#Javi Peña x Latina OFC

[furious-rogue-stuff]

Heat Chapter 45: Deserving - Part 2

Here's the next installment! Hope you all enjoy 😊

Pairing: Javier Peña x OFC | Javi x Querida

Disclaimer: Written in 2nd person narrative, you can safely assume our heroine and love/lust interest is a Latina, written by a Latina. Here's my philosophy on my writing, for further context.

Rating: Mature/Explicit 🔞

Word Count: 24,000+

Summary: After a shocking occurrence, everything between you and Javi comes to a head that foists your relationship into a defining moment. Will the truth cause a rift, or strengthen the bond between you?

Warnings: Graphic descriptions of sex, including oral (m + f receiving) and unprotected sex. Mentions of raunchy sexual acts, angst, longing, stress, and fertility worries. Descriptions of power play, praise kink, and dirty talk. Allusions to jealousy, animosity, foreboding threats, and emotional distress. Some Worried!Javi, Protective! Javi, Upset!Reader. In the vein of Narcos being a bilingual show, and Javier Peña being fluent, I felt it was apropos to include Spanglish and Spanish throughout.

Heat Masterlist

Previous chapter - Chapter 44: Deserving - Part 1

Chapter 45: Deserving - Part 2

When you finally make it home to Javier later that evening, it's with another handful of groceries you purchased from the colmadito just outside of the gated neighborhood, and a head full of thoughts running rampant with worries that had no suspected foes.

The call kept looping like a record in the proverbial player of your mind, but every time it tried to source a possible explanation, it would draw a blank like a skip in the vinyl, and you'd be back to ruminating – trying to decipher the missing grove. Still, you found yourself feeling uncertain and unmoored to what your options even were, with nothing but a startling experience and the conjecture regarding its cause before you.

Hell, you hadn't even told Javi about the incident, and now? What are you even supposed to say?

Possible foul play is suspected?! Even in your head, it sounded ludicrous and overdramatic. After all, the investigator, the insurance rep, and the assistant manager at the dealership all conceded there was no definitive evidence that the tire was tampered with.

You were on autopilot as you came into the kitchen with the groceries and started putting everything away as your mind kept trying to rationalize the entire thing. The most likely explanation is the simplest, is the mantra that suddenly vies for influence in the swirl of what ifs and worst-case scenarios. You can hear your father's voice echo in your mind.

"Think logically. No point in getting hysterical. Be reasonable, and the answer will become obvious."

Sighing, you finish storing things in the fridge and only then notice that the stove is clear of the pots from earlier. They're actually soaking in the sink, along with the serving tray sitting clean and folded up next to the dish rack. The dinner plate that's wrapped up and placed under the stove lamp is the meal Javier served for you to have once you got home, and the sight of it makes you smile.

While dinner heats up in the microwave, you switch out the laundry loads and set the dry clothes in the basket to be sorted and folded later. You then head down to check on Javi, and find him fast asleep under the comforter while the ambient light from the TV screen casts a dreamy glow in the room. Not wanting to wake him, you tiptoe back out and go eat dinner while you stand in the kitchen. The sounds of the early twilight are filled with the trilling of the coquí and the breeze sifting through the trees and fronds outside.

Javier's house is tucked on the corner of a dead-end street in the northeast quadrant of the urbanizacíon, and behind the cement walls bordering the boundary lines of this corner of the gated neighborhood was a protected strip of land not zoned for construction, so it was often tranquil and quiet, even during the day. You found yourself thinking, This isn't a bad little bungalow at all. Just needs some TLC.

Once you've finished eating, you make quick work of the dishes and then decide to take a shower so you can make it an early night. After all, you're feeling drained, and still have a full workday left to grind through. So, you lock up the house, turn out the lights, and go into bathroom's hall entry.

The eucalyptus stems are still hung from the showerhead, and the hot, steamy water helps diffuse the scent of it soothingly over your senses.

Feeling refreshed and relaxed, you wrap the towel around yourself and shut the light off before opening the bathroom's bedroom door and tiptoeing around to your side of the bed.

The glow of the TV helps you maneuver soundlessly, and as you go, you see that Javier had turned over onto his side in order to cuddle your pillow. Tangled under his arm and over said pillow, is your nighty.

Smiling at the sight, you lean over and try to carefully tug the silky garment loose, but Javi ends up stirring awake.

"Mmph…Celina?" he sleepily mumbles.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you," you murmur and sit on your side of the bed, stretching over to caress your hand along the length of his upper arm pacifyingly. "Go back to sleep, babe—"

He yawns like a lion and stubbornly embraces the pillow to his chest, taking the nighty along with it as he rolls onto his back and grumbles groggily, "M'awake now."

You can't help scoff at your luck. "No, doesn't really sound like you are. Now, drift back off, mi cariñito," is your soft coo, as you simultaneously pinch the strap of the nighty that's dangling loose and try to ease it out of his embrace so you can shed your towel and slip it on over your head.

Ever the contrarian, Javi drowsily rolls onto his side again so he can gruffly protest with surly grunts as he reaches out with his right hand and tries to heard you closer, but only comes up short. "Hmph, c'mere," is his raspy whine when he shuffles closer in order to lasso his arm around your waist.

"Ay, Javi, I'm still in a towel and I've been trying to get the nighty out from your clutches without stirring you awake," you irreverently huff as you wriggle away to the edge of the bed so you can go discard the towel and hang it back up in the bathroom. But Javi snags the back of the fluffy material and hauls you back, so you squeal, "Javier!"

His husky chuckle makes it clear that he's just been feigning being drowsy for the last few seconds. "Just come snuggle, preciosa. Nighty's optional," is his sexy drawl as he tows you closer until you're tucked against him.

"Someone is feeling better," you muse saucily before maneuvering around to face him so you can press your palm to his forehead. "Ah, you don't feel as feverish. Good," is your lilting observation before wriggling to get the pillow and nighty out from beneath you so you can shift up on your elbow and smile down at him as you taunt, "But you're still supposed to behave. No te he dado de alta, chavón."

He smirks at your bossy, 'I haven't discharged you,' and surrenders, flopping his arms above his head so that you can shimmy up and grab the nighty before untangling it and pulling it on over your head. With a cheeky tug of your towel, he pulls it loose from your hourglass figure and tosses it in the corner next to the dresser so you can easily scurry under the comforter with him.

"You took more of the medicine?" you ask as you cuddle up against him, smiling when he grunts in the affirmative. "I saw you polished off the rest of the leftovers from lunch. Thanks for setting a plate aside for me."

"You're welcome. Least I could do when you've taken such good care of my ass," he quips, and you snicker and relish how he squeezes you affectionately in his arms.

"Ah, you've taken care of me just as good," you sincerely assure and nuzzle his neck. His skin is warm, and his manly, spicy scent is peeking through the lingering fragrance of the Vicks vaporub.

With a pleased grunt, Javi noses into the top of your hair. At your hearty, albeit tired sigh, he hums before murmuring, "You feeling alright?"

"Yeah. I'm just tired," you mumble as you stifle a yawn. "Last two weeks have been exhausting."

Frowning, Javi is reminded that this is not the first time he's heard that – that you've had a tough time recently. He wants to ask what's been going on, but he feels you begin to relax against him, and frankly, he's still a bit run down himself. So, he kisses you on your temple after snuggling further under the covers with you, figuring he can ask tomorrow.

You're both able to drift off into a deep sleep, so much so that the TV is left on playing the late-night show, but it doesn't stir either of your slumbers.

No, it isn't until early the following morning that you slowly wake to Javier clearing his throat over the sound of the sink running in the bathroom. You can make out the ambient light from the TV screen from just beyond the shelter of the covers, and shiver at the chill in the room. Tiredly, you roll over and peer through heavy lids to see the door is ajar and Javier is at the sink. You can see part of his reflection in the mirror above the sink vanity.

He's dutifully shaving his face, and even though you want to bossily admonish him, you end up yawning and tossing the comforter over your head to get a few more winks of sleep in.

It must be a short while later when you hear him moving around the bedroom, so you shift under the covers in order to peer over and see that indeed, he's in his white skivvies and rifling through the closet for something to wear as he tries to clear his throat quietly.

"Javi, come back to bed," you whine, having peeked at the alarm clock and confirmed it was still much too early still.

Pausing, he glances over at you and sees you cutely curling up under the blanket from the chill in the room, so he snorts and lopes over to toss himself onto the bed before stretching out next to you.

With a kiss to your forehead, he rumbles, "Morning, mi amor."

"Don't 'morning, mi amor,' me. Get back under here," you boss, but with your tousled hair and scrunched pout, your command doesn't have the usual gravitas.

Still, Javi takes pity on you and tucks his legs under the covers before pivoting onto his side and scooting you closer. You happily curl into him and cling to his warm torso with a satisfied sigh.

"Where you going so early?" you mumble, feeling his skin slowly seep his body heat into you.

"The field office. I wanted to get ready early so I could call Kike to get picked up—"

With a snippy hum, you sass, "I haven't declared you completely cured, tough guy—"

He scoffs amusedly, "I feel fine, mandona."

Pouting stubbornly, you shift to take his temperature with your hand at his forehead. "Hmph…we'll see what the thermometer says," you argue, and shuffle up in bed in order to reach it where it sits on his nightstand.

Humoring you, he scoots to sit up and lean backwards into the headboard as you retrieve the thermometer and sidle close before placing it under his tongue. He bounces his brows at you, and you snicker, "Hey, you have proven you cannot be trusted when it comes to your own wellness. I don't want you rushing back to work if you're still sick."

He rolls his eyes, but obeys, waiting the allotted time required for his temperature to register. Satisfied that enough time has lapsed, you take the thermometer and hold it up to the light coming from the bathroom to see the reading.

Javi peers at it himself and smiles broadly. "Ah-hah, see? 98.7. No more fever," is his triumphant drawl before he kisses your cheek and croons, "Now, the only thing getting me hot, is you—"

You blow a raspberry at that and set the thermometer aside. "Alright, beyako. But you still have to drink lots of fluids, ok?" you muse and give him a haughty look before Javi ruggedly pulls you against him and onto his lap so he can shower you with relentless kisses until you crack a smile and giggle at his ticklish moustache.

When he ends up pulling back so he can cough and clear his raspy throat, you hand him the glass of water before going to make him some hot tea.

He's just set out his white dress shirt and dark suit onto the foot of the bed when you come back into the room with a mug filled with tea and a teaspoon of honey.

Drinking a long sip, he savors it while he sits with you on the rumpled covers. "Mmm, thanks."

You kiss his shoulder before chiming, "You're welcome," and settling in to lounge comfortably while the early morning news is playing on the TV.

The serene moment of just being with each other is something you both are leaning into, and are in no rush to leave the bubble of contentment.

He nurses his tea while you languidly caress your hand along his chest whilst you both skim the chyron to see the headlines.

With your head on his shoulder, you try to relax completely, but can't help the needling worry from yesterday begin to creep up.

"I called Kike already. He's picking me up around 8," Javi volunteers as he sets the mug aside on the nightstand, and you snap out of your faraway ruminating to hum in acknowledgement. "You got a busy day?"

Sighing, you wilt against him as you gripe, "Yes, and all I can think about is being back here after work and just lazing into a stupor."

"That sounds good to me," he drawls, before purring, "Can I join you?"

You laugh, "Of course, you dork," and sit up to goofily nuzzle his cheek.

Not to be outdone, Javi starts to rambunctiously fondle your curves, getting nice handfuls of your round ass while he suckles kisses along your neck. That soon gives way to you both fooling around, and the lust that had been dormant in you the last couple of weeks you've been apart sears up in your core. And when Javi's arousal presses against your lower belly before grinding against you, making your pussy throb? It takes everything in you not to become ravenous with need.

You manage to roll him onto his back so you can straddle his lap and kiss a luscious path from his jaw, down his neck, to his chest, all while Javi arches under you and groans – hands pawing to slip under your nighty and grip your hips so he can rut against you.

"Want you," he growls when he tries to sit up and pull you closer, but you shy away. "Querida—"

Sighing as you hold your ground and push him back down so you can resume your path down his torso, you murmur against his chest, "We don't have enough time, Javi—"

"I'll make time," he defies, trying to sit up again, but you nudge him back again.

"I don't want a frantic quickie, babe," you counter before trailing the tip of your tongue down the center of his abs, cause him to gasp and stiffen under you. "I want you in my mouth—"

His groan is starved, but his tone is hard when he grouses, "Come ride my tongue, and you can put it in your mouth, guapita."

How are you supposed to argue with such a salacious compromise?

Javier feels exhilarating urge flare in his apex from how swiftly you tugged his underwear off before yanking your nighty over your head and clambering to go reverse cowgirl so he can pull you down on his face. He slots his mouth to your eager cunt and licks into you just as you wrap your lips around the tip of his throbbing cock.

You both are so fine-tuned to each other's desires – know what turns the other on and how to pluck pleasure at such a viscerally sensual level – that it's intoxicating how quickly you're reaching bliss.

He loves it when you rock against his tongue to prolong your ecstasy, and you can't get enough of how he moans in completion into your quivering center when you hollow out your cheeks and stroke him into spilling his climax in the clutch of your mouth.

Needless to say, Javi is dopily sated as he's finishing getting dressed for work a short while later, just as you come out of the shower. You pause at the doorway and watch him swagger about whilst he pulls on his belt and loops it in the buckle before he starts fiddling with the ends of his green and blue-checkered-pattern tie tucked around his collar. Seeing him so relaxed and content is endearing, and you are struck then with how much you admire him, and how happy it makes you to know he's yours.

The sound of your feet padding over the tiled floor towards him makes that silly palpitation flutter in his chest, just before you encircle your arm around his waist and hug him from behind. He can smell your shower-warmed skin and the clean fragrance of your hair as he leans into you and reaches his hand backwards to cup your towel-clad lower back once your other hand caresses up to squeeze his deltoid affectionately.

"I love you, by the way," you flirtatiously sigh, as if it's a silly reminder you were compelled to voice just now.

Grunting gloatingly, he turns and wraps his arms around you before playfully hoisting you up against him so he can easily pepper soft kisses across your cheeks before purring irreverently, "And I'm madly in love with you, by the way."

You giggle and press your lips to his in a silly way and hum dramatically for him to let you down so you can stand on your tippy toes and grin up at him whilst you busily loop the ends of his tie into a perfect knot for him. At his confident smirk when you bat your lashes up at him, you chime, "Good. Because I just want to spend all weekend with you, to the risk of you getting sick of me."

Javi exhales a gruff scoff before snickering, "That's never gonna happen, corazón. Well, maybe the other way around—"

With a bossy tug to his tie, you purse your lips imperiously at him before cutting in with impish authority, "I haven't gotten sick of you so far, so I doubt I will, galán. So quit talking nonsense—"

"That goes for you too, then, malcriada," he ruggedly interjects and gives your waist a playful squeeze before nuzzling bossy kisses into your cheek, making you laugh brightly until that discordant little sigh flits out of you.

The sound of the SUV Kike drives pulling up to the front of the house has Javi exhaling huffily, so you sigh and cup his face with both hands before crooning, "No pouting, boss man. Go have a great day."

"Fine, I'll try," he grumbles, but his soulful eyes are warm and his smile is easygoing before he leans down and gives you a soft peck on the lips.

After tugging on his socks and black leather boots, he shrugs into his dark blazer, pockets his belongings from the dresser top, and steals one last kiss before rushing out to his ride.

Swooning onto the bed, you dreamily pine over how effervescent and tingly Javier made you feel. It truly eclipses anything else you were stressing or fretting about. So much so, you compartmentalize it all so you can focus on only the good feelings.

Discarding the towel, you hustle up to quickly dry your hair and get dressed for work. Once you're satisfied with your look, you turn everything off in the bedroom, open the windows, make the bed, and sprint out on your kitten heels to grab your purse and keys before heading down to the laundry room and out the marquesina door to get in your car and start the short commute to the Federal building.

While you're striding through the entry to head directly up to your office, Javier is coming off the elevator at the top floor of the building they've leased out to act as the DEA field office.

It's a nondescript building accessible off of a side street from the major avenue, and less than a mile from a principal artery of the nearby expressway. It took a lot of jockeying, but he and Steve were able to make the case to have the field office off of the federal campus, with close access to the main routes. The underground garage was secure, and the DEA agents on-site could make the office building their base of operations for surveillance, wiretaps, and old-fashioned detective work. CI's were met with off-site at another satellite location in the warehouse district that looked out on Puerto Rico Highway 22.

As he walks in his purposeful stride through the bullpen-styled office space, he can feel some of the personnel notice him and quickly find something to busy themselves with while junior agents greet him with varying degrees of enthusiasm. He curtly nods in acknowledgement to each as he goes, intent on getting to the conference room he and Steve have designated the "Case Room" for the time being.

His former partner and current co-SAC was in said room, listening while Segarra and the main senior agents on the case argue about the latest intel, when he glances up and sees Javi making his way over through the narrow sidelight in the corner of the room.

"He has risen," Steve jibes under his breath and relaxes as Javier opens the door and breezes in. "Nice of you to join us, Jav."

Cocking a glib brow at his friend and confidante, Javi goes to sit in the available desk chair someone had rolled in previously, recycling back in it with his arms crossed as he drawls, "Looks like I walked into the middle of a squabble session. What's the latest?"

"Basically, we think we have a solid lead on a distribution hub used by the main gang syndicate in the metro-area, but Segarra here is telling us we can't move on it," Lopez deadpans, but his sharp stare communicates how vexed by the ASAC he really is.

Javier can't help roll his eyes before shifting in his seat, resting one hand on the knee of the leg he just crossed while scrubbing his other palm impatiently across his mouth and idly along his cheek. The scent of cigarette smoke permeates the air stronger than everyone's cologne and the whiff of stale coffee, giving him an instant headache. Followed by a strong craving for nicotine.

"It's good intel, Jav. But we're being told our hands are tied here," Duffy chimes in gruffly as he leans casually in his chair and flicks the ash from his cigarette into his used coffee cup.

The constant static and tension between the agents and Segarra? It was something Javier had no patience for, and that was clearly becoming more palpable the thinner it wore down.

"Sir, that kind of operation would require us to execute it in coordination with the FBI. But Agent Bozzi's office has denied the request," Segarra argues, clearly tired of being the punching bag for the other agents.

"Duffy, you know a bunch of the guys over there. What do they got going on that would be more important than this co-op?" Javi asks the other man sat across from his partner, who was always better at keeping a poker face than Lopez.

"FBI has a lot of fingers in different pies when it comes to investigations down here. I heard they're working on a lot of financial fraud cases – that they staffed up their tax fraud personnel to go through tons of paperwork, but I haven't heard of anything big," is Duffy's reply before he lets loose the exhale of smoke from his cigarette. "I can ask around some more."

"Alright," Javi retorts before glancing over at Steve. "Wanna catch me up?"

"Sure," Steve responds as he gestures 'good luck' to the other men in the room before heading for the door.

Once he and Javier are in their shared office, Javi goes to his desk drawer and retrieves his backup pack of nicotine gum, popping one out of the tray and tossing it brusquely into his mouth.

"You should really try the patch," is Steve's aloof suggestion as he sits in the cushioned couch that's backed against the wall and faces the side of Javi's desk.

"I did, but the damn thing was itchy," Javi gripes as he chews on the gum and rubs the tension between his brows moodily. In a grumble, he adds, "This takes the edge off instantly, at least."

Humming, Steve segues topics with, "Anyway, as well-meaning as Segarra is, he's not endeared himself to the agents at all. Duffy and Lopez are stubborn, for sure, but he just doesn't have the authority to get much done."

"I know…" Javi mutters as he rubs the tension from his temples with his hand before dragging his palm down his face in frustration. "Still. That prick Bozzi shouldn't be shutting shit down like that without talking to one of us—"

"You, more precisely," Steve corrects, shrugging when Javi glowers at him. "Hey, you're the one in charge of coordinated operations with other agencies here. That means you gotta work with the guy," is his laconic retort, to Javi's added chagrin.

He stews about it for a few seconds before remarking dryly, "Besides that, we got plenty of stuff from CBP for these guys to start running down…"

While they continue to hash out the upcoming game plan for all the work happening in the agency and to come, you're deep in an auditing review for all the digital data processes requiring upgrading to the new standards at the other federal satellite sites on the island.

Your team had done a great job compiling the data, so while it was busy work, it really helped you diagnose what the next steps should be for each site, and come up with an automated plan that could be shared out with each specialist in charge of the upgrading.

Just as you're finalizing some notes for your report, your cell phone rings. You answer it and are surprised to hear from Jodalys.

"Hola, I'm not interrupting you with anything?"

"No, I'm just finishing up something at the office. How can I help you?"

"I wanted to let you know about a gala WAPA-TV is organizing. We have several big marketing sponsors, and I know local government officials are going to be in attendance, so I wanted to see if you think the Giving Back program would want to be a sponsor? You'd last mentioned how the Federal office wants to foster a tighter camaraderie with the locals, so I thought this could be a good way to do that?" she pitches enthusiastically.

"Yes, I think that would be something the program manager would definitely agree on! I'll speak with him, so give me the details?" you respond as you grab for your planner and find a blank page to scribble the date, time, etc that Jodalys dictates to you.

After running it by the program manager and his lead, who really likes the prospect, he starts making the arrangements, assuring you it might be just the kind of event even the Chief Executive Director, Mercer, would encourage the federal office workers to attend.

As you're feeling accomplished at the end of the day while you walk out to your car, Javier and Steve are hopping into the SUV with Kike to start the slog home through Friday rush hour.

Thankfully, Kike knows every shortcut and back route in the metro area, so they both settle in for the drive and continue their brainstorming session.

"—Maybe you can have Segarra oversee the rundown of those CBP sources. It'll keep him busy while the guys keep crackin' along with the ops prep," Steve is suggesting to Javi from the front passenger seat.

"…I guess," is Javi's lukewarm mutter, shrugging before propping his elbow on the door panel to rest his cheek in his palm. "Frankly, I'm at my limit of giving a shit right now."

Steve grunts and busies himself with the cuff of his shirt sleeve. "Yeah, I'm there with you. Definitely looking forward to relaxing. Which reminds me: Connie's wanting to spend the next few days just us and the kids, so hope it's ok if we skip dinner this weekend," he drawls coolly and peeks at Javi in the rearview mirror as he adds, "I got a lot of making up to do for being so busy while she's been stuck with Olivia, sick and all."

Nodding, Javi leans back in his seat and crosses his arms as he confides, "Celina said she wants to spend the weekend just lazing around together, so no worries. She's had a hectic couple weeks too."

Humming, Kike remarks conversationally while driving down a particular shortcut, "Yeah, Celina had a stressful time! That car accident, getting sick and all that. She said it couldn't have happened at a worse time with how busy she's been with work—"

Brows shooting up in surprise, Javi shifts forward and asks, "What car accident?"

Keeping his attention on the aggressive drivers ahead, Kike answers, "Oh, early last week. Her car hit a pothole and it messed up the wheel. She had it towed to her dealer. After, she called to see if I could give her a ride to work."

Steve can feel Javi bristling in the backseat, so he turns and shoots his friend a glance. "I take it she didn't mention it?"

Features hardening, Javi tucks his chin against his chest and leans back, but his shoulders are squared with tension, even as he tries to obfuscate, "It must've not been too serious—"

Unaware of the unease the other man is trying to bottle up, Kike beeps the horn at a rude driver before zooming around him, managing to multitask and cut in, "She said the hit was so hard that the tire came off. Luckily she wasn't on the autopista when it happened. The potholes in town are no joke."

"Shit. Was she ok?" Steve asks before Javi silently spirals in the backseat. "Well, she must've been—"

"Oh yes!" Kike assures, navigating the SUV down the intersection with confidence now that the main pockets of traffic have been traversed. "She was mostly worried about how it happened when she was very busy."

Before Javier let's his emotions swirl up, the rational side of him cleaves through with reasonable observations. Well she was busy, and then sick, and you were away so she likely didn't want to make you worry. It must've not been really bad, since her car is already fixed…

"She's clearly fine, Jav. Especially after nursing your overgrown ass back to health," Steve razzes, snapping Javi out of his internal ruminating. "Lord knows she's a saint for putting up with your shit. Even if you are a reformed and sweet-talkin' asshole now."

Giving him a snarky deadpan, Javi drawls, "Damn straight I am, and you better never motherfucking forget it, pendejo."

Kike chuckles at the exchange, always thoroughly amused by the frat-like banter between the two senior agents.

As they traverse the gated neighborhood and the SUV cruises down the street in order to drop off Javi first – prolonging the witty trash-talking session – a short while later, the rookie officer rounds the vehicle into a U-turn on the street in order to pull along the curb up to the blue-and-white bungalow.

"—I'm going to take her out for a nice dinner, as a matter of fact."

"With or without the kids?"

"I'm getting a babysitter—"

"You should, then you should romance her, for once. Try to remind her why she married your ass in the first place—"

"She remembers just fine, bud. What you need to worry about is finally getting your shit together and making Celina your wife already—"

"Sonuvabitch, you're fucking relentless—"

"Because I'm right and you know it—"

"And you know I'm working on it!" Javi scoffs wryly before patting Kike on the shoulder. "Thanks for being there for her. I really appreciate it."

"No thank you needed, sir! Siempre a la órden," Kike exclaims jovially before putting the car in park so Javier can slide over to the door nearest the curb.

"Say 'hi' to Celina for me, puto," Steve cheerfully rasps.

"Give my love to Connie and the girls, hillbilly," Javi counters glibly right back before wishing Kike a good night and exiting the car.

As the SUV drives off to Steve's, Javier strides up the sidewalk towards his driveway, where your car is parked right behind his in the open-air garage. He can't help round the sleek sedan, scanning it to see if there was any remnant of damage from the accident, but finding none under the early evening light. Grunting, he lopes to the garage door entry and let's himself in with his key.

"Is that you, Javi?" you call out from the bedroom.

"Yeah," he calls back before coughing, clearing his throat and absently twirling the keys in his hand while already striding through the laundry room, tugging the knot loose on his necktie as he treks across the living room.

When he comes into his bedroom, he finds you in semi-undress.

You'd just been stripping your blouse when you heard him come in, having fussed with rolling the portable TV out of the way to be tucked into the recessed corner by the window on your side of the bed. And now you were shedding the sateen tank underneath to place it onto the dry-cleaning pile just when Javier walked in, so you were in just your white lace bra, navy blue trousers and kitten heels.

"Hey," you greet as you flounce over and kiss him hello.

He smiles and tows you closer when you attempt to waltz off to the laundry basket sitting on the bed. "When you get home, hm?"

Smirking, you loop your hands around his nape and slink up against him, smelling the cologne on his skin and the sweet smell of the nicotine gum on his breath. "Not long ago. Like ten minutes or so?"

"And you're already doing busy work," he points out amusedly, before nuzzling your jaw.

"No, I just took out the load that was left in the dryer from last night," you reply while trying not to swoon at his lips grazing down your neck. "I-I forgot to take the dry-cleaning to get dropped off, so I was pulling them together—"

"Leave it. We're having a lazy weekend now, remember?" is his honeyed baritone rumble before he kisses a path back up your neck, leaving ticklish goosebumps thanks to his moustache in his wake.

"I do, b-but I just wanted to tidy up before I started dinner," you sigh dreamily as you practically melt in his arms from how he suckles that erogenous pulse point just below your jaw.

"Let's go out for dinner," he suggests in a low baritone that makes your toes curl. "Mmm, we had these great Cuban sandwiches for lunch from a place on the Roosevelt. You in the mood for anything specific?"

You know he's buttering you up with sexy kisses and caresses, so you nudge your temple against his cheek in a playful show of dominance before encircling his waist and leaning into him. "I could go for Cuban, actually. It's been a while since I've had congrí," you purr before pulling away to coquettishly finish stripping out of your work clothes, adding over your shoulder, "I'll put something on and we can go to a place I know."

Grunting in agreement, Javi leers as you slip your heels off before shimmying out of the fitted trousers while he distractedly empties out his pockets and sets his keys on the dresser. He ogles your bare skin while shedding his blazer, fantasizing of all the things he'd love to do to you after stripping you out of your undergarments.

Picking out a pretty yellow gingham dress from the closet, quickly pulling it on and fastening the front buttons, you slip on the closest pair of open toe leather sandals you have before snickering knowingly over your shoulder, "You better hop to it, guapetón."

He snorts and picks up the pace of changing out of his work clothes, smirking when you breeze by him and pat his tush on the way to the bathroom to brush out your hair.

Soon, you're both walking down the driveway to your car, getting in and backing out onto the street. As you drive, he asks you about your day, and you tell him about the proposed gala, unaware he's paying attention to how the vehicle handles to see if he can gauge any issues with it. When you're pulling into the parking lot tucked behind the Cuban cuisine establishment on the corner of the intersection across from the city park a short while later, he's weighing his options whether to just come out and ask you about it.

But then he admonishes himself for worrying to begin with, so he reconsiders asking, for the time being.

After you've parked, Javi rounds to your side to open your door and help you out, which you still find charming and chivalrous. And with his hand to the small of your back, he escorts you around to the front entrance and takes your lead when the hostess greets you and you ask to sit on the outside terrace.

Once seated, Javi admires the pretty hanging flower pots and decorative planters that keep the terrace cozy and cool under the early twilight. Across the way is a grassy lot that looked like was used during the day for a food truck spot, and there were a few stray cats hanging out in the shade of the building.

You strategically sit adjacent Javi instead of across from him so you could lean over and reach him easily for kisses, which he's more than content to shower you with. When your waiter takes your orders and returns shortly with your drinks, you take a nice long sip from yours.

Smirking, Javi croons, "I guess there's no better place to get a Cuba Libre than at an authentic Cuban spot, hm?"

Sighing contentedly, you nod and simper, "That is correct, agente."

He chuckles and sips his own whiskey while reaching under the table to affectionately squeeze your knee. "So, besides helping organize the feds to get in on another ritzy party, how else did the rest of your day go?" is his quipping question.

Scoffing, you sneer goofily, "Hey! I did no such thing. And anyway, it's always good for the locals and the feds to find camaraderie somehow." At his wry grunt and lopsided smirk, you roll your eyes and yield, "And, any excuse for a party is something they tend to jump at here. But at least it was a decent distraction from the busy-work I did most of the day."

Swirling the amber liquid in his glass idly, Javi asks, "That upgrade program you were telling me about?"

"Yeah. All the leads had to do diagnostics of their designated sites. Going through it all to allocate the hours and funding for the upgrading has been a pain," you respond and brush the few stray strands that fluttered up across your cheek from the soft breeze wafting through the terrace. "Eventually, I'll have to make a trip out to St. Thomas to help the team lead there—"

You pause when the waiter returns with your meals, and you both thank him before you place your napkin in your lap and wish Javier a 'Buen Provecho' as you're eagerly taking a bite.

"Buen Provecho," he offers back before digging into his arroz con pollo and carne con papas. "So, you were saying something about a trip?"

"Ah, yes – to St. Thomas. Things have been so hectic I haven't had much time to plan for it," you reply smoothly before eating the tender sliver of pernil with gusto along with your forkful of rice.

"Speaking of hectic, Kike mentioned you had an issue with the car last week?" Javi remarks in a casual tone, knowing not to fish too obviously.

Internally groaning, you realize you should've expected the young officer to mention it to Javier, so you dramatically sigh as you admit, "Yes, I was driving to work after an early appointment in town and I hit the mother of all potholes after an intersection. I had just gotten the car serviced, remember? So it looks like they didn't tighten the bolts or something well enough on one of the tires and it went flying after hitting that pothole."

Javi balks, "Jesus Christ, what kind of a fuck-up was in charge and didn't check to make sure—"

Your hand clasps at his forearm reassuringly as you rush out before he can get worked up, "Mistakes happen. I'm just glad it was fixable and no one got hurt. Don't get all ornery about it, babe."

He huffs out of his nose and scowls, but at your irreverent look and patting of his forearm for him to loosen up, he grunts laconically, "You didn't mention it."

"Javier, you were busy! I didn't want to tell you while you were away. You were stressed out enough, so I didn't want that looming in the back of your mind, making you worry when there wasn't anything you could do anyway," you insist, adding, "And with everything going on this week, it kind of fell off the list of things that were front of mind."

Knowing you had a point, he relents with a nod, "You're right," and continues eating.

You enjoy the validation of being told you're right by your typically stubborn lover, so you smile around your next bite.

"How's the field office coming along?" you ask him after you've sipped your drink.

"It's finally up, and all the field agents are working out of there now. We got Segarra posted there. Steve and me will rotate being there and at our clerical office in the Federal building," he explains before taking another healthy forkful into his mouth.

"Good. And did CBP help you guys with what you needed?" is your next query as you scoop your next bite of congrí up.

"…We got some leads, but I honestly don't know if it'll amount to much. I just have this inkling that no one is really close to cracking things at all. Just treading water," he answers you candidly, giving you a one-shouldered shrug as he adds, "But then I'm used to having a clear target, and that's not how things are here, so far."

You hum at that as you chew. Once you've swallowed, you dab your lips before remarking, "Well, I'm selfishly glad you're not going to be personally in the field anymore, and that you and Steve have a team down here that is capable of all that—"

"I wasn't in the field during the Cali case," he muses, and at your sarcastic stare, he modifies, "Not as much as I'd been on previous cases, anyway."

"Javi, are you trying to forewarn me here that you're going to go on raids and extract informants personally again?" you imperiously deride as you cross your arms and lean back in your chair, gaze sharpening on his expression.

"No, I was just clarifying that I wasn't in the field much during Cali, is all. And I don't plan on being in the field at all this time around," he assures as smoothly as possible, and at your unconvinced stare, he takes your hand and squeezes it. "It's different this time, querida. The way we're structured down here? I have plenty of senior agents who know what they're doing, and all I gotta do is help cut through red tape, schmooze the local government, and coordinate the inter-agency ops, when needed," is his confident reassurance, adding sardonically, "Plus, I'm too old for chasing fuckers across rooftops and down balconies. I'm more than content to oversee the investigation and make decisions over being in the field."

Your eyes twinkle in the waning daylight as you tilt your face towards him with a coy smile. "Are you sure?" you find yourself asking, and at Javi's curious look, you give his fingers a squeeze before folding your hands into your lap, wringing them together as you're elaborating, "I've been thinking about it. You always preferred to be out front. Sitting back and relaxing in your position of authority drove you stir-crazy. I—I guess I'm just worried that you won't be able to keep yourself from getting invested. No matter how much you don't plan to or even want to."

His features etch soberly at your words. Leaning forward, he murmurs, "I meant what I said, mi amor. All the chasing – the frantic hunting for pinche asesinos is over for me. I always felt like it would only count if I was the one to nail them, but what you said? About things not going down the way I dictate or believe they should? It stuck with me, for a long time. I realized my priorities were, well, fucked up."

Surprised to hear this, you ask, "What do you mean?"

With a cleansing breath, he utters his answer with unwavering certainty.

"I wanted my life – what I did with it – to matter, and getting justice consumed all my priorities. But it wasn't until I brought it all down and ended up feeling no different – that nothing had changed but me, that I realized I had it all wrong and had lost myself to it. I don't ever want to end up there again."

He finds it liberating when it comes out of his mouth. It was a burden he didn't know he was holding onto until it was said.

"Oh, Javi," you murmur and lean close to brush your hand lovingly over his cheek. His dark, soulful eyes are gentle, and your heart aches as you whisper, "I'm sorry for ever making you doubt yourself—"

Javi gathers your hand in both of his and tells you decisively, "You didn't, cariño. What you said was a wakeup call. You made me doubt what I was doing, and why. Having to sit with that and work through it was something I'd avoided. But once I did, I realized what mattered to me was making a life, and doing the best I can to make it a good one I can be proud of."

Your features blossom into open admiration, making it easy for him to cup your cheek and brush a covetous kiss to your lips before he stares into your eyes and declares, "I want to make a life with you. And that matters to me more than anything else."

The emotion that wells up in your chest at his words steals your breath, making you want to express it the only way you can.

You scootch out of your seat so you can kiss Javier passionately before hugging him tight.

He pulls you to sit on his thigh so he can easily hold you to him, feeling relief and pride radiate through him as you nuzzle his neck. His hand cradles the back of your neck when lean back to gaze lovingly at him, and his heart skips when your eyes shine with devotion at him. Then, as if the world around you came back into focus, you girlishly slink back into your chair when you remember yourself and your surroundings.

With a sweet smile, he winks at your sheepish exhale when another dining group comes onto the terrace to sit at a larger table across from where you're both sat close to the veranda.

There was so much spinning up excitedly in your heart at his words, leaving your thoughts skipping along scenarios you both still needed to discuss and plan for, expectations you had yet to share, and desires unstated between you both. Just as you feel unsettled by thought of, What kind of life will he want to make together? You jolt at the sensation of something butting against your ankle.

You look down and realize one of the cats has come onto the terrace and is begging for food.

Javi watches you smile, then covertly glance around before shredding the rest of the roasted meat on your plate and piling the minced morsels on the floor for it.

"Come, gatito," you whisper to the orange cat, and watch it do just that, eagerly gobbling up the meat before scampering off back to its shady area on the other side of the veranda.

"That reminds me. You didn't get an annoying cat down here. How come?" is Javier's irreverent query as he nurses his drink.

Idly wiping your fingertips on your napkin, you tilt your head drolly at him as you retort, "My landlady didn't allow pets. And I didn't think it would be fair to have a cat, with how much I'd be working and traveling."

He hums, tempted to remark, 'Well when we move in together, it'll be a place we can have an inside-outside cat,' but decides against it. Instead, he muses, "Olivia has been trying to wear Steve down about getting a puppy. She didn't get one for Christmas, and got Isabel as a sister instead."

You laugh, delighted by the anecdote, and fall into banter about your now-comingled group of friends.

After sharing a flan de queso for dessert, Javier pays the tab and escorts you to the parking lot, holding your hand as you cross towards the car. He opens the passenger door for you, and you amusedly hand him your keys when he gets in on the driver's side. As he navigates out to the main intersection en route for home, you fiddle with the radio before setting it on the Magic 97.3 station, and smile as the late 80's single plays.

Snickering, he steers the wheel with one hand while he props the other behind your head rest. "We gotta go out dancing soon. When're you gonna show me the nightlife scene here, eh, dancing queen?" is his playful croon, winking at you when you give him a coquettish smirk.

"Well, that gala sounds like it'll have music and dancing. And if that's not enough, I'm up for dancing anything you want, anywhere," you flirt right back.

Pursing his full lips intriguingly, he drawls, "Square dancing?"

You snort, comically rolling your eyes as you lilt, "Ok, fine, maybe not anything. But salsa, merengue, bachata, cumbia, vallenato—"

"Lambada, perreo," he continues impishly, giving you that teasing, smoldering glance before bouncing his eyebrows suggestively.

You snicker and squeeze his jean-clad thigh, razzing, "Alright, fresco. Whatever one you're up for, I'll gladly be your dance partner."

"Good. But tonight? We're rollin' around the sheets," he cockily declares, grinning when you girlishly laugh.

You're gleeful that he's true to his word once you both get home.

It's actually a breezy night out, so you're happily cranking the bedroom windows all the way open when Javi walks in from locking up. He surprises you when you turn back from slipping off your sandals into the closet and are unfastening the first three buttons of your dress.

Encircling your waist, he holds you close while taking over unbuttoning your dress open for you while rocking you in a slow waltz-like sway. Titillated, you lean into his broad frame and nuzzle his jaw, caressing your hands up his back and smiling into his yearning kiss.

Your soft perfume and warm skin have a shiver skittering through him as you let his hands maneuver the dress off your torso and pool at your feet while his mouth sets a worshipful path along your flushing features and jaw. Sighing wistfully, you bury your fingers in the back of his hair when he trails his lips covetously down the column of your neck while his hands unclasp your bra.

"Mmm, you need to strip too, you know," you dreamily chime when you shed your bra and tug naughtily on the front of his caramel-colored button down before plucking the first few buttons open.

Scoffing ruggedly, he showily kicks his boots off and unbuckles his belt while giving you a molten look. "I'm trying to pace myself," is his husky murmur as he pauses in unzipping his jeans to let you tug his shirt's hem loose and resume unbuttoning it for him.

"No one told you to pace yourself, chulito," you tease in a sultry purr as you push his shirt off of his shoulders and pluck his jeans open before unzipping his fly.

It turns him on the way you sensually stare up at him through your lashes while shoving his jeans down before kissing along his bare chest.

Making short work of kicking them off his legs, Javier whisks you up against him and takes you to bed, where you both peel the clothes left between you off and amorously kiss and caress each other until you're salaciously fooling around.

The ceiling fan undulates the cool air over your heated forms as Javi rolls you under him while you cling to his body and giggle effervescently from his mustachioed kisses to your collar while he fidgets from your ticklish touch along his sides.

You're both content to canoodle and tease each other with nuzzles and caresses while your hips carve into each other, prolonging the delicious foreplay out while making desire stoke swelteringly where his arousal and yours press up.

Rolling to straddle him, you lusciously capture his lips with yours while gliding your palm to grind the underside of his cock along the silken heat of your cunt, relishing his groan and how his grip on your hips becomes possessive.

Breaking the kiss and nudging your nose into his cheek to get his obedience, you alluring whisper, "All I've wanted all day, is to make love with you, hermoso."

The lust in his dark eyes is scintillating as he husks, "Yeah?"

Humming sexily, you kiss him before susurrating against his panting lips, "Yes."

Javier rolls so you're on your back and he can nestle his ramrod erection into your clenching heat after hiking your leg over his hip just as he rocks forward.

You moan and arch up into him, and end up snickering breathlessly when he swears huffily, "Mmph, love, not fucking."

"It's really sexy that you know the difference, bebito," is your cheeky lilt when he clearly is trying to rein in his lascivious libido. At his haughty stare, you simper, "It is!"

Huffing amusedly out of his nose and shaking his head, Javi cracks a lopsided smile before sighing hoarsely, "Luckily for you, I've wanted to love you up all day too," as he shifts so you're both lying on your sides, facing each other while he's still inside you.

Your smile is radiant when he works his hips in that exquisitely ruinous undulation that lights you up with pleasure, leading into the passionate kisses and salacious clutching of your bodies as ecstasy pulses through your center while he groans sweet filth and earns your breathy praise and supplications for more.

And when he seats the pad of his thumb against the hood of your clit and grinds delectable pressure into it while stroking his throbbing cock deep inside your sheath, you cry out a rapturous sound and dig your fingertips into his lats, toes curling in bliss as you reach climax. Javi prolongs it by swirling circles over your pleasure point while thrusting at that angle that has him brushing against the bundle of nerves nestled where you can't reach, relishing your whimpers and mewls as you dissolve under him.

He nudges a gloating kiss into your cheek and keeps nuzzling you impishly when you sigh and smile dazedly at him before petting his brow and cupping the side of his neck lovingly as you wrap your legs around his waist and pull him down to meet your insatiable kiss.

Shifting you both so he's on his back, you take the reins of the lovemaking by grinding down on his cock and clenching your floor muscles around it while showering kisses along his cheeks, brow, jaw and neck. Your hands are braced to his chest, keeping him pinned to lie back and let you untangle the lascivious urge loose from his core as you ride him the way he loves. The sexy sight of you – skin dewy and warm, breasts bouncing from how hard and fast you're fucking yourself on him, features rapt with ecstasy while your gaze remains fixed on his – is the thing of Javi's dreams, and when your mouth falls open on a whine of his name, it's what sears him through with his release.

His gruff moan catches in his chest when you mewl and curl into him, reaching bliss and writhing in the throes of sensational gratification together.

The enchanting glee of being ravished and full hits you like a wave as the post coital haze buzzes through you. It isn't until you've melted back into yourself that you realize Javi has rolled you onto your back and is pulling out of your tingling heat.

Quivering, you whine for him to stay in bed, thinking he's going to go retrieve a washcloth. Instead, Javi hushes you with a possessive kiss that has his tongue marking its territory in your mouth before he maps a salacious path with it down your neck, the valley of your breasts, the line of your stomach and the crest of your sex.

With the flat of his tongue, he gives you gentle aftercare, careful not to lick or nuzzle your tender pussy too eagerly that would overstimulate and hurt you.

"Oh, Javi…" you hiccup airily before shivering from him blowing cool air over your scorching center before he hums and brushes a soft kiss to your womb.

His eyes gleam with contentment when he stares down at you, so you reach for him and lure him to lie on top of you, held in your arms.

Javi feels serenity fill him as your hand brushes over his hair while he rests his head on your chest, content to stay like this with you forever, if it were possible.

You feel him relax in your embrace and let out a sated exhale, the warmth of his breath puffing against your breast seeming to be a tired one, so you don't expect him to mumble in a honeyed purr, "Te quiero, mi amor."

Feeling elated, you continue to run your fingers through his hair soothingly as you whisper, "Te amo con todo mi corazón, Javier."

It's the greatest way to fall asleep – being told you love him with all your heart, while held in your arms.

So much so, Javi sleeps soundly through the night, and would've slept long into the late morning if not for the sound of loud revving of a car engine out on the street in front of the house.

Startling awake, Javi shifts up in bed and finds he's alone. Concerned, he clambers out from the rumpled covers and retrieves a pair of sweatpants from the dresser before hastily yanking them on.

"¿Querida?" he calls out as he peeks into the bathroom and finds it empty before walking out through the hallway door towards the main living space.

As he approaches the laundry room's entry, he realizes the loud car engine is coming from a vehicle idling in front of his driveway, so he goes out to see what's going on – and finds a mint-blue Bronco beach cruiser parked at the curb, with you in the driver's seat.

You beep the horn with a spritely smile before sitting up on your knees in the seat so you can shout, "Ready for a beach day, stud?"

Incredulous, he pads over barefoot down the cement drive to the sidewalk when you shut the engine off and retrieve shopping bags from the backseat. He sees you're wearing a halter top-styled peach cover-up dress and watermelon-colored two-piece bikini underneath it.

"Where'd you get this from?" he asks, holding the car door open for you so you can hop out with the bags.

"I rented it," you declare brightly before handing him the bags. "Now, these are for you, so go inside and change," is your wily command before cupping his cheek and kissing his stupefied expression off his handsome face.

Pinching his waist affectionately, you nudge Javi along back up the driveway and into the house while he peeks into the shopping bags and finds several swim trunks, flip flops, and beach shirts – all of which looked like would fit him perfectly.

"What the—I thought you wanted to spend a lazy weekend in?" Javi chuckles as you both make it into the living room.

"Well, I woke up early, and watched the news while I folded the laundry, and they said it's supposed to be a balmy, sunny day," you retort as you follow him into the bedroom, adding, "So I thought it'd be a good excuse to go for a nice seashore excursion. I can't believe you didn't have any bathing suits!"

He laughs, then coughs before answering, "I probably haven't worn one since swim team in high school, guapita."

"Alright, pick one, put it on, and let's go!" is your wily exclamation as you change your own sandals for white hibiscus-patterned flip flops you pulled from the bag.

A short while later and Javier is locking up the door before following you to the beach cruiser, rounding it to get in on the passenger's side after your climb into the driver's seat.

"—Do we need to stop anywhere?" he's asking as you turn the car on. "Any beach snacks? Towels?"

"Ah, I got a cooler filled up already, and I thought we could stop at kioskos for snacks while on the way," you tell him as you reach into the space behind your seat and pull out the lovely beach tote Javier surprised you with. "And, I got the beach towels and necessities packed in here already. So, ready to head out?" is your spunky query, winking at him.

Sitting in the seat next to you, in the light blue beach shirt and navy swim shorts, Javi smirks proudly at your dazzling smile.

"Fuckin' A, I am, bravita. Lead the way."

It's been such a long time since you both spent the day out together, that you're each appreciating every single moment while on the road, at the kiosko pit stops, and even in the stop-and-go traffic on the beach route off of the highway. The sun is out, the breeze is cool, the radio plays the pop station crisply, and the frituras are delicious as you both cruise down the northeast coast of the island, all while you and Javi laugh and banter about.

The scenery becomes more and more lush, tropical, and rural the further you cruise towards the hidden gem of a beach you're telling Javi about, wind in your hair and excitement filling your eyes as you gush, "We're gonna have a bit of a trek on foot, but I promise it's going to be worth it."

"I trust you. I'm just surprised anything is secret, with tourism being as big as it is here," he remarks good-naturedly.

"Ah, true. But there are so many little nooks along the shoreline and people tend to go to the bigger, well-known beaches across the island. My father loved exploring secluded spots, and when I was little, he'd take us to the hidden beaches he'd found growing up," is your exuberant explanation as you pull off the rural backroad onto a rough-trodden path.

Javi is impressed with your knowledge and navigation skills as you steer the beach cruiser over the terrain until you hit a slight hill that flanks a thicket on one side and more lush trees on the other. Maneuvering the vehicle around so it's already pointing back the way you drove in from, you park and put the brake on before reaching in the backseat for the tote. While you do so, Javi gets out and goes to the trunk to grab the little red cooler.

"Ok, it's gonna be about a 10 minute walk this way," you're telling him after you get out of the car and round it to the lush tree line, smiling when Javi chivalrously takes your hand and helps you step around a mucky spot that's in the path.

"You know, this kind of reminds me of that time, in Cartagena," he rumbles ruggedly while you both walk side-by-side, holding hands through the hidden footpath.

"That was just as naughty as this. Even naughtier, even," you snicker and squeeze his hand goofily.

"Shit, is this illegal?" he laconically grumbles, quickly glancing around to see if there are any 'Do not trespass' signs around, posted somewhere amongst the foliage.

"There's no such thing as illegal access to a beach, silly," you tell him, and Javi is about to point out how that doesn't answer his question, when you quickly add, "It would only be illegal if this was a naval-restricted zone, and it isn't. It's naughty because we're going to have the beach all to ourselves, which feels kinda wrong."

Grunting, he rasps, "We could've gone to a regular beach, you know. I was only teasing about lounging on a secret playa just the two of us—"

"Hey, I promised you a seashore adventure, so quit being a modest suavón," you heckle irreverently and tug him along to follow you down a veer in the path.

He chuckles, and decides to do just that, and soon enough you're both stepping around some tall, thick-leafed, cactus-like bushes between a smattering of palm trees to emerge onto the secluded beach shore that looks out on a crescent-shaped cove of turquoise, rolling waves beyond the warm, tan sands. The breeze is placidly swaying the foliage and the cawing of birds in the sunny sky add to the picturesque ambiance of the water lapping up along the coastline.

"Holy shit," Javi gapes, in awe of the beautiful seaside oasis.

Exuberantly, you tug him by his hand along towards the nice spot on the soft tan sands of beach under a shady canopy of palms, telling him, "Watch your step."

Maneuvering over some fallen palm trunks and husks, you both make quick work of staking a favorable spot.

The beach blanket is a big square Javi pins from flopping in the breeze with the red cooler and your tote at the strategic corners, and once you've both gotten down to your swimsuits and folded your clothes to stay warm in the sunny corner of it, you pull out some towels and Javi unrolls them over the blanket while you rifle through the tote.

As you do so, you coquettishly cajole him into sitting with, "C'mon, we have to wait a while before swimming," smiling when he does so before casually reclining back with his arms propped backwards.

His broad shoulders are relaxed as he stares out at the tropical water, making for a delicious sight as you distractedly retrieve the sunscreen from your tote. This hunk is all mine.

With delight, you dutifully rub sunscreen into his shoulders and back, and intend to put the lotion on your own arms and shoulders when Javi plucks the bottle from your hand and has you crawl over to sit in front of him on the towel that he'd draped down for you.

"You know, I could get used to this," Javi muses as he massages the sunscreen into your back, mindful of the bikini straps in his way. When you hum curiously, he elaborates, "Enjoying the sun and sand, staring out at the waves, lounging around with you. Going on getaways together."

"Is that so?" you singsong as you turn and smile at him over your shoulder. At his cocky smirk, you turn completely around so you can lean forward and purr teasingly, "So my plan to romance you into loving island life is working, hm?"

The way the sun catches in his dark brown eyes have them shining like copper when he grins brilliantly and leans back on his elbows so you have to loom over him sexily. "As if it took any real effort. I really like it here, preciosa," is his debonair murmur as he reaches up to tuck some rogue strands of hair behind your ear. "And, I really like my view right now."

You prop your stance with your arms draping around his shoulders and lean closer so you can kiss him tenderly on the lips, before lilting, "Good. I want this to be a place that feels like home."

The way your eyes shone with dazzling delight while the sun's rays frame you, making him feel punch-drunk, bewitch him for a second, so he's disarmed when you suddenly ruffle his hair daringly before hopping up and running down to the shore while shouting over your shoulder, "Now come catch me if you can, special agent guapito!"

Scoffing comically, Javier scrambles up and runs over the hot sand to go in after you.

The afternoon is filled with you both swimming and splashing each other, goofing around and floating in the shallows while the waves lap warmly at the surface, and canoodling buoyantly while you cling to him as you chat and he treads water for you both.

Once you're each tuckered out by the waves, you'd headed back to the beach blanket, toweled off, and lounged together under the sun, laying over your towel while you let the warm rays dry you. He retrieves beverages from the cooler for you both to enjoy while relaxing on post-swim-tired muscles.

Javi's sipping from the ice-cold can of Medalla while you set your soda aside so you can untie the straps of your bikini top before laying out on your stomach.

Staring at the expanse of naked skin exposed to the hot sun now, Javi asks, "You want me to get your back?"

"No, that's ok. I just want to even out so I don't have tan lines," you reply as you fold your arms down and rest with your head pillowed by your pile of clothes.

He hums, and you feel him shift from the spot he'd been sat, before there's a light tug on the strings of one hip on your bikini bottoms. "You forgot about these tan lines," is his rugged drawl as he unties the other hip's strings.

You giggle before sitting up on your folded arms and sassily chastising, "Only you see those tan lines, fresco. So I wasn't planning on going Blue Lagoon out here—!"

"Never saw it," Javi drolly retorts, earning your comical scoff. He mischievously continues, "You said this is a secluded spot, so…" and deliberately tugs the undone bikini bottom off of you.

Laughing, you reply, "Well, the nearest community from here is over a mile away, and the fisherman don't tend to come this way," and roll sidelong to give him a sultry look as you tease, "You really never saw that movie?"

"No way," he snickers, fanning his fingers along the curve of your buttocks to brush off the sand sticking to your cheeks. At your amused, albeit dubious hum, Javier concedes, "My cousins did, though, and talked about how cheesy it was. And, it just seemed weird to have such a young girl prancing around naked like that in a movie."

"Ah, good point," you chime before going to stretch out onto your back, as if you're not completely nude and under the warm rays of the sun. With your eyes closed, you relax and let out a cleansing sigh.

Despite his coaxing, Javi looks around to make sure no one is peeping from the trees at you before asking, "What's the movie about, again?" and resumes drinking from his beer can as he shuffles towards your sunbathing form.

You're basking in the warm heat of the sun and the tranquil breeze as you sense his form sidle close to you.

"It's about two kids who get shipwrecked on a deserted island in the South Pacific during the Victorian era. They grow up together, hit puberty, and start fooling around—"

He watches your breath hitch when his fingertips cooled by the condensation of the beer can skim teasingly along your lithe belly to brush off some clinging sand grains from your skin. "Ah, ok yeah, I remember Carla joking about that," he remarks smoothly while trailing his touch in lazy circles up your midriff towards your breasts, skimming a path up the valley of your sternum before tracing them along your collarbones. "Don't they start fucking like animals in heat?"

It's taking everything in you to keep your eyes closed and not sit up and pounce on him right now, especially when his touch skims back down to map your left areola before he pinches your nipple. Biting back a gasp, you answer tightly, "Y-Yes, and then she gets pregnant but they don't know what's happening to her because they never got the birds and the bees talk."

With an intrigued hum, Javi admires your naked form, relishing how it looks under a sunny sky. The way your nipples hardened even with the heat of the sun keeping your skin warm and dewy. How your tummy tensed with excitement at his touch. You clench your thighs together now, and it draws his gaze to the chalice of your pelvis and the soft curls at your mound, so he swipes more condensation from his can onto his fingers and guides his cooled digits to trace at the heat between your thighs.

Your eyes open as you stifle a mewl and blush furiously under his handsome stare. "Does it have a happy ending?" is his cool query, while his fingers rub delicious pleasure into your now throbbing clitoris, making your cunt drip with need.

Not trusting your voice, you nod and bite your bottom lip as to not whimper too loudly, one hand gripping the towel underneath you while the other clutches at his elbow.

"Maybe we can find a deserted island and spend all our time fooling around," is his canela-roughened rumble in your ear as his fingers work to get you off.

Arching, your thighs clamp around his hand when you orgasm, hearty cry of, 'Javi!' getting muffled against the back of your palm while Javi watches you ride out the waves of pleasure, feeling content and accomplished.

The tingly bliss that settles in as you lay sated and naked under the sunshine fills you with splendor, making you sigh and stare up dreamily at Javier while he licks his fingers clean of your climax before using the edge of the towel to give you aftercare.

Pleased with himself, Javi was about to pick up his can to finish the beer, when you surprise him by taking it from him, draining it with one long drink, and then setting it aside before nudging him to lean back so you can straddle his hips as you slip your hands down the front of his swim trunks.

His erection is thick and throbbing in your palms, and Javi swears hotly before gripping your waist and hitching gruffly with warning, "Q-Querida, we shouldn't—"

"Shh, lay back and let me make love to you, sweet boy," you purr sensually at him before nuzzling his cheek and capturing his lips with yours.

Savage pride flares up in him at your words, so he obeys and lets you push his swim trunks down to free his rock-hard cock, and keeps his hands on your waist while you plunge yourself down on it with slow undulations that have your sheath squeezing and gripping around his length.

Truthfully, if anyone had come upon you and spied from the tree lines, neither of you would've noticed. Not with how fixated on each other's pleasure you both were.

It feels surreal. Being outside, under a tropical sky, the scent of salt, sunscreen, sweat and the heat of the sun above and the sand beneath the blanket mingled with the cool air from the sea and the sounds of untouched nature mixing with your comingled cries of pleasure. It's all a sensory overload. And the sight of you in your naked glory, rocking up and down on his throbbing arousal, is enthralling. You are intent on giving into the need you feel burning under his skin – in the desperate grip of his hands as they clutch your curves with every buck and roll of your hips over him.

Having this little moment of paradise with each other only stokes the blazing desire to quickly sweep up between you, and you can feel Javi's muscles begin to tense under your palms – see how lustrous and dark his eyes have gone with lust.

So, you mewl, "Dámelo, mi amor," as you start to ride him hard, the way you know drives him wild. "I want it, Javi—"

The world spins when Javi sits up and rolls so you're on your back while he looms over you and seats his thumb over the hood of your clit, grinding the thrumming pleasure point deftly and getting you there with him just as his cock starts to swell inside of you.

Your cry of ecstasy is pitched and airy as you come, walls fluttering around him just as he feels the tether of pleasure snap loose in his center. Rapt with delirious bliss, you watch Javi pull out of your drenched heat and stroke himself off to spill his release over your womb and taut tummy as he groans hoarsely from the dizzying effort of staying propped above you while his senses buzz.

When he curls down to sidle next to you with a husky, "Oh fuck," between panting breaths, you smile and cuddle close. "That…that was fucking hot, querida."

Letting out a pleased grunt, you absently trail your fingertips in the pearly essence he left on your skin, before lulling your head to nose into his neck and tut, "It's a naughty getaway. Of course it'd be hot, chulito."

He snorts at that and kisses on you dotingly before shimmying his trunks back up and using the damp towel he'd dried off with earlier to wipe up his cum, then swiping the terrycloth material between your thighs gingerly. You gorgeously smile up at him from heavy-lidded eyes and blushed features as he tends to you, so he kisses your cheek and whispers tenderly, "Wanna lounge for a bit?"

You nod, close your eyes and sigh whimsically, completely uncaring that you're still in the nude. Javi gives a cautionary glance around before laying on his side in a strategic way that allows his broad frame to keep you blocked from view before he stretches out next to you and rests his head on his folded arm.

Thanks to the sun moving in the sky, you both end up napping in the heat-kissed shade, lulled into relaxation by the sound of the waves and the rustling of the palms from the tropical breeze.

When he wakes a short while later, he ends up appreciatively staring at your placid expression. He wishes he could take a picture, and snickers at the thought of your appalled reaction of being snapped in the nude like this.

Your skin is warm as he drapes a towel over your form, which stirs you awake. And when you stare up at him with a sleepy smile, he leans down and kisses you tenderly on the lips before helping you sit up to cuddle into his side as you get your bearings.

Seeing the sun beginning to wane towards the horizon, you both decide to throw your clothes back on and pack up everything so you can make the trek back along the path to the car while it's still light out. You're both pleasantly tan and content as you walk through the lush greenery, and once you're back at the beach cruiser, Javi stores the cooler in the trunk and helps you climb up into the driver's seat before getting in on the passenger's side.

It feels wonderfully surreal that you got to spend the day with him like this, and the giddy contentment of it flutters up from your tummy as you drive and banter in flirty repartee – with every smile and laugh he lets loose.

After getting back to the metropolitan area, you drive to the rental shop, drop off the beach cruiser and get everything into your sedan before Javi chivalrously offers to drive you both home.

The sunset has already come and gone by the time he's pulling up into his driveway and parking behind his car.

Once you've both exited and tend to the beach items in your care, Javi stretches his back as he remarks, "Shit, I am beat."

"It was all the swimming against the waves," you reply while pulling out the blanket from the beach to shake it loose of any sand over the grassy side lot of the fenced in yard from the inside of the marquesina.

With the cooler in his hand, Javi shuts the trunk and rounds the car to walk up to the interior of the garage as you continue shaking out the towels of sand before following him up once he's unlocked the door.

Smugly, he drawls, "That, and all the sun. Not to mention the hot little number—"

His charming gloat becomes a grunt when you pat his tush for him to quit talking filth so you can take your tired self and mosey into the house.

"I'm going to run everything in the wash, so make sure to drop your trunks in too," you tell him with the blanket bundled in your arm and the beach tote on your shoulder, spritely look in your eyes teasing.

"Alright. I'll do that after I dump the ice out of this," is his baritone rumble as he holds the door open for you.

"Ok. I'll run the shower too once I'm done, if you wanna join?" is your flirty invitation as you prep the washer with everything from the beach day.

"Like you need to ask," he chuckles, pinching your side affectionately before loping down the hall towards the kitchen.

Smiling, you quickly set the machine on its cycle before retrieving your other belongings from the tote and taking it down to the bedroom. Once you've slipped them back into your purse and stored the beach tote on a shelf in the closet, you head to the bathroom to run the shower.

You'd just finished getting the eucalyptus stems down from the shower head to be set aside on the vanity, then started reaching behind yourself to undo the halter drawstring of your dress when you feel Javier come up behind you and caress his touch up your bare back before pulling the fastening loose for you.

His lips graze a teasing path from the back of your shoulder up the slope of your neck as he works the dress down your body to pool at your feet, earning a breathy giggle and for you to take his hands and loop his embrace around your waist.

It's then when he presses flush against you from behind that you feel he's already naked, so you snicker, "Did you strut in the buff through the house?"

"You said to put my swimsuit in the wash, mandona," he purrs puckishly into your ear as he starts herding you towards the shower stall. "C'mon, let's get the saltwater out of our hair."

You merrily oblige your brazen hunk, and soon are under the hot cascade, rinsing the soap and suds from your hair while Javi works his fingers through your waterlogged tresses for you.

"Mmm, your turn," is your blithe sigh as you turn and maneuver around him so he's facing the showerhead. His chuckle is warm as you lather the shampoo into his hair, so you deride, "What's so funny, chavón?"

"I just pictured how silly we probably look right now. With you on your tippy toes, washing my hair for me," is his humored retort, and he makes his point by standing on tiptoe so you have a hard time reaching the crown of his soapy curls.

Scoffing, you playfully swat his bicep and grunt for him to stop being silly. "Pórtate bien, fresco. Or else you're getting a spankin' before bedtime," is your saucy threat.

With an amused snort, he resumes letting you wash his hair, and ends up smirking into the showerhead's spray after you daringly nudge his head into the cascade.

Not to be outdone, Javi shifts carefully around and shakes the excess water logged in his thick hair to splash about, wetting your face and earning a squeal of laughter from you as you try to pinch his sides for him to stop.

"You dork!"

"You missed some suds, baby."

"You're incorrigible!"

"You love it, bravita."

With a haughty huff, you roll your eyes and slick his hair back from his forehead before pouting goofily and conceding, "Dammit, I do."

His laugh fills your chest with joy and makes you wrap your arms around his shoulders so you can kiss his cheek and nuzzle his jaw cutely.

He lets you put conditioner in his hair, but while you slather some into your own, he tries to stifle a yawn as he soaps himself up.

"Alright. My hair's gonna take a while, so you finish up and get the room ready for bed?" you suggest as you dutifully maneuver around again so he can face the cascade.

"Yes, patrona," is his crooning musing as he turns so the water can rain down on the crown of his head before washing down his shoulders and back. "Air on tonight?"

"Yeah," you retort and smile when he slicks the water back from his hair and cups your side so he can lean down and kiss your lips before shimmying by you to open the glass stall door.

"I'll lock up the house too," he remarks as he towels dry before wrapping the fluffy terrycloth around his waist and exiting through the bedroom door of the bathroom.

You're smitten as you luxuriate in the shower for a little longer, and after getting out and combing your hair, you day dream about all the fun spent at the beach with Javi. By the time you're finished blow drying your luscious hair, you are fantasizing about more little getaways with Javi. Driving up to el campo and having a picnic? Would he want to chinchorrear down to the western coast? Oh, maybe we could stay at a bed and breakfast on the beach in the south?

Whimsically thinking of all the possibilities, you hang up your towel and go into the bedroom, expecting to find Javier with a whiskey, lounging in bed while watching the evening news.

Instead, you find him passed out in bed, lying on his back with one arm draped over his stomach – TV remote in hand – and the other jammed behind the pillows his head was propped up against. He didn't even bother with boxers or sleep bottoms, instead looking like he sprawled out on the bed in his birthday suit and tossed the comforter over his lap before exhaustion took a hold of him. The air conditioner's ambient hum and the undulating current of cooled air clearly lulled him to sleep, and you can't help fawn at how peaceful he is in his well-earned slumber, albeit snoring with his mouth open.

You turn off the light of the bathroom before shutting the door and tiptoeing soundlessly to your side of the bed, where he'd left the lamplight on and had a nice glass of water waiting for you.

It makes your heart summersault in your chest. God, I love this man so much.

Slinking into bed with him, you turn off the lamp, gently grab the remote, and shut the TV before pulling the comforter up to cover you both.

With your head resting on his chest, you cuddle into him and melt when he shifts in his sleep so he can wrap his arm around your back and nuzzle the top of your hair. It feels like sheer bliss fills you up, and it's easy for you to relax and fall asleep, heart feeling full and settled.

You both spend Sunday in bed, with meals shared over the covers breaking up the moments of carnal delight underneath the covers.

By the time the work week begins, you're both refreshed, albeit suntanned, when you return to your hectic schedules.

Javier gets razzed by Steve for looking like he spent the weekend 'canoodling under the sun' with you, and he tells you about it while he makes dinner later that night.

Once midweek comes around, you're telling Javi about the barbecue plans for Saturday, and he passes it along to Steve the following morning while they're walking back to their office. Since work travel was over for the next few weeks, and everyone was finally recovered from the flu, you, Anita and Connie had agreed that it seemed like the perfect time to all get together and socialize around a grill in a shady backyard, with drinks and delicious dishes.

"That'll be nice. I'll get Connie to make her famous mac n'cheese, and I got my mom's succotash recipe," Steve volunteered to Javier, looking forward to unwinding over good food and drinks with Connie and other adults without chatter about work or reruns of Barney the Dinosaur for a change.

Making it to the end of the busy week, you don't even realize you've put all previous worries and stresses out of your mind completely. Instead, you're looking forward to asking Javi if he got the email invitation to the gala you'd mentioned the week prior.

After you both get home to his place, you go to his bedroom to get out of your work outfit while you eagerly tell him about the details for the ritzy shindig.

"—Oh, I don't use that thing. I have my admin or Segarra review messages and let me know."

"Ugh, really? You have a state-of-the-art laptop, Javier. Don't tell me you're gonna keep dodging using it—"

"Maybe I'd bother with it, after some tutoring from the sexy director who makes it look oh-so-easy to use—"

Exhaling dramatically to keep from laughing while you're unbuttoning your blouse, you prod, "So? Does that mean you weren't informed of the gala's details?"

Rolling up his shirt sleeves before plunking himself down on the bed, he knowingly asks, "You really wanna go to that?"

Pausing in undressing the rest of your work ensemble off, you frown. "You don't want to?"

"Oh, I do. I'm just surprised you want to go together. Making it public and all," is his smartass, albeit goading purr as he reclines on the bed with his hands folded behind his head. "We haven't told Mercer—"

Deciding two can play this instigating game, you scathe smoothly, "We haven't had a chance to, seeing as you're the one that's been busy and traveling."

Javi's lips snap shut into a pout, brows knitting together peevishly, because you are absolutely right.

"And anyway…we don't need his permission or blessing. Telling him would be a courtesy," you state charmingly as you finish stripping out of your fitted slacks, tossing them aside in the hamper with your matching blouse before going to the foot of the bed and crawling over to prowl towards him in only your black bra and panty set. His pout melts into that chiseled expression of want when you loom over him before plucking one of his shirt buttons undone as you chime, "That's if he hasn't heard any rumors already."

Humming, Javi sits up so he can tow you to lounge next to him as he pivots onto his hip.

You smirk coquettishly at him as he possessively caresses his hand along the curve of your derrière before grumbling, "The rumors from before, or are there ones about us being together now?"

"Well, definitely about us being secretly together back at the embassy. I'm actually not very sure if there are rumors about us being together currently," is your frank retort as you toy with undoing the rest of his shirt's buttons.

"I know one asshole who knows about us and doesn't care," Javi grouses in a surly tone, and at your curious hum, he huffs, "That Bozzi guy, the head of the FBI down here?"

Expecting you to tut and chastise him for being unjustifiably jealous, Javi's instead surprised when you scoff and ridicule, "Ugh, he is so insufferable! Is that why he's been laying it on so thick? Some macho bravado thing where he's trying to woo me or something?"

"…Wait. He's tried to flirt with you?" Javier growls, expression etching with aggravation.

You sigh, knowing he's going to get ornery now, but figure it was your own fault for even instigating the conversation. "Yes, but he's been overly friendly since I started working at the federal building," you tell him, seeing his nostrils flare crossly from his exhale as his temper starts to boil, so you quickly redirect, "Wait, how do you know he's onto us and doesn't care?"

Glowering, Javi admits, "That prick was overheard telling Vernon, from the ATF, that you'd caught his eye and he'd be trying to romance you. When Vernon told him you were already spoken for as far as he'd heard, Bozzi told him that there wasn't a ring on your finger so you were fair game…"

At hearing that, instead of being outraged, you burst into laughter. "What?! I'm "fair game"?! What a chauvinist," you heckle humorously and shake your head before noticing Javier's not amused. "Ay, Javi. You're really jealous over that fool?" is your sassy huff before you nudge his shoulder and bossily assure, "Quit being surly and listen! Now that I know he's flirting me up for sport and to be disrespectful of our relationship, I'll put him in his place the next time he tries to fish and banter."

Cracking a smile, Javi gruffly drawls, "It might be safer to just put a ring on your finger, guapita."

Mirthfully, you laugh – obviously not even reading much into the ring suggestion being anything more than repartee, and snicker with effervescent charm, "And miss out on the satisfaction of wiping that cocky smirk from his face?"

"I'd much rather be the one to do that, with my fist," he counters with a rugged baritone that makes a little thrill skitter up your spine, combined by his dark brewed eyes pinning you with a purposeful look. "Anyway…next time I'm in the federal building for the week, we'll go meet with Mercer."

Smiling, you fold your arms along his shoulders and lean into him as you purr, "Ok, gruñón. Sounds like a plan," before kissing him sultrily on the lips.

The next morning is spent running around doing errands before heading to your apartment after spending the whole week at Javier's. You both lug everything up from your carport spot and stop at the lobby so you can pick up any deliveries from your unit's mail slot, then head into the elevator together.

"—We don't have to spend the whole week at my place, babe. I just want to tend to things I neglected," you're telling him after the elevator doors open to your floor and you both exit with everything in hand.

"I'm fine with alternating. Plus with that gala at the end of next week, it'll be easier to go there from here," Javi is assuring as you unlock the door and enter your apartment.

You put the two grocery bags and stack of mail you were carrying onto the kitchen counter. "Yeah, it's going to be at El San Juan Hotel," you tell him as you start to put away the perishable items and leave out the ingredients for the food you'd be making to take over to the barbecue in the afternoon. Rounding the counter, you kick your shoes off next to the stool and pad barefoot over to play the messages left on your answering machine before going back to the kitchen to get the big pitcher you use to water your plants.

Javier dutifully carries the big bag of toiletries he bought at the grocery store so he didn't have to keep living out of his travel bag at your place, and lopes down the hall with it. His duffle is filled with new clothes to leave at your place in hung on his shoulder, and he's carefully carrying the dry-cleaning you picked up on the way over while balancing the shopping bag. He tosses the duffle onto the bed and shifts the bag in one arm as he's hanging the dry-cleaning up in the closet, all while listening to your answering machine play through the messages down the hall.

"—Mija, hope all is well. I should be home in a few weeks, but was hoping to check in and see how you're doing. Give me a call when you can," he hears your father's deep baritone voice echo from the living room, along with your musing sigh as you close the sliding door after watering your plants in order to go into the kitchen cabinet for the pots and pans that you'll need.

"You gonna call him back?" Javi calls out as he carries the bag into the bathroom in order to unpack the toiletries.

"When are you going to call your father, mister?" you razz right back, but he can hear the grin in your voice.

"Maybe tomorrow," Javi answers, smiling at your musing singsong of a hum as he opens the medicine cabinet and places his shaving cream, razor handle and replacement heads in, followed by his aftershave. "Probably call him in the evening, since he'll likely be coming back from Sunday dinner at my aunt's," is his remark as he continues storing his shampoo and soap on the rack in the shower stall, then goes to store his cologne and deodorant on the vanity before opening the small drawer next to the sink counter in order to place the set of clippers he'd bought to trim his moustache with, along with the second hair comb that came in the packaging with the main comb he'd just placed in the cylindrical holder with your hairbrush.

But then his attention pauses on the item that's already in the drawer, making all thoughts skid to a halt.

"That sounds nice. I might wait to call mine, though," you remark out loud after the answering machine starts playing the next message.

While it does so, and you listen to the caller hesitate before hanging up – which triggers you to remember the same thing had happened weeks ago, Javier is picking up the circular plastic case from the drawer before opening it to look at the birth control pill pack within.

His heart skips a beat and adrenaline races through his bloodstream at seeing the month supply of pills was intact, save for a week and two days' worth of pills missing; the plastic confines of which were popped empty. Javi wracks his brain, trying to remember the last time he saw you reach into your purse for your contraceptives, or whenever you'd taken one of the little rounded pills with a glass of water.

Dimly, he realizes that he cannot recall a single time seeing you take the pill since he'd been on the island.

"—Hola, nena. Call me when you get this. Rafa wants our help ring shopping for Naida! Let me know what day works for you. Llámame, bye!" Zoraida's voice chipperly directs from the answering machine, which makes you smile and disregard the message before it, and for you to ignore the telemarketer message that starts to play next while you start to prepare the dishes for the barbecue.

"Oh, I forgot to ask! Do you like your potato salad with mayonnaise, or without it?" you call out as you begin to peel the potatoes while the water pot heats on the burner.

Javier is so gob smacked by the discovery of the birth control case and his fruitless attempt to find a date or label that could answer when you stopped taking the pills that it takes his brain a moment to register your question.

"Uh, without! B-But, whatever you feel like making—"

"Ellis likes his with mayonnaise, so I'll just make two; one with, and one without," you assure as you run the sink tap to rinse the potatoes.

Javi nods vacantly, still staring at the birth control, as if the little, different shades of blue pills will reveal to him the answer. She hasn't been here in over a week, so at the very least…

He gulps, realizing that didn't mean you'd forgotten to take them. After all, you'd always kept the case in your purse. The fact it was in the sink vanity's drawer meant something very different.

"Did you find enough drawer space for your stuff?" your voice calls out from the kitchen, snapping Javier out of his ruminating to hurriedly return the birth control case back to the drawer and shut it soundlessly.

You do hear the sound of his footsteps moving in the back of the hall, as if from one room to another, so you deposit the potatoes in the boiling water before striding down to check on him.

"You need me to move anything?" is your query as you round into the doorway of your bedroom and find Javier sorting through his duffle, with a few items set into stacks on the bed already.

He clears his throat before replying, "No, no I think there's plenty of room still in the drawer."

Briskly walking towards your dresser, you open the top drawer and arrange a few items more neatly so there's more storage space. "Just go ahead and use any of the empty space in these to put your folded stuff, and leave any of your shirts on the chair so I can iron them later," is your jovial instruction as you grab a hair scrunchy and quickly twist your hair up into a bun so it's out of the way while you cook.

Javi grunts in acknowledgement and hurriedly dumps the rest of the items in his duffle onto the bed so he can duck out into the closet to store the bag before you turn and notice how addled he looks. "So what time are we going over?" he asks, weighing his options on whether to confront you about the birth control pills now, or later. Or should he bring it up at all? Should he wait for you to tell him what's going on?

"I figure as soon as the food is ready and I can pack it for the drive over? So, about an hour or so?" you reply as you go to open the windows in your bedroom to have the air flow increase and cool the space. "I just want to stop at Sweet Ann Cakes to pick up a tarta de frutas on the way. Oh! That reminds me, I have to call ahead for it," is your rushed remark as you run to grab the phone from the console in the living room and do just that.

Internally swearing, Javi decides he can't bring it up. Not before the barbecue. If at all today.

So, he stews about how to eventually broach the topic while he stores his clothes in the dresser, and his mind spins up with what ifs.

Maybe she's taking a different medication…Or she just takes it at a time I'm not around?

He gulps as the next thought barrels over them all.

What if she's just afraid to tell me…that because of everything that's happened between us, she's scared to tell me she's pregnant?

Just when he feels like he's going to gnaw a raw spot into the inside of his cheek from absently worrying it between his teeth, he hears your footfalls return from the hall.

"Oh, by the way, here."

Javi turns and is surprised to see a set of keys on a hibiscus-shaped keychain ring you hold up and dangle invitingly for him to take.

"Long overdue, especially since I got your house keys without your permission, technically," is your flirty musing, expression open and expectant for his wry comment.

That warm feeling that itches behind his breastbone has him proudly taking the keys before pulling you into his arms and kissing you amorously.

You kiss him with gusto before leaning back and snickering, "Mmm, quit wooing me! I got food on the stove," and affectionately squeezing his waist before rushing to sprint back down to the kitchen with, "Keep unpacking, guapetón."

He manages to keep his anxious thoughts guarded after that, easily maintaining them while you're busying yourself in the kitchen. Then, whilst he dutifully carries the packed dishes down to the car for you while you rush to finish getting ready, he focuses on feeling proud that you trust him enough to give him the keys to your place. It helps stopping his thoughts from getting preoccupied with the what ifs stampeding through his mind while he drives you to the cute artisanal bakery so you can hurry in and pick up the cake.

"Cooking three dishes should be more than enough for your barbecue contribution, no?" he can't help ask as you unfasten your seatbelt and shoulder your purse.

"It is, but I thought it'd be nice to have something for dessert," you chime lightly before leaning over the center console to kiss his cheek. "Be right back!"

He watches you stride up to the entrance, checking out your denim short-clad ass and the way your hair sways in the wind, black tunic top with red embroidery fluttering with your movements as you go into the shop, and he lets out the breath he didn't know he was holding.

You'd been looking forward to the gathering for weeks, and when you'd come down to the car in the flirty ensemble, wearing one of your favorite tunic tops? Happy and vibrantly chatting away? His stubborn will cemented his decision, so he internally insisted that he keep it all in check.

Fuck's sake. Do not ruin this day, you jackass.

The mantra is on loop in his head once you come back out with the cake, and the entire drive over to the suburban neighborhood Ellis and Anita live at.

It's a quiet suburb within walking distance of many of the parks in the area, and about twenty minutes west of Javier and Steve's gated neighborhood, and as you direct him down the avenue to turn into the main entrance, he wonders to himself if soon you'll both need to go house hunting for a bigger abode.

"There, that's their place. You can park right behind that car. That's Anita's, and I'm sure she's not going to be driving out," you point and tell him, balancing the boxed-up cake on your lap.

Doing as you directed, Javi quickly parks, turns the car off, and helps you retrieve the food from the backseat.

Anita's already opening the door and hustling out to help before you've both finished closing the car doors.

"Hey, guys! Hold on, let us help. Ellis! Come out and help with the food. Oh, is this the arroz con pollo?! I told you not to go through the trouble, Celina—!"

"Ah, stop. It's no trouble at all!" you convivially dismiss as you kiss her hello on the cheek.

"Score! You brought that delicious cake too?!" you hear Ellis cheer affably as he comes over and grabs one of the totes housing the two versions of potato salad before clapping Javier on the shoulder in greeting. "You spoil us."

"Nah, that's all her," Javi chuckles and nods towards you before kissing Anita hello on the cheek and grabbing the boxed cake from you chivalrously so he can carry it in for you.

You can't help check him out as he chats with Ellis and walks towards the entrance, loving how those blue 'fuck me' jeans sculpt to his ass and his long legs, and how the soft yellow button-down shirt clings to his broad shoulders while the sleeves hike up his muscular biceps.

Anita catches your eye and wiggles her brows knowingly at you, so you stifle a giggle and nudge her to walk ahead of you.

Once you're all inside the air-conditioned single-story home, Javier is offered a beer and ushered out to the back patio where the grill is and the adjacent sitting area where Anita's parents are. After you and Anita store the food to stay warm on the stove and put the cake box in the fridge, you go out and join the boys as Javier is politely shaking hands with Anita's folks.

After greeting them as well, you dramatically turn towards your friends. "And where is the cutie?" you inquire and make grabby hands, as if to say, 'I want to see the baby.'

"Oh, come inside. She's down for her nap," Anita cheerily replies and gestures for you and Javi to follow her. "Steve and Connie should be here soon with the kids. Do you think Olivia will like the swing set?"

"I guess we'll find out," Javi drawls irreverently as he puts his beer down on the patio table, cups your lower back and ushers you through the sliding door while you both follow your friend towards the side of the house with the bedrooms.

As you walk by a credenza that's against the wall across from the space between the living room and kitchen, you notice the big flower arrangement you'd let Ellis take for Valentine's was set behind some framed photos among the pretty artisan crafts from Colombia that decorated the table top.

"Wow, those flowers are pretty," you point out, admiring how many of the blooms from the original bouquet were still thriving.

"Aren't they so lovely!? Ellis surprised me with that arrangement for Valentine's Day," she practically swoons, smiling brightly as you expertly feign like it was the first time that you'd seen the lavish bouquet.

Javier realizes that is the arrangement that was sent to you anonymously at the office, and it makes his hackles rise, knowing someone was vying for your affection with such an ostentatious gift. But, before he can comment, he notices one of the picture frames houses a photo of you and another man, stood side-by-side under what looks like the crossing of a church – with the altar in the background, and an adorable looking baby dressed in white cradled in your arms.

"Who's that?" Javi finds himself asking as he points at the tall, dark-haired and blue-eyed attractive man.

Anita squints knowingly over at you while she answers, "Oh, that's Ellis' little brother, Trevor. He and Celina are Delilah's godparents."

"Hmph," Javi hums tactfully before grunting at your wry elbow to his side.

"No te pongas celoso, querido."

"He's got his arm around you, though."

"For the picture, obviously!"

Laughing, Anita assures, "Don't worry, Javi. Trevor was interested, but Celina turned him down—"

"Anita!" you exclaim admonishingly and scoff when she innocently shrugs.

Javi showily puts his arm around your shoulders and puckishly mutters, "See? I'm justified."

"Hush, chavón. You're holding up the tour," is your quippy lilt as you loop your arm around his waist and squeeze with mischievous affection.

Getting to the end of the hall and opening the door quietly, you both follow Anita into the darkened bedroom towards the baby's crib. Javi smiles warmly when you lean down and brush the wispy curls framing her ear, smitten with how your eyes fill with nothing but doting sweetness for the little one. It makes heat bristle in his apex and something fledgling quiver in his chest.

Cautiously exiting the bedroom to not stir the baby, you all walk back to the patio while you and Anita gush about how cute Delilah is.

"—She's finally sleeping better, which is a relief. Ellis wants to take her to Sears and get her pictures done, but I think she's still too small for all that," Anita is telling you both as you walk out to rejoin the others.

"Give it a month or two, and then she should be big enough to pose for a photoshoot!" Ellis insists affably as he hands Javier back his beer before tending to the grill while remarking, "Got about an hour on the drumsticks, but the ribs are almost ready. I got a few steaks we can throw on later, too."

The doorbell chimes from inside the house, so Anita rushes to answer the front door, and returns a few minutes later with the Murphys in tow.

"What, you running on Puerto Rican time now?" Javier can help razz as he sets his beer aside and says hello to Connie before pulling out a patio chair for her.

"Yeah, right. Isabel spilled a whole sippy cup's worth of juice all over herself right as we were getting her in the car seat," Steve laments while the baby in his arm happily tugs on the front of his red polo's collar.

Since he had the baby's carrier in his other hand, Connie was carrying the diaper bag and a tote with all the potluck dishes she'd made, while Olivia carried her latest favorite dolly.

"Aww. Well you made in just in time," you chime as you kiss Steve hello on the cheek and smile at the baby before greeting Connie in the same fashion.

Ellis greets them in turn before Anita helps divest them of the dishes and sets up a spot for the carrier while you and Javi introduce the Murphys to Anita's parents.

"Mami, can I go on the swing?" Olivia asks, big brown eyes pleading as Connie hurriedly tries to brush her hair from her face after placing the heavy diaper bag down on the patio chair for now.

"Have you said hello to everyone first?" is her motherly retort as she pulls her periwinkle blouse's hem down and smoothens out her light wash jean shorts from rolling up her thighs.

Dutifully, Olivia goes up to Javi and waves for him to lean down so she can kiss him on the cheek. "Hi!" and then scampers over to do the same with you before going to the other adults and waving hello. "Can you push me on the swing?" she asks Javi after scampering back towards him from placing her dolly on a patio chair.

"Sure thing," he warmly retorts before gesturing for you to come along as he offers, "I can push you both. As high as you want."

Snickering, you joke, "Only if I get to push you later."

"Fine by me," Javi drawls charismatically.

"Sit and take a load off, you two," Anita insists amiably to the Murphys, setting out the appetizers and refreshments for everyone to enjoy.

"I wish I had a swing set at home."

"I thought you liked going to the park?"

"I do, but I wish I had a swing set and a playhouse. Some of my friends at school have them in their backyard. Do you have a swing where you live, Celina?"

"I don't, so this is fun," you reply to the little girl as you both swing along while Javi pushes you both gently, at the same time.

While you three are at the swing set, you don't realize Connie has pulled Steve's camera out from the diaper bag and silently cajoled him to switch giving her Isabel for it so he can snap a few pictures of you three having fun.

Just as Anita and Ellis are answering questions about where they got the backyard set, the sudden sound of staticky crying filters over from the baby monitor they'd set out on one of the outdoor accent tables by the sliding door. Anita goes inside to check on the baby while Ellis keeps the conversation going.

"—Lucked out today. Just sunny and breezy. Perfect grillin' weather," is his musing, sipping from his beer before asking, "Oh, does Olivia like hot dogs? I have some I can throw on the grill."

"You hungry, Olivia?" Steve shouts over at the precocious girl who is swinging a little higher than he expected. "Take it easy, Jav!"

"What? She asked to go higher," Javier retorts while Olivia lets out a conspiratorial giggle.

"Javi, más suave," you amusedly tut at him, so he chivalrously guides Olivia's swing to slow its momentum a bit, before naughtily pushing you higher. "Javier!"

He laughs and quickly takes hold of your seat to help slow the momentum for you, and you have to try to look rueful instead of exhilarated when you turn and glower at him.

"Que malo eres," you snipe humorously under your breath as you leave the swing and pinch his arm lightly.

Olivia parrots, "Javi es malo."

Grinning, you triumphantly watch Javier pout as he litigates to the little girl, "No soy malo de verdad."

"Um, what's that mean?" she pipes as she hops down from the swing seat.

"He's just saying he's not really bad," you answer for him and lean up to kiss him on the cheek. "But he was being a silly brat."

"Hmph," he grumbles wordlessly and pulls a mock frown, which only makes Olivia laugh. "Alright, let's go have snacks."

The little girl marches over to the patio table to do just that, so you flirtatiously wink at Javi and hold your hand out for him. Smirking, he takes it, and you tow him down to join everyone around the table.

Anita emerges from the house with Delilah held in the crook of her arm while she swishes the bottle of baby formula. "Amá, can you take her for me? I want to make drinks for the girls," she asks of her mother.

"Let her madrina have some face time," you volunteer and go over so Anita can hand you the baby and bottle before you sit in the vacant chair adjacent Connie.

"I'll help you with the drinks," Anita's mother offers while she gestures for Javier to sit in her seat. "Do you want anything stronger than beer, you two?" she asks of him and Steve.

"I'm fine with a beer, thank you," Steve assures, and Javi seconds with a nod before reclaiming his own and drinking from it.

"Ellis, I'll grab the hot dogs from the fridge. You watch the grill," Anita's father remarks as he follows them into the house.

While Olivia enjoys the little cheese and crackers from the snack dish, the adults around her chatter conversationally.

As everyone talks about local events, Javi watches you from across the table while you listen and simultaneously feed Delilah her bottle.

Seeing you hold such a small baby, glancing down at her every so, and smiling? It makes something primal and nurturing bloom in his chest. The back of his neck gets hot when he glances over and realizes Steve's caught him staring at you, so he sits up straighter and drinks a long pull from his beer.

By the time the hot dogs are on the grill and the tray of frozen drinks has come out to the table, you're already burping the baby, gently patting her back while cradling her to your shoulder.

"Oop, 'scuse you," you mumble sweetly to the baby when she lets out a hiccup of a burp and yawns against your shoulder. When Anita sits next to you and slides over the frozen cocktail to you, you reluctantly hand Delilah back. "Dito, she's already sleepy."

"Yeah, but trust me – it won't last for long," Anita sighs as she rocks the baby in her arms. "I made you a daiquiri, but let me know if you'd prefer a margarita—"

"Ah, no way! No tequila drinks for me," you exclaim and shake your head before sipping from the fruity daiquiri.

"Are you allergic to tequila?" Connie asks before thanking Ellis for the plate of hotdogs she begins to dutifully cut into smaller morsels for Olivia.

"No, I don't think so, but the last time I had it, I got so sick, I couldn't get out of bed for almost two days," you explain, grimacing at the mere recall. "I swore to never have tequila again after that."

Cataloguing that in his personal record of knowledge about your likes and dislikes, Javier remarks coolly to the group, "She's a Cuba Libre gal, anyway."

"Hah, remember when the fellas at Mil Group used to call you Miss Cuba Libre?" Ellis chuckles as he rotates some of the drumsticks.

"Actually, that was you and Samson who came up with that," you counter aloofly before realizing you've mentioned the former field operations analyst in Javier's presence.

"What's a Cuba Libre?" Olivia pipes up before eating a piece of hotdog she's just dipped in ketchup.

"It's a tropical drink only for grown-ups," Javier answers as he steals a piece of hotdog from her plate, popping it in his mouth and chewing with gusto while he squints goofily at her.

You internally breathe a sigh of relief at Javi's unruffled demeanor.

Since there aren't enough seats around the patio table, you get up and offer yours to Ellis once the ribs are ready and he's serving them.

"I'm going to pace myself for the barbecue chicken," you tell him as you go sit on the swing.

Javier gets up from his seat, remarking, "And I'm leaving room for the steak," as he goes over to sit on the swing next to you, eyeing you charmingly as he croons, "Still up for pushing me?"

Snickering, you go to stand behind him, and with all your might, you push him by the center of his back to get the momentum forward to swing.

The swing set protests with squeaks the more Javi gains speed, and you can't help deride, "Uh oh, I think you exceed the size limit for this, chulito."

As he swings backwards, he deliberately leans back so he can taunt in a gravelly pitch, "Wouldn't be the first time, preciosa."

You laugh in that scandalized, yet tickled way he loves before swatting his shoulder and hissing conspiratorially, "No seas fresco."

Digging his boot heels into the soft grass, he stops swinging and sits on the seat before guiding you to move around in order to swoop you into sitting across his lap.

Holding you to him, he kisses your cheek, and whispers in your ear, "I'm already doing a lot to control myself, guapita. But you're making it very hard."

The apples of your cheeks heat up at the double entendre, especially when all your friends are not even ten feet away.

You turn your head and angelically smile before pecking him chastely on the lips. "Behave, or else you're getting punished when we get home," is your murmured whisper, seductive tone not matching your serene smile.

You stand and strut back to the table, leaving Javier to pine for you before going to join Ellis and Steve by the beer cooler.

Once the rib appetizer has been partaken in, Ellis gets back to the grill to work on the next round of meat while you go with Connie inside to help retrieve all the side dishes.

Taking the baby so Anita can help hand out plates and cutlery, Ellis holds her in the crook of his arm while Steve and Javi go to the cooler and crack open another round of beers for the men.

The breeze in the shady backyard has dissipated by the time Ellis is planning on throwing on the seasoned cuts of steak to the grill, and just as he's about to ask Anita to take the baby, she's come out with them on a glass bake dish and sets it on the grill's side table.

"Ugh, the bugs are coming out now. Come, let's eat at the table inside," Anita directs, so you all collect the plates and platters to do just that.

"Ah, crap. I forgot to bring back out the barbecue and steak sauce," Ellis grumbles, quickly turning to see everyone but he and Javier have moseyed into the house already. So, without batting an eye, he pivots towards the other man and practically bestows the docile baby at a surprised Javier, who clumsily takes her in a broad-armed cradle as Ellis rushes out, "Here, hold her for a sec while I run in and whip the sauce up for the drumsticks. I'll be right back!"

At being in an unfamiliar hold, Delilah squirms and looks up at Javier, almost questioningly.

"It's ok. I got you," he tells her in a soft, cooing tone to quiet her fussing while he carefully rocks her.

Inside the house, you're just finishing pointing out to everyone which of the casserole dishes is the potato salad with mayonnaise when you hear Steve chuckle as he steps back out through the sliding door, and jokes, "She's looking grumpy there, Jav. Maybe don't hold her like a bomb that's about to go off."

You look in direction of the patio and see Javier holding Delilah while shooting a laconic look at Steve before he adjusts the way his arms are cradled to better hold the baby, nestling her close to his chest.

The sight of him standing broad-shouldered and tall, with the gentle smile on his face as he looks down at the baby when she grabs a little fistful of his yellow shirt? Watching as the nervous tension melts from his posture as he rocks the baby and chats with Steve? It makes a fluttering ache fizzle up in your core before your heart winces at the thought you've tried to bury deep.

He'd make a wonderful father. But you won't be able to do that for him.

The sting of tears threatens to crest up in you, but you take a cleansing breath and distract yourself with cleaning up the kitchen counter while everyone else is busy serving food and settling to sit at the table, chatting away.

Meanwhile, Javier is keeping his attention on the little baby while Steve peppers him with questions.

"—So you're definitely going to that gala together?"

"That's the plan."

"But you haven't disclosed it to Mercer yet."

"Nope."

"Do you plan on doing that before the party?"

"I was planning to the next time it's my turn to be at the building."

"Hm. You ever gonna get around to putting a ring on her finger?"

"…You're lucky I'm holding this baby, and can't swear at you right now."

"I know. That's why I brought it up."

Sighing, Javi glances at his buddy. "I've been thinking about it. But I told you – I've got no clue what to get her. And I feel like I gotta do a few things first before I can make the move," is his honest retort.

"Like what?" Steve asks before drinking his beer.

"Get things on solid ground between us. There's still a lot of making up I gotta do after Colombia…" is his musing, pausing before adding, "I also want to ask permission."

"…From who?" Steve grunts before asking, "Her dad?"

"Yeah. Before, when they weren't on speaking terms still, I had wanted to ask her grandmother for her blessing…but I didn't get a chance to. Now, that they've mended their relationship, I feel like I should go to him and ask," he explains, and at Steve's quirked brows, he grumbles, "It sounded like it was important, within the family. I don't want to cause friction between them, and my track record isn't great—"

"Getting the presumptive father-in-law to like you, you mean?" Steve rasps in a knowing drawl, hand shoved into his pocked while he swigs his beer with the other one.

Delilah yawns and wriggles in his arms, so Javi quips, "Even she's bored of you, Captain Obvious."

Ellis returns with his secret barbecue sauce then, so they drop the topic and strike up convo with the man as he works on the grill.

When the boys come back into the house with the tray piled high with meat a little while later, they find everyone merrily chatting while Isabel sleeps in her carrier and Olivia is wrapped in her coloring book, sat on the stool at the counter.

Anita takes Delilah from Javier and goes to check her diaper before putting her down for a nap while the buffet-style dinner commences. By the time she comes back, she sets the baby monitor on the kitchen counter and joins everyone in food and banter.

Eventually, with the kids preoccupied, the adults talk about current world events, and during coffee and dessert, the conversation turns to 'the trial of the century,' of which you hadn't been paying much attention to.

"—Whole new meaning to 'the Juice is loose,' I say. The guy is totally guilty," Ellis is wisecracking, to Anita's wry chagrin.

"Ay, you and that trial," is her chastising huff before she takes a bite of the delicious cake you brought over. "You all haven't been watching it, right?"

"Only the nightly news recaps, after we put the kids to bed," Connie replies as she sips her coffee.

"It seems like a pretty open and shut case," Steve remarks conversationally as he contemplates having another slice of the scrumptious cake.

"Do you think so?" Anita's father asks Javi, glancing at you too as he remarks, "We've heard a lot of people believe otherwise."

"Honestly, I don't know enough about it. When we get home, we're usually so preoccupied with other things that we usually only have enough energy left to watch local news together," is Javi's loaded, smug comment, to which you scoff and swat his thigh haughtily while he cockily stays reclined in his seat, with his arm along the back of your chair.

Everyone exchanges chuckles before changing the conversation to other topics.

By the end of the early evening, you're all packing up leftovers to take home before exchanging praise over the food shared, and thanking the Roses for hosting the barbecue.

"—Wanna go shopping this week? I don't have a dress I can fit in for the gala," Anita asks you and Connie as the men stow things in the cars.

"Sure. I have a dress in mind for it already, but I was thinking of getting a different pair of shoes for it," you tell them, and after some more chit chat on the way to the front yard, you all make shopping plans for after work later in the week.

Saying goodbye to everyone, you and Javier drive home to your place, warmly chatting about how nice the gathering was, and how you should all make future plans to hang out like that again.

By the time you get to your condo, you and Javi are getting a second wind, so when you walk in, you're tossing your purse on the counter and kicking your strappy leather sandals off, padding barefoot to the sideboard as you chime, "—Ah, it's still early. Want to have drinks on the balcony? It's so nice out."

"Sure," he retorts as he locks the door and slides the keys onto the bartop counter while going to store the leftovers into the fridge. As he does so, he watches you retrieve a bottle of his favorite whiskey and your preferred rum, placing them on the glass table so you can push the vertical blinds aside to open the sliding balcony door and let the cool evening breeze in. With a wry smirk, he irreverently asks, "Want me to make yours, Miss Cuba Libre?"

Biting your bottom lip and coquettishly looking back at him, you drawl coyly, "I was worried that might've annoyed you. I didn't mean to—"

Frowning, Javier walks over and cups his hands at your hips. "Hey, it didn't bother me. I was only teasing, querida," is his earnest insistence. The genuine concern in his eyes makes you pout, so he kisses your lips before taunting, "And I remember a time you swore you didn't like apodos."

Scoffing girlishly, you wrap your arms around his shoulders and kiss him back before grousing, "Yeah, well, you had your own nickname, Mister Guapo Descarado."

Chuckling ruggedly, he squeezes you affectionately before grabbing the bottles of liquor to go make your drinks in the kitchen. As he grabs two glasses from the cupboard, he glances over at you while asking unabashedly, "Who came up with that one?"

Smiling, you slide the screen door open and lean against the frame as you answer, "That was what Marisol and the girls called you. And based on all the gossip I'd heard? It seemed quite fitting."

"Great," he laconically drawls as he walks over with your drinks. "I swear. Half of the rumors were bullshit," is his glib aside, handing you the glass and fighting to keep a straight face, especially when you give him that discerning stare. "They were!"

"Ah-hah," you deadpan waggishly before sipping your drink and taking his hand to lead him out to the balcony so you can both enjoy the breeze and the tropical twilight sky over the bright Condado skyline across the laguna.

It felt nice, looking out at the view, with the whiskey warming his bloodstream, and you lovingly embraced against his side. So much so, that when the intrusive thoughts from earlier stumble up into the forefront of his mind – Shit, she wouldn't have a drink if she knew she was pregnant! – Javier almost vehemently dismisses them.

But then, the vision of you, holding the baby – of how sweet and doting you were with her nestled in your arms – digs loose that anxious pang from earlier.

"Celina…" he begins, and when you turn to stare with open attention up at him, he wavers. "I—I uh…"

Blinking curiously, you set your drink aside on the small, circular, mosaic-tiled patio table tucked in the corner of the balcony where you're standing so you can place your hands reassuringly at his chest as you ask, "What? What's the matter?"

Fuck. Real smooth. Javi grouses at himself before exhaling noisily. Deciding he has to just come out with it, he downs his glass of whiskey before setting aside on the table. Steeling himself, he breathes out through his nose before resting his hands at your waist in order to ground himself.

"Earlier today, while I was putting my stuff away, I went to put something in your vanity drawer," he tells you, and at your expression shuttering in from the mention of the drawer, he continues, "I saw the birth control case. And I looked inside…"

Your heart drops.

Instantly, your eyes begin to well with tears, and Javi is startled by your reaction, so he quickly comforts, "Mi amor, don't get upset. I didn't mean to snoop, but I couldn't help looking. It's alright. We've talked about it, remember? We'll figure it out together—"

Realizing what he's saying – that he thinks the pills were discarded in the drawer because you're secretly pregnant? It hits you hard.

You bite your lip to stop it from quivering before forcing the tears back down and out from the knot in your throat.

"Javier…it's not like that. I—I have been having problems. Since before we got back together. I…I haven't been menstruating, and for the last few months, I've been doing blood work and check-ups. The doctor told me to get off the pill, to see if that was the cause—if being on it had just prolonged a hormonal imbalance or something, but…I haven't been ovulating. It's still too early… it could be a lingering case of amenorrhea, b-but, there's a possibility that I could be…that I could be infertile."

You brace for his reaction, terrified and ashamed. So much so, you can't even hold his gaze when you say the last part.

But then, Javi cups your cheek and tips your face back up to him.

His dark brown eyes are resolute and filled with composure, and his expression chisels into that semblance that so rarely comes over his countenance, save when you're both in bed, in post-coital repose.

"Querida, I'm so sorry you've been dealing with this alone. Why didn't you tell me sooner?" When you hesitate, and your eyes fill up with tears again, he realizes why. "You thought it would change how I feel?"

The tears overflow past your lashes, unbidden, and you nod before stifling a sob into the back of your hand.

"Celina," he husks and hugs you, overcome by your reaction, and holds you tight, nuzzling the top of your hair and trying to regain his composure. As soon as he does, he finds the steady voice he needs to declare, "Nothing will ever make me change the way I feel about you. I love you. I just want us to be together, whatever way possible. Being with you, and making you happy is everything I care about. All we need is each other. To love each other, nothing else."

You sob and melt into his embrace at his words, feeling like you've been delivered by his unwavering love and grace.

"I love you with all my heart, Javi. I j-just want to m-make you happy—to make a life with you. To g-give you love and a life you want, and t-that matters—" you stammer through tears, and Javi derails your cracking admittance by tipping your face up to him.

"I have it. Right here and now. Whatever happens, we have each other. All that matters to me, is what we have," he passionately conveys, voice going hoarse as he proclaims, "I love you. Solo te quiero a ti por toda mi vida. And all I want is to be with you."

He wipes the tears away from your cheeks, his expression open and genuine as you breathlessly smile before hugging him with palpable yearning.

Feeling you tremble, Javi effortlessly picks you up and carries you into the apartment and down the hall to your bedroom.

Wanting to comfort you, he intended to just lay you down and cuddle close, but you're raw with emotion, and longingly kiss him, mewling softly into his mouth. When he claims yours rapaciously while stripping your clothes off, piece by piece, your hands hurriedly unbutton his shirt, tug at his belt buckle, and unfasten his jeans while he kicks his boots off and clambers with you onto the bed.

His warm skin and spicy scent have your senses buzzing, making you needy and wet before he's even bared you completely and settled between your welcoming thighs.

Javier shudders as your hands cling to his back while your teeth graze down his shoulder, making lust and savage desire burn through him and throb beseechingly to be inside you.

With how emotionally raw and hyper-aroused you are, the feeling of his cock notching at your dimpled entrance makes you quiver and whimper, nipples taut and tingling as he suckles hard on one and then the other. His mouth is hot and possessive as he rakes it up to trail dizzying desire through you as it charts possessively up your neck while his cock punches a deep thrust into your molten sheath before stroking all the way out and slamming back in to the hilt.

Your cry of pleasure is devoured by his mouth claiming yours, and the more he fucks into you, the more ravenous and besotted his pace becomes, until it steals his breath and he has to growl your name against your neck.

"Celina—!"

Spun up by the onslaught of sensations and feelings, you cling to him and beg, "Please, Javi. P-Please!"

The tears in your wavering whimper snap him back into control, and he slows his rapaciousness, focusing on taking you apart with the fill of his cock in your fluttering cunt while caressing your flushed features and kissing the tears away.

Voice hoarse with emotion, Javi croons softly, "I got you. Just you and me. Let go, cariño. You don't have to hold onto it. Let me have it. Nothing else matters. It's just you and me. I love you—"

That's when you do, letting go of all the angst, fear, shame, and heartache of possibly losing him. Of losing a life you didn't know you wanted for him – that you were not be able to give to him. To mourn the possibility of a life you'd never known you wanted for yourself.

When you have no more tears, he rests his forehead to yours and lets you get your bearings, focusing on your calming breath and easing trembling.

"Javi."

"Hmm?"

"I love you."

He opens his eyes and stares deeply into your glossy ones, and sees the palpable feeling you just professed shining in them.

You make love to each other, carnally honed into everything you can only say to each other physically.

The throes of pleasure speak volumes for how you feel, and when you both reach bliss together, you're unable to do anything else but curl into each other and kiss before Javi protectively wraps you up in his arms.

His heart beats strong with yours, and everything in him is at peace, knowing there's nothing else that can hurt you. That you love him enough to want to protect him from even the perceived thought that you couldn't give him a life that neither of you even knew you'd wanted until the prospect showed itself looking up at you both, with sweet innocence, earlier that day.

Knowing that you're enough – that Javi wants a life with you, regardless of any obstacles, was a salve to your raw psyche after harboring the fear for so long.

It's just us. Our love is all that matters.

As you both drift to sleep, only serenity and love fill the atmosphere for you, and the tethering feeling that settles between you helps keep hope grounded in your hearts for all that there is still to come.

The turmoil that awaits you both is nothing either of you see coming, however.

  ________________

Spanish-English Glossary:

Colmadito = Grocery shop; similar to a bodega; community foodstuff store

Coquí = Puerto Rican tree frogs; they croak 'coquí', hence their name

Urbanizacíon = Urbanization; housing development

Mi cariñito = My sweet little darling

Preciosa = Gorgeous; precious

No te he dado de alta = I haven't discharged you

Chavón = A man that's pestering you

Mi amor = My love

Mandona = Bossy lady

Beyako = Puerto Rican slang for horny/naughty guy; akin to "horn dog"

Querida/querido = Affectionate term, akin to expressing one's want and desire

Guapita = Sassy/foxy/daring/testy lady

Corazón = Heart; pet name to signify how deeply you love someone

Galán = Handsome gent

Malcriada/malcriado = Brat/spoiled

Marquesina = Open air garage or carport

Autopista = Freeway; highway

Pendejo = Dumbass/Jackass

Siempre a la órden = Always at your service

Puto = Fucking; male whore; slut

Congrí = Cuban dish made of black beans and rice with bacon and fragrant spices

Guapetón = Super handsome, good-looking guy

Buen provecho = Bon apetit

Arroz con pollo = Rice with chicken

Carne con papas = Meat with potatoes

Pernil = Roast pork shoulder

Pinche asesinos = Fucking murderers/killers

Cariño = Darling/sweetheart

Come, gatito = Eat, kitty

Flan de queso = Cheese flan; Latin American dessert

Perreo = Dance style associated with reggaetón; doggystyle, twerking dance

Fresco = a guy who's being 'fresh', or naughty/pervy

Chulo/Chulito = Cute guy; little cutie

Hermosa/hermoso = beautiful (female); beautiful (male)

Bebito = Little baby (male)

Te quiero, mi amor = I love you, my love

Te amo con todo mi corazón = I love you with all my heart

Bravita= Tough girl; feisty girl

Frituras = Fritters; tropical turnovers

Playas = Beaches

Suavón = Smooth talker; Smooth guy

Medalla = Popular beer found in Puerto Rico

Canela = Cinnamon

Dámelo, mi amor = Give it to me, my love

Pórtate bien = Behave

Patrona = Madam; boss lady; mistress

El campo = The countryside

Chinchorrear = Slang for going bar-hopping; a chinchorro is a kiosk or dive bar you go to have a few drinks before moving on to the next establishment

Gruñón = Grumpy man

Nena = Girl

Llámame = Call me

Tarta de frutas = A vanilla cheesecake-like cake covered in tropical fruit slices

Más suave = Gentler; Softer

Que malo eres = You're so bad; You're so mean

Javi es malo = Javi is bad

No soy malo de verdad = I'm not bad for real

Amá = Medellín way of referring to 'Ma' or 'Mamá'

Madrina = Godmother

Dito = Short for 'bendito', which is a phrase conveying hopeful lamentation

No seas fresco = Don't be fresh

Apodos = Nicknames

Guapo Descarado = Handsome Cad

Laguna = Lagoon

Solo te quiero a ti por toda mi vida = I only want you for the rest of my life

Thanks for reading! Please consider leaving a comment and sharing your feedback. I would be eternally grateful. 

[musings-of-a-rose]

Jump Then Fall - Part 3

Pairing: Javier Peña x ofc “Vanessa Morales”

Word Count: 3600+

Rating: M for mature - 18+ only!

Warnings: Please be aware there is an 11 year age gap. Mature themes and some canon mentioned. Just like ao3, “creator chooses not to use warnings.” If you click Keep Reading, that means you agree that you’re the age to handle mature themes. Also by clicking Keep Reading, you understand warnings may not be complete in order to avoid spoilers for the story.

Notes: When the story starts, Vanessa is 19 and Javier is 30.

**Shoutout to @VaneMando15 for listening and bouncing ideas from me, and for her guidance with being a Latina herself. Without her, this wouldn’t even be a thing, just another line on my WIP spreadsheet. And also to my husband, who is also Latino and answered any questions I had (along with taking me to Colombia back in 2014). And to @wyn-n-tonic, who listened to my rambles and insecurities about writing an oc in first person.

**If you want to be added to the taglist, join here or let me know!

❤If you enjoy the fic, please consider giving me a warm beverage! (It is not required in any way!)

Jump Then Fall Masterlist

General Masterlist

Javier Peña Masterlist

<<Part 2<<

He's coming back. Chucho is bringing Javier back after 6 years. What do I say? How do I tell him he has a son who is already 6 years old? Will he even remember me? Will he want to be a part of mine and Alex's life or will he turn and run?

My mind spirals as I finish drying the last few pans before putting them away. I head upstairs, my brain going through a million different scenarios before I take a quick glance in the mirror. I smooth down my hair and put on a new outfit, a simple summer dress that goes down to my knees, and end up randomly tidying and cleaning the house, never settling on one spot.

I knew this day would come. I guess I just never thought about it specifically. 6 years ago, I was so sure of my choice not to tell him, that I wouldn't want him distracted in Colombia but I wouldn't want him to come home and resent us for forcing his choice. But a part of me, ok a large part of me, feels guilty for not giving him the choice.

I hear Chucho's truck pull up outside and my heart starts beating faster. The truck doors slam and muted voices make their way to the front door. I pick up the book on the counter in front of me and open it, my eyes not taking in a word but I didn't want to look like I was waiting around for them. For him.

"...'m fine. You don't have to b-baby me."

"I'm just trying to make sure you don't vomit on the clean floors."

He's drunk. I can tell by the way his words are slurred, his feet thunking across the wood floors in a sporadic pattern. Before I can move, he stumbles through the kitchen doorway, his eyes taking a few moments to focus on me.

"Who are you?"

My hearts sinks a little. I would've been surprised if he remembered me, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't hurt.

"Vanessa."

He steps closer to me, his eyes scanning my body before settling on mine.

"Are you fucking my dad?"

"Uh, no. I-"

"Ok, Javi. Time for bed. Vanessa will be here later for you to question," Chucho claps his hands on Javier's shoulders and guides him towards the doorway.

"Ok, ok. I have more questions later, Vanessssssa."

I give him a little wave as he disappears through the doorway. Chucho struggles to get him up the stairs, but eventually the sounds of them arguing disappear and I'm left alone for the moment. I turn around, gripping the counter with both of my hands and take several deep breaths.

He doesn't remember me. Or maybe it's because he's drunk? How do I handle it now?

His eyes, though filled with the drink, held a lot of anger and regret. He's hurting. I can't imagine what he's seen or had to do in persuit of Escobar. Chucho walks back in, breaking me from my thoughts.

"Sorry about him. He doesn't usually get drunk like that."

I wave my hand. "It's fine. I imagine he's been through a lot."

"Still, it's not an excuse to act like an asshole...he's going to be out for a bit but I'm thinking hamburgers for dinner? Something greasy to help that hangover he's going to have."

"Sounds good."

Chucho studies me for a moment. "How are you?"

That's a good question. "I...I'm not entirely sure."

"You need to tell him."

I nod. "Of course. But I can't tell him when he's drunk."

He chuckles. "No, I suppose not. But soon, ok?"

I give him a small smile before moving to get out the ingredients to bake some hamburger buns. Chucho moves to the living room, the tv turning on a moment later. He flips the channel and the news report echoes through the doorway to me.

"Breaking news! Pablo Escobar has just been killed. This is live footage of the rooftop where he was killed by DEA agent Steve Murphy..."

I step into the living room, watching the live broadcast of the rooftops where the outline of a dead man lays splaid on the tiles, other men in tach vests surrounding him. A blonde man high fives someone as the news anchor continues their report. But then it dawns on me.

Javier is not there, finally catching Escobar after 6 years of chasing him. He's here. No wonder he's drunk. What happened?

"Why is Javier here, Chucho?"

He's quiet a moment. "I don't know."

I return to the kitchen, mixing the dough before forming the buns. I can't imagine working for 6 years trying to catch one of the most elusive men, only to be forced away at the very end, not even being allowed to be there for his capture. I'd lose my mind too. I know I need to tell him about Alex, but I also need to give him a moment with this.

But how long of a moment?

-------

It takes 3 days for Javier to come out of a drunken stupor. I hear his bedroom door open as he stumbles down the hall with a groan, the bathroom door closing behind him. I hear a slam from the bathroom, sounding like the toilet lid. I wipe my hands on my apron and head upstairs, hesitating for a moment outside of the bathroom door. I knock very gently.

"Javier? Are you alright?"

A grunt followed by another violent heaving sound answers me. I turn the handle, slowly pushing the door open as the heaving subsides. Javier slumps against the side of the bathtub, his hand moving around to find the handle to flush the toilet. His hair is rumpled, his eyes mostly closed, clad only in a pair of sweatpants. I walk over to the toilet and close the lid, flushing the toilet for him. His hand drops to his lap and he takes a couple of deep breaths.

"Thanks."

"Of course. Do you want help up?"

He cracks his eyes open and looks at me. "You're not my dad."

"That I am not."

He lifts his head, opening his eyes a little more before hissing and closing them, squeezing the bridge of his nose. "The fucking light is going to kill me."

"Well I can't do anything about the light coming in this window. But let's get you back to your room in bed. You'll feel better."

I wait a few moments while he gathers himself, extending my hand to help him up. He squints at me and I roll my eyes.

"Just take my hand. I'm stronger than I look."

He takes it and I have to hold back a gasp as his large hands engulf my small ones, the warmth from the contact sparking all sorts of thoughts and memories. I pull him to his feet and he leans on me as I help him back to his room, pulling back the sheets as he slides in. I pull all of his curtains firmly shut, only using the light from the hallway to see around. Javier settles into bed, groaning a little as he puts his hand on his stomach.

"I'll bring you some water and pain meds."

"Oh you don't have-"

"That wasn't a question."

I head back downstairs, getting a glass of water. I stop by the bathroom again, opening the medicine cabinet and getting out some pain meds. I also pull out the bottle of activated charcoal tablets that Chucho handed me shortly after Javier came home. He said they suck to choke down but they'd really help the hangover. I carry everything to his room, shaking out the right amount of charcoal tablets. Javier sits up with another groan, taking the pills and the glass of water.

"This isn't aspirin."

"No. It's activated charcoal. Chucho said it will really help your hangover. You can't take it with any meds though as it'll just absorb those."

"I'll just take the aspirin."

"I really think you need to take the charcoal."

He looks up at me. "I don't even know who you are why the fuck would I listen to you?"

"Because I just carried your stubborn self all the way from the bathroom after you puked your guts out. I'm just trying to help. Take the damn pills."

He studies me through squinted eyes. "Yes ma'am." He chokes down the pills and makes a disgusted face before drinking several sips of water. "Those taste terrible."

"I never claimed they tasted good. So let those do their work and get some rest. When you're ready, come downstairs and I'll make you something to eat."

He looks at me again, his eyebrows slightly furrowed together in concentration. "No really, who are you?"

"Vanessa. Now get some rest."

He lays back and I pull the blanket up, giving him a small smile when I catch him looking at me. I leave the room and head back downstairs, finishing up some of the lesson planning I was doing for the upcoming semester.

A few hours later, Javier comes downstairs, this time with a shirt. Although he only has the bottom 3 buttons done up. I'm not sure why he even bothered with a shirt. Not that I'm complaining. He stands there awkwardly, like he doesn't know what to do.

"Feeling better?" I ask, turning to face him from my stool at the kitchen island.

"Yeah. Those charcoal things worked really well."

"Good. I've never been hungover so I wasn't sure, but I figured Chucho knew what he was talking about. Are you hungry?"

"I uh...I'm not sure," his hand goes to his stomach, his face souring slightly.

I head over to the slow cooker on the counter. "I made some chicken noodle soup. If anything, you can sip on the broth?" I look over at him, his head cocked to the side, watching me.

"Javier?"

"What? Oh soup. Yeah. Sure."

I ladle him a bowl and grab some saltines and set them on a little plate next to his bowl and set it in front of him. I also set down a glass filled with cloudy looking water.

"Coconut water?" Javier asks skeptically.

I shrug. "My mom always gave it to me during and after a cold. Said it gave me back nutrients. I figure alcohol probably takes a fair amount of nutrients from you. So it should help."

"Hhmm. Guess we'll find out." He takes a tentative sip from the cup, licking his lips a little after. "Hey that's sitting alright."

I give him a small smile. "Good."

Before I can move, he grabs my arm and gives it a little squeeze, sending jolts of electricity through me. "Thank you."

"Y-you're welcome."

I sit and pull my planner and books to me, resuming my task of lesson planning. I can feel his eyes on me, like he's studying me. I wish he would find something else more interesting.

"What are you doing?"

I don't look up. "Lesson planning for this upcoming semester."

He takes a slurp of his soup and swallows it. "Teacher? Holy shit this soup is amazing."

I look up at him as he takes another bite, his eyes closing for a moment as he savors the soup.

"Yeah. I'm teaching 2nd grade this year."

"Sounds fun. Seriously, what did you do to this soup?"

"My mom taught me how to cook," My eyes sting and my heart hurts thinking of those memories.

"Well, she did a damn good job."

"Sometimes she got it right."

He looks up at me. "Oh. I'm sorry I touched a nerve."

I wave my hand. "It's ok. I've come to terms with it."

He sets his spoon down, all of his focus on me. His gaze is intense, that little furrow between his brow is back. "You look-"

"Good you're awake, puto. Put some pants on and come help me." Chucho walks in the back door, stomping his boots on the mat outside before stepping in.

"I don't know if I-"

"Come on, son. No more babying I gave you time. Now I need your young bones."

"You sound like a bruja." (witch). But Javier pushes back from the island and starts to grab his plate.

"Don't worry about it, I got it." I stand, leaning over to take the bowl and plate, noticing that he'd eaten all of it. "I have more if you want some."

His dark eyes bore into mine, fanning a flame inside of me. "I want whatever you give me, Vanessa."

SMACK! Chucho slaps Javier on the back of his head.

"What the fuck?"

"Stop flirting and come help me before these chickens run halfway to Mexico."

-------

Chucho and Javier are gone for a few more hours and return just as the sun is setting. I hang up the phone, having had my nightly call with Alex, who is having a blast at science camp. The men kick off their work boots and coats, trudging upstairs to shower.

"Dinner will be ready soon so don't take long!" I yell after them.

Chucho devours the steak I'd made him while Javier opts to have another couple bowls of soup. Before long, Chucho leans back, slapping his stomach.

"Well, I am tired. Gonna get an early sleep. Vanessa? Delicious, as usual. Night, everyone."

"Good night, Chucho."

While he heads upstairs, I start to clean up, Javier immediately moving to help me. I shake my head.

"Nope. I got this."

"I can help."

"Really, it's ok."

"Are you always this stubborn?

"Are you?"

He looks at me before he smirks, but then it's gone just as fast. Man am I fucked.

"I can dry?"

"I appreciate the offer, but really. I'm ok."

"Does washing the dishes relax you or something?"

I know he said it in jest, but now that I think about it, it kind of does. The warm, soapy water calms me down. Gives me space to think.

"Yeah sort of."

He puts his hands up. "Say no more. I don't want to intrude." Did he just wink at me? Javier heads from the kitchen and I hear the front door open, the screen door slapping closed behind him.

After I'm done with the dishes, I dry my hands, thinking. I grab another glass of coconut water and head towards the front door, hesitating for several moments before pushing open the screen. Javier sits on the swing bench, facing out to look over the front half of the farm, a cigarette lit and in between his fingers. He takes a long drag, his lips rounding to blow out the smoke.

"I thought you should hydrate again." I hold up the glass and he turns to look at me, his eyes coming back into focus. He beckons me to him and I walk up, handing him the glass.

"That's a nasty habit, you know," I nod towards the cigarette in his hand.

He shrugs. "You have your relaxing activity, and I have mine." Still, he leans forward and puts it out on the tray he'd set on the arm of the bench. "Come. Sit."

I take a breath and sit, our thighs nearly touching. The air feels electrified, like it's waiting for something to happen. We sit like this for a while, staring out at the cows grazing in the front fields, Javier lightly rocking the swing as he rolls his foot back and forth.

"Thank you for...everything. Taking care of me and..everything." He turns his head to look at me in the light coming in through the windows from the house.

"It's not a problem. Anyone would do it."

He snorts. "Not for me."

"And why not?"

He pauses a moment. "I'm not a good guy."

"Well I know that's not true. You're a great man, Javier." I place my hand on his forearm without thinking, and squeeze. He looks down at where I touch him, placing his hand over mine before looking at me.

"I'm really not. I just..." He trails off, his eyes sweeping over my face. "You...you look familiar. It's been killing me for days."

Well. Now is the time. For this confession, at least.

"That's because we know each other."

His brow furrows slightly. "I had a feeling. From where?"

It still hurts a little that he doesn't remember, even though I know it's a trauma response. Memory loss and PTSD can often go hand in hand.

"You...you gave me a rose, once."

Recognition immediately ripples over his face, his eyes widening, his eyebrows raising a little as he shifts his body to face me.

"Vanessa? From the bar? Right before I left for Colombia?"

I smile nervously. "That's me."

"Summer of new things Vanessa?"

I nod. "Yup. Me."

His eyes are twinkling now, a small smile creeping up his face. "Holy shit! I never thought I'd see you again. It was so hard to walk away from you that morning. The only thing that did it was the fact that the DEA would come down on me hard for missing that flight." His eyes soften the longer he looks in mine and for a moment, we're both transported back to that night, the night he opened up my world.

"H-how are you?" He's hesitant, but his eyes are wide and curious.

"Not bad."

"How did you end up here? I thought you were going back to-" he waves his hand around trying to think. "Austin?"

"Corpus Christi."

He snaps his fingers. "That was it."

Do I tell him about Alex? About being a father? Something inside me tells me to wait. To only surprise Javier with one thing at a time. He's been through so much and the last thing I want to do is pile more on top of that.

"It's a long story but I...got pregnant and my parents..well, they didn't approve. Out of wedlock. Anyway, they kicked me out and I uh, ended up here. Chucho I guess took pity on me and gave me a place to stay. I offered to cook and clean for him which of course he argued against, but," I shrug. "And so I stayed. He demanded I return to college and get my teaching degree I had been working on and he babysat Alex while I did. I owe him so much. My life, basically. I don't know how I'll be able to repay him."

His eyes grew serious. "You're parents kicked you out pregnant?"

I nod. "Yeah."

"That's fucked. Sorry, but it is."

I shrug. "They were the kind of parents that would scrub my mouth out with soap and make me repeat scripture if I had nail polish on so I guess I'm not surprised. I've made peace with it."

"Still. I'm sorry that happened to you."

"Thanks."

We sit in silence for another few moments, one weight on my chest lifted but a very heavy one still remaining.

"The dad didn't help?"

Here's your chance, Vanessa. You can tell him now, despite everything. Tell him. TELL. HIM.

"He...He had other things to do."

Javier scoffs. "What an asshole."

I shake my head vehemently. "No, it's not..they were very important."

"More important than knocking up a young woman?"

"I think so."

"I'm sure."

I turn to face him more directly. "What if it was yo-"

RING RING! RING RING!

The phone cuts through our conversation, forcing an ending that I wasn't ready for. Javier attempts to stand but I put my hand out.

"It might be Alex. I've got it."

I feel his eyes on me as I go inside, answering the phone quickly. It wasn't Alex but some automated political message and I grunt, hanging up the phone in frustration. I should go back outside and explain everything to him, confess it all, but I don't. I do peak my head back outside and call his name, momentarily flustered when he looks at me.

"It was some political something."

"I fucking hate those."

"I'm going upstairs. Drink that coconut water." I point to the untouched glass in his hand and he holds it up towards me.

"Yes, ma'am."

-------

>>Chapter 4>>

General Taglist:

@frankie-catfish-morales @chaoticgeminate @janebby @astoryisaloveaffair @balekanemohafe @greeneyedblondie44 @hoeforthefictional @marvelousmermaid @hauntedmama @icanbeyourjedi @wretchedmo @sunnshineeexoxo @livingmydreams13 @adventures-of-a-noodle @sara-alonso @theewokingdead @punkerthanpascal @giggly-otter @f0rever15elf @phandoz @gallowsjoker @lovesbiggerthanpride @booksarekindaneat @charlispersonallyhell @xoxabs88xox @amneris21 @gooddaykate @avengers-fixation @paintballkid711 @harriedandharassed   @ladykatakuri @practicalghost @withakindheartx @batdarkladyvampir @justanotherkpopstanlol   @mermaidxatxheart @alexxavicry @justreblogginfics @kmc1989 @veryprairieberry @mysterious-moonstruck-musings @heartpascalispunk   

[freshlyrage]

Running Like Water

Chapter 19

pairing: Javier Peña x OFC (written as xReader)

fic warnings: NSFW Explicit Smut (18+ MDNI) language, strained family relationships, mentions of drug abuse, discussions of insecurities and body image issues, daddy and mommy issues

fic tags: Best friends younger sister, Life-long crush, Friends to lovers, Unrequited love, slow burn, Push and Pull, Small Town Dynamics, Secret Relationships, latina MC, Fluff and Angst, OFC!Jessica Alba face claim, sorry Lorraine I'm bringing you into this, Time jumps, 2 year age gap, pre-canon

word count: 5.6k

a/n: Two more New Orleans chapters after this. Don't forget to visit my pinterest board "Running Like Water".

The section labeled "The Trip" has some reference's there. Enjoy lovies.

Masterlist

Abandon the thought. Forget it. A selfish, irresponsible and senseless idea, just like the thought of a family with you. Javi walked ahead of Felipe in silence after the foolish suggestion, hadn't he known Javier would have married you in an instant if the timing was right? If you weren't Frankie’s sister, if he wasn't leaving. He couldn't take you to Colombia, absolutely not. Wasn't safe, he almost told Felipe bringing Gina along wouldn't be a great idea either. But god did Javi’s stomach turn at the thought. Stirring with fear and yearning. He knew you'd never go along with a plan like that, you were fresh out of college figuring out your own career, how selfish would it be for him to expect that you would drop everything, family included, for his career ventures. 

Cheeks flush once the night air hits his face as he walks out to the rooftop pool, a bar lining its left side. Irresponsible idea.

Would you pick out the furniture? He’d let you.

Hands digging into his pocket and striking his lighter to smoke. He hears Felipe stopping, he must've found his fiance.

 He just called you his girlfriend for the first time today, it doesn't feel like enough. Juvenile, he knows he'd want you to be his wife, eventually. After Colombia, not everyone works out like Gina and Felipe.

You could teach in Colombia. You were so good with kids.

Relaxed when he sees you. Breath catches in his throat. Your back is facing him as you sit at the bar, drink in hand. Lean shoulders exposed, no, entire back exposed with a dip just below your back dimples. Those dimples, his thumb fit there perfectly when he’s driving into you from behind. Hair laying on one shoulder. 

An angel alone at the bar. His angel. Its sudden, instantaneous, all anxieties of his talk with Felipe fades at the sight of the soft slope of your nose then lips. 

Magenta shines from behind the bar lighting your smile, bright and wide as you nod to whoever is catching your attention. Your exposed back illuminated in a waving cerulean from the reflection of the pool lights. Pet Shop Boys ringing in his ears. You are the most beautiful thing he's ever laid his eyes on. Your brows screw in concern and your smile falls a bit, shoulders slouching. 

Javi’s mustache twitches at the change in mood as he walks across the poolside, toward you. His eyes dart to the man next to you, he has that look in his eyes. A lustful look. Javier’s stomach flips at that. A fiery and intense jealousy he thought he was immune to settling bone deep. He remembers attempting to swallow down that biting envy when he found out you had gotten a boyfriend while he was gone in Houston. But this is different, that was juvenile, you're his now. 

The second he reaches you he places his hand on your lower back, wedging himself in the space between you and the man. Your eyes go doe as you look up to Javi with relief. A smile growing on your glossy lips, Javi cranes his head to kiss you quick. “Hi baby.” You mutter against his lips and he feels the most primal he’s ever felt. All his, mine, mine. He kisses you again like you two had been apart for years. Your lips tasted fruity from whatever you had to drink tonight. He was always the one to call you all sorts of pet names so you calling him baby in public has him urging to pull you off this bar seat and drag you back to the hotel room. 

Fuck it, he kiss you again, “How much have you had to drink?” He asks with genuine curiosity devoid of judgment. You scrunch your nose, giving him a tipsy smile and Javi just chuckles, rubbing his hand on your back, cold. “You cold?” You shake your head a no, Javi nearly melts at how perfect you look tonight. He was forever indebted to whoever made this dress.

From his left the man he long forgotten about clears his throat. Javier’s entire demeanor changes in an instant, you spin in your stool to face the man. “Javi–this is… Drew, he works at LSU, anthropology professor.” You beam, your own hand grabbing at Javi’s suit blazer, giving Drew a line of view. Javier lets you move him but he isn't fond of the man, he saw the way he looked at you. 

Drew’s face is slightly bemused, staring at you and back at Javier before he extends his hand. Javier takes it anyway, giving him a firm shake. “Nice to meet you–sorry I’m just a bit confused-”

“Jesus–I’ve gotta pee, I’ll be back.” You jump to your feet unsteadily, Javier catches your elbow to balance you on your heels. You let out a small snort of embarrassment. 

“I can come with.” Javi suggests and you frown, waving a drunken hand, no before walking on your own. Your hips swaying with your struts, lower back dangerously giving a sneak peak of whatever set you had under the dress. Javier watches your every move until you're entering the bathroom and closing the door behind you. 

Javi shakes his head, no more drinks for you. He sits in your stool, beckoning the bartender over. Whiskey, Jim Beam. Javi smiles at the man next to him before sipping. Drew seems to be itching to say something to him. His brows screwing, hands fidgeting with his beer during the awkward silence. Awkward to him, Javier was on quite the power trip knowing he was making whats-his-face intimidated. 

“Look man I mean no disrespect-”

“Good.” Javi cuts, his low tone causing Drew to frown further. 

“I just didn't assume she was with someone, she was just dancing with some girl all night and sat at this bar alone, you know looking like that.” 

Javi’s nostrils flare, he sips. He wasnt going to get rowdy, he really fucking badly wanted to get rowdy, but this was your trip. Your little vacation, god forbid Javier flips out on some guy for flirting with you. He’d be in jail for life if he loses his shit every time you get hit on. He chooses his battles. Still, he's up for a bit of verbal confrontation. “Looking like what?”

Javi takes in the looks of this man for the first time, his protective bone striking deeper, noticing the aging spots on the man's face. Hair thinning at its sides, age lines at his eyes. This man had to be at least fifty. Javier's chest rises like an animal prepared to assert dominance, he exhales settling himself. Eyes snapping to the bathroom door. 

Drew shakes his head, “Call me old fashioned but I would never let my women leave the house in something like, especially if I wasn't there.”

Call me old fashioned, I would just call you old.

Javier bites it back, his cheeks warming with anger but he controls himself, for you. “Good luck with hitting on young women in bars if you still believe women are things to be controlled.” Javi chuckles, his eyes find you swinging the door open, apologizing to the person waiting by it. A smile bright on your face as you dance your way towards the bar, lord you were drunk. Grabbing a martini from a waiter before stopping at the dance floor to dance by yourself. Hair swaying with your little hip movements. 

Drew watches you too and shakes his head again. Javi hopes it falls off next time. 

“Women these days, no home training and classless. Us men don't have to sit and take it. You seem too far gone though.” He sneers, eliciting an eye roll from Javier. Could the man be more cliche, an old geezer who he couldn't have the pretty young thing at the bar so he resorts to complaining about women as a whole. Javier met a few of these insecure men at the academy, that's when he knew maybe he didn't belong in that environment. A group of hormonal sexually repressed losers who power-tripped with a gun and badge. He thinks of the year he spent as a cop and sees a different person. He can't believe he thinks, thank God for the DEA. 

Javier sips his drink and watches you proudly. “Yeah I am far gone.” Not caring to give into the lowlife. The DJ transitions into Lucky Star by Madonna and you squeal with a jump, your martini spilling the slightest on the dance floor and your twirling to the synth beat. Javier wished he had his camcorder to film you losing yourself on the floor. It wasn't like you to be this out there in public, liquid courage was a real concept, Javier thinks. 

“She was flirting with me by the way.” Drew says it in a geeky matter of fact tone and Javier can't help but smile. You would never, not in a million years. Javier's jealousy only manifested in protectiveness, never has he ever feared you reciprocating any sort of attention you might receive. 

“Andrea!” Javi calls your name, beckoning you from the dance floor. You pause your dancing and grab a fistful of your dress to prevent yourself from tripping over the long fabric while you hurry over. Drew’s face drops slightly when you approach the two men. 

You let go of your dress and flick a piece of hair from your face, taking a sip from the martini. Hand on Javier's shoulder to stable yourself. Javier looks down to smile at his lap at your oblivion. “What?” You ask breathlessly, “It better be good, you know how I feel about Madonna.”

Javi glares down Drew’s face which is now devoid of color while his hand holds your bare back. Goosebumps rising against his palm when his fingertips trace the hem where the dress begins again. Javi drives, taking the opportunity to slide his hand right inside the front of your dress, holding your waist with his palm and his large fingers splaying across your pitted belly. His hand strained against the tight fabric. Javi knew he was protective of you, but this was nearly out of his character, holding you so shamelessly. “Drew was telling me you were flirting with him.”

Your smile drops slightly giving a tight browed look at the older man. “I was just being friendly.” 

Drew is floored, humiliated. “You asked me what I did for a living?”

Javier almost laughs at the desperation in the man’s voice. You scoff and Javier makes note to brace himself. You’ve been quite fiery today, first with Julian. Now that you’re a bit drunk Javier isn’t sure what to expect from you, regardless he’s a bit excited. Considering your sound of disbelief Javier knows he isn’t getting his hopes up. 

He takes a sip of his whiskey as he watches your eyes narrow. “And?” You bite.

Drew adjusts his suit jacket. “Typically when a woman alone at a bar asks a man what he does for a living, he's going to expect sex—“

“Uh-uh. Don’t try to paint this like I’m some lady of the night. You introduced yourself and I just asked what you did for work, small talk? Like how’s the weather?” You take a sip from your martini. 

The professor's nostrils flare his cheeks red. “ I offered you a drink—“

“Which I denied, I was trying to tell you I was waiting on my boyfriend and you cut me off to ask my age.” Your cheeks are blazing, maybe you were an angry drunk. Somehow it was the most fitting discovery Javier has made about you. 

“Alright, let’s just go back to the room.” Javi whispers into your side and you shoot him an angry glare. Removing his hand from your stomach, Javier is beyond turned on by that. What is it with him getting hard every time you reprimand him? 

“No—I’m not done talking.” Javier’s eyebrows shoot up and he bites back a smile before looking at the bartender, pointing to his cup beckoning him for a refill. 

Drew combs through his hair, “Listen woman, you come to bar half naked expect to be-“

Your jaw is agape. “Watch your fucking mouth.” Javier snaps, he’s unsure if he can just let you handle this and take the backseat anymore. The bartender grabs Javier’s drink and refills it. He wished he was in Laredo, he would’ve spun this losers jaw minutes ago. But you, you detach from Javier completely. 

“Listen—professor fuckface.” You wave a drunken finger in his face, “I don't know who you expect to fuck you but you better start aiming lower… actually how about you leave women alone in general–”

The man's face reddens and Javi decides he needs to prevent a real altercation. If the man lays a hand on you Javi can't promise he wont kill the man with his bare hands. Bad look for the DEA. “Alright it's time to go.” Javi stands and grabs your arm. You let out an annoyed huff, cursing out Javi now. 

“Maldito idiota! Javi I swear to god I did not flirt with that man!” You trip over your heels while he pulls you through the thickening crowd. Javier’s brows furrow, had you thought? “Even if I was single I have some standards!”

Javi laughs, pressing the elevator button. “I’m not upset with you baby.” He drops your arm and your glazed eyes soften, your lips cracking into a smile. Moving your hair out of your face from the distant wind on the rooftop.

You snake a hand around his waist when the elevator dings, the two of you walk in sync into the lift. “I just thought when you grabbed me to leave–”

“No-he was getting angry, I was just trying to avoid a real confrontation.” You frown, Javier lets you go to click the 4th floor button. Coming back to you, taking a wanton look at your figure in the dress. Your eyes are half lidded, he knows that look all too well. You take a step closer to him again, laying your hands flat on his jacket. Dusting off whatever you find on the leather. Getting on your tiptoes, he kisses you quick and chaste, parting as quick as it began. 

Your eyes narrow, your lips downturned. “I wore this for you.” It came out with a pout, annoyed with his sexless kiss. 

Javier chuckles at that, “Beyakka” He mocks you, knowing that sort of slang was unique to you and your family. “How much have you had to drink?”

You let out an aggressive eye roll and groan, “You keep asking me the same questions!” 

“I’m just concerned considering you would never admit to wearing anything specifically for me.” 

You shot him a glare, “Two martinis and 2 shots. I just feel buzzed if anything. I can handle my liquor.” Stepping apart from him you face forward, eyeing the declining floors. Javi bites away a smirk watching your skin rising with goosebumps. You shrug, “Just wanted to catch your attention is all.”

Javi chuckles, wrapping his arms around your waist. Hugging you from behind, holding your lithe form tight to his front. Craning his head into your shoulder, “You’ve got all my attention princesa.” His lips grazing your ear. Teasingly you giggle and wiggle your behind on his crotch, Javi drops his head into your neck. “Andrea–now's not the best…” He warns.

The elevator dings and you’re on your floor, you let out an annoyed groan and strut ahead of him. And it’s the way he could see the small dimples on your back and the tiniest hickey on your shoulder—he gives in. Pacing himself to walk ahead of you down the dimly lit hall, you let out a huff of frustration when he stops at your door. Patting his pocket for the keys, he unlocks the door and pushes you inside in a deft move. 

You nearly slip out a giggle but you’re tense the second he lays both hands on the dips of your waist. His broad form pressing against you from behind.

“Get on all fours.” His lips graze your exposed ear, throbbing intensely down below. You weren’t drunk, a bit buzzed, tipsy, loose. Irrelevant, all you knew is whatever was in that martini heightened your senses. You’d wanted to climb into Javi’s lap and make out with for hours like some depraved teen. 

Why lie, when Javier slid his hand into your dress in his protective hold you fought the urge to take a sinful seat on his thigh and release some tension in front of the professor. 

Horny was an understatement.

Without second thought you drop to your knees. Long brown hair pooling at the sides of your face, arching like a kitten before slightly straightening, Javi lets out a throaty grunt at that. Holy fuck were your cheeks hot, you bite a smile. It’s quiet, like Javi is figuring what he wants to do with you next. Fingers curling on the hotel rug, filthy, you were practically dripping. 

“Crawl to the bed. Don’t get on it.” 

You smirk, face hidden from him and you comply. A slight head rush developed from the position but you inch your way further into the room, knowing this position has your dress dipping lower almost ruining your lovely surprise. 

And he’s inching behind you, the lovely tune of his belt buckle jangling comes from behind and  you’re sickeningly close to letting out a whimper. Thankfully you make it to the door of the bed. You experimentally look over your shoulder. You nearly regret the decision because now your stomach is somehow twisting in more anticipation. He’s looking down at you with a hand rubbing himself, you want to release him, put him in your mouth like earlier. You want him to stop being cruel, he’s made you wait enough for him. “You look perfect, arch more, I want to see all of you querida.”

On display for him, only him you dip lower perching your behind up. It seems to do it for him because in a split second he’s bending down and wrapping his forearms on your lower stomach and lifting you weightless onto the bed above you. 

Thrown on your back you finally get to see all of him and god if the low look of desire isn’t the sexiest thing you’ve ever seen you don’t know what could come next. But oh, his palms push your knees to your chest and your lovely loose dress is pooling in bunches of fabric at your bent waist. Your aching cunt on full display for him, save the panties. And that look—right there. His face of realization, the slight tick of his jaw, twitch of his stache and the crease between his brows deepening—then his glance back up to me. 

“Dirty girl.” He grits, squeezing the inside of your thigh and oh he’s so close you couldn’t care to save face. “Dancing around all night with nothing on under your dress.” 

“Please fill me up—please just put it in Javi.”

He doesn’t acknowledge your pleas, his eyes are razor focused on your cunt and he drops to your knees. “I’m gonna eat you till you cry alright?” He kisses your inner thigh, hot and wet. 

You nod frantically, “O-okay.” It’s rushed and broken. A gasp rips through your chest when a tight slap hits your thigh, the skin rippling. 

“Say my name.” He demands. Kissing over the red mark on your thigh. 

“Yes Javier.” You whimper through gritted teeth, wanting to abandon the whole dress, just wanting to be nude to feel him completely. No time because his kisses begin to trail closer in approval. A centimeter apart each time until he’s there, you, still a leaky girl in front of him. Forgetting the sweet slow kisses, he goes for the kills. He consumes you.

You jolt almost immediately as his tongue starts off with lapping your clit. You’re wiggling and panting, your view just the top of his head and the grip he has on the top of your thighs. You’d frame it if you could, Javi just making a home for himself between your legs. And he’s moaning writhing too, you pulled to the edge of the bed while his knees stay sunken on the floor. He’s grinding his own hips into the bed and you whimper at the yearning pit you have to have him inside again. How had it been that you allowed your ex to skip over this part, with every suck and lick you were unraveling below him. 

“So soft, never getting over it.” He kisses your cunt softly to give himself space to praise. 

You smirk, your own hands groping at your clothed breasts. “Softer inside.” You jolt your hips a bit and Javi mumbles against your cunt before sinking his tongue into your tight hole and it shrinks around him, desperate for his cock. You had him twice today but there was something about being here with him that sent your libido on overdrive. It felt like a honeymoon, like the two of you were on a high you could never get down from. 

His fingers slide through, taking the place of his tongue and he dips two thick fingers inside of you, watches you squirm. “You’re mine, right querida?” There it is. That sweet desperation. The hand offered for reassurance, the two of you sure enjoyed hearing it as much as you enjoyed asking for it. 

Your brows screw, oh you were devastatingly close. God you were his, his, his—“Yours— oh fuck yes baby all yours. Yours, yours,yours.”

 Oh Javi likes that, he removes his fingers and they go back to the bottoms of your thighs, pushing your knees as far as they can to your chest. He doesn’t let up, he does as he promises because the stimulation is so much— you’re crying in pure bliss. 

His hot heavy tongue licks and flicks at your clit so aggressively— so skilled your stomach pits in jealousy. “Who-who taught you this— how do you do it so—“ Your body decides jealousy has no place here because-“I’m gonna cum—“

It isn’t fair to call it a warning because in an instant you’re dripping in come. His mouth slowing and lowering again to collect from where you release.  Leaving you wet kisses and sucks, the same way he kisses you above, he kisses you below. Your hands find his hair, forcing him back up to you. His mustache glistening while he smiles smugly at your withering pants and frantic hands. Hand falling to the back of his neck and tonguing him down. His wide body between your legs. Giving him sloppy drunk kisses, all tongue and teeth. And god you need him inside. 

He very obviously does too. His hardness embarrassingly evident through his pants. You slip a little moan—“Use your words, don’t know what you want with all those little noises.” He grits, kissing your cheek then below your ear, down your neck. Your hands roam his chest until you’re right above his unbuttoned pants. 

“I want you—I want you to fuck me like this.” You say—no-demand. The two of you hadn’t fucked missionary since the second time. You were feeling awfully depraved, you just wanted to sloppily kiss him while he rocked into you. 

He nods into your neck, sucking and nipping. “Anything-anything you want.” He whispers, and despite having him lick you to your climax nothing flips your stomach quite like this, like him leaving you sweet kisses and giving it to you your way. Too eager to strip down, your pull him from his jeans and spread your legs farther to give him access. “Put it in baby.” 

You blindly drag his cock between your folds while Javier attempts to lift his head to kiss you but the second you guide himself to prod your aching cunt his head falls. And with eyes pinched you feed him into the mouth. He lets out a groan so deep you feel his throat vibrating on your own shoulder. “Fucking perfect—so tight.” 

“Too big–” Warming him, your head is so light you could tell him you loved him and would never think twice. This is dangerously intimate. The words have been on the top of your tongue the entire day, can he tell? Will he taste it when he kisses you again? “Used to touch myself thinking of you.” You admit, what is it about him that makes your shame cease to exist? He moans at that and begins rocking into you. 

“Tell me more—“

“My ex never made me come—fuck—would go to the bathroom after and finish within minutes thinking of you.” Javi grumbles, quickening his pace. “Lucky your names were nearly the same, used to moan your name and he never noticed.”

“Jesus you’re killing me.” Javi kisses your neck some more and hits a spot so devastatingly deep from this angle you shriek in pleasure, another confession slipping your lips.

“Had this fantasy—would imagine you coming home to me—our home and letting you fuck me senseless. Whenever—ngh- you wanted.” He stutters into you, filling you so right. You could feel the bulbous head of his hitting right where you needed. “Pictured you taking care of me and would come so hard baby—“

His hand flattens on your lower stomach and he presses down, somehow tightening everything below. You let out a tiny whimper, “No more—gonna make me come too fast.” He whines his hips into you. Keeping himself slow and steady for a moment. It felt so good—so full you couldn’t give time to reel in the pillow talk confessions you so effortlessly spilled. How you would cry in shame when you were alone after the guilt kicked in. 

The midst of your pleasure, your eyes search the side of your boyfriend's face. A sudden wash of panic and dread filling your heart. 

Why do you have to leave? Why does everyone , take me with you Javi-

“Thought about you the whole time while I was gone, felt like Colombia became too real during that meeting.” He admits, planting a warm kiss to your shoulder, his pace so slow you feel something else swirl at the pit of your stomach. He leans on his elbow and slips his hand between you two. His fingers swirling lazily on your bundle of nerves. Words caught in your throat, please don’t leave me. I can't bare it. “Felipe suggested we just get married and go to Colombia together.” 

Your eyes jolt open and you sobered at that. You turn to look him in the eyes and there’s something there, that look you know. Adoration, hope, pleading? All three, you know it’s all three. What are you pleading for Javi, I can give it to you. “Yeah?” You whisper, achingly close to your second orgasm, you play it cool. You kiss his cheek quickly, “What’d you say?” There it is, eyes welling up and throat tight. He doesn’t seem to notice, he continues his lovely strokes and antagonizing traces on your clit. 

He’s silent until he isn’t. 

“Laughed it off you know—it’s irresponsible—unrealistic. Forget these people don’t know what it’s like back in Laredo.” He says brokenly, he’s close to you too. Your face drops, color drains from your face. You thank the dim lights of the room because you begin to tear. Burying your head into his neck, you whisper harder, to replace that dread that fills you. Oblivious to your reaction he complies with your request. And for a moment it feels so good you nearly forget. He’s removing his fingers from your clit and moving them to grip at your hip bone. Setting a brutal pace into you. And he’s back to kissing you, your eyes screw shut at the reminder that he’s real, he’s with you. That you love him so desperately, so complete, entire and whole you don’t know how you could find anyone else. 

I love you in a place where there’s no space or time. 

“I lo-“

“I never want to leave you.” He cuts before pressing into you hard and the both of you reach your peak. A head light crashing orgasm, his open mouth kisses drag to your ear where he moans, drawing out your momentary bliss. You squeeze around him so tightly, you could practically feel the spend you’re pulling from him. You’re leaking all over him, right to base and down to his balls. His hand on your hip coming up to your clothed breast with a firm as he slowly goes soft inside you. And you see white, keeping your mouth purely for kisses and whimpers, afraid of saying too much. 

Afraid of being too real for him. 

“Housekeeping is going to have a field day in this room.” He chuckles, planting a kiss right on the delicate arch of your cheekbone. So exhausted from it all, the car ride, the sex, the drinking—you giggle back. Hiding all the strange yearning you felt seconds ago.

“I’d quit my job.” Javi drops his head in your neck and grumbles there too. His palm still firmly placed on the swell of your breast through the black fabric. You look down at the sight. “So do you like the dress?”

He lifts his head to look at you, face all red and sweaty. You bring your hands up to trace the slopes and curves on him, how you loved his nose. Your nail traces from his temple to its strong arch to the top of nostrils where it’s soft. He gives you a lazy smirk when your finger finds his cupid's bow. “I’m still inside of you, you know that right?” Your brows shoot up and giggle at your own silly question. The two of you are chuckling and intertwined. Your finger turns to a palm as you cup his cheek in a hold. Just taking a look at him. Suddenly he's shy under your gaze, his eyes diverting from your own. 

As if being loved was too intimate for him. 

“You are the most handsome man I've ever known.” You admit, peering up for a second to kiss him chastly. The timid glance switches and he's back to being cocky ol’ Javi.

“Oh yeah?” He kisses you again, “Hmm… tell me more.”

You thumb his cheek, and he turns his head to the left to kiss his palm. “And I’ve always had this like… really big crush on you.” 

His eyes widened in fake shock. “Really?!” 

“Oh yeah… too bad you didn't like me back then.” You tease.

Javi shakes his head and removes himself from you. Your cunt makes a sound that warms your cheeks and he plops down next to you. “You love to alter the story–making it seem like it was some one sided thing.”

“Wasn't it?” You challenge. It was a mixture. Part of you still believed that it was only you. That you had crushed a bit too hard and he had just been a good friend, the kiss being a moment between two teenagers who were too horny for their own good. Then there was what was closest to the truth, that you had a devastatingly painful crush and that Javi had it too and couldn't conceptualize it because it developed while he was already with someone else. 

“I liked you so much I had to move away.” 

You shake your head in annoyance, sitting up in bed. Your dress falling back over your knees and the sight must be funny because Javier lets out a throaty chuckle at the sight of you. You crane your neck to look into the mirror at the corner of the room. You’re  met with your blowout tussled and your mascara streaked. “Not funny.” You frown and he reaches his arm up to swipe a thumb under your eye, cleaning whatever makeup you had left over. You in turn grip his wrist. “You liked me so much you pretended I didn't exist for six years.” You bite, and that's all it is, bite. His lips quirk and you're so happy the two of you are in a place to make light of it all. 

“I would have been saved from a whole lot of suffering if that were true.”

“You like to suffer.” Shaking your head and placing his hand back down to his chest. You bring your arms over your head to pull the halter of the dress down, stripping yourself nude in one quick pull, tossing the dress to the floor. Mindlessly you tuck yourself under the covers, rolling your neck and tossing your hair over one shoulder. You look back to Javi who has his jaw clenched and an unamused look. “What?”

He clears his throat and shakes his head. “Nothing. If I say what I want to, we'll never get any sleep.”

“We’re on vacation we can afford to lose some.” 

He grumbles a noise of disapproval before stripping himself down and tossing his clothes to the side. He settles in next to you, keeping a safe distance considering from what you saw he was getting a hard on already. “We can't. I have the last meeting early in the morning.”

Mid yawn, “Oh please, we can sleep after your meeting.”

Reaching over to shut off the lamp he mumbles something in Spanish about me being worse than a man. “I’ve got a surprise for you tomorrow.” 

Lips upturning in the dark, you couldn't care to make space. You scooch into him, laying your head right on his chest. “You got me a surprise.”

“Yes.” He says nonchalantly, almost grumpy and god you loved him.

[juletheghoul]

Move Into Me

Trying something a little different here. After lots of encouragement from fellow member of the Libra Legion, and co-founder of the Dilf Patrol, I have written a one-shot about an OFC. Now I understand that this is not everyone's cup of tea and that is okay with me. We can still be friends. For those of you who are interested - I hope you enjoy.

@beskarboobs - this ones for you.

reblogs are appreciated

Pairing: Javier x F! Latina / Hispanic OFC - Yamila Martinez (Of Cuban decent - all translations of the Spanish words and phrases will be included within parentheses)

Word Count: 6.4K

Warnings: yearning, angst, jealousy, language, Smut 18+, PIV sex (wrap it up), slight dirty talk, Oral-female receiving

I just went ahead and used my Pedro Taglist but if you don't want to be included for fics like this - no worries just let me know!

----

She heard him before she saw him.

The unit next to her had been empty for months and it looked like she was finally getting a neighbour. She didn’t really know how to process her feelings about it. she’d gotten used to living beside an empty unit. She didn’t miss having to be careful of the noise - her loud phone calls with her mother, music playing as she cooked.

By the time she reaches the door she can hear him swearing and trying to push the door in by force. There were boxes crowding the hallway and she took pity.

“Hey- here let me help, the people before you had trouble with it too.” She walked over and held out her hands for his key. He was scowling, but he handed them over without a word.

“Trick is- there it is, a little click. Sounds weird but don’t push your key in all the way, listen for the little click then turn.. ekele kua.” She swung the door open for him and moved out of the way with a smile.

His scowl was gone, replaced by a curious friendliness.

“Jesus, thanks I would have been here all day, what did that mean?” He spoke as he shoved the nearest box inside.

“Oh sorry, just something my mom said growing up. Hi - I’m Yamila Martinez.”

“Javier Peña.” She hadn’t really taken him in before, too focused on the keys and remembering her previous neighbours. He was tall and handsome, dark brown hair and eyes. He was lean but strong. A neatly trimmed moustache framing his top lip. His bottom lip full - she snapped out of it.

She held out her hand to shake..

“Did you need some help bringing your boxes in?” She gestured vaguely behind her. He had an endearing curve in his nose.

“I’m okay, thanks though.” He smiled as he went about bringing in his belongings.

“I’ll leave you to it, I’m just next door if you need anything.” She smiled and retreated back into her apartment.

———————————-

Insomnia had its icy grip on her tonight.

No matter how comfortable she thought she was, no matter how much tila tea or warm milk drank - which frankly she thought was disgusting - she could not fall asleep.

She opened up her window and climbed out to sit on the fire escape. It was a nice night and a little time outside usually helped.

“Can’t sleep?” His voice cut through the silence and she let out a small scream - nearly jumping out of her skin. She clutched at her heart - it was racing and for a second she thought it might burst out of her chest.

“Jesus Christ! You scared the fuck out of me!” She whispered it half angrily, half relieved. He laughed, a real deep-throated laugh.

He was gorgeous. She was half naked.

Usually when she came out here she was by herself and no one really noticed. He made no mention of her coming out in just a long shirt and comfortable undies, she made no mention of him being shirtless in a pair of undone jeans.

“I’m sorry- I didn’t mean to scare you. I couldn’t sleep so I came out here to get fresh air. Seems we both had the same idea.” He offered her a cigarette which she took. He pulled out a lighter and cupped it, bringing it to her mouth.

“It’s okay, I usually come out here when I can’t sleep either. Got way too used to not having a neighbour.” She tried her best to calm down as they both smoked in silence.

“Have you lived here long?” He broke the silence.

“Here in Colombia or here in the building?” She did her best to blow the smoke away from his face as she spoke.

“Both I suppose, your English is really good.”

“Thanks, I was born in Miami but my mom brought my brother and I when we were little, my step dad is Colombian. Been living in this building for a few years.” She tapped the cigarette against the ashtray he was holding, her ashes adding to his. “What is it you do?”

“DEA actually.” He crushed the end of his as he spoke, the smoke coming out his nose.

Hm. Another one, she thought as she sighed heavily. No one in Colombia was ignorant to what had happened with Escobar, and unlike some of the locals she knew - she didn’t worship the man so she did what she always did, she cracked a joke. ”Drug enforcement, better hide my stash then.” He chuckled again.

“You do that, anywhere but under the mattress, that’s the first place I look.” She didn't know if he was kidding but thinking of him anywhere near her mattress made her flush. Luckily it was dark.

“I’ll definitely remember. Thanks Agent Peña.” She gave him a thumbs up and instantly regretted it.

It was nice to sit outside with someone. As much as she liked the privacy of not having a neighbour, she missed having someone to talk to. Not that Javier seemed like the super talkative type.

She finally started to feel her eyelids getting heavy, her cue to get into bed.

“Bedtime for me, hasta mañana Javier.” She made to climb back into her apartment.

“You can call me Javi - hasta mañana [goodnight].” He made his way inside his own apartment.

“Hasta mañana Javi.”

———————————————

She heard the moans and soft grunts through the wall. It made her flush all over.

It had been a few weeks since Javi moved in and this was happening way too often. It was never the same woman, but it always ended the same way. She’d hear him open up his apartment - eventually - along with a woman’s voice. Both of them talking and laughing in low whispers, which would eventually turn into moans and groans. It served to highlight her lack of a sex life depressingly.

She could hear the other woman a little louder now - seemingly reaching her peak and she shuddered. She was painfully attracted to Javi and for a moment she imagined it was her underneath him.

She covered her face with the pillow to try and drown out the sounds roughly. Her cat jumped off the bed having been woken up by her tossing.

“I know Lito I’m sorry.” She whispered to him, and blessedly a few minutes later they were finally done.

Now came the awkward part - the door opening, and him wishing her a goodnight. Her quiet footsteps down the hall towards the elevator. It was maddening.

Once it was quiet she thought it might be safe to head out for a cigarette, thinking he was probably asleep.

She was enjoying the quiet night air as he came out onto the landing, lit cigarette hanging off his lip. He looked so beautiful like this, relaxed, a slight sheen on his chest from his… activities.

“You’re awake?” he sat next to her, bumping shoulders conspiratorially.

“Yeah - my new neighbour’s a dick.” It came out harsher than she wanted it to.

“Sorry - I didn’t realize, you heard everything huh? Oh Jesus - you’ve heard it every time haven’t you?” He had the decency to look ashamed, she enjoyed that more than she thought she would.

“Yep, every time. You’ve been busy.” she said it a little softer, bumping his shoulder back to let him know she wasn’t actually angry.

“I’m sorry - I should be more considerate. I’ll try to keep it quiet. If I’m ever making too much noise just bang on the wall. How’s that vecina?” you couldn’t help but watch his mouth as he spoke.

She raised her eyebrows at him, her fingers moving the bulk of her thick hair from one side of her head to the other. He smiled, his hair had fallen over his eyes and it took everything in her not to push it away.

“Yeah, I’m not going to do that - especially if you’re in the middle of it. Not going to bang on the wall like an annoying old maid. Just try to fuck quietly.” She laughed as she said it and he ran a hand over his face in embarrassment.

“Okay okay - point taken.” He left it at that and the both of them sat in silence. This had been happening a lot since he moved in. Both of them found it hard to sleep at night, so they’d eventually end up on the fire escape, smoking and chatting idly and she ignored how comfortable it felt. How happy this time with him made her, both of them usually half-dressed - unselfconscious.

“How’s work?” She turned to look at him and he sighed big at the question.

“It’s a lot.” All the playfulness was gone from his tone - his voice low and raspy.

“Did you want to talk about it?” She didn’t want to push him, the two of them usually stuck to small talk.

“Well, Escobar is gone, but he’s not the only one. Can’t really say much more than that.” He stubbed out his cigarette as he spoke. She didn’t respond, letting him say whatever he wanted to say, he left it at that.

She could see the weight of whatever it was he was dealing with on his face and she put her hand on his arm to let him know she was there for him. He placed his hand on her thigh and squeezed in understanding and although it would have thrilled her to have him touch her this way any other time, it pulled at her heartstrings. He was troubled, and from what she could see, he couldn’t talk to anyone about it. She rested her head on his shoulder quietly, her way of letting him know she was on his side.

They both sat in silence for a long time.

------------------------------------------

She heard the knock on her door as she was towel drying her hair.

“Hola vecina [hello neighbour]- was wondering if you could help me with something.” Javi was standing at her door, wearing a buttery soft looking leather jacket - holding a giant duffle bag.

“You want to move in?” She laughed with a raised eyebrow.

He shook his head - “Very funny, leaving on assignment for a couple of weeks. Can I leave my keys with you? Would really appreciate it if you could just air out the apartment every few days, help yourself to whatever's in the fridge.” he held his keys out to her and she took them, throwing them onto the little catch-all plate beside her.

“Sure, bring me back something nice.” She said it sweetly and he nodded - she couldn’t help but stare at his neck. His button up shirt had a few unbuttoned at his throat and it was very distracting. He caught her looking.

“See you soon.” he walked away with a smile and he was ashamed to say she stared at his ass longer than she should have.

-------------------

She ignored the part of her that wanted to open up Javi’s closet. She wanted to wear one of his shirts but she pushed that urge deep down, making sure to avoid it all together.

His apartment was sparse but neat, the layout was a mirror of hers - their bedrooms shared a wall. No wonder she heard everything he did in here. His bed was neatly made - not a lot of homey touches. She opened up his windows before going through his fridge. Looking for anything that might be on the turn to get rid of it. He didn’t have much.

She dumped out some milk that was already bad - everything else was preserved and would last until he got back. Did this man eat any vegetables?

“¿Javi no está en casa?” [Javi’s not home?] The woman had come up behind her as she was locking his door.

“No, tuvo que salir - halgo con el trabajo.” [No, he had to leave, something to do with work.] She smiled at the woman, but she frowned, noticing that Yamila had a key to his apartment. She answered the question before she could ask it.

“Soy la vecina nomas, desafortunadamente no se cuando regresará .” [I’m just his neighbour, unfortunately I don’t know when he’ll be back.] She made to walk away.

“¿Le puedes decir que vine? Soy Gabriela.” [Can you let him know I stopped by? I’m Gabriela.] She looked vaguely annoyed and Yamila couldn’t help but feel awkward. He didn’t talk about any of the women he brought home.

“Claro que si, adiós!” [Of course, goodbye!] She walked away as Yamila retreated back into her apartment.

-

Javi knocked on her door a few days later looking for his keys and looked mildly confused when she told him about her encounter with the woman looking for him.

“Said her name was Gabriela.” She felt awkward- telling him about one of his hook-ups coming to look for him.

“She came here? That must have been awkward for you - I’m sorry. I’ll call her.” He wasn’t cruel about it, moreso surprised that she had come back.

“I guess you made an impression on her.” She smiled at him warmly, she didn’t want him thinking she was judging him. He lingered a bit as he grabbed his keys from her.

“I just made dinner and I know for a fact there is nothing at your place to eat. Go get settled and come back - I’ll fix you up a plate.” He protested but she gave him no choice. “I know you’re not going to turn down arroz con frijoles [rice & beans], go, bañate [shower].” he laughed as she pushed him out the door.

He came back with some beer from his fridge a little while later.

“Took a little longer than I meant to, sorry.” He handed her a beer as she handed him his plate. He smelled like irish spring and aftershave - his hair still damp. He looked so inviting she had to look away.

“No problem, it’s still warm. Hope the work thing went well.” They both sat at her little kitchen table, the picture of domesticity. He chatted about his work, nothing explicit but more than he ever had before. He opened up to her and she got the impression that he had wanted to talk about it for a while.

He talked for a long time - throughout your whole meal. About all manner of things, Escobar, his partner - Gabriela. She held her tongue and let him speak. It was the most she’d ever heard him speak in the months he’d lived next door.

“That’s a lot to deal with Javiersito, sounds like it was really intense. Have you considered speaking to someone?” She asked it gently - now that he had gotten it all out he looked relieved.

“No - I’m fine - thanks for listening though.” he drank the rest of his beer as he squeezed her hand in thanks.

“I think we should have a real drink.” She had a bottle of aguaardiente calling her name.

-

The alcohol barely burned in her throat by now, she had a pleasant buzz and could feel her inhibitions lifting. He was smiling freely, the usual frown gone. She caught him looking at her, the expression was in no way neighbourly and it excited her more than she would ever admit.

Her mind drifted to the parade of women he’d brought home since he’d moved in. The grunts he would make, the moans he would coax out of them and she flushed even more. She desperately wanted to be one of those women.

He was sitting on her sofa like he owned it. Legs spread, arms relaxed by his sides and a curious look on his face. He was looking through her. She used the courage the drinks gave her to walk over to him. She stood between his legs and looked down at him, trying to convey the want she felt for him with her eyes.

He was still giving her that look, making no move to pull her towards him - or push her away.

She slowly straddled him, folding up her long legs - putting her knees on either side of him to settle in his lap. He smelled so good and her boldness was building. She pulled her shirt off and sat there in her bra, he brought his hands to rest on her thighs. There could be no mistaking what she wanted.

He stopped her before she could kiss him. His hands holding onto her arms, she was confused.

“We shouldn’t.” He watched her mouth as he spoke, bringing his gaze down to her breasts, the soft skin of her belly, the apex of her thighs. The look said he wanted her but his hands held onto her firmly.

“Why not? I’m not drunk - just brave, I want you Javiersito.” She smiled what she imagined was a sexy smile and tried to kiss him again.

“Quit it, I don’t want to do this.” The with you was implied. It felt like he had slapped her across the face. The rejection burned in her throat much harsher than the aguardiente ever had. He saw the hurt on her face and let out a heavy sigh. She felt so stupid, so desperate and ugly. She pulled out of his hands forcefully, grabbing her shirt and turning before he could see the hot angry tears streaming down her face. The jealousy at all those faceless women he had fucked without a second thought boiled her blood.

“I’m sorry, I-” She cut him off.

“You know my name, that must be it right? Can’t pretend you don’t know me after.” She lashed out, it hurt so much to have him so close, knowing he had no problem with casual sex, with anyone but her. Deep down she knew she was speaking out of anger and hurt but at that moment she didn’t care. The mix of alcohol and rejection made her vicious and the colour bloomed on her chest and face - her skin reddening.

“That’s not fair, I don’t want you to hate me after. I’m not in a good place and you mean more than those other women. I don’t want to use you like that. I should go, thanks for everything.” He spoke gently and the hurt in his voice was making her angrier.

She didn’t say anything as he walked out the door, her anger and hurt kept her silent.

She heard him climb out onto the fire escape a few hours later, a soft knock on her window.

“Yami, come out and sit with me.” He spoke low and Lito looked up at him, meowing softly.

She ignored him.

-

The next day was awful. She felt foolish and embarrassed. She’d presented herself to him and he’d pushed her away. She didn’t think you’d be able to face him for a while. She made sure to leave for work an hour early so as not to have to face him in the hallway.

He was there when she got home though. Hearing her familiar gait walking up to her door and he opened up his door - the sound of it making the bottom of her stomach feel like it was dropping onto the floor.

“We need to talk.” he had his scowl back on and she couldn’t deal with it right now. Not after yesterday, not after working with a headache and hangover and heartbreak.

“There’s nothing to talk about Javier, it’s fine. I shouldn’t have come on to you like that. You’ve never expressed any sexual interest in me whatsoever and I put you on the spot. I’m sorry about what I said, I felt embarrassed. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m tired and I’m going to sleep.” She closed the door in his face before he could get another word in. She pressed her forehead against the door as she locked it, hearing him sigh heavily and eventually make his way back inside.

The anger and hurt burned through her just as fiercely as the night before and the tears ran freely as she showered.

She’d been ignoring him for days. He tried to talk to her but she couldn’t bring herself to face him - she gave him excuses, she was tired. She had a headache. She told him everything was fine but he knew it wasn’t. Eventually he stopped asking.

-

She hadn’t heard him leave, but she definitely heard him come home. She heard the familiar sound of a woman laughing, this time he told her to be quiet. That hurt more than everything and her chest ached knowing he had someone he didn’t give a shit about in his apartment. She couldn’t cope with the sounds that would surely follow after they entered his place. She braced herself for them, the anticipation much worse. They came. They always came.

She was vocal but she heard him telling her to keep it down over and over until eventually she could hear her asking what was wrong. The walls of the building were paper thin.

She made her way to the fire escape, not wanting to hear any more of their exchange.

She smoked out there on her own, trying vainly to soothe herself. This is not the first time she’d experienced rejection and she knew it wouldn’t be her last. There was nothing left but to just accept it. It wasn’t his fault he didn’t like her that way. If things were reversed she would expect him to understand and respect her wishes. She’d just have to toughen up and do the same, didn’t mean it didn’t hurt like hell.

She heard his window open and he came outside to sit with her, keeping a healthy distance. At least he wore a shirt this time. She didn’t look up at him, her tears had dried up a while ago but her face was puffy from crying. She didn’t care if he noticed.

