Jo Robertson - The Traitor

His bossy tone rankled her and she took a breath to lash out when Rafe's cell phone buzzed on the dresser top. He held up a finger to indicate they weren't finished with the conversation.

Eyeing her through the bathroom door, he barked into the phone. "What?"

After a moment, he continued in a more controlled tone. "Ah, Max, shit, man, I forgot to call you." He ran his fingers through his hair and the ends stood up wildly. "Sure, yeah, whatever you say."

He nodded, listened a moment, and then repeated an address as he jotted it down on note paper. "Fine, I'll see you there."

He turned back to Bella. "Max," he said unnecessarily.

"Your cop friend from L.A.?"

"Yeah, he split from his wife and flew up to get his mind off the situation."

"Why all the way up here?"

"He was raised in northern California. I think his family still has property somewhere. He gave me directions." He laughed shortly, waving the note paper. "He probably wants a distraction from his personal problems. Thinks getting involved in my case will help."

"Why is he helping you on the Vargas case?" she asked curiously.

He shrugged a little too casually. "Max is an old friend."

"Have you told him about Santos?"

"He knows there's a leak, knows you have someone who's going to testify against Vargas."

"But he doesn't have a name."

"No," he said shortly, more angry with himself than Isabella because he knew better than anyone that in the vault meant in – the – vault. No one got to know anything. He followed her back into the bathroom.

"Look… I've known Max since fifth grade. He's not the leak."

Her eyes looked sad. "Are you sure?"

"Hell, yes!" He raked his fingers through his hair. "Maybe." He thought of the discrepancies over the last few years, of how Max had been privy to everything – Lupe's identity, the deliveries and pickups of the drugs – God dammit, everything! "Ah, Jesus Christ!"

Instead of berating him as he deserved, she wrapped her arms around him. "We don't know what's true yet."

"It's my business to know!" He hugged her tightly. "But Max… God, he'd have to be in some kind of deep shit."

"We can't do anything about it at the moment," she whispered in his ear, kissing his lobe. "Santos knows how to take care of himself. And as soon as he signs the plea agreement, I'll get him in protective custody."

He looked askance at her. "You think he'll go?"

"Not gently," she laughed. "But he'll go. He wants Vargas as much as I do."

"Really? Why?"

She shrugged and shook her head. "Don't know. Don't care," she spoke into his mouth, "but after Santos is secured, you can approach Max, discover the truth. If he's on Vargas' payroll, Santos will give me his name."

She blew into his ear. "Right now I just want to put the whole Vargas case behind us. Just for tonight." She deepened the kiss and he let himself sink into the soft warmth of her face, her body and returned the kiss until she was breathless.

They'd shed their clothes by the time they reached the bedroom. As she leaned backwards onto the bed, he pulled her upright. "No, I just want to look at you a minute."

He ran his hands over her breasts, reveling in the soft peaks that hardened a moment later beneath his thumbs. His hands traced the length of her waist and hips and traveled down her thighs nudging them apart with his hands. He knelt in front of her and traced his tongue around her navel and dipped lower. "God, you are so beautiful."

"Wait," she said. "I'm feeling grubby. Let's shower first."

"I like that idea."

He stepped into the shower and adjusted the temperature and spray, then pulled her in after him. He took the brunt of the pulsating water so her hair wouldn't get wet.

She wrapped her legs around his hips and leaned her back against the shower wall. "I can't wait," she breathed. "I want you. Now!"

"Huh uh," he panted, "I want to bury my face between your legs until you scream."

"Oh, God, don't talk like that. I'll explode."

"Then we won't wait." He thrust hard into her and felt her core already tightening and pulsing around him, and a few moments later he climaxed hard into her wet, slick body. The throbbing seemed endless and he felt the intense clutching of her inner muscles around him for a long time.

Afterward they washed each other slowly and languidly and by the time they'd dried off, he was ready for her again. She turned the overhead fan on to cool their still-hot bodies and they tumbled naked on the bed. He slid down her body and lifted her knees around his shoulders, sank his mouth into her sweet, hot center and kissed and teased until she cried out in pleasure-pain. "God, Rafe!"

He rode her climax with his mouth and his tongue as she gripped his hair and lifted her hips toward his face for greater access. She came for a long time and he felt a possessive pride in giving her pleasure like this.

He slid back up her body, turned her hips around, and sank his face into her nape. Her hair formed a dark curtain around across the pillow as he breathed in the scent of her soap and shampoo and sex.

One hand teased the now-sensitive nub and the other played with her nipples. The hard, hot length of him pushed hard against her soft hips, a fierce warrior demanding access to the castle. Jesus, he wanted to mount her again like a stud horse after a filly in heat.

"Are you a filly?" he whispered, nuzzling her neck.

"What?" Her voice was heavy with the drowsiness of a body sated with sex.

"Are you up for another one?"

She must have felt the hard length of him against her ass – how could she miss it? She giggled and turned around, draping one leg over him and finally straddling his body. His cock lay pointing straight up for all the world like a dangerous weapon.

"Shall I disarm you?" she teased, grabbing him with her small hand and beginning a rhythm before bending over to wrap her mouth around the tip of him.

He groaned and gave himself over to her ministrations, banishing every thought of Max's possible treachery from his mind.

Bella applied her makeup with Max Jensen on her mind, thinking how he and Rafe had a long history, but she barely knew the man.

Rafe watched her in the mirror, thinking about Isabella's meet with Santos today. "Change your mind. Let me go with you when you bargain with Santos. Please."

She shook her head, but kept her voice even, smiling gamely. "I'll be fine. The wild beast likes me, remember?"

"That's what I'm afraid of," Rafe muttered. "Scarface likes you too much."

"I'm counting on that to get what I want from him."

"It's a dangerous game you're playing."

He reached for her as she wrapped her arms around his middle. He smoothed her hair back from her forehead. "Santos is like an alligator. He strikes with cunning unpredictability when you least expect it. You can't know what he's going to do from one minute to the next."

"I know what I'm doing." Bella allowed the smallest note of exasperation to creep into her voice. "You have to trust me on this."

Rafe glowered at her as she twisted out of his arms and applied a final coat of lipstick. She half expected him to argue further, or haul her over his shoulder and carry her off cave-man style to some imagined safety.

She braced herself for more discussion, but he simply stared at her, a calculating expression on his face. As he spun around to leave the bathroom and make his way through the bedroom where they'd begun the discussion, she wondered what plan he was concocting.

Slipping on a robe, she caught up with him in the small kitchen where he'd just poured himself a cup of coffee. She stood beside him at the counter, reached in front of his large body and pulled down a mug for herself. They stood silently side by side, him leaning against the countertop, her facing the coffee percolator.