her irrationally happy. She smiled and waved as she pulled her car into the garage and then met him at the front door.

But when they entered the small house the mood changed without warning. The reality of their trying to forge a relationship in the midst of a major investigation struck Bella as foolish. They both paused in the tiled entry, a sudden awkwardness festering between them as they warily eyed one another.

Rafe saw the hesitation he'd been feeling reflected in Isabella's eyes. "What now?" he asked, his eyes caressing her smooth face, his hands skimming down her sleeved arms.

He knew they were both too tired for any romantic shenanigans, but he'd wanted to see her – for just a moment or two. The debacle of losing his young witness gnawed at him. If Isabella rejected him now, he'd feel the sting of remorse even more.

It was tempting to blame Slater since Ruiz was clearly the one who'd betrayed them to Vargas, but Rafe had grown steadily more uneasy since the death of his confidential informant in L.A., more worried that an additional leak in DHS or DEA accounted for the multiple snags since he'd taken over the Vargas case.

"Do you want to stay?" Isabella's large brown eyes flashed in the dimly lighted foyer. A tiny frown marred the perfect skin between her brows while she chewed on her bottom lip.

A wave of relief washed over him as he thought about catching that lip with his teeth. "Of course I want to stay. I wouldn't leave you alone after the hell of a day we've had."

"Is that it, then? You want to protect me?" She sounded defensive and searched his face as if looking for the answer to some unfathomable mystery. But he was just a man and today, of all days, he didn't have solutions to much of anything.

He circled her neck with his fingers, noting how his dark flesh contrasted against the lighter creamier skin of her throat. He smiled at the intensity of her words and her confronting stare. "I do want to keep you safe."

She turned away, pulled off her jacket, and hung it carefully in the closet, then turned to reach for his. He followed her into the kitchen where she turned on the coffee maker and began to prepare the brew.

"What's wrong, Isabella?" He enjoyed the feeling of her name rolling off his tongue.

She gave a tiny shake of her head instead of answering him.

"No, I'm not going to let you get away with that." He placed his hands on her shoulders and leaned his body against the back of her, marveling at her slender bones. "Something's bothering you besides the attack. What's wrong?"

She reached for the mugs on a high shelf and his hands dropped to her waist. "What are we doing, Rafe?" she asked on a sigh.

He allowed his hands to drop further so that they rested on her hipbones. "God, I don't know. I just want to be with you. I can't seem to control that."

Briefly she leaned back into him, her bottom soft and firm at the same time in the way that women were. His arousal was immediate. A tiny moan escaped her as she rested the back of her head against his chest, the mugs clattering to the countertop with a jarring sound.

Rafe ran his hands up her sides from her hips to her midriff, playing with the soft silkiness of her blouse. His cock thrust demandingly at her bottom, an appendage with a rogue mind of its own.

Tracing the undersides of her bra, he trailed his fingers back and forth beneath the lacy garment until he reached the spot where her nipples swelled through the layers of fabric. He felt them harden beneath his thumbs, tight round nubs that he had a mindless urge to kiss and lick. He imagined his tongue swirling around their hardened peaks, and he ground his hips into her rear, as if seeking entry.

Nuzzling her neck, he placed tiny, wet kisses on the line of tender flesh from the juncture of her neck to her ear lobe and back again. Her labored breathing increased steadily with every touch of his lips on her skin. He inhaled the heady, mixed scent of her cologne and her damp body, and thought he'd like nothing more than running his tongue along the flesh of her inner thighs, of seeking out and then breathing in the scent of her arousal.

"What are you doing to me?" she moaned, turning in his arms and wrapping her arms around his neck, pulling his head down to kiss him hard and demandingly. He thrust his tongue to meet hers and tasted the sweetness of her breath and the wet softness of the inside of her mouth. Her fingers fumbled with the buttons of his shirt, her hands trembling.

He laughed as his own breath came short and quick. "Here, let me."

"Okay," she breathed on a shudder and busied herself tugging at his shirt tails until they loosened from his trousers.

Then she ran her hands up and down his bare back and around to the hair on his chest. "I love this part of your body," she whispered as she dipped her fingers down to the funnel of hair below his navel. She unbuttoned his pants, trailed the zipper down, and reached around him to the flesh of his ass.

"Whoa, slow down," he panted, wanting to savor the moment but prolong it at the same time.

Quickly, he wriggled his pants over his hips, toed off his loafers, and stepped out, kicking trousers and shoes aside until he stood in front of her in his shorts. Looking down, he saw the outline of his erection against the white of his underwear. Bella pulled the shirt off his shoulders and that piece of clothing dropped to the floor.

"Now you," he said, unsnapping her skirt and letting it puddle around her ankles.

Underneath it, she wore only skimpy black panties. As he ran his hands around her hips, he fingered the bikini cut and the lacy softness of the material against her belly and thighs. He trailed his hand between her legs and tested her dampness through the underwear.

"You're wet for me," he marveled, a surge of possessiveness humming through his blood.

"Yes," she gasped as he slipped his thumb beneath the panties. "I want you badly. Now. Inside me. I don't think I can wait."