“I didn’t make too much noise, did I Yami?” He spoke in low tones and the question made her angry. She felt like hitting him but she took a deep breath.

“No. You made the usual amount.” Her voice was hoarse from crying, from the pain in her throat from trying to swallow up her tears. Even so she couldn’t keep the acid tone out of her words. She took a deep breath, she had to calm down - she couldn’t treat him this way. She got up to climb back into bed, there would be no more noise to keep her awake now.

He grabbed her hand to hold her back and she snatched it back as though she’d been burned. She saw his face fall, and the guilt rose bringing with it the urge to apologize. He beat her to it.

“Sorry, I’m sorry if I hurt you, you have to know I care about you.” He spoke so sadly, the frown still present. She wanted so badly to smooth it away, to kiss his forehead and feel him wrap his arms around her.

“I know. Goodnight Javiersito.” She cried all night.

---------------------------

She hadn’t seen him for a full week, the both of them going out of their way to avoid each other. She didn’t want it to be this way but it was better. She didn’t want to cry every time she saw him.

He hadn’t brought anyone home and she was more grateful than she could ever say, but she knew it would happen again soon. He was a good looking man and if the noises she heard were anything to go by, he was a good lay.

That’s what she needed. She needed to get laid. That would help her stop obsessing over her stupidly hot neighbour who didn’t want her. It was childish but she got a sick thrill at having him be the one to hear her for once, although a little part of her whispered that he wouldn’t care. He’d probably be relieved. Wouldn’t have her pining over him so obviously.

She wanted to turn heads tonight. She went with a skintight dress that showed off her curves, some of her most expensive, sheer intimates. She wanted a visceral reaction from whoever she decided to bring home. She wanted Javier to know other men desired her even if he didn’t.

She were so confident leaving the apartment in her ‘come fuck me’ heels and a leather bomber jacket, a stark contrast to how she felt now. She’d been at the local bar for an hour, her feet were sore, her hair more frizzy than anything else and there was no one she wanted to take home. To make matters worse, Javi was standing at the other end of the bar, ignoring a woman who quite obviously had her eye on him.

There was a broad man in front of her- very attractive, he was speaking to her but she could barely hear him.

“Sorry what?” She leaned in close to him, he smelled great. He brought his mouth to her ear. His voice was deep and soothing, in another life she would have lost her mind over this man. He was tall and strong, his eyes a crystal clear blue. He reminded you of a prince, his blonde hair thick. This will do nicely.

“I said - can I buy you a drink?” He flashed a movie star smile at her and she could feel Javi’s eyes burning into her. She ignored him.

“Only if you let me buy you one after.” She smiled sweetly at him, moving closer to him. He was very attractive and this was exactly what she needed. She chanced a glance back at Javi and saw he was scowling at her. That really pissed her off, how dare he give her that look? It should be you, she thought.

Her mystery man introduced himself as Will, an obvious tourist and she flirted with him the whole night. It made her feel guilty that he was actually nice, he was charming and he made no attempt to hide his attraction to her. His hand had found her waist and was slowly but steadily making it’s way south.

She felt Javi’s eyes on her the whole night - it was making her bolder and she pressed herself up against Will, flirting with him shamelessly. He would whisper things into her ear - tell her how hot she was, how he was attracted to her. He bought her another drink and they chatted idly. All smiles and bold statements. Eventually Will finally got brave and pulled her towards him as he sat on a bar stool. Looking up at her with desire clear on his face.

She let him, standing between his legs placing her hands on his broad shoulders. He tipped his face up at her, wrapping his arms tightly around her waist and kissed her. It was a good kiss all things considered.

It wasn’t Javi.

It would have to do however as she once again reminded herself that if Javi wanted her, he would have had her.

“Want to get out of here?” She held Will's face in her hands and he nodded eagerly. When she looked up, Javi was gone.

Will gave her exactly what she needed. It started out a little rocky while the two of them found their rhythm but in the end he had her moaning for real and after they’d both reached their peak she felt lighter.

“That was really good, I had a great time.” He was up and getting dressed. “Maybe we could do that again before I leave?” Oh thank Christ she thought, she was glad he wasn’t expecting to stay over.

“Yeah I’d like that- I had a great time too.” She answered honestly.

She walked him to the door wearing just a tshirt and he kissed her sweetly before he slipped out. The note with his phone number was left on the counter.

—————————-

It had been a couple of days since her night with Will, and she hadn’t called him back yet.

Javi came out onto the fire escape to find her sitting there smoking. She said nothing to him.

“I see what you mean about the walls being paper thin, I heard everything the other night.” His voice was serious and she thought she detected some anger there. She told herself she was imagining it.

“Did he make you cum? Or did you fake it?” He gave her a hard stare. The blood rushed to her face and she wanted to slap him for that.

“Why? Can’t tell the difference? Not that it’s absolutely any of your fucking business, but yes - he made me cum.” She was incensed. How dare he ask that? She stubbed out her smoke angrily, the blood rushing to her face, boiling in her veins.

“I’m jealous.” He was serious.

“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” Unbelievable.

“I’ve been trying to talk to you for days, maybe explain why I didn’t fuck you-“ She cut him off.

“Waiting outside to corner me after work isn’t trying to talk to me. Bringing another girl over to fuck and then apologizing for the noise isn’t explaining anything. I put myself out there for you, maybe I shouldn’t have. I can live with that, I can live with you telling me you’re not attracted or being the kind of guy that doesn’t shit where he eats. You want to be friends? Fine. Friends don’t get jealous. You do not get to say anything about who I fuck.” She was shaking. The anger was threatening to drown her in its violence. The nerve of him, he didn’t want her, but no one else could have her either?

“I don’t know what I thought, I thought pushing you away was a good idea. I could see that you were attracted to me and I didn’t want to see that look of want turn into disgust. Not from you, I couldn’t handle it if you hated me.” He was angry too, but at himself. She let him continue.

“I shouldn’t have brought that girl over the other day, I regretted it as it was happening but it’s how I cope with things. The women I meet and I use each other, for companionship, or intel for work. We know what we’re getting into. You don’t look at me like they do, and I don’t want you to. When I saw that guy talking to you it felt like someone shot me, I was so angry and jealous it scared me. Hearing you with him was worse.” He was looking at her the same way he had the night she tried to kiss him.

“How do you want me to look at you?” She was still so angry, it took him seeing her with someone else to realize he wanted her? Men.

“I want you to look at me the way I look at you.” He came a little closer and her heart leapt. She didn’t think she could handle this right now.

“Do you want me? Or just the attention I gave you? If the only reason you’re saying all this is because it pissed you off that I slept with someone else, then you can forget it. I’m not just a toy you refuse to share.” She stood her ground.

“It should have been me, not him. It should have been me in your bed, me in between your legs.” He tentatively brought his hand up to cup her face. She slapped him across the face. The clap rang out like a gunshot. The anger was heavy in her stomach and she couldn’t believe his audacity. Even worse was her body’s reaction to him. Her nipples tightened in excitement and a wave of slick pooled in her panties at his words. He looked down at her with a dark intensity.

“Tell me to leave. Tell me to go back into my apartment and to leave you alone.” He closed the gap with a hand roughly grabbing at her waist. Bunching the fabric of her shirt in his hands- holding her tight to him.

She couldn’t bring herself to do it.

Her skin was on fire where he touched her, his breath igniting her and it made her so angry. She was wetter than she’d ever been and she hated that she wanted him so bad.

His kiss was bruising. His hands were a vice grip at her waist, pulling her closer to him, she couldn’t help but moan into his mouth. He took the opportunity to slip his tongue past her defences. She was leaking into her underwear as he roughly grabbed at her ass.

“Tell me to stop, if I fucked up too bad and you don’t want me anymore…” he kissed at her neck, his hands travelling up her back. She pushed him away momentarily and the look that came over him threatened to break her heart. He kind of deserved it.

She pulled him into her apartment and any reservations he had before were gone.

He pulled off his shirt and hers and pulled her onto his lap on her bed, his hands on her thighs the same way as the night he rejected her. He sensed her reliving it and he brought his hands to her face. He kissed her softly, trying to rewrite the memory in her mind.

This is what should have happened the kiss said.

He trailed his kisses down, to her chin, her neck, her chest. He spoke after each one.

I’m sorry, forgive me, I’m sorry

She ran her fingers through his hair as he kissed her sternum, as he licked her nipples, as he nuzzled into her skin.

It felt so good, it felt like she was weightless. It felt like if she didn’t cling onto him she would float away.

She kissed him again, wanting to breathe him into her and he was determined to let her. He was going to show her how much he cared about her, how badly he’d wanted her all these months.

She was biting at her lip, eyebrows furrowed as he grabbed at the meat of her ass, her core pressed against the thick pillar of his sex. Her pert nipple in his mouth and he thought about all the times he’d imagined tasting them when they sat outside. A cool breeze hardening them through her soft sleep shirt as they smoked and laughed.

“Javiersito…” Her nickname for him came out as a whimper and it made his cock throb.

“Dime mi reina, dime lo que quieres.” [Tell me my queen, tell me what you want.]

She moaned, pulling his face up to kiss him as she ground herself against him.

“Just you.” She felt so vulnerable, so open and soft for him and he paused, his warm hand brushing away the soft waves from her face to place soft kisses at her forehead, her eyes, her mouth.

She let him flip her over, let him settle in between her legs to press his mouth to hers, and his kisses fanned the flames already burning inside her for him. She could barely focus, her mind urged her to do all of the little things she’d daydreamed about doing ever since that first day. She ran her fingers through his hair, brought her hand to his face to brush her thumb across his plush bottom lip. She smiled as she scratched her nails lovingly down his back and it deepened when he groaned at the feel of it.

She lifted her hips when he pulled at her panties, a smile of his own lighting up his face to find her wet and glossy for him and despite all of the longing, all of the pining for him she felt shy.

She knew he could see the flush blooming on her chest and in the apples of her cheeks. She knew he could feel the slight tremble in the soft skin of her belly - had to feel it even more then he kissed just below her belly button. When he wrapped her long legs around his neck.

She watched as he trailed his kisses down, her bottom lip in between her teeth in anticipation until he finally reached the crux of her. It was then Yami understood that the noises she’d been hearing were real and it annoyed her slightly to think of those women now. He must have sensed her, felt her tense up because his big hands were caressing her wherever he could reach. Her belly, her thighs, her hips - her breasts. He coaxed her out of her mind, dipping into her to gather more wetness, to taste her and he couldn’t help but groan, to rut into his jeans on her mattress.

His fingers breached her and with the perfect glide of his tongue against her clit; the orgasm hit her almost by surprise. He had made her ache with the arousal and the temporary relief was just that, temporary. The look he had on his face as he drank in her pleasure skyrocketed her back to that needy place she’d been in just before; she knew that the force she used to pull him up would leave marks but neither of them cared. They couldn’t. Not when she all but ripped his jeans down his legs. Not when his cock was this hard, not when he slipped into her wet heat.

A mutual groan fills the dark apartment, the sound of relief. Of longing, of the hours spent yearning for him to fill her this way. To fill her heart, her space, her cunt.

He felt better than she ever imagined he did on those lonely nights and she almost laughed with the euphoria of it, her ankles locking on his lower back.

“You feel so fucking good querida, fuck - I’m not going to last..” His face was pressed into the crook of her neck, his hips a steady stroke and right then she wanted him to cum so badly it almost hurt. He leaned his weight on one arm and reached down to draw dizzying little circles onto her clit - taking another orgasm from her before giving her his own.

“Fuck Javi - yes, please, cum inside..” She breathed the words into his mouth as her body clenched around him and he couldn’t hold out anymore. His thrusts turned into a grind as he seized up.

He lit a cigarette for her before lighting one for him and they laughed and talked just like before, only this time, they were in her bed.

---------

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[furious-rogue-stuff]

Heat Chapter 44: Deserving - Part 1

I assure you, I did NOT intend for there to be such a long hiatus since the last update! Life got ridiculous for a while. Hopefully this massive chapter makes up for the wait!

Pairing: Javier Peña x OFC | Javi x Querida

Disclaimer: Written in 2nd person narrative, you can safely assume our heroine and love/lust interest is a Latina, written by a Latina. Here's my philosophy on my writing, for further context.

Rating: Mature/Explicit 🔞

Word Count: 26,000+

Summary: While Javier's work spins up, preoccupying him, you try to keep your worries after several perplexing occurrences from towing you down into uncertainty. Can you both keep each other feeling grounded and deserving of the hopes you both care to nurture together?

Warnings: Graphic descriptions of sex, including masturbation and unprotected sex. Mentions of raunchy sexual acts, sickness, longing, stress, and fertility worries. Descriptions of power play, praise kink, and dirty talk. Allusions to jealousy, family strife, foreboding threats, and uncertainty. Some Protective!Javi, Dom! Javi, Bossy!Reader. In the vein of Narcos being a bilingual show, and Javier Peña being fluent, I felt it was apropos to include Spanglish and Spanish throughout.

Heat Masterlist

Previous chapter - Chapter 43: Still

Chapter 44: Deserving - Part 1

Since the 1980s, Puerto Rico had grown into a major gateway to the U.S. for South American drugs. Within the first few years of the early 1990s, though, the small archipelago and U.S. territory functioned as the Caribbean's drug-smuggling hub. The administration in Washington D.C. ranked Puerto Rico and the nearby U.S. Virgin Islands as second to Mexico, in being a corridor for drugs coming into the United States.

With stats like that, and a precarious rise in violence and social ills associated with the drug trade and trafficking on the island, it was no wonder that the federal government had established a larger footprint in the region, encouraged especially by the Partido Nuevo Progresista being the current party in power. The Puerto Rican governor, Pedro Roselló, was a pro-statehood politician who'd been voted into power with lofty promises of curbing the waves of crime and violence, and collaborating with the federal government to get aid and better opportunities for private industry to the island of 3.6 million people.

His Mano Dura initiative was one that will be studied for decades to come. Beginning as a zero-tolerance policy program to combat crime, that some say had the opposite effect when it came to bettering the social standing of the working and poor classes on the island. It included the enactment of policies that increased sentencing periods, reduced rehab-focused initiatives for criminal offenders and promoted aggressive, more proactive – and often invasive – policing tactics. Public safety was touted as the preeminent concern – borne out of the fear and public frustrations across all facets of Puerto Rican society regarding the skyrocketing incidences of carjackings, hold ups, drive-by shootings, and murders fueled by the drug trade.

For all the militarized tactics, most glaring being the use of the National Guard to infiltrate and police public housing and high-crime neighborhoods throughout the metropolitan municipalities on the island, the murder rate only kept rising.

Javier had poured over the data, and saw how crime had exploded on the island as soon as it became a hub for drug trafficking into the U.S. and Europe. It used to be that robberies and the occasional assault were the worst crimes in most towns on the island. But just the year prior, there were 980 homicides on the island, setting a record – with one of the worst massacres reported occurring in a small town west of San Juan. More than 60 percent of the killings were drug-related. And drug-related violence was only getting more pervasive – indiscriminate of victims or the collateral damage.

Needless to say, Javi was done with the crash course phase of things, and wanted to really wrap his arms around the facts at hand. Sadly, the murder and mayhem had no face – no figurehead to pin the wave of crime on, so he was left to pull at threads in the stats and data to try and find the source. Of course, though, he and Steve had their mandate: stopping the flow of drugs, especially of the 10 to 20 percent that ended up remaining in the island for local consumption, creating a criminal industry that smuggles and stores the product, launders money, operates the retail puntos and foments the violence to prevail over competitors. Well, at least that was Javi's goal, since stopping the all-out flow of drugs into the U.S. was a fool's errand.

Getting the DEA running without being as heavy-handed as the National Guard patrolling known points had been difficult in the past, but he and Steve had come up with different tactics and enforcement plans. Organizing everyone, and getting them the necessary training, and into the field office was their current hurdle, one that kept both agents busy.

Working to get the field office set up, splitting travel to and from the U.S. Virgin Islands, being briefed on joint task force operations, and dealing with federal officials assessing their budgetary requests had been occupying a lot of their time. There just aren't many moments for either of them to concentrate on non-DEA-related things longer than the cursory conversations or plans you and Connie make for dinner hangouts, surface 'how was your day' chats, or simply wanting to be in the moment when intimacy was possible. So, having the intuition to ask 'what is wrong?' wasn't in the cards currently.

You commiserate with Connie about it. Between the two of you, though, you don't feel like you have any concerns – you don't feel neglected or burdened. After all, she's the one juggling a full-time job at the V.A., taking care of Isabel and Olivia, and fitting in time to tend to the house. If anything, you feel pretty centered, compared to how things had been before reconciling with Javier.

It's all perspective, and you are a great sounding board for Connie as much as she's a reassuring voice of reason – and a fount of knowledge for living with a stubborn DEA agent.

Really, you enjoy having someone who understands what it's like to be in love with a tenacious, committed and selfless man who throws himself into his work head first, then thinks about the toll that takes much later. As far as you're concerned, it all is put into perspective. So not telling Javier – or anyone – about the threatening note you'd received via a pink carnation bouquet delivery to your condo building, makes perfect sense to you.

Sure, you'd rushed down and asked the attendant specifics – 'Who delivered it? Did they mention the sender at all? Are you sure it was meant for my apartment?' – and gotten no answers or evidence that would help identify the culprit, let alone a means to track possible suspects, had unnerved you. But you just didn't think it was anything worth mentioning to Javier. You didn't want to alarm him when you weren't really sure it was even meant for you or not. No, it didn't seem credible enough to set off unnecessary stress and panic. So, you didn't.

You'd thrown the flowers out, and stored the card into the drawer of the console in the living room.

When Javier had spent the night at your place the following evening, you'd already shoved it to the back of your mind.

He was none the wiser, and you'd enjoyed relaxing with him in bed after stripping each other of your clothes and making passionate love while the air conditioning kept your warm bodies and the room cool.

He'd been beat from work, so much so he'd practically fallen asleep in mid-sentence about his hectic day.

Things for your department were equally busy the next couple of weeks as well with a major server expansion across departments and agencies occurring in stages, so you held no umbrage at the juggling of free time happening, since you were also focusing on your work projects.

The nights he'd work late, you were content with a quick 'goodnight' call and making plans to have a coffee, or lunch date some time the next day. Whenever you both ended up being at the office after hours, due to working late, Javier and you would carpool together in your sleek sedan to his place to spend the night together, and he'd catch a ride the following morning with Kike either to the field office or some task force meeting at the Federal Court Building.

And dinner with the Murphys had seamlessly become a once-a-week routine during this period as well, which was much-needed for blowing off steam and socializing outside of work.

This week's dinner was Saturday night, and it had been wonderful, but not without a lot of chatter between Steve and Javier regarding the drudgery still to come. During this kind of shop-talk lulls, you and Connie would exchange musing looks before leaving the fellas to it, preferring to entertain Olivia and the baby over idle chatter. This time, the precocious girl had made you both come to her room so she could show off the drawings she'd done at school and play with her favorite toy of the week before she had to get in her pjs and get tucked in.

You didn't mind it at all, and Isabel was a sweet baby that always seemed to enjoy your silly muecas and bouncing on your knee.

Javi was apologizing now, on the walk home back to his bungalow, for being so preoccupied, but you reassure him that it didn't bother you.

"—I know how much of a hassle it is to deal with all this stuff, babe. I'm just glad you and Steve have each other, this time," is your understanding retort. "And anyway, you two will make it up to us eventually."

"Oh, yeah?" he drawls, arm around your waist giving you a cheeky squeeze. "Have anything in mind already?"

"Actually, yeah. Earlier today, Connie, Anita and I talked about maybe doing a trip – all of us couples together," you retort simply and slip your hand into the back pocket of his jeans. "We could rent a house close to the beach and go for a long weekend."

Pleased, Javi hums, "Sure. I like that plan. Could be fun."

You conceded that you were sure it was a ways-away out, and while you both walk around the corner, keeping to the sidewalk, you muse, "All the Mano Dura stuff is really only revving up too, so I can imagine you're both going to be juggling that as well."

Unintentionally veering him back onto the work topic, Javier ends up talking through his thought process and concerns the rest of the walk to his place. By the time he's unlocking the door and chivalrously holding it open for you, Javi is really on a roll.

"—Once we get things settled, and the extra funding we asked for the field op teams comes in, we'll be able to take a backseat and let our ASACs manage," Javier is remarking as you enter through the entry door through the laundry room before him, allowing him to close and lock it behind himself. "It's time for Segarra to sink or swim, and Steve's guy seems more than capable to handle his end, so we should be finally able to focus on big-picture work. Really, we shouldn't have been doing so much shit ourselves up to this point, especially since we're supposed to be the bosses—"

He's just loped into the main living space and placed his keys onto the counter when his verbal train of thought halts after turning towards the living room. Well, specifically at the sight of you pulling your flouncy pale blue and green floral-patterned bohemian dress off and tossing it onto the chair adjacent the couch before toeing off your favorite leather flats and look over at him alluringly.

You're only in a thin nude lace bra and tanga-style panty now, already undoing the front closure as you brazenly suggest, "Why don't you come over here and show me who's boss, querido?"

It's hot, and oh-so-naughty how you can spin his lust up in a nanosecond and have him simmering with incandescent urge, especially with this kind of taunt delivered as an appeal for him to dominate you. And the sultry smile in your eyes as you shed your bra and toss it over at him to land on his shoulder, for good measure? Proceeded by the spritely way you fold your arms behind yourself and jut your bare breasts out proudly at him?

Rapacious desire ignites in his gut and has him rushing over to sweep you up into his arms. A delighted squeal bubbles out of you as he carries you to bed, making you laugh infectiously from his nippy nuzzling – impishly grazing his moustache along your neck and collarbone before he tosses you onto the soft surface. You bounce and giggle as you prop up onto your elbows to bat your lashes sultrily at him.

"You wanna get bossed around, do you?" he rumbles in a velvety tone as he takes his boots off and quickly divests of his belongings before unbuckling his belt and showily yanking his dark blue and white vertical pinstriped shirt – the one you love because it clings to his shoulders and pecs perfectly and accentuates his muscled biceps deliciously – out of his jeans waistband before swiftly beginning to undo the top three buttons.

Giving him a salacious smirk, you purr, "Mmhmm, that's right, mi patrón—"

"Fuck…" he eyes you with that smoldering, chiseled regard that always makes you tingly, before he growls, "Take those panties off right now, then, you little tease," as he deftly works the rest of the buttons undone and shrugs out of the shirt before pausing at plucking the button on his jeans when you defiantly remain sat up on your elbows and do not strip your underwear off as he'd ordered. Raising a challenging brow at you, he puts his hands on his hips and grumbles, "Are you really going to defy me, malcriada?"

You give him a mischievous grin and lilt, "Maybe?"

He grunts, giving you a snarky look as he leans over and yanks you down to the end of the bed by your ankles. Your squeal of surprise and the way you bite your lower lip makes him smirk before roguishly husking, "Do I need to tear them off of you and bend you over my knee for a spanking, traviesa?"

"I really like these, so no – no tearing, please," you chime as you draw your knees up and plant your soles flat to the bed, splaying your legs wide open as you toy with the waistband suggestively while his gaze hones in on the damp spot your arousal has soaked into the crotch of your panties.

The way he flicks his dark brewed eyes up at you sends an excited tickle up your spine and makes your pussy throb when he stares assertively at you before ordering, "Take them off, and show me what's mine."

Arousal pulses at your center at his command, and heat zings along your nerve endings to harden your nipples while anticipation flutters in your tummy as you slowly work your panties down and off. You discard them to the floor and lay back so you can spread your legs open and caress your hands along your thighs.

Javi hums in approval, and you expect him to finish undressing and have his way with you, but instead his smoldering gaze intensifies as he keeps his hands at his sides and murmurs gruffly, "I told you to show me what's mine, tentadora."

Your breath skitters excitedly, and Javi's gaze holds yours before admiringly returning to your cunt, now flushed with arousal. The desire he stokes in you has your seam slick and clitoris thrumming with need. He doesn't have to elaborate what he means, and seeing as you started this little game, you're aching to have him, and are tantalized by him flexing his dominance.

Breathily, you part your legs more and glide your hands down to touch yourself, slick dampening your folds as you run your fingers down and part them like dewy petals. You use the fingers of one hand to spread yourself open while the eager digits of the other dip into your aching pussy wetly before tracing back up to rub delicious pressure over your thrumming clitoris.

The sight of you pleasuring yourself has Javi throbbing wantonly in the confines of his jeans, but he keeps his now clenched hands at his sides as you whimper impatiently for his touch.

"Javi—please," you whine, your touch not enough, and desire making you needy for him to be naked and pressed against you.

He doesn't budge, even when you arch your hips up slightly and squeeze your bare breasts together. No, he wants to hear the magic words before he continues stripping.

"Please…what?"

Your blush sears the apples of your cheeks and you bite your bottom lip hard before exhaling a frustrated huff.

"Please, take what's yours," you beg, slick fingers gliding through your damp sex before you caress your palms up to your apex, as you murmur, "Give me what you want, mi amor."

He feels that rapacious urge scorch up in him at your needy words, and with how you butterfly your thighs open to show him how soaked your pussy is now, Javier can't keep his controlling façade up – not with how quickly his hands move to undo the button of his jeans and zip down his fly before slipping his thumbs into the waistbands of both the denim and his cotton underwear to yank them both in one swoop down.

Watching him strip makes you smile. He catches it when he stands from shedding the last of his clothes and tossing them in a pile by the dresser.

"Hm, take what's mine, eh?" he drawls in that honeyed baritone that makes delight tickle in your core, especially when he stands with his hard cock to loom over you, like he's contemplating what to do to you first.

All you can do to not grin up at him is to nod as demurely as you can muster as you hum, "Mmhmm."

With a shameless smile, Javi suddenly scoops you up and prowls onto the bed with you squealing a silly sound as he stays propped up on his knees so you're only recourse is to wrap your legs around his waist and cling to his shoulders.

He loves how mirth lights your eyes while your expression quirks with delight against your will – how your pursing lips can't fight back the smile tugging them up, so with a faux-admonishing cluck of his tongue, Javi coos, "Why am I getting the distinct impression that you're really giving me what you want, and not the other way around, hmm?"

You snicker and daringly buck against him so he has to catch his balance by propping his arm sidelong, which allows you to use the momentum to topple him onto the bed so you can playfully roughhouse with him for dominance, as you chime seductively, "Because that's exactly the case, mi patroncito. It gets me hot when you get all bossy—"

"Oh yeah?" Javier croons as he easily pivots you both so you're on your back and his big hands have cuffed your wrists and pressed them down on either side of your head. The weight of him crowding you makes you shiver, and the exquisite heft of his cock nestled flush against your crotch makes you mewl involuntarily.

"Yes," you admit airily and smile when his soulful eyes crinkle affectionately at you, full lips pursing out cockily. Deciding to pluck at a naughty string in him, you purr, "And it makes me ache for your cock when you think you can command me, bebito."

That has Javier giving you that incandescent look just as he steals your breath with a voracious kiss. Your arousal hazes your mind just as his hand moves to cuff your wrists together above your head while the other possessively cups your cunt and grinds your clit with the pad of his thumb. Hips bucking at the contact, you mewl into his mouth when his tongue plunders it while you arch up into his warm, muscled torso.

Your brain is swimming in the pleasure of Javi dominating the hell out of you, so much so that you don't even feel shame when he breaks the kiss and leaves you gasping from the sudden thwack of his deft fingers wrapping around his cock and tapping it lewdly onto your drenched pussy in a very lascivious show of dominance.

"When I think I can command you?" is Javier's gruff croon, dark brewed eyes molten with conviction as he makes his point again by gliding just the head of his cock through your folds before guiding it to slap wetly against your mound, deviously close to the hood of your clit.

You moan and writhe at the electrifying contact, so Javi purrs, "I think the ache you got for my cock has you forgetting who the boss is, querida. I'm gonna need you to use your words and beg for it, or else I'll just give you everything but my cock tonight."

Your skin is scalding from how crass-yet-authoritative he's being with you, winding your lust up into a tangle of desires that has you vibrating with arousal and pulsing with debauched delight.

"Please, mi amor—give it to me. Lo necesito. Te lo ruego. Por favor, mi rey. Seré tuya—will do whatever you command, just let me have it," you ramble with needy allure, eyes shimmering with how earnestly you're begging for him not to deny you the pleasure only he can give you.

Pleased beyond belief, Javi caresses his hand up to cup your chin to ground you to focus on his smoldering stare as he leans forward and husks, "Good girl," before kissing you chastely on the lips.

He lets you wrap your arms around his torso as he settles between your thighs and rolls his hips with delectable prowess to drive his cock into your pulsing sheath.

It feels so amazing to have him fuck into you – to stretch you open onto his thick, throbbing cock with every thrust, especially after all the foreplay and dirty talk. This feeling of passionate ecstasy always fills you, and the way you cling to Javi with every desperate stroke of him into you tethers him into being both grounded and alight. Nothing matters when you're both spun up like this, except for the ruinous euphoria you each feel build and build as the lovemaking crescendos.

There's nothing more gratifying to his pride than when you climax, going molten around his cock and frantic in his arms to cling to the sensations he's unleashed in you. You're so wild from the throes of pleasure that you muffle your sobbed moan into his neck before ferally suckling a greedy bite into the delectable spot.

"Fuck," Javier groans and feels his thoughts melt as his orgasm barrels loose from the knot of pleasure in his apex and has him clutching your waist as he pounds his cock into you before his thrusts stutter in rhythm and his release empties into your fluttering sheath.

Your toes curl at the sensation of his climax filling that deep, tender part of you only he can reach, leveling you to fall apart in his arms as all the strength dissolves in your body.

The warm and fuzzy heat of post-coital relief has you uncaring that you're warm, slick and sweaty under Javier while he lies on top of you in a spent heap.

"Eres pinche gloriosa," is Javi's husky, albeit drowsy praise as he props himself up on a shaky elbow before laboriously rolling off of you with an exhausted grunt.

All you can muster is an affectionate nudge of your forehead into his shoulder before Javi rumbles something wordlessly and encircles his arm to your waist in order to pull you to sidle against him.

The cool air from the undulating ceiling fan caressing your dewy forms helps lull you into a calm repose, where only Javier's warm skin and heady scent occupy your attention, until he nuzzles the top of your hairline and presses a kiss there.

"You feel good, querida?"

"Feel divine, chavón," you sigh, kissing his collarbone before you murmur, "I love you."

He exhales an approving grunt before patting your thigh encouragingly for you to tilt your face up to him. When you do, he caresses your cheek and swipes his thumb to wipe away at the perspiration that beaded along the edge of your orbital bone.

"I love you too, corazón."

Dreamily, you smile up at him unselfconsciously. Your eyes are glossy, lashes damp and lids heavy, so Javi curls his fingers to crook under your chin so he can admire your flushed features before he peppers soft kisses along your warm skin. You are content to simply bask in his doting grace.

Eventually, when you regain your wits and start to fidget, Javier gets out of bed to retrieve a damp washcloth and returns to give you his loving aftercare. And when he pulls the covers back for you to be tucked under them, you hold onto his forearm and tug him to slide in after you rather than be apart from him the few seconds it would've taken him to round the bed to his side and climb in.

Feeling too accomplished to care that you're in the spot closer to the doorway than he'd normally like, Javi stretches out next to you and happily lets you lounge curled up against him, with your head on his shoulder and hand caressing languidly along his chest.

"So…at the risk of sounding clingy, I'm really going to miss you," you find yourself volunteering in a murmur, already frowning at yourself as you amend it by rationalizing softly, "I mean, the other trips were much shorter—"

Javi cups your jaw and makes you melt when he kisses you, snuffing the insecure ramble before it could start.

Resting his forehead to yours, he sighs, "I know, since I feel the same way," before stating flatly, "It's gonna be a lot of meetings. Hell, all the damn travel from island to island will be the worst of it. Not to mention all the political jockeying and face-to-face conferences with officials. Wish I could just delegate it to someone else."

You pout, seeing the weariness in the corners of his eyes, so you sit up and caress your touch over his brow, murmuring as you trace your fingertips over his forehead, "Those are the pitfalls of being the boss man, hermoso."

He exhales deeply out his nose and closes his eyes, letting you soothe him with your affectionate touch before he mumbles, "I'm going to miss you so much, it's ridiculous."

When he opens his eyes again, he relaxes visibly when you lean forward and kiss his full lips tenderly before playfully scratching into his unruly hair, while you lilt in a singsong, "You'll just have to be a good boy, get your work done, and hurry back so I can have my way with you."

His laugh is warm and raspy as he loops his arms around you to roll down into the pillows together so he can shower you with ticklish, moustache-grazing kisses to your cheeks, jaw and neck while you giggle and try to fend him off by tickling his sides.

After you both settle down in the warm bed together for the night, Javier conks right out, breathing deep and calmly on his back while you're snuggled at his side, with your head on his chest. The quiet of the room and the undulating breeze coming from the curtain-covered windows helps your mind wander for a bit, still charged with wayward thoughts. The ones that keep looping back for consideration revolve around Javier unperturbedly falling back into the chase – of being hungry for the hunt. He couldn't seem to quit the DEA for good, let alone sit back and relax in his position of authority. You remember his promises, both from when he was a field agent and when he was the Special Agent in-Charge in Bogotá. How he'd been unable to keep any of them, no matter how hard he tried.

And now here you are, recalling the ones he'd made to you when he'd begged for another chance.

"I came here for you."

He'd professed coming to Puerto Rico to be with you. That he didn't give a damn about the job, and if you wanted, he'd quit. How he'd do whatever necessary to earn your trust. That all that mattered to him, was you.

You don't want him to quit, or to not give a damn about his work. But you'd be lying if you weren't worried that old habits were intent to die hard when it came to him getting swept up in the politicking and the disappointment – that he would fall prey again to the corrupt jockeying and manipulation of compromised leaders, both here and stateside.

Still…in your heart, you felt things were different, and didn't want to give up the peace of being with him, on both your own terms.

"Everything we wanted is still possible…I want it all, with you…"

An effervescent palpitation has your heart skipping a beat at the echo of his words, and you feel centered.

With a smile, you close your eyes and let the strong thrum of his heartbeat help lull you into sleep.

Early the next morning, you wake up to Javi sitting on the foot of the bed with a cup of coffee he's nursing while in only a pair of blue-striped pajama bottoms hanging low on his hips. From how his shoulders are slumped, you can tell he's half asleep, so you maneuver up to crawl over to him in order to slink up against his bare back. He grunts sleepily and takes a deep inhale before reaching his free hand backwards to hold you while you loop your arms around his midriff and kiss the nape of his neck.

"Want me to make you something to eat?" you whisper as you nuzzle the side of his head when he tilts it back and leans more into you.

"I'd rather have you," he tells you unabashedly as he turns to kiss you softly on the lips.

You hum into his coffee-flavored mouth before leaning back to sassily pet your hand over his tousled hair as you order, "You're going to have both, and you're going to like it, guapito."

Javier has no objection to that.

You both get in the shower together, have a great quickie under the hot water and against the warm tiles, and let the water rinse over your sated forms of the soap and sinfulness.

When you get back to the bedroom, you dry off and lie in bed to relish the little time you have left until Kike pulls up to get Javi before swinging over to Steve's.

Skin to skin, you savor his kisses and lovingly cuddle him, knowing how lonely – and empty your bed – going so long without him will be. Javier feels the longing building up in him already, and all he wants to do is get lost in this sensual moment, even though he doesn't have the time for it. You know it too, and prolong it for as long as you can.

It's only when you insistingly nudge him to start getting ready a few minutes later, that Javi begrudgingly goes to his dresser to grab his clothes. His things were already packed and waiting in the laundry room, thanks to you having surprised him with a respectable suitcase you'd purchased earlier the day before. When he'd come home from the gym and met you at his driveway after you'd dropped off Connie, Javi had been curious about the sleek piece of luggage as you carried it to his bedroom. You'd opened it as you'd razzed him about needing to level up from his well-traveled duffle bag, and had proceeded to iron an arrangement of suits and shirts for him. He'd been more than happy to enjoy your domestic doting, and had smirked when you'd shooed him away into the shower so you could continue picking out the ties and other garments he'd need.

Right now, though, he doesn't feel the need to rush to get ready, even when you're done pulling on your jeans and are tugging your shirt down as you head for the kitchen.

By the time he trudges down the back hall into the main room, dressed in dark blue jeans and a nice white button-down shirt with a breast pocket his aviators are currently folded in, you have a generous breakfast sandwich and a refreshed cup of coffee waiting for him at the kitchen's bar top.

His stomach growls, spiting him, and you smirk as he sits at the stool and eats with gusto while eyeing you ruefully.

"You know, you're cute when you're grumpy," you can't help tease as you lean into the counter, opposite him.

Polishing off his meal, he quickly dabs at his mouth with the napkin before picking the dishes up and rounding the countertop, deliberately breezing by you to place them in the sink, as he gripes, "We had enough time to fool around some more, and you shot me down."

You scoff irreverently before whirling around just in time to catch him off guard and press him back against the sink's counter. Hands boxing him in so you can lean into him commandingly, you bossily tell him, "Javier Peña, you better not be getting surly with me before you're about to leave for over a week. You know how much I want to roll around naked in bed with you. Now quit being a brat, and give me a kiss."

He can't even stay surly, not at that, or the sultry look you're giving him.

His lips quirk into a smirk while he lets his moodiness out in a huff through his nose, then leans in to kiss you obediently on the mouth.

You suck on his bottom lip before grazing your teeth on the plump morsel, enjoying how he gasps excitedly and grips your waist as you pull back and imperiously smile up at his flushed expression.

Just as you're deliberating whether you can get away with kissing on him some more, you hear Kike pull up in the SUV outside, so you sigh and wrap your arms around him for a fortifying hug.

Once you've taken care of the remaining dishes and Javier's disposed of the garbage in the receptacle outside for trash pickup, you go to the bedroom to retrieve your scrunchie in order to swiftly put your hair up.

Javi's booted footfalls over the tiled floor approach from the hall just before he comes in and wraps his arms around you from behind. Exhaling, he kisses the top of your head before asking, "You're still spending the day with your dad?"

You nod, leaning into him before affectionately turning in his embrace and nuzzling his neck, humming before reluctantly stepping back so you can both exit back to the living room. "Yeah. He's going to D.C. for a while, so I was going to go food shopping and make dinner at his place," you remark and sigh whilst putting your hair in a ponytail.

He ogles your neck, and considers delaying leaving by pulling you against him so he can kiss from your jaw down the column of delicate skin. To nip a matching hickey like the one you left on him, and feel you shiver and cling to him. But you're hustling to get your shoes on and grab your purse, so he stows his raunchy desires and gets his keys, cellular phone, and wallet.

"That sounds nice," Javi muses, making you smile when his hand caresses your lower back as he escorts you through the laundry room, grabbing his suitcase and opening the door for you. "No Camille?"

"Nope, thankfully," you retort and watch as he locks up before smiling when he turns and quirks a derisive brow at you. "It's for both their benefits! I cannot stand her, and she has finally learned her place, is all," you insist, and Javi nods judiciously at your rationale while he takes your hand and escorts you out of the marquesina to lope over to the front curb where Kike is parked.

"Well, it sounds like it'll be a better time spent than what I'll be doing," is his deadpan before approaching the driver's side window that's rolled down, patting the frame to get the young officer's attention from the local tabloid magazine he's engrossed in, as he greets, "Morning, Kike!"

"Good morning, sir!" the jovial plainclothes officer retorts warmly before hastily folding up the magazine and stowing it in the door's cubby, then waves while greeting, "And good morning, Ms. Celina—"

"Ay, Kike. Just call me Celina," you razz him as you lean up to greet him with a kiss on the cheek through the open window. "Deja con las formalidades, ya," is your amused order.

"Okay-okay, se me olvidó," he chuckles as Javier opens the backseat door and places his suitcase in. "Did you like the mix tape?"

"Yeah, it had some cool tracks!" you retort and smile at Javi when he grunts and raises his brows curiously as he shuts the car door. "Kike gave me a mix tape with all the latest reggaetoneros that are hot right now."

"Ah," is his drawl as he loops your waist and pulls you close. "When are we going to perrear?"

"Javier!" you admonishingly hiss and swat his bicep haughtily, scoffing at his unabashed leer whilst Kike tries to hide his wry grin.

"Oh, that's right – you said when I take you to a club that actually plays reggaetón," he drawls as if you're talking about something innocuous, before he turns to Kike and remarks, "You'll have to tell me what the hot reggaetón clubs are so I can finally get her to dance perreo with me—"

"Alright, enough, beyako," you chastise sardonically and pinch his sides, grinning when Javier frowns at you using the naughty nickname in front of Kike, who is doing everything he can not to burst with a guffaw at his expense. You distract his umbrage by standing on your tippy toes to peck him on the lips before lilting, "Pórtate bien, y llámame."

He smirks at being told 'Be good, and call me.'

"I will," he murmurs and kisses you amorously before cupping your cheek and muttering, "You behave too, now."

Snickering, you kiss his palm and pull him in for a hug.

Once Kike has turned the SUV around while Javier walked you to your car, you two lock lips one more time before you hop in and pull out of the driveway to the street. You wave at Javi in the rearview once you see him get into the front passenger seat, and then drive away to head to your early morning errands.

Javier watches your little sedan drive off before Kike pulls away to coax down the block and turn the corner en route for Steve's house. He already misses you, and finds himself scenting his collar for the whiff of your perfume that clings to it.

"I gotta warn you, sir. Ms. Celina is going to have cacos drooling after her when you take her to bailar perreo," Kike remarks musingly, causing Javi to arch a brow dubiously at him. "Ella es una mamita sabrocita – all eyes will be on her at any reggaetón club, is all I mean."

With a dry grunt, Javier furrows his brow amusedly. "Trust me. I'm very aware," is his dry mutter, before he sarcastically warns, "And do not let her hear you refer to her as a mamita. Speaking from experience, she will let you have it and you'll have whiplash."

"Claro que no," Kike snickers and shakes his head sagely. "She's a chulería – una bichota bien wapa, so I would never pasarme así, sir. Definitely don't wanna offend her!"

Javier nods, picking up the gist of the slang-filled statement. After all, he's really had a run for his money in deciphering the bulk of the Puerto Rican slang Kike and Wilmer would fire off at each other in rapid conversation, and being out with you and witnessing your parrying of local colloquialisms you'd not used before in Colombia would often or not leave him inferring meanings, if not straight up asking you what a word meant.

Still, though, he'd heard bichote used to reference a drug dealer or criminal kingpin-type, so he had to ask, "¿Bichota?"

"Ah! Bichota as in a boss lady. A big shot woman – like, she's a cool, important lady," the younger officer explains as he pulls up to the front curb of the Murphy residence.

"I'm gonna need to find a 'Puerto Rican-isms' dictionary, for sure," Javier quips, smirking when the other man blows a raspberry and grunts in the affirmative.

He's not completely joking. Especially after the weeks of prep and briefs from undercover agents, who'd documented hours of audio recordings from dealers, traffickers, gatilleros and more throughout all their surveillance targets on the island. Thankfully Wilmer or Kike were always available to run questions by, and had been great helps to all local info for Javier and Steve.

The opening of the backseat door pulls Javi from his internal cataloguing. He turns to watch Steve chuck his suitcase in before climbing in and shutting the door while greeting, "Mornin', fellas. You been waiting long?"

"No, sir!" Kike assures as he pulls away from the curb once Steve's settled.

"Yeah, Kike here was just warning me about how I'll have to keep Celina close when I take her dancing here," Javier glibly jokes as he retrieves his aviators from his breast pocket and slips them on.

"Really? You do know Jav here is a real surly jealous type, right? So telling him something like that's only gonna get him stewing," Steve chuckles good naturedly as he leans forward to pat Javier's shoulder, and drawls, "We do not need a repeat of the Danvers incident, bud."

Javier scoffs and crosses his arms to keep his right hand from fidgeting with his exasperation at the mere reference. "Don't be an ass. That wasn't because I was jealous—"

"I'm sorry for mentioning it, sir," Kike genuinely offers as he drives, adding, "I didn't mean to sobrepasarme —"

With a reassuring pat of his shoulder, Javier assures, "Nah, you didn't. Don't worry. Murphy solo le gusta hablar mierda—"

"Hey, I don't talk shit," Steve interjects in a goading drawl.

"Oh, you're finally learning Spanish. Good for you, and about fuckin' time, hillbilly."

"Some of us are still capable of learning new things, pendejo. And do you kiss Celina with that filthy mouth?"

"She loves my filthy mouth. Maybe you should try it some time with your poor long-suffering wife—"

"Hey! My wife's off limits to your snarky remarks—"

"And Celina is off limits to your shit-talking commentary—"

"She ain't your wife yet, buddy. Once she is, then she's off limits."

Javier exhales testily and flips Steve the bird over his shoulder while glaring at the grinning blond in the rearview mirror. He arches his brow when Steve sits back and basks in having gotten the last word, or so he thinks.

"Look at him. Sitting so pleased with himself like he accomplished something," Javi deadpans to Kike in Spanish, who had managed to stifle his laughter during their juvenile back and forth. "Just loves to bust balls because his get busted at home."

Steve glowers at Javier's profile when Kike snorts amusedly at what he said, so he decides to prod his buddy some more. "Speaking of Celina," he drawls lyrically before remarking aloofly, "Wilmer told me he overheard Bozzi telling Vernon that she caught his eye."

That has the desired reaction.

Javier slowly turns around and tucks his chin down so he can glower at Steve over the rims of his sunglasses. "What?! When was this, and why are you only telling me now?" he grounds out from clenched jaw and tight lips.

Seeing the hickey barely concealed by Javier's shirt collar, he flicks his gaze up to see that dark fury start to fill his eyes, so, Steve dismisses, "Ah, because it ain't the first nor will it be the last time that anyone has the hots for your girl, Javi. No point in bringing it up—"

"Except to wind me up, you mean," Javi snaps back and huffily returns to sit facing forward in the front passenger seat.

"…All right, dick move on my part. I agree," Steve relents and busies himself with smoothening out the wrinkle in his green and white-striped polo shirt's collar.

"…What did Vernon respond to that asshole?" is the gravelly inquiry from Javier.

Steve looks at Javi's stare reflected in the rearview mirror before glancing at Kike, who's now just as invested in the gossip as Javi, so he exhales gruffly before answering, "Vernon told him something like, 'I'm pretty sure she's spoken for already. Or so go the rumors,' and Bozzi scoffed that there's no ring on her finger so she was fair game, as far as he was concerned."

That boils Javier's blood. But he only shows it with the hard etch of his scowling features and the way his biceps flex when he crosses his arms tightly across his chest.

"Acho, que canto cabrón," Kike remarks indignantly, not even batting an eye when Javi looks over at him, surprised. "Ms. Celina would never like that guy, so he's a pendejo for saying shit like that."

Chuckling in agreement, Steve cosigns, "I couldn't have said it better myself."

Javier cracks a lopsided smirk at that. He appreciates Kike being protective of you, and was glad when you both had struck up a platonic friendship after meeting when they'd picked you up from the dealership where you'd left your car to get serviced one morning. Since then, you would both chat buoyantly whenever you'd see each other and he'd given you his cell phone number in case you ever needed to get ahold of him if you couldn't reach Javier.

While he thinks about you the rest of the way they drive to the airport, you're leaving the video rental store now and hopping in your car to go spend the day with your father at his home.

You'd already stopped at the supermarket that carried Colombian food staples and picked up items for the meals you'd promised to make, so after a half hour drive to Dorado, you pulled into his driveway and parked across the open third-car garage. You confirmed with a quick peek as you rounded the car to get the groceries that Camille's luxury sedan wasn't in the garage, so with a relieved exhale, you retrieved the bag with the movie rentals and headed up to the front entrance.

The door was already open and your father was meeting you on the tiled front step to help you with the bags.

"How are you doing, tesoro?" he greets and kisses you on the cheek before taking the bags into the kitchen while you shut the door behind yourself before following.

"I'm good. How about you? Looking forward to going to D.C. for the big meeting?" is your retort.

He grunts wryly. "It's just a meeting. But I'll be there on lots of other business. What've you got there?"

At him gesturing to the bag in your hand, you reach into it and retrieve the three VHS rental movies and show him the stack so the labels are facing him. "I thought we could have a movie night. I haven't watched the third one yet."

The three movies are The Godfather, parts one through three.

Smiling broadly, your father is visibly pleased as he muses, "That'll take us the rest of the day to watch. Are you sure you're up for that?"

"Well we have to rewatch the first two parts to be reminded of everything before going into part three. It can also play in the background while I cook, no?" is your affable reasoning as you place the movies on the coffee table in the living room before returning to the kitchen to start unbagging the groceries.

He agrees, and soon you're both spending quality time together.

By nightfall, you're both engrossed with the final film while partaking in the leftover empanadas you'd made earlier.

You're on your fourth rum and coke, which pairs great with the empanada you're currently dabbing some hot sauce on while watching the drama, unaware of your father's pensive glance.

"I had the maid turn down the guest bed," he mentions as innocuously as he can.

You chew your bite and shift in your seat to look over at him. Swallowing, you retort, "I wasn't planning on spending the night, Pá."

You can see the furrow in his brow smoothen as he tries to not look judgmental. "I don't want you driving home so late. You've been drinking—"

Realizing why he's worrying, you wave him off, assuring, "I'm perfectly capable of driving. And I don't want to overstay my welcome."

He pauses the movie and frowns before weighing his options in how to respond. He seems to settle for, "I'd feel more comfortable if you spent the night, mija."

Finishing your empanada, you ruefully shake your head before washing it down with a sip of your drink.

"Unless Javier could come pick you up?"

Being a few drinks in, the indignant fire doesn't reach your eyes as quickly as it would've had he made the suggestion earlier. Deciding to relent, just a little, though, you muse impassively, "He's on a business trip."

Humming, he takes a long sip of his own drink before exhaling and attempting to capitalize on not being rebuffed on the topic like you'd done occasions prior. "Things are going well, then?"

You can't help sigh, because you truly do not want to argue with or snap at your father, but his constant need to broach the subject of your personal life aggravates you. So, you try to count to ten before placing your drink glass back onto the coaster on the coffee table before you answer him.

"I take it you haven't been able to get a rundown from anyone else on the matter?"

You turn to look at him directly, eyes frank as your brows quirk upwards in query.

He frowns, before responding in a mild baritone, "I'd rather ask my daughter about her life. Is that so wrong of me?"

You take a cleansing breath through your nose and let it out slowly before answering carefully, "Pá, I just don't want to end up arguing with you about my life. I don't want to be browbeaten by you, or feel like I have to defend myself—"

"I'm not asking you to, tesoro," he grumbles in a low tone, before pressing, "I just want to know you're all right."

"I am. But I know that's not all you want to ask, and I don't want to go down this road and end up with us getting upset," you tell him bluntly, crossing your arms and leaning back.

His jaw squares in impatience with you, but instead of snapping crossly like he would've in your youth, your father huffs and crosses his own arms to stare at you keenly.

"Just tell me one thing, and I won't broach the subject anymore," he proposes in his deep, raspy pitch. When you nod, his features relax minutely as he asks, "Does he make you happy?"

"Yes."

You responded without an ounce of hesitation, and the way your expressive gaze lit up with clear affection for this Javier Peña who makes you happy – as if he'd flashed across your mind's eye as you answered, made it easy for him to surrender.

With a hum, he presses the button on the remote so the VCR resumes the movie.

"Good."

You're pleasantly surprised.

When the movie ends a short while later, you surprise your father by agreeing to spend the night. So once you've packed the leftovers and washed the dishes, you kiss him on the cheek and go down the hall to the back guest bedroom.

Around the same time you're exiting the shower to get into a flowy nightgown and slip under the cool covers of the plush bed, Javier is just getting into his hotel room on St. Thomas.

After landing and spending most of the day getting shown around by Steve's ASAC, Sam Petersen, he was bone tired, and looking forward to just crashing. Tossing his suitcase onto the ottoman at the foot of the bed, Javi tiredly empties his pockets and places everything on the night stand before dropping down onto the mattress and kicking his boots off in order to lie back and stretch his aching muscles. Lulling his head to the side, he sees the alarm clock lists it being just after 11:45pm.

Even though he'd warned you he probably would get in too late to call tonight, he wished he could hear your voice before bed. Deciding he didn't want to risk waking you up, he lumbers up off the bed and starts stripping on his way to the bathroom. One nice hot shower a few minutes later, and he's trekking back into the cool airconditioned room in just a towel, yawning noisily as he unzips the suitcase and flips the top open in search for some boxers or pajama bottoms to wear to bed.

The exhaustion clears from his eyes when he sees just how neatly you've packed everything. His toiletry bag is snug in the center while two pairs of suits are crisp and folded just right that all he need do is put them on hangers, the dress shoes were buffed and shined, and everything else was tucked and rolled for easy arranging. Even the soft cotton dark gray boxers you packed were arranged right on top of the main folded pile, so he wouldn't have to rifle for them.

Seeing as St. Thomas would be their base of operations for the next few days, Javi goes to work unpacking the items you took the time to iron and steam for him.

When he gets to the assortment of button-down shirts you packed for more casual workdays, he's surprised to find a square envelope hidden underneath them. Placing the shirts on the dresser, he picks up the envelope, opening it and finding a crisply folded sheet that looks like was carefully pulled from the planner he's seen you write reminders in.

Unfolding it, he finds a note, written in your lovely handwriting.

Javier,

Since you'll be busy and likely unable to chat much while you're away, I figured I'd write you an important reminder: I love you, with all my heart. And everything you do, it matters. I'm proud of you, and I'll be thinking about you, and wondering how I got so lucky to have you.

Please, be careful, and give yourself grace. Especially if you find yourself in a moment of frustration. I know how invested you can get when you're on the case, so just remember that you're not alone in it. And let Steve take on some of the stressing!

Missing you, chulito.

Soñaré de ti, mi amor. Sueña de mi, mi cariñito.

Love,

Celina

Heat fills his chest, making his heart feel full and immense at your words. It's then, when he's about to tuck the note back into the envelope, that he notices there's something else inside of it. Slipping it out, he ends up staring at the snapshot.

It's a photo of you, posed sultrily – sat at the foot of your bed, in only the nighty with the slit up the thigh. And from the looks of the angle the photo was taken, he realizes you must've found a timer on the Polaroid camera and set it on the dresser to snap you while you struck the sexy pose.

Completely floored, he's so lovestruck that it takes him a second to realize that the soft garment that the envelope was placed on is actually the silky nighty you have on in the photo.

He picks it up and brings the delicate garment to his nose. It's laced with the scent of your skin, with hints of your sweat and the fragrance of your body lotion, as well as the lingering traces of your soap, fresh smelling laundry detergent and fabric softener. A smile warms his face when he realizes that's what you meant. That he can dream of you because he'll have your alluring scent with him as he drifts off to sleep.

Tossing the towel away from his waist to plop into the bathroom's tiled floor, he quickly pulls on his boxers and goes to stretch out on the bed with the treasures you slipped into his suitcase. The look in your eyes in the photo is dazzling and flirty, and your smile is cheeky yet sexy.

Javi wonders when you would've taken it, and his mind whirs through the recent moments that have passed between you both – suddenly remembering you'd been wearing the silky nighty the late evening he'd come to spend the night at your place after a very long day of being holed up with tax officials in Hacienda, the Department of Treasury of Puerto Rico.

The local government had cleared the DEA's request to review any and all flagged income tax accounts suspected of possibly acting as shell corporations for money laundering, as well as the list out of those that had come up in property seizure documents across the Caribbean region that had so far been catalogued by the forensic accountants. He'd spent almost twelve hours in the building, and during one of the coffee breaks, he'd called you to check in. You'd managed to cajole him to come spend the night at your place since it was much closer to Hacienda. And since he'd driven himself that day, he was more than happy to agree.

You'd been in your silky robe when you'd answered the door late that night, and he'd been so exhausted that you'd towed him to your room, stripped him of his clothes, and herded him to bed. With the lights shut, you'd curled up against him under the covers when he'd looped his arm around you and held you close, and your warm skin and the soft scent of your hair had lulled him into a deep slumber. He hadn't realized you were in the sexy nighty that had become his favorite of them all until the next morning when you'd stirred him awake with a gentle kiss to his forehead before lovingly caressing his relaxed features and liltingly murmuring his name. His eyes had dreamily gazed up at you, focusing on your mussed hair and how the early morning rays spilling in from the hall framed you, sat at the edge of the bed.

"Javi, it's almost 7. Do you have any early meetings?" you'd murmured, gliding your palm along his deltoid, bright eyes and fresh features bare, with only affection radiating down at him.

He'd stretched to roll onto his back, reaching his hand to cup your knee as he shifted up on his elbow and stifled a yawn before mumbling in a raspy husk, "Mmmph, yeah. A very important one," before seamlessly whisking you up and over him to sprawl onto the bed. You squeaked in surprise and then giggled when he rolled on top of you before crooning, "That is, if you can pencil me in, jefa."

"Oh, I just so happen to have some time right now, agente," you purred teasingly as you'd wrapped your arms around him and kissed his smiling lips.

When you'd both gotten hot and heavy, you'd tried to shimmy the nighty up and off, but he'd stopped you. "No, keep it on," he recalls rumbling before kissing a path down your body in order to bury his head between your welcoming thighs.

Arousal curls hotly down into his loins at the memory of you crying out and gripping his hair when you'd orgasmed on his tongue and sobbed his name in a breathy whimper.

Javier had to slam the proverbial breaks on his raunchy thoughts racing off into reliving how you'd stopped him from smugly leaving you sprawled on the bed to instead order him to strip his boxers off before you pushed him down onto the rumpled covers and yanked your nighty off, climbed on top of him, and rode his cock while squeezing his hands after interlacing your fingers with his and holding on as you rocked each other into an incandescent climax.

Shimmying under the blanket, Javi shuts the night table lamp off and stretches out with your nighty draped over the adjacent pillow, and drifts off to sleep with your scent soothing him and the photo tucked against his palm and the silky garment.

It's the best night of sleep he's ever had while away from you.

You, on the other hand, did not sleep very well.

Waking up with a slight hangover, thanks to how stiff your father pours drinks, you'd slithered out of bed and took a hot shower to try and revive yourself. Thankfully, by the time you'd wandered down to the kitchen, he'd already made a pot of coffee and there were an assortment of pastries and fruit to choose from on the grand island counter. He was sat at the nice eat-in table by the wide window, reading his morning paper.

"Doña Lana can make you anything you'd like for breakfast. She's just running the washer," he remarks without glancing away from the Op-ed he's skimming.

"That's alright. The coffee and this pastelillo de guayaba will be more than enough," you retort smoothly as you pour yourself a cup and pick up the pastry to go sit at the table with him. "What time is your flight?"

"Just before noon," he answers and folds up the newspaper to set it aside so he can sip from his own mug, eyeing you over the rim.

The respite of having a nice cup of strong coffee and a deliciously flaky and sweet pastry in a comfortable silence is short lived when he clears his throat and finally says what he's wanted to say for a while now.

"I'm really glad we've been spending more time together, tesoro. I was hoping you'd be open to getting together when I get back? Perhaps a dinner or outing, that doesn't exclude Camille?"

You silently seethe and count to ten as you finish your last bite. Washing it down with a long sip of coffee, you busily dab the napkin to your lips and use it to dust the powdered sugar from your fingertips.

"I'd like to keep this up, Pá. But I can't agree to that and be expected to grin and bear her," you tell him honestly, trying to keep all emotion from your tone.

He absorbs that, before crossing his arms and giving you an intense stare.

"All she's wanted is to be considered family, and she's done nothing but be supportive of us catching up for lost time…but I can tell it's begun to upset her, being excluded. It would mean a lot to me," is his bass-filled petition, his brows furrowing hopefully when you don't immediately scoff or shake your head. "You could invite Javier along—"

"Let's not get carried away," you finally sigh and idly brush the rogue strands of hair back from your face. You see a flicker of disappointment etch his features, so you dramatically huff before deflating back in your chair, then clear your throat before graveling, "Hmph…"just when I thought I was out, you pull me back in!""

Your father cracks a broad smile at that before chuckling, "That movie was terrible."

"Right?! I was so surprised by how bad it was," is your irreverent comment, snickering as you lean forward to prop your elbow on the table, "It did have some decent one-liners, though."

He grunts, before quoting, "Never hate your enemies. It affects your judgment."

Laughing, you quote back, "Never let anyone know what you're thinking."

He laughs along, but then surprises you when he reaches his hand out to affectionately squeeze your propped up forearm, before gazing warmly at you, as he quotes, "A man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man."

It takes you off guard, to hear him quote that line. Truthfully, it disarms you, so you lean back and take his hand.

Just like when you were little, his hand dwarfs yours, and a heartstring tugs in your chest as you remember how much you'd loved walking with your father, holding his hand.

"Ok. I'll think about it," you murmur and give his hand a squeeze.

When you hug him goodbye a short while later, you wish him luck on his meetings, and he promises to call you once he's back on the island.

Both you and Javier have such hectic days that you don't get to check in with each other until very late that evening.

He's just returned to his hotel room and begins eagerly stripping his blazer and yanking his tie loose when his cell phone starts ringing in his pocket.

Retrieving it and pressing the button to answer, he props the phone to his ear with his shoulder as he toes off his dress shoes and empties his pockets. "Hello?"

"Hey, hermoso. It's not too late to chat?" your smooth lilting voice queries over the line.

"No, I actually just got back to my room," he assures as he sits to lounge back against the headboard of the bed. Stretching his legs out and crossing them at the ankles, he exhales relaxedly before asking, "You missing me as much as I miss you, preciosa?"

He hears you snicker flirtatiously before musing, "Depends on how much you're missing me."

"Ah, if you're gonna be that way, I'm just gonna get ready for my date with the sexy little thing I got waiting in bed with me then," Javi tauntingly croons as he pulls out your photo from his wallet left on the nightstand and smirks when you make a grumpy little sound of disapproval.

"Well, stud, go right ahead. I have my own date in bed too," you counter sarcastically.

Grunting, Javier mutters flatly, "See, when you say it, it's way too believable—"

Snickering dismissively, you deride, "Hah, mira quien habla. I told you they used to call you el guapo descarado around the embassy. I never got such an apodo—"

Quippingly, Javi cuts in, "No, you were 'that ferocious little minx' and 'a knockout', oh and 'drop-dead gorgeous'—"

Your dramatic sigh has him pausing to grin, then chuckling when you grumble, "Tan chavón."

Humming innocently, he drawls in a gravelly murmur, "The only thing I got a date with, is your sexy nighty. I slept like a rock last night thanks to it."

"Ah, so you found it," you chime coolly, and he can hear the shifting of the covers as you pull the quilt back and slide under it. "I'm hoping to have a better night's sleep thanks to cuddling your shirt tonight."

"You spent the night at your dad's?" he queries as he unbuttons his dress shirt open and pulls the tails loose from the waistband of his slacks.

"Yeah. I ended up having a bit too much to drink, so I crashed in the guest room," you reply before redirecting, "So, how's St. Thomas?"

"It's alright. Sunny, but hot. Luckily, we've spent a lot of time indoors, dealing with CBP's Office of Field Operations here," is his smooth reply, hand idly brushing the curls of hair fanning over his forehead back as he grouses, "They're being pains in the ass."

"Oh?" you query curiously.

"Yeah, there's always been inter-agency static between DEA and CBP. They're wanting to red tape us to a point of impatience. But really, they're just trying to keep all the action for themselves, and don't want DEA oversight," he explains before huffing his aggravation from his tone, to add, "Anyway, we got one more day here, then it's off to St. John."

"Hang in there, boss man," you quip impishly, before asking, "Did you find the envelope?"

"Yes, I did. And you're a wicked little tease for slipping that photo in," he retorts with a smooth, canela-dipped rumble in his voice.

You giggle, and it makes that funny tickle flutter heat in that spot behind his sternum.

"Just a little reminder of what you have to come home to, guapito," is your smug purr before you end up stifling a yawn. "So you know, I meant everything I wrote. And I really miss you, Javi."

That radiating feeling throbs in his chest at your words. He's carried your letter in his pocket all day, sneaking it out of the envelope to skim it whenever he had a free moment. Picking it up from where he placed it down on the nightstand, he rests it over his chest as he stares at your photo.

You hear some rustling on his end of the line, and wonder if he's even read the letter, when he clears his throat and husks, "It means a lot. No one…I've never…It just means everything to me." Obviously fumbling with articulating his feelings, Javier huffs at himself before declaring, "When I get back, I'll do a better job, showing you how much it means to me, querida."

Clutching his pillow to your chest, you smile whimsically as you tell him, "I love you, Javi."

"I love you too, corazón," is his raspy murmur, before he purrs, "Dulces sueños, mi amor."

Feeling effervescently besotted, you susurrate, "Soñaré de ti, mi cariñito."

You both wish each other goodnight before hanging up, and sleep finds you both easily thanks to each other's scent lulling you into sweet slumber.

You do dream of Javier.

The sound of the tropical night filters into your dream as you're sitting in the passenger seat of the Cadillac. Javier is in the driver's seat, with one hand steering the wheel while his other arm is draped over the back of the bench. The scenery through the front windshield is of a winding, Puerto Rican rural mountain road at early twilight, but in the back windshield, it's the sunset sky over the Medellín cityscape. Javier's hand moves from the back of the seat to rest on your thigh, and when you look down at it, you're surprised to see your belly is swollen under a flowy black peasant dress with red embroidery on the hem and down the front collar.

You look over to find Javi smiling at you as the orange and blush-toned hues of twilight illuminate his profile. When you go to lean close to him for a kiss, you're suddenly jolted awake by your alarm clock blaring.

Scrambling over to shut it off, you flop onto your back and sigh confusedly up at the ceiling.

No dawdling. Doctor's appointment awaits.

The details of the dream were already fading into the fuzzy recesses of your mind by the time you're arriving to the waiting room. Signing into the log sheet at the front desk, you entered and found the space filled with a lot of other patients waiting their turn. You were surprised the office was busy so early first thing in the morning, but quickly abandoned wondering about it to instead let your anxious thoughts preoccupy you.

Another lab screening is due, so bloodwork as well as the usual checkup. Nothing's come back since the last one, so not likely to have any changes until the specialist reviews—

They call your name, and you snap out of your internal worrying to get up from the seat you were able to snag nearest the door.

It was for the best, you thought, to continue not mentioning your health concerns to Javi. You figured that until they were able to give you a definitive diagnosis, it would be pointless to make him worry. Sure, you also didn't want to spend too much time fretting about all the 'what ifs' that had already plagued you for months, but there was a small part of you that was already settling into being resigned towards what seemed like an inevitable outcome.

You didn't want to say it out loud, though. Not yet.

After taking several vials of blood and tagging them for analysis, your doctor charted your current weight and asked you about any irregularities in diet, if you'd been fatigued or feeling off.

Confirming that aside from still not menstruating, you felt fine, she asked, "And you're still sexually active?"

"Yes," you answer, worrying the leather strap of your purse between your hands.

"And it's been with the same partner?" she inquires, and at your nod, she neutrally asks, "Unprotected sex?"

"Yes," you confirm, tone a little tight.

"Hmm, well, I'd like to test to make sure you're not pregnant. I'll note it on the lab form as well," she clinically details as she scribbles just that on the form. "As usual, I'll call you with the results. In the meantime, keep your routine, and be sure to take plenty of vitamins. Especially with this flu that's going around."

You nod and thank her, still on autopilot from compartmentalizing the anxiety and dread the visit whips up inside of you.

A few minutes later and you're back in your car, feeling the pressure from worrying all morning begin to dissipate. Driving out of the parking lot, you cruise through the increasing street traffic as rush hour starts to congest the metropolitan roadways.

The radio is on your favorite station, and the morning program is recapping the latest local news when you notice that the car is starting to shake oddly.

Suddenly, just as you pass the traffic light of the intersection, you feel a sharp lurch before the undercarriage of the car slams roughly down on the pavement, as if you'd just hit the mother of all potholes. But then you hear metal grinding against asphalt, and immediately stop the car, only to find you can't turn the wheel to try and pull off to the nearest curb and out of the way of traffic.

Frantically, you keep trying to force the wheel, but it isn't until a bystander on the sidewalk rushes over and waves at you that you lower your window and hear him tell you that you're driving on the axel because your driver's side tire came off.

The next few minutes is pure chaos as car horns blare at you and impatient drivers zoom around your disabled vehicle into the opposite lane, which then causes a traffic bottleneck in the opposite direction you were driving.

After climbing over your center console to exit through the front passenger door, you manage to see the damage for yourself.

"Oh my god," you gasp at seeing that indeed, your entire tire – rim and all – came off the axel and was flung at the corner of the intersection.

Several calls later, and the police are detouring traffic while a tow struck is hitching your car to its flatbed to be transported to your dealership. With your work tote, workout bag, and purse in hand, you accept the tow truck driver's ride to the dealership. Realizing you're going to be very late for the manager's meeting, you get your cell phone from your purse and call Ellis.

"—Holy shit! Are you ok?!"

"Yeah, just a little thrown off. It doesn't look like I'll make it in time, so could you do me a favor and take any notes for me? Devon is in the Operations review so I—"

"No worries, kid. I got you. It sounds like it's gonna be another budgetary thing anyway," he assures and promises to give word to Olga so she can relay the news to Devon once he's back in your department.

The dealership is baffled when you explain to them what happened, and insist there's no way your recent service could've caused such an issue with your tire. Still, they agree to expedite the repairs and do a full diagnosis to see if anything else is wrong with your vehicle.

Unfortunately for you, they don't have any loaner vehicles available, so you're just about to ask them if they can call you a taxi when you remember that Kike had given you his cell phone number.

The congenial plainclothes officer is pulling up to the dealership not even twenty minutes later.

"Chacho, that sounds very scary!" he remarks, shaking his head empathetically after you tell him what happened. "If you need a ride later, I can take you home—"

"No, don't worry. While I waited, I called my friend to cancel plans we had for tonight, but she didn't let me and offered to pick me up," you reassure, smiling as you thank, "I appreciate it, though! I promise to call if I'm stuck for real."

"Ok, very good," he intones, as if satisfied, driving through morning traffic all the way to La Avenida Chardón where the U.S. Courthouse and Federal building are. During the drive, you ask him about how his training exercises went, and he jovially tells you how he's progressing and should be snagging the tactical ops certification in a month or so.

While you're hearing about the training Kike has yet to complete, Javier is standing under the shady canopy in front of the luxury store's display window, admiring the different, glitzy jewelry options arranged on the shelves and stands. The promenade is busy with tourists and locals alike, out enjoying the balmy Caribbean morning.

Just like that previous time wandering the jewelry district in Bogotá, Javier was perplexed by the variety of options – at the daunting number of rings one could possibly choose from. He was just internally admonishing himself for not having peeked into your jewelry box prior to see what kinds of rings – if any – you wore, for inspiration, when Steve approached his right side and hummed in goading wonder to get his attention.

"Well? Any of 'em catch your fancy?" he drawls as he squints at a very gaudy canary yellow diamond ring.

Grunting, Javi pushes his sunglasses back into place over the bridge of his nose before glancing over at Steve. "That's the thing: I haven't seen anything that feels like 'the one' – which as I say it out loud, sounds dumb," Javi mutters before looking back at the display.

Cocking a brow curiously, Steve remarks, "I mean, you were engaged once before—?"

"I didn't pick out that ring," Javi cuts in matter-of-factly, and Steve raises his brows in confusion, so he explains, "When we'd decided on needing to get hitched, Lorraine showed me an ad for the engagement ring she saw at the local jeweler's that she liked, so I got it and went to ask her father for permission. Showed him I already had the ring, so no one would suspect," he trails off before absently brushing the perspiration beading at his forehead. Running his hand to sweep his rogue curls back, he ends up shrugging, deadpanning, "I have no clue what she would like."

"I mean, when in doubt, a simple, big ole diamond ring should do the trick," Steve razzes and claps Javi on the back good-naturedly.

"No shit," Javier scoffs, griping, "But gold band? What shape diamond? I just don't know…"

Humming sympathetically, Steve was going to suggest maybe asking one of your close friends for help ring shopping, when a car pulled up to the curb and honked at them.

"Our ride's here," Javi mumbles as he walks by Steve, gesturing for him to hop to it. "Let's get this nonsense over with."

They both get in the SUV to be driven over to the U.S. Customs field office, and all the rings and twinkling diamonds fill his head as they drive to their appointment.

You're in desperate need for a break.

Once you'd gotten to the building, you'd spent the rest of the workday playing catchup. All your meetings had to be rescheduled and you hadn't had a moment to even grab coffee or a snack for lunch, so by the time 2pm rolls around, you're famished. Luckily, the conference call you had with a counterpart at the D.C. federal office got rescheduled for later in the week, so you decided to rush down to the cafeteria and get something to hold you over until dinner.

You've just sat down with your little tray at the table closest to the floor-to-ceiling-length windows that overlook the interior courtyard between the Federal and U.S. Courthouse buildings when you here a pair of leather-soled shoes clomping towards you.

"Well now, having a late lunch, signorina?"

You turn to see Agent Bozzi in a light gray suit and pale teal dress shirt, sans a tie. His hair is swept back and his beard is groomed differently than you remembered, but that smug smile and his cunning gaze is still filled with promise of ulterior motives. He's holding a big cup of to-go coffee, and is standing in that obvious way someone would to nonverbally fish for an invite to sit.

"Yes, it's been a hectic day, so just needed a snack," you reply pleasantly as you can, without trying to be inviting or obviously aloof. After all, you really just want to eat your salad and fruit—

Bozzi goes ahead and slides into the empty chair across from you, nodding towards your meal as he muses charismatically, "Pretty disciplined snack. Never would've guessed you for enjoying the forbidden fruit."

Arching a brow, you retort, "This is a pear. No apples today, although, the pomegranate is believed to be the more historically accurate 'forbidden fruit' of legend."

"Huh. I didn't know that," Bozzi drawls in a bass-filled reply, thick brows knitting together almost bemusedly while you begin to eat your salad.

You can see the gears turning for him to try and come up with something else to continue in conversation, so you decide to redirect, "Well, I hope I'm not holding you up from whatever required you to get that big caffeine boost."

His eyes crinkle at his cup and he admits, "Nah, I just needed an excuse to kill some time before heading back over to the Courthouse building—"

Of course… you acerbically think to yourself.

"—been burning the candle at both ends with this task force operation. Never seen anything like it. I've heard of a neighborhood being run by the drug dealers in Jamaica, but in a U.S. territory?" Bozzi prods your interest then, so you pay attention to his unfiltered remarking of, "Can't trust local PD to get the job done, so gotta let the experts take back the block."

"A block?" you ask.

Bozzi is pleased with himself, that he was able to pique your interest with that. "Yeah. It's classified, so I can't say too much, but a small-time gang took over a whole neighborhood, and even drew a white line in front of a specific block as a point of no return for the residents and outsiders. No one can cross it but the gang," he explains boldly before shifting the topic. "Anyway, the whole thing reminds me of a ride along I did once with the Italian special forces team the FBI partnered with outside of Rome. You ever been to Italy?"

You have to do everything to not roll your eyes at him. He was laying it on thick, and you'd fallen in the conversational trap, so you relented and answered, "Yes. I spent a season in Naples while my father trained at the U.S. Naval base there."

"Ah, long enough to pick up enough Italian?" he flirts, brows smugly cresting up as he smirks charmingly.

"Enough to get by, yes," you reply and take a bite of your salad.

He seems to decide then to give up reeling you in, at least for the time being.

"Well, I'll get out of your hair. I'll see yah around, director," Bozzi remarks and seamlessly vacates the seat as quickly as he'd taken it, and smiles at you as he exits with, "Maybe we can grab a real snack sometime."

You watch him stroll towards the lobby with that cocky swagger, and internally glower. How presumptuous!

The Bozzi drive-by has you rolling your eyes as you finish your snack, taking the pear with you up to your office so you can nibble on it in peace.

If Javier knew the FBI special agent in-charge had tried to flirt you up, he would be in an even worse mood than he was currently.

U.S. Customs had agreed to let them review their own surveillance findings for the investigation into the drop sites found in remote strips of beach, but had insisted they wouldn't compromise their UC's or the targets they were currently embedded with.

"—For the last time: I don't give a shit about their aliases. All we want are leads on the local players so we can trace any of them back to the surveillance targets DEA has in Puerto Rico," Javi impatiently snaps, eyeing the official across the table like he's an obstacle begging to be moved with force.

Steve, on the other hand, is sat next to Javier and is rubbing his temples, shoulders squared in aggravation. "What Agent Peña here is saying, is we're not looking to mess with your undercover agents. We're just looking for cooperation on whether any of the contacts they've made have mentioned any partnerships with the trafficking players running the trade in Puerto Rico," is his patient insistence.

The irony of all this, which they wouldn't find out about until way after the fact, was that U.S. Customs didn't have a real foothold with the supposed underlings to the traffickers, because the targets were acting as decoys.

Junior Capsula had learned from the mistakes of Escobar, and he wasn't as big of a come mierda as the Cali Godfathers. So, he knew to insulate himself and his real partners away from public view. And after that clusterfuck of a bust back in 1988 during that Operation C-Chase, it became more obvious that no one was to ever penetrate the smoke screen created to shield true leadership of the Familia.

Then again, though, his syndicate wasn't technically part of it.

Still, that meant creating not only dummy corporations, but decoy bag men and trafficking liaisons. The days of smugglers using banks to launder money, as far as he was concerned, were over. And with the current setup he was slowly building, he was sure to grow his empire and remain incognito.

After spending all day chipping away at the red tape, Javier and Steve got the intel needed and a commitment from CBP to keep them in the loop.

By the time he got back to his room, Javi needed a shower to wash the exasperation and angst off. Steve had agreed to skip dinner in favor of unwinding over room service and a long-distance call with Connie, so Javi took the opportunity to pack his suitcase for the early flight in the morning to St. John before tossing himself onto the bed and popping the kinks out of his back.

Picking up your nighty from where he'd folded it on the pile of clothes going into the suitcase, Javi drapes it over his face and takes a deep inhale through the garment. Your scent warms his blood, and makes his impulses itch.

The cool air in the room caresses across his bare skin as he lies there in just the towel, eyes closed and thoughts going lustful.

You've just gotten home after being dropped off by Zoraida. Your muscles ache from the kooky workout you'd tried out before dinner, and now full, you feel like you're in desperate need for a nice hot soaking bath before crawling under the covers.

The bathtub is halfway full and you're just about to climb in to sit on the ledge and let your feet dip into the warm water when your cell phone starts ringing.

Rushing to retrieve it from the bedside charger, you answer it while adjusting the fluffy towel around your torso.

"Hello?"

"I really wish you'd packed a pair of your panties along with the nighty."

Scoffing a simpering laugh, you go lean back against the doorway so you can keep watch of the tub while it continues to fill. "As if I'd pack skanky panties into your luggage and run the mortifying risk of them searching your suitcase at customs!" you deride sassily, grinning when he grumbles contrarily at that.

"Tan chingona," he deadpans, before letting loose a ruminating exhale.

Humming curiously, you ask, "Something on your mind?" then add, "Bad day?"

"Just a ball-busting kind of day. Nothing worth mentioning," is his monotone gripe, before he queries, "How was your day, cariño?"

You don't really want to tell him about the chaotic day, especially the incidents with the car and Agent Bozzi, so you simply respond, "It was busy! And I capped it off by going with Zoraida to try out this Pilates thing, so after I finish this hot bath, I'm taking my tired ass to bed."

"Pilates?" he remarks on a grunt.

"Yeah, it's the latest workout, I guess. All about precise ranges of motion and they use this machine that kind of looks like a torture rack to stretch your muscles and make you hold into positions to strengthen your core," you tell him as you walk over and turn the faucet of the tub off. "I'm probably going to feel like I was beaten with a stick in the morning."

"Jesus, don't overdo it, baby," is his rumbling tut, but you can hear the lopsided smile in his voice when he adds, "I think you should just stick to our special regiment and let me work you into positions that'll have you feeling good, instead."

You snicker, "Beyako," and smirk when he chuckles cockily at your ribbing. "You guys are flying out to St John in the morning still?"

"Yep. We'll be there a few days. Steve's ASAC has a lot of meetings set up for us," he replies on a huffy sigh.

Pouting, you chime, "You can do it, gruñón. I believe in you."

Javi blows a raspberry at that. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, bravita. Now, go have your bath. I'll call you tomorrow night," is his rugged murmur that has electricity zinging through you and into your core. "Goodnight, mi amor."

"Goodnight. Love you, chulito," you croon sweetly before telling him goodbye.

Setting the phone aside, you toss the towel onto the floor and slip carefully into the warm bath water. You practically melt as the heat seeps into your aching muscles, as you luxuriate with the fragrant soap you lather yourself up with before dipping below the surface and popping up for breath before lounging backwards against the tub.

When you get into bed and fall asleep, you're hugging Javier's pillow, with his college shirt tucked around it. Your slumber is sound and soothing.

For Javi, however, his night's sleep is filled with sexy dreams of you.

Needless to say, he's ridiculously horny when he wakes up early the following morning. The urge lingers in his core, even after he takes the edge off in the shower. Sure, it doesn't help that his salacious mind can't stop thinking about you. That when he brushes his teeth, the image of you smiling brilliantly at him fills his mind's eye. And when he shaves, the hickey you left on his neck, while mostly healed, still taunts him with the memory of how wild you got as you reached bliss and reveled in the throes of pleasure that he gave you.

By the time he was riding down in the elevator with Steve to check out, he felt like an animal in a rut. And once they were waiting at the gate to board their hour-long flight, Javi was craving a cigarette bad.

"Fuck, you got any nicotine gum?" Javier asks Steve as he rifles through the front zip pockets of his suitcase.

"Yeah," Steve goes into his pocket for the pack he keeps on him. "Here, take 'em. I'm on the patch."

Javi takes the pack and immediately pops one of the gums out of the tray packaging. Tossing it into his mouth, he chews and pockets the rest in his jeans. "Thanks. I knew I forgot to pack something," he grumbles as he sits back and absently scrubs his hand along his jaw, exhaling soothingly when the familiar tingle disperses from the gum.

"Technically you didn't pack the suitcase though, right?" Steve jibes, twirling the pen he's plucked from his polo's breast pocket.

The smile crests his lips before he can even try to feign coolness. "She surprised me with it, then packed everything immaculately for me. But I haven't been relying on the gum as much lately, so I didn't have any lying around," he replies as he tucks the gum into his cheek and checks his watch. "How're Connie and the kids?"

Steve grunts lamentingly. "Olivia caught the flu from school, so Connie picked her up early and took today off to stay home with the girls. She's keeping Isabel away to avoid her catching it, which you can imagine isn't easy," he explains, frowning. "She said flu cases have been spiking the last week."

"Shit, that's rough. You're gonna have to make it up to her big time when you get back," Javi states the obvious and nods sagely at Steve, which always gets the gringo's goat.

"Says the guy who came down here to marry the girl he let get away, and he hasn't even gotten his shit together to pick out a ring," Steve instigates right back and cocks his eyebrow snootily at him. Seeing the comment needle Javier enough that he broodingly crosses his arms and huffs crossly out of his nose before staring at the terminal's foot traffic, Steve sticks his lower lip out as he grunts, before divulging, "I think you're overcomplicating the ring thing. Celina is not a flashy lady. I'm sure a nice, classic ring with a simple diamond in the middle will make her more than happy. And anyway, you can get fancy on the actual wedding band later on."

Absorbing that, Javi ruminates on it the rest of the day.

You, on the other hand, are doing anything but thinking straight right now. Not with how run down and sick you feel.

It started as a lethargic fatigue in your muscles that morning. One you easily chalked up to being sore from the workout the night before. You ignored it and went about your day.

The car insurance company was nice enough to expedite getting you a rental car to use while yours was still at the dealership getting repaired, and once in the vehicle, you'd commuted to the office. By noon, though, you'd started getting a congestion headache. You managed to make it to 3pm before you had to call it a day, feeling lousy and begrudgingly frowning when Devon had poked his head in to see you listlessly packing your tote as he remarked, "Oh no, you too, huh. Noreen caught the flu last week, and it's slowly been working its way through the building."

With your purse slung across your shoulder and tote hanging in your hand, you waved him away as you croaked, "I'm going to go home before I pass out. Now, stay away so I don't infect you—"

"Ah, I never get sick. I've been around everyone who's gotten the flu so far," he'd stated like it was irrefutable, before shrugging and insisting, "I'll cover that meeting at 4pm and have Olga adjust your calendar for tomorrow. You're definitely going to need bedrest."

You'd groaned, but thanked him before schlepping out as quickly as your aching body could. However, you'd gotten to your apartment and barely made it into your room before realizing you'd forgotten to finish an efficiency report due the beginning of the following week, and you hadn't packed your laptop.

Too drained to come up with a solution, you undressed and got into an oversized baggy t-shirt and crawled into bed. You had taken a dose of the medicine that was sure to knock you out soon, so you were hoping to get the ginger tea down to help settle your stomach before that happened. The chills had just started wracking through your frame as the house phone rang while you stood wrapped up in your throw blanket by the kitchen as the tea kettle heated up on the stove.

Croakily, you answer, "Hello?"

"Ay, no, you're sick too?!" Zoraida's dramatic lamentation sounds harried and raspy. "I woke up con la monga—"

"Join the club," you grouse, shivering. "And I was just at the doctor when she mentioned watching out to not catch it—"

"Ah! So you must've caught it and given it to me," Zoraida sarcastically chastises before breaking out into a coughing fit.

"Nena, it's flu season! Plus, wasn't that instructor last night sniffling?!" you lob right back, jolting when the kettle starts to whistle.

"Ah, es verdad. Que jodienda," Zoraida huffs over the line. "Anyway, I was calling to tell you I have to cancel going to the salon—"

"Obviamente," you laconically drawl as you steep the tea bag in the piping hot water you just poured before taking the mug back to your bedroom. "I was really looking forward to some pampering, too," is your gruff complaint. Once you've pressed the phone to your ear and gotten yourself situated in your blanket cocoon, you add, "This week ha sido una mierda, and it's not even over yet."

"Oh yeah?" your friend queries.

With the medicine cruising through your bloodstream, you're too sick to want to keep your guard up. Most of your energy was zapped out of you, so you end up venting about your week so far, not realizing how brashly detailed you're being.

"—Anyway, I'll stop ranting. Once we both feel better, we'll do the salon," you end up musing before you both wish each other speedy recovery so you can finish your tea and try to get some rest.

Javier tries to call you later that night, but you are dead to the world thanks to the medicine you took making you groggy. He figures you must've had a long day and fallen asleep early. But when he calls your cell phone, then your office line the next morning and gets no response? He starts to worry, and your home phone goes to voicemail after ringing for several beats. So, he calls Ellis.

The man picks up as he stifles a sneeze. "Hello?"

"Hey, It's Javier. Sorry to call out of the blue, but I haven't been able to get a hold of Celina," he explains, pacing the length of the hall just outside of the CBP conference room he and Steve had been in most of the morning. "Is everything ok?"

"Hey, Jav. One sec—" Ellis begins before being interrupted by another sneeze. "Ugh, sorry. Anyway, she's out with the flu. Probably sleeping it off. It's been running rampant in the building. Think I'm catching it too," is his congested explanation, before adding, "Poor girl's had a hell of a week as it is. I was planning on stopping by her place to drop off her laptop, so I can let her know to give you a call, if you want."

"Shit. Yeah, that would be great. Thanks. Hope you feel better soon too," Javi answers before they exchange goodbyes.

He's puzzled by the other man's comment, though. When you call him back later on that night, he's relieved to hear your voice and doesn't immediately remember to ask you about your week.

"—Hi, mi amor. I'm sorry I missed your calls!"

"It's ok, querida. Heard you're not feeling great," he replies, leaning against the banister of the patio he's currently stood on while the sun sets in the horizon across the way.

"I caught the flu. Minus Devon and Olga, almost everyone I know at the Federal office has been sick," you tell him in a tinny voice before coughing.

"Pobrecita," is his lament. "Olivia's been sick too. Shit's going around."

"Aww, bendito," you chime sympathetically. "The medicine I've been taking makes me drowsy, but I do feel much better than I did yesterday. Ellis came by a little while ago to drop off my laptop," is your comment before adding cheekily, "He told me you called him all worried about me."

"I did," Javi admits easily. "I'm glad you're feeling a little better—"

"Hey, Jav! You want another drink?" Steve interrupts as he shouts over from inside the house they're visiting.

"Babe, are you and Steve on a date?" you jibe impishly.

"No, you loquita," Javi snorts as he turns and gestures to Steve that he's still good with his half-filled glass of whiskey. "We're at his ASAC's place. Sam and his wife invited us over for dinner. I'm actually out on their patio. It's got a great view of the beach shore."

"Ah, that's nice! I won't keep you then—"

"When are you and I going to go to the beach together, eh?" Javi cuts in charmingly, before drawling, "Any secret playas we can go lay out on, just the two of us?"

You snicker, "Yes, there are a few, chavón. Hurry back so I can pack a beach tote and drag you along on a seashore adventure!"

"I'm holding you to that, preciosa. Now get some rest. Love you."

"Love you too, hermoso. Take care."

By the weekend, you're feeling almost 70 percent back to normal, with only a cough lingering now.

Your doctor had called with the lab results, and you were miffed to hear yet again that the results were 'normal' and requiring more observation, since none of the markers for thyroid, PCOS or pituitary issues were coming up that could explain the amenorrhea.

After also confirming you were not pregnant either, she surprised you when she asked, "Have you been feeling stressed lately?"

You'd been thrown off, but replied that you were of course stressed, but not in any significant way you felt was abnormal.

Deciding to schedule another checkup in a few months, she recommended you find ways to lower your stress, relax on exerting yourself in your fitness routine, and continue with vitamins to help build up your hormonal balance since you were probably still coming off being on birth control for such a protracted period of time.

The whole thing was aggravating you, which obviously wasn't helping lower any stress. Still, you compartmentalized the news and continued with your day, which was filled with playing catchup from your disastrous week previous, and looking forward to having that pampering session with Zoraida after work.

When you're finally basking in the lounge with Zoraida post-services, sipping your complimentary champagne, she decides to hit you with her nosy interrogating.

"So, when's your jevo back from his work trip?"

"He's flying back tomorrow night."

"When are we gonna meet him, hm?"

"Soon."

"Are we going to meet him before your dad does?"

"Probably."

"Are things progressing to him eventually meeting him, though?"

Scoffing after swallowing your sip, you gripe, "Girl, I don't know! I'm not following an itinerary or anything—"

"You said your dad's been insisting on meeting him, so I was just wondering," she defensively retorts, shrugging.

"…I did?" is your confused remark, brows furrowing.

"Yeah. The other night? You said your dad has been fishing for you to open up about him, and that he even suggested inviting him over to dinner—"

You truly don't remember that, and it's plain on your face.

"Coño, nena – no te recuerdas," she snickers, elaborating, "You were venting about how he's pulling on your heartstrings about it? Something about quoting The Godfather?"

"Hah, yeah, ok. Jeez, I'm telling you, that stuff had me groggy and drowsy," you ruefully shake your head and finish your last sip.

"So…does Javier know?"

"About my dad jodiendo? No—"

"No, not that. Does he know about the doctor's checkups?"

Blinking in shock, you realize you must've just rambled in your grogginess about everything that was front of mind for you.

"No. I haven't told him because there's nothing to really tell," you answer, sitting back in the lounge chair and running your manicured fingers over your freshly trimmed and styled hair absently as you confide, "I was hoping to know by now whether it's just residual hormonal imbalance from being on the pill for so long, but they think it's this condition—well, they don't know if it is because they haven't diagnosed any underlying causes—"

"I mean, you've been with only Javi this whole time, right?" Zoraida interrupts, and at your vacant nod, she presses, "Pues, since you've gone off the birth control. He's the only guy you've had sex with?"

"Zory, you know he's been the only one," you scoff, shifting in your seat while glowering at her.

"Well? Then maybe he's shooting blanks," she states like it's no big deal.

"…Zory," you begin, but then huff, "I'm the one not having a normal menstrual cycle—"

"Which your doctor said isn't totally abnormal—"

"Why are we even talking about this?!"

"Because! You are with this man who could get you pregnant any minute—"

"Por Dios—no he's not, because I'm more than likely infertile!"

You realize you've blurted it out and now sit there, feeling moored to the scary reality you've not wanted to acknowledge out loud.

Leaning forward and empathetically rubbing your arm, Zoraida assures in an unwavering tone, "You don't know that yet. Until you do, there's no point stressing yourself out over it."

Chewing on the inside of your cheek, you feel guilty. You're unsure why.

"Anyway…did I tell you, that I think Rafa is going to propose to Naida?"

The new topic overrides the mounting rumination in your head and refocuses you.

It's a perfect distraction that carries you to the end of the hangout.

By the time you get home, you feel wrung out. Sleep comes easily, and the next morning as you prepare to go into work, you're feeling recharged – albeit still dealing with the lingering respiratory stuffiness.

You get completely caught up at work, and even have time to plan for the upcoming projects that will require you to travel in the next month or so.

When the dealership finally calls about your car the following day, you're hopeful that you can get back to your normal routine. However, you're surprised when they ask for you to come down so they can speak with you in person.

After work, you commute over to the busy avenue the dealership and its auto shop are.

You are brought into what would be used as a leasing agreement room, and are perplexed when the assistant manager and the lead technician enter the room with a bunch of documents.

They talk through all the repairs, show you photos of all the damage they documented when the car was dropped off by the tow company, and show you after photos. Then, they hit you with it.

"…You're saying that the tire was tampered with?"

"Well, we can't say that for sure—"

"Señorita, I'm going to be frank. I have been arguing that the kind of damage cannot be from negligence on our part. If when you'd gotten your tune up, we'd improperly tightened the lugnuts, you'd have noticed first thing. The fact that the incident occurred almost a week after the service? In my professional opinion, someone loosened those nuts—"

Truly flummoxed, you continue to listen to them, and make arrangements for the insurance rep to meet with them in order to review their findings so they can document their case. Said rep contacts you, explaining since there is no police report detailing suspicion of the car being tampered with, they would write it off as a sudden mechanical failure, with the cause as inconclusive.

Still, the rep can't help joke, "After something like this? I'd kick all the tires before I get in the car."

You'd dropped off the rental and gotten your vehicle from the dealership, finding that it drove fine the whole way to work.

The entire ordeal is so jarring and filled with judicious paper trailing that you end up not realizing you hadn't heard from Javi until that afternoon.

Going to the floor the DEA department was on, you loped down in the direction of Javier's office, hoping to at least pop in and say hello if he's too busy. However, when you round the corner and head towards his office door, you're surprised to be stopped by his admin, who clears her throat before stating curtly, "Agent Peña isn't in today."

You turn, internally wondering if you were misinterpreting the edge of her tone when Steve comes around the corner from his own office, spotting you.

"Hey, hun! Got a minute?" Steve greets and asks, gesturing with a point over his shoulder for you to step into his office for privacy.

Nodding, you stride coolly over and make it a point not to look in the admin's direction.

Once you're in the tall blond's office, he closes the door and accepts your hug and kiss on the cheek hello. "Is Javi at the field office today?"

"Nope. He's out sick," Steve drawls in his sarcastic twanging tone. At your gasp, he puts his hands on his hips and shrugs comically. "I know. He was complaining about having a headache before we got on the flight last night, and then this morning he called saying he felt like absolute shit, so I sent Segarra to the field office while I cover stuff here," is his explanation. "I told him to stay in bed, because he did sound like complete crud."

Crud was an understatement for how Javier was feeling right now.

He'd cursed himself the entire plane ride to San Juan for stopping into the duty-free shops in the terminal before boarding the flight with Steve, certain that tourist in front of him getting rung up passed his germs onto him after coughing in his direction. By the time Wilmer drove him and Steve to their gated neighborhood, Javi's head felt foggy and his throat started aching.

Dead-tired, he'd dropped everything in his room before going to shower. He'd put on pajama bottoms and gotten into bed with the intention of calling you, but ended up rolling onto his side and passing out as soon as his head hit the pillow.

Shivering under his sheets now, with cold sweat clinging to his feverish brow, he gritted his jaw with exhausted aggravation. He was thirsty, but too tired and achy to get out of bed and go to the kitchen. Aside from ibuprofen in his medicine cabinet, he didn't have anything to take for his fluish symptoms.

Just as he began to doze off again, the distant sound of the deadbolt lock on the front door being jiggled mutedly caught in his hearing. It wasn't until he heard it definitively unlock that he jolted up in bed and instinctively rushed to get up and retrieve his gun. Unholstering his service weapon where it was sat at the top of his dresser, he stealthily moved on feverishly trembling limbs down the hallway towards the source of entry for the intruder.

His shivering makes his shoulders quake as he stalks cautiously over, and just as he's about to switch the safety off once he's made it to the kitchen's bar top counter corner, the door opens.

You fumble over the threshold with your arms incumbered by several big paper shopping bags laden in your arms and plastic pharmacy bags hanging beyond your wrists.

"Jesus fucking Christ!"

You squeak in surprise at Javier's alarmed exclamation, and nearly drop one of the bigger bags.

Quickly placing the gun on the counter, facing away from you with the safety still on, Javi shakily scrubs his hand over his feverish features.

"Javi, you scared me!" you haughtily grumble as you kick the front door shut and rush to put the bags down in the kitchen. "What're you doing out of bed—?" you begin but end up getting hit with a coughing fit.

Scowling almost pitifully, Javi grouses, "I thought someone was breaking in—"

"With a key?" you mockingly sass after clearing your throat, eyeing him sardonically as you toss your purse off from over your shoulders and place the keychain down on the counter before rounding the bar top towards him. In the low light of the entry, you hadn't seen more than his silhouette but now up close, you see how clammy his bare chest is and how worn with fever his features are, so you frown and fret, "Ay, pobrecito. Come, you have to get back to bed."

He doesn't even have the energy to argue, and is actually feeling a bit dizzy, so he is more than grateful when you loop your arm around his waist and lead the way.

Once you've helped him back into bed and pulled the sheet up to tuck him in, you sit on the edge of the mattress and take his temperature with the back of your palm to his sweltering forehead.

"You're burning up," you lament.

Tiredly, he smiles as he reaches for your cheek before he affectionately brushes his warm fingertips to tuck your swaying strands of hair behind your ear.

"You changed your hair," he points out in a gravelly murmur, eyes creasing softly as he drawls, "It looks nice."

Snickering, you cup his flushed cheek and comically sigh, "Ever the charmer."

He grunts humorously. "Steve told you I was sick," is his raspy comment, parched lips pouty when you rush up to get a wet washcloth from the bathroom so you can fold and drape it over his forehead after you brush his matted hair back from his sweaty brow.

"He did. So, I picked up a few things from the store, and stopped at their house to get your spare key from Connie," you tell him gently, caressing his cheek and brushing your thumb caringly across his dark stubble. "Have you taken anything?"

"No," he answers hoarsely, throat starting to burn from talking. "Mmmph, feel like shit."

"I know, mi amor. Stay here," you murmur and quickly go get him some medicine and a big glass of water, stifling your cough along the way.

Once he's taken the dosage and drained the glass, you make another trip to return with all the pharmacy supplies.

"Ok, sit up for me," you instruct as you retrieve the container of Vick's from one of the bags.

"C'mon, I hate that stuff," Javi complains and laboriously sits up, scowling. "I just need water and to stay in bed. No need to baby me—"

"What're your symptoms, tough guy?" you counter, looming over him with authority. When he stubbornly shrugs, you resolutely state, "Quit being a brat, or I'll make you go to the doctor."

Too tired for that, Javi grumbles in defeat, "Fever, sore throat, my body aches, and my head hurts."

"I'm putting this on you, and it's going to help with all of that. Then you're going to rest and let the medicine take effect. I'll make you some soup, and you'll drink plenty of this stuff too," you're instructing as you place the Vick's on the nightstand in order to retrieve the electrolyte drinks you picked up.

"I don't want you to get sick—" Javi grouses as he tries to suppress a shiver.

"I'm still getting over what I had, so I should be fine," you counter smoothly as you open the bottle of orange-colored electrolytes and offer it to him. He raises his brows, almost goadingly, so you sit on the edge of the mattress again and press the bottle to his lips to feed him slow sips. "Malcriado," you playfully chastise after he's drank his fill, and set the bottle aside to then open the container of vaporub ointment. Dipping your fingers in and scooping a generous amount of the ointment, you judiciously start to rub and massage it into his chest, then up into his neck, as you teasingly chide, "Your latino card is gonna get revoked for saying you hate this stuff—"

"Burlona," he grouses, corner of his mouth tugging into a smile as he holds the cool compress in place on his brow while you continue to rub the ointment along his back now.

His frame shivers from the chills caused by the fever, so you prop the pillows up for him and have him lean back. "I know you feel cold, but it's actually hot and stuffy in here, so I'm going to turn the air on," you're telling him as you pull his coverlet up from the foot of the bed in order to tuck him in before getting up to turn the air conditioner wall-mounted console on, then retrieving the boxed thermometer from the pharmacy bag.

Javi's eyes are heavy lidded and his cheeks are flushed while the thermometer tucked under his tongue takes his temperature as you go run the washcloth under cool water in the bathroom sink again. He can't help feel like an overgrown baby for some reason, but a small part of him is indulging in your doting treatment.

Sitting back on the edge of the bed to place the compress to his forehead, you take the thermometer from his lips and read the temperature with a frown.

"100.5," you tut before setting the thermometer aside and affectionately caressing your thumb along his cheekbone to swipe away the droplets that have dripped down from the washcloth. "You're going to start feeling groggy from the medicine, so rest while I make you some soup. I'll wake you up once it's ready—"

His warm hand reaches for your wrist to keep your palm cupping his cheek, as he rasps, "You don't have to stay and baby me, querida—"

"No seas tan terco, and let me take care of you, Javier," you bossily cut in, smiling when he exhales humorously and purses his lips out at you. "Quédate quieto, y pórtate bien."

He nods obediently, so you kiss his nose cutely and set everything he may need on the nightstand, including a box of tissues, before letting him rest in the cooling bedroom.

It isn't until you're coming in the dark room with a tray balanced in your hands that he realizes he must've dozed off for a while. His sinuses are stuffy, but he can see the piping tendrils of heat coming off the large bowl of soup, and his mouth starts watering.

Shuffling up to sit with his back against the headboard, he drowsily rubs at his face as he yawns, "How long was I out?"

You manage to place the serving tray so that the legs bracket up to stand on either side of his lap before placing the cold glass of water on the nightstand for him. "About an hour. Here, let me know if it's too hot, and I'll put some ice cubes in," you answer and instruct as you dip the spoon in and raise it to feed the sip of soup to him.

It is incandescently hot, but in the best way, so Javi helps himself once you've handed him the utensil. Along with the large bowl of noodle-rich, flavorful soup with giant chunks of potato in it, he has a nice piece of crunchy pan you must've gotten from the bakery at the supermarket.

"Mmm, thanks. I was starving and didn't even know it," he rumbles with his mouth full.

"Well, there's plenty more if you get hungry later," you tell him serenely as you go to tidy up the clutter in his bedroom from where he'd just tossed his open suitcase and things from the night before. You notice a big shopping bag with the logo of the duty-free shops printed on the side of it, but don't move it or ask him about it. Instead, you arrange the rest of the medicine to be laid out on his nightstand as you remark, "I'm going back to the office to finish a few things, but I'll be back after work, ok? Be sure to take the next dose after you eat."

He grunts while slurping up more of the noodles before murmuring, "Thanks, cariño."

With his dark soulful eyes twinkling at you like that, you can't help lean down and kiss him on the forehead. "Call me if you need anything," you tell him as you walk to the hallway.

Once you've closed the door, Javi picks up the bowl and drinks up the remaining broth straight from it, having not wanted to be too much of a boor in your presence. With his hunger more than sated, he drains a bottle of the electrolytes before moving the tray to the unoccupied side of the bed so he can lie back down, tucked under the covers. The rest of the pharmacy supplies you bought that don't fit on the nightstand are arranged on his dresser for him, along with the holstered gun you must've returned while he was asleep. The sound of the front door closing and locking echoes from the main room, so he relaxes and closes his eyes.

He falls asleep easily to the ambient hum of the consola and the soothing chill of the cool air fanning in a slow undulation around the room.

Hours later, after finishing your work day, you grab your things and head back to Javier's. You're eager to spend time with him, and actually are looking forward to taking care of him for the night, knowing he cannot be trusted to not try to use whiskey to "sweat it all out" as Steve had told you he'd not-so-jokingly grumbled after getting dropped off from the airport the night before.

You park in his driveway this time and use the second key on the ring to enter the laundry room door entrance since you weren't burdened with groceries, hoping it wouldn't rouse your sick lover to come gun drawn again.

When you come into the main living space, you're surprised to find Javier wrapped up in a blanket like a human burrito, curled up on the couch and watching TV. The coffee table is cluttered with bottles of electrolytes, an empty glass of water, a half-empty box of tissues with the used ones crumbled all over, and the tray you'd brought the soup on stood up with what looks to be several bowlfuls of remnants on it, while the bowl itself is licked clean.

"Javier Felipe Peña, I told you to stay in bed!" you admonish imperiously as you march over and loom over him.

His stubble-covered features pout up at you, disheveled hair flopping across his brow as he clumsily tries to sit up while still keeping the blanket tightly wrapped around him. "I couldn't stay asleep and got hungry, so I came out to get more soup, but got too tired to go all the way back with it, so I parked here. It was supposed to be until I finished eating, but then I fell asleep again, and then woke up and figured I should just stay here," Javi rambles, and your smile gets harder and harder to repress the more he tries to justify and appease you.

Shaking your head sardonically at him, you put your purse and tote aside on the nearby chair and come over to sit next to him and feel his forehead for his temperature.

"Hm, well you clearly still have a fever, so c'mon – back to bed," you tell him as you brush his mussed hair back from his forehead before caressing your touch along his brow, then down to cup his cheek as you give him a quick peck on the lips.

He lets you help him up and maneuver around the tray to go down the hall and back to being tucked under the covers. You fluff his pillows, prop them up behind his back for him, and retrieve the next dose of medicine he should've taken hours earlier.

"Sorry you have to put up with this," Javi croaks after clearing his sore throat.

"It's fine. I knew you would be a little shit and not obey me," is your irreverent singsong, chuckling when he glowers at you, so you angelically smile as you feed him his medicine, before asking, "Did you like the soup?"

Grunting, he finishes swallowing before drawling, "I got some of my taste and smell back after the first bowl. It was really delicious. That wasn't chicken soup, though, right?"

"Nope. That was sopa de jamón. It was my Puerto Rican grandma's recipe. It's less prep, but just as hearty and flavorful. The saltiness of the ham and the sofrito gets sucked up by the noodles, and it forces you to drink lots of fluids," you pleasantly explain as you pick up the vaporub and open it in order to scoop ointment out to massage his chest with it. "Once the medicine kicks in, I'll go start dinner."

I could really get used to being spoiled like this, Javi thinks to himself, enjoying your massage, even if it's with the heavily fragrant eucalyptus-smelling ointment. But he can't deny how it's helped his muscles ache less and his airways open up more, and he easily dozes off to you rubbing your thumbs in slow circles along the spot where his lymph nodes are on either side of his neck.

When he wakes up next, he realizes that you'd found the portable TV that was in the spare bedroom and had rolled it into his room. The ambient glow from the screen helped stir him to adjust in a sitting position, where he turned to find you lounging on your side, napping next to him.

With your eyes closed and your head lulled on the pillow this way, he could see how tired you still look from kicking the remnants of the flu, and something aches in his chest at the realization that he'd not been around to take care of you, the way you so deserved and did so easily for him.

The early evening news is playing on the TV, but the volume is set low, so he sits up and tries to pull the throw blanket up to cover your shoulders.

"Mmm," you mumble and curl closer to him, before stirring and stretching your legs out while yawning, "Ugh, sorry. I didn't mean to conk out—"

Snorting, he leans over and kisses your cheek before murmuring in a gravelly husk, "Quédate dormida."

"Nope. Too late. I'm up now," you lilt as you stretch out your limbs before sitting up, stifling a cough into the pit of your elbow. Once the bleariness is blinked away from your eyes, you see that the feverish flush has dissipated from his cheeks, so you sidle up to him to take his temperature with your hand to his forehead. "Hm, think the fever has gone down a bit."

His dark eyes look dreamy as he gazes at you before he leans forward and nuzzles your cheek. "You're actually getting me hot right now," is his purr, and you snicker when he keeps nuzzling down your jaw and to the base of your neck.

"You're not getting any until you're feeling better, Javi," you murmur with irrevocable authority as you nudge him back and make him lie down so you can climb over him while you announce, "Dinner's been ready. Are you hungry?"

Javier loops your waist with his arm and hauls you back into bed. "I'm starving for you, mandona," he croons as he cuddles you and grazes mustachioed kisses into your neck. "Let me show you just how much better I feel—"

"Ah, Javi—your lips are all crackly and dry," you object goofily and wrestle him onto his back so you can straddle his lap and thwart his sexy advances. His mouth frowns woefully, so you snicker and coo, "Ay, no me mires así, bebito."

"Ugh, fine," Javi huffs in defeat and flops grumpily under you.

However, your dazzling smile and loving caress along his forearms makes it hard for him to keep the brooding façade up. And when you lean down and pepper soft kisses along his face, he relaxes totally. So much so, you're able to go plate dinner and bring it back on the serving tray you set up on the center of the bed so you can eat together.

While in mid-chew, you notice the duty-free shopping bag tucked in the corner again, so after you swallow, you ask him, "What's in the bag?"

He follows your glance, and smirks around his current mouthful. Washing it down with a gulp of water, he replies, "That, is a gift for you. And the likely cause for this fucking flu I caught."

When he gestures with his chin for you to go ahead and take a look, you amble off the bed and retrieve the bag. You pull out a very large and elegant rattan beach tote with smooth tan leather handle straps and tropical-patterned linen-lined interior.

"Figured it would make for a perfect beach tote for that seashore adventure you promised," Javier charmingly muses when you smile over at him.

"This is lovely," you gush, leaning over and kissing him sultrily on the lips. "Thank you."

With a smug grunt, he grumbles daringly, "I thought my lips were too crackly—"

"Shut up and let me kiss you, malcriado."

And you do, kissing him on his lips, cheeks, and all over while he chuckles.

After finishing dinner, you join Javi for a quick hot shower, surprising him with the bouquet of dried eucalyptus stems you've hung from the nozzle. It's an old rustic remedy – using eucalyptus in a hot bath or steamy shower to diffuse the invigorating scent to help with nasal congestion and increasing blood flow in blood vessels. But Javi had never been a fan of it, especially when he was a kid and every woman in his family would slather the stuff on him over any ailment.

"Ugh, c'mon!"

"They'll help with your congestion!"

"Are you feeling congested still?"

"Yes, actually—"

"Ok. Fine—"

"I promise it will help, gruñón," is your flirty assurance as you tow him into the shower stall with you once the hot water and steam is going.

His surly grumble was softened by his smirk and irreverent head shake.

In the end, you were right, and the fragrant steam saturated his skin and made it easy to take deep breaths in without coughing or sneezing. The pressure in his sinuses decreased, and he was definitely enjoying you soaping him up and rubbing his tired muscles. It did wonders for you too, relieving the congestion still lingering in your chest and alleviating your coughing for the rest of the night.

Afterwards, while he's getting into a gray pair of sleep bottoms, you strip the bed and dress it with fresh sheets before getting out a nice blue quilt from the closet. He comes over and helps you toss it onto the bed so it's arranged evenly on the surface. Pleased, you go over and playfully guide him backward to sit on his side of the bed before dutifully giving him the next dose of medicine that will help him sleep. You then return from the bathroom with your container of Vaseline and glide a dab-size of it with your little finger over his chapped lips before tucking him under the comforter. He caresses down the curve of your waist to squeeze your nightgown-clad hip, smiling when you lean down and kiss his forehead.

"Be right back," you tell him before going to shut the lights off and make sure the doors are locked. You return to the cool bedroom, with another glass of water for him and a backup box of tissues, to find him rummaging under the comforter in search for the TV remote. Snickering, you walk over and pick it up from the top of the TV set and walk over to hand it to him.

"What would I ever do without you," he schmoozes in that honeyed baritone way that always makes you grin girlishly, especially combined with his flirty caress of your tush before giving it a squeeze.

Pursing your lips saucily at him, you set the glass down on the remaining free corner within reach for him on the nightstand, as you simper, "According to Steve? Probably starve and 'sweat out the flu with whiskey', among other things."

"He's such a narc," Javi laconically sneers, but his mischievous smile widens when you playfully swat his hand.

Shaking your head amusedly, you go to open the drawer to store the tissue box. "I think it's great how you two are a platonic married couple at this point—" your wry joke skids to a halt when you look in the open drawer and see a small bottle of lube and a long-lost pair of your panties within easy reach. Gasping, you snatch the used garment out and exclaim incredulously, "Oh my fucking god, Javier! Are you serious?!" His big brown eyes widen as you hold the offending prize up for judgment, comically haranguing, "You freaking puerco! How long have you had this nasty thing, you beyako pervertido?!"

"That's a rhetorical question, right?" Javi sheepishly drawls, hands going up defensively when your narrow glare sharpens in that commanding way that promises something wicked his way will come if he keeps being naughty. "Since around that time we went to that fancy steakhouse with Sasha, I think," is his answer, and he gives you those damned puppy eyes when he leans over to try and coax you closer so he can take them back, while begging, "Please, let me keep them?"

Scoffing, you place the box of tissues in the drawer, shut it and pointedly turn on your heel to march over to the hamper in the corner by the closet to ceremoniously dump the panties in. Javier groans in huffy disappointment, scowling as he flops back into the pillows. He glowers as you snootily strut to your side of the bed, shut the nightstand lamp off, and crawl under the quilt.

Only, you don't maneuver to lie next to him. Instead, you prowl under the covers to lay between his legs before answering with snarky authority, "That means those were over a year old, you fresco. And, that you pilfered them when you were under the comforter – just like this – and went down on me that one time. Right?"

Before he can answer, Javi feels you blow cool air on his clothed crotch, making his semi twitch eagerly, and getting a gasp out of him. "Sounds about right, yeah," he croaks gruffly, hands gripping the sheets.

Dramatically tossing the quilt away so you can quickly straddle him, you impishly lean close until your lips are a whisper apart before purring, "Good. So you'll be a good boy and earn another pair by behaving and letting me take care of you, right?"

Javi's running hot now, and not just from fever. "Sí, mi patrona," is his cheeky husk, relishing how you bat your lashes and smile, appeased.

Reaching to turn his nightstand lamp off, you hum alluringly for him to kiss you.

His lips brush yours covetously before he rolls you both into the bed, making a happy giggle bubble free from your chest.

After some savvy coaxing on your part, you both end up tucked close under the blanket. The ambient glow of the TV screen illuminates his relaxed features as you soothingly run your fingers through his hair, helping lull him into the drowsy haze provided by the medicine hitting his bloodstream while you watch the late-night comedy show. Even in the chilly room, his body temperature is still running hot, so you make sure not to press up against his form and overheat him.

By the time he's snoring in deep slumber, you turn the TV off, and curl up to sleep.

The next morning, Javier's temperature is down to 99.3 degrees, so after you shower and get ready for work, you make him breakfast and serve it to him in bed. Begrudgingly, Javier had called out sick for the day, and you'd insisted that he take the medicine and sleep, but ended up compromising with him to take at least one more dose, and that he stay in bed resting.

"—Ok, I'll come around lunch time," you're telling him now as you pull on your heels and go to his dresser to hurriedly brush your hair up into a chic twist. "Need me to pick up anything while I'm out?"

"Not a thing. You've done more than enough, guapita," he responds from where he's cozily resting in bed, head propped up by fluffed pillows. The angle helps him appreciatively ogle you as you smoothen your white with black trim Georgette v-neckline with a spread collar and button cuffs blouse after tucking the hemline into the waistband of your stylish black slacks. "You look fucking sexy, so you know."

Smiling, you turn and abandon putting on lipstick to go over and sit on the edge of the bed so you can sultrily glide your touch from his bare chest to cup his chin before leaning forward and kissing him, then pulling back cockily to leave him wanting as you hum, "You're a sweet talker, but you better be a good boy like you promised, me entiendes, bebito?"

His eyes darken with want as he nods and husks, "I will, jefa."

With a gloating smile, you let him pull you back down for a long kiss before you say goodbye and head out.

Javi keeps his word, takes his medicine, and has a relaxing sleep for the rest of the morning.

Thankfully, your morning schedule is fairly light, so you're able to leave the federal building campus earlier than you'd originally planned for your lunch break. When you come into the house and do not find Javier sprawled on the couch again, you smile triumphantly, before heading down the back hall to open the door to his bedroom.

You find him watching the afternoon variety show, lounging with his back against the headboard and a pillow tucked behind his head.

"Well, I can't believe it. You actually behaved," you chortle as you toe off your heels and flounce over to sit on the side of the bed before feeling his forehead.

"You got so furiosa, there was no way I was going to chance incurring your wrath," he jokes, sounding a bit stuffed up, but clearly feeling better.

He smiles when you scoff and kiss his cheek. "You feel even less feverish than this morning. Is your throat still sore?" you ask as you stand in order to take off your tight slacks so you can get more comfortable.

Appreciatively, Javi leers at your perfect ass in the pink cotton panties as you slide your pants on a hanger so they don't get wrinkled. "No, just dealing with a stuffy nose now," he answers as he retrieves a tissue. "I might take something for it, though."

"Ok, good. I'll make lunch so you don't take it on an empty stomach," you're pleasantly retorting as you pull on a pair of lavender drawstring shorts and go to the hamper to quickly separate garments. "Might as well start some laundry while I'm here," you remark while digging into it to pile whites, darks and items for dry-cleaning onto the foot of the bed. "Is everything in your suitcase dirty? I can take your dress shirts and drop them off at the dry cleaners on my way back to the office—"

You pause as you keenly eye the three piles and notice something missing. Laconically, you stare over at Javier like he's a rambunctious puppy you just caught trying to hide a toy.

"Um, yeah, everything in the suitcase is dirty—" he begins to answer as he starts to get up from bed to go retrieve it for you.

"Uh-uh. Park it," you order saucily as you put your hand on your hip and gesture with the other, demanding, "Give them to me, right now, chavón."

His poker face is pretty good when he feigns confusion while he drawls, "I don't know what you mean—"

"Hand over the skanky panties you squirreled away, or you're gonna get it, Javier."

The lewd thrill your smoky command stirs in his core cracks his composure and gives him up before he huffs in surrender and reaches his hand down between the mattress and box spring on his side of the bed. The undies are withdrawn swiftly before he makes a big show of sitting up and shuffling along his knees towards the foot of the bed to cockily place them in your expectantly outstretched palm.

Humming glibly, you tut, "Caripela'o," while tossing the panties in the pile before playfully shoving him to lay back down on the bed.

He has a faux pout on his lips, but you can see the way his soulful eyes are crinkled that he likes when you sexily chastise him. You like getting a rise out of him, too, and really enjoy that he's going out of his way to comply, albeit smugly. Still, he behaves while you go through his suitcase for the rest of the laundry, and only grins when you retrieve your silk nighty from the pile and toss it at him before placing all the sorted clothes in the laundry basket and taking it to the wash.

While the first load goes through its cycle, you make a pot of rice and your Grandma's recipe for Puerto Rican corn beef, quickly plating the meal and putting a hefty slice of aguacate to go with it before taking the tray to the bedroom to serve Javi.

His attention is riveted on the afternoon news segment about the latest crime statistics on the island that the anchor is citing in reference to a spree of carjackings and muggings that had occurred earlier in the week.

"Here, mi amor," you place the tray to stand on the mattress adjacent to where he's currently sat, on the foot of the bed. "Hope you like it—"

The sound of his cell phone ringing interrupts as it buzzes loudly on the nightstand, threatening to topple the pharmacy items now haphazardly stacked next to it.

Shit—" Javi tries to maneuver to reach for it, but you're actually closer, so you go to the nightstand and grab it. "It must be the office—"

"Well, you're out sick, so they shouldn't be calling you at all," is your curt remark before you press the button to answer it with a professional greeting. "Hello, you've reached Special Agent Javier Peña's mobile phone line. Can I take a message?"

Javier balks at you, stunned that you would answer, but also overawed with exhilarated admiration for you and your chingona confidence – that you would unabashedly do something so flashy when not so long ago you would've avoided doing anything remotely similar.

"Oh, I-I'm sorry. I should've considered that he would be too busy to answer the phone," a raspy baritone with an earthy southern cadence to it that sounded distantly familiar to you answers sheepishly. "I don't want to bother him, so I'll call back later—"

Smiling brilliantly, you turn to Javi as you answer, "Ah, Javier's got plenty of time to prioritize a phone call from his Pop. If that's who I may direct as the person reaching him?"

The surprise melts into instant delight on Javi's face when he can make out his father's warm chuckle. "Yes, that's right. And I take it that I'm finally speaking to the famous Celina?" Chucho rumbles jovially back, making you laugh brightly in the affirmative. "Well if you're answering, I'm sure that means Javier is indisposed—"

"Ah, actually, he's home sick, so I commandeered answering his phone in case it was the office bothering him when they should be respectful and let him rest," you assure in a spritely tone. You go to sit beside Javi as you add, "Anyway, here he is," before handing him the phone.

The endearing warmth shining in Javi's dark eyes for you as he takes the phone and leans in to kiss you adoringly makes you tingle, but you flirtatiously snicker and nudge him playfully from getting carried away and neglecting the call further.

"Hey, Pop. Everything ok?" he greets and asks, watching you maneuver to sit on your side of the bed with your own plate of lunch you picked up from the serving tray.

"Yes, yes! I just, well…it's my and your mother's anniversary today, and I guess I was wanting to see how you were," Chucho's baritone rationalizing is pensive, yet lonely, and Javi internally swears and clenches his eyes shut in upset with himself. "Anyway, you not feeling well?"

You see Javi's shoulders droop before he answers tightly, "Pop…I'm sorry. I should've called earlier. The last few days have been hectic; traveling, getting the flu—"

"No-no, it's all right, mijo. You are busy and living your life. And, from the sounds of it, you're living it well," is Chucho's easygoing rasp, proudly adding, "You have a feisty, loving woman looking after you, so relish it, and don't take her for granted. And live in the moment together. You deserve to be happy, Javier."

The lump in his throat manages to get pushed down when he looks over at you and sees you attentively reading his expression, curious as to what has his dark chocolate eyes shining with unshed tears. "Thanks. I will. And I promise to come visit soon—"

"Don't worry about that. I know you're busy. Just try to keep in touch a bit more, ok?"

"I definitely will. Cuídate, Papá."

"You too, mijo. But before you hang up, put her back on the phone?" Chucho cajoles, and Javi snickers in agreement before offering it to you.

Smiling, you set your plate aside on the nightstand to take it. "So you know, you can rest easy that I will make sure Javi calls more," is your affable remark, squinting your eyes impishly at Javi giving you a deriding stare.

"I know you will, mija. And when you can, have him bring you for a visit. It's been long overdue that I haven't gotten to meet and thank you for taking care of my son. He really loves you, and as far as I'm concerned, you're already part of the family," Chucho charmingly extols. "All he wants to do is make you as happy as you make him, sabes?"

Feeling your heart summersault in your chest, you chime, "Well, he takes care of me too, and he does make me happy, so I feel the same way." You see Javier's expression soften at your words. Fearlessly, you add, "I love him with all my heart."

"I'm glad, and will keep you both in my prayers. Take care, Celina. Dios los bendiga."

"You too. Goodbye."

Once you place the phone down on the bed, you can see Javi is buzzing with curiosity, so you coolly return to your plate of food before musing, "Eat, before it gets cold, chulito."

He blows a raspberry before obeying, and ends up scarfing the meal down with gusto, savoring the fresh avocado he mixes in with the rice and criollo-style corn beef. Once he's washed it all down by guzzling the glass of water until it's empty, he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand before he sets the serving tray aside so he can stretch out to sidle up close to you.

"I'm such an asshole. I forgot that today's my parent's wedding anniversary…" he unburdens himself, tone self-reproachful. "I had my head in my ass—"

"Javi, you've been running around for days, then you got sick. It just slipped your mind," you console as you rub his bare back. "Your dad is sweet and kind. I'm sure he just wanted to hear from you. He didn't sound disappointed or anything. And, from now on, I'll badger you to call him more so he and I can chat away."

That feeling of radiating heat fills his chest and makes his bones ache with how much your words comfort him.

"You're too good to me," Javi murmurs with genuine feeling, and it makes you shake your head drolly. "I know it annoys you when I say so, but I mean it."

"Javi, it only annoys me, because it's like you're saying you don't deserve to be treated right," you explain, frowning when he tucks his chin in to hide his self-loathing expression, clearly annoyed with himself for saying what he thinks was the wrong thing. You shift to face him and cup his chin in order to tip his face up so he can look into your eyes as you profess tenderly, "You are the love of my life, and you're worthy, and I mean it when I tell you this: You make me happy, and make me feel deserving of love. I only ever want you to feel the same, so when you say I'm too good to you, it makes me sad, because it means I'm doing the opposite…that I haven't made you feel deserving enough."

He's never thought about it that way, and now that you've told him how you feel, all the self-doubt – the feeling unworthy – gets blasted away like shadows being banished by the light of the sun.

You see it etching plainly on his handsome features, so you kiss him lovingly on the lips before nuzzling him affectionately.

The way your incandescent grace fills him up has him hugging you tight, and you smile at his murmured sweet nothings he pours into your ear.

"…Te amo hasta mi alma. You're my everything, querida…"

Your heart sores, and you bask in his passionate embrace, cherishing the moment of serenity with him.

Once you've both become settled, you end up having to rush to turn over the laundry loads, then hurry back to get dressed again for work.

"Get some rest, hermoso. I love you," you susurrate, and kiss him goodbye on the lips.

"Love you too, querida," he rumbles and playfully glides his touch down your arm to clasp your hand as if he's not going to let you go before trailing his fingers away.

You snicker and wink at him before heading out.

More than content to lie back down and rest until you get back from work, Javi lets his thoughts run wild with the exhilarating promise of plans he's intent on making reality sooner rather than later.

Hours later, after a staff meeting to get progress reports regarding the different program initiatives everyone is working on, you're in your office finalizing some reports. It's close to the end of the day, and you're eager to wrap things up so you can head home to Javier.

Your cell phone starts to ring, so you answer it and multitask as you scan your report on the computer's screen. "Hello?"

"Good afternoon, Ms. Reinosa. My name's Ned Fuller, and I'm a CIFI for your auto insurance provider. I'm calling in regards to your automotive accident earlier this week. Do you have a second to chat?"

Thrown off, you lean back in your chair and focus on your desk, already retrieving the folder with all the paperwork from your tote as you answer, "Yes, I do. I'm sorry, CIFI?"

"Oh, my apologies! That's short for Certified Insurance Fraud Investigator. I'm actually a case manager who helps flag cases submitted by our insurance offices out in the Caribbean region," the man explains good naturedly, while still managing to fill you with dread. "Anyway, I wanted to call and alert you that while at the local level, there was no way to prove the vehicle malfunctioned without an external cause, when I read the case report, it alarmed me, as it was very reminiscent to a case I worked on in the Florida Keys a few years back."

"Huh…in what way?" you ask, pulling over a notepad and grabbing a pen to jot down any details.

"Well, it was a doozy. Basically, a wealthy financier was driving his vehicle towards the interstate on-ramp, when his tire failed and sent the vehicle careening into the guardrail and almost jettisoned it over the barrier. On closer inspection by the tech lab, they found the tire's strut mount had been tampered with. Turns out the fella was in a contentious divorce battle, and authorities arrested his wife," the investigator retells, before getting back to the topic at hand. "Anyway, while not part of protocol, I figured it would only be right to inform you of the red flag this raised for me, and caution you that if not caused by your dealership's negligence, there was this possibility—"

"I'm sorry. Are you saying that there's a suspicion—that there's evidence that my car was deliberately tampered with in order to cause the accident?" you inquire, flummoxed.

"…Well, on the record, there was significant damage done that it made it difficult to conclude the tire was tampered with," he begins, before confiding, "Off the record? I would say it's suspicious."

The man explains a bit more to you, but you're floored and completely caught up in a ruminating whirlpool.

Did someone…could someone have purposely rigged the tire in order for me to crash the car?!

As the thought builds up an ominous pit in your stomach, yet another makes you worry.

Who would go through the trouble of doing it…and why?

To be continued…

  ________________

Read Chapter 45: Deserving - Part 2

Spanish-English Glossary:

Partido Nuevo Progresista = New Progressive Party

Puntos = Points, as in drug points

Muecas = Making faces; grimaces

Querida/querido = Affectionate term, akin to expressing one's want and desire

Mi patrón = My master/boss

Malcriada/malcriado = Brat/spoiled

Traviesa = Naughty/Mischievous girl

Tentadora = Temptress

Mi amor = My love

Mi patroncito = My little patron

Bebito = Little baby (male)

Lo necesito. Te lo ruego. Por favor, mi rey. Seré tuya = I need it. I beg you. Please, my king. I'll be yours

Eres pinche gloriosa = You're fucking glorious

Chavón = A man that's pestering you

Corazón = Heart; pet name to signify how deeply you love someone

Hermosa/hermoso = beautiful (female); beautiful (male)

Guapito = Handsome (said in an affectionate diminutive)

Marquesina = Open air garage or carport

Deja con las formalidades, ya = Quit it with the formalities, already

Se me olvidó = I forgot

Reggaetoneros = Reggaetón artists

Perrear = Doing it doggystyle, aka referring to sex

Perreo = Dance style associated with reggaetón; doggystyle, twerking dance

Beyako = Puerto Rican slang for horny/naughty guy; akin to "horn dog"

Pórtate bien, y llámame = Be good, and call me

Cacos = Term referring to hardcore reggaetón fans, who are mostly men

Bailar = Dance

Ella es una mamita sabrocita = She is a tasty foxy woman

Claro que no = Of course not

She's a chulería – una bichota bien wapa = She's a charming gal, a real big shot lady that's real feisty

Pasarme así = Overstep like that

Gatilleros = Triggermen

Sobrepasarme = To overstep; to go too far

Solo le gusta hablar mierda = Only likes to talk shit

Pendejo = Dumbass/Jackass

Acho, que canto cabrón = Man, what an asshole

Tesoro = Treasure; darling

Pá = Short for 'Papá' which means father, or poppa

Mija = Short for mi hija, aka my daughter; my girl

Soñaré de ti, mi amor. Sueña de mi, mi cariñito = I'll dream of you, my love. Dream of me, my sweet little darling

Jefa = Boss lady

Doña = A Spanish honorific, referring to a respectable woman; equivalent to Missus

Pastelillo de guayaba = Guava pastry; similar to a turnover

Preciosa = Gorgeous; precious

Mira quien habla = Look who's talking

El guapo descarado = The handsome cad

Apodo = Nickname

Tan chavón = Such a pain

Canela = Cinnamon

Dulces sueños, mi amor = Sweet dreams, my love

Chacho = Jeez

Come mierda = Slang for a stuck up, moronic person; literally means 'shit eater'

Tan chingona = Such a badass lady

Cariño = Darling/sweetheart

Gruñón = Grumpy man

Bravita = Tough girl; feisty girl

Chulo/Chulito = Cute guy; little cutie

Ay, no = Oh, no

Con la monga = With the flu

Nena = Girl

Ah, es verdad. Que jodienda = Ah, that's true. What a pain in the ass

Obviamente = Obviously

Ha sido una mierda = Has been real shit

Pobrecita/Pobrecito = Poor little thing

Bendito = Blessed simple soul; a hopeful lamentation

Loquita = Crazy girl

Playas = Beaches

Jevo = Puerto Rican slang for boyfriend

Coño, nena – no te recuerdas = Damn, girl – you don't remember

Pues = Well

Por Dios = God's sake

Burlona = Joker (female)

No seas tan terco = Don't be so stubborn

Quédate quieto, y pórtate bien = Stay put and behave

Consola [de aire acondicionado] = Air conditioning unit/console

Sopa de jamón = Ham soup

Sofrito = Herbs, spices, and vegetables minced into a cooking bouillon paste

Quédate dormida = Stay asleep

Mandona = Bossy lady

Ay, no me mires así, bebito = Aw, don't look at me that way, little baby boy

Puerco = Pig

Beyako pervertido = Horny pervert

Fresco = a guy who's being 'fresh', or naughty/pervy

Sí, mi patrona = Yes, my madam/ boss lady/ mistress

Me entiendes, bebito = You understand me, little baby boy

Furiosa = Furious (female)

Caripela'o = Puerto Rican slang for a shameless get over

Aguacate = Avocado

Mijo = short for "mi hijo", a term of endearment akin to "my son/sonny"

Cuídate, Papá = Take care, Dad

Dios los bendiga = God bless you both

Te amo hasta mi alma = I love you to my soul; "I love you soul-deep"

Thanks for reading! Please consider leaving a comment and sharing your feedback. I would be eternally grateful. 

[furious-rogue-stuff]

Heat Chapter 43: Still

I apologize for the long hiatus! Hopefully this chapter makes up for the delay in posting 😊 This is the longest chapter to date, so sorry in advance!

Pairing: Javier Peña x OFC | Javi x Querida

Disclaimer: Written in 2nd person narrative, you can safely assume our heroine and love/lust interest is a Latina, written by a Latina. Here's my philosophy on my writing, for further context.

Rating: Mature/Explicit 🔞

Word Count: 28,000+

Summary: As you try to achieve peace in your personal life, you find yourself struggling against melancholy and self-reproach during an important anniversary. When all you want is for time to stand still, can you find serenity with Javier in the emotional chaos?

Warnings: Graphic descriptions of sex, including masturbation and unprotected sex. Mentions of raunchy sexual acts, grieving, melancholy, toxic coping mechanisms, and loneliness. Descriptions of power play, praise kink, and dirty talk. Allusions to mourning, family strife, foreboding threats, and emotional angst. Some Protective!Javi, Dom! Javi, Boss!Javi, Sub!Reader. In the vein of Narcos being a bilingual show, and Javier Peña being fluent, I felt it was apropos to include Spanglish and Spanish throughout.

Heat Masterlist

Previous chapter - Chapter 42: Reflection

Chapter 43: Still

There had been a time, not so long ago, that you'd made peace with being alone.

It was mostly subconscious – the idea that you weren't on the same track as everyone else, but after you'd left Puerto Rico at the end of that summer, you'd felt like a different person than the one who'd reluctantly arrived from graduating college. If forced to articulate it, you would've struggled to decompartmentalize everything enough to be able to adequately represent why you'd felt different.

Even after years of working and building your professional life, you'd seldom let new people into your personal one. When you'd worked in the New York offices of the State Department, you'd always spend your free time with Irina and Sasha. And during your brief stint at the Washington D.C. offices, you'd kept to yourself, only making superficial connections with some of the other clerical staffers; making acquaintances you kept at arm's length.

You'd avoided dating during that period especially, feeling lonely but settled. Once you'd volunteered for the placement at the U.S. embassy in Bogotá, the protective bubble you'd crafted for yourself ebbed away by the time you'd settled down in the Colombian capital.

It helped to feel in a familiar, yet different place. But mostly, with your mother's side of the family being so accessible, you'd been able to soften more to the idea of a life shared pleasantly with others.

Ellis had worn you down – quickly going from the annoying gringo you shared an office corner with to a very close confidante and dear friend. Thanks to his congenial wife, they eventually dragged you out to be more social, and soon you felt like a normal, single, professional woman in a big city that still felt homey and sheltering. You dated, but nothing serious that ever lasted more than a few outings – or sleepovers at their place – and you had no qualms about keeping yourself guarded from being truly courted by anyone.

Just when you'd finally felt confident in your space and accomplished with yourself, you'd ended up staring when a cool, ridiculously handsome guy had crossed your field of vision one afternoon while you'd sat with the building's cleaning ladies during lunch at one of the gazebos facing the path leading into the building's back entry.

You'd looked over at the building in mid-answer to something Marisol had quipped, and saw Javier striding down a couple of steps to stop someone and chat. He had on aviator sunglasses, the kind with the amber-tinted lenses, dark hair combed with a side-part that was practically non-existent with how his unruly hair curled about in thick tufts. His tall muscularly built torso filled out the tropical blue button-down shirt while his brawny arms crossed over his strong chest as he nodded along listening to the other person he was conversing with. You were tantalized by the ratio of his broad shoulders to narrow hips, and how those dark grayish Levi's jeans seemed tailored to his strong long legs and perfect tush. He seemed almost unreal – a throwback to a handsome 70's stud you could've only daydreamed about.

Gaze lingering on him, you'd been thankful that you were far away enough to be able to stare from the safe distance, and ask Marisol, "Who is that?"

Marisol and the girls had looked over and exchanged varying snickers, and girlish giggles, before the older woman chimed knowingly, "Oh, that is one of the agentes de la DEA. Has made quite a reputation for himself, eh, girls?"

You couldn't get over how handsome he was and how he looked out of place for the buttoned-up vibe of the consulate, but really what got you was how he had a jawline for days. Quickly, all your pining from afar accelerated to lust when you admired how his full lips had pulled into a wry smirk before he tipped the sunglasses down amusedly at something the other person had said, which gave you a view at the way his smile made his eyes crinkle.

Heat had radiated in the apples of your cheeks as you'd feigned aloofness before going back to the conversation, ignoring Marisol's knowing smile, with aplomb.

It'd been the first time your pulse had raced for someone since…well since a time you'd worked very hard to put behind you, so it'd given you pause.

What a silly thing. Crushing over some tight-jean-wearing, mustachioed DEA bad boy, had been your internal scoff as you'd stubbornly shelved the notion.

You hadn't expected for said crush for the roguish agent to become even more concrete from afar after witnessing him leaving to some kind of raid one late afternoon.

He'd marched confidently through the embassy lobby in his army green tac vest like a man on a mission and laser focused, none the wiser to having caught your eye. You had just come around the corner from the atrium and almost got whiplash from doing a double take, only to then end up watching him stride towards the exit in those classic-blue Levi's jeans, a light khaki-colored button-down shirt with the sleeves tapered at his muscular biceps, and his dark, unruly tufts of hair curling boyishly after they got tousled by his thick fingers absently carding through them as he stormed off.

If the woman who'd stood there, idly replaying the smirk you'd seen grace his gorgeous features prior, would've known you'd be the woman who'd gotten that swagger-rich DEA stud to fall madly in love with, let alone gun-ho about wanting to live a life together, even? That he'd forsake the trappings of his previous rakish lifestyle? And that you would end up being the woman who was now unable to see the rest of your life without him in it? You're sure your psyche would've burst into blazing sparks at trying to rationalize it all.

And when you'd woken next to him and ended up staring at his serene, sleeping features in the waxy orange veil of dawn that'd begun filling your bedroom the morning after your spectacular Valentine's Day night, the need to rationalize your feelings did not intrude into your mind or heart. Instead, you couldn't help fawn at how grateful you were to have found your way back to each other. To feeling loved and safe again – no longer content with being alone, and relieved to be free of the loneliness that had been your anesthetizing companion since you'd left your life in Colombia.

To say that the night of the double date had cemented things between you and Javi as being back on track, would've felt much too simple to properly do everything that had transpired prior and led up to it, proper justice.

At least that's what you're telling yourself after having had time to reflect back on it.

However, new worries settled in now, like knowing how much to share with the people around you who'd surely noticed the shift in your day-to-day routine and the priorities of your personal time. Of course, the usual suspects didn't worry you.

Ellis and Anita, as well as Steve and Connie obviously knew. And when you'd called to thank Zoraida for the reservation again, she'd made you divulge, telling you not to spare a salacious detail of the night. You'd been happy to do so – albeit giving her the abbreviated version of your history with Javier to date. She'd been cheekily enthralled to hear about the guy who'd be monopolizing your time, showing not a hint of umbrage when you'd scoffed and assured that you wouldn't pull a her and just disappear on a long tryst.

Hell, she'd even gone as far as to snicker to you, "Sure, like you don't plan on going missing every weekend from now on – catching up on all that fun with your papisongo!"

You trusted she'd tell the other girls so they wouldn't get too peeved with you skipping out on the group hangouts over brunch or happy hour drinks.

So, the only remaining hurdle you figured would require a finer tact around, would be your father.

Still, there was nothing you wanted to let intrude in the rekindling of your relationship now, and by the way Javier talked, his only concern was making up for lost time with you. You were more than content with that, and were committed to just going with the flow – to not putting pressure on yourself or worrying about setting expectations for things to come.

It was your time to embrace the hopeful feelings you'd taken for granted. To enjoying what you'd both missed out on prior: being together without the stigma of ominous judgment or danger.

After all, even that morning, when you had amorously kissed Javi awake, and he'd surprised you by surging out of bed to get in his running clothes as he jibed, "Rise and shine, malvadita. Let's go for this grueling jog of yours," the prospect of being seen with him out and beyond the haven of your stomping grounds? Of taking it to your professional territory by getting spotted canoodling with the DEA's Special Agent in Charge, in and around the Federal building? It made excitement bloom in your chest.

When he'd yanked his shirt over his head and eyed you challengingly, you'd ended up snickering, totally enticed by his suggestion and his debonair airs enough to toss the blanket aside as you'd climbed out of bed and hurriedly got dressed before heading out on the early morning jog route with him.

You two hadn't gotten to the elevator before running into Jodalys, who you'd go on jogs with on occasion when she wasn't going with her group of girlfriends. Your neighbor and friend had given you a conspiratorial wink of approval after you'd introduced her to Javi and parted ways at the courtyard's entry. She'd also made it a point to tell you how hot Javi was the next time you ran into her in the lobby later that evening.

But then you'd gone up to your place right after and listened to a voicemail on the answering machine from your father reminding you of the plans for Sunday, and you'd hedged on calling him back.

Later that night, when Javier had come over and you'd vivaciously taken him to bed, you'd sidled close to him after the amorous coupling, and whispered, "When should we put it out there?"

"What – us, you mean?" he'd murmured, and at your nod against his chest, he'd cupped your cheek and tipped your face up to his in the dark of the bedroom, admiring your features thanks to the scant light coming from the lamp left on in the living room. "I'll send out a memo building-wide tomorrow," had been his quip, smirking when you scoffed irreverently at the notion. "This isn't like the embassy, so, we can be as discreet or overt as we want, I think. Mercer isn't really empowered to do much, and it's not like there's any ethical conflicts of interest. We don't impact each other's departments—"

"Still, it's about keeping professional appearances and avoiding any possible HR concerns. Rumors about us aside, it's something we'd have to address, since we've rekindled things," you sheepishly muse, and at Javi humming in acknowledgement of your point, you add, "I think we'll have to disclose our relationship to Mercer, at the very least."

"Hmm, ok. It'll have to be after I come back from Santo Domingo, ideally," Javi had mused, then detailed his upcoming trip, which would coincide with the anniversary of your mother's death. "—I'm flying out Friday end of day so I can meet with the commander of the operation there and try to be back before that—"

You'd kissed his cheek, then assured, "It's ok, Javi. I…I usually spend that day by myself anyway. Just, promise to call me? So I know you're all right?"

"Of course, mi amor," he'd answered devotedly and kissed you before wrapping his arms around you after you curled into him and sighed.

You were fine with waiting. After all, the foreboding worry that had once hung over you both like the sword of Damocles was no longer there, and even with Javier traveling for work more than he'd done before, he was nowhere near the action. And with Steve overseeing the field ops on the island, you felt a keener sense of security that Javier wouldn't be hung out to dry, or end up being the heavy, or the fall guy.

The night before he was due to fly out, you'd both gone over to Steve and Connie's for dinner. It had been a charming evening, spent enjoying the meal and internally fawning at how cute Isabel was when she'd smile and reach for Javi to pick her up. The six-month-old seemed to be drawn to him, and you'd be in denial if you neglected to acknowledge how something warm and fuzzy tingled in your tummy watching Javi prop her up in his arms while making silly muecas when she tried to reach for his moustache.

And little Olivia was a riot. Javi had told you so beforehand, but the precocious little girl hadn't missed a beat when you'd walked in together and Javi had introduced you to her.

"Are you uncle Javi's wife?" she'd queried and given you a guileless, warm-eyed stare, looking rambunctious in her little blue and white-butterfly-patterned overalls and pink polo.

You could feel Javi tense behind you, before you'd crouched down at Olivia's level.

With an impish smile, you'd began to say, "No, I'm his friend—"

"His girlfriend?" she piped and smirked up at him when Connie comically admonished her while Steve shook his head and held Isabel in the crook of his arm.

"Actually, yes. And that makes him my boyfriend, too," you'd chuckled and winked at her before remarking, "That probably sounds silly, since we're both grownups, huh."

Sitting now on the bench across from the 'Kid's Escape' upstairs and adjacent to the mall's food court, you were just fawning at the memory of Javier trying to suppress a kooky grin at the way Olivia had stated, "All grownups are silly. But you should marry each other so you can be happy and silly together," when Connie sat next to you and pulled you from your reveries.

You'd volunteered to keep watch over the strollers – one empty thanks to Anita taking Delilah for a diaper change, and the other with a sleeping Isabel next to you while Connie had taken Olivia in to run around in the playscape.

"It's going to be hell, getting her out of there," Connie snickers as she plops her purse next to her so she can take a load off.

"But she'll be tuckered out for sure on the drive home," you muse as you smirk at her and over at the indoor playground bustling with precocious kids.

You could see the little girl happily crawling up the tunnel to get to the slide, and it makes you think of how cute she was when she'd asked Javi to help her color in the latest page of her coloring book after dinner the other night.

Isabel sleepily shifts in her stroller, little fist curling into her cheek as she settled back down before she lets out a soft sigh that stirs your attention back at her.

Noticing your stare, Connie can't help endorse in an inconspicuous lilt, "Javi is great with her. Same with Olivia, when she was that little."

Pursing your lips knowingly, you tuck your hair behind your ear as you give her a side glance and drawl, "So you've let him babysit, then?"

"Not yet, no," Connie chuckles, adding, "Up until recently, I'd been under the impression that he was spending his free time galivanting around—"

"You mean 'skanking' around," you interject wryly, snickering when she gives you a nervous laugh. "It's ok. He had that rep when we met."

"I have to say, if Steve had that ladies' man status, I don't know if I would've been able to overlook it," Connie confides as she idly folds one of the baby's blankies into a neat square. "Although, I don't think I could keep my guard up for long. Not with how sweet he was."

"Well, Javi wore me down," you quip, and give her a musing shrug before adding, "I mean, not to say there weren't bumps in the road. Bumps shaped like conniving floozies, for one…"

Hands pausing in their absent folding and refolding, Connie's wide blue eyes stare at you as she whispers, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to dredge it up—"

You shake your head and exhale humorously. "No, it's fine! That probably sounded bitchy. Really, there was only one time I had any right at being miffed," you dismiss, but at Connie's curious stare, you can't help elaborating, "Early on, after the siege at the Palace of Justice? He'd been MIA, and then he'd called me one night – when we'd had plans for him to come over, to tell me he couldn't make it, and some woman was in his apartment. She was like, 'How're we gonna handle this arrangement, then?' with this seductive tone?"

Connie's expression etches with sympathy and guilt, as she mentions, "I remember that time. He and Steve were helping out an acquaintance of mine, who was worried she was a target for the cartel and the government."

"Don't worry, I know all that now. But at the time? I'd been crushed. And he'd tried to say nothing was going on, but I hung up on him and didn't talk to him for a while. And then we reconciled after that Tolu raid he was part of, and while we'd been arguing in the car about what happened, he let it slip that he had been with her," you find yourself volunteering, feeling like you were telling a story about someone you used to know.

Her reaction, though, grounds you back in the reality that it had happened to you, not someone else.

"Ugh, I'd tried to set him up with Elisa, but had I known then about you two, I would've never even introduced them! Oh but then the siege happened and she showed up outside the apartment begging for help, and I could only think to take her to Javi's so she could lay low," Connie tells you contritely before frowning as she recalls, "Oh no…on the day I drove her out of the capital, she'd mentioned something about that – the call."

"Oh?" you query, arching a brow.

"I never thought much of it and didn't put two and two together, until now. I guess she'd heard him. She'd said he sounded preoccupied, and she'd simply wanted to remind him that she wasn't just furniture being kept in his care," Connie answers, frowning, as she adds, "That he'd had the gall to gab with one of his girls like she wasn't even there—"

"I knew it," you can't help hiss as you cross your arms and shake your head. "He swore that he didn't even know why she said that while he was on the phone, and that after that, she'd been naked and waiting for him in bed—" you bite back your retroactive disdain and scoff, uncrossing your arms and looking down to make sure you didn't wake the baby in the stroller. "…Good to know I wasn't just inferring things."

Connie pats your shoulder. "Safe to say, he's made up for it, since?" she asks in a light tone.

You huff amusedly, and nod. "Yes, he's more than made up for it. But best believe, if I ever run into that Elisa, I'm beating her like a piñata," you tell her glibly, but your narrow smile speaks volumes for how serious you are.

At that, Connie can't help liking you a whole lot more than she already did.

Anita returns with Delilah, looking a bit harried as she puts the now fussy baby in her carriage. "Oof, sorry. She's all cranky," your friend explains as she tries to get her to settle.

"Ah, nap time?" Connie asks as she gives her seat to Anita so she can more comfortably tend to the baby.

"Yeah, she's just like her father. Whiny when she can't get any sleep," Anita jokes, and you all chuckle. "Did you want to check out Sears before heading out?"

Brightly, Connie agrees, "That'd be great! Let me grab Olivia."

You and Anita stay with the strollers so Connie can go collect Olivia from the playscape while you try to entertain the squirmy little one with silly coos and playful bops of her binky onto her chin, giving Anita a chance to finish her soft drink.

"Oh, did I tell you Ellis wants to do a barbecue?" Anita chimes as she tosses her finished cup into a nearby trash receptacle. "I'm going to invite Connie, too."

Smiling, you chit chat some more until Connie returns with Olivia in tow.

The mall outing was a nice way to spend the morning, and by the time you're exiting the department store, you're all agreeing to coordinating a good day to hang for the barbecue.

On the drive home after dropping Anita and the baby off, you can't help reminisce on the other night. Of how nice it'd been to stroll from Steve and Connie's to Javier's house a block or so away, walking hand in hand in the cool night air. The sound of the coquí filled the ambient hum over the breeze as you both talked, and served as the main nocturnal chorus once you both got into his bungalow. You hadn't finished placing your purse onto his dresser before he'd come up behind you and wrapped you up in his arms.

The sex had been ardent and magnificent after such an emotionally fulfilling week.

Javi had made you feel like the most sumptuous, scrumptious being as he unspooled pleasure from you with every part of him. His lips, hands, the press of him spreading you out into a pliant, writhing thing underneath him while he fucked you with all the passion that blazed in his heart and burned in his veins for you while he husked sweet, fervent things to you had been your undoing. He'd made you reach bliss so many times that night, you'd been quivering – reduced to a sinewy vessel, burned down to embers. But when you'd sobbed his name and begged him to make you his, new life had tingled through your nerve endings and pulsed in your core from how fierce and carnally he'd stared down at you as he'd reached his climax.

You're thinking of how his mouth had fallen open on his shout of ecstasy as he'd thrust home into your fluttering sheath and surged down to bury his wrecked whine into your neck as he spilled his orgasm deep, and the sense-memory of it has need blooming like a throbbing ache between your thighs, as you drive. It has you yearning for Javi, and having to remind yourself it's only been a day since you've been apart.

Annoyed with yourself, your mind wanders back to spending the night at his place, post-mind-blowing coupling.

Javier had reasoned with you beforehand to stay over, and you'd happily been cajoled into bringing a travel bag with a change of clothes for work the next day. He'd gone to the trouble to make his place immaculate and stocked the fridge with your favorite juices and drinks, which you couldn't help melt over.

Your infatuation has you thinking now of the quirky thing Javi did, as you pull into the driveway to your condo and punch in the security keycode.

After taking a soothing shower together and affectionately lotioning each other up with some silky cream you had in your travel tote, Javier had gone to the kitchen to get you a glass of water while you dreamily sat under the sheet on the side of the bed closest to the bedroom door, idly massaging the remnants of the lotion you'd used on the rest of your body along your arms. He'd come in, rounded the bed to the unoccupied side, placed the glass of water on the nightstand, then gone to shut the light off in the hall before tugging the towel around his hips off to be tossed into the bathroom before going to where you were under the sheet and lifting it to bossily, albeit affectionately, herd you to glide over to the opposite side of the bed as he climbed in after you.

You'd been so tired that you'd just exhaled an amused huff, greedily chugged half the water in the glass, and flopped down to curl into him after he'd shut the bedside lamp off on his side and pulled the rest of the covers up to snuggle up with you.

Riding up in the elevator now, it dawns on you.

Javier has always made sure to put himself between you and the door.

He's done it since you'd first been together. You'd not noticed before since you'd always absently preferred sleeping on the left side of the bed, and your place and Javi's back in Bogotá – hell, even his crash house in Medellín and the hotel room in Cartagena – had the doorway closer to the right side of the bed. But here? Your condo and his place's bedroom had the doors close to the left side.

Awestruck, you wander down to your door and key in, floored by the realization that Javier has always been compelled – maybe hardwired, even – to put himself between you and possible danger.

It makes butterflies flutter in your tummy the more you think about it.

The reveries of all the ways Javi's made you feel worthy and precious fill your head and keep you in a daydreamy bubble the rest of the day as you busy yourself with chores.

Javier, on the flipside, is trying to make heads and tails of what's before him in this latest anti-cartel crusade that he'd signed up for.

At the time, what no one knew, and what he was starting to suspect, was that the drug trade network between the islands of the Greater Antilles were supplied by several cartel factions in Central America. The biggest distributor, the Gulf cartel, had shipping lanes mapped into the Caribbean for years. And even though things in the Sinaloan, Guadalajaran, and Juárez plazas had become a veritable civil war, the coastal factions eked out revenue focusing on pumping marijuana, heroin and cocaine into the Caribbean, avoiding the hassle of increased boarder security and aggressive surveillance from the U.S.

Instead of 'trampolining' product over the boarder like Amado had perfected, traffickers in the Gulf cartel were applying a 'slingshot' style tactic for transporting the product to the network across the islands. That, however, required establishing partnerships with local gangs, who by coercion, bribery, or intimidation, succeeded in moving the drugs throughout their territory.

Junior Capsula's crew had been the best at cornering the market on the larger islands, and with time, he'd kowtowed rival factions to falling in line and working for him and his other capos. Nowhere was that more prevalent than in the Dominican Republic.

After getting the leads from his contacts, Nic Lopez had briefed Javier on how La Familia got their inventory for local trafficking from Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic. A few calls and a lot of political compromise later, and Javier had coordinated a joint taskforce with the authorities there, so he and Nic flew out Friday to hit the ground running.

The plan was to find the pipeline there and turn the spigot off, or at the very least isolate who the players were and who they used to ferry the product and cash to the network of public housing points, just like what was found at the crime scene at the caserío hit.

Javier's counterpart was the head of the Dominican Republic's Dirección Nacional de Control de Drogas, aka their version of the Colombian National Police that specialized in drug enforcement. A man known as Comandante Ayala. His first impression of him was good, but he'd learned never to let first impressions dissuade him of a sad truth:

Most men could be bought. No matter how pious, or principled they're lauded to be.

One thing he did to give Javier a hopeful outlook, though, was confirm a few things only the well-connected knew: José Figueroa Agosto had ties on both islands. The narco wannabe kingpin had homes all over the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, tons of luxury cars, boats – and deep pockets for bribes.

No matter how many busts or seizures were undertaken, how many drug points or transport operations were dismantled, the inconspicuous thug was always ahead. Nothing had been making a dent. But, curiously, the massacre at the public housing complex had shaken some partners. Enough to make them gripe to those who didn't mind passing the complaints along to diligent and crafty guys like Nic Lopez.

At dinner, when it was just the two of them in the crowded cantina across from the military base they were staying in, Nic had confirmed what had now become the most obvious.

"…There's some other pipeline of distribution. Maybe someone in the syndicate is trying to mobilize everything to flow from that rather than out of Santo Domingo? It would explain why no reprisals have happened," is the intrepid agent's musing as he swirls his tequila idly. "That bust in St. Thomas? It could be from that other stream—"

"Yeah, that's what I've been thinking," Javi cuts in before downing the rest of his whiskey, letting the burn of the amber liquid temper his next statement. "Or, it could be a diversion. Their attempt at 'diversifying the portfolio.' Cali did the same thing, with Medellín, with the Sinaloans…"

It was a possibility. Really, anything was. Still, it didn't give him or Nic much comfort.

Deciding to call it a night not soon after, they both returned to the private dorms they'd been given to stay in for the next couple of days.

Once showered and in a pair of dark green boxers, Javi stretched out on the narrow bed against the wall to lounge in the direction the window-unit air conditioner was undulating cold air, and let himself unwind. Closing his eyes, he let his mind relax.

Of course, it wanders over to thinking of you.

He remembers how good it'd been to wake up with you in his bed the other morning. How wonderful the night before had been.

A primal yearning had pulsed beseechingly within him at watching you with Steve's kids. You hadn't missed a beat at contending with Olivia and her precocious questions. No matter how silly or nosy. He swore she got that trait from Steve. But he couldn't muster an ounce of umbrage when it came from the adorable little girl.

The image of you holding Isabel and smiling at the way she yawned before resting her head on your shoulder flashed across his mind's eye now, making that effervescent feeling expand behind his sternum and heat his blood. It had him aching in his chest for the future – for what it would feel like to look upon you while you held your future first-born, to cuddle and smile lovingly down at his child.

Was it a wonder that he could barely think straight the rest of the evening you all chit-chatted around the coffee table? Coloring with Olivia before she'd been herded to bed had been the only way he could keep from staring at you with want in his dark eyes. Hell, the urge to claim you had been so intoxicating that he'd almost considered coming up with an excuse for you two to leave abruptly. He'd even debated about taking a sleeping Isabel from your arms in order to hand her to Connie so he could grab your hand and tow you away back to his place already.

As soon as you'd made the overture to call it a night, Javier had been burning with a feral, primordial need for you. He'd barely contained his impulses on the stroll home, but the moment you were in his bedroom, Javi's restraint dissolved, and he'd been on you – stripping you with deft hands while his mouth claimed yours.

Parting ways the next morning had weighed on him more than he'd expected, especially knowing what you would be dealing with.

He'd called you that first night in Santo Domingo, and you'd told him the plans you'd confirmed with your father for Sunday. You'd been so tired from the workday, though, that when you'd stifled a sleepy yawn, Javier had insisted you go to bed, and promised to call you every night.

You'd needed to keep yourself occupied. The chores had helped, and so did fawning over Javier most of the day. Hell, even now, you sighed dreamily after staring over at the lovely bouquet he'd given you for Valentine's Day. It was sitting in the vase at the center of your glass dining table, still looking vibrant and lush thanks to your doting to keep the roses and lilies luscious as long as possible.

But now that you'd finished with the last 'to-do' – having just folded up the ironing board after leaving the starching and steaming for last to do while the TV played the evening news, you were just resigning yourself to the melancholy waiting for you, when the house phone rang.

Picking it up from the base as you simultaneously grabbed the remote from the side table, you turned the TV off as you pressed the button to pick up the call.

"Hello?"

"Hey, hermosa. How're things?"

You feel that beaming, tingly glee crest up in you at the sound of his canela-spiced baritone.

"Better, now that you've called," you tell him with genuine delight as you shut the lamp off in the living room and start to lope down the hall towards your bedroom. With a sigh, you murmur, "I miss you. Been thinking about you all day."

"Oh?" he purrs in that roguish tone that hints at intrigue.

"Mmhmm. After this week, can you blame me?" you flirt now, entering your room after switching the hall light off.

"Not at all, especially since I miss the hell out of you too, and have my mind wandering. I was just remembering how sexy you looked in that little jogging outfit from the other day. Among other things," he chuckles in a velvety rasp that has arousal tickling warmth into your core.

Tossing yourself onto your cozy bed, you chime casually, "On the drive home from spending the day at the mall with the girls? I kept replaying the other night."

You expect him to take the bait you just so meatily dangled for him, but instead, Javi hums, "Have fun shopping?"

Pursing your lips to stifle your goofy huff, you roll to adjust your lounging position on the bed so you can sit up against your propped pillows. "Yes. Oh! We have tentative plans to go over to Ellis and Anita's for a barbecue. Us girls will coordinate on the date and let you boys know," you tell him spiritedly, smiling when you hear him hum a pleased grunt. "How're things there? I don't imagine you and Nic had enough time to go sightseeing around the capital?"

"Pfft, not in the least. It's bustling, and the base is close to the shoreline, but aside from some government office meetings, all we've seen a lot of is the cantina and the taskforce headquarters," he retorts, and you can hear him shifting onto a bed before he lets out a relaxed exhale. "We're going to Punta Cana in the morning to ride along on a raid. I have a meeting at the Fortaleza Wednesday morning., so I'll have to be back by then. Hopefully we get the intel we need from here quick," is his remark before he tentatively asks, "Everything still on? I mean, you and your father are still spending the day together?"

With a sigh, you absently toy with a few strands of hair as you reply, "Yes. I'm meeting him in Dorado."

He hums, and you can sense he's being cautious, not wanting to linger on the topic for fear it could trigger your melancholy. It actually makes your heart twinge – knowing how much he cares.

Javier is thinking of a delicate way to ask whether you really would spend the day alone on the anniversary of your mother's death, when he hears the shifting of the pillows you're lounging on, as if you'd just stretched out.

"So, what're you wearing, papisongo?"

Heat flares from his apex to radiate arousal into his loins at your seductive query.

Stretching to lie on the bed so he can rest his head on the pillows, propping the phone between his shoulder and ear, Javi adjusts himself, already feeling want pool in his core and fill out his length. He licks his bottom lip before rumbling, "Just a pair of boxers—"

"Oh?" you purr in his ear, and the timbre is playful, full of promise. "Paint me a picture, stud."

He gets rock-hard at the petition.

With a gravelly hum, he drawls, "Not much to paint, guapita. I'm in a military dorm room, on a narrow bed that's more of a cot than anything, and lying on it so the air conditioner can fan on me. This Caribbean heat is something else."

You chuckle at that.

"Which boxers?" is your melodious ask.

Smirking, he tucks his hand behind his head to stretch more comfortably while his other palm caresses down his torso languidly. "The dark green ones," he answers before scoffing at himself, admitting, "Christ, you're getting me worked up already…"

"Tell me, Javi," is your smoky murmur that sends a charge of pulsing desire to throb in his cock.

Palming himself over his boxers, he closes his eyes and lets out a raspy exhale. "I'm so fucking hard. You got me turned on, wishing you were touching me right now," he tells you in a husky pitch. His hand slips below the waistband to stroke his heavy erection, and a shiver goes up his spine when you hum a pleased sound of approval. "W-What're you wearing, mi amor?"

Looking down at your worn, oversized plum t-shirt and the slouchy sleep shorts your fingers paused skimming along the crotch of, you bite your lip before fibbing in a sultry chime, "I'm wearing the red lace teddy."

Javier blows a raspberry at your answer before grumbling freshly, "Yeah fucking right. C'mon, what do you really have on?"

Snickering, you gripe, "Nothing sexy—"

"I doubt that. Anyway, you gotta paint a picture for me too, seductora," is Javi's puckish drawl that has thrill pulsing warmth between your thighs.

"It's a ratty and baggy sleep set, chavón. I'm laying on my bed, thinking of you looking like a sexy centerfold and touching myself. Does that do it for you?" is your haughty mutter, expecting him to snort at you.

Instead, he lets out a husky hum that sends a tickle down to your core, before he sets it aflame with, "Mmm, it does, naughty girl. Tell me: you grinding that sweet little clit, thinking about me?"

Clenching your thighs around your hand to rut against the heel of your palm, you let out a breathy mewl while your other hand keeps the phone to your ear. You get wet, picturing Javi naked and stretched out on his back as he pleasures himself for you. "Yes. Yes, Javi. Wish I could watch you, like that time. Wanna see you get yourself off for me," you're telling him as you slip your hand beneath your shorts and start to circle your fingertips over the hood of your clit before grinding just the right amount of pressure that has you aching for climax.

You can just make out the sound of him shifting over the covers of the bed he's lying on over his gruff swear of, 'Fuck,' before you whine, "Javi, talk to me."

Javier's just finished hastily kicking off his boxers so he can pleasure himself without the barrier of them stifling the vigor of his stroking. And at your needy order, he audibly spits in his hand before fisting his cock, groaning at the added glide. "You got me jacking off like a hard-up fucker, bravita. F-Fuck, wish I was with you. Need to feel you, smell you, taste how wet you are—" at your flitty mewl, he bares his teeth from how hard he squeezes himself and husks, "You like that, baby? Knowing how fucking bad I wanna drop to my knees and bury my face in your pussy?"

"Oh Javi!" your cry of bliss shoots electricity through him and has him chasing his orgasm. It snaps loose within the tangled pleasure in his apex when you beg, "Please, I need you, mi rey—"

"Dios mío, Celina—!" he croaks out as his wits are stolen from him when his hand mindlessly strokes him into rapturous completion. So much so, that he doesn't even realize he growls in a pitched baritone, "I'm coming—f-fuck, m'coming!" as he spills his climax, shooting thick ropes of pearly seed to coat his stomach.

The sound you let out at hearing him reach ecstasy and being propelled by it into your own searing orgasm anchors Javier back from the fuzzy afterglow to coo in a velvety husk, "Such a good girl. Sound so sexy and sweet, coming hard for me like that. Helping me get off so fucking good."

In a warm, tremulous fog, you lie in a relaxed heap on your bed, languidly gliding your touch through the slick damp of your climax as it seeps into the crotch of your shorts. "Yeah?" you dreamily lilt, and at his mellow hum of confirmation, you smile and silkily sigh, "How good, mi cariñito?"

He lets out a sated, humored exhale from deep in his chest, before purring over the line, "Got me laying here on this glorified cot, naked and covered in my cum, still buzzing. That's how good, malvadita. Can't move yet…"

The image he conjures has delight zinging through you. "Sounds like a delicious sight. Wish I was there to take care of you," is your sultry murmur. He grunts drolly at that, so you tell him, "I kept my pjs on, but now my shorts are damp; fingers are all slick—"

He groans, as if lamenting he can't be there to do anything about it. You snicker, wiping your digits on the pant leg of your shorts before using the back of your hand to push your hair away from your forehead, chiming, "How you feeling over there, hm?"

"Hmph, like a dirty perv," is his deadpan, but you can hear the lopsided smile in his tone. "Shit, I needed that. Been tense. Felt good – having the release," he tells you in a relaxed murmur, then adds acerbically, "And I've been too sore to hit the gym since that insane jog you took me on—"

"Hah, oh yeah? And you'd been so sure that my 'little jog' would be no sweat for you," is your deriding snicker, loving how he gives you a grumpy huff in response, so you goad, "Guess I'll have to skip the beach leg of the jog to accommodate you—"

"My quads still ache from trudging through the sand trying to sprint after you," he haughtily razzes, and you can't help recall how he'd pouted when you'd heckled him to keep up.

"Well, I did offer to rub them for you, but you decided you'd rather spend the time being a filthy beyako instead," you singsong daringly, squeezing your thighs together idly at the reminder that plays in your head.

He remembers too. How he'd greedily chugged the green juice you'd gotten at the stand on the way back through El Condado. How surly he'd been while you both strolled through the park across from the busy avenue leading to the pedestrian bridge to the residential area your condo resides in. How he'd stared at your ass when you bent over to tie your sneaker's shoelace while you tutted at him about the folly of trying to show you up. The way your sweaty skin had made him buzz with salacious need while you'd both rode up in the elevator. And how amazing you'd tasted when he'd stripped you of your jogging clothes to bend you over the foot of your bed so he could eat your pussy out from behind.

"As if I would've passed up the chance to get you in that 'downward dog' pose," he smugly quips, smirking when you chortle at his logic, so he adds, "I'd opt for sore muscles over skipping having you any day." At your unconvinced laugh, he gloats, "Hey, we took advantage of the workout hormones already in our systems. I know I felt fucking great the rest of the day—"

"Hah, well I can't argue with that. It felt amazing," you cut in impishly while caressing your fingertips languidly along your exposed belly as you think of how content he'd looked after the raunchy post-workout sex, all freshly showered, watching you get dressed while he towel-dried his hair.

His velvety hum at your comment filters through the phone, stirring a warm smile to tug your dreamy features as you tuck wayward strands of hair behind your ear, and when it's proceeded by a yawn, you murmur dotingly, "Alright, I love you, bebito. Now be a good boy and come home to me soon."

A familiar, incandescent feeling fills his chest, making him ache with a yearning and prolonging the wistful post-bliss daze clinging to him. It has him professing worshipfully, "I will. Eres mi vida, preciosa. M'gonna take care of you. Make you come for me, have you feeling as amazing as you always make me feel. Show you how much I love you—"

You giggle enchantedly. "Javi. You already do all of that," is your sultry insistence, which makes him smile. "You're mine, and I can't wait to have you in my arms again, so I can kiss you silly and get you off like you deserve, chulito."

He grazes his teeth over his bottom lip and grunts an enticed sound as he sits up and snatches up his rumpled boxers, using them to wipe the sticky mess from his midriff. "Well, with promises like that," Javi drawls cockily, and you scoff spiritedly at him. "I'll be home soon, corazón. Until then, be sure to keep thinking naughty things so you'll have plenty to tell me," is his velvet over steel rumble, smirking when he hears your charmed hum. "Goodnight, querida."

"Goodnight, mi amor."

You set the phone aside on the nightstand, turn the lamp off, curl up under the covers, and dream of Javier.

It's a wonderful one. You're both together, lying under the mango tree in your grandmother's backyard, the grass cool and soft under you while you gaze at Javi while he sits up on his propped elbow and caresses your cheek.

He's murmuring to you about catching Escobar, telling you how great it was to see him in prison with the Cali Godfathers, watching them all fight each other. That it was all over, and that he had all the time in the world now to be with you.

"What else do you want, Javi?"

With a beaming smile that unearths his boyish dimple, he cups your jaw and guides you closer so he can whisper, "I have everything I want now, Celina."

The breeze whooshes around you both and rustles the leaves of the tree above head and undulates the cornucopia of flowers that fill the yard around you. A few petals get carried up in the current and waft towards the house. You follow their trajectory and notice your mother standing on the back patio. She's wearing a flower-print wrap dress that accentuates her round baby bump, and she's waving at you while cradling the basket filled with viandas and eggs against her hip.

You're just about to call over to her, but the breeze whips around you now, and just as you feel Javier caress his big, warm hand over your tummy – stirring you to look up into his stare and get lost in his coffee-brewed brown eyes, your alarm goes off and snaps you awake.

A flood of warm, fuzzy tranquility fills you as you lie there, trying to keep all the pieces of the dream from slipping away into that obscure haze that tends to muddle the details the more alert your mind becomes.

What a weird dream, you think, but your smile doesn't wane as you get out of bed and set out to get ready for your day.

The smile is on your face now as you sit at the table in the club house's outdoor dining area, stare faraway as you look out at the rolling green of the nearest golf hole just beyond the shade-covered terrace.

You'd gone over to your father's place, like agreed, and he'd cajoled you into having brunch before going off on the daytrip he'd planned. Of course, though, you hadn't gotten to enjoy the savory dishes you'd both ordered before your father was pulled away by a jovial member here and there who just had to bend his ear about this or that.

Truthfully, you didn't mind having the distraction to gaze off and think about the dream some more. Wondering what the meaning behind it could be naturally led you to thinking about Javier, and fantasizing about him in a dorm room's cot, naked and in a rut for you. It made heat tingle up to the apples of your cheeks while it warmed your core with cloying desire.

You're sipping your passionfruit mimosa, continuing to stare off at the palm trees in the distance while thinking about how gorgeous Javi looked asleep in your bed post-Valentine's Day, when your father finally returns to the table and slips back into his seat across from you.

"Sorry about that. Anyway, where were we?" he's asking in his cool, bass-filled baritone stirring you back from the mental image of Javi's eyes looking like dark chocolate chips when the sunlight made him squint after he sat up in his bed and smiled down at you the other morning.

"…You were promising to have a nice surprise at the end of this road trip?" you retort, adjusting your napkin over your lap before resuming eating. "And I was asking if the surprise would be to make up for Camille's inevitable stupid comment—"

"Mija, don't start," your father quickly grumbles, eyes plaintive as he murmurs, "She is more than aware about the importance of today, and has made arrangements to stay at her sister's. So no, she won't be around to make any comments—"

"Good. I'm so glad she's learned her place," you cut in facetiously before taking another sip of your mimosa.

His deep, mustachioed scowl tells you how unamused he is by you, so you change the subject with an aloof hum of, "You mentioned you'd be traveling back to D.C.?"

With a grunt, he nods as he cuts into his omelet. "Yes. I suppose I can tell you now, that I'm being considered for an Admiral position—"

You pause in your noshing and place your cutlery down to give him your undivided attention as you exclaim, "Really?! Congratulations! That's great, Pá—"

He holds up a hand to gesture for you to not get too spirited as he mutters, "None of that. There isn't anything to congratulate over. Not yet, anyway. It's a very competitive process for the appointment. So, I'll be meeting with the chief of naval operations. If all goes well, then I meet with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff."

Giving him a defiant scoff, you insist, "Just being considered for that is an accomplishment, Pá. It's a big deal, so quit trying to be so cool."

Raising his brows sardonically at you, he deadpans, "I've never had to try at being anything. I just am, chistosa."

You snicker and grin, impish as you chime, "Whatever you say, Admiral-in-waiting."

His chuckle is amused, but he shakes his head ruefully at you.

A pleasant lull passes between you in which you both finish your brunch and partake in idle chit-chat over your second drink before he gestures to the server for the check.

You're just grabbing your purse in preparation to leave after he's just handed the server the bi-fold, when he reclines in his chair to nurse his iced parcha drink before conversationally inquiring, "How're things going with Javier Peña?"

The standoffish part of you winds up like a rattlesnake seething in your chest, but you feign neutrality in your demeanor as you aloofly retort, "Is that your best attempt at getting some form of corroboration regarding my personal life?"

Instead of the overbearing recrimination you expected, your father answers you with a mild remark, delivered cavalierly after he finishes his drink.

"Your acknowledgement is enough corroboration, tesoro. So, ready to go?"

A bit miffed, you take your time finishing your grapefruit mimosa before plunking the empty flute down on the table, pushing your chair out, and swiftly rising before sauntering out from the terrace through the crowded club house – without waiting for him.

Without batting an eye, your father vacates the table and strolls out, finding you sat at a bench overlooking the parking lot.

You know he's testing your boundaries because you only divulge things to him when you're activated and want to put him in his place, but you learned long ago that is a futile endeavor, because you end up walking away more upset than victorious.

So, when he approaches the side of the bench that's vacant, clearly expecting you to tell him off, you look up at him stoically.

"I don't want to be baited by you. Not today."

His stony expression dissolves, and his wide, expressive eyes soften the split second before he diverts his gaze and turns to look in direction of the car.

"Is it so wrong, that I would want to know if this man is making you happy?"

You exhale and stand, gripping your purse to be pinned at your hip as you reply, "You forfeited that privilege a long time ago, so please respect my privacy," before walking away from him to go wait by the car.

With your back to him, you don't see his genuine frown as he watches you go.

While you both drive away in silence out of the Dorado Beach golf club's gated entrance en route for the destination your father had planned to take you in order to celebrate your mother and honor her memory, Javier is walking through the seized warehouse acquired during the military raid just that morning.

He and Nic rode along, but did not go in with the soldiers until after they'd taken the site and ushered in the 'all clear' callsign over the radio.

Compared to Search Bloc, this was a relatively bloodshed-free outing.

"Jav, take a look at this," Lopez calls over from just inside the loading dock's storage area, gesturing at a large crate that had just been crowbarred open.

Coming over to peer in, he's not surprised to find bricks of cocaine hidden under a fragrant layer of coffee grounds. However, it's the contraband found in the adjoining room that surprises him.

"Looks like they were in the middle of breaking down a shipment for local distribution. Notice anything?" Nic queries as they move through the room of tables with the product broken out.

"It's all packaged the same way as the stuff found at the caseríos," Javi ruminates out loud.

The interrogation of the suspects swept up in the raid doesn't net out much, but with confirmation that the warehouse was a stop off for getting the heroin and cocaine from the Mexican cartels, he had enough to piece together some possible routes used to ferry the stuff from the Dominican Republic into Puerto Rico.

Still, the organization was so opaque, it was hard to conclude who of the Familia was responsible for facilitating the operation from D.R. to P.R.

What Javier doesn't know, and what is established almost a decade later, is that Junior Capsula ran the operation that had made him a millionaire, with the help from two trusted partners: Elvin Torres Estrada, aka El Muñecón, and Ramon Antonio Del Rosario-Puente, aka Toño Leña. The three of them had been able to carve out a racket thanks to the spillover from the Mexican and Colombian drug wars of the late 80s and early 90s, using their organization to transport cocaine and heroin from three routes. While the cartels fought for turf and supremacy in trafficking drugs up to the U.S., Junior and his associates took advantage of the bottlenecking and provided the alternate routes needed.

The Caribbean had long been a way station for drug shipments to the U.S. and Europe, but with the increasing militarized 'War on Drugs' along the southern border, traffickers began to look at Puerto Rico as a sought-after drug territory. This was due to the island's status as a U.S. territory, and a major perk that came with it: much of the cargo transported from the island did not have to clear customs before entering the eastern U.S. seaboard. That allowed Junior – who'd began his career in narco-trafficking as a drug-boat driver until 1993, when he struck out on his own by carrying out a hit on a truck driver who'd allegedly stolen a shipment of Colombian cocaine – to build the narco network that had him controlling 90% of the drug trade in the Caribbean.

With Toño Leña overseeing the transportation side, they would use small airplanes to drop bundles ferried from the three drug pipelines, dropped them in the Dominican Republic where they'd be collected, repackaged and moved to Puerto Rico or the U.S. The product that made it to the island would then be distributed out by El Muñecón, who'd supply the Puerto Rican drug gangs with the most territory and dealing points the bulk of the product. Said gangs, like the ones hit at the caserío massacres, would then supply drugs to smaller dealers who'd kick up dues to them, as well as to other traffickers with networks moving drugs up to the Northeast and over the Atlantic to Europe.

In all, Junior's core organization was made up of hundreds of people, insulated across all echelons of society, who helped obscure the hierarchy of the network to outside forces. The millions made went into luxury cars, boats, homes – all under shell company names, or "straw owners" or "jockeys." The latter were co-conspirators with legitimate standing who would help conceal the true ownership of assets, as well as facilitated laundering the money through property and business ventures. They'd do so with 'reputable' facilitators who'd assist with the placement, layering or integration of the organization's narcotics proceeds within lawful economic or financial systems.

In essence, Junior was the mastermind of making an illegal organization that acted as a symbiote for 'legitimate' business entities, developing a beneficial relationship, encouraged by corruption and greed. Which meant there was little appetite to uncover the organization's dealings, no matter how much violence and bloodshed skyrocketed on the island.

Javier suspected there was a system at play, just under the surface, though. So, he and Nic requested to see any deeds, titles, and business licenses with any association to the people and places that had been raided.

They'd been walked into a stuffy, humid back office Comandante Ayala supplied for them so they could dig through everything on the case so far, and for once in his life, Javier lamented not having a computerized way to research everything. Instead, there were boxes and boxes with no discernable filing system piled around the room for the two of them to work their way through.

"So…you take the ones on the left, and I'll work on the ones to the right?" Nic quips dryly as he wipes the back of his palm along his brow to sweep away the already beading perspiration dripping from his hairline.

"…Whatever we do find in all this shit? Remind me to have someone scan and copy it all over so it's on a computer," Javi deadpans as he flips the top of the nearest stacked box off, digging into the cluster of manila folders as he gripes, "At the very least, we'll be able to type into a search bar when we need to find something…"

Nic grunts flatly, already plunking down into a swivel chair by the window, and reading through some files while he unseeingly fiddles with the air-conditioning unit's on switch and temperature setting.

It isn't until he sits himself and lets out a weary exhale that his mind triggers a realization: Jesus. I actually would kill to have all of this in a laptop.

He smirks to himself, knowing how gleeful you'd be to know he's been worn down of his abhorrence towards the 'digital age' you've been foretelling to him, let alone that he'd kill to have the convenience of a file search at the tips of his fingers. Well, more like the tips of his pointer fingers.

While he internally admonishes himself for already starting to daydream about you instead of concentrating on the file he's buried in currently, you're trying not to succumb to the impulse of putting your guard up even more than you already have with your father.

The drive on Route 2 West had never been your favorite, and doing it now when there's so much tension definitely had your hackles up.

"Why didn't you take the highway?" you can't help ask as you stare out the window at the traffic trekking by.

"Because, you can't get any of those off the side of the highway," he answers and points ahead to a cluster of stands just ahead. "Your mother loved stopping and perusing. She'd make me pull over, no matter if it was a sunny day or during a downpour."

You look out the windshield to see the kiosks lined up along the right side of the busy road. They were bustling with patrons who'd pulled over to stretch their legs and have a look at the fruit, viandas, artisanal treats and crafts, or to grab something to nibble on or drink before heading back onto the route.

Unbidden, you crack a smile as the memory of your mother holding your hand while she talked to the fruit stand owner whilst they bagged everything, crossed your mind. It was then proceeded by the image of her patiently watching you while she let you pick out the mangos and guayabas you thought were the best from the bunch.

Blinking free from the memories, you realize your father's pulled the car over along the grassy side of the road up ahead from the bulk of the other parked cars.

"Just a little pitstop?" your father suggests and gives you an expectant look.

You relent, smiling at him as you nod. "But I get to pick the fruits," you tell him as you eject your seatbelt and grab your purse.

"Fine by me, tesoro," he chuckles as he follows suit.

Before long, you're cradling a paper bag with a bounty of fresh fruits tucked in it while you wait in line at the food truck selling pastries and fritters, as well as a fragrant-smelling coffee that has you swooning.

Your father had gone back to the car to drop off the bundle of plátano, guineo, ñame and panapén he'd gotten from one stand, so you had a moment to yourself while you stepped to the front of the order window and requested the two coffees, then stood aside to wait. Hope Javier's doing ok, you can't help think as you idle, and are so lost in thought that you miss when they call out your order.

When you realize it, you rush to the pickup window, but your father has come just in time to grab both to-go cups for you. Placing a few folded bills into the tip jar, he takes each cup and gestures for you to walk ahead back to the car.

Once the bag is secure in the back seat and you're in the passenger seat, your father passes you one of the cups.

"Are we going to veer over to the coastal route next?" you ask as you peel the plastic lip on the lid back before taking a sip of the coffee.

"No, I wanted to take you somewhere special. A place I used to bring your mother to," he answers in a pensive baritone timbre that stirs you to look curiously at him. For some reason, your stare looks dubious to him, so he grumbles, "We had moments like that, you know—"

"I didn't say anything to the contrary," you scoff and squint at him before sniping, "You seem to forget I was around and remember a time when you and her were happy…"

That douses his umbrage instantly with cold water and has him exhaling before tersely muttering, "It's going to be a winding, bumpy drive the rest of the way, so get comfortable…"

Needless to say, the rest of the drive from Route 2 up into the mountainous roads winding up through the lush terrain that makes up the scenery of most central municipalities of the island, is a silent once, save for the radio playing Puerto Rican oldies. At least when the signal would be unincumbered by the occasional flare of static caused by the interference of the elevation and surroundings.

Still, you manage to use the silent drive to gain some docility by continually reminding yourself, He's trying. You have to try too.

You're so invested in your internal recitation of this new mantra that you don't realize you've stopped until he's turned the ignition off. Snapping out of your faraway daze, you look around at the site he's parked in front of and gape in awe.

"Come, I set a reservation for us," your father is remarking as he exits the driver's side.

Bemused, you quickly undo your seatbelt and follow, still staring at the expansive view before you.

He turns and notices your transfixed look and smiles, coming to stand next to you so you both can look towards the almost ethereal view of the splendor that is being on top of a mountain at the center of the island that looks down at rolling hills and valleys of every shade of tropical green you can imagine.

"Your mother always said being up here reminded her of Medellín," is his rumbled remark. "The view is even better from the restaurant."

Indeed, your father was right.

Once you've been sat at the top terrace with the veranda that faces out to the sprawling view, you dreamily stare at how the sunset cresting in the West casts a bronzed, blushed hue over the valleys over yonder, with the twinkle of distant lights from humble homes dusting through the frondy foliage and canopies that make up the timeless terrain.

"Estamos en el campo," you remark wistfully as you admire the scenery, unable to avoid being reminded of the lovely view Javier had taken you up to once – overlooking that gorgeous dusky view of Medellín in early twilight.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say the jibarita in you misses being in the peace and calm of campesina life," he can't help jibe before he sips the ron he ordered.

You snicker, musing, "Well seeing as I had no say in the matter, I'd learned to appreciate living en el monte and getting bossed around by grandma."

He hums, smiling ruefully as he concedes, "My mother wasn't the easiest to deal with, but she loved having you stay with her. You came back much more self-reliant—"

"That's because she made me fend for myself when I complained. Once, she said, 'You're not sleeping and eating in my house if you don't know how to be grateful'," is your charge, but you sit back in your seat to sip your Cuba libre before shrugging, and adding, "But when she found me by the river a few days later where I'd set up camp – eating boiled plantains and eggs I'd foraged – she told me I could go back to the house."

Your father frowns. Sure, he'd taught you survival skills from the time you were old enough to talk and retain information, but hearing you inoffensively replay having to put them to use because of his own mother, has made the knot in his chest loosen.

"She never told me that. Why didn't you ever mention it before?" is his low-octave query, intense gaze softening at your dismissive wave of your hand as you finished your drink.

"Because you left me there, so I figured you'd intended for her to teach me lessons like that," you tell him honestly.

After all, you'd been ten or eleven years old, and not unaware of the tension starting to form between your parents, so when he'd gotten stationed overseas for ops training, and your mother had agreed to go with him, they'd thought having you spend that time with family would be for the best. That they could try to rekindle their relationship without having you see any more arguments and fights that would likely occur when things were tenuous between them. At least – overtime – that's what you concluded was the reasoning for getting dropped into the rural hills of Puerto Rico, or left for months at a time to live with your 'Buela in Medellín during summer breaks.

So, the juxtaposition of having a splendid, charmed life at your Buela's house in Medellín, versus the more rigorous, jíbara life of your Grandma's finca in Orocovis, never bothered you, let alone figure into any of your resentments. No, those would come later…

Still, you'd also compartmentalized so many of your feelings towards those times, that looking at the sad expression on your father's face now has you vacantly wondering out loud, "What? You always said experiences fortify the person you become; turns a person to steel towards the hardships of life. That being forged by adversity makes for the strongest steel of them all."

His silence is weighty, expression carving into a stony scowl at your assertion, while his eyes shone with conflict.

Just as he's about to open his mouth, though, the waitress appears with your entrees.

The mouth-watering mofongo con camarones a la criolla – your favorite dish – is piping hot and steaming with the fragrant aroma of the sazón, onions, tomato and garlic that comprise the bisque-like creole sauce saturating the shrimp-covered dome of fried, mashed plantains. You're eager to indulge in the delicacy, but once the waitress departs, you can't help notice how your father just stares at his arróz mamposteao y bistec encebollado guardedly – not making a move to place his napkin on his lap and pick up the utensils to dig in.

Thus, you find yourself sighing, before changing the subject.

"So, what would Ma order when you brought her up here? I bet it wasn't anything with gandules in it," you drawl goofily, cracking a smile when he scoffs and shakes his head. "She thought they were so gross—"

"Which I think she only said so to annoy me, since I like arróz con gandules and ordered it for us the first time we came here. I learned never to make that mistake again," is his snickered rumble as he shifts his chair further into the table and drapes the napkin over his lap now. "Her favorite was the white rice, red beans, and carne guisada. With a big slice of aguacate on the side," is his wry remark, chuckling when you playfully point your fork at his own hefty piece of avocado on his side plate. "It's the best up here. Have some."

Humored, you cut a sliver of it with your fork before partaking. "Mmm, like butter," you sardonically swoon, earning a warm chuckle from your father.

The rest of dinner is nice, filled with irreverent chatter and the delectable meal. After you're both sated and the bill is settled, you exit to return to the car, where you expect to just hop in and make the trek back down the mountain, but instead your father surprises you by going into the backseat for something.

"Before we head down, I thought we could have another of your mother's favorites."

He produces a rectangular carton from a paper bag, and you instantly beam with mirth. "A brazo gitano?! I haven't had one in ages," you marvel after he's handed it to you. "When did you get this?!"

He sits on the front of the car's hood and watches as you merrily open up the box to produce the Spanish cake roll that was filled with guava. With a nostalgic smile, he murmurs, "While you were picking fruit, I got the last one for sale at the pastry truck. I figured we could have it for dessert while looking at the view before it gets dark."

You sit on the hood next to him and offer him first slice of the artisanal roll, which he cuts into with the Swiss Army knife he's produced from his pants pocket.

Once you're both eating the fluffy and sweet confection while admiring how the sun finally dips behind the mountain range and a shroud of stars is revealed in the navy blue of the sky above while the cool breeze flits across the fronds and tall grasses, you spare a glance towards your dad.

"Was this the surprise?" you ask, affection lightening your tone.

"Nope. That's still to come."

Intrigued, you are more than content to drive back and wait for said surprise, especially when any tension between you both has finally dissolved away. You both talked and joked, reminisced about long ago family trips, silly anecdotes, and even bantered about old times. Like the time he'd taken you to see The Godfather in the theater with him, and him insisting it was a completely acceptable film to let an elementary school-aged child watch at the cinema.

"—Movies are for everyone! Especially great cinematic films like that."

"I don't disagree, but do you remember the looks you got from the ticket taker?"

"Looks que looks – as if I gave a damn what some punk with long hair thought—"

"Ok, fair point. But you did take me to Rosemary's Baby when I was little—"

"…That was your mother's fault. I didn't know what it was about," he rasps in a bass-filled grumble, scowling when you laugh. "I thought about grabbing you and heading for the exit pretty close to the start of it, but we were sat too far in the center of the row—"

The irreverent giggle bubbles out of you just before you snicker, "Was it the bedroom scene?"

You're unaware that he has a vivid recollection of how you'd watched, perplexed at the infamous scene. And he can still hear your little voice, piping up with a barrage of questions the entire drive home after the movie, with your child-like innocence, albeit perturbed confusion, inquiring, 'Why all the lady's friends were bad,' among other things.

"Yes. That was definitely not a film for a child. Your mother eventually agreed, albeit amusedly…" is his dolefully sardonic retort as he pulls into the driveway now to the stately tropical home in the gated, beachfront community in Dorado he uses as his main residence on the island.

Once he's parked in the vacant carport adjacent the two-story house with the tiled roof, you both unload the car of the road stand purchases and head into the home via the door located in the interior of the marquesina. And once you've placed the bag of fruit onto the kitchen island's counter, your father hangs his keys on the nearby hook next to the pantry before gesturing for you to go into the living room.

"So, the surprise," he announces as he rounds you to go to the entertainment system against the far wall that the large tufted couch faces, and retrieves something before turning to you. "I had this made for you."

You blink at him curiously before looking at the jacketed VHS tape he's handing to you, perplexed when you don't see any feature film or studio labels on it to identify what the movie cassette could be. Before you can ask, though, he gestures for you to sit on the couch, and after you've sat down, you finally notice the file box tucked in a bottom shelf of the entertainment system once your father has bent down and grabbed it.

"And, I thought you could have these so you can put them in an album, if you want," he's telling you as he puts the box down on the coffee table before he removes the lid and sets it aside.

He sits next to you and watches as you lean forward to peer into the box.

It's filled with neatly-stacked photo envelopes filled with developed prints. When you look closer, you realize many of them have your father's scribbled handwriting on the corner, marking the location and year the photos were taken. Some even have your mother's cursive script. One reads, Celina's first beach day, 1963.

Overcome, you look with wide, tear-brimming eyes at your father.

"I don't think you've seen most, since we moved around so much, but I always kept them stored, for safe keeping—" your father's calm baritone elaboration is cut short by you hugging him tight.

He reciprocates by winding his strong arms around you and relishing the tender moment.

When you're sure you can pull away without so much as an emotional sniffle, you clear your throat and ask, "What is the video tape of?"

His smile is barely subdued as he grabs the VHS and removes it from the sleeve before going to the VCR. Once the tape is in and he's turned on the television, he presses 'Play' on the remote and goes back to sit next to you.

The screen crackles to life with an at-first granny countdown sequence before the beginning of a super 8 home movie starts to play. The camera lens is pointed up at the clouds of a sunny day before the camera pans down and over at someone sitting under a leafy tree.

The instrumental melody of 'Here Comes the Sun' by The Beatles plays over the home movie as the person holding the camera nears the figure under the tree.

Looking up and over her shoulder, your mother smiles and scrunches her nose at the camera, mouthing what looks like, '¿Que haces con eso?'

You realize the camera is held by your father when he comes into view after sitting next to her on the blanket and pivoting it so he can film them both as he leans in and kisses her cheek. She smiles and funnily pats his clean-shaven features before wrinkling her nose cutely at something he says, which from your lip-reading, looks like, 'Bellísima.'

"Most of these don't have sound. I remembered how much you both liked this song, so I had them use it," he tells you, watching your transfixed expression while you watch unblinkingly as more footage from different home movies play.

While the video of your mother wearing a bohemian dress and doing a silly cha-cha dance for the camera plays, you remember that indeed, your mother would sing this song to you in the car to cheer you up when you were in a mood, sat grumpily in the backseat, or obstinately in your room while refusing to go play outside.

Your heart swells with pure joy seeing her vibrant and youthful, as she holds up the basket of flowers she's just picked up to the camera and grins at something your father must've said to her whilst he filmed.

The delighted bubble of laughter bursts in you at the footage going to your 'Buela sat on the front patio of her house, waving at the camera and giving a Cheshire smile when you toddle into frame and drape over her lap, little hands pulling on her skirt for her to give you attention before your 'Buelo comes into the shot to pick you up and hold you up to bounce you in his arms.

Happy tears brim and spill from your eyes to roll down your cheeks as more wonderful moments you'd been too little to remember play out over the instrumental song.

You feel still, completely content – like you've been dipped back to a time when nothing had been lost.

So, you don't expect the added surprise of when the song's ending chords are strummed, for a new series of home movies to play, that have actual recorded sound.

"—Ay Diego. You're really going to mess around with that camera now?"

"Why not? Vamos, bellísima. Give me a smile? Before la fiera comes down—"

"Don't call her that!" your mother chastises and swats his arm, causing the camera to swivel momentarily about the Sunday afternoon sun-lit kitchen before your father scoffs amusedly and resumes pointing it to your mother as she stands near the sink in mid-lunch prep. Squinting impishly at the lens, she derides, "Salió a ti, chistoso—"

"Oh, no. Not in the least. Es pura hija tuya—"

"You're really using that camera for the first time and wasting the fancy film con huevonadas?" is her wry snicker as she goes back to chopping a green pepper.

"Yes."

"Ah pues bien."

"Mami, is lunch ready?"

The camera pans around to focus on the doorway just as you come around from the living room and don't even spare your father a glance.

"Not yet. Come help, and it'll be ready quicker."

"Ok," you say dutifully as you retrieve the foot stool and carry it over to place it down next to her.

"Look, Celina. Smile for the camera," your father cajoles from behind the lens as you stand on the stool and get ready to help wash the rice sitting in the bowl by the sink.

You roll your eyes and look at the camera lens, brow furrowed. "Daddy, that's stupid. Why would I smile when I'm washing rice?"

At your mother's humored hum, you relent and smile, showing your child-like grin that's missing a few baby teeth before shaking your head and going to work sifting your hands to rinse the rice grains in the bowl with water they've been soaking in.

"Ah, look at my two beautiful girls, in the kitchen," is your father's smug, albeit affectionate observation. At your mother blowing a raspberry and pursing her lips derisively at his musing, your father makes a quippy grumble before heckling, as if to the audience, "Rosario, ever the skeptic. Mi bellísima—"

"Ay, Pá, cut it out!" you jeer, grimacing the way a little kid grossed out by her parents being mushy towards each other would while your mother laughs melodiously next to you.

You laugh as the video cuts with your father's grumbled huff before going to the next home movie.

The rest of the time watching the VHS tape is spent that way, with laughter and merry reminiscing. Before long, you end up curled up on the couch, with your head on your father's shoulder, rewatching the anthology of home movies he strung together for you.

When you fall asleep, he lays you down on the sofa and places a throw blanket over you before kissing your forehead and wishing you a goodnight.

You're disoriented when you wake the next morning, and gasp after awareness sets in. Luckily, your father had already put a pot of coffee on and had the presence of mind to have a change of clothes ready for you, so after a quick breakfast, you get ready and make a mad dash to your car, heading to your condo in order to shower and get dressed for work.

As you collect your work tote and rifle through it to make sure you have everything you need, you press 'Play' on the answering machine to check the messages left while you were out.

"—Hola, nena! Wanted to see if you were free for happy hour drinks. Llámame," is the first message, left by Zoraida. No doubt, wanting to catch up and distract you about tomorrow…

The answering machine's robotic recording announces the next message, pulling you from your thoughts.

"Hey, querida. Just calling to check in. Hope you had a nice day, and that all went well with your dad. I'll call you tomorrow. Love you."

Any melancholy that was about to set in was scattered by the light that filled your heart at hearing Javier's soulful baritone voice. You wanted to call him immediately, but decided against it, figuring he'd be very busy.

And, he was, thanks to the bureaucratic hurdles he'd encountered in Santo Domingo that morning.

One thing he did not miss was dealing with the sabotage and stonewalling from officials who should have stopping the traffickers be at the top of their priority list, let alone within their best interests to cooperate. Luckily his lack of patience helped him figure out a resolution.

"—My contact in the State Department made it clear that they would spearhead a measure to increase the U.S. National Guard's patrol of the waters of the Mona Passage. Frankly I'm inclined to lend my backing and speak to the governor, seeing as we're not getting the kind of cooperation we'd hoped for," he's elucidating in a non-negotiable tone now to the government official who'd refused his request for the DEA to have access to surveillance ops data collected by the local authorities.

It seemed to do the trick, since within an hour he received a call from the Ayala confirming he was given clearance to hand over classified surveillance findings to him. While he left Nic to coordinate the handoff with his counterpart assigned to the capital, Javier went outside to get some air.

He was craving a cigarette badly, and was trying not to succumb to the impulse of going to the breakroom and putting money in the vending machine for a pack. So, he checks his watch and decides he needs something to take the edge off.

You're just in the middle of reading over some requisitions while you nibble on a sandwich from the cafeteria when your cell phone starts ringing in your purse. Sitting up from your desk to retrieve it, you answer it as you dab your lips with a napkin.

"Hey, corazón. I'm not interrupting you from anything—?"

"No, not at all," you eagerly cut in, smiling as you sit back down and tell him sweetly, "I wanted to call you this morning after I got in and heard your message, but figured you'd be busy. I miss you."

"I miss you too," he says with genuine warmth, as if he needed to say it to get a load off his shoulders. "So, everything went alright?"

"Yes. It was a nice day. I'll tell you more later," you say easily, more interested in hearing how he's doing than possibly getting emotional on the phone. "How're things there? Everything ok?"

"It's the same shit, different day. But making progress, I think. Hoping to tie up a few things here before we head back," he remarks in that way you know means he doesn't want to give you the particulars. "Anyway, I won't keep you. I just wanted to check in. I'll call you tonight—"

"Oh, Zoraida badgered me to go out for drinks tonight," you tell him, frowning before you assure, "I'll try and make it an early night—"

"No, don't do that. She's been after you to catch up for a while," Javier insists good-naturedly, adding in a rumble, "You gotta tell her all about your jevo and how good he gives it to you, no?"

You snicker coquettishly, feeling titillated by his confident, umbrage-free recall and his ability to make it a sexy taunt. "Mmm, well I can always count on you to remind me of such things, mandón. I'll try and keep it as PG as possible," you silkily muse as you idly run your fingers through your hair, toying with a few strands as you add, "Can I call you when I get in? I'm going to need my jevo to make sweet, naughty promises to hold me over for another night without him."

Javi groans, as if tantalized by your suggestion. "Yes, call me, guapita," he tells you in a gravel pitch. But then he pauses, before asking concernedly, "What're you planning to do tomorrow? I mean, are you going into work? Or taking the day?"

You sigh, tugging on the strands of hair you've looped around your finger. "I have a big meeting in the morning that I don't want to miss, but I'll probably take a half day…not sure I'll be of much use after that, so I'll go to my place and just…just decompress and not be in the way…"

Scowling, Javier feels a pang of hurt, knowing you'll be self-isolating for fear of being too emotionally vulnerable in your bereavement.

"…I'll let you go. Promise you'll keep your cool and stay safe?" is your pensive query.

"I will, querida. I love you."

"I love you too. Call you tonight, hermoso. Be good until then."

He smiles, despite himself, before purring, "Mira quien habla. Take care, cariño."

"I will, chulito. Bye."

The rest of both your day are busy. You're thankful for it, seeing as that stubborn melancholy keeps trying to wiggle its way free from where you've buried it deep down. Javi, on the other hand, is getting more and more aggravated by the red tape regarding getting all the copies of the financial documents transferred to the office in San Juan.

He had a few DOJ lawyers putting pressure on the banks trying to block complying with a subpoena, but he was loathe to idle around for another day while you were in self-imposed solitude. It was weighing on him.

Nic could sense it.

While they both sat eating dinner in the stuffy file room that they'd made their homebase, the other agent eyed him over his can of beer before finally deciding to do some fishing.

"Something on your mind?"

Javi popped a plantain chip into his mouth, crunching on it and shaking his head while he kept his eyes on the file he was skimming over.

"Some one on your mind, then?"

That got him to give Nic a flinty glance before he chewed on the next chip, but this time, he didn't give an answer.

"You know, we heard the rumor. It made it all the way back to headquarters," the keen-eyed man muses, adding nonchalantly, "Must've been a nice coincidence, you two ending up in the San Juan federal office—"

"Let's just keep it to the case, Nic," is the sharp retort Javier lobs his way as he shuts the file's folder and reaches for his own can of beer.

Nic raises his brows and leans back in his chair, so Javi assumes that's the end of his querying.

"…If by chance you needed to head back before things are squared away for the financials transfer, I could stay and oversee that," Nic comments, the suggestion woven into his aloof tone. "No need for both of us to sit here sweating our asses off."

Javi glances sidelong at him while he sips his beer. Nic gives a one-shouldered shrug before returning to his own log he'd been tinkering with all day.

"…I might take you up on that…"

It was the most admittance he'd be getting from the boss man, so the other agent smirked to himself and nodded.

You, on the flipside, are admitting it all to the girls over drinks at the go-to beachy bar your clique loves hanging out at.

Coming straight from work, you'd walked into the bar expecting only Zoraida to be waiting, but were surprised to see Naida and Tayra at the corner booth as well, ready to shower you with gifts. The former gave you another wonderful scented candle she'd gotten you addicted to since moving back to the island, while the latter slid the box of rich dark chocolates you love across to you with a wink.

Zoraida broke the ice regarding the long-awaited topic of your love life by handing you a gift bag with a cunning smirk. You pulled out the very risqué see-through black lingerie – a halter-top style onesie with a thong crotch – and balk at your friends before they bossily cajole you to tell them everything and not spare a single detail.

So, you do. Albeit skipping as much of the tumultuous times of your on-again-off-again relationship with Javier to date. Over a couple of hours and several tropical cocktails and appetizers later, you've dished everything, including the absolutely wonderful weekend leading into the spectacular Valentine's Day. You'd even gone into your purse and retrieved the group photo from the dinner with Steve and Connie so you could show them how handsome your jevo is, as well as give them proof at how infatuated you two are for each other.

"—Ok, he's guapísimo and you got him wrapped around your little finger. Tell us how good he is—"

"Zory, obviously if she's put up with him this long? El señorito Javi sabe chingar," Tayra counters sassily.

"And she said he was a papi chulo when she met him, so what else does she need to say?" Naida tries to give you a reprieve in giving raunchy, salacious details.

But Zoraida will have none of it. "Detalles ahora, doña," she singsongs playfully as she taps the table to the rhythm of her cadence.

You dramatically roll your eyes, but your smile is mischievous as you declare, "He's the best lover I've ever had. I don't think I could be with anyone else…which is why I was celibate the whole time after I came home."

The girls exchange looks of surprise, floored by your candor.

"Javier is the most sensual, selfless, and shamelessly amazing amante – like, there's no one else who even compares. And, he's loving, but naughty, secure in letting me take the lead when I want to be in control, but super sexy when he's in control. I sometimes tease him just to get him riled up to manhandle me – to get all bossy and dominant – and make me his. He talks dirty like no one else I've ever been with, but not like in a meaningless way. Everything he says is hot, but caring – like, he checks in and makes sure he's doing what I want—"

You pause in your rambling admittance when the waitress comes by to check in, and you all politely ask for another round.

Snickering, you continue in a hushed tone, "I've never been with someone who cares so much about me, and who's so committed to my needs, and is so attentive towards my desires and my pleasure."

Naida whistles at that, while Tayra nods as if that is a glorious statement.

Zoraida narrows her gaze and hits you with the question you know she's been waiting to blurt.

"Does he make you come?"

"If Javi doesn't make me come at least twice when we do it, he takes it as a personal failure – and then makes me come with his mouth or fingers," you state unabashedly before sipping the last of your drink.

That finally cracks Zoraida.

She proudly grins and puts her arm around you as she whispers conspiratorially, but loud enough for the other girls to hear, "It sounds to me like Mr. Javier Peña is a keeper!"

You snort and nudge your shoulder into her wryly before the girls start teasing you gleefully.

"Can we talk about all your sex lives now?!"

The girls humor you, regaling you of their recent sexcapades for the rest of the time until you all have to call it a night and head home.

It's a while later after, and bone tired after spending the day in the drudgery of file reading, Javier decompresses with a hot shower. He is finishing drying his hair post-shower and eyeing his duffle, wondering if he should start packing it when his phone starts ringing.

He tosses the towel aside and grabs for it off the charger, dropping down on the narrow bed as he answers, "Wild night with the girls?"

You chuckle, drawling, "Drinks and sex talk is hardly a wild night with the girls, stud."

"Sex talk, eh?" he questions appealingly, smiling when you hum flirtatiously in response. The air-conditioned room is cool and comfortable as he stretches out on the bed in his pajama bottoms, so he relaxes backwards into the propped pillows as he idly scratches at his chest while he asks, "Care to share some?"

He hears the shift and rustling of the bedding as you adjust to lounge up in your pillows. "Well, after the girls nagged me to spill everything 'Javi Peña,' they filled me in on their love lives; how they spent Valentine's. Naida's been dating the same guy for a couple of years. They live together, and she told us how they tried roleplay the other day," you tell him brazenly, and he can hear the smile in your tone. "Tayra's a serial dater. She's never kept a guy around longer than a few dates or hookups. She told us about the last guy that she let go down on her in her office late one night. Oh! And Zoraida has a roster of guys she sees – you know, like on rotation, so she told us about the baseball player that asked to lick her ass—"

"Whoa," Javi sputters at the unfiltered gossip, exhaling sardonically before he snickers, "So much for keeping it PG. And what did you tell 'em?"

Your giggle is smoky before you purr, "Que eres el amante más asombroso de mi vida."

That you're the most amazing lover of my life.

His pulse rushes at that, shooting warm desire into his apex and making him lustful, so he murmurs, "Oh yeah? And what sexy details did you give to prove that?"

"Nothing as bawdy, don't worry! Well, actually, I guess the most detailed tidbit was that you always make me come – that if you don't make me come at least twice, you take it as a personal failure and make it your mission to make me come with your mouth or fingers—"

"Cristo amado, woman!" he exclaims, incredulous smile quirking his features while an embarrassed flush rises up from his neck while you guffaw a sultry laugh. Tracing the inner rim of his bottom lip with his tongue, he deadpans, "Great. Now I'm going to have to pretend I don't know that you told them all that—"

"Why pretend? It's not like I said a bad thing! You can tell your friends about how good you make me come, if you want, chulito," you taunt knowingly. "Or whatever naughty details about our sex life you'd want to brag about. It's only fair—"

"That is never gonna happen, atrevida. No matter how much I get hounded," he huffs in a faux-grumpy tone, but he can't help smile when you make a disappointed little grumble. "I think you're just being naughty to get a rise out of me, eh, malvadita?"

You hum dramatically before chiming, "Maybe," then pause, and sigh tiredly before musing, "It was nice, having the distraction…"

Javi hears the sadness just under your tone, and sits up on the cot.

"Querida…you want to talk about it?"

"No, I just…it's late, and I'm being silly. You get some rest, mi amor. I'll be better after tomorrow."

He frowns, running his hand impulsively through his hair to stifle the ache of not being able to instead pull you close and hold you tight. "Ok, preciosa. Sleep well. I love you."

"I love you too, mi cariñito. Be safe. Goodnight."

The solace you felt thanks to Javi promising to be home soon allowed you to go on autopilot whilst you got ready for work the following morning. It also helped that there was just one more day of feeling the pull of melancholy you were weary of fending off already. At least that was the mantra you were running in your head until someone knocked on your door.

You didn't expect your father to be on the other side when you answered it.

"Pá," you greet, bemused before frowning confusedly and asking, "Did we make plans—?"

"No, I just wanted to stop by and drop these off for you," is his remark as he greets you with a kiss on the cheek before crouching to pick up the box at his feet, along with the sturdy shopping bag filled with the viandas and frutas from Sunday you'd left in your haste the morning prior. "I, uh, figured you would be busy today, so figured I would drop them off before you left for work."

You smile as you take the bag from him so he can dutifully carry the box to your coffee table and place it onto an unoccupied corner. "Thanks. I was running late yesterday and it slipped my mind to grab them—"

"It's alright," he assures as he faces you and vacillates, as if unsure with what to do next. He scrubs the inside of his hand over his moustache and mouth as he glances over at the dining room table and sees the bouquet of flowers Javi gifted you for Valentine's. "Well, I'll leave you to it—"

"Dad."

He pauses and looks intently at you, and ends up being taken aback when you approach him to give him a thoughtful hug.

"I'll call you soon so we can have another paisa dinner," you whisper against his chest before clearing your throat and stepping back with a small smile.

Nodding, he kisses your forehead, relaxed as he drawls, "I'd like that very much, tesoro."

You chat a bit more on the way to the door – making sure not to address the heavy meaning of the day, and you part on good terms, waving goodbye to him as he heads for the elevator.

With a deep, cleansing breath, you go finish getting ready for work.

By the time you make it to the big meeting, you're feeling like you can hold it together. That you could maybe even get through the day. So much so, you get lost in some busy work when you get back to your office, the kind that make you start itemizing next steps on projects, department to-do's, forming an absent-minded itinerary of things you need to get to as soon as possible.

But then your mind becomes preoccupied with a sense of obligation, a nagging feeling like you're forgetting to do something. It's the kind of thing that feels like it's been routine – something meaningful, but no longer an option, and it needles you the entire time you trek back to your office, until it finally dawns on you.

Oh! I have to call 'Buela and—

The thought skids off the track and derails into a deep ravine of guilt and grieving, filling you with sorrow at the realization that this is the first anniversary you were without your grandmother.

It's like a cold dagger that seeps icy hurt into your chest, overwhelming you with melancholy.

On autopilot, you manage to scrape your wits together to not start bawling until you've made it to your car and driven out of the federal campus. By the time you make it to your apartment, you are frazzled and flushed from crying. The muggy heat is sweltering in the early and sunny afternoon, so you're quickly sprinting through the door and over to turn on the consola de aire acondicionado that's in the main living area before rushing to crank shut all the windows.

You make it into your bedroom and turn on the wall-mounted unit so that cool air can fill the space as you hastily strip out of your work clothes in order to sit and curl up into the pillows to have a good, long cry.

Once you've showered and gotten into the billowy dark gray t-shirt dress you favor for lazying around the house, you feel better enough to find ways to occupy your time – or at least to try to attempt to divert the melancholy threatening to have you fall into a grief spiral.

Looking over, you see the bag on the counter and the box of photos your father had dropped off to you that morning, and feel inspired with a couple of ideas on how to invest your attention into things that will absorb your time.

Hours later, you lean back into the couch and finish the gulp left in your wine glass before pouring a hearty refill from the bottle you've half drained since you'd set up shop in the living room.

You place it back down on the cool floor next to you as you shift forward to return to your project.

A short while later, once the buzz reaches your head, you take a healthy swallow of what's left in your glass and amble backwards up onto the cozy-throw-covered-couch so you can survey your progress. The box of photos is sat on the chair adjacent to the couch, and you have several photo albums arranged in varying stages of completion over the coffee table.

Leaning heavily into the couch cushion, you close your eyes and let the chill of the air-conditioned breeze fan over your toasty senses for a few minutes, before grabbing the VCR remote and pressing 'Play.'

The montage of home movies your father surprised you with begins to play where you'd paused it earlier.

Setting the wine glass aside and shoving the now-mostly-empty bowl of chips away so you could tuck your legs under you more comfortably and pull the cream blanket over your lap, you watch as the little toddler version of you dressed in blue overalls and little yellow sandals holds your mother's hand while she plucks a mango off of the tree in your grandmother's backyard. She places it down int a nearby basket, and you mimic her by picking up a fallen mango from the grass and dropping it into the same basket before tugging on her hand to continue over to the next mango you spot within reach.

Sniffling, you use the sleeve of your dress to dab at your teary eyes, lip trembling as you take in a cleansing inhale to try and clear the emotion from knotting in your throat.

You're startled when three knocks suddenly rap on your door, making you whirl inelegantly in your seat and perplexedly look around for something to tell you the current time. The VCR display says it's close to 4:30pm, which makes you sputter as you press 'Pause' on the remote and kick off your blanket in order to then rush to your feet.

"Un momento," you shout as you hastily shut the TV screen off and put the clutter of empty snack bowls down on the floor, and shove the tissues out of sight from the door before you rush over to unlock it and open it.

Javier stands at your threshold with his travel duffle hung on his shoulder while he holds a bouquet of pretty pink flowers in his hand.

You're so surprised to see him that you gasp and stare with flustered awe at him before bounding forward to throw your arms around his torso. A little 'oof' escapes him as he holds you to him with his strong forearm not currently occupied by the flowers or the weight of the travel bag.

Nuzzling you lovingly, he gets lost in the soft scent of your hair and how nice it feels to have you in his embrace.

You hug him tight as you bury your face in the soft cotton of his safari beige-toned button down, breathing in his warm scent before you snap to your slightly wine-dulled senses and stumble backwards to pull him into the apartment and out of the heat of the outside hall.

"Oh my god, w-when—what're you doing here?" you stammer as you fluster timidly, feeling too much of a mess suddenly.

"I took the earliest flight I could. Lopez stayed behind," he explains as he closes the door behind himself and sets his duffle aside by the entry to turn and hold out the lovely bouquet, murmuring sweetly, "These are for you."

Your heart flutters as you take the flowers and slowly realize they're pink gardenias. Deeply touched, you hug them to your chest and stare up with glossy, trembling eyes at him as you whisper airily, "You remembered?"

With a gentle smile, Javi nods, and you sniffle – overcome, when he pulls you close and kisses your forehead.

Pink gardenias were your mother's favorite flowers. You hadn't seen a pink gardenia since her funeral, so to see the gorgeous pink blossoms nestled together now – knowing that Javi went out of his way to get them to honor her? It has you feeling breathless.

You wrap your arm around his waist and lean into him, melting when he claims your lips with his own.

Hints of merlot still cling to your mouth, and he's just realizing you're seemingly not wearing anything under the cozy t-shirt dress when you lean back and look up at him with open emotion filling your expressive gaze, hugging the flowers to your bosom as you idly scrub the back of your hand across your tear-streaked cheek.

Javier's deep brown, soulful eyes crinkle at the corners as he tells you, "I, uh, know you were just gonna spend today alone, so I hope this is ok."

"I—" you begin and immediately pause when you realize the state you and the apartment are in. There are dishes in the sink, mail stacked carelessly onto the console by the phone, you hadn't gotten around to taking out the trash in the kitchen, several pairs of discarded shoes were left by the entry where he'd just left his bag, and the conspicuous clutter in the living room. It all causes you to feel shame.

"I-I would've gotten things sorted if I'd known you were coming today—that you were going through the trouble," you attempt while looking at the bouquet cradled in your arm, before flinching as you exclaim, "Oh! Let me get these in water—"

Bemused, he looks around and doesn't see what has you fretting, so he walks towards the couch and further into the nice air-conditioned space, as he assures, "It's no trouble, querida. I had to be back here for that meeting at La Fortaleza tomorrow—"

He spots the bunches of used tissues and bowls clustered on the floor by the corner of the couch. A quick glance at the clutter of albums and developed photo sleeves on the coffee table, as well as the bottle of wine tucked behind the leg of said table clue him into what you've been up to.

You're clumsily rifling through cabinets in search for a vase, and once you find the cylindrical shaped one from underneath the sink cupboard, you place it on the counter and notice Javier's made it over to the couch.

"Oh!" you fret as you scamper around the kitchen counter on nimble bare feet, and go to hastily scoop up the plates and bottle, fumbling with grabbing up the mess of tissues as well as you fuss, "Sit, sit! I'll clean up quick—"

"Let me help you," Javi attempts as he tries to take some of the clutter from your arms, but you recoil with embarrassment and rush back to the kitchen.

"N-No, just sit and relax. I—I'm just going to tidy up," you're thinly assuring as you toss the tissues into the zafacón, then place the dishes to clatter into the sink before hurrying to put the wine out of the way by placing it in the corner of the counter so you can quickly grab the vase. But before you can pivot around with it to run the tap and start filling it with water, you fumble it in your hold and it tumbles out of your hands to fall with a crash to the tiled floor. "Shit!"

He'd been already rounding the counter to come help, so he now rushes over to practically pick you up and maneuver you away from possibly stepping on any shards of glass, as he warns, "Careful, cariño."

Once he's placed you down in the hallway away from the broken glass, Javier spots a paper bag left on the elevated dining side of the counter top, so he grabs it and turns to sweep the larger shards together with the side of his boot as he assuages, "Here, I'll just scoop it into this—"

But you're already dashing into the laundry room and back with the broom and dustpan set, clumsily trying to disjoin them as you fluster, "I'll pick it up! Don't touch the glass, I can sweep it up and—"

You're so frazzled that you yank too hard, and the dustpan clatters to the floor while the broom bangs into the wall when you finally un-attach them.

A wave of something fragile, yet chaotic, swirls up in you, and you're not sure if it's the wide-eyed gape Javi gives you, or the scalding sense of embarrassment that lances through you now, that caused it to flare up like hot air in your chest. The latter has you feeling at your lowest. That he's seeing you be a pathetic, drunken mess, and that this whole thing seemingly is establishing what a disaster you truly are.

Whatever it is – likely a combination of everything – has you so mortified that you're suddenly letting the broom clang to the floor as you hide your face in your hands.

"I—I'm sorry. This—this is why I needed to be alone. I'm just a fucking mess," you haltingly hiss around the sobs now wracking through you. "I hate being like this—hate you seeing me like this—"

"Mi amor," Javi croaks thickly, throat feeling tight from how a tangle of conflicting feelings wedges in his windpipe, so he exhales gruffly and cuts the distance between you so he can pull you protectively into his chest, desperate to take your pain away, but helpless with how to do so. Consolingly, he husks, "You're not a mess at all—"

"Yes I am! I-I just keep falling apart, and here you are seeing it and s-seeing how pathetic and pitiful I am when I can't keep my shit together," you frustratedly exclaim as you wring away from him and angrily pick up the broom, as you rail, "I can't even pull it together a-and not scare you off—"

Watching you spiral is something Javier is bemused, stung, overcome and activated by, all at once. It rakes up so many feelings in him, and makes him burn with the compelling need to give you solace in any way he can. Seeing it happen the first time – when your grandmother had passed away – had branded him with a daunting sense of protectiveness over you. But unlike that time, you were truly adrift now, and not begging for him to tether you back and anchor you from the volatile, emotional tempest you were in. That was likely because you'd been drinking and had so much grief compounded within you over time, that you felt your only option was to suffer alone.

And he'd derailed that for you. So, he now had to haul you back from the chasm you were prepared to fling yourself into.

The broom isn't even in your grasp completely before it's flung away by Javi into the corner of the fridge and wall, just as he sweeps you away from the kitchen to be pressed between him and the hallway wall at your back. You gasp as adrenalin hits your bloodstream and zings a lurid thrill through you that clears the buzz enough for you to focus your wild stare on his purposeful glare.

"Do I look scared off, querida?" is his assertive, husky rhetorical question.

Brow furrowing, you shake your head insistently as you hiccup, "N-No, but—"

"Celina."

You pause and stare attentively at him now, feeling like a tuning fork just got chimed inside of your ribs by his firm, grounded baritone use of your name.

When he sees your eyes sharpen and your brows rise in anticipation, Javi cups your cheek with one hand while the other cradles your lower back. Your breath hitches, stare flicking to his mouth and back up to his smoldering gaze when he leans in and rumbles decisively, "I'm not letting you get all worked. You don't have to have all your shit together, especially today. You're going to let me clean this up, and you're going to stop trying to keep things bottled up."

Your eyes flutter at his command, but you're already stubbornly starting to protest, so Javier insists, "Listen to me, corazón. You can trust me. I don't think any less of you for 'not having it all together' today," and pauses to emphasize his point by resting his forehead to yours as he murmurs, "It's ok not to be ok."

Exhaling shakily, you close your eyes and curl vulnerably into him. You're so emotionally raw, that you can't even muster words.

Javier kisses the top of your head and lets you relax against him before he assures in a gravelly mutter, "Now, go sit for me. I'll clean this up quick."

He nuzzles the top of your hairline affectionately and pats your tush in a 'hop to it' gesture.

As soon as you've scooted onto the couch in a way that allows you to peer over at him, Javi goes to work picking up the large broken shards of the vase to plop them into the paper bag, then grabs the broom and swiftly sweeps up the smaller jagged pieces into the dustpan to be dropped in as well before be carefully closes the bag and shoves it into the now-full trashcan. Once he's sure he's gotten all the glass swept up and that there aren't any shards lingering in the bristles of the broom, he ties up the garbage bag preemptively before setting the broom and dustpan back down in the laundry room where they're stored.

You watch him the entire time, eyes wide and glossy with your pining, as he moves around the space while the anxiety still wriggles in your chest.

Getting to stare at his divine, perfect fit blue-jean-clad ass walk down the hall before he lopes back to come towards you makes delight palpitate some of the anxiety away, though. The kind of delight that tingles excitement in your core and makes you fidget with the heat of your arousal spiking through you now when Javi nears.

The air from the consola fans across you both, and while he's glad for the kiss of the cool breeze against his skin, he can't help notice how it's not cooling you down at all. Your cheeks are flushed, and you look a bit ruffled still, unaware that you're a bit wound up with self-conscious anxiety and yearning.

His dark-coffee brewed eyes lower appraisingly over you as he gets to the side of the couch – lingering on how your nipples are studding through the clingy fabric of the t-shirt dress. Seemingly mystified with the conflict you're exuding in your uncertain state, Javi hesitates on whether to sit next to you, before he settles his features into an earnest regard, and asks in a baritone rumble, "Did I do the wrong thing? Coming over, I mean."

You sit up on your knees and absently clutch the back cushion as you fluster, "N-No, you didn't do anything wrong—"

"I can leave, if you want," Javi says in a steadfast way, a hand at his hip while he gestures with the other to where his duffle sits, as he huffs, "I should've called before coming. It's fine, if you'd rather not have company—"

Deflating onto your haunches, you swallow the lump in your throat before professing tightly, "I don't want to be alone."

It's then Javi sees the indecision crease your brow, and realizes you're truly at a loss, and not used to being out of control like this; at having your desires in conflict and not having a way to regain your calm. He's never seen you so unsure and self-reproachful. It makes him realize you need coaxing towards stable ground.

"Querida. If you want me to stay, then you have to tell me so."

You blink in surprise, and Javier stands his ground – hands on his hips and expression etched in that assertive way from before, but this time his soulful eyes are crinkled almost goadingly at the corners.

A shiver goes up your spine.

"I want you to stay," you tell him, sitting on the couch with your legs folded under you, but still timid.

He cocks an eyebrow and leans his weight onto his left hip as he eyes you challengingly, drawing out in a smoky purr, "I don't believe you."

That gets the reaction he hoped for.

Your brows furrow together and your eyes narrow. "Oh, really. You don't believe me?" you mutter crossly before scooching to the edge of the cushion you're sitting on as you imperiously snark, "And what do I have to do for you to believe me then, hm?"

Javier smirks as he gives you a laconic one-shouldered shrug, before he croons, "Show me that you want me to stay."

A little fire of desire is set inside you at that, and all your squeamish, flustered embarrassment of before is snuffed out by your need to buck up against his challenge.

The buzz from the wine tickles through you still as you stare at him in that searing way that promises sultry, albeit wickedness, from you in response to his self-assuredness, but really, you're feeling the gumption bubble up and clear the fuzzy anxieties of before away. Especially the more you see his dark eyes begin to smolder with lust.

Licking his bottom lip while you stand on your bare feet and cut the short distance between you both, Javi feels anticipation curl deviant thrill up in his apex. That quickly becomes burning arousal when you stand up to him on your tippy toes and grab fistfuls of the front of his shirt to yank him down to meet your kiss.

He ends up hissing in surprise when you suckle on his bottom lip before nipping it possessively and growling, "I want you to stay, Javier."

The urge to just take you pulses in his veins and digs down into his loins, but he wants to wind you up some more – to get the angst and upset of before completely torn asunder; to be replaced with your vivacious, unabashed desires he's become so adept at stoking loose.

"Hmm, is that so?" Javi purrs in that incandescent grouse that always rakes over your titillated senses like sinful velvet, as he gropes his big hands down your curves puckishly before pulling you close so he can order in an audacious whisper, "Fucking prove it, then, bravita."

An exhilarated wave of arousal pulses through you and has you tingling with desire at his instigating command. You want to just pounce on him, but something daring and needy has you wanting to wind him up right back. To rile the urge you saw flash across his dark eyes earlier back to the surface and entice him into carnal hunger with you.

Javier is surprised when you lean back from his embrace and worry your bottom lip between your teeth as you encircle his left wrist and cup his hand, leading it up your skirt and between your thighs.

"I want you to stay, and I want you," is your silky whisper as you guide his digits to touch your warm and bare pussy, emphasizing your point by grinding your slick seam over the pads of his fingers as you look searingly into his hungry stare and ask airily, "Do you want me, mi amor?"

He was hard when you slipped his hand up your skirt, and he's straining against his jeans now from your provocative question while rubbing your dripping cunt along his fingers.

"More than anything," he hoarsely mutters as he starts to part your folds.

At his answer, you nimbly scamper back and out of his reach suddenly, and Javi's expression is priceless when you grin and lilt, "Then fucking prove it, guapito."

It's so brazen and goading, the way you got him wrapped around your little finger only to then snap him back – to push the deviant, primal buttons that spin lurid desire up in him and have him unleashing all his suppressed urges. That provoke him to dominate you in a feral way that has a visceral shudder quivering through him.

Before you can even attempt to sprint off like you'd planned to, Javier's already lassoed his arm around you and pinned you to him as he grabbed the hem of your dress and yanked it up and over your head in a brusque movement that has you gasping and teetering in his hold. He effortlessly spins you around to wring the material off and flings it carelessly away before he manhandles you down onto your hands and knees to the blanket-covered-couch as he hurriedly yanks his belt buckle loose and makes short work of opening his fly.

You're mewling and arching back excitedly when he drops onto his knees behind you and quickly lines himself up before he plunges his ramrod erection into you to the hilt with a rough groan.

His hips slam into you and cause you to almost fold forward, so Javi grips the back of your shoulder and guides you roughly down to position you in a way that'll have you at his mercy, but able to hold onto the armrest for balance.

Just as you arch your spine to rock back into his next thrust, Javi crowds over you and dominates the hell out of you now.

The air-conditioning unit hums along in the ambient beat of the fan swaying to and fro while the sounds of you getting railed by Javi echoes in the living room, getting louder and louder as his pounding thrusts become piston-like slams angled up into that devastating spot inside you.

"Ah! Mmph, oh Javi—" you cry out, feeling spun up by the sensory overload of his weight pressing into you, his cologne and sweat permeating your own overheated scent, his gruff groans and growls of savage approval at how you're reveling in how he's taking you, and the taste of him now when he plunders your mouth with his own in a greedy kiss.

When Javi maneuvers a hand to tease his fingers over the hood of your clit, you whimper, "Nngth!" and break the torrid kiss to bow into the couch cushion under the onslaught of overstimulation.

Your silken walls clench hard around him, making Javi moan and nuzzle you lovingly before he shifts back to balance his weight and take hold of your waist to ground you both in the building crescendo of scintillating sensation that's propelling you both into a tizzy towards release.

He's enthralled on how you're moaning broken little sounds of ecstasy the harder and faster he fucks into your squelching cunt from behind, and he watches you under heavy lids as you reach a hand backwards to cling to his forearm as his grip on your waist becomes more possessive – desperate, even.

Your sheath is fluttering with impending climax, and the throaty way you begin to beg, 'Javi-Javi-Javi!' has something scalding tangling in his chest and making him wild with the need to wreck you with daunting pleasure – the kind that will make you rapturous and euphoric.

Just as your coupling hits an animalistic zenith, you sob his name before wailing a reedy sound as you climax, gushing your orgasm as your sheath clamps down around his cock.

"Oh fuck—!" is Javier's guttural grunt before he pants a harsh groan as his release barrels through him, stealing his breath and having him buckle forward to crowd over you.

In this heightened state, you can feel his climax surge deep inside of you while his heartbeat throbs against your back. The dizzying delight you experience at the bloom of warmth radiating in your womb has you sighing out a luscious sound that makes Javi melt into you.

Before his knees gave out, Javier wraps his arms around you and rolls sidelong into the sofa's back cushions in order to keep you folded backwards into him so he can worshipfully cuddle and nuzzle you while you both recover.

The post-coital bliss has you blitzed out in the most wonderful way. You're dreamily sighing as you come back down from the stratosphere and affectionately interlace your fingers with the hand caressing your womb. As your body temperature begins to normalize, you feel the chill in the air and the cool press of the steel from his watch's band as the wrist it's attached to rests against your sternum. The palm of his hand is just below your clavicle, thumb sweeping soothing along the delicate skin while he noses into the sweaty hair at your nape.

Dimly, you reach around your side to shift your hips so you can turn to kiss him over your shoulder, and end up comically realizing Javier got you completely naked, but left himself fully clothed. He didn't even get a chance to kick off his boots.

"Oh my god," you snicker before caressing your palm along the length of his jean-clad lower thigh before simpering, "Babe, how are you even comfortable like this?!"

He snorts and nudges his temple affectionately against you as he deadpans, "M'not. You got me so riled up though. Stripping down was not a priority."

You laugh, light and effervescent, grinning when he nuzzles your neck and grunts a silly sound.

"Well, it's a priority now, chavón," you simper between giggles as you undulate your hips into him. "Desnúdate, ahora."

Javier impishly pinches your waist and grunts at your order of 'Get naked, now' before eagerly shifting you up with him so he can comply, laughing warmly when you start to help him undress by unbuttoning his beige shirt with hasty fingers, yanking it open and off his shoulders while he hurriedly, and simultaneously, kicks his boots and pushes his jeans off.

Once naked, Javi murmurs, "Lay back for me," and helps you adjust to lie length-wise on the sofa as he maneuvers to sit between your parted legs.

The cool air caresses over you both and keeps you from overheating while Javi takes some tissues from the box on the side table and tends to you. Tenderly swiping up the spill of his seed that's weeping from your still tingling pussy, he makes sure to be delicate with his aftercare so you can relax.

You sigh blissfully and close your eyes as you reach for him after he's set the sullied tissues aside.

"Feel better?" he rumbles when he cuddles up with you across the length of the couch. You nod and tuck yourself against him, so he wraps his arm around your waist and gives you a loving squeeze, as he drawls, "Good."

While you're cooling down together, Javi combs his fingers through the back of your hair soothingly while you caress yours along his forehead and brow, occasionally brushing your lips over his, and sighing happily when he presses soft kisses to your cheek and jaw.

When you start to shiver from the air conditioning, he tries to pull the edge of the throw blanket around you, but much of the length of it is pinned underneath you both, so he murmurs, "Wanna take a hot shower?"

You nod, but before Javier can start sitting up, you hook your leg over his hip and silkily lilt, "But first, I wanna take care of this," and coax his semi into a full erection with a few strokes of your hand before guiding it to your primed entrance.

His groan of approval is quickly followed by him plunging his cock slowly in before maneuvering you both on the sofa so that he can be on his back while you ride him with sensual gusto.

After the amazing romp, you both take a long shower together, dry off, and end up in your bed.

You're under the quilt while Javi lounges with his hands tucked behind his head and in his nude glory, reclined against the propped-up pillows and enjoying the air conditioning in your bedroom while you both talk. He'd noticed you'd moved the vase with the flowers he'd gotten you for Valentine's to the top of your dresser, so you'd explained that you'd intended to pick out some of them so you could tie them together and hang them to dry out in order to preserve them.

"—I'll have to take those out so I can put the new ones you brought in that vase," you're remarking as you shuffle into a sitting position as if you're about to get out of bed and do so now.

Javi tows you close by lassoing his forearm around your waist as he sits propped up on his elbow. "So you're saying you've kept flowers from every single bouquet you've ever gotten?" is his puckish query, giving you a faux haughty look as you scoff.

"No, silly! I've only preserved a few flowers from meaningful arrangements," you insist as you pat his forearm to be let loose so you can shimmy out of bed, and then go retrieve a large ornate cardboard box with an attached flip-open lid and scamper back with it.

He sits up and pulls the quilt back for you so you can slide under it once you've placed the box onto the bed, and gives you his undivided attention as you open the box and reveal that it's where you place very sentimental mementos – including an assortment of individually preserved flowers. Each are wrapped with a ribbon that has the date you received them listed in your handwriting. Along with the flowers are letters, postcards, and other special keepsakes.

"See? These are from the first bouquet you gave me, in Medellín," you tell him as you pull out a trio of preserved red roses tied together by a white ribbon. He is surprised to see indeed, you have the date and location written on it too, and he almost misses your pensive smile as you add, "'Buela saved them for me."

Javi glances at you intently then, so you clear the lump in your throat and retrieve the next trio of dried flowers.

"These are from the time you surprised me for my birthday," is your musing now, smiling as you place them back and gesture to a few others and recite, "These are from my maid of honor bouquet at Irina's wedding, and these are from the arrangement at my cousin's reception—"

You pause before pointing out the white lilies from your grandmother's wake, and the pink gardenias from your mother's velorio, feeling that prickle of grief begin to crest up in you.

Sensing it, Javi interjects in a searching drawl, "What about the roses from the arrangement I had Marisol leave in your office?"

Blinking comically at him, the melancholy is forgotten as you scoff and snipe, "Nope! I didn't get a chance to. And anyway, all of these I saved because they're to honor the moment, or for me to keep the happy memory, and when I saw those roses? I was livid."

His brows rise and his pouty lips are inviting when he irreverently gripes, "So you would've saved flowers from the grand arrangement that mystery admirer had sent to your office—?"

"No, because once you told me you hadn't sent them, I let Ellis take them," you bossily cut in and pat his bare thigh conciliatorily as you tease, "Take a look, tough guy. Only ones I've kept, are yours."

Grunting contrarily, Javi purses his lips and grumbles in a faux huff, "But someone delivered a whole flower shop's worth to you—"

You exhale glibly and busily organize all the flowers to be delicately stored in the box as you sing song, "Yes, mi amor, I've gotten lots of flowers from lots of guys in the past, but you're the only one who's given me a bouquet and made me feel warm and fuzzy, so those are the ones that matter enough to be kept."

You look over at him then, pure moxie in your bright eyes, and Javier feels that funny feeling in his chest that's a combination squeeze and flutter of happiness.

The molten look in those brown orbs makes you tingle, so when he slides the box away in order to gather you to straddle his lap, you're feeling alight. And then he wraps you up in his arms and hugs you so fiercely that all you can do is loop yours around his shoulders and nuzzle into his neck lovingly.

"I felt the same way, giving them to you," he tells you in a soft murmur after you soothingly comb your hand through the back of his hair and kiss the soft skin between his ear and sideburn. At your loving cuddle, he smirks and nudges his temple affectionately into yours as he mutters, "Show me how you pick the flowers and preserve them?"

Smiling against his cheek, you give him a cheeky squeeze before doing just that.

Once the trio of flowers are picked from the bouquet and you've tied a string around the end of the stems and hung them to dry on the curved loop of the dresser's mirror, you rewrap the ribbon around the remaining bouquet and rinse out the vase so you can place the lovely pink gardenias in it.

The entire time, you're telling Javi about the day you spent with your father. He smiles, happy to hear your sentiments, and frankly relieved that it was a mostly pleasant occasion.

When you've finished arranging the flowers, Javi pulls on a pair of sweatpants you'd stored in a drawer for him while you retrieve your silky robe and put it on after having proposed ordering delivery for dinner.

"—All I made were viandas, so want me to order pizza?" you're asking as you pick up the vase now.

"Sure. Whatever you want, cariño," he tells you and chivalrously takes the vase from you and gestures with a nod of his head for you to lead the way.

Feeling a giddy tickle in your tummy, you playfully tow him along by the drawstring of his sweatpants to exit your room and enter the guest bedroom.

He sees you've adjusted your altar of family photos to now include the silver-framed photo of you, your mother, and your grandmother in the center, with a tall continental candle lit next to it. There was a vacant spot on the dresser that Javi places the gardenias onto for you, and before he's able to move back, you take his hand and guide him to stand in front of the wide dresser with you.

"I dreamt about her the other night. Sometimes, I wonder what she'd think – about everything, I mean. What it would be like for her to be around – for you to have met her," you're confessing in a faraway tone, staring at the photo of your mother before glancing up at Javi and smiling dreamily at him, as you admit softly, "I think she would've loved you."

His brown eyes almost shimmer with how the candlelight flickers across them when he caresses his palm to the small of your back while he cups your cheek gently with his warm palm, thumb tracing along the apple of it as he rumbles, "I feel the same, querida. I know my mother would've. I bet they would've gotten along, too."

The sentiment warms your heart, and makes you lean into him so you can stand on your tippy toes and brush a doting kiss over his scrumptious lips.

All the gloomy melancholic feelings of before have been blown away by the beaming unconditional love Javier has given you – by how unrelentingly passionate and tender and irreverent he's been since he showed up at your door like the handsome sweetheart he is.

The rest of the evening is calm.

After you called in for the pizza order, Javier pulled on his college shirt and took out the garbage for you. By the time he was breezing back in, you'd stored the verduras in containers and were finishing with the dishes. He strolled over to start drying the dishware for you while teasing you about being so flustered over nothing earlier.

"—Acted like the place was condemned—"

"I was embarrassed!"

"Over a few dishes and tissues?"

"Not just that. All the clutter, the garbage—"

"Baby, you've not seen clutter. You missed out on the pigsty Steve's place was after Connie went back to Miami. That was some real shit to be mortified by—"

"Ay Javi," you snicker ruefully and cut the faucet before drying your hands on the towel hung on the decorative rack, sighing to yourself before you concede, "The mess felt like a manifestation of how much of a mess I was today…"

Stowing the glass currently in his hand in the cabinet, Javi turns and herds you close by your hip before murmuring, "I know today was hard for you, preciosa. But you don't ever need to feel like you have to keep that bottled up. You can tell me what you need. I should've called before just showing up—"

"No, I just have always thought it would be better to just be alone today…but I didn't want to be alone," you stare up at him with gleaming eyes, worrying your bottom lip before confiding, "It felt safer."

He understands what you mean, but the pang that courses through him is still a sharp one. Hearing you say so and knowing how you've suffered alone out of a lonesome need to protect yourself from more pain has him yearning to be that safe space for you, and leaves him simmering with the need to prove that to you.

Just as he's about to assure that he'll do whatever you need to feel safe, no matter how silly or what not you might feel about it, your house phone starts to ring.

You pick up the phone where you left it on the counter and answer it. "Yes, thank you. Please let them up," you instruct before thanking the night attendant and going to return the phone to the charging base. "Pizza's here. Oh! Let me go put something on," you say hurriedly as you scamper down the hall to put on clothes in order to answer the door.

Of course, though, when you rush back in the matching stretch-knit mint-colored pajama bottom and blouse, Javier's already handing the delivery guy cash and taking the large pizza box, thanking him before quickly shutting the door to keep the cool air in and prevent you from trying to argue with him about it.

"Javi—"

"Hot stuff, comin' through," he retorts glibly as he maneuvers around your cross-armed stance to head to the kitchen. "And the pizza's sizzling, too."

You snicker at his quip and shake your head, relenting in even attempting to admonish him.

"Mmhmm, 'hot stuff' indeed, gracioso," you chuckle and jokingly pat his ass on the way around him to grab plates.

A couple of slices between you and a glass of wine each a short while later, and you're lounging on the sofa together, watching the home video from the start.

Javier loved seeing the younger versions of you – going from adorable baby to sassy elementary-aged little girl – and was intrigued to see the slivers of loving interactions between your parents. Your mother was stunning and sardonic, almost precocious, with a brilliant smile and bright eyes you'd inherited from her. And your father seemed like a completely different person than the hardscrabble, intimidating man with steel in his bones that you'd described previously. Instead, he seemed a wide-smiling, charismatic and wry romantic.

And when the video was rewinding in the VCR, you retrieved the big photo album that had once been your grandmother's and showed him how you'd added some of the new pictures you'd gotten from your father. There was a really nice photo of you as a toddler, holding hands with your father while walking up a hill, and the look in his chiseled features was of pure love for the little girl you were.

"—Oh! And look at these," you're excitedly exclaiming as you pick up a prettily adorned album and show him it contains the photos from your cousin's wedding. You place it on his lap before sitting next to him with your legs tucked under you as you chime, "God, that was such a fun night."

His full lips pull into a mischievous smile as he goes through the photos. "Back in the hotel room? Sure was," he quips, earning a playful swat on his bicep. When he flips to the page that has the photo of you, him and your grandmother, posing at the table together, he's overcome with fondness.

You sniffle, and he quickly clears his throat as he puts his arm around you and kisses the top of your hairline.

With a deep sigh, you sit up and grab for a newer album. It has a shiny cover of blue-on-blue leaf pattern print. As you open it, you amusedly murmur, "Figured we needed our own."

Javi peers down at the open album sitting on your lap, and the delighted pride that fills his chest radiates across his features at seeing the first picture you'd taken together – back in the hotel room in Cartagena. Next to it was the photo of Javi hugging the pillow in his sleep, and below both was the picture you took of him with the sunset warming his handsome visage. When you flipped to the next page, he was taken aback to see you'd clipped out the photo from the newspaper article that had you both standing only a couple people apart, and on the adjacent page was the picture from the Valentine's Day double date with Steve and Connie.

"I still have the doubles from the wedding I can add—" you're telling him when you glance up and find his brown eyes flicking to you with something smoldering that makes a flash of thrill tickle into your core, and before you can finish talking, Javier is kissing you passionately until the album slips from your lap onto the couch from him whisking you up to be cradled against him.

It's all he can do to express just how enamored and happy you make him.

The urge to profess so many things – to blurt out 'Marry me, querida,' – swirl in his heart and have Javier buzzing, but he knows it's not the right time. That you've just achieved a hard sought-after sense of calm, and things between you both were hopeful, albeit delicate.

No, he would wait. He had to, considering there was still so many things he needed to accomplish before being able to drop down onto a knee and ask you.

You're swooning by the time Javier carries you bridal style to bed, having barely had enough time to turn the TV off and place the album back onto the coffee table with the others before he swept you up against him.

Being snuggled against him, skin-to-skin after making love, had you serene – feeling like you wanted to stay still in the moment with him forever.

Waking up early the next morning in his arms was divine, but since he had the meeting at the Fortaleza first thing, you forced him out of bed and into the shower so you could iron his shirt and pants for him. By the time he came back into the bedroom with a towel around his waist, you were already in the kitchen, setting the cafetera onto the stove. He couldn't help smile at how you've picked out a light gray suit, crisp dress shirt, and a necktie already, laying it out on the bed for him.

"Do you want something to eat?" you call out while you retrieve the coffee mugs.

"I'll have whatever you're having," Javi answers back as he quickly dresses. Once he's got everything on but his blazer and dress shoes, he pads down the hall while he fusses with his tie. "Don't go to too much trouble though—"

"I'm just going to heat up the viandas and boil some eggs then," you'd started to say as he started to remark, so you snicker and pause at the stove when he snorts and looks irreverently at you. "What? You said whatever I was having. This is a desayuno típico."

"All right, I'll try it," he assures as he keeps fiddling with his tie. You scoff humorously and swat his hands away so you can do it for him, smiling when he croons, "You trying to turn me into a jibarito?"

"Maybe," you joke and purse your lips teasingly at him as you smoothen his collar and straighten the red, silver and white-striped tie into place for him. "Are you going to the office after the meeting at La Fortaleza?"

"Yeah. The building we're setting up shop in for the DEA field office operations is almost ready, so Steve and me have to spend the afternoon deciding how to divvy up the teams between there and the Federal campus," he explains while you heat up the food and hard boil the eggs after taking the coffee kettle off the burner and setting it aside to cool.

He dutifully serves the coffee into the two mugs you set out while you work around the kitchen as you ask, "So then you'll be splitting your time up between the field office and the main building?"

"Probably not. I'm thinking on stationing Segarra at the field office and staying in the Federal building," he muses before taking a sip of his coffee. He leans his hip into the counter, watching you retrieve bowls from the cabinet before you serve the reheated plátano, ñame, guineo, and panapén into each.

"Oh, that's your ASAC, right?" you query as you retrieve the eggs with a cooking spoon and run cold water over them before removing each from their shell and placing one in each bowl with the viandas. At his dry grunt of acknowledgement, you multitask sprinkling a pinch of salt into each bowl before drizzling olive oil over the meal while inquiring, "So why don't you like the guy?"

Licking his lips of the coffee, he gives a one-shouldered shrug, griping, "He's just an upstart with no real experience. And he's tried to be a get-over, and cut corners—"

"That doesn't sound familiar," you razz as you grab a fork for each of you and wink playfully at him when he frowns with comical displeasure. "Come sit and eat, chulito," is your flirty order as you saunter by him with the food, musing lightly, "You can tell me all about it."

Javier does, explaining all the reasons why he doesn't like Segarra while you have breakfast together at the glass table, after marveling how tasty the campesino-inspired peasant dish really was.

By the time he has to head out for the early meeting, you're seeing him off at the door with an amorous kiss.

"Good luck, agente," you sweetly coo before brushing a rogue wisp of hair back from his forehead for him.

"I'll need it, jefa," he husks and pinches your hip affectionately before giving you a peck on the lips and heading out to the tropically sunny morning.

You feel lighter than you have in days. Like the world has gone still around you and is content to remain blissful, no matter what.

You're practically floating when you get to work later that morning.

All the missed messages and memos don't even make a dent into your serene mood, and even the latest HR nonsense regarding administrative box checking doesn't faze you. Frankly, by the time you're checking emails, you start day dreaming – letting a fantasy unspool in your mind about living a charmed life with Javier. Of being lovestruck peasants who frolic through a countryside meadow and lay in the cool grass together while watching the clouds go by.

Quit being so silly! You have to admonish yourself of the flights of fancy in order to concentrate on your work, but a girlish smile still ghosts your lips as you resume your task.

It's hours later when Javi is in his office, going over the stacks of evidence Lopez had shipped via courier from Santo Domingo. Sans his light gray blazer, he's able to more comfortably stretch out the weary muscles in his back before absently loosening the knot of his tie, eyes remaining glued to the document he's currently skimming over.

After the bureaucratical meeting at the Governor's mansion that morning, he was glad to be back to focusing on the case at hand. He didn't feel cut out for the political jockeying, and while he held his own with the officials and had a pleasant enough exchange with the governor, Javier didn't like going to those kinds of things without something substantial to show. At the very least, though, he had assurances of more cooperation with cabinet departments regarding the leads he wanted to chase down in the privately-owned sectors.

And the promise to put pressure on other leaders in the Caribbean region when it came to cooperating in a joint trans-national task force was one that he felt he could at least believe at face value, for once.

He was just thinking of calling Lopez to check in with him when three swift knocks rap on his closed door.

"Come in," he distractedly calls out as he skims a line at the bottom of a financial disclosure form, trying to make out the signature.

"Is this a good time, Agent Peña?"

Javi whips his attention up to blink surprisedly across at you, almost awestruck to see you peeking around the slightly ajar door. You're in a chic burgundy blouse and matching trouser that looks tailored to perfection on you, hair swept back from your face and up in a bouncy ponytail.

"Celi—I mean, Director Reinosa. Y-Yes, I was just looking over something. Come in," Javi stammers and corrects as he stands from his desk and gestures for you to enter his office.

When you step in, it's then he notices the takeout bag you're holding in one hand. He can see through the momentary vacant sightline out to where his admin's desk faces his door, and spots that the woman seemingly just returned and was shooting him a questioning look. So, Javi intercepted closing the door behind you, and gestured to her in a way that spoke clearly before shutting the door: Do not disturb.

"I figured you hadn't bothered with getting lunch, so I thought we could have a do-over?" you unconcernedly muse as you hold up the bag to show him the logo of the Japanese restaurant from a few weeks prior, leaning up on the tippy toes of your black heels and kissing him on his lips before flouncing towards the sitting area in the corner of his office to unpack the bag onto the glass coffee table in front of the leather couch and side chair.

The unruffled, carefree confidence you're exuding – how unabashedly unconcerned you are about being seen together at work, let alone that you've set up an impromptu lunch date in his office – has heat blooming in his chest, making his heart skip a beat.

As you're setting out the different containers of food, you lilt sardonically, "I took the liberty of ordering you something I thought you'd like more than sushi, and grabbed you more than chopsticks to use this time."

Rolling up his shirt sleeves to his elbows, Javi comes over to join you, and ends up smiling when you kick off your heels and sit lotus style on the carpeted floor instead of the couch before grabbing his steak hibachi meal and handing it to him. He crouches down to sit next to you, and only after you've set everything out and popped the tabs on the soda cans, does he lean over and kiss your cheek.

You grin, giving him a knowing look, so he whispers conspiratorially, "Is this your subtle way of saying we need to disclose our relationship status to Mercer soon?"

"Only if you don't want to sneak around anymore," is your silly counter as you snap your chopsticks apart and prepare to pick up a piece of salmon sushi, as you add, "We can't really go crazy with PDA even after it's known—"

"So I can't just kiss you in the lobby, in front of everyone, you mean?" is his taunt, eyes crinkling mirthfully when you blow a raspberry imperiously at him and squeeze his knee.

"I've had my fill of HR bureaucracy already, fresco," is you snicker, earning a droll hum from him. "So? How was the meeting?"

Javi catalogues all the food in the container before answering, "It was alright. I spoke with the governor for a bit."

"Oh?" you ask before eating a piece of sushi.

"Yeah. He's really gun-ho about the Mano Dura initiative. Promised to make headway with other officials across the Caribbean. Which is good, since we kept hitting roadblocks in Santo Domingo," he remarks before digging into his meal, humming with gusto.

Chewing thoughtfully, you take a sip of your drink before pointing out, "You haven't really talked much about the investigation here. If you don't want to—"

He shakes his head before dabbing his mouth with a napkin to assure, "No, it's just different here. Plus, we've been busy, catching up with each other."

You smile, licking your lips self-consciously before conceding, "True."

"And anyway, I'm still trying to make heads and tails out of things here as it is. We don't have a typical cartel dynamic, like with Medellín and Cali. It's been challenging, figuring out the players, how they network," he elaborates before eating a forkful of fried rice.

You hum thoughtfully, before commenting, "You're right. I haven't really thought about it, but crime is discussed in opaque terms here. There's no reporting on Escobar-level figures or anything like that."

"Exactly. Which is strange. It's starting to make me suspect that it might be by design," Javier rumbles before blinking at your surprised look. "I only mean that things might be more insulated here. Escobar and the Cali Godfathers started on the outside and wormed their way into controlling things by threat and corruption. I'm wondering if it's a different setup here."

That makes you hum bemusedly as you sip your drink.

Deciding to change the subject, Javi leans in to whisper cockily in your ear, "Can we fool around in my office, this time around?"

Huffing sarcastically, you nudge him wryly with your shoulder and sassily scathe, "How long have you been wanting to ask that, beyako atrevido?"

He showily nuzzles your neck, feeling heat zing through his veins at your lovely perfume and warm skin, growling before he gravels, "Only since you sat here licking your lips, smelling fucking good, looking so goddamn sexy."

An exhilarated flutter of desire skitters into your core and makes your pussy throb.

"Well then, I suppose I'll have to make it up to you, sometime," is your silky murmur before looping your fingers around his tie and towing him closer so you can kiss him sultrily on the lips.

Fuck, Javi thinks to himself, beyond turned on now. But even he isn't shameless enough to take a nooner in his office, with a bustling department just beyond his closed door. The filthy allure of it has him so aroused, though, that you end up having to nip his bottom lip when he tries to deepen the kiss into a torrid make-out session.

"Mmph!"

"Down, boy."

"…That's easier said than done, bravita."

You giggle at his grumpy pout, and irreverently use your chopsticks to pick up a piece of hibachi steak in order to feed it to him. He snorts and eats it, winking at you when you hum a silly sound that communicates, 'Be good now?'

The rest of lunch is great, and you depart with a smooch to his smiling lips before exiting with the bag in your grip, leaving only the aromatic scent of the meal as the only evidence of your date in the spacious office.

With all the planning and arrangements for the field office setup, Javier would be busy the next few days, but had asked if you wanted to go to dinner at Steve and Connie's Sunday night when you'd talked on the phone later that night. You were excited for it, and even picked up a nice bottle of wine and whiskey to take over when you went food shopping after the work the following day.

You're merrily humming to yourself as you carry the grocery bags up from your car and enter the lobby of your condo, already thinking of how much you were looking forward to spending the time with Javier and the other couple, when the attendant called out to you.

"Señorita, there was a delivery for you. I didn't want to leave it at your door," the man explains as he retrieves a small bouquet of pink carnations from behind the counter.

You rush over, surprised, and thank the man, taking the cellophane-wrapped flowers that were tied with a baby pink bow with you.

A dreamy smile pulls at your lips as you ride up in the elevator. He must've sent them, just because – and so they'll eventually end up joining the collection preserved in the box. The thought makes you gleeful, so as soon as you're off the elevator, you hustle with everything to your apartment door, unlock it, breeze in, and place the grocery bags on the kitchen counter before walking over to the sofa to sit so you can delicately fish the card out from where it's tucked beyond the stems and sticking to the wrapper.

Plucking it out and free, you set the carnations down on the cushion next to you so you can open the card. It has a simple 'Thinking of you…' written in cursive on the cover.

When you skim the message, your giddiness deflates into perplexed uneasiness, instantly.

Being a shallow, uncaring hypocrite. You deserve to be exposed for it. Only a matter of time.

There was no signature. No other identifiable way to know who the author was, or what they were even referencing.

You were left befuddled first, unnerved second.

Staring down at the carnations, you vacillate with what to do.

You're unaware that the decision you eventually make will only lead to an unexpected confrontation that will tip things into a precarious sequence of events you're woefully unprepared for. Nor do you know how it will change everything in your life.

All you do know, is that you aren't interested in letting anything affect your happiness, so, you decided not to let it.

  ________________

Read Chapter 44: Deserving - Part 1

Spanish-English Glossary:

Papisongo = Puerto Rican slang for a very sexy man; a stud

Malvadita = Wicked little girl

Mi amor = My love

Muecas = Making funny faces

Coquí = Puerto Rican singing tree frog; named for the sound he croaks

Plaza = Marketplace, or stronghold. In reference to the cartels, it means the general territory, or square of power

Caserío = Public housing; housing project

Hermosa/hermoso = beautiful (female); beautiful (male)

Canela = Cinnamon

Guapita = Sassy/foxy/daring/testy lady

Seductora = Seductress

Chavón = A man that's pestering you

Bravita= Tough girl; feisty girl

Mi rey = My king

Dios mío = My god

Mi cariñito = My sweet little darling

Beyako = Puerto Rican slang for horny/naughty guy; akin to "horn dog"

Bebito = Little baby (male)

Eres mi vida, preciosa = You're my life, precious girl

Chulo/Chulito = Cute guy; little cutie

Corazón = Heart; pet name to signify how deeply you love someone

Querida/querido = Affectionate term, akin to expressing one's want and desire

Mija = Short for mi hija, aka my daughter; my girl

Pá = Short for 'Papá' which means father, or poppa

Chistosa = Funny girl; wisecracker (female)

Parcha = Passionfruit

Tesoro = Treasure; darling

Toño Leña = Nickname that roughly translates to 'Tony Firewood'

El Muñecón = Nickname that roughly translates to 'The Doll Boy"

Viandas = Root vegetables, like plantains (plátanos), yams (ñames), green bananas (guineos) and breadfruit (panapén)

Estamos en el campo = We're out in the country

Jibarita = A little peasant girl

Campesina = Country girl; farm girl

Ron = Rum

En el monte = [Up] In the hill

Finca = Rural property

Mofongo con camarones a la criolla = Fried, mashed plantains with creole stewed shrimp

Arróz mamposteao y bistec encebollado = Stewed rice and beans and steak soaked in onions

Gandules = Pigeon peas

Arróz con gandules = Rice with pigeon peas

Carne guisada = Beef stew

Aguacate = Avocado

Brazo gitano = A Spanish cake roll based from a Swiss-roll-like pastry dessert that resembles a "Gypsy's arm", popular on the West side of Puerto Rico

Marquesina = Open air garage or carport

¿Que haces con eso? = What're you doing with that?

Bellísima = Beautiful woman; 'Most beautiful woman'

Ay Diego = Oh Diego

Vamos, bellísima = C'mon, most beautiful woman

La fiera = The savage girl; wild beast

Salió a ti, chistoso = She takes after you, funny guy

Es pura hija tuya = She's purely your daughter

Con huevonadas = With stupid nonsense

Ah pues bien = Oh, well fine then

Mi bellísima = My most beautiful woman

Hola, nena = Hey, girl

Llámame = Call me

Jevo = Puerto Rican slang for boyfriend

Mandón = Bossy man

Cariño = Darling/sweetheart

Mira quien habla = Look who's talking

Cariño = Darling/sweetheart

Guapísimo = Super hot and handsome

El señorito Javi sabe chingar = Little mister Javi knows how to fuck

Papi chulo = Ladies man

Detalles ahora, doña =Details now, missus

Amante = Lover

Que eres el amante más asombroso de mi vida = That you're the most amazing lover of my life

Cristo amado = Christ beloved

Atrevido/Atrevida = Daring man/Daring woman

Preciosa = Gorgeous; precious

Paisa = Colombian compatriot; term of endearment amongst Colombians, especially in Medellín

Consola de aire acondicionado = Air conditioning unit/console

Un momento = One moment

Zafacón = Trashcan

Guapito = Handsome (said in an affectionate diminutive)

Desnúdate, ahora = Get naked, now

Velorio = Wake; veiling ceremony where people sit vigil

Verduras =Vegetables; usually root vegetables

Gracioso = Funny guy

desayuno típico = Traditional, or typical breakfast

Jibarito = Little peasant boy

La Fortaleza = The Puerto Rican Governor's office and mansion; aka 'The Puerto Rican White House'

Jefa = Boss lady

Fresco = a guy who's being 'fresh', or naughty/pervy Señorita = Miss; little lady

Thanks for reading! Please consider leaving a comment and sharing your feedback. I would be eternally grateful. 

[furious-rogue-stuff]

Heat Chapter 42: Reflection

I have arisen~! Sorry ONCE AGAIN for the long lag in updates. Hopefully this chapter makes up for the delay in posting 😊

Pairing: Javier Peña x OFC | Javi x Querida

Disclaimer: Written in 2nd person narrative, you can safely assume our heroine and love/lust interest is a Latina, written by a Latina. Here's my philosophy on my writing, for further context.

Rating: Mature/Explicit 🔞

Word Count: 24,500+

Summary: All the previous reconciliations and past heartache act as a reflection in your peripheral once you and Javi gravitate back to each other, but is the love and passion between you enough to keep you both together, this time?

Warnings: Graphic descriptions of sex, including explicit depictions of oral (m+ f receiving) and unprotected sex. Mentions of diet and food habits, exercise routines, angst, past trauma, resentments, frustration and regret. Allusions to toxic behavior, negative coping mechanisms, recurring relationship tropes, women's health, fluff, hurt comfort, size kink, praise kink, dom/sub play. SoftDom!Javi, Romatic!Javi, and Bossy!OFC. In the vein of Narcos being a bilingual show, and Javier Peña being fluent, I felt it was apropos to include Spanglish and Spanish throughout.

Heat Masterlist

Previous chapter - Chapter 41: Enchantment

Chapter 42: Reflection

To say that you and Javier made up for lost time apart would be an understatement.

From the moment he'd pulled you close and claimed your mouth with his, any coyness between you both had dissolved, and all caution had been discarded for the passionate ways you each needed to revel in the other.

Javier had whisked you against him and the wall when you buried your hands in his hair and tugged him down to deepen the kiss before you trailed needy nips across his jaw and down his neck. He'd ground into you and groped up your dress to hike your leg around his hip, and before you could gather your lust-clumsy wits, he'd had you half naked in the hallway while you yanked his unbuttoned shirt off and groaned for him to touch you.

"Love you—want to make you mine," he'd whispered at your ear after you'd tugged his undershirt off over his head and he'd cupped his hand between your thighs to touch you over your soaked panties. "Promise to make you feel so good, mi amor—"

"Javi," you'd moaned as you arched against him, bare breasts pressing against his chest while he hastily tried to maneuver you both down the hall towards the bedroom whilst suckling on your pulse point and wrenching your tangled dress from around your waist to be discarded.

The garment barely finished hitting the tiled floor before you'd already unbuckled his belt and impatiently tugged his pants undone while you both multitasked kicking your shoes off and kissing wantonly as you finally made it over the threshold of the doorway. Javier had let you undress him – to get him completely nude before you'd towed him towards the bed as he peeled your panties down before you kicked them off. His voracious touch and kisses had you tingling – pulse racing with the exhilarating excitement of feeling him hunger for you as much as you're starving to be his again.

The sex had been primal and sensual. Intense yet tender. Voracious, ardent, and divine – albeit salacious. And, it'd occurred libidinously throughout the night, in between dozing off from spent exhaustion during the post-coital periods.

Every time you roused from slumber to him kissing on you, or tenderly caressing his touch between your thighs, or nuzzling your neck while he husked adoring words to you in the dark, you'd pull him close and end up making love all over again, no matter how tired and sore your muscles were, or how full and tender you felt. At one point, just before dawn, you'd even awoken to the soft quilt being tucked around you – with Javier completely underneath it.

His head had been between your thighs as he languidly licked your tender pussy, eating you out with shameless – albeit gentle vigor, and groaning with achievement as you gasped fully awake and ground against his mouth with needy enthusiasm.

One more romp later, and you were both passed out in the disheveled sheets, tangled up in each other with the quilt rumpled around you as the stormy climate persisted outside.

The rainy weather made it easy to lose track of time, and when Javi woke up at one point to peer over to the curtained windows, he couldn't gauge the hour of the day. It was dark and dreary, the room mostly in penumbra save for the gray daylight that filtered in from the billowing curtains every so often that a gust of breeze sifted through the ajar slats.

Content to cuddle back under the quilt with you, Javi shifted to blearily squint over his shoulder at the alarm clock on the nightstand closest to the bedroom's door and ended up balking at the time displayed.

Begrudgingly, but carefully maneuvering his limbs from around yours and shuffling backwards from where he'd been spooning you, Javi got out of bed and quietly went over to the pile of his clothes strewn about the entry of the bedroom. As he does so, you roll into the side of the bed he's vacated in your slumber. Making sure to remain silent while you sigh in your sleep as you cuddle the pillow his head had been resting on most of the night, he's relieved to not have woken you, and resumes grabbing for his pants before suddenly remembering he'd left his cell phone in the center console of his car.

Internally swearing to himself, Javier discards the chinos and sneaks out to make a pitstop in the bathroom across from the bedroom door in the hall, before quietly going down to the living room to find your house phone. He's in the buff, scratching at his tousled hair, cataloguing your apartment now in the morning light as he lopes over to pick up the receiver from the console table against the wall of the entry, and quickly dials Steve to let him know he definitely isn't making it to the gym.

"—Fuck, man. I just got ready and put my sneakers on to go get you," his friend grumbles around a yawn, testily adding, "You're the one who hassled me into working out—"

"First off, you're a father of two now and you're in shit shape," Javi mutters sarcastically as he paces from the living room over to the kitchen to open the fridge, unabashed as he retrieves the carton of orange juice and sets it down on the counter, enjoying the cool air from the fridge as he stands completely in the nude while he looks over at the direction of the balcony slider doors and notices the overcast sky peeking through the vertical blinds. "Second, I got ahold of you before you were inconvenienced in going out in this weather—"

"So, the date went well, then?" Steve fishes, raspy drawl goading.

"Yeah, it did," Javi answers in a hushed tone as he shuts the fridge door and opens the carton of juice before taking a long pull from it, letting out a sated exhale to then mumble, "Anyway, raincheck on the gym. I'll talk to you later—"

"Just make sure you get her approval on double date night for Valentine's, bud," is the deriding taunt his buddy zings his way before saying goodbye.

Scoffing, Javi chugs orange juice until he's had his fill, returns the carton to the fridge, and fills a glass of water up before he takes it and the phone receiver with him back to the room. He passes the guest bedroom and notices for the first time a dim flicker emanating beyond the ajar door. Peeking in, he sees it's a neatly appointed room with a daybed, and a wide dresser up against the wall. On said dresser is a little altar flanked by tall white continental candles. There's one next to a photo of your grandmother, and it makes a twinge of recall warm his heart.

Returning to your bedroom now, Javi takes the opportunity to catalogue the space before fondly gazing at your sleeping form.

You've rolled back into the opposite side of the mattress, so he sets the glass on a coaster already tucked onto the nightstand next to his watch, puts the phone by the lamp, and slides back under the covers with you.

You unfurl once he's spooned up behind you again, sleepily rolling over to cuddle against him. The soft scent of your hair, the loving way you nuzzle his neck, and the gentle sigh you let out once you've curled up against him makes it easy for Javi to relax and doze back off.

A couple of hours later, it's your turn to slowly stir, stretching out groggily before begrudgingly waking when your body aches and commands that you take care of a biological need. You sit up carefully and peer over at Javier, seeing he's passed out on his stomach on the side of the bed you typically sleep in. His bare back is smooth and expands broadly as he breathes deep, relaxed breaths that soften his purring snore. You frown when you see the scratches your nails left on his back, but upon closer inspection, you're relieved to see they weren't welts or cuts by brushing your fingertips gently over them and finding they were smooth and likely to fade over the course of the day.

Your touch stirs a soft, bassy hum out of your sleeping hunk before he buries his face deeper into the pillow.

Smiling at having not stirred him awake, you gingerly sneak out of bed and walk around to the door, tiptoeing over your combined discarded clothes, and quickly go into the bathroom, clicking the door quietly shut behind you.

Well, so much for taking it slow, you think to yourself as you sit, but can't muster the reproachful feelings the admonishment should conjure. Instead, you take your time to replay moments from last night as you delicately stand and flush to go wash your hands. As you do so, you end up staring at your kiss-bruised, glowing features in the mirror over the sink vanity and smile before forcing yourself to wash your face and brush your teeth. You eye the mark he left from grazing his teeth on your sloping muscle, and feel a tremor of delight quiver in your sore nether regions.

The entire time you're in the bathroom, you relive the amazing feelings Javier had stirred up in you, and can't deny how effervescent and gleeful recalling everything makes you feel now, even with your wits regained.

From the moment he'd pulled you close and kissed you, any tentativeness between you both had dissolved, and all caution had been discarded for the passionate ways you each needed to bask in carnal adoration once again.

Unlike the last time you'd both gotten tempestuously ensnared and ended up rapaciously in his bed, you don't feel any trepidation or exasperation with yourself. If anything, you're trying to remind yourself why you'd been so keen on taking things slow. And when you remember how you'd told him how much you missed and loved him last night? The feeling that warms you when your mind's eye recalls the expression on Javier's face – how bright his dark eyes got, and how his features softened – it makes you yearn all over again.

You want to cherish what you have, and not overanalyze it or default to compartmentalizing it for fear of repeating mistakes or succumbing to resurging heartache.

When you sneak back into the room, you find Javier has rolled onto his back in his sleep.

He has a hand shoved behind a pillow, one leg flung over the quilt, and his other hand flopped over the bunched-up blanket at his belly. The breeze ruffles through the curtains and fills the room up with cool air while providing the cover for you to quickly pick up all the clothes strewn on the floor and place them aside on the cushioned wicker chair in the corner of your bedroom before you tiptoe soundlessly to the side of the bed next to the windows and stealthily slip back under the covers with him.

Sidling up carefully next to his sleeping form, you gaze down at him lovingly while he snores lightly, cheeks covered with stubble and hair a tousled mess of dark chocolate curls. His chest rises and falls with his gentle breathing, and his expression is the most relaxed you've ever seen him. Admiringly, you let your gaze wander the expanse of tan bare skin and toned muscles on his torso, committing every beauty mark, dark vello and chiseled contour to memory.

You notice the time on the clock when you glance up from his taut abdomen and frown, wondering if you're being too indulgent by keeping him all to yourself, when he stretches out and exhales. His hand shifts from his stomach up so he can drape his forearm across his eyes with a rumbled grunt before kicking the rest of the quilt off of him.

Cheekily biting your lip at getting a gander at his completely nude form in the dim mid-morning light, you decide to see how much teasing you can do before he's stirred awake.

First, you ever-so-lightly caress your fingertips along the inside of his thigh. Aside from the tendons flexing at the contact, he doesn't wake, so, you skim your touch over his hip and down his happy trail before fanning your fingers out to delicately brush his resting manhood. Javier hums in his sleep, but doesn't rouse, so you next lean over and kiss a beauty mark that's on the side of his ribcage before grazing a soft path with your lips up to his pectoral. The hand behind the pillow shifts out to dangle his arm over the edge of the bed while he yawns and arches his spine.

It's when he drags his forearm up to flop above his head that his eyes flutter open before he stiffens at the sensation of ticklish pleasure that makes him squirm, just as he wakes up and sees you're tracing the tip of your tongue along his nipple.

"Hmph, cristo amado, what'd I do to get such a naughty wake-up call?" he chortles gruffly – voice thick from disuse, before yawning noisily and smiling at you snickering girlishly at him.

"You lying here like a Playgirl centerfold, that's what," you tease before lounging sidelong against him so you can affectionately comb your fingers through his wild, wavy curls after he snakes his arm under you and tugs you to cuddle close. "Took advantage and leered at you, hermoso."

Javier grins dreamily before turning to nudge his cheek against yours, humming for you to kiss him. You do so, chastely, then huff an endearing sound before letting him deepen the kiss with the greedy sweep of his tongue into your mouth, and in an instant, he's rolling to flatten you into the disheveled bed while he tries to maneuver back under the blanket in order to be pressed skin-to-skin with you.

"Hngth, Javi," you mumble in between kisses, which makes him regain his wits and prop himself up on his hands to give you his complete attention. "As much as I love lazing in bed all day, I don't want to keep you from any plans you might've had already—"

Scoffing agreeably, he maneuvers to lounge sidelong next to you, as he drawls, "I woke up this morning and got a raincheck, so no worries, querida." You look surprised, so he snorts and nods over to the nightstand as he remarks, "I brought the phone in after calling Steve. Left my cellphone in the car."

You notice that indeed the wireless phone is set next to the lamp, and smile when you see he brought you a glass of water too. Craning your neck out to look over his shoulder allows Javier to notice the nippy scrapes he left near the base of your neck.

He reaches up to caress his touch conciliatorily and grunts reproachfully at himself before muttering, "Got carried away last night."

"Mmm, it's ok," you sigh as you notice the faint pinkish hickey you left on that delectable spot just under his jaw and pet your fingertips gently over it. "We both tend to do that. You should see your back," you chime and smile when he sits up further on the bed and angles his back towards the mirror over your dresser so he can peek over his shoulder and see for himself.

"Shit, I don't even feel 'em," he chuckles, appraising the hickey with a tilt of his head before snorting – as if almost pleased – before flopping back down to lounge next to you.

"Good. I never mean to use you as a scratching post, I swear," you goofily mumble, and smirk when he gives you a scruffy, moustache-heavy kiss into the valley of your breasts, making you crack up with laughter. At your raspy timbre, he shifts sidelong onto his hip in order to retrieve the glass of water and hand it to you. You sit up to recline your back into the headboard before guzzling the water down. "Mmm, thanks," you sigh once you've quenched your thirst and handed the empty glass for him to set it back onto the coaster for you.

"So? What about you?" he asks once he's flopped onto his side and rested his cheek in his hand to ogle you ruggedly. "Am I keeping you from anything?"

You gather your wild hair and comb it to one side over your shoulder as you smile and chime, "Nope. Because of the rainstorms, Anita and I are skipping our Saturday routine this weekend. I'm all yours today, galán," is your silky purr as you playfully wink at him.

Pleased, Javi pulls you by your waist down into the pillows and grunts before crooning smugly, "Perfect. I wasn't gonna let you out of this bed for a few more hours anyway."

He's true to his word.

After fooling around for a while, in which Javi sweetly kissed down your body and promised to be gentle – using only his tongue caressing over your clit to make you orgasm, you then domineeringly got him on his back so you could go down on him with gusto before you both ended up tuckered out against each other in a languid tangle of limbs.

"I could get used to staying in bed like this," Javier murmurs puckishly before turning his head to plant a kiss to your cheek.

"I'm sure," you chuckle as you roll to sit up on your elbow and affectionately smile down at him while you caress your hand along his chest. You relish how his eyes flutter closed and he hums at your touch skimming from his chest up to his cheek before you fan your fingers to comb through the hair at the side of his head, zeroing in on that spot behind his ear that turns him into putty.

"Hmm, that feels nice," he purrs in a sigh and relaxes.

Lovingly, you lean down and kiss the beauty marks dusting his corded neck before settling your lips to suckle lightly over his pulse point. Javi tips his head back and groans in approval before gasping when you suddenly nip the spot.

"Alright, we both smell sinful," you chirp mischievously before sitting up and impishly tickling down his toned sides, as you goofily singsong, "A bañarnos, mi cariñito."

Squirming under your attempt to tickle him, Javi quickly cuffs your wrists in his big hands and playfully wrestles you onto him before rolling to pin you onto the bed, grinning as you squeal and giggle effervescently while trying to fend him off sassily.

"I like how we smell, atrevida," he grouses as he relentlessly suckles kisses into your neck and shoulder while you cackle and snake your arms free to loop around his neck.

"That's because you're a filthy beyako!" you guffaw while he roughhouses to try and pin you down again, but you manage to cling to him instead and nuzzle his neck with a silly sound.

He laughs and lays on his side, giving up as you bossily clamber onto his lap and pin his arms down above his head in victory. "I give up!" Javi exclaims in a ridiculous grouchy voice, and you smile triumphantly before leaning down and showering his grinning features with doting kisses. "But seriously. I don't have stuff to change into, so I'll have to go down to my car and grab my gym bag—"

"Oooh, you'll have to do the walk of shame in your rumpled clothes," you snicker and bounce your brows derisively at him.

Chuckling, Javi sits up and kisses you on the lips before patting your thigh for you to climb off his lap so he can bound off the bed and grab for his clothes tossed on the wicker chair. Once he's finished buttoning his shirt, he comes over and pecks you on the lips before you tell him to grab your keys on the way out.

By the time Javi comes back through the front door with his gym bag, you're already in the kitchen setting out the ingredients for breakfast. His stare doesn't make it to the counter to see the carton of eggs you've already emptied by cracking what was left of the dozen into a mixing bowl, not when you're wearing his cotton undershirt and nothing else.

"Jesus Christ, are you trying to drive me crazy?" Javi growls as he drops the duffle by the bar top kitchen counter and comes up behind you to crowd you against him.

You giggle effervescently as you try to fend off his gropy touch and raunchy kisses. "Quit it!" is your silly huff as you turn in his arms and nudge him back a few paces whilst exclaiming, "I was going to draw a bath first, but then I figured you'd be hungry, so I grabbed the closest thing and put it on."

He groans and tows you closer with his hands cupping your hips. "I'm fucking starving, but now I just want to do filthy things to you all over again," he grumbles in a low octave as he nuzzles your mussed hair at your temple.

"Babe, I'm sore," you whine begrudgingly, tone clearly communicating how badly you wish you weren't. Javi leans back to give you a sincere frown, brows already knitting together in upset, so you mollify, "No me mires así, mi amor. A nice hot shower will loosen things up—"

"Hmph," Javi grunts and sweetly holds you to him before pressing a kiss to your forehead, purring, "Mi tiernita."

You melt in his arms and just relish how serene you feel, being with him like this.

It's easy to end up abandoning the kitchen to instead indulge in a nice, hot shower together. Especially when Javi rubs your back while you lean into him.

He enjoys being in the roomy shower stall with you, and is more than happy to let you scrub him down with your fragrant soap and shampoo his hair with an irreverent giggle. But seeing the way you stare up at him under dewy lashes, features warm and wet as you smile at him after affectionately sweeping his drenched hair back from his forehead, has him lovestruck. Like he's found the center of the universe, and it's in your adoring face.

Needless to say, all he wants to do is dote on you, so after you both exit the shower, Javier declares that he wants you to relax for the rest of the day, so he has you sit in the wicker chair while he strips the bed of the filthy linens before dressing it with fresh sheets and a lightweight ivory coverlet. While he does so, you both banter about the things you can do – other than each other – while cooped up in your apartment during the stormy weekend.

"—I have some movies from Blockbuster we can watch," you're telling him now as you finish towel drying your hair while he empties out his gym bag and sorts out the dirty from the clean clothes, setting the latter aside onto your dresser.

"That works," he muses coolly as he tugs his underwear on before removing the towel from his waist, grabbing a pair of gray drawstring sweatpants and yanking them on.

"Oh, hand me the phone?" you chime after he's pulled a plain white t-shirt on and has tossed his now empty duffle aside.

Javi sits on the bed after he's handed you the wireless receiver and admires how cozy you look in your terrycloth robe with your damp hair swept over a shoulder. So much so, that he doesn't have a chance to ask who you're calling before you've quickly dialed the number and greeted congenially, "Hola, Zory," and go on to have a quick catchup with your friend before asking her for a hookup on a foursome reservation at the nicest restaurant you can think of in El Condado. "—Oh, yeah, I know I'll owe you big," you're chortling now as you crinkle your eyes cutely at Javi when you answer your friend with, "Ah-hah, te presento mi jevo pronto, ok?"

Javi mouths, 'Jevo?' and arches his brow when you squint mischievously at him before standing and going to your closet to find a comfortable housedress to put on.

"—Thanks, girl! Hang out soon," you tell Zoraida before finishing the call and emerging from the closet with a beachy-patterned yellow dress.

"Well?" Javi presses debonairly as he reclines against the headboard and watches you shed your robe to shimmy into the billowy dress. "What's a jevo?"

Giving him a Cheshire cat grin, you coquettishly hang up your robe on the closet door hook while you drawl, "Oh, around these parts? That's slang for boyfriend," then innocently saunter out of your room with the house phone in hand.

You hear the mattress protest with how quickly Javier jumps up to rush after you, and are giggling while you try to make it to the kitchen before he can sweep you up and take you back to bed.

He most definitely wants to indulge in driving you wild after that, but compromises with himself and instead bosses you out of the kitchen so he can cook instead. You set the phone back into its base, then park at a barstool and watch him from the other side of the counter while he unpackages the bacon and starts placing them on the hot skillet he's let heat up.

Amusedly, you pick up the copy of El Nuevo Día you'd left on the corner of the counter and hold it up for him to see as you lilt, "Look, the difference a couple of weeks makes."

Leaning over to see the group photo taken in the banquet hall, Javi smirks and starts prepping the coffee kettle. With an irreverent hum, he quips, "Yep, if that me only knew how hard you'd slap him—"

"You're never going to let me live that down, huh," you sarcastically complain, lopsided smile brazen when he shrugs aloofly and places the cafetera on the stove burner. "C'mon, what do I have to do to completely make up for that?" is your whimsical query.

Javier's brain has to stop him from blurting, 'Marry me.'

Shaking his head clear, he keeps whisking the eggs while the scoop of butter he slicked into the pan sizzles up. Once he's poured the eggs into it, he counters glibly over his shoulder, "Put on that sexy nighty later?"

You rest your elbows on the counter and cup your face when he looks over at you with those damnable brown puppy eyes. So, you exhale a flirtatious breath before humming, "Done deal, chulito."

He's more than pleased when you slink off of the barstool to round the counter and tow him away from the stove so you can get on your tippy toes and press a passionate kiss to his full, smiling lips.

Cheekily, he pinches your waist before herding you out towards the fridge so he can reclaim his place at the stove. "Do me a favor, and pull out the orange juice for me?" he drawls in that raspy timbre that makes excitement flutter warmly in your belly.

Snickering imperiously, you do as you're asked, but when you pull out the carton, your brows furrow curiously at how light the contents seem. When you uncap it and go to retrieve a glass for him, Javier surprises you by pilfering the carton from you and pressing it to his lips, chugging the juice down in several long gulps.

Scoffing at his audacity, you swat his bicep after he lets out a gloating sigh and hands you the empty carton, charging wryly, "You hog! What a glutton—"

"I'll buy more when we go food shopping," he tuts unabashedly as he lets the cooked bacon settle onto the paper towel-lined plate before shutting the burner off and moving the egg pan aside.

You use the diversion to maneuver him to tend to the kettle while you make short work of pulling two coffee mugs from the cupboard as you mutter sassily, "You're lucky you're sexy. That's all I'm gonna say!"

Once the food is ready, you both curl up on the couch together and have breakfast for lunch. And after you're both full, you lounge length-wise on the comfortable cushions and watch one of the movies you rented. Truthfully, though, you end up canoodling more than actually paying attention to the plot.

When the credits roll, you eject the VHS and replace it into the case before handing Javier the remote while you take the dishes to the sink. He puts it on a random channel before getting up to herd you away from the sink so he can clean up. Not to be thwarted, you scamper down the hall to your bedroom and return lugging your hamper now filled with his gym bag clothes and your laundry. He's just finished setting the last pan aside to dry when he hears you fiddling with the washing machine dials in the laundry room behind the kitchen.

"You are incorrigible!" he acerbically grumbles when he comes into the tidy laundry room before he swings you up into his arms bridal style and marches back to the sofa.

"Babe, it's just laundry," you simper while he carries you. "C'mon, you need me to wash your stinky clothes—"

You end up squeaking comically when he tosses you down onto the comfortable couch before he drops onto the cushions and crawls over you. "I need you to be a good girl and relax like I told you to," is his husk as he presses his broad frame in around you before nudging your cheek with his in a show of bossy dominance.

It's ridiculous how much that turns you on and makes you pliant underneath him.

The rest of the time you're both cuddled on the couch, you're nothing but affectionate, albeit obediently coquettish with him. You can't remember the last time you've relaxed like this, being idle couch potatoes without a care in the world.

You're nestled between the sofa cushions and Javi while you watch the sitcom reruns, content and tickled by his current line of questioning.

"—What's this show even about?"

"Oh, it's not really about anything. Just funny anecdotal hijinks each of the four friends get into."

"So, it's about nothing in particular?"

"Yeah. They're all neurotic people who get caught up in silly scenarios, usually by their own rude ignorance, sense of self-importance, or some ironic karmic result. The guy with the crazy hair is the weird neighbor who's always doing some grifty thing that never pans out for him—"

"People watch this?"

"It's the biggest comedy of the last couple of years, evidently."

Javier shakes his head at that and keeps combing his deft fingers through your hair while he stares at the screen. "Cable is overrated," is his laconic mutter, to which you snicker and squeeze your arms around him amusedly.

"I have two other movies we can pick from instead," you suggest, but are too cozy snuggled against him and the back cushions to want to move.

He puts up with sitcom reruns until evening, where he finally lets you wear him down; laundry gets done, and you whip up a healthy dinner of chicken florentine with spaghetti squash that has him astounded by how tasty it is. You both eat at your glass table with the vertical blinds open so you can both watch the mellow rain drizzle down while the breeze gets the foliage of the trees and tropical plants swaying whilst you talk about your upcoming plans for the work week.

After dinner dishes are left to soak in the sink, you both curl back up on the couch to watch the beastly thriller in the dark. Javier's arm is around your shoulders while you snuggle into his side, resting your head against his. You both occasionally jolt against each other whenever a jump scare occurs, but most of the time, Javier is peeking down his nose at you to see you're stoically watching the movie. He tries to gauge whether you're really into the preposterous plot, and keeps his jeers quiet – until the credits roll and you sit up to give him your best poker face.

You know he's been bursting at the seams, so you shake your head as you go eject the movie from the VCR and place it into its case.

As expected, he heckles derisively about how bad it was the entire time you're flouncing around the apartment to get ready for bed.

"—I can't believe you rented that!"

"What?! It looked scary! I didn't know it was going to be so goofy—"

"Jack Nicholson as a wolfman didn't sound goofy to you—?!"

"Oh my god, I didn't know it was going to be so silly, chavón—"

"I had to do everything not to laugh during that ridiculous fight scene—"

"Ay, ok, Mr. Movie Critic! Just quit hassling me and come to bed."

Shaking your head at hearing him scoff sarcastically while you change into the sultry nighty Javier loves, you suppress a smirk when he comes in and pauses to stare at your form. You're sauntering to the side of the bed you favor before pulling the covers back while he chuckles to himself as he sheds his shirt and sweatpants after turning out the light in the hall. He struts in the buff over to where you've just climbed under the blanket, and impishly maneuvers you to slide farther across the width of the mattress onto the opposite side of the bed, nearest the windows, before getting under the covers and turning off the bedside lamp.

You snicker, "Tan controlador."

He loops his arm around your waist and tows you to be snug against him, husking in a canela-rough purr, "Go to sleep, provocadora."

After not getting much sleep the night before, it's easy for the two of you to stretch out and doze off together, especially when the sound of the rain and the chill of the breeze lulls you both into peaceful slumber.

You end up dreaming of being in the mountains, driving down the precarious, winding road that overlooks the lush valley below and the promontories in the distance. The sky is sparkling blue and twinkling across the windshield of the Cadillac you're driving. You're alone in the car as you drive down and pull off to park at a roadside overlook. Instead of the tropical din of animals, the air is filled with a distant melody you're trying to place, when you sense someone approach where you're looking out at the view.

Just as you turn, Javier looks over at you and smiles. The melody starts to get clearer as he pulls you into his arms, and you're finally able to make out the words to the song.

¡Que viva el amor y duren los encantos! Que el mundo se entere que nos amamos tanto El amor es perfecto cuando se ama Amor transparente más claro que el agua

The song's chorus keeps echoing in the air around you while Javi holds you close, and just as you rest your cheek against his chest and look back out at the picturesque valley scenery beyond, you wake up to the blaring of your alarm clock.

Javier groans and blindly rolls over to try and shut it off, but he's not used to the clock's switches, so he fumbles and swears under his breath as he tries to focus his bleary, squinting eyes to find the off button.

Reaching over him, you easily deactivate the alarm and slink against his back to flop into the mattress and roll over with a grumbled, "Sorry. Forgot it was preset for my Sunday morning jog."

"Jeez," he gravels out as he turns onto his back and scrubs at his eyes. "Who're you trying to get in such sexy shape for anyway?" is his snarky grouse as he sits up on his elbow and peers goofily over at you, cocking a brow at you when you scoff and roll over to sneer at him.

"Mira quien habla," you lob around a yawn before sitting up to glare sassily at him when he rolls his eyes and shifts up to recline his back against the headboard. Leering at his broad chest and his defined abdomen as you drape the blanket up to your collarbone, you sulk, "You've clearly been working out for a while long before you got down here—"

He blows a raspberry at that as he scratches his messy hair. "Yeah, well, it wasn't to impress anyone else, unlike you—" he pauses when you hit him across the chest with your pillow.

"Since when have I done anything to impress anyone else?" you challenge as you bop him on the head with the pillow now, smirking when he wrestles it away and shoves it to be pinned between his back and the headboard.

"Baby, give me a fuckin' break. You had men wanting to fall to their knees and worship your hot ass before. And now? They're probably willing to sell their souls to get a chance at touching you," is Javi's gruff compliment, all while his features take on a chiseled, intense etch to them when you look at him dubiously. He can't help a hint of insecure jealousy bleed into his muttered tone as he points out, "You never worked out before—"

With a huffy exhale, you snipe, "That's because my life didn't fall apart in a day and I didn't subsequently spend months being a depressed shiftless layabout who overindulged in all the decadent Caribbean food my heart could ever desire – all the other times we broke up." At his expression dropping into a frown, you dial back your angsty energy and coolly add, "And you remember how big the embassy was. My workout was hoofing it up and down that building all the time. I did a lot more walking back in Colombia, and in general, got plenty of cardio," you bounce your brows suggestively at him, earning a snicker and silly smirk from him at the obvious compliment. "So, around Christmas, when I couldn't get into my favorite jeans? I decided to diet and be more active. It also helped that all my girlfriends down here are nutrition-savvy, workout fiends, so I had the motivation to stick to it. Now it's part of my routine, and I enjoy it well enough," is your elaboration before you shrug your bare shoulders.

Javier seems to absorb your explanation and feel at ease, which encourages you to stick to the half-truths and continue omitting your health-related motives for being more fit.

Deciding to deflect the attention back to him, you hum an easygoing sound and playfully nudge his shoulder, squeezing his deltoid appealingly as you drawl, "Well? Don't hold out on me now. You were a damned sexy stud before, but clearly you wanted to sculpt your bod up for someone—"

He huffily slaps his hands down over his blanket-covered thighs and grouses, "Not true. When I'd first gotten back home, I went out to help my dad mend a fuckin' fence, and within no time – from just lifting the posts and digging the holes, I was so damned winded – sweating my ass off, and dizzy from the labor, that I knew it was because I was in shit shape," he pauses when he looks over and catches your worried pout, so he confesses, "When I chased Jurado, I could barely keep up. My lungs ached and my knees wobbled. I didn't catch my breath for over an hour…"

You tuck your legs under you and lean close to him. "And you feel better now?" you ask, eyes scanning his features for any sign of doubt.

"Much better, yeah. I can run a mile without getting winded. That's probably more from quitting smoking than anything, but helping around the ranch, getting hassled by my buddy to hit the gym with him – it all helped get me into shape. It also helped me redirect the pent-up energy, and kept me from going fucking crazy there," he explains, and when you relax, he snakes his arm around your waist and tugs you close. Giving you a roguish look, he gravels lowly, "You're the only one I want checking out my 'damned sexy sculpted' body anyway, chingona. I'll keep fit just for you, so don't bother being tan celosa—"

You brazenly swat his shoulder, sitting up to bossily start crawling over him to the side of the bed he's occupying while you imperiously jibe, "Oh god, forget I even said anything, jodón! Serves me right—"

Thwarting you, Javier effortlessly hauls you back and over his lap to sit facing the dresser, where you can see your reflection in the mirror. It should be embarrassing how quickly your nipples stud underneath the silky nighty at the sight of him watching you over your shoulder as he fondles his hands down your hourglass shape to squeeze your hips in a show of dominance before he kicks the coverlet away from his legs and grinds his ramrod erection against you.

"What were you gonna say, bravita?" he gruffly husks against the back of your ear as he settles you to straddle just right, causing you to gasp and clutch at his thighs.

You bite your lip and rub against him, wearing nothing under the nighty and already wet with desire as you get off on the salaciousness reflected in the mirror. "S-Serves me right for being sincere w-with a raunchy fresco," you stammer breathily as Javi paws his hands under the silky fabric to line you up with the thick spear of his cock just as he thrusts home into your molten cunt now.

The way heat rushes up your body and radiates at your cheeks as you end up watching Javi fuck you makes you dizzy and needy, shameless even. You bend forward to manage the momentum to rock back against his pounding thrusts, whimpering when Javi growls, "Never get enough. You love just driving me crazy, don't you."

"Ahh!" is your silky cry as you buck back onto him and arch your back when he sets a quick, rough pace after he catches you smirking titillatingly in the mirror. His hands bunch your nighty up to the center of your back so he can stare at your ass while his cock disappears into your silken cunt. It has him ravenous, seeing how you're loving the way he's dominating you – by how eager your mewls are when he kneads the globe of your ass before teasingly brushing the pad of his thumb in slow circles over your tight ring of muscle.

You keen airily when his talented digit presses into the puckering hole, teasing it while he guides your undulating hips to keep riding his cock. When he finally eases his thumb in, you whine a needy sound as your cunt contracts excitedly. He rewards you with a pleased groan before snapping his hips up to fuck deep into the angle that steals your breath away and has you grasping at your own thighs to not bowl forward into the bed.

"Take those gorgeous tits out. Wanna watch you touch them while I fill you up," he orders in a raspy purr before loosening his grip on the back of your nighty so he can drag his palm down your back before spanking your ass.

You clench around his cock and his thumb as you whimper a thrilling sound. A deviant thrill flares in his gut at your reaction, and he's rapacious from the high of dominating you like this. Dark eyes intense and pleased as he watches your hands clumsily yank the nighty down your arms to expose your breasts before you cup each in your hands and start rubbing them tantalizingly while continuing to mindlessly ride him.

The weather outside is blustery, whipping rain and wind that has your curtains billowing gustily while you and Javi are completely swept up in the lascivious round of coupling, filling the room with the torrid squelching and skin-to-skin sounds of your rapturous lovemaking. Your heated skin feels the cool kiss of the breeze, but you're uncaring as you grope your breasts and ride his cock fervently while he fucks up in synchronized rhythm into your clenching pussy, hands greedy as they fondle, squeeze and clutch at your nubile form.

"Oh, Javi! F-Feels so good," you hiccup in a watery voice, getting quickly edged into a tizzy that has an orgasm prickling pleasure to radiate from the seat of your core into your throbbing clit. You pinch your nipples and sigh, "Javi—"

"Mmm, fuck. That's it, preciosa. So c-close," he groans as his thrusts become slamming pounds that steal your breath and have you dripping arousal while your pussy flutters around his pulsing shaft. "Such a good girl. Just take it, take it all—"

His breath catches in his chest when his heavy-lidded gaze looks up from where he's receded his thumb from your ass, to the mirror just as you sob a reedy cry of pleasure and climax on a whine of his name before arching forward and gripping the bed as you gush your orgasm. The sensation of your sheath strangling around him while your slick soaks his crotch has Javier biting down on a swear, clutching both hands on your waist, and barreling with burning need into you just as pleasure snaps loose and has his balls pulling up and tight against him from his searing climax.

You're turned into melted sinew after such an exhilaratingly, fierce sexcapade. So much so, that you realize after you come down from the post-bliss that Javier has you reclined back against him. His chest is so warm against your back while your overheated skin cools and your muscles throb in post-coital repose. He's breathing raggedly against the side of your head as he nuzzles you with primal affection and caresses your supple curves lovingly while his cock is still in the warm haven of your still-fluttering cunt.

There are no flirty, spent words between you whilst you both languidly cuddle and kiss, mirror's reflection forgotten to instead gaze dreamily at each other from under lust-heavy gazes. Your gravitation makes it easy to intrinsically speak with just a soft look or gentle glance, so while the rain picks up outside and fills the apartment with the languid atmospheric acoustics of a stormy morning, you both eventually saunter out of bed and into the bathroom together.

It isn't until the pleasant domesticity after your shared hot shower post-coital that Javi breaks the tranquility.

Handing you a towel before quickly grabbing his own to dry off, he smirks over at you and drawls, "You got your Sunday workout after all."

You pause in mid-dry on the fluffy rug in front of the shower stall while he impishly grins from where he's stood busily wrapping the towel around his waist.

It's too perfect. You can't even muster the haughty umbrage.

Tiptoeing over where he's standing on the opposite fluffy rug in front of the soaking tub, you stare up at him through the fringe of your dark lashes as you kiss his chest.

"It sure beat jogging, or doing a hot yoga session," you sultrily chirp, smirking as you turn to go brush your teeth.

Intrigued, he sweeps his hand to brush his wet hair back from his forehead. "Hot yoga?"

As you both go through the morning routine, you tell Javier about all the different workouts you do, and detail the difference between yoga and hot yoga. Of course, while you describe the kind of workout you get doing the latter, he fixates on picturing you stretched out in nimble poses while sweating it up in a heated studio, wearing a flimsy aerobics outfit that clings to your body. Especially when you mention that one of the poses is called 'downward dog.'

You catch the way his eyes darken in the mirror with lust at picturing you in the pose, so you turn from pulling on your buttery-soft Journey tour shirt and snicker at him before moving from the dresser to where he's still stood in the towel by the bed, where you'd set down the laundry basket.

"You behave while I make breakfast, and I might show you how limber I am now by getting into some of those yoga poses later," you sultrily proposition as you impishly snatch the towel from his waist and spank his bare butt before sauntering away to the bathroom to hang it up on the rack. You hear Javi make a gruff sound of enticement as he sorts through the clean laundry for something to wear. As you retrieve a scrunchie from a cubby on your vanity counter in order to quickly pull your hair up in a high ponytail, you tell him over your shoulder, "Since we went through the eggs and bacon yesterday, I'll make some avena and a fruit salad to hold us over until after food shopping—"

"Hmph. No offense, cariño, but I'm starving and in need of something meaty after how ragged you've run me already," Javi drawls as he comes in and leans against the bathroom's doorway.

Turning to scowl sarcastically at him, you end up giving him a flirty once over, thanks to him wearing only a pair of jeans he'd snagged from the pile you'd washed last night and had set aside. With his clothes from Friday night and the ones in the gym bag, a lot of his laundry required ironing, or were in the load you'd tossed in the dryer earlier, so besides a few undershirts, a pair of white socks and skivvies, he didn't have any clean shirts to wear.

Smirking at him, you lope by him and crook your finger for him to follow you as you remark, "Well, since we woke up early, we can get breakfast at the panadería before we go food shopping," then impishly smile as you open a dresser drawer to retrieve something before tossing it over to him, chiming, "And since it's just a dreary, rainy Sunday, it'll be ok for you to wear this."

Javi easily catches his gray college shirt.

It's soft, scented with the gentle hint of fabric softener from the other shirts it was folded under, and smelling of you.

"You know, when I went through the box of stuff, and didn't find this in there, I wondered," he murmurs as he glances over at you before pulling the shirt on. Once he's tugged it down over his torso, he fusses with his hair to keep from fidgeting from the admittance.

"Wondered?" you ask and try not to outwardly fawn over how good the shirt looks on him, as it accentuates his broad shoulders, defined pecs, and muscular arms.

You're internally drooling on wanting to kiss his biceps when he elaborates, "I wondered if you kept it, in order to send a message. Sort of like a hint that you still wanted to work things out."

Blinking, you self-consciously scoff, "No, actually, I'd been so mad while I was packing your things, I forgot I had the shirt tucked away in my nightgown drawer." At the comical way Javier's shoulders droop and his mustachioed lip curls in a frown, you rush over to hug him around his waist and effervescently assure, "But yes! I think I subconsciously wanted to keep it as a way to lure you back to me, because when I found it afterward, I didn't want to part with it. Call me sentimental, I guess."

Javi snorts, deadpanning, "Yeah, right. Nice try with the save."

You laugh and pinch his waist before standing on your tippy toes to kiss his haughtily pursed lips until he surrenders and smiles.

Once you're both dressed in t-shirts, jeans, and sneakers – ready for a rainy morning of running errands, you take Javier's car to the panadería, and run in together huddled under your coral-colored collapsible umbrella from where he parked, into the bustling business to get in the queue to order your meals at the counter. His stomach growls at the delicious aromas filling the space while most opt to eat-in to avoid the deluge, and he's marveling at the portion sizes of the sandwiches most are indulging in at the cafeteria-style tables.

"Don't worry. I'll order for you," is your confident lilt as you gesture to a little table by the front window of the bakery, handing him the now compact umbrella while you suggest, "Oh, can you go grab that corner for us?"

Intrigued, Javi nods and affectionately caresses his hand along the small of your back as he walks over and weaves through the tables to get to the tucked away 2-seater. He idly looks around the space, staring at the Valentine's Day decorations festooned behind the counter and the dangling hearts hanging from the ceiling. The bombardment of cherubic cupids plastered along the walls in between the store signs has him making a mental note to look for a florist, hoping he can find one for the romantic holiday.

After a few minutes, you arrive at the table with two to-go coffee cups, and smile when Javi chivalrously gets up to pull back your seat for you.

"So? What'd you order?" he asks and pesteringly slides the cup from your grasp so he can box your hand in between both of his, squeezing and massaging it as you snicker at him.

"You'll see!" is all you offer, smiling and patting your free hand reassuringly over his left one.

Humming, he checks his watch before glancing out at the stormy street beyond the glass window.

"It feels so much later than it is. I don't think the sun has come out this whole weekend," he marvels, letting your hand slip free from between both of his so you can peel the flaps back on each cup before sliding one to him.

"Yeah, and it's gonna be like that into most of this week, too," you muse before taking a sip of your coffee.

He grunts, holding his cup between his palms as he looks back at you. The hesitance that had been keeping you pensive and reluctant before is gone, and he senses you're not rueful anymore about pursuing things again, so he wonders if he should suggest wanting to meet your father. You had said he knew about your relationship, and that things between you were much better, but he wasn't sure if that would have your guard snap back up.

Just as he was getting the courage to ask, the lady behind the serving counter shouts out a number, and you turn to gesture that you're on your way to grab it. "Be right back," you snicker to him before rushing up and weaving your way to the counter.

Javi takes the chance alone to argue with himself as he drinks his coffee. We both agreed to take it slow, so maybe bringing up meeting her father right now would come off as a big step?

Ruminating a bit more about it, Javier is distracted in his thoughts when you make it back to the table with a cafeteria tray housing two sandwiches and large cups of freshly-prepared tropical fruit juice. But the moment you place it down and merrily sit across from him with a grin, his eyes go wide at the sandwich you've just slid towards him.

"Holy hell, what is this?!" he exclaims as he gapes at the massive sandwich while you innocently pull yours over and cutely rub your hands together.

"That, is a tripleta," you chime as you dutifully point at each layer housed within the fresh-baked pan criollo and list, "Grilled steak, lechón – aka roasted pork, and sliced deli ham, topped with onions, fries, fresh lettuce and tomato, ketchup, mayonnaise, mustard, and slices of cheese," you pause when he just gawks at the thing, so you hand him a napkin and innocently chirp, "Buen provecho, querido."

To say Javier has never had a more formidable sandwich in his life, would be an understatement. He figured it served him right for telling you he was starving and needing something substantial to satisfy his appetite. And by the way you're impishly eating your much smaller sandwich criollo de desayuno? It was obvious you were thinking the same thing.

Needless to say, he is stuffed to the gills and more than content to push the shopping cart along while you both are grocery shopping a short time later.

"—Christ, I don't think I'll need to eat for the next two days," he's quipping laconically now while you peruse the produce section. You giggle and look over at him when he leans his forearms on the cart's handle and mutters, "I gotta tell Steve. He'd love that sandwich. Although Connie would probably fret over the calorie overload—"

You laugh out, shaking your head in amusement as you bag some veggies before placing them in the cart. "It is a culinary staple here," is your chuckled musing as you tow the front of the cart for him to resume walking along to the fruit section. "The four of us will need to go food-hopping around the island sometime."

That makes him feel pride expand warmly in his chest. "We should. I wanna try that mofongo you've raved about—"

"Mmm, damn. I haven't had it in a while, too," you sigh as you pout at him when he scoffs. "What? My diet cut out starches and carbohydrates, so no plantains—"

"I would go crazy if I had to keep track of that stuff. I just eat whatever. Figure jogging and lifting weights makes up for it," he mutters as he peers at the label on one of the local fruits.

You roll your eyes, and grumble, "It's so easy for guys to stay in shape," and stop yourself from rambling, 'never having to deal with hormonal fluctuations,' because it cuts too close to the real reason you had to pursue a more fit lifestyle. So, you instead gripe, "You get to eat a tripleta and not have to worry about gaining any weight!"

Pushing the cart along to keep up with your meandering perusing, Javi checks out your ass when you bend to tighten one of your shoelaces. "Oh, I'll pay for that in heartburn later, most likely, but will work it off on my run tomorrow," is his affable retort, smiling when you stand and catch his leer, so you bossily tug the front of the cart along.

"Well, it's not like you have a tripleta every day, so you can indulge," you concede, before adding thoughtfully, "And food-hopping along kioskos is mostly about grazing rather than sitting and having a full-fledged meal, so it's definitely not a gluttony fest. Not to mention most of it will be fresh, using locally-sourced ingredients."

"Anything would be better than all the fast-food spots Steve's dragged me to since I got down here," is his droll drawl, giving you a lopsided smirk when you turn from bagging a bunch of bananas to hum for him to elaborate. "He's adamant that McDonald's tastes better down here, and loves all the local franchises. I definitely have to keep hitting the gym if I keep going to lunch with him," he rumbles and goofily pats his stomach.

"Hah, well Puerto Rican cuisine ain't slimming either, stud," you deride as you move on to the next stall to pick out some tangerines. "Luckily, though, I can indulge more now that I fit these jeans again, so taking you to have a mofongo relleno de camarones is definitely in the cards," is your musing, emphasizing your point by patting your tush and winking at him.

Chuckling, Javi teases, "As long as you're dessert? Sure."

You scoff girlishly and flick your ponytail over your shoulder as you scathe, "Quit being naughty in the fruit aisle, perv," while the smile in your eyes gives your enticement away before your plush lips pull into that enchanting smirk he loves so much.

"You know I can't help it, bravita," he tuts, and before he's thought it through, he blurts, "Loving you forever is only going to make it happen more."

As soon as he registers what he's said, he pauses in stride, thinking it much too glib, and expecting you to bristle. Instead, you turn and feign aloofness before sighing matter-of-factly, "You're lucky I love you enough to not mind that one bit."

He stares as you resume picking through fruit options, as if you haven't just reached into his chest and strummed his heartstrings – reverberating a sense of perfect harmony to fill him up.

Completely smitten, Javi gazes at you like you've unlocked something precious from within you and handed it to him for safe keeping. It makes a vast feeling of divine devotion settle in for good behind his ribcage, and he ends up becoming distracted with a sudden daydream of you looking up at him through your lashes from behind a sheer veil, when you turn and smile before clicking your tongue and tossing something at him.

Javi snaps out of his thoughts just in time to catch what you'd tossed as you singsong, "Thinking about the last time you had one of those?"

He snorts as he caresses the luscious peach in his hand before cocking a smug brow at you. "No, but I am now, you little tease," is his husk as he maneuvers the cart to box you in next to the fruit stall so he can swoop in next to you and pin you against him in order to pepper merciless kisses along your neck and jaw.

The peel of laughter you let out has a few heads turning to catch you two canoodling next to the plums, peaches and grapes, so you end up hissing goofily at him to stop when you catch some of the amused looks.

By the time you get to your door with the bags of groceries a while later, you and Javi are mirthfully ribbing each other about anything and everything while you breeze into your apartment and carry everything to the kitchen counter to work together in storing everything in its rightful place.

"—You're going to catch a cold, Javier!"

"I've run while it's raining plenty of times, gatita. It actually feels good—"

"But it's winter and flu season here, so you should just run on a treadmill at the gym instead—"

"Are you going to skip your jogs?"

"Yes! I'll meet Zoraida at one of her aerobics classes instead—"

"Mmm, you gotta model the outfits you wear to those classes for me so I can see if they're overly sexy and not appropriate for you to leave the house in—"

"Hah! What, crees que siendo mi jevo gives you the right to veto my workout outfits now?"

"At the very least, I should have an idea how hot you look when you're working up a sweat during those classes—"

Scoffing haughtily as you amble away to the answering machine after Javier cockily tries to tow you against him and the kitchen counter, you sardonically counter, "Come to one of the classes with me, and I'll let you pick what I wear."

"Even if I can't do much more than whatever is on a Richard Simmons tape?" is his sarcastic remark, smirking when you laugh out at the mental image he's conjured.

Snickering as you press the play button on the machine, you shake your head derisively while you sit on the sofa to shuck your sneakers off. Letting out a sultry sigh, you lilt, "Please tell me you have a pair of super risqué workout shorts like Richard Simmons'—"

The answering machine finishes reciting its automated message before playing the first voicemail.

"Hey, nena. You're all set for the restaurant reservation! You definitely owe me, and I'll take payment in you dishing about your jevo in full detail – you can't spare a single thing! Anyway, enjoy, and call me later!"

Javier sits next to you and stretches out his arm along the back of the couch while the next message gets cued up. Glancing confidently at you when you rest your head on his shoulder, Javi charms, "Shit, that's gonna be a lot of torrid history you'll be giving her—"

"She mostly will want to know how good you fuck, and make me tell her the best sex you've ever given me," you charge blithely, grinning when he balks at you. Shrugging, you inflect chipperly, "I'll have a lot of tantalizing options to choose from—"

"Hola, tesoro. Wanted to see if you were still open to spending time together next Sunday. Let me know. Cuídate."

Javier feels you tense as your father's message plays, and frowns when you sit up and contemplate it before you sigh. You rub your fingers along your forehead, trying to quell the wave of emotion that's threatening to spring up in you. "Ugh, I almost forgot about it…"

Reaching his hand to your shoulder, Javi gives it a fortifying squeeze. "About?"

Pinching the bridge of your nose to stifle the ache behind your eyes, you sniffle before leaning back into the couch and keeping your gaze averted.

"…My mother's anniversary. Sunday is her birthday…the accident happened two days after her birthday…"

Sadness settles into his chest like a stone, and he feels you start to recede into yourself, so he wraps his arm around you and cups his other hand at your cheek, tilting your face up so he can press a kiss to your forehead.

Your eyes flutter and you lean into him with a relieved exhale, so Javi holds you to him while you curl up and explain what your father had been referring to.

Every other time the anniversary had come around, Javier had been away – on a stakeout or on assignment in Medellín, so you'd never mentioned it. He feels guilty knowing you didn't want to ever burden him, so he murmurs into your ear, "I'm sorry, Celina. I should've been there—"

You shake your head and caress your cheek against his. "No. I never said anything because I just…I usually just block it out. So I never really did anything to acknowledge it…" you sigh, before curling into him more. "…In any case, we'll probably just spend the day together, so there's no point in canceling. It would only hurt his feelings," you finish telling him, head resting on his shoulder before you turn your face into his neck and seek the comfort of his warm skin and scent.

He rubs your back, humming in agreement. "I'm here if you need me, mi amor," he tells you softly against the top of your hairline before nuzzling a kiss there.

You loop your arms around him and squeeze him tight, murmuring a hushed, "Thanks."

The rest of the rainy afternoon is spent on your sofa, curled up together in idle chatter. He was able to get you out of the melancholic rut by asking you about your friends, specifically wondering out loud how famous Zoraida was to get you reservations at the fanciest restaurant in the metropolitan area on such short notice.

"—Oh, I should've looked at the magazine rack at the checkout to see if she was on any of them this week," you're remarking as you snap your fingers and press your lips together admonishingly while he snorts and props himself up on his elbow so he can look down at you. "Anyway, she's a former Miss Puerto Rico, and she placed in the top five of Miss Universe a few years in a row," is your explanation, smiling when his brows arch up in surprise. Petting his curling whisps of hair at his temple, you lift your head from the armrest to slink up more comfortably against him as you add, "She's a marketing maven, too. Brand ambassador for the tourism board, and she's featured on all the big ad campaigns all over the island – from cosmetics to general lifestyle stuff. She's always going on the late-night variety shows, and does a weekly feature on the top morning radio show."

"Well, shit. And you've known each other since you were kids?" he asks as he idly traces his thumb along the curve of your hip.

"Basically, yeah. We went to the same school – all of us did, during middle school years, and we've stayed in touch. I've always been close to Zory, since she lived in the same neighborhood too. We used to sneak out to parties together," you tell him and meekly smile as memories to that fact cross your mind. "We were all a little clique, though. Everyone called us 'Las Adas' but with an A instead of 'hadas' with an H because all of our names end in 'A'—"

"A regular Charlie's Angels, eh?" he can't help razz, smirking when you scrunch your nose cutely at him.

"Charlie's Angels were three girls, not four, you dork," is your snappy comeback, smiling when he rolls his eyes and wrinkles the top of his lip up in a silly sneer.

While you two continue to banter back and forth, a mystery faction associated with the drug distribution channels throughout the Caribbean is caught unawares by an unknown rival. The ensuing bloody takedown spans several drug dens and points where product was being moved, leading to a riotous chaos across several public housing territories across the island, including the one Lopez and Duffy had surveillance on.

The agents were forced to try and cut off escape of the hooded sicarios, but were no match for the high-powered weapons they used to spray bullet fire across a precarious radius, putting civilians and officers alike in danger.

When it was all said and done, the two agents were rocked, standing in the center of a bloodbath with no idea what the fuck happened. Police – state, municipal, and district patrol were milling around, quibbling over jurisdiction, cordoning off the scenes, and waving the forensic sciences unit in to sort through the massacred bodies.

Javier's cell phone rings on the console, where he'd left it after returning from the errands, next to where you have yours charging. Having just gotten comfortable on the sofa to start watching a movie, you end up pressing pause on the VCR remote while he rushes up from his seat next to you to quickly answer, "Peña."

You'd been hoping it was Steve, or maybe his father, just calling to check in on him on an early Sunday night, but then you watch his back go rigid and his shoulders stiffen.

"…I'll be right there," he forges out tersely, ending the call and swearing under his breath before turning to look at you with a guarded scowl. "I gotta go," he exhales gruffly as he pockets his cell phone and grabs his keys, then his wallet to do the same while rushing to get his sneakers back on. Sitting on the couch, he fumbles with tying his shoes once he's yanked them on, so you put your hand on his thigh and tow him back from the brooding mire his mind had already begun to go into. Huffing as he scrubs his hand over his stubble-covered cheek, he looks at you worriedly and mumbles, "I'm sorry, querida."

With serene grace, you take his hand and squeeze it reassuringly before resting your forehead to his. In a firm timbre, you insist, "Don't worry about it. Just make sure you do not get pulled under or ground down by everything, because you're not alone and you have plenty of capable people here to share the burden. And if you start slipping into old patterns, I'm going to kick your ass, ok?"

Exhaling a chortled sound and biting his bottom lip to stifle a grin, he nods and cups the back of your neck in order to tow you into a toe-curling, yearning kiss.

Once he's got his things, you loop your arms around his shoulders and melt at how intensely he hugs you.

"I'll call you," he promises as he nuzzles the hinge of your jaw.

"I know," you murmur before you lean back and caress his cheek lovingly. "Oh, and since you don't have one, take the umbrella," is your bossy order as you dip over to grab it from where you left it to dry on the counter, handing it to him while he scoffs and shakes his head derisively. "Nope, you're the boss, and you can't be wading around, getting soggy in the rain!"

"Alright, mandona," he relents and pecks you on the lips before opening the door, stalling in stepping out to the outer hall to linger close and tell you in a low register, "I love you."

Feeling your heart soar, you steal one last kiss from his full lips before susurrating, "I love you too."

You want to tell him so much more, like 'I'm going to miss you. Please be careful. I don't want to lose you,' but internally bristle at how needy and clingy that would be, so instead you wave at him once he's walked off and looked back to smile at you before turning the corner to head to the elevator.

As soon as you've locked up, you abort watching the movie by turning the VCR and TV off, deciding to instead draw a hot bubble bath and have a long soak to soothe your very sore and tender muscles after the weekend of marathon lovemaking.

While you're melting into the tranquil water and lounging back in the tub, Javier is arriving at the scene thirty minutes later. The deluge had inundated a lot of the sparse greenery that skirted the large lot now acting as the makeshift gathering zone in front of the sprawling public housing complex that was currently being spot-lit so crime scene techs could work trying to reconstruct the scene.

Having had the presence of mind to gear up in your garage before driving over, Javier was able to exit his car already wearing a black tactical vest with the letters 'DEA' printed in bold white font on the back, and his agent shield was clipped at his hip on his belt. In hindsight, the bright-colored umbrella made him stick out like a jackass, or so he imagined thanks to the stray glances he caught coming his way as he maneuvered around the cordoned off entry to the caserío.

"Boss!" he heard before he saw Segarra bound over, wearing a black baseball cap to cover his head from the rain that was pelting down.

Acknowledging the man with a curt nod, Javier follows him as they walk towards the courtyard that is a bullet-casing-riddled scene. "What're we looking at?"

"It was a coordinated hit. Five other caseríos were targeted, but this is the one we had under surveillance. So far, it looks like a rival gang, but we're not sure who," the man grouses in a low tone as he leads Javier through the outskirts of the courtyard to a more gruesome scene within one of the ground-level housing units. Javi seamlessly shuts the umbrella, collapsing it down to be compact enough for him to shove it into the back of his jean pocket while Segarra continues to detail, "Looks like they took out the spotters, then came in through the back, and exited through the front of the complex. The odd thing is, it doesn't look like anything was taken—"

"No shit, Sherlock!"

Javier looks over into the interior of an apartment with a busted down door to see the head of the ATF operation on the island, Agent Tom Vernon, saunter over the bullet-riddled body of a would-be dealer before approaching them.

"Tom," Javier greets and shakes the man's hand before reticently gesturing with a nod of his head to the plethora of bullet casings scattered across every visible surface on the ground. "I take it this might be from that shipment you told us about?"

"Looks like it, Jav. This is pretty sophisticated fire power for a bunch of tecatos," the tall, old-fashion swagger-filled man drawls before signaling down the dimly lit hall towards a back-facing unit. "And, the formation they used to get in, clip everyone, and head back out? Not the usual spray and dash fest I'm used to seeing at these scenes. Well, except for outside. Although, I got a feeling that was more to send a message to the civilians residing through the complex. Especially after your guys gave chase."

The man sweeps back his rain-damp hair as he waves Javier through to the next apartment that seems to be the epicenter of the hit. It's there that he finds Lopez and Duffy assessing the scene.

"—Pretty curious to kill all these fellas and not take any of the cash or drugs," Agent Vernon deadpans while he saunters about, being mindful of the pools of blood and viscera. "My guys said it was the same at the other sites, so quite a puzzle," is his musing observation as he lopes back out the way he came, right past Javier's ASAC.

Glaring at Segarra when he notices the man has remained in the threshold of the door and is visibly blanching at the gory scene, Javier clears his throat to get his attention before ordering, "Get the commanding officer for the local precinct in here."

Nodding vigorously, Segarra hustles out the way they came to do the errand.

Once Javier's made his way to the back of the kitchen area where the crime scene tech was currently snapping photos of the victim slumped against the far wall, he flags Lopez and Duffy to huddle up with him.

"What the fuck happened? None of this was caught on surveillance chatter?!" he grounds out.

"Not a goddamn thing, Jav," Duffy grunts, clearly frustrated as he keeps looking over at the scene in the back hall leading to the bedroom. "One minute they were shooting the shit about the fucking baseball tournament, and the next it's bedlam—"

"None of this makes sense. This is a tactical hit. But then they didn't take anything. Even if they had, none of the rival gangs are crazy enough to pull something like this. Most are just trying to carve out dealing points and kick tribute up to the capos that run their turf, but this is like…" Lopez pauses in his vehement reasoning when he looks over at the deceased victim left slumped in the kitchen.

Looking over and back at the agent, Javier reads his gaze, and asks, "Your informant?"

Nodding, the man wrings his hand down his face in exasperation. "I barely recognized her…"

Javi exchanges a look with Duffy before nodding in the direction of the front door as he orders, "Go home. We'll let the locals in. Be ready to regroup in the morning."

As Javier follows them out and meets up with the commanding officer on the scene, you're listening to the late evening news detail the massacres across caseríos while you're finishing your weekly ironing. You glance up at the TV when they mention how authorities suspect a rival gang clearing out competition across several known drug points throughout the metropolitan area, and just as the reporter in the rain parka details the statements from eyewitnesses, you think you spot a coral-colored umbrella in the background of the scene, from behind the cavalcade of milling personnel and forensic sciences resources.

Before you could confirm whether it was Javi, the news segment veered away to a statement from the governor's office. Pensive, you toil on the rest of the chores for a while longer before calling it a night and heading into your bedroom to change into a warm nightgown. You've just slipped under the coverlet and begun getting cozy in bed when your cell phone starts ringing where you placed it to charge next to you on the nightstand.

You pick it up and answer, "Hello?"

"Hey. Sorry to call so late," Javi's velvety baritone instantly calms you to lean back on the propped pillows, with a smile.

"Ah, I was still up. You home?" is your retort as you multitask checking on the alarm clock being set for the morning.

"Yeah. Just got out of the shower. Anyway, I won't keep you—"

"So, that means you're not wearing anything?" you sweetly query, grinning when you hear him scoff amusedly.

"Just my birthday suit, guapita," he chuckles, and you can hear him flop onto his bed, and the sound of his shifting over the covers to get comfortable. He lets out a cleansing exhale before he mutters, "Wish you were here."

"You act like we don't have a big date night coming soon," you simper humorously, snickering when he grumbles contrarily in a huffy breath 'You know what I mean,' so you remark good-naturedly, "I think I saw you on the news tonight."

"…Oh?" he tentatively murmurs, as if concerned.

Humming, you quip, "Well, I'm pretty sure I saw my umbrella way in the background, anyway."

Javier lets out a relieved huff before drawling, "I got so many funny looks. Definitely need to get an umbrella that's not neon orange. I'll return it tomorrow—"

"Oh, I have another one stored in my car, so you can keep it, chulito," is your easygoing assurance, but by the way he grunts wryly, you know he can hear the cheeky smile in your tone.

"Hmph, well in any case, I'll have it when I go pick you up for the dinner date," is his debonair croon.

"Don't forget to give Steve the restaurant details," you instruct merrily before yawning.

"I won't. Now go to sleep," he purrs ruggedly before husking, "I love you."

"Love you too, hermoso. Take care," you murmur affectionately.

"You too. Goodnight, querida."

As you turn out the light and curl up to sleep hugging the pillow Javier slept on, he's lying flat on his bed and staring up at the ceiling, watching the fan's blades languidly spin.

He'd gotten to his house, gone in through the laundry room door after parking his car into the marquesina, and had stripped the tac-vest to be tossed down on top of the dryer before peeling the rest of his damp clothes off to be tossed unceremoniously into the washer. Even with your ridiculously cheerful-colored umbrella, the unrelenting downpour and blustery wind had been ruthless. It had seeped through it all, and as soon as he shucked it all off, he took a long hot shower and ruminated about everything, trying to decompress from the sordid scene.

No matter how much experience he had, walking through the aftermath of a massacre always hit like a sledgehammer. It would stay with him, and make it hard for his mind to not fixate on solutions to a problem that was beyond his means to solve. Still, he would run elements of the investigation in his head over and over, trying to find the pieces that eluded him from formulating an effective plan of action. To seeing the bigger picture of those involved in order to find a weakness to exploit.

This wasn't like Escobar. Hell, even with Cali, they'd known all the players. Here, there were levels to this – a circuitous, series of insulated networks. There wasn't a neat flowchart they could tack up as a suspect board.

With his thoughts whirring around with the information he knew so far from the investigation, sleep is elusive, and it takes hours for Javier to finally succumb to a fitful slumber. It's aided more so by his mind flashing back to the walls caked in blood, and the sporadic flash of crime scene photos being taken of the slumped, crumpled bodies strewn across the low-income housing complex.

Meanwhile, an interested party is watching the repeated news coverage from their office in a fortressed villa off on the eastern coast of the island.

Annoyed, José Figueroa Agosto, known to most as Junior Capsula, was already reaching for his burner phone when the door to his office was opened.

"What's up, Junior!" the man greeted jovially, as if he wasn't waltzing into the private office of one of the most wanted men in Puerto Rico.

"Puñeta, you gotta knock and at least pretend you respect me, cabrón," Junior huffs and glares at his friend and silent partner before swiveling back to stare at the TV. "I think you overdid it."

Blowing as raspberry, the man slanted his shoulders as he leaned into the wall by the opulent desk. "I think it went smoothly. Plus, it should keep everyone spinning while we make the move," is the musing retort.

Swiveling back to eye him sharply, Junior, who was becoming known as the Pablo Escobar of the Caribbean, glared at the cool, easygoing smirk his socio gives him. "We've been doing just fine the way things were. This is a risk that better pay off—"

"Trust me. I have even more riding on this, so give me credit," is the aloof drawl, and when Junior doesn't seem amused, he gives him a one-shouldered shrug. "Can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs, Junior."

Snorting, the head of the drug trafficking organization that controlled 90% of cocaine in Puerto Rico, Junior leaned back in his chair and shook his head while his buddy fixed himself his go-to drink from the inset bar adjacent to the entertainment center.

When the man brings him the tequila on the rocks he poured for him, hands it to Junior, and then clinks his own glass with his, he cheers along with him before relenting affably, "Ah pues bien, Señor Gatsby."

Snickering mildly at the heckled nickname Junior loved to needle him with, thanks to his drink of choice – among other things, he crisply sneers after turning to drop into the sofa in front of the TV before muttering, "Change the channel to something worth fucking while."

If Javier knew how circuitous the investigation was going to become thanks to Junior's silent partner, he likely wouldn't have managed any sleep at all.

Suddenly awaking just before dawn from a surreal dream in which he was looking for you in the dim-lit hall of the caserío while chasing the echo of your voice, it takes him a few moments to realize what jolted him to bolt up in bed was a roar of thunder reverberating the cement walls of his room. He looks around the penumbra of his bedroom and realizes the downpour of last night had transitioned to a full-blown thunderstorm. The curtains over his windows quiver with the pressure of the wind outside pressing against the air in the house. Exhaling harshly, he shuts his eyes to get his bearings.

Once his pulse returns to normal, he flings himself backwards into the bed and wrings his hands over his tired features. Fuck, can't ever just shake it off. You gotta tune it out and shut it away. Can't have it weighing you down and distracting you. Not anymore.

When he's unable to get back to sleep, he hauls himself out of bed and gets into his sweats, only to end up frowning at the continued booms of thunder rumbling out in the not-so-far distance.

So, he decides to work out in his living room. Without weights, he's relegated to doing sit-ups for several sets before transitioning to push-ups. With the excess energy expended and his mind a bit clearer, Javier gets going on preparing for a long day.

You're doing the same, albeit without the sense of looming trepidation that Javi has. No, you had a wonderful night's sleep, and even procrastinated in getting out of bed, having decided to skip your morning run until the storm system finally moved out. You took the time to enjoy making yourself a fruit bowl for breakfast, and even took the opportunity to put together a decent lunch. Once it was packed in your tote, you rushed to finish getting ready before grabbing your things and hustling out the door.

By the time you're in morning traffic, Javier's on his second cup of coffee, having showered and gotten in his dark blue suit. He was distractedly looking at his reflection mirroring back at him from the glass of the slider door next to his empty dining room space, already pondering about his team's possible courses of action, when Kike pulls up to the front of the house and beeps the horn.

The day is a blur for both of you. So much so, you don't even get to talk at all.

You spend the bulk of it dealing with a contentious series of calls between Human Resources and the Department of Labor, who had received challenges to your termination of resources the week prior, so you ended up having to provide tons of documentation to justify the matter. By the time it was settled enough to not monopolize anymore of your day, you had actual work to catch up on, so you didn't leave the office until very late.

Javier was still in the conference room with Duffy and Lopez as the agents sorted through the literal post-mortem of the events the night before, trying to sift through the evidence and surveillance footage to find a clue of some kind that would implicate someone.

"—Ok, then we need to reconsider things. Every site was under a different capo's jurisdiction, but none of them have a turf war going on, so could it be internal?" Javier asks as he scrubs his palm idly across his jaw while reclined in the uncomfortable chair that faces the makeshift evidence board rigged up with all the maps, surveillance targets, and known cartel org chart.

"At this rate, anything is fuckin' possible," Duffy grumbles as he glares at some of the logs before pointing at one from earlier in the day and rhetorically muttering, "Maybe these assholes didn't pay their dues?"

Lopez was reticent, sitting adjacent from the board, with his chin resting over his propped hands. Segarra, who hadn't stopped checking his watch periodically ever thirty minutes, was waiting for permission to fuck off, and the more Javier sat there, he was inclined to fuck off himself. But then something Tom Vernon said the night before came back to him now.

"…They didn't take anything, because they already have a steady flow of cash and drugs moving in. So, they took out the points. That means there's some other influx of product that's going to supplement the business lost. All that stuff was for local sales, right?" Javier directs the question to the two agents, who exchange a look.

"Yeah. Everything was already broken out for the dealers. That's why there was so much cash on hand," Duffy replies, arms crossing as he deliberates what that means.

"We have to trace back where the distribution is coming from. We've been trying to track it leaving the island. Finding where it's coming in from might help us break down who has the most invested in taking out the points selling locally," Javi strategizes, and that seems to finally pull Lopez out of his funk. "Nic, can you put feelers out?"

"Already got a few in mind," Lopez murmurs, nodding in acknowledgment to the board as he remarks, "Some of those fuckers are bound to be chatty the next few days."

With a consensus being reached, Javier calls it a night, to the relief of his ASAC. The man wished him a good night while he headed out to the corridor, making it a point to wait until the department was empty to then grab his things and feign like he'd been the last man out.

He was tempted to tell the guy to quit being a fucking brown-noser, but was frankly short of patience as it was, so he just walked out of the building to meet his ride home.

Kike had coordinated with Javi to be driven home by Steve's guy, Wilmer Otero, since he'd be taking an advanced weapons training course that evening to get certified. With the umbrella in hand, Javi hustles through the inclement rain up to the door.

"Good evening, Agent Peña!" the officer dressed in plain clothes greeted affably once he got in. He was just as friendly as Kike, but was more fluent in English. Steve loved the guy and couldn't have vouched enough for him, so Javier was at ease with him once he'd settled into the passenger's seat.

"Thanks for the ride, Wilmer. Hopefully I'm not keeping you from anything," is his cool remark while the car cruises out of the Federal campus en route for his neighborhood.

"Nah, my girlfriend goes to night school, so I'd be home bored anyway, sir," Wilmer chuckles, before amiably commenting, "That's an eye-catching umbrella!"

Snorting, Javi shakes his head sardonically as he places the neon orange item between his press shoes. "It's on loan from my girlfriend."

"Ah, yeah that makes more sense," Wilmer snickers as he navigates through the light traffic. "Su jeva tiene estilo."

Humming in agreement with his comment, 'Your girl has style,' Javi takes pride in saying, "That, she does."

The thought of you smiling at him last night floats up to his mind's eye, and lingers to trigger replaying all the moments you'd both shared. By the time he gets home, he takes the chance that you might still be up to call your cell phone, but the line rings without answer, so he hangs up and strips out of his work clothes to shower, mind already getting preoccupied with his plans for the following day.

You'd been so exhausted from all the hecticness in the office that you'd dropped all your belongings on the console by the door and gone right to bed, then ended up sleeping through your alarm and having to do a mad-dash to get ready for work in the morning. It wasn't until you'd made it up to your office that you checked your phone and noticed the missed call. Unfortunately, you had a meeting first thing, so you added calling Javier back to your itinerary, mentally penciling it in for some time after lunch.

Arriving back to your department an hour later, you don't expect for the team's admin to merrily greet you before you've even finished passing through the entry.

"—Someone has a secret admirer!" Olga simpers conspiratorially when you lope over to her desk. "A special delivery just got dropped off for you. I left it in your office."

Intrigued and a bit bemused, you head to your office and enter to find a lavish bouquet of beautiful tropical flowers of all kinds housed within a lovely crystal vase sat on your desk. The arrangement of orchids, hibiscus, plumeria, amaryllis and damask rose flowers are a vibrant cluster of fragrant, enchantingly beautiful hues that were framed by dreamy sprays of freesia. It was the grandest flower bouquet you'd ever received, and you were dazzled by the flashy romantic gesture.

Javier is in his office looking over some files on previous drug busts when his cell phone rings.

"Peña."

"Hey! Sorry I missed your call last night. Yesterday had me running on fumes," your voice has a smile instantly tugging at his full lips as he sits back in his chair. Just as he's about to tell you not to worry about it, you follow up with a low, sultrily murmured, "Thanks for the lovely surprise, by the way. I can't believe you took the time to get something so lavish delivered to my office. You didn't have to go through the trouble, chulito."

Confused, Javi sits up in his cushy desk chair as he clears his throat and rumbles, "Oh?"

"It's beautiful. Definitely the most fantastic flower bouquet I've ever gotten! It's going to be interesting getting it down to my car to take it home, though—" you're remarking in a melodious timbre, all the while Javier is trying to figure out if it's possible that the flower shop screwed up? But then he remembers he'd never given them a direction for your office.

No, he'd called the shop Wilmer recommended to him and had left his information to pick up the bouquet he intended to give you tonight before taking you out to the double date.

So, reluctantly, Javi cuts in and tentatively tells you, "Querida, I'm sorry, but I didn't set up for anything to be delivered to your office."

Your brow furrows with confusion before you look back from where you'd been idly wandering around your office to stare at the arrangement. "…You didn't?" is your dubious query as you go over to the flowers and begin looking for a missed gift card or note.

"No. I mean, after the last time I'd left flowers on your desk, I figured it'd be bad to do a repeat of that, especially here," he remarks honestly, and you hum, thinking to yourself that you had been surprised he would be so flashy, all things considered. His guttural huff now has you frowning. You're about to tell him to never mind as you continue to peek through the stems for a misplaced card, but then he laconically grumbles, "Shit, don't tell me you got some other guy trying to make you his Valentine."

You scoff, shaking your head amusedly as you slap your hand down on your side in surrender when you don't find a note in the bouquet. "Alright, then it definitely must be some mistake. Maybe the delivery person brought it to the wrong office," is your dismissive sigh, and at his dry grunt, you snicker, "I promise, you're the only guy I want as my Valentine, stud. No one else. Just want you today and every other day, infinitum, you hear me?"

Smirking, Javi can't help goadingly drawl, "I don't know. I guess you'll just have to prove it to me, later tonight."

The smoky hum you give him is musing, before you silkily purr, "Too bad I can't head to your office right now and show you just how much I mean it, guapito. But don't worry, I'll prove it to you by riding you like the sexy stud you are. Then, you can make me yours while I say your name all night long. Sound good, mi cariñito?"

Javi feels hot under the collar with how turned on your saucy suggestion gets him, and it takes all his willpower not to fixate on how want is pulsing down into his loins. He scrubs his hand over his moustache before dragging it down his chin with a grunt. "Yeah, that sounds really good," he husks, biting his bottom lip at your alluring, pleased hum. "I'll come to the door to pick you up tonight," he tells you in a smooth baritone before letting it get a gravel pitch as he adds, "Although, with how naughty you're being, I might just end up taking you to bed so I can give you a real Valentine treat."

You feel your pussy throb at his words, and can't muster anything more than a girlish scoff as you retort, "You're not getting out of a double date with Connie and Steve that easily, chavón."

"Wouldn't dream of it." His raspy chuckle filters in your ear and sends a delighted shiver up your spine. "Alright. See you tonight, mi amor."

After exchanging goodbyes with him, you end up taking a moment to collect your thoughts from the pining whimsy he flung you into. If Javi didn't get this bouquet, then who did?

You go back out to Olga's desk. "Hey, when the delivery person dropped the flowers off, did they include a note or a little card?" you ask, hoping it'd just slipped her mind.

"Uh, no," she replies, and before you can ask the obvious question, she assures, "They're definitely for you, though. The delivery was addressed to you, but there was no information on the sender listed. That's why I said you must have a secret admirer."

Perplexed, you find yourself nodding in acknowledgement before ponderingly wandering back to your office. Maybe they're a gift from Dad? As soon as you think it, you immediately disregard the possibility. He would never send anything here. And he would've sent a card along. You stare at the flowers, wracking your brain with just who would gift you something so lux.

The curious mystery percolates the rest of the work day while you go to meetings and during lunch, as you nibble on a protein bar at your desk and multitask checking emails while glancing at the flowers every once in a while. The mystery bothers you so that at the end of the day, you go to the Telecommunications department to even ask Ellis.

When you bring him into your office to see the bouquet, he whistles and looks completely stumped. "Yeah, not me, kid. This is WAY too fancy for my blood. And way more money than I'd ever spend on you—"

"Oh, gee, thanks," you snipe irreverently and shove his shoulder platonically. "Well Javier said they're not from him, and I can't think of anyone else who'd go through the trouble, especially to have them delivered here, with all the security—"

"Hmm, what if it was someone inside the building?" Ellis poses, crossing his arms as he leans forward to sniff the bouquet as he posits, "Sure, most know the gossip about you and Jav from back at the embassy, but no one is sure if you're both still an item here. Maybe someone's trying to be a prospective suitor? And the bouquet is their first move at stating their intentions to court you?"

"Oh my god, what is this, some romance novel mystery? They didn't leave a note! And what – they expect me to go around the building asking who sent me the flowers?" is your harangue, hands on your hips as you tap your foot. "Plus, this is a really expensive arrangement—"

"Shit. What if it's Bozzi?" Ellis suggests, giving you a tense grimace when you look at him like he's nuts. "Hey, that dude has a thing for you. I know you never think so, but you gotta trust my powers of perception about this kind of thing—"

"Well, you didn't perceive that Javier was into me, so I'd say your powers aren't always accurate," you counter glibly, snickering when he pouts and rolls his eyes. "Ok, it's a moot point anyway. I was just curious," is your aside as you walk over to pick up the vase from your desk.

When you don't put it over by your sideboard and instead turn towards your office door, Ellis rushes to grab the heavy arrangement from you as he asks, "Wait, what're you gonna do with it?"

"Since it's not a gift from Javier, then it's not something I need to keep in my space. I'll just put it out in the waiting area—"

"I mean, if you're not gonna keep it and take it home, it'd be a shame to let it go to waste," Ellis offers in a suggestive singsong, eyes rounding when you give him an inquisitive look.

Understanding his unspoken meaning, you chuckle and pat him on the shoulder. "Yes, you can have it. Just do not tell Anita they're a regift!"

"Got it! Thanks, girlie," he beams before chortling, "This'll save me the cash and hassle of having to rush to a flower shop later—"

"You're such a cheapskate!" you heckle while he smugly marches away with his prize. "At least tell me you're taking her out to dinner tonight!"

"I am! Now you quit worrying and enjoy your own night with loverboy."

You're still snickering to yourself at Ellis' antics as you arrive at your apartment a short while later, but by the time you get inside, you are on a mission to shower and get dolled up for the special occasion. So, you put your purse on the counter so you can quickly move your wallet and phone from it once you've grabbed your clutch from the closet. But before you sprint off, you look at the answering machine on the console table by the front door, and notice there's a new message recorded.

Worried it might be Javi canceling, you rush over to press the 'Play' button, already chewing on the inside of your cheek anxiously. But once the machine recites its automated message of when the voicemail was received, all you hear is ambient static, as if the caller is deliberating what to say, before the line clicks. Perplexed, you rewind the tape to have it replay when the caller's message was received.

'—Received at 5:45pm—'

The voicemail of static plays once again, and you strain to hear anything on the caller's line that could clue you into whether it's some kind of telemarketer, or perhaps a dropped long-distance caller? You can't pick up anything, though, so you dismiss it, not recalling the previous dead air, voiceless message left on the machine a couple of weeks prior. Instead, you're already stripping out of your work blouse as you turn from the console and resume your sprint to your bathroom to get in the shower first thing.

As you do so, Javier is giving Steve directions to the restaurant over the phone while he comes out of the flower shop with his order and hustles over to his car in the drizzling rain. "—Yeah, I'm going to my place to shower and get ready now, so I'll see you two there."

Once he's secured the flowers in the front seat, he drives home, eager to get ready and rush over to see you. After he showers, shaves, and finishes getting dressed in a nice crisp dress shirt, the dark sports coat you love, and a pair of black trouser pants, he takes the time to brush his hair before grabbing an overnight bag and quickly packing clothes, along with his travel toiletries. He'd arranged to drive himself for the next couple of days, so he planned to spend the night at your place after dinner, and go to work straight from there in the morning.

He's buzzing with anticipation as he drives to your condo through the light drizzling rain, intent to make it a memorable, romantic night for you. Once he's pulled up to your street, he easily cruises down to turn into your gated driveway and punches in the security code to gain access to the carport. The giddy excitement bubbles in his gut as he parks, gets the roses, and heads up to your apartment's floor, so much so that he has to shake out his right hand of the fidgety energy that has his fingers twitching at his side while he rides up in the elevator. By the time he gets to your door, he can't help feel like he's a jittery teen, going on his first date – smitten and over the moon with the potential of having someone feel as infatuated for him as he does right now for you.

With his patented three swift knocks on your door, Javi internally admonishes himself. Quit thinkin' ahead on shit and just focus on enjoying the night—

The door opens to reveal you in the low-lit glow of the nearest lamp sat on the console out of sight, but really, Javi's eyes aren't on anything else but you as you beamingly smile at him.

"Happy Valentine's Day," you chime delightedly and give him a spritely once over – admiring how handsome he looks in the smoky-gray sports coat, and loving that he's in his favorite black boots – before complimenting, "Mi Valentín tan guapo."

Javi's utterly enamored by the vision of sultry-yet-timeless beauty you are in the elegantly bejeweled pink tourmaline dress you'd worn on your first date when he'd returned to Bogotá, a pair of peep-toed nude patent leather heels, hair styled in a chic up-do with several flirty wisps framing your face in undulating waves, and your sunburst-styled earrings that twinkle at him as you lean close to kiss him hello on his soft lips.

Your perfume has his blood zinging through him, and it takes all his willpower to not just sweep you up and ravish you like he's aching to. Instead, he brushes his nose against yours with a hum before pulling back to caress your cheek, murmuring, "You look stunning, Celina," smiling when you affectionately nuzzle his palm and scoff breathily at his praise. It's then he remembers the flowers he's holding, so he presents them to you as he husks, "These are for you, querida. I know they're probably not as impressive compared to whatever you got at your office—"

Taking the bouquet of enchanting red roses and pink lilies that has the stems bound together by a white satin ribbon, you hug them close and breathe in their lovely scent before sighing contently and assuring avidly, "Javier, these are beautiful." Girlishly kissing him adoringly before dotingly murmuring against his lips, "Thank you," you then hurry to fetch a vase as you exclaim, "Let me get them in water before we go!"

He's besotted by your happiness as you lovingly fill a clear glass vase in the kitchen sink before unwrapping the ribbon and placing the gorgeous flowers in it.

You place the vase prominently on the bar top counter before quickly retrieving your clutch purse and keys to join him at the door.

"Ok, ready to go?" you're asking melodiously as you do a quick check in your purse to make sure you have everything, and end up smiling when he pulls you close after you close the door, making you melt by kissing the spot just under your jaw before you can key the lock shut.

He easily takes the keys from your hand, locks the deadbolt, and then slips them into his pocket before he seamlessly herds you close so he can loop his arm around your waist and escort you down to the car.

"More than ready, corazón," is his musing croon.

All you can do to not let your lust turn you into a tingling and shivering mess as your excitement simmers in you while you let him lead the way, is to affectionately tell him the itinerary for the night, and soon you're both exiting the car and huddling under your bright coral umbrella to cross the avenue towards the ritzy building housing the trendy restaurant.

His cologne clings to his collar, softening the naturally spicy, masculine warmth of his skin. You're having to chastise yourself about not giving into the impulse of nuzzling his neck in public while you both stick close together and weave through the crowd of patrons waiting in the foyer in order to get to the hostess stand and check in.

The space has an elegant, candlelit ambience apropos for the special occasion, decorated tastefully in romantic shades of red, gold and ivory, and bustling with parties of patrons who're partaking in drinks and gourmet dishes. That, combined with a killer view of the beach from one side and the glimmering city lights on the other? It's obvious to Javier why this place is a hot-ticket spot.

"Ah, is that them?" you query and gesture over at the crowded entry.

He turns and sees that Steve and Connie indeed have just entered and are weaving their way through the crowd of waiting patrons. Raising his hand to wave and get the other couple's attention, Javi conspiratorially mutters to you, "This'll be the first time I bring a girl around to the gringos, so don't let them pressure you into telling all our business—"

You snicker and playfully swat his bicep. "Oh, so I shouldn't mention the time we did that roleplay? How I was inspired by Agent Murphy and I channeled him when I pretended to be your naughty partner—?" is your mischievous drawl that you let trail off when he looks down at you with mild mortification flashing across his stony features.

"Unless you want me to crawl under the table and die from shame? No, you can definitely leave that one out of any conversation, atrevida," Javi growls huskily in your ear, and you grin.

Affectionately pinching his side, you scoff and razz, "I know how much of a prude you are in mixed company, chulito, so no worries. I was only teasing anyway."

He gives you a gruff chuckle and shakes his head, but has no chance to counter when Steve and Connie make it over to you both now. Steve's in a dark blue suit with a nice blue-and-black-striped polo underneath the blazer, while Connie wore a pretty champagne-colored dress, with her blonde locks down behind her bare shoulders.

You all greet each other warmly, the fellas shaking hands while you and Connie kiss them on their cheeks before Javier jokes as introduction, "—This is Steve's much better half, Connie," before the blond scoffs and shakes his head.

"And this, is Javi's one true love, Celina," Steve can't help lob sardonically right back, which has Javier pointedly setting his jaw askew as he flippantly glowers at his buddy's smug, grinning face.

You and Connie pay their frat-like hazing of each other no mind as you exchange a quick hug and peck on the cheek alike.

"It's so nice to finally meet you!" Connie chimes with genuine joviality.

"I know, I can't believe it's taken this long! I feel like I already know you," you quip before adding conspiratorially, "I think these two have secretly kept us apart—"

"Now, what reason would we have for doing such a thing?" Steve cuts in with a blameless hum as he puts his arm around Connie's shoulders and tries to look as innocent as his tone.

Javier puts his hand around your waist and just shakes his head while you snicker up at him after he laconically wisecracks, "As if we could ever manage something like that, with Captain Obvious here?"

The hostess soon calls your name and you're all able to be escorted to your north-facing table, with the lovely view of the coastline lit up by the nightlife beyond. Before long, you're all enjoying your wine and appetizers while you chat like the oldest friends.

Sat at your left, you steal glances at Javi while Connie sits to your right and regales you with a story about the first time he'd made her laugh – after the 'Puff incident.'

"—I was so depressed that morning, and when he came up to get Steve to go to the embassy, he gave me this nice bottle of wine, and said, 'I'm sorry about Puff. Today, we're gonna sweat the guys who dimed him out and make 'em pay,' and he took my hand and gave me such a look, I just, it made me crack up," she tells you, snickering as she fondly adds, "And then they came home that night, and we had dinner, broke open the wine, and they told me how they interrogated the assholes, and it made me feel better."

You're delighted by the story, giggling along while you chirp, "Was it the big, round, puppy eyed look?"

"Yes!" she exclaims and giggles with you, all to Javi's modest chagrin and Steve's enjoyment.

By the time you're all on your main courses, the conversation has shifted to you telling Connie funny anecdotes starring Steve. Javier is smirking triumphantly while his buddy takes his turn in the proverbial hot seat as you tell Connie about the time Steve had arrived like a bat out of hell to chastise Javier, and ended up referring to you as one of his 'working girls' in front of you and Carrillo. He proudly watches as you retell word-for-word the exchange, without an ounce of sheepishness, and then smile goofily when Steve nods guiltily over at Connie when she gapes at him.

"—I felt really bad afterwards! After all, with this one's track record, how would he have known?" you're saying now and gesturing irreverently at Javier, who's smirk falters into a pout.

"Still! He should've known better than to say something like that in front of people," Connie tuts in a faux-admonishing tone before scrunching her nose comically at Steve. "Always putting your foot in your mouth—"

"And ya'll wonder why we took our sweet time putting the two of you together," Steve can't help drawl in a raspy twang and sarcastically look over at Javi who grunts a gravelly sound of agreement as he twists his lips in feigned displeasure.

Laughing, you and Connie amusingly jeer them before you then regale her with the story of how you'd recruited Steve to smuggle you into the CNP headquarters so you could surprise Javi for his birthday. You take special glee when describing how Javier had reacted when he'd come into the dorm room and discovered you waiting for him, dressed in a CNP clerical uniform.

"—His face was priceless! I wish I could've gotten a picture," you're saying teasingly as you pat Javi's hand when he blows a raspberry contrarily at your assessment. "What? It was—"

"I still get a rush of panic whenever I think about it!" Javi complains, but his lopsided smile betrays him. "Constant adrenaline rush with this one."

You snicker and playfully squeeze his hand, smitten with how he lovingly clasps yours. So much so, you don't even bat an eye when he pulls you in for a quick kiss.

The affectionate display is organic, but no less meaningful to the other couple, who have never seen Javier so enamored, let alone so outwardly demonstrative with his romantic feelings.

When you and Connie both excuse yourselves to go to the ladies' room a short while later, Javier takes a long pull from his glass of wine as Steve leans over and muses, "I reckon they're going to be thick as thieves now, so I hope there aren't any secrets left between you? I'd hate for Connie to accidentally blurt something out—"

Scoffing amusedly, Javi shakes his head and licks his lips before answering, "Not a one. Things are different this time."

"You sure? It wasn't too long ago that you were worried," Steve hints, and at Javi cocking a brow at him, he elaborates, "C'mon, you didn't know if she'd kick you in the dick, or just call you a bastard and run away—"

"Well, she settled for slapping the shit out of me, cursing me out, and storming off, instead," Javi cuts in acerbically, and shrugs when Steve gives him an incredulous look. "Then, she showed up at my door later that night, apologized, and we talked it out. I made it clear why I came down here, she told me she thought I'd abandoned her – that she'd tried getting ahold of you, and when that didn't pan out?"

They exchange a look, and realization hits.

All the pieces of the story fall into place, and Steve hums and takes a sip of his wine before remarking, "Well, shit…bet the makeup sex was off the fuckin' charts."

Snorting, Javi has no compunction to be elusive, so he leans back in his chair and rubs at his chin as he retorts matter-of-factly, "It sure as hell was."

Returning from the ladies' room not soon after, you and Connie are arm-in-arm as you amiably chatter, and by the time you both slip back into your seats, you're already finalizing plans to hang out this weekend.

"—Usually we just walk around and window shop while Anita pushes the baby in the stroller, so bring the kids! There are cute little areas for Olivia to play throughout the mall, and there's a 'Kid's Escape' upstairs near the food court," you're telling her as you slip your napkin back onto your lap.

"Oh, that sounds great!" Connie beams before jovially inviting, "You two should come over for dinner sometime this week."

Smiling over at Javi, you beam, "We'd love to."

Connie is already planning out loud the dinner, and when you agree and promise to bring over a nice wine to go with it, Javi glances coolly over at Steve's delighted smirk.

Then Connie puts Javier on the spot when she bossily looks over at him before stating, "I'm so annoyed at you for keeping her a secret for so long!"

He lulls his head back and groans, earning a chuckle from you at his expense.

Dessert arrives a short while later, and whilst you each partake in the rich, decadent treat the waiter had set in the center of the table for the four of you to share, you notice a well-dressed photographer working his way through the dining section as he offers to snap photos for each table he stops at, so you look over to Javi and see he'd followed your gaze and spotted the man coming your way.

It made heat pool in his chest – seeing you preen to get in together for the snapshot, eagerly reaching for him to sidle close.

You all pose for the photo, and in a flash, it's taken to memorialize the wonderful evening. When you dreamily glance at Javi, your heart throbs at how he smiles at you, and it takes all of your control not to just pull him into the passionate kiss you're now yearning to ensnare him in – gratuitous public displays be damned.

He leans in and whispers into your ear, "I'm dying to kiss you."

Squeezing his thigh under the table, you bite your lip and give him a look that makes your unspoken retort clear: 'So am I.'

By the time dessert is partaken in, the fellas eye each other knowingly before asking for the check, and since both know it'll be futile to argue, they just compromise by placing both their cards down. You and Connie are gloatingly told to polish off the rest of the bottle of wine while you wait, so you do so over entertaining talk of work.

"—I love my ASAC. Super competent guy," Steve is remarking, then snickers when Javi makes a noncommittal grunt in response. "You could just fire him—"

"Fire who?" you inquire, surprised, since you and Javi haven't delved into your work routines in depth since he'd assumed his role.

"Ryan Segarra. He's my ASAC," Javi replies on an exhale before dismissively waving the topic off. "Aside from him, everyone on the team here is great. I can't complain."

"Gonna let the guy hang himself, huh," Steve chuckles, earning a wry swat to the bicep from Connie.

"The way he's going, that shouldn't be long," Javier deadpans, and at your brows arching, he shrugs and quips, "I told you once before: I make for a shitty boss—"

You reach out to take his hand and give it a fortifying squeeze. "That's not true," you tell him with genuine tenderness, before you imperiously add, "And I've told you, I won't abide that kind of talk, chulito."

Javi's dark brown eyes crinkle at the edges as a smile ghosts his lips before he mutters, "Not in front of the gringos, querida."

Connie and Steve humorously jeer him while you theatrically roll your eyes and give his shoulder an impish nudge before humming a silly sound.

Once the bill is settled and the waiter returns with the two copies of the group photograph, you all make your way out to the foyer and through the crowd to the exit.

Admiring your copies of the picture to make sure they're perfect, you and Connie take the time to exchange contact info while Steve and Javi hold the umbrellas over you both so you don't get too wet from the drizzling rain.

"What's with the florescent orange umbrella?" Steve razzes while holding his plain black one whilst Connie finishes arranging everything back into her purse.

"It's mine, but I let him borrow it," you answer for Javi, smirking when he seems relieved to not have to quip an excuse. "I think it brings out the warmth in his eyes," is your elegantly chimed drawl as you slink against him and unabashedly purse your lips at Javi's droll stare.

"Alright, time to take this one home before she gets any more brazen," Javi jokes.

After you all exchange hugs goodbye and wish each other a good night, Javi escorts you back to the car, strategically helping you avoid puddles and potholes along the way. And after he's rounded to the driver's side once you're nice and secure in your seat, you sit patiently while he shuts the umbrella, shakes it free of excess droplets, and shuts his door. He looks over to see you waiting, as if you're going to say something, but you instead grab his coat lapel to tug him close so you can kiss him with all the simmering yearning you've burned with all evening.

His hand cups your cheek when he deepens the kiss with a gravelly hum, and you instinctually caress yours up from his chest to snake into the back of his hair.

Before the kiss can get torrid, though, Javi pulls away and sighs.

With a molten glint in his dark eyes, he croons, "You, behave and let me drive us home before you start seducing me—"

You scoff and flirtatiously nudge him back into his seat as you flop back into your own. "Mira quien habla," is your deriding chuckle, squinting your eyes mirthfully at him as you pristinely fold your hands over your clutch sat in your lap and tut, "Well then? Hop to it, my dear Valentine, you."

He laughs and shakes his head sardonically at you as he puts the key in the ignition and puts his seatbelt on.

Soon, he's ferried you both out of the nightlife district and towards your side of town.

As he drives down the main avenue towards your building, you happily gaze at him before gushing, "That was so much fun. I had a wonderful time. I love Connie. You and Steve are such dopes for not letting us meet up sooner!"

"I distinctly remember a certain chingona who wouldn't let me tell anyone about her, let alone bring her over to my partner's place for dinner," Javier can't help mock in a rugged baritone before shooting a glib glance your way. When you purse your lips to thwart the sly smile threatening to crest your features, he charms, "I think we won't have any issue making up for lost time, though."

You agree, "Most definitely. Be prepared, because I see a lot of hanging out and dinner dates in the future with the Murphys! And, I'm totally going to make her and Anita friends, so you and Steve will need to play with Ellis and not exclude him from guy time—"

He's pulling into the driveway of the condo building and lowering his window to punch in the code for the security when he chortles, "'Guy time'?"

"Yes!" is your congenial chirp, smiling when he hums and purses his lips.

"Rose is a good guy, so that's fine by me," he tells you as he drives down the carport to park in your visitor's spot.

You're eagerly buzzing with anticipation as you get out of the car and see Javi grab a duffle bag from the back seat and hangs it on his shoulder before he rounds to take your hand and escort you up into the building.

"So, early day tomorrow?" you query as you both enter the lobby and head for the elevators. You wave at the night clerk as you pass his desk, then affably tell Javi, "Don't worry, I'm only asking so I know to set the alarm. Not because I plan on dragging you out for a morning jog."

He lets out an amused huff as he presses the button to the elevator, then tows you in when the door slides immediately open. "I do have an early conference call, but if you're going for a run before work, I'm definitely tagging along," he's drawling as you press the button for your floor and steer him to sidle close when you lean into the wall so you can grin cheekily at him.

"Ok, but I gotta warn you: My usual jogging route is gonna get you winded," you teasingly singsong, loving how he cups the small of your back and gives you a silly, mocking scrunch of his nose that curls his mustachioed top lip. "I'm serious—"

"Jogging is not the same as running – which is what I've been doing, and gotten in great shape from, if I do say so myself," he smugly rumbles and pinches your waist playfully when the elevator arrives at your floor.

You hum teasingly and take his hand to bossily tow him along to lope to your door. "Yes, but that can't be sustained for prolonged periods or across varying terrain," you chuckle and squeeze his hand while he reaches into his other pocket for your apartment key.

Swiftly slipping it into the lock, he opens the door for you and affectionately caresses his palm along your lower back as he guides you in over the threshold. "Guess we'll just see," he draws out in his imitation of your lilting drawl.

You both are charged with desire, and know the idle chatter is to prolong the excitement by building up the anticipation, but Javi is already dying to break when he locks the deadbolt behind himself and tosses your keys onto the console by the door. Especially when you take your time admiring the bouquet after you set your clutch aside on the kitchen counter after turning on the hall light.

"Tell me you have a pair of skimpy running shorts along with your sneakers in that bag?" you can't help purring and shooting him a sultry glance over your shoulder as you strut down the hall towards your bedroom.

You hear his footfalls following you, and the excitement tingles in the seat of your core as you enter your bedroom, turn on the lamp on the nightstand, and head to the dresser so you can take your earrings off and place them in your jewelry box.

You've just shut the box and started letting your hair down from the clasp when he shuts the light in the hall off, tosses his duffle down in front of the wicker chair, then strolls up behind you to encircle your waist and nuzzle the back of your neck.

You smile at him in the mirror when he counters roguishly, "Do you wear skimpy running shorts for your little jogs?"

"Not skimpy, but they're stretchy and tight – little bike shorts that keep everything cinched in," you answer simply, trying to keep from melting against him as his hands caress your hourglass shape while he trails his lips languidly down the column of your neck.

Glancing at you from below his lashes, Javi skims an open mouth kiss back up your neck so he can murmur in your ear, "I just realized. I went the whole day, and haven't told you I love you yet."

You feel butterflies in your womb and a warm flourish of joy fill your chest at his words. So, you turn in his arms and sigh before silkily humming, "Ah, already taking me for granted, hm?" while you frame his face in your hands and lovingly smile at him.

His eyes soften on you as he grunts in disagreement before husking, "Mi amor—"

"I know you do, Javi. You don't have to say it all the time," you cut in serenely and caress your touch over his features, fingers brushing his hair back from his forehead as you whisper, "You know that I love you, right?"

He nods and closes his eyes when your fingertips brush over his brow and forehead while your other hand smooths the hair at the back of his nape. "I do," he exhales contently as your touch continues to soothe over his temple, then glides down to his cheek.

"Good," you murmur breathily before lilting, "So then, you'll let me give you a Valentine treat?"

Dark eyes opening to focus on your tempting smile, Javi mumbles, "You're all the treat I need."

You hum and steer him backwards as you slip your hands under his jacket and slowly work them up to ease it off from his shoulders. "Well, good thing that the treat I have in mind, involves me," you chime as you guide his coat down his arms and fling it to the wicker chair, then turn to present your back to him, before requesting, "Help me out of this dress?"

The sexy look you shoot over your shoulder at him holds an unspoken promise that has his pulse racing and heat rising under his skin, so he cups your hip as he eagerly eases the zipper down before you slip the straps off your arms and let Javi guide the dress down so you can step out of it. He drapes it unseeingly over the armrest of the wicker chair while he stares hungrily at your form.

Arousal tangles into a tight coil at his center that has desire throbbing down into his loins at you having had nothing on underneath the dress, except for the red lace thong panties that always drive him wild. Combined with the seductive way you toss your hair out to cascade down your shoulders so that your bare breasts aren't draped by your luscious locks? It's all enough to have his urge sparking up into a positively primal frenzy.

Slowly, you step out of your heels and slide them aside before turning to slink up against him now so you can provocatively strip him slowly of his clothes.

Javi lets you, titillated by the worshipful way you undo each button, working his dress shirt off, then move on to unbuckle his belt, unfasten his trousers, and kneel to remove his boots for him before you strip him of everything and lean back to gaze up at his chiseled, nude form before you. His muscles are tense with anticipation, and the tendons in his thighs flex when you glide your hands up his legs before you nuzzle his hip.

Heat singes across his cheeks at how you look up at him with possessive allure in your scintillating eyes just as you wrap your hand around his throbbing shaft and lick the head of his cock.

You savor the salt on his skin, relishing the breathy way he groans and shivers at your oral havoc as you suck and toy your tongue over his sensitive tip. Seeing his fists remaining clenched at his sides turns you on even more – emboldening you, because it speaks volumes for how much self-control he's exerting in order to let you have your way. You can practically feel the way he's yearning to dominate you – to possess your pleasure by giving it to you with the ardor he's been smoldering with all day. It makes desire burn like a beacon in you to know how much he wants it, coupled with the pride of knowing he loves when you initiate and delight in the control.

It truly is taking everything he's got to not buckle under the urge to take over and dominate you.

But the sinful heaven of your mouth, and the luscious way you worship his throbbing cock is too decadent for him to go without. Not when you look so glorious in dominating him while on your knees, and finally take the length of him into your mouth and moan around it.

You take him as far as his shaft can go, and at the flutter of your gag reflex in the back of your mouth, Javi's hand instinctively cups your shoulder before his fingers card into your hair and tangle there. "Holy fuck, querida," he gravels out and tenses when you hollow out your cheeks around him, encouraging him to not withhold his pleasure. His eyes roll back when you move your other hand from his hip to instead cup his warm sac just as you stroke and suck him hard, causing his voice to crack as he hitches hoarsely, "Jesus fucking Christ—M'gonna come, b-baby—"

You take that moment to take him as far as he can go once more, and the tremor at the back of your throat as you swallow has Javi's fingers trembling as he grabs your shoulder and moans out in his raucous climax. He swears in mindless bliss as his cum fills your mouth and you prolong his pleasure with gusto – hands caressing around to hold him close by his hips while you indulge in the high of making him yours, while on your knees.

The minute his lusted-out haze fizzles enough to realize his hands are buried in the back of your hair while you're regaining your breath with your head resting against his abs as you keep you both stood in place, he passionately hauls you up and tosses you onto the bed before making short work of yanking your delectable red lace panties off to join the rest of his clothes.

You let out an airy gasp as you rush to settle farther up on the bed and Javier thwarts you by braceleting your ankle and yanking to glide you back down so he can hoist your legs apart before he buries his head between your thighs.

"Oh, Ja-Javi!" you hiccup out as he parts your drenched folds with a lascivious lick of his tongue that has you arching like an electric charge tingled through your pulsing heat. And when he engulfs your thrumming clit with his full lips, you cry out and writhe, feeling much to wound up already to be able to hold out for long to his wickedly divine oral talents.

He can feel it in how your thighs clench and your pelvis rocks against the bed while you worry hard on your lower lip with your blunt teeth to keep from whining. He hates when you deny yourself in order to prolong things on his account, so, he possessively nuzzles into your inner thigh, suckling on your delicate skin there, then gives the spot a nippy bite.

You gasp out in surprise and let out a moan from the needy ache that settles into your pussy, whimpering, "Javi!" before he starts to soothe the bite with his tongue.

"Quit trying to deny yourself, and let me make you come, malcriada," he husks in a pitch like melted velvet as he stares up at you with an intense gleam in his dark-brewed eyes, before adding in a low growl, "Get on your hands and knees for me."

To say that your brain swears that you could spontaneously combust if you were a piece of kindling instead of a tingling, needy mess under his provocative stare wouldn't do justice to how roaring hot Javier has you after his command, let alone how desperately eager you are to do as he says.

You somehow muster the strength in your quaking limbs to fidget up and roll onto your tight tummy before hoisting yourself up on shaking joints – trembling in exhilarating anticipation.

Seeing you with your knees spread apart, eagerly waiting for him to give you what he knows you need, panting breathily as you arch your lower back and peer lustfully over your shoulder at him, is pure glory to Javi.

His body burns with primal accomplishment, and his cock is rock-hard all over again as he unabashedly bows to lick you from clit to ass.

The sound you let out has desire pulsing in his center, spurring him on to drive you over the precipice of incandescent pleasure as your toes curl and your hands wring in the bedding while desperate little mewls and cries fall from your mouth, frame quivering under the mounting rise of your climax. When it hits from the lascivious way Javi twirls his tongue – plunging into your fluttering sheath before gliding it to grind wantonly over your clit, you wail, "Javi!" in a reedy voice before dissolving into inarticulate mewls while your orgasm coats his ravenous mouth.

He groans in accomplishment before he replaces his tongue with his fingers so he can swipe your intoxicating taste from his moustache, mouth and chin with his hand before languidly kissing a path up to the nape of your neck.

"Mmm, good girl. Feel good?" he coos against your ear after you practically melt and flatten onto the bed in a tremulous heap.

"Dios mío, Javier," you exhale girlishly and bashfully bury your face in the bedding while shielding behind your folded hand. "I can't stop shaking," is your mumbled snicker when he smugly nudges his way between your folded hand and the bed so he can nuzzle you in a dominant show of approval. You shift to curl into him and whisper, "You know how wild you make me when you talk like that."

He hums, drawling in a canela-rich purr, "Makes me feel the same way when you get all mandona, too. I don't think I could ever pick between them—"

"We'll never have to, galán," you croon and toss your leg over his hip before clinging to him as you enthusiastically roll him onto his back so you can straddle his lap, then lilt, "Not when I love how good we are together," before you grope your hands up his chest to caress his warm, stubbly cheeks as you silkily murmur, "Now, I'm going to ride you, naughty boy."

Javi lights up under you at that, and plants his palms to your hips as you undulate your core over him until his ramrod cock is notched at your entrance and you rut down on it.

You both get swept up in the throes of passion as you set the pace while Javi fucks up into you, murmuring decadently sweet and sultry things to each other. Yearning to trigger the devastating rapture you both have only been able to find with one another.

The soft pitter-patter of the light drizzle outside is drowned out by the sounds of you and Javi making love, too swept up in the carnal ecstasy that had been stoked between you for too long.

When you each reach bliss one final time and fall onto the covers together in sated exhaustion, there is only tranquility as you lullingly brush dreamy kisses along each other's lips before you tuck against him and doze off. Spent, Javier lethargically reaches the nightstand to switch the lamp off, then tugs the covers over you both before he rests his head on the pillow and drifts off right after he noses into the top of your mussed hair, content and serene with you in his arms.

It's all you've both been looking forward to. The effortless gravitation between you only getting stronger and pulling you back into harmonious balance.

Neither of you anticipate the tribulations that're just around the corner, ready to try pulling you apart once again.

No, for now, the reflection of everything you want – of the previously deferred plans you'd once shared – is the only thing you're looking ahead to.

________________

Read Chapter 43: Still

Spanish-English Glossary:

Mi amor = My love

Cristo amado = Christ beloved

Hermosa/hermoso = beautiful (female); beautiful (male)

Querida/querido = Affectionate term, akin to expressing one's want and desire

Galán = Handsome gent

A bañarnos, mi cariñito = To bathe ourselves, my sweet little darling

Atrevido/Atrevida = Daring man/Daring woman

Beyako = Puerto Rican slang for horny/naughty guy; akin to "horn dog"

No me mires así, mi amor = Don't look at me like that, my love

Mi tiernita = My tender little girl

Te presento mi jevo pronto = I'll introduce you to my boyfriend soon

Cafetera = Coffee kettle

Chulo/Chulito = Cute guy; little cutie

Chavón = A man that's pestering you

Tan controlador = So controlling (male)

Canela = Cinnamon

Provocadora = Provoker (female)

¡Que viva el amor y duren los encantos! Que el mundo se entere que nos amamos tanto, El amor es perfecto cuando se ama, Amor transparente más claro que el agua = Long live the love and the charms last! Let the world know that we love each other so much, Love is perfect when you love, Love transparent clearer than water

Mira quien habla = Look who's talking

Chingona = Mexican slang for bad ass woman

Tan cellos = So jealous (female)

Jodón = Pain in the ass

Bravita= Tough girl; feisty girl

Fresco = A guy who's being 'fresh', or naughty/pervy

Preciosa = Gorgeous; precious

Avena = Oatmeal

Cariño = Darling/sweetheart

Panadería = Bakery

Buen provecho = Bon appetit

Mofongo relleno de camarones = A caribbean delicacy made of fried plantains smashed into a dome and covered with shrimp, usually in a creole tomato-based stewed sauce

Gatita = Little kitten

Crees que siendo mi jevo = [You] think that being my boyfriend

Nena = Girl

Tesoro = Treasure; darling

Cuídate = Take care

Las [h]Adas = The Fairies, but in this case it's a play on words, since all three girls' names end in 'A', aka "The A-das"; hadas are fairies

Mandona = Bossy lady

Caserío = Public housing; housing project

Tecatos = Puerto Rican slang for drug addicts, specifically heroin users; also used to refer to shiftless good-for-nothing people

Guapita = Sassy/foxy/daring/testy lady

Hermosa/hermoso = beautiful (female); beautiful (male)

Marquesina = Open air garage or carport

Puñeta = Puerto Rican slang for "Fucking"; very bad word; equivalent to "Fuck"

Cabrón = Asshole

Socio = Business partner

Ah pues bien, Señor Gatsby = Oh well fine, Mister Gatsby

Su jeva tiene estilo = Your girl has style

Guapito = Handsome (said in an affectionate diminutive)

Mi cariñito = My sweet little darlińg

Mi Valentín tan guapo = My super handsome Valentine

Corazón = Heart; pet name to signify how deeply you love someone

Malcriada/malcriado = Brat/spoiled

Dios mío, Javier = My god, Javier

The song referenced and translated above is "Amor Perfecto" by El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico. And the "roleplay" reference Celina made in this chapter that got Javi hot and bothered is from the drabble, Partners.

Thanks for reading! Please consider leaving a comment and sharing your feedback. I would be eternally grateful. 

[furious-rogue-stuff]

Heat Chapter 41: Enchantment

Back, back, back again~! Sorry for the long lag with this one. It’s a supersized chapter, at least, so I really hope it’s worth the wait 😊

Pairing: Javier Peña x OFC | Javi x Querida

Disclaimer: Written in 2nd person narrative, you can safely assume our heroine and love/lust interest is a Latina, written by a Latina. Here's my philosophy on my writing, for further context.

Rating: Mature/Explicit 🔞

Word Count: 26,000+

Summary: After your explosive confrontation with Javi concluded in a passionate tempest, you both take the time to regroup. Are your feelings for each other enough to overcome the turmoil of the past?

Warnings: Graphic descriptions of sex, including explicit depictions of unprotected sex. Mentions of diet and food habits, exercise routines, angst, past trauma, resentments, frustration and emotional stress. Allusions to toxic behavior, negative coping mechanisms, recurring relationship tropes, women's health, personal turmoil and regrets. Soft!Javi, Longing!Javi, and Sensitive!OFC. **OFC name reveal** In the vein of Narcos being a bilingual show, and Javier Peña being fluent, I felt it was apropos to include Spanglish and Spanish throughout.

Heat Masterlist

Previous chapter - Chapter 40: Hopes 

Chapter 41: Enchantment

In the early 1990s, Puerto Rico was besieged with an influx of crime fueled by the drug trade, violence, and trafficking moving through the U.S. territory. There were a whole host of factors that played into the archipelago's woes, and the more one factor was pulled like a thread to its source, the clearer it became that it wasn't even close to being similar to the situation in Colombia.

Really, it could be boiled down to the limbo Puerto Rico and its people floated in for over many decades, if not from as far back as Spain's defeat to the United States during the Spanish-American War. After all, the nebulous status of being a modern-day colony in the late 20th century exacerbated many ills common in other places: poverty, lack of social mobility, and a classist system where the few controlled all the wealth and economic access of the many. But when you're beholden to a federal overlord who was content to keep you at an arm's length, but still shackled from having true self-governance and agency? These ills are only amplified, and become terminal symptoms for a population that are both U.S. citizens, but not truly Americans.

Javi had read up on the history of Puerto Rico. Of course, he knew the basics, and had learned more during his on-and-off again relationship with you, but to read about Operation Bootstrap, and just how much that had changed the smallest of the Greater Antilles? To absorb how a strategic holding in the Caribbean – which had passed imperialist hands for centuries – could be known as La Isla del Encanto, while being ravaged by predatory industries and corrupt fat cats, had been acquired by the U.S. and exploited for most of the 20th century? Well, it all had done little to motivate his zealous ambitions. At least at first.

However, the inevitable happened: his aspiration to leave a place better than he'd found it kept heeding for him to invest more care and attention to what lay ahead. So, after spending his first week as the Special Agent in Charge, Javier found himself voraciously delving into everything before concluding there was a criminal element that controlled the flow of things – a syndicate not unlike that of El Cartel de Cali.

But, where it did differ substantially from the Cali cartel, was in the way the drug trade operated on the big island.

The Puerto Rican Mafia was organized just like it sounds: it was made up of different ranks within La Familia – aka The Family.

Just like the mob, crime families ran different territories, with one central figurehead. However, unlike the mob, members were recruited from all walks of life, and could work their way up through the ranks, but would conduct business operations like a gang. All in order to create a multi-structured network that would make it difficult to dismantle the cartel-level operations.

It was a real puzzle – one Javi was growing more and more intrigued by.

Steve was also getting invested in figuring out strategies for taking down the syndicate, but they both recognized that wouldn't put an end to the drug trafficking in the region.

"…put a bullet in Escobar's head tomorrow? There's just another scumbag that'll fill the vacuum the next day. Is it really worth going off the deep end for?"

And like a cold comfort to his scrupulous intentions, your realistic take slaps him out of his brooding thoughts.

He'd arrived back from doing flyovers of Vieques and Culebra while field analysts pointed out possible drop zones used by drug traffickers to hide product meant for ferrying down to the Lesser Antilles under the cover of night.

Once he'd deboarded from the small plane after it'd taxied into the hangar, Javier strode over to the waiting SUV and gotten in quickly to avoid the rising humidity of the early afternoon.

"Buen día, Agent Peña!" Kike greets in his characteristically jovial way before beginning to drive out towards the security exit.

Grunting in greeting, Javi adjusts the air vents to blow directly on him after discarding is khaki linen blazer to the back seat as he scrubs the heel of his hand across his temple to wipe the perspiration there away. "How is it this fucking hot in winter?" he grumbles more to himself than to the plainclothes-disguised rookie in the driver's seat, who seems unbothered by the heat, even in the stuffy-looking collared stripe shirt and jeans he currently dons.

Snorting, Kike drawls, "It's the humidity. Not usually this high, but things should cool down once the vaguadas roll in early next week. It's going to ruin plenty of Valentine's plans!"

Javier hums as he tugs on the collar of his short-sleeved cotton button down shirt. The mention of Valentine's Day had him ruminating while Kike drove him to the Federal building.

Back in Colombia, Valentine's Day was similar in sentiment as in the states, but was celebrated on a completely different day and time of year. To his chagrin, he's realizing now that during the times you'd dated, every Día de Amor y Amistad fell around either when he'd been on a stakeout, or on assignment in Medellín, so he'd never gotten to do anything special with you.

Sure, this Valentine's fell on a day in the middle of the work week this year, but he was wondering now if he could make up for all those missed schlocky hearts, roses and chocolate-festooned days by taking you out like he'd been yearning to since he got to the island.

The holiday was as big here as it was back home, promoted on the television, plastered across banners on the highway, and he couldn't go into a single place without the garish red and pink hearts or cupids adorning the walls.

He'd wanted to respect your wishes – to let you have the time to think about everything, though, so he'd thrown himself into work and forced himself to pine only when he was alone at the end of the day, staring up at the ceiling fan while he laid in bed.

Today, though, he had business at the Federal building, so he figured he could chance maybe going by to see you? At the very least, it would be good to know where your office was, for completely professional reasons, right?

When he arrived at the building, it was just before lunch time, so there was a decent exodus of people going off campus for the break. As he begrudgingly shrugged on the linen blazer, he told Kike to go on his way and that he'd call if he needed anything, assuring the intrepid officer that he didn't have to hang around waiting for him in the car.

"—You can call my beeper, cell phone, whatever, any time," the man assures.

"I know, Kike. I appreciate it. Now go get lunch and relax," Javi quips wryly as he gestures a casual goodbye before shutting the door and loping off.

Pretty soon, he was entering the DEA offices for a meeting with his Assistant Special Agent in Charge, who was overseeing some surveillance ops he wanted to brief Javi on. Before he'd even finished walking through the bullpen, though, Agent Lopez had practically materialized next to Javi to walk alongside him towards the conference room.

"Boss, glad I caught you—"

"Christ, Nic. Can it wait until I get through this briefing?" Javier grumbles as he fiddles with his now-rumpled shirt collar before smoothening out the flat of his khaki blazer's lapels.

"Well, that's the thing. It's about one of the ops you're gonna hear about in there," Lopez confides to him.

Halting, Javi eyes him before gesturing for him to follow him to a secluded corner before muttering, "All right, shoot."

"I don't think the intel is legit," Lopez tells him before emphasizing in a lower voice, "I think they know we're listening to them."

"…Ok, and why do you think so?" Javi murmurs as he crosses his arms over his chest.

"Just a hunch," Lopez obfuscates.

"You gotta give me more than that," Javi tersely sneers, shaking his head when the other man just glowers at him. "Look, I gave you and Duff tons of latitude back in Cali, and it bit us in the ass. I can't tell this kid his ops are compromised because you have a hunch—"

"Alright, fine, but…Duffy doesn't even know about this. Long story, but I have an informant. Something they said gave me the impression that the target knows his place is being surveilled. So before we take what was gathered from their as actionable intel, I want to make sure I can look into it more," Nic insists, hands on his hips as he leans in to mutter, "And no offense, but your ASAC is thickheaded, and didn't want to hear anything I had to say."

Javier grunts evenly. "Yeah, well…that's an issue for another day."

And really, it was. He couldn't help the fact that his ASAC wasn't really his first choice, but as he'd been learning since he'd arrived in Puerto Rico, being juiced in and having spheres of influence were the way most navigated into appointments and work positions. Almost every major official he'd met or read up on was the cousin, in-law, or 'buen amigo' of someone high up in the government, both locally and federally, so there were plenty of incompetent, arrogant, or willfully clueless people in jobs they had no business being in. And the nepotism? It was so pervasive, that it even put the bit of it he'd experienced in Colombia to shame. There were municipalities around the island almost entirely staffed with family members of the mayor. Let alone all the government officials who had kids who worked in some congressperson's office, or who were related distantly to a miembro del senado.

The whole thing had him learning a new word from Kike.

Chanchú – slang derived from the word chanchullo, which defined an act that was morally illicit, due to intentional fraud or scheming that would earn a person or persons influence, money, or protection. Most chanchús would inevitably become illegal, either due to bribery or corruption, and sadly, Puerto Rico was rife with it.

So, after assuring Lopez he wouldn't sign off on anything until there was more information, Javi went into the conference room and let Ryan Segarra brief him.

Sure, he recognized that it wasn't really fair to call him a 'kid', since they were only 5 or 6 years apart, but Javi couldn't help his opinion of him being just that when the man gave him a self-satisfied look and waited for some form of praise once he concluded his briefing.

Of which, he got none. Instead, Javi remained in his cross-armed posture, but leaned back in the chair, and cocked a skeptical brow at him before checking his watch as he drawled, "So, anything else?"

Seeming put off-kilter, Segarra remarked, "Uh, yeah – the signoff to move forward with raiding the caserío—"

"Denied," Javier flatly responds before pushing his chair back and standing. "That's not enough to sanction a raid. Also, it doesn't sound like you've coordinated anything with the field ops guys—"

"Well, they're not looking to move on anything until there's more info netted," Segarra protests, clearly displeased that his boss doesn't seem impressed.

"Then, if that's the case, why the hell are you pushing for it?" Javier remarks with a flippant, albeit pointed edge to his baritone, one that takes the blue-eyed man with the stubble-covered jaw aback. The look he gives him says everything Javier needs to know, so he goes to exit the conference room as he dismisses, "You're not going to medal for being an overreaching jackboot who storms a public housing unit for some low-level dealers, Segarra. Come back once field ops gets you something that is really actionable."

With that, Javi exits to stride at a clipped pace out of his department and towards the elevator to head up to Digital Information Operations.

Luckily, the entire thing only took part of the lunch hour, so he figured you'd just be coming back from the break to your office. He didn't expect to come off the elevator and traverse the main corridor towards your department, and see Devon gatekeeping the entry while sat at the receptionist's desk, typing on the computer.

"They got you working phones during everyone else's break?" Javi quips after entering from the glass door and surprising the man behind the much-too-smug desk.

"Oh, no! I was just doing a software install for the receptionist while she ran down to grab something at the cafeteria," Devon explains as he maneuvers his broad frame from behind the desk before asking, "Did you have an appointment? I, uh, don't see the log out, so—"

"No, no appointment. I just came up to see where the department was," Javi quickly retorts, and at Devon giving him a musing nod while eyeing him dubiously, he ends up relenting, "And yeah, I was hoping the director was around so I could say hello."

"Oh, she's off-campus for lunch," Devon answers guilelessly as he adds, "She usually brings something from home, but today is her cheat day."

"Ah, is that right?" Javi chuckles, smirking at the idea of you partaking in the same kind of fast-food Steve was raving about indulging in whenever he could sneak it. "Huh, ok then…"

Seeming to sense he was slightly let down at not being able to see you, Devon checked his watch before retrieving something from the communal cubby next to the reception desk.

"Well, if you're up for skipping the cafeteria, this place is nearby and is a favorite around the office," he's remarking as he hands Javi a takeout menu. Looking at it, he hums flatly before he catches Devon giving him a look that was practically a nudge before he remarked, "Definitely check it out."

Smirking, he nodded before folding the pamphlet-style takeout menu and slipping it into his blazer's pocket as he backpedals to the entry. With a friendly wave over his shoulder, Javi calls out coolly, "Thanks for the tip. Have a nice rest of your afternoon!"

You hadn't expected for it to be so busy in the restaurant today, but since you'd become a regular, they'd sat you at a table tucked close to the bar so you could wait out the rush while you busied yourself with your planner. When the dine-in and takeout traffic slowed, you perused the menu before the server came by and took your order.

After your order is placed, you go back to writing reminders for yourself in your planner while you think about how much you'd enjoyed spending time with your father the Sunday before.

He'd avoided any topic that would raise your ire or stoke your combativeness, and you happily filled him in on work and the surface chit-chat about your friends while you cooked. And when all the dishes were ready, you'd both sat on the terraza and enjoyed the meal, managing a pleasant dinner before Camille arrived from the day out with her relatives. The evening had been so nice, that you'd even made an effort by not rushing off like you normally would.

You're just thinking about how much she'd irritated you by bringing up an upcoming anniversary she had no right mentioning, as far as you were concerned, when you dimly hear the bell above the door ring just before the chef behind the counter calls out, "Irasshaimase," in greeting.

Looking up from having just finished storing your planner into your purse to give a cursory glance at the entryway, you end up staring, disarmed, at Javier as he is led towards the tables. He looks so insufferably handsome in his ecru-colored linen suit and plain cotton button-down, sans necktie, with the top three buttons of the collar undone already. The tease of his neck and the flash of his collarbones peeking from the shirt just above the top neckline of a cotton undershirt has titillated excitement bubbling up in you. So much so, that you feel your heart throb and the apples of your cheeks burn with a flustered blush.

When he sees you, he smiles, eyes crinkling with affection as he catalogues how chic you look with your hair up in a sleek ponytail, wearing a light blue polyester blouse with quarter sleeves, sans the black blazer that matches your fitted trouser pant. You watch as he gestures to the host, as if indicating he was going to see if he could join you.

Javier didn't expect for the man to hum before approaching you first, however, in order to ask you in Japanese, "Do you want to share your table?"

Nodding, you respond, "Hai, daijoubu desu."

Javi's so impressed by the exchange that he dimly smiles when the man gestures for him to take a seat.

Once he's sat at the cozy table with you, he greets, "Buenas tardes, directora—"

Leaning forward to give him a suspicious look, you whisper, "I know there's no way you were just out wandering around this time – not in the middle of a work day, anyway – to just so happen to come in here by coincidence."

Smirking, he fiddles with the napkin and the sleeved chopsticks resting on top of it before toying with the little rectangular ramakin idly as he gives you a casual shrug, drawling, "Well, Devon recommended this place today when I stopped in to your office. Figured I'd give it a try."

"Oh, he did, did he?" you ruefully chime as you cross your arms and lean back in your chair, amused.

He nods before giving you a flirty glance, and you just shake your head at him, trying your damndest not to smile as brilliantly as you want to.

"Here is the menu, sir," the server says once he's returned with a glass of water for him to match your own.

Shaking his head, he holds up his hand reassuringly as he orders, "I'll just have what she's having."

"Ah, very good," the server bows and heads off to give the chef the order, while you squint at Javier.

"Um, have you ever had Japanese food?" you ask as he sips the cool iced water.

With a grunt, he shakes his head before remarking, "No, but if this is where you have your cheat day, I trust you to have picked something good to eat."

Snickering, you purse your plush lips sardonically before deadpanning, "Javier—"

"I didn't know you could speak Japanese," he rumbles, eyes molten and smug when you finally crack a smile. "You'll have to teach me some."

"I only know enough for proper restaurant conversation, chavón," you quip as you adjust in your seat so you can cross your leg under the table. "So? How's it been settling into things down here?"

"Not bad. Could be better, though," he remarks with an easygoing sigh before leaning back into his chair to eye you confidently when you hum and tilt your head, truly interested in hearing more. So, he crosses his arms and muses with rugged charm, "I haven't been able to concentrate much. Can't stop thinking about you, or the other night."

You press your lips together to suppress the delighted smirk threatening to crest across your features, feeling tingly from the glee his flirtatious line has sizzling up in your chest. "You mean from how worked up you got on the sofa?" is your deriding lilt, smiling cherubically at him when he frowns.

"Tan mala," he grumbles, but his chiding smirk is infectious. "You're never gonna let me live that down—"

"Why would I? It was the best compliment, knowing I have such an effect on you," is your teasing purr, winking spiritedly at him when he quells a bashful groan into his hand, feigning being gruff about it. "Hopefully you found a dry cleaner who can be discreet—"

"Do you know how hard I had to keep from squirming when I dropped my suits off, and the laundress silently judged me as she handed me the ticket?" he cuts in haughtily, and you can't help giggling at his harried pout.

"I have zero sympathy!" you sass, wrinkling your nose at him when he scoffs in faux shock. "My dress is a classic, so I ended up getting lectured about needing to be more careful with it by the doña who does my dry cleaning—"

"Get the fuck out," Javi chuckles, brown eyes lighting up with glee when you comically nudge your foot against his calf while you scoff. "Well, I can't be held responsible. That dress was a killer," he croons as he reaches over and affectionately squeezes your hand before murmuring, "But if you wear it again, I'll be more careful."

Snickering, you pinch the pressure point in the web of his hand before sneering impishly, "Beyako."

Just as he was about to say something else flirty in retort, the server arrives with your meals. "Here you are!" the man jovially announces as he places the large bamboo platter shaped like a bridge housing all the unfamiliar bounty of food at the center of the table along with the woven canoe-shaped tray filled with two orders of what looked like rounded fritters smothered in savory sauces.

Javi looked at all the food before gaping over at you. "What…is all of this?" is his awed, drawn-out query as he continues to balk at it all while you're pleasantly putting the napkin in your lap before you slip the wooden chopsticks from the paper sleeve in order to expertly snap them apart.

"Well, Mr. Suave, this is a double order of sushi, nigiri, and takoyaki," you chime as you point out each with your chopsticks before indicating row by row, "This is salmon nigiri. These are eel avocado rolls, these are spider rolls, and these yummy little rounded fritters are takoyaki. They have a piece of octopus in the center."

Giving you a perturbed look, he picks up his chopsticks and uses them to point at the center of the platter before he croaks, "Those are made of spiders?!"

You laugh out so brightly, that he instantly relaxes and enjoys how your eyes crest with mirth as your hand demurely cups over your mouth while you try to regain your composure.

"No, you dork! That's just the name. They're made with battered soft-shell crab, cucumber and avocado. But these? They are made with Japanese eel cooked in umami sauce. I promise, it's really tasty!" you assure as you align the ramekin next to your side plate and pour soy sauce into it from the ceramic bottle sitting at the center edge of the table before you pick up a piece of the aforementioned eel roll, dip it into the soy sauce, then pop it merrily in your mouth.

"Ok…if you say so," Javi tentatively mutters as he removes the chopsticks from the sleeve and tries to part them. When you see him struggling to, you reach over and snag them so you can snap them apart cleanly for him before handing them back. Smirking, he nips at his bottom lip lightly before he begins to drawl in a purr, "Thanks, mi patrona—"

"Quit flirting and start eating, chulito," you snipe playfully before picking up one of the octopus fritter balls and offering it to him.

He lets you feed him the fritter, and immediately grunts from how piping hot it is in the center. You giggle and eat your own piece, savoring it while Javi chews like a suspicious child, waiting for the bad flavor to hit.

When it doesn't, he hums neutrally before grabbing a sushi piece. "So, most of this is raw?" he queries as he struggles to use the chopsticks to pinch the piece securely.

"Actually, only the salmon nigiri is. Everything else is cooked," you tell him as you fondly watch him intrepidly try to maneuver the chopsticks, but he ends up fumbling the piece onto its side. "Here, this is the technique. You tuck them this way so you make more of a pincer motion when you grab for the piece. See?"

Following along, he manages to get the hang of it enough to move the piece from the platter to his plate. "This is a lot of work, guapita," he jokes as he gives you a puppy-eyed look. "How is this even a 'cheat day' worthy meal?! It's all fish—"

"Well, it's a lot of rice! I've tried cutting carbs out of my diet, and while the fish is mostly lean protein, the batter and the rice are what makes this a cheat-day-worthy feast," you explain, and finally take pity on him struggling to get the piece up, so you grab it easily with your chopsticks and offer to feed it to him, all while cheekily smiling as you chime, "Guess it figures you'd come around every time I indulge in something I shouldn't be."

Javi eats the piece, chewing it and savoring the odd texture, but scowls more from your remark than how exotic the flavor is to his taste buds. Once he's swallowed, he dabs the napkin over his lips before murmuring, "You say that like it's a bad thing."

"Well, when it comes to keeping to a disciplined routine? It kind of is a bad thing," you retort aloofly before sipping your water.

Genuinely frowning now, Javi grumpily abandons the chopsticks onto his side plate and just grabs a piece of sushi with his forefinger and thumb before popping it into his mouth.

You sputter a silly giggle and snicker a haughty sound at him.

"That's impolite!"

"I'm hungry and these sticks are a pain!"

"I'll tell them to bring you a fork, then—"

"Never mind that. I can manage—"

"Ay, Javier. Let me help you—"

"You don't need to keep feeding me pieces like I'm an overgrown baby in a high chair—"

You stifle a laugh into the back of your hand and just simper, "Awww, well then quit acting like a bebito, you silly gruñón!"

He scoffs and pugnaciously picks up another piece of sushi with his fingers in order to dip it into your soy sauce before he pops it goadingly into his mouth.

"Oh, you're lucky I'm more concerned about wasting all this food than I am with your terrible table manners, tough guy," is your faux huff as you stubbornly smack his hand away when he tries to drag your soy sauce dish closer to his side of the table. "Uh-uh! You have your own. No dipping in mine."

Chewing his current bite puckishly while he pours some soy sauce into his own ramekin, Javi eyes you in a way that makes warmth fizzle effervescently in your tummy.

Gaze appraising you thoughtfully now, Javi licks his lips before asking, "Besides our little row last week…how have things been? Being back down here, and in the new job, I mean. Things are good?"

Nibbling on a fritter, you take the opportunity to think about how to answer that, unsure how much you want to say with things still feeling so tenuous—

"I never meant to come here and derail things," Javi says when you get pensive instead of answering, and after you glance back up at him, he decides to confide, "You seem…content, so, if me just being here is going to affect that? I want to know, querida."

You feel a pang tug at your heart at his words, so you let down your guard, and look him in his tense brown eyes as you assure, "Things are great right now, Javi. After I resigned from the embassy, I wasn't sure what would happen. But then I got a call with the job offer here, and the rest sort of fell into place. My father and I, we reconciled, and we're both good. It's not perfect, but I don't think it'll ever be…"

He listens as you end up telling him about all the highlights he'd missed since your time apart. From the wedding in New York, to the arrival of Ellis and Anita's first-born, as well as the wonderful time during the holidays you got to spend with your family when they visited from Colombia.

It makes him feel good to know that you had so many great people around you here, who loved and cared about you. But he was waiting for the other shoe to drop, where you'd say, 'And you being here is something I can't fit into my life. Not after everything.'

Instead, he's surprised when you admit, "—While I was livid when Ellis told me, something about it also felt…different and new."

Idly peeling the clustered ginger slivers stacked on the platter apart with your chopsticks, you allow your stream of consciousness to continue unselfconsciously with, "I've thought about it more, and really, things are totally different from what happened the last time, in Colombia. Everything was so fraught all the time, and keeping it all safe and secret just put so much pressure on us," pausing, you glance up at him with a meek smile before musing, "Here and now? Well, it's just not the case, since…everyone knows. Albeit the distorted, gossipy rendition that's been passed around for months and distilled into a simpler narrative. But still…it didn't feel as stifling, finding out the way I did. And understanding things in hindsight now helped."

Javi can't suppress the charming quirk of his brows and upward tug of his full lips, before drawling, "So, you're saying there's a chance?"

It has the intended outcome, causing you to crack a smile and snicker, shaking your head sardonically before you jab, "That's all you picked up from that whole thing?!"

"No, but it was the most important," he jibes and winks at you.

Humming imperiously, you take a long drink of water before sneering in jest, "It's almost like you want me to kick your ass, with how infuriating you behave when you should instead be humbly groveling—"

"I've literally begged you to give me another chance every time we've talked," he laconically mutters and pops a piece of nigiri into his mouth now, chewing pointedly while you taunt him with the pleased pert of your lips. Swallowing quickly in order to grumble tersely at your goading look, he mutters haughtily, "I groveled, and even got slapped silly for it—"

"What time is it?" you coolly change the subject as you nibble on the last piece of nigiri.

Grunting and narrowing his gaze grouchily, he looks at his watch.

"Whoops. Ten after lunch time," he responds before polishing off the remaining few pieces of sushi while you hum and unhurriedly finish the last takoyaki. "Did you walk here? I could call my guy to come pick us up—"

"No, that's ok. I strategically block off the half hour after lunch so I can catch up on messages or the like. I have some time," you retort before taking a piece of ginger and savoring it with a hum as you signal the server to bring the check.

"What's that?" Javi asks after seeing you eat the ginger from where it's sat on the now-empty sushi platter.

You're retrieving your purse from the back of your chair as you reply distractedly, "That's a palette cleanser. Some people put it directly on the sushi to heighten the flavor."

"Ah, ok," he remarks, reaching over to grab the little mound of bright green paste next to the slivers of ginger.

You look up from your open wallet just in time to see what he's doing. Gasping, you warn, "Javi, that's not—!"

Too late, Javier's popped the entire portion of wasabi into his mouth with his fingers before smearing it over the roof of his mouth with the flat of his tongue. Looking up at your wide-eyed grimace just as the burn of the condiment singes across his taste buds and makes him grunt in disgruntled surprised, he rushes to put his napkin to his nose when he feels the spice shoot up his sinuses.

Not wanting to spit out into his napkin and come off as even bigger of an oaf, he swallowed it thickly before grabbing his water to chug it down.

"Oh my god," you're wheezing in between simpering giggles as you quickly hand him the rest of your water and signal for the server to bring more. "I can't believe you just ate that whole thing!"

Chugging your water down and wordlessly grumbling at you, Javi feels his cheeks flush from the spice after it flooded his nasal passages and eyes, making them both water. "You said it was a palette cleanser!" he bemoans before greedily guzzling the water the server just filled into his glass.

"No, I said the ginger slivers were a palette cleanser!" you counter while forcing yourself not to dissolve into a fit of laughter.

Managing to take advantage of his distraction to hurriedly hand over your card to pay the check, you grab his hand before he rubs it across his face.

"Wait! You touched it with your fingers. Don't get it in your eyes," is your admonishing tut as you dip your napkin in your empty glass to sop up enough moisture to improvise a wet nap so you can clean his fingers with it.

"Me lleva la chingada," he grits out as you dutifully sit up from your seat to retrieve a handkerchief from your purse so you can dab the clean cloth at the corners of his eyes for him. "And it was all going so well," is his hoarse, wry grumble, which earns a flitting laugh to bubble free from you.

The server asks if everything is all right, and Javi nods while dopily flashing a thumbs up as you continue to tend to the tears running over from his eyes, and assure the man that he's ok.

A few minutes and a to-go cup of ice water in hand later, and you're both exiting the restaurant.

"—I'm so sorry, Javi. I should've called it out before," you're fretting as you take his forearm and lead him out to the sidewalk.

"Well, at the very least now, I know that if you ever want to kill me, it'll be by poisoning," he sarcastically jokes as he wipes the hankey over his eyes before accepting the offered cup of water from you.

"I'd actually say this should inspire you to be more careful with what you just shove in your mouth, jodón," is your snarky jibe as you affectionately brush the curls back from flopping across his forehead while he grunts and scowls mordantly at you. "And I would never poison you. Where's the fun in that?"

He scoffs amusedly at that before handing you the cup of water so he can pocket your hankey and feel for his cell phone. "I'll call to get us a ride—"

"It's not very far to the Federal campus," you find yourself volunteering, and at his agog expression, you suggest, "I know it's a bit muggy out, but if we stay on this side of the avenue, we'll be under the shade of the trees all the way down. And with traffic, we'd get there a lot sooner than he'd be able to get over here to pick us up."

Feeling something warm twinge behind his sternum at how you're in no rush to part ways, even after crashing and derailing your quiet lunch, Javi feels encouraged and accepts with a smile, shedding his blazer as he rumbles, "Alright, but I'm sweating like a hog—"

You take the blazer before he can fling it casually over his shoulder to instead fold, and tuck it to hang around your purse before nodding for him to follow your lead as you chime, "Come on before I change my mind, refunfuñón."

Smirking, Javi falls into step with you, and you both stroll down the sidewalk of the avenue's shady eastern side. As you go, he finishes the water in the cup and starts chewing on the ice while he banters, "You walk to the restaurant in this heat without a bother, but you couldn't handle that one heatwave in Bogotá?"

"I told you! That was more stifling heat and humidity at a higher elevation," you counter and playfully nudge your shoulder into the side of his arm. "At least here you get a breeze every once in a while. And there's always a rainstorm that'll cool things down a bit," is your easygoing musing, before you scathe wryly, "And anyway, you're literally wearing a half-unbuttoned short-sleeved shirt, so quit complaining."

It's the perfect excuse to give him a stern leer and silently drool over his toned arms and broad shoulders while he scoffs and slicks the hair back from his forehead.

"Yeah well, you're friolenta. I run hotter than you," he tuts matter-of-factly before crunching on another piece of melty ice. "It's so hot down here, I left all my jackets back home—"

"Even the leather one?" you query with a pout, which gets him to chuckle and nod. "Well, this is a nice suit, in any case," is your amiable chime as you adjust his draped blazer on your purse, before teasingly drawling, "…Nice to see you finally spruced your wardrobe up for the current decade—

"Criticona," he rumbles and nudges his shoulder into you, which makes you squeak and slap his bicep with a laugh, which makes him chuckle and bite his lip to stop from grinning. "But sure, yeah, I got a few new suits. Maybe I'll let you peruse them next time you come over?" is his flirted proposition before crunching on the last piece of ice and depositing the paper cup into a trash receptacle on the corner you've both arrived at and need to wait for the pedestrian light to switch green.

Giving Javi a coy glance, you sass, "See? You gripe about me teasing you over your clothes, but you always seek out my fashion expertise and crave my approval." When Javi shoots you a humorously defiant look, you razz, "I think you really bought the new suits because you've been working out and your old blazers are now too snug. Am I right?"

Javi's mouth bobs open to contradict you, but he realizes he can't, because that was partly true, so instead he squints cunningly at you before crooning, "Have you been checking me out, bravita?"

Expression lighting up with surprise at how quickly he turned the teasing around on you, the tickle of excitement that skitters into your core has you feeling overheated now, even with the nice breeze that billows through the lush canopies overhead. The cool air filters his cologne and the hint of his sweaty skin to you, and you watch as his dark brewed eyes flutter, unaware that the waft of your own perfume has him feeling warm and fuzzy.

The crosswalk light finally changes to green, so you hitch your purse strap high on your shoulder in order to tuck it and his blazer to your side as you lean close to him now.

"Well, it's been kind of hard not to notice," you silkily murmur whilst you trail your fingertips teasingly down his chest to skim all the way to where the shirt is tucked into his pants, emphasis on the operative word you purred as your touch brushes over his taut tummy.

The way Javi's breath hitches and his eyes get dark is exactly what you were looking to rile out of him, so you smile enchantingly before turning to trot down the crosswalk, shooting him a coquettish glance over your shoulder when he stays rooted in his spot.

"You coming, stud?"

Javier takes a cleansing breath and reins the impulse to run over and sweep you up in his arms so he can instead sprint over and take your hand bossily in order to thread it in the crook of his arm as he escorts you across the street to the next shady sidewalk.

"Atrevida," he growls into your ear, and you triumphantly hold your head high as he reluctantly lets your hand go once you've fallen back into your casually ambling step, only for you to surprise him by brushing the back of your palm against his before slipping your hand to take his much larger one, giving it a flirty squeeze.

He stares down at it before looking fawningly at you, smiling when you let him interlace his fingers with yours.

Not wanting to jinx a thing, Javi relishes just walking hand-in-hand the few minutes left in comfortable silence all the way back to the main gate of the Federal campus, content by the affectionate way you squeeze his hand from time to time as you both stroll together.

That is, until it's time to cross over to the western side of the avenue.

You hand him his blazer so he can retrieve his security pass while you both hustle across once traffic slows, and then dig through your purse for your own credentials while he follows you to the entry to get let through the gate.

He wants so badly to ask you out – hell, to kiss you right here and now as you're both loping up the walkway towards the building, but knows he shouldn't. Not so close to the offices, and definitely not when he can already feel glances from the few employees that are milling about as you both near the doors leading into the sprawling foyer and security reception desk.

You're so poised and unruffled, though, and he gets distracted by how you casually smile up at him that he doesn't even notice Kike as he walks by. The rookie is in the outer entry, flirting one of the workers sitting on a cement bench, and only pauses when he catches Javier's eye.

He's about to call out and wave, but notices he's not alone, so he gestures to the office worker that he'll talk to her more some other time so he can rush over, eager to pepper Javier with questions, when he slows at seeing you turn to Javier with a serene look relaxing your features as you gaze up into his soulful brown eyes.

"I enjoyed the impromptu lunch, chavón. So sorry again about the wasabi!" you tell him irreverently as you make a silly grimace.

"Ah, no harm done. I don't think I'll ever have allergies again, and I'm pretty sure I can smell colors now, so," he jibes with a shrug, and you snicker irreverently at him. "And anyway, you can just make it up to me—"

"Huh, it's always some quid pro quo with you, agente," you banter back before gesturing you have to go, as you muse, "Next meeting's in a few, so, gotta run. Have a good rest of your day."

Nodding, he shrugs on his blazer before digging your handkerchief from his pocket and calling out, "Oh, here, forgot to give this back—"

You smile and motion with your hand for him not to worry whilst waltzing towards the doors as you say convivially, "You keep it. With your spicy food track record, it might come in handy soon enough."

Snorting, Javi pockets the soft hankey as he watches you go. He feels wistful and glad, mind already thinking about when he can possibly see you next, when a catcall-like whistle sounds from his left as Kike approaches.

"Wow, que mami más dura," he whispers conspiratorially to Javi, who shakes his head humorously as he turns to lope towards where Kike left the car. "No disrespect! Just, wow…very beautiful. Way to go, boss—"

"Don't let her hear you calling her any of that, if you know what's good for you," Javi laconically deadpans as he gets in the car.

" ¡Chacho, claro que no!" Kike assures after he's gotten in the driver's seat, smirking in solidarity with Javi as he turns the car on and gives him a goofy look, as if to say, 'Game recognize game!'

The rest of your day goes by quick, thanks to your mind wandering every so often to how much you'd wanted to throw your arms around Javier's shoulders and kiss him silly.

Everything felt different. Sure, it was undeniable that you both had a knack for reliving the same back and forth – rehashing old patterns that made you wary of trusting again. But there was a big part of you now – one wiser to what you were tired of denying – that felt secure enough to be able to let your guard down around him again. To disregard resentments towards allowing him back into your life, and placate the worries you have about ending up right back in the same place you were, so many months ago: alone, heartbroken, and lost.

However, you wanted to ease into this. Well, whatever this was going to be, now that you both were in a new place together, surrounded by the knowing eyes of coworkers and other agency officials alike. Not to mention the surreptitious awareness of your father that seemed to permeate even the least-expected corners of your day-to-day life.

Oh god. Would Javi even want to deal with any of that?

Stowing the thought away, you make it down to the ground floor from the elevator now at the end of the workday, eager to get home and veg out in front of the TV on your lazy cheat day, when you notice a certain blond trekking to the exit across the way from you.

"Hey, Murphy!"

Steve freezes at hearing his name called so informally, and whirls around with a scowl on his features before comically blinking at you and getting tense when he sees you march over to him.

"Oh, hey!" Steve greets in that smooth rasp of his, smile lopsided as he idly fidgets his weight from one foot to the other. "How're things—?"

"Tell me something, Steven. Back when you first got here? And we ran into each other in the lobby and caught up? You knew Javier was coming down here the whole time, right?" you bossily inquire as you cross your arms and lean your weight onto one hip as you tap your foot.

Hedging, he stammers good-naturedly, "I mean, y-yeah, technically, but I couldn't mention it—"

"Hm, is that so?" you jeer, eyes narrowing on him and actually making him edgy with anticipation. "You're on my shitlist for that, dude. And, I expect you to make it up to me by arranging a double date so I can meet Connie and befriend her," is your suddenly wily proclamation as you smirk mischievously at him now, enjoying how his dumbfounded expression melts into wry shock. "Sound like a plan?"

Grinning, he amusedly nods and assures, "Damn straight, it does. I'll see to it, hun."

"Good," you chime before leaning up and pecking his cheek platonically before breezing by him to the exit. "Have a nice night, Steve."

"You too, Celina," he snorts as he watches you go, marveling at how good you had him sweating there for a minute.

Luckily for him, he doesn't have to wait long to fill his partner in on the whiplash-inducing encounter, thanks to Javi having agreed to come over for dinner that night.

He waited until a lull in the conversation not taken up by the kids pulling everyone's attention to them, to finally remark, "So, I had an interesting run-in today."

Javi looks up from the page of the coloring book he was currently helping Olivia fill in to see Steve was directing the comment to him.

"Oh?" he drawls before snickering when Olivia got impatient and took the green crayon from him in order to finish coloring in the tree.

Grunting intriguingly, Steve leans back in his chair to conspiratorially rasp to Connie as she feeds the baby a bottle, "Don't know what he did, but Javi's girl marched up to me and had me sweating when she confronted me about not having mentioned knowing that he was coming down here. Just when I thought she was gonna squash me like a bug, she said I needed to make it up to her by arranging a double date."

Smiling impishly, Connie looks over at Javi's stunned expression. "Great! It's long overdue. Just need to coordinate with the babysitter—"

"Wait – when did she say this?" Javi asks in a hushed tone and shifts in his seat to cup his cheek and lean his elbow onto the table, so not to distract the little girl sat next to him from her furious coloring.

"End of day when I was heading out," Steve retorts and crosses his arms casually before adding, "She also said I was on her s-h-i-t list, and that the double date is so she can befriend Connie."

Javier snorts and shakes his head as he tosses himself back into his chair. "Oh, great. That's all we need: the two of them getting in cahoots—"

"That's right. And what would be so wrong with that, hm?" Connie counters quippingly as she shifts the baby to her shoulder so she can burp her.

"Not a thing," Javi chuckles and shrugs before going to lean back over to resume watching Olivia color the once blank flower-filled park using bright colors from her crayon box.

Steve notices how lighter Javier's been since after the happy hour at the hotel. He'd figured something had occurred, but in true fashion, the man was mum about it. Every time he'd tried to coax it out of him, all he'd gotten was a musing, 'I'll tell you once there's something worth telling.'

"Would this be the first official date, then?" Steve fishes, as he busies himself with collecting the empty plates on his and Connie's side of the table.

Looking up with a frown, Javi hums, "…Damn, it would be—"

"That's a bad word, uncle Javi. You need to put a quarter in the swear jar!" Olivia suddenly pipes up and gives him a doe-eyed look that is more precocious thanks to the little smile on her lips. "Once it's filled up, we can get ice cream!"

Javi laughs, already going into his pocket for the change. "Well, here. Put it in the jar for me, would yah?" is his gentle chuckle as he hands her the quarter.

Merrily getting up to go do so, Olivia tots into the living room to plop the coin into the jar with the rest of the change.

After the table is cleared, Connie puts the baby down in her crib and helps Olivia get ready for bed while Javier and Steve remain at the kitchen table, pouring over case files for a bit.

Truthfully, though, Javi keeps getting distracted with thoughts of you. After a half hour of that, Steve notices and decides to suggest just picking it back up the following day when they're both scheduled to be at the office at the same time.

"Go home, you lovesick fool," he can't help haze as he walks Javi to the door a few minutes later. "And about that morning jog—"

"Nope. You're not backing out," Javi cuts in and claps him on the back before tutting, "I'll be at your door at 6, bud."

Huffing noisily, Steve relents and wishes him a good night.

You're not thinking a damn thing about working out the next morning, not with how nice and comfy you are, curled up on your couch with some mini chocolate chip cookies you're nibbling on as you watch a sitcom on cable while clad in a loose-fitting lounge-friendly top and short set.

The balcony slider is open to let in the nice cool breeze, and you're enjoying how it lulls over your skin with the help of the slow circulating ceiling fan above. So much so, that you have to shake yourself back to sharp awareness from staring tiredly at the television when your cell phone starts ringing on the side table next to you.

Setting the bag of cookies aside and shifting up to reach for it, you press the button to pick up the call before bringing it to your ear. "Hello?"

"I'm not interrupting anything important, am I, jefa?" is the honeyed baritone drawl on the other end, which instantly unearths a warm tingle to zing through you and a charmed smile to tug broadly across your face.

"No. Although, just like I said earlier, you have a knack for materializing in some way when I'm indulging," you remark in a playful lilt as you shift up on the sofa to pull your knees against your chest when he hums interestedly.

"Oh? What're you snacking on? No, wait – let me guess," Javi smoothly charms before offering, "Chocolate? Or maybe cookies?"

You chuckle, licking your bottom lip before chirping, "Both. Chocolate chip cookies."

"Yum," is his raspy hum. "Sounds like a successful cheat day, all things considered, hermosa."

Snickering, you lean back into the cushion as you muse, "I'll be paying for it tomorrow. You doing ok, post-wasabi disaster?"

"All good. Well, except for my gringo partner letting me know he had a mighty tough run in with a feisty boss lady today—"

"Ah, so that's what's inspired this call," you impishly snicker before following up curiously, "Did that seem like a fair request?"

"It did. Connie loved the idea, so we'll definitely do it," Javi retorts assuredly, then murmurs with baritone like honeyed gravel, "But, before then, I was hoping you'd be interested in going out, just you and me?"

You feel your heart summersault at the proposition, but hedge a bit before asking, "Oh? What would you like to do?"

Freshly showered and only in a pair of loose-fitting boxers, Javi lays more comfortably in order to stretch out on his bed, then pins the cell phone with his shoulder so it stays perched to his ear as he toys with the soft handkerchief before raising it to his nose to scent your delicate perfume from it.

Picturing you when you were smiling at him in front of the building earlier that day, Javi croons smoothly, "Well, I haven't really seen El Viejo San Juan yet. Maybe you can show me around, be my tour guide? You did say the murrallas in Cartagena didn't really compare to, what was it—?"

"El Morro," you finish, and by your tone, he can tell you're smiling. "I can't believe you remembered that—"

"Well, you left an intriguing impression, querida," he husks as he dotingly clutches the handkerchief in his palm and rests it against his chest. "Are you free after work tomorrow? I could come pick you up at your place, and we can do an early evening stroll," is his cool proposal, trying to keep the eagerness out of his tone.

There's a quiet couple of seconds on the other line before you sigh, and answer, "Yeah, I'm free. Your driver gonna tag along—?"

"Nope. Tomorrow I'm picking up the requisitioned car I got for personal use. The rookie's only gonna drive me during the week to meetings," he tells you as he rolls over to retrieve his little book from his nightstand before asking you for your address. Once you've given it to him, he suggests, "Pick you up around 6?"

"Sure. I'll meet you out front," you answer in a relaxed timbre, before adding, "Oh! And be sure to wear comfortable clothes, especially practical shoes."

"So no heels?" he jokes, and you scoff derisively. "I'll see you tomorrow, preciosa."

"Ok. Goodnight, chulito. Bye."

Javier lays flat on the bed and smiles up at the ceiling.

That effervescent, warm feeling fills his chest when he thinks about getting to see you again, and keeps fizzling up throughout the next day every time his mind wanders to the plan after work.

Luckily, he has Steve to keep towing him back from daydreaming.

The wryly smirking blond just tossed a paperclip at him from his side of the conference table, which pulled Javi back from his pining thoughts to squint questioningly at him.

"I said, the bust in St. Thomas was too big for it to all have come from speed boats, so I'm thinking there's gotta be some other transport that's moving large quantities of coke through that corridor. Any ideas?" Steve says in a musing drone, tapping his pen idly over the stack of files he's been reading.

With a shrug, Javi retorts, "Cali used to fly it in on cargo aircrafts. Before that, Medellín couriered it across the Caribbean in small planes, then ferried it up through Florida by speedboat. Might be a combination here? So maybe we check flight manifests? Most Cessnas flying out of the big island don't get inspected for cargo."

"Yeah, but still. That's a lot of flights back and forth. Definitely would draw attention," Steve grumbles as he looks over the total weigh-in for the seized bust. "And supposedly that area came up clean in a surveillance sweep just a week prior, so no way a bunch of planes and speedboats could bring in five tons like that in such a short window—"

Javi sits up and pulls one of the transport maps for large vessels that dock in ports off each island after stopping at one of the two major import and export depots on the big island of Puerto Rico. Staring at it, he grunts and traces his fingers to delineate a route to Steve as he thinks out loud, "Maybe they're not using either, and it's one of the container ships? Look, this shipping lane goes right by the area they found the stash. So, they empty a container here in Yabucoa, fill it up with the coke after and put it on a container ship. No customs checks, and they get it over in a day or so, if the seas aren't rough."

"Ok, but the waters are too shallow for them to go to any other makeshift port," Steve is looking at the bathymetric map before pointing to the specific sea floor depth for that corridor. "See? That means they're either unloading the container at the main port, or while they're still at sea somewhere?"

Crossing his arms and pondering, Javi stares at the maps, unsure of what would be the most likely possibility. "Shit…if the container makes it to the port, that means they have someone in customs helping get it out without being checked and transporting it on a truck out to this drop location. Or, the vessel makes an unscheduled stop somewhere mid-transit to unload the container off to another boat that then smuggles it the rest of the way," he pauses to look up at Steve with a scowl before muttering, "Either way, that's really fucking bad for us."

Nodding in reluctant agreement, Steve exhales as he scrubs his hand across his cheek. "Yep. Means we have a bigger corruption problem here than we thought," is his huff before checking his watch. "Is it bad you and I are still doing this shit ourselves when we have assistant special agents in charge who could be doing the heavy lifting?"

"Yeah, well, I like doing my own work. Plus, my guy is a pain in the ass," Javi laconically sneers as he reaches for his coffee mug and drinks while Steve chuckles at his expense.

"I'd trade yah, but Petersen is decent, so far, and he's out on St. John," Steve remarks, amused when Javier rolls his eyes and starts sifting through documents in his folder for something. "If you don't like Segarra, just have him reassigned."

"He's got an uncle that works in the governor's cabinet, so that's not really an option, unless he royally fucks up," Javi grumbles, before evenly quipping, "Wanna trade SAC roles?"

Snorting, Steve picks up his stuff and pockets his pen as he drawls, "So you'd want to take monthly trips out to the islands and be away from your girl?"

Glowering, Javi shakes his head as he deadpans, "Yeah, on second thought? Screw that."

Steve laughs as he heads to the door with a parting goodbye chuckled over his shoulder.

It's just then that Javi finds the document he'd been looking for, and reads from it as he collects the folder and his blazer, multitasking scanning the numbers of seizures in the last six months with hustling back to his office.

How the hell are they pulling this off? They'd have to pay off the dock manager, customs, an entire crew on the ship—hell, someone in the government, even. But that would be so brazen, even all things considered. Not to mention funneling the money around quickly and cleanly without setting off alarms with the banking institutions here, Javi is pondering as he goes. It doesn't seem sophisticated, but they really are operating like a mafia down here. And like any mafia, they've clearly found a way to clean their money, so maybe if we find that, the rest of this will start to make more sense.

His ruminating thoughts are interrupted by a knock on his office's door. "Come in."

"You got a sec, boss?" Lopez asks after poking his head in. Once Javi's nodded and waved him in, the agent saunters through and sits in one of the seats in front of the desk. "So, I know you shut down that raid the ASAC had been pushing for, but now Duffy just got word from his contact in the Guardia Nacional that they're coordinating a sting operation, off the books, with the local municipal police. It seems kind of suspicious that all of a sudden, the same raid is gonna happen with the locals," is his gruff charge.

"Fucking hell," Javi grouses as he rubs his hand over his mouth testily while he thinks. "Any chance they were tipped off by someone on our side?"

"I mean…this seems punitive," Lopez mutters, the accusation unspoken, but clear to Javi. Segarra is making a power play.

"Alright…I'll make a few calls," Javier huffs, already beyond aggravated. "What about your informant? Anything else there?"

"Yeah. They've basically said the caserío is just a decoy. They don't conduct real business there and the drugs that do move through there are for the smaller dealers who are trying to make a name for themselves in order to get into the larger crew," Lopez explains, adding, "If we raid the place, it'll just confirm their suspicions and undo any opportunity to really track the cartel's dealings with the street gangs."

Nodding, Javi thanks Lopez and tells him to keep his ear to the ground.

Once the man exits his office, Javier then calls the lead commander for the National Guard on the island, who then dials in the head of the municipal police the public housing unit in question resides in, and in not so many words, tells both men that they better not go through with the raid, or else he will tell the governor's office they acted against the DEA's protocols.

And as expected, the municipal captain griped, "We got the tip from your ASAC, so I thought this was an interagency partnership?"

Assuring the man that his ASAC did not have the authority to coordinate such a thing, and to please make sure they always reach out to him first if anything similar occurs, Javi got both their commitments and confirmations that the sting would not take place.

Furious, Javi got up from his desk and stormed out of his office.

The DEA department was busy with phone chatter and typing as he stalked through the space towards the ASAC's office on the opposite side of the wing, and many couldn't help notice how imposing he looked as he went, making it a point to avoid crossing his path. He knew his reputation from Colombia preceded him, and he didn't care, especially now as he barged into his assistant's office and slammed the door behind himself while the man balked at him from his desk.

"I-let me call you back," the other man rushed into the phone quickly before hanging it up and gaping at Javier. "Boss, what's up—?"

"I'm going to tell you this only once. You ever go over my fucking head or around my back again, I'll make sure you get busted down to rookie agent and shipped off to a real fucking hellhole your uncle won't be able to win you favor in," Javi thunders before snapping when Segarra begins to deny, "Don't even bother bullshitting me. I spoke to the locals, and they confirmed you tipped them off on that caserío point. They know now not to listen to anything coming from DEA unless it comes from my fucking mouth. I don't give a damn who you're related to. The next time you step out of line, you better have your shit packed already so you can go work for your uncle as a goddamned gopher. You got me?"

Segarra looked like he'd been steamrolled and doused in lemon juice after that, so all he could muster was a jerky nod and croaked, "Y-Yes, sir. Sorry, sir!"

Without a second look, Javi turns on his heels and storms out of the man's office, throwing the door open so roughly that it banged into the wall with a loud slam.

The office chatter muted around him as he traversed through the department back the way he came with another sharp slam of his door.

While the whispered murmurs began to hum between cubicles and filter over to the agent bullpen down the way, you were just wrapping up another assessment of the current network bandwidth post-onboarding.

Everything went fairly smoothly, except for the problem you knew you could no longer ignore: the nepotism factor.

There were staff members in the operations division overall that weren't exactly qualified to do the work required for the position they filled, but had been placed there nonetheless by well-meaning friends and families in high-up places who'd called in favors for their son or the like to be acomodado.

El acomodo was to be placed in a job or occupation. While typically that usually hinged on having the credentials or experience that would make for the proper fit in said job or occupation, in Puerto Rico, it was usually the opposite. Or at the bare minimum, someone's résumé was juiced up enough to make them passing on paper to fill the role, even at the detriment of more qualified candidates. Acomodando someone could even include placing a kid in an elite school or program that was competitive. It was often seen as a harmless grift, albeit unfair, but when it escalated into favoritism or favors – political, financial, or reputational – it often eroded public trust. However, it was a dirty not-so-secret, and every time a scandal broke, it would burn out until the next quid-pro-quo was revealed by the local news.

While you've worked very hard to get to where you are today, there is a part of you that feels guilty to have been privileged enough to get into good schools and had good words put in for you. It also doesn't help that you have no doubt that your father has used his influence to remove obstacles from your path. He would never admit it, though, but you felt it at times by the way people would greet you, or know to reference him to you in some way.

For the most part, you'd avoided that in Colombia. But back here? You were hard pressed to not run into someone who knows of your father, either by reputation or direct association. You could blame it on his unique surname, or the way he's successfully networked to make himself a person of reputation across all echelons.

Being the first and only Puerto Rican to become a Vice Admiral in the U.S. Navy didn't hurt either, sure.

Annoyed with yourself at having to start making the arrangements you'd been hoping to avoid regarding the personnel adjustments needed, you allow your mind to wander to your early evening plans with Javi.

You were excited to see him again, and looking forward to taking him around Old San Juan, but part of you was anxious about moving too fast. It only compounded when you recalled his words to you that night.

"I came here for you…I came here to be withyou, Celina…"

Your heart squeezed in your chest every time you thought about it, and while your feelings hadn't stopped burning for him, there was a weary part of you afraid of letting your love overtake you again. Like it had every other time before you and Javi found your way back to each other, only to be flung apart by some chaotic circumstance that hadn't been in your control. It didn't help that part of you questioned how serious he was. After all, he'd said he didn't care about the job – had practically implied he'd only taken the SAC position in order to come to Puerto Rico to get you back.

Even if that was the case, you didn't know how to feel about that. It was flattering, but scary, but exasperating, but overwhelming to think that he would be so flippant with his career all because his motives were focused elsewhere, let alone that you were seemingly the only reason he'd taken the job. That he intended to orbit you in the hopes your gravitation would draw you back to each other once again.

Your ambivalence wasn't helped by how unsure you were with yourself. There was something raw and yearning within you that wanted to leap back into his arms and profess your love eternal, but the skittish, protective force that kept your walls up couldn't drop its guard like that, no matter how much you believed Javier now that he hadn't intended for things to go as bad as they had. No, it was all too muddled by your own insecurities, leaving you questioning whether you were even worthy of his passion and devotion.

What if he realizes he's made a mistake? That he's just as miserable being back in the DEA and dealing with the shit here than he was before, and doesn't want to put up with all the hassle of being with you? Of the scrutiny and judgment of it being known by all that we're together? What if he expects so much more now from you, and you can't give him what he needs?

What if I don't deserve him?

If Javier knew how tangled up you were about the unspoken things remaining between you both, and how much it was weighing on your heart, he'd be going about things totally different with you right now.

Instead of rushing through astounding amounts of traffic to get to your apartment on time, he would've gone to get a ring, gotten down on one knee, and assuaged you of any doubts in your head that he didn't want anything else in the world but to be with you forever. But, quite the opposite was in his head.

Sure, he wanted to ask you to marry him. Hell, he was up for eloping and running away to wherever you wanted, but he kept that impulsive part of him in check by admonishingly berating himself.

You can't expect her to want to marry you just like that! Things are back to square one, and trust will need to be built back up before you can even consider proposing to her. Gonna have to take it slow – let her set the pace of things. See how far she's willing to allow things to get back to where they were before—

Honking cars sweep his internal monologue away, and he focuses on the bumper-to-bumper traffic becoming a standstill at the height of after-5pm rush hour. Checking his watch, he grumbles as he snatches up the folded map that's in close reach in order to skim alternate routes he could take, peering over the rim of his aviators down at the woven streets off of the highway.

He'd gone to his place after work to quickly shower, shave, and change into comfortable clothes, eager to get over to your condo with enough time to spare so he could park and go up to the door to escort you down. But now, with how he's inching over lanes to get to the next exit in order to back route it to your street, he's aggravated that he's going to be running so late.

Javi doesn't know that you'd had to contend with the same level of traffic, even after avoiding the highway and sticking to the city routes you knew, so you were currently running around your apartment rushing to get ready. Freshly showered, you shimmy into your outfit and spend way too long fussing with what to do with your hair before you look at the clock and swear under your breath – worried Javier is parked out front waiting for you and wondering why you're so late in coming down.

You've just pulled on your shoes after putting on some tinted lip balm when your cell phone starts ringing. Sprinting over to the nightstand to grab it, you answer it already apologizing, "I'm so sorry! Traffic was nuts so I'm way behind getting ready—"

"Oh, that's alright! I just pulled up to the curb. The roads are a nightmare, so no rush, querida," Javi assures in a smooth baritone.

"Ok, I'll be down in 5 minutes!" you insist before hanging up to finish fretting over your appearance in the mirror.

Frowning, Javi returns the cell phone to the center dash. He'd been hoping he could've gone up to your apartment and chivalrously escorted you down to the car, but your condo building was fenced off with a security and carport gate that required a passcode for entry. Flustered with being late, he ends up busily popping a mint into his mouth and crunching on it while he lowers the visor so he can peer at his appearance in the mirror.

He's fussing with his hair in the reflection when he sees the entry gate of the walkway open. Slapping the visor shut and giving the interior of his car one last glance, he gets out and walks around to the sidewalk in order to greet you.

As you shut the gate behind yourself, you see him out of the corner of your eye approaching, so you exclaim, "Hey! Sorry to keep you waiting—"

Javi pauses in his tracks when you turn and smile at him. He's punch-drunk by how you're dressed, feeling a scintillating déjà vu flood him over with heat that has him slipping his sunglasses off to stare at you.

You look relaxed and flirty in the capri-style light denim jeans, peach-toned camisole top, and leather sandalia-clad feet, hair gathered up in a twist with the rose-shaped clasp. Sans makeup except for the balm on your lips, you look seraphic and enchanting, especially when you approach him after putting your keys in your purse so you can have your hands free to rest them on his shoulders as you lean up and peck him on the lips hello.

"This is your idea of comfy clothing, eh?" you can't help razz as you step back and give him a sassy once over. "And boots?"

He snorts and slips his sunglasses into his dusky blue cotton button down shirt's breast pocket before chivalrously opening the passenger door for you. The infamous blue Levi's look just as impeccable on him as you remember, and his ass is begging for a squeeze when he leans in to adjust the passenger seat back for you to have ample leg room.

You manage to not give into the impulse of groping him, but just barely.

"These are my most comfortable pair, criticona," Javi teasingly mutters as he steps aside for you to get into the dark gray SUV. Once he closes your door for you, he circles to the driver's side and gets in, remarking, "I don't know what's going on, but traffic was ridiculous—"

"Today is the semi-final game for the Serie del Caribe, and Puerto Rico has been sweeping the tournament, so getting to the baseball stadium is a hot-ticket event," you tell him before sheepishly musing, "It totally slipped my mind! I remembered when I hit traffic right outside of my usual route home. I should've called and warned you—"

"Nah, that's all right," is his warm assurance, as he drives off. "You'll have to act as navigator, though, since I want to avoid the way I came," he remarks as he nods towards the folded-up map tucked between the center console and seat.

"Ah, luckily, the traffic shouldn't be an issue going into Old San Juan. Just keep straight, and at the end, turn right to merge onto the route towards the bridge," you're instructing as you adjust your seatbelt and smile, then remark, "Ellis has this car, too, only in tan. Do you like it?"

"Yeah, uh, I know," Javi chuckles, subtly reminding you that he'd ridden in the Ellis' tan Montero after you'd cussed him out and stormed off. He snickers when you bite your lip at the recall, and rumbles, "It's not bad. Not so different from other SUVs I've driven. Surprised by all the foreign cars down here."

"Yeah, Japanese cars have gotten really popular down here. They're more compact and fuel-efficient," you remark as you point to where he needs to go as he merges into the lane he needs to take to go over the bridge that connects the islet to the rest of the metropolitan area.

You keep making light conversation as you guide him through traffic to take the best routes into El Viejo San Juan's city center, and jovially point out landmarks to him as you go. Javier smiles when you excitedly lean over to point at the Capitolio and explain how that's where the Puerto Rican Congress and Senate gather.

"Is that El Morro?" he asks as he drives by the massive outer walls of what looks like a sprawling fortification with ample grounds that overlook the ocean.

"No, that's El Castillo San Cristobal. Oh, take this left here," you answer and direct, then proceed to guide him to the nearest carpark garage.

Once he's found an empty space and parked, he leaves his aviators in the dash cubby and pockets his cell phone before you lead him down to street level, leaving the building's front loggia before convivially taking his hand and excitedly towing him along to begin the romantic excursion.

It's a cloudy afternoon, but the brisk air is breezy and cool, and the sun peeks through every so often, warming your skin whenever it seeps around the tree-lined street's Spanish edifices. The foot traffic is meandering but not congested, so you're both able to stroll together without having people to really weave through. You think it's nice, and the fluttering current undulates around you both every so often and brings his warm, spicy cologne to tickle your nose and make you lean in closer to him.

Javi is dying to kiss you. Had been since the day before. But he doesn't want to derail you, or make it seem like all he wants is to jump right back into the carnality of wanting and having you. No, he's on his best behavior, treating this like a first date and corralling all base desire in order to focus and be present with you. Especially when you exuberantly lead him to cross the street so you both can stroll past shops while you gush about your favorite places to go when you're in Old San Juan.

"—It's so nice out today, but it would be even better to come on the weekend or when the cruise ships anchor at port, because all sorts of vendors, artesanos and performers line the streets and flank El Paseo de la Princesa," you're telling him as he interlaces his fingers with yours and marvels at the old-world charm of the buildings.

When you pass a few restaurants with outside seating on the front sidewalk, Javi squeezes your hand and gestures to the façade of a building he recognizes. "Steve and Connie took me here for dinner—"

At your scoff, he blinks down at you and sees you shaking your head at him with a wry smile before you tug him along to briskly stride away. "That's a tourist trap, Javi. Where all the gringos go for 'authentic Puerto Rican cuisine' and get mediocre arróz con habichuelas y bistec. What a travesty," is your snarky appraisal of the place before tutting playfully to him, "For shame, chavón—"

"It was alright," he chuckles, and at your sassy scoff, he tows you back when he pauses in stride so he can lean in to whisper in your ear, "Tan exijona. Luckily, I'm more than happy to let you guide me wherever you see fit."

The giddy tingle that courses down into your core has you tempted to just slink up against him in order to kiss his smugness away, but you control yourself and instead lilt, "I'm happy to guide you to real authentic Puerto Rican food soon, galán. But, for now? We're making the most of this early evening tour!"

He chuckles and lets you take his arm so you can thread it with yours and escort him along to the next corner before the street opens up into a larger avenue overlooking the southern precinct of the islet. When Javi points out the impressive edifice across the way that takes up an entire city block, and asks, "What's that building?" you smile.

"That is the first US federal building of significance built on the island. It's where the old Post Office was housed, and it's an active US courthouse. It faces the harbor, and was constructed on an old Spanish customs house. There used to be fortifications that were part of the bastion up ahead, but they made way for this building when the US beat Spain and took the island as a territory," you're telling him as you both cross the street and walk the sidewalk along the building's north side.

He's impressed as he looks up while you both lope by, and lets you point out more sights and landmarks once you get to the front entrance of the building that overlooks a cobblestone pedestrian inlet flanked by barriers that delineate it for foot traffic while drivers mill around it to traverse one-way routes in and out of the harbor-facing precinct.

Pretty soon, you're both ambling over to one of your favorite jaunts: El Paseo de la Princesa. It's a lovely, picturesquely timeless promenade that looks up at the city that yawns upwards on the hilly terrain it settled on centuries ago, flanked by the bastions with alcoves Javi knew were called garitas, aka sentry boxes for Spanish soldiers, standing watch. As you amble casually down the tree-lined, cobblestone promenade, you point out more sights, happily answering Javi's follow-up questions.

He's utterly charmed by the wonderful stroll with you, and genuinely interested in the history of each landmark you tell him about as you lope down until the impressive bronze-sculptured adorned fountain at the end of the promenade comes into view. At this time of day, La Fuente Raíces looks older than it actually is thanks to the rays of dusk gleaming off the waters from the harbor and haloing in the majestic misted spray of the fountain's many nozzles jettisoning the water around the monument depicting all of the different roots that make up the people of Puerto Rico. The bronze figure at the center of the monument is reaching up to the sky, and Javi stands before it to admire how majestic the landmark is.

He's noticing how the flag poles that align the perimeter of the end of the promenade are flying the US and Puerto Rican flags, and is about to comment on how intrigued he was that both were variations of red, white and blue – albeit with a single star versus the fifty he's used to, when you adjust your purse to be crossbody so you can grab his arm with both your hands and pull him closer to the fountain.

"Come, if you stand over here, you can see how the light from the sun makes the statues glow gold and copper," you're telling him jubilantly as you lead him to stand just behind and to the side of the fountain, where the breeze coming off of the harbor brings the fine mist from the water spraying up to the sky to sprinkle lightly over you both.

The glow of the sun from this angle is stunning, and when Javi looks from the bronze monument pedestaled at the center of the fountain to you, his dark brown eyes flare like rich cocoa under the light.

His breath catches in his chest from how radiant you look under the dusky sky, and before he's registered the impulse, he's cupped your cheek and leaned forward to kiss you with a passion unmatched by the heat of the sun's dying rays.

You don't shy away from it, and instead lean into him as you deepen the kiss, heart racing when his hand cups the small of your back, holding you close to him.

With the mist from the fountain carried over by the breeze, Javi is inundated with the smell of your dewy skin and the scent of your perfume, so much so that he reluctantly breaks the kiss in order to nuzzle you and sigh.

"You really know how to romance me, cariño," he husks ruggedly, and you snicker before amusedly swatting his shoulder.

"Yeah, well, quit getting carried away, suavón. We got a lot of walking and sightseeing to do before the sun sets, so c'mon," is your deriding murmur as you take his hand and tug him along to a walkway of patterned pavers that veers off from the promenade.

The path skirts the rocky edge of the shore and looks out to the bay, flanking the outer walls of the fortified city and leading to La Puerta de San Juan – the iconic gate that led into the historic city's walls. As you walk, you and Javi canoodle closer under the ruse of chatting more intimately in the cloistered walkway while the breeze and crashing of the waves made up the ambience around you both.

His arm slips around you and yours around his waist as you near the tree-canopied park just outside the ancient gate. Plenty of people are enjoying the breeze and sitting on the benches around the shade-abundant gathering place, and Javi is admiring the charming surroundings when you glance up at him and smile.

"Right through the gate, at the top of the street is one of the entrances to La Fortaleza, where the governor resides," you're remarking as you both meander up the path towards the fortified entry. "From here on, most of the city is on an incline going towards El Morro, so hope you can keep up—"

Javi hears the goading challenge in your lilting tone and gives you a smug grunt. "Just lead the way, guapita," is his puckish drawl as he affectionately pinches your waist.

Giggling and detaching from his side, you impishly skip ahead before making a come-hither gesture as you purr, "Vente, señorito."

He scoffs, licking his bottom lip and eyeing you as he marches on long strides to catch up, just before you amble off cheekily.

You skip up through the open gate and make it to the top of the street, expecting to turn and still see Javi just clearing the threshold of the fortified entry, and instead are surprised that he's right on your heels. An effervescent laugh flits out of you when he loops his arm around your waist and scoops you up against him as he swings you around.

"You mischievous little scamp," he rumbles in a steely purr against your ear before kissing you in the spot of your neck just below it. "Quit teasing me when I'm trying to be on my best behavior—"

Wiggling to slink down his front, you purse your lips and huff, "So am I! But you're too easy to rile up, so I can't help it."

He grunts and puts his arm around you when you nod in the direction of walking up the current street. "Figures," is his laconic hum, smiling when the arm you've looped back around his waist gives him an irreverent squeeze.

Managing to stroll up the winding streets and continue to banter lightheartedly, you both make it to the end of the inclining route and arrive at the top of the islet that looks out at the expansive green, knoll-like grounds that make up El Castillo San Felipe del Morro.

A citadel built on the northwesternmost point of the islet of Old San Juan, it takes advantage of the promontory that overlooks the entrance to the Bay of San Juan, which accounts for its name amongst the locals: El Morro. Under the now pink and peach-tinged clouds of the sky backlit by the blazing Caribbean sunset, the entire grounds looked utterly enchanting. So much so, that Javier just gaped at it with mystified wonder while you jovially waited for him to glance at you.

Across the lush green grass meadow, people were enjoying the splendor of the majestic site. Javi marveled at the kites being flown in the sky by kids and adults alike, the congenial clusters of people lounging together for late-day picnics, and the children running down the more sloping terrain playing games on who can go down and up the quickest. Overall, it was spectacular, and the splendor of it had him starry-eyed as the breeze from the ocean billowed up to bring him back down from the clouds.

"Holy shit," he breathes out and looks at you, completely smitten as he smiles and exclaims, "You weren't kidding. This is amazing, querida."

Beaming, you take his hand and simper, "I told you! Now, let's take a break and sit so we can watch the sun set."

You both end up finding a nice spot on the soft cool grass to lounge and admire the sky, cuddled sidelong together while people-watching and enjoying the magnificent beauty of the historic site. At one point, while Javi is pointing at one of the kites and remarking about how much air the flyer got on it, you find yourself staring at his profile and getting a warm recall. His smile when he turns to you and sees your expression soften only makes your heart flutter more.

This time, you're the one who pulls him close for a tender kiss on the lips.

Javier deepens it with a slip of his tongue, and before you know it, the hand at his nape curls up into the back of his hair and guides him down with you to the grass. He balances himself by planting a hand next to your shoulder, slipping the other behind your head to wrap fingers along your nape.

For a moment, the world bleeds away, and you both get lost in the make-out session until the delighted squeal of a child rings over the breeze and reminds you of where you're at. Javi grunts at the same time as you hum reluctantly to break the kiss, and when he leans back to stare handsomely down at you, the image of him doing the same thing, but in a dream you'd had once, flares like a resplendent vision in your mind's eye.

Sitting up with a faux pout when he shifts to lounge sidelong on his elbow, you grumble, "Who's romancing who now."

He chuckles and does that silly mueca where he cocks his jaw askew before tucking his chin low so he can give you a molten stare. "I'm blaming it on the magic of the island of enchantment," is his canela-dipped purr as he affectionately nudges his shoulder into yours.

You chuckle and lean into him, eyes twinkling under the dusky light cresting into the horizon as you glance over to see that the squealing child was a little boy as his father held him out like he was flying while he ran down the meadow.

Smiling at the heartwarming sight, you turn to Javi and ask, "How's your dad?" When his brows go up in surprise, you bump your shoulder playfully into him and snicker, "What? I've been wondering if he was against you coming down here, let alone to head the DEA again under the ruse of coming to court me—"

"You have that in reverse, corazón," he counters and cocks a glib brow at you before remarking, "I told him it would be different, he believed me, and didn't try to talk me out of leaving. He gets it," he pauses to smirk as he croons, "Plus, he made me promise that when I got you back, that I'd finally bring you home to meet him."

Heart summersaulting in your chest at that, you stare meekly up at him now as you query, "He wasn't disappointed? That you were investing your time into all of this again, after everything?"

He's surprised to hear you wonder that. Sure, the first time he'd talked to his father after he'd arrived in San Juan, Chucho had pressed him on whether he was sure about his plans, but that had been before he was able to update him a few days later that you hadn't strangled him in your fury, and that you both had agreed to take things slow. Well, it was an unspoken agreement, sure, but Javi had felt confident, and his father had seemed relieved and happy to hear it.

The look in your eyes right now though tells him you want honesty, not appeasement, so Javi dotingly combs the rogue strands of hair that have escaped your clasp to frame your face, and tucks them behind your ear for you, as he answers sincerely, "To tell you the truth, when a big box with all my stuff showed up on the doorstep at the house? Pops leveled with me that it might be time for me to move on," he pauses when your expression tenses, so he quickly continues, "But I couldn't. I spent months obsessing about things – wondering if I should've done more, and I tried reaching out to everyone I could think of that would know where you were; that had a way to contact you, and always struck out. But the moment Steve showed me the org chart here? I went home and told Pops I needed to take the job; to come down here. That it would be different this time, because I had the right reasons—"

"Javi," you interrupt and shift closer so you can confide, "I waited for you. And when I couldn't live with knowing how complicit everyone was in sabotaging you – that they'd set you up to fail? It made me sick, and I quit…but I reached out to Steve, hoping he could tell me where you were. I never got ahold of him, and by then? I had no reason to stay in Colombia anymore. And, I was convinced it was over and I would never see you again, so I packed the box and mailed it to your father's address, figuring you'd turn up there eventually."

"…I'm sorry, querida," he mumbles on an exhale and diverts his gaze before admitting, "My biggest regret was being too much of a chicken-shit idiot to have reached out after I'd left. That I didn't go back sooner."

You hear the genuine upset in his muttered tone, so you sigh and caress his cheek so he'll look back up to your eyes as you huff, "So? Does Mr. Jesus F. Peña hate me for stealing his son away, or not?"

Snorting at you, he follows up with his own question of, "How did you know that, and the address to the house? I never told you—"

"I may have peeked into a shoebox I'd accidentally knocked off the top shelf of your closet, and seen the envelope to a letter from him to you," is your impish drawl as you smile at him giving you an impressed look.

The dim twilight has advanced enough now over the expansive grounds that you both decide to start making your way back down to the cobblestone streets. Luckily for Javi, you could tell he was a bit peckish, so you'd suggested stopping for tapas and drinks at Barrachina. Walking down the hilly calles to the restaurant and bar was even more pleasant, thanks to the cool breeze languidly billowing about now that the twilight gave in to night, as well as the antique lamppost-lit plazas and parques you both strolled by while you'd point to landmarks or museums you promised to bring him back to next time you both were in the old city.

He's in such a great mood that he even lets you cajole him into getting a piña colada instead of his go-to whiskey neat, all because you raved about how good it was and how the location touted themselves as being the original creators of the world-renowned tropical drink. Even when he got a brain freeze, he still couldn't stop smirking while you gushed about all the places you still wanted to take him to.

By the time he's escorting you back out to the cobblestone avenue and down a promenade that will lead you back to the parking garage, you're feeling content. You rest your head on his arm while your hands are looped around his elbow, effectively tucking you close to him as you lope by the shops you'd passed when you'd first arrived, while you continue to banter.

"—I swear, my father understands and is supportive. I'll even call him so you can talk to him yourself, if you don't believe me," Javier is remarking while traversing through the evening foot traffic to the corner, voice a gravelly murmur in your ear, making a tingle of arousal flutter in your belly, as you both cross the street to enter the garage kiosk to settle up.

"I believe you, chulito," you chuckle and take his hand once he's paid and the ticket is validated.

"Should I be nervous about how your father will feel about us?" he inquires in a musing drawl, and cocks a concerned brow down at you when you scoff.

"That's a whole other story for another day, babe," you obfuscate smoothly as you bossily clasp his hand in both of yours, giving his palm a squeeze while walking towards the entry of the stairwell up to the parking levels.

"Does he even know about us…?" he can't help fish.

Humming, you concede, "He does. And he knows you're here," before pausing to sigh as you glance up at him and add, "But really, everyone knows about us."

You go on to briefly tell him the encounter with your father, and Javier internally steels himself to the eventual sizing up he'll have to be subjected to by the imposing and intimidating-sounding man. "—He knows a lot of people in business and government, and is known by reputation across all the spheres of influence that matter down here, and is esteemed by most. So, it's par for the course that he's wise to us and able to keep tabs, I guess."

Sounds like I got my work cut out for me, Javi thinks to himself as you continue to stride together down the main aisle towards where the car is parked.

After you get in, Javi turns to you before putting the key in the ignition in order to have the quiet of the interior so he can ask, "Can I take you out to dinner?"

Giggling, you whisper in a silly tone, "Javi, we just had dinner—"

"Yeah, but I mean a real dinner. Somewhere on the beach, with maybe some dancing?" he unabashedly proposes, and the smoldering look in his dark brewed eyes makes a shiver skitter down between your legs. "Doesn't have to be fancy. Just somewhere nice and casual you vouch for."

"I'd like that," you chime before serenely smiling, then caveating, "Friday would be the best, since traffic will be pandemonium the next couple of days due to the tournament's final games. And the vaguadas are coming in over the weekend, so all the beach chinchorros will be closed because of the weather, most likely."

"Alright, it's a date," Javier croons before leaning over to kiss you on the lips, pride expanding his chest when you return it with a few flirty pecks and a playful giggle. "You pick the chinchorro, since I have no clue."

"I know where to go, and it's fairly nearby, plays music, and is right on the beach," you chime silkily as he starts the car, and end up smiling sweetly when he makes a silly sound and nods sagely at you.

A little while later, and he's pulling up to the front of your condo building, parking at the curb a few feet from the sidewalk gate entry.

"I had a great time," you tell him, expression gentle as he turns to look at you puckishly. Making an amused sound, you pester, "Well? Did you? I know it was practically a hike, most of the time—"

"It wasn't. We're definitely making a day of going back, soon," he confidently declares before leaning close and asking, "Can I walk you up?"

You hesitate, seeming unsure if you should say yes, and Javi reads the cause for concern from the tense press of your lips, so he quickly assures, "Just want to escort you up. I promise—"

"Yes, sorry, I'm just," you pause before scoffing at yourself, then clarifying, "I'd like that."

Relieved, Javier gets out and comes around to your side of the car to take your hand as you shimmy out of the passenger seat. He's nothing but a gentleman after you key in the security code for the gate and lead him through the lush courtyard.

He catalogues how nice the surroundings are and notes the number of units as you lead him through the front lobby to the elevators.

"You got a security guard posted here?" he asks when you walk by the desk and enter the elevator once the doors have slid open.

"No, just a day and night attendant. The night guy's shift doesn't start for another 10 minutes, though," you explain as you press the button for your floor. "How do you like living in a house versus an apartment?"

"It's different, but nice. The neighborhood is quiet, Steve and Connie live not even a block over, so it kind of feels like old times. Just a lot more tranquil. Although, I do miss the amenities from my place back in Bogotá," he tells you as he leans back against the elevator wall, arm looping around you when you hum and sidle up next to him. "The provisioner and in-building dry cleaner was just too good. Now I gotta get my own groceries and trek my suits across town—"

"Awww, pobrecito," you deridingly coo as the elevator arrives on your floor and the doors slide open. Coquettishly taking his hand, you tow him along to exit onto the loggia-styled walkway towards your side of the hall. "Well, I love my apartment—"

Tugging you playfully back to cuddle against his side as you both stroll towards your door, Javi drawls, "I like how secure it is. No pendejo can just waltz up to your door and invite himself in."

You laugh wholeheartedly, and he feels soothed to hear your melodious giggle before it melts into that discordant little sigh he loves.

Once you're at the door, you key in and hesitate before turning to him and looking at him tentatively.

"I-Thanks for taking me out, and letting me drag you around," you murmur, snickering when he smirks and exhales amusedly out his nose before leaning his hand into the doorframe as you add, "I'll call you Friday to confirm?"

Nodding, Javier's gaze softens into that soulful stare that makes heat tingle up in you. "Looking forward to it," he rumbles before leaning in to kiss you chastely on the lips. He then curls his finger under your chin to affectionately raise your countenance up so he can husk debonairly, "Buenas noches, querida."

You have to suppress the urge to just grab him by his collar and drag him into your apartment so you can have your way with him like you long to, and instead smile dreamily as he turns to lope back down to the elevator.

"I hate to see you go, but I love to watch you leave, papisongo."

Javi pauses and turns, and his expression is priceless as you grin at him from the door.

"I cannot believe you said that," he incredulously chuckles, and his smile is beaming as it unearths his boyish dimple. "And you give me grief about my lines?" is his faux-huffy counter as he puts his hand on his hip and squints comically at you when you give him a flirty wink.

"Yeah well, it needed to be said! Now, good night, stud," you goofily exclaim, then purr the latter farewell, blowing him a silly kiss before going into your apartment.

Smitten, Javi chuckles to himself and resumes his exit, already pining to see you again.

Even when the rest of his week is filled with the stress and toil of running things while still learning the lay of the land, Javier is able to keep his spirits up. His team of agents are savvy and self-aware, personable and scrappy, so he doesn't feel the same kind of anxiety he did when he'd first arrived to oversee the investigation of the Cali cartel. However, there wasn't a fount of leads or knowledge about the criminal organization like there'd been for either of the Colombian cartels, so hearsay and conjecture were what fed the operations and surveillance assessments.

Still, with Steve finding leads that linked back to certain players in the underworld on the island, he was able to go into meeting after meeting with his suspicions about the syndicates that made up the Puerto Rican Mafia only becoming more credible.

During his morning briefing, he heard the first bit of intel that made his instincts perk up, and ordered Segarra to work with the legal team to request financial statements, pull permits, and search for contracts that had overlapping LLC or holding company titles.

His ASAC was eager to please after being dressed down overtly enough for the entire department to know and gossip about it, so while Javier was brushing up on studying the municipal maps and the topographic charts for the mainland, the man had surprised him by coming into his office with the first of the documents.

"—Check it out, boss. I got the expert on forensic accounting to dig into things, and there are definitely repeating LLC's doing business between here and the other islands. See here? There's a business license in St. Thomas that matches one here," Segarra is detailing as Javier flips through the files and skims everything. "I have a buddy that works at Banco Popular, and I have him looking for accounts that may have wired funds back and forth—"

"Make sure you have legal in the loop of that. I don't want to end up having solid intel inadmissible in court because you cut corners," is his commanding drawl, eyeing the man sharply before glancing back down at some particular public record disclosures. He doesn't see the narrowed glare his dismissive air inspires from his subordinate, but he can sense his resentments percolating, so he deadpans, "This is all promising, though. Do we know who the LLC holders are?"

"N-Not yet, sir. But I have a few resources digging through the paperwork, looking for any filings that list the company holders," Segarra tells him, adding purposely, "And I definitely went through the proper channels with the bank audit, but it never hurts to have a friend run point."

Javier glances aloofly up at him as he tersely orders, "Let me know once you have the information."

"Yes, sir," the man curtly replies before heading out of his office.

Resuming his scan of the documents, Javi wonders about the LLC, and decides to put out some feelers for intel stateside, so he makes a call to Spencer. The man gives him some excellent contacts to reach out to for a deeper accounting of the information, before taking his usual opportunity to wax regretful that he couldn't convince him to take on Mexico.

"—It's looking like a crapshoot anyway down there. So, at the very least, you have a lot more enchanting surroundings, and company – or so I hear."

Miffed by the comment, Javier had curtly found a way to end the call, only to end up stewing. After all, he really was getting used to everyone knowing about him and you. It still raised his hackles to hear anyone reference you so glibly, let alone with a knowing undertone that spoke of amused recrimination.

Even when Steve would razz him like he had that morning during their morning jog – quipping, "Wonder how long it'll be before you both play hooky and run off to get married" – a feeling of protectiveness would twinge in his gut, and he'd have to remind himself that there was no threat. No looming fallout or harassment coming your way because of him.

Not anymore, anyway…

His stewing couldn't last for long, though. Not with more intel coming in from the port survey he'd requested. The logs and manifests took up so much of his time, that he didn't realize how late in the day it'd gotten until his cell phone started ringing, and he retrieved it while sparing a glance at his watch. "Peña."

"Hey. Wanted to see if we were still on for tonight?" your silky voice snaps him to attention to realize it was already past 5pm and he still needed to head home to change. He muffles a swear as he rushes from his desk chair to collect his blazer in order to head out, and you interpret it as reluctance to answer, so you end up asking tentatively, "Is it not a good time—?"

"No, no, sorry. I just lost track of time," Javier counters as he tosses all the documents back into their folders before setting the pile aside as he insists, "I'm running late, but I'll pick you up—"

"Oh, well if you want, just meet me there. The later it gets, the harder it'll be to get a table, so I'll take a cab there and wait," you cut in with the suggestion, and Javi frowns as he exits his office and rushes through the mostly quiet department. "I know traffic will be tough, so no rush—"

Glowering as he stalks out to the elevator and presses the button, Javi forlornly mutters, "I'm sorry, querida. I'll be there as soon as I can."

You giggle at his huffy tone, and mollify, "Don't worry about it, boss man. I'll just pass the time wondering what outfit you're gonna show up in that'll make me wanna tease you some more."

Feeling a tremor of desire pulse through him, Javi smirks as he takes the elevator down to the lobby. "Such a damn coqueta," he rumbles, and you hum innocently over the line before telling him the address and the best route to take. "—Alright, I'll see you soon."

"Drive safe. Bye."

He hustles out of the building and finds Kike sitting in the parked SUV while listening to reggaetón, caught up in the beat and not noticing him until he's at the passenger's side door, knocking on the window. The rookie jumps before lowering the radio and unlocking the doors.

"You working late on a Friday, sir!" Kike remarks jovially before turning the car on while Javi hops in and puts his seatbelt on.

"Yeah, lost track of time. Sorry for keeping you," he mutters as Kike drives them down to the security gate, then heads down the avenue en route to his house.

"No problem!" Kike assures as he drives, fingers tapping along to the beat of the song still playing low on the radio. The man had learned that Javier is more taciturn at the end of the day, so he makes a conscientious effort not to engage in idle chatter now, figuring he wants to decompress from his day.

"…How would you dress to go to a chinchorro on a Friday night?"

Kike's wide expressive eyes flash over at him in surprise, and Javi instantly regrets asking, feeling like a damn tourist, but luckily for him, the younger officer is more than happy to impart his wisdom as sociable local, and by the time Javi is dropped off at his place, he's confident and ready to impress you.

While he hurries to get ready, you're just getting in the cab that'll chauffeur you to the open-air restaurant and hangout on the beach. Excitement buzzes through you as you drive, but your mind preoccupies your thoughts with the news you'd gotten during your doctor's appointment. It'd been a good news-bad news kind of discussion with your primary care physician, whom was in consultation with your OBGYN, and you felt ambivalent as you rehashed it all, fixating on what was still unknown.

The results of your bloodwork were good. Blood pressure and cholesterol were normal, and your hormonal levels weren't irregular. You'd even surpassed your goal weight and gotten the encouragement to relax on your dieting. However, you'd been off of birth control for weeks, and while your headaches and fatigue had gone away, you'd not had a menstrual cycle. Noting that on your chart after conducting a physical, the doctor had administered a rapid pregnancy test as was standard in order to rule it out. It'd been negative, so the bad news was that you could be suffering from amenorrhea. And unfortunately, only more checkups in the coming months would rule it out as a diagnosis. But if there were several menstrual cycles missed? The chances that the amenorrhea was a permanent issue, and that it could be caused by a disease or chronic condition increased in probability. More testing would need to happen, and could lead to a diagnosis you'd been worrying about for a while now.

Infertility.

It was overwhelming to think about it, and even though the doctor had insisted it was still too early to jump to that conclusion, you felt it was inevitable. That you had to start building up your defenses to it being a reality.

As you exit the cab now and pay the driver, you feel an ache in your chest that you can't quite place while you smoothen out the skirt of your sleeveless abstract print jade-and-terracotta slip dress. Adjusting your beaded pouch purse to be crossbody before you straighten the ankle strap to your flat leather strappy sandal, you try to chalk it up to fretting over nothing. But by the time you walk in and get seated at a table on the outside deck overlooking the sandy beach and rocky shore beyond, the ache becomes a pang of worry.

What if Javi wants to settle down, and start a family?

The thought preoccupies you for a while, making you reticent as you sit alone and stare faraway at the horizon line. Your fingers absently toy with your hair after the breeze tousles it, and before you know it, you've worried your bottom lip dry from fixating on the what ifs and worst-case scenarios. Annoyed, you shake yourself free of the anxious thoughts and retrieve your satiny lipstick from your purse to reapply it to your lips and force yourself to stay grounded in the now.

The restaurant is full, but not crowded, with most lingering at the bar and dancing to the cheerful salsa music playing. The sunset gleams across the waters at the shore, and you get lost in the splendor of it while you sway along to the romantic oldie. So much so, that you don't sense someone approaching your direction until they're right next to you.

Javier was besotted the moment he laid eyes on you when he came in through the restaurant and spotted you out on the wood deck, by the veranda. The sunset was melting into the horizon, and the glow of the dusky hues illuminated you beautifully, managing to both cast you in soft relief and make your features striking as you turned your expression towards him and blinked in surprise.

"Christ, you look stunning," Javi rumbles as he stares at you, not sure what to do first: kiss you, pull you up into his arms, or just pick you up and take you somewhere secluded along the fronds that lushly skirt the beach beyond so he can properly fawn over you.

You're smiling as you turn in your chair and get an appreciative gander at his toffee-colored chino pants, warm cream short-sleeved button down, and dark-leathered beefroll penny loafers with a matching brown belt. He looks freshly showered and shaved, hair curling along his forehead and down his nape, eyes flaring the richest tone of brown thanks to the dying sunlight catching in his irises.

Unable to help yourself, you get up and encircle his waist brazenly before purring, "You've had this outfit waiting in the wings for this long, and you dare strut in here como modelo when I'm trying so hard to behave?!"

He snorts wryly at you before cupping the hinge of your jaw and leaning down for a kiss, brushing his lips chastely over yours before tracing his thumb along your cheek. "Hmph, all credit goes to the rookie that drives me for telling me what to wear out for a nice dinner on the beach here," is Javi's honeyed quip, smirking when you hum a charmed sound and affectionately swipe the pad of your thumb over his lips in order to remove the lipstick print you left on the pillowy morsels while he smiles and murmurs around it, "Hope you haven't been waiting long—"

"No, not long at all. It was nice to just sit and stare off for a bit," you sigh as he pushes in your chair for you once you've sat back down. "How've you been?"

Javi sits across from you and admires the way the breeze flutters your lovely hair about. "Busy, but ok. Been having a hard time deciphering the way things are done down here. This case is an odd one," he answers and immediately shakes his head at himself before muttering, "Sorry, I won't bore you—"

You snicker and reach for his hand after he's idly rested it on the table. "You're not. Things are different here when it comes to the way everything operates," you remark, not wanting to reference the topic overtly, for fear people might hear and become nosy. "How's Steve doing? Bet it's been tough for him too."

Nodding, Javi grouses, "Yeah, plus he travels out to the Virgin Islands every so often, but it's been good having the hillbilly around to bounce ideas off of again."

Chuckling with irreverent glee, you squeeze his hand and hiss, "Que malo eres, always deriding that whiteboy."

He laughs and takes your hand in his, features warm with affection as he asks, "And how was your day?"

Part of you wilts, but you catch yourself before it reaches your face, as you decide to answer coolly, "It was ok. Had to do some unpleasant boss stuff."

You end up telling him about having to let a few people go, and purposely decide not to tell him about the doctor appointments or the health concerns you've been worrying about. It feels too unstable and precarious to voice it to anyone, let alone to him. Not with how fledgling everything still felt, especially when your insecurity was burrowing deep into the part of you that didn't want to acknowledge the possibilities of a loss that could erode things between you and Javi. That could dictate plans yet to be considered.

Keeping it to yourself feels like the only option right now.

"—So yeah. Getting rid of the acomodados is never a popular thing," you're summing up now that a waitress finally makes her way to your table. Once she's taken your drink and food orders, you glance back at the dance floor when more upbeat salsa music starts playing and couples eagerly cut a rug.

Javi follows your gaze and smirks before suggesting, "Wanna dance?"

"I'd love to," is your sincere murmur as you stare alluringly at him with a soft smile on your plush lips.

Dancing with Javi floods you with memories and yearning, and from the way he holds you close after he spins and dips you, it's obvious he's feeling the same. Especially when the slow-tempo song comes on and he nuzzles your temple when you loop your arms around him. You brush your nose against his collar while you both sway to the ballad, letting his rugged scent curl warmth through you like your favorite spiced rum does when it hits your bloodstream.

The way you sigh and lull your head onto his shoulder allows him to get lost in the moment with you. To breathe in the perfume of your skin and the soft scent of your hair while the crowd around you both melts away. It feels like no time has passed, and all the time has rushed by him all at once while the gravitation between you both remained constant. That the love remained everlasting, waiting for you two to find your way back to each other. It makes something effervescent crest up in his chest, and all he wants to do is cherish you forever. To tell you what he's been resisting blurting out every time it burns behind his sternum, for fear of making your walls go back up in defensive self-preservation.

He could feel the doubtfulness and hesitance bubble up in you still at times. It made you meek, even rueful, whenever you seemed close to forgetting everything from before – to falling back into amorous serenity with him again. Javi understood why, but was longing to get you to a place where you felt safe enough to trust him completely again.

Still, he feels branded from the inside out with the need to profess exactly how he feels, and just as he musters the bravery to say it, he sees the waitress arrive at your table with your orders, so he kisses your temple and escorts you off of the dance floor, back to the veranda.

Dinner is wonderful, filled with silly banter and congenial catching up, especially on Javier's side. He acquiesced to your playful curiosity about what he'd been up to before coming down to Puerto Rico, so he tells you about how he'd been living back in Laredo, how it was being home for so long after being gone for so long, and he happily told you the good, the bad, and the exasperating tidbits as the ambiance of the establishment gets more animated with more patrons arriving, dancing, and waiting at the counter to put in standing food orders.

You love hearing about his friends – especially the anecdote he shares now about his neighbors, Luis and Eddie Zapata, who helped him and his father chase a few horses that got loose from the paddock and ran amuck one afternoon – and how he'd been able to decompress after everything that had happened with the Cali investigation.

Dreamily, you start to wonder out loud, "Don't you miss it?" When his eyes crinkle with confusion, you elaborate, "I mean, it sounds so nice. Completely the opposite of all the tumultuousness – just a safer, comfortable life. No stressing or despairing over meaningless things; getting to be around friends and family, keeping active on the ranch, but still getting to help your old department there without the commitment of needing to run yourself into the ground—"

"Celina."

Your eyes focus again and you blink bemusedly at him, having gotten lost in pensive thought as you painted the picture of a life better lived for him, one away from the life he'd left behind with you.

Bashfully, you look away and dismiss, "Sorry, I'm just rambling…"

He frowns as you retreat back into yourself, feigning a calm semblance as you finish your drink.

It pains him, but he realizes that professing his love right now would likely make you emotionally withdraw, so he decides to change the subject in order to coax you back from the reserved place you've slipped into.

"Murphy suggested we double date on Valentine's Day," he's remarking as he busily collects your disposable plates and cups in order to clear the small table and make it obvious to the waitress that she can bring the bill.

Amiably snickering, you lilt, "Oh? And you agreed to that?"

"I mean, I wouldn't say that," Javi dryly chuckles, smirking when you raise your brows amusedly. "I figured it'd be tough to get a table anywhere that day as just a couple—"

"Oh, it would, but there are a few places we could definitely get a table, as long as I have my friend call to make the reservation for us," you confidently chime as you lean back in your chair and cross your legs relaxedly.

He hums, intrigued, and eyes you interestedly as the waitress appears with the check, and he settles up quickly by handing the money and telling her to keep the rest. Once she's cleared the table and wished you both a nice night, Javi keenly leans over the table top, and gives you a bossy look.

"Using influence to get your way?" he queries playfully, smirking when you scoff at his goading connotation.

"Hey, if you want to take me out on Valentine's, you'll have to take advantage of me having a famous friend who gets in pretty much wherever she wants, and who'll happily reserve a table for four, just for me," you tease, snickering when he gives you a wry pout. "What, you a boy scout now too?"

Javier is about to counter your quip when the music starts to play loudly to accommodate the patrons who are dancing, and drowns out the drone of the crowds loitering about or ordering boisterously at the kiosk window attached to the long counter.

Leaning over to get his attention over the hopping merengue song currently playing, you shout, "Wanna stroll along the beach?"

With a pleased nod, Javi stands and helps you out of your seat before escorting you across the deck down the steps and onto the sandy beachfront. He immediately realizes though that he won't get far with his shoes on, but then you're reaching down to tug your sandals off with carefree whimsy, so he takes his loafers off and holds both at his side, hooked at the inner heel support and takes your hand with his free one once you've adjusted to carry your sandals on your opposite side.

Javi lets you navigate the meandering stroll down to the shore while you explain, "So this isn't really a beach for swimming, but right around the bend is a really great view of Isla Verde and El Condado."

As you both walk barefoot over the damp sand, Javi admires the beauty of the now twilight glowing over the ocean water, mindful to watch his step as you tug him along to follow around the rocky or jagged edge of an outcropping that obscures the path just on the other side of it.

"You come here a lot?" he asks when you squeeze his hand and lead him around the shore towards a cluster of fronds that rustle from the cool breeze.

"Yeah, since I was a kid. A lot of the businesses around here weren't here back then, just the main kiosko, but this hidden path was one I'd sneak off to when my parents weren't looking," you tell him as you lead him along the shady thatch created by the palm trees and fronds, smiling just as you guide him to the opposite side and reveal the amazing view.

In early twilight, the coastline across the bay looks like a glimmering strip, and the beaches were empty save for the crashes of the waves and the distant cawing of birds settling in for the nocturnal hours. He's awed by how enchanting it is, and lets his gaze sweep over the lovely view before he looks over at you now.

You'd been watching him, smitten with how his dark eyes widened and his expression softened. The distant echo of the music from the different businesses was little more than a hum over the gusting breeze and the lulling tide before you and beyond.

Your heart is beating fast for some reason, and Javier's soulful gaze staring unguardedly at you now has something tender worming free from the deepest, most insecure part of you.

"Javi…did you mean it? When you said you came here for me?" you're suddenly asking, expression etching with worry when he stares at you with incomprehension creasing his eyes and parting his lips. "I-I don't want you to give up anything that matters to you—to quit your job or throw away opportunities—"

Dropping his shoes to the sand, he faces you head on and cups his hands over your shoulders before caressing them down your arms. "I'm not. I did come here to be with you, querida, but I'm not missing out on anything else. I never stopped wanting the life we'd planned together. Yeah, it's a little different now, but all that matters to me is making it with you," Javi purposely vows, hands caressing you soothingly as you exhale and stare with open emotion into his pleading gaze. "I swear, I meant it. If you decided you couldn't commit to making things work because I was in the DEA—"

"No, Javi, I-I don't want you to give up your career—" you begin to fret, but Javi shakes his head at you, frustrated that you don't understand his meaning. "I just don't want to be the reason you end up regretting things—"

Imploringly, Javi cups your cheek and cuts in, "That's not going to happen. I'm not saying I'm giving anything up. I just meant that I can do whatever – that I'm not letting anything else dictate what happens to us, or affect our lives, however we want to go about being together—"

Overwhelmed, you pull away and drop your sandals to the sand so you can wrap your arms around yourself as you try to collect your emotional bearings. You're shivering, and it's not just because the blustery wind is becoming chilly as twilight becomes a starry night.

You sense Javi draw closer, and are about to turn and apologize when you feel warm, soft cotton drape over your shoulders. His scent envelops you, and you turn when you realize he'd taken off his shirt and wrapped it around you. Now in only his chino pants and the white undershirt, Javi chivalrously loops your waist with his arms and holds you to him in order to ward off the chill coming from the impending tropical winter deluges forecasted.

Pressing your nose to nuzzle into his chest after you tuck yourself against him, you murmur, "Since when did you start wearing these?"

He chuckles musingly, "Since I got down here and was sweating through my shirts like a pig."

You let out a simpering laugh and hug him.

An easy silence passes between you for a beat, and you get lost in the heat of his skin, the thrum of his heart against your ear, and the sounds of the breezy shore several yards away.

"I've been so scared of letting myself feel the way I did again," you suddenly susurrate, tone a tremulous whisper. So much so that at first, Javier wasn't sure he'd even heard you right. But then you look up at him and mumble, "I'm just so scared—"

He feels his heart wrench in his chest at your words and the woeful look in your eyes. "Please, mi amor. You don't have to be. I swear it'll all be different—"

You pull away then and try to rein in your emotion, to wrestle it back into the cage it's escaped before you become consumed by it. But then something searing flashes up through you when you think about how pushing him away now will devastate you, and before you can contend with either swaying you away further, you turn to Javi and just blurt it out.

"I love you," you profess before exhaling a shaky breath, and forging on, "I've never stopped loving you, and it terrifies me that I could go on the rest of my life loving you—only loving you, even if everything falls apart again. I'm so fucking scared; d-don't want to end up being something you regret, that I can't give you the life you want. That makes you leave again for good because I can't make you happy and I can't be enough for you—"

Javier is swooping over to consolingly ground you in his arms before he rushes out passionately, "You are enough. I've never left because of you, Celina. I was never happier than when we were together; never more hopeful than when I realized I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you."

He cups your face then and holds your watery gaze as he finally says what's been blazing in his chest for so long.

"I love you, Celina. I will never stop loving you. All I want, is to love you forever," Javier declares with a hoarse, suppliant baritone that rakes free the fire of his emotions as he husks, "Please, let me love you, mi vida."

Tears escape your eyes and roll down your cheeks before you catch your breath enough to whisper, "I want to. I just want to be with you, Javi," pausing to slip your arms around his shoulders and bury your flustered features against him before stammering, "I love you so much. J-Just want to be safe with you."

Both relieved and overcome, Javi holds you tight before nuzzling you lovingly and kissing you amorously when you turn to capture his lips imploring need.

You melt against him when he deepens the kiss, heart soaring as you thread your fingers into the back of his hair, swooning when his ardent embrace presses you against him protectively.

A loud car backfires in the distance, back in the direction of the beach-facing establishments, and you jump, breaking the kiss and causing Javi to squeeze you affectionately before you laugh at yourself.

"Sorry—"

"No, it's alright—"

You exhale a frazzled sound before staring at him through your lashes.

He senses you getting pensive again, so he decides to reassure you as earnestly as possible, by pressing, "I'm willing to do anything you need, whatever I can, to make you feel safe. Anything—"

"I know, Javi. I believe you," you exhale and caress your hands up his chest before murmuring over the wind, "I'm sorry for making you feel like that—"

"Don't be," he sincerely stresses before his features soften as he asks, "Can we…will you let me earn your trust back? I know you can't just forget what happened, but we can take things slow—no rushing into anything," he pauses, dark brewed eyes earnest as he emphasizes hopefully, "We can try again—just be together, and see where things go."

Feeling your heart race, you find yourself relinquishing control to it as you eagerly pipe, "Yes, I want to—I feel the same way."

The way his low-lit features perk up at your answer is enough to make you feel like this is right. Like just the promise of letting your feelings for each other thrive is enough to see you through to the next unknown milestone between you both. So, you lean up on your tippy toes and kiss him before slinging your arms around his neck.

Sublime calm settles over him, and he hugs you possessively before nuzzling you as he lets out a relieved sigh.

Snapping yourself back from the infatuated daze of being with him like this, you clear your throat and bossily nudge your temple into his cheek with a grunt.

"We should probably get out of here before a patrol rolls by and yells at us for being on the beach after dark," is your silly huff as you encircle his waist and meekly smile when he holds you in place so he can give you a moustache-tickly smooch on the cheek while the wind starts whipping across the nocturnal beach with a howl.

"It feels like it's going to start raining any minute, anyway," Javi grouses as he leads you over to retrieve both your shoes.

"Yeah, you can smell it in the air," you remark as you dust the soles of your feet before slipping your sandals back on. At Javi doing the same, you shrug his shirt off and hand it back to him as you chuckle, "Don't worry. We'll go the shortcut that takes us towards the parking lot."

Humming, he accepts his shirt before asking, "You sure? I don't mind if you wear it to the car—"

"Well, walking back to the kiosko with your shirt on is definitely going to look like we had sex on the beach," you joke, snickering when he scoffs derisively and quickly slips his shirt on before fastening it shut.

"And that would be such a bad thing?" he teases as he tucks the shirt in and takes your hand so you can lead him up the secret path that loops up a sturdy slope and over a gravel footpath tucked behind some closed structures.

"Uh, yeah! This beach isn't the cleanest spot to get laid on," you chortle as you squeeze his hand and look over your shoulder cheekily at him while you drawl, "And sex on the beach is not as sexy as it sounds."

"Oh, is that a fact?" he croons, sidling up to you now once the nearby lamp pole flickers on and provides enough illumination for you both to trek towards the bustling beachy hangouts.

Wrinkling your nose cutely, you tell him matter-of-factly, "Sand getting in your delicate crevices is not fun, sir."

Javier laughs that warm, full-chested guffaw you love, and you feel on cloud nine as you both stride the remaining distance to weave through the cars of the parking lot's outskirts before he cups the small of your back and leads you to his SUV.

The drive out of the hopping district with the two-lane road that intersects it is pleasant. You both listen to the salsa oldie playing on the radio in comfortable silence, until you glance out the window and notice how the dark clouds are rolling in now from the east. Just as you're going to remark, 'It's going to pour,' a muted sound of thunder grumbles in the distance.

You look over at Javier once he gets to the intersection leading out of the coastal scenic route and direct him to the correct exit that'll take him back to the highway going northwest. Traffic is thankfully not congested, and he cruises down the ramp leading into your condo's street not even ten minutes later. However, by the time he's pulling up to the building, the dark clouds had blanketed the metropolitan area and opened up, quickly going from a light drizzle to a pounding rain that obscures the windshield and has him setting the wipers on the highest setting to keep up with the pouring stream.

"Shit, I don't have an umbrella," Javi laments as he frowns out the windshield. "We'll have to make a run for it—"

"Just pull up into the driveway. I'll give you the gate code," you tell him congenially, blinking at him when he looks at you with surprise lighting up his eyes. "What? It's better than getting soaked. My visitor's spot is under the garage's awning. We'll be able to walk up to the lobby without getting wet."

Not having any reason to object, Javi turns the wheel and navigates the car into the driveway entry up to the automatic gate, lowers his window, and punches in the security code you recite to him.

Soon, he's parked in the spot you indicated and getting out of the car to escort you chivalrously up the garage's lobby entry and over to the elevator, passing the night attendant who nods in acknowledgement before returning to his newspaper. The ride up in the elevator to your floor is filled with banter, a repartee that is teasing as he gripes about the lack of proper security protocols for your condo.

"—Didn't even ask me to sign in! What does he even do? Just sit there all night, twiddling his thumbs?" he sneers when the elevator doors slide open onto your floor. You scoff impishly at him, so he grumbles, "And what's stopping anyone from getting the gate code and coming in—"

"Oh my god, you're worse than my father!" you chastise sassily and swat him playfully on the chest when he grunts huffily at you. "This isn't the embassy or Fort Knox! Everyone who lives here? They're mostly savvy professionals who like their privacy, and the night attendant is on duty in case there is an emergency of some kind," is your judicious musing as you lean into his side when he loops his arm around you and guides you to stay closer to the interior side of the loggia so you don't get wet from the rain being whipped about by the wind.

"Yeah, well—so much for keeping the pendejos out," he dryly jokes, and you giggle, unable to not grin when he gives you his goofy pout.

"Correction: so much for keeping the guapo descarados out," you tease.

Javi snorts, expression smug as you arrive at your door.

He watches as you retrieve your keys and unlock it, and presses his hand into the doorframe, already preparing to lean in and kiss you goodnight. So, when you open the door and push it wide so you can stand in the threshold as you swing your purse off from your person, toss it onto the nearby side table, and then place your keys in the bowl, Javier doesn't immediately sense what you're doing.

At least not until you turn back to him and peer up alluringly at him with a tentative flutter of your lashes.

"Do you want to come in?"

The silky query is said with a hopeful lilt to the timbre in your voice – eyes dazzling as you stare openly at him, and Javi feels heat course up his spine before zinging down into his apex.

He answers by stepping through the threshold and closing the door behind him with a firm shove.

You unseeingly lock it before taking his hands and pulling him further into your sanctuary, excited to show him your space. But really, after giving the surroundings a practiced, scrutinizing assessment – cataloguing the floorplan and noting that to his left the hallway leads to your bedroom at the end of it and to the right, Javi's attention is intently on you while you susurrate, "Come, get comfy. I think I have whiskey in the sideboard—"

You pause in your intended waltz over to said sideboard when Javier's hand doesn't let yours go.

The sound of the rain pelting against the banister and ceramic pots of the outdoor plants on the balcony is a muted patter inside the apartment, and the gusty breeze filters through the strategically ajar crank windows in the space while your breath catches in your chest. Distant traffic from the city blocks and highway beyond is nothing but a hum over the sounds of Javi whispering in your ear while he presses you against the wall in your hallway as your pulse races and your body arches against his. Rumbling thunder buzzes through the concrete walls and the smooth, glazed floor tile while you moan his name and cling to him in your state of semi-undress midway to your bedroom.

Swept up in the whirlwind of desire, all other sounds and sensations cease to matter now that you've kicked off the last of your clothes after stripping Javi of his. No, only the gravitation that exists between you – that incandescently heightens everything as you're both giving into each other, is what matters.

The carnal ecstasy spun up while in the throes of passion, after yearning for each other for far too long, is what you're dialed into. Especially when it fuels the pleasure and need only the other can liberate and nurture.

Picking you up and climbing onto your white-and-lilac-patterned quilt-covered bed with you, Javier rakes said need to throb achingly at your center when he grazes his teeth down the tender slope of your shoulder before suckling a possessive mark that makes you whimper and arch while your legs wrapping around his waist.

"Javi—please," you beg, hands clutching at his back while he keeps rutting his pulsing cock along your soaked folds before he slips a hand between your bodies to zero in on your clit. When his touch brushes the pulsing bundle, you cry out with needy hunger and fist a hand into his hair with desperation. "Please, mi amor, n-need it—"

"I know, baby, I know. You're doing so good, taking what I give you. Just let me make you feel good," Javi coos hotly against your ear before nipping the delicate spot just under it lightly. He feels you gush a fresh, warm slick of arousal on his cock, which snatches a pleased groan from his throat before he grinds more pressure over your thrumming pleasure point, and growls, "That's it, hermosa. Get my cock nice and wet. Come for me like this, and I'll fuck this heavenly pussy all night—"

Your gasp comes out a sob as you fall apart under his ruinously perfect coaxing, overloading you with his velvety commands and unabashed promises after going so long without him making you melt down to tingling sinew.

He watches with primal pride as your features become beatific when you moan and climax, eyes fluttering shut and mouth falling open in blissful delight.

You're trembling from how scintillating your orgasm was, eyes heavy while you breathe panting intakes of air to regain your breath. As you come down from it, you dimly realize Javi is gazing at you with a molten look in his eyes while he soothingly brushes the hair clinging to your sweaty skin back from your flushed features.

"Never get enough of watching you come. Look so fucking beautiful, querida," Javi gravels in a low purr before he noses into the hair at your temple and whispers, "Eres divina. Tan pinche perfecta."

A shiver courses through you at him proclaiming, 'You're divine. So fucking perfect,' to you when you've felt anything but. Your glossy eyes focus when he leans up to gaze down at you, giving you an enamored look that has you wanting to make him feel just as glorious as he's making you feel right now.

He grunts a lustful sound when you yank him down to meet your ardent kiss, groaning when your tongue sweeps into his mouth and you passionately grope your way down his body to line him at where you need him the most before undulating your pelvis to grind his cock into your drenched heat.

While the deluge and blustery breeze claim the world outside of your bedroom windows, you and Javi revel in each other, only registering the stormy event occurring beyond the confines of your bed when the cool air seeps through the slat windows and billows past your fluttering curtains to caress your heated flesh.

Savoring the salt of your skin as he scrapes his ravenous mouth down your craned neck after a particularly pounding thrust that has you arching in rapture, Javier ends up suckling hard on your nipple and grips you at the small of your back with one hand while the other clutches the back for your thigh roughly after you rock onto his cock fiercely and moan for more.

Your fingers dig into his back when he snarls and slams into you with abandon now, moustache grazing your skin as he drags his mouth back up from your chest to possessively claim yours in a feral kiss.

He winces against your mouth when your nails pinch into his sweaty back just under his shoulder blades and you whimper a reedy, desperate noise that tells him you're about to be seared through with another orgasm thanks to his bruising thrusts angling up into that devastatingly amazing spot you can't reach inside yourself. Your knees pull up and cling for purchase as you chase your need by meeting his pounding, piston-like strokes with the drenched squelch of your silken cunt clenching around his cock every time he slams in. The rapacious way your body is reacting to him along with your shameless hunger to claim him with as much ferocity as he's claiming you has Javier quickly barreling towards the precipice of pleasure before you ruinously fling him over the edge by nipping hard on the spot just below his jawline when you climax.

"Dios mío—mmph, C-Celina!" Javi grits out before moaning your name as he comes, lost to the scalding pleasure of reaching bliss as you cry out and writhe in the throes of lascivious euphoria under him.

He collapses on top of you after he empties his climax deep into your quivering center just before his muscles turn to jelly from getting off so fiercely. Drunkenly, he nuzzles into your sweaty neck and swears hoarsely, "Fucking hell, oh fuck. Jesus Christ, baby—"

You lie under him with a dreamy-yet-spent smile on your wrecked features as you confess unseeingly to the ceiling, "That was fucking amazing, Javier."

He shudders at the praise and musters the will to shift enough onto his forearms so he's not pressing his full weight onto you before he pivots to pull his cock out of your tender pussy to watch his cum drip greedily in his wake. He groans in savage accomplishment at seeing the pearly mess gleam in the lowlight as it pools on the quilt.

At your fawning exhale, Javi looks from the glorious sight up to your lovely, albeit ravished smile and gets punch-drunk by the amorous glow in your eyes as you reach for him.

He easily curls over you to be within the reach of your doting, reverent kisses, content to just hold you like this against him while your soft plush lips press into his overheated cheeks and jaw.

But then he catches your stare and gets pinned in place by it, because you're looking at him as if he'd hung the moon in the sky for you.

"I missed being yours. Missed you so much, Javier," you susurrate in a smoky timbre, dark lashes looking dewy in the dimness of the space as you flutter them clear of any tears before professing, "I just want to be with you, forever," then brush your lips worshipfully against his before whispering, "I love you with all my heart."

The feeling your words stokes in him burns like camphor in his chest, simultaneously making him feel deserving and profoundly at peace. It fills him up with an immense urge to shower you with devotion – to keep proving how worthy he is of you by worshiping you with the passion burning in his veins and rooting itself deep into his marrow.

Javier wants to make a vow to you for life, but is so overcome with the enthralling love he feels for you right now that he can only focus on proclaiming his adoration to you the best way he knows how – that is hardcoded within him.

He makes love to you throughout the night, and you both eventually succumb to the utter exhaustion of being fulfilled and at peace in each other's embraces while the vaguada settles over the atmosphere outside, keeping the air fresh and tranquil in your bedroom, preserving the moment and prolonging the blissful serenity between you.

A serenity comprised of all the matters to you both:

Your love.

________________

Read Chapter 42: Reflection

Spanish-English Glossary:

La Isla del Encanto = The Island of Enchantment

Buen día = Good day/Good morning

Vaguadas = Monsoon-style bad weather; heavy rainstorms

Día de Amor y Amistad = Day of Love and Friendship

Buen amigo = Good friend

Miembro del senado = Member of the Senate

Caserío = Public housing; housing project

Terraza = Terrace; usually a tiled patio in a backyard

Buenas tardes, directora = Good afternoon, director

Chavón = A man that's pestering you

Tan mala = So bad; So mean

Doña = Lady; Missus

Beyako = Puerto Rican slang for horny/naughty guy; akin to "horn dog"

Mi patrona = My master/boss (female)

Chulo/Chulito = Cute guy; little cutie

Guapita = Sassy/foxy/daring/testy lady

Bebito = Little baby (male)

Gruñón = Grumpy man

Querida = Affectionate term for a female, akin to expressing one's want and desire

Me lleva la chingada = Akin to "God dammit" or "Fuck me"

Jodón = Pain in the ass (male)

Refunfuñón = Grumbler

Friolenta = Sensitive to cold (female)

Criticona = Critical woman; hypercritical; nit-picker

Bravita= Tough girl; feisty girl

Atrevido/Atrevida = Daring man/Daring woman

Wow, que mami más dura = Wow, what a fine looking woman

¡Chacho, claro que no! = Jeez, of course not!

Jefa = Boss lady

Hermosa = Beautiful (woman)

Murallas = Fortified stone walls

Preciosa = Gorgeous; precious

Acomodado = Accommodated person; term referring to a person with business or political connections that gets placed in a role or job

Tan exijona = So demanding

Galán = Handsome gent

Cariño = Darling/sweetheart

Suavón = Smooth talker; Smooth guy

Vente, señorito = Come, little sir

Mueca = Making a face; grimace

Canela = Cinnamon

Corazón = Heart; pet name to signify how deeply you love someone

Calles = Streets

Pobrecito = Poor baby; poor baby boy

Coqueta = Tease (female)

Chinchorro = A kiosk or dive bar you go to have a few drinks before moving on to the next establishment

Como modelo = Like a (male) model

Que malo eres = You're so bad

Mi amor = My love

Mi vida = My life; signifies how deeply you love someone and consider them to be your whole world

Guapo descarados = Handsome cads

Eres divina. Tan pinche perfecta = You're divine. So fucking perfect

Dios mío = My god

Thanks for reading! Please consider leaving a comment and sharing your feedback. I would be eternally grateful. 

[furious-rogue-stuff]

Chapter 40: Hopes

We’ve made it to 40 chapters! I can’t believe all the love and support Heat has received. For the special occasion, I made a moodboard in honor of what’s being affectionately dubbed ‘Narcos: Puerto Rico’ ☺️

And now, for the big showdown you’ve all been waiting for~!

🚨**There’s a big reveal in this chapter!**🚨

Pairing: Javier Peña x OFC | Javi x Querida

Disclaimer: Written in 2nd person narrative, you can safely assume our heroine and love/lust interest is a Latina, written by a Latina. Here's my philosophy on my writing, for further context.

Rating: Mature/Explicit 🔞

Word Count: 20,000+

Summary: The confrontation months in the making is foisted upon you. Will there be anything left to salvage after?

Warnings: Graphic descriptions of sex, including explicit depictions oral (f receiving) and of unprotected sex. Mentions of diet and food habits, exercise routines, angst, past trauma, resentful anger, physical acting out and emotional turmoil. Allusions to toxic behavior, negative coping mechanisms, recurring relationship tropes, sexual frustration and judgment. Harsh!OFC, Remorseful!Javi, Needy!Javi, and Angry!OFC. **OFC name reveal** In the vein of Narcos being a bilingual show, and Javier Peña being fluent, I felt it was apropos to include Spanglish and Spanish throughout.

Heat Masterlist

Previous chapter - Chapter 39: Longing

Chapter 40: Hopes

Needless to say, your morning is highjacked by the news of Javier's portentous return, and you end up spending what little time you have before the big meeting briefing Devon on everything.

As you disclose to him what conflict of interest you have in dealing with the newly appointed DEA SAC, the usually congenial, kilowatt-smile having, six-foot-four teddy bear of a man looks the most serious you've ever seen him.

"Um…no disrespect, but everyone in the embassy heard about you two, and it sort of got around far beyond there, so I think the conflict of interest might be the least of your worries," Devon tells you and fidgets nervously in his seat.

With a forlorn sigh, you nod, and retort, "Which is why I'll need some time to think about what this will mean professionally for my post here. That's why I'm hoping in the interim, you could be the liaison with the DEA during any occasions where we'd have to interface directly with the SAC—"

"I don't think he likes me very much, though," he apprehensively grumbles, expression etching with tension at the prospect of having to be in Javier Peña's crosshairs.

Primly, you fold your hands over the desk, and muse, "Trust me, Devon. Javier Peña has no issue with you, or Noreen. Frankly, he'd be a hypocrite, and by that same token…so would I."

Frowning, Devon shakes his head. "I don't believe that. No one does. But he's intense and he unnerves me," is his honest retort, and you smile so brightly at that, that he hedges, "I mean, I'll do whatever you need me to!"

"I know you will. And he'll be on his best behavior with you. I'm sure of it," you tell him, thinking to yourself: Because if he isn't, I'll boil him alive—

"Good. I'll go and get everything ready for us then," Devon remarks before getting up and hustling to his meeting prep.

Sighing, you decide you need to break your coffee fast to get through the day, so you go downstairs to the on-site cafeteria to get some brewed courage to forge on.

You don't expect to walk out towards the main corridor and almost jump at the boisterous call of your name.

Turning, you scoff and shake your head amusedly when you spot the two swaggering partners coming over to greet you.

"Well, well, well – Nic Lopez and Shay Duffy. What're you two degenerates doing here?" you ironically chime as you smile at each and put your hand on your hip when you quirk your brow irreverently at them.

"Still a ball-buster, eh?" Agent Duffy snickers as he gives you a platonic kiss on the cheek hello.

"Of course," you singsong as you kiss Agent Lopez on the cheek, quipping, "Nice to see you two can't quit each other."

"Trust me, I've tried," Duffy jibes, earning a friendly punch on the shoulder from Lopez.

"Well, I'm glad you guys will keep busy here," you remark and sip your coffee.

"That's what we hear," Lopez remarks before checking his watch. "Shit, we gotta go report in. It was great seeing you again—"

"Yeah, and we'll be sure to report in to tech duty soon, sass-master!" Duffy cuts in brashly before shaking Lopez on the shoulder to tow him away comically. "See yah around!"

You chuckle and wave them off before resuming your return to your department's floor.

Meanwhile, Javi is rushing through his morning routine in the new space, pulling on his tie and working it around his shirt collar as he shoves his sock-clad feet into the nice and polished leather loafers that matched his dark brown belt. The bedroom was cluttered with his moving boxes and luggage, so he maneuvered around the chaos to sprint out to the living room and grab his wallet from the coffee table.

The sound of a car horn blaring out front in his narrow open-air marquesina had him growling as he rushed to grab his keys and other contraband he needed to pocket onto his person before snagging his light gray blazer and shrugging it on as he hustles to the front door.

Laying on the horn for good measure, Steve barks out of the open driver's window, "We're gonna be late, Jav!"

"Fucking hell, I'm locking up!" he shouts over his shoulder as he figures out the keys for the deadbolt locks to his front door and pats his person to make sure he didn't forget anything. "Keys, phone, wallet…shit. Hold on, I forgot my badge!"

Groaning, Steve drags his palm down his features impatiently while Javier unlocks the door and hurries back into the house. "Idiot. He's a completely flustered idiot…"

A few minutes later, and Javi is rushing around to the passenger's side and jumping in.

"So, this meeting'll be all the department heads, and their assistants. I haven't got an ASAC yet, and yours doesn't come in until Monday, so it'll be you and me reppin' today," Steve is telling him as he drives out of the neighborhood a few minutes later after he lets Javi get unflustered.

Javier is thankful for the distraction of hearing all the procedural crap that'll be taking up his first day. It stops his mind from panicking on what will happen when he sees you for the first time since he'd made a fucking ass out of himself on your doorstep.

"—It's standard protocol for each of us to have a driver. We'll be meeting 'em after the inter-agency thing. They're both newly-minted rookies from the Hato Rey barracks. While they haven't seen much action as cops, they know the island like the back of their hand, so one less hassle – trying to figure out our ways around," Steve is telling him as he makes it through the metropolitan traffic and onto La Avenida Chardón where the U.S. Courthouse and Federal building are.

It's an impressive campus from the avenue. Security is tight, but not as imposing as it'd been at the embassy in Colombia, and there was a mix of civilians, local and federal officials milling through the different buildings that flanked each other on the sprawling flat terrain. The U.S. courthouse was the bigger of the buildings, standing front and center. The FBI and ATF had their offices on floors near the top of the building. On the left of the courthouse was the newer Federal building that housed DOS and DOJ operations offices. It looked like a gleaming bar thanks to all the windows and the bright early afternoon sun glinting off the glass.

After a stop at the security office, Javier got his credentials for accessing the campus and several restricted areas of the building, and Steve murmured the lay of the land as they headed through the sleek lobby towards the interior corridors. For now, the DEA would be operating on the second to last floor of the building until their field office near San Patricio Plaza was ready for them.

Once they were in the elevator, Steve turned to Javier, and with a gesture towards the button to the last floor up, he'd given him a look that communicated, 'This is the floor she's on.'

His heart skipped a beat despite himself.

As they were getting off the elevator onto their floor, Steve was telling Javi about the other agency heads he'd already met.

"—ATF is cool. The guy has a lot of experience working dual-ops. FBI guy is another story," he mutters as they get to their department's entry. "Oh, and yes – everyone knows."

Javi doesn't even need to ask.

Spencer had all but crowed interestedly about how it was pretty common knowledge the last time he'd met with him, and told him not to be shy about using it to his advantage if he had to. It had made Javi's skin crawl, and if that's how he'd felt, he could only imagine how you felt about it.

After settling into his office, Javi and Steve met with most of the staff in the conference room. Everyone seemed eager, but experienced, so he felt at ease about that.

But when he and Steve finally went up to the big conference space where the inter-agency meeting would take place, he could feel all the looks sear into him.

Everyone in the room made it a point to introduce themselves, though, and the smug smiles and compliments did nothing to soften the recrimination that hung in the air.

However, when it was a minute until the meeting was due to start, Devon, Ellis, his deputy Kelsey, and you, walked in, and the tension in the air shifted.

After all, everyone else in that room knew what happened to Bill Stechner, and were not about to make an enemy out of you.

Watching you as you're politely greeting the officials sitting nearest you and Ellis, Javi holds his breath in anticipation of your gaze scanning across the long conference table to land on him.

You never look his way. Instead, you sit on the far end with Ellis, while Devon and Kelsey sit in the seats along the wall to take notes.

Once the CED comes in and kicks off the meeting, you are stoic and poised while introductions are made around the table. When it's Javier's turn to be introduced, you busily review something in your leather organizer. And when it's time for your introduction, you politely smile to the chief before nodding along to his comment about working seamlessly at an operational level throughout all departments.

You can feel Javier's gaze on you.

It boils your blood to be this close to him after so long, and not be able to jump up on the conference table and run at him in order to drop kick him into the carpet.

Still, even with your wrath seething on a slow burn, you'd appraised his appearance quickly when you'd entered the room.

His hair was longer than you'd seen it last, wisps begging for a finger-combing at his temples and at his sideburns. His clean-shaven face looked a lot more chiseled now, too, moustache perfectly trimmed as always, and shoulders broad as ever, but torso exuding even more definition under the better-fitting light gray suit blazer than you remember. Even his posture looked different, while his eyes were still those deep chocolate pools that gleamed chestnut under the sunny afternoon rays coming in from the windows. His collar was wrinkle-free, gold-and-blue jacquard tie straight and neat over his crisp shirt placket. You couldn't help noticing how even the top button of his collar was done, making it obvious how much effort he was putting into his appearance.

The last thing you wanted to do was sit there, itemizing all the ways he looked so fucking good, however.

So, annoyed, you'd kept your gaze from crossing his side of the conference room.

Mercifully, though, the meeting was more about pomp and circumstance this time around rather than real status updates, so once the chief thanks everyone, you're collecting your organizer and making a beeline for the door.

Glowering, Javier can't help feel disappointed. What did you expect, though?! She is in no way going to give you the time of day here…

"Agent Peña, Agent Murphy. You probably don't remember me, but—"

Snapping out of his internal admonishment, Javi acknowledges your deputy with a curt nod and drawls, "Sure I do." When the tall younger man blinks nervously, Javi outstretches his hand for a firm shake. It seems to relieve any awkwardness the other man had instantly, so Javi introduces, "Steve, this is Devon Williams. He used to work at the embassy in Bogotá too."

"Oh, that's great. Nice to meet you," Steve remarks as he shakes Devon's hand next.

"A pleasure," Devon remarks before detailing, "So, I know both your ASACs aren't in yet, so in the meantime, I wanted to let you both know I can set up any status reports you may need, and will be your point person on anything dealing with DIO's division."

As Javi and Steve chat with Devon – who also introduces them both to the deputy of the Telecommunications department, Kelsey Tate, you and Ellis were making a break for the elevator when the hot-shot FBI Special Agent in Charge called out to you from the wide corridor the conference room led out to.

"Shit, want me to wait?" Ellis whispers to you as the elevator doors slide open.

"No, it's fine," you sigh before quickly confirming, "So, pick me up at my place around 6 tonight?"

"Sure thing! See yah then," he chimes as he gets in the elevator, then presses a button to the floor his next meeting is on before drawling, "Good luck."

Politely and prim, you turn to wait for Anthony Bozzi to come over to you. The man was built like a strapping boxer, confidence hung like a winner's wreath around his strong shoulders, and his roguish features always had a bullish etch to them. They were chiseled and framed by his dark neatly-shaped beard. His thick hair was tamed back with gel, and his swaggering gait always gave you a Don Johnson vibe.

"What can I do for you, Agent Bozzi?" you chime professionally as he swaggers up and shoves his hands into his crisp-pleated black slacks.

"Ah, c'mon. Call me Tony," he huffs in his steely baritone with a charming smile before grousing, "I just wanted to thank you for getting Brenda sorted on that stuff."

"Oh, no need. I'm happy to help," you tell him, sensing this was just a ploy to strike up a conversation with you, so you begin to excuse yourself with, "Anyway, I won't keep you—"

"Actually, I wanted to ask you one more thing. Pardon my being nosy, and all," he cuts in, and at his prefacing, you begin to wonder if he'll have the audacity to say out loud what everyone in the building already knows. "But is it true your father is a Vice Admiral in the Navy?"

Totally having expected a different question, you sober and nod. With a wry smile, you confirm, "That's true."

While he goes on to tell you about how his own father had served in the Navy, you don't know that Javier is watching on from down the corridor.

"You should've called her, man."

Glaring over at Steve, who'd loped up next to him to impart that musing drawl, Javi mutters, "Who's that asshole again?"

Shaking his head amusedly, Steve retorts matter-of-factly, "That's Tony Bozzi, the Special Agent in Charge for the FBI. Don't let his friendly charm fool you. I hear he's a cutthroat motherfuck—"

"See you fellas at the party tonight!" the chief calls out as he swivels around them and gives a bossy salute as he goes.

"Party?" Javi mumbles and quirks a brow at Steve.

"Oh, yeah. Forgot to mention there's a 'Get to know each other and don't be hostile' happy hour thing at one of the nicer hotels later tonight," Steve responds, going on to suggest they drive over together.

But Javier's already stopped listening as he looks back at the elevator foyer that you'd been standing at to find you've already left.

Luckily for your temper, the rest of your day is so busy that you have no chance to seethe about Javier.

Devon told you how nice he and Steve were during your end of week debrief, so your rancor subsides, slightly.

By the time you're parking in your condo building's secure lot, you are wishing you could skip the happy hour, but know it'll only bring more unneeded attention. Taking the elevator instead of the stairs, you walk down to your corner, north-facing unit's door and unlock it tiredly.

You really love your apartment.

It has become your haven after all these months, and you find yourself lingering in the open-floor-plan space of your living room and kitchen as you divest of your purse while you click the answering machine to recite through any missed messages. The machine robotically announces the first message, and the time it was received.

"—Mija, I'm back from D.C. I'd like to see you. Maybe you can come over for dinner one of these nights? Give me a call back, as soon as you can."

Your father's voice makes you groan as you march down the hall to strip out of your work clothes and get ready for a quick shower. As you're tossing your blouse into the hamper, the machine announces the next message.

"—Nena, me and the girls are going to La Placita de Santurce tomorrow night. Wanted to see if you were up for going! Llámame."

Making a mental note to call Zoraida back in the morning, you're about to hop in the shower when you hear the machine announce there was one more message.

There's only dead air, as if the caller was mustering the courage to leave a message, before abruptly hanging up. The machine droned its end of message tone.

Huh, that's weird. You continue to undress, and once you're in the shower, your mind wonders, What if that was Javi calling?

Instantly livid, you rushed through the routine. By the time you reined in your temper, you wondered if it even could've been him. After all, you're pretty sure you'd only given Steve your cell phone number.

Discarding further thought about the matter, you went to your closet and picked out the outfit you'd been thinking about wearing. At first, you'd thought it might've not been appropriate for the happy hour, but after today? Oh, you'd make sure to look your best.

Meanwhile, as you got dolled up, Javier was pacing the corridor outside of the ritzy hotel ballroom.

The impulsive longing had him craving a double whiskey and a pack of cigarettes, but he'd be damned if he derailed months of gains for the fleeting taste of either numbing his senses.

No, he wanted desperately to be on his game when he finally managed to talk to you.

"Dude, you look like a creep, stalking up and down the hallway like this," Steve grouses at him when he comes back from the bar.

Grunting, he rubbed at the tension point between his brows as he muttered, "I feel like a fucking creep for being here…"

Frowning, Steve clapped his hand on his shoulder and nudged him along to enter the ballroom. "Listen, man. I don't think this is the best time or place for you to approach her," his partner is counseling as he directs Javi to the table he'd spotted as being the perfect exit out the terrace and swanky poolside bar. "Maybe just send her flowers or something?"

Javier can't help but snort gruffly as he drops into his seat, reminded of the last time he'd tried that maneuver. "Yeah, I don't think that'll work," he husks dryly as he sits back in his chair and stares around the glitzy room.

There's hors d'oeuvres set out along two banquet tables, appetizer nibbles consisting of an assortment of Puerto Rican fritters, and a bar on each side of the room that was serving only beer and wine. Clearly meant to be a networking happy hour, the room was filled with plenty of Federal building officials, as well as staff and executives from the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration.

Twenty minutes into the thing, and after several meet and greets, Javier was anxious. Had he made a mistake by coming? Should he have just gotten your address somehow, gone there, and begged to talk to you before coming here? Should he wait and go there afterward? He didn't know what would be the best option, and the more he fretted, the more reticent he got.

While Steve struck up conversation with one of the ATF guys, Javi fanned his gaze over to where he'd noticed a couple of high-ranking officers from the Puerto Rican police force shaking hands with the CED and the FBI SAC he'd seen talking to you earlier. When he let his stare wander over to the entry to the ballroom from the hall, his eyes landed on you exchanging hellos with some of the officials from the public relations division.

His breath caught in his chest at seeing you in the killer white dress and patent leather nude pumps, hair full of volume and undulating in lovely waves that framed your face and cascaded down your back. Your rouged lips pulled into a chaste smile when you shook hands with what looked to be a comandante of the National Guard, and your lashes were curled in a way that it made your expressive eyes all the sultrier. It was all too much. He felt like he'd been hit by lighting and was now running several degrees hotter than normal.

And yeah, the fact he recognized that sinfully sexy Kathleen Turner-inspired dress from that damn movie only made his pulse race in his veins while heat pooled in his gut. Fuck…she's stunning.

He couldn't help fawn from afar. Not with how statuesque you looked in the timelessly sexy dress. The white of the delicate linen fabric accentuating your radiant complexion, the ivory satin buttons and the belt cinching your waist was a classy look, while the risqué-but-chic slit up the hem of the left thigh had several gazes lingering in your direction.

Of course, as usual, you seemed oblivious to it.

"Alright, kid. Just so you know, loverboy is sitting over by the terrace doors," Ellis is whispering into your ear now after he noticed Javier and Steve were present as he escorted you down to a table more towards the front of the room. "Whenever you're ready, say the word, and we're outta here."

Sighing, you sit and place your slim purse on the table so you can lean back in your chair and sip the sparkling wine you got from the nearest bar. "No, worst-case, I'll just grab a cab home—"

"Hey, signorina!"

You both turn to acknowledge Tony Bozzi as he appears to your right with a vodka soda in his hand as he takes a seat closest to you at the table-cloth-clad circular table.

"Agent Bozzi. Having a nice night?" you greet as he leans over to shake Ellis' hand.

"Hey, bud, would you tell her to just call me Tony?" he quips to Ellis.

"She's a stickler for keeping it professional, what can I say?" Ellis counters affably as he drinks his ginger ale.

"Booo, I'll just have to make her break her rules, then," Tony razzes before winking at you.

You peg him for being a brash guy who is putting on a more congenial veneer for your benefit, and you're not sure if that's because he's looking to be a get-over, a social climber, or something else.

While you all chit-chat about the people in the room, Javier caves at his need for liquid courage.

He goes out to the bar outside, and admires the melodic ebb and flow of the ocean just beyond the hotel's property while he's served a double whiskey, neat. Sure, it's helping quell his jealousy at seeing the barrel-chested, dark-haired and bearded man eye you like he was waiting for an in. But really, it's the burn of the alcohol incinerating his morose feelings that helps him not dwell on having to likely steal your affections away from some other guy and win your love again.

"There you are, Peña!"

Javi turns to see Ronald Mercer, the Chief Executive Director, approaching him.

"Evening, sir," he acknowledges before shaking hands with the man. "This is a much nicer setup than anything thrown at the embassy."

"I'm happy to hear. The Puerto Rican's are great hosts. Always friendly – and up for throwing nice parties," the man chuckles. "Listen, it's a big get to have you here. I was hoping you'd bear with me and let me introduce you to some of the officials from the Governor's administration? They're really keen on meeting the man who'll help them with their Mano Dura initiative."

Javier internally groans, but agrees to be the pet narco slayer – to be paraded to the officials, who fawn over what he did in Colombia and gush about being at his service if he were to need any help from the governor's office. He's heard it all before, of course, but he's charming and deferential, all while hoping he can maybe find a way over to where you're at, chatting with the people at your table.

But when the chief arranges an impromptu photo-op with the photographers that showed up from El Nuevo Día, Javi finds out too late in all the bustling about of the attendees in the room that he'd also corralled the other heads of departments to get in for one of the photos.

In the commotion of being roped over to the front of the ballroom, you didn't realize you would end up being just a couple of people away from standing next to Javier.

"Damas y caballeros," the photographer called out as he pantomimed for everyone to get in tighter for the shot. Swallowing all your acrimony so it wouldn't show in your stoic features, you stood tall and gave your best Mona Lisa smile while the man counted down before taking the photo. "Muy bien, y gracias a todos."

It was as your eyes readjusted after the camera's flash that you then smelled his spicy, warm musk as he sidled past the two officials who were chatting now while everyone else dispersed to return to the social networking around the room.

Before Javier could tap your shoulder, you walked off back to the table you'd been sitting at most of the night. Swearing under his breath, he was about to follow, when Steve signaled for him.

Once he crosses back to where his partner is, he gets pulled aside. "Hey, Connie just called me. She needs help getting the kids to bed," he tells him contritely. "You gonna be ok?"

"Yeah. I'll take a cab back to my place. Thanks," he assures Steve and pats him on the shoulder as they both head for the hall.

Agreeing to meet at Steve's the following afternoon so he could take Javi around the metropolitan area and point out places he'd already been briefed on, he gives him a hearty pat on the back and thanks him for all the help today.

Once he's seen Steve off from the impressive lobby of the hotel, he takes a beat to collect himself in the cool, air-conditioned space. Should he just give up? Call it a night and try again at some other point?

Frustrated, he scrubs his hand across his chin testily as he deliberates his options.

Figuring he at least needed to do another round in the room before he could leave when no one was looking, Javier turns to stroll back the way he came, when he looks over at the outdoor entry leading to the hotel's pool area and notices a silhouette of a white dress off in the distance, standing at the poolside bar.

Breathing a sigh of relief after being able to sneak away before Bozzi could try to circle back for another tedious conversation, you lean into the counter and smile pleasantly at the bartender while the soft breeze from the ocean caresses your dress and hair. Once he nods in acknowledgement, you gesture to a particular bottle of rum.

"Una Cuba libre, por favor," you're ordering, already retrieving the needed bills from your purse while the bartender makes your drink.

"Put it on my tab, please," a smooth baritone at your side instructs to the bartender in Spanish.

Your heart skips before your brain's able to fume at his fucking audacity.

Javier knows he's taking a risk. However, it seemed to be the best opportunity to approach you, thanks to the poolside bar being empty. So, he'd sidled up to the bar, downwind but next to you. Gaze guarded as he watched you order, and pining even more thanks to the sound of your melodious voice speaking Spanish. Not to mention from how the scent of your perfume on your warm skin heats his own blood. It's now or never.

But, before he is able to muster the words out loud to you – the ones that have been searing a hole in his chest for months, you snatch your purse up from the bar top, slap the bills you'd retrieved to pay for the drink down on the counter, and curtly order, "Please accept payment for the drink I ordered and nothing else."

Confused, the bartender tentatively places your drink down with a slow nod as you give him a pinched smile and snag the drink before turning to stalk away back to the ballroom.

Well, that went well. Annoyed with himself, he closes out his tab and stalks down to the terrace to enter the ballroom just in time to see you across the room back at your table.

Feeling exasperated, you chug your drink, daintily place it on the table, and give Ellis a clipped gesture indicating you were ready to leave.

"Shit, ok," Ellis croaks as he nods, and was on his feet by the time you rounded the table to exit via the hallway entry. He manages to gain on you when you turn towards the carport vestibule, and asks, "You sure you wanna leave like this, kid?"

"Like what?" you snap as you both exit the automatic sliding doors and head out towards the parking lot of the hotel.

"Like you're about to nuke a small city?" he tries to joke, but at your shoulders winding back imperiously, he amends, "Maybe it'd be better to just hash it out—"

"I have nothing to say to him."

"Ok, but maybe it would be good to hear him out so he can get it out of his system?"

"I don't care to," you hiss contumely at him, and Ellis' brows shoot up to his hairline, so you grumble, "Drop it, Ellis."

"C'mon, girlie. This isn't good for anybody—"

"I don't want to hear it, let alone deal with any of it—"

"Celina."

Pausing in your furious stride, you turn sidelong to stare guardedly at Javier.

With steel in his gait, Javi approached the short distance from the hotel's parking lot side entry, looking intent to speak to you while no one else is around out in the secluded lot from the main avenue beyond.

Having clearly seen you leave, he'd followed after as inconspicuously as possible, and had decided to gain on you both in the hopes that he could catch you before you left, but at seeing how speedily Ellis was trying to keep in step with your brisk stride, something in him had overridden his caution and spurred him to make his stand, here and now.

So, he unflinchingly walked over to you both until he was in front of you in the parking aisle nearest the barriers that overlooked the dark beach and ocean shore beyond.

His brown eyes were plaintive, and the overhead glare from the nearest lamppost cast him in a stark light.

Your eyes were blazing, expression a marble mask, but by the rigid set of your posture, he knew you were boiling over with barely-contained rancor.

Still, he just had to tell you.

"I know you're angry. I totally understand why you feel that way, and you have every right to be. I know there was so much left unsaid – not all of it great, but I need you to know that I meant everything I said to you that night," he rushes out in an impassioned baritone, hands at his sides clenching and unclenching nervously as he adds, "There hasn't been a day that's gone by where I haven't thought of you. That I haven't regretted how things were left between us. All I ever wanted was to make you happy – to protect you, but I failed and was too stupid to see I was just ruining what we had instead. I want to try to fix things – to win your trust back and prove to you that everything we planned was real. I still want everything with you, Celina. I love you—"

You slap him with all your furious might across his face.

The smack reverberates in the quiet, ocean-adjacent parking lot, and while your hand stings, it's not enough to chasten your pain as it has you unleashing in a vehement, exacting torrent, "You fucking manipulative bastard! How dare you say a fucking word to me after everything you've done, you son of a bitch?! 'I love you'?! You have the audacity to say such bullshit to me, after I haven't heard a fucking word from you in months?! It wasn't enough that you tore everything apart then?! What, you make it your mission to fucking drop back into my life out of the blue to make me feel like an insane, stupid idiot for ever believing a goddamned thing that ever came out of your fucking mouth?!"

Javier is stunned, the imprint of your palm scalding at his right cheek, eyes wide and woeful as he stands there, rendered mute.

You'd sensed Ellis flinch next to you with every venom-laced word you'd lobbed, and when you feel him gently touch your shoulder, you recoil away, withering gaze still fixed on your target and only becoming a wrathful glare now as you level Javier with, "Don't you ever come up to me again with any more of your puterías, you maldito mentiroso malparido!"

Then, clearly incensed and needing to get away before you hit true critical mass in your ire, you turn away and bark at Ellis, "I'm taking a taxi," before stalking away from them both.

In a state of shock and dismay, they watch you storm out of the parking lot to the bustling street traffic, where you flag a cabby down before getting into the backseat of the taxi to be driven away.

Completely nonplussed, Ellis turns back to look at Javi.

He sees a man torn asunder – utterly devastated by having hurt you so deeply than from having incurred your furious wrath.

"Shit…I, uh...you need a ride?" he finds himself asking while he fidgets in place.

When Javier just looks shellshocked and stares down at his feet, as if at a loss for what to do with himself, Ellis sighs as he taps his arm with the back of his hand before gesturing for him to follow as he rambles, "Alright, my car's over there. Just come with me before anybody comes out to see what the hell happened, or worse, that fucking Bozzi guy comes looking for her for a third damn time today."

Dazed, Javier follows, face flushed from suppressed emotion and pulse racing as his hearing gets fuzzy from how flustered, and utterly downtrodden he is, all at once.

It's an awkward drive out of the tourist district, to say the least.

Once Ellis manages to get Javi to tell him his address, and he is cruising on the highway for a quiet beat, though, he decides to throw the man a lifeline.

"Listen…she waited for you," he parcels out, careful with not speaking too much for you. At the stiff way Javier's shoulders press back into the seat, he sighs, confiding, "She never told me all the details. I was already gone by the time she decided to leave the embassy, but I heard her tell Anita she'd gone to your apartment, and when she found out you'd left, she held out hope that you'd come back. But, when you didn't…well, by then, she couldn't stay there, knowing what she knew."

His breath is ragged as he lets it out in a huff while he absorbs that.

Another heavy silence passes between them as Ellis drives on to take the exit into the downtown route shortest to get to Javier's gated neighborhood. He doesn't expect for the conversation to resume, and is about to reach for the volume dial on the radio to at least alleviate the tension with some music from the local classic rock station.

"I went back."

Hand returning to the wheel, Ellis glances over at Javier when he drags his palm down his face before cupping it over his mouth.

Shaking his head, he drops his hand listlessly in his lap, exhales, and unburdens himself with, "I went back, but she'd already moved out of her apartment – had quit and left the embassy, and it wasn't until I got back stateside that…anyway, I didn't know where she was, and no one I spoke to had her current contact info. It wasn't until a box with all my shit from her place got delivered that I knew for sure she was done with me…"

"She wasn't."

He turns to gawk at Ellis, who looks begrudgingly put out.

"Don't look at me that way, man!" he gripes as he turns off onto the avenue into the more residential area. "You think a woman would be that pissed if she didn't still care?"

Javi feels the ache behind his sternum subside as hope fills him up. Then he remembers how Steve had mentioned getting those missed calls back around the time you would've been leaving Colombia.

As if he can hear his loud thoughts, Ellis grouses, "She's a strong, fearsome one, and nothing made her angrier more than hearing what happened to you, and knowing that creep Stechner had been involved?" He grunts and scowls, pausing long enough for Javi to tell him the security code to engage the automatic gate to retract open since the guardhouse was vacant. Once he's driven through and let Javi gesture for the route he should take, he huffs a gruff sound. "Anyway…she wasn't done with you, and there was no way she wasn't going to eviscerate that guy for what he'd done," he pauses to shoot a sharp glare at Javi after he drives through the main entry to his neighborhood before turning down the block he'd indicated. Bitingly, he sneers, "Which, by the way, I'm super ticked off I had to find out via gossip what happened to her in Medellín."

Javier glowers. "She didn't want anyone to know—"

"I get her motives. Still…the fact that fucking prick had anything to do with it?! That he'd been harassing her the whole time? Did you know—?"

"I didn't until after. She had to talk me down from ripping that fucker's head off," he growls wrathfully.

Ellis grunts in agreement of the sentiment.

"Yeah, well…she always plays the long game."

At the flippant aside from the other man who was pulling onto the street his house was on, Javi's mind recalled something you'd said that had been a potential clue of that very assertion.

"…I have no qualms about making sure certain hostile forces get their comeuppance very soon…"

Astonished, he goes silent the rest of the drive that remained.

Meanwhile, you'd made it home much sooner, thanks to your condo building being just a relatively short drive from the tourist district of El Condado, and as soon as you paid the cab driver and exited the car, you'd keyed into the pedestrian gate and stomped your way through the frond-shaded-tropical-flower-festooned courtyard to enter the front lobby of the building. The night attendant greeted you pleasantly and informed you that your mailbox was full, so even in a snit, you'd thanked him, gone to your mailbox cubby, and unlocked it to retrieve the assorted bundle.

You were so angry still, though, that you took the long way up to your apartment, even though your muscles were still sore from the workout that morning, and your feet were killing you from the tall heels.

Ascending the stairs to the fourth story, you walked around from the south-facing side to traverse around the open-air walkway over to your doorway. The balmy night air sifting through the space did little to cool your ire – hand shaking as you opened your apartment door from the adrenalin rush of having blown your stack.

Once in your apartment, you locked the door, turned on the lamp by the side table where you drop your keys and mail onto, and stalk haughtily to your couch, where you sit and kick off your heels before cupping your hands to your forehead and lean forward to try breathing through your rage. So much for fucking de-stressing!

Your temples are throbbing, but after a few cleansing breaths, you manage to rein in your tempestuous anger and open your eyes to cast a tired glance about the perfectly cozy and appointed space before it lands on the little sideboard near the balcony doors, where you stored your booze away once you'd started your diet and alcohol fast.

Just as you get up from the sofa and begin to tiptoe along the cool tile floor towards it, your house phone starts ringing. Exhaling a groan, you turn and sprint to the narrow console table against the wall by the door where the cordless phone and answering machine sit.

Checking the caller ID, you grunt and answer the phone.

"Well, go ahead…tell me how immature and out of line I was," you grumble as you start to pace the space between your living room sofa and the console table.

"I'm not! I just wanted to make sure you got home alright," Ellis gripes, and you exhale, shoulders slumping as you hum.

"I'm sorry," you mutter, free hand absently combing through your hair as you keep pacing. "I just—I couldn't believe—ugh, never mind," is your growl before you center yourself and ask, "Were you able to get home right after without any more hassle?"

"Um…not right after, no. Actually heading to the house now," Ellis draws out, which makes you halt in your pacing. "I, uh, drove the poor bastard home…"

Outrage fizzles up quickly in you. "What?! Why?"

"Because! I felt bad for the guy, and he looked fucking miserable – the saddest, most heartbroken I've ever seen him, and I just couldn't skip away to my car and leave him in the parking lot looking like he was going to hop the barriers and walk into the ocean—"

The visual he's conjured is so pointed and harrowing that you feel a little lump catch in your throat.

"And anyway…I still think you two need to hash things out."

"Ellis," you grouse haughtily. "There's nothing to work out. N-Not…not after how I handled things tonight."

Your friend grunts neutrally before volunteering, "He was really broken up, kid."

Frowning, you idly wander the living room in a meandering loop as you murmur, "Not too broken up to have prevented it coming to this in the first place…"

There's a tense silence before Ellis sighs dramatically.

"He went back. But, by the time he got there, you'd already left."

Feeling like all your acrimony was doused and swept away with cold shock, you freeze and whisper, "He did…?"

"He poured his guts out, girlie. Really, I believe he didn't mean for things to have turned out the way they had. You guys just missed each other, like, literally – maybe by a couple of weeks—"

"Oh," you exhale in a reedy murmur, getting overcome.

Ellis seems to sense it, so, he aloofly informs, "Well, I dropped him off at DD-5 on Los Robles in that Floral Park neighborhood. Bet he'll be there, licking his wounds, maybe even crying himself into a whiskey bottle…"

Forlorn, you feel your heart ache at the thought.

Javier was not fairing any better, when he thought about how upset he'd made you.

After Ellis dropped him off, he'd shed his blazer and tie before dejectedly organizing the clutter of boxes in his bedroom to be against the wall and out of the way, at the very least.

He wasn't sure he should bother unpacking them.

The doubts that clawed their ways free had him questioning every decision, leaving him spiraling while he aimlessly walked through his two-bedroom, one-bath bungalow picking up after himself from the whirlwind rush he'd left in his wake that morning. The pitter-patter sound of the light drizzle that kicked up with the drop of a gusty breeze was thrumming against the metal crank windows as he wandered about.

The sound was quite soothing, helping him distract his mind from the roiling mess of his tempestuous thoughts.

Gingerly touching his cheek after tossing clothes into the hamper, he finds it's still tender, but not as hot as it'd been after your slap.

His mind flashes to how furious you were, and a pang wells in his chest before he can stop it.

It's replaced by the twinge in his stomach that has him huffing and kicking off his shoes into the open sliding door closet before he lopes glumly out of his room.

Having skipped partaking on any of the nibbles at the hotel, he wandered to the galley-style kitchen with the bar top counter that looked out at the empty dining room space and the living room beyond, in search for something to hold him over until the morning. While he went, he took the whiskey bottle out from the top cabinet next to the fridge and placed it aside on the counter before retrieving one of the bevel glass tumblers from another cabinet.

He was opening the pantry cupboard he'd hastily shoved the groceries he'd purchased the night before, grabbing a bag of plantain chips from the shelf, when he heard a knock on his front door.

Immediately going on high-alert, Javi left everything on the counter and approached the door cautiously. After peering out the vertical-stacked square block sidelight and seeing a familiar silhouette, he idly scrubbed his palm over his mouth tensely.

Unlocking the two deadbolts, he opens the door, and confirms it's you.

You turn towards the door and meekly stand there just sheltered out of the drizzling rain thanks to the concrete awning covering the front entrance stoop. He can tell you're warring with internal conflict by how creased your eyes are, and how your hand wrings around the strap of your purse hung on your shoulder.

After hanging up with Ellis, you'd felt so guilty that you'd rushed to put your heels back on, grabbed your day-to-day purse, and replaced all your important items into it from the slim one, grabbed your condo and car keys, then breezed back out the door. You didn't even take umbrage at the fact he strategically fed you Javi's address, even threw in the security code for the gate, because he knew you so well. No, you were glad for it, and used the drive over to regain your emotional grounding point and stamp down the upheaval of before.

As soon as you'd pulled up to the curb in front of the blue-and-white-painted cement house with the open-air carport garage and wrap-around backyard-and-side brick fence on the corner, you'd stared at the front door and warred with your emotions, however.

It had already started drizzling, so intrepidly, you decided you needed to get it over with before the heavier rain shower rolled through. At least that was the excuse to get out of the car and march up his front walkway to the door.

Javier's shocked, albeit cautious expression makes you frown, so you steel yourself and just get on with it.

"Look, I…I overreacted tonight. That was completely inappropriate, and I had no right to behave like that," you rush out in a firm tone, body language easing in rigidity when you see his shoulders relax and his tense features soften. "I'm—I'm sorry. I should've handled it better, and there is no justification for taking my anger out on you like that—"

"You don't have to apologize," Javi husks ardently before adjusting his weight onto his opposite foot in order to gesture with a nod of his head in invitation as he rumbles, "It's starting to rain. Would you like to come in?"

You hesitate, looking back as indeed the drizzle becomes a rainfall that doesn't look like will let up for a while.

Pressing your lips together, you idly comb your hair behind your ear before hedging, "I didn't come here to intrude, Javier—"

"You're not," he assures steadfastly, cautious about not being too pushy that it'll trigger you into wanting to leave, so he murmurs, "I appreciate that you came all this way. So…it'd mean a lot if we could just talk? I, uh, I'd like to try and, I don't know…"

At him grasping for the right thing to refer to it by, you sigh and coax reservedly, "To hash things out?"

Javi nods, relieved. "Yes—Yeah, exactly," he retorts in a raspy baritone before stepping aside and holding the door open for you.

Deciding to just stow your reluctance towards even being there – feeling the way you do – you accept his invite by walking in and wandering through the entry and into the main space. It's a sparsely decorated house designed in the current minimalistic, modern style that had become the rage in the early 1990s in the metropolitan area of the island. The kitchen was to your right, and the living room was straight ahead while a short hall to your left led to the laundry room and marquesina entry.

"Sorry, I don't have any rum. I just grabbed stuff from a colmado nearby last night," Javi is remarking as you take yourself to the living room and sit on the wide-cushioned gray sofa. "I, uh, know you're not a big whiskey drinker—"

"It's ok. I've actually been on a diet; a liquor cleanse," you volunteer as you place your purse on the light wood grain coffee table with the block legs. When Javi dithers by the bar top counter, you snicker and assure, "I've already broken my liquor fast for the night, so just a glass of water is fine."

He nods and quickly goes to grab the glass tumbler he'd left on the counter before getting the water pitcher from the fridge. Once he's got that and a glass of whiskey for himself, he comes over and hands the water to you.

Your fingers brush briefly as he sits in the retro-looking swivel chair adjacent you on the sofa. "Not very good at sticking to that stuff, I guess," he jibes in response, referring to you both ending up at the bar earlier, and when you pause in taking a sip of water to give him a sharp look, he clears his throat and corrects, "I mean, I've been cutting back, too. Just hard to stick to it…" when your gaze softens and you nod before taking a sip from the glass, he adds, "I quit smoking."

Surprised, you cup the glass in both hands, resting them over your tucked knees. "Oh?"

"Yeah. Haven't broken down and had a cigarette since before Christmas," he remarks before taking a sip of his whiskey.

You nod, smile reserved as you place the glass down so you can cross your legs, pretending you're not teeming with frenetic nerves.

Javi knows it. He knows your guard is all the way up, and you can't just turn that part of yourself off. Not when you're trying to protect yourself and keep any perceived threat locked away from the fragile parts you can't keep compartmentalized and detached from.

So, after swallowing the rest of the whiskey in his glass, he sets it on the table while it burns down into his gut and gives him the courage needed to step into the lion's den.

"Celina…I don't know what to say. Where to even start," Javi rushes out, leaning forward to pleadingly look you in the eyes. "Everything that happened – I never meant for you to get caught up in it. I—it fucking kills me that I hurt you. That you were stuck to deal with the fallout…thinking I just left and stayed gone. I'm sorry," he pauses when his voice begins to tremble, but at the way your eyes crinkle at the corners, he forges on, "I should've called. Should have told you I was coming back. I made so many mistakes, but the biggest one was not having the courage to tell you—"

"Javier."

He pauses then, brown eyes focusing intently on you when you sit forward and brace your hands to your forehead in a hassled manner, like you're desperately trying to collect yourself and not fly off the handle.

A tense few seconds of silence pass, and just when you let out a heavy exhale, he expects you to finally lose your temper – to really let him have it. He ends up being surprised when you sigh and sit back to look at him.

"I can't lie to you. I was blindsided, and furious with you—with what you did and how you did it. I questioned everything you ever said…got upset with myself for ever believing anything you'd promised. But when I found out what really was going on? I felt lost," you're telling him, voice cracking before you divert your gaze away towards one of the windows across the way. When you feel like the tangle of emotion has dissipated, you continue in a hushed tone, "Everything that mattered – my work, my career at the embassy, all the hopes I had for my life. It all just fell apart. I felt like everything was a lie."

Javier watches your lashes flutter as you fight back the welling of tears, and is thunderstruck when you look over at him now with all the emotion in your wide, watery eyes when you wring your hands together and devastate him with the last thing that he'd ever expect you to say.

"It…It was the most scared I'd ever felt, and I felt so lost, and then I felt so guilty, because I realized that was how you must've felt."

Heat rises to your face as the emotion overcomes you, making you flustered and wanting to be far away from him – to not let him see you at the verge of falling apart.

"Querida—" Javi begins to croak hoarsely, but before he can move over to comfort you, you've grabbed your purse from the table and rushed to your feet to try and make a hasty exit.

"I'm sorry. I have to go—" you're in the middle of flustering out in a tremulous breath, when Javi gains on you and herds you away from the door to instead be tucked against him.

You flinch, recoiling away to stare up at him when he embraces you with his hand at the small of your back while he cups your cheek to swipe away the errant tear that escaped your eye.

"Please, mi amor. Don't go," he susurrates, heart aching when your breath stutters and more tears fall to roll down your cheeks. "I don't want you to ever feel guilty. Just—we can start over. Everything we wanted is still possible. I meant everything I said. I want it all, with you—"

Brow furrowing stubbornly, you wipe at your cheeks as you push away from him while you cut in, "What're you doing here, Javier?!" Anger welling up in your chest when he gives you a confused pout, you snap, "Why are you even here?!"

He realizes what you mean – what you're truly asking, which is, 'Why did you come to Puerto Rico?'

Staring at you intensely, he decides to go for broke while warring with the impulse to just wrap you up in his arms.

"I came here for you."

Astonished, you stare at him like your incredulous mind is trying to decipher his true motives – to detect the lie.

So, with an assertive tone, Javi declares, "I went back to Colombia. You'd already left – had moved out of your place, and no one had heard from you since you'd left your cousin's, and they didn't have a way to get in contact with you. Fucking months went by, then Steve gets the job here, sees you're working at the Federal building. The moment he told me…the moment I knew? I made the call to take the job here the next day."

When you still, purse clutched in your hand as you stare in stunned disbelief, Javi slips his palms around your hips to hold you close. "I came here to be with you, Celina. I don't give a fuck about the job. If you want, I'll quit tomorrow," he grouses, tone becoming velvet over steel as he adds emphatically, "I'll do whatever you want, go wherever you want – do whatever you need me to do to prove you can trust me. All that matters to me, is you."

Speechless, you stare into his soulful, dark chocolate eyes in the lowlight of the entry by his front door.

The weight of it all steals your breath, and before you've stopped it, the walls within you come crashing down.

Dropping your purse to the floor, you toss your arms around his shoulders and kiss him.

Love-struck, Javi groans a yearning sound as he pulls you into him and kisses you with sheer hunger, mouth claiming yours while his hands grip you against him to pin you to the wall so he can hike your dress up and you can wrap your legs around his waist.

Feeling the urgent press of his arousal seeking the heat between your thighs after so long has you shivering and mewling, heat rising to the apples of your cheeks as Javi trails possessive kisses from your mouth down to your jaw before grazing his hot mouth against your pulse.

"Wanted this. Wanted to pick you up and feel you against me," he growls as he worships a scintillating path down your neck to the swell of your breasts that're pushed together from how desperately you're clinging to his shoulders. "You had to wear this sexy fucking dress—"

"Javi," you gasp when he grinds his clothed erection against your core, which makes your pulse throb in your clit and arousal drench your panties.

"Fuck, I need to taste you, baby," he husks as he adjusts you back onto your wobbly tippytoes in the heels before he fondles a needy path down your curves and drops onto his knees before you.

"W-Wait, Javi," you stammer in a panting whine when his hands eagerly slip up your thighs to push your dress up so he can reach the waistband of your panties and pull them down your hips. When he halts in the task and stares up at you with those puppy eyes, you fluster, "I—It's been a while for me."

He looks surprised, which for some reason instigates a scalding wave of annoyance that has you snippily scoffing and snapping, "What?! You might've spent all fall and winter fucking your way through all the girls back in Laredo, but I haven't been with anyone! Not that I'm obligated to say if I've been with anyone else. Knowing you, though? You probably screwed your new office assistant here too already, huh?"

Javi snorts contrarily at the accusations before running his hand testily through his hair, gripping the tufting curls at his crown with a snarl. "Not in the least, querida. I haven't been with anyone," is his impassive grumble. When you don't seem convinced and your pursed lips sneer dubiously at him, he drawls, "Nope. All I've done is jerk off like a fiend. Probably have the lady at the drugstore back home thinking I'm a fucking creep with how much tissue and KY Jelly I go through—"

You snicker and stifle a giggle into the back of your hand as you deride, "Ay, por favor, like you didn't do that while we were together anyway. Even if it bothered me, there's no point in fibbing—"

He gives you a narrow stare as he grouses, "I'm not. And fine, I'm always hard up, but I'm serious. All I want is you, and it wouldn't matter if you're seeing someone else—"

"Oh yeah, you wouldn't care?" is your challenging question, adding, "You really wouldn't be bothered if I've been with another guy? If I was seeing someone? Your track record would say otherwise—"

Hands firmly sculpting back up your dress to pointedly press your hips against the wall, Javi pins you in place with his smoldering stare as he starts to tug your panties down while he rumbles hotly in response, "Yeah, well, I wouldn't care if you were with every asshole I saw leering at you today. Hell, even if you were with that prick with the beard. Because right now, all I care about is that you're with me now, and all I wanna do right now, is eat this pussy until you come on my tongue."

An excited shiver courses through you as if you were a tuning fork that had just been struck. It buzzes into your core and sets cloying desire to tingle into the clutch of your now tingling cunt, making all sass and snark scatter in your mind as you watch him peel your panties down your legs before he helps you remove the sullied garment, then takes your heels off for you.

"This fucking dress," Javi gravels in a thick husk, almost reverently as he pushes the hem up to expose your thighs before he presses worshipful kisses along the smooth expanse of skin. "I've fantasized about you in this dress for months—"

"R-Really?" you simper, but end up hiccupping a breathy sound when he finally makes it to your mound and nuzzles into you.

He feels arousal throb beseechingly through him at the heavenly perfume of your womanhood he's been missing for months, the panties he'd swiped being a poor substitute to the real thing. The heat and headiness of nosing the soft curls of your mons and feeling your warm skin diffuses a wave of comfort and want through him, making him hum covetously.

"I rented that movie a while back. Ever since, I pictured you in this dress, letting me do this," Javi tells you unabashedly as he shifts your leg over his shoulder so he can lick a luscious swipe up through your folds.

"Oh my god!"

The airy whine you let out is as rich as your divine scent, and just as sweet as tasting your wet pussy after so long.

You arch against the wall at a particularly lascivious lick that preceded him flicking the tip of his tongue in that libidinous way that melts your nerve endings down with pleasure. Alight from it, you mewl, "Javi!"when he presses his lips over your clit and groans, making you tingle and writhe as your toes curl from how amazing he's making you feel.

Hearing you say his name like this is a triumph. It's so overawing after so long without your grace and passion. He's painfully hard, cock throbbing with how worked up he's getting just from going down on you – convinced that if you so much as begged in that needy whine you let slip from your lips when you're close, that he might come in his pants.

When he draws circles over your clit with velvety undulations of his tongue, you keen and buck against his mouth, chasing bliss you've been starved of while Javi revels in having you again.

He feels your thighs quiver in his grip as you rock your pussy to ride the zeal of his mouth, completely enraptured by his ravenous desire.

So enraptured, in fact, that he's surprised when you mewl a reedy cry of pleasure and card your fingers desperately into his hair, tugging on the strands at his crown when he sucks on your clit and drives you into an incandescent orgasm.

He manages to keep you from folding over him when your legs give out, and when you exhale a ragged little flustered sound, he hums a soothing rumble as he licks your climax like it is rare honey that he doesn't want to miss a drop of. Then, he nuzzles a path up your body and affectionately crowds you so you can cling to his frame while you lull your head back along the wall as you regain your bearings.

Your eyes flutter when he admiringly brushes his fingertips along your flushed cheek before tucking some strands of hair from where they're clinging to the perspiration at your temple. And when the lustful haze clears from your vision, you see how handsome and pleased he is as he scrubs the back of his hand across his moustache all the way down to his chin while he gazes at you with something fiercely self-satisfied glinting in his dark brown eyes.

Javi is surprised when your brows knit together just before you grab the front of his shirt and yank him down to meet your possessive kiss. Floored, he goes to pin you against the wall, but instead you assertively redirect him backwards as you begin to tug at his shirt buttons.

"Mmph, querida—" he grunts in between the torrid making out while you maneuver him to backpedal to the living room.

When he backs into the side of the sofa, you silence his protest by shoving him backwards onto the cushy surface, thanks to the momentum of his knees catching on the plush curve of the armrest helping him topple with a grunt.

You clamber over it as well in order to hurriedly straddle his lap and hastily unbutton his shirt while you resume kissing him with passionate desire.

The tangy and whiskey flavor of his mouth has your head spinning as you tug his shirt open before kissing luscious fire down his neck and chest. As you do so, you let your eager hands wander down to his belt next. As they descend, you marvel at the differences in touching his torso now from the last time.

Javier's pectorals are firm and chiseled under your plush lips, and his torso was far more defined than you remember – abs etched and tummy taut so impressively that it was clear he hadn't been idle all the time back on the ranch. And when he hastily yanked his arms free from the shirt to shed the constrictive tightness of the fabric at his back being pinched into the couch, you internally swooned. The definition of his arms and the span of his shoulders had caught your eye earlier in the day, but to see him sans the suit now confirmed all your suspicions. There's no doubt…he's been working out.

You wanted to see the rest of him, so you kiss along his jaw as you swiftly unbuckled his belt and unfastened his light gray trousers.

His breath hitched when your touch skimmed over his clothed erection, making him squirm and arch under you as he simultaneously rushed to undo the sturdy, albeit delicate-feeling buttons at the front of your dress. You hum in approval and nuzzle that spot just under his jaw that makes him weak with need as you shift to straddle him while freeing his erection from its white cotton confines.

Jolting from the direct contact of your nimble touch over his throbbing cock, Javier stammers, "F-Fuck," and grips your waist.

You lean back to see he's unbuttoned the dress all the way down to where the belted waist stops and blocks further progress until it's undone, so you deftly shimmy your arms out of the sleeves and adjust the cant of your hips while you rush to unclasp the front closure of your nude-toned bra.

Enraptured by your toned physique and supple skin, Javi ends up staring at your perky tits and peaked nipples just as you straddle yourself right over his crotch and lean back down to kiss him torridly.

His scent is masculine and warm, with a hint of musk that clings to his skin, making you yearn to press your nose into his neck. Breathing him in after so long has you grazing your teeth over his pulse before suckling a possessive kiss into his skin.

Javi groans out, and it's so starved, that you undulate your hips over him before burying a hand into the back of his hair to guide him to meet your lips, kissing him with ravenous delight.

Oh fuck, fuck-fuck-fuck— he's gritting out in his head at how amazingly soft and warm you feel against his bare skin, getting flustered when you plant your palms over his broad chest and deepen the kiss with a lustful grind of your pussy against his hard-on. Truly, it's taking all of his control to not get overwhelmed and worked up while also staying grounded in the lustful desperation of being consumed in the tempestuous desire scintillating between you both.

You're unaware of how wound up he is, being completely out of practice in spotting the tells, and frankly too preoccupied with how good it feels to rub against his cock while your tongue licks against his in the torrid kiss.

Oh, dammit—forgot, I'm not on the pill! The worry flashes across your mind, and you groan frustratedly at it as you suckle on Javi's bottom lip before reluctantly breaking the kiss.

Panting against his jaw, you're just about to ask him if he has a condom, when Javi's breath hitches and his grip on your waist tightens, and you finally notice how taut his pectorals are under your hands.

The groan you'd made was practically a starved whine to his aroused senses, and combined with how you pulled on his bottom lip? It made a spike of pleasure snap months of pent-up desire loose, and before he could rein it back, feeling the heat of your pussy rut flush against his cock had him overloading with hyper-sensational arousal. He couldn't stop it.

With a choked, harsh grunt, Javi ground out, "Oh fuck—!" before he stiffened under you and his hips arched involuntarily up, breath catching in his throat as he writhes against the uncontrollable jerks of his body blitzing out against his will.

You still against him and stifle a gasp at the feeling of warm fluid surging against your mound and inner thighs.

Javier's skin burns with a mortified flush that radiates up his neck and scalds his face as he clenches his jaw and swears wordlessly in flustered, embarrassed frustration.

Incredulous, you lean up from being prone over him and stare with disarmed awe down at him, as you murmur, "Did you just…come?"

The way he practically turns red in the face as he bashfully cups his hand over his eyes in shame while the other caresses nervously along the length of your thigh is all the answer you need, but Javi scrapes his thoughts together enough to grouse, "Jesus fucking Christ…"

It makes quite the sight for you. Muscles tense and sculpted, skin flushed hot with his embarrassment, full lips parted and panting raggedly, and his hand trembling on your thigh now. Well, I'll be damned…

"Huh. I guess you weren't lying, after all."

The saucy, silky drawl of your teasing statement was accompanied by you tracing the defined contour of his oblique to the flat of his taut abdomen in a soothing glide of your fingertips, while you also patted the hand that he has on your thigh placatingly as you sigh, "You could've given me a heads up—"

Gruffly, he lets out a surly scoff before exhaling and dragging his palm from his eyes up to his forehead and through his hair testily.

The sight of you naked from the waist up, with your hair tousled, and giving him a look that was sultry and provocative – albeit endearingly amused, was enough to make want simmer hotly through him all over again.

"Couldn't get in a word edgewise, not with the way you were kissing me—" is his surly grumble he trails off on when you cock your eyebrow sardonically at him.

The way he's scowling up at you now instigates you to goad him. "No need to be so ornery," is your faux-admonishing lilt as you showily sit up on your knees and remain straddling him while you busily tuck him back into his underwear and zip his trousers shut, then lift your sexy dress' skirt in order to flaunt the damp, sticky stains of his cum seeping into the light material before remarking, "Oh, well. You shouldn't have started something you couldn't finish – well, finish together, anyway—"

Smoldering from your teasing, Javi suddenly sits up and manhandles you against him before clambering off the sofa.

You yelp in surprise as you hastily wrap your legs around his waist and hook your grip to the back of his neck as he effortlessly carries you out of the living room to turn down a back hallway that leads to his bedside-lamp-lit bedroom.

"Who said we're finished?" he growls as he stalks into the large room, just before he tosses you onto his plush bed.

You let out an airy giggle as you land, but the way he looks at you while he rushes to get his clothes off makes a deviant thrill tickle down into your core and leaves you buzzing from the hot wave of arousal that tingles warmly into your pulsing cunt.

Javier sees your breath quicken from your excitement, so while he strips his undergarments off, he orders in a low octave, "I'm not finished with you, querida, so take that fucking dress off. Now."

Something depravedly gleeful curls free from you as you sit up and shake your head defiantly, giving him an exacting look, before you counter, "Come take it off of me."

That primal desire to dominate you burns a streak up through him at your words, so with his agile reflexes, he grabs your ankle and yanks you down the bed. You gasp out in excitement as he brusquely tugs the belt of your dress loose before working each of the asymmetrical placket's buttons undone with deft fingers, all while possessively kissing your breasts.

Neither of you care how sticky you are from the earlier snafu, and frankly, you're aching so bad for Javi to be inside you now that any and all thoughts from before are gone from your mind as you arch into his mouth when he sucks hard on your nipple.

He groans from your hands burying greedily into his hair while he moves to suckle on the other studded nub and discards your dress blindly to the floor behind him before he picks you up and climbs onto the bed with you.

"Nnngth!" you whimper when he nips lightly on your pebbled flesh before he lays you down on the bed and settles eagerly between your thighs.

The smoldering, molten look in his eyes as he gazes down at you in your nude glory makes you needy and bold, so you lean up to hook your hand to the back of his neck in order to tug him down to meet your yearning kiss and pull him to be on top of you. Feeling his broad frame and warm muscles press into you is rapturous, sheer bliss in of itself, and you relish how good it makes you feel.

Javi revels in it too, enjoying your supple form and passionate kiss as his hands fondle and caress your curves covetously.

When he slips his touch between your bodies to dip two fingers inside your wet pussy, you gasp into his mouth and arch, knees impulsively hiking up to clutch at his hips. The feeling is new but familiar all at once, thanks to how long you've been without him, and when his thick digits curl and brush that erogenous spot you can never reach with your own, you grip your fingers into his back and whimper for more.

The way your cheeks flush and your mouth falls open on a moan while your eyes flutter shut at him grinding the pad of his thumb over your hypersensitive bundle of pleasure is too much for him to linger in just touching you now. So, he recedes his fingers and quickly uses your arousal to slicken his ramrod erection before dragging the head of his cock through your drenched folds.

Feeling it notch at your dimpled entrance while his big hands scoop under you in order to hold you into alignment has your breath flitting out of you while you gaze lusciously up at him. His eyes are dark pools of coffee that glean an earthy cocoa from the shade-less table lamp that casts a yellow illumination in his bedroom, and for the first time in too long, you reach your fingertips to caress affectionately across his brow before you skim them up to his forehead to brush his long wisping curls back from his sweaty skin.

Javi lets out a soothed exhale as he bows his face to nuzzle you lovingly, and you savor it while you loop your arms around him to clutch at his back just before he thrusts into your clenching heat.

"Mmmph!" you whine, feeling your muscles protest and strain from the thick of him filling you in one fell swoop.

At your leg hiking up with a jerk from how hard you arched, Javi shifts to hook his arm under it while he slips his other hand to cradle the small of your back so he can adjust how deep the next thrust goes. He swears gruffly at how warm and tight you are when he sheaths to the hilt into you, groaning into your neck when your nails nip into his lower back.

"Feel so good…missed feeling you," Javi husks in a gravelly timbre before suckling kisses into your neck and up your jaw. "Gonna take it slow, preciosa."

You exhale a little mewl and grip your hands at his lats when he starts rocking slow and deep into you.

The way your silken walls flutter around his cock has him setting a toe-curling pace soon enough, though, and his mouth trailing delectable fire across your senses as he kisses you with hungry desperation has you enraptured.

The tempest of passion being spun up in you burns pleasure through you, making you moan, "Javi, p-please—need it," when he starts quickening his pace and letting the ferocity of his need amplify the pounding of his thrusts.

At your moan, he grunts possessively and shifts so he can hold you against the bed and really fuck you hard now.

The debauched sound of warm colliding flesh weaves around the squelching of him slamming through your drenched cunt and the buildup of your moans falling into rhythm now. Javi can feel how your thighs are beginning to tense and the way your walls are fluttering tighter around him, so he starts rutting against you every time he slams home, which causes his pubic bone to grind into your clit with just the perfect amount of pressure that wreaks pleasure through you.

"Ahh, Javi!" you cry out and writhe under him, hands clutching at his back just beneath his shoulder blades while your body bowls up into his as you fall apart from the blazing orgasm, gushing your climax so hard that Javi groans in accomplishment above you.

Watching you come enchants him, truly. He missed basking in your climax – how your features glow from exertion and bliss as he prolongs your pleasure. It's like an elixir for his parched soul, being able to drink in how beatific you become from his sinful triumph in making you reach rapture.

It makes him feel worthy once again.

You're a sweaty and warm panting heap when you come down from the aftershocks, eyes heavy as they stare up at the undulating ceiling fan you hadn't noticed before while Javi nuzzles into the crook of your neck and breathes in your heady perfume.

Once your pulse has calmed, your throbbing flesh feels how rock-hard he still is inside you.

Realizing this is what he meant about taking it slow, you kiss his shoulder before limberly hiking your legs up and pivoting to roll you both until you're able to straddle his hips while he stretches out under you with a flustered look on his handsome face.

"Cariño—" Javi begins to rumble when you roll your hips and undulate to grind down on his cock salaciously before squeezing your floor muscles around it. His hands grip your thighs as he arches and moans, "Dios mío, b-baby. Mmmph!"

His cock throbs inside of you as you start to ride him, and it feels so amazing that Javi's hands desperately snap up to hold onto your waist as you hum alluringly and rut down on him before clenching your sheath tight again.

The way he moans makes you feel alight and wound up now, so you hold onto his wrists and really start fucking yourself on his perfect shaft, feeling spun up by the power of dominating him and knowing how much he needs you to make him come.

"I want it, Javi. Give it to me," is your throaty purr as you plant your palms over his broad chest and squeeze his pectorals, earning a tight growl from him just before you order, "You're gonna come inside me this time, beautiful boy—"

"Oh Jesus Christ!" he groans, raunchily overcome by how fucking hot this is and how sexy you are, and how desired you make him feel.

However, he's unable to accept shooting his load again without making you come one more time.

So, he surprises you by shifting up to wrap his arms around you possessively before pivoting so that he's balanced up on his knees while his hands hold you to set a desperate, unabashed pace of fucking you. All you can do is blindly reach back to hold onto the top of his headboard for leverage as you rock roughly into him, other hand clinging to the back of his shoulder and neck as you both work each other into an incandescent passion, moaning and gasping, falling into the abandon of getting lost in coupling with fierce desire now.

Nothing matters but his pleasure. Nothing matters but your pleasure. The feeling of his hands caressing you like he's a sculptor working with clay. The feeling of your body undulating like a sinewy haven he's sinking deeper and deeper into.

All that matters is how you make each other feel right here and now.

And when you both reach the zenith of it all, you're flung off the precipice into soul-shattering delight together, climaxing and giving yourselves over to the wracking throes of achieving bliss with each other once more.

You wordlessly cry out as you come, and Javi husks a groan with you, bowing his head into your chest when he shudders and squeezes you close as he fucks his cum deep enough that you feel the decadent bloom of his seed filling you in the seat of your womb. The rapturous delight fills you both up, and you nuzzle kisses into his temple and cheek before he affectionately hums. He tilts his face up to rub his cheek against yours before his full, adoring lips kiss yours languidly while you both come down from the blissful high.

Javi leans back exhaustedly onto his haunches and pants raggedly when you loop your arms clumsily around his shoulders and slacken relaxedly in his embrace with a dreamy sigh.

Before he runs the risk of collapsing in a heavy heap on top of you, Javi lays you on the now rumpled bedding before kissing dotingly along your heated features, grunting approvingly when you hum softly and distractedly comb your fingers through the back of his sweaty hair.

Shifting up once he feels the last of his energy begin to fizzle out, Javi groans when he pulls out and watches your comingled climaxes honeying your now tender flesh before pearly rivulets weep free from your pussy. You shiver at the sensation and squeeze your warm, slick thighs together while you stretch out tiredly now just as he flops onto his back next to you.

There's a comfortable lull, where only the sound of the fan rotating at a low ambient hum while it undulates the cool night air in the room across your heated skin reins, whilst you both catch your breaths and lie in post-coital bliss.

Then, Javier breathes in a cleansing inhale before huffing it out in a sated exhale.

"Fuck…I could really go for a cigarette right now."

For whatever reason, his pleased and cool mutter bursts the bubble.

Completely unaware, though, Javi leers sidelong at your bodacious form, cataloguing how tighter your tummy and more toned your arms are when you suddenly pull yourself up to sit with your knees tucked up against your chest.

Christ on the cross…you did it again. Just got right back into bed with him, is your recriminating sneer at yourself as you stare about his large bedroom.

Adjusting to lounge on his hip, propped up by his elbow, Javi gazes warmly at you, admiring how the yellow lamp light makes your dewy skin glow before he realizes your features are guarded – eyes faraway.

"Querida," he murmurs as he sidles closer and kisses your bare shoulder, which stirs you out of your self-reproachful thoughts to blink and glance meekly over at him now. Thinking you're getting skittish because of how raunchy you both are now after the salacious sex, he quickly mutters, "Be right back," before rushing off the bed to the bathroom entry adjacent his side of the bed. The sound of the sink running, then the wringing of a towel precedes him coming back into the room in his nude glory before he flops back down onto the bed with you.

However, before he can cozy up to you with it, you snatch the washcloth from him, scamper to the foot of the bed, sweep up your discarded dress and then scurry into his bathroom, before clicking the door shut.

Bemused, Javi is slow to realize what's happening. Shit. Shit-shit-shit!

Hurrying to grab a pair of sweatpants from his suitcase, he pulls them on as he hastily rushes out of the bedroom to intercept you as you make your exit out of the bathroom's hallway door.

You've just turned the corner and rushed to the living room while you swiftly buckled the satin belt of your dress when you hear his footfalls, so you retrieve your bra and speedily yank it on to fasten it shut before you shove your arms into the sleeves and rapidly work the buttons up the placket shut as you sprint to the entry to get your panties, heels, and purse left discarded on the terrazzo floor.

"Celina, wait!"

Javi's gained on you before you were able to get to the front door.

Shrugging away when he tries to herd you back to the living room with him, you sigh, "Javier, I have to go—"

"C'mon, don't leave like this," he coaxes as he loops his arms around your waist and gives you a plaintive look. When you relent and just fidget from one foot to the other, diverting your gaze from his, he assures, "You can tell me exactly everything you want to say. Yell at me. Curse me out and tell me exactly how fucking stupid I was. I know I was, but if you need to get anything off your chest, you can. I want to hear you—want you to feel heard. Anything you need, I'll do it. I want to earn your trust back, corazón. You don't have to go—"

"I can't do this again, Javier."

Frowning, he lets you wriggle from his embrace so you can yank your panties on and shimmy them up under your dress before you slip your heels onto your feet.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come here. Shouldn't have kissed you or gotten so carried away—" you're muttering as you adjust your dress, when your rambling lamentation skids to a halt from how he puts his hand over the one you'd been scooping up your purse with from where you'd set it on the adjacent bar top counter.

"This is not like last time," Javier vehemently declares, eyes molten with his conviction when you stare up with disarmed surprise at him. "I know I've fucked up enough times now that you'd be justified in never forgiving me, but I need you to know how much what we had mattered to me. How it still matters to me. You're everything I want, so…I'll wait as long as I have to, until you're ready," he professes, other hand coming up to caress your cheek as he begins to husk, "Celina, I love—"

Your eyes sharpen as you shake your head and take a step back, dismissing, "No, please, don't. I don't wanna hear that, Javier. I-I can't hear any of that right now." I can't fall back into this and get stuck in the vicious cycle again—

At seeing how your words wound him and earn a woeful frown to etch his features, your heart aches, and you can't help scoff at yourself before amending, "I just need time to think about everything."

Javi exhales, reluctant, but nods in appeasement before insisting, "Ok, but you don't have to run off from me, you know—"

"Javier. I got the news you were not only back at the DEA, but assigned as the Special Agent in-Charge here all at the same time, then had to go into a meeting with you looking fresh as a fucking daisy and I couldn't run up and punch you like I wanted to. Then, you followed me around that godforsaken stupid event like a persistent puppy, accosted me in the parking lot with your proclamations, and just fucked me silly after throwing me in a whirlwind about what happened almost half a year ago! I think I'm entitled to run off and regroup on how I feel," is your imperious harangue, hands snapping to your hips as you impatiently glare at his stunned, dopey look before you deadpan exactingly, "Fair?"

Jesus, when she puts it like that…

"Yeah, that's fair," he concedes and crosses his brawny arms over his chest, then grumbles glibly, "You skipped the part about slapping the shit out of me—"

"Yeah, well, I apologized for that, you jodón," is your snarky sneer as you eye him stubbornly while you watch that sly smile tug across his full lips, making it clear he'd just been goading you. With a huff, you dismissively grab your purse now, and turn to amble off to the door as you gripe, "Ugh, you're fucking incorrigible—"

His hand gets to the door handle before yours, but this time, it's to chivalrously open it for you.

"I can't help it. Not when you look so sexy when you're sassing me," Javi drawls in that velvety timbre that makes heat zing through your sore muscles.

Wryly, you roll your eyes, and are about to just walk out, but then you pause, turn to him, and kiss him on the cheek. "Goodnight, Peña," is your silky murmur, enjoying how his expression softens with a doting smile.

"You too, Reinosa," is his warm chuckle.

Snickering, you turn to exit out to the cool night air and strut down the wet walkway, but pause halfway when Javi calls out, "Hey." You turn and raise your brows curiously, so he smirks and purrs, "Since you're in that dress, you gotta say the line." The girlish scoff you let out is irreverent and punctuates the amused way you roll your eyes, so Javi needles, "C'mon. You just gotta."

Unable to help yourself, you put your hand at your hip and give his broad, muscular frame a once over before you toss your tousled hair sultrily. Then, with a bat of your lashes, you do your best Kathleen Turner impression as you smile and drawl, "You're not too smart, are yah? I like that in a man."

Javi grins so broadly that his boyish dimple appears in his cheek, and you shake your head amusedly before resuming walking to your car.

"Fuck me," Javi wistfully hums to himself as he watches you get in and smile at him from the driver's side window before you turn the car on and drive away.

He ends up locking up and going to bed hungry but satisfied as he stretches out in the nude under the ceiling fan, surrounded in the sheets and bedding that smell of you.

He sleeps so soundly in the sex-laced scent of his bed that he's startled groggily awake by the pounding knocks coming from the door that leads out to his open-air carport. Rolling clumsily to the side of the bed with the digital clock perched on the nightstand, he blearily sees it is almost 11am.

"Ah, shit…" he grumbles as he forces himself to sit up and crawl over to get his sweatpants on. A few minutes and more impatient knocks later, Javi lumbers tiredly to the door and unlocks it. "Alright, fuck. Lay off," he snaps as he opens the door for Steve before turning to stalk back and towards the kitchen. "I know, I know – I overslept. Just let me set the coffee to brew, then I'll go get ready—"

"Holy shit, Jav," is Steve's deriding scoff as he enters his partner's abode and sees the signs that he had company last night: The two crystal tumblers left on the living room's coffee table, glinting guiltily in the early afternoon sun coming from the window. "You don't have anyone back there, do you—?!"

"No," Javi snaps as he fills the coffee pot with water from the sink.

"Uh-huh," Steve deadpans as he surveys the scene, hands in his jean pockets and shoulders rolling back under his light blue polo shirt. "Guess you had fun at the party, then?"

Muttering under his breath, Javi sets the coffee maker to brew and walks around the counter to stride past Steve en route to the back hallway. "Quit fishin', hillbilly—"

"Just hurry up and shower the sex funk off yourself so we can go! I promised Connie we'd all go to Old San Juan for dinner tonight," Steve calls out after him as he lopes over to the sofa, but before he goes to sit on it, he cautiously eyes the cushions before shouting, "Did you already screw on the couch?"

"Fuck off, Steve!" is the response he gets before a bathroom door is slammed shut down the hall.

Deciding to play it safe, Steve sits in the opposite side chair and picks up the TV remote to check the weather forecast while he waits.

You, however, are relitigating the entire previous day's sequence of events as you lounge grumpily in your bubble bath, after having slept peacefully once you got home, and woke up feeling guilty about how good you felt when you shouldn't be already emotionally moving into the 'we're totally back together and going to make it work' phase.

Submerging under the suds, you hold your breath and let your mind clear. No more thinking about it.

Bobbing back up with a sigh, you lean back against the tub and continue to soak while you sulk.

…You didn't use any protection…

The anxious pang makes your pulse race for a few beats before you take a cleansing breath in, then let it out slowly through your mouth.

Once the warm water cools and the bubbles become frothy suds, you get out of the tub and get ready for your day.

The weekend comes and goes, and so does most of the work week without much fuss. In that time, you're busy overseeing a massive digital onboarding effort at the federal level while Javier hit the ground running on overseeing things – including one of the first coordinated task force raids.

It was a big operation that would involve hitting several puntos, or drug points, around the metropolitan area.

Steve had given him the lay of the land – shepherding Javi to all the notorious spots gangs operated out of, to where they'd likely distributed to local dealers from. Most of the targets were located in public housing divisions run by the local state, often located just a stone's throw away from the affluent sections of the capital and bustling tourist areas.

Reluctantly on Monday, Javi had met again with the rookie who'd been assigned driver duty for him. He didn't like the idea of not driving himself, but figured he had to deal with it in the interim.

The young cop was eager and jovial, always bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when he picked up Javier and escorted him to and from. Today was no different.

"Buen día, Agent Peña!" is the cheerful greeting he gets when he climbs into the unmarked Ford SUV police vehicle.

"'Morning," he greets, favorite aviators on and coffee thermos already going to his lips as he settles in. After taking a long sip, he placatingly makes conversation by asking, "Have any plans for the weekend?"

"Ah, yes! Me and my brothers are going to Vega Baja to la, eh, the beach?" the young officer parcels out in his rough English, dark expressive brows furrowing when he waffled on the right word.

"Kike, you can just stick to Spanish if it's easier," Javi assures in Spanish, smirking when the rookie pouts.

Unlike his usual custom of being flippant and sarcastic towards his peers, and straight up standoffish and aloof with his subordinates, Javier didn't have it in his heart to quash the exuberant, albeit excitable energy from the scrappy-yet-jovial rookie. Sure, his enthusiasm had been a bit disarming the first time they'd met – "Hello Agent Peña! I am Enrique Torres, but my friends call me Kike. Eso es Ki like 'Key' y Ke como 'Keh', so Keykeh!" – but the more the kid persisted with his fastidiously congenial greetings and intrepid efforts to engage Javier in conversation, the more he wore him down into friendliness.

"No, sir! I want to get my English better," Kike insists, nodding curtly as he drives. "But thank you, sir."

"Alright. So Vega Baja has nice beaches, then?"

"Yes, sir! Very nice. All Puerto Rico has great beaches, but we go to Vega Baja for the food too," the brown eyed man with the dark curly-hair explains as he navigates the traffic expertly, not even batting an eye at drivers who cut in and out of lanes without putting a turn signal on or really following the norms of the road. "There is a great kiosko we go to for frituras en La Boca you should try!"

Javi lets out a humored grunt before asking, "Where would you go if you wanted to take someone out?"

"Ah, depends on how nice you want," Kike muses, navigating towards the entry to their destination. "If you want to dance? Plenty of clubs in Isla Verde. A nice dinner? Anywhere in Hato Rey or El Condado."

Javi sets his thermos in the cup holder within the center console so he can pull out the map from the glove compartment and visually assess all the areas he's mentioning. "What about somewhere nice that's right on the beach?" is his query as he traces the map with his finger along the metropolitan area's coastline.

"You got a hot date, Agent Peña?" Kike cheers in his goading tenor, brows bouncing conspiratorially at Javier in such a way that he snorts and shakes his head at the kid. "Bueno, there are nice places in Dorado, but not really right on the beach. Most places on the beach are chinchorros—"

"What's a 'chinchorro'?" Javi asks, internally bewildered once again by another colloquial term he's never heard of. He'd had to learn so many terms, sayings, turns of phrase, and coded slang in Colombia, but a lot of it luckily resembled things he'd grown up hearing amongst his Mexican and Tejano friends. But there was a lot of Puerto Rican-isms he'd never heard of before, and selfishly, he wanted to be friendly with Kike so he'd have a go-to translator for all of it. Among other very useful reasons he'd found for keeping the kid around.

"Eh, it's like, como se dice…a shack? No, like a kiosko that is rustic and not very fancy, you know? Those are on the beach, and most people go to drink and eat for a little bit. A pitstop?" Kike strings together, and when Javi just gives him a deadpan stare, he huffs and says in Spanish, "It's where you'd go on the weekend to shoot the shit with friends over appetizers, have drinks, dance, and head back on the road to try the next spot. There are a ton of spots like that in Loíza. Some are made of cement and have balconies or terraces that overlook the beach, though."

Nodding, Javi wonders whether you'd ever want to go with him.

When Kike finally pulls up to the barracks, he parks and joins Javier on the impromptu training exercise he was about to watch the Comandante of the municipality oversee.

As he approaches the area of the barracks where field drills are run, he spots Duffy and Lopez already there, talking to one of the sergeants.

"Agent Peña, this guy is connected," Kike whispers to him as they approach. "Brother-in-law works in La Fortaleza."

Nodding, Javi approaches the group, getting prepared for quite a stressful day.

You, on the other hand, are just getting out of the shower after coming back from your early morning jog. Going into your bedroom to retrieve an outfit for the day, you let your mind reflect on the whirlwind of a week that had kept you preoccupied from thinking about what happened with Javier.

Tugging on your sleek navy trousers and tucking in the silky indigo blouse, you go to the dresser mirror and let down your hair from the bun in order to brush it out while you think. He's behaved. Hasn't dropped in or cajoled you into talking. Things here are not the same as the embassy, so it wouldn't be as taboo for people to know about us…if we wanted people to know, anyway. Well, know that we're back together...

Ellis had peppered you with questions when you'd gone over for dinner at his and Anita's place Saturday night, having let Zoraida know you would be having a lowkey night rather than going out with her and the girls, but you'd simply told him you needed time to process everything. That you had to reflect and recalibrate your thoughts towards the entire situation.

Sagely nodding, Ellis had hummed along, as if totally agreeing with you. And then he'd pulled out that morning's newspaper – which was already folded and tucked to the article that used a photo taken the night before – with a smug smile before drawling, "Well, this is definitely worth putting in a scrapbook, girlie."

The group shot was in black and white, but you could practically feel your umbrage all over again as you saw just how close you and Javi were standing from each other. He looked so freaking handsome though, so the outrage fizzled before it could really take hold.

Later that night, you'd been in your nightgown, sitting on your bed reading the article and trying not to let your gaze wander back to Javi in the photo, when your cell phone had rung on the nightstand next to you.

"—Ketsele! I just read your email. I'm packing a bag now and am on my way—"

"N-No, don't do that, Sasha! Everything is fine. I'm so sorry. I-I just needed to vent," you'd sat up and crisscrossed your legs as you explained, "When Ellis told me, I was so furious, that I needed to just write my rage out—"

"Ok, well, please tell me you stuck to just venting…?" Sasha had fished, voice a drawn-out question teeming with concern.

"…Not really," you'd sighed, worrying your bottom lip between your teeth before divulging the entire sequence of events to him. Once you'd exhaled and slid down into your pillows huffily, you'd grumbled, "All right, let me have it…"

A terse pause had been your answer, until Sasha had dramatically sighed, "You love him."

It wasn't something you could deny. So, you didn't. And after discussing all your concerns, he'd told you quite earnestly, "Well, when I come back down to visit, if you haven't murdered him out of sheer exasperation already, I'll make sure to let him know I will make him disappear if he fucking hurts you again—"

"Oh stop," you chuckle dismissively before redirecting the conversation by inquiring how things were going with him, asking about Marc, and asking about how his father was doing.

Afterwards, you felt a little better.

Nevertheless, you still had so much swirling around in your mind, one none more pressing than a concern that you'd too quickly disregarded while blinded by your lust.

However, it hadn't been until the next day, when you were picking up a few things at the local El Amal to stock up on some pharmacy essentials, that you'd wandered down the feminine hygiene aisle and paused at the at-home pregnancy test section. Grabbing a few and tossing them into your basket, you recited a mantra to yourself from the time you left the drugstore to when you were pacing the length of the hallway, waiting for the time to elapse so you could check the results.

It's been months since you've menstruated, and it's unlikely anything would happen if you're not ovulating. This is just to be sure, and you're just being cautious.

It didn't ring true until you returned to the bathroom vanity, checked the test and saw that there was no blue line in the square window of the applicator. Not pregnant.

You'd breathed a sigh of relief, and stored the other two test kits in the towel closet's top shelf with the travel toiletry case and hand towels.

You're probably not able to get pregnant anyway, is your dour thought as you dab the spritz of perfume between your wrists and stare vacantly at yourself in the mirror now. Snapping out of your melancholic daze, you force yourself back into the closet to grab your black kitten heel pumps when three swift knocks sound loudly down the hall from your front door.

Perplexed, you check the time on the clock at your nightstand before rushing on bare tippy toes down to the door. You look through the peephole and let out the tense breath you'd been holding before you unlock the deadbolts.

When you open the door, your father stands tall and imposing while dressed fairly casual in his gray slacks and white guayabera. His leather shoes are polished and match his dark brown belt, and although he's not in uniform, his posture is still regal as if he were.

"Well, nice to see you're in one piece, niñita," he grumbles haughtily as his gaze hones in on you fighting the impulse to roll your eyes at him. "You never answered my message—"

"Pá, come in," you sigh as you stand on your tippy toes to kiss him on the cheek before ushering him through the threshold. "I won't even ask how you got in the complex without a key or security code—"

He surveys how nice and tidy your apartment is from the previous time that he'd visited as he states, "Oh, when you first moved in, I bribed the superintendent to give me the gate security code for the pedestrian entry."

Shaking your head, you close the door and eye him cynically. "Why am I not surprised…" is your deriding deadpan.

"Hm, this place has come far. You moved a few things around," he's remarking as he lopes around the open-concept space to look out at all the pretty potted plants on the balcony, glancing at the Laguna del Condado that makes up the greater part of your condo's northern view.

"Yes. The landlady took her dining room set up to Fort Lauderdale, so I moved the table and chairs that used to be here to where the dining table had been. I like it better. Lucked out with getting this place, and with nice furniture to boot," you're remarking as he strolls back over and hums a musing sound. "I'm sorry about not calling back. I've just been busy. I meant to call earlier this week, but it turned hectic," is your excuse now once he's glanced appraisingly down the hall towards the bedrooms and single bath, as if expecting a secret to reveal itself. He grunts neutrally in response to you, and strolls through the open space of your entry towards the tall kitchen counter. "I have some time before work. Would you like something to eat? Some coffee?"

Perking up a bit, he leans on the countertop. "Sure, if you're having something," he replies in his cool baritone, smiling when you waltz around into the kitchen to retrieve a clean cup before filling it with dark coffee from the cafetera. His eyes soften as he remarks, "That looks familiar."

Snickering, you place his cup on the counter before topping your mug from earlier with fresh café. "I prefer it over the newer machines. And it's better for brewing just a couple cups worth," is your retort as you set 'Buela's old coffee kettle to the back of the stove before you get a small pan out from the cupboard. As you seamlessly retrieve butter and two eggs from the fridge, you ask him over your shoulder, "How was your trip?"

He sits on one of the padded stools on the dining side of the counter top. As he does so, he notices the folded newspaper issue Ellis gave you left at the side of it, but glances over at your back after he's picked up the coffee cup while he answers smoothly, "It was fine. Nothing worth boring you with. I'd rather ask about you."

Humming, you crack the eggs into the now buttered and sizzling pan before discarding the shells into the trash and retrieving the salt, pepper, and cumin from the spice rack adjacent to the stove. "Oh? You really want to hear about 'all that computer crap' I do?" is your sarcastic musing as you sprinkle the salt and pepper onto the eggs before glancing over your shoulder when he grunts an unamused huff at you.

"I can always count on you remembering the littlest slight—" he begins to remark before noticing you're uncapping the cumin and now dusting just a smidge over the eggs. Expression relaxing into a charmed smile, he rumbles, "You remembered."

Tending to the eggs with a spatula, you turn sidelong and squint wryly at him. "Of course. I remember everything, just like someone else I know," is your chimed musing. "You're the only weirdo who likes cumin on his eggs," you teasingly snicker as you grab a plate in preparation to slide the entire serving onto it.

"No, you have the other half," he insists, so you serve only one egg and pass it over to him before placing the other on a similar plate. "Weirdo y que weirdo…" he grumbles comically as he takes a long drink of his coffee.

Chuckling, you gesture towards the small dining table in front of the balcony doors and suggest, "Go sit, those chairs are more comfortable. I'll bring the cubiertos."

A few minutes later, and you're both sitting at the small square glass table with the cushioned seated, wrought-iron dining chairs.

The moment should've been pleasant – a nice respite between similar people who are so much alike, that they rarely have moments where their similarities don't repel each other. But you sense he has an ulterior motive for dropping by, and he knows you're biding your time until he reveals it.

"This is delicious, tesoro."

"Thanks."

"I thought only a weirdo like me liked it with cumin, though," he jokes dryly before sipping his coffee.

"Unfortunately, I inherited your weirdo-ness, it seems," you drawl simply, then finish your last bite.

He chuckles before dabbing his mouth with his napkin, dark trim moustache impeccable as he gives you a wan smile now.

"So, I saw your picture in El Nuevo Día the other morning."

You pristinely dab your napkin at the corners of your lips while you hum in acknowledgement.

"You looked very nice. Albeit, a little preoccupied," he fishes inconspicuously, piercing gaze honing in on your expression now as you hum noncommittally. "I heard from one of the cabinet officials in the governor's office that the feds have sent down lots of new heads of agencies to take on the Mano Dura initiative," is his tactically questioning assertation. "Even implemented a last-minute shakeup in the DEA leadership down here—"

And there it is.

"Yes, they decided to have two SACs for the Caribbean division," you reply conversationally as you sit back in your chair and finish your coffee before placing the empty mug down with a clank on the glass table, drawling, "But you already knew that."

Grunting evenly, your father crosses his arms and stares you down now.

"Should I be concerned that this agent – Peña – was resurrected from the DEA self-sabotage trench he threw himself in, to come down here, after everything?"

His assertive question is teeming with displeasure, but he's trying to keep reserved; to appear unruffled, but the accusatory edge still bleeds through to you.

Giving him an aloof smile, you query, "Let me guess: You invited the official out for a round of golf so you could interrogate him? I hope you didn't forfeit your handicap for the intel—"

"I don't like your frivolous tone, Celina," your father mutters in a mild baritone as his arms tighten with impatience across his barrel chest. When you defiantly stare at him, he exhales his terse energy, then amends his tone by evenly explaining, "I did not ask too many questions then, because I wanted to respect your privacy, and knew how important to you it must've been for you to reach out to me for help in the first place. But that doesn't mean I didn't have him looked into—"

"Pá," you draw warningly, eyes narrowing now as you slap your napkin down on your empty plate. "You had no right—"

Assertively, your father leans forward and braces his big hands around the corners of the table in order to quell his temper as he grounds out firmly, "You are my only child. And no matter how much you don't believe it, I love you with all my heart. Your happiness and safety are important to me, and the fact both were compromised by that man—"

"Is absolutely inaccurate! And even if it was, it's none of your concern," you exclaim forcefully and push your chair back in order to swiftly snatch the dishes and utensils up so you can busily march them back to the kitchen to place them in the sink with a clatter. "You cannot use sentiment to guilt me into telling you any more than what I've chosen to confide with you!" is your berating remark as you turn back to see that he's followed after you and is now glowering at you from the front of the tall kitchen counter, which pits you both literally on opposite sides.

He sees how angry you're getting, so he sets his jaw and shakes his head ruefully before quelling his impatience, and pressing, "Mija, I'm really trying here. But this?" he emphasizes when he picks up the newspaper and holds up the section it's already folded into, which displays the photograph from the ballroom – where you and Javi are just shy of being near one another – before continuing, "It concerns me. I don't want you ending up collateral damage—"

"You mean you don't want my name out there reflecting negatively back on you," is your bitter charge as you cross your arms and stubbornly stare him down.

You're surprised when the wind goes out of his sails at your accusation.

He tosses the newspaper onto the counter and stares openly at you before contending, "Celina. I was wrong for having said that to you before. I let my anger get the better of me, and was callous. But I do not want history to repeat itself. We lost so much time…I lost too much time for letting my disdain for what happened cloud what really mattered."

Fighting the tremble of your lip as he stirs deep emotions to rise up in you from how earnest he's being, you walk around the kitchen counter and go to him, surprising him when you loop your arms around to hug him with genuine feeling.

"Javier is not responsible for what happened to me. All he ever did was go out of his way for me – protected and respected me like no one else ever has. I—" you pause your hushed assertion when your voice cracks, and once you've cleared the lump from your throat, you assure, "He isn't someone you need to be concerned about, so please don't go after him."

Your father exhales noisily as he holds you tight and kisses the top of your head.

"Is he here for you?"

"Dad. Please, just…don't worry, alright?"

Sighing, he decides to let the topic go…for now.

"I should get going," is his grumble as he steps back and kisses you on the cheek before heading to the front door. "I'll be on the island for a bit, so maybe you can come to the house for dinner? I could have the chef make whatever you'd like—"

"So Camille is around, then?" you mutter as you accompany him, raising your brows acerbically when he pauses at the open door. "I'd rather just come over when she's not around—"

He grunts in disapproval, but answers, "We can coordinate something around when she goes to visit her sister, perhaps."

Appeased, you smile and hug him goodbye as you retort, "Ok, then maybe I can do a Colombian night? Cook everything I miss and that you like?"

"Pandebonos, even?" your father asks, and perks up when you nod smugly. "Your abuela made them the best."

Agreeing, you smile when he kisses your cheek again, and promises to call to let you know a day that will work out.

Before your father is able to stride away towards the elevator that's around the bend in the open-aired corridor, you call out, "Pá." When he turns to look back at you inquisitively, you smile and tell him, "Te quiero."

Stern countenance softening with affection, he answers, "Te quiero mucho, tesoro," before continuing on his way.

You feel better once you've rushed back into the apartment to finish getting ready for work, and find yourself letting hope fill you up.

Everything you'd been keeping at bay seems less of a burden now, and as you drive to work, you allow yourself to be open to not having all the answers yet. Because even though you're ambivalent still, you are willing to let grudges go and feel your way through things. To drop your walls a little and allow yourself some grace.

Unaware of the whirlwind you were about the get swept into, or how much your life will change yet again from the series of tumultuous events to come, you set out on your day with a hopeful new outlook towards what's coming your way.

________________

Read Chapter 41: Enchantment

Spanish-English Glossary:

Marquesina = Open air garage or carport

Mija = Short for mi hija, aka my daughter; my girl

Nena = Girl

Llámame = Call me

El Nuevo Día = One of the main newspapers in Puerto Rico

Damas y caballeros = Ladies and gentlemen

Muy bien, y gracias a todos = Very good, and thank you all

Una Cuba libre, por favor = A rum and coke, please

Puterías = Bullshit

Maldito mentiroso malparido = Damn liar motherfucker; equivalent to 'You fucking lying bastard'

Colmado = Small grocery store; corner store

Querida/querido = Affectionate term, akin to expressing one's want and desire

Mi amor = My love

Ay, por favo = Oh, please

Preciosa = Gorgeous; precious

Cariño = Darling/sweetheart

Dios mío = My god

Corazón = Heart; pet name to signify how deeply you love someone

Jodón = pain in the ass [male]

Buen día = Good morning; Good day

Eso es = That is

Y Ke como = And Ke as in

Bueno = Well

Como se dice = How do you say

Comandante = Commandant; Commander

La Fortaleza = The Puerto Rican Governor's office and mansion; aka 'The Puerto Rican White House'

Niñita = Little girl

Pá = Short for 'Papá' which means father, or poppa

Weirdo y que weirdo = Equivalent to muttering acerbically 'Calling me a weirdo'

Cubiertos = Napkins and utensils

Tesoro = Treasure; darling

'Buela = short for 'abuela', aka grandmother

Te quiero = I love you

Te quiero mucho, tesoro = I love you very much, darling

Thanks for reading! Please consider leaving a comment and sharing your feedback. I would be eternally grateful. 

[furious-rogue-stuff]

Heat Chapter 37: Everything

I’m back-back-back, back again~! 🥴 Pedro’s hosting SNL, dominating media, claiming 2023 as his year, and I’m over here ready for some more Heat, baby 😁

Pairing: Javier Peña x OFC | Javi x Querida

Disclaimer: Written in 2nd person narrative, you can safely assume our heroine and love/lust interest is a Latina, written by a Latina. Here's my philosophy on my writing, for further context.

Rating: Mature/Explicit 🔞

Word Count: 19,500+

Summary: You’ve been each other's safe harbor, so when the spectacular circumstances that lead to the end of the Cali cartel's influence oust everything you have Javi had been looking forward to, can your gravitation survive the fallout of events?

Warnings: Javier Peña being the our flawed AF king. Graphic descriptions of sex, including explicit depictions of unprotected sex. Mentions of hurt/comfort, resentments, toxic coping mechanisms, heartbreak and hidden motives. Descriptions of pining, light dom/sub play, cum play, size kink, praise kink, and dirty talk. Allusions to triggering events, vindictive behavior, foreboding threats, and emotional trauma. Some Protective!Javi, Dom! Javi, Sub!Reader, Wrathful!Javi. In the vein of Narcos being a bilingual show, and Javier Peña being fluent, I felt it was apropos to include Spanglish and Spanish throughout.

Heat Masterlist

Previous chapter - Chapter 36: Pésame

Chapter 37: Everything

After the capture of Miguel Rodríguez, things seemingly fall into place, as if they'd always been planned that way.

You go into work the next day and hear about how Chepe Santacruz surrendered to the authorities and was taken into custody to La Picota, and by the following afternoon, after a purported massacre at a Norte del Valle ranch, Pacho Herrera is arrested at a church without incident.

All four Cali godfathers were in prison. By all appearances, the Cali cartel had been subdued and their operation had been halted.

Javier doesn't tell you anything to make you think otherwise.

Instead, he spends these days seemingly finalizing work on the case, but in reality, he and his agents are gearing up resources for the tracking and capture of a missing asset:

Guillermo Pallomari. The Cali cartel accountant. The only person left alive – and on the lam, who could decode the ledger and unravel Cali's web of influence – and hopefully keep all four godfathers locked up for real.

You know about Javier's plan to locate and secure the man into DEA custody, but you don't know why he seems so intent to do so without the assistance of CNP, nor why he's so sure he has to get Pallomari to ensure the government doesn't go through with the surrender deal after all. At one point, you'd assumed he would eventually tell you everything that transpired that day – the sequence of events that had left him feeling so demoralized after what should've been a celebrated success. But then days go by and he doesn't detail a thing.

Really, there's no true opportunity for you both to sit with everything and discuss it. Not with how busy you both are. Passing like two ships in the night. Only when you're in each other's arms are you figuratively at port, and even then, you relish the time making love and wanting to get lost in each other. During the mornings, you'd give each other brief updates on where you both were at work. Javi used the time to check in on you about things back in Medellín while you both got ready for the day. He'd assure you things were going fine on his end, and you wouldn't push him.

It was your chance to share a quick, unguarded moment – not to do a deep dive.

Javi wasn't really lamenting that. Not when he wanted to bury his feelings and tend to yours as best as he could.

It'd been easy for Javi to bury the details of what happened the day they'd caught Miguel Rodríguez, and while he sensed you hoped he would eventually tell you, he had chosen to obfuscate. To let you believe he'd moved on from it and discussing it now would only drudge the self-loathing and acrimony back up.

His ability to keep that to himself was made all the much easier by the fact you were trying to cage your own feelings up as well. Things were still raw for you, but you'd had to deal with your grief the best way you knew how – by bottling it up, and compartmentalizing it into the deepest, most secluded shelf within yourself. It was a necessity for you to do so.

Combined with the swiftly approaching deadline of Ellis leaving with Anita and her family to Puerto Rico, all of the upheaval of preparing for the departure at work, fiscal bureaucratic responsibilities needing your attention, and the obligations you have to deal with regarding your grandmother's estate, you simply have no room to let the sorrow take hold of you for long. Even when the realtor calls to let you know the apartment you'd loved was no longer available, you hadn't let the pang of sadness stew in you for more than a few seconds before you thanked her for the update and said you'd be in contact once you were ready to look at more places.

You'd mentioned it to him, but Javier had nodded and changed subjects. Choosing to treat everything not part of 'the now' as something neither of you should dwell on.

He chooses to act like he hadn't crumbled before you and needed your grace to stitch him back together, and when he quickly redirects away from himself and his work to ask about you and yours? Or when he scoffs at your mentioning of his "takedown of Cali" being the talk of the embassy, you don't take umbrage, especially with the latter. You know him well, and figure he's deflecting because boastful accolades make him cringe, and he'd rather take the shine off of himself and focus on your success.

After all, you have your own milestones to celebrate these days.

The pilot program has been a success, and with the close of this first round, you are touted by the ambassador for achieving such a formidable goal – and under budget. It's such a lauded achievement, that your department gets the proposed funding to add headcount and expand operations for the next fiscal year. And when you walk into the conference room for the big bi-annual interagency head of department meeting this very morning, you are surprised by the series of claps you receive when you come through the door.

Everyone congratulates you, shakes your hand, and share varying well-wishes for more to come for your department. The Mil Group and Centra Spike fellas especially shower you with cheers, and you are smiling irreverently as they propose a big happy hour get-together to celebrate for real when Javier comes into the room – in his dark gray suit and with the blue and gold-striped tie you'd steamed the wrinkles out of for him this morning – hair already tousled from him running his fingers through it in pent-up stress.

It's times like this you wish you could go to him and kiss the frown off his handsome face. But, instead, you all sit once the ambassador enters.

You can't help notice how Javi goes out of his way to sit closest to the door, and avoids Crosby's gaze. He swivels his nonchalantly about the table before connecting with yours briefly to then force himself to look down at his watch busily.

He's so tense. You internally frown, wondering if something big is about to go down at this meeting, which would explain why he looks like he'd rather be anywhere else—

The ambassador calls your name, and when you snap your attention to the head of the long, oval conference table, he smiles. "—Fantastic work, as always. State Department is so pleased, they're already trying to poach you from here! I hope if anyone over there tries to snake their way to you with a direct offer, you'll kindly tell them to buzz off," he jovially remarks and jokes, earning a few wry chuckles from around the table. He then directs his gaze over at Javier as he drawls, "And, as you all know, congrats are in order for Agent Peña and his team. Without his tenacity in capturing the Rodríguez brothers, the rest of the Cali leadership wouldn't have folded up shop. Great work."

Everyone claps to that, including you, and Javi tries his best not to squirm under the terse praise, forcing a half smile to the people sitting closest to him that pat him on the shoulders. You know he hates this, but there's something in his dark coffee-brewed eyes that is almost pained by the acknowledgement. But as quick as it was given, so was the attention diverted away to other bureaucratical topics.

By the end of the meeting, you intend to weave over to him and suggest having a one-on-one in your office, but the ambassador comes over and thwarts you. Once he's finished regaling you with some of the positive comments he'd received from heads in DOS, you look back and see Javier is long gone from the room.

This morning, he'd mentioned spending the day meeting with his guys in order to go over tactics for the Pallomari case, so you decide to risk the impropriety of going up to see him without an appointment as an excuse. Instead, you enter the DEA department with a to-go tray carrier with four coffees and a couple of creamers, stirrers and packets of sugar nestled in the center. However, when you find the secluded meeting room they tend to use for these hush-hush sessions, only Stoddard, Feistl and Van Ness are in it.

"Hey, fellas! I come bearing caffeinated bliss," you chime congenially as you enter, smiling brightly when they look up from the mess of papers and files strewn over the table and gawk at the coffee cups as you set them down on an uncluttered corner. "Where's your fearless leader?" you jibe as you hand Stoddard his cup.

"He stepped out for a quick call," Stoddard answers and eagerly preps his coffee with the cream and sugar he likes. He sips from his cup and practically swoons before he tells the other agents, "You guys, if you haven't had the director's coffee, you've been missing out."

The two junior agents are dressed casually, wearing jeans, sneakers, and well-worn t-shirts under very busy-looking patterned button down short-sleeved shirts. You don't see how Feistl ogles your hourglass shape as you're carefully removing the cups from the carrier to hand one to his partner before handing the other to him.

"It's not my coffee, but yes – it's excellent, and I wanted to give you my congrats on your successes, and show my appreciation by bringing you guys a little pick-me-up," you sardonically lilt as you hold out the tray with the creamers and sugars after you've removed the remaining cup meant for Javi.

"Thanks!" Chris gives you his most winning smile as he plucks a creamer and two sugar packets, along with a wooden stirrer, from the tray. His features are covered in dark stubble, and the Hard Rock Café t-shirt he has on under his garish palm-leaf print button down looks rumpled, like it'd been on the floor rather than in a drawer before he'd pulled it on that morning.

Dan politely takes the tray from you so you can hold the remaining cup in both hands less awkwardly, nodding his thanks and doing everything to not look at your cleavage thanks to his tall stature that gave him a perfect view down your sage-colored crepe V-neck blouse, even from his vantage point on the opposite side of the table. And when he pivots to place the tray down on a storage cabinet, his geometric-print button down shifts to reveal more of his shirt, and you notice the logo on it.

"Oh! Is that the Red Hot Chili Peppers?" you inquire, smiling wryly when he balks before looking down at his Blood Sugar Sex Magik shirt like he's just realized what he had on.

"You know 'em?" the tall man inquires with a charmed little smirk pulling at his pouty-pink lips, eyeing you now as if impressed.

"I mean, don't let the stuffy outfit fool you, agent. I have many a band shirt in my collection as well," you jibe and wink at him. "I saw them live once. Right before I came down here. I've been meaning to get that album," is your affable remark as you put a hand on your hip and continue in light conversation – expanding on the concerts and music festivals you've both been to, not noticing the amused glower Chris is shooting his partner at being able to chat you up like he's secretly wanted to for a while.

You do notice how Stoddard glances at the door behind you, and before you can turn, Javi is drawling, "Are you trying to poach my agents into the next round of your pilot, director?"

Raising your brows innocently, you turn and scoff, "Poach them? Never. No, in good time, you'll all be unable to avoid my department, and will fall in line just like everyone else."

Stoddard chortles into his coffee cup while Chris grins behind his hand and Dan flattens out his lips comically at your audaciousness.

Javier just grunts and gives you a challenging look, so you hold out the coffee cup and smile angelically as you chime, "I bring coffee as a show of good will. I'm gonna need it to convince you to let us on-board the rest of your staff before the year ends."

He accepts the cup and has to fight the impulse to pull you close so he can plant a kiss on your goading, rouged lips. Instead, he nods his thanks before inquiring, "Actually, got a minute? I wanted to go over something mentioned during the meeting earlier."

"Of course," you remark before turning and giving each of the men a smile goodbye. "Good luck, boys!"

While the three men remain in the conference room and exchange varying degrees of amusement – including Chris elbowing Dan and bouncing his brows crassly at him while Stoddard shuts the conference door, Javier gestures for you to walk ahead of him in the hall as he directs you to a different room just off from his office. It's a small room with horizontal blinds giving privacy in a department with a lot of vestibule-styled conference spaces. It looks like it's been outfitted to be a make-shift audio equipment surveillance room, so the lights were low-lit when he flicked them on, and there were two swivel chairs tucked into place by the retrofitted work station.

As soon as he shuts the door, Javi plops the coffee cup down on the counter and pulls you into his arms before kissing you with all the bottled-up passion he'd been stowing since seeing you earlier.

Gasping a giggle, you pull back to saucily whisper, "Javier! This is much too risky—"

"I don't give a shit," he retorts gruffly and picks you up so he can whisk you to sit on the countertop, shoving a swivel chair out of the way so he can stand between your parted thighs. You swoon, feeling so aroused and titillated by his possessiveness, as well as his masculine scent and the heat of his body pressing up against you. "Been dying to kiss you," Javi husks as he paws his touch from your waist up to cup your face before burying his hands in your hair and tilting your features up so he can press salacious kisses over your cheeks, jaw, and neck while you pull him into you and stifle a breathy sound of delight. "Looking so fucking sexy, showing all of us up earlier," he husks after teasingly flicking his tongue along your bottom lip after you exhale needily. "Making my guys lust after you—"

You hiccup a scoffed sound before pulling back and giving him a sassy smile. "Oh my god, you're so ridiculous," you scathe sardonically and affectionately wipe your lipstick prints from his mouth. "Tan celoso—"

"Goddamn right, I am," Javi grouses in that gravelly pitch that makes you ache between your thighs for him. "You don't see the way they look at you," he murmurs heatedly, pursing his lips when you tenderly caress the back of his neck and hum amusedly. "I'm serious—"

"I don't care how they look at me. I only belong to you, querido," is your silky murmur, eyes sultry as you teasingly nuzzle his cheek. "Now, I don't want to keep you. I just came up to see why you were so grumpy," is your soft musing as he rests his forehead to yours and encircles your waist. "I know all the attention annoys you."

"…Just could do without the bullshit, is all," he rumbles in an even tone before shaking his terse mood off. "Thanks for the coffee and smooches, preciosa," is his purr now before he presses a doting kiss to the top of your hairline.

"Well, I didn't intend to smooch you, chulito," is your snicker as he leans back and grunts smugly at you. He has a blush-toned apricot lipstick smear on his chin, so you beckon him closer as you slink off of the countertop and smoothen out your pencil skirt. "Come here, and let me get you sorted so it doesn't look like I had my way with you in here," you drawl cheekily.

Javi chuckles and lets you swipe your thumb to remove the smear before you smoothen out his collar and straighten his tie. "You say that like it's a bad thing," he laconically quips, and you snicker irreverently before leaning up to nose his lapel, and end up huffing with a grunt. "What?" he asks when you lean back and pout.

"You got my perfume on you!" you admonish in a hushed tone and idly make sure you don't have lipstick smudged outside the line of your lower lip before scrunching your nose at him blowing a raspberry at your worrying as he brushes his fingers to comb your hair back into place behind your ears.

"I don't plan on letting anyone get close enough to sniff me, mandona," he jibes as he leans against the counter and picks up the coffee cup to take a long pull.

"I saw that room, chavón," you coolly drawl, adding with musing humor, "Not gonna be able to help smell each other once the coffee runs out."

He hums at that and showily pats his free hand down the side of his blazer to make sure he has his cigarette pack. "I'll have a smoke to camouflage your sexy scent," he rumbles in a canela-brined timbre before towing you with a hand at your hip to lean into him when you purse your lips at his plan. "I can't wait until everyone knows and we don't have to sneak around anymore," is his sincere mumble, leaning close so he can nose into the hairline at your temple.

"So do I," you murmur and lean back, eyes twinkling as you sigh, "Not much longer now."

Javier grunts, and leans his forehead into yours. "I might be late tonight, so don't wait up," he tells you in a smooth baritone.

You nod, wanting to kiss him so bad, but the risk of getting anymore telltale proof of your canoodling on him keeps your desire in check.

He lets you slip from his embrace, but gently caresses his touch to your cheek. Quickly, you turn so you can kiss the inside of his palm and give him a mischievous smile as you bat your lashes, hands teasingly skimming down to lightly graze your touch over his tensing abs as you purr, "Alright, Don Celos. Try and keep that in check so your guys don't get wise to you."

The searing look he gives you is too gratifying. "I'm outta here before I punish you for being such a sexy little atrevida," is his gruff drawl before picking up his coffee cup and exiting first to make sure no one notices you both breeze out and go your separate ways.

While you stride out and turn down the hall to make your way out of his department, Javier is already lighting up a cigarette and taking his time to make his way back to the small conference room.

By the time he's saturated enough of his person with the clinging smoky scent and is settling in for a long day of planning with his agents, you're riding down in the elevator, head full of daydreaming thoughts involving life after this last supposed hurdle.

Of course, that is quickly swept aside when your cell phone rings once you're about to settle in at your desk. The estate attorney reels you down into a heavy sadness as he updates you on the latest, and confirms with you the need to meet in person to sign documents and finalize things. With an upcoming bank holiday and other bureaucratical legalese you need to deal with, he suggests you taking a trip to Medellín and getting your family together in order to complete required steps for passing the property over to them. He offers to make himself available the next few days, so that spurs you into calling your aunt with the news, and after some more tender discussion about the house, you end up agreeing that flying down the following day and having the weekend to get these things done would be best.

Ellis is more than happy to cover things while you're away, so you book a flight and make it all the way home to Javier's at the end of the day before realizing he might take umbrage to you going out of town on such short notice. It nags you as you get out of your work outfit and put on a slinky purple housedress. And when you busy yourself with washing the dishes you've both let accumulate in the sink, it keeps needling you. It doesn't let up, even as you tend to the laundry that's piled up. The stress it conjures up has you ironing his dress shirts on autopilot while you ruminate.

You're so preoccupied with your thoughts about everything that when you're hanging up all the freshly ironed shirts into his closet, you absently bump your hand against a box tucked onto the top shelf, causing it to tumble down.

Managing to catch it with minimal fumbling, you scoff at yourself and are about to pop it back onto the shelf, but the wobbling weight of it and the rattling of the contents within grab your curiosity.

You've never really snooped through Javier's things. Well, there was that time you'd had to search for a hamper, and then hunted for those raunchy pantaleta keepsakes he'd squirreled away. But it wouldn't be too terrible to take a peek inside the box, right?

Pulling the lid of the shoebox open, you look in and find a few folded up visa documents, a laminated prayer card of the Virgin Mary, a glass paperweight with a painted-on relief of La Virgen Santa, a red-beaded rosary, a postcard-sized envelope, and three photographs. With a fawning sigh, you wander to the bed and sit, place the box onto the surface and carefully retrieve the photos so you can peer at them more closely.

Two of them are already familiar. Your smiling expression as you posed for the picture Javi took of you in Cartagena is mirrored on your face now as you look from it to the photo of you both lying side by side on the bed. That weekend floods back to you in warm memories that stir a tingle into your heart, making it skip a beat. But it's the third photo that has you fawning now.

Javi is smiling brightly in it while leaning against a green wooden barn fence. He's standing next to an older man who's wearing a white cowboy hat, standing as tall as Javi, but with a greying moustache. His features are distinguished, but exuding a warm easygoingness to him that you've seen the resemblance of in Javi's expression countless times. They're both wearing light coats and standing in what's obviously a horse pasture on the Peña ranch during a cooler season, considering the overcast sky in the background and the brown horse idling behind another barn fence within its paddock in the back.

"You wanna come to Laredo and meet my Pops sometime?"

Your heart flutters at the recall, and you smile fondly at the photo. The envelope gets your attention next after you return the pictures to the box. Retrieving it, you note the neat handwriting scribbled in bold penmanship on the front, with several stamps denoting it's come from stateside. You can't help smile that it's postmarked from Laredo, Texas, and after cataloguing the address and the name Jesus Peña, you return the envelope to the box and fawningly sigh.

Hours later, Javier drives down into the garage and parks in his spot, feeling dead tired. He lumbers out and makes his way up to his apartment, annoyed but rescind to the next phase of things he has to undertake the following day.

He's not looking forward to telling you about his plans to go to Cali.

No, he is begrudging the fact that all the planning of the day had boiled down to one conclusion: They needed Jorge Salcedo to help them locate the rogue Cali accountant. Feistl and Van Ness were reluctant to admit it, and Javi recognized their protectiveness as being the main factor for resisting recruiting the man into their last-ditch effort to keeping the Cali godfathers locked up permanently. It made sense, especially after the man and his family almost met their demise. They felt personally responsible for putting them in harm's way, so Javi had agreed to be the one to go personally to Salcedo in the morning to ask for his cooperation.

As he lopes down the hall from the elevator towards his door, Javier worries that he'll have to finally tell you what happened, in order to justify his somewhat covert operation in Cali. When he unlocks the door and enters the apartment, he finds the space dark, save for the ambient glow of the television. Once he locks up and sets his things aside on the credenza, he lets his eyes adjust to the dimness, and makes out your sleeping form, curled up on the couch. He approaches quietly so as not to startle you awake.

It looks like you'd put your head down on the armrest and simply dozed off unintentionally. Telling by the glass of water and the plate with half of a sandwich sat on the coffee table, he thinks it's safe to say that you'd decided to wait up for him after all.

"Cariño," he murmurs softly as he sits on the edge of the cushion and gently tucks wayward strands of hair behind your ear before brushing his fingertips along your jaw. You stir and hum as you unfurl from under the throw and adjust to blink up at him. "Sorry to wake you," is his rumble as he leans over to kiss your forehead. "I told you not to wait up—"

"I know," you sigh after you yawn and sit up, scooching close to him so you can curl into his side as he loops his arm around your waist. "How'd the rest of the brainstorm session go?"

"Not ideal…we have a plan, but we'll need to get Salcedo to help us. I'm going over to the hotel he and his family are being guarded at in the morning to get him on board," Javier tells you soberly, steeling himself when you pivot to look up at him worriedly. "We're going to Cali as soon as I get him to agree."

"Oh," you retort softly before pensively looking away and resting your head against his shoulder, trying not to get lost in the smoky scent clinging to his collar. "Ok…well, I guess we'll both have our hands full the next few days," is your musing remark. Javi grunts curiously, so you sigh and resist the impulse to cuddle into him protectively to instead sit up and look into his dark eyes as the glowing cast from the TV illuminates his handsome face. "The estate attorney? He called with an update; wants to take advantage before the bank holiday to finalize things, so I'm flying out to Medellín early in the morning," you pause when Javi's features tense up. "I'm sorry, I know it's short notice—"

"No, it's alright. I just wish I could go with you," Javi retorts as he rubs his palm along his cheek before pinching the bridge of his nose with a tired exhale. "I'll drive you to the airport—"

"Oh, you don't have to," you assure, but Javier shakes his head and scoops you up in both arms so he can pull you onto his lap and embrace you with a contrarian grunt.

"I'm taking you. Do you have someone picking you up once you land?" he asks and holds you close as you loop your arms around his shoulders so you can card your fingers into the back of his hair while he nuzzles your jaw.

"Since everyone will still be at work when I get there, I was going to just take a taxi—" you begin to reply.

"Not a chance," Javi mutters with finality and leans back so he can eye you, the authority of his glare so fierce that you feel a shiver skitter down into your tummy. "I'll arrange for someone to pick you up and drive you to where you have to go—" he starts to state firmly until you pout at him, so he assertively insists, "After what happened last time? Either you have an armed escort I trust, or you're gonna cancel and wait until I can travel with you. There's no way you're going without me ensuring your safety, querida."

You feel heat simmer in your chest before tickling a yearning burn down into your core, making you shiver slightly as you nod obediently and bite your bottom lip.

It shouldn't turn him on to see your breath hitch and features flush from how his intense, albeit provoking gaze gets you before he drawls almost goadingly, "Really? Not gonna argue with me?"

"Well, if you're going to be a jodón about it," you scoff and daringly nudge him as you shift to straddle his lap. He chuckles, eyes crinkling fondly at you as you loosen the knot of his tie with a sassy flare, undoing it while he caresses his hands to the small of your back. But then your gaze becomes sheepish, and you divert it to where you're working the buttons of his collar open. His hands cup the small of your back, and he thinks about how insufferable it'll be – being separated from you, when you lean close until your lips graze his, and whisper, "I wish you could come with me, too…"

He encircles your waist and kisses you, full lips capturing yours tenderly before pressing his forehead to yours. "I know, corazón," he sighs and just holds you, nosing into your hair and getting soothed by your soft perfume.

You hug him, nuzzling his neck, breathing his skin; melt into him when he starts caressing his touch along your sides. He kisses your shoulder where the housedress has slipped down to expose the round of it, and you tingle from the heat that zings down into your core.

The glow of the TV pulls the contouring shadows in around your face when you lean back to sultrily gaze at him before brushing your lips sensuously along his cheek. "I have a surprise for you," you purr and kiss the corner of his mouth, smiling when he shakes the lustful daze off in order to give you his undivided attention. "Can you guess what it is?" is your teasing lilt.

His brows arch as he leans back and stares at you before glancing around at the dark apartment. "Uh…did you clean?"

"Yes, but that's not the surprise," you chuckle and lean back to balance your seated position onto his thighs.

He grunts and eyes you curiously, until the ambient glow from the television catches on your silhouette, backlighting you. That's when he notices it, and his eyes flare up to yours.

"…Fuck me, querida. Are you bare under this little dress?" Javi husks, voracious gaze flicking back down your body to stare at the revealed swell of your breasts under the cotton fabric to see the unmistakable press of your hard nipples against it. And when his hungry stare ventures down to the hem, he realizes you've sat in a way to avoid pressing your crotch over him. His eyes flick back up to you and they're dark with lust, features carving into that smoldering look that makes want pulse into your center. "Show me," he orders in a low rumble that tickles excitement up your spine.

You nip at your bottom lip as you pull the hem of your slinky house dress up your thighs to reveal that indeed, you are completely nude underneath, and the lowlight provided by the TV illuminates the slick heat honeying your cunt.

He's enthralled by how wet and flushed you are for him already, admiring the soft curls on your mound and how inviting your glorious pussy looks, when you chime, "To your liking, mi patrón?"

Javier's eyes snap up to bore incandescently into yours as he sweeps you up against him and effortlessly stands, large hands cupping your ass and forcing you to squeal and loop your limbs around him as he rushes to take you to bed.

"After this morning?! Teasing me the way you did? And you still have the audacity to be a naughty little thing – showing me how wet with need your pussy is – asking if I like it?!" Javi is growling freshly as he bounds across the space before tossing you onto the bed. You exclaim with carefree delight as you bounce on the surface and scramble up onto your elbows to watch him hastily remove his blazer as he kicks off his shoes. "Tan chingona y coqueta, when you know how fucking wound up you get me—" is his surly snarl as he unbuckles his belt and swiftly discards it in order to hurriedly undress.

While he's not looking, you sit up to lean back on your haunches and shed your dress overhead and off before brazenly tossing it to sail in the air and land on his head. He snorts and turns when you laugh impishly and watch him flick the dress to the floor before he cocks a challenging brow at you.

"Come here," you purr and crook your finger beckoningly at him.

He does so, loping over while busily unbuttoning his dress shirt whilst eyeing you smugly as he nears. The bedroom is dark, and the only illumination is coming from the open opaque drapes. The window beyond them lets in the moonlit night that filters through the sheer curtains. You look like a sprite, sitting up on your knees, completely nude and alluringly gazing at him.

Once he's within reach, you snag the open front plackets of his shirt and tow him closer so you can dutifully tug the hem loose from his partially undone slacks, leaning in to brush soft kisses along his exposed sternum as you unbutton the shirt cuffs for him before pushing the garment off of his shoulders.

"I want you, hermoso. But I also want to take it slow so we can savor it, since I'm going to miss you so much," you murmur, staring up at him through your lashes as he shrugs the shirt off to the floor.

"You just don't wanna get punished after being a fuckin' tease," he rumbles puckishly and holds out his wrist so you can take his watch off for him while he smirks at you trying to keep your plush lips from pulling into a cunning smile.

"I love how you think being a bossy grouch in bed with me is punishment," you snicker as you remove his watch and scamper over to the foot of the bed to reach the dresser and place it on the surface. At Javier's charming chuckle, you turn back and watch him unzip his pants while he wryly shakes his head at you.

"Fine. I'll dominate the hell out of you some other time, then," Javi drawls in a gravelly tone as he sheds his slacks, then removes his socks one by one before tossing them in the empty hamper to stand in his gray skivvies with his hands on his hips. "Now, you c'mere," he orders in a grouse and smirks when you prowl like a tigress back towards him before sitting on your knees so you can hook your arms around his shoulders and lean into his warm, broad torso.

Pulling you against him more, Javi kisses you, relishing your little mewl of yearning as he claims your mouth voraciously with his own. He seamlessly hoists you up so that you can wrap your legs around him as he clambers onto the bed and balances you in his hold before easing up on the passion of his kiss to lay you on your back and hover over you. The moonlight and the glean of the city's lights illuminate your nude form now stretched out under him, and catches on his broad shoulders as he sits up to cup his hand between your thighs and touch your tingling center.

You hiccup a whimper when his fingers glide through your drenched folds before parting them. He groans lustfully, "Fuck, you're so wet," pausing to admire how the slick dampening your cunt gleams in the lowlight. He presses his thumb over the hood of your clit and grinds against it just right, just like he knows you like it, and watches you shiver with pleasure as you simper out a little noise of need. "Gonna make sure you come so hard that you soak my fingers, preciosa—"

"Mmph! Javi," you react to his declaration, clinging to him and trying to shove his underwear off with your feet so he can be totally naked and on top of you. "Oh, take this off—"

"I thought you wanted it nice and slow?" he taunts, slipping two fingers into your silken cunt. "Something about savoring it?" is his leering drawl as he curves his thick digits up to brush that spot you can't quite reach yourself, drawing out a moan from you. "Keeping 'em on is the only thing stopping me from railing the fuck out of you like I want—"

You arch and toss your hair back on a groan, blushing at how a new wave of arousal floods your sheath and makes the squelching of your cunt being finger-fucked by him even louder than your panting breaths. "You want that?" is your pitchy mewl as you tighten your grip on his biceps before undulating your hips in time with the plunging pace of his fingers. When his eyes narrow on your luscious smirk, you goad, "C-Can't control yourself any other way?"

His fingers are yanked from your eager pussy so quick that the needy whine that comes out of you has you writhing in flustered heat, but you jolt when he reels back, thinking he's going to leave you like this, but then see he's rushing to get out of his boxer-briefs. He's kicked them off and yanked you by your waist up into his lap in seconds, and before you can gather your wits, Javier is grinding you down on his throbbing, ramrod cock.

Your cry is of titillated hunger, feeling singed through by how the thick of him has stretched you so good while your yearning cunt clenches around him.

He groans, arms encircling your waist tight and keeping you flush to him as you bury your face in his neck. "Feels like you're the one who can't control yourself, malcriada," he husks against your ear, exhaling an amused chuckle when you squeeze your arms around his neck and protest with a weak hum. "Huh, that doesn't sound convincing, mi amor."

Oh, he's so damned cocky. You decide to get him back the way you know will have him caving to you instantly.

You clench your floor muscles around his cock hard and graze your teeth down the side of his neck before nipping the slope that connects to his broad shoulder, then suckle with a lascivious hum.

The world spins and your back hits the bed before you've finished blinking, and Javier has buried a hand in the back of your hair and fisted the strands possessively as he moans shamelessly before he snaps his hips back and slams his thrust full force into you. You see stars and arch as you cry out, nails digging into the backs of his shoulders as you cling to him.

His pupils are blown out when he plants his free hand next to your head so he can adjust the cant of his thrusts in order to barrel into you with abandon in this new angle that has his cock hitting the cluster of pleasure nested within you dead center, over and over until you are spun up into an incinerating orgasm.

"Fuck! Oh god-oh god—" you wail, completely lost to the throes of your climax as he prolongs it and watches you sob, "Jah-Javi!"

He bows his head into your chest with a snarl of accomplishment as you gush warm slick in your raucous release and whimper airily. His cock is pulsing with need, but he slows his pace in order to draw you down from the stratosphere of pleasure and start working you back up.

"Tan brava," he huskily growls against the valley between your breasts before he nuzzles your sweaty skin and trails his tongue down to trace the cup of your left tit, where he leaves a love bite on the swell of it. "Eres mía, tiernita," is his molasses thick purr before he nuzzles over to your right breast and suckles hard on your nipple.

Your pussy clenches around his throbbing shaft as your breath catches in your throat. "I'm yours, Javi," you drunkenly cry as you bury your hands in the back of his hair and arch into his mouth. "All yours," is your sigh when he frees your nipple and traces the tip of his tongue over the pebbled flesh.

Javi teasingly grazes his teeth over your studded nipple, earning a breathy gasp to catch in your chest. "Yeah, you are," is his velvety purr before he suckles the underside of this breast, then nips you lightly before soothing the bite with his tongue. It's a possessive show of dominance, and it makes your silken sheath clench around him.

When his gaze flicks up to you, his eyes are smoldering with desire, and you think he's going to fuck you with abandon. Instead, Javier adjusts so he can hook one of your legs over his forearm and hold you open to him as he rocks into you, then out, then back in – setting an exquisite pace, taking his time so he can feel his cock grind against every ridge inside of you. He wants to feel you pulse around him as he fucks you nice and slow – to watch you clench around him and get revved up into a titillated tizzy.

You grip the bedding and arch when his thrusts angle upwards, bringing him to rut against your thrumming clit in time with the plunge of his cock hitting your pleasure point nestled deep inside you.

Javi thinks he can hold out. That he can get you to climax again before he chases his own need, but you moan and gaze up at him in the throes of your pleasure before you reach for him and pleadingly grip his chest. The whimper you let out inarticulately beckons for him – to have him on top of you and his mouth claiming yours while he fucks you so good.

He gives into it. Leans down to capture your lips and delve into your hungry mouth as he gives into the carnal desire zinging through him. You passionately kiss him back, sucking on his bottom lip before mewling when he rapaciously drags his mouth away to suckle hard on your sloping muscle.

"Javi!" you cry out in ecstasy, overcome by the ravenous pleasure as his thrusts have you careening over the edge into another blistering orgasm.

Your pulsing cunt clamps down on him and floods over with your climax, stoking a ferocious pride in his chest at having you come apart so fiercely. But the moment you whimper rapturously under him and drag your nails down his back? Javi loses the tether of control and fucks into you with need, pace stuttering under the onslaught of his pleasure overtaking him as he comes hard inside of you, groaning your name hoarsely while in the height of his bliss washing over him.

The taut heat that flutters in you when he spills his release is amazing, and you moan a sated sound when he loses coordination and clumsily unhooks your leg from his hold as he collapses on top of you.

The sound of the air-conditioning kicking on muffles your staccato breath and his ragged panting against your neck, and the cool air soothes your scalding, heaving bodies as you both recover from the euphoric and sublime high of falling into bliss together so ardently.

Once he's able to think straight, he grunts huskily before propping himself up so he can nuzzle a path up from your neck to your lips, where he presses adoring kisses before smiling against your cheek at your satiated sigh as you languidly rub his sweaty back.

"Nice and slow is fucking hot," he husks puckishly before brushing his nose impishly against yours.

You giggle breathily and graze your teeth over his plush bottom lip before suckling the morsel with a sensuous hum. "Told you, guapito," you silkily murmur, earning a hum from him before he starts trailing kisses along your jaw. You comb your fingers through the back of his hair and let him kiss a path down your neck to the love bite on the slope towards your shoulder.

The heat of his mouth when he presses a tender kiss over it makes you tingle and swoon.

When he can move, he shifts up and off of you to lie on his back next to your nubile form, taking a deep breath and letting it out through his nose. You turn your head so you can kiss the top of his shoulder. He smiles, and you admire his moonlit profile, fawning over how handsome he looks when he's relaxed – savoring the post-coital serenity that gravitates you two closer to each other.

It remains while you both shower, basking under the warm water and your tender, soft touches.

While you dry your hair, Javier goes out to the living room to make a call. Once you're done and in your cozy robe, you find him on the couch in just the towel he'd tucked around his trim waist, finishing the other half of your sandwich.

"Oh, that's gone cold! I'll make you a fresh one, babe," you tut, but he takes your hand before you can rush off and pulls you in to sit on his lap while he shakes his head.

"Nah, this is perfect," he assures when he's done chewing his current bite. "All set for tomorrow. Trujillo will pick you up at the airport in Medellín—"

"I don't want to trouble him, Javi," you sigh, and he rolls his eyes before finishing the sandwich with two big bites. "Doesn't he have a shift to work?"

He grunts before swallowing. "Shit in Medellín is so low threat now that they've scaled back on hours, so a lot of the guys are picking up side gigs. I owe him big time, and he has the flexibility, so quit fretting," he drawls and gives you a cheeky squeeze before patting your thigh. "You get in bed. I'll shut things off."

Smiling, you relent with a musing hum and peck him on the lips before getting up and loping on tired, sore muscles to the bedroom. By the time Javier has shut the TV off, brushed his teeth, hung up the towel from around his waist onto the rack, and turned out the bathroom light in order to feel his way back into the semi-penumbra of his bedroom, he finds you sans robe and fast asleep on his side of the bed, illuminated by the dim nocturnal glow sifting through the sheer curtains. He snickers at the sight, figuring you must've been so tuckered out that you slid into bed with the intention of shimmying under the covers over to your side, and just didn't make it before dozing off.

He crawls onto the bed and eases himself under the covers next to you, and finds himself easily drifting off to sleep once you've snuggled closer to him and looped your arm around his waist.

The next morning, the rays of dawn filtering through the curtains slowly stirs you and have your eyes fluttering drowsily. Your cheek is resting on Javi's chest, and you realize he's awake when you feel his fingertips caressing lazily along the back of your shoulder. You stretch your legs and sidle against him, not in a rush to part with his warm skin.

"We never keep the drapes open. Waking up and being able to watch the sun come in, seeing the light warm you, was nice," Javi murmurs, timbre rough with disuse.

You hum, kissing his chest before tilting your face up to his while you glide your affectionate touch up from his side to his other pectoral. His eyes are warm pools of dark chocolate with flares of chestnut as the sunlight accentuates his handsome features. His tousled strands of hair that stand askew are earthy cocoa shades, dark brows relaxed while the stubble along his jaw makes a scraping sound when you cup his cheek. Your thumb sweeps over to trace his full lips after skimming over his moustache, and he grunts softly when you scratch affectionately at his cheek while you smile.

"It's not as nice as my view right now," is your smoky purr as you caress your fingertips up to trace along his brow before brushing them up his forehead to toy with the unruly whisps of hair fanning across it.

His eyes close and he sighs serenely, always soothed by your touch. You take advantage and lean up to kiss him chastely on the lips. Javi encircles his arms around you when you go to slink away, pressing you against him so he can chase your lips and deepen the kiss.

When he pulls back to comb his fingers through your hair and gaze lovingly at you, admiring how the sun catches in your hair and casts you in golden relief, you smile brighter, feeling that effervescent feeling of contentment that only Javi gazing at you so is able to stir up in you.

"I was thinking. Maybe we can take a trip – after everything here is settled – and you can take me to Laredo?" you find yourself blurting, then quickly becoming sheepish when his expression softens with surprise. "You know, take you up on your offer to meet your dad?" is your elaboration, and when his eyes crinkle in confusion, you scoff and smirk, deadpanning, "Ah, you don't remember that, huh?"

His eyes narrow in concentration and his brows scrunch together, but he still parcels, "Sure I do."

"Such a liar," you snicker before shuffling up against him to playfully bop him on the nose with your finger before gliding it down to his lips in order to trace his bottom lip when he pouts. "You said it when I brought your drunk ass home after movie night. Asked if I'd want to go to Laredo and meet you dad."

Javier wracks his brain, and can vacantly remember staring down at you in the elevator, and you smiling alluringly.

Before he can retort, you sardonically sigh and go to maneuver away. "Oh well, never mind then—"

Sparing a glance at the alarm clock and seeing there's ample time to spare, he rolls so he can be on top of you. "C'mon, drunk or not, you know that's what I want, cariño. We'll do it," Javi insists, soulful eyes lowering to your lips as he rumbles, "Let's do it."

When he leans down and tries to kiss you again, you chuckle and coquettishly turn your face, smiling when huffs. Tracing your touch down his neck to the hickey you left on him, you change the subject by chiming, "We should take advantage of being up early, stud. I'll finish packing, then make breakfast—"

"Fuck breakfast," he interrupts boldly and tosses the comforter back so he can sit up and pull you along with him. You squeal comically at being bare in the very chilly room, and cling to his warm form, which earns a smug chuckle from him and his hands to wander over you possessively. "C'mon, we have plenty of time," he drawls in a honeyed timbre that turns an octave lower when he grinds you down on his lap as he whispers, "Need to have you, querida."

Want blooms in your core and spikes arousal down into the clutch of your cunt as you feign absentmindedness. "Oh? How so, dulzón?"

His coffee-brewed eyes narrow and his mouth pulls into a cunning smirk. "I was gonna get on my back and let you ride me, but now that you wanna play, and pretend to be a silly girl?" he rasps in a dark pitch, the kind that rakes desire over you like sinful silk, and you feel yourself get shamelessly wet as he suddenly manhandles you onto your hands and knees on the bed, facing the wall.

Your breath catches excitedly in your chest as he hitches up behind you and spanks his hand down on your plump glute. "I'm gonna dominate the fuck out of you instead, malcriada," is his grouse against the back of your ear before he nips it lightly and ruts his cock against the tight cleft of your ass.

Yes, there's plenty of time for Javier to possessively fuck you on all fours while the early morning comes through the curtains, washing you in golden light as you arch before him and beg, "Oh please, please, please!" while he pounds your pussy from behind and grips his hands tight on you shoulder and hip. And he takes his time crowding over you to leave a fresh love bite to the back of your neck as he rails you so hard that you can't even hear anything over the loud squelch of your cunt being plundered jubilantly by him along with the filth he's growling gruffly into your ear.

"That's it. That's my girl. Fucking take it," he rumbles, tone assertive yet loving as he hammers his cock into you with rough abandon, getting high on the power you've allowed him to take, alight with how you moan and flood with warm slick and clamp around him.

He groans as you whimper desperately while mindlessly rocking your hips back and arching, features melting into the throes of ecstasy as you cry, "Javi!"

Your pussy ripples around his throbbing cock as you're propelled towards the precipice of orgasm, and it springs cloying savage need in him – pace becoming feral as he growls, "Yeah, j-just like that. Take it, fucking take all of it—!"

Pleasure tears you asunder into a blazing climax that has you tossing your head back and grappling to ground yourself as if you're grasping to not fall blindly into bliss for real, gripping his wrist at your waist and the pillow before you as you wail his name. The way you gush your orgasm and writhe has Javier primally triumphant. It's also his undoing, because he tries to soothe you by nuzzling your neck, but ends up wrapping his arms around you and chasing his own fervent release when you moan, "Give it to me, Javi."

His mind hazes over when he fills you with his cum and hunches over you, drunk on the high and lightheaded as you melt down onto your tummy and take him with you. You turn your head dazedly to seek out his mouth with your own, dragging your lips across his jaw and cheek before he hums into kissing you. Javi then nudges his head affectionately against yours and exhales an accomplished sound before curling you both sidelong to recover – sweaty and sticky as you both lie in post-coital repose, pressed skin-to-skin as you lounge in the afterglow.

The bliss of it – being taken apart by him and pulled back together by his doting kisses and adoring touches – is short-lived when he lifts his head enough to look at the clock again and groans. Not enough time. Never enough time…

It weighs on him, and while you both rush to shower and get ready, he finds himself reluctant to part with you, especially with the foreboding feeling pressing in on him.

Javier doesn't know where things will go today, or how securing Pallomari will turn out in the long run, but moreover, he doesn't know how he can reconcile the truth he knows – how the deck has been stacked against them from the start.

He doesn't want to tell you.

Even so, when he drives you to the airport, the truth of it sits like a weight on his tongue, but he endeavors to keep that buried down. So, when he pulls up to the departures entrance of the terminal, he gets out and chivalrously takes your bag out of the car in order to give it to you on the curb. Before he's finished placing it down, you've wrapped your arms around his shoulders, hugging him tight and kissing the side of his neck before leaning up on your tippy toes in your leather flats to kiss him with unabashed love.

His hand buries in the back of your hair and deepens the kiss, pulling you into him by the small of your back.

The anxiety that springs up in your chest is lancing, and you internally admonish yourself as you pull back and caress his cheek. "I love you," you susurrate before melting a little when he leans down to press his forehead to yours, arms encircling you tight to him. When you nuzzle him and sigh, he holds on to you, not wanting to part, and you find that the worry needles up in your chest again, and it has you pleading softly, "Please, Javi. Please be careful. All of you need to watch your backs."

"Don't worry, querida. I promise, we'll be careful, and all this shit will be over soon," Javier proclaims, kissing you one last time before he forces himself to let you slip from his embrace. "I love you," he tells you, and you smile with genuine serenity, because you believe him.

You trust everything he's said, so you collect your purse and suitcase, playfully caress your touch to brush his hair back from his forehead, and lilt, "Buena suerte, agente."

He watches you stride off into the terminal, and once you're out of sight, he gets in the car and drives himself to the Hotel Centro Internacional, where Jorge Salcedo and his family are currently holed up, under DEA security protection.

While you make it through the terminal towards your gate after getting your boarding pass, Javier parks at the hotel and steels himself for a difficult conversation. He's not had much personal interaction with Salcedo direct, not since finding out during the San Jardín raid that he was the C.I. codenamed Natalia. And since, he's had his moments of trepidation about the man. Truthfully, he feels guilt for what could've happened to him had Feistl not insisted on storming the building. But the persistent part of him compartmentalizes the guilt and justifies the experience only lending itself to being a great motivator for convincing Jorge to help them locate Guillermo Pallomari.

And, once he gets the man one-on-one up on the terrace of the hotel to chat? As soon as he's confirmed that the paperwork is almost ready at the embassy and that he and his family will be on the first flight out in the morning, Javi hits Salcedo with the question.

"Guillermo Pallomari. You have any idea where we can find him?"

"No. Why do you need him?"

Javier details how the Rodríguez brothers gave 6 million dollars to the Samper presidential campaign, and makes it clear that without Pallomari testifying in the states – going on the record in order to generate new indictments, it's not likely that the Cali godfathers will remain in prison. Salcedo doesn't balk. If anything, he's exasperated, and makes it clear his top concern is about his family's safety. Javier thinks the man is going to hedge back – turn him down, but then, he looks him in the eye and tells Javier the biggest lead. That Pallomari's wife was having an affair with a man at her office. That the phones in the cartel safehouse he'd stashed Pallomari and his family had been tapped.

Then, he hits Javier with the question: "And he can keep them in prison?"

"We find Pallomari or the godfathers walk."

"You're not going to find him without me," Salcedo counters, resolute.

Javier can't help acerbically huff, before slightly smirking as he chuckles, "You're right."

Salcedo is resigned, but stressed. He tells Javier he's in, but wants to discuss it with his wife. So, once they head back down to the hotel room, Javier leaves him to it and calls the fellas with the update while he waits out in the hall. By the time he and Jorge are in the car, driving to the airport in order to meet Feistl and Van Ness at the cargo plane hangar to ride down to Cali together on a chartered flight, you're just landing in Medellín.

You exit the terminal and see Trujillo, dressed in plainclothes, with a light jacket that hides his shoulder holster and badge. He waves you down, and you hustle through the crowd to greet and thank him.

"—I'm so sorry Javier troubled you—"

"No trouble at all!" he assures and places your bag in the backseat before opening the passenger door for you.

Once you're in the vehicle and driving down to your appointment with the lawyer, you take the chance to call Javi and check in.

He's just finished securing the secondary charter to be on standby for the extraction in Cali when his cell phone rings. Signaling that he needs to take the call, Javi strides to the side of the open hangar and answers, "Peña."

"Hey! Just calling to let you know I made it in, boss man," you chime affably into his ear, and the tension in his shoulders subsides. "Everything ok on your end?"

"Yeah. Just about to board the plane. I won't be able to check in the rest of the time I'm down there," he tells you, hand on his hip as he paces. "I'll call you once we're back. It might not be until late, though—"

"That's fine. I want you to call and let me know you're all right as soon as you can," you insist, then sigh fretfully. "Please be safe, mi amor."

"I will, querida. You take care, ok?" he assertively rumbles, and when you hum in agreement, he husks, "I love you."

"I love you too, Javi."

"We love you very much, Peñita!" Trujillo shouts good-naturedly so Javi can hear, and he blows a raspberry while you giggle irreverently.

"Take care, and talk soon," you retort before you both exchange goodbyes.

He feels a little lighter after the call, and with renewed pep in his step, he rushes back into the hangar and is soon boarding the plane with the other three men.

The flight to Cali gives him a lot of time to think, and the closer they get to their destination, the more he can feel the collective tension amongst them.

So, as they begin their descent, Javier assures, "Once we step off this plane, whatever goes down is on me. We are way off the well-lit path."

Minutes later, they land in a provincial airfield with a single runway tarmac. Deboarding, they get in the waiting SUV Suburban and start prepping for the day – divvying up portable radios and handguns. Salcedo rejects Dan's offer to carry one of the pistols, and while Chris drives, Javier goes over the plan once more. As he details how they'll split up so they can try to track Pallomari's location via Salcedo's wiretap connections at the telephone company, you're just arriving to your grandmother's – well, now more officially, your cousin's soon-to-be-house, after finishing with the attorney. Your aunt is already there when you arrive, so you assure Trujillo that you'll be fine, and after you confirm some updates with him, he gives you his card with his cell phone number on the back and insists that you call him if you need anything.

You spend a while sitting in the kitchen catching up with your aunt about things regarding the house, the changes in the accounts for the utilities, and your plans for packing up things. The subject regarding sorting through decades of memories and personal effects starts to bog you down in the mire of overwhelming sadness when mercifully, your cousin arrives from work and gives you a needed reprieve. While your aunt makes an early supper, you and your cousin work around the house together, dusting and cleaning while you talk. Every so often, your mind wanders to Javier, and you have to quell the anxious worry that fizzles up within you. He's going to be safe. He said this'll all be over soon. Trust him.

What you don't know is that Javier is just linking up with his agents and Salcedo after successfully baiting Fredy Moya – who called Pallomari's wife and warned her of the DEA coming around asking questions and looking for her, and with the call he made traced to an apartment north of the city, they were on their way there. Unbeknownst to them was that the man would seek out David Rodríguez to trade information, and that with David torturing it out of him, it was now a race to get to Pallomari.

Parked on the street and remaining in the SUV as a lookout, Salcedo places his radio in close reach and takes the driver's seat as the agents head up to the apartment building in formation. Feistl takes the lead, with Van Ness covering him and Javier at their rear, making sure no one can sneak up on them. They hustle up the stairwell and locate the apartment door. With a nod of consent, Chris bangs on the door. They can hear muffled rushing and anxious chatter from within, so Javier gestures for Chris to try to enter. Finding it locked, he decides to kick it open, and once he does, Dan is at his side as they come in weapons drawn, shouting for Pallomari to put his gun down.

Javier breezes in between both agents with his DEA badge up, coaxing the harried man and wife to calm down, and assuring them he's there to help. Once the wife makes sure their sons are safe and closes the door to the bedroom, she and Pallomari warily sit in the living room to talk with the three agents. Really, it ends up being an exasperating session of haggling and semantics between Javier and Guillermo. He's barely keeping his patience – everything in him is simmering with the annoyance of controlling his temper while the man questions about what kind of house they'll get, even having the gall to say that his family are accustomed to a certain square footage. But when Javier tells him he has no option other than what he's presenting him, and that this is the only way to keep his family safe? Guillermo seems to get it, so Javier tells them to pack their things, but the wife – Patricia – begins to spiral. She rambles about needing a week to get her affairs at work in order, that they need to give them a week to get things organized, that she cannot just up and leave like this. Her voice gets harried and the more Guillermo tries to diffuse her, the more hysterical she becomes.

Before Javier's even realized it, his temper has boiled over, causing him to bellow, "Okay!" rendering the couple into stunned silence while Chris and Dan bristle where they stand at the ready. He realizes he needs to rein everything in quickly, so Javier tells Guillermo to go pack his children's things while he talks to Patricia. As soon as her husband is out of earshot in the next room, Javier hits her with, "I know about Fredy Moya. It's none of my business—"

"You're right. It's not your problem," she snaps back.

"You realize what happens if they find you?" he levels evenly. "And your kids?"

She flounders, getting frazzled, insisting she can't just leave without saying goodbye. That they're in love. Javier then tells her with finality that if she stays, she will die.

That sinks in. She nods and rushes to pack, to corral her two sons and hustle them to get ready to go while she hastily gathers belongings and shoves them into a suitcase. Javier feels that cagey tension ebb in him, but he knows there's still ways to go. Dan and Chris start pushing them to pack it up to leave, and once Guillermo snaps at his wife that they're done and there's no more stuff to grab, that it's time to head out, Javier radios in to Salcedo.

"We're on our way down."

Chris leads the way down the stairwell to the first landing overlooking the lobby and halts so Javier can sprint down ahead of him to get to the door and radio to confirm, "Salcedo, we're in the lobby now. Are we clear?" There's no immediate response. Javier attempts again. "Salcedo." Still no response, so he radios more adamantly, "Jorge, we clear or not?"

There's a pause before the radio engages. "All clear."

"Copy," Javier confirms before turning to the others and pressing, "All right, stay close."

Javier is the first out the entry door, and once the Pallomari's come out, Dan and Chris flank them to check both sides of the intersection before confirming nothing is amiss. Up ahead is the SUV. It'd been raining when they'd driven over to this part of the city, so the windshield was covered in condensation and water. The pavement smelled damp all around him, and there was no breeze. Everything seemed still – until the gunshot.

They all take shelter behind the nearest car at the opposite side of the street, huddling down at the curb. Javier ducks down and peers around it to see Jorge unload his pistol down into a man on the ground next to the open passenger door he'd seemingly fallen out of. Once the shooting stops, Javier bounds over cautiously and recognizes the now dead sicario to be Navegante.

Staring at Salcedo, he barks, "What the fuck happened?"

With his arms outstretched in a stance of compliance, Jorge gestures to Navegante. "He has the keys."

Without missing a beat, Javier looks over his agents and shouts, "Let's move!" before kneeling to scoop up the car keys Navegante dropped, tosses them to Chris, and rushes with Dan's help to drag the dead man's body away from the car to the opposite side of the street while Patricia screams at her kids not to look and Guillermo irately questions why Salcedo is there. "He saved your life! Get in the fucking car!" is Javier's barked response as he orders everyone to get in, shoving the nervous man to the back seat while Dan piles the kids to the back and Chris jumps into the driver's seat, with a stunned Jorge getting in behind him.

They're speeding off and away as the sounds of police sirens grow nearer. Javi spares a look at the side mirror and watches Navegante's lifeless body disappear with distance. The depraved, sadistic satisfaction he gets knowing the bastard who'd kidnapped you – that had been the triggerman-for-hire to every lowdown fucking cartel – had been gunned down and left on the wet pavement like he'd done to countless others? It should make him question his morals. But for once, Javi feels gratified, and is sure he'll sleep just fucking fine tonight.

The sendoff of Pallomari onto the chartered flight that would ferry him and his family stateside into DEA protective custody went seamless, all things considering, and once they were off the runway, he, Jorge, Dan and Chris boarded their waiting plane and headed back to Bogotá.

They're not even finished deboarding the plane when the unmarked SUV with the security detail ferrying Salcedo's wife and daughters arrives to board the other awaiting jet Javier had coordinated. Stoddard was in tow with their embassy documents, so with paperwork in hand, Javier ushers Jorge and his family onto the other plane.

"Chris and Dan are going to escort you. They'll see to making sure you all have everything you need," he's telling Jorge as he hands him the documents. "Take care of yourself."

Jorge shakes Javier's hand, nodding curtly. "Thank you, Agent Peña."

After huddling with Chris and Dan one last time, he shakes both their hands and pats them on the back before gesturing for them to climb aboard. "Stay in touch. My old partner, Steve Murphy, will meet you on the tarmac when you land," he tells them before joking to Dan, "Try and be more patient than I was with Pallomari."

"I can't make any promises, boss," Dan quips before hustling up the plane's stairs and ducking his tall frame in to enter the cabin.

"Thanks for backing us, boss," Chris tells Javi with a nod before he follows his partner up into the plane.

Javier rides back with Stoddard to the office and hears more great news.

"—David Rodríguez was gunned down in a drive-by, along with several of his associates."

Again, it shouldn't please him so viscerally to hear, but he feels the warm embrace of sweet retribution come over him, and by the time he gets to his apartment, only a few hours before dawn, Javi is buzzing.

Your cell phone rings loudly on the bedside table, and you groan, rolling over to face it when panic leaps up in you. Javi!

Scrambling up and reaching for it, you answer, "Hello?"

"It's done."

You feel a wave of vertigo before excitement punches it away once your anxious mind registers how teeming with exuberance Javi's tone is. "You got him?"

"Yes. He'll be in court testifying in a sealed grand jury in a couple of hours. My guys are escorting Salcedo and his family into witness protection," he tells you in a rush, breath stuttering before he rumbles, "It's done, everything I needed to do…"

Your heart soars, and the happy tears that crest your eyes dampen your lashes as you flutter them. "Oh, I'm so proud of you, Javi!" you gush, absently wiping at your cheek when a couple of tears drop. "You've worked so hard, have done everything – gone above and beyond to succeed and make a difference. You should be proud," you tell him, overcome. When he exhales tensely, you scoff derisively, "Oh my god, c'mon, chavón. Don't make the first thing I do when I see you be to wring your neck and browbeat you! You should be proud, dammit."

His husky, honeyed chuckle makes you smile. "I am, chingona! Just wish you were here. Dying to put my arms around you," he retorts with sincere, albeit crooning warmth. "I know it's late, so go back to sleep—"

"What're you wearing?" you interrupt sultrily.

Javi hums a gruff sound of protest. "Fuck, don't tease me like that, baby—"

"I want to know what you're wearing, guapito," you silkily press and lean back in bed, tingling from the heat of your arousal for him, still sore from the sexy romp that morning and now idly caressing the love bite he left on the sloping muscle connecting your shoulder. "Paint a picture for me."

His snort is rueful, but he answers in a canela-brined drawl, "I just got home. Wearing the same clothes from this morning: dark blue jeans, a button down – the one you said is nice and soft…"

"The chambray blue one?" you chime, pressing your thighs together. He grunts in confirmation, and you can hear him shuffle backwards onto a soft surface. You picture him stretching out on his bed.

"You wearing that sexy batita?" he husks ruggedly, which makes excitement flutter in your tummy.

"I wouldn't call it sexy, but yes – I'm in the batita, all alone in bed," you sigh, wishing he was there with you. That he was hiking up your nightgown and settling between your welcoming thighs. His huff becomes muffled by the heavy yawn he lets out. "Oh, I'm such a jerk. You haven't slept! Go take a shower and get some sleep, mi amor."

He grumpily hums, but you can hear the smirk in his voice when he drawls, "Alright, you wicked little tease. I'll call you tonight. I love you."

"I love you too," you murmur. "Goodnight, stud."

Javi chuckles. "Goodnight, querida."

You find out the breadth of Javier's successful raid later that afternoon when you and your cousin finish going to town hall and transferring over the utility accounts into her name. The covers of every newspaper on the newsstand tell of a violent night in Cali, of the DEA spiriting away sources who've turned evidence and testimony against the Cali cartel, of grand jury indictments and U.S. federal backlash to come against the Colombian government amidst charges of corruption.

And when you get back to the house? You are glued to the television as the evening news details how financial evidence presented to a U.S. grand jury implicated members throughout all echelons of government – public officials throughout the entire country – as being on Cali's payroll. And when they splash a bulletin that alleges possible knowledge of said corruption within the halls of the Nacional Palace and that the surrender deal was entertained for so long in bad faith? Your mind flashes to how distraught Javier had been after capturing Miguel Rodríguez. Did he know? That the corruption went all the way up to the President? Is that why he was so disillusioned—

The ringing of your cell phone makes you jump, and you rush to quickly retrieve it from the coffee table and answer it.

"Hey, corazón. How are you?" Javi's rich baritone washes over you, subduing all the questions that had been galloping wildly in your mind.

"Better, now that you've called," you tell him honestly, smile clear in your voice. "I miss you."

"I miss you too. Everything with the house go alright?"

"Yeah. I just have an appointment in the morning to transfer a few more things. I'll have to come back soon to start packing things up and seeing what we should donate, what they'll want to keep in the house, and what will go in storage…" you feel a lump start to tangle in your throat, so you clear it and sink back into the couch. "I was just watching the news."

"Hmph, yeah. I got a meeting with Crosby in the morning about it," he mutters, and you can make out the click of his lighter before he inhales and puffs out the smoke from his freshly lit cigarette. "What time is your flight?"

"Not until the afternoon, and I figured you'd be busy, so I'll take a cab," you tell him, and at his grumble, you tut, "Nope, I don't want to hear it. Trujillo was a great escort, but now that you've effectively nailed the Cali cartel for good, I think I'm free and in the clear of ever getting snatched up—"

"Not by the assholes from before, no. They're dead," Javi tells you in a tone he's never used with you before. It's a mixture of cutting and gloating, and it raises the little hairs on the back of your neck. He seems to catch it, at least by how he reproachfully huffs at himself. "I'm sorry, that wasn't right—"

"They're dead?" you ask, the macabre curiosity prickling you to know more as you sit up straight.

Javi hesitates, annoyed with himself for being so callously flippant. He sets his cigarette down on the lip of his ash tray and scrubs his fingers over his moustache before dragging them down to his chin. "Navegante? I saw it happen for myself. He got taken out…and the little fucker who'd ordered it, David Rodríguez – he got killed along with a few of his guys in a drive-by," he tells you, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his desk. In a low, bass-pitched baritone, he confesses, "I only wish I could've been the one to pull the trigger—"

"Javi," you breathe out, pitch tremulous. "It's over. We don't have to worry about them anymore. You kept your promise, and now it's done. There're just good things to look forward to, and it's up to us what we want those things to be," is your assurance, and hearing it said so concisely but with so much hope fills Javi up with your loving, protective grace. "I love you, Javi," you susurrate, and he exhales in relief, eyes closing as your words wrap around him.

He says your name with amorous feeling before telling you, "—Te amo con toda mi alma. So much so, that as soon as we can, I'm taking you home. Want you to come to Laredo with me, because, well, fuck – I'm going to need a vacation after all of this, and I can't be without you."

Your effervescent laugh is charmed and loving, and it makes him feel so deserving. That he's done what he needed to, and is now worthy of the life he wants to build with you.

"I want the same, Javi. I can't wait," you retort, the cheeky smile evident in your tone as you add, "And I can't wait to get my hands on your baby pictures, finally!"

He laughs, and it feels so good to laugh after everything, and even though he sees some heads turn towards his office, he doesn't care. "I'll see you tomorrow, hermosa."

"Good luck with Crosby. Bye!"

Javier feels like he's free of the proverbial albatross he'd hung around his neck since he'd agreed to come back to Colombia. All the acrimonious fury, the stress, the failures and disenchantment haven't gone away, but have become less potent within him. The loathing and doubt go quiet, allowing him to tie up bureaucratical matters in regards to the Cali cartel investigation, and by the time he's getting ready the next morning to head to the embassy and meet with the ambassador, the hope he feels sits prominently in his chest, pushing him forward – holding out that full justice will be served to all who deserve it.

But, of course, nothing is as it seems, or goes as it should.

Crosby comes in smug. For some reason, Javier knows immediately things are not going to go as he'd hoped.

"Y'know how many times I've gotten a call from the Department of Justice and State the same morning?" the man drawls, pausing to smirk as he adds, "Count 'em on one finger. Guess we have you to thank for that." Javier glances down at the conference table, already steeling himself for how this is going to go. "I'm headed over to the National Palace right now to make it clear to President Samper himself that the godfathers stay in jail. At least for the foreseeable future."

"But that's as far as it goes?" Javier queries, and when Crosby narrows his glacial stare on him, he forges on with, "We drew up a draft indictment outlining President Samper's ties to the Cali cartel."

"Alleged ties," Crosby counters, expression sharpening as he presses, "And I suggest you keep that draft to yourself. The DOJ's not going to topple a government, Agent Peña."

Javier's expression hardens, and when he has no retort, Crosby gestures glibly as he goads, "You can't tell me you're surprised by that."

"Some part of me was holding out hope, I guess," he rumbles, hands folded together over the table to keep them from fidgeting in his perturbation, left thumb tapping absently while he trains the muscles in his face to remain as stoic as possible. But his jaw has been ticking – corner of his lips twitching against the deep scowl that wants to take over his features.

Crosby is snarky as he lopes around the conference table, gesturing wryly at Javi as he simpers, "Well, you should tell that part to grow the fuck up." Javi is forced to keep his gaze low, for fear of giving the man the furious look that speaks volumes for how he currently feels. His lips purse as the ambassador drawls, "No, I mean it, Agent Peña. You should be happy. You played the system like a goddamn fiddle."

Javi looks up at him then, head slightly cocked to give him a sidelong glance as Crosby gives him a resigned, musing smile. "You won," he tells him, good-naturedly pattings Javi on the left shoulder as he rounds behind him, and makes his exit.

Disillusioned and debased by the conversation, Javi mutters distantly, "Yes, sir."

He's alone when he says it, the ambassador long gone and not intending to pay the DEA country attaché any more of his time.

Or so he thinks.

The entire exchange demoralizes Javier all over again. But now, it's far more denigrating, because he's being told that his complicity is expected. As if he has no choice in the matter. That everything he'd undertaken, every decision and outcome truly had not mattered, because it'd long been decided that sacrifice and injustice were the small prices to pay for corruption, greed, and political dominion – that everything was fungible as long as those with the right authority did what they were told.

He was supposed to take the win, look away, and move on.

It takes the entire smoke break out at the embassy steps, looking faraway as he stares vacantly at the street beyond, to make his decision.

Javier would not be complicit.

After making two calls, he drives over to El Tiempo, and meets with Carolina. She has a tape recorder, and after she sets it down and warns him of the consequences that will befall him once he goes on the record, she tells him concernedly, "You're going to pay a price."

With an unruffled, albeit ruminating look, Javi tells her, "Press the button."

The story is able to run by the evening news. El Tiempo drops the issue within less than a couple of hours of Javi's interview, and by the time he gets back to the embassy, all hell has broken loose in the DEA. Calmly, Javi finishes clearing out his desk, and manages to keep his stoic ease as Stoddard rushes in with a flurry of questions, updates, and a demand from the ambassador's office that he report upstairs to him immediately.

"—What's going on, sir?! Is it true?" the young man exclaims, about to unravel a litany of questions when Javi holds out his hand.

"You were a great deputy, Stoddard. Thank you for all your work."

Neutralized, the man dimly shakes Javier's hand, and watches as he places his cell phone and satellite phone on his desk before exiting his office in order to go up to the ambassador's.

Now, it's Javi's turn to be glib.

He has no illusions. Nor has he thought beyond this point about what happens next. But as he sits across from Crosby, and goes through the motions, he is so resigned to his decision that he can't allow himself any thought further on what this means for him.

What this will mean for you.

"I want you gone, Peña. So do the Colombians."

Javier's faraway as he nods and replies, "I understand, sir."

There a terse, resentful pause between them before Javi gives a curt nod and stands, beginning to exit towards the door.

"You know…any aspirations you had for your career…just got dragged behind the barn and shot," the ambassador levels, almost ruefully, at Javier.

Turning, Javi weighs that, lips slightly parted musingly, before he retorts, "I resigned from the DEA this morning."

Crosby looks taken aback, and with one final once over, Javi turns and resumes his exit, without a cursory glance backwards, as he leaves. He returns to the DEA department only long enough to grab the box filled with her personal effects, and exits out the side door to avoid the chaos he's unleashed as staffers field calls from counterparts at DOS and DOJ.

You're completely oblivious as you exit the gate with your carry-on suitcase and purse. Swinging the strap of your purse to be cross-body over your silver silk blouse, you're hurrying through the crowd in the terminal to make it out and grab a waiting cab, eager to get to the embassy, catch up on some work, and then rush home to shower Javi with celebratory kisses and hugs. As you round towards the main causeway of the terminal, where amenities like the newsstand, airport bar and lounge, and giftshops are, you've just pulled out your cell phone and turned it back on. You start when it begins to ring immediately, so you slow in your rushing pace and answer.

"—Holy shit, girlie! Where are you?! Did you just land? I've been trying to call—"

"Whoa! Yes, I just got off the plane. What's going on?" you query, feeling trepidation well in you at how harried Ellis sounds.

"You gotta get to the embassy. Shit just hit the fan and it's pandemonium here after the news broke—"

As you hurriedly resume your pace and listen, your gaze fans over the newsstand you're about to pass when you stop dead in your tracks, almost bumping into other hustling passengers as they now breeze by you. Every single newspaper's cover overrides your previous thoughts. But it's the El Tiempo headline that sucker punches you.

"—No one knows what's going on and the rumors are insane—"

"I'm on my way, Ellis. I gotta go!" you tell him quickly and hang up as you shove the phone in your purse and retrieve your pocket book to fish out enough money to pay for a copy, tell the man to keep the change, and snag the issue of El Tiempo up as you now bustle with your things towards the exit.

Once you're in a cab, you skim the intro of the story while you anxiously dial Javi's cell phone. It rings as if the call cannot be completed, so you try his satellite phone, then his office phone, and when none work, you call his apartment number. It rings and rings, but no one answers. What's happening?!

Unable to do anything but be ferried to the embassy, you vacantly stare down at the article before the analytical part of your mind takes over, skimming through.

By the time you arrive at the embassy, you feel like you're in an alternate universe.

Highest-ranking DEA official goes on the record…

U.S. government complicit in knowledge of rampant corruption withing Samper administration…

Tapes reveal how a campaign contribution of six million dollars went into the Samper presidential campaign, funneled by an art dealer acting as a liaison between the current president's staff and Gilberto Rodríguez in exchange for virtual immunity…

DEA country attaché Javier F. Peña went on the record with this reporter to disclose the U.S. government's lack of interest in holding Colombian officials accountable for flagrant corruption….

When you enter your office and ditch your belongings, Ellis gallops in. "Jesus Christ, kid. What the fuck is going on?!"

"I'm going upstairs," you tell him as you rush around him and head to do just that, calling over your shoulder, "I-I'm going up and asking him what happened—"

"He's gone."

Your leather-flat-clad-feet skid as you pause in the middle of the department's workspace and whirl around, not believing you heard him right. "What?"

"We just heard. Javier resigned from the DEA this morning. When the news about the article hit, he went up and told Crosby, and then he left," Ellis tells you haltingly, as if the information will cause you duress.

It's then that you feel the eyes on you. Devon and Jackie peer over from their stations, and the techs who are at their cubicles try to divert their gazes when you fan your stare about.

The world shrinks in around you.

Rushing back into your office, you yank out the copy of El Tiempo from your purse and look for the reporter credited with the interview.

Carolina Álvarez.

Your mind inundates you with recall after recall. The business card with her name on it that had been on Javi's coffee tables so many months ago. How cagey Javier had been when you'd pressed him on talking to a reporter for leads. It all shakes loose into jigsaw pieces that fall into place, allowing your mind to come to some troubling, horrible conclusions.

Javier never gave said conclusions thought. Didn't think about what would happen now that he'd committed career suicide, albeit with a reprieving flourish of quitting before going on the record and napalming things.

In all honesty, he'd been so brought low by the ambassador this morning, that he hadn't thought about what would happen now that he was out at the embassy, or how any of this would affect you.

All he knows is that he has to be out of the apartment in forty-eight hours, and he figures it was only a matter of time before the Colombians revoked his visa. He was wondering if they'd do it immediately and send CNP to collect him and deport him back to the states when he hears the key going into the lock of the front door.

Snapping out of his stupor and standing from where he'd been sitting on the bed while dimly sorting through his important papers he keeps in a shoe box, Javi hears the door open and the rushing footfalls over the jangle of keys as you burst in.

"Javier!" you call out as you drop your purse and keychain to the counter to sprint through the apartment.

You come to a halt in your frenzied pace as he appears in the doorway of the bedroom.

He's sans his blazer and tie – dress shirt rumpled with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. The look in his eyes is haunted, and he vacillates, tense and conflicted before you.

"Javi, what happened? What the hell happened?!" you exclaim, incredulous and shaken as you stalk towards him. "They're saying you quit—t-that you quit your job this morning, and that you leaked things to the press—"

At your harried expression, Javi approaches you now in order to explain himself, hands slipping around you in attempt to ground himself. "I know, I'm sorry…everything's happened so quick. I'm sorry for not telling you first—"

"It's true?" you shy away from his embrace, staring in shock. "After everything…after all that's happened, everything we've talked about…how could you do this?" Your eyes plaintively stare at him, and when Javi diverts his gaze shamefully, you snap. "You quit before you went to that woman—that reportera, because you knew you were going to do this? Why? Why would you do this?!"

"They gave me no choice! After everything – they were going to let the government walk after they took a fucking campaign payoff from Cali for blanket immunity!" he exclaims, tempestuously smacking his palm into the wall as he shouts, "They wanted me to be complicit and ignore what they've done—what they'll continue to do unless they're stopped and held accountable!"

You are dismayed and left reeling, truly stunned into disbelief.

"You just destroyed everything we had here," you exhale, backing away from him. "Did you always know you were going to do this? Were you biding your time until now?"

"What?!" Javi is aghast. "No—"

"You've been talking to that reporter since the beginning! And now she's the one you go on the record for, and firebomb your whole life here without even thinking of letting me know?!" you accuse, hands curling into fists as you begin to shake with your fury. "You've never intended to do this—to make a life together, did you?"

"That's not true!" Javi shouts and rushes forward, but you back away and shake your head at him. "Goddammit, that's all I've cared about—"

"You didn't even tell me what happened after you caught Miguel Rodríguez, because you knew since then that you were going to do this. That if things didn't go the way you dictated that they should that you'd expose it all, at the cost of your fucking life here! You knew that no matter what, there was nothing else you could do to force the issue aside from hanging yourself out to dry—to sacrifice your fucking career and make yourself the goddamned martyr, without ever thinking about what would happen to us! What would happen to me," you pause, tears catching in your throat as you waver in your upset whilst Javier woefully flounders before you for what to say. "I trusted you, and you didn't trust me to be honest with what you were doing, with what your intentions were and what you were willing to do to get the results you wanted—"

"No, dammit, none of that is true! I never intended to do this," he tells you emphatically, and you scoff, furious now as you rush past him to the bedroom, smacking his hands away as he tries to stop you. "—Wait, wait! Please, just listen to me, querida!"

Javi whirls and follows you, quickly becoming disheartened when he sees you retrieve your duffle from the closet and start yanking items from hangers to be tossed in a pile on the bed. "I don't want this! I never meant to hurt you or not think about how this would affect you—"

"THAT'S EXACTLY IT! You didn't THINK about me or how this would affect me!" you scream, vehemently incensed as you rail, "Did you think I would drop everything for you and follow you home?! Abandon my life here and just shack up with you in Laredo until you decide that's not enough for you either?!" Irate now, you level him with, "That I would give up my entire fucking life here – throw away everything I've worked for and leave the only family I have left that matters to me – all because you don't care about your own fucking reputation or career over your immature moral principles about what should happen in a country that's not yours?! How dare you presume to tell me about complicity when you think yourself above all authority enough to discard the people around you in the fallout of your fucking decisions!? You're complicit in forcing an issue that was not yours to mandate! You did your fucking job, but you want to be judge, jury and executioner! It wasn't enough to take down the cartel and take your retribution. Doing your job successfully and coming home in one piece wasn't enough. Oh no, not without you deciding to do everyone else's job, and fuck the consequences—!"

Javier stands there, shoulders slumped, gaze wilted and expression downtrodden as you tear him asunder, and when your voice cracks, you whirl away from him to hide the tears as you squeeze your eyes shut and feel them roll down your cheeks. You resume shoving the items you'd retrieved from the closet into the duffle before fumingly going to the dresser drawer and hefting everything out of it to be unceremoniously thrown in the bag.

"I love you so much…please, I don't want to lose you."

You pause with your back to him after shoving the last of your belongings housed in the bedroom into the duffle. His proclamation was the most upset you've ever heard him, and it hurts your heart, but you find yourself shutting that part of yourself off now.

"Why did you do this. Tell me the truth," is your shaky demand, voice thick with your resoluteness.

He doesn't know the answer. Not the right answer that will keep you there. But he has to try, so he breathes out a tense exhale before blurting, "Because I couldn't live with myself if I let them get away with it."

It hurts. Somewhere within you – that you've walled off now in order to preserve yourself from the devastating fallout, something tender – withers and dies at his answer. Because it's not that simple, and it kills you that he would feel that way. But it also devastates you to know being with you wouldn't be enough for him to hold his head high and know he'd done enough.

"I understand."

The flat, hollow response creates an ache in his chest, propelling him forward. "Querida—"

You hastily shove the duffle flap shut and zip it closed before whirling on him when he's approached you from behind, desperate to pull you into his embrace. But you keep him at bay by swinging the duffle as a buffer between you, and then pivot around him to exit the room.

"Fuck's sake, please stop!" Javier thunders, and you made it to your keys and purse before you halt in your retreat. "I didn't think beyond resigning and sitting down for the interview. I didn't care anymore, because everything that's wrong here isn't just with the cartel or the administration. I've been a part of what's wrong, and I couldn't let it go on. But that doesn't mean I wanted it like this. I never wanted anything else but the life we've talked about – I still do! I just wanted to be worthy of it—"

"You're never going to be satisfied. Whether things change here or not, it was never up to you," you cut in, voice hushed but scalding with your repressed anger. When he doesn't say anything, you wipe at your face and turn to stare at him, and Javi's heart breaks at seeing how bereft you are. "It was Medellín, then Cali, and after it'll be something else – someone else you burden yourself with taking down, no matter what it costs. You still think it's all on you—I see it in your eyes. Even everything you did today, it wasn't enough. Nothing will ever be enough," you pause when your breath stutters and you swallow down what you want to say; what's booming in your head.

I'm not enough for you.

"No matter what, you will never be content, and you'll keep lying and omitting what you really feel, hide the things you believe you need to do. Because you don't want me to know or have a say—"

"I swear, on my life, that's not what I want!" Javi adamantly swears, moving to excise the distance that's suddenly eroded the gravitation between you. "I just wanted it to matter—"

"And I hope it does," you whisper as you mechanically grab your purse and keys from the counter, unable to look at him any longer. "But I can't do this anymore…I've had enough with not being enough."

Javi is decimated, relegated to standing on locked legs as his throat constricts and a devastating pang wreaks through him at your words.

You dazedly work two keys off of your keychain and leave them on the counter before turning to the door, going on autopilot as you exit with your belongings and don't look back.

At the sound of the door clicking shut, Javier's breath stammers raggedly out of him, and before he's realized it, he's sunk down to the floor and propped his back against the wall, taking his head in his hands as he tries to reconcile all the damage he's done.

"You're going to pay a price."

He doesn't know how long he sits there, but when he dejectedly looks up, his apartment is dark, the haze of twilight heavy in the space. It's an even longer time before he snaps back into himself, having gone into a bit of fugue state after his mind walls up his heart, for fear he'll fall apart under the weight of everything tangling around it.

By the time he's had a cigarette and stared out into the void of the bustling traffic of the avenue under a starless night sky from his open bedroom window, Javi hears it.

The self-loathing creeps in like an old friend, ready to tell him all the truths he's chosen to ignore about himself.

It was only a matter of time before she saw it. Everything she said was true. You just couldn't see it for yourself. You never wanted to. Because if you did, you'd know everything was pointless—

The phone in his apartment rings. Javi is so out of it, that it takes him a moment to register it and turn from the open window in his bedroom to lope out into the main room and answer it. When he does, he irrationally hopes it's you, and it weighs like a stone in his chest that quickly drops into his stomach when it's not you.

"Jav, what the hell is going on, man?"

It was Steve. Only Steve. You ruined everything with her, because you don't deserve her—

"—Just what the fuck did you go and do now, Jav?"

His partner did always have a way with words. "Sounds like you already heard."

"Leave it to you to take a big win as a failure of epic proportions…"

They talk for a while, and mercifully it's not until close to the end of the call that Steve asks him.

"What about her? How're you going to make things work?"

"Well…I'm not. It's over," Javi mumbles, hoping saying it himself would lessen the blow, but it doesn't. If anything, it makes him want to crawl inside of the whiskey bottle he's currently overpouring himself a glass of, and never come back out. He gives Steve the cliff-notes of what happened.

The first glass of whiskey goes down like nothing, and when his former partner asks what triggered him to think things between you both were totally FUBAR now, Javi tells him while he pours himself a double to try and take the edge off. The more he drinks though, the more he volunteers, telling him how things came apart at the seams between you earlier, and the loathsome part of him grinds it deep – the feeling of being adrift.

"…Like you said, there's still loose ends. Even if shit hadn't gone down the way they did today, I'd have to be gone, work stateside for a while until all the indictments and cases were in full swing—"

"Javi…listen to me. You fucked up. Royally fucked up here. But you can't just walk away—"

Hackles rising at that, Javi growls, "I didn't walk away. She did, and I can't fucking blame her, and I can't fix it—"

"You let her walk away. You didn't fight for her, didn't give her a reason to believe you wouldn't do this shit again. She's given you chances before, right?" Steve presses, and Javi reluctantly huffs. "C'mon, man. She's worth it, and you're going to hate yourself if you don't try…"

While Javier grapples with his guilt and how to move forward, you're completely drained, lying on your bed with only the lamp on your nightstand on. It's been hours since things had gone sideways without warning. That seemingly everything you'd been working towards in your personal life had dissolved – sifted through your fingers like they'd never truly existed.

Ellis had called you, but aside from telling him you were alright and would see him the next day, it was crystal clear that you didn't want to talk, so he'd let you off the phone, and you'd been thankful.

Now, once you've forced yourself to get up from wallowing to start unpacking your suitcase and duffle, you allow your mind to go blank and concentrate on the mundane task.

It's a while later when you're mechanically finishing with the ironing for all your rumpled work clothes from the duffle bag, and you've just gotten done sorting everything into the closet, that you feel a bout of profound, unsettling emptiness.

A knock at your door startles you out of your vacant daze. Tiredly, you pad on bare feet down the hall, dimly thinking it might be your downstairs neighbor checking in after you'd gone so long without staying at your apartment.

You don't expect to open the door and find Javier standing in the lowlight, eyes red-rimmed and still in his clothes from earlier. The five-o-clock shadow on his jaw and cheeks is darker now, and so are his eyes as he stares at you with plaintiveness from under his brows. Disarmed, you look up at him forlornly.

"Most of what you said? You were right. But you were fucking wrong when you said this isn't enough," Javi is blurting out to you, pressing a hand on the doorframe and the other on the door itself in case you try to slam it shut in his face. When you just stare at him with incomprehension, he insists, "I think you're scared of what this could be, and what happened today is your excuse for breaking things off—"

"…Excuse me?" you hiss, balking up at him. "Are you fucking drunk?"

"No!" Javi snaps and rails, "I don't fucking expect you to give up your life here. I never even asked you to do that! You always say my job isn't me, so why are you fucking pushing me away like this?! I love you, goddammit—"

You are floored by his audacity, and Javier notices too late how your shoulders wind back with fury and you level him with a seething stare. "You have the fucking gall to come over here and put this all on me, again?! Like you always fucking do?!" is your slashing accusation, truly irate now as you shove him back from the threshold of your door and harangue, "The one who is scared here is you, you fucking cabrón! You show up at my door after everything you've put me through? Not just today, but over and over again the entire time I've thrown in with you?!"

Javi's expression sets into a hard mask, but his tone is teeming with suppressed angst as he draws out between clenched jaw, "We can make it work. You're pushing me away before we've even tried—without even trying to give me the benefit of doubt. You automatically decided I'd been lying to you. Didn't even give me a chance to explain—"

Incensed, you excoriate, "Explain?! That you poured your guts out to another woman on the record without a single thought about what would happen or how that would demolish everything we've planned together?!" You're spiraling into a level of rage you've not been at in a very long time, and before you can lose yourself to it, you scoff, hold out your hand, and demand, "Give me back my key, and leave."

That sobers Javier up.

He digs into the left pocket of his gray slacks, retrieves his keychain, and fumbles to remove your apartment door's key from the bunch. "I'm going to keep trying. I'll keep trying, and I'll hold out until you talk to me and give me another chance," is his hushed growl as he plucks the key from the ring. "I'll tie up loose ends on Cali and then we can focus on making this work, and talk about—"

You snatch the key from his fingers and sneer, "There will always be loose ends. Always something else to justify your impulsive, destructive fucking whims, and I've had enough of it. Just pretend I'm a loose end you can skip trying to resolve."

With that, you slam your door shut and lock it.

But you don't pull away from it.

Javier leans distraughtly into the other side of the door, and rests his forehead in drunken frustration against its cool surface while he feebly props his hands on either side of the frame. "I'll prove it to you. You matter to me, querida. I love you, and I'll keep trying to win you back. I'll fix things and earn back your trust. Just don't shut me out…"

Tears are running down your face, and you discard the key to the side table hastily so you can run down the hall and bury your sobs into a pillow.

The liquor is finally hitting Javier enough that he has to force himself to resist the urge to slide down your door and sleep it off. Instead, he trudges down the steps and stalks out of the courtyard into the gusty breeze to get in his SUV and sober up. Once he musters the concentration and sobriety to drive back to his apartment, he sullenly goes upstairs and makes his way to the door before he stumbles up through the cold and dark space.

He finds his way to his room and crawls into bed, forgoing undressing, and passes out face-first on his stomach.

As unconsciousness begins to weigh him down, he sends up a silent plea.

Please don't shut me out of your life forever…

You don't hear from Javier.

In the days after the story breaks, rumors at the embassy are rampant and fierce, but with the political fallout from the exposure of the article, Javier's notoriety is quickly replaced by other headlines that impact relations with the Colombian government. However, it's during this time that you relent, sit down, and read the entire article that put everything into motion.

Seeing that Javier alleged DOS and DOJ were aware of the corruption – that the ambassador had played him a tape given to him by the CIA, documenting the deal Santiago Medina brokered with the Samper presidential campaign and Gilberto Rodríguez? It fills you with cold, sickening dread.

After all, if Crosby knew about the Colombian president being in Cali's pocket and kept playing along – as if something that nefarious didn't justify severing all ties between the U.S. and the Colombian government, what if he'd known everything Stechner had been up to. Could he know Stechner gave my name to the Cali cartel? That they'd snatched me up as an indirect favor to the CIA station chief, in order to try to knock me down a few pegs?

It made you question your convictions. Put everything you'd ever thought about the politics, wielding and dealing at the embassy into a new, discordant perspective.

And if this is how you felt, you can only imagine how torn and betrayed Javi had felt.

Just when you're feeling inundated by your guilt and resentment, Marisol approaches you at the end of the day and waves you over into a secluded corner of your department.

"I didn't want to tell you this…" she prefaces before divulging how over a week prior, on the night Javier's agents had apprehended Miguel Rodríguez, he'd been in his office's bullpen, all alone, just staring at the suspect board. One of the custodians had walked by and seen him and thought it odd. When they'd circled back around a few minutes later, Javier was no longer alone.

The CIA station chief had been talking to him. From what they saw, Javier looked none too happy, and the little the custodian heard and could understand, it sounded like Stechner had patronized Javier, because the seasoned agent had given the balding man a withering look before turning and stalking away from him.

Your heart aches, knowing just how much Javi had wanted to defend your honor and get retribution against the man for everything he'd done, and the fact he'd come to kick Javi while he was down? And that at his lowest, Javi didn't take the bait, and walked away from the bastard?

You thank Marisol for telling you, and before you can muster the composure to keep your tears at bay, she leans in for a hug, squeezes you tight, and whispers in your ear, "Go get your guapo descarado."

It was the encouragement you didn't know you were longing for.

You get your purse and rush out of the embassy, driving over to Javier's and yearning to undo everything that you allowed to untether you both apart. The traffic is heavy, so in your impatience, you opt to park on the street across from his building, dash over to it and down the parking garage ramp to head up to his apartment's floor. You sprint down the hall and feel your pulse racing as you get to the door and knock on it.

There's no answer.

You knock again, and again, trepidation growing in you, so you knock once more and call out, "Javi, it's me," then strain to hear through the door.

"Excuse me, señorita," a voice calls down from the apartment on the opposite end of the hall. You blink over and see a man dressed like he'd just come home from the office, peeking from his open apartment door at you. "The man in that apartment moved out."

Your senses dull over at hearing that, mind straining incredulity. "…When?" you find yourself asking.

"A few days ago. They've already posted it up as available for lease," he retorts, looking curiously at you.

At your vacant nod, he frowns and goes back into his apartment, leaving you alone in the chilly hallway.

Wavering, you lean back into the door and bury your face in your hands, stifling a sob as you realize what you've done.

You've pushed Javi away, and he's left.

You're all alone, and it's your fault.

You never got to tell him that he was enough.

________________

Read Chapter 38: Enough

Spanish-English Glossary:

Tan celoso = [You're] so jealous

Querida/querido = Affectionate term, akin to expressing one's want and desire

Preciosa = Gorgeous; precious

Chulo/Chulito = Cute guy; little cutie

Mandona = Bossy lady

Chavón = a man that's pestering you

Canela = Cinnamon

Don Celos = Mr. Jealous; a "Don" is used as a title of respect for a man with a high reputation, so she means it like a "sir", so aka "Sir Jealous"

Atrevido/Atrevida = Daring man/Daring woman

Pantaleta = Panties; undies; skivvies

La Virgen Santa = The Virgin Mary; The Virgin Mother

Cariño = Darling/sweetheart

Jodón = pain in the ass [male]

Corazón = Heart; pet name to signify how deeply you love someone

Mi patrón = My master/boss

Tan chingona y coqueta = Such a badass, flirty lady

Hermosa/hermoso = beautiful (female); beautiful (male)

Malcriada/malcriado = Brat/spoiled

Mi amor = My love

Tan brava = So feisty; So tough; refers to a "tough girl" 

Eres mía, tiernita = You're mine, my tender little girl

Guapito = affectionate way of calling a man handsome (in the diminutive term)

Dulzón = Sweetheart [male]

Buena suerte, agente = Good luck, agent

Batita = Nightgown

Te amo con toda mi alma = I love you with all my soul

Reportera = Reporter [female]

Cabrón = Asshole

Guapo descarado = Handsome cad

Thanks for reading! Please consider leaving a comment and sharing your feedback. I would be eternally grateful. 

[furious-rogue-stuff]

Heat Chapter 38: Enough

We’ve officially made it to the conclusion of season 3 events from the series! After this chapter, it’s going to be a whole new Heat world 🥴 Thank you to everyone who has kept up with the series for this long! I hope to see you on the other side in the continuation of Heat as a unique story with no Narcos series timeline or events to fall back on 😅 Wish me luck!

Pairing: Javier Peña x OFC | Javi x Querida

Disclaimer: Written in 2nd person narrative, you can safely assume our heroine and love/lust interest is a Latina, written by a Latina. Here's my philosophy on my writing, for further context.

Rating: Mature/Explicit 🔞

Word Count: 18,000+

Summary: As the fallout of everything finally settles, decisions are made that will reset the course of everything you'd once been striving towards. Will you and Javi be able to forgive enough to emerge from the ruins of what was left in the wake of everything?

Warnings: Mentions of unrequited feelings, angst, allusions to past trauma, heartbreak, revenge, unhealthy copy mechanisms, anxiety, and grief. Remorseful!Javi, Sad!Javi, and Hopeful!Javi. In the vein of Narcos being a bilingual show, and Javier Peña being fluent, I felt it was apropos to include Spanglish and Spanish throughout.

Heat Masterlist

Previous chapter - Chapter 37: Everything

Chapter 38: Enough

Javier had woken up hung over, still in his clothes, and feeling sick to his stomach while the sun beamed down into the bedroom through the unobstructed windows the morning after he'd gone to your place to argue with you – to plead with you to give him a chance.

It didn't hit him until he'd laboriously pulled himself up to sit on the side of the bed and the wave of nausea had dissipated enough for him to think a clear thought.

It's over.

His heart sank as everything came back to him in waves, and before he could help it, he was burying his face in his hands and fighting his acrimony and disgust, self-loathing taking over now, as he warred with catching his ragged breath and staving off the anxiety that was roiling through his guts.

That sick, miserable feeling clung to him throughout the process of packing his things in the reassembled boxes he'd mechanically taped back up after retrieving them from the storage closet, and it sat like a heavy weight in his chest when he booked his flight to Miami. But it really sank deep into his marrow when he packed his bags for the airport, and found your robe hung up on the back of the bathroom door, along with your slippers misplaced underneath the bed. The knot in his throat only got tighter as he placed each into a suitcase, unable to consider discarding them. And when he retrieved all his important documents from the shoebox, he saw the photos.

The two he'd taken in Cartagena, and the one of he and his father from back on the ranch.

He felt dread in having to call him. So…he didn't.

At least not until he was out of Colombia, and not until after several days of being back stateside. Really, the only reason he was sitting on the bed of his hotel room now and dialing the house number was because he realized he'd need to explain why a delivery with a bunch of his shit was getting dropped off without prior notice.

"Peña Residence," his father greets after a few rings.

"Hey, Pop. It's me," Javi edgily greets.

"Mijo, hey! It's great to hear from you. It's been a while, sabes? Wish you'd check in a little more frequently, you know," Chucho exclaims warmly, and Javier slumps, feeling even guiltier now. "How're things?! Your cousins mentioned something they heard on the news about a big bust down there. Was that you?"

"Uh…yeah. It was," he hedges, then sighs forlornly before just blurting, "Pop, I, uh…I'm in Miami right now. I have a few loose ends to tie up on that case, and then I'm heading home. To Laredo, I mean."

"Javier…what's the matter?"

Rubbing his forehead morosely at the sound of worry tinging his father's bass-filled rasp, Javi clears his throat from the lump of emotion threatening to choke him up. "Listen, so…I called just to let you know a few boxes should be getting to the house in a week or so. I'll hopefully be there by then so you don't have to deal with it—"

"Son," Chucho intones assertively, cutting Javi off. "What's happened?"

Exhaling harshly, Javi reaches for his almost empty cigarette pack, and is busying himself with lighting one up as he rumbles, "Things are over in Colombia. I'm done. And…and once I testify on behalf of an informant this week, I'll be done at the DEA."

There's a sobering silence from his father over the line, before he exhales deeply, and asks, "What about her?"

"Pop…I can't," Javi responds dejectedly as he vacantly stares down at the cigarette pinched between the fore and middle fingers of his right hand propped on his knee, watching the ember-like heat burn out from not being puffed on since his initial drag. "I can't get into that. Not right now…"

Chucho hums, tone gravelly and concerned, but he relents, instead muttering, "Alright, mijo. Just…take care of yourself."

Javier squeezes his eyes shut and nods before answer tightly, "I will. Thanks, Pops."

"I love you, son. Be safe."

A week of debriefs, meetings with prosecutors, and many on-the-record statements later, and Javier has managed to shut off his feelings. Compartmentalized them for later self-flagellation once he's away from all the accusations glared like daggers his way from all kinds of jaded officials. But just when he thinks he'll be able to abscond from the soul-crushing need to take public accountability for his actions, a mandatory exit interview appointment that will require him to head up to Virginia in a week is drilled in by the powers that be at the DEA headquarters there. Resignation aside, he doesn't want his actions to detract from the work Feistl and Van Ness did, or taint the agents and the rest of his staff back in Bogotá, so he begins to steel himself for that bureaucratic formality and hopes he can make it a day trip.

Today, though, he's in a federal courthouse, testifying on behalf of Salcedo.

"The danger that he put himself in to ensure the success of our operation is something that cannot be downplayed. Jorge Salcedo put his life, and the safety of his family, in peril in order to do the right thing. He was instrumental to our efforts to capture and prosecute the Cali godfathers, and I believe he's deserving of this plea deal," Javi tells the closed court, making sure to be purposeful in his tone so the stenographer captures it accurately and the prosecutor knows not to fuck Salcedo any more than they have to. It was bad enough he needed to plead guilty to felony conspiracy charges, after all.

Once Javier has left the stand and exited the room's gallery, he's assertively striding out into the expansive halls of the federal courthouse, in a rush to leave and be a couple meetings closer to not having to think any more about Cali.

"Hey, Peña!"

Javi skids in step, just several paces shy of the large staircase, and turns to see Steve sauntering over to him. The wry grin and irreverent quirk of his brows is enough to make the brooding hostility dissipate from his demeanor and for his shoulders not to feel as weighed down as they'd just been by his self-loathing.

"Well, shit. You keeping tabs on me?" Javi quips as he strides over to meet his old partner halfway.

He doesn't expect Steve to pull him into a big hug. "You wish! Nah, I was meeting with a prosecutor on an interagency task force, when I heard through the grapevine that you were pissing off the feds up here," Steve jokes after stepping back from the hug to roughly clap Javi on both shoulders. "You look like shit."

"Hmph, just following your lead, you fuckin' hillbilly," Javi drawls acerbically, earning a scoffed laugh from the other man, so he gives a glib, two-finger shove into Steve's tan-suit-clad shoulder before asking, "How're Connie and Olivia?"

"Doing great! Although, they're both trying to wear me down on getting a dog. Olivia's already cajoling, 'Maybe Santa will bring a puppy,' so yeah, I'm screwed," the blond agent huffs amusedly before checking his watch. "Hey, you free now? Wanna grab a drink?"

Stiffly, Javi puts his fidgeting hands in the pockets of his gray slacks before muttering, "I got one more stop to make."

"Alright, what about tonight? Come over for dinner?" Steve proposes, brows raising in query when Javi starts shaking his head. "C'mon, Connie'll get a kick out of seeing you—"

"Thanks for the offer. I just…" Javi interjects a little sharper than he'd intended, so he clears his throat and scratches absently along his jaw as he diverts his gaze mildly, before musing, "Raincheck?"

Steve can see pushing him won't do any good. "Sure, Jav. Stay in touch, ok?" he remarks coolly before patting Javi on the shoulder.

With a curt nod, Javier gives him a firm handshake and pat on the back before he makes his exit, descending the staircase in a rushed clip while Steve sighs and heads the opposite way.

By the time Javi traverses the corridor towards the deposition rooms, he feels a little less like a shit heel for rebuffing Steve, but not any better about the last meeting he wants to check off his list for the day.

When he's escorted into the meeting space and finishes exchanging introductions, he's then led into the room occupied by an IRS official, a lawyer, and Christina Jurado.

He hasn't seen the woman since she balefully yelled at him after he'd informed her of Franklin's death, and by the stunned look in her eyes, he knows she never thought she'd see him again.

As Javier sits on the opposite side of the deposition table with the DOJ lawyer next to him, and the IRS official adjacent, he listens as the lawyers dispense with the pleasantries, giving quick greetings before detailing the purpose for Javier's involvement.

"—He's willing to go on-the-record that you weren't party to your husband, Franklin Jurado's, money laundering activities, which, I will say truthfully, Mrs. Jurado, would be a lucky break for you. Especially since my office is not inclined to dull out any arrangements with someone who cannot help corroborate our case docket against the Cali cartel. However, this matter with the IRS uncovering some discrepancies on the property attestations under your name, coupled with the joint account they'd frozen since your husband went on the lam, is something that puts you at a level of complicity we're not so sure we can ignore. However, Agent Peña has produced a report detailing your abduction by the cartel and captivity under FARC, and has asked for leniency on your behalf."

The entire time the DOJ lawyer is speaking, Christina stares wide-eyed at Javier. He, however, keeps his gaze fixed to the glass of water sat in front of him. When the lawyer asks Javier if there was anything he wanted to add before signing his statement, he declined, accepted the pen offered to him by the IRS official, and signed, initialed, and dated all the appropriate documents before standing to shake everyone's hands. Still shocked, Christina remained seated while they shook hands, but when Javier made for the exit, he could feel her staring at his back, so he hustled his pace to traverse the long corridor out and practically zoom for the exit.

He came out to the crowded sidewalk of the balmy day and was eager to find a taxi to head to his hotel and decompress, mind already swirling with uncertainty, when he heard the quick clicks of advancing heels behind him.

"Wait!"

Javi felt the cold dread needle in his gut as he got to the curb and was just short of flagging a cab.

His shoulders squared up, but he turns to look at Christina Jurado as she catches her breath after seemingly having sprinted after him.

"Those lawyers didn't tell me you would be doing that," she begins, shifting her purse strap higher on her shoulder as she frets with the cuff of her pale blouse's sleeve while the bustle of the crowded sidewalk and avenue beyond continues as an absent din around them both.

"They rarely do. I'm sure yours didn't either in order to make it clear to the official that there was no improper appeal on your behalf for my help," Javi remarks, and glances down at his shoes as he adds, "Anyway, it should all be resolved soon now—"

"Did you interfere because you thought that would make up for everything?"

Derailed by the icy accusation, Javier looks up at her, perplexed. "No…no that's not it at all—"

"Good, because there's nothing, absolutely nothing you could do to make up for it," the blonde woman levels crisply at him, cheeks flushed and eyes clear with her vindictiveness. "I didn't ask for your help, nor did I want it, so whatever 'good deed' you thought you were going to achieve here? I want you to know it doesn't absolve you of anything—"

The entire time she spoke, Javier felt something loathsome simmer in his gut and radiate mortified, scalding outrage to flare up to the back of his neck, before something sharp pulled at his recollections.

"If that's the case, then I'm sure you told everyone in that room after I left to disregard my request for leniency, right? Told them to forget about accepting any help, and that you'd take the original plea they'd offered for your crafty tax evading?" Javier snaps in a low tone, eyes intensely staring at her now as she wavers in shock, mouth bobbing for something to say. When she finds nothing, he deadpans, "I thought so. Because let's be clear: You were not some naïve, oblivious little wife in this. You knew what kind of man Franklin was, who he was beholden to, and were content to let him charm his way into banks with your U.S. Passport in hand while you hung off his arm and kept your nose powdered in between your extravagant getaways and shopping sprees."

She is incredulous. Javier firmly saying what she knew to be true all along has her floundering for a retort.

When all she can do is fluster a befuddled scoff, Javier levels her with, "You can blame me all you want for what happened, but that doesn't change the fact you were complicit in it, and just as responsible for what transpired."

With that, he turns and heads for the curb, hailing a cab while she's left reeling in the truth that no one had ever hit her so scathingly with before.

Javier gets in the cab, and doesn't spare a backwards glance as the driver nods after being given his destination and heads into the flow of traffic with the rest of rush hour.

As he sits in the air-conditioned backseat, an intrepid part of him reminisces about the time you'd blown your stack at hearing what Jurado's wife had said to him, and that part wonders if you'd be proud of him for how he'd set her straight this time.

As soon as the thought strikes him, though, the miserably loathsome part of him roils. As if she would care jack-shit about anything you've done now, after what you did…

It isn't until several days later, when he's coming out of his exit interview, that the longing pulls at his seams.

He'd gone in and told the exit interview committee made up of a member of each high-ranking bureaucratical department within the agency exactly why he'd resigned, and did not mince words about what he'd intended by giving the interview, on the record. They'd made note, asked a few follow up questions, and then concluded with a canned statement about how his assignment had made a difference.

In an ambivalent fugue state, he'd wandered over to a memorial wall just off from the main lobby. It was an inset wall, flanked on one side by the American flag, and the Department of Justice flag on the other. The words 'These are the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice for a drug-free society' was engraved above three rows of over a dozen small frame photos of agents who'd died on assignment. Each had a placard beneath, detailing the agent's title, name, and date of death. As he stares at the photo of a Special Agent at the center, Javier can't help think that if things had gone differently, his photo could've been on this wall.

It gives him little solace to know that he'd been 'one of the lucky ones' to make it home.

Stewing deep in thought, Javier doesn't immediately sense the arrival of Mike Spencer, the head of Operations at the DEA.

"You knew him, right?" the man asks. "Agent Camarena?"

"Of him. My first assignment out of the academy was a task force that searched for him in Guadalajara," Javi answers evenly.

"It all started there. Before him, we didn't even know we were in a war," Spencer remarks. When Javier doesn't say anything or glance over in acknowledgement, he looks sidelong at him and muses, "Another hot one down there for you, huh? You took down the big players in Colombia."

Fighting the impulse to glower at that, Javier drawls, "Yeah, well…we'll make new ones."

Unfazed, Spencer retorts, "Don't turn a victory into a defeat, Javier. The Colombian super-cartels are gone. And whoever comes next are going to be fighting amongst themselves for years. They're still only going to be a shadow of what Medellín and Cali were. And now it's time to take the fight to the real enemy in the war of drugs. Mexico."

That's when Javi spares a glance his way. "'The real enemy'?" he quotes in a dubious monotone, eyeing the man reservedly.

"Let me put in a few calls. I'll make this bullshit resignation go away," Spencer assures confidently, and when Javi stares at him cynically – a hint of equivocation in his dark eyes, he adds flippantly, "What else is a guy like you gonna do?"

When Javier has no rebuttal, Spencer gives him an assured smirk and lopes away.

The question keeps echoing in his mind. It peels away at his dejection, and by the time he's back in his hotel room, pacing the length of the space and smoking a cigarette, he's at a loss for what to do with himself. Frustrated, he pours himself a whiskey from the minibar, and sits moodily at the desk, rubbing tensely at spot between his brows before grinding the heel of his palm into the center of his forehead.

Stubbing out his cigarette in the ashtray, he reaches for the phone and dials his father.

He tells him everything. What happened with Cali, how everything was rigged against him, the fallout of his decision to expose the corruption, how he'd resigned from the DEA before he'd gone on the record for the reporter, and that once everything was put in motion, he'd left you in the dark. That you'd found out what happened after it was all done, just like everyone else.

That you'd felt betrayed and hurt by his decision, and that you'd lost trust in him.

"…She doesn't want to see me anymore," he croaks now, eyes watering as he pictures how dismayed and distraught you had been while fighting back tears while you stood incredulously in front of him at his apartment.

Chucho is silent for a beat, before he clears his throat to rasp, "Did she say she didn't want to see you anymore?"

Scoffing, Javier scrubs his hand angrily over his eyes before dragging it down his face in exasperation. "She didn't have to, Pop—"

"You love her, dontcha?" Chucho presses.

Exhaling tersely, Javi shakes his head stubbornly, as if his father could see him telepathically.

Grunting when Javi doesn't retort, Chucho insists, "Unless she told you she doesn't want to see you anymore. That she is through and moving on, and has no interest in continuing your relationship, then it's your responsibility to go back there and work it out. At the very least, you owe her a definitive conclusion, so that neither of you walk away with regrets."

Javier listens to his father, and his mind wracks with recollections of everything said that day, and then a fuzzy recall of standing at your door and pleading with you to give him another chance eclipses the rest. He can picture your angry expression, and his mind strings together the sequence from the drunken daze of that night.

"Just pretend I'm a loose end you can skip trying to resolve."

Your cutting sneer reverberates across his thoughts, and just as the melancholy begins to wrap densely around him, he presses his forehead into his propped palm and leans into the desk.

It triggers a sense-memory.

The cool feel of your door resting against his feverish forehead, and suddenly, the words return to him.

"She matters to me. I love her," he murmurs unguardedly, confiding, "I told her I would keep trying to fix things…to win her back. She'd already closed the door on me because I'd upset her. But I think she heard me."

He can recall the muffled sound of your retreating footfalls, and what he thinks was the sound of you sobbing, and it makes his chest tighten.

"Javier," his father rumbles, pulling him from the mire of his thoughts. In a determined baritone, he asserts, "Go to her. Keep your promise, and see if you can win her back."

"Pop…what if she doesn't want to forgive me. What if…what if she can't, and doesn't want to ever see me again?" Javi mumbles distraughtly as he grips his hand to squeeze at his temples, palm over his eyes dejectedly while his breath catches in his throat.

"Then, you'll know. And you'll come home, take time to regroup, and move on," his father tells him sincerely, without a hint of coddling in his tone. "Now, sleep on it, and let me know, alright?"

His father's sage advice is something he's received often, but hasn't always followed. However, this is one of the few times Javi is intent on following it, so the next morning, he grabs his bags and heads to the airport. He flies out of D.C. in order to go nonstop to Bogotá. Surprisingly, his visa is still active, so he's able to breeze fairly quickly through customs and hails a taxi to a hotel. It's a blustery late afternoon, so he opts to skip lighting up a smoke and pockets his hands into his dark leather jacket while he waits for a cab, and then crosses his arms tightly to stop his hands from fidgeting while he's driven through the bustling traffic.

While he arrived fairly late in the day, it's not near the time you'd typically arrive home from work, so he opts to get a room; not wanting to show up at your door with his suitcase and duffle as if he'd presumed arrogantly that you'd just let him stay without first talking things through.

As soon as he's checked in and has left the bags, he glances at his watch and heads down to grab a cab to ferry him to your side of town, unable to wait any longer. While en route, Javier thinks about how much time has lapsed since that night he'd drunkenly beseeched you to give him another chance. It upsets him to realize how much trauma you've experienced in such a short time, and now he judges himself harshly for having caused any more heartache and hurt for you.

"… I'd never felt so safe – never trusted anyone else so much in my life…"

The words you'd spoken echo in the recesses of his recollections, and now Javi yearns to repair and recover what you had entrusted him with, so the moment the taxi pulls up to the curb, the driver hasn't even come to a complete stop before Javi shoves the fare amount into his hand before he's jumping out of the car and rushing up the walkway to cross through the courtyard. He bounds up the steps two at a time, heels of his boots clanging loudly as he goes and the railing he grips as he ascends reverberates from how forcefully he's hustling to your door.

The sun hasn't set yet, and in his haste, he hadn't noticed if your car was parked out on the street, so he knocks on the door and waits with bated breath.

There's no answer after a few quiet seconds, so he knocks again and leans his hand into the doorframe as he strains his hearing to try and pick up any sounds from within the apartment. Grunting, he knocks again and listens more intently, picking up the way the knocking echoes with more resonance in the interior than he remembers it doing so prior.

Perplexed, he checks his watch before raising his right hand to knock again, when a voice from down in the courtyard shouts over, "Hello up there! Can I help you?"

Confused, Javi turns and peers over the banister of the staircase to the patio of the apartment adjacent the courtyard. He sees your neighbor – the one he's met before, looking up concernedly at him as he clears his throat and greets, "Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to be loud, ma'am. Do you happen to know if she's come home yet? If not, I'll just wait—"

As he spoke, her eyes softened with recognition, but her expression only deepened into a frown. "Doncito… she doesn't live there anymore," the older woman tells him woefully, adding, "She moved out last week, and put up the apartment for rent."

Javier is gripping the banister and staring agape, completely incredulous. "What?! Why? Did something happen?! What about her job—?"

Dismayed that he doesn't know, which makes her worry she shouldn't be telling him any of this at all, the woman absently cups her cheek and assuages, "Nothing bad has happened, no, but she no longer works at the embassy. I'm sorry…"

He balks at this new information and whirls around the balustrade to sprint down the stairs and bound towards her. "Please, if you know where she is, or how I can get in contact with her, I would be so grateful—" he pauses when she looks at him like he's raving desperately, so he collects his composure and plaintively stares at the woman, explaining, "I made a mistake, and I've been regretting how things were left the last time we spoke. I came back to make things right…to try and win her back. So, please, if you can tell me where she is? I just want to fix it."

The woman is touched, but exhales a weary sigh. "The last I spoke with her, she was leaving Medellín, and asked me to forward any mail to her prima's house…" she goes on to tell Javi that movers had come and taken everything out of the apartment, and that you'd gifted all of your potted plants to her, as well as passed over all the canned tuna and the dishes you'd use to feed the little black cat. "…She didn't tell me a phone number I could reach her at besides the house's in Medellín. I'm sorry, but that's all I know for now."

Heartbroken, Javier dimly nods, eyes downcast as he thanks her and apologizes for disturbing her. She watches as he wanders back towards the steps and sits on the fourth one from the bottom before propping his elbows onto his knees and burying his face in his hands. It's such a sad sight, that she leaves her little patio and goes back into her apartment, feeling like a busy-body; like she was witnessing something she wasn't really privy to.

All alone now, Javi reels in the silence of the breezy courtyard, overcome with a tumult of emotions and unsure what to think, let alone how to feel. He sits there and collects his ragged breath, trying to recover from the vertigo of having everything go upside down on him in a matter of a conversation.

The sound of a curious mewl breaks him out of his internal spiraling to look up from where his head was bowed to blink over at the little black cat that had seemingly loped from a hiding spot to come investigate what he was doing sat in her territory. She scampers up two steps and greets him with an affectionate head-butt to the side of his left leg, meowing for him to pet her.

The ache in his chest deepens as he stares into those imploring green eyes, and before he's even registered it, he's picking up the cat and cuddling her into his chest, allowing her to perch on his lap as he pets her gently. She purrs contently and rubs her ears against his midriff, squirming bossily in order to perch up on her hind quarters and knead her front paws into the soft material of his blue button-down beyond the supple leather of his favorite jacket.

"I know, girl. I know," he mumbles to the cat, petting her head with sincere affection.

Apparently appeased, the spritely feline trills a content sound before bopping her head against his chin and vaulting out of his embrace to lope down the steps and hop the patio gate to take a new perch on the neighbor's cushioned chair. He watches her curl up for a nap, and he suddenly feels like he's overstayed his welcome.

With the sun setting, he walks pensively to a more bustling avenue, and decides to make one more stop before returning to the hotel.

It's the end of the shift, and all the custodians who're done for the day shift are filing out the side gate to head towards varying bus stops that will ferry them home throughout the metropolitan city. Javier spots Marisol from where he's been sitting and waiting across the street, and when she looks his way after saying goodnight to one of the other girls, he stands from the bench and waves at her. She looks startled to see him, but quickly shakes the surprise off, looks both ways, and hurries across the street towards him.

"Santo Cristo, Javier, when did you come back?! Where have you been?" she's asking, gripping her tote to her side and haranguing, "You pick a fine time to pop back up here. What on Earth were you thinking to leave without saying a word to her?!"

"I just got back," he assures and escorts her to sit on the bench before he joins her, inquiring, "I told her I would come back once I tied up loose ends on the Cali case. What happened? I went to her apartment, and her downstairs neighbor said she moved out. That she'd quit her job?"

She sighs shakes her head contritely. "After you left, and she found out all the truth, she couldn't tolerate how things were – felt like she'd lost trust and confidence in her work here. Once Mister Ellis left, she made arrangements to strengthen her department, and gave her notice of resignation to the ambassador. Then, she went to Medellín to finish dealing with her grandmother's estate. I called the house there to check in on her, but she'd already left Colombia, so her prima promised to pass along my message to her," Marisol details, and watches as Javi's dark eyes become creased at the edges with his profound sadness.

Right hand fidgeting the anxious energy teeming in him, Javier squeezes it into a fist he presses into his thigh as he bows his head before rumbling, "I'm sorry for showing up like this…for having repeatedly cajoled you into helping me time and time again. I—I'm very grateful for all you've done for us…for me."

She frowns and puts her hand on his shoulder. "You're a good man, Javier. It's high time you realize that yourself," the convivial woman tuts, patting his arm when he exhales a meek huff and nods his thanks to her. "Take care of yourself, would you?"

He ruefully smiles and leans over to kiss her on the cheek. "You too."

Marisol stands, and ambles a few feet in direction of her normal commute, when she pauses, turns, and marches back up to him. "Aren't you going to ask me what my message was?" she inquires bossily, hand on her hip as she gazes down at Javi's surprised look.

"…I figured that was private?" he retorts, but at the wily gleam in the woman's eyes, he sits up straight and focuses more intently on her expression as he asks, "What was the message?"

Triumphant, she smiles at Javi.

"That her plan worked," she retorts, winking as she drawls, "I'm sure you'll find out the details once you get back home, guapo valiente."

With that, she turns on her heel and leaves Javi bemused, albeit flummoxed. What the hell does that mean?

Needless to say, he'd been left with nothing else but to return the hotel, get his things, and head back to the airport.

The trip back to Laredo was a long one.

It's late in the evening when his father pulls up and picks him up at the airport.

The older man had gotten out of the cab of the truck and given his son a fortifying hug, one returned in kind.

However, the drive home was a quiet one, teeming with all the unspoken things the pair knew not to say. Really, it isn't until the following morning, when Javi descends the stairs and finds his father at the kitchen table, reading his newspaper, that the first word passes between them.

"I'm glad you're home."

Right hand ticking anxiously at his side, Javi scoffs deprecatingly and bows his head as he crosses his arms and struggles to find what to say to that.

Lowering his newspaper to peer over at his only son, Chucho sighs and crosses his own arms to lean back into the sturdy chair. When it doesn't look like Javi will decide between coming or going from him, he grumbles and puts his large, calloused hands on the table, drumming his fingers over the folded newspaper as he decides to level with him.

"Look, Javier – everything happens for a reason. I know this is not where you expected to be, but for the time being, it's where you're meant to be until you find your way," he tells him sagely, tone softening when those sad eyes flick momentarily up at him before deflecting to stare unseeingly out the window over the kitchen sink. In that moment, with that simmering frown, he can't help be reminded of how much he looks like his mother, and his heart aches a little. He wishes she was there to say all the things she was better at conveying than him. Instead, he relents, "I know you don't want to hear what I have to say—"

"That's not it, Pop," Javi interjects and snaps out of his faraway stare to look over at his father.

When he sees him frown, Javi huffs and goes to sit at the table with him. The kitchen still smells of the fresh pot of coffee, with a hint of lemon from the lemonade his aunt had made and left for them in the fridge. It also stirs up memories of his mother when she'd make agua fresca, and before he can get towed under by the reveries of a childhood long gone, he clears his throat and looks his father in the eye now.

He proceeds to tell his father what happened. Even goes into the conversation with Mike Spencer, and how he'd been offered to run the DEA's entire Mexico operation against the cartels there.

Chucho listens, but his expression hardens the more Javier tells him, and by the end of it, when his son just moodily props his face in his hands and huffs raggedly, there's only one thing he knows to say that will redirect his course.

"Like I said, mijo. You'll find where you're meant to be. But, for now, I'm hoping you can spare some time with your ol' man, help me with a few things during the week while your cousins finish things on their side?" Chucho remarks as he stands from his seat and pats Javi on the shoulder before grabbing his empty mug and heading to the counter to refill it with more coffee from the pot.

Scrubbing his palms over his clean-shaven cheeks, Javi grunts before retorting, "Sure. Whatever you need."

It's a few days of toiling on the ranch later that Javier finds himself bone-tired and dazedly staring off from the battered fence along the muddy embankment of the shore bordering the waterway that the failures of Cali crest right back up to swallow him under.

Seeing the lanchas ferrying with carefree impunity up the murky water towards points unknown to drop off cargo – to flood more cocaine into the U.S. – right in his literal backyard? It makes something sour become a bitter malaise in his gut. The breeze from the water under the heat of the late afternoon sun only makes him sweat and feel withered.

He's glowering against the blazing glare out at the boat in the distance, simmering with the acrimony of his failures, when his father's voice shouts over the sportscaster on the radio's play-by-play.

"You helping me with this or not?"

Javi snaps from his loathing haze and sees Chucho at the truck, winded but pluckily grabbing from the dense wood piled in the pickup.

"I thought I was getting a partner," is his father's huff just as Javi goes over to help him with the large fence post.

"Come on, Pop. Give me that," Javi grunts as he takes the post up with his bare hands and hefts it from his father's grip. "Porfiado," he mutters as he carries it over to the hole and places it in laboriously.

Chucho lets him when his attention is pulled to the river now as the next smuggler's boat jets on by in the distance.

"You can stand here for an hour and you'll count 20 of 'em goin' by," Chucho comments, none the wiser of how such a fact grinds something lowly into Javi's already battered ego.

"¿Y que? ¿Tienes que arreglar la cerca cada vez que hay tormenta?" Javi asks whether his father needs to fix the fence every time there's a storm rhetorically, pointedly changing the topic.

"Alguien lo tiene que hacer," Chucho retorts, offering Javi a can of beer before remarking aloofly, "Así es la vida."

Someone has to do it. Such is life. The rationale gives him little solace.

When Javi takes the offering but doesn't immediately drink from the can, Chucho pops the tab on his own can and drinks from the cerveza, quenching his thirst before mustering the courage to prod, "You thinking of taking them up on it? Mejico."

Javi doesn't respond or look his way, gaze having wandered back over to the water.

"It's different there," Chucho remarks, getting faraway himself now as he reminisces about life as a young man there, as he muses, "Son, let me tell you—"

"Dad."

They both turn to each other then, and his father gives him his clear-eyed attention at being called 'Dad,' not 'Pop.' Javier only ever called him that when he was being plaintive, or assertive about what he needed to tell him – what he needed him to hear him on.

Javier knows the precipice they're both at. He's been here before with him, and he decides he can't leave things unspoken this time.

So, with a forlorn scowl and unwavering stare, Javi holds his father's gaze as he declares it out loud.

"I've done enough…I'm through."

Looking away from his father, Javi cheerlessly takes a sip from the cold beer, content to wallow in his rumination.

But then, his father rasps, "Hand me that cutter," so, disheveled and worn stiff, Javi puts the beer can down, retrieves the bolt cutters, and hands the heavy tool over before pulling on his work gloves, intending to get back to it himself, but his gaze wanders back to the waterway beyond.

At seeing yet another boat going up stream, he removes his aviators and squints at it in the distance, feeling that demoralizing resentment boil up in him now as a recollection echoes back to him.

"…I've had enough with not being enough…"

Your voice is a thread that weaves around in his head, tethering a haul of memories now strung together to remind him of all the times you'd tactically warned him about the reality of his position within the tumultuous, corrupt, and unavoidable adaptability of this seedy world. How taking out one cartel would only lead to someone else filling the vacuum – to the void being exploited by someone crueler, more savvy, and organized.

That no matter what he did, it would never be enough.

***

It took a lot for you to get to this point.

However, the unspooling of your life was all of your own doing.

After you recovered from the shock and dismay of hearing Javier had moved out, you'd gone home and cried for a long while, until that intrepid little voice had tugged at your recall from the last conversation with him. At first, you're fraught as you force yourself to not compartmentalize. To instead sit in the sorrow and focus on the things unsaid and the things declared with vehemence.

He'd promised to try again…that he'd keep trying to make it work.

You hold onto that for days, but Javier never calls.

Really, you're so overwrought with your heartache, that it makes you sick. And the more time that goes by, the more your feelings wither up, and you endeavor to not keep the torch of hope lit for him. But when the time comes for Ellis and Anita to leave for Puerto Rico, you cave to the weakness of your emotions.

It also helps that Ellis hugs you tight at the airport, and whispers, "As much as I want to kick his ass for you, I think you should call Murphy and demand he track Jav's ass down for you."

You snickered dryly, but on the drive home, the seed he'd planted took soil in your longing heart.

You call early the next day, pulse racing and nerves making you fidget in your desk chair as the line rings.

"DEA office, how may I direct your call?"

Confused, you lean worriedly forward. "Oh, I thought this was Agent Steve Murphy's direct line. Could you forward me to him, please?"

"Agent Murphy is on assignment. Would you like to leave a message?"

Crestfallen, you wilt back into your seat. "No…no message. Thank you," is your response, and once you've hung up, your eyes welled over.

Looking over despondently at the corner of your desk, the article sits tucked tightly into the fold you put it in, having reread it numerous times.

On this next reading, something in you snaps.

It's afterhours days later when Stechner is exiting the elevator on the floor his office is tucked away in. He passes the janitor currently mopping the opposite hall and smugly whistles all the way to the door of his office. When he enters, he notices too late that the desk lamp is the only light on in the ample space.

"Good evening, Bill."

Turning, he seems taken aback to see you sitting casually in the swivel chair behind his desk as you turn to give him a pleasant smile head on.

"…How did…" he begins before clearing his throat and glancing back down the hall, as if something dawns on him. Grunting musingly, he closes his office door and lopes towards the desk, smarmy expression seemingly intrigued. "To what do I owe the pleasure of your company so late, director? Or, can I call you—"

You seamlessly pull a thick manila folder from where you'd had it sat on your lap out of sight and slap it down on the top of his desk.

He eyes it, before flicking his blue steely eyes to you, and shoves his hands into his corduroy trouser pockets.

Standing, you flip the folder open onto the first page of a stack of documents. "You've been quite busy," is your remark as you fan out the stack, revealing logs, photos, depositions – a veritable array of documentation sourced from means you certainly shouldn't have access to.

"Now, I'll speak plain: These are not the originals. I've sent those stateside, to a contact at DOD. By now, they've, in turn, sent it along to heads of DOS and DOJ, as well as one of the Senators on the Oversight committee," you state as you walk around the desk to instead lean into the side of it when Stechner's eyes rove over a certain pile.

"Ah, yes. Afghanistan. That took some digging. Most of those Mujahideen warlords became the Taliban, right?" you remark conversationally as you give him a cunning smile, eyes narrowing as he eyes you with the proper level of unease. "That mass grave? It definitely looked like work of the Soviets, sure, but you and your buddies probably should've stacked more bodies over those Marines' corpses. Or, hell, maybe not have buried them in uniform?"

His expression becomes icy as he stands straight and lets his hands fall to his sides. "Where did you get this," is his flat inquiry, and when you cross your arms and snicker, as if it should be obvious, he drones, "…Your father."

Humming, you lean over to glide your fingers over another series of documents to sift them from the pile. "Now, if a bunch of dead Marines doesn't do it for most, this?" You point to photos of a landing strip in the middle of a dense, Central American jungle. "Well, selling arms to the Contras? Using Panama as a backdrop to distribute weapons with drug traffickers so you can have them take the fall?"

Glaring at the not-so-blurry black and white image of himself standing at the top of a plane's entry, with Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo ascending the stairs to meet him, Stechner scathes, "You have no idea what you're playing with here—"

"Didn't that guy go to prison for abducting and murdering a U.S. federal agent?" you cut in in a lilting chime before smiling and plucking another photo up and tossing it towards the front of the desk. "Ah, sure, he doesn't run the Mexican cartel anymore, but this guy? He's basically running all the plazas, right?"

A photo of Stechner standing in front of the gangway of one of Amado Carrillo Fuentes' cargo planes looks like it was taken from the top of the tree line, but it was close enough to get both he and the would-be 'boss of all bosses' of the Mexican drug trade faces clearly.

"Oh, and then there's the police report. I assure you, a lot of this didn't really surprise anyone I recruited to help gather this all, but that police report? And knowing the CIA's station chief sold his daughter out to be abducted, just to send some sort of petty message to her boyfriend?" you remark with irreverence, adding musingly, "Well, my father just couldn't abide that. He was more than happy to reach out to his sources, your superiors – think he even mentioned something about telling the POTUS Chief of Staff? Ah, who knows…"

Looking up at you now, you see it.

Utter disdain and resignation.

You smile.

"You should've stayed in your lane, Bill."

Vacillating to try and recover his arrogant posturing, the balding man sneers, "Conjecture and photos won't be enough—"

"I thought so too! That's why I sent a copy of this little dossier to a reporter for El Tiempo, as well as a copy to the editor of The Washington Post," you retort glibly, patting your hands on the tops of your pencil-skirt-clad thighs as you move from leaning on the side of the desk to standing straight, with a prim look. "I mean, I could've shopped it to The Miami Herald, but I figured this was more fitting for the D.C. crowd anyway."

The look in his eyes is priceless.

With a glance at your watch, you remark, "And if everything went accordingly, you should be hearing all about it, real soon."

As if on cue, his desk phone and satellite phone start ringing. You smile sublimely.

"Well, then. I'm sure you have some explaining to do," you chime affably as you strut past him to head for the door. "You can keep those for your records in case you need to spruce up on what falls under treason versus capital crimes—"

"You think this won't blow back on you and your department? That there won't be repercussions?!" he suddenly snaps and whirls haughtily at you as you are mid-exit. "You were so worried about keeping up appearances? What's to stop your reputation from going up in flames just as spectacularly as your Javier's did?!"

His scathing sneer of a smile dissolves when you turn from the open door and grin.

"The fact I gave a copy to the ambassador a few hours ago, oh, right before I resigned my position at the embassy," you drawl with lancing mirth, enjoying how his jaw drops as the phones ring incessantly. "It was great working with you, Bill."

With that, you strut out of his office and down the hall towards the elevator, triumphant when you hear the sound of him throwing his satellite phone against the wall of his office and swearing a litany over the continued ringing and the drone of the vacuum cleaner down the opposite wing.

Everything had been put into motion before this coup de grâce.

Days before, you'd assembled your staff and told them your plans to resign, effective immediately several days from that point. Aghast, they'd asked why, and you'd assured them it was best they not know, but you wanted to prep them for the transition of things without you.

You made Jackie head of the department and Devon her deputy, then proceeded to caution them on the security breach you'd monitored and isolated. Explaining that the CIA was using the pilot program to syphon data from other agencies and to clandestinely transmit top-secret intel to and from sources stateside, you showed them the credential trail and disclosed how it led back to the CIA station chief.

Before you'd assembled your team for this announcement, you'd made several calls in preparation.

The first was to your contact in Panama.

That first conversation months back with Luke had been awkward. However, he'd promised to look into your suspicions, and when you'd called him in preparation days before, you'd gotten everything you needed. Along with the stacks of documents in the dossier, you had the handwriting analysis of the notes Stechner had left, as well as fingerprint testing that matched with his prints on file with the state department that Luke had sent you prior.

The second call was to Trujillo.

He'd done what you'd asked – logged the police report from your abduction – after you'd called him once you'd found the glass of Colombian soda with the note on your desk. And now, with the documents you had from Luke, you asked him to act as an anonymous source within CNP who could corroborate your story and prove a pattern of harassment on you personally and professionally. It also didn't hurt that he was willing to vouch that Stechner had been the one to approach him during the whole Los Pepes fiasco.

The third outreach, and the most difficult of them all, had been the one you'd known you couldn't avoid any longer.

"—The Vice Admiral is very busy at the moment."

"Please tell him it's his daughter calling."

The seconds you were placed on hold were used to take a deep breath to center yourself.

After that call, and once things were in motion, there was a moment where you wondered what would happen after.

Those concerns were shelved once you'd received everything you needed. After all, you'd decided from the start that you would follow through without a regret.

Crosby had been surprised to see you come in to his office at the end of the day, after Dotty had left, and there was really no one to witness and spread the news.

When you'd handed him the dossier, he'd been stony and reticent as he flipped through the documents and photos.

"I appreciate everything you've done for me in my role as director, sir, and it's been an honor reporting to you, but I can no longer in good conscience and confidence remain at my post, knowing what I know now," you'd told him with unwavering poise.

Frowning deeply, Crosby stood from his desk and circled it to sit in the chair next to you and take your hand. "Darlin'…I'm so sorry. Had I known—"

You shake your head and squeeze his hand. "I'm glad you didn't, because if you had, this conversation would be going a lot differently, Arthur," is your smooth assurance as you give him a fierce look.

He chuckles a raspy sound, eyeing you with an impressed smirk. "I'm sure."

Then, an obvious detail finally leaps up into his realization.

"Wait a minute. Who was he retaliating against?" the glacial look in his eyes softens with confusion.

Giving him a seriously stoic expression, you fold your hands in your lap and level him with, "The same man he had rotated out the last time. And, the man he's been stacking the odds against ever since he recommended him to come back to Colombia to go after the Cali godfathers."

The look on his face is a mixture of disbelieving cynicism before he shakes his head as if the prospect is too ridiculous to say out loud, but at your cool stare, he sobers and looks at you intently.

"This whole time, you and Peña – you've been involved with Javier Peña the whole while?"

"Ironically, we'd been looking forward to disclosing our relationship officially, but then, well…it's a moot point now, isn't it," you reply evenly, crossing your arms and eyeing him with the unspoken accusation.

You all set him up to fail.

To your luck, Crosby agrees to honor your request regarding your plans, and all but gives you his blessing in decimating Stechner. After all, the bastard never reported to him, so there's plausible deniability.

The next morning, you packed up your office while the news spread like wildfire in the building. Without batting an eye, you thanked your staff, wished them well, said all your farewells to those who'd rushed down to see you off, and begrudgingly agreed to the happy hour send off the Mil Group boys insisted on. It was a rowdy, albeit cheerful impromptu party, one filled with only friendly faces and toasts in your honor. You managed to get away with tons of hugs, promises to stay in touch, and 'attagirl' high-fives for doing what no one had been able to do: give Bill Stechner his most-deserved comeuppance.

No one dared remark or ask about the tawdrier detail, aka your no-longer-secret relationship with the notorious Javier Peña, and you were grateful for it, but knew they would all be dishing about it the moment you finished strutting out of the bar to head to your car.

By the end of the night, you drove home, feeling clearheaded, but sad.

When you'd loped into your apartment and walked by the phone, you'd seen the machine list one missed call, so you pressed the button to play the message while you pulled your heels off and leaned against the wall in the hallway.

"Hey, my love! I tried your cell phone, but it just kept ringing. Anyway, I'm flying into town on the 'morrow and can't wait to see you. I'll be staying in the same hotel, so after work, come up and visit. Can't wait to catch up, krasivaya!"

Your heart feels a little lighter at hearing Sasha's voice, and after such a devastating, demoralizing few weeks, you revel in having something positive to look forward to, and when you show up the next afternoon at his penthouse suite's door, he's shocked to see you.

"Ketsele! Wha-Wait, is today a holiday? I figured you'd be working—" he's remarking as he pulls you in and gives you a double-cheek kiss before hugging you tight. His cotton crewneck white shirt, blue-striped linen trousers, and his bare feet make it obvious he wasn't expecting any company, and his hair is slicked back from the shower but curling around his nape – making his relaxed appearance and chiseled features softer.

"Hah, n-no, not a holiday," you simper as you squeeze him back and snicker when you pull away to rub your palms brazenly along his neatly trimmed scruff-covered cheeks. "Whaaaat, what happened to the sexy beard?!" is your jibing whine as you pout at him.

"Ah, it was getting annoying, and now that it's fairly warm stateside, it didn't make sense to keep it," he tuts and squeezes your purple tunic-dress-clad waist cheekily before he ushers you over to sit and have a drink. "So? How're things?! How's work, and everything still great with Javi darling?"

You let out a mordant laugh as you sit and take the champagne flute he's just generously filled to the top before joining you on the plush couch with his own.

Sasha watches you chug the champagne down, before you sigh out and turn to face him fully so you can give him your best winning smile.

"Well, um, my grandmother passed away suddenly not so long ago…" you declare, and when his expression goes from convivial to incredulous, you add glibly, "I quit my job yesterday. And, Javier quit his job couple weeks before that after blowing up his life here. We fought, and I haven't seen or heard from him since."

When Sasha stares in aghast, albeit woeful worry at you, the snarky laugh bubbles up from your throat as you lean over him to snatch the bottle of champagne from the side table, plop back into the couch, and begin to drink brashly direct from the expensive bottle as you kick off your leather flats.

"Blessed fucking hell…what the fuck happened?" his baritone is rough with concern and confusion, and as if absorbing it all out of sequence, you watch as his eyes crinkle and fill with tears, "I-I'm so sorry. Why didn't you call me?!"

You take a long pull from the bottle, hoping the bubbles of the champagne with fill your belly and set you aloft to fly up and never have to look back at your life.

After a hiccup filters out of you, shame washes your glibness away and tows you under. Makes you feel stupid and inane. Especially when it scalds hot up from your gut thanks to how truly upset Sasha looks for you, and before you know it, your consternation flushes up to the top of your head, making your face burn with mortification. The feelings you'd walled off crash over you now as the compartments fail and fall under the weight of everything, leaving you frayed and unable to keep your brave façade up.

"…Everything just…it just all…it all fell apart…" you choke out as your composure finally caves in and the hurt leaps up to ensnare your breath.

Your vision narrows in at the edges as you start to sob, and before you've realized it, you're crying in Sasha's arms, desperately weeping until sobs wrack your frame and have you breathless and keening.

He'd manage to hastily take the bottle and set it down on the floor before you dropped it in your state of turmoil, and had scooped you into his fierce embrace as you lost yourself to the sorrow and heartache.

Tears run down his face as he rubs your back and lets you get it all out, waiting until the hot press of your spent tears cool on his neck and your sobs have quieted down to the occasional tremulous inhale and exhale of breath.

You curl up on the couch together once you start to shiver from the cool air-conditioned chill of the sprawling penthouse, and when you sniffle and hide your puffy face into his shoulder, Sasha scrubs the back of his hand across his flushed countenance and squeezes you protectively.

"I'm here, my love. For as long as you need me, I'll be here," he whispers in a thick, roughened bass, emotion still heavy in his voice.

Eventually, when you are utterly drained and can't shed another tear, you go slack in his embrace and try to scrape your composure together. Once you're sure you won't fall apart all over again, you muster the effort to shift against him so you can rest your head on his shoulder and press your forehead to his scruff-darkened jaw.

In a hoarse, low murmur, you tell Sasha everything that's happened.

He is quiet the entire time, listening and caressing your back as you go through the sheer litany of dramatic events you've been through since he'd last seen you.

When you finally conclude in the recap of everything, and clear your parched throat to sit up and absently wipe at your cheeks with the back of your tunic's bell sleeves, you stare drearily at Sasha with your red-rimmed, watery eyes and frazzled expression.

Letting the cleansing inhale out through his nose, he sits back and gives you a cerulean-eyed squint before blustering, "How in the entire fuck have you not become some novelist's muse for the sheer sweeping expanse of your suspenseful life that could be the inspiration for a world's bestseller?!"

Blinking at him in tremulous shock, it takes you a moment to appreciate how he scrunches his face – crooking his brows exaggeratedly while he opens his blue eyes as wide as they can go and he twists his lips in faux displeasure at you.

You burst into hapless, smoky laughter before it turns into peels of guffawing giggles while he comically grabs your arms and shakes you goofily.

"Tell me, mon chéri!" he growls sarcastically while you playfully tussle with him on the couch until you funnily slap his cheek. "Gauh! Alright, I take it back. I take it back!"

"I can't with you!" you rail and shove him when he pouts at you. "Jesus Christ on the Cross…" is your weary sneer as you sit back and sniffle, busily wiping at your face now with your sleeves. "I'm…I'm so sorry for unloading on you…"

Sasha mordantly grunts. "Stop it," he huffs and pulls you close, kissing the top of your head. "I'm sorry I wasn't here – wasn't able to give you the support when you needed it…"

You both go silent and just sit close while you collect your composure. He doesn't expect you to divulge any more, but you surprise him by murmuring, "I miss my grandmother so much. After Javi just left, I had this longing to call her and vent in that split-second of losing my mind, when I'd forgotten everything else…and then I just wished I could take it all back. That I could rewind to before and do everything all over again."

"…Have you tried to reach out to him?" Sasha asks tentatively.

You nod dimly and sigh, resting your head on his shoulder. You take a tremulous breath.

"He said that he would keep trying. That after he tied up loose ends with that case…that he would keep trying to make it work and we'd talk about what we'd do, but he left and…I don't believe him anymore," is your despondent response, and saying it out loud has your heart going numb. "I didn't trust him…I don't trust him at all now, and part of me wonders if I should've ever trusted him—"

"Hey, don't go down that rabbit hole now," Sasha sits up and cups your cheek. "Don't try and talk yourself out of how you felt. It was real. Don't regret it."

Sighing deeply, you nod and bow your head. "It's a moot point anyway. I…I sort of went scorched earth at work, and without my job at the embassy, I really don't have a reason to stay in Colombia anymore," you mumble before shuffling over to retrieve the bottle of champagne from where it sits before drinking a pull from it. When you exhale and offer it to him, Sasha takes it and chugs several gulps. You end up watching his throat work the bubbly down as you remark, "I have to figure out what to do now with my life…"

Grandly, Sasha plops the bottle down on the side table and lets out a charming grunt as he reaches for something tucked under the glass candy dish. "Well, then. At the very least, you can look forward to this!" he announces boastfully as he turns and hands you an engraved, lavishly detailed envelope with your name on it.

You gasp. "Oh my god, the wedding!" is your exclamation as you admire the envelope before opening it delicately to retrieve the lux lace-patterned and golden foiled invitation to your friend's special day. "This is lovely. Oh, I'm such a shit maid of honor—!"

"Ah, stop your fretting! You can come to New York and make up for lost prattling time with Irina," he scoffs irreverently as he drapes his arm over your shoulders. "You can stay with me. It'll be like old times!"

You feel overcome all over again, but now it's for profound love for Sasha, and how he's always so selfless with his affection and care.

He manages to keep you preoccupied the rest of the day over a bevy of snacks and drinks while you think out loud about plans for Irina's bridal shower, and when you inevitably return to fretting about everything, he tows you back to lighter things.

Sasha's just finished suggesting you just take a sabbatical and come stay with him while you decide what you want to do next when the penthouse door opens and a preoccupied Nikolai rushes in.

"Alexander, that twit of a business manager keeps calling and it's pissing me off, so would you get that infernal phone of yours and—" the grumbling man is sneering in a thick Ukrainian accent before he skids to a halt and sees you peering over at him from the back of the couch with wide eyes. "I—forgive me, I wasn't aware you were entertaining."

"He speaks!" is your cheeky exclamation as you smile at how he's glowering busily at you while Sasha sputters amusedly at your side. "I was beginning to think you had a squeaky voice, or sounded like Donald Duck—"

Guffawing at that now, Sasha folds his arms over the back of the couch and buries his brash laughter into his forearms, but fails to rein his mirth in when you elbow him bossily. "Hah! Alright, alright – sorry," he husks irreverently before clearing his throat and sobering in his goofy demeanor when Nikolai glowers and crosses his arms huffily. "What's Ian fretting about now, then?"

"Something about an art dealer," the sentry of a man mutters before waving it off as he makes to exit for his private quarters. "Let me know if you need me—"

"It's nice to see you, Nikolai," you charmingly chime, smiling when he pauses to nod politely at you.

"Nice to see you as well, miss," he mutters almost bashfully before hustling away.

Reluctantly, Sasha bounds up to go retrieve his cell phone. "I'm sorry, ketsele, this'll only take a few minutes, then we can get back to drinking and being stupid!"

You take the moment alone to nibble on some strawberries from the lavish platter he'd had brought up. You are contemplating gorging on a piece of pineapple when he stalks back in moments later, looking annoyed.

"What's wrong?" you pipe as you clean your fingers on a napkin and sit back in the plush cushions of the sofa.

"Ian just told me that the director of the installation at the art gallery in Miami is getting cold feet now because the dealer who recommended 'Worship' for the residency there is getting prosecuted here for corruption and fraud?!" he seethes, dropping heavily into the seat next to you with a forlorn huff. "If the gallery's board of directors votes on it, 'Worship' might be delayed because of that asshole—"

"Wait…is the art dealer's name Santiago Medina?"

Sasha pauses in his harangue to blink over at you in surprise. "Yes, yes, it is," is his musing drone until he deadpans, "Oh shit, so it's true?"

You're the bearer of bad news. You explain how Santiago Medina is literally at the center of the corruption scandal involving the Cali cartel paying for influence with the current administration running the Colombian government.

For the most part, he takes it well, and you end up agreeing to spend the night together for moral support.

You both make tentative plans to catch back up after he's done with his business regarding the installation at the museum, and the promise of considering traveling up with him to New York is not one he'll let you hedge on, so you assure him you'll think about it.

Needless to say, you feel unable to completely escape thinking about everything that's happened, and once you're back in your apartment the next day, you end up making some decisions.

Firstly, you call your prima and let her know what's going on, and what you plan to do. Secondly, you make the arrangements to put your apartment up for rent, and are surprised when you get a lot of interest. So thirdly, you are relegated to scheduling for movers and getting ready to pack up your life in short order.

By the weekend, you've packed almost all of your personal effects and labeled the furniture that will be getting put into storage stateside versus what will be going to the house in Medellín, and are preparing your suitcases when you remember you need to unmount and pack your phone. Well, you're actually actively avoiding packing up your closet, knowing there are items there that will throw you into a melancholic funk, so you busy yourself with getting the box the phone came in and prep it for repackaging.

Eerily, you're taping up a box for your office things to go into in anticipation of the landline getting packed in it as well when the phone starts ringing.

Rushing down the hall, you answer it and move into the kitchen to retrieve a marker for the labeling on the box. You pause when the friendly voice of the director from the D.C. DOS office greets you jovially.

"—I heard you're no longer at the embassy in Bogotá! I called around and got your personal number, so forgive me for reaching out like this out of the blue—"

You listen to him eagerly give you a sales pitch, and are about to kindly rush off the phone, but he thwarts you.

"—So, I know you're probably not in the mindset to be thinking of your next move, but frankly, there's a big opportunity opening up, and you're my first choice for it."

"…Ok, I'm listening..."

A few days later, you're finishing helping your cousin pack away the decades of belongings and keepsakes collected in the three-bedroom, one bath home once your grandmother's.

It was very difficult to go through things when you'd started, shedding lots of tears and some needed laughs when you'd find family memorabilia. The movers had collected the furniture and houseware you'd wanted to keep and send up to storage, making way for the furniture from your apartment you'd graciously passed over to balance out the home Miguel and your prima would settle in happy matrimony together.

"I got these in last week. I wanted to give them to you when you'd first come up, but…well, anyway, here," your cousin is remarking as she enters the kitchen where you're currently sat sorting through some knickknacks you'd collected from your grandmother's old bedroom.

Sitting back in the seat, you follow her as she walks around to sit at the table with you before she places an envelope with the photographer's name in laminated lettering on the front.

When you open the flap, your breath catches in your chest.

The glossy photos are crisp and vibrant as you pull the stack from the sleeve and marvel at the prints as you shuffle them one by one onto the table.

The wedding photos were mostly candids taken throughout the ceremony, out in front of the church, and at the reception. A lovely shot of the happy couple is the first. The big group photo in front of the iglesia's flower-rimmed fountain is next, and you feel a lump knot in your throat at you and Javi standing on the left of the bridal party as you glance from it to a candid of you, Javi, and your grandmother sitting in the pew, just before the vows. You hadn't even realized a photo was being taken, because you were looking at each other in the moment.

A tear escapes your eye as you notice how happy your grandmother looks, sitting on the other side of Javi, as she sees you both staring lovingly at each other.

"I like this one a lot," your cousin croaks, feeling just as emotional. She points at a photo of you and Javi dancing during the reception, and his smile as you laugh in mid dip has you snickering and sniffling. "But this one is my favorite."

She points to a photo of your grandmother, you, and Javier all posing while sat at your cake-slices-and-drink-laden table in the reception. Your abuela has a bright smile that lights up her features while you look truly content – smiling just as brilliantly while scooted close to Javier, who looks handsome and boyish all at once with that dimple of his on full display.

That's what does you in. You start to sob, and through the tears, you simper, "These are beautiful. Thank you. I love them."

Shuffling closer, you both hug, and share some tears while reminiscing about the wedding.

You manage to get through some more chores around the house that takes you into the early evening.

You're just taking a break at the kitchen table from dotingly polishing your grandmother's santos before you wrap them in the packing paper to be placed with the rest of the knickknacks you plan to take with you, and your cousin is cooking dinner while she chats with you. It's about that time of day when your aunt will be getting home from work, so she's jokingly warning you she's probably jetting over to see the progress on the house when you hear a car pull up on the street before the distant squeak of the gate being opened echoes over from the outside.

Comically looking at each other, you snicker and prepare for the inevitable. But then you're confused when instead of your aunt barreling into the space from the front door, there's a knock that sounds through the house. Turning to stare surprisedly at you, your cousin vacillates on whether she should go get the door, when you snicker and chime, "It's your home now, girl. The lady of the house should answer the door!"

Chuckling, she sets the rice spoon down and covers the caldero on the stove before wiping her hands on a towel and rushing by you with an irreverent squeeze to your shoulder as she goes. You decide to return back to the santos while you wait.

The one you're currently turning over in your hands is a figure of La Virgen Santa María, and your thoughts tug free the recollection of the last time you'd seen an effigy of the Virgin Mary. You picture the prayer card that had been in the shoebox, and the melancholy it plunges you into distracts you from the voices and the clang of the screen door closing.

It isn't until the sound of thick leather soled footsteps echoing over the terrazzo floor nearing towards the kitchen only to stop at the doorway behind you that you're stirred back from your longing thoughts to turn in your chair.

Your father stands in the threshold of the kitchen.

His broad shoulders and tall stature fill the space, looking just as imposing as he did the last time you had argued with him and stormed away, but instead of the dark polo shirt and tan slacks he'd been wearing that day, he's in a black guayabera with navy blue vertical stripes, and light cream-colored pleated trousers. His leather dress shoes are polished as meticulously as always, and his hair is swept back, but there's more pepper-gray shocked through his thick strands of hair than you remember.

You're so disarmed to see him that you don't immediately register how uncertain he looks as he stands there, trying to find something to say.

"Tesoro…" he rumbles in a tense bass-filled tone, hands fidgeting at his sides as he clears his throat and tries to verbalize his thoughts.

Overcome by your feelings coming crashing down around you like a rickety house of cards, the knot that tangles in your throat has a tremulous sob catching in your chest before you rush up to your feet and toss your arms around his shoulders.

He seems surprised, but quickly wraps you up in a hug and holds you tight as you start to weep.

Your cousin stands in the living room and witnesses as your father's eyes get glassy with unshed tears while he rubs your back, holding you tight as he consoles you with deep baritone shushes. Stifling a sniffle, she leaves you both to have your moment and goes out to the walkway to stop her mother from interrupting the emotional scene when she hears her coming up the sidewalk.

You don't even notice, too far gone in your tears and the comforting haven of your father's presence, completely unselfconscious to the need to be held by your Pá after so long – to feel safe in his warm embrace and soothed by his familiar aftershave and cologne.

Truly, you're filled up with relief as he whispers assurances that everything will be all right. And, in this moment, the world melts away, leaving just the two of you.

Right now, you're just a little girl being comforted by her dad, and for now, that's more than enough.

***

The drive back from fixing the fence along the riverbank had been a miserable one.

His body ached in the worst way – muscles strained, cheeks and back of his neck tender from tanning under the hot Texas sun, and feeling completely downtrodden after spending most of the day distracted and fuming with every drug-running boat that cruised by to rub in his face what a failure his time in the DEA had been.

But nothing more demoralizing could've heralded his current state of being – at his lowest low – than the song that came over the radio while his father drove them home.

Esta canción que canto amigos Es una más de dolor Si es que me ven llorando amigos Discúlpenme por favor

At first, he didn't know why it sounded familiar, but then when the second section sung after the instrumental horns blow in the melancholic ballad, he gets hit with a scalding déjà vu.

Traigo en el alma pena y llanto Que no puedo contener Y es que la quiero tanto y tanto Pero me tocó perder

He can't even stop it from happening. Not with how utterly worn down he felt, and before he could even muster the will to pull himself together, tears stung his eyes before escaping to roll down his cheeks.

Y ahora tengo que olvidarla también Y arrancarla de mi alma y mi ser Y de aquel amor que quema mi piel Que no quede nada

"Javier," his father grouses when he spares a glance over at his only son and sees him rushing to scrub his hands over his face with a terse grunt.

Que no quede huella, que no y que no Que no quede huella Porque estoy seguro que tu mi amor Ya ni me recuerdas

Que no quede huella de ti Y de los besos que te di Para convencerme mejor que yo Ya te perdí

Pulling off to the side of the dirt road, just short of the gravel-paved junction he'd need to turn onto to head back to the house, Chucho put the truck in park and turned to face Javier with worry. "Son—"

"I'm fine, Pop. I-I—" he interjected gruffly and exhaled a turbulent breath before reaching over to snap the volume on the radio all the way down. With the silence of the cab, he mustered the composure to clear his throat and stuff his feelings back down.

Looking anywhere but up at his father's concerned expression, he assured, "…Just got away from me for a moment there…"

Frowning, Chucho had reached for Javi's shoulder to give it a fortifying squeeze and pat before resuming the drive home.

The next day, after a fitful night's sleep, Javi had been up and dressed in a worn pair of jeans, soft denim shirt with snap buttons, and his battered work boots. Having pointedly ignored and weaved a path around the boxes as well as his luggage from Colombia still waiting to be unpacked to instead head downstairs, he'd grabbed a belt and slipped it through the loops of his jeans as he went.

Even though his back aches and his knees were protesting as he hustled down the stairs, Javi was getting himself ready for another day of toil on the ranch, even if it killed him. After all, he'd decided to get in the swing of helping with the drudgery he'd grown concerned was getting too much for Chucho to do mostly on his own, even with his cousins lending their time around the busier seasons.

His father was just coming back in from the porch with the weekly milk, butter and egg delivery that got dropped off by his primo before taking the rest to market in town.

It was a tradition since he was a kid, and even though it'd been years since his uncle had passed on, his prima Lucía kept it up. He was about to comment that things must be good over on that side of the family land when the house phone started ringing. Hustling to go answer it while his father stored the items in the fridge, he figured it might be Spencer calling again to "check in" and make sure he couldn't change his mind about getting back to work at the DEA.

"Peña Residence."

"Holy shit, Jav!" the boisterous greeting from Steve has him gritting his jaw and his shoulders squaring up. "You won't fucking believe what I just heard—!"

"Jeez, isn't it a little early to call and ply me with gossip, bud?" he grumbles as he turns to see his father begin to pour himself a cup of coffee.

"No man, listen! I just left headquarters – was there for that task force operation I told you about, and the news is all over the building: That asshole Stechner got bounced out of Colombia and is going up before a Congressional committee. CIA's basically burn noticing his ass for a bunch of shit that was leaked, and word is he got taken down by someone in the embassy—"

Javier's jaw drops as Steve details more, but his mind reverts him back to what Marisol had told him about the message she'd meant to give you. What was it?

"That her plan worked."

She'd said it so triumphantly, before teasing that she was sure he'd find out the details once he got back home. Holy shit.

Steve's boasting stirs Javier back as he smugly twangs, "—It's gone up the chain at DOD and DOJ, so he's finished. Someone said the dossier was filled with unsanctioned covert ops stuff, and supposedly it all got sent over to the powers that be in D.C. by some Vice Admiral, which had me thinking your badass mamacita pulled off the ultimate takedown."

But before he can keep crowing about the gossip, Javi cuts in with, "Steve, I gotta go. I'll call you back when I can, alright?"

He hangs up and bounds out of the kitchen to grab the keys to the truck in the bowl on the side table in the hall. "Pop, I'll be back in a couple of hours—"

"What?! Where are you going, mijo?" Chucho follows him out to the front hall where Javi is currently grabbing for his tan windbreaker jacket in the coat closet.

"I just gotta take care of something. I'll be back," he hastily explains as he rushes out the door.

Thirty minutes later, he's parking in the lot across from a building he hasn't been in since before he'd shipped out to Colombia, and when he comes in the door, even at the early hour, the receptionist looks up and is nonplussed to see him.

"Agent Peña?"

Of course, she'd know his face. He was sure Spencer had sent his DEA badge photo around to every field office since he'd gotten back stateside, and with the glances he'd gotten through the halls at the headquarters building in Virginia, he had no doubt his reputation preceded him – for better or worse.

"I need to see Growman," Javier had ordered, not asked, dispensing with all pleasantries.

Looking tense, she'd began to respond, "Um, well, he isn't in yet—"

"I'll wait."

The steel in his voice is only matched by the iron of his stare, so she'd quickly nodded before reaching for the phone to call the deputy director for the Laredo field office.

A few minutes later, and the man ambles out the security door leading to the offices and waves Javier in, looking surprised but intrigued.

Before they're even completely down the corridor that leads to the office spaces, the man was drawling, "Shit, man. Does this mean that resignation thing was a load of—"

"Are you aware you have boat runners smuggling drugs day in and out across the border, going up the tributary from the river, right along my family's property?"

Skidding in step, the deputy eyes him warily before ushering Javi down the rest of the way to the director's office. "So, this is technically a personal inquiry—?"

"Listen, Todd, I don't really care to discuss it with you, seeing as you can't do jack-shit to resolve it yourself, so I'll wait for Growman," Javi cuts in with finality.

Thankfully, the man in question rounds the corner, and after greeting Javier warmly, he takes him into his office and waves the deputy off.

As he rounds his desk to sit in his cushy chair, he began to remark, "Mike Spencer said you might come in here at some point once you got bored with retirement—"

"Nate, I'm going to be very clear here. I spent all fucking day yesterday watching drugs being smuggled up stream, just a stone's throw away from my property. Beyond the fact that I could go over your head to the brass and tell 'em you're letting these bastards get past you in broad daylight, I'm going to say this once: If you don't stop the drug traffic from going up river in my backyard, I will go to every newspaper from here to D.C. and namedrop you as being asleep on the job, and I'll do it in my personal capacity while still being the guy that took down an entire drug cartel," Javier levels in a terse rasp, voice hitting a low register as he leans forward with his hands on his hips to add gruffly, "Do we have an understanding?"

The director eyes him dubiously before drawling, "So I guess the rumors are true."

He knew what he was referring to. "Check it out: that's Javier Peña, the Crusader," he recalled overhearing in the lobby of the DEA building weeks prior. The sarcasm of the musing and the glances he kept feeling spoke volumes.

It was fine by him to live up to that hype.

"Care to find out for yourself?" Javier contumely challenged, eyes dark and features etched with promise.

Stonily, the other man leaned back in his chair before deadpanning, "…I'll get it handled."

"Good," Javier remarks, turns, and storms to the door to exit before pausing to look back at the man. "Don't make me come back here."

With that, he exits the office and stalks down the hall, out the security door, through the compact lobby, and out the building. He gets in the truck and doesn't look back as he drives off.

A short while later, and he's walked into the Sherriff's department.

The heat from the sun was radiating in the foyer, so he rushed through the vestibule and right up to the information desk.

"I'm here to see Deputy Miranda. Can you let him know—"

"Holy smokes, is that you, Javi?!"

He paused to turn just as a very familiar dispatcher was ambling over at him with a bright smile. Unable to suppress his crooked smirk, Javi drawled, "Hey, Pam."

"Well, as I live and breathe! I didn't know you were back in town," the spry woman exclaims as she pulls him in for a jovial hug. "Come on in with me," she offers as she simultaneously holds up her hand to the front desk rookie and chimes, "No need to fret, hun! This one here's got all the clearance he'll ever need," before looping her arm around Javier's and escorting him back to the bullpen.

"Look what the cat dragged in, boys!" Pam shouts out before kissing Javi on the cheek and leaving him to the room filled with mostly friendly faces in order to clock in for her shift.

"Check it out!"

"It's Mr. Laredo himself!"

A bunch of the fellas catcall tauntingly at Javier as he makes the rounds to shake hands hello, pat shoulders and shake his head wryly at the hazing.

"Hey, hermano!" Manny pulls him into a bear hug, giving Javi no quarter until he relents and hugs him back. "What the hell, y que haces por aquí, güey?! How long you been back in town?"

Clapping him on the back, Javi leans back and rumbles, "Not long. Listen, I need to talk to you. Can we go somewhere private?"

"Ehm, sure. Yeah. Hey, Carl. Can you finish taking this log down to filing for me?" Manny grabs the folder and hands it to one of the other deputies.

"Sure, John. And I'll only charge you one of those pastries Heidi made for yah," the other man chuckles as he goes.

Rolling his eyes, the man nudges Javi to follow him down to one of the conference rooms that's currently unoccupied. As they go, he can't help notice how his uniform accentuates some muscles he hadn't remembered his buddy having much definition in from the last time they'd hung out, but before he can comment, the door is shut and the inquisition begins.

"Alright, what the hell you up to now that brings you over here asking for favors before 8am?"

Yep, John Emanuel Miranda, 'Manny' to his very close friends and family, always was able to read Javier before he said a damn thing. After all, the two had been friends since elementary school, when Manny had come in mid-semester. His family had immigrated from Monterrey, Mexico, and one day when he struggled to find his locker due to the language barrier, Javier had walked up to him and offered to help. When he couldn't find a table that looked friendly enough to go sit at, he saw Javier waving at him enthusiastically from a table at the back of the cafeteria, inviting him to come sit with him. He eventually came out of his shell more, and over time, he and Javier were best of friends, and eventually he learned enough English to befriend Javier's friends, and ever since, they were partners in crime – and extracurricular activities at school – before following each other into the police academy and then onto the Laredo Sherriff's Department.

Javi still remembers the time Manny introduced himself to some of the other kids as John, and how he'd asked what that was about. "My dad told me he named me John Emanuel Miranda so the gringos would be nicer to me. He figured if I had a white-sounding first name, it would be harder for them to be mean. So, to gringos I don't know well, I tell them my name is John. If I like the person enough, eventually they can call me Manny."

He'd just realized he'd told Steve a while back while they'd been waiting for Navegante about his best man John driving him to the chapel before he'd told him to pull over, and is amused by the fact he'd likely referred to him as John because Steve was a hillbilly who hadn't earned the privilege to know him as 'Manny,' when he shakes himself loose of the recollections and clears his throat to answer his friend.

He tells Manny about the smugglers, how he'd demanded that the DEA handle it, and how he'd decided it'd be a good bet to have the sheriff's department aware so if the agency dropped the ball, his guys could be aware and be more vigilant.

"Ni madres…yeah, we'll handle it. I know a lot of people who would happily patrol the waterways more to make sure those hijo de putas don't cross near their land," the man responds soberly as he eyes him reassuringly. "So then, you doing all this because you plan to stay for good, Javi?" he followed up, as he leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms.

"…I'm doing it because I don't want that shit happening in my town. Let alone right in my family's backyard. And I knew you wouldn't either, which is why I'm trusting you with it," Javi responded curtly before sitting in a chair and rubbing his hand crankily across his features, struggling with his cigarette craving hitting hard after trying to go cold-turkey. "For now, though…yeah, I'll be home for a spell. Helping Pop out on the ranch while I figure out my next move."

"Well, excellent! So, then you'll be free to be my best man."

Having not expected that, Javier had lifted his face from his hand to balk at him, mumbling, "What?"

Manny gives him a kilowatt smile, shoulders proudly winding back as he tells him, "I popped the question, and Heidi said yes. We're getting married in a few months, so I'll need you to be my best man."

Stunned, Javi takes a minute to stand and clamp both hands onto Manny's shoulders before giving him a wry shake and pulling him into a hug. "Congrats, huevón! She finally wore you down—"

"Ah, no mames, cabrón," Manny scoffs and shoves Javi comically. "We all can't be eligible solteros forever!"

Javier is in much better spirits by the time he gets back to the ranch, and while his father is peeved with him, he just tosses his tools into the back of the truck and hops in before ordering him to drive out to the northern pasture.

By the end of the day, the dirt and sweat of hard labor actually felt good to him, and Chucho can't help affectionately patting his arm while they moseyed back to the truck.

"Whatever you ran off to handle this morning, seemed to help pick your spirits up, mijo," he'd commented, as he put the tools in the back of the truck.

"Yeah…" Javi retorted as he tossed his work gloves into the back of the flatbed and smirked. "Just making my way while I'm here, until I figure out whether I'm cut out for this ranchero life—"

"Oh, I've given up on that one a long time ago," Chucho cut in slyly, smiling as he got in the truck.

Snorting, Javi got in too. "I'm trying, Pop."

"I know. And this viejo appreciates it, but we both know you'll get stir crazy and find what you're meant to do next," he fondly assures as he starts the truck. "But I'm grateful all the same that in the meantime, while you figure it out, you're spending it here, Javier."

It feels good to hear.

So, he opens up, and tells his dad the news about Manny and Heidi on the drive back to the house.

Once his father parked in the driveway over by the storage garage, Javier was feeling lighter than he had in weeks. He was in such a good mood, that he'd been in the middle of remarking, "Maybe we can go into town for dinner? Haven't been to Jaime's folks' spot for barbeque in a while—" but then he stopped dead in his tracks when he was up the walkway and spotted a big box left on the porch, right in front of the screen door.

"I thought all your things were delivered already," Chucho remarks as he comes up beside him.

"Yeah, they were," Javi mutters as he goes up the porch steps and grabs the box. It's heavy, but manageable, so he'd put it down on the nearby porch chair so he could look at the tracking label.

His heart sank when he saw the sender's address.

Chucho perceived the way Javier deflated, so he quickly opened the screen door and unlocked the door. "Bring it in, mijo," he instructed gently as he held the screen open for him.

Vacantly, Javi picked up the box and brought it through the threshold to be put down in the living room. He hadn't realized he'd been staring at it blankly until his father had retrieved his pocket knife and held it out to him.

It took everything in him to slice through the tape and pop the lids open.

His belongings – the ones he'd kept in your apartment – are packed meticulously into the box, folded and arranged in the most efficient way he's ever seen.

The look on Javier's face was everything Chucho needed to see to know where the box was from, and knows his son is brooding with self-loathing, so he put his hand on his back.

"Son, I don't want you to let this eat you up—"

"It's not. It…it won't, Pop," Javi snapped before easing his tone and diverting his gaze. "I'll, uh…I'll take this up, shower, and we can go to dinner."

With a frown, he nodded and watched Javier pick up the box and make a hasty retreat up the stairs with it.

When he made it up to his room, he dropped the box onto the floor by his bed, and intended to storm off to shower, but he ended up just staring down into the representation of the last vestiges of his life with you, feeling plunged into a sadness he'd been holding at bay.

He'd been distant during dinner at the restaurant, and pensive on the drive back to the ranch, so his father had deliberated about just sitting him down to hash it all out – to insist on him needing to vent and purge his feelings about the whole matter once and for all so he could work to heal from the breakup and not wallow in his despair.

The chance is thwarted when they come into the house to the house phone already ringing.

Mechanically, Javier had marched to the phone and picked up the receiver.

"Peña Residence."

"Hey, Jav. Sorry to call again, I know you said you'd call back, but…uh, well, I thought you should know," Steve is prefacing in a much more sober tone now than he'd had earlier in the day. Javier grunts for him to continue, so Steve explains, "I came into the office straight from the airport to catch up on memos and shit. I had a voicemail message that was just a few seconds of quiet before the person hung up. I thought that was weird, so I asked if anyone had called during the day when the calls to my line were getting redirected. The dispatcher logged one from a woman, who'd called my direct line, but didn't want to leave a message…and I can't help thinking that could've been your girl."

"…When was it?" Javi asks, throat tight as he feels his father's eyes on him from his vigil at the kitchen entryway.

Steve tells him the timing for both calls, and Javier feels an ache behind his sternum.

"—Wish she'd left a number. Sorry, man. Just figured I'd let you know," Steve is remarking, pulling Javi back.

"No, don't worry about it. Thanks for calling, Steve. Give my love to the girls."

As soon as he hangs up the phone, Javi is ruminating, and for some nagging reason, he's compelled to go up to his bedroom and dig into the box now.

"Sorry, Pop. We'll talk tomorrow, alright?" he tells his father as he rushes by and bounds up the steps.

He hears his father shout up a hasty goodnight while he hustles into his room and proceeds to dig through the box, putting every item and article of clothing on the bed as he empties the contents.

Once emptied and tossed aside, he takes stock of everything, trying to mentally itemize all the things he'd ever had at your place, hoping for some elusive clue he has no clue about finding or why, until something that is not present in the bunch jumps out at him.

His gray college shirt is missing.

Leaning on the mattress, he disbelievingly marvels at the missing belonging, and something he wasn't even aware he still had now began to blossom in his chest.

Hope. You kept it, because you didn't want to part with it, because maybe…maybe you still hoped to see him again.

Overcome, he sits on the bed and grabs the shoe box he'd put on his nightstand, took the lid off of it, and retrieved the photos of you among the other items of importance strewn over them: his mother's rosary beads, her prayer card, and the little Virgin Mary glass paperweight she'd gifted him when he'd gotten into college.

Everything held so much meaning to him, and seeing them all together allowed that hope to radiate deeper in him.

And for the first time, he felt like there was enough – that he had enough to go on.

So, as soberly as possible, he did.

________________

Read Chapter 39: Longing

Spanish-English Glossary:

Mijo = short for "mi hijo", a term of endearment akin to "my son/sonny"

Sabes = You know

Santo Cristo = Holy Christ; Saint Christ

Doncito = Slang for gentleman/young man, said in the diminutive

Guapo valiente = Valiant hunk

Agua fresca = A non-alcoholic beverage made of fresh fruits, blended with sugar and water

Lancha = A motorized, boat; dinghy used to go up waterways

Porfiado = Stubborn [male]

Cerveza = Beer

Mejico = Mexico

Prima = Cousin [female]

Iglesia = Church

Santos = Saints; Catholic figurines used in a home shrine/altar

Caldero = Cauldron (old school rice cooking pot)

Guayabera = Traditional Latin American button down/formal dress shirt worn by men; usually worn by men to look distinguished

Tesoro = Treasure; darling

Pá = Short for 'Papá' which means father, or poppa

Mamacita = sexy lady; foxy woman

Hermano = Brother; bud

Y que haces por aquí, güey = And what are you doing over here, dude

¡Ni madres! = Coloquial Mexican phrase, meaning "No Way!" "You're kidding me!"

Hijo de putas = Sons of bitches

Huevón = Dummy; goofball

Ah, no mames, cabrón = Ah, quit fucking around, asshole; akin to "Quit busting my balls, man"

Solteros = Bachelors; single men

Ranchero = Rancher [male]

Viejo = Old man

Song translation: Esta canción que canto amigos This song I sing friends Es una más de dolor It's one more pain Si es que me ven llorando amigos If you see me crying friends Discúlpenme por favor Excuse me, please Traigo en el alma pena y llanto I carry in my soul sorrow and weeping Que no puedo contener That I can't contain Y es que la quiero tanto y tanto And I love her so much and so much Pero me toco perder But I get lost Y ahora tengo que olvidarla también And now I have to forget it too Y arrancarla de mi alma y mi ser And rip it out of my soul and my being Es aquel amor que quema mi piel It's that love that burns my skin Que no quede nada Let's have nothing left Que no quede huella que no y que no Don't let there be a mark that doesn't and doesn't Que no quede huella Don't let it be traced Por que estoy seguro que tu mi amor ya ni me recuerdas Because I'm sure your love doesn't even remember me anymore Que no quede huella de ti Don't let there be any trace of you Y de los besos que te di And the kisses I gave you Para convencerme mejor que yo To convince me better than I do Ya te perdí I've already lost you

The song referenced and translated above is "Que No Quede Huella" by Rodolfo Aicardi. It’s featured in Season 3 of Narcos, and I suggest checking them out on Spotify.

Thanks for reading! Please consider leaving a comment and sharing your feedback. I would be eternally grateful. 

[furious-rogue-stuff]

Chapter 39: Longing

Whew! It’s time for some emotional reparations~ 

Pairing: Javier Peña x OFC | Javi x Querida

Disclaimer: Written in 2nd person narrative, you can safely assume our heroine and love/lust interest is a Latina, written by a Latina. Here's my philosophy on my writing, for further context.

Rating: Mature/Explicit 🔞

Word Count: 20,500+

Summary: While you long for mending your broken heart so you can move on in your new life, Javi longs to get back what he's lost: you. Will he be able to find a way back to you?

Warnings: Mentions of diet and food habits, exercise routines, masturbation and previous sexual encounters. Descriptions of depression, emotional trauma, angst, unhealthy coping mechanisms, resentment, and regret. Allusions to past trauma, loss of spiritual faith, toxic relationships, and unexpected health concerns. Depressed!Javi, Hopeful!Javi, Stubborn!Javi, Angry!OFC. In the vein of Narcos being a bilingual show, and Javier Peña being fluent, I felt it was apropos to include Spanglish and Spanish throughout.

Heat Masterlist

Previous chapter - Chapter 38: Enough 

Chapter 39: Longing

The feeling looming darkly in the distance had been deafening in the chaos swirling around you.

You were running again, desperate to get out of the darkness and away from the screams that were rattling through you, but unable to understand why the tunnel had become the road – why you were seeing the upturned taillights of the car flaring like warning beacons in the fog.

Not here. I don't want to be here—

The alarm clock goes off, and you jolt in bed, brow perspiring and hair clinging to your sweaty neck.

Sitting up in bed, you bury your face in your hands and concentrate on breathing. The anxiety kicked up by the nightmare was manageable compared to what the horrible dream had become the last several months, but it still left you winded and shaken.

You chalk it up to it being the first time you've been back in the apartment since the wedding.

After everything that had happened, you'd managed to leave Colombia with a hopeful and positive outlook thanks to having mended things with your father. It had surprised you how easily forgiveness had come to you, and how receptive he'd been to apologizing.

Really, you both had felt the ice thaw after you'd called him and asked him for his help. Having to listen to him coldly calculate the damage he would inflict to the people who'd wronged you had made you crack and exactingly tell him he would not interfere in your plans. Instead of fighting you, he'd agreed to help, and had asked if you both could speak again soon.

You hadn't expected for him to make good on it and show up in person to the house in Medellín. After your emotional reunion, he'd made up for lost time as best as he could, and you'd let your guard down enough to accept he was making an effort, especially when you both went to the family tomb so he could pay his respects. Overcome, you'd cried on his shoulder, and told him how much you missed everyone.

"I miss your mother every day. She and her family were important to me, tesoro. I need you to know that."

You'd sighed, nodded, and murmured, "'Buela had a picture of you on her altar. She prayed for you every night…I wish you'd been here."

He'd hugged you tight, acknowledging your statement with a raspy hum, but answered, "I'm here now. I want things to be different. Eres mi única hija, y te amo con toda mi alma."

You're my only daughter, and I love you with my entire soul. His voice was unwavering and genuine. It had made it easy to lean into him and promise to work on your relationship. To call, stay in touch and visit.

He'd tried to convince you to leave Colombia with him, but you'd decided you wanted to go back to the capital and spend Sasha's last few days there showing him around and decompressing from everything. You'd even taken him to Don Gilberto's, where he was smitten with the coffee and a glutton for the pandebonos.

Saying goodbye to the kind owner had surprising been emotional, seeming to represent everything you'd be missing from living in Bogotá.

Sasha, as always, was able to cheer you up though, and from the time you both sat in first class on the flight to New York, to the limo ride to his mother's place on the Upper East Side, he had you in stitches over all the latest gossip and details you needed to be caught up on regarding Irina and Aslan's upcoming nuptials.

Shira Cohen Ivanov – Sasha's mother – was already waiting for your arrivals, and rolled out the red carpet for you. She was so much like her son, but looked like an older version of Irina, and her ability to mortify them both was a charming trait that you reveled in spectating.

"—Your abba is coming to dinner, bubbeleh, so please behave and let him think you finally wore this one down to be your romantic intended?"

"Ima! Blessed hell, you're embarrassing me—"

"What?! You two have canoodled—"

"Mother, please—"

Your giggles only spurred her on, and by the time Irina arrived with their father, you settled in for quite the eccentric dinner.

After weeks living the city girl life running around with Irina to do all the maid of honor duties, you'd surprised her with a lavish bridal shower, and soon enough, you were in the Hamptons at the wedding rehearsal.

Having accepted the career opportunity a month prior, you'd ended up having to travel back and forth on weekends for weeks leading up to the big day. The unconventional bachelorette and bachelor parties aside, you were most crunched for time between work and the wedding events the closer you came to the long weekend everything would be happening.

When said weekend finally arrived, you'd flown into JFK and been picked up by Sasha to then take a helicopter ride out to the exclusive beachfront country club, gotten quickly dressed, and headed down to the sprawling hall the vows would be taken. It had been wonderful to see your friends so happy as they conglomerated together after so long being apart. Their father, Volodymyr Ivanov, was in the advancing stages of his illness, but you wouldn't know it by how boisterous he was, and the sheer delight in Irina's eyes was enough to make you joyful by osmosis.

The day of the wedding, you were happy to take Sasha's arm and head down the aisle lined with lovely roses in hues of white among sprays of ivory, wearing a sultry black gown that matched with the other bridesmaids. Aslan was dressed dapperly, and for the first time since you'd known him, he looked fidgety and eager, nervousness flushing his cheeks and making the blue of his eyes stand out as he squeezed his clasped hands behind his back absently.

When Irina emerged through the glass doors with her father in the ethereal-yet-timeless wedding gown and veil, your heart gushed as she walked down the aisle to the instrumental procession. Sasha stood at Aslan's side, looking reserved, but his eyes glistened with unshed tears, and by the time Volodymyr was handing Irina's hand to him, he was close to blubbering. Attention riveted on the bride, Aslan's expression softened and stayed fixed on Irina's demure smiling features behind the lovely veil.

You manage to make it through the ceremony without shedding a tear, but as soon as the rabbi pronounced them man and wife, and Aslan stepped on the napkin-wrapped glass, tears were rolling down your cheeks.

The reception was an opulent affair. Truly, every socialite and who's who was there, and after tons of champagne, you'd found yourself standing by the French doors that lead out to the deck in order to gaze out at the scene.

Your heart was heavy as the buzz of the champagne made you reminisce about the last wedding you'd been at, and unbidden, memories flashed across your mind like a kaleidoscope. Seeing Irina and Aslan have their first dance had you thinking of Javi spinning you in his arms. Watching the photographer take candids throughout the crowded ballroom made you picture cozying up to Javi for the photo with your grandmother.

But seeing the happy couple hoisted in the chairs and propped merrily up while the music hit a crescendo that had you envisioning what it would've been like had you and Javi been surrounded by family and friends after tying the knot? That had you feeling overwhelmed with melancholy and regret.

So much so, that you didn't hear Sasha calling for you from the bar when you pushed open one of the French doors and ran outside into the chilly night. You've ambled down the steps and onto the beach in your heels, and when they obstruct you from continuing further, you yank them off and run to the shore, where the breeze is the briskest and punishing, to try and decompress from the heat that rose up in you and started to make your pulse race.

You hear your name shouted over the blustering ocean air that's whipping your hair and dress about, but you don't turn until Sasha's warm hand is on your bare shoulder.

"What's happened?! Are you alright, ketsele—?" his inquiries died off when he saw your eyes crinkle woefully before your features fell. Upset, he pulled you into his arms as he crooned, "Hey, hey, no, come here."

"I'm s-sorry, it all just came over me and I c-couldn't stop it—"

"Jesus wept, am I that much of a shitty date?"

Your sniffling laugh is muffled against his chest before you wrap your arms around his waist and shake your head, hiccupping, "N-No, you d-dork!"

He chuckles and kisses the top of your hairline before shedding his tuxedo jacket and pulling it around your bare shoulders. "It's fucking cold out here. Come, let's go back in," he rumbles as he tucks you against his side and escorts you away from the damp sand of the shore.

"No one noticed me run out like an idiot?" you mumble as you scrub the curve of your thumbs across your tear-streaked cheeks.

"Darling, everyone is smashed already. The caterer had just brought in a fourth crate of that fancy Dom vintage champagne when I was at the bar calling you over. Everyone is either dancing like drunken fools or schmoozing shamelessly," he told you amusedly as he helped you up the steps and crouched down to dust the sand off from your soles before taking your stiletto heels to slip them back onto your feet, one by one. "So, at the very least, you and I can filch a bottle for ourselves and go back to the suite – after you let me spin you around the dance floor for a bit."

Squeezing his shoulders and snickering, you nod and smile when he stands from his crouch to chivalrously loop your arm in his in order to escort you back into the ballroom.

You'd danced until late with him, laughing and giddy as he'd pick you up and swung you around like he used to in the old days while the sultry disco mix the DJ was playing filtered dizzyingly over the warm and crowded room. When it was finally time to see the couple out, you both gave Irina big hugs before she was whisked away by Aslan to their first night together as husband and wife. And before he could be cornered by his parents, Sasha had grabbed your hand and towed you in a rush out through a secluded stairwell and up to sneak off to your suite. You were so tipsy that you hadn't even noticed he'd pilfered a bottle of champagne and had it hidden under his tuxedo coat that was flung over his forearm.

When you'd entered the suite, he'd plopped the bottle down on the nearest table and hastily yanked off his bowtie while he kicked off his formal dress shoes. Comically, you'd tried to bend forward to remove your heels but ended up toppling sidelong into the plush couch with a yelp.

Sasha's deep, velvety laugh made you snicker. "Blessed hell, my love. Here, let me help you," he chuckled as he took your heels off and tossed them before shifting you to recline on the sofa. When he'd just been about to stand straight to go retrieve the bottle of champagne, you'd tugged him back down by the pleated collar of his tuxedo shirt. With a grunt, he'd failed to stop himself from ending up sprawled on top of you. "Ooof, sorry, mmph—"

Your lips crashing against his had snuffed his husky retort, and activated that attraction he always was able to store or unpack whenever you both found the gravitation between you shifting from platonic to carnal. And right now? You'd needed to feel the weight of him on top of you, to get lost in the warmth of his mouth on your own and the desire to feel wanted.

His hands assertively grabbed you up so he could adjust you in order to reach for the zipper in the back of your gown while deepening the kiss. But then, when he dragged his ravenous mouth down to suckle nips into your neck while he tugged the zipper down whilst also slipping his other hand up your dress, you'd lulled your head back and clung to his muscled back with a reedy mewl.

"Mmm, Javi…"

Sasha froze in his groping, lips unlatching from your neck as he exhaled a drunk, flustered grumble before deadpanning, "Well…alright, then."

The sound of his voice yanked you back from your proverbial drunken haze. "Oh my god…oh jeez," you'd embarrassedly hissed and covered your flushed face in mortification. "I can't—I'm so-oh my god—"

Acerbically, he'd sat up and flung himself backwards into the opposite side of the plush sofa. "Way to kill my boner, mon chéri," he quipped drolly. At you exhaling in self-reproachful consternation, he'd rolled his eyes and reached his hand out. "Hey, come here. Cut it out. I'm not mad."

Begrudgingly sitting up, you let his hand guide you by your shoulder to come stretch out and cuddle against him, tucked between his muscular frame and the cushions of the couch.

"…I am," you finally mumble. When he grunted in confusion, you elaborated, "I am mad. I'm so stupid—"

"Stop it! You are not. I won't hear you bashing yourself for feeling a longing—"

"I'm sorry," you whisper and curl into him, nuzzling his shoulder when you feel the sting of tears cresting up in you.

Sighing, he rubbed your back, rasping, "Come, I'm going to tuck you in."

You'd let Sasha guide you up from the couch and through the suite to bed, where he helped you shed your gown before tending to taking off your earrings and the bobby pins out from your styled coif in order to let down the rest of your hair, and then pulled the comforter back for you to crawl under and curl onto your side. Dimly, you'd heard him strip out of his clothes, run the shower, and eventually flop heavily onto his side of the large bed. After a silent while, he rolled over and spooned you, and the scent of his clean skin and the comfort of his body heat lulled you into a deep slumber.

Before you'd relocated for your new job, those several weeks in the city had seen you splitting your time between staying at Irina's chic apartment and Sasha spacious loft. And when you'd been at the latter, you'd often end up sleeping in the same bed with him. Either because he'd hear you tossing and turning in the guest room and would crawl into bed with you to cuddle until you both dozed off together, or you'd wake up from nightmares so upset that you'd tiptoe into his room and get under the covers with him. Regardless, your friend would lovingly tuck you against him, or he'd spoon you protectively until you settled down and fell back asleep.

It'd been no different when you'd all gone down to Miami for the opening of 'Worship' a few days after the wedding.

Irina and Aslan had accompanied you both before they'd jet off to their European honeymoon, eager to see the installation. The night before the showing, when you'd both ended up crawling into bed together to eat room service on top of the covers while the TV droned on, Sasha had stretched out with his glass of wine and eyed you with his dreamy, blue-eyed pout.

"Come away with me for the holidays."

You'd paused with the forkful of risotto pursed at your lips as you stared sidelong at him. When you realized he wasn't being cheeky, you popped the fork in your mouth and used chewing as a diversion to think of an answer.

"C'mon, kitten. Irina will be on holiday with Aslan and his family in Monaco. I don't want to be alone with my parents," he'd argued, making a compelling case when he admitted, "I don't want to be without your company, is all."

Frowning, you placed your dish aside and snuggled up to his side to wrap your arm around his waist. "You've been without it a month since I took the job—"

"Yeah, and I've been bored and lonely, so I have no problem guilting you into spending more time with me," Sasha grumpily huffed as he gulped the rest of the wine in his glass down.

"I can't. You know I promised to make more of an effort with my father. I agreed to spend Christmas there," you tell him gently, and when he glowers and casts his sad stare back to the TV, you kiss his cheek and grunt for him to return his attention to you before proposing, "What if you come spend New Year's with me?"

His features soften before he gives you a wolfish smirk. "Yes! I'd love that," he pecks you on the lips. "You can finally show me your roots!"

Snickering, you'd resumed eating and discussing plans for the following day.

As you're pulling yourself out of bed now to trudge to the bathroom to shower and get ready for work, you can't help reminisce on how serendipity had struck at the opening at the gallery, when a fellow artist had been admiring Sasha's piece, 'Worship of Man' and had done what no other patron had – walked the circumference of the piece and spotted the hidden phallic symbol embedded in it that only reveals itself in the prismatic reflection of the glass that surrounds it.

Sasha had stared from afar, and had whispered to you, "Does he see it? No one else has!"

"I think he does, velvel," you'd conspiratorially whispered back before giving his forearm an affectionate squeeze. When he'd looked at you curiously, you'd gestured with the tip of the chin that he should go over and find out. "He's cute. See if he'll mention it!"

Sardonically scoffing at you, he indeed walked over and struck up a conversation with the man. Your friend couldn't fool you. The quick appraising glance he'd given the man when he'd been whispering to you told on him. Sasha did have a type. You watched as he spoke with the handsome, swarthy, athletically-built man with the dark curls and the light brown eyes that flared the color of honey when the lights above head caught in his irises.

Turned out, the handsome trigueño was a Puerto Rican artist known for his artesano pieces and expansive murals. You'd actually walked through a hall with a massive floor to ceiling mural of various illustrations of Sun Gods from around the world that belonged to him, as you'd found out after Sasha hit it off and brought him over to introduce you.

"—This is Marcos Martorell. He did that amazing mural out in the other hall! And, he spotted it," Sasha is gushing charismatically as you shake the handsome muralist's hand.

With a warm, accented tenor, he'd greeted, "Please, call me Marc."

After chatting a while, you'd learned he's from Ponce, Puerto Rico and that he split his time between Miami and Isla Verde, so you both hit it off while Sasha was forced to have to make a few rounds with the press and gallery attendees. Which worked out, because you get to play matchmaker when you caught Marc glancing over at Sasha, noting how his gaze lingered on your friend.

"He's single, and we're just friends."

His stare had whipped back to you, like he'd been caught taking a cookie from the jar without permission, so you smirked and platonically winked at him.

When Irina and Aslan arrived at the gallery during the cocktail hour, you all made a little social unit together, and seeing Sasha and Marc talk art and gush about each other's work while exchanging tons of flirty eye contact made you gleeful.

You'd spent that night with Irina and Aslan, and are just remembering how much fun you had giving Sasha the inquisition over brunch the next morning when you realize you've been dawdling too long under the shower spray and need to pick up the pace.

The hectic back and forth traveling and working had been a merciful salve to your heartache, but there were still things you couldn't bring yourself to do, for fear of falling too deep into a depression. It'd taken weeks for you to call your cousin after you'd left, because of how much speaking to her drudged up your feelings about everything. And when she'd told you the wonderfully cheeky, albeit cryptic message Marisol had left you, you'd stopped short of calling the woman direct. No, you'd been much too raw still, and needed the emotional distance to heal over.

You'd even avoided delving too deeply into how much of a success your take down had been. The exposés involving Stechner and his fall from spook grace had been something you'd skimmed over, because reading in-depth would resurrect all the anxiety you'd buried, or worse – make you relive all the pain from that tumultuous time. And anyway, it wasn't like you really had to read any of it, not with Ellis telling you all the gossip that it'd unleashed within the corridors of DOJ and DOS from as far as Alaska, or so he'd quipped.

And on top of that, your father had made it a point to tell you where that bastard ended up after he'd been done getting raked over the coals, divested of all his clearances, and left pending numerous investigations that could end with him seeing actual jailtime.

The vindictive part of you enjoyed hearing it, but then you'd feel a pang of dismay from the emotions that would flare up like terrible heartburn, leaving you sullen.

As you left your apartment and descended to get in your car, you couldn't help feel that you didn't feel as raw as you had, but definitely were nowhere near rebuilding your emotional fortress back up to what it'd once been.

Deciding to table any more sentimental reflection for the time being, you focus on getting mentally ready for the busy work day. It was your first day back at the federal building, after all, and the morning rush hour to the U.S. Courthouse campus from your side of town was going to be a spicy one.

***

Things hadn't panned out the way he'd hoped.

After he'd spent the whole night thinking about the possibilities of why you would've kept his college shirt – Maybe it was an accident? What if she kept it to test my commitment in finding her and keeping my promise? – Javier had gone to the barn to help his father, but was tired and distracted. So much so, that he'd almost fallen out of the hayloft because he wasn't paying attention to where he was stepping.

Luckily, he'd grabbed the support beam and hooked the heels of his work boots in before he tumbled down.

Chucho had only caught on to it because Javi had gritted out a tense curse before muttering slurs to himself all the way down the ladder. Having had enough of his son ruminating his way into a possible fatal accident on the ranch, he'd called him over and sternly told him what he'd planned on telling him before he'd rushed upstairs with the box the night prior.

"All right. You got back from Colombia without a peep, and I didn't press for answers then. You've been moping around until yesterday morning when you ran out like a bat out of hell to who knows where and came back with that weight off your shoulders. And then the box—"

"Pop, I know. You've been so patient, and understanding, having to put up with me. But, I just…" Javier groused before huffing and sitting down on a hay bale, hands scrubbing tiredly across his tense features. "I went down there. She was already gone. I didn't know what to do. The people I spoke to didn't have her current contact information, and now, after last night? I'm regretting not doing more."

"What else could you have done, mijo?" Chucho had asked with genuine sympathy as he wrung his work gloves absently while Javi propped his elbows at the top of his knees and worried his hands across his stubble-covered cheeks. "It sounds like she left and didn't intend for anyone to know where to—"

"It's my fault she left," Javi stated and looked up at his father. "Everything I was dealing with – all the political bullshit and sabotaging, it started to affect her. She's a private person, and we went through so much trouble to keep our relationship and work separate. But then, it started to bleed over…"

He went on to tell his father about what happened in Medellín. Of how responsible he felt that you became a target for reprisals from Stechner and the cartel. Explained how guilty you felt about it having been too much of a stress on your grandmother. He even told him about what happened at the funeral – how your life in Colombia had become just him and your work. And how his departure had seemingly caused a chain reaction of events that led to you quitting whilst taking down the CIA station chief for what he'd done to you both.

"…I should've gone to Medellín. If I'd gone to talk to her family there, maybe…" Javier had sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration while smacking his palm down on his thigh before pulling himself up to stand. "I don't even know if it would've mattered—"

Chucho clapped a firm hand onto his shoulder and shook him. "Javier, you can't go on beating yourself up. Everything happens for a reason," his father assured, and added assertively, "Punishing yourself is not going to change what's happened, so if you want to do something about things now, then go on and do it."

Pensively, Javi took his words to heart, and spent the rest of the day thinking on what he could do. An idea came to him when he was washing the dishes after dinner that night. Once he was back in his bedroom, he dug through his boxes for his worn, pocket-sized address book, and then rushed back down the stairs to the phone.

He dialed the number listed for the contact, and held his breath.

The long-distance call ended with a dial tone alerting that the number couldn't be reached. Annoyed, Javier had flipped through pages to find Trujillo's contact information next.

After a few rings, the CNP officer answered.

"—Damn, Peñita! Nice to hear that you're alive," the jovial man had hazed.

"Yeah, haven't been knocked off yet. Listen, sorry to call out of the blue like this, but I was hoping you could do me a favor…"

He'd asked the man if he'd heard from you. Trujillo had explained how he'd helped you with the statement and on-the-record attestation of what happened, but that he hadn't heard from you since. Javier told him he'd tried calling the Medellín house number, but that it seemed to be disconnected. Agreeing to go by and see, Trujillo had called him at the end of the day with the news.

"—Sorry, Peñita. The front gate was locked. One of the neighbors came out and said they were away on a trip. Said it was a belated honeymoon getaway – that they flew out for the holidays. They didn't have a contact number, but said they were supposed to come back after the new year."

Discouraged, Javier had thanked the man before saying his farewell and hanging up.

His father had been in the living room, reading the evening paper while sat in his recliner, when he came in from the kitchen and sat heavily on the couch.

"Son. Maybe it's time to not carry this torch any longer?" Chucho had delicately suggested once he folded the paper down and seen how sulky Javi was. Said sulky expression hardened into a glower at his words, so he pressed, "I mean...she did send your things here. Was there a note? If she wanted you to reach out to her, wouldn't she have written down a way to reach her?"

Frowning, Javi had blurted, "No, but my shirt is gone."

Thick brows furrowing in confusion, his father leaned forward to drawl, "Your…shirt?"

Feeling like a daft fool for saying it out loud, Javier's hands fidgeted as he tried to explain, "She sent all my things, except for my shirt – my old gray college shirt. The one with the school emblem on the front. I just, I don't know…I just can't help thinking it means something. That she kept it…Jesus Christ, I sound like a moron—"

"Mijo."

Looking over at his father and seeing his wry smirk, Javi huffed and sunk heavily into the back of the sofa's cushion, waiting for the inevitable sage wisdom he was about to hear.

"She sounds like a spirited, confident woman who is deliberate about her choices. If you think she kept it? Well, maybe she had a reason to. But until you get to ask her yourself? Best to not twist yourself up over it."

Well…shit.

Javier couldn't find fault in that argument. So, he didn't, and thanks to it, he was able to get his head on straight and focus on what was before him, for the time being.

Aside from sexually starving himself while living back at home in his childhood bedroom, overall, Javier had gotten used to life back on the ranch, and since his trip to the DEA field office, he nor his father had seen another smuggler ferrying up the waters that skirted their property since. It was a small victory he'd needed, and had sent a message all the way back to D.C. So much so, that while Spencer had ceased "checking in" on him, he'd still have junior agents periodically call the house and try to pitch him on certain leadership opportunities opening up in the agency throughout the most sought-after zones for being stationed.

Every time, he'd thank the rookie and just hang up.

Really, the only thing that still hung on him like a weight he couldn't get free of, was his guilt and regret about how terribly things ended with you.

Heart heavy, he'd poured his anger into the pit in his gut – used it to fuel other parts of him that he needed to get him through the hard days.

But, at night…the longing was his mistress. It was never far away, no matter how much he tried to get away from it.

Before long, though, things had stabilized for him. He'd taken to splitting up his time working on the ranch with his father, and after being cajoled by Manny to listen in on a few task force meetings between the Sheriff's department and Border Patrol, Javier had gotten roped into being a consultant for the department. It fed his need for feeling useful, and kept him sharp, as well as helped him keep an eye on the stepped-up enforcement in the region.

It also helped him find a space for himself to be back in Laredo, and to let himself fit in, especially when it came to leaving the trauma of Colombia behind to ground himself in the normal routine of stress-free living. Old habits were able to be set aside for older pursuits, like being social with his buddies and being cajoled into best friend and best man duties.

Still, though, the longing always waited for him; for the right moment to wrap its arms tight and tow him back.

The day of Manny's wedding had been an apt occasion for it to ensnare around him.

He'd woken up early to get his morning run in before he'd be back to help his father with the feed and shoveling the stalls in the stable clean, but found himself staring up at the ceiling in the still dark before dawn, ignoring his cock throbbing for him to take the edge off.

Grumpily, Javi had tossed the covers off of himself and padded out of his bedroom into the bathroom adjacent out in the upstairs hall. The cold shower woke him up further, as did the chore of relieving his sexual desire.

Sure, this wasn't new, and he was always horny, but he'd made the mistake of watching that damned movie the night before – which only exacerbated his longing, and it had made his mind run amuck with salacious filth. He'd jacked off like a goddamned hard-up teen to the fantasies the movie had bloomed in his mind's eye, and even afterwards, he burned with desire to make those fantasies reality.

Could anyone really blame him? It'd been months since he'd had sex with anyone, and no matter how much he'd tried to ignore his yearning – to find other distractions, he'd end up with a foggy brain. He'd striven to keep the lust at bay – to turn it into drive for other things.

But when he'd seen the Body Heat cover jacket in the rental store, he couldn't pass up the chance to watch the movie that had made such an impression on you. And then he couldn't stop from clearing his foggy thoughts with the debauchery of his fantasies, all starring you, wearing that hot dress and begging him to fuck you the way Kathleen Turner did.

He was paying for it now.

The routine of jerking off until he spilled in his hand and let the mess swirl down the drain with the rest of his soap suds was not his favorite, but it was a necessary evil for the busy day he had ahead of him.

As he pulls on his gym sweats, his mind reconstructed the dream he'd had of you. He made himself shake his head to loosen the hold of the emotion cresting up in him when he pictured you across the mezzanine, looking so scared.

Most nights, he would fall asleep thinking about you, and when he'd roll over and reach for you across the bed, the panic that would drift across his unconscious would kick him awake. He'd struggle to settle his wired mind and remind himself.

You're home. She's not here.

When he'd just toss and turn, the comfort he'd always seek would be to pull the photos from the clay knick-knack box set on his nightstand. Under the dim moonlight that would come through his windows, he'd gaze at your picture and reminisce about all the amazing, wonderful times you both shared.

And on nights he was surly or wound up, yearning for your naked curves to be snuggled up against him – for your alluring scent and the heat it flooded through his bloodstream, he'd retrieve the panties from the gap between the mattress and box spring.

Reminded to grab the trash bag out of the wastebasket and chuck it in the can outside while on his way to his truck, Javi made a note of needing to stop at the drugstore on his way back as he opened the driver door of the truck and tossed in his gym bag.

Twenty minutes later, he was pulling into a spot in front of the track field to meet Manny. He'd skipped shaving, so his features were covered in dark growth, minus the few errant patches in his beard, as he scrubbed his hand idly over his jaw before stifling a yawn into his palm as he climbed out of the truck with his gym bag to greet his buddy who was already stretching next to his blue Bronco.

The man was jittery with nerves, but overall excited for the impending nuptials, so they'd made their way to the well-worn track field behind their old high school and got their run in.

Since they'd started the ritual – well, more like since Manny had hounded Javier to join him on his runs months prior – he'd noticed his stamina had vastly improved, and it would take several laps now before he got winded. It also helped that he'd quit smoking and drinking. Well, drinking as much as he'd used to, anyway.

The cigarette cravings had waned in severity over time thanks to the occasional nicotine gum fix, but really, all his unhealthy habits had been discarded – the impulsive gratification that each of his vices had once given him substituted for the gains he'd get in redirecting his cravings into other things.

Working out had never been his favorite thing to do, but Manny had coerced him into the YMCA for some weights and 20-minute punching bag workouts on days they couldn't make it out to the track. It had all become a better way to decompress and expend his destructive energy and curb his tempestuous desires – scratched the itch and helped him get the high he used to get from sex with the endorphins that would rush through him after a hearty workout. And, he'd grown to look forward to the cathartic release and mellow calm that would come over him after.

Sure, Manny hazing him about getting a little soft in his middle from no longer being an active field agent when he was down in Colombia did not hurt in spurring his motivation to work at it.

"Whew! I needed this run, hermano," Manny is exhaling jovially as he sits at the bottom of the bleacher and catches his breath.

"Needed the practice in case you decide to book it later, you mean?" Javi quips as he wiped the sweat from his brow with his ratty gym towel before grabbing his water bottle, snorting when Manny shoved him with an irreverent scoff.

"Coño, carnal, we both know the runaway groom is you, not me!" Manny drawled in his playful lamenting singsong before snickering, "At least you'll fit in your spiffy suit, pendejo."

Javier laughed out. "Alright, fresa, I'll pick your ass up later," is his deriding chuckle as he grabbed his keys out of the duffle and waved while heading for the parking lot.

"Don't be late!"

Javier is ten minutes early when his father drops him off in front of Manny's folks' place, having agreed to be the designated driver for his rowdy younger brothers, post-reception. He was already dressed in the light gray suit he'd sprung for to spruce up his tired wardrobe, tie and pocket square matching with the rest of the groomsmen, clean-shaven and moustache trimmed while his hair was a bit longer from skipping trips to the barbershop since he'd gotten back to Laredo.

When he entered the house, he found everyone in a state of rushing about, clearly not nearly ready as they should be in order to be at the church on-time.

"Manny! Javi llegó and we're gonna go ahead to the church so Heidi and her family don't think you're skipping out of town," his mother calls out as she simultaneously kisses Javi on the cheek. She shoots him a referential wink too that has Javi pouting amusedly at the veiled reminder of the last man who skipped out of town on his wedding day. "Ah, pobrecito," she chuckles and pats his shoulder as she herds her young daughters and husband out the door. They each greet him in turn, while Manny's mom barks over the sound of the boys roughhousing in the hall, "You boys get it together already!"

"Make sure these knuckleheads don't come in like braying dogs to the church, would you, Javier?" the patriarch of the Miranda clan amusedly remarked as he pulled on his blazer and fiddled with the pocket square.

"Sure thing, sir," Javi chuckles and gives a curt nod when the man ushers the two young girls out to the porch.

Annoyed that no one had acknowledged her last command, Mama Miranda thunders, "John Emanuel Miranda, Michael Samuel Miranda, Thomas Mateo Miranda, Lucas Andrés Miranda – did you hear me?! You better be ready—"

"Ay, mami, we are!" Manny's youngest brother complained back as he ran around them to be the first boy on the porch. "I call shotgun!"

"You go in the back seat, Andrés! Your brother Manny goes in the front with Javi," his mother admonishes as she grabs the keys from the hook and shouts once more, "Hurry up! You're going to be late to your own wedding, Emanuel!"

"I won't, Ma!"

Javi chuckles as he spectates the whirlwind of a family of eight trying to get out the door.

"Carnal, you know how to put this shit on?" Manny was fussing with the cufflinks when Javier lopes over. "Pinche madre, these stupid things—"

He takes them and helps him get them through the fancy cuffs of his crisp dress shirt. Then, he smoothens out the shoulders of his light gray blazer before flicking his silky blue pocket square.

"You look like a real snob, dressed all fancy—" Javi begins to sardonically drawl.

With a mocking scoff, Manny counters, "Hey, I'm trying to impress the in-laws, considering most of them know me as the messenger they wanted to kill when you didn't show up to the chapel the last time—"

"Dude, we gotta go or Ma is gonna kick our asses, so let's go, pendejos!" Matty orders and starts clapping his hands impatiently as he barks, "Let's fucking gooooo!"

Wrangling them all into the Bronco is a feat.

They managed to make it to the church just in time to get filed in and be fussed over by their mother, who straightened collars, slicked back wayward whisps of hair, and hissed at them to behave while the little sisters giggled at their expense and were waiting for her to be done with them so they could sit on the groom's side of the aisle with their father.

Javi took that opportunity to look across the pews, glad to see the place was packed, filled with familiar faces who all seemed excited for the couple. He noticed his father was sitting with his aunt and cousins on the groom's side. He was dressed in his best, hat off and resting on his right knee as he sat semi-sidelong in order to chat with a woman he didn't recognize.

"Who's that?" he asks Manny after tapping his arm with the back of his hand and pointing with his chin.

"Ah, that's Father Benito's younger sister. Remember I told you he was retiring? This'll be the last ceremony he officiates," Manny explains as he nudges Javi to look over by where the organist was. "And that dude? He's gonna be the new Padre. He look familiar?"

Javier squints to make out the tall, muscularly lean man talking to Gladys. Wearing the black shirt and trousers not dissimilar to Father Benito's, but sans the priest collar, he had his hair swept back from his clean-shaven features. Slowly, his mind pictures the man in a blue-and-white varsity jacket, white t-shirt, faded blue jeans, and red Chuck Taylor sneakers. Incredulous, he rumbles, "Wait…is that Gabriel Santiago?"

"Yep! Father Gabriel," Manny chimed before remarking, "Ain't that a trip? He went from captain of the football team to Catholic missionary, and now he's gonna be La Inmaculada's priest!"

"Wow…" Javier balks, elbowing his friend lightly as he snickers, "You're gonna have to give confession to him—"

Scoffing, Manny deadpans wryly, "Dude, it's weird enough to think about my mom telling him her sins. I don't need to think about all the stuff I'm gonna have to omit to him—"

"All right, everyone! Pair up and get ready for the procession," Miss Carmen, the resident Church Lady and boss of these kind of things, orders as she helps everyone link up with their intended escort down the aisle.

Once they're all ready to march down to their places at the altar, Manny looks the most nervous he's been, so Javi put his hand on his shoulder and gives it an irreverent squeeze.

"You ready, hermano?"

Manny sheepishly smiles before nodding and murmuring, "Yeah, I am."

The jitters were gone the minute Heidi appeared once the wedding march music began. Javi watched his best friend look in awe as she walked down, escorted by her father, to the classic procession song played by the organist all the while the snap of cameras echoed in the spacious church.

He could feel the infectious glee from his friend, unable not to smile when they exchanged vows before the priest proclaimed them man and wife.

It wasn't until the wedding reception at Heidi's parent's house, out in their sprawling backward that's decorated with twinkling string lights, with a dance floor in the center of the circumference of big round tables, and the long bridal party table across from the makeshift bar he'd been standing at, that he realized it.

This could've been you.

Huffing, he'd had the first of his three-drink-maximum and watched everyone mingle merrily around the happy couple. Eventually, when the reception was in full swing, the fellas gathering around to razz Manny and shoot the breeze lifted his spirits and managed to block out the melancholy of being stag. Of being smack dab in a happy ceremony not unlike the last one he'd been at with you.

He'd been glancing over to see his father pleasantly talking to the woman he'd seen him conversing with at the church when a hand clapped good-naturedly down on his back.

"—Dude, you check out the bridesmaids? That redhead is killin' me," Dave conspiratorially grouses over at Javi.

"Hm? Nah, I'm on drunk-wranglin' duty for the night," he retorts and nurses his whiskey, raising his brows when Dave snorts brashly at him. "What?"

"Just 'cause the entire Walton clan's here, doesn't mean you can't take a girl home for the night, man," Dave jibes, elbowing Ted to get him to concur. "Amirite?"

"I mean, Lorraine is right over there. I'd hazard to say it'd be fuckin' awkward, bud," Ted drawls in his thick twang, always one to state the obvious.

"So?!" Dave counters, and Javi just shakes his head and looks around for a lifeline. "There are good-looking single gals, and his dumb ass is gonna just stand here sipping his drink like a lonesome ass choirboy 'cause his ex from a hundred years ago is here—?"

"Fuck off, Dave," is Javi's dry retort as he now had to school himself not to look in Lorraine's direction.

After all, it was bad enough they were both at a wedding reception not unlike the one they'd planned on having a decade prior, but the fact he was the best man to the groom who'd just married her cousin after having been the one to cover for Javi when he'd gotten cold feet was not a charming factoid he wanted to take pride in.

"Ah, what're you huevones talking about?" Manny sidled up to the bar with the fellas, having finally pried himself away from his latest mingling marathon with Heidi.

"Just giving Javi shit, per usual," Dave retorts before leaning over to mutter covertly, "Hook a brother up with that cute redhead friend of Heidi's, would yah? I mean, since this guy wants to be a baby angel these days—"

"What're you pig fuckers whispering about?!" Rich brashly exclaims as he suddenly appears on Ted's left side, clearly already toasted.

"Christ Almighty, Rich!" his wife, Jaime, shouted admonishingly at him from the table he'd been sitting at. "Watch your mouth!"

"Sorry!" he called back before whispering, "Now, seriously, what you bitches talkin' bout?"

Javier preemptively elbows Dave in the side, knowing the man's penchant for retorting, 'Your sister,' as a comeback, and thankfully he took the hint.

"Nothing. This one wants to get set up with one of the bridesmaids," Javi answers neutrally as he fans his gaze across the party.

Unlike the other guys, Manny knew why Javier wasn't interested in flirting anyone up, let alone going home with any of the bachelorettes among Heidi's group of friends.

"Alright, everyone, dinner's served!" the maid of honor called out to the crowd, and everyone made their ways to take a seat.

Eventually, it was about that time for the speeches, and as the best man, Javier made his way to the makeshift stage housing the music entertainment for the event, set up on the side from the bridal party's table.

He regales the reception filled with friends and family of the happy couple with the story of how Manny had asked him to introduce him to Heidi, back at a spring fling dance in high school.

"He pointed her out across the gym, and asked, 'What's her name. She's so pretty.' I'd told him, 'Oh, that's Heidi,' and he just looked at me with the most confused, helpless look, and went, 'Hai-what?!'"

Everyone chuckled warmly, while Manny shook his head and grinned.

"After some practice on enunciating her name, he managed to go over and ask her to dance. And for some reason, she said yes," Javi quips, earning a round of laughs from the boys and razzing catcalls from Manny's brothers over the din of the crowd. "I'm glad for it. You two make love look easy, so I raise my glass to you and wish you both all the happiness in the world. To Manny and Heidi," is the conclusion of his toast as he raises his glass for the crowd to collectively cheers the couple.

It's during the maid of honor's speech, when he was picturing you dancing around in that sexy dress you'd worn to your prima's wedding, that his and Lorraine's gazes catch each other, and the unbothered way she smiles at him before glancing back at the cute redhead currently wishing the couple all the best makes Javi feel both off the hook and out of place.

She could've been here with you.

After the toasts, Javi did a lot of people-watching. He noticed his father was in rapt conversation with the people at his table, so he made his way back to the bar for his second drink of the night, having woven through the dancing, socializing attendees to park at the corner and ask for another whiskey.

"Psst! Incomin', Jav," Ted warns from the other corner of the bar.

His brow furrows before he follows the way his friend slid his gaze out to the dance floor.

"Well, fancy meeting you here," Tina practically purrs as she comes over to lean against the bar, glossy pink lips smiling and lashes batting at Javier while she fluffed her curly mane over one shoulder. She was wearing a low-cut, short lavender dress with white daisies printed on it, and she pushed her cleavage to flaunt her perky bosom as she silkily drawls, "How yah been, Javi? You didn't come say hello."

He internally curses.

"Well, we're saying hello now," he evenly counters before sipping his whiskey.

"Aww, c'mon, you gonna be like that?" Tina teases as she sidles closer. "I'll have what he's having," she tells the bartender without even giving the man a cursory look, too busy giving Javi her sultriest stare before pursing her lips and whispering, "You look all on your lonesome. Richie said you're playing the designated driver?"

"Yep," is his aloof retort as he fanned his gaze over for any kind of reprieve – some sort of excuse to get the hell out of this conversation with her. "Speaking of which, I should go check on Manny's brothers—"

"Why you always gotta play hard to get with me?" Tina sighs, not interested in feigning any longer as she gives him a doe-eyed look after downing her whiskey in one shot. "We had fun, so let's have fun again tonight," is her proposition as she caresses her hand up his forearm.

Javi can feel all the busy-body eyes watching on all around them, and with a sharp look over at the table Rich is at, he mutters, "I'm busy tonight, Tina."

"You? C'mon, Jav. We both know you're never too busy to fit in a good fuck," she chimes brazenly, and Javier's mortification burns a flush up his neck when he sees Ted's jaw drop from his eavesdropping vantage point.

In a flat grumble, he insists, "I am busy—"

With daring charm, Tina tosses her girlish curls back over her shoulder before murmuring, "You can put the good boy act aside for tonight and come over to my place, where you can be as bad as you want—"

"Tina!" Manny appears, clearly toasty from all the champagne his brothers were taking turns overpouring in his glass, and smiling as he boisterously patted the bar top, making a funny face at her before noticing how annoyed Javier looked. "Am I interrupting—?"

"Nope—"

"Yep, yah are, but I love you Manny, so help me out here and tell Javi he's being such a stick in da mud," Tina accuses haughtily. "He's single, I'm single—"

"Technically you're separated, no?" Manny cut in knowingly.

"Same thing!" she's huffing before putting a hand at her hip to scathe, "He's over here making me pull teeth, when we could be going somewhere and having a repeat of the rumpus room—"

"Jesus Christ, Tina – it ain't happening," Javier finally snaps curtly.

She turns on him and narrows her doe-eyes with cunning, the way a cat would when it's cornered its prey. "Oh? You really are cute when you get all huffy," was her drawled musing as she practically slinked up against him to murmur alluringly, "But I know how you are when you're all surly, baby. Only way to remedy it is to go somewhere, get me out of this lil' dress, and have your way with me. You can't turn something that good down."

Manny and Ted exchange looks of awe at how shameless she's being, and just as she began to smile triumphantly at them for getting them nonplussed, Javier pointedly slid his empty glass across the bar top and shifts away dismissively from her before sneering flippantly, "Yeah? Watch me."

Gob smacked, she watches him pat Manny on the back and exit to march over to the table Rich and Jaime were in order to mutter in the dirty blonde's ear something before going off to sit with his family for the rest of the night until it was time to collect the Miranda boys and drive them home.

"Really, Tina?!" Jaime shouted over at her sister-in-law. "Come sit down before you make a fool out of yourself some more!"

Turning red with consternation, the haughty woman scoffed and stomped away, shoving past Dave as she huffed and puffed to go sit on the patio in a snit.

"What the—what I miss?" Dave deadpans to Manny and Ted – having just returned from getting the redhead's number – while Jaime declared snippily to Rich that it was time for all of them to call it a night.

Once Javier had dropped off the boys at the Miranda's ranch, he'd jumped into the pickup with his father once the elder Peña had pulled up after pit-stopping at his aunt's in the meantime.

"That was a nice wedding," his father had remarked over the Country song playing on the radio, as he drove.

"Yeah," is Javi's terse mutter. He'd crossed his arms to keep his hands from fidgeting or his fingers from thrumming impulsively despite himself. With a sidelong glance, he found himself remarking, "You were talking to that lady for a while."

"Hmm?" his father aloofly grunts, as if he didn't hear the curiosity in his son's tone.

"Manny said she was Father Benito's sister?" he queries, gaze narrowing when his father raised his brows neutrally. "Didn't catch her name."

"Idalia Suarez. Very nice lady," Chucho retorts, spectacles slipping down his nose before he adjusts them. "She's helping the Padre move out of the rectory."

A lull in conversation fell between them as Chucho turned onto the road that led home.

"Lorraine came by our table and said hello," is his father's idle remark.

"That's nice," Javi sighs tiredly, head turned to watch the night zoom past the passenger window.

Humming, Chucho remarks, "It's funny, how small the world is, that Manny and Heidi were on the separate factions and still made it work."

"Jeez, Pop, remind me of what a bastard I was some more, why don't yah," Javier grumbles, finally unfurling from his tense cross-armed funk to tug the knot of his tie loose while he rubbed at his temples testily.

"The only one who thinks that is you, Javier. No one else is harboring a grudge, so it's high time you let it go yourself, sabes?" is his father's earnest barb, frowning now.

Sulkily, Javi went silent, propping his cheek against his fist and leaning moodily into the side of the door all the way home.

Yeah, sure…still a bastard in other ways, though…

***

It was an interesting day for you.

One you hadn't anticipated, and were now floundering to rationalize why you felt so detached and out of sorts regarding it.

The time around the holidays had been both hectic and disarming, filled with late nights working up until all the government workers went on their long Christmas vacations that would last through Three Kings Day. Your father had surprised you by inviting your family from Medellín for a honeymoon/holiday trip to the island, and you'd spent as much time as you could showing them the sights and spending quality time with everyone before they flew back to Colombia a few days after New Year's.

New Year's Eve had been spent throwing a party and hosting Sasha at your place, and unsurprisingly hanging out with Marc, who'd been home for the holidays. The two made a cute couple, and no matter how huffy Sasha would get when you teased him after, he wouldn't deny he was really into Marc. So much so, that when it was time for him to leave, he'd flown back to Miami with Marc, and assured you he'd be back for a longer visit soon.

While it'd been fun to have the wonderful distractions, you did feel like there was still a lot for you to unpack from a personal standpoint, regarding your new normal.

You still felt like you were getting your bearings again – being in a director position. But aside from that, there was the juggling of your personal expectations in regards to needing to seamlessly settle back into a life of hustling and bustling on the island. Not to mention the tightrope-style relationship you were trying to keep copacetic between you and your father.

Really, if it weren't for Ellis and Anita, you're sure you would've spent the bulk of your free time being an antisocial Hun in your apartment more than you'd already been.

They'd both settled into life in Puerto Rico splendidly. Ellis loved his job, and was over the moon being a new father. Anita was thankful to have a small village helping her balance going back to teaching and new mommy life, and you were ecstatic about being the surrogate tía to the precious baby girl.

Little Delilah Rose was the most obnoxiously cutest baby you've ever seen. She had Ellis' eyes, Anita's facial features, and her father's silly smile, but frowned just like her mother when she was cranky. She had so much personality for only being a couple months old, and you delighted in playing peek-a-boo with her while Ellis ran around tending to the house and Anita got a nap break. Anita's parents lived with them – their charming house having a convenient in-law unit in the back that made it oh-so-convenient for grandma and grandpa to relieve the exhausted parents when it was time to go back to work.

While Anita was teaching English at an elite private school in El Condado, you and Ellis were both working at the Federal Building adjacent the main U.S. Federal courthouse on the island. He was the head of the Telecommunications department, and you were overseeing all Digital Information Operations across federal agencies stationed in the U.S. territory. The Department of State wanted a bigger footprint in the region, and had expanded their workforce in the U.S. territory to help facilitate that.

The job offer had been too good to pass up, and while you'd had serious reservations about going back to work for the federal government, you'd risen to the opportunity to work virtually independently – to build the team and run the operations as you saw fit. There was no ambassador to report to, and you had carte blanche to set policies and procedures for the level of efficiency you deemed – to set the standard of efficacy rather than adhere to dated expectations.

Ironically, your role was so versatile that you'd ended up being invited to a lot of local government functions to liaison for other federal officials, and with the new administration being so pro-statehood, you'd felt encouraged to do more local outreach when staffing your department, as well as to represent the positive programs and initiatives the Federal office was partnering on throughout the island.

That morning, one such a partnership, facilitated by your next-door neighbor and TV anchor, Jodalys Rivera, led to you sitting on the soundstage in the WAPA-TV studios with her during her morning news show's segment. The stage lights had been bright and made you feel like a bug under a heat lamp, but you'd mustered the confidence and poise to chat with her about the computer science recruitment program the Federal office was sponsoring in local public schools around the island.

The segment aired right before the highly-rated afternoon variety show hour, so you assumed it would be a great opportunity to spread awareness of the program.

What you didn't know was just who'd been intently watching you on the segment, from the comfort of his bed in his ritzy beach house.

The remnants of the playboy shindig from the night prior were strewn about the room or stretched out on the divan, sound asleep, all while the smoke from his joint curled up to the ceiling. He didn't pay any of it any mind. Not when his attention was rapt to the television in the built-in entertainment center across from where he was lounging – back against the headboard while the black silk sheet clung to his waist.

His green eyes had been intently fixated on your TV smile and charming pitch to the camera before you'd turned to Jodalys and scrunched your nose cutely at her comment about needing more exceptional Puerto Rican women working in tech.

Later that day and after the interview was replayed in the early evening, Zoraida had called and crooned your praises before cajoling you to agree to come out that night for the big street festival in El Viejo San Juan.

It's where you're at now, begrudgingly putting up with the crush of the rowdy and convivial crowds while you wait for her to come back from working the room of admirers who'd recognized her when you'd both trekked into the wine bar. You figured it served you right for going out with a social butterfly – and former Miss Puerto Rico – like Zoraida Figueroa. She was one of your oldest friends, though, so you felt like you needed to make an effort and not be the antisocial hermit you'd preferred being since you'd moved back to the island. But it didn't mean your mind was going to stop wandering to other more important matters you needed to make time to sort.

You'd been thinking about the next changes you'd be implementing operationally back at the office when Zoraida had roused your attention back to the bar celebrating the bustling street fiestas she'd dragged you out to – placing the Cuba libre in front of you before she hitched her arm around your shoulders and shook you good-naturedly.

"Nena, quit spacing out thinking about work!" she playfully admonished. "You haven't been to Las Fiestas SanSe in ages, so I'm taking you on the bar crawl once you finish that drink—"

"Ugh, girl – I'm tired. Last thing I wanna do is go back into those crowded streets to chinchorrear!" you complain, but dutifully take a long pull of your drink.

"Oh, c'mon! Naida and Tayra said they'd meet us later at Los Trés Cuernos—"

"Really?! That place is a dive, Zory. I'm not in the mood for chichaítos—"

"Ay, you're such a buzzkill! And here I was hoping you having your TV moment would've pepped you up to have some fun tonight," your friend bemoans before finishing her vodka and cranberry. "Oh! We could go to that new club that overlooks El Malecón," she exclaims over the loud ambiance in the bar. "It's supposed to be the place to be now in Old San Juan—"

"Which means it'll be impossible to get into," you counter and waved it off as an option while you finish your drink.

"Eh, hello?! What you sayin', that I got no name recognition or something?" she scoffs and arches her eyebrow sassily.

Shaking your head ruefully, you relent, and end up meeting the other girls at the dive bar to catch up before heading as a clique up the bustling cobble-stoned streets to the hotspot.

La Galería Exodus was a three-story building with a rooftop cabana and bar that you could see was jumping from the street-level as you all walked across the narrow intersection to the corner where the velvet rope line was already queued up around all the way down the opposite block. The marquee was a neon sign kaleidoscope that flared a bewitching aura over the street, and the sexy script of the club's name stood out on the picturesque Spanish architecture that dominated the islet's buildings and thoroughfares.

You were dubious of the chance that even Zoraida would have the pull to jump the line – but before she even strutted up to the doorman, a guy wearing dark shades and a discerning frown had tapped the burly bouncer twice on the back of the shoulder.

"Damas, adelante," the man had greeted before shifting the barrier of the stanchion aside to let you all through.

You didn't think you were particularly dressed right for the club, but figured the chevron-patterned blue, silver and black cami dress and block heels you had on was just passing.

"See?! Told you," Zoraida confidently crows as she struts ahead into the eccentrically-lit foyer of the club.

After a few minutes wandering through the space, you understood why it was called 'The Gallery Exodus.' It was a lux series of bars, dance floors, booths and anterooms that felt like they melded from the underground club scene vibe into psychedelic tropical expanses with dancers behind glass vestibules that reminded you of the Amsterdam redlight district. The music and lighting shifted as you traversed the different levels, and so did the ambiance. One escape after another.

It was definitely unlike any club you'd been to, and after snagging drinks, your clique moves through the different levels to make your ways up to the rooftop.

As you go, you notice the glitterati of entertainment and media have made the trendy spot their new ground for mingling. Famous athletes, musicians, and late-night personalities are at home in the sea of gyrating beautiful people.

You feel so out of place.

By the time you got to the rooftop, the fresh, balmy air felt good, and while your friends queue up at the bar, you wander over to the veranda to look out at the Atlantic Ocean that resembles rolling dark velvet under the dim moonlight and the twinkling lights of the dwellings down in La Perla.

The music up here was cool, moody, and filled with synth, and your fingers idly tap the stem of your martini glass, following the beat to the beginning of a song you'd only heard a few times, but knew the band very well.

Words like violence Break the silence Come crashing in Into my little world Painful to me Pierce right through me Can't you understand? Oh, my little girl

Finishing the last sip of your drink and setting the glass aside on the long tavern-like counter angled in the corner next to the veranda, you turn to check on the girls over at the bar, when your eyes scan over a particular section of the cabana.

Your gaze landed on the figure of someone that stands out in your mind. At first you think it's because of how dapperly dressed he is, but then the way he slants his shoulders when his green-eyed stare lands on you?

No…it can't be.

Tensely, your eyes crinkle as your gaze remains on the well-dressed man in the satin shine onyx blazer, matching trousers, and midnight blue polo shirt, as he turned fully to face you head on.

All I ever wanted All I ever needed Is here in my arms Words are very unnecessary They can only do harm

He seems to have recognized you, and excused himself from the group orbiting him in order to lope over towards you, gin and tonic in his right hand while he slips his left into his tailored trouser pocket.

The wave of anxiety has stacked up quickly in you, feeling pinned to your spot and unable to cobble together a rational, well-adjusted reason to not just flee.

Stop acting like you've lost control.

Before you know it, he's standing tall and broad-shouldered in front of you, looking cool and sly as you remembered, but now his features look more rugged thanks to the trim goatee and neat sideburns accentuating his angular jaw.

"Well, I thought that was you, doncellita."

Adjusting the strap of your little purse higher on your bare shoulder, you smile impartially before tucking your undulating locks behind your ear from the breeze sifting across the rooftop.

"Roman," you greet neutrally, trying not to let the tension make you fidget under his piercing green gaze. "Funny to run into you here," is your glib quip, considering how you'd first met at a nightclub all those years ago.

"Hah, right? Guess we just gravitate to where the best time to be had always is," he croons in his tenor rhapsodic drawl, his smile coy before adding in a low murmur, "This is my place."

You're not surprised.

"Ah, that's nice," you retort, giving him a wan smile. "You always did want your own club—"

"Clubs," he corrects, snickering sardonically as he sidles up to you to lean against the banister of the veranda casually. "I own this place, and a few others. But my day job is running the empresa—"

You saw from the corner of your eye your friends finally get their drinks at the bar, and decided to segue out of whatever this conversation is with your ex. So, you cut in aloofly, "Glad to hear it. My friends are looking for me, and I'd hate for you to neglect yours, so have a good night, Roman—"

"C'mon, chavalita, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable," Roman assures with sincerity in his tone, thick brows lamenting as he confesses, "I know it wasn't the best of circumstances when we parted ways, but I want you to know how sorry I am – that I was a complete bastard for how I was then. And, that there's no hard feelings—"

"Oh, is that a fact," you sarcastically zing.

"I was going to say, no hard feelings on my end, lengüetera," he wryly continues, lips quirking in that charmingly endearing way you remember, his eyes crinkling as he swept his thick, tapered fingers through his hair after a particular breeze gusted his dark locks to fan across his forehead. "But, yeah, I totally deserve your skepticism."

That softens you, and you relax in your stance. "That was a long time ago, so, no use in holding grudges," is your mellow retort before mustering a one-shouldered, shrug. "Anyway, I won't keep you—"

"You're not, but I get it, clavelina," is his tenor purr before he turns to see your friends had spotted you both chatting, so he set his drink aside on the taberna counter with your empty glass in order to rest his hand on the banister as he conspiratorially leaned in and petitions, "I don't want to overstep, but would you ever be open to talking again? I mean, somewhere more chill than this? I'd like to do lunch, o sentarnos pa' café – anything you'd like."

Part of you warred with how vehemently to tell him off, but a small, insecure feeling countered that. I mean…you were just as guilty for how bad it all got. You can't just make him the villain. People change—

"Look, no pressure, miramelinda," Roman relents, demeanor easygoing as he shrugs and smiles before pulling a sleek, engraved card from his pocket and offering it while he remarks, "I'll be away on business for a while, but maybe when I get back, we can grab a drink and catch up?"

Against the grudge-holding, better judgement-having part of you, a cool nod of your head precedes you accepting his business card.

"It was great seeing you," is his charming, soporific drawl, green eyes holding yours as he collected his drink, but then someone called his name, so he turned and gestured he was on his way back before he offers coolly, "Disfruta las fiestas, cielito."

After he loped off coolly to rejoin the orbit of the people at the cabana, you wander back to the girls, who were in varying states of befuddled confusion before Zoraida announced, "Nos vamos."

Naida and Tayra exchange looks before agreeing, and soon you were all trekking out of the club and down the intersection en route for the main traffic artery of the islet to head for a late night kiosko to nosh.

"—Well, I know some of his buddies. A lot of people say he really changed after his mother passed away. His father retired suddenly, so he took over running the firm, and rumor is he travels to Spain and Miami a lot for work, but he has tons of properties around the island," Tayra Cruz, who works as a print-ad buyer for all the big publications on the island, tells you as you all clambered out of the taxi.

"Who cares? Tiene cojones – to walk up to her like nothing," Naida Neruda, who works in real estate and interior design, was sneering while you all queued up to order your late-night sandwiches and frituras.

"I mean…we were in his club, so," you remark as you dig in your purse for your cash.

"I'm sorry, nena. I had no idea he owned it. If I'd known, I would've pushed to go somewhere else—" Zoraida begins to lament as she paid for your food and hers, which had you scoffing. "Mira, least I can do is treat you after that."

Snickering, you agreed, then follow the girls to sit at the patio table to eat and decompress from the night before you'd all part ways.

Half hour later, when you and Zoraida pulled up in the cab to the front of your condo building, she apologized again, so you wave her off and muse, "Hey, people change. The Roman from back then would've done everything to get a rise out of me. He did seem different—"

"You're not thinking of calling him, are you?!" Zoraida queries sharply.

"Of course not!" you assure before kissing her cheek and shimmying across the seat to exit the taxi. "Anyway, te llamo después," is your parting promise as you say goodnight and head up to your fourth-floor apartment.

Once inside your apartment, you toss your purse aside and go shower, not giving the night any more thought.

Or, at least, you'd intended not to think about it, but of course, your mind was the ultimate saboteur, and you end up dreaming of speeding down a dark highway, with only the green kilometer markers flying by as the drone of the beat from Duran Duran's "Girls on Film" echoes in the mist that fills the interior of the sportscar you're trapped in.

***

He'd been pensive the entire workout, giving only a few one-word answers whenever Manny said something to him in between sets.

It wasn't until his best friend paused in spotting him while he was at the bench press that his faraway gaze cleared enough to notice the glower he was getting.

"Earth to Javi," is his deadpan as he puts his hands on his hips. "I asked how much you want me to add to the barbell, and you said, 'Sure'."

"Fuck…sorry. Just was thinking about something," Javi sighs and sits up on the bench to wipe at his sweaty forehead.

"Yeah, well, maybe you should take a break, hermano," Manny suggests as he nudges Javi's shoulder and gestures for him to go sit in the cool down section. "I'll take care of the equipment."

Nodding, Javi got up from the bench and wandered over to where the water fountain was while Manny sprayed down everything and wiped it clean for the next users.

While Javi drank greedily from the fountain, he didn't notice when someone approached to sit on a nearby bench to tie their shoelace. When he turned and went to stretch his tired muscles by reaching his arms above his head before rolling the tension from his shoulders, he and the other gymgoer locked eyes and ended up staring. Recognition didn't hit him as quickly as it did the other man, who smiled broadly at him.

"Javier Peña, right?"

Squinting, Javi nodded before it finally dawned on him. "Oh, shit, hey Gabriel—sorry, I mean, Father Gabriel—" Javi was fumbling as he absently slicked his hair back from sticking to his forehead, pausing to correct, "Uh, do I call you Padre instead?"

"Hah, Gabriel is fine!" is his chuckled assurance as he stands and shakes hands with Javi. "How've yah been?"

"Good. How about you?" Javi politely carries on conversationally, secretly hoping Manny will come save him and give him an excuse to segue away.

"I've been great! Finally settled in at the church. Really enjoying getting to know everyone in the congregation," Gabriel jovially remarks as he scoots to sit on the end of the bench in order to offer Javi a seat. "I've had great conversation with you dad. Glad to hear everything's going well on the ranch. You've been busy consulting with the sheriff's office?"

When Javi glances over his shoulder and doesn't spot Manny anywhere nearby, unaware the man has scampered off to the restroom, he decides it would be rude not to sit and chat. So, he takes a seat at the other end of the bench as he rubs the tension out of the back of his neck.

"Uh, yeah. Just on task force stuff. I have a lot of experience with that," Javi retorts, eyes darting around looking for a clock so he could point out the time and use it as an excuse to mosey off.

"Yeah, I heard you joined the DEA. That you just came back from Colombia," Gabriel remarks, adding sardonically, "And yeah, the stream from the rumor mill in town even makes it to the church, but I won't bug you about that stuff."

Snorting and shooting him a sidelong glance, Javi mutters sarcastically, "Oh, great. I can only imagine what the church tías think about me, Padre."

Chuckling at that, Gabriel shrugs good-naturedly. "Nothing any worse than what they used to whisper about me, back in the day," is his irreverent quip. At Javier's humored grunt, Gabriel queries, "I hope that's not enough to keep you from coming to mass."

There it is.

"No, it's general indifference. It started being a pretty empty ritual – going to church. Haven't bothered with it," Javi flippantly remarks as he leans back against the cement wall and crosses his arms.

Not taking any umbrage, Gabriel twists his lips musingly and nods. "I guess that's fair, for someone who's been through what you have," is his thoughtful retort.

Javier's shoulders wind back and his jaw ticks tight.

"Like I said – the rumor mill," Gabriel shrugs. "But look, I get it. Having a priest not so much older than you, trying to 'be your shepherd'? To entice you back to Sunday mass? That's gotta be weird—"

"I mean, it's more that said priest used to be the mack-daddy of my high school and just so happened to take someone I dated to formal after she turned me down, that makes it a little weird. But sure, being cajoled into something I haven't done since…well, in a while, doesn't really make me warm and fuzzy," Javier derides with snarky attitude as he finally looks around again and spots Manny preparing to do some pullups. "Anyway—"

"Don't hold my ol' ladies' man ways against me being your priest, now," Gabriel jokes, halting Javi in his storm off. "And, word is, you and Lorraine weren't really destined to end up together anyway."

Javi scoffs contrivedly, "Wow. Low blow, Padre. Next you'll tell me it was all god's plan, and I shouldn't feel too bad about where things stand now – how everything netted out, right?"

"Well…is that how you feel?" Gabriel inquires while he fiddles with the hem of his sweatshirt.

"I—" Javi's train of thought derails, and he clams up, expression shuttering in as he bows his head and stares at his beat-up workout sneakers. "Sorry. That was out of line…"

Humming lightly, Gabriel crossed his leg over his knee before leaning back into the wall casually.

"Sounds like you have a lot on your mind, Jav," is the priest's easygoing observation. "I know it isn't easy, talking stuff out. And I get not wanting to unburden yourself, least of all to a priest at confession. So, if you ever need to talk? Or hell – if you just want to vent some more high school resentments, give me a call," Gabriel is remarking coolly as he dips sideways to retrieve a card from his duffle and hands it to Javi. "We can shoot the shit over coffee."

Disarmed, Javier takes the card and looks at it, feeling something reassuring unfurl in him.

The chat meetups with Gabriel help him get out of his head during times when he feels at critical mass with his frustrations, and while it'd started as begrudging unburdening over coffee at the late-night diner, before long, the man started meeting him and Manny for jogs around the track or during their gym sessions, and afterward during the cool down period, they'd all talk. Slowly, he'd let his guard down with the man, who'd given him just as much background about what had brought him to wear the priest's collar. It was never a confession-session, and they never discussed faith, or when Javi had lost his, but hearing how Gabriel had found his calling, and the perspective shift for him, surprisingly gave Javier comfort.

Still, during times it was just him and Gabriel, the discussion inevitably veered to the topic of Colombia – of what happened there, and his resentment towards everything. Especially regarding how he let things fall apart with you. Really, the topic of you always makes him feel so much regret. And every time, Gabriel would smirk and quirk his brows at him before remarking, "It ain't over until it's over."

Javier wonders why he'd feel so sure about that.

It's what he's ruminating about now as he arrives at the courthouse in Miami. He'd only agreed to fly in for the trial because of the promise that this time, he'd really enjoy the outcome.

And Javier certainly had.

Having sat at the back of the court gallery, he'd enjoyed hearing the federal judge approve the order to extradite Gilberto and Miguel Rodríguez Orejuela into a maximum-security prison in North Carolina. This was, of course, after Guillermo Pallomari had testified to the voracity of the men having means of flight out of the Colombian prison they were currently lofting about in – point bolstered by the fact Chepe Santacruz had literally paid to be broken out of prison with the help of the guards.

The finer details of Proceso 8000 had been explained to him that morning by the lead DOJ prosecutor, and hearing the latest updates of the Cali cartel's downfall had been a salve to his still-battered ego. He took sadistic pleasure in hearing the gorier details.

Chepe Santacruz had broken out of prison, only to be killed and left like a dead dog in the street, likely by the AUC. And Pacho Herrera has been gunned down in La Picota.

It was the kind of poetic justice Javier felt validated some of the hell those fuckers had caused.

That night, in better spirits, Javi had called Steve and gotten an invite to dinner at the house. He hadn't expected to show up at the cute lime green abode with the white porch, and have his old partner open the door with a baby girl hitched above his hip while Olivia eagerly totted over to say hello.

He was still astounded while he sat at the dining table and listened to Steve explain how he and Connie had come back from a trip to Colombia in order to go back to Medellín to get Olivia's official birth certificate and adoption records for her to start school.

"—And there I am, entertaining the kid from going postal on the place, when Connie sees the baby get admitted to the orphanage. So yeah, we went for paperwork and came back with Isabel here," Steve had been regaling while he bounced the baby on his knee, smiling when Connie came in with the plates of spaghetti and scoffed at him. "What?! That's exactly how it went down—"

"He's forgetting to mention how he held her and got all choked up," Connie counters amusedly before placing a plate in front of Javier and picking up Olivia to sit her on her lap so she could help her practice eating with a fork.

"He's always been a softie," Javi quips and winked at Connie conspiratorially.

"Real cute. Make yourself useful and hold her while I go grab something," Steve grumbles sardonically as he handed Javi the baby.

A bit skittish, Javi tried to delicately maneuver her in his arms when she squirmed and made an impatiently little gurgle. "Uh, Con?" he muses when the baby fidgets to sit up in his arms in order to peer at Javi with big, innocent eyes.

"You're alright! She's just curious," Connie assures while she helps Olivia use her napkin to clean her marinara-covered fingers.

Javier was nervous that the baby would burst into tears at any moment, but surprisingly, the tyke only stared at him sweetly before exploringly reaching her little hand up to brush his mouth, as if intrigued by his moustache. He grunted a cooing sound that seemed to comfort the baby, because she curled up against him and quit squirming for purchase.

"Aww, she likes you, see?" Connie fawns while Steve came back in with a folder he drops onto the table before sitting in his chair adjacent his old partner. "Look how cute, hun."

"D'awww, Jav. I think you missed your calling, Mr. Mom," Steve chuckles as he picks up his beer, taking a long pull.

The baby yawns and nuzzles into his shoulder, settling down to doze in his hold. "Why does this feel like a ploy to get me to stay put?" Javi drawls in a hushed tone to not stir the baby, and cocks a brow at Steve.

"No idea what you mean," Steve evades as he slid the plate closer to Javi so he could eat with his unoccupied hand. "How's ranch life treating yah?"

"…It's fine," Javi deadpans and glances over at Connie, knowing she would likely give something up in the set of her brow or press of her mouth as he twirled the spaghetti onto his fork before taking a bite. Humming, he then elaborates, "Just getting ready to have less help now, since the holiday season is over—"

"Did Santa come to your house, uncle Javi?" Olivia pipes up suddenly, big brown eyes excitedly looking over at him as she emphatically chirps, "I had asked Santa for a puppy, but got a sister instead."

Snorting, Javi retorts, "Yeah? Do you like having a little sister?"

"I rather have a puppy," Oliva pipes honestly, and her parents try to stifle their chortles. "But Isabel is ok. She's just little."

Endeared, Javi remarks, "Yeah, but she'll get bigger and be able to play with you soon."

"Hopefully we'll have a puppy by the time she's bigger," the precocious little girl remarked before Connie snickered and decided to redirect her by taking her to the kitchen to get some cookies, leaving the boys to chat.

"Christ man…she's gonna be trouble when she's older," Javi can't help razz Steve before eating more from his plate, smirking when the other man shakes his head ruefully.

"Don't I know it," he chuckles as he gets up to carefully take the now sleeping baby from Javi so he could finish eating. "So…I got some news."

"You mean other than coming home with another baby?" Javi jokes as he dipped his piece of garlic bread into the marinara sauce on his plate.

"I got a promotion. In a few weeks, we're leaving Florida."

Shocked, Javi pauses in eating to dab his napkin over his mouth before asking, "Why so sudden?"

"Well, I got the offer last month, and since we're moving down to a U.S. territory, that's why we needed to get Olivia's documents in order. Connie already has a job lined up at the V.A. hospital there," he pauses to slide the folder over to Javier now. "It'll be a regional SAC position for the Caribbean division. However, the region is so big and covers so many islands, that I'll need a partner to help run things from the main island. And, you know my Spanish is terrible, so…"

Javier flipped open the folder, and was unsurprised to see it was a detailed summary of the job offer. His name was in all the required fields listing the role and responsibilities, as well as the breakdown of all the field agents and officials that would be direct reporting to him.

Without looking up from the document disclosing the budgetary and operational details associated with the San Juan field office, Javi muttered, "…Did Spencer put you up to this?"

"You were his first choice. But I guess you haven't been returning his calls, so yeah – I got the offer. But as you can see, Operations decided there was no way one SAC could manage all those responsibilities in such a vast division, so…I'd be the SAC for the U.S. Virgin Islands and field ops in Puerto Rico, but you'd be the SAC for the entire archipelago, the DEA official liaison with the Puerto Rican government, and the Special Agent in Charge of coordinated operations with ATF and FBI on the island."

Sitting back in his chair and rubbing at his temples, Javier grumbles, "I'm through, Steve. There's nothing left for me to do, and…frankly, I don't think I can handle any more of that shit. Spencer's been hounding me to head the Mexico operation since I got back from Colombia, so why this, all of a sudden? And why would you think I'd be open to taking this role?"

"Look at the last page in the folder," Steve instructs as he gently rubbed Isabel's back.

Confused, Javi flips through the documents until he got to the last one. It was a departmental org chart for the Federal Office building in San Juan, and at first, he didn't know why Steve would want him to bother skimming it. But then he sees it.

Your name is listed under the Digital Information Operations division.

Snapping his wide-eyed stare up at Steve, he watches the blond nod smugly. "Yep. She's been heading the department for a few months now," is what he volunteers before arching his brows knowingly at Javier. "Besides that, things got real dicey in Mexico after one of the big military officials DEA partnered with turned out to be dirty. And really, a lot of attention has been diverted to the Caribbean drug traffic networks now…but yeah, figured that would be more of a motivator for you to say yes."

He had him at your name listed on that personnel form. It was a no brainer.

The next day, Javier had called Mike Spencer.

The following afternoon, he was back in Laredo, and when he got to the house, he sat his father down and told him the news.

"…You're going back to the DEA?" Chucho had balked, wilting back in his recliner.

"It'll be different this time."

"Javier," his father had grumbled, unconvinced, until he saw the way his son's eyes gleamed soulfully at him. "What'll be different this time from the last?"

Sitting at the edge of the chair to lean forward and stare confidently at his father, Javier declared it.

"Because I'm not going back to lose myself in chasing pinche asesinos again. I'm going back to get her."

***

You'd been floored when you heard the news from Ellis.

But really, when you thought about it, the hire of Steve Murphy to oversee DEA operations as the Special Agent in Charge made total sense when you accounted for how aggressive the current administration was becoming against the drug trade and gang violence on the island.

So, when Devon had come into your office the prior morning to brief you on upcoming meetings with the ATF, FBI and DEA officials the following week, you'd made it clear that he had your full support to be as prepared for the meetings as possible, the way he deemed fit.

When you'd gotten the job, you'd been surprised when Devon had emailed you asking for a transfer to Puerto Rico, but once you'd talked to Jackie and found out he and Noreen went public with their relationship and wanted to move on from the embassy, and that he wanted to be closer to his family in the Virgin Islands now that they were planning to marry, you facilitated the interview process for Noreen to apply to work in Ellis' department and made Devon an offer to be your deputy director.

"—Hey, I got the logs from the efficiency tests," Devon is remarking as he comes into your office now, pulling you from reviewing your planner. "And the fellas in procurement asked if we can move our status meeting to tomorrow afternoon, but I wanted to check with you first before confirming."

Once you tell him that's fine, he goes on to update you on the latest matters he was most worried about that day. His gentle, melodic baritone and attentive expression while he discusses some of the tension from the other departments being required to adhere to your new protocols during the meetings he'd overseen, inspires you to put him at ease.

"I'm not concerned about it. And if anyone gives you any pushback or attitude, tell me and I'll report it to their superiors. They don't have any say, and if they don't want to fall in line? They might need to be reassigned," you chime, glad to see him relax in his seat from across you. "Anyway, how're things? You and Noreen enjoy Barrachina?"

"Yes! You weren't kidding, those were the best piña coladas ever! She loved it," he gushes, moving on to more pleasant topics before you jovially tease him to go have lunch with Noreen.

During your lunch break, you head to your checkup, eager to see if the gynecologists finally found a birth control prescription that would be as comparable to the medication you'd been on in Colombia.

Since moving to Puerto Rico, you'd been relegated to switching prescriptions because the brand you'd used wasn't available in the U.S. territory. So far, you'd taken one pill that had made you have terrible migraines, fatigue, and loss of appetite. Followed by one that made you gain weight, have terrible cramps, and had significantly elevated your blood pressure. You were hoping your test results would help the doctor suss out a better option.

You hadn't been ready for her to tell you that she didn't think you should be on birth control.

"—According to the bloodwork, your latest PAP test, and the ultrasound readings, you aren't the right candidate for the prescription I was hoping to put you on. Instead, we need to discuss your 5-year plan."

"…My 5-year plan for what?" you'd queried, perplexed.

"Your plan for having children. After all, you've been on birth control since you were in your teens, and frankly your hormonal production is quite suppressed. The follicle count was the lowest I've seen in someone your age, so much so that I think it's a high probability that you'll have issues conceiving, if you plan on getting pregnant," she tells you in a clinical tone, but when she sees your brows arch in shock, she softens her tone. "I would like you to not take any oral contraceptives for a few months so we can see if your hormones rebound—"

"What's the probability that I won't be able to conceive?"

She'd hesitated at your even question. "Well…at the current numbers, with how long you've used oral contraceptives, and with your family history, your fertility level might be stunted—"

"So, I could be infertile?" you'd cut in with the blunt question while you wrung your hands together in your lap.

"I think it's much too early to say that," the doctor assured before going into her instructions for you and scheduling another checkup and series of labs after a few months.

A bit shellshocked, you'd gone back to work and operated on autopilot the rest of the day.

Doctor's orders had been for you to up your cardio, find methods of de-stressing, eating a cleaner diet with more lean proteins, and limiting your alcohol intake. Most of them were already in practice, having gone on a diet and started working out after the holidays when you'd tried to get into one of your favorite pair of jeans, and ended up balking when you couldn't fasten them shut without lying flat on your bed.

Once you'd gotten home that night, you drew a nice hot bath, lit one of the scented candles Naida had gifted you, and slipped under the soothing water.

It's just like Ma. She had a hard time conceiving, and after she lost the baby, she couldn't get pregnant again…

Your mind wanders over the potential of not being a mother. Did you even want to be? Was the news bothering you because you'd expected to one day have a baby, and now the decision could be taken away from you?

You'd make a terrible mother anyway.

Sad, you'd climbed out of the tub, dried off, and moped into your bedroom with the candle. Once you'd set it on the nightstand, you pulled on a light and airy nightgown before getting under the covers. The ceiling fan undulated the air in a rhythmic breeze that usually helped lull you to sleep, but with your mind tangling up with 'what if's' and worst-case scenarios, you instead ended up tossing and turning.

Frustrated, you sat up in bed and yearned for comfort. After all, you'd been single and celibate since you'd left Colombia, and with all the birth control hassle, you hadn't been mentally in a place to want to go out and meet anyone. No, you'd spent your time outside of work either curled up on the couch catching up on all the network TV you'd missed out on, getting lost watching movies on the cable channels, or seeing the latest flick you'd picked up from the movie rental place. All of course, were ploys to keep yourself distracted from the loneliness.

However, a few weeks back, when you'd been at Delilah's baptism, you'd had an opportunity to end the self-imposed drought, but passed on it.

Anita and Ellis had asked you to be little Delilah's godmother, and overcome, you'd agreed. They'd asked Ellis' younger brother, Trevor, to be the godfather. You'd met him years prior when he'd visited Ellis once, and you'd liked him. He was sweet, funny, and just as silly as his older brother, but there was a really charming edge to him that while you'd all been rehearsing at the church had made you smile a little less platonically than you should've.

His striking blue eyes had held your gaze for a beat too long when you were both listening to the priest walk you through how you would hold the baby, and the pronunciations you would both need to make during the ceremony. Afterward, you both went to buy gifts for the baby – things she would need for the baptism. The Rose boys were raised Southern Baptist, so you needed to guide Trevor through the Catholic traditions, and he helped you pick out the gold cross pendant necklace you'd both gift Delilah to wear on her baptism, along with a cute pair of booties Trevor bought and lace bonnet you got.

After the ceremony, you'd both danced with the baby during the little party thrown at their house, and at the end of the night when he'd offered to walk you to your car, you'd enjoyed having his hand chivalrously cup the back of your elbow as he led you down the walkway. But when he'd opened your car door for you, there was a moment where you both vacillated, and then just when he'd leaned in to kiss you, you'd turned. His lips and pressed into your cheek, and you'd bashfully apologized, but he'd chuckled and stepped back with a gentlemanly smile.

The following day, when you'd all had lunch before seeing him off to the airport, he'd leaned over next to you at the table to confide, "Ellis told me not to come onto you, but I just had to take my chance."

Snickering, you'd shoved your shoulder playfully into his. "Oh?"

"Yeah. You'd been so cool but guarded when I met you in Colombia, it kind of intimidated me. I don't normally get intimidated by women," he'd wryly huffed, but then admitted, "Ellis mentioned you were single, and when I said I was gonna flirt with you, he yelled at me. Probably because I'm technically just on a break with my girlfriend—"

"Hah, so I was gonna be your tropical tryst, eh?" you'd hazed, and he'd laughed, so you jibed, "Well, unfortunately for you, no matter how handsome you are, you're still related to that dork over there, and he's practically family now, which makes you the brother I never wanted as well!"

Ellis had frowned when Trevor had thrown his napkin across the table at him and sarcastically blamed him for once again cock-blocking him.

You snicker at the memory of Ellis barking "Language, Trevor!" when the melancholy and loneliness comes over you heavy now.

Realizing you aren't going to get any sleep at this rate, you broke down and retrieved the shirt from the dresser and draped it over the opposite pillow you used to sleep. Once settled on your side to curl up spooning the pillow, the comforting, manly scent laced to the soft cotton soothed your mind enough to finally be able to doze off.

In your waking, non-lonesome moments, though, you are exasperated with yourself. Your feelings shouldn't be so strong still, not after the time that's gone by. But it's undeniable. No more so than when you're aching for sexual gratification and touch yourself, thinking of a new hunk as your fixation – usually the latest actor you'd seen in a movie at the theater, but your mind would meld Antonio Banderas, or Brad Pitt into the one man who held your heart in perpetuity – who could make you yearn and melt down with needy pleasure before giving you ecstasy.

No matter what, Javier always was the name you cried out when you climaxed, and the flustered ache that would be left over would either make you mad, or make you tear up.

You couldn't go more than a week without thinking about him.

Your heart would betray you, wondering where he was, how he was doing, if he'd been lying when he said he would keep trying. But then, your mind would snap, Of course he was! How can you still wonder about that?!

At the very least, even before your diagnosis started hanging over your head, you'd decided to throw yourself into bettering yourself health-wise. You'd started going on morning jogs with Jodalys and her friends, joined Zoraida at her aerobics classes every other night, and even would go for long walks with Anita inside Plaza Las Americas some weekend mornings while she pushed Delilah in her stroller.

This particular morning, Jodalys was telling you about a big charity event she'd be hosting in a couple of weeks for the children's hospital, and you'd offered to see if the Federal office would be a sponsor through their Giving Back program.

Said night of the event, you were representing for the program as you worked the room and chatted with officials and other donors, smiling as Jodalys introduced you to a rep for the local animal shelter.

When you turn to greet someone else, you looked over to see Roman talking with an official from the business affairs department of the local government across the way in the event hall. At your shocked expression, Jodalys whispers, "Ah, that's the former head of Varroco Corp, Ernan Villamil's son – Roman Villamil Ibarra. He's one of the main donors! Do you know him?"

Nodding, you excuse yourself from the group and go to the bar, feelings a little woozy all of a sudden, so you ask for a glass of water.

You're in mid-sip when a tenor voice orders beside you, "Gin and tonic, please."

Internally swearing at your luck, you finish sipping your water and steel yourself to turn and get this random encounter over with already.

He turned and blinked at you, as if surprised to see you.

"Oh, hey there, chica," he drawls haltingly when he clocks the skeptical narrowing of your gaze on him, so he shifts his weight onto his other foot and gestures to the bar as he invites, "Uh, would you like something to drink—?"

"You're a charitable big shot now, I see," you find yourself sarcastically droning, hand on your hip as you eye him. "You a choirboy on the weekends too?"

Snorting, he takes a sip from his drink, green eyes smiling at you over the rim of the glass before he places it on the counter and leans his elbow onto it. "No, but sometimes they let me skip the communion line and have a sip of the wine," he jokes in a melodic croon.

You snicker, despite yourself. Giving him a once over, you see he's dressed much more professionally than you'd last seen him. Dark grey suit, pin-striped dress shirt, and striped navy-and-indigo tie looking quite sharp on him now.

"My friend said you're one of the main donors?" you conversationally query as you busy yourself with finishing your glass of water.

"Yeah. Varroco Corp has increased its sponsorships. We donate to a lot of the charities on the island," Roman retorts, expression softening with his smile. "Gotta balance out making tons of profit with a lot of goodwill."

"I'm sure," you remark, giving him a friendly smile as you joke, "Gotta make up for your lack of community service somehow."

He laughs, and gives you a musing 'Maybe so' shrug of his shoulders before asking, "And you? I take it you’re back on the island full time?"

"Yes. I work for the federal state department," you answer, and nod at the bartender when he asks what you'd like to drink.

But before you can answer, Roman orders, "Una Cuba libre para la dama." You roll your eyes. "What? You have a new go-to?"

"No, but I can't believe I'm that predictable," you sneer self-deprecatingly before thanking the bartender when he serves you the drink.

"Nah, I just remember," Roman says with an easy timbre warming his tone.

A comfortable silence falls as you both sip your drinks, one you hope will lead to him needing to go back into the schmoozing zone of the event.

But then, he puts his empty glass down and clears his throat. "So, you give any thought to grabbing coffee?" he attempts, broad shoulders slanting as he folds his forearms over the bar top to conspiratorially lean closer and pledge, "I'll even be down for that annoying little chinchorro you loved on the beach in Isla Verde."

Scoffing amusedly, you shake your head. "You hated it there—"

"Yeah, well, I'd love to catch up with you more than I'd hate sitting there eating sorrullitos y queso frito," he cuts in charismatically, smirking when you jokingly fawn, as if picturing the fatty appetizers with pining. "C'mon, chiquita. Have a drink with me? A pincho?" he jokes, and when you giggle, he adds faux plaintively, "A café?! Anything you want?"

"Ok! Fine," you deridingly snipe and relent with the suggestion of, "There's a fancy little bistro café that opened up—"

"In El Condado, yeah. How about I make a reservation—" he'd been proposing when his pocket began to ring. Expression etching with annoyance, he huffs, "Excuse me, sorry."

You watch him retrieve a black matte flip phone from his pocket and lope off to answer it.

Something in you fixates on how his expression had quickly shifted to the glower you remember him having when he was becoming vexed, but before you could let your mind pull you down into the reminiscing of darker times, Roman strolls back over to the bar, hand idly rubbing the scruff on his chin as he sighs.

"I'm sorry. Looks like I'll have to fly out on my next trip a lot sooner than I'd planned, so how about I give you a call once I'm back in town so we can coordinate that bistro date?" Roman proposes, green eyes holding yours with hopeful heat in them.

So much so, that you find yourself agreeing, and when he leans in to peck you on the cheek in farewell, you're so disarmed that it takes you a moment before he starts walking away to call out, "How're you gonna get my number?"

Turning to smirk at you over his shoulder, Roman purrs, "I'll open the phone book and start dialing," then winks at you before heading off through the mingling event attendees.

You have no chance to even chastise yourself and break down everything that just transpired, not with Jodalys coming over and pulling you back into the event fray of meeting people.

Really, what would be so wrong with being cordial with Roman? Like you'd said before: Everyone has the capacity to change, and everything that had gone down between you two had been so long ago – at a fulcrum point for your individual maturation that shouldn't be defining for you. After all, you were no angel, and would hate to be judged for the things you did in your early twenties. No matter how flagrant or naïve you'd been – how reckless and resentful you'd been capable of being then.

He called it a date, though…

Annoyed with yourself, you'd waved it off. Nothing was set in stone. You had politely agreed to the possibility of maybe having coffee with him. But nothing was reserved, and really, he could forget all about it, with how clearly busy he was with his company.

You're resolved to not think about it further, and are chastising yourself when your mind wanders to the thought that you didn't feel right about even mentioning it to any of your friends – that you'd run into him again – and end up going on autopilot as you'd walked in through the lobby of the federal building and headed to the elevators. So much so, that you didn't first hear someone calling out your name.

At the second call, you paused in your stride and turned towards the man who was hustling over to greet you.

"Hey! Long time no see, hun."

Smiling, you shake your head at him looking tense and unsure of how to greet you, so you pull the tall blond in for a friendly hug and kiss on the cheek.

"It's great to see you, Steve," is your warm greeting, pulling back to see him look relieved. "Congrats on the promotion!"

"Aw, thanks. And you too! Saw you're a big director now," he chuckles and slips his hands into his tan trouser pockets. "And, that you got your way after all: Every agency has to bow down to getting trained in tech."

"Damn straight," you quip, adjusting your purse high on your blue blazer-clad shoulder as you ask, "How're Connie and Olivia?"

"They're great! She'll start kinder next week, and Connie's working at the V.A.," Steve retorts before going on to gush as he pulls out his wallet after you gesture in a way that says 'Break out the pictures!'

He tells you about the new baby, Isabel, and you smile as he jovially lets you flip through the photos in his wallet while he takes out a business card and writes his personal cell phone number on the back before handing it to you.

"—It was great running into you, Steve. I'll see you around. Probably at that first big inter-agency meeting next week," you're telling him as you scribble your phone number onto a yellow sticky note you'd produced from your purse and peel off the sheet, fold it, and hand it over to him. "And if you guys need help settling in, give me call!"

"Will do," he drawls in his carefree rasp before gesturing a silly farewell salute as you both part ways.

Later that night, when he called Javier, he had no qualms in telling him he'd seen you.

"—She looked great, Jav. I was nervous that she'd be standoffish, but she was a sweetheart," he regales to his partner, adding pointedly, "She did not mention anything, though, so I'm not sure where she stands."

Grunting, Javi sits back against the headboard of his hotel room bed, exhaling gruffly as he rubs his palm across his cheek. "Yeah, well…I'll find out soon enough, I suppose," is his glib grumble before asking, "And nothing's been announced yet, right?"

"Nah, nothing about the leadership adjustment. Didn't make sense to put it out until I'm settled in and all the field agents report in for their assignment," Steve confirms, adding, "But, I wouldn't be surprised if Spencer drops a memo first thing next Thursday when you're due to be landing. He gave me the impression that he likes making big splashes."

Javi grunts dryly. "That's one way to put it. Anyway…thanks for the update."

"Oh, before I forget, write this number down," Steve orders, and Javier does so dutifully.

"Ok, got it. What's this for?" he asks as he scribbles it on the top of the legal notepad that was near and handy.

"It's her personal number."

Pausing, Javier stares at it before clearing his throat gruffly.

"You should call her, Jav."

"Steve…I want to, but I know if I do, she'll go nuclear on me and refuse to speak to me," is Javier's haggard sigh as he deflates against the headboard at the mere prospect of earning your ire. "…For what I did, I need to talk to her face-to-face."

"Well…it's your funeral, man," Steve can't help haze, and Javi scoffs sourly. "Anyway, I'll give you the rundown once you're here."

After placing his new cell phone back onto its charger set on the nightstand, he sat up and unbuttoned his dress shirt all the way down to his waistband and yanked the shirt tails loose so he could be more comfortable now that he was sitting with his legs crisscrossed. Casting a tired glance at all the documents, maps, and personnel files strewn across the bed, Javi picks up a stack and reads up more on Quintoni Martínez, El Gran of the mafia-styled cartel that ran the drug trade in Puerto Rico.

His day getting a crash course on everything had ended with him taking stacks of documents with him in a box back to his hotel room, and while he'd picked at his sandwich, he'd started making lists for himself.

He would spend the rest of his time at Quantico, where he'd review the fresh batch of agents who'd volunteered for the placement surge down in the Caribbean division. Javier had picked out junior agents that fit the profile he thought would be the savviest and most set up for success: Men and women with a background in community policing, fluent in Spanish, and with no kids or family anywhere near the U.S. territory they'd be assigned to.

And after the anticlimactic way things had ended for them prior, he'd pulled two experienced agents he knew he could trust, and to his relief, both had been glad to fall back in under his leadership.

By the time his belongings were arriving ahead of him to the single-story bungalow he'd be living in a week later, you were rushing off the elevator on your exercise-sore muscles to stride in a clipped pace to your office. You'd opted for a pin-striped black on black skirt and matching blazer rather than your chic tailored pantsuits that had become the staple of your in-office attire, knowing you'd need to deal with a lot of chauvinistic traditionalists in your big meeting later that morning.

Already setting your itinerary for the things you'd need to do after work so you could get to your apartment and get ready for the happy hour at The Condado Plaza Hilton that was getting thrown by the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration, your mind was preoccupied as you hustled along. The Chief Executive Director of U.S. Federal Relations, and really the only person you had to "report" to had sent out a memo earlier in the week, asking for all department heads to attend the event in order to foster camaraderie between the local and federal officials, so you and Ellis agreed to carpool together in order to make your appearances.

Thinking about the dress you were planning on wearing for the occasion, you've just breezed in to your nice, tidy office with the great northeast views that on a clear day span out all the way to the picturesque skyline beyond, when Ellis bursts through the door you'd just shut after yourself.

"Hey!" he exclaims as he comes in and quickly shut the door after himself.

"Jeez, am I that late!? I got out of that crazy yoga class Zoraida dragged me to much later than I'd planned—" you're in the middle of griping as you place your purse down on your sideboard next to your desk and retrieve your leatherbound organizer and day planner.

"Girlie…I think you need to sit down."

Pausing, you turn to stare at Ellis with confusion on your features.

"What?" is your chortle, but then at the serious look on his face, you fret, "Oh, did something happen with Anita? The baby—?!"

"N-No! Everything's alright," he assuages and hustles over to grab your wrist and gently guide you to your nearby leather couch tucked in the corner, across from the east-facing windows of your office.

"Ellis, you're scaring me. What's up?" you scoff as he sits next to you.

"…A memo just came over the wire from stateside. There was some kind of last-minute shakeup, and…" he parcels out, but when you stare at him with incomprehension as to what could be so bad about a memo, he decides to just come out with it.

"The new Special Agent in Charge for the DEA here is Javier Peña."

You feel like you've just been pushed into syrupy quicksand. A sarcastic laugh comes out of you as you dismiss it as a joke.

No, no—totally not real. This is a joke! But before you can convince yourself of it, the feeling of dismay pulls you under when you take a shaky breath and focus on how earnest and worried Ellis looks.

"…Really?" you croak, staring incredulously at your friend. When his brows quirk bewilderedly at you, you exclaim, "That can't be. It doesn't make sense. Steve Murphy's the SAC—"

"Turns out, he and Javier are splitting up the Caribbean territory. Steve's going to oversee the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Javier's going to be the head of things here," Ellis explains.

He doesn't know what to expect when you sit back in your seat and go silent, gaze getting faraway and expression shuttering into a stoic mask. But then your hands ball up into fists in your lap, and your stare narrows as you turn to look at him with what he can only describe as searing rancor.

"When is he due to start?"

Gulping, Ellis hedges on telling you, but when your glare turns exacting, he squawks, "Today."

Your fury collects itself and winds up into a fierce, roiling heat that you keep in your belly as you nod, stand, and go to your desk, pick up your phone, and dial Devon's extension.

He promptly answers, so you tell him, "Please come to my office as soon as you can. There are a few things I need to prep you on for the inter-agency meeting."

Once you've hung up, you sit at your desk and open up your laptop, typing in a furious flurry while Ellis remains at the couch and blinks haplessly over at you.

"Well…I'm scared to ask, kid," he admits, and when you grunt but don't look away from the screen, he presses, "What're you gonna do?"

Pausing, you take a cleansing inhale, hold it, then exhale, just like you'd learned at that silly yoga class. Then, you look over at your friend with fire in your eyes.

"I'm going to rip his fucking head off if he even tries to talk to me."

To be continued…

________________

Read Chapter 40: Hopes

Spanish-English Glossary:

Tesoro = Treasure; darling

'Buela = short for 'abuela', aka grandmother

Altar = Prayer altar; mini prayer shrine in someone's home

Eres mi única hija, y te amo con toda mi alma = You're my only daughter, and I love you with my entire soul

Trigueño = Olive-skinned, swarthy man

Artesano = Artisan

Mijo = short for "mi hijo", a term of endearment akin to "my son/sonny" 

Hermano = Brother; bud

Coño = A swear, akin to 'Fucking hell' or 'Damn!'

Carnal = A very close and trusted friend who is almost blood to you; a trusted buddy

Pendejo = Dumbass; jackass

Fresa = Mexican slang for someone posh, or hoity-toity

Llegó = Arrived

Pobrecito = Poor baby; poor baby boy

Ay, mami = Oh, mom

Pinche madre = Motherfucker; sonuvabitch

Huevones = Dummies; goofballs

Prima = Cousin (female)

Sabes? = You know?

Fiesta = Party; festival

Nena = Girl

Las Fiestas SanSe = Short for "Las Fiestas de San Sebastían", which is a big street festival in Old San Juan along the San Sebastían street; festival occurs at the end of January and lasts a week

Chinchorrear = Slang for going bar-hopping; a chinchorro is a kiosk or dive bar you go to have a few drinks before moving on to the next establishment

Chichaítos = Different flavored anise shots of rum that are chilled

Damas, adelante = Ladies, enter forward

Doncellita = little noblewoman; little maiden

Empresa = Company/Enterprise/Business

Chavalita = Akin to saying 'missy' or 'lass'; a young woman

Lengüetera = garrulous, silver-tongued daring and witty talker (female)

Clavelina = A type of pretty pink flower that resembles a vibrant carnation

Taberna = Tavern

O sentarnos pa' café = Or sit/meetup for coffee

Miramelinda = a double meaning: Miramelinda is the name of a strain of impatiens flower, but literally translated, the name means 'Look at me pretty'

Disfruta las fiestas, cielito = Enjoy the festival, little sky

Nos vamos = We're leaving 

Kiosko = Kiosk; food stand

Tiene cojones = [He] has balls

Frituras = Fritters; tropical turnovers

Mira = Look

Te llamo después = I'll call you later

Chica = Gal; lass

Una Cuba libre para la dama = A Cuba libra for the lady

Sorrullitos y queso frito = Little sweet fritters and fried cheese

Chiquita = Little chick; little girl

Pincho = A Caribbean shish-kabob, usually made of marinated pork or chicken

The song lyrics included in this chapter are from "Enjoy the Silence" by Depeche Mode.

Thanks for reading! Please consider leaving a comment and sharing your feedback. I would be eternally grateful. 

[furious-rogue-stuff]

Heat Chapter 36: Pésame

SURPRISE! Couldn’t let ya’ll dangle for long with that cliffhanger 😅 This chapter is a rollercoaster, so I apologize ahead of time...

Pairing: Javier Peña x OFC | Javi x Querida

Disclaimer: Written in 2nd person narrative, you can safely assume our heroine and love/lust interest is a Latina, written by a Latina. Here's my philosophy on my writing, for further context.

Rating: Mature/Explicit 🔞

Word Count: 20,500+

Summary: After a terrible event, you are left bereft and writhing in grief, hopeless and lost. Can you find your way to a life of meaning, and can Javi be the sanctuary you desperately need?

Warnings: Javier Peña being the God-level BAE. Graphic depictions of oral and unprotected sex. Mentions of grief, guilt, destructive self-harm, hopelessness and self-loathing. Descriptions of rough sex, toxic coping mechanisms, and emotional trauma. Allusions to toxic family dynamics, angst, and triggering resentments. Some Protective!Javi, Sad!Javi, Bereft!Reader, Distraught!Javi. In the vein of Narcos being a bilingual show, and Javier Peña being fluent, I felt it was apropos to include Spanglish and Spanish throughout.

Heat Masterlist

Previous chapter - Chapter 35: Spoil

Chapter 36: Pésame

Javier doesn't hear from you for a couple of days.

He's called dozens of times, stopped by your place and knocked on your door with no answer, and covertly dropped into your department early one morning and found your office door shut as if you'd not been to work yet. Frustrated, he'd tried to be patient, but he felt a nagging concern. It stuck with him, and when he kept missing chances to check in with Ellis, he'd even broken down and asked Marisol if she'd heard from you. Practically accosting her first thing as she clocked into work, Javi had tried to hide his worry, but his eyes simmered with it and the set of his brow made it obvious. The kind woman had frowned and told him she hadn't seen you since lunch earlier in the week.

So, now truly worried, Javier had tracked down where Ellis was, immediately after.

Your friend, and deputy, was handling some final arrangements with the stateside linkup's diagnostics, so Javier found himself venturing down to the lower-level server room. It was a bit of a labyrinth – the lower level snaking off into corridors and hallways, so once he was off the elevator, he had a hard time finding his way. Luckily, he turned a corner and found Ellis talking to a tall, muscular and broad-shouldered ebony-skinned young tech lead with a goatee and a megawatt smile as he seemingly laughed at his superior's joke.

"Deputy Rose. Can I have a word?" Javier calls out as he strides over, not catching how the other man stares at him and becomes a bit nervous.

"Uh, yeah. Sure," Ellis retorts and clears his throat before turning to his subordinate and directing, "Can you cover for me, Devon? Just in case, here are the logs." Once he hands over the bound manual tucked under his arm to the man, he waits for Devon to nod in deference to Javi before ducking out around the corner and back into the server room. With a weary exhale, Ellis hurries over and mutters, "Not here. Let's go up to my office."

Going stoic, Javi nods and follows the man back down the way he'd come, into the elevator, and up to the IT+IS department. Once he's ushered him into his office, he shuts the door and gestures in invitation for Javi to take a seat. Trying to break the tension, Ellis derides, "I'm sure you gave Devon a panic attack with how you came around the corner like that. He's been sweating getting in trouble for dating your staffer—"

To be polite, Javi sat in the chair in front of his desk, but he only waits for Ellis to sit in his before he refuses to hold back any longer.

Gruffly, Javier interrupts, "Listen, I know where your loyalties stand, and I have no illusions that you'd betray her confidence to help me out. But she's ignoring my calls, not at her place, and from what I can tell, she's not showing up to work, which is completely out of character for her, and I'm not ashamed to admit I'm fucking worried. And I can't pretend it isn't driving me nuts—"

"Oh…shit. You don't know?" Ellis croaks, shoulders slumping as he leans heavily back into the chair. When Javi's stare just gets flinty and he shifts to sit forward in his seat with an impatient gesture of his shoulder's squaring back – fidgeting hands curling into fists he presses into the tops of his knees – Ellis looks truly downtrodden. "She's in Medellín. Her grandmother passed away…"

Hearing that is like a blow he hadn't seen coming. Javi wilts backwards into the chair, heart dropping and sadness filling him up instantly. "When?" he asks, baritone low and heavy with his subdued grief.

Ellis didn't think he wasn't aware of it. But then again, he hadn't bothered to ask you. It had all happened so quick – getting your heartbreaking phone call, rushing over to take you to the airport, assuring you not to worry about a thing and making sure to help you get to the gate. He'd hugged you tight, and it wasn't until this very moment, seeing Javier look gutted and left to flounder in the woeful feeling he's trying to keep bottled up that he realizes something must've happened between you both.

Internally kicking himself now for not having immediately wondered why he'd been your first call rather than Javi, he sobers and answers, "The other night. She passed in her sleep. When she didn't answer the door the following morning, her sister-in-law went in and found her still in bed…"

Javier feels ravaged by corrosive guilt. He listens to Ellis tell him about having spoken to you briefly – mentioned the vigil and prayer services, and how Sunday was when the funeral would happen. But all he could think about was how devastated you'd be, and how his heart broke for you. How everything he'd been worried about ceased to have importance, and all he wanted was to be at your side, unconditionally.

You're utterly bereft.

The overwhelming sorrow comes in waves. Sometimes it's a manageable crest. Other times, you feel like it'll pull you under like a violent rip current – stealing your breath and making you want to go numb.

Right now, as you sit in the funeral home for the second day of the vigil – your eyes ache from crying, and you feel hollow. Every so often, someone new comes in to pay their respects, to come over and offer their heartfelt condolences, before sitting for the velorio. You vacantly think about how the most efficient thing in all of Colombia – the one thing that ascends bureaucratic ineptitude or corruption – is death. Funerals are the most swiftly arranged, courteously handled affairs. You wonder if it's due to tradition. After all, a typical wake and funeral in the states is a paltry event compared to the multi-day, austere-yet-reverent traditions and funeral rites undertaken in a velorio.

Your grandmother's will had insisted she did not want the typical five to seven-day affair for her services, however. It had made you crack a smile to hear her words read out on the matter:

—Please be considerate of working folk and abide by my wishes. I don't want a big fuss! Just please have white lilies, and enough picadera and hot chocolate so no one has any room to criticize.

You hear her voice in your head, and before you can stop it, you feel the tears overwhelm you.

Sitting next to you, your cousin rubs your back as you hunch forward to breathe through the bout of grief while your aunt pats your shoulder and soothes you with words of solace that mollify you. Your handkerchief is damp from how often you've wept, and you vacantly wish you could get your eyes to stop the torrent.

It hurts. The sadness burns through you as you look up and see your grandmother in peaceful repose. Her features are shrouded in the ethereal white veil draped over the casket, softened by the glow of the votive and continental candles arranged throughout the funeral parlor. Almost on every surface there are sprays and vases filled with flowers of all kinds and pastel hues. The parlor is fragrant with them, along with the whiff of hot chocolate and coffee some of the mourners indulge in. Your morose gaze lingers away from the lily-bursting wreath over the casket towards the queue of people waiting to pay their respects. A twinge warms your chest to see so many come from far and throughout the city to honor your 'Buela – to pray for her and genuinely be sad for the loss of her to the world.

You think of your mother then, and feel another bout of guilt and stultifying anguish roil through you.

Then, anger sets in.

It's raw and visceral, searing into your bloodstream and fueling something vicious in you. The fact that the sudden thought of your father triggered it should make it fleeting, but the feeling lingers defiantly in you as you stew about how you'd been unable to get ahold of him.

"—Unfortunately, he's indisposed due to being in an active training exercise in the Indo-Pacific. I will pass along your message as soon as communications are back online—"

Your anger blocks out the replayed assurance, convincing you that it doesn't matter. Him not being here doesn't mean a thing, so why bother caring.

But still…the little, frail part of you that holds out hope tries to cajole you. He could make it! Once he hears the news, he'll come straight away—

"Hey, why don't you take a break," your cousin coaxes in a gentle whisper as she rubs your back. "It's late, you can sleep in the resting room—"

"I don't want to sleep. You guys can go. It's fine," you dazedly murmur as you hide your features while you quickly dry your eyes and sniffle. "Someone has to stay—"

"C'mon, comadre. If you want, I can drop you off at the house? I have to pick up my sister to come by—" Miguel's volunteering as he leans over the back of your row, but your cousin gives him a death glare, so he falters and amends, "I-I mean, if you need anything, I could go by and get it—"

"No…I think I'd like to be alone, so going to the house would be good. If it's not too much trouble…" is your neutral, flat musing as you secure your purse to your shoulder. You aunt and cousin give you worried looks, so you sigh, "It's fine. I just can't…I'd like to be somewhere quiet and decompress."

Nodding in understanding, they hug you in turn, agreeing to come by the next morning and pick you up for the final day of the velorio before you nod vacantly and wander out of the parlor with Miguel, who leads you to his car and opens the passenger door for you. You let your mind wander as he drives, half listening to the salsa song on the radio, staring at your bare nails you'd picked clean of the red polish. The fixation in wanting to strip them of the glossy-red lacquer had helped you from coming apart on the plane ride from the capital. But now, the nails are as dull and bare as you feel.

When the car ride gets a bit gloomy, Miguel tries to make small talk, and you entertain it as best you can. You ask him about his pending trip to go and train for his job, and he's able to finish regaling you with the details just as he pulls up to the street and cruises to the front curb, in front of the rosebush-flanked closed gate.

Dusk is washing the neighborhood in tangerine and blush hues, so you get distracted by how pretty it looks before snapping your attention back to thank Miguel and give him a goodbye peck on the cheek before exiting the car. He waits chivalrously until you've unlocked the gate – which squeaks in protest when pushed wide. You get lost on the idle reminiscence of how that damned squeaking made it impossible to sneak out all those summers ago, snapping out of the reverie when you realize he clearly intends to linger while you get to the front door, so you smile humbly and wave him to go on.

Once he drives off, you let yourself deflate, now that no one is around to see it. Dejectedly, you close the gate after yourself, hanging the lock on the loop and feeling a bout of melancholy wash over you at the distinctive squeak of the jam catching just before it clicks shut.

It's been like that since you were a kid. You can hear your grandmother chiding your grandfather about needing to oil the joints. It's teasing and melodious, and you feel your eyes well over.

Pushing the flood of memories that threaten to tow you under away, you vacantly stare ahead at the front porch and the looming wooden door as you trail up the walkway pensively with your purse hung precariously on the slope of your shoulder, keys clinking jauntily in your hand. Stop being weak. Pull yourself together.

The admonishment is sharp, and helps stifle the needy, longing parts of you that are beginning to unravel like the hem of a painstakingly crotchet piece made of the most delicate yarn. You're feeling it tug at the seams of you – the thought of the emptiness that awaits and the writhing anguish you can't contain preparing to swallow you up, so you're just resolving to keep yourself together the few more steps and seconds needed to get into the house, when you hear the gate open with that damn squeak.

You turn with a wavering expression you intended to train into apathy, even though you don't feel the control to manage it, when your eyes fall on Javi.

He's standing just beyond the now open gate staring plaintively over at you, his rumpled dark blue suit tightening across his tense shoulders, expression etched in tentative worry while his soulful gaze takes in your drawn features and palpable sadness.

"Querida…" Javi rumbles in an apprehensive breath, worried he's overstepping his bounds, but the moment he sees your eyes fill with tears, he rushes to you when your sob catches in your chest as you run towards him.

It was instinctual – to seek his grace in your lowest moment, so before you realized it, you were across the walkway and clinging to him while his arms encircled you tight.

You crumble – burying your face in his chest and weeping while Javi literally holds you from falling to your knees in a sorrowful heap.

His heart breaks, lump lodging in his throat. Seeing you in so much anguish and unable to take it away from you – to protect you from it, makes him simmer with helplessness.

"I-I-I'm s-sorry," you hitch out between shaky sobs, causing Javier's brow to furrow with his deep frown as you hiccup, "I-I was s-such a b-bitch—"

Hugging you tightly and consolingly rubbing your back as he presses fortifying, tender kisses to your temple and brow, Javi insists gently, "Nada de eso, mi amor," cupping the small of your back and coaxing you to lean into him and just regain your bearings while he assures soothingly, "You were not a bitch. Everything you said was true. But we don't have to talk about it now. Come, let's go inside."

Nodding against his chest, you lamely reach into your purse for the handkerchief and hastily scrub your face before looking up at him with your teary, red-rimmed eyes. He cups your cheek and leans down to rest his forehead to yours before he takes your keys and leads the way to the porch. Once he's opened the screen door and unlocked the carved wooden door, he ushers you through the threshold.

The house feels like a cavern now.

It's dark from all the windows being shut, aside from a faint flicker of light coming from down the hallway that's spilling out from one of the farthest bedrooms. So, Javier finds a light and switches it on, bathing the living room and part of the hall in its illumination while he takes your purse and sets it aside with the keys onto the table before guiding you to sit on the couch. The day's heat lingers in the shut-in space, begging for the windows to be cranked opened so the early evening breeze can filter through. He's about to turn away to close the front door and crank the nearest row of windows open when you hold onto his hand pleadingly.

Javi stares down at your tear-filled eyes, damp lashes and flushed cheeks, plush bottom lip trembling with the effort to not burst into wailing tears, and it makes his chest feel tight. So, he crouches down in front of you and caringly pets your hair from your face before caressing his warm hands over your cheeks, sweeping his thumbs to brush wayward tears away. You stare into his deep brown eyes before he leans in to brush his lips over yours. Your breath catches in a flutter from your staccato breathing before you lean into him and let him comfort you with soft kisses. He hums soft, mollifying sounds as he feels you become docile in his embrace, palms caressing you lovingly. You let out a shaky exhale as you rest your hands on his broad shoulders. A few seconds of his doting affection helps the terror you'd been anxiously anticipating ebb away.

When your breathing evens out, he shifts to sit next to you so he can properly wrap his arms around you and let you lean heavily into him.

He scents your hair and holds you protectively while you cling to him, getting lost in his natural musk entwined with everything that comforts you about his masculine smell.

The soft material of the black dress you have on bunches against his palm when he rubs your back, distracting him to think about what he could even say to console you. There's nothing he can think of that could possibly convey his condolences to you when he knows how deeply you loved your grandmother. Still, he struggles to think of something to say, but then, you let out a weary, distraught sigh.

"I didn't get to say goodbye again."

The pang of grief is like a jab to the ribs, leaving him feeling inadequate and unable to alleviate your pain. It's too immense, and the hurt rooted in your hushed lamentation has Javier wishing he could steal it all away. "I'm sorry, querida," he hoarsely murmurs into your hair before nuzzling you and squeezing you tight. "I'm so fucking sorry—"

You hiccup a bitter little laugh after having to quell the instinct to admonish him for swearing in the house. Where she could hear him and not approve.

It all comes apart then. The dam of your emotional fortitude breaks, and in the violent flood, everything gets swept under as you're seized by a vehement anger you can't control or even comprehend.

"N-No, no—why are you sorry?!" you snap as you reel back from his arms and lash out to stand on your heeled feet. Javi stares hesitantly and thinks you're furious with him, but then he sees how your emotional walls are falling as you begin to cry and rail, "You've done nothing to be sorry about! You've just been wonderful no matter how horrible I've been—so wrapped up in my own selfish nonsense t-that I didn't even r-realize," your voice breaks, so you cup your hands over your face and weep, "I didn't realize I would lose her! I didn't notice how tired she was getting…I wasn't here for her—"

Javier's eyes sting with the burn of tears he's biting back from spilling over through sheer will as you struggle with your grief, but when you seem to be on the verge of hitting critical mass in your tirade, he ends up flinching when you suddenly snatch your heels off in flustered upset and chuck them with clattering bangs against the far wall down the dimly-lit hall as you seethe, "I should've been here! After everything I've put her through, I should've been here for her," you sob and fist your hands in your hair before crying, "What if it's my fault?! She was so fucking scared and it was too much stress—"

He realizes you're referring to having been abducted, and his stomach drops. Unable to stand seeing you tighten your fingers punishingly into your scalp as you wail self-flagellating blame, Javier rushes to you and tries to console you – to sway the tempest of your devastated anguish into calm, but you wring away from him and keen as if you're containing a feral scream. He pleadingly murmurs your name over and over, as if trying to rein you back from the precipice he's afraid you're about to fling yourself off of, and when you press your curled fingers distressingly into your eyes and let out a pained whine, Javi wraps you up in his embrace with possessive care, hushing your frustrated whimpers, as he holds you.

Just as he thinks he's got you anchored, you try to reel away with a scalding exhalation and hiss, "I can't bear this! Not again—not again," before your voice cracks when he firmly holds you to him and presses pleading kisses into your hairline, temple – anywhere his lips can reach while murmuring insistent pleas for you to calm down and trying to keep you from lashing away.

"Please, mi amor. Don't push me away. I know it's too much, but I don't want you to hurt yourself—" Javi's supplicating in a strained tone as you keep trying to pull away like a wounded animal desperate to curl into a ball in a cold, dark corner.

His words seem to strike something fragile in you, though, because you turn your distraught features up to him and see how scared he is. It hurts you so much to know you've made him feel so viscerally afraid. And before you can catch your hiccupping breath, the sorrow flares like a flame over kindling and catches fire, morphing into an inferno of self-hatred and rage.

"I c-can't—can't stand it!" you rail and cling to the lapels of his blazer, completely unhinged in your tumultuous emotions now as you shakily whimper, "I can't fucking bear feeling like this! Please—please, I need to feel something else. I'm so fucking angry—"

In your manic state, you clung to Javi and pressed your forehead to his, and when he could feel your hysteria winding up to become another frenzied lashing out, he pulled you close and kissed your heated features. Your tirade stuttered in your chest as he buried a hand into the back of your hair and anchored you with his strong grip before he kissed your lips, grabbed the small of your back and pressed you against his broad chest.

The base desire to be overtaken from this hysteria into gratified, grounding carnality has you wilting into his embrace and frantically cupping his face to kiss him back.

A tremulous mewl catches in your throat when Javi squeezes the nape of your neck and his hand at the small of your back gropes over your ass before hiking up the back of your skirt when he deepens the kiss. You're suddenly adrift in this new feeling, and yank on his blazer in desperate need to remove the barriers between you both in order to be pressed against his skin. Longing to seek his powerful body and be consumed by it.

Breaking away from his mouth, you bury your hands in the back of his hair and crane your neck back to his voracious suckling kisses as you beg, "Oh my god. Javi, please, I n-need you. I can't—can't stand it—c-can't handle being this way—!"

It's then he hastily wrestles out of his blazer and flings it away before grabbing you up and yanking the collar of your black dress down to expose your chest to his possessive grazes and nips. You wrap your legs around his waist and arch into him, gasping as you feel the ridge of his cock rut against the heat between your thighs while he takes you to the nearest soft surface – the couch. Javier hastily shoves the coffee table out of the way with a well-placed shove of his foot that causes it to slide across towards the closed windows before he presses you down onto the sofa. His mouth never stops tracing covetous kisses down your neck while he places you on the cushions and maneuvers so you can stretch out under him.

You moan when he drags his mouth from your clothed nipple to the delicate spot under your jaw. He snakes his hands between your bodies so he can rub your pussy through your now drenched panties with one while he hurriedly unfastens his belt and undoes his pants with the other. Your head swims in the lustful mire his plunging you into, feeling primal and overcome.

His thumb grinds over your clothed clitoris and ignites molten need from the seat of your core, making you ache and throb for him as you fist your hands in his hair hard enough for Javi to grunt.

He fumbles with getting your panties rucked to the side thanks to you bucking impatiently up to sit, and demandingly start yanking his gold and blue jacquard necktie undone before tugging hastily at the buttons of his dress shirt.

A primal urge is let loose in him when you mouth the side of his neck and press yourself against his body after he grabs at your dress and manipulates it down from your shoulders. It's how you're practically latched to him, hands digging into his muscles, mouth grazing hungrily along his skin before your teeth catch on the flexing corded tendon of his neck.

The beastly desire he tries to keep at bay snaps into that feral, dominant avarice to possess you and take you like you yearn to. You're out of control, demandingly frantic with your need to be controlled. Javi feels it when he yanks you back from suckling his neck, hauls you from sitting on the edge of the couch, flips you around and manhandles you to be on your knees on the floor. He sees it when you gasp in heated surprise and arch back as he strips the dress from your body and nudges his forehead against the back of your head in unspoken command for you to submit. And he relishes it when you flatten out over the seat of the couch as he snatches your soaked panties off and roughly sucks a kiss into the side of your neck.

Your head is filling with furious hunger that has you buzzing and shivering, mewling to be utterly possessed and taken apart by him – desperate to stay in this limbo of burning passion he's redirected into the sinew of your core from where it'd threatened to raze through your chest.

The wanton ache of your dripping cunt pulsing with need when he drags his fingers through your folds has you shamelessly arching and groaning for more. His receding fingers earn a whine before dazedly, you sense the shift of him kicking his shoes off and shucking his disheveled dress shirt from his torso before he steals your breath by yanking you back by your hips, spreading your knees apart to plant on the terrazzo floor before he cracks the palm of his hand down over your ass.

Wearing only your black bra now, your breasts bounce and jiggle in the cups with how you rock forward and toss your head back at being spanked so. Your face burns from your pussy clenching hard and cloyingly drenched over with a flood of arousal as you moan and writhe. Javi rewards your delicious reaction by crowding you and lining up his thick, throbbing cock against your slit from behind before he thrusts into you to the hilt on a rough groan.

The savage delight that claws up from your core at being taken like this has you moaning an elated sound he's never heard you make. And when he punches his plunging stroke deep into you now, you bow your head and beg, "Yes! Please, oh please," choking on a gasp when Javier starts to fuck you rough and hard while he fiercely concentrates on making you feel swept up and enraptured. It's a compelling force – his need to take your self-destruction away and fill you with pleasure, making him feel fiercely intent in grounding you in the exhilarating state of being overwhelmed by only him, as he plucks you apart with filthy vigor – intent of driving you into a state of ecstasy.

The heat in the stuffy room has your head spinning and amplifies the delirium of your arousal, making you entuned to the fever of your flesh being pressed together, breaths ragged and cries of pleasure incandescent as sweat beads your skin and the obscene squelching of Javier's cock fucking your silken cunt fills the space. It's rapturous, and your addled senses vibrate from the feel of his strong, commanding hands gripping you as if he's molding and willing the kinetic energy inside of you to bend to his dominion. He's holding you so tight, that you feel sheltered and alight, all at once. You moan his name and shiver from how this thought spins you up with delight.

A delight that thrums under your skin and anchors you back to the carnal thrill of being fucking railed by Javi. You feel so good being stretched and grabbed – feeling the press of his fingers and the dig of his cock laying claim to you inside and out.

Javi can feel it – how you clench and flutter around him, and can see how lusciously you're arching and rolling your hips back to meet his slamming thrusts.

But after a particularly rough pound into you that makes you whimper and grip the cushion in front of you tight, Javi yanks you to straddle back over his thighs as he loops his arms around you and swears gruffly, "Fuck, I'm being too rough—"

"No! N-No, please, no, don't stop—feels too good, please, Javi. Please, mi amor, fucking use me. Just fuck me until I can't feel anything else but you," you sob entreatingly and nudge your head into his with feral longing. "I can take it, I swear! Please m-make me yours—"

Your reaction and fevered words stoke something blazing in him, ardent and beseeching as he fists his hand in the back of your hair and dominates you with his kiss. It turns you into a pliant bolt of sinew he unspools and makes his, shifting you easily from being pressed backwards against him one minute to now being held in his arms as he forces you to face him and straddle his lap. You whine when he roughly rips your bra off your torso in order to free your breasts to his hands before he pinches your nipples and watches your mouth fall open on a reedy cry. He lunges forward to lick and suck each in turn, possessive mouth on each pebbled bud. When you cling to him and moan, Javi pinches one nipple with his fingers while he pinches the other between his teeth with lascivious gusto.

"Oh fuck—Javi!" you gasp out and writhe in his lap, notching the head of his cock to grind into your clit and earning his growl of approval.

He licks a possessive swipe up between your tits and groans when you paw your hands into his hair for leverage and buck forward. Your arms drape around his shoulders as you unabashedly kiss him and suck on his bottom lip for more of his dominance, grinding your pussy along the length of his straining cock and gripping the hair at the back of his head with needy vehemence.

Javi takes your hips and angles the cant of your pelvis just right to be speared down onto him in one deft stroke, unearthing a throaty cry from you as you curl into him and get lost in being disassembled by him fucking you with ferocious zeal now.

Your cunt is a molten vise, getting silkier with every pound of his cock into it. He can feel you on the edge of being torn asunder by your orgasm, so he braces his back against the hard wood of the sofa's upholstered base and kneads his fingertips into the swell of your ass as he feels you start to ripple and clench hard, so he moans your name and growls in filthy promise, "You'll take it, and let me have it all, cuz you're my good girl. So good that I'll keep you like this for as long as you want—"

You whimper and mouth messy kisses along his jaw and neck as you cling to him like he's your lifeline, and when he wraps his hand firmly around your nape and bucks up hard into you, he nestles deep into that divinely ruinous part of your aching cunt that has you seeing the universe behind your eyes.

Your sheath clamps down and floods over with your incinerating orgasm as you wail his name and fall apart.

Dissolving into pleasure and ecstasy, you mewl inarticulately as you ride him through the zenith of your climax. With your eyes screwed shut as you're bouncing in his lap in the sweaty, naked throes of your euphoria, Javier gets off on how enraptured you are and how your hands cup the back of his neck so you can lean blindly forward and seek his lips, his cheeks – all the warm and flushed parts of him you can devotedly shower kisses over.

But it's when your eyes flutter dreamily open and you give him a dazed, enchanted smile that Javi's control crumbles.

He wraps you up against him and uses the couch for leverage to push up and balance you with your legs wrapped around him so he can hammer his surly need into you. The angle has him grinding into your clit just right, which spins you up into a prickling build up all over again, just as his cock strains and swells inside you and his balls pull up tight against him.

You toss your head back when Javi pounds you into a titillated state that has you gushing your sudden climax all over his apex as he fills you with welling bursts of his seed. His groan comes out a broken husk as he buries his face against your neck and susurrates, "I love you. Love you so much—let me stay. Let me be yours."

Your eyes brim with enthralled tears from his words, and you curl into him lovingly, nodding and kissing him with yearning fervor.

All the remaining energy in your sinew is spent in cuddling and nuzzling his sweaty features, and Javi's just as exhausted, but he manages to shift down to the cool tiled floor and drapes his arm under your head so he can tuck you against him as you both stretch out in disheveled heaps in the middle of the living room floor.

The slick heat between your thighs and the heavenly sensation of being against the cool surface while you radiate warmth is a welcome combination of stimuli. You're still tingly, and the sensation of his spend seeping out of you makes you shiver as you hook your leg over Javier's hip and nestle against him. He holds you and recovers his ragged breath while he feels you settle docilely next to him, with your lips grazing his chest softly.

You lie like that for a while, your mind filled with fog. It's only when Javi strokes the sweaty hair at the back of your ear with gentle reverence, and your tender scalp lances with pain from being yanked by you in your frenzied state, that you start to fall back into yourself.

Taking his hand and stilling its ministrations, you caress it to cup your cheek instead as you shift to gaze up at him.

In a hushed, tremulous voice, you tell him, "I'm so sorry…I'm sorry for being out of control…that you had to see that—that you needed to deal with me, after I've been so undeserving of your love—"

Javier says your name, cutting you off with the gruffness of his baritone, as he declares, "—I don't ever want you to think that, or feel like you have to hide and suffer alone. I'm here. I will always be here for you. No matter what. Do you understand?"

Awestruck, you nod, feeling relieved yet overcome by his unwavering grace, and when he kisses your forehead, you melt and cuddle into him. He rolls onto his back and tucks you snuggly against his side as you both relax in silence for a bit.

"…Are you uncomfortable? If being like this hurts your back, we can move," you mumble after a while of staring at the ceiling, and tilt your head against his shoulder so you can peer up at him.

"Actually, the cold floor feels good. What is bugging the shit out of me are my clothes being all tangled at my ankles," Javi rumbles and glances down his body when you sit up and gape for yourself.

His trousers are bunched up and tangled with his underwear acting like an elastic cinch while his leather belt is pinned under his ankles. The sight of his gray-sock clad feet wiggling against the restraints of his bunched clothes makes an effervescent laugh burst from your chest before you dissolve into a fit of giggles at the absurdity, and when you look at his silly features, quirked in a feeble grimace, you laugh harder and bury your face in his neck to submerge your guffaws.

Relieved to assuage the grief and anchor you into the moment of silly levity, Javi kisses your shoulder affectionately and smiles when you sit up to dutifully help get him free of the entanglement.

He's just finished pulling up his rumpled trousers after standing, when you gasp, "The door was open!"

Glancing backwards with a snort, he looks down at you still sat on the floor in the nude, and smirks when you pull your knees up against your chest bashfully. "Shit, I gotta go to the car and get my duffle, too. Think the whole street will be watching me?" he derisively drawls as he picks up his dress shirt and shrugs it on.

Blushing, you picture dozens of peeping eyes leering from cracked windows at a cockily strutting Javi as he skips and whistles jovially to his car. "Luckily for you, you're a consummate sinvergüenza and that sort of thing won't faze you," is your sardonic jibe as you snatch up your dress and drape it to cover your frontal nudity as you murmur tenderly, "But hurry back?"

Retrieving his keys from his blazer, Javi chivalrously swoops it over to cover your shoulders before crouching to kiss you softly on the lips, and nodding in agreement. He goes out and hurries back to you, leaving the front gate open and closing the front door firmly behind himself before securing the lock. When he turns, he sees you wearing only his blazer as you open some of the windows a crack so the evening air can filter through. You've maneuvered the coffee table back into place in order to reach the windows, and are currently on your tippy toes turning the crank to open the tallest pair. The jacket is several sizes too large and makes you look slight, stirring that primordial, hardwired protectiveness in him and making his heart brim over.

You catch him staring, and feel a wistful longing expand in your chest, so you walk over and take his hand, leading him down the hall and into the bedroom you stay in. Once he sets his duffle down, you both strip and go take a shower together. When a flustering bout of sadness hits you, he soothes you under the warm cascading water and helps you get through it.

He rubs your back and lets you sob against his chest until you've gotten it all out and can take a deep breath without having it stutter out of your lungs. After you've dried off and gone back to the bedroom, you are emotionally drained, so Javi helps you put on your nightgown, and tucks you into bed before going to shut the lights off. The door clicking shut stirs you from the light doze you'd started to go into, and the hiccup of panic subsides when Javi slips under the covers behind you and settles in to spoon you lovingly. His warm body and gentle kiss to the back of your ear calm you, so you stretch your legs and curl backwards into him as you clasp your hand over his after he's placed it to rest at your womb.

In the serene cooling air of the room and the soft nocturnal sounds coming from outside, you feel him lull, but can sense he's still awake, so you mumble, "Did you eat anything?"

Javier nods and nuzzles the back of your neck, before murmuring, "I ate at the airport. Are you hungry? I could get you something—"

You shake your head and squeeze his hand reassuringly. "I'm fine. There's food brought in throughout the day…picada, pastries, coffee, hot chocolate…" you answer detachedly before sighing. "Did Ellis tell you I was here?"

He grunts affirmatively before retorting softly, "I'm sorry for everything, cariño. The other night…you were absolutely right. It incenses me that I wasn't there for you—"

Rolling over to face him, you loop your arms around him and shake your head dismissively. "No, stop that. You didn't do anything wrong, Javi," you whisper and hug him tight. "But…can you spare being away from the capital right now? Won't you need to go back—?"

His exhale is testy as he tucks your head under his chin. "Don't worry about that. We can talk about everything later, mi amor," he assures smoothly and kisses the top of your head.

Nuzzling his chest, you relent and let out a bone-melting sigh as you close your eyes and let his warm scent and rhythmic heartbeat lull you into slumber. Javier easily falls asleep soon after once the exhaustion of everything weighs into him.

The next morning, you both wake up around dawn, and in the cool morning tranquility, you tell him everything that happened. Really, you pour everything out of you while Javi strokes your hair and listens. You tell him from mundane trivialities of insisting on lilies throughout, to the daunting task of dealing with the will and the estate, to being heartbroken at the thought of having to go back to the family crypt in order to lay her to rest, alongside your mother, grandfather, and uncle. You weep, and he comforts you with assurances that you won't have to deal with it alone.

When you regain your composure, you change the subject to pragmatic planning – agreeing to return to the capital together, how to handle the back and forth you'll have to undertake until everything with the estate is resolved, what will happen with work. Javier internally frowns at the thought of you feeling distraught and overwhelmed, so he ushers you both to get out of bed and prepare for the day, wanting to distract you away from the heaviness of impending obligations. At having to deal with burdens foisted upon you while having to reel from the loss of a profoundly loved person and pillar within your life.

By the time you're both dressed, Javi leaves you to finish brushing your hair so he can retrieve his shoes from the living room.

You find him a short while later in the kitchen, in mid-prep of filling the coffee kettle. At seeing your wavering expression, he pauses and realizes you're overcome by the fact he's handling it at all – that he's touching your 'Buela's timeless appliance. You manage to rein your aggrievement and swallow the lump in your throat as you march to the cupboard to retrieve the coffee cups.

"They're going to be here soon to pick me up. Do you want to ride all together?" you query thickly before clearing your throat.

Javier sets the kettle to heat on the stove and goes to you, encircling your waist from behind and nosing the top of your hair. "Sure, that's fine. Whatever you want, querida," he replies coolly and comically grunts a startled sound when the rooster in the neighboring house starts crowing loudly. "Maldita sea, I will never get used to that—"

You giggle and turn in his embrace to snicker into his neck. "Aren't you from a ranch? How'd you get away with no roosters crowing you out of bed?" is your cheeky inquiry as you lean against the counter and smile up at his wry smirk.

"Easy – we didn't raise chickens!" is his snarky retort as he squeezes your waist affectionately and steers you to sit at the table so he can prep the coffees the way he remembers you make them from last time.

Once he serves you a cup and joins you at the table, he lets you gather your thoughts in silence while you sip the brew. It also lets him recall how tense he was – sitting in the rental car parked at the corner of the street, waiting for you to come home. He hadn't wanted to just show up at the funeral home, and while he'd waited, he thought of every single mistake he'd made the other night, and had resolved to tell you everything that was going on. Seeing you get dropped off, he'd exited the car and steeled himself, not knowing what to expect or if he was crossing a line by being there.

Looking at you now as your faraway gaze sharpens and your eyes soften on him, Javier wants nothing more than to protect and cherish you. So, he reaches his hand over to lovingly clasp around yours.

You smile and rotate your hand so you can squeeze his affectionately. "I missed you," is your soft whisper, weighed down by your emotion.

"I missed you too," Javier murmurs and raises your hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to the back of your palm before he declares, "We'll get through this, corazón."

It's everything you needed to hear in that moment.

As you're both finishing your cups a short while later, your ride shows up and knocks on the front door, so while you rush to go get your shoes on, Javier goes to the door and answers, clearly surprising Miguel, your tía and prima. They all warmly greet him, however, but it's clear to him that when you'd shown up alone earlier in the week, they'd not dared ask about his reason for being absent. He smoothly blames work for holding him up, and when you emerge from the hallway with your heels on, but looking a bit frazzled, he grabs your purse and keys, realizing you'd forgotten where you'd left them, and hands them to you before chivalrously escorting you out the house once you've exchanged hello kisses on the cheek with everyone.

He rides up front in Miguel's car while you sit in the backseat with your aunt and cousin, who whisper to you about how good he looks in a dark suit and tie. You smile flatly, because you agree, but don't want to think about why Javi's wearing a black suit and tie. Your own black pleated dress feels stifling – as if much too snug, so you fuss with the collar the entire drive to the funeral home.

The stress and anxiety build as you all exit the car once Miguel parks, and even though you've made this trek now several times, that foreboding panic starts to brew up in you. Javi takes your hand and gives it a fortifying squeeze before leading the way for you, and you cling to his arm, feeling relief overwhelm you at having him by your side.

It's a painful reminder for Javi. He'd not been at a funeral since his mother's, an experience so dauntingly soul crushing that he'd sworn off ever going to another funeral again for as long as he lived. But, here he was, and no matter how much he compartmentalized it, he felt grief fill him at the sight of all the people there, praying and viewing in silence in collective payment of respect to your grandmother. Sadness clung around his heart at how you fought not to break down into tears, and he found himself biting back the emotion stirred at the sight of her in repose under the soft veil. His mind replayed every moment he'd shared with her, and now his heart hurt at the thought that he didn't get to ask her for her blessing to marry you. That he wouldn't get to spend more wonderful moments with her and you, like he'd hoped and fantasized about.

It's a long day of mourning, and save for a few breaks to get refreshments or decompress out of the main parlor, he spent the bulk of it at your side, with his arm around your shoulders. Javier consoled you when you would sob, held you close when you needed his shoulder to hide your face in, and whispered to you whenever he thought you needed a break. Every once in a while, though, whenever someone new came from the outside of the building into the parlor, you'd crane your head up and around to see who it was before your eyes would wander dejectedly back into a faraway stare. He came to realize that you seemed to be expecting someone, and every time came up disappointed.

It wasn't until the end of the day, when you'd both gotten dropped off, and you'd wandered off to unlock the gate, that your aunt had whispered that they'd been trying to get ahold of your father, but hadn't been successful.

You never mention it to him, though. Not after you shower, nor in bed that night. And he doesn't ask, not even the next morning when you're at your most resigned. He senses you're making peace with the disenchantment, and are walling yourself off to the pain that's yet to come. Today is the day things move to the cemetery, and your final goodbyes happen, and everything in you is revolting – seething with rancor and denial.

Having opted to drive to the funeral home together in Javi's rental, you are able to hone all the control you can muster without the pressure of being at your best around family.

"I just want to fucking scream and break things," you confide crossly as you sit in the passenger seat, gripping the hem of your elegant black frock and bunching the material impulsively after he's parked and you'd made no overture towards being ready to exit the car.

"I know," Javier rumbles and squeezes your shoulder before caressing his hand up the sloping muscle of your neck to knead his fingertips along your nape. "And, while I'm sure it won't be much of a consolation, later – if you want – you can slap me around—"

You snort and press the back of your hand against your nose to stifle a sniffle. "Christ's sake, Javi!" you snicker and suppress your lopsided smile when he cups your shoulder again. "I don't ever want to slap you around, you dork. Let alone to amuse or make myself feel better," is your surly huff before you pout and lean forward to rest your forehead to his. "I'm going to be a horrible mess…I'm sorry in advance."

"Nothing to be sorry about," is his soothing assurance, eyes softening as you blink back a crest of tears that dampen your lashes. "I love you," he murmurs tenderly and brushes his lips gently over yours before caressing your cheek.

"I love you too," you whisper and kiss him before gesturing that you're ready.

The final viewing day is a mass that precedes the last prayers and blessings. You're in a bereaved daze throughout it, and Javi is your rock – at your side, leading you up for the procession, and supporting you every step of the way.

You see Ellis and Anita at the back of the packed parlor and sob, feeling truly touched that they came all this way for moral support. They take turns embracing you, and once the procession heads out to the cars to begin the pilgrimage to the cemetery, the Roses ride with you and Javi. You're able to vent the last of your anxious energy, and by the time you all make the trek through the cemetery to the family crypt, you think you might be able to get through this without falling to pieces.

But when the priest says the last blessings and places your grandmother's urn next to that of your mother's, you lose all composure and begin to weep inconsolably, and Javier's arms and unflappable strength are the only things keeping you from crumbling to your knees under the weight of your grief.

It's brutal, and Javi holds you through the end of the ceremony, feeling horrible and upset at catching you forlornly searching around the crowd of mourners for a sighting of your father, but coming up empty. When it's over, and the bulk of the mourners say the final farewells and well wishes to you and the family, Javi leads you back to the car. Some close family and acquaintances agree to come by the house for a little bit, so you end up going on autopilot after that. The drive there is heavy, and the cloud of despair hangs over you from the time you arrive and go into hostess mode to when you sit for an hour vacantly greeting people who stop by to pay their respects, bring you food, or giving their condolences.

Javier nurses the beer Miguel handed him while he tells him about flying out for his training on Tuesday, and watches you humor one of the neighbors who'd come from across the street to offer, "Mi más sentido pésame," along with a homemade dessert that your aunt dutifully takes to the kitchen for you.

You're just giving her your sincere thanks when the house phone starts ringing. Everyone goes quiet when you sit up straight in your chair and stare in direction of it, but make no movement to answer.

Intrepidly, your cousin rushes over, and answers before going very silent. She spares a glance your way when she greets your father, unsure of what to do.

The phone is at her ear for only a few more seconds before you've stormed over furiously and yanked the receiver away from her and raised it to your own to snap, "Why aren't you here?! After everything, you couldn't even respect her enough to be here?!"

"Tesoro…I'm sorry, I just got the news—"

"We've been calling you the whole week! I even reached out to that corteja you call a wife, and for what?! For you to be utterly unreachable?! That's how much you give a damn about anything other than your stupid post? What about your oath to your family?!"

"Listen to me, mija! I know you're upset. However, it was out of my control. I would've been there if I could have—"

You cut off your father's resonant and even tone to slash, "Acabo de sepultarla," letting your hard declaration of 'I've just entombed her,' weigh your fury before you level him with, "This is the last time I'll ever have to bury a family member that was more of a parent to me than you ever were, so be sure to never count on me being at your goddamned funeral."

You slam the phone down and turn on your heel to storm out of the room and out through the backdoor in a furious exit that leaves everyone tense and bewildered. Javier swears solemnly under his breath and puts his beer down to chase after you, hearing your cousin and aunt apologize on your behalf to the guests as he rushes out. He finds your heels discarded by the backdoor before he spots you out in the sprawling yard, aways from the house's back patio, tucked out of sight behind one of the mango trees. Really, he only spots you when he catches the sound of your sobs, and when you don't respond to him calling your name, he crosses through the yard and goes over to you.

"Hey, c'mon. Come here," Javi croons as he gets close and you turn away in exasperated upset. He patiently coaxes you around so he can pull you into his arms and hug you. "It's ok, mi amor. You don't have to run off and hide from me."

"I'm so ashamed," you sniffle and bury your face in his chest. "She would've been so upset with me for speaking to him like that! B-But he just makes me so angry – always has an excuse, no matter how important something is. His warped priorities always come first," is your venting tirade as you cry, and Javier doesn't know what to say to it, so he consoles you by holding you to him and nuzzling the side of your head while you wear this outburst out. Sobering and frustratedly scrubbing at your eyes, you murmur lowly, "I hate being so weak…"

"You're not weak," Javi assertively presses and tips your face up by curling his hand under your chin. "And you don't have to justify anything to me. Not to anyone else, either," he insists as he cups your face and brushes your tear streaks from your cheeks. And with a deadpan sneer, he drawls, "So, if you want to sit under this tree until everyone leaves, we'll do that—"

"Javi, s-stop being silly," you snicker and hiccup, frowning at how he had to get his shoes dirty from the dewy grass and moist soil thanks to having to rush after you. "That's a level of bratty even I can't get away with," you sigh and lean against him.

Chuckling, he kisses the top of your hairline, and mutters, "Wanna be a malcriada in the shed, then?"

You scoff in amused outrage and swat his chest before giving him the most dazzling smile. It's the first time he's seen it since your last fight, and he buzzes with pride when you caress his cheek and stand on your bare tippy toes to kiss him chastely.

Once you're able to steel yourself again, Javi takes your hand and leads you back to the patio, and you wipe your muddy soles clean on the rug before sliding into your heels and returning into the house. You find that your explosive exit cleared most of the visitors, save for Miguel's family, your aunt and cousin, and the Roses, so you apologize to everyone and thank them for being there to lend you their kind, caring support.

After you resume playing hostess for a bit longer, you see Ellis and Anita off to take the taxi they hailed so they can catch their evening flight back to the capital for an early morning doctor's appointment she has. That departure allows for everyone else to make their exits, and once it's only you, Javier, your aunt and cousin, you all discuss short-term plans for taking care of the house. They assure you they'll come by and be responsible for the garden and house getting tended to in the meantime. You are thankful as you hug and kiss them goodbye, but as soon as you close the door, you're overcome by melancholic upset, so you're very quiet while you go around cleaning up the cups and plates from the impromptu gathering.

Javi helps you, and decides to let your reticence play out without trying to cajole or cheer you up. He recognizes that you're emotionally drained and now compartmentalizing it all. It's what he does when there's nothing left to do with himself, so he respects it and makes sure to allow you the space to do it.

When you wander into the bedroom and start to kick off your heels and strip your dress, he comes in and sits on the bed to get his shoes off. He doesn't expect you to walk around and kneel at his feet in only your black lingerie and take them off for him, or how you scowl at the dirt he got on them as you dutifully wipe them clean with a tissue before you set them aside. Once you stand, you gaze at him lovingly as you clamber forward to straddle his lap.

You work his tie undone and off while you stare into his dark brewed eyes, and after you've unbuttoned most of his shirt open, you kiss his bare chest before trailing a path up to his neck and jaw. He groans and keeps his hands on the bed, wanting to let you set the pace.

Reaching behind yourself to unclasp your bra before discarding it to the floor, you press soft, luscious kisses over his pillowed lips, then caress your hands down his torso to unfasten his belt and work his pants open.

Airily, you whisper as you pull the shirt tails from his pants and help him shrug out of it, "So you know…you being here? It means a lot to me. I…I don't think I could've made it through without you, Javier."

His expression softens, and he cups your cheek gently. "Yes, you could've—"

"I don't think so…but regardless, I'm grateful, so…thank you, for being here with me," you susurrate and kiss him again, with a sultry yearning this time.

Javi deepens the kiss and wraps his arms around you, letting his passion speak for how hearing that makes him feel.

You both make love and get lost in each other after the emotionally tumultuous day, so much so that it's late when you muster the energy to go shower together. It's serene once you settle down in bed together after you watch him pack for both of you like the sweetheart he is.

Once he's back under the covers with you, Javier closes his eyes contentedly when you snuggle against him and doze off with a soft sigh.

That's why when he wakes up a while later and finds himself alone in bed, he gets bewildered and shifts up to get his bearings. Worried, he exits the bedroom and strains his hearing, wondering if maybe you're in the kitchen getting a glass of water, but then the flickering glow of candlelight coming from the bedroom at the end of the hall grabs his attention. He soundlessly lopes to the door that's now wide open, and his eyes adjust to see that you're sitting on your grandmother's bed and looking across at her little altar with her santos and rosary that're illuminated by the four continental candles you have placed strategically around it. Your back is to him, and you shift to lean over and place the picture frame you'd been holding next to the set of photos adjacent the altar.

"Hey," Javier murmurs, and you startle and pivot to look back at him. "Sorry. I woke up and you were gone, so…" he mutters lamely, and you soften and wave him in. He hesitates at the doorway, though. After all, he's never been in this bedroom, and a lifetime of old school manners is telling him it wouldn't be right, but you hold out your hand to him. Yielding to wanting to be close to you, he enters the room and takes your hand, letting you tow him to sit next to you on the bed.

"The first night, I slept here. I wanted to be close to her. To feel like she was still here…and her scent made it easy to fall asleep," you murmur as you caress her pillow thoughtfully. "When I was little, and I was hiding from doing chores in the backyard, I'd sneak in here and play with her santos. She would find me, and rather than be mad, she'd sit with me and ask me what they were up to. I'd make up adventures and have them tell her…" Your reminiscence becomes rich with fondness and heavy with emotion as you blink the tears from your eyes. Javi squeezes your hand, and you push the sadness away to sidle close to him and rest your other hand on his pajama-bottom-clad thigh. "Years later, she told me how she wanted me to keep them once she passed. Now, I just…I keep wishing I could go back, and sit here and talk to her about the silly stories I came up with for each santo," is your reedy musing and you look up into Javier's eyes.

He brushes his fingertips along your jaw before fanning them through your hair to tuck the rogue strands behind your ear. "You still can. She's still with you, always. Sometimes…every once in a while, when I'm really lonely, or homesick, I feel like my mother is with me. I'll suddenly remember things I completely forgot about from when I was a kid. Thing's I haven't ever thought of, and she's always part of them," Javi rumbles hopefully and smiles when your eyes crinkle with wonder.

Heart feeling full, you lean into Javi's side, and let him wrap his arm around you while you rest your head on his bare shoulder. He glances at the photos on the altar table and notices some he hasn't seen before. One of your grandfather as a young man posing in front of his counter, wearing his work belt with all his tools nested in it. Another is a dual frame with your mother sitting in a garden, surrounded by pretty flowers. The other frame is of your uncle with his shirt sleeves rolled up and a wily grin on his chiseled features as he leans back against a banister of an apartment balcony. And the frame you'd just put down on the table was a picture of your grandmother holding you as a little girl in short overalls and a puffy-shouldered shirt. You were sat on her lap, with shiny barrettes in your hair, and you were both smiling beamingly at the camera, and he can make out what looks like the front porch as the background.

He notices a very small frame tucked furthest back on the table, and squints to make out the image under the faint light, and recognizes the tall and broad-shouldered man in the dark blue guayabera to be your father. At least what he must've looked like in his mid-twenties, and it suddenly strikes him why you were so incensed with him on the phone.

Your grandmother had never stopped caring for him – praying for his well-being and wishing him the best, even after everything that happened—

"I know it's probably not the best time, but…can you tell me why you changed your mind? About the apartment?" Your pensive querying pulls Javi back from his thoughts. "What happened at work?"

With a weary sigh, he presses his nose into the top of your head and tries to organize his answer, but then gets frustrated with himself and decides to just divulge it.

"There was an emergency conference call with the embassy leadership and the Samper government. Crosby caved to a bunch of their demands, and when I pushed back, we took the call off-record and in not-so-many words, he told me to get ready to roll over on Cali and to start salvaging my career for when I ship back to the states…"

You absorb that quietly, so much so he wonders if you're going to slowly lose your temper, but then you shift and lean back to look into his eyes.

"So then…your plan is to nail the cartel before they can make you roll over, right?"

Javier blinks at you, astonished. "Yeah…pretty much," he husks and slumps his shoulders when you nod and wrap your arms around his torso so you can nuzzle into his neck. "…But if we blow it, then…well, then everything we've been planning—"

"But, you're not gonna blow it," you intercede in a cool, musing manner and kiss his throat.

"Querida—" he begins to dubiously mutter, but you sit back and exhale dramatically before dotingly running your fingers to comb the curling tufts of hair back from his forehead so you can trace your touch along his furrowed brow affectionately.

"Javi, just tell me you're going to do everything you can to ensure you're not going anywhere, and that's all I need to believe it," you tell him assertively and caress the backs of your knuckles along his cheek, pursing your lips in faux-grouchiness as you grumble, "We're gonna lose out on that awesome amazing apartment, but something else will come along."

He feels thunderstruck with how relieved and in awe he is of your ability to rationalize and be infinitely understanding when he'd fretted worriedly that you would react quite oppositely. You see his incredulous reaction quirk his features and crease his eyes, so you peck him on the lips and pull him along to follow you out of your grandmother's bedroom to return to the bed down the hall. Once tucked back under the covers together in the darkness of the room, you sigh and kiss his cheek.

"Are you ready? Your guys are prepared for what you're going to have to do?" you ask him, and feel him stretch out the tension in his back.

"Yes, they've been prepping, we have a plan pretty much ironed out, and that's what I'm going to go with, whether Crosby gives me the go-ahead or not…"

Your lips press together worriedly, but he doesn't see it, so you're able to feign aloofness before remaking, "So then, I should meet with him after you do, in order to give him the good news, bad news, good news sandwich of the linkup being a success, Ellis leaving, and being on the verge to complete the pilot program on-time?"

He snorts and drawls, "Yeah, I think so. Because then a short while later, you and I will be going into his office to give him notice of our relationship."

You chuckle warmly and snuggle into him. "Oh, indeed. And after, the embassy will erupt with the gossip and I'll be vilified for locking you down—"

"Yeah fucking right. Everyone will lose their shit that you'd get involved with me, and I'll have even more dirtier looks glared my way for sure," is Javi's snarky retort.

Laughing brightly at the silly mental image of you both walking through the lobby with all eyes on you in varying degrees of resentment, envy and astonishment, you suckle a kiss into his neck and declare, "It'll be nice to be able to have all the coffee dates we want, at least."

Smirking broadly, Javier nuzzles your jaw cheekily so that his moustache and scruff graze your skin and makes you squeal before you retaliate by peppering kisses all over his smiling countenance.

The next morning, you are lighter, but still a bit pensive as you prepare to leave. You clean and put fresh linens and towels up, and make sure to check the fridge for any perishable items you'd like to use and spare having to toss when spoiled next time you're in town. Spotting several casserole containers on the bottom shelf, you pull them out and get a lump in your throat. It's the last of your grandmother's homecooked carne asada, white rice, and red beans.

Javier comes into the kitchen after having packed the bags in the rental car to find you on the verge of tears while staring at the last opportunity you have to ever eat your beloved 'Buela's cooking. He feels a heavy sense of déjà vu, recalling how he'd horded the last few meals his mother had cooked by freezing them, and would get furious if anyone touched the containers, until one day he came home and his father had heated every single one up and had them set out on the kitchen table for him and Javier to eat and honor her.

"There's no way I'm letting this go to waste," you say around a sniffle before turning to him and looking as if you're asking for silent permission.

Nodding, Javi comes over and tells you what his father had said to him: "She wouldn't have wanted anything else but us to pig out on her delicious cooking."

It was the sweetest, most irreverently endearing thing he could've said, and it touched your heart. So, you heat up the food, and soon, you're both sitting at the table, enjoying the hearty and delicious meal together.

Once you've finished and cleaned up, you secure the house and lock the front door and gate before getting in Javi's rental to head to the airport. Your heart and belly are full, and with him at your side, the grief has subsided enough to let you long for peace and seek it with the man you love.

Your hopes are double fold now, knowing what's at stake for Javi, and you plan to be his support. To give him the grace and comfort he's bestowed you with in your lowest time, and help him strive to succeed.

Javier's head is in the game too now that he knows you trust him and are willing to ride this out just a little longer.

The days leading up to the Crosby being back at the embassy are filled with his team doing recognizance, planning for every contingency. However, he's learned time and time again that nothing goes according to plan, so he wallows in the stress of it when he's alone.

You, on the other hand, keep him afloat during the times you're both together, and he takes solace in it, even when you're frazzled with juggling work and all the responsibilities you now have back in Medellín. You've secured a lawyer and an accountant to help you sort through everything, and you speak to your relatives almost every day to get updates on the house. Your aunt suggests that you consider selling it so you can save for when Javier proposes to you, which makes you roll your eyes and want to bang your head against your desk. Especially since the thought of selling the home you have the most important, fondest memories in – that means so much to you and has been the cornerstone of your mother's family for decades, is not something you can seriously entertain.

You're telling Javi so while in bed the night before you're both due to meet separately with the ambassador, since you're both on edge and unable to sleep. He listens to you, hand idly petting your hair as you vent. And once you're done and tearily nuzzle his neck, he consoles you before agreeing with you – that selling the house shouldn't be a financial decision. While you absorb that, he is just about to daydream what it would be like for you and him to move into the lovely abode and live out your days there together, when he blurts, "—What about if you keep it in the family?"

Thanks to the block-out curtains not being drawn completely shut over the windows, Javier can see your furrowed brow when you sit up before he remarks that Miguel had mentioned he and your prima wouldn't get a house until he was back from his training, so she was living in his apartment in the meantime. Having been there to get ready for the wedding, he saw firsthand how it was a small, cramped bachelor pad on a 5th floor walkup. Definitely not the ideal place to start living together as newlyweds, let alone start a family in.

"Would you be ok with them living in the house?" he asks, timbre low and musing as he caresses his palm along the contour of your hip and thigh.

Your eyes well, but then a pensive smile softens your features as you lean down and gaze into his dark eyes in the semi-penumbra of the room. "Yeah. That actually makes me happy – knowing they'll enjoy it and take care of it. Having trust that I won't ever have to worry about it not going to good people," you ruminate out loud, and when he cups your cheek, you smile and joke, "I'll have to let her know we've christened the place for them already."

Javi laughs. "I don't think it works like that, guapita," he chuckles charmingly before leaning up to brush his lips over yours.

You grunt humorously before curling into him to cuddle. "So…you're meeting with Crosby early in the morning," is your musing murmur as you loop your arms around his torso.

He lets out a weary exhale. "Yeah. Not sure how it's going to go, so…I might not be able to let you know right away," he tells you in a hushed tone before pressing a kiss to your forehead.

Humming in understanding, you lie awake for a while, cuddling him and worrying silently while he stares out at the sliver of night sky peeking through the sheer curtains.

At some point, though, you must've drifted off to sleep, because the next thing you know, you're stirring awake to the sound of hangers rattling in the closet. You roll over in bed and see Javi's finished pulling on a tie to be looped under his shirt's collar. Slinking up to sit, you admire his broad frame in the early morning light, and smile when he yawns into the back of his hand before pulling his gray blazer out and simultaneously slips into his dress shoes one by one.

When you toss the blanket aside, he turns to peer at you over his shoulder, tension easing from around his eyes at the sight of you in the slinky nighty and with your hair tousled as you stretch your arms over your head before standing to affectionately loop your arms around his waist once he's shrugged his blazer on. Javi's shoulders relax as you lean into him.

"I love you, Javi," you tell him softly, heart open and hopeful. "So…come home to me. No matter what happens."

He turns in your arms and caresses his hands along your shoulders before cupping them to tilt your face up to him. "I will. And I'll do whatever I have to, to make that happen," he declares in that velvety murmur that soothes you into closing your eyes and sighing, rubbing your cheek against his palm. He leans down then and kisses you with the ardor of his promise still bright on his tongue, and you swoon as you cling to him and want to manifest it all into fruition. When he breaks the kiss, you clutch your hands to anchor at his nape as he rests his forehead to yours, feeling suddenly overcome and afraid to part. But then he affectionately nudges his temple to yours and prompts you to open your eyes. Once you do, and his dark brewed depths gaze into yours, Javi husks, "I promise it, querida. I love you so much, and I'll do what I need to so nothing can affect us anymore."

You nod and hug him, not trusting your emotions as a knot in your throat already threatens to choke you up if you try to speak.

Javier hugs you tight, inhaling the soft scent of your hair and relishing how you turn your face into his neck and kiss him there.

Getting ahold of yourself, you lean back and wryly busy yourself with straightening his red tie for him, admiring the interesting print of emerald-cut shaped gold and blue reliefs as you adjust the knot and smoothen out his collar.

"You really know how to get me all verklempt, don't yah," is your irreverent lilt, batting your lashes up at him as your hands glide down the length of his tie.

"If that means 'horny,' then yes. Yes, I do," he quips with a wicked smirk, absolutely puckish glint warming his dark eyes as he squeezes your waist.

Snickering and tousling his hair playfully, you pull away and smile when he pouts and goes to brush it back in front of the dresser's mirror before clasping his watch onto his left wrist. You pull on your fluffy robe and catch his leering smirk in the mirror when you turn. So, you strut over and swat his butt before letting him hoist you up for some nippy kisses along your neck and jaw.

"Buena suerte, agente," you purr lovingly, smiling when he exhales out of his nose and purses his lips derisively at you before he slides his palms down to cup your ass and herds you against him.

"I'll need it, baby," he quips before giving your derrière a squeeze.

When you both finally have to part ways, he kisses you goodbye at the front door.

"Love you."

"I love you too," you murmur and let him stride off towards the elevator, feeling that pang of worry, but you bury it when he enters it and shoots you a wink before the doors slide shut.

His words stay with you all morning, helping quell your worry and chasten the anxiety you have towards the unknown before you both. They become your security blanket as you get ready for work, commute to the embassy, and breeze up to your department for a very busy day ahead of you.

You spend the first couple of hours in your department meeting with your team leads to finalize your progress report for the ambassador on the pilot program, and once that's squared away, you ask Jackie Espinosa to chat with you in your office.

Once you've shut your door and she's sitting in front of your desk, you retrieve a laptop from your unlocked drawer and pass it over to her as you explain, "So, one of the first things I want to do immediately, is to implement the program loaded on this computer into the system. It'll help monitor data usage and log access credentials."

She gives you a brilliant smile and narrows her eyes keenly as she muses, "Ah, I knew you'd have something in mind for that. Based on what Deputy Rose warned Devon – about the CIA resources who got onboarded for the pilot."

"Indeed. And, full disclosure, Jackie: You are the only person I'm sharing this with. Ellis and Devon are not in the loop, and I want to keep it that way. Your background in programming models and database infrastructure make it plausible for us to even implement this, so I want you to oversee it," you explain as you fill her in on the finer points – the ones you'd emphasized Francesca build in, and the ones you added on.

"Consider it done! I'll work on it today and have an update for you tonight," she declares confidently before hugging the laptop to her chest and leaning forward to ask, "Is there some specific reason you don't want the fellas to know?"

You nod and confide, "Ellis is leaving in a few weeks, and frankly? I don't want any possible political or bureaucratical fallout to taint his exit process here, so I want him to have plausible deniability," you state frankly to the smart-as-a-whip young woman with the sassy pixie cut and bold brows, adding, "And Devon has to work on his poker face, so since he's overseeing the training with those CIA resources, I wouldn't want to put him on the spot knowing we're implementing this expressly to track their activity."

She nods, pursing her expressive lips before inquiring, "Do you think there'll be fallout? I mean, it's totally smart to build this in, so I don't get why anyone would complain. But, is there some reason we could get dinged over this?"

"Not a legitimate one, no. But don't worry. If by chance we ruffle feathers, I'll take the blame. I'll make sure you're covered," you assure before going into more detail about your future plans for the department once Ellis leaves the embassy and Jackie assumes his role.

While you're wrapping up your discussion, Javier is on his way to meet General Serrano.

He'd spent the morning beseechingly stressing to Crosby on the seriousness of the leak, the likelihood Botero could be involved, and how time was of the essence. Not to mention hammered home how his C.I. was in danger if action wasn't taken before the leak in the government found out his identity and told Cali. The ambassador was having none of it.

Not only did he tell Javier that he is to turn over his files to the Minister of Defense's investigators, but he implored him to pull out his informant while he still could, assuring he could sign off on the paperwork and have the Marines at their door in twenty minutes.

"—No, we do that…Miguel disappears and then we're done," Javier insisted, curtly emphasizing how dire that would be with his brooding scowl while turned around in his seat in order to face the ambassador.

"You're already done," Crosby denounced with stern austerity, glacial eyes boring into Javier.

So, with a defiant glower, he'd stood from the chair and flippantly drawled, "I thought you said I have until 5p.m."

Crosby had sighed before leveling Javier with, "What's more important to you, Agent Peña? Getting Miguel Rodríguez…Or your C.I.'s life?"

It was an impossible choice. Of course, Javier did not want to risk Salcedo or his family, but the thought of letting Rodríguez go further into hiding was unatonable to him. Not after everything the Cali godfathers have wrought – all the collateral damage and corruption they've propagated. And certainly not with everything he has at stake.

So, he'd lied to Chris and Dan.

When they'd insisted it was time to cut their losses and get Salcedo and his family out while there was still a chance, Javier and lied, saying that Crosby wouldn't go for it. Hell, he'd become such a good liar after all these years of coercive strategizing, that he even told them, "I asked." Sure, it ate at him, and it was something that would only gnaw away at him deeper later on, but he needed his guys to keep their eye on the ball and have a stake in it. They cared about Salcedo and felt responsible for how deep the man had gotten – how close already he'd come to being tortured and killed by his twisted bosses, so he was banking on them being far sharper and intent on nailing Miguel Rodríguez than they'd been the last time.

It's what he's telling himself as he marches up the staircase to meet with General Serrano on the veranda overlooking the courtyard where his most elite forces are doing drills.

While he details his plan to the man, you're entering the ambassador's office with Ellis in tow.

Crosby definitely looks like a stewing bull while sat behind his desk, so you put on a dazzling smile as you enter and greet him jovially as you and Ellis take your seats before his desk. After some catch-up chat, in which the ambassador mournfully gives his condolences to you and tests your ability to keep a stiff upper lip, you thank him and manage to segue into other topics. "—And how's Nancy doing?" you're asking now, making it a point to default to informalities for the first time in your entire tenure.

With a knowing look, Crosby smiles broadly at you before retorting, "She's doing much better, darlin'. Thanks for asking."

The three of you share in some pleasantries before you update him with, "—The linkup with stateside was a success, sir. Everything is up and running, and so far, we've had zero issues."

Crosby is very pleased to hear about it, but then he beats you to the punch on the next bit of news you'd intended to segue into. "—And I take it you're here due to your jumping ship in a month's time, eh?" he's remarking glibly as he eyes Ellis and leans forward with his hands interlaced over his desk.

"Yes, sir. Although I assure you, I'm very happy here!" Ellis responds emphatically before pulling out his copy of the sonogram photo to hand it over to Crosby. "But, this little guy is on the way, and we'd like to be somewhere a little less, uh, tumultuous. The opportunity in San Juan is also pretty amazing, sir," is his affable elaboration while Crosby looks fondly at the sonogram and nods in understanding before handing the photo back.

"Congratulations, son. That's fantastic news! I'm very happy for you," the ambassador genuinely remarks before looking at you as he gravels coolly, "You let me know if there's anything I can do to help in the transition. I assume you already have someone in mind to slide into the job?"

"Yes, we do," you reply before detailing Jackie and Devon's promotions, and the timeline for when Ellis will be officially leaving the embassy. You then give Crosby the good news about completely the pilot onboarding on-time, and hand him your progress report on the effort.

"Well, darlin', it sounds like you're gonna show up all the other departments at the bi-annual," he chuckles affably and grins when you roll your eyes at him. "Now, just for that, I'll make it a point to tout to everyone how much better of a director you are than the rest of 'em—"

"And that's more than a fair trade, as long as we get the budget increase for our department next year and don't have to fight anyone for merit," you chime blithely, smiling at the man while Ellis snickers.

After you've bantered a bit on the topic of the big meeting in a couple of days, you answer some of his follow-up questions before you all chat amiably. And while you're warmheartedly looking at the pictures of his newborn grandson he's proudly passing around, smiling ear-to-ear while he gushes about how happy his family are, Javier is on his way to the Minister of Defense's office after getting Serrano on board with his raid plan.

He'd driven to the Palacio de Justicia and multitasked making several calls on his cell phone, some of which involved ordering his guys to get Salcedo briefed so they can then tag along with the Search Bloc forces to Cali, updating Stoddard to keep his day blocked out so he could monitor things from his office, and reaching out to the reporter from El Tiempo to meet him at the same café they've rendezvoused at on prior occasions.

He knows it's a risk to loop her in before he's got anything concrete on the leak, but Javier doesn't want to spare a single opportunity in dismantling all the cartel's leverage if the raid is a failure. After all, he's playing with fire here, and while he marches up the palatial steps to meet Botero, he strategizes how he'll go about walking the tightrope. And by the time he's sitting across from the Minister of Defense, playing the role of the intrepid embassy official kowtowing to the political pressure, Javier finds the motivation to manipulate the man easily. All he has to think about is being one step away – a precarious leap away from nailing the whole lot of them, and how a life with you is waiting for him on the other side of that leap.

Without batting an eye, Javier tells Botero that they had a lead on the current whereabouts of Miguel Rodríguez, and nonchalantly mentions he's already got his men preparing for the raid on the Hacienda Buenos Aires luxury condominium. When the other man balks, Javier uses his leverage: "Well, we can't waste any time. You want to catch him, don't you?"

"Of course I do," Botero promptly retorts.

With complete even keel, Javier counters, "This is the best option. If we do get him, you get the credit. I promise." He then pockets the slip of paper he'd been handed as he coolly stands and makes his exit, with a parting, "Thank you, sir."

The entire trip from said office down to the plaza that housed the quaint café he was meeting Carolina at was fraught with his anxiety pounding in his veins, so when his cell phone rings in his pocket, he retrieves it with deft agility before answering curtly, "Peña."

"Your message went through. Botero's the leak. Miguel's on the move," Feistl dutifully lists.

Javi pauses in his stride just outside of the café entrance, feeling all that pressure evaporate at the confirmation of his suspicions. "Good. Keep me posted on stage two," he responds smoothly before ending the call and loping confidently into the café and right up to the table Carolina is sitting at before leaning over to kiss her hello on the cheek, taking the seat across from her.

While he's confiding what he's just confirmed about the Minister of Defense being in cahoots with the Cali cartel, you're back in your office, reviewing some of the logs on the stateside data transfers that occurred while you were out.

You're noting large downloads that occurred at irregular intervals from several servers in the building when the intern from the Correspondence department knocks on your door with a confidential package. "Good afternoon, director! Just need your signature," she calls out, fumbling with the clipboard that was tucked under the parcel.

Rushing over to help her, you quickly sign for it and thank her before asking her how she's been. After all, she was pretty chummy with Francesca, so you'd seen her around – partaking in coffee breaks with your former intern in her cubicle. Once she hustles back to her delivery cart to resume her rounds, you shut your office door and walk over to your desk to open the package in privacy.

The label tells you it's something you've been waiting weeks for, so you take your time opening it and sifting through the contents of documents. And the one right on top is exactly what you needed – that confirmed all your suspicions and gave you the precise leverage—

A knock on your door derails your plotting thoughts before the door is opened a crack and Jackie pokes her head in. "Hey! Are you free to chat?"

Collecting everything from the package and placing them in an unmarked inter-department envelope with a string button before slipping it into your work tote, you wave her in eagerly. "I am. Come in!" you affably call before setting the box aside on your storage sideboard. "What's up?"

Jackie dutifully closes your door and rushes to your desk to plop down a transcript that could only be decipherable to a handful of you in the department. "You were right. Look at this!" she hisses and points to data points. "I uploaded the program, then did a patch to see retroactive usage—"

"Whoa, you already finished the upload?!" you marvel and sit back in your chair. She nods vigorously and begins to fan through the stack to illustrate a pattern that you see matches the data logs you'd just been looking at. "…So then, it's as I suspected."

"Yes, and look here," she whispers and indicates a series of codes. "These are ID credentials from stateside. From what I can tell, someone there has been back-channeling intel through to someone with credentials from the pilot. However, to access this kind of data, they needed a Top-Secret clearance, which none of those resources from CIA have," is her elaboration before leaning back and letting you skim through the info. "What should we do?"

You glance up at her, and lean back in your chair. "Can we look into where in the embassy this was accessed from?" you ask instead.

While Jackie and you go down to your secure workspace in the server room to investigate further, Javier is back in his office, reeling.

Carolina had given him a big score with her analysis of the financial records. However, he still needed more to have Botero dead to rights for laundering Cali cartel money through the campaign, and right now without someone to decode the ledger, he didn't have it.

And now? After getting a call from Feistl that everything was on track, followed up by another call from him less than 15 minutes later that Salcedo had gone back into the building suspiciously? He felt like he'd swallowed lead. He had to reluctantly give Chris the go-ahead to infiltrate the building, deviating from the raid plan. The next thirty minutes were some of the longest of his life. His temples were pounding, and the cigarette he nursed was doing nothing to quell his simmering anxiety.

But when his cell phone rings, and Serrano confirms he had Miguel Rodríguez in custody? The bone-deep relief that washed over him had him wavering on his feet. And when he asked about Salcedo, and been assured that Feistl had secured him from the building to the rendezvous point to meet his family, Javier felt absolved before a surging sense of triumph welled in his belly.

He felt so high on it that the first thing he did after he relayed the info to Stoddard so he could get things secured for Salcedo's security detail, was rush back to his desk and pick up the phone to dial your office, figuring with this win, he could throw caution to the wind and give you the amazing news over the work line. But then a knock at his sidelight has him pivoting to glance backwards over his shoulder. He's perplexed to see Carolina Álvarez there, asking him to chat.

Feeling a sense of trepidation needle up his spine, Javier hangs up before the line has finished ringing and gestures for her to have a seat before he maneuvers into his desk chair. She levels him with the news that she'd been wrong – that the transactions did not prove the Cali had laundered 6 million dollars into the Samper campaign. Instead, she details that the money never left the campaign, meaning it was a campaign contribution all along, orchestrated by Santiago Medina, who'd acted as an intermediary between the campaign and the Cali cartel.

Utterly floored, Javier thanks Carolina and assures her this should be enough to hold the government officials involved – no matter how high they go – accountable. He's grabbing the financial files and sprinting up the Crosby's office before he's even finished kissing the woman goodbye on the cheek, and is barging in with insistence. The vehemence in him has him surging forward with his evidence, zealous in his convictions.

"—We got Miguel Rodríguez."

"You got him?!"

"He's on a plane back to Bogotá right now," Javier declares soberly. "It'll be all over the news in an hour."

"Couldn't let it go, could you?"

The foreboding, rhetorical question isn't enough to derail Javi. It doesn't sink in to him, so he forges forward with the documents in his hand. "Sir, there's another piece of this that you need to know."

He lays all his cards on the table to Crosby, detailing how Santiago Medina funneled millions of Cali cartel's money into the Samper campaign, emphatic that the Samper administration is compromised, and without putting the corrupt politicians in jail with the Cali godfathers, nothing will change. It isn't until the ambassador gives him a hard look before dejectedly retrieving a tape recorder from his desk drawer that Javi feels something seriously amiss.

"The voice you're about to hear, is the voice of the man you just mentioned, Santiago Medina…talking to Gilberto Rodríguez. On the phone," Crosby remarks as he puts a cassette in, and presses 'Play' before standing back.

Javier feels utterly gutted and torn asunder by what he hears.

And the cold realization that engulfs him has him pressing 'Stop' on the recording before he glowers at the ambassador. "How long have you known?" he croaks gruffly.

"It's complicated."

He can't help the scoff that filters out of his chest as everything deflates in him.

"The point, Agent Peña, is you're right. But in this case…it doesn't matter."

"You're not going to do anything," Javier grouses, visibly affronted by the realization.

"Samper's a good friend to us," Crosby retorts.

Incredulous, Javi picks up the recorder and holds it like it's an object representing betrayal. "So that's it. They bought…" he can't help disparagingly scoffing before adding, "The president."

"And for now…they get to keep him."

Distraught, Javi puts the recorder down on the desk and turns to advance to the door, completely beside himself. But then he pauses and turns to stare at the ambassador before cynically deadpanning, "We never had a chance."

Crosby has no retort. And Javi is hollowed out as his fury turns inward and eats away at everything, all he had been cultivating in himself: The hope, the pride, the sense of justice—

The pursuit of being worthy enough to be with you. It was all gone.

You're unaware of what's transpired. Instead, you're like everyone else.

You find out about the successful raid and capture of Miguel Rodríguez when you and Jackie return to your department close to the end of the day, and are jubilant, practically bursting at the seams with the impulse to run up to Javier's office and jump into his arms – protocol be damned! But you imagine he's in the thick of it still, dealing with all the bureaucratical things involved. And when he doesn't call, you feel validated in not throwing caution to the wind, imagining him getting all the accolades he deserves from Crosby and the DEA leadership stateside for an artful takedown of the notorious heads of the cartel.

Sitting in Ellis' office and watching the coverage on the little television he'd pilfered from God knows where, you smile brilliantly as he plops down next to you and pulls you into a fierce hug. You'd already given everyone the ok to go on and celebrate with the rest of the floor in the breakroom, where spirits of all types were broken out of their hidden cubbies and shared for the impromptu gathering while you waited giddily for Javi to call.

When the reporting coverage keeps going on and on, but you don't see Javi do any press conference like he'd done when he'd caught Gilberto Rodríguez, nor receive a call from him, you figure maybe something happened with the informant, Salcedo.

That sobers your glee, and keeps you grounded as you grab your things and head home to wait for him.

You don't know that while you're driving out of the embassy's compound, Javier is standing in the bullpen of his department, staring broodingly over at the Cali cartel suspect board.

The space is quiet and vacant, with the bulk of his staff having fucked off to party on the 'successful capture' while he'd hidden in his office away from the good-natured 'congrats!' pats and ovations.

As far as he was concerned, there was nothing to celebrate.

And, as if to further grind the lonesome, stultifying loathing he feels deeper, Stechner lopes in just then, looking ever smug, as he acerbically drawls, "This your celebration? Kind of a downer. I was hoping for some alcohol."

If not for the soul-crushing blow he was still reeling from, and the self-loathing dejection seething through him, Javier would've ripped the man's head off his body.

After everything he's done to you, there was a time he would've exacted retribution on the bastard without a regret. But now? All he can muster is a resigned, abject scowl as he mutters, "How long have you had them?" He then looks over at Stechner as he clarifies, "The tapes Crosby played for me?" When the usually supercilious man just puts his hands in his pockets and balances his weight from foot to foot glibly, Javier deadpans, "Let me guess…it's complicated."

"How about, uh…I tried to warn you?" Stechner drawls before scoffing at Javier's disdainful sneer.

As the man pontificates to him about cutting corners to get to the head of the line, and what mattering being what one does once you get there, Javier feels cold acrimony fill him. But when Stechner has the audacity to wax complimentary to him about being the agent to put cuffs on two Cali godfathers – as if that's a single point of pride, Javier starts to shut himself down from taking umbrage.

But when the sanctimonious asshole picks up the red marker with a tap on the desk before holding it out to him, saying conciliatorily, "Go on. You've earned it," Javier gives him a cold glare and swallows every impulse he has to take that marker and shove it down Stechner's throat. Instead, he turns dismissively and stalks away from him.

He goes into a bit of a fugue state after that, and doesn't snap back into himself until he's staring at his own reflection in the mirror of the bathroom. The fluorescent lights above head hum too loud, and cast his features in a drawn, harsh light. He runs the tap and splashes water on his face, feeling like he could jump out of his skin, and tries to rein the feelings crawling through his veins and making him sick of the man he sees staring back at him.

You, for your part, have spent the time waiting for him to come home practically crawling the walls, and are teeming with anticipation as you pace the living room of his apartment. The TV is on the news, but you're only half listening to the broadcast. They keep repeating the top story that's captured the entire country for the last few hours, and when they show the news conference footage of Miguel Rodríguez being perp-walked in front of the cameras, you keep looking up at the screen, as if this time, you'll catch a glimpse of Javi.

Wringing your hands impatiently through your hair, you finally flop down into the couch and huff at yourself, forcing your antsy attention to focus on the news story when it discusses the daring way CNP caught the Cali godfather in mid-transit to his next hideout, when you hear a key slip into the lock of the door.

Javier walks in with his gray blazer flung under his arm as he shuts the door behind him, and is seemingly on delay when he doesn't immediately register that the news playing on the TV is suddenly shut off until he's turned and blinking at you when you exuberantly jump up from the couch and sprint over to throw your arms around his shoulders.

"Javi! Oh my god – you did it! I'm so proud," is your gushing exclamation as you hug him and gleefully nuzzle into his neck. "Are Chris and Dan alright? And your informant, Salcedo? Everything ok—?"

Your rambling, excited questioning comes to screeching halt when you pull back to smile beamingly up at him, and finally see how drawn and guarded he is.

He manages to force a tepid nod before detaching himself from you in order to drop his keys and cell phone to the credenza before tossing his blazer distractedly to drape over the back of the leather chair as he breezes by you.

"Javier, what's wrong?" your shaky murmur makes him stall in his retreat to the bedroom and has him aching in a way that makes him feel lowly and lost. So much so, he doesn't realize he's cupped his hands over his face and let out a withering exhale. You pad over to him and are at his side as you caress his back, pressing, "Hey, talk to me. What happened?"

"Nothing. It's nothing—" Javier begins to dismiss and wrings his hands testily down his tired features, but can't seem to muster looking you in the eye. "It's just been a long day—"

You hold steadfast in your spot and place a hand on his chest so that he can't bolt from you. "Please, mi amor, don't shut me out again. Not like last time," you whisper, and you feel him get rigid under your touch, so you beseech more forcefully, "Please, Javi…don't wall yourself off from me."

He looks at you then, and the morose upset teeming in his dark eyes sends a sharp pang of hurt through you.

The look in your eyes? And how your expression blooms into worried sadness cleaves into his heart, and before he's registered it, he's pulling you into his arms and falling apart.

You're beside yourself when he practically crumbles into you and wavers on his feet, and you muster the gumption to lead him to the couch before you both end up heaps on the floor. Wrapping him up in your embrace, you hold him tight and rock him soothingly as his breathing becomes irregular and he trembles against you.

Tears sting at your eyes as he unravels shakily against you while he repeats, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry," over and over in broken, lonesome croaks that get husky from the tangle of emotion welling up in his throat.

You shush him tenderly and start combing your fingers through the back of his hair as you soothe, "It's alright, querido. Let go. I've got you. I'll take care of you," and nuzzle adoring kisses to his temple, the top of his head – everywhere your lips can reach. He finally starts to calm when you murmur, "I'm not going anywhere, Javi. No matter what, ok? I love you."

It's a quiet while until Javi pulls himself together and steels himself again before he leans back and angrily wipes at his eyes before scrubbing his hand across his nose tersely. The way he turns away from you to hide his features reminds you of that time he'd broken down in front of you. He'd been agitated and wrung through with self-loathing then too, but this time feels much more serious, so you cuddle him.

You wrap your arms around him and rest your head on his shoulder. He lets you, but doesn't look at you, feeling much too ashamed to.

"It was a fucking mess…"

His voice is so low and hoarse, but you dare not say anything, for fear that he'll clam up and turn whatever this is inward on himself more than he already has. So, you are patient as he takes his time collecting his bearings to unburden himself.

"…Salcedo almost got killed. His family almost got slaughtered…I lied to keep my guys focused on getting him to cooperate in catching Rodríguez instead of risking pulling them out safely and tipping the cartel off…I gambled with their fucking lives, and for what?"

Your heart is racing, but you only tighten your embrace around him.

"Rigged…fucking rigged the whole time, and I could've gotten them, and my guys fucking killed, and none of it would've mattered…none of it matters now—"

"Javi," you whisper and reel him back, desperate to get him off of this precipice he's teetering over. He shakes his head and rubs his palm across his face, snarling at himself. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to—"

He shies away from you and off the couch then, storming over to his blazer to hastily dig into a pocket for his cigarette pack and lighter. "I've said enough anyway," he hisses as he fishes a slim cylinder from the pack and lights it, taking a long pull before tossing everything onto the coffee table and letting loose a harsh exhale of smoke. "Only brought me back so I could be a goddamn sap. Told me as much, and I didn't want to fucking believe it. But it's undeniable—can't fucking pretend now. I was nothing but a fucking fool—just the pinche maldito desgraciado of always. Never meant to do anything to make it stop…" he pauses before something echoes in his mind, and he disparagingly repeats it under his breath before taking another pull from his cigarette. "Always helps to have a hero on board."

With exasperation, he exhales a cloud of smoke and cuts his berating sneer off, hoping the burn of his inhale will break his acrimonious feelings apart before they form on his tongue. When the loathsome weight of them scalds him like lancing disdain boiling forth, he wrings a hand through his hair, snarling in contempt, and seething, "Everything – all of it, doesn't amount to shit—"

You're suddenly on your feet and tugging him around to face your angry expression. He's disarmed by it, and haplessly stares at you when you snatch his cigarette away and irascibly grind it out into the glass ashtray on the coffee table before grabbing him by the front of his crooked tie and rumpled dress shirt.

"Now you listen to me, goddammit. You're NOT gonna wallow in whatever the fuck this is in front of me, you hear me?! I'm not letting you grind yourself down. You wanna vent? DO IT! But do not just take this misery and swallow it down," you ferociously harangue and pull him close. "Be mad and angry at the right target, not at yourself," you mutter as you emphatically stare into his overawed expression.

Javi doesn't even know where to start.

You see it written on his face, so you tow him to follow your lead down into the bedroom, where you sit him on the bed and dutifully take his shoes off for him before removing his tie, belt, watch and wallet. And once you've divested him of said trappings, you take off your lavender silk blouse and remove your skirt so you can sit comfortably on the bed and pull him into your waiting arms.

"One thing at a time, amado," you assure him softly and feel him lean gratefully into your embrace with a drawn-out exhale. "Firstly: You made a choice based on factors that were before you. Salcedo is fine, and so is his family, right?" When he nods against your shoulder, you muse, "Ok, now secondly: I told you before. There are things you cannot control. Your goal was to take down the Cali cartel. It is not your job to make sure they stay in prison. There is an entire system at work, one that's existed long before you where things are the way they are. Only the people who are beholden to that system are able to force it to change. So, if they don't stay locked up because of it? That is not on you."

Javier deflates against you, feeling so weary, so you sigh and rub his back as you level him with, "Thirdly: Nothing is over until you decide it is. Have you decided it is?"

Pulling back to stare at you, Javier feels lost for what to say. His brow is furrowed woefully, but his scowl dips into a frown before he mumbles, "It's being decided for me—"

"No, it's not. If it was, you wouldn't be here right now. They'd have forced you to ship out and mailed your shit after the fact," you insist, giving him a lopsided smile as you counter spiritedly, "You're the boss. You just got a big win. Are you done? Is there more you need to do to stick the final nail in the coffin for the cartel?"

Bemusedly, he thinks about it, and you watch as something dawns on him. "No…I'm not done," he rumbles, gaze focusing keenly now on yours. "But, there's so much wrong here. I can't guarantee it'll amount to anything, even if I keep going—"

"Javi, just do what you think is right. Whichever way it turns out, that's what matters: that whatever you do, you can walk away able to say you did everything you could, and can keep your head held high knowing so," you tell him ardently and cup his cheek with loving grace. "I believe in you, chavón."

He exhales a wry scoff at that and leans into your touch. "You shouldn't, though," he blurts in an unfiltered admittance that has him bowing his head in moroseness. "Nothing I've done has amounted to anything worthy of it—"

"Your job is not you."

Javier is taken aback by your unflinching rationale. He looks up at you with those molten, dark brown depths, and he leans forward, resting his forehead to yours and encircling his arms around you. Breathlessly, he murmurs your name and squeezes his eyes shut, feeling overcome.

"I believe in you, Javier. I love you, and you're worthy, dammit, so…quit being contrary with me," you drawl silkily and kiss his cheek, brushing your nose affectionately against his before nudging your temple into his in a show of flirty dominance.

Pulling you into him, Javi takes you down to lie on the bed with him as he begins showering you with reverent, grateful kisses.

You don't push him for details, don't seek a play-by-play of just what the hell happened to have him taking a win like it's the biggest loss ever. Instead, you help him undress, and once he's shed his clothes, he strips you of your pastel pink bra and panties before he glides down your body to get lost in the sensory bliss of burying his face in your pussy.

No, you do not press him for a complete rundown of what transpired, figuring he'll tell you once he's regained his composure and stability.

And really, with how he devours your tingling cunt, greedily driving you into orgasm so he can keep licking into you until you're trembling and writhing on his tongue? You see free to give yourself over into chasing the soul-shaking, divinely ruinous desire he stokes in you while he plucks climax after climax out of you. By the time you're a quivering, slick and warm mess, Javi climbs back up your wrecked form and nips possessively at your sloping muscle as he guides his cock to press into you.

Javi gets lost in the passion of being yours and taking you over the zenith of scorching pleasure over and over again, completely insatiable for it and wanting to erase the world from his thoughts. The carnal ferocity of his lovemaking has you crying his name and clinging to him as he fucks you into oblivion, where only your ecstasy centers him and gives him purpose. And when you dig your nails into his back after he has you seeing the universe glittering in the backs of your eyes from hitting the cluster of pleasure nestled inside you, Javi reaches his release – fucking his cum so deep in you that he shouts in triumph as he drives home into you one last time. His features melt into sheer bliss before he collapses on top of you and buries them heatedly against your neck, gasping heartily to regain his ragged breath.

You're both sweating, pulsing heaps, basking in anchored relief as you come down from the high. And after a calm quiet filled with only your recovering breaths and slowing heartbeats, Javi murmurs something against your neck, and you struggle to clear the fog from your mind to make sure you heard him right. "What?" you mumble tiredly.

"I said, I'm going after the accountant," he rasps, voice a rough bass against your jaw.

Dimly, you lie there and try to muster the brainpower to engage some form of recall. Then you remember why he'd had to chase after Franklin Jurado. The accountant.

"…He's the only way to decode the ledger, and if we find him, I can make sure he goes on the record. Those bastards stay in jail, and anyone who helped them will go down with 'em," Javier is telling you in a stream of thought, and you have so many questions, but you bottle them up. "I have to try…can't just walk away without making sure I've done everything I could…"

You absorb that, idly caressing your touch along his warm, sweat-beaded back. When he doesn't say anything else, you nose into the side of his head, just above his ear. "Alright, then," is your soft, musing reply.

He nuzzles into the crook of your neck and lets out a pensive sigh. Then, he adjusts to roll onto his back before pivoting to sit on the side of the bed. You think he's going to close himself off completely now, but instead, he outstretches his hand to you before glancing sheepishly over his shoulder.

Javi watches your eyes crinkle with affection before you take his hand and let him pull you over to sidle up against him. He kisses the top of your head and braces his arm around your waist before leading the way to the bathroom, where you both share a hot, soothing shower together in comfortable silence.

By the time you're both in the dark of the cool, air-conditioned bedroom, nestled under the covers with each other, you contentedly rest your head on his chest and fall fast asleep. After all, you feel settled, knowing you've given him the love and support he deserves, and seemingly have quelled whatever self-destructive wave that had overwhelmed him.

You don't know that Javi is wide awake, staring up at the ceiling into a void of his own making. One where he replays his failures and fixates on the betrayal of being set up to fail by people that should be on his side – that should be striving towards the same goals he's doggedly worked towards this whole time. The more he reflects on it, the more sordid he feels about it all.

And, the easier it becomes for him to compartmentalize the doubts while using the anger he feels as motivation towards this new goal.

In this moment, he doesn't realize he's set himself on a path to derailing everything he's worked towards, nor that it will lead to a fallout of unsalvageable proportions for the life he's started building here with you.

Instead, all he knows is that he will see this hunt through, doing whatever it takes to walk away from it at its conclusion with his head held high.

________________

Read Chapter 37: Everything

Spanish-English Glossary:

Velorio = Wake; veiling ceremony where people sit vigil

Picadera = Snacks; finger foods

Comadre = Godmother, but is sometimes used towards a close family friend; someone trusted

Querida = Affectionate term for a female, akin to expressing one's want and desire

Nada de eso, mi amor = None of that, my love

Mi amor = My love

Sinvergüenza = Puerto Rican slang for someone shameless; a scoundrel

Cariño = Darling/sweetheart

Maldita sea = Damn it

Corazón = Heart; pet name to signify how deeply you love someone

Tía = Aunt

Prima = Cousin (female)

Mi más sentido pésame = My deepest sympathies; My deepest condolences

Tesoro = Treasure; darling

Corteja = Puerto Rican slang for mistress, or an escort

Mija = Short for mi hija, aka my daughter; my girl

Acabo de sepultarla = I've just entombed her

Malcriada = Bratty woman; spoiled woman; naughty woman

Santos = Saints

Guapita = sassy/foxy/daring/testy (female)

Buena suerte, agente = Good luck, agent

Pinche maldito desgraciado = Fucking damn wretch

Amado = Beloved (male)

Chavón = a man that's pestering you

Thanks for reading! Please consider leaving a comment and sharing your feedback. I would be eternally grateful. 

[furious-rogue-stuff]

Heat Chapter 35: Spoil

Hello, my dears~! It’s been a much-too-long-and-unplanned hiatus, so please enjoy this super-sized chapter that is busting at the seams in order to make up for the long delay between posts.

Pairing: Javier Peña x OFC | Javi x Querida

Disclaimer: Written in 2nd person narrative, you can safely assume our heroine and love/lust interest is a Latina, written by a Latina. Here's my philosophy on my writing, for further context.

Rating: Mature/Explicit 🔞

Word Count: 25,500+

Summary: You're at the happiest you've ever been with Javi, and although things at work aren't settled yet, you both are moving towards the next step in your relationship. Is there anything left that could possibly spoil your plans?

Warnings: Javier Peña being the God-level BAE. Graphic descriptions of sex, including explicit depictions of oral (m+f receiving) and unprotected sex, both vaginal and anal intercourse. Mentions of toxic coping mechanisms, film references and adult situations. Descriptions of raunchy behavior, light dom/sub play, roleplay, cum play, competence kink, size kink, praise kink, and dirty talk. Allusions to self-loathing, regret, and emotional trauma. Some Needy!Javi, Dom! Javi, Soft!Javi. In the vein of Narcos being a bilingual show, and Javier Peña being fluent, I felt it was apropos to include Spanglish and Spanish throughout.

Heat Masterlist

Previous chapter - Chapter 34: Worthy 

Chapter 35: Spoil

So much has happened recently that you almost forget about all the stressful stuff you need to manage at work. Most pressing is the final linkup that will connect state side's network with the one you've established across all the embassy field-offices in Colombia, expanding the capability of data transfers, automating inter-agency intel sharing, and far more.

The rest of your week is a delicate balance of overseeing that work, losing Ellis for a couple days when he travels to San Juan for his interview, and juggling apartment hunting on you and Javi's free time. So far, the three places you've looked at hadn't ticked off all the necessary boxes for either of you. The apartment you were both touring today had been so bad that you'd found yourself admiring Javi's fresh trim – internally lamenting the temporary loss of the cute curls that had begun to brush his forehead no matter how much he combed them back. His profile was lit gorgeously by the waning sunlight coming through the very narrow transom window in the bedroom, and you'd fought the impulse to sigh out wistfully at his ridiculous handsomeness when he'd looked over and caught you staring.

His mustachioed lips quirked into that rugged smile that threatened to unearth the dimple in his cheek, and he'd waltzed over to whisper with syrupy sweetness, "The best thing about this room, is you standing in it, looking at me like that."

Biting your lip wryly, you hum and let him encircle your waist with assertive confidence. "Looking at you like what, pray tell?" you murmur back and caress your palms up his chest, toying your fingers idly around his tie.

"Like you're gonna do something real naughty to me," he purrs in your ear before brushing his lips teasingly alone your cheekbone.

Snickering and swatting him playfully on the bicep, you roll your eyes and grin as you tipped your head in gesture of, 'Let's get outta here,' before towing him along to exit the cramped bedroom.

The realtor had learned to let you both wander the space and whisper to each other, so when you'd come back to the main area, she was pleasantly waiting for your feedback. She didn't seem surprised that it didn't meet all your parameters, and you wondered to yourself if anything would. But, as you'd wrapped up the showing and exited to the lobby, she'd conspiratorially mentioned having a lead on a possible listing that was yet to be referred to for embassy housing that she thought could work for you both.

Eagerly making an appointment to see it early the following week, you and Javi had gone home to his place. And after going through the routine of making dinner, sitting together to eat and then calling your grandmother to check in and fawn internally when she and Javi pleasantly chat for a bit before you tell her you'll gab more Sunday, you'd both moved to the cozy sofa as you looked up the address on the map you'd been using to annotate things.

"—Oh! It's a 20-minute commute to the embassy, but near the café. And look, it's even within walking distance to the market," you gush as you point at the landmarks before resting the map over Javi's lap so you can loop your arms around his shoulders and lean into him on the couch. "Location is perfect," is your dreamy sigh while he smugly hums and peruses the map, encircling his arm around your waist to hold you close.

"Yeah, not bad at all. Looks like there's a drycleaner nearby too," he muses, looking over the routes and thinking it might just be a good candidate. "What time's the showing again?" he murmurs as he noses into the hair just above your ear.

"It's late in the day, because I have the linkup with stateside, but Ellis can handle the tail end of it so I can leave to get there in time," you remark, smiling when he sets the map on the coffee table so he can lounge on the couch and pull you into his side for more cuddling. "You going to be able to make it?"

"Think so. I got my guys back from Cali with the latest. We'll be brainstorming options for operations so I have something ready to present Crosby with," he retorts and puts his sock-clad feet up on the coffee table, feeling content after dinner and in no rush to move as you nuzzle his neck and caress kisses along his stubbly jaw. "You haven't told me how things went in San Juan for Ellis. Any word on a decision yet?" is his query as he starts caressing his hand along the curve of your derrière in the tight gray pencil skirt.

You sigh and rest your head on his shoulder. "I think it's a done deal. They loved him, and I suspect they're just trying to triangulate timing on when he can get down there, but obviously he's insisting on Anita and her parents being squared away on their visa applications first," is your reply. "I figure if they can expedite everything, he'll be gone in a month, give or take…"

Javier frowns at how you try to submerge the melancholy from your tone. "Got anyone in mind to take his deputy role?" he asks as he affectionately runs his fingers through the back of your hair now, soothingly massaging your scalp.

You melt into him and visibly relax. "Mmhmm. Jackie Espinosa's going to take his place, and Devon Williams – the guy who's romancing your Noreen – is going to take over for Jackie's projects," you tell him, and then suddenly sit up to straddle his lap, which earns a little grunt from him as he adjusts his sitting stance. "Which reminds me: Devon told Ellis today that he wants to disclose the relationship to HR," is your silky chime as you bounce your brows at him.

Intrigued, he sits up and loops his arms around your waist. "Shit, so does that mean we have to get pulled in on meetings about it now?" he chuckles laconically and smirks when you lovingly brush your fingertips along his forehead with one hand while the other combs into the neatly trimmed hair at the back of his nape.

"Well, it looks like it can be something just our deputies manage directly. We only have to sign off on a form," you retort before teasingly leaning forward to ghost your lips over his as you purr, "But when it comes to us? We'll both have to go personally to HR and Crosby for our disclosure."

"Oh yeah? You actually asked that?" he grouses in that canela-smooth drawl of his as he tugs you close so he can brush his nose along your neck before suckling a kiss over your pulse point.

You hum and now card both your hands into the back of his hair when his mouth latches on that erogenous spot just under your jaw. "N-No. Turns out there's a protocol manual that details all the different scenarios. Ellis read it and let me know," you explain and brazenly undulate your hips over his lap to grind down over the bulge in his pants. Javier groans and kneads his hands to grip your ass. "Looks like we might be in trouble for waiting so long to disclose it—"

"Fuck, you're gonna be in trouble if you keep teasing me like this, atrevida," he rumbles huskily against your jaw, and at your sultry little chuckle, he growls and effortlessly picks you up as he stands from the couch. You squeak in surprise and wrap your arms and legs around him as he rushes with you down the hall to the bedroom. "Alright, mi directora, I think it's time to get you out of your sassy little outfit now," he husks gloatingly before laying you on the bed so he can yank the jade green clasp-buttoned blouse open to reveal your bustier bra.

He gets lost admiring how your tits are pushed up in the blush-toned padded lace, making your bosom look like a bounty just for him, so you take advantage and nimbly pivot to scamper up on the bed, playfully giggling when he scoffs and chases after you.

"Get over here, traviesa," Javier chuckles as he catches your ankle and glides you back over to him, but you rambunctiously grab him by the back of the shoulders and use your momentum to roll him onto his back so you can pin him to the bed and grin triumphantly down at him. With a charming smirk, he starts to drawl derisively, "Tan juguetona—"

"I pinned you down, stud, so you strip for me, and I'll reward you for being such a good sport," you cut in sexily as you reach behind yourself and pull the zipper down on your skirt.

"What kind of reward?" he croons cockily, arching a brow as he rests his hands behind his head to stare up at you goadingly.

"Well, before you got home last night? I put something in your nightstand drawer. If you're a good boy and strip for me – without being all surly about it, I'll let you use what's in the drawer on me however you want," is your sultry proposition before you get off his lap to shed your skirt and blouse, tossing them into the nearby hamper so you can stand in your lingerie before him.

Javi's eyes rove your body, loving how the silk and lace panties you have on hug the contours of your hips.

Amused by his leering attention span, your hands prop to your hips as you lean your weight onto one leg and shoot him a mocking look, and with a provocative lilt, purr, "We have a deal, mi patrón?"

Fuck, Javi groans to himself, loving that raunchy pet name way too much for it to be right.

He can't help be intrigued by your proposition, avid curiosity riled by what could possibly be stored in the nightstand. So, he yields and sits up on his elbows, which makes his white dress shirt with the pale blue graph check pattern strain taught across his broad chest and cling to his biceps. He'd shed his blazer, tie, shoes, belt, and watch before rolling up his shirtsleeves and undoing the top two buttons of his collar, so he looks like an absolute stud come home from work, daring you not to pounce on him.

It makes you internally swoon a little.

"I just need to strip for you?" is his laconic query, clearly expecting there to be a catch.

"Yep," you tut as you strut around the bed towards the leather chair tucked in the corner next to the curtain-drawn windows. "Channel your best impression of Julian Kay for me, maybe?" is your playful singsong as you sit in the chair and toy with your hair coquettishly while batting your lashes at him.

Javier had been following your sultry lope around the room until he was watching you sit in the chair upside down with his head tilted back, so he rolls over onto his stomach now so he can cup his cheek in his hand and give you a curious look before he queries, "Who?"

You sit up in the chair and lamentingly scoff. "Really?! You didn't watch the movie?" you counter with a wily smile when he just gives you that innocent brown-eyed pout. "Seriously? You never saw American Gigolo? With Richard Gere?" you insist and press your hands over your knees so you can tilt forward as you comically balk at him.

"Uh…nope. Never got around to that one," Javi drawls and smirks when you flop back into the leather chair dramatically. Snickering as he maneuvers up on the bed in order to sit astride the edge and sneer teasingly at you, he taunts, "Oh, what – you wanted me to act out some striptease for you, guapita? I'm hardly gigolo material—"

"Hah!" you deridingly laugh and cross your bare legs as you get comfy in the chair and eye him daringly. "You lengüetero. As if you don't have the reputation of being the embassy gigolo!" you tease and naughtily instigate him with your pointed foot waving just out of his reach. "You're dressed so sharp today that it reminded me of the character, so I figured you could do his sexy strip for me, but, oh well—"

Javi reaches and snags your ankle with his cat-like reflexes, which makes your breath hitch out and excitement tingle in your core as he stands to loom over you, with your foot now captured in his warm grasp. He surprises you by kneading his thumbs into the aching tendons and massaging, which tears a delighted little sigh from you as you sink back into the leather chair.

"What happens in the movie?" Javier asks in that low register that has heat skittering across your nerve endings and want thrumming down into your pussy, getting you wet and making you squirm since you can't press your thighs together to ease the yearning he's caused. "Besides a lot of fucking?" is his crass purr.

"Richard Gere plays Julian Kay, a gigolo who escorts well-to-do older women around Beverly Hills, and one of them falls for him around the time he gets framed for murdering a wealthy man's wife," you tell him and watch his brows arch while he eases the tension in the plant of your foot. "The sex scenes are alright, but he just looks so handsome in his suits, and when he starts stripping out of them? It's quite memorable," is your flirty elaboration as you wiggle your toes cheekily.

"Well, as a wicked woman once said, I have gotten around," Javi grumbles sexily and purses his lips at you when you giggle. "I'm sure I can manage a decent striptease for you, malvadita, but I'm hardly Richard Gere—"

"Pfft, you're better than him," you declare with sincere confidence as you smile brilliantly up at him. "Better looking, with a sexier body," you enumerate and take advantage of his grip slackening on your foot to glide your pointed toes sensuously down his chest as you continue, "Smart, charming, and with a knack for always knowing what I need. He's got nothing on you…"

Javi husks a grunt in his chest as your touch teasingly skims down his torso until it pauses to trace the front of the waistband of his navy trousers. He's watching you with dark, smoldering eyes, lashes fluttering when his breath catches as your foot continues its descent by grazing over his hip and down thigh, where you feel his quads tense in exhilarated arousal.

Crossing your leg back over your knee seductively as you dampen your lips and stare up at him, you murmur, "Un papisongo tan guapo. But, it's alright – maybe you'll get the reward some other time, hermoso."

One thing Javi cannot abide is a naughty challenge, no matter how silly it might be. So, he gives you that ridiculously rugged stare and lets his lips soften as he starts slowly unbuttoning his dress shirt. Your gaze is alluring as you watch his strong fingers pluck the buttons undone one by one, before pulling the hem loose from his trousers to then unbuckle his belt. The entire time he does so, his dark brewed eyes are honed in on yours. He feels arousal coil in his belly before tangling hot urge in his apex, and it takes him a moment to rein his impulses in as he slowly pulls the belt loose from his slacks to be tossed aside.

When he sheds his shirt, you uncross your legs and sit up, tempted to reach for his warm skin, but he smirks in a provocative way at you, as if to say, 'No touching. Not yet,' as he starts unfastening the button on his pants. The zipper giving way is the only sound over your soft breaths and the hum of the air-conditioning kicking on, and you swear you can hear your heart racing in your roaring pulse as you control your desire to just pounce on him already.

Shoving the waistband down and letting gravity pull the slacks to pool at his feet, Javier stands in just his white boxer-briefs now. You admire how his muscles flex from him winding his shoulders back as he stands confidently before you, and the outline of his length filling out against the soft cotton has your cunt clenching in anticipation.

You sit up when he smugly tilts his head and hums for you to let him know how he did. Sultrily, you stare at him up through your lashes as you lean forward and brush an open-mouth kiss over his abs while your hands map reverently up his hips to caress his torso. His breath hitches when you stand to brush up against him until you're on your tippy toes and can loop your arms around his shoulders.

"You've totally done that before," you tease, smirking when he scoffs and encircles your waist. With a coquettish trail of kisses that you skim along his jaw, you purr, "Tan bello," brush your lips over his, and add in a flirty lilt, "Well, a deal's a deal. You may claim your reward."

He grins and kisses you, groping his hand over a globe of your ass and squeezing before pivoting for you to sit on the bed so he can flop next to you and hastily kick his pants off his ankles and yank at his socks while you giggle and watch him hurry. Once unobstructed and happy to see you sit to allow him access to his prize, he glides himself across the bed to reach the nightstand and yank the drawer open.

The bottle of strawberry-flavored lube greets him, and the lewd delight that zings up his spine before shooting back down his body to throb in his cock has him feeling heat radiate across his cheeks. You enjoy watching his reaction, and when he turns over to stare at you, you're smiling angelically at him.

"Use it however I want?" he grouses in a velvety baritone as he takes it out of the drawer and sees there's plenty of product left for the kind of debauchery he has in mind.

"Yes," you retort serenely and lounge on your side before him.

"Hmm, so if I just wanted to squirt this all over you and lick you clean, you'd let me?" he husks audaciously and quirks a smug brow at you.

You scoff and hide your wily grin behind your hand as you snicker, "Is that really what you want to do?" Javi gives you a one-shouldered shrug and does that face when he twists his lips and crooks his jaw musingly. Wrinkling your nose cutely at him, you begin to drawl, "Alright, fine, if that's what you wanted, then—"

"I think I need time to think on it, so, while I do, strip for me, preciosa," he cuts in and lies back, toying with the bottle in his hands as he eyes you goadingly.

Shaking your head amusedly, you sit up and shift so you can face him on the bed as you reach behind yourself to unhook the bustier and brazenly toss it at him, chuckling when it lands on his chest and he pouts at you. His gaze appreciatively roves your bare breasts as you slink your panties down and off, tossing them aside so you can crawl over, fling the bustier away and prowl over his body to bossily kiss his full lips before you purr, "Make your decision yet, stud?"

Javi nods and chases your lips before pivoting you onto your back so he can box you in on the bed and kiss down your neck as he strips out of his underwear. You sigh at the warm press of your bodies – relishing the skin-to-skin contact and feeling yourself get tingly with arousal as he nudges to be between your welcoming thighs.

Before long, the heated making out gives way to Javi murmuring what he wants, and you blush, titillated and letting him maneuver you both into the position he wants to try first.

When he's got you on all fours at the edge of the bed while he looms over you, he watches you shiver as he glides his lube-coated fingers between the tight cleft of your ass to zero in on your clenching ring of muscle. You mewl a little sound of yearning after he hitches up behind you and ruts his cock along your pussy while he teases his touch along your hole, making you impulsively bow onto your elbows and seek more friction over your soaked cunt. Javier obliges, rubbing his length in time with your undulating backwards against him.

You moan when the head of his cock grinds against your clit just as he starts fingering your ass, and instinctively find yourself spreading your knees to angle your pelvis up for more, starting to pant and get needy.

The sight of you seeking more has savage delight burning up in his chest.

His cock throbs at feeling your pussy flood with a new wave of arousal, slickening him over as two if his dexterous digits delve in and out of your clenching heat while you gasp and chase that desperate orgasm he's stirring up in you.

He groans when you whimper and try to bury his cock into your pussy by slotting his tip to catch at your dimpled entrance.

"—Ah! Please-please—" you beg out and sob when he instead pulls back to curve his other hand between your thighs and grinds his possessive touch against your clit. It sets you aflame with the devastating pressure you need, and in a flash, your orgasm barrels through you.

You wail his name and come messily all over his cock while his fingers ease your ring of muscle to be ready enough for him to replace his digits with the thick stretch of his arousal.

"Such a good girl, coming for me like that. Now you're all relaxed for me to take my time," he coos whilst he dribbles some lube over his cock as he ruts it along the crevice of your ass. You mewl at his praise and tuck your chin against your shoulder so you can drunkenly look back at him with hooded eyes. "Fuck, you look so sexy, baby," Javi husks gruffly as he takes himself in his hand and coats the comingled slick and lube over the hard length before tentatively pressing the head of his cock against your puckering ring of muscle.

Your reaction when he starts to push in is something that makes a shudder shoot up his spine. The way your breathy panting became a throaty whimper of desire, and your back arched you down into the bed while you automatically reached a hand backwards to clutch at his forearm for support – it was enough to make pleasure pulse in his loins and his breath stutter in his chest. And the tight heat engulfing him inch by aching inch has him feeling lightheaded, so he forces himself to get control and focus on you.

The feeling of being utterly full makes you tremble, but when he pulls his hips back and then pushes back into you? Oh Jesus!

Pleasure bursts incandescently behind your eyes and has you moaning into the bed as you instinctively rock your hips back to meet his next thrust, then the next, and next until a gratifying rhythm is set. Javi groans when your hand slides down for purchase at his wrist as he holds onto you, half-mast gaze riveted at where his cock is disappearing into your tight ass while you mewl at the building heat of another orgasm swirling in the seat of your core.

"Oh god, Javi—I'm getting close," you whimper, sounding embarrassed, which snaps him back to focus on your voice as you hitch out, "So c-close—!"

Your voice cracks when he hunches over you to wrap you up in his arms as he nuzzles into your neck to rasp, "I got you, cariño. Want you to come, so you're gonna let me flip you over so I can make you feel good and watch your pussy come while I fuck this sexy ass."

You warble a breathless sound and nod vigorously, so Javier kisses you reassuringly before he adjusts to maneuver you over onto your back. He gets lost in your dreamy look of pleasure as he grips the backs of your thighs to keep you open to him. The way your eyes are glossy with lust, cheeks blushed and tits rising and falling from your shallow panting – how wet and flushed your pussy is while his cock is halfway in your ass. It overloads him for a minute, making him lean over to kiss you ravenously. Your mewl of hunger reverberates into him as his tongue tangles with yours, and your clumsy arms try to cling to him, but they're heavy with how blitzed out you are – rapt and needy as Javi breaks the kiss and dominantly pulls your hips up to adjust the cant of your pelvis for his next thrust in.

"Ah!" you cry out, hands gripping the bedding as his cock brushes into a new pleasure point that has your thighs trembling. His own hoarse growl catches in his chest as your body grips him greedily when you whimper, "Dios mío, Javi—mmph, please don't stop!"

He doesn't, and before long, you're whimpering sounds he's never gotten out of you before, and your eyes are screwing shut as tears of ecstasy well them and sweat beads at your temples. The sound of his cock squelching through the primed and tight vise of your body is as lascivious as the pleasure that coils in your belly and flares into your cunt. Javi can feel you getting more and more wound up, so he shifts your legs out so he can seat his thumb over the peak of your sex and grind the pad over the hood of your clit as he fucks in and out of you.

That's how you come apart the second time.

Your pussy clenches around nothing and floods with your climax as you go taut on your wail of his name before dissolving into little mewled sobs of rapture, utterly overwhelmed and gone from yourself. He watches you splinter under the riotous pleasure while his cock strains and swells at the stranglehold of your body clamping around him beseechingly.

Before Javi can grip the base of his cock and pull out – trying to keep his climax at bay – you make a luscious sound of need that blasts his control apart.

"Oh fuck—f-fuck! Ungth—" he grits out as he starts to come, mind hazing over as he involuntarily thrusts through his climax until he swears, "Jesus fucking Christ, oh shit-shit!" and regains his wits enough to pull his cock out and shoot the last of his cum over your womb and mound. "Holy fuck. I'm sorry. So sorry, baby—"

He doesn't realize he'd shut his eyes in the throes of his orgasm and hunched forward over you after shooting his load until your arms hook behind his shoulders and cling to him, tugging him close enough for you to blissfully kiss his sweaty neck.

Javi's knees give out just after he manages to collapse over you. The air whooshes out of him before his synapses string back together to yell at him, so he rolls onto his side and protectively pulling you with him to try and ease you into a comfortable position.

You both remain wrecked for an undefined period of time, until you let out a little sigh that inspires Javi to nuzzle the top of your mussed hair.

"Javi?" you mumble tiredly.

"Mmmph?" he grunts lazily.

"I really wish your place had a bathtub right now," you grumble breathlessly and huff into his neck.

Javier exhaustedly chuckles and holds you close so he can nuzzle doting kisses over your dreamily smiling, heated features.

Once you're both able to trust that your joints won't give out on you, he gets a damp washcloth and helps tend to the post-sex mess before helping you get to the bathroom for a hot, soothing shower. And once he's changed the comforter, he tucks you into bed and goes to shut all the lights off in the apartment before coming back and sliding in next to you. It's when he's settling onto his back that he hears the sound of a plastic cap being popped open before you sidle up and dribble the last of the flavored lube onto his chest.

He hisses at the cool substance hitting his still-warm skin. "Hah, what're you—"

"It's all that's left. It would be a shame to let it go to waste," you murmur sultrily and lean over to lick it off his heated, clean skin.

Javi hums and stretches out, focusing on the sensation of your tongue laving like wet velvet over him in the dark, instantly making him hard. "We're gonna have to get more," he huskily mumbles before inhaling in excitement when your tongue flicks teasingly over his nipple.

"Mmhmm," you hum silkily and hand him the empty bottle so he can set it aside on the nightstand for you. "Wonder if they have more flavors. Although…strawberry-flavored Javi is my current favorite," is your affectionate chime as you kiss along his chest to make sure you got all of it off.

Javi beams, stupid grin on his face as he wraps you up to be cuddled against him. Really, he's so content, he can't even think of a smug, charming thing to retort, so he just kisses your forehead and murmurs, "I love you."

You melt into him – eyes fluttering shut as he massages your lower back caringly. "I love you too," is your wistful sigh.

You're on cloud nine the next day at work – albeit sore. The morning is filled with meetings and status reports with your team, and by the time the afternoon comes around, you're already craving going up to see Javi, so you decide to rein the impulse in for at least another hour.

While you're setting another pot of coffee to brew as you talk to Ed from Centra Spike about the book you'd recommended to him, Javi is at his desk, impatiently digging through the clutter for the packet of nicotine gum he swears he left on it that morning, when his desk phone rings.

He picks it up from the cradle and props it between his shoulder and ear as he answers, "Peña."

"Agente Peña. It's Carolina Álvarez."

Javi internally frowns as he shoots a covert glance about the office, making sure no one's eavesdropping as he mutters in Spanish, "Yes, how can I help you?"

"I'm sorry to call you out of the blue, but I am still looking into leads for my article, and well, with all the recent political strife between the embassy and the Samper government—"

Miffed, Javier looks at his watch as he interrupts, "I have some time this afternoon. Meet at that café to discuss further?"

She seems to get his meaning loud and clear – that he's not going to discuss this over the phone with her. So, she agrees to meet him in an hour. When he hangs up the phone, he stews, not interested in giving a statement, but then the idea that perhaps he can use the reporter to help him look into new leads intrigues him when he looks at the stack of bank statements he'd gotten from the Curaçao arrest. Without Franklin, he'd hit a wall on ways to track the financials, so he figured it wouldn't hurt to pass a copy of those over.

He's just finished making said copies and is in the process of grabbing his blazer, and is in the middle of shrugging it on, when a knock at his sidelight startles him. You're standing there with a cup of coffee in hand, looking lovely in your purple nested jacket and skirt combo with the black heels that make your shapely legs look divine.

"Bad time?" you ask when you see the surprise on his face.

Waving you in, he pockets his belongings and picks up the folder from his desk. "Something came up. I have to go off-site for a quick meeting," he says as he rounds his desk and takes the cup from you, smiling before sipping from it. "Mmm, thanks. We still going home to your place tonight?" he murmurs as he leans onto his desk and trains his expression to not give away to any possible onlookers how fucking besotted he is with you.

"Yeah," you answer, but seem pensive, so Javi prompts you with a grunt to go on. "Well, Ellis just told me he got the job in San Juan," is your elaboration, and in your wound up energy, you meander towards his sofa while he frowns and puts everything on the desk so he can cross his arms and thwart the impulse to breeze over and pull you into his embrace. "I told him that to celebrate, I'd make a lasagna and bring it over tomorrow…would you want to go with me? He said we could do a whole movie night out of it too."

"Sure," he answers warmly, and when he sees you nod contemplatively, he exhales a hum and murmurs, "Meet me in the stairwell."

You turn and look at him, confused, but his eyes are assertive, so you nod and head out of his office, loping by Stoddard's empty desk to traverse the DEA department and enter the outer hall. You stroll through the foyer facing the elevators and half-pace staircase, rounding the opposite corner to open the emergency stairwell door and walk down to the secluded landing. After a few minutes, the door opens, and Javi descends the steps quickly towards you. Once on the landing, he pulls you into his arms and hugs you.

It startles you, but then your arms loop around him and you lean gratefully into his embrace, relishing his warm scent.

"I'm sorry, I know I'm being stupid—" you begin to lament.

"No, you're not," he assures and kisses the top of your hairline sweetly. "After work, we'll go shopping for everything so you can make the lasagna early tomorrow. That way we can go over and spend the day with them," is his thoughtful suggestion. You lean back to smile up at him, so he adds debonairly, "But tonight? It's takeout, and a date in the bath."

Snickering, you lean up on your tippy toes and kiss him chastely on the lips. "Sounds like a plan, boss man," you retort affectionately.

After he caresses your cheek, you both kiss goodbye and part ways in the stairwell, and while you go down to discuss short-term department plans with Ellis, Javier goes to meet the reporter from El Tiempo. She's sitting in a secluded corner of the café, already stirring her cappuccino and looking elegantly appointed as she scribbles reminders into her little planner. He approaches and greets her, sitting across from her and declining getting a coffee, opting instead to light up a cigarette to take the edge off.

"—I was hoping you could provide me a statement? If not, perhaps, something new on the cartel's dealings that you're willing to share?" she's coaxing now before sipping the espresso drink and wiping the foam from her upper lip.

Pressing his lips together as he glances around tersely, Javi produces the folder with the copies of the bank statements and places it on the table. "Those are financial statements we got when we arrested Franklin Jurado. Now that he's dead, the trail for leads has gone cold, and my attention is on locating Miguel Rodríguez, but without getting some kind of link to the cartel – someone who can testify to their financial dealings in some way, we're going to have a hard time keeping him and his brother in jail even if we catch him," he explains in a hushed tone to her as he smokes, exhaling sidelong puff as he rubs absently at his stubbly jaw. "I can't be on the record right now, but could you use those for your investigation? I'd be grateful for any information you could share my way."

She flips the folder carefully open and peers over some of the statements as she answers, "Absolutely. I'll look into it, and be in touch once we find anything."

Javi grunts and nurses his cigarette while they chat a bit more, specifically about the resistance he's gotten from the Samper government recently. She wonders out loud if perhaps there's a fuente taking information back to the Cartel, but Javi says nothing, deciding to keep that to himself, for now.

By the time it's the end of the day and you both have run the errands needed, you have dinner at your place and take a long soak in your bathtub together.

Enjoying the warm soapy water, you listen as Javier recounts his day of meeting with his agents over Cali. He doesn't tell you about meeting with the reporter. Since it wasn't something he saw panning out to anything, he decides there's no point telling you, since you'll fret about him opening himself up to blowback, so he instead keeps it in the back of his mind while you tell him about the tentative plans you'd discussed with Ellis about transitioning work, his official last day, and how you'd booked an appointment first thing with the ambassador to give him the official news once he was back in-country.

By the time you're both in your bedroom getting ready to slide under the covers to sleep, he wonders how he and his guys are going to manage to nail the cartel and keep them in prison where they belong. You sense the ruminating brooding up in him, so once you shut off the light, you reach for him in the dim and kiss his cheek. His exhale is heavy and relieved, so he pulls you close and kisses down your neck after he rolls to be on top of you. He feels the silk of your nighty ride up when you wrap your legs around him, and before long, you're making love, sensual and slow, as you get lost in the feeling together.

After, when he's spooning you and nuzzling kisses into the back of your neck, you buzz with the content serenity of being like this with him. Feeling safe and loved, with so much to look forward to.

The next morning, Javi helps you with all the prep, and has you gleefully pining while he not so begrudgingly feeds the cat when she scratches at the balcony doors. And while you're stirring the sauce, he's organizing the clutter of spent items from the groceries bought for the lasagna when he notices your little calendar hung up against the wall above the ceramic napkin holder.

"Shit! I can't believe I almost forgot," he swears as he rushes to get his phone from the coffee table. You turn to peer curiously at him as he dials a number and then rushes out to stand at the balcony while the line rings. The black cat circles his jean-clad legs before head-butting just above his ankle while Javi idly scratches the back of his hair, causing his gray college shirt to pull taught against his broad back. "Hey, Pops! Happy Birthday. Sorry I didn't call earlier—"

You smile as you cover the pot and mischievously tiptoe to the other side of the kitchen island so you can feign you're wiping down the counter while you eavesdrop.

"Nah, don't worry about that, mijo. You caught me as I was about to head to your tía's. It's great to hear from you. Things all right there?" Chucho retorts and inquires jovially.

"Yeah, really good," Javi responds and spares a glance over his shoulder, noticing you're humming and flouncing back around the kitchen island in your billowy flower-patterned housedress. "I won't keep you. I just wanted to call and wish you a Feliz Cumpleaños—"

"Ah, you rushing off the phone because a certain future nuera of mine is nearby, then?" his father can't help goad in that raspy baritone of his. Javi snickers and shakes his head as he turns to see the cat has given up on him and is following you around the living room as you pick up after him – grabbing the wrapper of his gum packet and the junk he'd fished out of his blazer pockets from the night before to toss it all in the trash. "You're gonna have to bring her home so I can meet her someday soon, sabes?"

"Yeah, I know. Maybe sometime soon," he responds smoothly in Spanish, smirking at you when you return to the couch and catch him staring. "Anyway, Happy Birthday, Pops. Send everyone my love. Tell 'em I actually miss them," Javier chuckles and quirks a brow when you squint goofily at him before plopping down on the sofa, allowing the cat to hop up and sidle against your thigh to seek pets. Once he ends the call and comes back into the living space to place the phone on the coffee table, he drops into the seat next to you and crinkles his soulful eyes at you as he drawls, "What? What's with the face?"

You purse your lips faux-haughtily at him and busy yourself by petting the cat languidly purring against your thigh. "I would've liked to say hello to your dad and wish him a happy birthday too, is all," you say pointedly, submerging your smile when he dramatically exhales and puts his arm around you to tug you close so he can nuzzle puckish kisses into your neck. You giggle at his moustache tickling you and nudge your elbow into his side to push him off as you deride, "Ay, Javi—quit it. When I talk to 'Buela, I let you get on and say hello—"

"Alright, fine – next time I call him, I'll let you two chat and conspire against me," he jokes, tone charmed and rugged as he actually scratches the cat affectionately behind her ear with his index finger. She looks up in awe of the rare gesture, and immediately clambers up on his lap and meows for more. "Ugh, no. C'mon," he grumbles when she puts her front paws up on his chest and mewls, giving him the big green eyes. You grin when he relents and pets her, and appeased, the feline curls up against him. "This is not the gatita I want on my lap right now—"

"Oh, hush, malcriado," you tease, kissing his cheek before bounding up off the couch to return to the kitchen. As you check the items on the stove, you call over your shoulder amusedly, "No use keeping the grumpy façade up now. She's sweet on you, and you like the attention—"

"Yeah right," he drawls just to be contrarian, petting the cat once more when he thinks you're not looking.

It's the cutest thing, and you're tempted to go retrieve the camera, but know he will move the moment he sees you lift it up in order to snap the incriminating photo.

Hours later, when the lasagna is ready and has cooled enough to be transported, you and Javi show up at Ellis and Anita's. The four of you spend the afternoon hanging out together over snack offerings and drinks. In solidarity with Anita not being able to drink, though, you limit yourself to a two-drink maximum, while Javi and Ellis kick into a whiskey tasting stash he'd gotten gifted to him by his in-laws. You love that Javier feels comfortable enough to indulge and unwind, enjoying his contributions to the fun conversations, how he cracks jokes, and the amiable warmth he has with your friends. Eventually, you all sit around the dining table to partake in the first serving of the delicious specialty you made, and afterwards, you all move to the living room to lounge and chat in the post-meal lethargy while you sip your drinks and Anita partakes in the fruit-filled chocolates you gifted her.

"—Aww, that sounds like a really fun wedding," Anita is remarking after you mention all the highlights from your cousin's nuptials, snickering when Ellis steals a chocolate from the box and eats it with gusto. She's about to inquire something, but seems to change her mind last minute, so you grunt for her not to censor herself and ask before you sip from your glass of wine while leaning sidelong into Javi when he drapes his arm along the back of the loveseat. "Well, I was curious if your father went to the wedding?"

"Nope," you retort, idly swirling the Chianti about in the glass as you elaborate aloofly, "Supposedly he's traveling overseas; underway. But, he sent them a registry certificate as a wedding gift. Typical gesture: showering gifts when he doesn't want to bother to show up."

Javier spares a glance at Ellis, and they seem to communicate the same warning to each other: Change the subject.

"So! What're we in the mood to watch genre-wise? Anyone up for a scary movie?" Ellis animatedly proposes before heading to his collection of VHS tapes to peruse for options. "Obviously nothing too scary though. Don't want to have you girls clinging to us in suspense—"

"Hah! You cower into Anita when you get freaked, so don't even play, Rose," you heckle as you slip your flats off and set your glass on the side table so you can curl up against Javi while he chuckles at Ellis glowering indignantly at you. "You do, so pick something that won't give you the willies."

Once Ellis picks a movie and gets it going, Anita shuts the lights off and cuddles with him on the opposite couch while Javi stretches out his long jean-clad legs and crosses them at the ankles. He loves how nice and cozy you get against him, and can't help brush a kiss to the back of your ear that makes you smile and shift to loop your arms around him so you can rest your head on his shoulder. His cotton indigo button-down smells of his warm, spicy scent, made of a mixture of his cologne, soap, and the natural manly heat of his skin – hints of whiskey and the classic-clean whiff of his hair making you internally swoon as you nose into his collar.

Your frond-green batik floral baby doll dress feels soft against his hand as he caresses his palm along your lower back while he breathes in your perfumed scent. As the coming attractions play, he relishes how your lips brush his neck, and once the movie's opening scene progresses, he feels savage pride at how you hold onto him. The suspense thriller has you all riveted, but when a particular jump-scare occurs, you literally jolt from the fright so much that you practically end up in Javi's lap.

He holds fast to your waist and doesn't let you scamper away in embarrassment – instead pulling your legs to be tucked up so your feet are planted into the cushion by his thigh and you can loop your arms around his neck while he cradles you against him with his large hands gliding from hip to thigh, and from shoulder to lower back. Ellis is too busy cuddling Anita after she squeaked in surprise at the same scare, and you take the moment in the dark to look into Javi's brewed-coffee eyes and give him a lopsided, demure smile.

His smirk is handsome and utterly endeared as he kisses you on the temple and whispers puckishly, "You're cute when you're bashful."

You snicker and kiss his jaw, mischievously wiggling your derrière in his lap. His intake of breath and the way his hands tighten warningly on you makes you hum innocently and curl against him to focus back on the movie.

After the movie's credits roll and Anita turns the light back on, you all decide to have another helping of lasagna before deciding on the next movie.

"—What about a suspense thriller?" Ellis calls out from the cabinet he keeps his movie collection as he shuffles a stack of movie tapes before holding one up and whistling, "Something spicy, like this one?"

You see the cover of the movie's sleeve. "Oh! I haven't seen that in ages," you retort and glance at Javi when he hums as if he doesn't recognize it. "Oh c'mon – you've never seen Body Heat either?" is your deriding jeer, giving him a mischievous grin when he purses his lips warningly at you. Feigning aloofness, you prop your elbow on the table and cup your cheek as you wistfully drawl to Anita, "When that came out, I watched it so many times. I was transfixed by Kathleen Turner. I thought she was the epitome of the sultry, powerful woman—"

"She's twisted though!" Ellis calls out in a singsong as he keeps shuffling through his collection. "You telling us Javi better watch his step with you?" is his sarcastic jeer.

Javier is totally clueless, devoid of any references to the film as you scoff at Ellis and snicker, "Not that kind of watching his step! No, I only wanted to emulate her poise and haughty self-assurance," pausing when Javi smirks at you. "I even got that dress – the one she wears at the beginning. I felt so good. Really thought I was hot stuff—"

"You are," Javi murmurs and gives you a smoldering look. At your demure scoff, he squeezes your thigh playfully as he adds, "We might need to watch that one on our own. Especially if I gotta take it as a cautionary tale—"

"Real funny," you wryly razz and pinch his wrist before you slink out of your chair to start helping Anita clear the table. "I'll defer to whatever Anita wants to watch," is your amiable remark.

"Can we watch something romantic this time?" Anita asks and gives her silly beseeching pout over at Ellis when he goofily grins at her. "Something silly-romantic? Like Pretty Woman?" she suggests, as she takes the empty plates to place them in the sink.

You perk up at that, and announce, "Oh! You just reminded me: Can you believe Javi's never seen American Gigolo?" When he huffs wryly and quirks a goading brow at you as he leans back in the chair and crosses his arms bossily, you chime, "I mean, Richard Gere's in Pretty Woman, which is why I'm even mentioning it—"

"You really haven't, Jav?" Ellis asks after setting the stack of tapes back into the cabinet in order to go to the buffet to retrieve the latest bottle of whiskey and tops Javier's glass off before pouring a bit into his own. "We can watch it after, if you want."

The spritely smile you give Javi as you bat your lashes at him from the other side of the table as you push the chairs in dutifully has heat pooling in his gut at the unspoken reminder you're communicating with the sultry wink you shoot his way now. He can hear your scintillating purr from the other night: "He's got nothing on you…"

After you all watch the improbable, almost farcical tale of a hooker and her john falling in love, Ellis puts in the VHS for the seminal movie you believe fueled your little crush on Richard Gere. But as you watch, you find yourself ignoring the screen to instead sneak peeks at Javi, who watches it with interest. Really, he's riveted because he's feeling a wave of nostalgia. He remembers going into record shops and flitting around like he hadn't a real care in the world. It reminded him of his youth, of how much he'd cared about his appearance, his car, how he and his buddies went out on the town every Friday night. Sure, it was in no way similar to the expensive lifestyle, locations, suits and swagger of this Julian Kay character, but still. He found himself wondering if you'd had guys like him trying to pick you up. Sasha was far more dapper and elegant, and you in no way would've ever needed a gigolo to be at your beck and call, but he imagined you turned heads everywhere you went – fantasizes how he would've reacted back then had he been at a club and seen you walk through it in one of those slinky sequin dresses and platform heels.

When the movie got to the main sex scene, he snorted at how goofy it looked, and you derisively leaned into his side, amused when he looks at you and mouths, 'Christ, that's fucking awful. Literally.'

You stifle your giggle into his shoulder. But after the scene concludes with the actor's full-frontal nudity – which you had not mentioned prior, Javi makes you guffaw when he blurts out, "His whole dick is out? Seriously?"

"I know, right?! Like, who stands by a window after sex and lets it all hang out like that?" Ellis seconds, and you and Anita burst into laughter, finding this impromptu consensus on the implausibility of a dude posing naked the way Richard Gere is the funniest thing of the night.

Once the movie concludes, Ellis turns the lights back on and tops Javier's glass off while you all joke about the movie some more, delighting in how Javier insists the ending was totally stupid. "—No way he would've gotten off for killing the pimp," he grouses and shakes his head while you laugh. "I can't believe you raved about that movie," he teases you and pinches your waist playfully while you scoff and roll your eyes. "She owes us a movie night do-over after that—"

"Hah, is that a fact?" you razz, setting your wine glass down on the coffee table so you can sidle up and tug on his collar impishly as you blurt, "Then you'll have to pick the flick for when we host one once we've moved in together."

Javier quirks his brows gloatingly and smirks when you sheepishly tense at Anita exclaiming, "You guys are looking?"

Ellis seconds, "Way to bury the lead! Any apartment prospects?"

You blush and end up telling them about the places you'd toured so far. While you do so, Javier drinks and volunteers commentary good-naturedly, enjoying how you get more and more open as you tell your friends about your shared plans.

You get so engrossed that you don't notice how Ellis and Javier keep topping each other's glasses off while you and Anita prattle on about the apartment amenities, and the conversation veers to the house-hunting she and Ellis are already doing – how they're looking at places within the metropolitan area of San Juan. She leads you to the dining table so she can break out the prospects she already got, and shows you some of the listings after you offer to give your local P.O.V. on the best areas to consider.

When you both come back to rejoin the guys, you're remarking, "—Oh, I can ask some friends back home for a connection at that private school to see if they're hiring," and pause when you see how toasty Javi looks now while Ellis is pouring him a double.

"So, kid, what's the likelihood we'll be dropping two major bombs on Crosby at the same time, then?" Ellis jokes as he bounces his brows over at you when you sit with Javi and squeak cutely at him encircling your waist to pin you to his side puckishly.

"Well, we're looking at a place this coming week. If it's as good as the realtor said, we might have to move on it quick…which would mean putting in for the housing placement," you remark and glance at Javi, feeling a little rush of excitement when he unabashedly smiles at you so broadly that his boyish dimple is revealed. "What?" is your silly snicker.

His brown eyes are dark and molten, crinkling sweetly as he eyes you under hooded lids and drawls in a canela-spiced rumble, "I'm just picturing how cute you're gonna look while Crosby blows his stack."

You scoff and swat Javi's thigh, shaking your head sardonically when Ellis gripes, "Shit, you think so?"

"I'd put money on it. S'why I think we'll wait to tell him together," Javier muses, and you melt when he caresses his thumb along the contour of your hip. He then turns to rumble conspiratorially to you, but still loud enough for Anita and Ellis to hear, "Can't crush the ambassador's heart twice in one day."

His lips are too close and inviting for you to pass up kissing them, so you do, even though you're not one for public displays. You made exceptions for canoodling under the cover of darkness whilst watching the movies, but now find yourself pining as he attempts to deepen the kiss.

"Hm, alright. I think it's time for us to head out," you declare when you break the kiss and Javi chases your lips to continue making out without a qualm about it. Coquettishly, you huff an amused sound and mutter, "C'mon, guapito—"

"Awww, you're blushing, girlie!" Ellis teases, and Anita bops him with a throw pillow while Javier loops his arms around your waist now to pull you cheekily into him and retaliate by suckling kisses into your neck in front of everybody.

"Quit it! You're gonna make Anita nauseous," you giggle, playfully carding your fingers in his hair and squeeze the back of his shoulder with your other hand.

"Only random smells are making me nauseous, so don't stop on my account," Anita can't help goad.

"You're all incorrigible!" you chide humorously and comically nudge Javier from continuing to lay on the PDA thick, snickering as he squeezes your knee defiantly and yanks you to sit on his lap, "Alright, it's definitely about that time—"

"Ah, before you head out, girlie, let's have a toast," Ellis boisterously chimes, grinning when Javi dutifully finishes his latest gulp and squints goofily as your buddy pours another double while he drawls, "One for the road."

Javier chuckles and winks at you with a charming, rosy cheeked expression of contentment as he drawls, "To good friends and new exciting horizons," raising his glass once you've sardonically smirked and picked up your wine to toast.

When you all clink your glasses and sip, your gaze locks with Javi's, and you feel your heart skip a beat as he looks at you with open desire.

Needless to say, you are eager to get him home, so once you're saying your farewells at their door, you and Anita exchange knowing looks, silently communicating, 'These two drunk fools are trouble,' before you hug and loop your arms around Javi's right one and lead him down the walkway out to the car.

He is drunk and happy, grunting wryly as you tow him to the passenger's side of his SUV before you purr, "Dame la llave."

With a smiley leer, he digs into his pocket and produces his keychain, handing it over and pulling you close before you open the door for him so he can croon richly, "You're so fucking sexy when you boss me around."

Humming sultrily, you lilt, "And you're a cute flirt when you're drunk—"

"I'm not drunk," he counters as he opens the door and gets in the passenger seat, clucks his tongue, and drawls, "I'm trashed."

You laugh, a soft, melodious timbre that warms his blood and has the heat of his desire zinging into his apex before flaring out in a wanton urge that leaves him swooning. All he can do is put his seatbelt on clumsily and smile dopily at you once you round the car and get into the driver's side to quickly shift the seat forward so you can reach the pedals and adjust the mirror before putting your seatbelt on and starting the car.

"I fucking love you," Javi blurts out in a velvety baritone, rubbing his palm across his jaw with a punch-drunk exhale, grin a bit meek as you look over at him fondly, albeit with a silly smile. "You know that, right?" is his husky whisper as he moves his palm from absently scrubbing his cheek to instead cup yours reverently.

"Yes, you dork," you simper sweetly before leaning over and pecking him on his full, pouty lips. "I love you too. Even though you're a slutty drunk—"

"Oh, I fucking am, for you," he cuts in artfully and steals a few more kisses before growling, "I wanna be your fucking slut tonight—"

"Javier!" you exclaim with shocked delight before laughing when he daringly nuzzles your neck and whines a goofy sound. "I can't take advantage of such a sloshed stud. As a matter of fact? We're going to spend the night at your place since it's closer," you affectionately tut as you gently nudge him to lean heavily back into his seat. He protests lamely, so you caress your touch over his forehead. "We'll take a quick shower, and then I'll tuck you into bed, mi cariñito."

Javi's eyes lull shut and he hums a drowsily content sound at that, so you pat his thigh before putting the car in gear and driving off.

Ten-minute drive later, and you're parking in his spot in the garage, smiling when he dutifully shakes his lethargy clear enough to unbuckle his seatbelt. You hop out of the car and swiftly round to his door to open it and make sure he doesn't stumble out. "C'mon, cutie," you coo, eyes cresting with mirth as he scoffs at you and takes your hand.

Once out of the car, you lock it and delight in how he lets you lead him to the elevator, with his arm covetously around you as he scrubs the heel of his hand along his brow. You dotingly let him lean into you when you ride up to the floor his apartment is on, arms looped around his waist holding him close. You can tell the liquor is really hitting him now, because he's giving you a dreamy look, like he's marinating on a litany of things to say but is too buzzed to settle on one thing. But then he buries a hand in the back of your hair and murmurs suddenly, "You wanna come to Laredo and meet my Pops sometime?"

Cracking an endeared smile, you stare up at him through your lashes while he gives you a heavy-lidded leer. "I would love to," is your charmed retort, lighthearted as you pull him along once the elevator dings its arrival and the doors slide open. "Does he know about me?" you ask conversationally as you lope down the hall with him to the door – one arm around his waist while you dig your other hand in your purse for the apartment keys.

"Of course he does," Javier grumbles, frowning as he grouses, "You think I would've never told him—?"

You get the door unlocked and serenely take his hands and lead him in as you backpedal through the threshold. "I wasn't really sure, chulito," you tell him honestly as you shut the door and set your purse and keys aside on the credenza before giving him a lopsided smirk when he huffs a surly grunt. "You know, when you're all grouchy, your nostrils flare out all cutely—" you begin to jibe warmly, but Javi lassos his forearm around you and swings you up against him, which makes you squeal and admonish in a falsetto, "Ah, bad boy!"

He barks a hearty laugh and manages to whisk you up into his arms to march in a slightly zigzag pattern down to the bedroom, bumping into the doorframe and swaying with you towards the bed while you giggle effervescently and hold on for dear life.

Flopping onto the bed with him, you roll to pin him down and shower affectionate kisses over his heated features and neck before hissing goofily, "Now, you're gonna be a good boy, strip, and come shower with me, aren't yah."

His cheeks flush, but he nods and licks his lips. "Yeah, I am," he rumbles, hands fondling your curves possessively as he mumbles, "Wanna be good for you, gatita."

You smile and brush a kiss over his lips before slinking up and stripping out of your clothes, then undressing him while he lays sprawled out, gazing up at you.

Even drunk, Javier is a man of his word. He behaves while you divest him of his clothes and boots, watches as you pull your hair up into a bun, then takes your hand and follows you to the bathroom where you run the shower and get under the warm water with him. Once you've massaged the suds completely out of his hair for him and rinsed the soap from his shoulders, you step out of the stall first and wrap a towel around yourself before drying him, tucking the towel around his waist, and sitting him down on the toilet after you lowered the lid for him so you can dry his hair while he sighs and holds onto you with his arms looped around your waist.

"Mm, alright, bebito. Let's go to bed," you murmur silkily as you slip the towel to slouch behind his broad shoulders so you can cup his face in your hands. He gives you the most smitten look, eyes dark and warm, flaring an earthy chestnut under the ceiling light, and you feel so weak for him – breath stolen by the molten flutter in your core. And then he tugs you onto his lap, so you scoff and chidingly scrub the towel you used to dry his dense locks over his head and drag the wet material over his face cheekily before tossing it with a laugh when he grunts in complaint. "And you were being such a good boy," is your admonishing tut as you shift from his lap. But then he gives you the most genuinely needy frown, eyes soft and brows furrowing pleadingly. So, you decide to reward him for being so irresistibly sweet.

Javier watches as you step back from the circle of his arms and drop your towel to stand in your dewy glory before him, skin glistening under the warm light. His eyes go from drunken gloss to lustfully scintillating as he leans forward to nuzzle his face into your sternum. "Mi reina amada," he croaks as he embraces you and rests his forehead to the valley of your breasts. You shiver, aching want tingling down between your thighs for him. Your clean, warm skin has Javi getting hot with need. "Can I kiss your pussy?" is his husky petition.

You exhale an excited little huff, staring down at his hungry expression and seeing the pronounced bulge of his arousal tenting the towel wrapped around his hips. "First thing's first, hermoso," you susurrate and guide him to stand and follow you back to the bedroom, where you tug the thick terrycloth material from his trim waist and lovingly pull the covers back before steering him to lay naked on the bed. Javier protests when you don't climb immediately in too, so you lean over him and kiss his pillowy lips, and assure, "I'm going to get you some water and turn the lights off, so I'll be right back, bebito."

With a surly grunt, he nods and stretches out, resting his head on the pillow as he idly scratches the stubble of his cheek. You find drunk Javi to be the cutest thing, so you quickly hang up the towels, retrieve the glass of water from the kitchen and shut all the nights off before returning to place the glass at his nightstand and finding him with his eyes closed and his hands folded over his midriff. You take the opportunity to just gaze at him, admiring his broad frame in its nude glory. His muscles are relaxed, erection thick and straining towards his left hip – legs askew while his belly is taut and his chest is rising and falling from his deep breathing. He looks like a divine sin.

Biting your lip, you go to grab the covers to tuck him in, when he mumbles, "Not asleep. Just resting my eyes."

"You overdid it, papisongo. Just go to sleep," you snicker and climb into bed next to him to attempt appeasing him with your closeness while covertly inching the covers over, but he kicks at them with a sulky grunt. "Javier," is your admonishing giggle. He cracks his eyes open then and lulls his head towards you before he heavily rolls onto his side to manhandle you under him. "Mmm, Javi, you're being a bad boy—"

"Please let me kiss your pussy?" he interrupts, beckoningly kissing along your cheek, down your neck and shoulder while you caress his sides and sigh at the feeling of his warm skin pressed against yours. "Wanna make you come with my mouth so bad—"

"You're liable to fall asleep in the middle of it," you joke airily and kiss his cheek before you pivot to roll him back onto the bed. When he protests with a gruff grumbly huff, you purr, "Malcriado. Behave right now, or I'm going to punish you."

A shiver goes up his spine. Javi grunts appealingly, hands groping to pull you over to lie on top of him. "Punish me by sitting on my face," he petitions, and you gasp at his shamelessness. His cock presses beseechingly against you when you wiggle to maneuver over him, and the way he whines pleadingly while your hands clutch at his pectorals sends a thrill into the seat of your womb, making you drench over with arousal for him.

The needy, wanton way he's staring up at you makes you realize he wants to be dominated, and you decide to see just how far gone with the drunkenly uninhibited desire he is by husking in a smoky murmur, "Ah. Look at you – so pussy-hungry. Is my big, strapping stud just a hard-up slut? Wanting to be treated like the needy, slutty thing you really are?"

Javier moans and nods, blush searing along his cheeks and up to his ears while radiating across his chest. "I'm a dirty fucking slut, mi reina," he throatily whimpers and lights up when you straddle him so you're sitting on his thighs in order to rake your nails lightly down his chest and stomach to the base of his cock. "Fuck, baby—"

"You're not a dirty fucking slut. You, are my filthy fucking slut," you correct imperiously as you wrap your hands around his throbbing cock and give it a squeeze. "Isn't that right, you puto beyako?"

The way Javier reacts has a wave of need thrumming from your core, clit throbbing when he husks a hoarse whimper from deep in his chest and clutches at your thighs while he moans, "Yes! I'm your filthy fucking slut, mi patrona."

"Mmm, yes, you are. Eres todo mío," you alluringly coo at him as you start stroking him with one hand and curve the other to give him a show – rubbing your clit and dipping your fingers into your drenched cunt. Javi groans a yearning sound, eyes riveted on your fingers plunging in and out of your slickened center before you pull them out with a lewd, slick sound and lean forward to trace the sullied digits along his lips. His feral growl as he sucks your fingers into his mouth makes your pussy clench, and the delight it stokes in you is addictive, so you swivel your thumb over his weeping tip and press it over the slit as you lilt, "This is the only taste of my pussy you're gonna get, sweet boy. You're too spoiled—"

His cock twitches in your grasp and his stomach tenses with excitement as an exhilarated huff catches in his chest when you retract your fingers from his mouth and cup his jaw to stop him from bucking up. His lust-glazed eyes clear enough for him to breathily hold your gaze as he repeats obediently, "I'm fucking spoiled."

"Yes, you are. So, this sinful mouth of yours isn't getting any more pussy," you chastise provocatively, and the genuine distress you see cross his wrecked features makes you soften as you lean forward and caress his cheek while you shift to straddle his crotch, lining his cock up to part your folds. "Aww, I only meant for tonight, bello. Don't worry," you soothe and kiss his lips tenderly, smiling when he exhales with palpable relief and pulls you close. "You got me so turned on. I've been tingling all night, you know that?" you purr and kiss him, loving how he groans with pride. "Only you have this effect on me. You know that, right, mi rey?" is your sultry murmur as you rub your pussy over him so he can feel how warm and wet you are.

He can only nod vigorously in the affirmative because you're stealing his breath with how your silken pussy slots him with tortuously slow undulations to press inch by inch into your addictive heat. When he's buried to the hilt in you, though, and you start to clench your floor muscles around him, Javi hitches out in a flustered grovel, "Querida—"

"I know, sweet boy. Don't hold back. I want you to feel good," you assure as you squeeze and grind around his throbbing cock while rutting down on him in a scintillating way that has you aching, but nowhere near how close to the edge Javier is.

He tosses his head back in frustration with himself as he grips your hips and starts bucking up into you, chasing his pleasure – teeth bared as he grits his jaw and his brow furrows in concentration while his eyes screw shut from the onslaught of pent-up need flaring out in impending release.

The sight of him like this is decadence, and knowing you're the cause has you beaming with delight as you brace a hand to his chest for balance while the other rubs your clit in time with how Javi's barreling up into you now.

"Oh fuck-fuck-fuck-fuuuuck—!" Javier's swearing with rapturous need as he pounds up into you and feels your walls rippling around his swelling cock, and when he opens his eyes and sees you bouncing above him with your mouth fallen open on a cry of luscious pleasure, fingers grinding over your clit, he's seared through with ecstasy at the sight, warning on a gruff groan, "I'm gonna come—gonna come!"

You're alight with how he's swept you up so tempestuously in the throes of carnal need, having not expected to get there with him. But the sound of his voice breaking under the ruinous havoc of watching you ride his cock is a shattering aphrodisiac that pushes you over the edge to wail in shocked ecstasy as you climax. It coincides with Javi losing himself to the haze of pleasure as he grips your ass and hammers his orgasm up into you after his balls pull up and tight, filling you with shudder after shudder of his release while your pussy ripples and clamps down around his cock. Your sheath contracts, slotting him deep into that devastating part of you that trembles with accomplishment at being claimed by him so completely as the warm bloom of his seed diffuses through your core. It's euphoric, toe-curling bliss, leaving you ravished and fawning.

"Oh Javi," you sigh out in spent elation as you come down from the high and gaze rapturously at him before curling down to cuddle him lovingly. He is dazed and smiley, arms clumsily embracing you as you caress his damp hair and kiss on him. "That was amazing," is your wistful exaltation after you nuzzle the spot under his jaw and relax heavily against his chest.

He just beams, melting under you into sated exhaustion, so you force yourself to shift off of him and roll onto your back so you can cool down and enjoy the tranquil calm that ebbs up in you. The tingle in your tummy has you sighing wistfully as you press your thighs together and continue to relax in the post-bliss afterglow, soothed by his warm, masculine scent and presence.

By the time you're able to move again, Javier is snoring, so you pull the covers over you both and smile when he rolls onto his side in his sleep and instinctively spoons you.

You wake up still in his arms the next morning, and you smile to yourself, content to lie there like this with him forever.

"Mmmph," Javier slurs in his sleep before nuzzling the back of your neck when he starts to stir.

You smile and cup your hand to the back of his head so you can comb your fingers through his hair soothingly. "You feeling ok, chulito?" you murmur before shifting to peer at him over your shoulder.

"…my head's spinning," he admits in a hoarse deadpan, so you roll over and watch him rub at his temples. "Jesus Christ…did I beg to kiss your pussy?"

You laugh, and he groans as he labors to roll onto his back with a grunt. "You did a lot more than just beg for that, tough guy," you tease, kissing his cheek before you climb out of bed. "I'll get you something to stave off the headache," is your remark as you grab your robe and slink into it.

After he's downed the pills and two glasses of water, you make him some tea for the nausea, of which he sips sourly while you pack some of your clothes to take to your place in order to bring a new archive of outfits back with you later. By the time you're both in the shower, Javier's feeling a bit better, and at your suggestion of getting breakfast at the café, he's eager to oblige. He skips shaving and just brushes his teeth while you put on moisturizer and comb your hair out in front of the vanity mirror with him, catching his sexy glances in the reflection.

"What're you leering at, chavón," you snicker as he pats his face dry and hangs up the towel.

"I'm getting flashbacks of last night. You standing over me all naked and wet…" he purrs as he turns and crowds in behind you to guide you out to the bedroom, pressing his towel-clad hips into your robe-covered ass as he growls in your ear, "How I'm your filthy fucking slut."

"Yeah, you are," you drawl in a smoky snicker and turn in his arms so you can loop yours around his neck. "I think you remember everything and are just feigning otherwise," you quip, grinning when he scoffs and picks you up by the backs of your thighs to take you to bed.

"I remember bits and pieces. Then there's fuzzy parts that could've been real or a dream," he admits as he tosses you onto the bed, smirking as you yelp in surprise while you bounce. "Did you tell me I wouldn't get anymore pussy?" he asks haughtily as he discards his towel from his hips and snatches his gray boxer-briefs off the bed to yank them on.

Your giggle is seductive as you sit up on your elbows. "Yeah, I did. And you got all flustered thinking I meant you'd never get it again," is your impish retort as he grabs for his dark-wash jeans, smiling when he pauses in getting dressed to eye you challengingly. "It was cute—"

Javi tosses his jeans aside and climbs onto the bed, prowling along it to loom over you before he yanks you down to be sprawled on your back. You gasp in surprise when he flings your robe open, then dissolve into a hearty cry of excitement after he crawls between your open thighs and bows between them, burying his face in your pussy with a possessive growl.

The apples of your cheeks burn with licentious glee the rest of the morning after that, even while you sit at the café and recap to him in a hushed tone everything from the night before, to his unabashed delight. He tells you the things he definitely remembers and balks at the things he thought were a dream.

Afterwards, you enjoy listening to him recap things from the day and evening prior, and by the time you're entering your apartment with your bag of clothes for swapping out, you're breathless from laughing at his current line of heckling.

"—I'm serious! You really played up that movie, and it was ridiculous. His whole dick was out for no reason," Javi's deriding as he closes the door after himself and you continue to guffaw down the hall. He puts his keys on the side table and follows you, tossing himself down on your bed while you empty out your bag of clothes and start sorting through it, simpering snickers the entire time, so he goads, "I can't believe you like that movie so much—"

"Oh my god, I liked it because I had a crush on Richard Gere! And, it's called suspension of disbelief for a reason, you jodón," you laugh and yank his boot off for him before he's able to kick to fling it off. He chuckles and stretches out while you yank the other off too to be set down on the floor. Smugly, he rests his hands behind his head and smiles when you drop his foot unceremoniously to the bed so you can toe off your leather flats in order to prowl over him and straddle his jean-clad lap in your flirty paisley ruffle skirt. "And, it has a nostalgia factor for me. The fashion, the music, the outings – it was quintessentially the best period, when I was running around having fun, back then," you tell him while you toy with the open collar of his light purple button down.

"Yeah, I get it," he concedes, full lips cresting with mirth when he tugs on the string of your white keyhole blouse, exposing your cleavage to him and earning a scoff from you as you slap his hands away playfully. "I don't remember seeing him in any of the photos in the album, so I take it you never got to meet your crush?"

Precocious smirk fighting the purse of your lips, you hum noncommittally and go to slink off his lap, but he riles and sits up to lasso you back and arches his brows in inquiry. "I didn't get to meet him, per se, but I saw him once in the club. He was with Diana Ross and like, a giant entourage of people. I didn't have the guts to go up to him," you divulge and pout demurely when he looks surprised by that. "I also was alone because Sasha had disappeared into one of the rooms with some guy, and I was worried so I ended up going to look for him—"

"Would you have hooked up with him if you had the chance?" Javi asks mischievously, pursing his mustachioed upper lip goofily at you. "Not that I would've loved the idea of having to measure up to a movie star—"

"Hah! I don't know, honestly," you chortle and wrinkle your nose when he grunts, as if unconvinced. "I mean, I never hooked up with a celebrity. I flirted with a few, but it was harmless fun. I think if he'd approached me, I would've been too flustered to go through with anything," is your retort as you lean down and nuzzle his neck. "What would you have done if I'd said yes?" you chime amusedly now that he encircles your waist to pin you against him.

"I would've never watched another Richard Gere movie ever again," he jibes dryly.

You laugh, kissing his cheek and cuddling him with silly delight. "Not even Pretty Woman?" you chime derisively and wink at him.

"Nope. Don't need it. You're hotter than any hooker with a heart of gold," he chuckles, and you cackle and swat his chest.

Flirtatiously glowering, you snicker, "Oh jeez, what a compliment—"

"That isn't to say that I'd turn down the chance at having you roleplay one some time," he drawls ruggedly and bounces his eyebrows wickedly.

"I'm sure, you beyaquito," you snicker and cheekily nibble on his earlobe, earning a stuttered breath from him and a swat on your derrière as well as a nudge of his temple to yours while you both just canoodle amorously on your bed for a bit.

"You got that dress still?" he queries in a honeyed baritone as he noses into your hairline by your ear. When you hum curiously, he elaborates, "That killer dress you mentioned, the one you got after seeing that movie?"

"Oh. I do, but not here. I have it in storage," you answer and smile when he grunts faux-admonishingly. "What? It was a stunning look in 1981! It fell out of fashion, so I stored it," is your snickered justification, letting your hands wander teasingly down his sides as you goad, "Not all of us insist on wearing outdated fashions like someone I know—"

"Oh, yeah? Outdated, am I?" Javi grouses acerbically as he playfully pins you down and leans back to narrow his eyes with fake umbrage. "I wear what looks good—"

"That is undeniable, but you are not on trend, chulito," you tease, grinning when he gives you a sardonic 'Oh, really now?' look as you squeeze the insides of your knees at his hips for emphasis, and deride, "Your jeans alone are one step away from being skinny bell bottoms – giving Barry Gibb a run for his money—"

Your razzing dissolves into a squeal of laughter when Javi starts tickling you relentlessly and suckling nippy kisses into your neck. The fit of giggles and the way you squirm to buck him off has him grinning so wide that his handsome dimple appears in his cheek when he lets you roll him onto his back and flatten out over his sprawled-out frame.

"Such a criticona," he gravels out and smiles up at you when you huff rogue strands out of your face and scrunch your nose defiantly at him. "Always putting down my style—"

"Not putting it down! I'm only teasing," you counter and smile with genuine delight. "I like your style, no matter how out of style it is," is your lilt, loving how he rolls his eyes and grumbles snootily, so you cuddle him and coo, "Only a handsome, swagger-rich stud like you can pull it off effortlessly."

He grunts warmly at the compliment and nuzzles into the top of your hair. "I wouldn't be caught dead in bell bottoms anyway…"

You chuckle and give him an affectionate squeeze, gleefully picturing him dressed like a disco stud – tight bell bottoms, open-collared satin shirt, Cuban heeled boots, and gleaming gold medallion necklace. You internally fawn at the mental image. He would've been such a hunk at Studio54…

After some more time cuddling, he gets up to go use the bathroom, so you take advantage and store the clothes you brought before picking out new odds and ends to take back to his place. You're in the middle of folding a bunch of blouses to be stored in the bag when your house phone rings. You can hear Javi washing his hands in the bathroom sink when you get the wireless phone from the mount and answer.

"—Hey, ketsele!" Sasha is boisterously greeting over the sound of a scoffing voice who then cuts in.

"Get off the phone, Sasha!"

You snicker as you hear the Ivanov siblings bicker a bit before you're able to intercept as you sit sidelong on the bed, chiming in, "Hey, you two! What a treat to get you both on the phone at the same time."

"Oh my god, he's so annoying!"

"What?! I told you I wanted to be on to hear her reaction—"

"But you're literally screaming in my ear, Sasha. Just come here and I'll put it on speakerphone—"

Javier is exiting the bathroom and coming in from the hall while your friends continue to bicker loud enough for him to hear them. He raises a brow at you and mouths, 'Who is that?'

"Alright, you two. What is the special occasion? Everything ok?" you ask before mouthing to Javi, 'It's Sasha and his sister, Irina.'

He nods and drops down to lounge next to you on the bed as he grabs for his cigarettes and finally caves to the urge for a smoke.

"Ok I'm here, so put it on the speaker thing," you hear Sasha order his sister, who scoffs and presses a button that indicates the audio going to speakerphone mode. "Hey, mon chéri. I miss you—"

"Oh, stow the flirting, would you?" Irina huffs wryly and you hear her swat his shoulder. "I wanna tell her the news and you're just hijacking me, as always."

"Blessed hell, fucking tell her then and quit dragging it out—"

"Shut up then!"

As they sniped back and forth, you took the opportunity to press the speaker button on the handset so Javi can hear how ridiculous the Ivanov siblings are, and he grins while you stifle your giggles into his shoulder.

"—I don't even know why you can't just let me have a moment with my friend without trying to schmooze her."

"Oy vey, you pain in the ass. She's my friend too—"

"Guys! Enough snapping at each other," you finally bark at them, having to switch into mediator mode. "Now, as fun as it's been to hear you bitch at each other like old times, I am beyond curious as to why you're both together on a Sunday, let alone calling me," is your musing remark while Javi puffs on his cigarette and skims his fingers languidly along your thigh.

"Well, we actually are about to go visit with our father. He's come to New York for some tests with a couple of oncologists. And, uh, well, I wanted to call to tell you Aslan and I set a date, and I want you to be my maid of honor!" Irina rambles until she exclaims the happy news.

You beam, merrily retorting, "I'd love to!"

"I told her you would. As if you'd ever say no," Sasha drawls in a rasp, and you hear a swat, and you can easily picture Irina smacking his brawny bicep with her petite little hand as she glowers murderously at him. "When I go back down there, I'll bring the official wedding invite—"

"Oh, and way to omit being madly in love! I can't believe you told Sasha and not me—" Irina is bossily scathing, which makes you blush while Javi chuckles at your expense.

"Which reminds me: I'm going to be Aslan's best man, so Javi darling is gonna have to deal with you and I walking down the aisle arm-in-arm, krasivaya—"

"I don't have a problem with it at all," Javier remarks coolly, and you gasp and swat his shoulder. "What? I don't."

"Hah! You got us on speaker for Javi's amusement, eh, ketsele?!" Sasha razzes charmingly.

"Hi, Javi! You better treat my friend right or I will have my brother beat you up," Irina threatens with a wily timbre, and you face palm. "He's done it before—!"

"Technically I only punched the guy. I'd hardly call it a beating—"

"Yeah, well, you will beat him up, because if you don't, I'll kick your ass—"

"Would you two dorks stop," you cut in, and manage to get the conversation back on track long enough to find out the date of the wedding, the intended location, and make sure to assure, "—I will put in for the time off, so email me all the details so I can start planning bachelorette festivities!"

"Will do. And Javi – you're invited," Irina charms in her falsetto lilt before giggling, "We'll make sure to get adjoining suites in the hotel so my brother can keep an eye on you—"

"Oh, ketsele refuses to share, so no naughty fun is happening, you prude—"

Javi is giving you a scandalized smile as your friends keep speculating raunchily over the lewd possibilities of you three carrying on during the wedding, all while you gape at the phone. "Alright, that's enough of you two trying to scare Javi off! Now, I'll talk to you later to dish more about the arrangements, Irina. And Sasha – call me when you're fitting to come back down, ok?" you order sassily and grin when Javier stubs his cigarette out and lounges more comfortably back against the headboard with a smug look quirking his handsome features.

"Will do!" the siblings retort in unison, and you snicker as you all say your goodbyes before you end the call.

"Another wedding to go to," Javi drawls aloofly as you lean sidelong into him and rest your head on his shoulder with a soft sigh.

"I know you're super busy, so a trip to New York is out of the question," you remark neutrally.

Shifting to loop his arms around you, he drawls in a honeyed baritone, "You never know. I figure my window for nailing Cali is closing, and with what my guys have in the works, if everything pans out, I could be shutting the case on the entire thing very soon. Just put me down as your plus one, corazón."

You melt at that, slinking up to cup his jaw and kiss him tenderly.

After you finish packing the new rotation of clothes – making sure to covertly sneak a certain ensemble for some naughty mischief you intend to surprise him with at some point, you and Javi head back to his place, where you do laundry, iron, and cook dinner together while the radio plays some romantic oldies.

It's uncanny how much you enjoy this tranquil domesticity with him, but you can't bear to think of a time without this feeling of belonging. Your heart is full and serene, and while you're on the phone catching up with your grandmother, Javi washes the dishes and listens to your pleasant side of the conversation until you pass the phone over dutifully and let them chat for a bit.

Later on, when you both are freshly showered and getting ready for bed, you are sans robe, rubbing lotion on your arms after having finished with your legs and tucked them under the bedding away from the air-conditioned chill. Javi sheds his towel and scrubs it to catch the wayward beads of water clinging to tendrils of his hair before hanging it back up on the rack, padding back into the bedroom after shutting the lights off in the hall. He looks delectable in his nude glory as he lopes over to his side of bed, tugs the covers back and slides under them with a yawn.

"Need a hand?" he purrs when you try to reach backwards to get a spot between your shoulder blades.

Smiling, you hand him the bottle and pivot to present your back to him. He sits up and massages a dollop of the lotion into his warm palms before working it into your supple skin. He takes the chance to worshipfully kiss a trail from your nape to the back of your ear before nuzzling into your hairline there. "Don't get frisky now," you tut silkily and lean back into him when his hands work around from your back to your sides and cup your breasts.

"Too late," Javi rumbles against your jaw before nudging you in a show of dominance, getting you to turn your head so he can capture your lips with his own.

You end up making love, slow and tender, with murmured sweet nothings shared between heady mewls and husky groans.

It's sheer bliss, and you're on cloud nine when you're nestled in his arms after, pining with delight while he caresses his touch languidly along your back in the dark. Javier feels the most content when you're peacefully cuddled against him, sated and warm – drifting off into slumber. It makes him feel worthy – deserving of having you love him, fulfilled that you'd feel so serene in his embrace. That you would trust him so completely after everything you've both been through.

As he starts to drift off himself, the ambitious part of him weaves a tapestry of possibilities for the future. He envisions moving into an apartment with you. Sees you both holding hands as you walk through the lobby of the embassy. Manifests meeting your father – in some way – and asking him for your hand in marriage. Getting a ring and showing your grandmother, to get her blessing. And just as he dozes off, he dreams about getting down on one knee with a ring as dazzling as your smile as he asks you to be his forever.

The next morning while you both get dressed, Javi remembers that last part, and is watching you reverently as you brush your hair and twist it up in an elegant hair clasp before you straighten out your flouncy periwinkle blouse.

"You got any plans for lunch?" he asks as he feigns like he was concentrating on straightening the knot of his filigree-patterned blue and green tie when you sit on the bed to slip your heels on.

"Yeah. It's been a while since I've had lunch with the girls, so we made plans on Friday to have lunch by the fountain today," you tell him amiably as you stand and smoothen out your sleek black pencil skirt. "Wanna meet after for coffee in my office?" you ask as you slip into your chic blazer, admiring how he shrugs into his own light gray suit jacket with graceful swagger before turning back to catch you staring, so you wink at him and lilt, "We can close the door and make out on my couch."

Javi's lips purse audaciously at the suggestion as he lopes over and sexily pulls you into his chest before dipping down to steal a kiss, then cockily husking, "That'd be quite daring, director. You sure you wanna risk getting caught with the embassy slut?"

You laugh out and affectionately wrap your hands behind his neck in order to fiddle with the back of his collar as you slink up against him. "You're no longer the embassy slut. You, mi beyaquito, are my filthy, naughty, sweet boy – who I occasionally let be a slut for me," you amend with prim authority before kissing him on his awed lips. "Now, I have a meeting to run to, so pórtate bien until I see you in my office?" is your bossy purr as you slink your hands from around his shoulders down to his collarbones before they glide to trace his tie, giving it a light tug before receding to loop in his waistband cheekily.

The savage pride that radiates in the center of his chest for you has his soulful eyes going molten with want as he nods and leans in for one last peck, tapping your ass and making you squeak cutely before strutting off to grab your purse and tote whilst you blow him a kiss as you breeze out the door.

"Fuck me…" he grouses wistfully to himself as he grabs his watch from the dresser and fastens it to his wrist, charmed smile cresting his lips as he thinks about whether he can find a way to talk with your grandmother privately in order to ask her for your father's contact information. One thing at a time. You got jack-shit on taking out Cali the way you'd need to in order to be able to take things to the next level, is the admonishing voice, cautioning him as he grabs his things from the credenza and heads out the door.

Said voice is only further validated by the latest update he's getting from Feistl and Van Ness once they're debriefing him in the conference room, passing surveillance photos and detailing how hard it would be to siege the current location Miguel Rodríguez is holed up in.

"—Salcedo has people in the telephone company tapping lines for Rodríguez. He said he's super paranoid that his brother may be swaying the other two Cali godfathers against him. But at the very least, they're all backing Miguel against the North Valley shit," Chris is detailing while Dan broodingly chews on the end of the straw from his coffee cup.

"Any more talk about the leak?" Javier asks as he crosses his arms tightly and resists the urge to go for his pack of cigarettes.

"Other than knowing there is one? No. Salcedo's really worried, boss. His close call has him on edge, and with Miguel spiraling into mistrust like he is, we don't think there's a lot of time left before we need to get him and his family out of here," Dan lobbies.

While Javier is stuck stewing with the unsustainably fraught scenarios before him, you're catching up with the girls over lunch. Afterwards, you chat with Marisol, who has kept your confidence and relationship with Javier a secret, so you smile and confirm things are still going with the dashing man that she affectionately proclaims, "Is absolutely in love with you, and was about time you made an honest man out of," while patting you genially on the shoulder.

She's also helped you with a few other things you are thanking her for now, and once you both make a standing date to all have lunch again sometime soon, you head up to your department. You're eager to put on a fresh pot of coffee and have your secret date with Javi, idly fishing from your blazer pocket a tinted balm stick to apply to your lips; pressing them together as you fuss with the machine.

When he rounds the corner towards your little coffee nook a few minutes later, you can see how moody he is, and how he's trying to mask it. But his soulful eyes being crinkled at the corners and the little furrow between his brows will always give him away to you. So, you pour him a cup and hand it to him before confidently taking your own mug and leading him down to your office. Once he's crossed the threshold, you click the door closed, silently lock it, and tug the sidelight blinds shut before putting your mug down on the side table and going to him.

Javier puts his cup aside when you approach, thinking you're going to playfully shake him by the shoulders like you do when you see him all wound up. He doesn't expect you to shove him down onto the couch so that you can hike your skirt up and straddle his lap in order to wrap your arms around him in fierce, doting hug. His stunned reaction melts instantly, and he leans into it, embracing you with a relieved exhale. How you can know him so well as to sense what he needs? It floors him, and he is thankful for your loving grace as he pulls you close and kisses you with fervor.

Eventually, you both rein in your desires, and you scoff at yourself as you devotedly scrub the lip balm evidence from his mouth while he snorts and chuckles, "I like this version of a coffee date."

"I'm sure you do, fresco," you giggle and grab your mug to sip your coffee as you wiggle your brows at him.

He doesn't unburden himself with what he was moodily brooding about. And you don't ask, sensing it's something he didn't want to discuss onsite.

Still, you decide then and there that tonight might be the night to spring the little surprise you'd cooked up in your head.

Javier is none the wiser as he kisses you one more time before you stealthily unlock your door. "See you later tonight," you whisper before opening the door and letting your cool demeanor conceal how smitten with him you are.

"Thanks again for the coffee," he muses smoothly, tipping his cup appreciatively at you before shooting you a quick wink and sauntering off out through your department's workspace.

You internally fawn for him as you watch him go.

Javi feels better too. So much so, he puts up with the bullshit conference calls and tedious work Stoddard lays out on his desk for the rest of the day, and even though his call with stateside at the end of the day doesn't go great, he figures it could've been worse. The deputy ambassador was not interested in rocking the boat, so at the very least he figured he could keep avoiding the local government's pressure until he was forced to once Crosby was back in-country. He's thinking about his prospects for successfully thwarting any more sabotage when he leaves the embassy and drives home that evening.

He finishes his cigarette and stubs it out before heading up in the elevator, preoccupied with his thoughts over the C.I., Salcedo. The idea that corruption could go as far up as the Minister of Defense is something he's toyed with, but without any definitive proof, he knows it'd be career suicide to allege it. He's stewing about it as he walks down the hall and keys into his apartment.

The lamp is on in the living room, and he notices there's a light on in the bedroom, but the bathroom door is closed, so he locks the door behind himself and unloads his belongings to the credenza as he calls out, "I'm home, querida."

"Be right out!" is your muffled retort from behind the bathroom door, so he goes to the kitchen and pours himself a drink while he loosens his tie and pops the next two buttons of his collar open. He notices the takeout containers from the tapas place, and smirks, looking forward to lounging on the couch with you after such a long day.

Loping into the bedroom to remove his shoes, blazer, belt, and watch, Javi wonders if you would rather listen to music, or watch TV with dinner, as he sits on the bed and set his drink aside so he can reset the alarm clock for an early meeting he has the next day.

The bathroom door opens, and he hears the subtle click of heels approach before pausing at the doorway.

"You look like you could use some company, hot stuff," you chime in a sultry timbre as you strike a pose and enjoy how he turns to look at you before gaping in awe.

He's dumbstruck. Completely floored by you looking like a sexy vixen in the black pumps and ridiculously short mini dress. It's a bright tangerine color with a halter top neck and side cutouts that reveal the exquisite hourglass shape of your figure. The material is so slinky and tight that Javi can easily make out that you're not wearing a bra – mouthwatering at the sight of your tits defying gravity in the bust of the top while your nipples dent the fabric. Your hair has volume and is undulating sultrily around your face and down your shoulders, and the way your cherry-red lips smile at him while you bat your lashes has lewd urge tangling ardently in his belly.

"…What is—I don't-I mean…company?" Javier stammers as he takes you in, jaw dropped as his brain continues to trip over itself.

Pleased, you strut into the room and stand to loom over him while he just stares with those big, brown puppy eyes off his. "That's right. Company," you draw out with syrupy charm before placing your hands on your hips – fingernails a glossy red that gleams in the lamplight. With a saucy cant of your stance that balances your weight onto one hip, you wink at him as you lilt, "I'm your beck and call girl for the night, stud."

The gob-smacked wonder blooms over his handsome face before his eyes twinkle with the dawning of realization. "Oh…oh. Is that a fact?" Javi husks and leans back on his splayed hands, lips plush and pursing out with raunchy charisma as he ogles your curves.

"It is. Now, for the ground rules: I don't do 'daddy kink', I don't put up with rough tricks, and," you pause your flirty listing for dramatic emphasis as you lean forward and enunciate imperiously, "I don't kiss on the mouth."

Javi internally groans at how ridiculously hot this is, and lets a slow smile tug his lips. "Fucking hell…what if I really want to kiss you?" is his musing rumble, eyes warm with mirth as he watches you try to stifle your teasing grin.

"Well, you can kiss me...just not on the mouth," you sinfully purr and fold your arms behind yourself with feigned chastity.

The arousal that roils down into his apex and heats his skin has him grunting a low sound of enticement. "Well then…" he grouses as he starts unbuttoning his shirt, sitting up to shrug it off and stare hungrily at you as he orders in a velvety drawl, "How 'bout a striptease, you sexy little minx."

You've been tingling with excitement since you heard the key slip into the lock. And now, with him looking riled and deliciously into this tawdry roleplay as he sits in just his trousers, looking good enough to pounce on? It has you incredibly turned on and eager to drive him wild. So, you make to do a slow, sensual spin in order to show him how low cut the dress is in the back before you toss your hair over a shoulder so you can reach for the clasp of the halter top. Undoing it, you then tug on the spaghetti strap that keeps the gravity-defying mini dress cinched to your torso.

With a coquettish glance back over your shoulder at Javi, you slowly shimmy the tangerine material down your figure. His eyes are drinking in the salacious spectacle while he traces the inner rim of his upper lip and wars with the impulse to just take you to bed and ravish you. When you get the material to your hips, you turn to face him before pushing the dress to pool at your heeled feet.

His cock throbs in his pants at the sight of the red lace thong panties you'd vetoed wearing for him a week prior, and he doesn't even care to stifle the husky hum that emanates from his pent-up urge pulsing raucously in him.

Kicking the dress aside, you do your best impression of Julia Roberts as you preen coltishly in just the black heels and red panties, tossing your hair sexily behind your shoulders as you fold your arms behind yourself again and chime blithely, "What next, sweetheart?"

Grazing his bottom lip with his teeth, he stands from the bed and leaves only inches between you both as he surveys your perky tits and enjoys the little excited hitch in your breath while you stare up at him demurely before tracing your gaze down his body. You can plainly make out the outline of his ramrod erection hidden in his trousers, and your mouth waters at the thought of getting on your knees in front of him. It's what you expect him to order, after all – that you go down on him until he buries his cock into the back of your throat and spills his cum. But then you remind yourself that Javi's not a selfish lover, and how you practically have to manhandle him into letting you get him off with oral.

Your gaze must be licentiously provoking him, because you see his expression smoothen before his eyes soften with a gloating smile.

Then, with a commanding calm, Javier looks you in the eyes, cupping his palm to caress your cheek, and tells you in a bass-rich baritone, "Take those fucking panties off."

The way your breath catches in your chest and your pussy clenches around nothing hazes your mind over for a split second before you go to do as you were told, hooking your fingers to peel your panties down from your hips. Javi stays right where he is, so you blush at how you lean forward and bump your rouged lips into his abs and end up leaving a lipstick print on his skin.

He loves how airy you've gotten from the order, so, he showily unbuttons his slacks and unzips the fly as he croons in a low register, "So, what should I call you? You can call me 'sir' when you need to beg," then pushes his pants down before stepping out of them, smirking at how you blink in disarmed pause at him. "Or, you'd rather I decide?" he prompts as he takes your hands and guides them down his body towards the waistband of his underwear.

Hearing his unspoken command, you undress him of his boxer-briefs, loving how his cock springs forth from the soft cotton and strains up. Cheekily, you crouch down to guide the garment's descent, and once they're off and you've dutifully removed his socks one by one, you skim your hands up his thighs and lewdly fondle his warm sac and palm his cock. His breath stutters out as a heady grunt and his hand cups your shoulder.

"You can decide, sir," you murmur alluringly before kissing the head of his cock, leaving a red kiss print on it.

Gruffly groaning, Javi tilts your face up with his warm fingers and coaxes you to stand so he can caress your cheek while the pad of his thumb swipes possessively over the plush pillow of your glossy and rouged bottom lip.

With a molasses thick purr, Javi continues to trace his thumb along the plump flesh as he hums, "You're gonna be Cherry for tonight. Goes with this cherry-red mouth. Does that work for you, mi cerecita?"

You brazenly answer in the affirmative by sucking his thumb into your mouth and humming, 'Mmhmm' around it, getting a deviant little thrill at how Javi's eyes smolder and his lips part breathily. Freeing his digit with a silky hum, you murmur, "What d'you wanna do first, stud?"

The endless possibilities of the depraved filth you could be thrown into has your core thrumming, so when Javier brings you both back to the side of the bed, where he sits at the edge of the mattress and makes you straddle his right thigh – leaving you balanced precariously on it and the tippy toes of your pump heels while he fondles your tits and mouths greedily on your taut-yet-delicate nipples? You feel frayed with lust and out of your depth in this salacious little game. But then you realize what he's doing when he grazes his teeth over your left nipple and suckles hard on it, earning a strangled mewl from you as you impulsively grip his shoulders and grind your pussy down on his warm, flexing thigh.

He's working you into a carnal tizzy and milking heady cries of pleasure from you in order to see how long you'll go before you break your rule and kiss him. After all, when he gets you really worked up, you tend to stifle your sounds of pleasure by burying them in his mouth, or muffling them into his neck. But the way he's got you balanced, with his hands at your hips as he licks and sucks possessively on your nipples in turn, you can't do much more than grip his shoulders or biceps imploringly while you ride his thigh. It's raunchy and lascivious, and you know he's loving every minute of it.

Whimpering, you bite down your lip and blush at the drenched heat of your wet pussy grinding against him, gasping at how good it feels when he purses his mouth over your right nipple and moans. Arching your lower back to be able to loop your arms around his neck, you mewl before stuttering, "Pl-Please, sir—let me ride you for real."

Javier releases your nipple with a lewd pop of his full lips and mocks, "Cock-hungry little thing, eh?" You stifle a breathy protest and writhe when he rolls the nipple he was just sucking on between thumb and forefinger before pinching it. "I wanna get your pussy nice and juicy for me first, Cherry. Now, be a good girl and get yourself off for me," is his molten growl before he leans back on his propped arms and forces you to have to balance yourself on his thigh.

The apples of your cheeks burn with scandalized shame as you tingle with a new wave of arousal at his burning stare, watching you work yourself over. But when he smirks smugly at you, that defiant flare bounds up in you from your simmering core, so you daringly slink yourself forward and reach to wrap your hand deviously around his cock.

Javier anticipated you pulling such a stunt, however, so before you can stroke him into a firm hold, he's caught your wrist and swept you flush against him – maneuvering agilely to hike your legs open and flung over his spreading knees. You end up being precariously teetered backwards over his lap, with his hold on your wrist and lower back keeping you from toppling head over heels backwards.

Just as you're gasping and trying to get your lust-addled bearings, free hand gripping the hinge of his arm, Javi pivots to sweep you up against him and maneuver to switch positions – laying you out on the bed on your back while he takes your legs and hikes them up and pinned open against his shoulders before he leans over you and presses your knees to your chest.

"Did I say you could touch me, Cherry?" he gravels menacingly in a low octave, eyes honing into you and earning a deviant thrill to skitter down into the clutch of your pussy.

You can't help but play along to see what he'll do.

"I'm sorry, sir. I just couldn't help myself," is your kittenish whine as you grip the bedding and give him a killer doe-eyed pout that shouldn't be as sexy as it is, but you see the effect it has when he grunts appealingly and stares hungrily down at you, so, you decide to milk it further by begging, "Please, please, fuck me as hard as you can?"

That is something that strikes Javi like a bolt of lightning and electrifies him with salacious desire, letting the baser side of his urges loose. You end up gasping when he practically mounts you – planting his knees onto the bed and snapping his hips forward to plunge his cock into your fluttering silken sheath and pinning your legs over his shoulders as he bottoms out before baring his teeth from the effort to not just rail you roughly. The sound that tangles in your throat when he starts fucking you, is reedy and desperate as you lose yourself to the bruising pace Javi's thrusts set, is that of wrecked delight, deliriously enthralled by how deep he's going while his balls slap against your drenched perineum.

But it's the delectable, pure filth that he growls huskily when he starts hammering his cock up into that devastatingly incinerating pleasure point nestled deep in you that disassembles you bit by bit towards the edge of bliss.

"Goddamn, this pussy's the best I've ever had—fucking taking me like this, clenching all needy and hard around my cock," he husks, piston-like strokes into your drenched cunt relentless with his dominance, amplifying the slick squelching sounds of him fucking into you over the slapping of flesh colliding warmly against flesh. You blush and moan, tossing your hair and writhing at how the obscenely lurid sounds combined with his lewd praise make you gush with more arousal. "Mmm, you like that?" Javi croons wolfishly, and shuffles to lean back on his haunches, manhandling you to be arched into the bed while he loops his grip to the backs of your legs before shifting them off his shoulders to hold them open at your ankles in order to pound into you now. "F-Feel so good when your pussy gets molten-wet for me," he grouses before cockily cooing, "Look at you, baby. Drunk on my cock and getting off in these sexy heels and nothing else – letting me rail the fuck out of you—"

"Oh god," you exhale as a shallow whimper, feeling yourself pulsing with the sinuous fire of an impending climax and utterly riled by his naughty taunts, hands wringing in the bedding while your tits bounce from his merciless pounding pace into your rippling, yearning cunt.

"You gonna let me shoot my load in this juicy little pussy?" he hoarsely rasps, panting breaths catching in his chest when you clench and flutter around him with a meek keen and bite your lip. "Oh fuck, you like that," Javier tells you huskily before growling assertively, "Yeah, are you my dirty girl? Want me to fuck my cum deep so it drips out of you? Have me inside you for days?"

The sinful depravity of his dirty talk unearths a fiery jolt from the seat of your core before it cloys ravenous pleasure to flood you over and has you crying out as your orgasm sears through you and gushes wet warmth all over Javier's apex and crotch as he keeps fucking through your rippling heat. You're so lost in your ecstasy that you cry out, "Javi!" in a drawn-out exclamation of delirious pleasure – completely breaking character.

It's a glorious thing for Javi to witness – an accomplishment he revels in gloatingly as he lets you ride the bliss out and prolongs your gratification by rocking in and out of you. You moan and arch off the bed, surprising him by reaching for him and becoming needy for his embrace.

Javi carefully shifts your legs down to remove your heels and toss them to the floor before he bends them to comfortably butterfly out on the bed while he props himself over you, leaning forward to kiss you—

You turn your face away and tut airily, "Uh-uh, n-no rule-breaking—"

Huffily, he deplores, "Oh c'mon—"

"Weren't you gonna fuck your cum deep inside me, sir?" you husk mockingly and wrap your legs around him as you grip the backs of his shoulders and angle your pelvis up to nestle his cock deep into your still-rippling pussy.

"Dios mío misericordioso," Javier hitches roughly, and you relish how his cock jerks inside you intently before he steals your breath by pulling out and slamming back into you to the hilt in a ferocious sequence he frantically quickens his pace to while he buries his burning features into the crook of your neck as he swears and hisses, "F-Fuck, tell me you want it—say you want me to wreck you, you dirty girl—"

Your clit throbs, cunt honeying over with a new wave of squelching arousal that has your cheeks scalding as you mewl heartily, "Want it! Wanna feel you inside me and ache with you—will only take your cock. I need it—want you to wreck and ruin me, fill me with your cum, make me belong to you—"

He moans and chases his orgasm, so close to the edge, and you feel spun up in your own heady pleasure by how desperately he's fucking you. When he slams into you over and over at the right angle and with the rutting pressure of his pubic bone and coarse curls grinding into your clit, you come undone again. In your mindless pleasure, you curl up into him and graze your teeth along the juncture linking shoulder to neck before nipping him hard to stifle your whimpers of rapture.

The feral arousal that untethers in him from your primal reaction has him barreling his orgasm into you on a hoarse moan that dissolves into groans he muffles into your neck as he hunches over you after his hips stutter in his desperate pace. Your molten sheath flutters as he slots himself home after spilling his release deep.

You swear dazedly that he's so deep that you can feel the fill of his climax thrumming a warm flutter up into your womb as your hungry walls cling to keep every drop of him inside you.

Spent and ragged, Javier collapses on top of you with a sated grunt, and you hum in delight as you wrap your arms and legs around him to anchor his warm weight. You're both sweaty, skin supple and overheated, and positively teeming with the post-sex aftereffects of such a wild romp. His heady scent, and suppliant kisses along your neck make you smile dreamily.

So, you turn your face to nudge him in a bossy show of dominance and silent order for him to look at you. He does so with a lazy grunt, dark chocolate eyes gleaming under his heavy lids. You card your hand into the back of his hair and pull him into a doting, albeit passionate kiss.

Javi hums approvingly and deepens the kiss, cupping the back of your neck with his strong fingers pressing to arch your mouth up to his so he can entwine his tongue with yours.

Breaking the kiss to rest his forehead to yours, he indulges in how you sigh out and smile sexily at him, leaning back with a charmed hum as you pet your fingers from the back of his hair to glide around to brush the sweat off his brow. Tracing your touch along his countenance with fondness, you murmur breathlessly, "Well? What did you think of Cherry?"

He exhales through his nose and fights the flutter of his eyes, along with the deviant shudder that skitters up his spine before he husks on a gravelly drawl, "I think you're fucking amazing for spoiling me like that." You smile and caress his cheek, and his eyes get soulful as he gazes at you lovingly. "Fuck, that was really fucking hot," he admits, giving you a lopsided smirk before nuzzling kisses into your neck and mumbling infatuatedly, "Tan chingona."

After you cuddle him and internally beam at his praise, you and Javi shower, and then eat reheated tapas together in bed, satiating a different hunger now and reveling in the calm and comfort of the gravitation between you.

"—Ok, I'm dying to know: Where the hell have you been hiding that dress?" Javier rumbles once he comes back from stowing the dirty dishes and turning the lights out, sliding rambunctiously into bed next to you and slinking against your nude form before tucking his arm around your hip to pin you to him.

"Hah, honestly? I bought it on a lark years ago when I first moved here. My cousin cajoled me into getting it for our first night out clubbing together," you tell him and smile when he grunts and pouts at the thought of you being danced up on or felt up by anyone else other than him while in that dress.

"Well, it's now strictly to be worn when Cherry wants to come out and play," is his cockily haughty proclamation, to which you scoff and shove him playfully to lie back in bed so you can drape yourself over his chest.

"Alright, beyako. Before you make such a demand, when are you gonna roleplay for me, hmm?" you can't help jibe sassily as you trace your forefinger's nail provocatively along his bottom lip before tapping it to the center of the plush morsel for emphasis.

"I'll be your American gigolo whenever you want, baby," he charms on a honeyed purr, and you snicker before impishly rubbing his left nipple and giving it a pinch, which causes him to irreverently growl and squeeze you before suckling retaliatory kisses into your neck while you giggle.

You're thinking of how naughty and fun last night was now as you come back from your early meeting to sit at your desk, and after fawning some more, you remember that you hadn't chatted with your abuela the night before. You get up to shut your door before retrieving your cell phone and dialing her.

"—Ah, busy night, lindita?" she's teasing after you greet her.

"Yeah, I lost track of time! It was much too late to call—"

"Ah-hah, I'm sure," she chuckles knowingly, and you snicker. "How're things? Any luck with the apartment-hunting? And how is Javier?"

"Things are hectic, but great. We're still looking. The first place we saw was very small and didn't include parking, and the second apartment was a fourth-floor walkup, doesn't allow pets, and it wasn't in a secure building, so Javi didn't like it. And the third place was cramped and didn't have a bathtub. We're actually seeing one later tonight after work," you're regaling her as you sit at your sofa and stretch your legs out. "Javi's a bit stressed at work, but overall, he's good. Oh! And, the other night? He asked if I'd ever want to go to Texas to meet his father," you find yourself divulging in a hushed tone, but it does nothing to conceal your elated glee.

"Oh, that is wonderful! Did you say yes? When will you be going—?"

You giggle, "Whoa, there's nothing actually planned yet. He kind of blurted it out while he was a bit tipsy, so…I'm not sure he even remembers it. But I told him I'd love to."

"Good. I'm so glad things are going well between you two, mija," she sighs softly, and you can hear a bit of fatigue seep into her tone as she remarks, "He's a sweet man. I don't think he would've said it and not meant it—"

"You sound exhausted. Have they been running you ragged with all the post-wedding stuff?" you ask now as you sit up in your seat.

"Ah, not really. I'm just a bit tired, is all. Oh, so your prima is getting ready for Miguel to leave for his training. She moved into his flat until he comes back. They're going to wait on getting a house. Your tía insists that she should start looking. Tomorrow we're going to go to the big department store and do some shopping from the registry gift she received," she tells you, and you both chat a bit more until you check the time to see that you have to start heading down to the linkup with stateside.

"—All right. I'll call you tomorrow night, 'Buela. Have fun shopping," you're telling her warmly as you get up from the sofa to collect your laptop.

"I'm sure I will. Love you, lindita!"

"I love you too. Adios," you chime as you get to the door and end the call, merrily balancing your belongings in one arm and hand while you open the door and strut out to traipse hurriedly down to the server room.

While you make it through to the afternoon with Ellis and the team executing the linkup, Javier is utterly miserable and disarmed, reeling as he sits in the small conference room he's in, and feeling like the walls are closing in on him.

He'd been pulled into an emergency meeting – a conference call between the Colombian government, the deputy ambassador, and Crosby in which a lot of demands were being made, and he felt that they were begrudgingly kowtowing to, so he was left to be the main opponent in pushing back on the Samper officials. Just when the deputy ambassador shot him a forlorn look across from the conference table they both were sat at, Crosby cleared his throat over the phone, and leveled him.

"—We'll take this offline, Agent Peña. However, in regards to the request from our Colombian partners on the call: We will fully cooperate with the Minister of Defense's petition. I only ask that you allow us until I'm back in-country to make the necessary arrangements and coordinate handoff of investigative materials," the ambassador remarks in a steely tone.

Seething, Javier is clenching his jaw tightly to keep his objections to himself, and Stoddard eyes him warily when the call begins to wrap up. But after the tepid pleasantries closing out the call are completed, the ambassador orders his administrative assistant, Dotty, to patch another call through to him directly.

"Ambassador, I really wish you'd pushed back on these demands—" Javi is grumbling evenly once the impromptu call is initiated, but Crosby is having none of it.

"Frankly, Peña? With everything I've been hearing, I had no interest in stepping in anymore of your bullshit. As far as I'm concerned, you've got nothing to justify stonewalling Botero, and fuck-all to show for the trouble. Pardon my French, Dotty."

Feeling the umbrage crest up in him and heat the back of his neck with consternation, Javier resists the urge to air his grievances out, especially with everyone else in the conference room present, so he asks firmly, "Sir, I'd appreciate the chance to talk one-on-one before you make a final decision here."

The tension in the room is palpable as the ambassador's line crackles with his deliberating silence. Then, the man gravels, "Go ahead and give us some privacy, everyone."

Dotty gives Javier a sympathetic look as she collects her meeting notes while the deputy ambassador holds the door open for her while Stoddard mouths, 'I'll be right outside, boss.'

Once they've left the room and the door has clicked shut, Javi reaches over and takes the call off speakerphone, already tugging at the knot of his navy and white-dotted-patterned tie to loosen it. "Sir, I know this thing with Miguel Rodríguez hasn't gone to plan, but I swear, there are extenuating factors I have to brief you on once you're back—"

"Goddammit, Peña. It's always 'extenuating factors' with your ass. I don't have to tell you how badly you've burned bridges with the Colombians, so unless you have actual results to shut them up and keep your team on the hunt, the game is pretty much over for you," Crosby chastises. "When I'm back next week, you can give me your latest litany of excuses and stall tactics. But I'm telling you now: You might spend the time between now and then getting ready to wrap things up there."

It's like a punch to the gut. Javier wrings his hand tensely down his stressed features before grousing, "I don't have any intention of leaving my post until Rodríguez and the rest of the Cali godfathers are rotting in prison—"

"That's decidedly becoming more and more of a pipedream. So, start trying to salvage what you have left of your reputation while you're still able to, and be prepared to grit your teeth and bear it," Crosby dismisses with a hard tone. "I expect a meeting first thing once I'm back in my office. Understood?"

Clenching his jaw and exhaling through his nose, Javi agrees curtly, "Yes. Understood."

The ride down in the elevator with Stoddard is the most exasperated Javier has ever been. He bottles it up, though, and manages to conceal his acrimony over the call while his deputy details more DEA business he needs to be debriefed on. But really, he's too preoccupied with Crosby's threat.

So preoccupied that he loses track of time and grimaces when he finally looks at his watch. Swearing, he dismissed Stoddard with a testy order to run the rest by him in the morning as he grabbed his belongings and pocketed them in his dark slate gray blazer before he hustled out of his office and rushed down to the garage.

As he drives over to the apartment listing, you're already there, walking through the secure gate of the Spanish-styled boutique apartment complex with the realtor, who's detailing all the amenities as she leads the way. Your heels click along the wide terracotta tiles that line the expansive entry before it opens up to an interior courtyard. It has lovely baskets and desert sand concrete planters filled with vibrant flowers and lovely vined plants around a babbling circular water fountain in the center of the communal space.

You admire the timeless mosaic tiles that line the bottom of the fountain and gleam under the dusky sky above before she directs you to the apartment in question. It's a ground-floor corner unit, but when she opens the front door, you're surprised to see it's really a townhouse. The foyer faces a staircase up to the main living space, and off to your right is a small guest bedroom with adjoining bathroom, and a short hall that opens up to a cozy seating area and a nice open-concept kitchen, with a dining space separating the living space from the kitchen island. The apartment was designed in a Spanish colonial revival style, so the walls were sparse and white, while the floor was a vibrant glossy terracotta tile.

She's telling you about the appliances in the kitchen, detailing how the unit is partially-furnished while you take in the comfortable space, already feeling at home and going on a flight of fancy by envisioning you and Javi living there before you turn and see the patio doors and have to keep your glee at bay behind your poker face.

About twenty minutes later, Javier has just parked at the corner of the street and is stalking up the sidewalk en route for the building he thinks it is. He spots your car parked in front of it and bounds up the walkway to the secure access entryway gate. He sees the buzzard board and presses the call button for the unit number you'd detailed in the directions you'd written for him that morning before you'd both headed out to work. The gate is buzzed open, and he gains access, walking through and into the courtyard with the picturesque fountain and chic timelessness of the flower arrangements, the cement benches tucked around the space.

However, he's on autopilot and unable to really pay the details any mind. Not with how wrapped up his brooding thoughts are.

"Ah, this way, agente," he looks over and spots the realtor waving him down from the open doorway of the unit. He strides over and nods in greeting, but before he can ask a thing, she's volunteering in a hurry as she holds the door open and side-steps to begin exiting, "Go on in and take a look around! I'm running a bit late to pick up my child from the sitter, so just lock up and place the key back in the lockbox. Key's on the counter next to her purse. We'll chat soon!"

Javi's bemused as she departs in a hasty exit, and just grunts as he enters the space. Finally, he snaps out of his gruff mood to admire the warm and welcoming abode. He goes down the hall to find you, but when he rounds the living space on the ground level and finds it empty – save for the aforementioned purse and key, he retraces his steps back to the foyer and heads up the stairs. Walking around the corner of the landing down the hallway towards the main bedroom, Javi finds you at the open balcony doors gazing out at the dimly lit and lush patio below. The soft breeze coming through from the balcony undulates your hair and flutters the soft charmeuse of your pastel yellow blouse that's tucked into the sleek black pencil skirt you're donning.

You turn when you hear his footfalls come through the doorway, and Javi's breath catches in his chest at how obviously excited you are, even as you try to restrain it. "Querida…" he husks, and you're unable to contain it any longer.

Exuberantly, you smile brightly and rush towards him, kissing him on the lips and pulling him along into the large empty bedroom as you gush, "Oh my god, can you believe this place? I've been ready to burst since I walked in! Downstairs is perfect. And this room is so big! There's a walk-in closet that can more than fit our combined wardrobes."

As you're towing him to the veranda of the balcony, Javier feels a sharp pang of guilt crest through his chest.

"And look, we'd have our own little yard! See? The wood lattice trellises wall off the space, and there's a non-scalable fence in the far back, so you don't have to worry about security. And since it's a corner unit there aren't any other yards next to us, so, it's very private, guapito," you're chiming appealingly as you turn to gaze dazzlingly up at him.

His eyes are looking down at the space below, so you don't immediately pick up his distant expression before you nimbly scamper over to the bathroom and wave him along as you lilt, "And look! A shower and a soaking tub. I know, the tile might be a bit kookier than you're used to, but it's a Spanish colonial revival, with a Moroccan influence," you're telling him as you admire the quartrefoil ogee pattern of the ocean green tiles on the floor that mesh with the Moroccan white antique star and cross mosaic of the tiled walls around the tub and in the shower stall.

When you look at Javier then, you finally see it.

He's standing in the bathroom's doorway ruminating – brooding with something and muddled by it. His dark brewed eyes are tense – flaring a warm brown thanks to the bright lighting from the vanity mirror, jaw clenched with unspoken worries, and you sober in your giddiness.

"You don't like it?" you airily breathe out and wilt, shoulders slumping as you push off from the sink's counter you'd been leaning against, and go to approach him.

With a frustrated huff, Javier combs his hand tensely through his hair before fisting the tufts at his crown testily. "No, that's not it, mi amor. I'm sorry—" he begins to grouse before he forces himself to stop simmering with his intentions and assure you it isn't him rejecting your excitement. With a self-admonishing huff, Javier cups his palms around your shoulders, lightly squeezing, as he rumbles, "This, well, this is a really nice place. I just…I just don't know if we can get it right now."

Your brows furrow woefully before knitting together with concern, eyes creasing as you try to suppress your frown. "What? Why? Is something wrong?"

He doesn't know how much to tell you. Really, he's at a loss himself for what his prospects are now after what Crosby told him he needed to get ready for. And while he was definitely not going to let shit be yanked away from him without taking another run at the cartel, he wasn't sure how that would fare in the long run, which meant any and all plans you two had been making for a life here could be implausible now.

Javier didn't know how to tell you that. So, he obfuscates with, "Nothing's wrong. I just—I'm not sure we should move forward with getting a place right now."

Bewildered, you step back and look at him sharply, arms folding protectively over your stomach as you war with your rash impulses. "What's going on, Javier?"

It's then he puts his walls up; shields you from the wrathful, loathsome part of him he's wrestling with. His expression becomes flinty, trained into the stoic mask he puts up to hide what he really feels. "Querida, I'm sorry. I know we've been making plans, but things are just not in a place where I can commit to something like this—"

Your heart drops. "Something like this?" you repeat in a deadpan murmur and stare dubiously at him. His eyes flicker ambivalently, but his expression hardens, so you drop your arms to your sides and question cagily, "After everything, you've changed your mind?"

Exhaling noisily and turning away to rein his aggravation in – to keep his stoic façade up, Javi mutters, "No, I haven't. That's not what I was saying—"

Unable to stand there and get twisted up with your hurt and umbrage anymore, you scoff and round him to storm out of the bathroom as you dismiss, "Oh just forget it."

"Dammit," Javier swears through clenched teeth as he chases after you. "Would you just wait a minute?!" he calls after you when you angrily shut the balcony doors, lock them, and avoid him as you make to exit the bedroom out to the hallway. "Don't be like this—"

In that moment, with your heart feeling tangled up with uncertainty and reproachful doubt, that was the wrong thing to say to you.

Stopping, you whirl around and look the most furious he's seen you. "Are you serious?! 'Don't be like this'?! Like what?! Upset? Irate? Fucking thrown off?" you snipe at him and throw up your hands as you accuse, "You're keeping something from me, right? That's why you're pulling this shit on me now? Instead of just telling me what's going on, you're shutting down and doing that flippant shit I fucking hate – that makes me feel crazy for ever thinking we're on the same page; for wishing and wanting this, just for you to pull the rug out from under me."

"I fucking swear, I'm not trying to do any of that," he huffs and curls his hands into fists at his sides, clenching them hard as he tries to center himself to attempt to diffuse this. Haltingly, he insists, "I'm just saying that with the things going on right now, I don't think we need to rush into this—"

"There's always 'things going on right now' with your job. Hell, whatever this is? It'll probably be in perpetual limbo because you will never be not chasing some puto cabrón cartel, so what's changed today?" you demand, heat rising to your face and the bite of tears cresting in the backs of your eyes. "Just be honest and tell me where this is suddenly coming from after you've been the one harping on getting more serious this whole time – getting sulky whenever I said we needed to be careful and wait. And now you're putting it on me wanting to rush you into a place—"

"Jesus Christ—I can't deal with this right now! I can't make you believe me and keep trying to convince you all the goddamned time about how I feel. Right now, I just don't think I can do this—" Javi exclaims with pent-up exasperation, losing his patience as he snaps his hands up in an imploringly frustrated manner while he rails his unfiltered stream of consciousness. But then his aggravated glare falters when he sees how your face falls, all anger zapped out and replaced with conflicted hurt. "Shit—no. Querida, I-I didn't mean it like that—"

"Yes, you did," you murmur tightly, and hold your hand up when he tries to approach. "Stop, I heard enough. You don't have to say another word. I don't want to hear any more fucking bullshit lies and omissions from you," is your wounded, hushed sneer, expression wavering into raw hurt for a split second before you train it into a scowl and level icily, "I can't keep doing this, so save your excuses and just forget about it, Javier."

He withers at that, and the sight of it is like a stone settling over your chest. You can feel your heart wrenching, signaling your hitting critical mass of emotional distress, so you turn and stalk out of the doorway and rush down the hallway to make a desperate exit before you fall apart.

Javier calls out your name as he gets to the door and watches you bound out of sight and down the steps with your clicking heels pounding down on the tiles and echoing about downstairs. He sprints down to the landing to try and catch you, but you've already made it through the foyer, snatched up your purse from the kitchen counter, and stormed out of the front door, slamming it behind yourself. Gutted, he reels with the impotent rage and stultifying guilt until that loathsome, lowly part of him admonishes him for thinking he wouldn't fuck things up eventually with you. It's all you ever do…

Digging the heels of his hands into his eyes and letting out a frustrated snarl, Javi stalks down the hall to shut the lights, and goes on autopilot as he hurries down the stairs to grab the key from the kitchen counter and snap the light switches off in succession before he stalks to the door and exits, locking it and shoving the key into the attached lockbox. He hurries out of the building's courtyard and exits to get to his car, hoping against logic that you would've gone home to his place – that you would've reconsidered and decided to hear him out; to hash things out rather than let his callous remarks be the end of it.

But, of course, when he parks in the garage, your car isn't there, and his apartment is cold and empty. Frustrated with himself, he sheds his blazer and tie before snatching his phone from where he put it down on the counter to call you.

Your cell phone starts ringing in your purse as you get out of your car and lock it, and continues to chime as you hustle across the street to the entryway of your complex and across the courtyard to the stairs. It stops ringing when you get into your apartment, only for the house phone to start ringing. Angrily, you toss your things on the side table and stalk down the hall to the bedroom in order to shed your shoes and clothes, wiping intermittently at your tear-streaked cheeks. You're intent on ignoring his calls and putting needed distance between you and him after that spectacle tonight, unable to believe how quickly it escalated. It leaces you needing to cool down and think.

When Javi gets your answering machine, he hangs up, not wanting to say what he needs to say to a fucking recorder. No, he's resolved to do exactly what he should've done originally: tell you the exact truth and decide together what it would mean for your relationship.

"You fucking moron," he hisses at himself as he drops down onto the couch and buries his face in his hands. "Every fucking time. You just have to keep fucking things up…"

Deciding to drown his sorrows, Javi pours himself a double neat, and impulsively lights a cigarette, drinking and smoking in his self-loathingly preoccupied stewing while you're emerging from the shower a while later, and dejectedly eyeing the answering machine. There are no new messages, so you trudge down to bed, pull on an oversized shirt, and unceremoniously crawl under the quilt, feeling morose and miserable.

How you manage to doze off is a mystery, but you do, and are awoken by something you swear is your alarm clock, but when you groggily shuffle to the side of the bed to turn the alarm off, you realize you'd never set it. Then your hearing sharpens and you realize it's the house phone ringing. Groaning, you get up and go to the hall to get the handset from the mount, deciding to just relent and tell Javier you don't want to talk to him and need some time until you're ready to hear him out.

You answer the phone curtly.

The voice on the other line is not Javi.

Your mind is trying to process why she would call so early.

And then, she tells you, and everything in you comes apart, loses ground, and untethers.

You fall to your knees and choke on a sob and lose yourself, seeing and hearing nothing but the devastation of your heart being torn asunder and the world falling apart around you.

________________

Read Chapter 36: Pésame

Spanish-English Glossary:

Canela = Cinnamon

Atrevido/Atrevida = Daring man/Daring woman

Mi directora = My director (female)

Traviesa = Naughty/Mischievous girl

Tan juguetona = So playful (female)

Mi patrón = My master/boss

Guapita = sassy/foxy/daring/testy (female)

Lengüetero = garrulous, silver-tongued daring and witty talker (male)

Malvadita = Wicked little girl

Un papisongo tan guapo = Such a handsome sexy stud

Hermosa/hermoso = beautiful (female); beautiful (male)

Tan bello = So beautiful/lovely (male)

Preciosa = Gorgeous; precious

Cariño = Darling/sweetheart

Dios mío = My god

Fuente = A source [of information]; a leak

Mijo = short for "mi hijo", a term of endearment akin to "my son/sonny"

Tía = Aunt

Feliz Cumpleaños = Happy Birthday

Nuera = Daughter-in-law

Sabes? = You know?

'Buela = short for 'abuela', aka grandmother

Gatita = Little kitten

Malcriada/malcriado = Brat/spoiled

Guapito = Handsome (said in an affectionate diminutive)

Dame la llave = Give me the key

Mi cariñito = My sweet little darling

Chulo/Chulito = Cute guy; little cutie

Bebito = Little baby (male)

Mi reina amada = My beloved queen

Puto beyako = shameless fucking guy

Mi patrona = My master/boss (female)

Eres todo mío = You're all mine

Mi rey = My king

Querida = Affectionate term for a female, akin to expressing one's want and desire

Chavón = a man that's pestering you

Jodón = pain in the ass 

Beyaquito = Little naughty perv

Criticona = critical woman; hypercritical; nit-picker

Corazón = Heart; pet name to signify how deeply you love someone

Pórtate bien = Be good/Behave

Fresco = a guy who's being 'fresh', or naughty/pervy

Dios mío misericordioso = Dear merciful God

Tan chingona = Such a badass lady

Beyako = Puerto Rican slang for horny/naughty guy; akin to "horn dog"

Lindita = little cutie; pretty little girl

Mija = Short for mi hija, aka my daughter; my girl

Prima = Cousin (female)

Puto cabrón = Fucking asshole

Thanks for reading! Please consider leaving a comment and sharing your feedback. I would be eternally grateful. 

[furious-rogue-stuff]

Heat Chapter 34: Worthy

My dear, patient sweeties~! So sorry for the sizable lull between posting. Life got insane. As a sorry, please enjoy this super-sized, fluff and smut-filled chapter 😁

Pairing: Javier Peña x OFC | Javi x Querida

Disclaimer: Written in 2nd person narrative, you can safely assume our heroine and love/lust interest is a Latina, written by a Latina. Here's my philosophy on my writing, for further context.

Rating: Mature/Explicit 🔞

Word Count: 21,500+

Summary: During the lead up to a happy life event, you are confronted with news that leaves you emotionally vulnerable. Javi supports you and finds himself longing to be your comfort, but will being shown what your life together could be encourage you both to seek it, or inspire other doubts to bubble up between you?

Warnings: Javier Peña being the God-level BAE. Graphic descriptions of sex, including explicit depictions of oral (m+f receiving) and unprotected sex. Mentions of hurt/comfort, emotional trauma, toxic coping mechanisms, and adult situations. Descriptions of raunchy behavior, light dom/sub play, cum play, ass play, size kink, praise kink, and dirty talk. Allusions to triggering events, familial strife, and emotional trauma. Some Protective!Javi, Dom! Javi, Sub!Javi, Sub!Reader, Soft!Javi. In the vein of Narcos being a bilingual show, and Javier Peña being fluent, I felt it was apropos to include Spanglish and Spanish throughout.

Heat Masterlist

Previous chapter - Chapter 33: Amor

Chapter 34: Worthy

The jarring stunt via trigger object left on your desk aside, the rest of your week leading up to the wedding is one you expected to be filled with the silly stresses of errands needing to be run, arrangements requiring your attention, and plans to be made to fit everything within your hectic schedule.

You don't expect it to be the beginning to the series of massive changes that will alter all your current plans.

No. The only thing you were anticipating, that you are reluctant to look forward to – because frankly it breaks your heart – is saying goodbye to Francesca at the end of the week.

After you book tickets to fly to Medellín Friday night with Javi, you and Ellis agree to help her ship some stuff back stateside for her and to meet at the airport to see her off. You tell Javi the plan later that night when he comes home and finds you finishing up with the laundry.

Javi knows how sad it makes you, so he spends the time alone together making you happy. He even surprises you the next night when he comes home while you're making dinner and shows you a collection of apartment listings that the embassy's housing division had available up at the HR office's information desk. He hands them to you with a cool remark about looking at the options so you both can check some of the places out, as he pulls you into his arms and kisses you sweetly.

It helps you fall back into the settled serenity of only yearning to love and live together that you'd both agreed to before the recent tumult.

And by the time the middle of the week rolls around, you've checked off several items on your to-do list for the weekend, except for getting a dress. So, you decide you need to take a trip to the mall on your lunch break, and call Anita to see if she'd like to come with. When the receptionist at the school says she's out sick, you find it odd, so you go into Ellis' office when he comes back from his recent meeting to check in.

"Hey, is everything alright? I was going to check out a dress store at the mall and called Anita to see if she wanted to come, but the school said she's out sick?" you inquire as you loom in the doorway. Ellis looks at you with the same tense, albeit guilty look he'd had a couple of weeks ago, and it reminds you that you had meant to question him back then, but then forgot all about it with everything that had happened since. So, you walk into the office, shut his door, and march up to his desk with your hands on your hips. "Out with it, Rose! What's going on?" is your bossy questioning.

He deflates into his chair before forcing himself up to lumber towards the small couch in his office, gesturing for you to have a seat too as he muses, "Alright, girlie. There are a couple things I gotta tell you…"

Surprised by how serious he's become, you sit on the edge of the cushion and wait for him to join you, but he instead paces, as if trying to decide what to tell you first. Once he seems to make a choice, he sits next to you and stares openly into your expectant expression.

"…So, Anita's been feeling a little queasy on and off, and today was particularly rough, so she's home resting," he begins to parcel out, and when your brows arch up, he scoffs and lightly slaps himself on the cheek in order to gather his courage. "Anita's pregnant."

Your expression blossoms from bemusement to excited joy. "She is?! Oh my god, that's great!" you throw your arms around his shoulders and hug Ellis tight, beamingly exclaiming, "Congratulations! I'm so happy for you, that's the most amazing news, you dork, so why're you acting so squirrelly?!"

He exhales derisively and hugs you back, smiling with genuine affection as you sit back and gesture for him to come out with it. Rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly, he sighs and declares, "Because, well…when we found out, Anita pushed to get things moving on the immigration stuff…in order to be moved out of Colombia before she's in her second trimester. And, I have a job offer back in Tallahassee, but the immigration people," he pauses, and diverts his gaze when your eyes shone with unshed tears. "They're not guaranteeing that they'll be able to process everything for Anita and her parents this year. Florida's seeing an influx of immigrants from Central and South America, so the process is backed up."

Your heart aches with pangs of emotion, but you shove it down and put on a brave, selfless face as you grab his shoulder and give it a shake. "Ellis, did you not tell me sooner because you were worried I'd be upset?" you ask, and when he frowns and looks bashfully down to his knees, you huff and pat his arm. "Hey, I'm happy for you. And I want to help you and Anita, so...let's figure out some alternatives – come up with ways to get things expedited, so you all can be somewhere better before the baby comes."

Ellis looks up into your eyes, and the palpable relief that crests through his expression helps keep your sadness at bay the rest of the conversation. So much so, that by the time you both come up with ideas and agree to pursue them in order to have a plan in place once the ambassador is back, you're able to keep a cool demeanor the entire time you go down to the garage to get in your car, still intending to head to the mall to look for a dress. But the moment you're sitting inside your hatchback, you finally come apart, weeping into the sleeve of your taupe charmeuse blouse.

Your cell phone starts ringing in your purse, and you dazedly reach in and answer it after sniffling to clear your tears and regain your composure. "Hello?"

"Hey. Did I mess up the time?" Javi's voice rumbles affably in your ear. "Was our coffee date a little later than now?"

"Oh! No, I'm sorry – I completely forgot. I actually just got in my car," you answer, sounding harried. "I don't know where my brain is—"

"What's wrong?" Javi asks, picking up on the tension in your voice. And when you hesitate to come up with an excuse, he rumbles, "I'll come down right now—"

"You don't have to, Javi. I'm sorry for being a flake. I don't want you to waste any more time—" you begin to fret.

"It's not a waste. I'm in the elevator. Be there in a couple of minutes."

You scowl at yourself when you lean your head back against the headrest and catch your reflection in the rearview mirror. Hurriedly returning your phone to your purse and retrieving a tissue to dag at your eyes and cheeks, you try to not look like you'd had a little cry session in your car. Your nose is a bit rosy, so you powder it with your little foundation compact and rush to put it back in your purse when you notice Javier's exited the building and is striding across the garage towards the spot your car is parked in.

He looks so dashing – all broad-shouldered and handsome in the dark gray suit and pressed dress shirt, even with that necktie with the silky oblong colored stripe pattern you teased him over this morning. His hair is sleekly combed, ruffling a bit now from his brisk pace, and his moustache is neatly trimmed, but his stubble is starting to shade his cheeks and jaw. Your heart skips a beat as you continue to fawningly stare at him while he looks around whilst he strides over, making sure no one's lingering around before he hustles over to the front passenger door and gets in.

"Hey," he greets as he leans over and gives you a quick peck on the lips before his brown eyes survey you.

Trying for easygoing, you begin to dismiss, "You didn't have to come down, babe—"

"Cariño, c'mon…just talk to me," he presses gently as he wraps his fingers to clasp the nape of your neck. He intended for it to be a tender gesture, so when you almost dissolve in harried relief, his other hand reaches for yours in order to caress his thumb reassuringly along the back of your palm. "Hey, what's wrong? Did something happen?" When your eyes crinkle and you sigh, despite yourself, he gets wound up and asks, "Don't tell me that motherfucker did something—!"

"No! It's nothing like that," you assure him and stare into his tersely etched features as you squeeze his hand reassuringly. "Ellis just dropped a couple of bombs on me, and I got all flustered…" You proceed to tell Javi everything, and while you explain, he visibly relaxes and listens intently. "…I feel so silly for being all emotional about it. It's not like they'd changed plans. They've wanted to leave Colombia since before Escobar got taken out. I guess I just…I just thought since things were different now…" you trail off and turn your face from him when you feel another bout of tears tangling in the back of your throat.

Javi's warm hand caresses your trapezius and gives it a fortifying squeeze before he leans close and presses a kiss to the side of your head. "It's not silly. That's all great news, but it's natural for you to be a little sad at the same time," he husks sympathetically and cups your chin when you turn your face back to look at him. "Were you going to the mall alone, then?"

You nod, and lean into his touch when his palm caresses your cheek. With a weary hum, you murmur, "I still need to get that dress, so I was going to just go during my lunch break, but got all flustered and came down here early. I'm sorry I forgot about coffee—"

"That's alright, querida," he assures, quelling your ruffled energy with a soft kiss to your lips. Smiling, you pull away, visibly more relaxed than you'd been. "So…I got an hour to kill. Want some company?" he charismatically rumbles, brushing some rogue strands of hair behind your ear as he husks, "I could help you pick out a sexy little dress."

Your smile is brilliant as you snicker and lightly shove him. "You want to come to the mall and watch me try on dresses, fresco?" is your flirtatious heckle.

"Yeah. I think I'd like that," he drawls with feigned coyness, but his smirk gives him away. "Let's ride together in my car, though. That way you don't have to stop at the security gate and expose our relationship," is his sarcastic musing, to which you snicker and agree.

A few minutes later, you're both driving to one of the malls closest to the embassy while you're filling Javi in on some of the ideas you have for helping Ellis and Anita get things with the immigration office fast-tracked. After he enters the plaza and finds a spot, he parks and escorts you across the lot and into the main promenade. You take his hand and lead the way through the mall to the dress store you'd walked by plenty of times on previous outings with Anita.

It's a chic boutique, with the old-fashioned fitting rooms where you can walk out and look at the dress you've tried on in front of a 3-sided mirror. It even has a little divan for guests to sit at while someone is behind the curtained-off stall. Javi can't remember the last time he'd even been in a women's clothing store, let alone sitting out by the fitting room area.

He wracked his recollections, and only vaguely remembered being bored senseless while his mother and aunts had perused the giant dress shop on Main Street for what felt like hours. How he'd been the only boy kid for a while, and would hide in the circular clothes racks, and play with his army men while his cousins looked for him around the store. The scolding he'd get when he'd whine to his mother about being bored and how he'd rather do chores than watch them shop all day rang in his head and made him smile a little.

But this? You were the most expert shopper he'd ever seen. You weren't toddling around from rack to rack. Nope. You were on a mission, and since the store was empty, you'd gone direct to one of the boutique's salesladies and given her exactly what you were looking for in a dress. Even went as far as to convivially take the end of his tie and hold it up to point at the kind of shades of blue you were looking to try on.

The woman had chuckled and ushered you over to the area of the shop housing the dresses with the specifications you'd outlined. Three options selected and a few minutes later, Javi's sitting on a velvet cream divan while you're behind the curtain of a fitting room.

"Gave me so much grief over this tie, and look how much it came in handy," Javi quips as he rests his elbows over his knees. He's much too tall for the low-seated settee, but he doesn't mind it, especially when you snicker at his tone and open the curtain to reveal the first of the dress options. His brown eyes flare with intrigue as you come out and check yourself out in the mirrors. "That…I like that," he gravels hoarsely while his gaze fixates on the swell of your ass in the snug-fitting mint lace dress with the off-the-shoulder ruffle.

You smile at him in the mirror. "It's a little tight. And while pretty, I don't think it'll work for all the dancing we're gonna do. And it might be too casual for the church," is your objective review before turning to face him and winking. "And yes, your ugly tie was super helpful, considering it has the entire pantone variations of blue in it," you tease before hustling by him and into the fitting stall, maneuvering out of reach of a possible pinch to the bottom when Javi squints and grunts at your sassy tone.

"It's not an ugly tie," he laconically drawls as you shut the curtain and hurry to put on the next option. "You just love being a criticona," he accuses, smirking when you scoff in outrage on the other side of the dense, opaque cream curtain.

"Fine. It's only not ugly when you wear it," you razz, smiling when you hear him chuckle. Dutifully zipping the next dress shut, you emerge once again from the stall and pose coquettishly for him before doing a slow spin. "Well? What about this one?"

The glittery aqua tulle dress has thin shoulder straps and a pleated bodice, with a skirt that flounces about with your movement.

Javi realizes you're going to look drop-dead gorgeous in everything you try on, so he's absolutely going to be no fucking help. "That looks really good on you, hermosa," is his rumble, and the way his eyes rake up your body and stare hungrily at you? It makes your core tingle. And him grunting a velvety hum as he rubs his fingers idly over his mouth now before he husks, "It'll probably look even better on the floor after I take it off of you…" only sets that tingle into a thrumming pulse down into your pussy.

With a cunning smirk, you snootily lilt, "You're not going to be any help, are you," before turning to the mirror and examining your appearance.

"Hey, it's not my fault that I never see any fault in what you put on, bravita," he chuckles and crosses his arms before checking his watch. "But you still have to get shoes, right?"

"Yeah," you answer and lope back to try on the remaining option. "This one's a little too frilly. Need something a little less busy and fussy-looking," is your assessment as you shut the curtain.

Javier hums at that and idly digs in his blazer pocket for his packet of nicotine gum. Unfortunately the packet is empty, so he huffs and digs into his opposite pocket in the hopes he has a spare. He produces a wrapped breath mint instead, so he grunts and unravels it, popping it into his mouth and toying his tongue along it. "Then third time's gonna have to be the charm, no?" is his quip before crunching down on the mint to help curb his desire for a cigarette. The cool spearmint soothes his mouth and dances on his tongue, flavoring his mouth pleasantly.

"Yep! And I expect you to be more help when I pick out shoes, chavón," is your deriding jibe as you emerge from the curtain in the lovely teal V-neck and beaded bodice, knee-length chiffon dress with a flared waistline. The beading of the top gives it a chic shimmer while still remaining elegant. As you preen across from the reflections, you chime, "Ah, I really like the fit of this one! How do I look?"

Javi's jaw is dropped, coffee-brewed eyes roving your form while you admire yourself in the mirrors. "Fuck. That's it. Get that," he blurts, tone canela-brined as he stands and comes up behind you. Your giggle is charmed, smile sultry when he encircles your waist and whispers in your ear, "It looks fucking stunning on you. So much so, you're gonna have to wear it for me later. That way, I can condition myself to seeing you in it so I don't have a hard-on the entire fucking time on Sunday."

You gasp at his brazenness and whirl to playfully swat his chest, but end up staring into his expression with delight before leaning in and kissing him. His fingertips brush covetously along the back of your exposed nape and pull you in against him while his other hand cups the small of your back. You hum and wrap your arms around him, slinking up against his broad frame and getting lost in the moment with him.

Just when he deepens the passionate kiss and things begin to get sumptuously torrid, the boutique attendant clears her throat and startles you both to break apart.

"I take it we have a winner?" she quips, and Javi coughs bashfully into his fist while you beamingly smile and declare you'll be taking the teal one. The saleslady immediately beams and pulls you over to look at their selection of clutch purses that could be a match, and you select one with a detachable chain shoulder strap and pretty sequins that shine in a myriad of blues when they catch the light.

Ten minutes later, and you're emerging from the boutique with the dress and purse secure in the garment bag and shopping tote, with Javi at your side, handsome features still pink in the cheeks from getting caught. He behaves himself at the shoe store, and when you decide on the nude sling-back heels you try on, he just nods when you say you'll take them to the salesperson. He's too busy picturing you in them and nothing else – stretched out on his bed, to contribute an intelligent retort.

With the shopping pilgrimage successfully completed, you both head out across the promenade. Before you exit, though, you grab a pamphlet that contains a map of the entire metropolitan area of Bogotá from an informational kiosk's gondola as you walk by it. You tap Javi's arm impishly with it as you return to his car.

"This'll be helpful for when I map out those listing options," you remark jauntily as you get in the car.

Javi smiles, feeling a wave of pride crest up in him as he drives out of the mall.

Deciding to take advantage of the time still left to stop for a quick lunch at a quiet café, you both enjoy the meal and converse more about what will need to happen now that Ellis will be leaving. When your gaze gets a bit sad, he changes subjects to plans for this weekend. You're still discussing it when you exit the café and head back to the car. It's a lovely, balmy day in the capital, so there's a lot of foot traffic in the plaza as you walk together. The quaint tranquility of it makes you feel content, so you take his hand again and give it an affectionate squeeze as you stroll.

Once he's driving you both back to the embassy, your conversation switches to what his wardrobe options are, and the kind of outfit you think would work best.

"—So, you were serious about the 'no plaid or jeans' thing, huh," he can't help goadingly drawl and shoot you a mischievous look.

You laugh and snap tauntingly, "Well, if that's how you want to dress? Fine. Just don't expect me to let you pick out what lingerie I wear under my dress. As a matter of fact, I might end up never being in the mood to wear a single nighty for you ever again—"

"Shit, alright. I get the point. Scratch everything I said. I'll wear a three-piece tuxedo with penguin tails and white gloves if that's what you command, malvadita," Javi cuts in brashly as we turns into the embassy's security entrance and breezes through.

The mental image of such a ridiculous outfit on him has you giggling effervescently all the way down to the garage, and Javier feels content as he fondly steals glances, loving how you laugh until that discordant little sigh flits out of you.

After he parks, you lean over and kiss him, not even caring to spare a scanning glance around your surroundings before doing so.

"So, would you be opposed to going over to Ellis and Anita's tonight for a little while? I want to congratulate her properly on the news," you ask him as you collect your purchases and hop out of his car in order to drop them off in yours.

"I wish I could, but I have a call with stateside end of day," Javi laments as he exits and follows you to your hatchback so he can open the backdoor for you.

"Ah, no worries. I'll pick up something for us to eat for dinner after, then," you remark as you shut the door and lock up before snagging Javi's blazer lapel and towing him closer so you can steal a tender kiss from his lips.

Your boldness has him smitten, but he quickly recovers in order to nuzzle you sweetly and husk, "You're getting quite daring, director. Breaking your own rules?"

Pursing your plush lips, you adjust the strap of your purse higher onto your shoulder and wink at him as you muse, "I guess someone's shamelessness has been rubbing off on me."

"I'd prefer to say 'rubbing up on you,' but sure," he raunchily jokes and smirks when you snicker and swat his shoulder. "I'll call you if I'm going to leave later than I expected," is his remark as he slips his hand to the small of your back when you both start walking from your car towards the building.

You nod, and internally frown after Javier drops his hand from your lower back when the sound of an approaching car hums closer up from the garage's entrance ramp. It stuns you how much you long to be publically amorous with him at work. The mere thought of it prior would've unnerved you, so the desire being suddenly so strong left you incredulous as you entered the elevator and parted ways once it stopped at your floor.

"Have a nice afternoon, director," he mutters in farewell, and you can't help shoot him a sublime look, catching how his shoulders broaden out while he puts his hands in his trouser pockets as the elevator doors slide shut.

Your heartthrob of a lover has you girlishly swooning the rest of the day, even while you're making a covert phone call, and arranging for something top-secret to be mailed to your contact helping you on the matter. After the task is done, you reach out to some contacts at the DOS office in D.C. to put out feelers for Ellis. You end up catching up with the director there and learn about the general turnover in certain field offices, and he asks if you'd be interested in moving back.

"—There's a position in the New York office they're looking to fill. And oh! With the new administration in Puerto Rico, DOS is going to expand down there and bring on lots of staff—"

"I really appreciate it, but I'm very happy where I am currently. Can you let me know if there's movement on openings in Florida? Or if you can think of anyone I could reach out to and put in a good word for my deputy?" you politely intercede; keen on keeping the attention on your friend.

"I'll see who I can put you in contact with, but I think Florida's going to be a slim shot. And with the immigration needs you mentioned? Not just the wife, but her parents as well? There's definitely a huge backlog. Anyway, I'll be in touch!"

It's not what you were hoping for.

Once you've wrapped up the day in the office, you follow Ellis home and spend some time gushing happily with him and Anita about the baby news. Even though she's a bit queasy still, her heart-shaped face is glowing, and she excitedly tells you about how happy her parents and Ellis' family are from the news, and how eager everyone is for them to move out of Colombia.

"—The hassle is, the company that made me the offer said they need me there before the end of the fiscal year, but the immigration agent helping me with everything doesn't think that's likely," Ellis is sighing now, and Anita frowns from her cozy spot cuddled up next to him on the couch. "I'm just worried that if they don't want to wait, having no job lined up will end up with them dropping us back to the bottom of the pile…"

You pout and cross your arms as you lean forward in your seat. "Well…you might have better luck applying for a job in the government—"

"There aren't any openings in Florida right now. The closest would be Virginia, and well…that ain't a very diverse area. At least not for her parents to acclimate to," Ellis sighs before rubbing at his eyes. "Sorry. I sound like such a damn brat—"

Anita pulls the throw blanket more snugly around herself self-consciously as she laments, "No, you aren't. You're just trying to appease me. If we just have to wait, that's what it will need to be, sweetheart."

You feel sad, but then the tactical part of you perks up and has you blurting, "Would it need to be somewhere in the states? What about a U.S. territory?"

Ellis and Anita exchange looks of curiosity, so you go on to explain that Puerto Rico is a commonwealth of the United States, and as such, Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens. That there's a U.S. federal government presence, which means several agencies and federal departments have field offices there. You also mention what the director had shared about how DOS is adding staff and expanding their presence there. "—Maybe you can apply for a job at the department there! It's basically Florida, just without rednecks," you lobby and joke, to which Anita giggles and Ellis contemplates it seriously. "I mean, your parents wouldn't have to deal with a language barrier," you pause to look over at Ellis as you add, "And the majority of people are bilingual, so you won't be as lost as you are here. And, I'm sure the immigration threshold will be way more lenient for someone getting a federal government job on the island. If you want, I could get in touch with my contacts there to see if there are any openings?"

"Would you be ok with that?" Ellis asks Anita. "It wouldn't be Tallahassee, but I doubt any of my family will complain about visiting a tropical island over trudging up towards the Mason-Dixon line," is his quip.

"I think that would be amazing! It wouldn't be so different to here, but still be like living in the states," Anita beams, excited by the prospect, so you happily agree to put some feelers out and see how quickly the process would be for them to migrate to Puerto Rico.

You're in such a great mood when you get home to Javi's place, that you juggle everything in and place takeout on the counter before hurriedly draping the purchases onto the bed so you can shed your shoes and purse to retrieve your phone and call your grandmother. You gush about getting the dress and shoes, tell her the good news about Ellis and Anita, and listen as she celebrates the happy news and fills you in on the latest on her end.

"—Oh, by the way. I spoke to your father. He's not going to be able to make it to the wedding—"

"Hmph, what a surprise," you deadpan, tone laconic as you snipe, "It was a wasted invitation to begin with."

"Well, your tía and prima wanted to be polite. He'll be traveling overseas," your grandmother muses, before adding gently, "He asked how you were—"

"I meant to tell you not to mention everything that happened to him. Ever," you cut in now as you sit on the couch and pinch the bridge of your nose. "Please tell me you didn't—"

"Of course not! There would've been no point, other than to upset him," she scoffs, and you sigh in relief. "…I did mention you were seeing someone…"

"'Buela!" you hiss in appalled haughtiness. "That's none of his business! I don't want him digging up information about Javier or trying to recriminate me—"

"You don't even speak to him, lindita! I hardly think he'll be able to recriminate you, unless he becomes a telepath," your grandmother scathes with a snarky huff. "Anyway, he took it well. I didn't give him any details. He's likely learned his lesson on keeping his opinions to himself—"

"Yeah, right," you grumble before tucking your legs under yourself and leaning into the armrest of the sofa grumpily. "So, want to hear how cute Javi was today when he came with me to help me shop for the dress?" is your goading purr, to which you get a delighted chuckle and eager cajoling from your grandmother.

By the time Javi gets home about an hour later, he's wiped after his call with leadership in Washington, and begrudgingly finishes his cigarette before stubbing it out in the receptacle by the elevator in the garage. He pulls the knot of his tie loose as he rides up to his floor, rubbing absently at the back of his neck to ease the tension there. With a tired huff, he exits the elevator and strides down the hallway to his door, and unlocks it, expecting to find you reading or typing away on your laptop while sat on the couch.

He instead walks in and finds you in mid waltz around the living room, wearing the blue dress and nude heels you'd purchased earlier in the day, as you hum a Blondie song under your breath to yourself.

His jaw drops at how lovely you look, and when you pause in mid spin at being caught, he feels his heart skip a beat at how cute you look when you bashfully sober in your silly prance.

"No, don't stop on my account. Keep going, gatita," Javi purrs as he locks the door unseeingly behind himself before unloading his belongings onto the credenza and shedding his blazer. You exhale a goofy huff and lope over to him, and he pulls you close, admiring how slight and elegant you look in his arms. "Fuck…you look gorgeous, baby," he murmurs puckishly and leans down to kiss you.

Your toes curl at the compliment, womb tingling from the flutter of arousal his warm, smoky scent and embrace stir in you. When you brush against his hard-on, though, you snicker and pull away. "Oh no, you have to behave when I'm in this dress!" you admonish sultrily as you scamper backwards out of his reach when he grunts and tries to possessively loop his arms around you. "Nope! You said you have to learn to control yourself while I wear it? Treat this as a training exercise, agente," is your flirty lilt as you smoothen out the wrinkles at your hips primly and smile at him.

"You're a relentless tease," he grumbles ruggedly and yanks his tie undone, shedding it from around his shirt's collar as he bounds past you for the bedroom. You daringly pinch his ass once he passes you, and chuckle when he yelps. "Bien chingona y malvadita," he complains mirthfully over his shoulder while he removes his shoes and belt, rolling his shirtsleeves up to his elbows as he saunters back to glibly stare you down with his hands haughtily perched at his hips.

You innocently stand to lean against the lip of the kitchen counter as you hold up the containers of food from the tapas place he likes – having just heated them up before he came home, eyes angelic as you bat your lashes at him. "Come eat, gruñón. I want to show you something," you chime silkily and gesture for him to go sit at the dining table.

Intrigued, he does so, and finds that you've unfolded the map contained in the pamphlet you grabbed at the mall and have used sticky notes to denote the areas certain apartment listings are located. Each note includes a descriptor of how many rooms, baths, and amenities were referenced in the listing, and you've drawn little stars next to the addresses you think sound the best.

Javier's impressed and leans over to look at the ones closest to the embassy but in that sweet spot you'd mentioned wanting to be in where you could still go to your favorite coffee shop and restaurants. His smile is rugged and gloating as he sits and pats his thigh for you to come sit on his lap.

You place the plates of food on the table and sit sidelong on his lap when he drawls in a honeyed tone, "Which do you think we should check out first?"

You point out two you think sound promising, and caveat that they don't mention whether the units are pet-friendly. "—If it's a really great place that checks off everything else, though, I'll definitely reconsider having a pet—"

"Nope. You want an annoying cat, so wherever we consider has to allow for it," Javi quips in a chivalrous tone before nuzzling into the back of your neck. "Let's make appointments to check them out next week?"

Your heart does a summersault in your chest as you nod and turn to shower him with affectionate kisses before shifting to stand and grab the cutlery, napkins and pouring drinks for each of you. "Rumor is Crosby should be back two weeks from now. You think things with Cali will get fast and furious once he's able to sign off on things?" you find yourself asking as you set the map aside and sit next to him to eat.

"It's going to have to. With the leak, I've told my guys to just observe comings and goings of the place we think Miguel Rodríguez is holed up in. I don't want to risk disclosing any info to the government that could make it to the cartel and compromise our informant. Things have been really quiet, though, so no one's wanted to rock the boat, which has been an advantage of sorts," Javi tells you as he eats, undoing the next top two buttons of his collar before he reaches for the whiskey you served him. "If we can catch the fucker, that'll put some pressure on keeping both brothers in jail. We just have to not fuck up this time…" he mutters before taking a long pull from the glass of amber liquid.

"So then, disclosing things at the embassy is going to take a backburner until you're done with that," you state rather than ask as you finish your dinner serving and take a sip of your drink.

Javi's brow quirks – the rest of his expression is hidden behind his glass. He drains it and sets it down before eyeing you as you dab at your lips with a napkin.

"I'd tell Crosby the minute I'm in his office," Javier remarks aloofly as he sits back in his chair casually. "I've wanted to make it public—"

You sigh and stand, collecting your dish and glass to head to the kitchen. "I know, Javi. But it's never been the right time to do that, and I don't think it's a smart move for you to do that while you're literally going to need him to back you up on the Cali stuff," is your mild musing as you place everything in the sink and run the water, preparing to do the dishes. You hear his chair slide back and his footfalls under the clatter of his plate and glass before he presses in behind you, places everything in the sink and shuts the faucet. "Javier—" you begin to protest.

"You're gonna get the dress dirty," he murmurs as he gently nudges you away from the sink. "I'll do this."

Drying your hands on the dishtowel, you turn and see he's avoiding your gaze. You frown, knowing he's taken your point of view to heart, and it upsets you, so you sidle up to him and loop your arms around his torso for a hug. He stills, hand hovering over the knob to the faucet.

"We're going to look at apartments next week, you dork. Obviously if we find something we like, we'll have to move quick on it, which means we'll have to put in with the housing division to move into the same location, requiring disclosing to HR and Crosby," you tell him wryly, smiling when he turns in your arms and gives you a dopey look, so you snicker and kiss his cheek before you add wittily, "It'll be all over the embassy before we've even finished telling him – thanks to Dotty being a gossip." When he snorts amusedly, you add with gusto, "I'm kind of looking forward to the look on his face when we tell him we're together."

Javi exhales derisively and shakes his head at you. "He's going to throw something at me," is his snarky joke, and you laugh as if scandalized by the suggestion. "I'll put money on it. He's going to look at you like you've gone insane, and then he'll throw something at me if he's behind his desk. If not? He'll strangle me—"

"Christ on the Cross, Javi! That's not going to happen," you exclaim irreverently between your peels of laughter.

He affectionately cups your face with his damp digits and tows you close to meet his kiss, making a silly grunt against your lips before he pulls back and drawls, "At the very least, he's going to hate it."

"I'm sure, but if he starts bullying you, I'll straighten him out," you chide deviously and pinch his sides before slinking back to avoid his retaliation as you nimbly strut on your sling back heels out of the kitchen en route for the hall whilst you call out coquettishly, "I'm going to strip out of this dress now, stud, and come help with the dishes."

He watches you go and feels that heated delight coil in his chest. Looking at the dishes in the sink, he abandons them, packs up the rest of the takeout, and stores it all in the fridge before pushing the chairs back into the dining room table and retrieving the map so he can glance over it one more time before he shuts the lights off and goes to the bedroom.

You've just finished placing the dress in the garment bag and hanging it up in the closet when he walks in and finds you still wearing the nude heels and only your white lace bra and panties as you turn while your hands gather your hair up to be fastened into a messy bun.

Javier's hungry stare as he stands in the doorway makes your heart skip. You're internally amused at him clearly having had different plans to yours. In particular, you'd intended to strut back into the kitchen in your revealing state of semi undress and used 'needing to break in the new heels' as an excuse for still having them on, but now that your plan of sensual instigation has been thwarted, you feign demureness as you cross your arms and lean your weight onto one hip.

"What happened to doing the dishes?"

"I decided to do you instead."

You snicker and go to reach down in order to yank your left heel off when Javi grunts at you to pause before he lopes forward to gather you against him. "Keep 'em on," he huskily purrs as he caresses a luscious trail of kisses down your neck to your shoulder. "But everything else is coming off."

Breathily, you lean into Javi and let him kiss you passionately, almost like he's resuming what you'd both started in the fitting room before you'd been interrupted. He picks you up and allows you to loop your arms and legs to cling to him while he multitasks unhooking your bra as he carries you to bed.

The lacy bra goes flying to the floor while he suckles greedy kisses along the valley between your breasts as his fingers peel your panties off and pull them down your thighs. You fidget to shift your hips up so you can help him remove the skimpy garment without getting them tangled in the heels. The moment they're discarded, Javi bows his head between your legs and licks the gathered arousal from your folds before nuzzling with unabashed want into your cunt.

Your back arches off the bed and you moan a reedy whimper as you grip the comforter and try to keep your legs from clinging too hard over his shoulders, for fear you'll accidentally dig the points of your heels into his back. But when he suddenly twirls his tongue up over your clit and purses his mouth over it, you cry out in pleasure as you writhe with desperate need, begging, "Oh, oh my god—Ja-Javi!" and bury a hand in the crown of his dark hair as your pelvis pivots up and seeks more.

Javier loves it when you get desperate for it like this, so he flicks the tip of his tongue into a rhythmic pattern that has your belly tensing and thighs quaking before he swirls it possessively over your pleasure point. It sets velvet fire over your senses and makes you keen breathily, body needy as his mouth claims your center.

He shifts his hands to fondle up your curves and cup your tits in order to tease your nipples in time with his greedy oral havoc thrumming molten pleasure over your pulsing bud – making your toes curl from his husky moan he presses against your flesh.

You whimper and clamp your thighs impulsively around him as you come with a silky cry of his name. The flood of pleasure heats your countenance and wrings the clutch of your pussy to honey over, dripping warm slick to coat Javi's mouth and chin as he prolongs your ecstasy with his lapping tongue before he shamelessly rubs his nose against your still tingling clit with a primal hum of accomplishment. You let out a fluttery exhalation and melt into the bed, completely turned to putty, to the point he keeps your legs from butterflying off of his shoulders as he shifts back to stand. He surveys how glorious you look stretched out naked and sated like this, and drunkenly decides the real thing trumps the filthy fantasy he'd conjured earlier.

"Mmm, you look so fucking sexy, querida," he rumbles hoarsely as he shifts your legs down to bend over the edge of the bed so you can relax while he hurriedly unbuttons his shirt and yanks it loose from his trousers. "Be a good girl and get on your hands and knees for me, baby," is his rough grouse as he sheds his shirt, then unfastens his gray slacks.

You're trembling when you scamper to roll and tuck your knees onto the bed while being mindful of your heels not catching or digging into the bedding as you prop yourself up on all fours for him. You mewl when he leans over to brush teasing, damp kisses down your spine before you sense him kick the rest of his clothes off and out of the way just before he licks you from the back.

The sweep of his warm, wet tongue from your still rippling cunt up through the cleft of your ass to lick over your tight ring of muscle has you keening and bowing your face into the bed with delirious pleasure. And when he slaps his palm down over your right buttock and gives the plump flesh a squeeze, you gasp and mewl, "Ja-Javi. Mmph!"

While he watches you writhe and your pussy clench around nothing, Javi scrubs his other hand over his mouth, gathering the dewy slick of your climax that clings to his moustache and chin in order to fist it around his cock and give a few lubricating tugs.

"Spread your knees more for me," he orders huskily before dipping his fingers to rub between your thighs over your warm cunt. You gasp and obey, planting your knees further apart. An excited little mewl fizzles out of you when Javi presses his palm on the small of your back and nudges you to arch down into the bed while still keeping your ass high and right for him.

He groans and fondles his hand from your lower back to knead the globe of your ass cheek before he hitches up against you and guides his cock to rut against your drenched folds from behind. "Wish you could see how hot you look in just these heels. Pussy drenched, pink little hole of this fine ass all cute and tight," is Javi's filthy growl as he curls over you and nips at the side of your neck when you whimper and buck back against him, features burning with how your arousal floods your pussy. Gravelly hum purring enticingly in his chest, Javi croons, "You like that, corazón? You just got my cock all wet—"

You blush and stretch yourself forward to rock your pussy against him. "Yes, Javi. Please, mi amor. N-Need you," you breathily plead, groaning when Javi grabs your hips and yanks them so that you're pinned from rutting over him, allowing for only he to set the pace of how his cock drags along your yearning cunt.

"Tell me what you need, preciosa," he husks in a low register that has the hairs on the back of your neck standing on end and thrill swirling in your core. And when he dampens his thumb in his mouth to then swirl it teasingly around the rim of your ass, you keen a breathless sound and writhe in pleasure at the filthy combination of stimuli. "Mmm, c'mon, guapita. Tell me." Javi revels in how you whimper frustrated mewls and wring your hands in the bedding while you squirm under him – looking ready to pounce if you don't get what you want soon.

"Need you inside me, Javi. Want to feel you deep inside—need to be yours," is your smoky petition, control fizzling under the strain of your desire bubbling up in you. "Please, Javi."

He can't deny either of you when you beg like that, and really, he's been pent up with need since you flounced out of that fitting room. So, with a show of dominance, he nudges a kiss to the back of your ear before adjusting his stance and gathering you up to rock back against him as he notches the head of his cock to your entrance and starts shoving into you.

Crying out at the delicious stretch of your walls giving way to him, you relish the carnal burn of your muscles pulling taut as the thick of his cock matched by the pressure of bowing deep against the bed settles a pulsing ache in your core. But it's when Javi plants a hand to the bed and angles his next thrust to slam into your g-spot that you feel aflame with incandescent need.

You moan and instinctively reach a hand backwards to cling to his wrist as he thrusts home into you with a gruff groan before grabbing fast at the back of your shoulder to steady himself on his next stroke out and slam back into you. "Fuck," he growls when your tight sheath clamps around him possessively. "Goddamn, querida—"

The embarrassment you should feel at being already so close after being worked up and edged by him in such a short time doesn't come, but the huffy whine you let out is quickly followed by a pressing, needy whimper of, "Need it, Javi. Please! N-Need to come."

Knowing he's had such an effect on you floods him with savage pride and spurs him to completely dominate you now, imposingly crowding over you to fuck into you with wanton abandon as he loops his arm around your torso while the other jams between your thighs and teases your clit.

To say that you fall apart with pleasure and dissolve into sobbing moans would be an understatement for how searing and visceral your orgasm is, cunt becoming a silken vise around Javi's throbbing cock as wave after wave of your climax zings through him and propels his own desire. It burns through him before he erupts with a guttural moan into the back of your neck. His hips rock mindlessly against you as he fills you with the swell of his spend, leaving him light-headed when your sheath greedily clutches him as you murmur his name over and over again in your delirium.

Left writhing, tangled heaps, you both recover your senses and bask in the afterglow together. His sweet kisses to your overheated skin and your content sighs anchor each of you to come down from the high before Javi shifts so that you both can spoon and decompress. The cool chill in the air-conditioned room lulls you to dreamily turn your head to seek his warm, sweaty skin, nose pressing into the spot under his jaw that always makes him weak as you curl a hand to bury into the back of his hair.

"Can I take these heels off now?"

He cracks up, baritone laugh endeared and velvety as he nuzzles you and nods before sitting up so he can reach your feet and remove the slings from your heels and slip the shoes off for you. Enchantingly sated, you let out a delicately relieved little noise and roll to curl into his chest.

He noses into the top of your hairline before cooing, "You up for a quick shower, tiernita?"

You nod and kiss the hollow of his throat. "Five more minutes though," is your honeyed whisper as you hook your leg around his hip and press flush against him, not looking to part with his heady, salty scent or the post-sex musk that clings to him and makes you buzz elatedly.

Javi cuddles you, more than content to agree to that.

Once you do manage to get a hot shower in, you go through the rest of your night routines, sharing the vanity mirror over the sink to brush your teeth before you take up some time doing skincare. You even impishly rub the excess moisturizer over Javi's brow and cheeks before he scoffs and hastily hangs up his towel to make his retreat to the bedroom.

He's just tossed the comforter back and sat to lounge back into the pillows in his loose dark blue pajama bottoms when you scamper in naked and grab for your fluffy robe, slipping it on and bundling yourself in it before humming at being enveloped by the soft warmth.

"I'll turn the thermostat down," Javi chuckles and goes to get up from the bed, but you tut and shove him back down.

"Nope, it's alright. I much rather have you parked where you are while I do some crucial work here," you deride as you prance towards the closet, enjoying the dull ache of your muscles after the hot shower loosened the coital-induced soreness out of them. "After all, I need to assess your entire wardrobe and see what will work for Sunday, chulito."

Javier scoffs glibly and sits with his weight balanced sidelong on a propped arm. "I have plenty of good options," he states cockily, and grins when you comically snatch a shirt out of the closet and hold it up for scrutiny. "Yep. That's a spiffy choice—"

You shake the 70's-inspired white and yellow patterned vertical striped guayabera and give him a drawn out, aghast huff. "This…is atrocious," you heckle and hold it up in front of you. "When was the last time you even wore this viejera?!"

"Such a criticona," he huffs amusedly and sits with a leg tucked under himself so he can cross his arms and squint at you. "But fine, I can't recall when I last wore it," he says around a yawn before musing in a taunting drone, "Can you skip the fashion dress down and just see what you think is most worthy?"

You grunt impishly and return the guayabera to the closet before sifting through his suits. Picking out a light gray one, you peruse his dress shirts and find a nice light blue and white dash stripe one that'll stand out with a bit more style than the typical work dress shirt. You turn and hold the suit and shirt up.

"Well, Mr. Centerfold? Will these work for you?" is your teasing lilt as you arch a brow sassily at him. Javi showily rubs his fingers along his jaw before humming and tapping them over his mouth. "If not, I have an idea of maybe mixing light slacks with a darker blazer—"

"Nope. I like it," he declares with an easygoing drawl and leans back on his splayed arms. "No tie?"

You smile and arrange the shirt and suit to hang next to your garment bag as you shake your head and retort, "Doesn't need it. The shirt is nice enough to go without a tie. Just keep the top two buttons undone, and," you pause as you spot a brown belt and matching leather loafers before holding them out as you continue, "Voila! You'll look quite dapper."

Javi has to admit you have an amazing sense of fashion. He doesn't think he'll look half-bad. "Now, commando under?" is his rambunctious drawl as he bounces his brows and tries to suppress his goading smirk when you whirl around after setting the belt and shoes aside to be packed.

"You would go sin pantaletas? In church?!" you faux-chastise, hands going to your hips as you sneer goofily, "For shame, Javier."

"I'm only asking because you haven't shown me what underwear you've picked out for me," he razzes cockily and stretches out on his side across the bed and gestures with the point of his chin to the dresser. "Hurry up and pick so it can be my turn to peruse your lingerie," is his purring order.

Snickering, you go to the dresser and look through the drawers, picking out a nice blue and white dash-patterned pair of socks and the navy boxer-briefs you love seeing on him. You even fold them into a cute square and place them daintily on the dresser top before climbing the bed to slink over and peck him on the lips.

"Alright. Go ahead and pick something. But please, be kind and select something halfway comfortable, hermoso?" is your flirty petition.

Smirking, Javi gets up and fishes through the drawer with your undergarments and nightgowns, and plucks up a pair of red lace thong panties, hooking them to his forefinger and presenting them with triumph to you.

"Javi," you scoff sardonically. "Harlot red? Really?"

"Why not?! C'mon, it's not like your dress is sheer enough for people to see the color—"

"But a thong? It's going to be so uncomfortable and give me a wedgy all day—!"

"Yeah, and they'll taste great when I put my mouth on them at the end of the night," Javier raunchily lobbies and spins the panties around with his finger, but you shake your head bossily, so he pouts and tosses them back into the drawer. "Fine. How about…hmmm, these?" he rumbles as he pulls out a French pink lace hip-hugging panty and holds it up while he gives you his puppy-eyed look.

You begrudgingly deflate and huff, "I have a matching bra to go with that one, so, yes."

He gives you a smug smirk and places them aside so he can locate the bra and hold it up. "Mmm, yeah, these will look real nice after I get you out of that dress—"

"Alright, beyako. Quit plotting and come to bed," you jeer humorously and slink up to the pillows before tucking your legs under the covers and removing your robe.

Javi snorts and places the garments down on the dresser before going to his side of the bed, switching the lamp off, and crawling under the comforter with you.

You sidle up against his warm frame and kiss him tenderly before cuddling up and sighing, "I love you, even though you're a shameless fresco."

He chuckles and caresses your warm, nude curves as he murmurs, "And I love you, even though you're an exacting little criticona."

Your laugh is like sweet wine, making him feel heat pool in his chest and zing to his belly as he tucks you into him and makes sure to keep the chill away.

The next day goes by in a whirlwind.

You spend it running around at work, helping Ellis pick up Francesca's things and ship them to her parents' home in California, then do an impromptu conference call at the end of the day with the director of operations overseeing the staffing effort for the expansion down in San Juan. He likes what he hears so much that he requests for Ellis to fly down and interview for one of the top positions on the technology implementation division. It's all going so quick, and while you're excited for your friend's prospects, you feel a little sad that you'll end up without him a lot quicker than you'd anticipated.

You've been so caught up with the arrangements, errands, work, and now possibly losing Ellis that you completely missed that you're on the week you get your period, so you huff when you use the restroom and rationalize that hormones have been the cause for why you've been so emotionally sensitive. It's days like these that you wish Javi's place had a nice soaking tub, but you settle for a hot shower and some ibuprofen before slipping into a house dress and the fluffy robe as you make dinner and crave chocolate.

Javier comes home and finds you napping on the couch with the TV on the early evening news. Quietly locking the door and divesting of his things, he goes to strip his blazer, tie, watch, shoes, and belt. He can't help notice that the ceramic holder with your tampons is set out on the back of the commode when he passes the bathroom, and instantly understands why you're tuckered out on the couch.

You stir when you hear clattering coming from the kitchen, so you sit up and look over to see Javi with his sleeves rolled up as he serves dinner into a plate and turns at your yawn.

Sweetly, he brings dinner to the couch and you both eat and watch TV while you chat idly about your days. And once you're done and head into the bedroom after cleaning the kitchen, you both pack your bags for the weekend and set everything aside before Javi takes you to bed and loves on you.

He massages your lower back, kisses on your neck and makes you feel so good that you decide to take a quick trip to the bathroom, and emerge naked with a towel you toss next to him on the bed before shoving him onto his back and working to strip him of the rest of his clothes. All the while his dark chocolate eyes smolder with want and his sexy smile softens his full, delectable lips.

Finally getting to 'try that side saddle business,' you and Javi share a shower and end up spooning in bed after, content and both excited for the weekend.

By the end of the Friday workday – which had included the news that Ellis is flying out next week for a couple of days to interview in Puerto Rico, you and Javi are driving to the airport together, and once parked, you take your things and wait at the check-in counter for Ellis to arrive with Francesca. It's bittersweet, and it takes all your effort to keep a stiff upper lip as she comes in and you watch her say goodbye to Ellis before you hug him.

The three of you enter the terminal together and sit at the bar chatting for the time before her flight starts boarding, and once you walk down to the gate with her, you hug her tight and make her promise to stay in touch.

"—Thanks for everything, boss lady. I'm sorry for all the hassle at the end there," she's telling you as she sniffles and gives you a crooked smile before she turns to Javi and shakes his hand firmly as she beams, "And thanks for the chocolates! I'm glad you weren't a blockhead for long and fixed things."

Javi snorts and pulls her in for a friendly hug to conspiratorially mumble, "Thanks for the assist with the intel."

You get misty-eyed when you watch her bound with her carry-on to queue up for boarding and she turns to wave enthusiastically at you both before heading through the door and onto the plane.

You're sure your heart would feel heavy and melancholy would've dragged you down, if not for Javi being by your side and ushering you to the end of the terminal to wait for your Medellín flight to board. After settling into seats to wait at the gate, Javi produces the bag of coffee candies he'd pocketed from his cluttered desk. He opens it and offers you the snack, and you smile ruefully before taking a few and savoring the chocolate-coated coffee beans with gusto before he tosses a few into his mouth. After they start to board, Javi chivalrously takes your things and keeps his comforting touch always near; an arm is around your shoulders, or a hand is on your waist, the small of your back – always seeking to comfort you and hold you close, even when you're in your seats and you end up falling asleep with your head on his shoulder.

By the time you arrive at the hotel in the rent-a-car, you are eager to just curl up and sleep in Javi's embrace. So you're a bit disarmed into silly surprise when he incredulously stares at the front entrance of Hotel Las Margaritas and swears, "Fuck me, I didn't expect to ever be back here," and at your curious look, explains that this is where he'd once done surveillance while the early members of the Medellín cartel threw a party on the rooftop terrace.

You defensively quip, "I mean – it's one of the nicest hotels in the city! And my wedding gift is going to be the honeymoon suite. I also reserved a room for the bridal party to get ready in before the church, so I figured it'd be good to stay in the same hotel to make sure I made the right pick." Javi's expression gets flinty, and you immediately read it as unease, so you pause in getting out of the car and assure, "If you don't feel right about being here, we can spend the night somewhere else—"

He shakes his head and leans over to kiss you before dismissing chivalrously, "No way! It's fine, querida—"

"Javier," you cup his cheek and gaze into his eyes, showing him your open, understanding tenderness as you murmur, "We can go somewhere else. I'm sorry—I should've mentioned the name of the hotel and made sure it was ok—"

Javi exhales and takes your hand from his cheek to clasp it in both of his. "The hotel is fine. It's just…the last time I was here, Steve, Carrillo and I were staking out the entrance from that window over there," he explains and points to the front entrance at a window on the second floor over the carport's awning. "Steve took photos of all the narco fucks who pulled in. I…I had an informant who went up to the party that night. She got in too deep, and…" he trails off, and diverts his gaze.

You can feel how heavy his retroactive guilt is as he lets it fill the space. So, with selfless grace, you lean forward and rest your forehead to his. "Come back to me, mi amor. I'm here. I am not going anywhere, and you do not have to be burdened by it," you whisper gently, and when Javi exhales a gruff, terse snarl of frustration with himself, you wrap your arm around his shoulders and squeeze your hand in his. "I'm not going to let you beat yourself up, Javier."

With a shuddering breath, he shifts to rest his head on your shoulder, and you wrap him up in a protective hug, nuzzling him and rubbing soothingly at his back.

That's when he tells you what happened. How Helena hadn't checked in. The panic and guilt he felt. How he'd made Carrillo go with him to go looking for answers. The way he'd found her. How fucking horrible he'd felt for a long time after. That eventually, he'd gotten her and her daughter a visa out, but stressed how it'd done nothing to scrub the shame and guilt from feeling responsible for her being put in danger.

He'd never told you about Helena before. You knew about that Gabby, and of course you'd never forget that bitch Vanessa, not to mention that wannabe guerillera Elisa, but this one had clearly rattled something in him. He carried it like a knot that was wrapped up in the tangle of his self-loathing, and you needed to find a way to excise it.

So, with a deep breath, you just say it.

"I love you, Javier. You're an amazing, kind, and good-hearted man. But if you don't stop beating yourself up for the decisions and choices of others, I'm going to lose my damned temper with you."

He leans back and stares with stunned awe at you. Your tone was loving but resolute, and the way your eyes bore into him has something unfurling in his chest.

"You didn't tell her to do what she did. And as far as I'm concerned, you avenged her and everyone else those fucking assholes ever hurt, with interest," you declare exactingly, and cup his face in your hands as you emphasize, "Le diste plomo al asesino cabrón ese. Acabaste con ellos. Ahora, te toca estar bien, mi amor."

Javi has never had someone tell him so concisely where things stand for him with such depth and clearheaded factualness. You telling him, 'You took out that fucking murderous asshole. You finished them off. Now, it's your time to be all right,' – and to mean it with such conviction? It's like you're the beacon of light in the darkness of his lonesome self-degradation. It makes it easy for him to see his way back – to shed the angst and acrimony and let himself have some peace.

You feel it when he leans forward and kisses you with a passion that rivals the sun, searing and all consuming until you're breathless and have to break apart to catch yourself from the burn.

"Thank you for not losing your damned temper on me, bravita," he husks coyly, and you snicker and pull him close for another hug. Then, he kisses a hungry trail from your jaw to your ear, and purrs hoarsely, "I'm going to properly thank you once we're in the room…"

Needless to say, you both check in and get to your hotel room in no time, tossing things on the dresser before getting tangled up in a heated make-out session against the wall by the bathroom. You break the kiss in order to instruct him to put the 'Do not disturb' sign out on the handle while you go freshen up and run the bath, convincing him that you need a nice long soak together.

Said soak together turns into you straddling him and having amazing sex while enveloped by the warm, soapy water as Javi clutches you against him and groans devoted praise into your ear.

You are both positively tuckered out by the time you get in bed, sleeping soundlessly through to the early morning.

With a busy itinerary, you each get ready and drive to your grandmother's, where you settle in and help with the women while Javi and Miguel talk about the plan for getting around, what the fellas will be doing while the women are at the hotel getting ready, and going to get the liquor for the bar that'll be at the reception. The day flies by thanks to spending it making the preparations, putting the table arrangements together, going to the reception hall behind the church's chapel to set things up for the party. And once it's all set, you dish a bit more with your cousin about everything you have reserved for the morning while Javi and Miguel tuck the last of the liquor stash under the bar his parents had rented for the occasion.

You both are wiped out by the time you get back to the hotel, and are full from your grandmother spoiling everyone with her cooking, so sleep is all you two are looking forward to after you shower and slide into bed together.

When you and Javi meet everyone in the lobby the next morning and the girls part ways from the boys, you can't help feeling that pining delight from how he kisses you goodbye and laconically purrs, "Don't go bragging about how whipped you got me, now," before pinching your ass and striding off like the fucking stud that melts you down to the core he is, wedding outfit packed and in his duffle he's got in his grip and tossed casually over his shoulder as he heads out to the rental so he can follow Miguel. Once you see his cute jean-clad ass and broad red-collared-shirt drape shoulders turn out of sight towards the parking lot facing the hotel's outside fountain at the entrance, you practically float along to show your cousin and her bridesmaids up to the spacious suite her beautician friends are already set up at.

While Javier goes to hang out with Miguel and his buddies, who're getting ready at the groom's apartment, you and the girls change into your dresses and take turns getting hair and makeup done until you're all properly dolled up and enjoy a couple of sips of champagne to toast your cousin.

A few hours later and Javi's picking you up in front of the hotel once you've seen the bridal party into the town car you'd surprised your cousin with to drive them to the church. He stares at how gorgeous you look with your hair done in elegant finger waves, with the dazzle of your emerald and diamond earrings twinkling in the sun as you turn to smile, bounding over towards him. The lovely makeup accentuating the alluring smolder of your eyes and plush pillows of your lips has him punch-drunk, so much so that when you slip into the passenger seat and smile at him, he wars with pouncing or just worshiping you before the honk of the car behind yours snaps his dumbstruck gawking away.

"Oh, don't you look bien guapísimo," you lilt, as you give him a peck on the cheek and then swipe your thumb to remove the rosy lipstick print you left.

"You look stunning," is his rumble before he huffs and tears his gaze away with such exasperation that you giggle as he grumbles with a surly edge to his baritone, "Fucking hell, I'm gonna be in trouble…" and starts driving en route for the next destination.

"Mmm, we're going to pick up my aunt and grandmother now, babe, so pórtate bien," you chide playfully as you buckle your seatbelt and pat his leg affectionately. He grunts at that, so with a flirty sweep of your palm to squeeze his thigh, you lilt provocatively, "And my 'visitor' is officially gone, so tonight? I'm going to fuck your brains out and not have an ounce of shame while I do so."

Javier's eyes flare with awestruck wonder, his desire searing into his loins and making his cheeks flush. He licks his lips and presses them together in surly frustration as he exhales out of his nose and grips the steering wheel. "Cristo amado, woman. You can't say that to me while we're on the way to church—"

"Technically we're making a pit stop to 'Buela's, so you have until then to calm your libido," is your brazen retort as you place your hands primly in your lap over your little chic clutch purse, batting your lashes angelically at him when he scoffs and shoots you a smoldering look.

"Such a wicked little tease," he grouses to himself as he drives, having to think of all the things that turn him off to stave off his semi.

Once you pick up your tía and abuela, you behave the rest of the ride, and are nothing but an enchanting dear as you all enter the church and find seats on your cousin's side behind your aunt's placement in the first pew. Javier escorts you on one arm and your abuela on the other, and is nothing but a genuine sweetheart once sat together, as he chats away with her while his hand affectionately interlaces his fingers in yours. She's telling him the significance of the church. About how it was a small chapel, but so many in the neighborhood had gotten married before the rich shimmer of the stain glass window at this very time of day so the light from the sun could catch the colored glass just right and shone brilliantly in the space.

Javi is impressed when the ceremony begins and your cousin walks in just as the sun comes through that window, bathing the room in colors and giving her pearly-white dress a resplendent sheen. He puts his arm around you when you lean your head fondly against his shoulder, lost in the whimsy of how love-struck Miguel looks as he watches your prima walk down the aisle towards him and the priest.

It's simply romantic.

You smile when they take their vows, and look over at Javi when they part from their first kiss as husband and wife, surprised to see his brown eyes already looking at you.

Unbeknownst to you both, your grandmother is watching the way you're looking at each other, and the delight she feels is enough to bring a tear to her eye as she hides it by smiling while dabbing her kerchief when her sister-in-law turns in her pew to gush happily as everyone claps for the now-married couple when they stride hand in hand out to the front of the chapel. After hugging the newlyweds and posing for some pictures – which you grab Javi and drag him into in order to stand next to you when the photographer sets up a big group shot for in front of the iglesia's flower bed-rimmed fountain – you all file down the side arch towards the cobblestone courtyard that leads to the reception hall at the back of the chapel.

The reception is an exuberantly fantastic party. The hall is filled with white and pink flowers accented by vibrant hibiscus that give it the tropical vibe carried over into the table settings of seaglass-and-seashell-filled-terrariums that act as the centerpiece for all the tables. The bride and groom have a little table next to the pretty wedding cake adorned with the miniature wax figures to match them, and they're situated in front of the dance floor. The catering buffet takes up an entire wall across from the bar, and is the first stop for many as they serve themselves and find a seat.

Javi can't get over how much food there is, and how jovial everyone is as they shake his hand or kiss his cheek in warm greeting, as if they've known him for years.

You're just as overawed, since your side of the family is quite small. But it endears you to see the big family your cousin has inherited now. Miguel has so many relatives, and his siblings have kids, and his cousins are funny and boisterous as they set up the DJ table and play music that has everyone in great spirits. On top of that are all the friends, acquaintances – it felt like a throng of people just milling convivially around the happy couple.

Once you've found a table to sit at with your meals, you get to people-watch as the newlyweds work the room for a bit. You and Javi sit at a table with your grandmother, aunt, and Miguel's sisters and their husbands as they field their kids to go eat, to stop fighting, to quit messing around and stay where they can be seen – the whole nine yards of rowdy family dynamics you hadn't had the joy to grow up with.

Javi and your grandmother are thick as thieves – joking and telling stories while they eat. She ends up telling him practically the entire family's life story – how she'd met your grandfather when her heel had broken and she'd toppled into him on a street in Medellín, had instantly fallen in love, settled in Bogotá and owned one of the last cobbler and apparel stores that catered to the businessmen and elite of the capital. Javi listens, riveted, and when you leave the table to chat with the bride and her friends, your grandmother tells him more – confiding some of the more delicate aspects of the family history. The ones she discerned you'd not told him, out of concern for keeping those matters private. He hears about your uncle – your mother's younger brother – who'd died in a car accident, on how it'd broken all their hearts, until your mother had married your father, and had you soon after. She tells Javier because she trusts him, and after observing him with you? Not to mention his selfless devotion to getting you back from having been snatched up? She believes he loves you with profound conviction. As far as she's concerned, he's family now, so, he should know.

Javier is touched by her candor and grace – both things you've clearly inherited from her – and tells her about his family.

You're none the wiser as you look over and see them chatting. And by the way your grandmother smiles and affectionately pats his arm, you know they're convo is something meaningful, so you find yourself slipping away from the girl-talk to rejoin them at the table. Just as you do, you overhear Javi telling her about how he was a runaway groom, and you gasp.

"—I actually saw her at my cousin's wedding, and she was gracious, all things considered," he's telling her, and you balk at him, having not been told that part before, but then he leans over and smirks at you when he says, "Even though she totally rubbed in my face how much better off her life had turned out from dodging the bullet in marrying me, so, you've been forewarned, querida."

Scoffing, you nudge him playfully by the shoulder and deride, "You hear this, 'Buela? As if I haven't thrown enough caution to the wind to be with him already—"

Javi snakes his hand around your waist to give you a cheeky pinch that earns a squeak from you before you dissolve into giggles as you rambunctiously slap his hands away. Your grandmother chuckles at the display before playfully grabbing Javi by the ear like you would a precocious child. He laughs and immediately lets go of you to shoot a pleadingly cute puppy-eyed look at her that has her fawningly cooing, "Ay bendito, que carita," before patting his cheek goofily.

Silly display quelled when the rest of the table comes back to sit, you can't help smile as Javi glances at you and winks before he leans over to you and asks, "Want something from the bar?"

Nodding, you chime, "My usual, and she'll have a copita de vino."

"Lindita! Don't tell him my vice," your grandmother chuckles and grins when Javi bounces his brows conspiratorially at her. "Oh, alright. Charming men are my real vice anyway. Go on, mijo."

He chuckles and goes to the bar, and you move seats to sit next to her so you can confide, "When she said Miguel's family was huge, I was a little wary. But everyone is so nice."

"I know. It just wasn't in God's plan for us to have a big family, so it would seem. But I wouldn't trade any of it for the world," she gushes and pats your hand. "He's a good man, lindita. Your mother would love him. And, I think even your father would come around, too. Albeit mercurially so," is her jibing remark, smiling brilliantly when you snicker and shake your head.

When Javi comes back with the drinks, a jumping salsa song comes on and a lot of the crowd heads for the makeshift dance floor, so he grins and holds his hand to you as he drawls, "May I have this dance?"

You smile and take his hand, heading out into the center of the crowd. Affably, you let him lead you in the dance, smitten and effervescently giggling as he spins you around and tucks you against him with aplomb before stealing a kiss from your lips.

The two of you dance and dance for several songs, and when a merengue up-tempo song comes on, your eyes light up with glee, and Javi tries to cut away, but you grab his hand and spin him, laughing vivaciously as you try to get him to keep step with you, but he quickly breaks a sweat along his brow and looks comically over for the DJ to switch the track before he keels over. Then, a kid that must be no more than fifteen-years-old taps Javi on the shoulder and asks to cut in.

He gives you a 'I tap out!' gesture and let's the kid take a shot, to which you smirk and happily accept your new dance partner. Javier saunters off the dance floor expecting to turn and see the kid struggling to keep pace with you, but when he looks back, the little merenguero is spinning you expertly and leading you like a cocky dance phenom.

Your hair is whipping around you jubilantly as you laugh and dance, smiling at the teen who's barely taller than you as he leads you into a series of spins and tucks before he dips you at the end of the song. The crowd erupts and cheers with claps and exclamations as the kid swings you back and showily points to his cheek in unspoken petition for a kiss.

Javi is grinning – unable to hide how impressed he is by the kid's level of cojones as you peck the teen on his cheek and tell him how good he is. Once he bows goofily and goes to get a soda, you flounce towards Javi with a silly chuckle as you loop your arms around his neck and tow him down to meet your lips.

"You're lucky I've been working on not being so celoso," he mocks as he escorts you back to the table.

"Hah! If that's the case, it should be safe to mention that he asked for my number, then?" is your aside, and when Javi's eyes crinkle and he looks around for the kid, you cackle and elbow him playfully. "I'm kidding!"

"Oh, just for that, I'm going to ask someone else to dance now," Javier sulks in a goofy tone as he pulls your chair out for you to sit in before he turns and offers his hand to your grandmother. "Would you do me the honor and join me for a dance?"

She scoffs and muses coyly, "Ah, you wicked man! You really are a charmer—"

"He's a lambe ojo, is what he is," you mutter daringly and wink at your grandmother. "Let him take you for a spin!"

She laughs, and takes Javi's hand.

Your smile is pure delight as you watch him escort her to the dance floor and lead her in the slow-tempo ranchera ballad, feeling enlivened and settled in the charming moment.

You sip your drink and enjoy the whimsy of watching everyone dance, celebrate, and be overall merry. It keeps you from stressing about the week to come, or fretting about losing Ellis and Anita.

No, you want to live in the moment, and right now, watching Javi laugh at something your grandmother tells him while he waltzes with her is one of the highlights of your day.

And when the DJ transitions the slow song to a Puerto Rican merengue song by Grupo Manía, you grin as she purses her lips and wags her finger in a, 'Oh, not happening' gesture before waving you over to come cut in.

You strut over and relieve her, smiling when Javi encircles your waist and takes your hand in his before he leans in to whisper, "Is this song about you?"

"Oh my god, you're such a dork for using that line!" you haze him derisively as you take the lead and show him how to properly side step and let the rhythm guide him to two-step forward and two-step back in synchronization with you before you sway in for him to spin you.

"This one's not as sped up," he remarks as he swings you back around and pulls you close to playfully dip you. "I don't feel like I'm going to drop dead—"

"Aww, te tengo que entrenar," you tease before caressing a hand to just behind his shoulder while he leads you some more to just dance close. "This is one of their slower singles. They have songs that will make you want to fall over once you're done," is your musing as you stare sultrily up into his handsome face and smile when his brown eyes smolder with something goading. "What?"

"When are we gonna perrear?" he purrs brazenly and brushes his nose against yours in a sexy show of dominance.

"I am not going to dance like that with you in front of everyone here, you beyaquito!" you hiss flirtatiously and segue into the cumbia song with him.

"So I gotta take you to a low-down, grimy club full of strangers to have you grind that sexy ass against me?" he instigates in a drawn out rumble and gets lost in how you giggle and cup his cheek affectionately.

"How 'bout just somewhere they're actually playing reggaetón and where my grandmother isn't watching us from 10 feet away, you fresco," you counter sassily as you brush your fingers over his forehead to comb his rogue curls back for him.

"…Fair point," is his raspy concession before he kisses you.

You both sway for a bit, then Javi ushers you off the dance floor once the song ends and the vallenato beat of the next one starts, deciding to spend a good amount of time recovering over drinks and conversation at your table until they announce it's time to do one of the wedding traditions your cousin and Miguel picked for the occasion.

Since the ceremony got moved up so last minute, they pared it down considerably and chose to have their first dance together to their favorite song while everyone watches. Once the romantic song ends, they bring out a chair to the dance floor for your cousin to sit in while she fluffs her dress' hem out as the DJ announces for all single guys to step forward and pass along one of their shoes to be placed under her dress.

Javier's never heard of this custom, so he looks over at you with big, curious brown eyes.

"Go, mijo! And give your right shoe over," is your grandmother's enthusiastic instruction while you shake your head sardonically.

Wanting to be a good sport, Javi does so and lines up with the other dozen so guys who are removing a shoe and passing it over to the groom, who places each under the bride's dress. Once Javi is stood off to the side while your cousin covers her eyes with her palm, the shoes are piled at random under her dress before Miguel stands back and counts down.

When he reaches 'one,' your prima blindly reaches under her dress and rifles through the shoes until she selects one and pulls it out.

"Who's shoe is this?" she calls out impishly and waves it around her head.

Javi raises his hand, utterly confused, and looks over at you when everyone cheers and whistles boisterously at him to see your reaction.

You're covering your mouth in comical shock and blushing, while your grandmother beams next to you and your aunt claps merrily.

Miguel comes over and claps Javi on the shoulder and returns his shoe. "Looks like you'll be the next one to get hitched, compa!" he exclaims jovially and grins when Javi's cheeks turn pink from flustered surprise.

"Yay! You better make an honest woman out of my prima," your cousin proclaims cleverly as she comes over and pulls him into a hug before the other single guys breathe sighs of relief and pat Javi on the back as they make their exits off of the dance floor.

As they move on to cut the cake, Javi wanders back to the table with his shoe still in his hand, and you feel like this is probably the last thing a guy like him would want to be prompted with. When he sits down and good-naturedly chuckles at your grandmother hugging him and kissing his cheek, you pass him his glass of whiskey and scrunch your face goofily at him.

"You've never heard of that tradition, have you?" is your musing drawl.

He shakes his head and exhales amusedly out of his nose while he puts his shoe back on. "Never. Guess that's like catching the bride's garter belt?" When you nod and hide your lopsided grin behind the back of your palm, he chuckles warmly, then leans over to whisper in your ear, "I guess I'm the marrying kind now."

Your heart trips, catches itself, and then palpitates a frazzled staccato beat at his honeyed timbre, and the way his coffee-brewed eyes hold you in a soulfully, albeit genuine, stare? It makes something stir in you, and before you can place what it is, one of Miguel's little nieces toddles over after her mother set her down to grab her fussy son and sit him to eat, and the few seconds is enough for the curly-haired little girl to stray around the chairs in search for someone to give her attention. And when a piece of cake is placed between you and Javi by one of the bridesmaids, you finally notice the little girl when she ambles over and stares at the frosted dessert before she leans over your lap and points.

Javier watches as your lips twitch into a little half-smile as you ask her, "Want some cake?" The little girl vigorously nods, and you glance over to Javi tentatively, as if unsure what to do.

With a gentle tone, he leans close and tells her, "You'll have to ask your mami if you can have some cake, ok?"

She pouts, as if that's the last thing she wants to do, so you pick up a little spoon and scoop up a flourish of icing dolloped on the slice and hand it to her before winking conspiratorially at her. Triumphant, she smiles and pops the spoon in her mouth before scampering away when she sees her father come back from the bar. You watch him scoop her up and carry her in his arm back to their side of the table. While you watch her enthusiastically prattle to her father about the cake, you're unaware that Javi's fondly gazing at you, admiring how you handled that.

His mind chooses now to recollect your comment weeks back during movie night. Something about watching a movie with rambunctious, wild children 'being free birth control' as far as you'd been concerned? He's about to lean over and teasingly ask you if you intend to spoil your kids like that, when the photographer comes over to your table and asks for everyone to pose for a picture.

You scoot your chair closer and pull your grandmother in as Javi puts his arm around you and leans close before you all smile for the photo.

Shared slice of cake and some jovial conversation around the table later, the time for the newlyweds to depart for their honeymoon arrives, so you all rush out to line up along the cobblestone path that leads to the waiting car. Once they come out arm in arm, you all cheer and toss the handful of rice up in the air as they run through the lane of smiling cheerful folks, and you fondly watch as they get in the backseat of the car and wave in farewell before it pulls out of the driveway and cruises out of the church's compound. Your aunt is tearfully smiling as she says goodbye to all the guests, and after the bulk of the partygoers have departed, the bridesmaids help take everything down while the groomsmen see to helping pack your rental with the gifts.

Saying goodbye to the new in-laws, you all depart, driving your aunt and grandmother to her house and helping to bring in the gifts before she makes you both promise to stop by for breakfast before you leave for the airport the next morning.

By the time you arrive back at the hotel, it's just started to drizzle, so you and Javi run hand-in-hand across the parking lot to the lobby, eager to get up to your room. The ride up to your floor is filled with stolen glances and alluring touches, so once you're both hurrying to the door, it's a seamless entry and putting out of the 'Do not disturb' sign before Javi tosses his duffle aside to literally start undressing you with pent-up haste. You give a sultry chuckle when you pull him towards the bed as you shove his blazer off and help him shimmy your dress down your arms and work the bodice off to shove the garment down your hourglass figure.

Before you let him unfasten your bra, you kiss him hungrily as you unbutton his shirt and unbuckle his belt while sitting momentarily to yank your heels off and toss them. His hands covetously fondle your curves when you stand back up to tug his shirt loose from his waistband, pulling your hips into his when he hums and possessively kisses down your neck to your shoulder.

"Fuck, I've been dying to have you all day," he huskily growls as you peel his dress shirt off of his broad frame and work his trousers undone, shoving them off his hips and groping your hands over his blue-boxer-briefs-clad ass while you suckle kisses along his collarbone.

"Mmm, I should get this makeup removed and shower first to rinse the sweat off," you dazedly remark as you let him pick you up to be taken to bed.

Javi hastily kicks his pants off of his ankles to freely maneuver clambering up onto the bed on his knees while you wrap your legs around his waist and loop your arms at his neck to anchor yourself to him as you kiss along his jaw. Groaning, he lays you over the bedding and unfastens your bra with one hand while the other props him up to loom over you as he husks, "No. Shower later. Love your scent when you're all sweaty—"

"Ewww," you playfully giggle as you stretch out under him and bury your hand into the back of his hair to pull him down to lie on top of you while your other hand trails down his back when he retaliates with cheeky kisses along your neck until he suckles that erogenous spot under your jaw by your ear. "Uumph, Javi," you murmur on a heated sigh when his warm skin and masculine scent have you tingling, and his clothed cock grinds into your aroused center.

He strips your bra off and discards it to the floor before igniting a trail of velvet fire with his mouth worshipfully kissing and suckling down your chest, tongue flicking over your nipple before pursing his lips over it while his hand fondles and toys with the other. You're dripping into your panties by the time Javi kisses his way down to your apex and bows his head between your thighs to breathe in the womanly, heady tang of your wet pussy before he licks you over the damp garment and kisses your mound.

Your needy whimper shoots arousal straight down to his throbbing dick, making it impossible for him to help himself any longer, so he peels your lacy panties off and stares at you while he licks and sucks your slick off of the panty gusset. Enthralled, you blush at the lewd yet erotic sight of him savoring your tangy desire shamelessly, shivering with how it turns you on. Javi watches your eyes lower alluringly as you spread you legs more and show him how much you're yearning for him, so he hums at the sight and settles between your thighs to kiss along the smooth, supple skin before nuzzling into your pussy.

Arching off the bed and angling your pelvis for more, you toss your head back into the pillow and whine his name as you buck against his mouth when he sucks tingling pressure over the hood of your clit.

The pitter-patter of the rain intensifying outside into a deluge that batters the window almost mimics the way your pulse is pounding in your ears from how quickly Javi drives you close to the precipice of an orgasm. You feel it scintillating across your nerve endings and thrumming over your heightened senses as he eats you out like he can only express how much he loves you with the talent of his tongue and the devotion of his lips.

Feeling like you're going to burn apart from how carnally overwhelmed by him and this pleasure he has set loose has you, you start to mewl, "Oh god! Ja-Javi, need you—d-don't wanna, nngth—s-slow down. Let me t-taste you before, 'fore—"

"Shh, it's ok, corazón. Let me make you come first," Javi croons with calm confidence and soothingly caresses your thighs before returning to his oral havoc, burying a throaty groan into your pussy for good measure.

You are flung into rapturous pleasure when he concentrates on flicking his tongue the way you like over your pulsing clit while two thick fingers plunge into your tight sheath and pump deftly before curving up. The ecstasy singes through you and has your toes curling and body arching taut as you climax on a strangle cry of his name, head tossed back while your hands grip the bedding in the throes of your bliss. You flood Javi's mouth and chin with your orgasm, which unleashes savage delight to coil in his belly and flare pride in his chest.

You're reduced to a panting, chest-heaving bolt of melted sinew, so you take a beat to pull yourself together, glossy eyes focusing to watch Javi sit up and ruggedly wipe the back of his hand across his mouth and chin. The sound of the rain registers to you, but you can only care about the handsome man prowling over you to nudge a doting kiss into your neck and caress your cheek.

There's nothing more satisfying than seeing you blitzed out, naked and glowing with sensual euphoria before him like this. Your hair is flung about in luscious rivulets, with those eye-catching emeralds in your earlobes, twinkling in the scant light that catch in the facets while you stare sultrily up into his handsome regard. To him, you resemble a goddess like this, and your dazzling smile and caress of his cheek makes him feel so worthy, so he intends to bask in the moment, but you have other plans.

You manage to roll him onto his back and pin him down, and when he grunts in surprise, you gaze sensuously down at him as you slink over him to strip him of his underwear. Wearing only his socks now, you spare him a sultry once over before stripping those too for him before caressing your hands up the planes of his muscularly lean thighs. His breath catches in his chest as you sprawl out on your tummy so you can stroke his aching, straining cock before pursing your mouth over the tip to lick and suckle the pre-cum coated expanse of it, sweeping your tongue greedily and moaning around him.

"Jesus Christ, mmph!" Javier groans and arches, one hand curling into a fist on the bed while the other buries into the back of your tousled hair. Growling your name, he hoarsely orders, "—Come on up and ride me so I can come in your pussy." When you make a little defiant sound and just keep sucking his cock – hollowing out your cheeks around him for good measure, Javi moans, clutching your shoulder warningly, and resisting bucking up into your mouth for more. You let his length bob free from your mouth on a gasp and stare salaciously up at him as he groans, "C'mon, querida, need you on me. I've had to control myself all fucking day, but I won't be able to last if you keep teasing me."

The way your flushed features soften with your sexy smile is something that has arousal zinging in his apex and throbbing in his loins. Said visceral allure only heightens when you sit up to crawl over to straddle him. "You're the one doing all the teasing today, bebito," you purr as you angle your pelvis and guide his throbbing cock to align with your plunging roll of your hips, burying him inch by exquisite inch into your yearning sheath. Javier moans and grips your waist, and you grab onto his wrists and hold on as you set a molten pace of undulating your core and clenching your floor muscles around him. "You like making me tingle for you? Getting my heart racing while surrounded by people like that, mi cariñito?" are your silky charges as you ride him now.

Javi's thoughts are sluggish with the syrupy pleasure your domination has him sinking into, so it's only when you squeeze his pulse points on his wrists that he realizes you expect him to answer. "I-I, fuck, I don't know, baby," he stammers as you stop undulating your hips and just clutch his cock in the vise of your sheath. He huffily drags his bottom lip between his teeth before grousing, "Y-Yeah, I do—I do like driving you wild. But you do the fucking same thing to me!"

You reward him by planting your palms over his broad pecs and bucking down on his cock with a provocative hum before leaning down to lick his lips. "Oh, yeah? Besides teasing you a little in the car, what else did I do to get you wound up and pulse-racing, hmm?" you goadingly counter and keep riding him, letting out little grunts and mewls of effort as you plunge onto his cock over and over again.

"Jesucristo amado—mmph, d-don't make me think right now, mi vida," Javi whines gruffly and licks his lips as he starts guiding your hips over him. When you snicker an effervescent sound at his answer, he gives you a fierce look of want and defiantly pivots up to roll you both into flipped positions – with you on your back and him looming over you as he starts fucking fast and hard into your rippling heat. You gasp and cling to him, lighting up with pleasure at his assertive, sexy growl of, "You being fucking stunning all damn day—every look, the way you smiled, your kisses—fuck, how sweet you were. Fucking everything about you had me hot."

It's like a divine tether being grounded within you to hear him say such things, because you felt the exact same way about him. His every glance, the way he'd smile at you, his protective presence being never too far, the way he'd got on with everyone, and how gleefully joyful you felt seeing him with your grandmother throughout – it'd all made you hot for him, and left you eager to revel in how in love you are, which also slightly mystified you to find there's no end to how enamored you could be with Javi.

He kisses you now, ravenous and incandescent as you both get lost in the throes of making love while the world around you flints away.

When he thrusts up into that devastatingly amazing pleasure point in you and nuzzles his moan into your neck, you are made electric flesh – a mere phenomenon of ardent passion as you hitch your knees up to clutch at his sides while your nails dig into his back as you cry, "Ah, Ja-Javi! Right there, right there—"

"Yes, mi amor. Come for me – fuck – come for me," Javi rasps in a reedy groan, already on the edge of orgasm, but desperately chasing stealing yours first. When you mewl in response and he can feel you right at the point of falling apart, he husks, "Love you to my very soul. Just want you. Give it to me, baby. Let me have it—"

You cry out and climax on his words, so bowled over and astounded by the fierce bliss that washes over you as you flutter around him and flood over with your orgasm that tears spring up in the corners of your eyes as you gasp and ride out the pleasure.

Seeing you dissolve in ecstasy so ferociously sets Javier's own pent-up orgasm to singe through him, unearthing the fire of his desire and snapping it loose with the pounding of his thrusts into you as he comes. You both moan as his cock erupts the warm bloom of his cum to fill your quivering sheath and seep tingling delight up into your womb as he empties his bliss into you before shuddering and burying his face in your neck on a spent groan.

The exquisite feeling of being filled with his seed and buzzing under his warm, quaking form lulls you into prolonged bliss as you both lie on the bed under the dim stormy night glow coming from the window adjacent your sated bodies.

Javi's nuzzling kisses into your neck and relishing your satiated little sighs, so when you whisper, "I love you hasta mi alma también, if you were wondering," he feels grounded and worthy as pride burns admiringly in his chest.

He huffs a wry chuckle and shifts so he can gaze down at you. Even with your lashes sticking together from the tear-streaked mascara, you look bewitchingly beautiful, so his eyes go from smolderingly dark to that gentle, soulful stare that makes you feel the most seen and deserving. Javi kisses you sweetly then, and you melt, content to bask in the post-coital lethargy of being draped over his chest in sensual repose once he pulls out of your addictive heat and adjusts to lie next to you before tucking you to rest against him.

Once the post-sex high dissipates, you both shower together, and while you're in a snug bathrobe drying your hair in front of the vanity mirror, Javier dutifully packs both your things in your bags in preparation of the early checkout the next morning. When you emerge from the bathroom fresh-faced and glowing, he's just pulled the covers back and turned out the bedside lamp. He's in a black pair of boxer-briefs now, looking relaxed and sexy as ever, so you shut the bathroom light off and scamper over in the chilled room to get in bed with him.

Javier watches you strip the robe and slide in under the sheets in the nude, thanks to the twilight of the rainy night beyond the window providing the scant light for him to admire your supple, nubile form. You smile and slink up against him for a chaste kiss before turning over to stretch out and lie on your stomach to face the window. His eyes longingly stare at the relief of your dimly lit form as you tuck your head on your pillow and let out a sublime little sigh.

Your lips crest softly when his fingertips trace the contour of your shoulder blade after he's shifted to lie sidelong next to you.

"What's on your mind, chulito," you murmur sleepily, but remain in your relaxed pose, enjoying the way he's gliding his gentle caresses along your nude back.

"Just…wondering something," he mumbles, and when you hum for him to elaborate, he exhales and leans down to brush a kiss over your nape. "Do you like kids?" he blurts out curiously.

That's not what you expected, but you resist the urge to turn over and stare at him. Instead, you tuck your legs up and get more comfortable as you gaze across the way at the window. "I like them well enough, I suppose," you retort simply, before querying, "Do you?"

"I-" Javi pauses to give his answer some more thought before he finally replies, "I don't mind them. Just never had the time to really consider thinking much on it – on having kids," he pauses to see if you'll say something, but you don't. So, he inquires, "Have you?"

You're quite surprised by this topic of conversation coming up now. So much so, you're pondering over what could've prompted it from him. Had your abuela said something to him? Did someone at the reception give him the impression it was something you two needed to discuss? Or with all the talk of looking at apartments together, was Javi thinking further ahead? Thinking about long-term plans and what it would mean for your relationship?

With all of that swirling in your mind, you find yourself replying neutrally, "No. Never really given it much thought, other than making sure not to get pregnant, I mean."

Javier hums pensively at that, so you finally adjust to turn your torso to face him, while still remaining on your stomach. He didn't seem to have expected your sudden shift, so he grunts and dismisses, "Forget it, querida—"

You caress your hand up his chest to rest at the side of his neck, surprised to find his pulse racing under your touch. "What're you really asking me, chavón," is your teasing drawl. When he hesitates, you sigh and shift to lie on your side, pillowing your hand under your cheek in order to prop your countenance up more. "Did someone hassle you today about 'making an honest woman' out of me or something? Was it 'Buela?"

Huffing wryly out of his nose, Javi snickers, "No. Your cousin did make a crack about 'making an honest woman' out of you, but no one brought up kids—"

"Ok, so then…what—you just want to know if my biological clock is ticking?" you cut in glibly before laconically musing, "Because it isn't, so nothing to worry about—"

"So you don't want to have kids at all," Javi ruminates out loud in an unreadable tone, eyes crinkling as he stares into your disarmed features. "I only mean, well—we've never talked about it—"

"Did we have to talk about it?" you remark and shift to prop yourself up onto your elbow to match his eye-line. "You were a field agent when I met you. I know they don't like assigning anyone to the DEA down here that has family – no one with kids. Not after what happened to that agent in Guadalajara. So, since you've been here so long, and, well – with your previous extracurriculars, I figured you didn't want kids. Which, was fine," is your analytical answer, completely free of umbrage as you detail the basis of your assumptions. When Javier just raises his brows at you, and seems to need to hear the unspoken part said out loud, you sigh and roll back over to lie on your stomach, facing the window as you add dispassionately, "I'd make a terrible mother."

Javier's shoulders slump hearing you say that, and really, he's not sure completely why. After all, he's never thought about having a family. At least not in the conventional sense of having kids; in becoming a father. But listening to you seem so…apathetic to it? His mind flashes to how sweet you were with the little girl, albeit reserved, and it makes something in his chest twitch with longing.

"That's not true. I think you'd be great at it," he finds himself countering, fingers absently sweeping through the back of your hair to fan it onto the pillow and expose your back to his meandering caresses. "And sure, I haven't given it much thought, in all honesty, but if it happened? We'd figure it out together. You would be an amazing mother—"

You scoff a humored laugh and shake your head before glancing dubiously over your shoulder at him as you deride, "Do you remember how freaked you were when the condom broke that one time?" Javi's brows knit together and his lips part, but an answer doesn't come, so he just presses them together. "C'mon, Javier. That's your worst nightmare, just like it's mine, so, don't worry or feel like you need to assure me—"

"I'm not," he interrupts and rests his hand to your hip. "And to be fair, that was a different time—"

"No, it wasn't. You're not a field agent anymore, and I'm not slogging it in Clerical Operations, but we both still have plans like we did then. Even more so now," you insist as you roll back over to face him before finding yourself blurting, "And if a condom breaking, or being late is enough to settle cold terror in us rather than happiness or excitement at the prospect then we don't have any business talking about having kids."

As soon as the words leave your mouth, you regret them. And when his expression etches in that bewildered way, you know you've messed up.

"You were late?" Javi carefully asks, sharply focusing on your expression with his intensifying gaze.

Reluctantly, you nod before succinctly explaining, "Only once, and it was just a false alarm. I changed birth control and it hasn't happened since—"

"When?" he asks in a hushed murmur, feeling guilty for having been oblivious.

You sigh, and idly caress the hand he has on your hip as you reply, "After the time you came to my door late at night, all upset?" When his eyes shone with recall, you add, "Well, afterwards, we didn't see each other for weeks until you dragged me out of that club, so…figured it wasn't worth mentioning."

You expect him to be mad, but instead, Javier exhales through his nose and rests his head on the pillow next to yours as he gazes over at you and asks haltingly, "And that moment, when you didn't know, you were terrified…by the thought that you could be?"

Meekly, you nod as you clarify, "It was more of a dread—"

"Because that's any better," is his snarky snort as humor quirks his mustachioed lips.

"It is! Regardless of my personal feelings about it, can you blame me for dreading the prospect after how you reacted that time? I mean, c'mon, you were terrified when that condom broke, Javi. I thought you were going to get down on your knees and pray to not have knocked me up," you counter sarcastically back, giving him a lopsided smirk when he scoffs and drags his palm across his face in self-disgust. "I don't know when you were the most relieved: when you found me at the bus station, or when I told you I was on the pill," is your goading jibe as you snicker at his surly grunt when he buries his face in his pillow in mortification.

"…I was a fucking jackass for that," he mumbles gruffly as he cuddles you close and rests his forehead to your cheek. "Be that as it may, though…I need you to know that…it'd be different now. That's all I'm going to say," is his careful murmur.

It's the right thing to say. His husky rasp warmly conveyed his meaning and instantly quelled your unease, making you feel off the hook to continue this tenuous topic.

You loop your arms around him and kiss his brow lovingly. "Good to know, hermoso," you croon and smile when he snickers and encircles your waist to pin you against him after you purr affectionately, "Now, behave and go to sleep."

He exhales a mirthful grunt before settling down with you and feeling lulled into slumber once you've drifted off yourself.

Early the next morning, you get ready, leave a nice note and tip on the little desk in the room, and head down to the lobby to check out. You both head out with your bags across the rain-soaked parking lot to your rental, and are soon parking in front of your grandmother's to have breakfast before heading to the airport.

She's ridiculously giddy, doting on Javi and enjoying how your aunt merrily recaps all the wonderful moments of the day before over coffee. And of course, when you were just feeling nice and content, she has to mention, "—Oh, and so many of the gifts were just thoughtful! Your father had a courier deliver a registry certificate from that big department store in the city, so they can go and get anything they'll need for when they find a house together. Isn't that wonderful?"

Javi watches as your expression cools at the mention of your father, so he clears his throat and replies, "And are they looking for a house, or will they wait until Miguel comes back from his training?"

Your grandmother covertly winks at Javi for changing the subject over the rim of her cup while your aunt blithely retorts, "Ah, they're going to wait. For now, she'll move out of her little apartment and into his—"

"Javi and I are going to look for apartments together," you remark aloofly as you stir your spoon in your coffee. "We're looking at a few this week."

The clattering of your aunt's coffee cup and your grandmother's dish from their surprised reaction to your glib musing weigh their silence, while Javi incredulously glances over at you. He's overawed that you would volunteer that, and just as he coughs tensely and spares a meek look over at your grandmother, your aunt hums before evenly remarking, "It's a shame you would live in sin by moving in together before getting married—"

"Well we've been living in sin since the night I picked him up at an embassy event, so there's not much sinning left to do but to shack up together," you barb cavalierly and smile proudly at her.

Javier's internally jaw-dropped at your answer while your grandmother amusedly shakes her head at you before patting her sister-in-law on the shoulder and musing, "She's only teasing you, dear. And anyway, these are different times and they're quite grown enough to live together," she pauses to look between you and Javi curtly as she pipes, "Just as long as you take care of each other and love one another, I'm glad for it."

Deciding that's the best way to end breakfast, you primly announce you and Javi should be heading out to the airport and say your goodbyes to your aunt before your grandmother sees you and Javi out.

You say your farewells, and when you hug her, she snickers, "You're such a provocadora! Teasing your tía that way, just to be an alborotadora—"

"I was just stating facts! I didn't say anything that wasn't true," you glibly retort, winking deviously before you kiss her cheek. "Love you. I'll call you later!"

Javi shakes his head sardonically at you and hugs your grandmother tight before pecking her cheek sweetly and smiling when she squeezes him and whispers conspiratorially, "Watch out for my little troublemaker, mijo."

"I will," he promises and follows after you. She watches from the porch as you both get in your rental and pull away with a parting wave.

"You technically fibbed back there, querida," Javi rumbles as he drives out of the neighborhood, giving you a sidelong glance when you hum in question. "The one who did the picking up that night was me," is his cocky charge.

"Well, maybe technically. But I did trip on the top step running up that morning because I got distracted checking you out," you admit without an ounce of shame as you comb your hair behind your ear and give him a flirty look before sticking your tongue out at him, snickering, "Not to mention burned my damn hand with the coffee for the trouble. If that hadn't happened, you wouldn't have thought you could pick me up that night. So, that was all me who initiated it."

Javier gapes at your rationale before a slow, pleased smirk crests his handsome features. "Well, shit. How can I argue with that," is his charming drawl as he winks at you.

You both make it to the airport with plenty of time to drop off the rental car, check in and get your boarding passes. Over an hour and a half later, you're both landing in Bogotá, and driving to the office in Javier's SUV, with no one the wiser that you two had absconded out of town together, save for Ellis.

"Can we spend the night at my place? I want to do laundry and water the plants," you ask Javi as he pulls into the embassy's underground garage and backs into a parking spot.

"Sure. Call me when you're ready to leave," he rasps in a smooth gravelly tone and leans over to kiss you chastely on the lips once he's turned the engine off and taken his seatbelt off. "Grab dinner on the way home?"

You nod and affectionately comb your fingers through his wayward wisps of hair that are curling over his forehead, brushing them back for him. "Love you, chulito," is your affectionate purr before you undo your seatbelt and collect your things.

But before you can hop out of the car, Javi pulls you close and murmurs, "Love you too, mi media naranjita." He brushes his lips over yours, and you melt despite how corny you should find the affectionate term.

Javi fondly watches you go as you strut across the parking level towards the building, waiting a few minutes before exiting his SUV to go in. By the time he's getting off the elevator on his floor, you're getting comfy in your desk chair as you boot up your laptop.

You're pleased to see an email from Francesca assuring you she made it home ok, and once you've closed it out, you spot a confirmation email that you quickly skim and get a cool sense of satisfaction over before closing out your personal email account and logging into your work one while you reach into your purse and pull out the apartment listings you wanted to make appointments to tour.

While you call the first listing on your cell phone, an exhilarating sense of hope settles in your chest, leaving you buzzing and eager to move forward on building the life with Javi that you're both on the same page about wanting together.

Little do you know how much of that will fall apart before it ever had a chance to form.

But, for now, you look forward to it, with heart in hand and mind clear of any doubts.

________________

Read Chapter 35: Spoil

Spanish-English Glossary:

Cariño = Darling/sweetheart

Querida = Affectionate term for a female, akin to expressing one's want and desire

Fresco = a guy who's being 'fresh', or naughty/pervy

Criticona = critical woman; hypercritical; nit-picker

Hermosa/hermoso = beautiful (female); beautiful (male)

Bravita= Tough girl; feisty girl

Chavón = a man that's pestering you

Canela = Cinnamon 

Malvadita = Wicked little girl

Prima = Cousin (female)

Tía = Aunt

'Buela = short for 'abuela', aka grandmother

Lindita = little cutie; pretty little girl

Gatita = Little kitten

Bien chingona y malvadita = Real badass and wicked (woman)

Gruñón = Grumpy man

Corazón = Heart; pet name to signify how deeply you love someone

Mi amor = My love

Preciosa = Gorgeous; precious

Guapita = sassy/foxy/daring/testy (female)

Tiernita = Tender little girl

Chulo/Chulito = Cute guy; little cutie

Viejera = Old relic; something very dated

Sin pantaletas = Without skivvies/panties

Beyako = Puerto Rican slang for horny/naughty guy; akin to "horn dog"

Fresco = a guy who's being 'fresh', or naughty/pervy

Guerillera = Guerrilla fighter (woman)

Le diste plomo al asesino cabrón ese. Acabaste con ellos. Ahora, te toca estar bien, mi amor = You took out that fucking murderous asshole. You finished them off. Now, it's your time to be all right, my love

Bravita = Tough girl; feisty girl

Bien guapísimo = Super handsome

Pórtate bien = Be good/Behave

Cristo amado = Christ beloved

Iglesia's = Church

Ay bendito, que carita = Oh, blessed simple soul, what a [cute] face

Copita de vino = A small cup of wine

Lindita = little cutie; pretty little girl

Mijo = short for "mi hijo", a term of endearment akin to "my son/sonny"

Merenguero = Expert at menrengue dancing

Cojones = Balls; guts

Celoso = Jealous (man)

Lambe ojo = Puerto Rican slang for a kiss-up; aka an ass kisser who's charming someone to get their way or be well-liked

Te tengo que entrenar = I gotta train you

Perrear = Doing it doggystyle, aka referring to sex

Beyaquito = Little naughty perv

Compa = Short for 'compadre', which is a term of friendship and mutual attachment, usually through marriage or baptism

Bebito = Little baby (male)

Mi cariñito = My sweet little darling

Jesucristo amado = Beloved Jesus Christ

Mi vida = My life

Hasta mi alma también = To my soul too

Chavón = a man that's pestering you 

Provocadora = Provoker (female)

Alborotadora = Troublemaker (female)

Mi media naranjita = Coloquial term for 'you're my other half', but said in the diminutive with affection

Thanks for reading! Please consider leaving a comment and sharing your feedback. I would be eternally grateful. 

[furious-rogue-stuff]

Heat Chapter 33: Amor

Hello, my dears! Sorry for the long lapse in posting, but I’m back with a mega pint of a chapter (yes, I said it. Sue me) that I hope will make up for the lull. 

Pairing: Javier Peña x OFC | Javi x Querida

Disclaimer: Written in 2nd person narrative, you can safely assume our heroine and love/lust interest is a Latina, written by a Latina. Here's my philosophy on my writing, for further context.

Rating: Mature/Explicit 🔞

Word Count: 21,500+

Summary: After a perilous event, you and Javi find solace in the respite of being together amongst a surprising support system. But when it's time to confront truths, will you both be able to protect each other and stay grounded in the love that tethers you together?

Warnings: Javier Peña being the ultimate BAE. Graphic descriptions of sex, including explicit depictions of oral (m+f receiving) and unprotected sex. Mentions of hurt/comfort, emotional trauma, toxic coping mechanisms, and suppressed feelings. Descriptions of raunchy behavior, light dom/sub play, cum play, size kink, praise kink, and dirty talk. Allusions to triggering events, foreboding threats, and psychological trauma. Some Protective!Javi, Dom! Javi, Sub!Javi, Sub!Reader, Wrathful!Javi. In the vein of Narcos being a bilingual show, and Javier Peña being fluent, I felt it was apropos to include Spanglish and Spanish throughout.

Heat Masterlist

Previous chapter -  Chapter 32: Daze

Chapter 33: Amor

When you next wake, you can tell it's around the time that lavender haze of twilight starts to pale into early dawn. You lie there for a bit and just enjoy the tranquility, still enveloped by the warmth of being in the small bed together while the fresh air of early morning filters in through the windows. His scent – masculine yet softened by fragrant soap – chastens the small tremor of anxiety that bubbled up as your mind recalled everything that had happened the day before. You want to curl into him and forget it, but know you can't get caught in bed together lest you want to get a scolding from your grandmother, so you decide you have to part with the solace of being snuggled up with him.

Javi is sleeping so soundly that you're able to easily shimmy out from under his hold and tuck the covers back around his shoulders without stirring him. He looks so serene, and it makes something tickle in the back of your breastbone – gazing down at him like this. It's hard to believe that at one point, he'd just been el guapo descarado to you. And now? He's the man you love and want to cherish, having become the most important person in your life, whom you feel the safest with. It's a dizzying realization – to feel like this, to be in love so completely, and to not be afraid of it.

I never want to be without him.

The fawning thought has you feeling a fizzling glee bubble up in you, and before you let it carry you away on some enamored flight of fancy, you sneak out of the bedroom and tiptoe back into the one right across the hall. You quickly change into a comfy sweatshirt and matching pair of baggy joggers, go to the restroom, wash your face and brush your teeth, then go busy yourself in the kitchen. By the time your grandmother enters a few minutes later, you've peeled and cut a nice assortment of fruits that sit in a bowl on the counter, and are currently chopping the onions, bell peppers and tomatoes for the huevos pericos you decided to make.

"You're up early!" she jovially marvels and ambles over to affectionately hug you, kissing you on the cheek before she begins to muse, "Go sit—"

"I want to cook. Can you supervise? I'm going to try and make your pandebonos," you gently insist and declare, smiling reassuringly at her.

She nods, impressed, and goes to put out all the ingredients you'll need for the temperamental treats. "I'll start the coffee," she announces as she grabs the kettle pieces.

"Can you show me how to prep the cafetera?" you request as you place the chopped ingredients aside. "I can never get it right. Coffee comes out tasting burnt or with grounds in it," you sorely grumble as you stand next to her at the counter.

She seems pleasantly surprised by your interest. After all, every time before she'd tried to show you, you'd dismissed that she made the coffee best anyway. Impish, she lilts, "Seems someone has inspired your urges for domesticity."

Snickering, you surprise her yet again by remarking simply, "Seems he has."

She smiles beamingly and contains her impulse to barrage you with questions in order to instead show you the expert way to brew the perfect coffee using the old-school stove kettle. The neighborhood rooster is crowing distantly while she stands next to you at the sink and shows you how to measure the amount of water to pour into the base. "See the stopper here? It shouldn't go beyond this point." She then grabs the can of coffee and measures out the grounds before displaying the way to scoop and put the coffee into the metal basket, emphasizing that you should not press down on it. "—You just need to brush off the excess with the sweep of your finger, and then you can place it in," she instructs as she shows you, then hands the base and top for you to screw on and place on the stove. "Then, you just listen for it to brew, and mind keeping it on the burner for too long. You then want to set it aside to cool."

Once you've followed all the steps and have the coffee kettle cooling on the back of the stove, she sits at the table and watches you shred the cheese for the pandebonos, instructing you on how to sift it, then the right mixture of the harinas to use; the blend of salt and sugar needed; the ground cheese and egg you need to add in before you whisk; how much milk you should include and the butter needed before mixing it all up into the dough you'll need to let rest. Once it's set aside, you butter the pan for the juevos pericos and place the chopped veggies in before making a cup of coffee for your abuela, who is watching you intently now.

You sense it. It's been long enough, and you are rescind to it, so you place the cup in front of her with the sugar bowl and a spoon for her before returning to the stove.

"What happened yesterday…that was no mistake. Those men grabbed you with care, yes, but it was obvious they hadn't mistaken you for someone else. What was all of that about?"

It takes you a moment to collect your thoughts, so you use that time to tend to the eggs in the pan. "I'm not entirely sure—"

"Don't lie to me."

You turn to glance at her, and see she's sternly eyeing you. She hasn't even touched her coffee, and her eyes are flaring with worry.

"'Buela…it's best I don't tell you. Everything is sorted and that will never happen again—" you begin to mollify.

"What does Javier really do," she queries suddenly, eyes narrowing sharply on you when you press your lips together and turn away. "Lindita, I had the fright of my life yesterday. As soon as I got home, I ran to find his number, and within hours he was here. He went off with that officer, and within no time, he was bringing you home," she narrates firmly, and you switch the stove off and set the pan aside to turn and face her. "That is not something just anyone at an embassy can do. What does he really do?"

Sighing, you idly grab a dishtowel and start wringing it in your hands, trying to quell the nervous energy as you calmly parcel out, "Javier works for the DEA. When we met, he was a field agent. He and his partner helped take down the Medellín cartel. Since then, he was promoted to be the DEA country attaché. He runs the DEA here in Colombia, and for obvious reasons, I wanted to keep all of that private."

While you told her, your grandmother's expression shuttered in, becoming stoic as she absorbed the details and formulated conclusions of her own.

"I thank God for him. But, if you're in any danger, because of what he does," she begins to ruminate out loud, and when you tense, she pauses, clarifying, "If you both are in danger, I don't think I could bare it. Is this really something you've considered? That you've really thought about? The risk to him and to you?"

You are resolutely clear as the answer springs up in you. "Yes. We've talked about this – what it means for each of us, and the way we would need to go about things. Since we first started seeing each other, it's always been a concern and something Javi and I have been mindful to protect against. Yesterday was a fluke – something completely random and I was in no way in true danger. I don't want you to worry," you state with sincerity as you go to sit with her at the kitchen table. You take her hand and squeeze when she frowns apprehensively. "I promise, we're not in danger. I trust Javi with my life. All he's ever done is protect me, and gone out of his way to make sure I'm safe. I love him, and…he loves me. We'll take care of each other, and I'll be much more careful. So please, don't worry about us."

She lets out a shaky sigh before patting her other hand over yours – effectively clasping it in her warm, strong hold. "Well then…can I look forward to helping plan another wedding soon?" she chimes eagerly, and you scoff and hang your head, shaking it amusedly. "I'm not getting any younger, lindita!"

Before you can answer, you look over your shoulder towards the entry of the kitchen when you hear a familiar sound – the rattle of the band of Javi's watch as he absently shakes it on his wrist to settle it comfortably in place after he's clasped it on. Just then, he rounds the corner and enters from the hall. He's fully dressed, wearing a pair of his perfect dark blue jeans, a well-worn pair of leather boots, and a tucked in, off-white-colored, short-sleeved snap-buttoned shirt with breast pockets. His hair is brushed, face clean-shaven – save for his handsomely trimmed moustache, and he looks sheepish as he comes in and sees you both looking over at him, as if you'd both conjured him and were pleased with the results.

"Uh…buenos días," he remarks innocently, and you squint your eyes at him, not believing his 'oh, I just waltzed in unaware of what you're talking about' airs, but say nothing as you stand and gesture for him to sit down. "Mornin', ma'am," he leans over and kisses your grandmother on the cheek before sitting in the chair you've vacated, smiling when you place a cup of coffee in front of him and peck him on the lips chastely. His eyes get a little molten when he recognizes the sweatshirt you're wearing as the same one you'd had on when he'd stormed into your place and fucked you into oblivion and back not so long ago. Affectionately looping his arm around your waist to give your hip a squeeze, he rumbles, "You should've woken me to help with breakfast—"

"Oh, quit it with the boy scout routine, suavón," you snicker at him and cheekily caress his forearm before shying out of his embrace. "I'll prep the dough once I finish getting ready, 'Buela," is your musing as you serve the eggs onto two plates and place them at the table for them, offering the cutlery and napkin to each before snickering, "Eat, and behave while I'm gone."

"Hah, sure, we will. Isn't that right, mijo?" your grandmother chuckles conspiratorially over at Javi, who shoots you a smug smirk.

"Ugh, you two are incorrigible…" you grumble humorously and lope out of the kitchen.

Javi snorts and looks over at your grandmother once he's sure he's heard you shut the bathroom door at the end of the hall. "All right, bust out that photo album for me?" he petitions and bounces his brows charmingly.

Gleefully, your grandmother hops up and goes to retrieve it. While she's gone, he takes a long sip of the coffee, smiling at how great it tastes, going down smoother knowing that you brewed it.

Yep, he'd been listening. When he'd woken up thanks to the crow of the rooster in the back neighbor's yard, Javi had jerked up in bed, looking around the room and trying to get his bearings before awareness set in. At not finding you in bed with him, he'd gotten up and silently opened the door to the bedroom in order to peek out and see if you'd gone to sleep in the other room. Hearing your voices, he'd tiptoed down and stayed tucked against the hallway's wall, listening to you be walked through how to prep the kettle. Smiling, Javier had wandered back to the room, grabbed his things, and gone to take a quick shower. After he'd finished dressing and went to get his boots and belt on once he'd stored his things in the duffle, he'd stealthily returned to the eavesdropping stop in the hall, expecting to hear you both pleasantly chatting.

He instead heard your grandmother pressing you for answers. Worriedly, he expected you to shut her down and possibly end up in a reticent standoff with her. So, when you'd just sincerely answered her and made it clear how you feel, Javi had felt punch-drunk. So much so, he vacantly clasped his watch on and realized his mistake the moment he'd shaken his wrist to settle it into place. He'd had no choice but to lope in and feign like he'd not been eavesdropping.

Having heard what you'd said had left him feeling charged and worthy. It was a dazzling feeling to hear you speak so matter-of-factly to someone else about what you feel for each other. Made it feel like something precious that he was proud to flaunt, and hearing you not immediately shut down your grandmother after her wily remark had cemented his hopes – that 'not being the marrying kind' was a status in flux for you both now.

As you shower, the thought of that wily question makes you tingle a little. You need to take it one step at a time. Things are still tumultuous. You literally got kidnapped yesterday. Thinking about running down the aisle? Really? Javi wants to get a place with you. Be content with that for now and stop thinking irrationally.

With that scolding, you dry off, get dressed, and lope down to return to the kitchen, expecting to find the two of them finishing their coffees.

You instead find Javi perusing your abuela's photo album while she's at the stove, prepping the baking tray and preheating the oven.

"Why?!" you admonish, glowering huffily at the two of them. "I literally told you two to behave, and here's this one looking at my embarrassing pictures and you at the stove?!"

"I'm only prepping! I haven't even touched the dough," she defends, adding comically, "He asked me to get the album!"

Javi gives you both a wide-eyed gape, feeling thrown to the wolves. He sits back in the chair and gives you a puppy-eyed once over, admiring your flirty purple tunic dress with a keyhole cutout at the bust and a gold-print embroidered along the bottom hem and elbow-length sleeves. When you narrow your eyes at him, he just shrugs. "I regret nothing."

You snicker and shake your head, relenting, "Fine, malvadito. Go ahead and get a gander. I'll remember this when I have a chance to pester your father for photo albums!"

The three of you settle into a jovial banter as your grandmother shows you how to roll the dough into little bundles and place them on the parchment paper-lined baking tray. Once said tray is slid into the oven, she excuses herself to go get freshened up for the day, remarking, "Don't be surprised if that crew from yesterday come over later!" as she hurries out of the kitchen, intent to give you two some privacy.

"Told you," you chortle to him after you've loped back over to sit at the table with him after you washed your hands and dried them.

Javi snickers and tows you over to him before you get to the vacant chair. He hugs you, resting his forehead to just below your sternum, and inhales your perfumed scent. "You haven't eaten. Sit and relax," he murmurs before guiding you onto his lap.

You smile and loop your arms around his neck, leaning into him. "You just want to keep looking at the photo album, don't yah," you mumble against his neck.

He chuckles and nods, kissing your temple before nuzzling into your hair. You pivot to get comfy on his lap and begin to eat the food that's left on his plate. Relaxed, you manage to keep an eye on the oven as he flips through pages of the album, admiring the black and white portraits, sepia-toned snapshots, and yellowed prints of relatives from far back until he flips to the photos of a woman who looks so much like you, yet different. She's gorgeous, seeming to glow with a vibrancy and convivial aura that radiate through her lovely smile. When he glances at you, he sees you looking fondly at the photo of your mother, expression softening as you think back at how she looked in your dream that time.

When Javi flips onto the page with your parents' wedding photo, he takes time to catalogue it. Your parents are posing as tradition would call for: Stoic, albeit embracing and looking young and hopeful. She looks ethereal in her demure wedding gown and lace veil while your father is dressed sharp, shoes polished and hair brushed back. You hum and flip the page over for him, grumbling, "Might as well get to the cringe-worthy photos and get it over with."

The album at this point is cluttered with your baby pictures, and Javi delights in seeing you look like a cherubic infant, a bright-smiling toddler, and then a sprite-eyed hellion. When he'd last gotten a peek at the album, your grandmother had flipped it to your school photo section, which he turns onto now and grins. "How wicked were you in this photo," he chuckles, snickering when you roll your eyes. "Be honest, preciosa."

"I was pretty bad, yes," you chime sardonically, looking down at your younger self with the blunt bangs and long pigtails, wearing the green plaid jumper and yellow puffy-sleeved blouse. "I was annoyed that day. It was my first semester in the school in Virginia, and my mother made me wear this stupid jumper for the school photo. I walked out of it in a sulk and some boys ran up to tease me over my clothes, and one of them pulled on my pigtail, and I ran after him and started beating him up."

Javi laughs out, picturing the little girl in the photo going ballistic on a kid in a school hallway. He has to bury his face in the back of your shoulder to keep from guffawing when you scrunch up your face in disdain at his reaction. "Keep laughing, jodón. I cannot wait to get my hands on your baby pictures," you declare and wiggle daringly in his lap, forcing him to encircle an arm around your waist to pin you into place.

"Yeah, yeah, bravita. Mine are nowhere near as cute as yours," he taunts as he flips onto the next page and sees a picture of you holding your baby cousin in your arms. He smiles at how excitedly grinning you are in the photo cuddling the baby close to your chest.

You'd told him once about the brother that you almost had. How excited you'd been as a little girl, and how confused you'd been when your father had packed up the blue baby things and donated them.

"Oh! Let me check the oven," you suddenly pipe and climb off his lap, but not before wiggling your backside against his crotch one more time.

He gives you a surly grunt and provocative look as you innocently saunter to the stove and open the oven, inspecting the golden brown, puffed up breads. Pleased, you get the mittens and retrieve the tray, setting it onto the stovetop and shutting the oven closed and off. By then, your grandmother has sauntered back in, dressed in a pleated long skirt and a nice blouse and cardigan set.

"Ah, they came out lovely! Good job, mija," she praises as she peeks at the tray.

"Gotta see if they taste as good as yours first," you remark as you grab the kettle and pour yourself a cup.

Once they're cool enough, you each have one, and at Javi humming with gusto and your grandmother chewing with her eyes smiling approvingly? You bite into yours and are content. Soon enough, Javi's had three more with another cup of coffee as you chat about the upcoming wedding.

Frowning, you lament, "Oh, we didn't get to shop for dresses!"

"Well, maybe we could go today—"

A loud knocking coming from the front door interrupts the conversation, and you and your grandmother exchange duo looks of reluctance when your aunt calls through the door, "Hello! We brought food, comadre!"

Pursing your lips comically, you follow your grandmother out to answer the door while Javi sneaks another pandebono and munches on it before going to join you.

As promised, your aunt, cousin and Miguel are at the door with all sorts of goodies, and after everyone exchanges greetings, mother and daughter set up shop in the kitchen to start making lunch. Javi's eyes are twinkling at the prospect of being spoiled silly today with all the great food, and claps Miguel on the back good-naturedly when he covertly shows him a peek at the bottle of whiskey he's carrying along with the six-pack of beers.

"—My parents might be stopping by to say hello too," he declares over all the chatter in the kitchen, and your grandmother decides to send you to her pantry for supplies while the stove is taken up for empanada making.

By the time they're coming out of the frying pan, the impromptu gathering has increased with the arrival of your cousin's soon-to-be in-laws, so you go to set up some foldout chairs and open the back and front door to let the air circulate. Javi carries the chairs and helps you set them out, and quickly ends up being talked up by everyone. After all, they're eager to get to know him, being the first man you've ever brought around, and while your grandmother agreed to keep Javi's job a secret, you're concerned your aunt and cousin will broach the line of questioning they'd been forced to abandon the evening prior. Luckily, though, they seem too swept up in chatter about the wedding, so you are happy to sit and have girl talk while your grandmother hands a platter stacked with empanadas to the men, the rest of the cold beers in the fridge, and dutifully tells them to park in the living room.

Miguel, his father, and youngest brother sit around chatting with Javi about soccer teams, and after a while of that, they end up moving out to the front porch, where Miguel sets up a domino table so they can all play. You check on him by peering out the screen door, watching how he laughs at jokes and listens to Miguel explain the promotion he got. Once the proper early dinner is ready, you call them in and everyone squeezes in around the kitchen table, merrily conversing. Your aunt asks Javi where he's from, and once he answers, he elaborates that his people came from Tamaulipas and over generations moved north into Texas. They listen to him talk about Laredo, laugh at his jokes about being the last single cousin standing, and enjoy the PG-version of the story he and Miguel tell of how they'd first met.

"—Needless to say, I owed him an apology. I'm lucky you didn't slug me for it," Javi is quipping before taking a pull from his beer bottle.

"Honestly? I was so confused and off-guard, it didn't even occur to me," Miguel snickers and glowers when his brother face palms. "What?! You did not see this dude! He looked ready to toss me across the club—"

"Ay, what an exaggerator you are!" your cousin snipes sarcastically and nudges her shoulder into his side while Javi tucks his chin to hide his meek smirk when you affectionately squeeze his thigh under the table.

When he looks at you, he sees the smolder in your eyes, and has to stifle his reaction as your hand glides up to rub up along his inner thigh, achingly close to his crotch.

You can't help it. Watching him being so warm and charismatic? Jovial and open with your family? How he smiles and laughs with cool ease, treating them like he's known them for ages? It turns you on. This whole effortless, domestic respite with him has you yearning, thinking things you never have, and wanting him with a ridiculous intensity that has your thighs clenching, your pussy throbbing to be his.

Obviously, though, there is no opportunity for you to drag him away and just get ravished like you're desperate for, but it doesn't mean you can't shoot lustful glances his way and wickedly delight in how he blushes and tries to keep his features cool and unruffled.

After dinner, you help make some buñuelos and a fresh brew of coffee, enjoying how everyone hangs out in the living room and talk more about the wedding next Sunday. You tell your cousin that since you didn't get to do a bridal shower, you'd be booking a hotel room for all of you to use to get ready for the ceremony, and she beams, gushing about how she can have her beautician friends set up there for hair and makeup. Talk goes to how Miguel proposed, and you're grinning as she makes him get all flustered by detailing it unabashedly before dramatically flapping her hand to show off her engagement ring. You've seen it earlier in the week, but snicker when his mother beams about how nervous he'd been, and how he'd asked her and his three sisters to go with him to help pick out the perfect anillo.

Javi watches with bated breath as your cousin takes the ring off and hands it to you so you can see the engraving he'd had set within the band. Smiling when you see it's her and Miguel's first initials, you're about to hand it back when she cajoles you to try it on. He can't help size up how you and your cousin have similarly tapered fingers and dainty hands, so he's disappointed when you roll your eyes and shake your head. "—It's bad luck to have someone else put on your engagement ring!" you tell her before handing it back.

Before Javi can internally brood, Miguel signals for the men to leave you all to gab about the wedding by flashing the whiskey bottle in the paper bag in his hands and gesturing with a tip of his head to return to the domino table outside. You smirk, shooting Javi another heated look of desire, which causes him to mouth, 'Behave.'

Talk of the plans for next Saturday lead to detailing final arrangements needed, agreeing on who will be cooking what for the reception, transportation to and from, and tentative ideas for the honeymoon. Once your cousin has shown you the colors she'll use for the bridesmaids dresses, you gasp, remembering the glass terrariums in the back of your car. With car keys in hand, you go out to the porch and ask Javi if he can come with you to retrieve them from the hatchback.

"I'll get 'em. You stay inside," he rumbles and plucks the keys from your hand before stealing a kiss from your lips. "I can manage it, querida."

Pursing your lips at him, you relent and wink. "I'm sure you can, stud," you remark conversationally so the other men on the porch don't get clued in, but Javi's eyes flash with something incandescent at the way you enunciate 'stud' with an alluring bat of your lashes. He grunts and gives you a look that promises 'You're gonna get it, naughty girl,' before he strides off on his errand.

The minute you're back inside, though, all the women zero in on you. Uh oh…

"So, how serious are you two?"

"Pretty serious if he was willing to thrash Miguel for dancing with her, I'd say."

"Oh, he seems like such a gentleman! I'm sure they were just exaggerating. He is smitten with you, though, so can we expect to be right back here, planning another wedding soon?"

"I'd say before any of that, he'd have to meet your father and ask his permission," your aunt remarks and eyes your grandmother, who shakes her head sardonically at the whole exchange. "I remember distinctly how impressed my brother was when he was asked for his blessing. Your father was chivalrous and respectful when he asked, and I would assume he expects nothing less from your suitor, dear."

You try to respectfully not scoff at your aunt as you lean back in your chair and deflect, "I'm not on speaking terms with my father, as you well know, so there's no concern—"

"Ah! So you're saying you'd be the 'marrying kind' for him, eh?" your cousin cuts in, impishly.

Giving her a mocking glare, you snipe, "I didn't say that at all. I'm just saying that if I was, my father's approval is not a necessity—"

"But it's so nice for a man to ask his intended's father for permission. I know it's old fashioned, but I think it's very meaningful. Shows that he respects you and your family enough to ask for their blessing," Miguel's mother pipes up before sipping from her cup of coffee.

"Well, the only family I care about is right here. So, would he have your blessing?" you glance at your grandmother, cousin and aunt pointedly.

"Oh, that's not how that works—" your aunt begins to caveat.

"He has mine!" your cousin interrupts before drawling, "Ma, c'mon. Miguel asked you for permission. Are you saying that it's not the same because Papi wasn't around to be asked?"

"N-No, not at all. I'm just saying if your father was still with us, well, it would be meaningful for him to have given his blessing," she argues back.

"Well, regardless. He has my blessing, lindita. And for what you may feel about your father, I know that it would mean the world to him to have the opportunity to give his blessing and walk you down the aisle," your grandmother hits you with the sincere musing, smiling warmly as you wilt into your chair, expression stubbornly etched in a glower.

Before you can get bogged down with the sentiments cloying up in you for attention, Javi opens the screen door and fumbles in with the bags, mindful of the glass but also not wanting to kick at the door to stay open. You rush to aid him, taking the bags from him and thanking him before he glances over at the pregnant glances he's getting from the other women. Before it can get any more obvious, you shoo him back outside and take the bags over to the kitchen as you tell your cousin, "Come look at these! I think with the sea-glass and shells, we could make really pretty table arrangements."

As they all go to follow you, Javi sits back down at the domino table and takes a deep swallow of his whiskey before noticing Miguel eyeing him knowingly.

Yep. He'd heard all of that, and Miguel had watched him loiter on the stoop, listening, before he made his way up and feigned like he'd just walked back from the car. "She's tough, man. And I've never met her father, but my girl's told me stories. He's an intense dude," Miguel remarks, and his brother and father intriguingly ask him to elaborate. "I only mean he's a big shot. U.S. Navy guy. Used to be on that special team? The ones they send behind enemy lines—"

"Navy Seals," Javi offers with a nod, thanking the younger brother for topping his glass off.

"Yeah! Like, super tough, cutthroat and serious guy. Went on tons of missions, got all these awards for bravery and stuff. But I don't know, they just don't get along. He calls every major holiday, when he knows she's here with family, but she refuses to talk to him," Miguel explains to his father and brother.

Javi knows all this, and simply sips his drink. The mystique of your father is something he's rarely broached, mindful of what he does know to respect that it's something you will talk about if you feel like it. He knows what happened years ago – the devastating grief you went through when you lost your mother, how you blame your father for it, and ultimately, how resentful you are by how he picked up and seemingly moved on with his life not soon after. The entire aftermath of what happened with that bastard Roman only strained your relationship further, leaving it in tatters, of which you had no interest in repairing.

Still, it was a new wrinkle in things. If your family felt it was the right thing to go to the man for his permission and blessing in asking for your hand in marriage, Javi felt it was something he needed to do. And while you might have walls up against the man, he had no reason to hate or shun your father, and wondered how you would feel if he expressed interest in meeting him.

Before his train of thought could run away with him, the arrival of three other women who share a resemblance pulls him away, and Miguel jumps up to greet them, introducing Javi to his sisters in turn. At the new arrivals, you all go out to say hello and invite them in for dinner. They're each carrying big baskets filled with assortments of viandas and some fruits from their humble backyard fincas. Each hands over the bounties to your grandmother and aunt as gifts, and both beam at the offerings before eagerly parceling things out evenly between them.

"—Lindita, can you take these and store them in the shed out back? They'll keep perfect there in the coolness and shade," your abuela asks and directs, and you grab one of the bags, glance at Javi, and deliberately leave the other on the counter, hoping he'll take the hint.

He most definitely does, and grabs the bag when everyone is preoccupied in the living room now, before he follows the path you took out the back door. It's now late in the day, with dusk cresting over the neighborhood and the clime becoming a pleasant chill. He makes it out the back patio and glances out at the nice and appointed backyard, spotting the shed in question tucked against the back corner, near the shadier side of the property, and across from the herb garden.

Javier traverses the grass and finds the shed open, with the single bulb on, but no you.

The bag you'd brought is on the long workbench tucked against the wall, so he lopes in and places the one he's carrying next to it. The shift of the air when the door closes behind him surprises Javi. That is, until he hears your footsteps come up behind him from where you'd been tucked hidden on the other side of the open door before you loop your arms around his waist and lean into him.

"I'm sorry for all the hubbub," you murmur into his back, smiling when he scoffs and turns easily in your arms so he can hold you and gaze affectionately down into your sultry expression.

"Don't be silly. I've had a great time," he chuckles, intending to pull you along to go back to the house, when you resist, surprising him when you suddenly press him back against the workbench. "Querida—"

"Shush. I've been dying to do this since yesterday," you growl as you fist your hand in the back of his hair and tug him down to meet your hungry kiss.

Torridly, you press flush against him, twirling your tongue lasciviously along his, drinking his groan of desire and becoming alight when his hands paw you into his embrace.

Javi gasps when you nip at his bottom lip and arch for more, so he picks you up and sits you on top of the workbench to stand between your open legs before wrapping his arms around your lower back to yank you flush against him in order to kiss a searing path from your mouth to your clavicle. You grip at his shoulders and mewl, angling your pelvis to the edge of the counter and grinding against the front of his jeans.

"F-Fuck, cariño, we can't," he groans and leans back, sparing a frantic look backward to make sure no one can see or hear you two – as if they could through the closed door. You protest and pull him into you, suckling a kiss into the column of his neck and pawing your hands down his sides to the front of his waist before tugging on his belt. "Mmph, baby—" he begins to warn in a husky grouse, but you kiss him, lips beseeching and sensual as they worship his own and coax him back into the heated make-out session.

When you try to resume unbuckling his belt, Javi stops you once again, so you whine in protest and break the kiss. "I want you," you heatedly murmur and wrap your legs around him. "Please, Javi—"

"Jesus fucking Christ, I want you too. But we can't—" he begins to grumble, just as worked up, but halts when you lean back and give him a scintillating stare as you take his hand at your waist and guide it to feel between your thighs. "S-Shit, mi amor," he groans when his fingers rub along the crotch of your panties, finding them soaked through with your arousal. "You're so fucking wet," is his growl as he keeps touching you over the drenched fabric, which has you biting your lip to stifle a needy mewl. "You…you're gonna be a good girl, and just let me get you off. Then, we're going back to the house and you will behave the rest of the night," he's assertively instructing as he nuzzles along your neck, suckling a teasing path down to your chest, where he rests his forehead and sighs when you whimper in protest. "It's that, or I stop."

Squirming, you plant your hands down on the workbench and nod vigorously in assent. Javi surprises you by yanking you off the counter and spinning you around to brace your front over his forearm to rest on the workbench, while his other hand rucks the crotch of your panties aside and cups your warm, tingling pussy. He hitches himself against you from behind, so you can feel how rock-hard he is for you in his jeans, and proceeds to finger-fuck you. His thick digits plunge into your throbbing cunt and the pad of his thumb seats itself over your aching clit while he greedily kisses you over your shoulder in order to smother your whimpers and cries of pleasure.

At the mercy of him in this position – standing on your leather-flat-clad tippy toes and braced forward against the surface of the workbench, hands splayed out in front of you for purchase. Not to mention with Javi's hard-on rutting against your ass – you're quickly worked into a frenzy that has you careening towards climax. And when it hits after he corkscrews his fingers into your rippling sheath and curves them simultaneously with the grind of his thumb on your clit, you shatter with pleasure, gasping a sob of ecstasy as Javi makes you come all over his hand.

He prolongs yours bliss with his fingers working in and out of your tingling cunt until you go lax in his embrace and he has to hold you from melting onto your knees on the plank floor.

"Got you, mi corazón. I've got you," he coos before he kisses you back to your senses. "Now, I'm going to take care of you, then you're going to be good for me and come back to the house, right?"

You dimly nod and obediently turn around in his arms, leaning against the workbench so he can right your appearance. He rucks your panties back into place, pets your hair out of your face and back over your shoulders, and stands back from you to palm the crotch of his jeans before adjusting himself to not be obviously sporting a boner when he walks back into the house. As he does so, he judiciously sucks his fingers clean of your slick and laves his tongue along his palm until he's sure he can wipe it on the taut denim of his thigh without risking leaving an unseemly stain.

Satisfied, he herds you close, nuzzling a loving kiss into your temple before affectionately patting your ass and husking, "Alright, you go in first. I'll be right behind you, hermosa."

You dreamily smile up at him and steal one last luscious kiss from his full, pillowed lips before opening the shed door and flouncing out, crossing the ample yard and trotting up to the patio. Javi watches you go, internally swearing that you're going to be the death of him – either from how deeply he loves you, or from the insane case of blue balls he now has. Grunting to himself, he switches the bulb off and walks out, closing the shed behind himself.

When he looks at his watch, he times that the entire tryst took maybe fifteen minutes, and hopes it wasn't long enough of an absence to have been noticed. His cock is aching in his jeans – face feeling hot in the cool evening air, and he's now craving a cigarette badly.

He sneaks back into the house and gets to the bedroom his duffle is in to rifle through it for the packet of nicotine gum he's sure he shoved into one of the pockets. He finds it in the second pocket he shoves his hand in. The first had your pilfered panties in it. He figures he'll need them later tonight, at the rate he's going. Returning to the living room, chewing the gum and nonchalantly slipping back into the amiable gathering, Javi finds you blithely sitting on the couch, talking to one of Miguel's sisters.

No one seems to have noticed you'd both slipped away, so he pleasantly chats the rest of the while with Miguel and the brother until the first of the wave of departures start. The sisters say goodnight, then Miguel's parents, and soon after, your aunt and cousin hug you tight and wish you a safe trip back.

"—See you next week, Javi! Be sure to keep my prima from getting kidnapped any more," your cousin cheekily demands as she hugs Javi before Miguel shakes his hand and claps him on the back in farewell.

"That's the plan," Javi quips, kissing your aunt on the cheek and wishing her a goodnight as well.

You snicker and wave goodbye, then shut the door and lock up before turning to catch your grandmother conspiratorially whispering something in Javier's ear, watching as his expression quirks with something akin to flustered guilt.

Arching a brow questioningly at them, you purse your lips when she sees she's caught. Your grandmother just adjusts her braid over her shoulder and declares, "Do an old woman a favor and tidy up? All this socializing has me tuckered out! I'm going to bed. See you both bright and early," then kisses Javi and you on the cheek goodnight before retiring to her bedroom down the hall.

Furrowing your brow at him, he rubs at the back of his neck bashfully, so you sigh and shake your head amusedly before chiming silkily, "Want to put away the chairs while I tackle the kitchen?"

Giving you a lopsided smirk, he nods, pecks you on the cheek, and pats you on the ass affectionately before rumbling, "Ándale, gatita."

You snicker and hop to it, shooting him a flirty glance over your shoulder as you saunter into the kitchen.

You've managed to scrub the pots and pans, washed and rinsed the utensils and plates, and are in the middle of finishing with all the cups and glasses when he lopes in and clocks in next to you, grabbing a dishtowel and working on drying everything requiring it before it gets stored in the cupboards. The house is quiet, save for the lulling breeze coming through the backdoor's screen and through the windows, so you are content to listen to the rustling of the trees and the soft chirp of the nocturnal animals humming through the neighborhood.

Once he's stored the last plate in the cabinet, Javi tosses his gum into the trash before pulling it out and knotting the bag to be chucked outside. When he comes back in from setting the garbage out, he finds you wiping down the counter and righting the chairs into alignment into the table. He takes the moment to watch you, content and unburdened by the usual stresses that plague him, and feeling miles away from what happened the day before. You were safe, vibrant and fucking sexy as you move around the kitchen, now storing the dishrag to drape over next to the sink while you tidy up the sugar and coffee containers back onto their cubby on the counter.

Smiling, you peek at him over your shoulder, making it clear with the alluring crinkle of your dazzling eyes that you knew he was there the whole time, just standing and gazing at you so.

"Well?" you query as you turn and lean back against the lip of the counter. When he grunts and crosses his arms to lean his shoulder coolly into the doorframe, you press, "What was she whispering in your ear, hmm?"

He nips at his bottom lip as he tucks his chin bashfully into his chest and peers over sheepishly at you with those coffee-brewed eyes of his. "She said that she'd been happy to run interference for us, and that we were lucky no one really noticed how smiley you were or how flushed I was from our trip to the shed," he tells you and self-consciously rubs his hand along his jaw. Eyes lighting up with mirth, you sputter to contain your giggles. "It's not funny, atrevida—"

"Aww, it's not?" you croon playfully as you strut over to lean into him, grinning when he grunts testily and seats his hands just above your hips. "Javier, if you've forgotten, we're grown adults. It's the 90's. She knows I have sex—"

"Cristo amado, preciosa. I know that, but c'mon, it's mortifying," is his surly grumble, and you amusedly caress your hands impishly up his chest to squeeze his shoulders. "Hey, I told you to behave."

"I am behaving," you counter, adding glibly, "I'm not pouncing on you. I want to climb you like a tree right now, but I'm behaving."

He blows a raspberry at that and shakes his head, smiling when you encircle your arms around his waist and hug him. Acerbically, he drawls, "We can't fool around in the house. No way I'm risking getting caught—"

"Oh my god, who knew you were so old-fashioned and traditional, not to mention so easy to embarrass," you tease, looping your arms around his shoulders now and wrinkling your nose goofily at him when he rolls his eyes snootily. "You're a shameless strumpet most days—"

"Strumpet?!" he sneers humorously, squinting down at your mischievous smile and squeezing your waist puckishly. "Alright, you're winding me up to get a rise out of me, but it ain't happening, burlona. Now, you done in here? Because we have a long-ass drive ahead of us tomorrow," Javi chidingly grouses, but there's no real edge to it, especially when you bat your lashes and dampen your lips sexily at him. "Well?" he drones, holding firm as he arches his brow and eyes you stubbornly.

With a dramatic huff, you step back and shut the kitchen light off. "Yes, gruñón. All done. I'm going to straighten things up in the living room. You go take a shower and unwind," you sigh and pleasantly caress his cheek before kissing him on the lips tenderly.

"Fine, but don't stay up too late," he purrs and nuzzles your jaw before pinching your waist lovingly.

You hum agreeably and nudge him along before strutting into the living room to right the cushions and move the coffee table back into alignment with the couch. Javi fondly watches you before forcing himself to go shower and get ready for bed.

He's been lying under the covers for a few minutes now, trying to control his libido and avoid succumbing to his horny needs. After all, he certainly doesn't feel right jerking off to get the release he's been aching for most of the night, and is mortified by the thought he could be walked in on. So, he's rubbing at his forehead and silently trying to conjure all the things that are a turn-off in an attempt to cool his arousal.

He hears the turn of the doorknob and the soft click, so he drops his hand from his forehead and glances over in time to see you breeze in and shut the door soundlessly. You're in that demure-yet-sexy nightgown, and it's the last thing he needs to see right now when he's grappling with his baser desires.

"Querida…" he begins to admonish, but when you turn to look at him, it's pure seduction in your eyes, and you smile angelically as you scamper over to the bed and begin to climb onto it. "…You…you're not behaving right now," he murmurs and begins to sit up, when you prowl over him and push him back down into the pillow. "We can't—"

"I know. We're not doing anything, hermoso," you whisper and brush your hand over his hair soothingly before caressing soft, petal-gentle kisses along his countenance as you susurrate, "I'm going to make you feel good. And you're going to be a good boy and let me take care of you, because you deserve it, and it makes me feel special to make you feel as good as you make me feel."

Javi lights up, stretching out under you and becoming pliant as you finally brush your lips over his. The amorous kiss and your sultry petition have him throbbing in his pajama bottoms, so you maneuver the covers over and straddle his thighs in order to worshipfully trail your lips down his torso towards the bulge beyond his waistband. His abs tense and a shaky hum catches in his chest when you swipe your tongue above his navel before pressing an open-mouth kiss over it.

Arching when you tug the waistband of his bottoms away to free his thick erection, Javi has to clamp his hand over his mouth to snuff his needy groan when your mouth begins mapping the underside of his cock. You suck on his frenulum, palming his steel-wrapped-in-velvet shaft in order to kiss along it lovingly. He's already so worked up that pre-cum has collected at the head of his swollen tip, so you decide to not tease him any longer.

The soft, wet slide of him being sucked into your warm mouth has Javi's eyes fluttering shut as he moans into his hand and writhes up for more, bucking his hips when you hum and hollow out your cheeks around his throbbing cock.

You love giving him pleasure like this. It makes you feel powerful, able to strum delight through him, to dominate him while on your knees as you try not to choke on his cock. It's exhilarating when you know he's wound up and edgy about getting caught, but desperate to get off after going without for so long. And while it's got you wet and needy for him, you concentrate on sucking him off the way you know he likes it, and when you cup his balls and squeeze lightly, Javi buries his whine into his palm before fisting his free hand in the bedding as his cock swells and strains in your mouth just before he fills it with his climax.

Accomplishedly, you moan around him and stroke him through it while you swallow his spill, making sure to milk his cock of his release until he's shivering and panting harshly against his hand.

Javi melts heavily into the bed on a reedy exhale, hand flopping onto his chest just below a collarbone as he drunkenly recovers and dimly feels you shift to tenderly kiss his softening length before you adjust the cotton bottoms back into place. Your warm lips trail up his midriff before you lean to cheekily flick the tip of your tongue over his nipple. He lets out a charged breath and snickers as he moves his hand from his chest to bury in the back of your hair in order to guide you down to lie on top of him.

"I love you so much. Today was so…wonderful. Yesterday feels like it was a bad dream. That's because of you…how you make me feel," you find yourself speaking your stream of consciousness in a soft whisper while Javi combs his fingers through your hair as his other hand caresses gently along the back of your shoulder. "I…I want to make you feel just as good—"

"You do," he rumbles and nuzzles you. "You always do. I love you too."

Buzzing with the wave of happiness his words tingle through you, it's easy for you to lean up and gaze openly at his heavy-lidded eyes and pensive smile. "So does that mean you're up to misbehave and have hot, passionate sex right now?" you provocatively purr and make your point by straddling his lap so he can feel how warm you are between your thighs.

"Fuuuck," Javi drags out in a frustrated exhale, heat flaring across his skin and making him burn with need all over again. "You're a damned temptress, you know that?" is his surly growl as he clasps his hands on your thighs and thwarts you from grinding over him. "You want to get us caught?!"

"I'm willing to risk the chance," you retort simply, and when he tosses his head back onto the pillow in frustration, you huff and relent. "Alright, fine," you scoff before shifting off of his lap to lean over him and steal a peck from his lips before stating tauntingly, "You're such a wannabe choirboy, when you're really an insatiable stud, but fine, I can control myself and wait until we get home."

"I'm not the only one who's insatiable, malvadita," he grouses and sits up to tow you back over for one last passionate kiss.

He makes you weak in the knees, so much so that when he pulls back, you chase his lips until you pout when he smirks smugly at you. Scoffing, you ruffle his hair daringly and growl, "Tease."

His chuckle is velvet over steel, so you shove him playfully before standing and sauntering to the door with a parting, "Goodnight, galán," murmured over your shoulder at him.

"Sleep tight, cariño," he innocently drawls in that canela-dipped timbre before settling back down into bed and watching you wryly shake your head as you slip out of the room.

You manage to get to sleep, exhaustion taking you into a sound slumber. So much so, that you don't stir at all the rest of the night. It's early the next morning when you feel someone stirring you from your deep sleep.

"Lindita. Wake up! Come and see," your grandmother is whispering as she shakes and pats your shoulder.

"See what?" you groggily mumble as you sit up and yawn into the back of your hand.

She's smiling giddily, so you push the covers back and scurry out of bed to follow her out of the bedroom to quietly tiptoe down the hall to the kitchen. When you peek in, you practically fawn out loud.

Javi's wearing a faded gray Henley shirt and dark blue jeans, with one of your grandmother's aprons looped around his neck and over the front of his torso as he tends to the huevos rancheros sauce he's stirring in the pan. He's humming to himself, completely unaware that you're both peering around the corner with dual Cheshire cat smiles at the sight of him.

Your grandmother squeezes your forearm playfully and beams as she mouths, 'I love him.'

The sublime feeling that fills you up is unlike anything you've ever experienced.

'He's mine, so don't get any ideas,' you mouth back to her, and she snickers.

You both sneak back down the hall, rush to get dressed, and then lope back down casually, as if you hadn't spied on him in the kitchen. When you enter, Javi's just finished plating the first dish.

"What is this? You dare to cook in my kitchen? For shame, mijo!" your grandmother jokingly scathes as she rushes over to marvel at the meal before leaning up to kiss Javi affectionately on the cheek. "Oh, these are the famous juevos rancheros, eh?"

"They are. And this plate's for you," he retorts warmly as he serves the dish and pulls out a chair for her.

"Sucking up to my abuela? Really? She already loves you, you overachiever!" is your snarky tease as you notice he brewed a kettle of coffee. "And you made coffee?!"

"I did," he chuckles and kisses you chastely on the lips, shooting your faded-but-well-loved David Bowie shirt a teasing glance before he pats the back of your blue-jean-clad hip flirtatiously and drawls, "But need you to warm up the milk and show me how she takes it."

You see your grandmother swoon merrily behind Javi, so you grin at him before retrieving what you need and showing him. When he takes off the apron, you playfully tug at the front of his stretchy cotton shirt and purr, "No button down?"

"It's all I had left that was clean in the duffle," he rumbles and cheekily squeezes your waist before plating the last two dishes and gesturing for you to sit and eat.

Breakfast is a wonderful affair, making it all the more difficult to pack the car and say your goodbyes. The sudden separation anxiety that wells in your chest when you and Javi step out onto the porch causes you to turn and look at your grandmother with a lump in your throat. She senses your distress and holds out her arms to you. The hug is fortifying, and only a couple of tears escape past your lashes and roll down your cheeks as she coos, "I know, mija. I'll miss you, but you'll both be back in no time. Everything will be fine."

You kiss her cheek and nod before quickly swiping your face with the backs of your forefingers to clear the tear streaks. "I'll call every day. You make sure to let me know if there's anything needed still that I can help with—"

"You've done plenty, mi niña!" she scoffs amusedly before looking at Javi and gesturing to you. "Take care of my lindita, mijo. And be sure to come prepared for quite the celebrating next weekend!"

Javi chuckles and nods before giving her a kiss on the cheek and one last hug goodbye. "Consider it done, ma'am."

She's waving enthusiastically from her porch as you both drive off a few minutes later, and that anxiety is completely gone for now, because you look over at Javi after he rests his warm hand lovingly on your thigh, and feel a sense of calm wash over you.

"You sure you don't want me to drive?" he asks, stare gentle as he adds humorously, "I know our track record in cars when I'm the one driving, but I promise to be on my best behavior."

You laugh, melodious and enchanting as you shake your head. "It's fine. We can switch at the halfway mark, if that's alright," you chuckle and pat his hand, smiling when he relaxes and leans back into his seat.

As you exit the neighborhood en route for the highway, you remember how you'd promised that you'd tell him what was bothering you at work. So, reluctantly, you figure that since you're driving onto the freeway now, and it would be a long period before you can pull over, that now might be the best time of any to divulge what happened. Well, more specifically, to tell him some curated version of what happened, seeing as the whole truth might send Javi into a furious spiral. He's just finished adjusting the passenger seat back to accommodate his height and reached into the back to retrieve his concealed service weapon from his duffle before he opens your glove compartment and stores it in there when you were about to pipe up.

You shoot him a surprised look instead, and he shrugs as he settles back in the seat with a reassuring, "Just in case, is all."

Nodding, you concentrate on the road ahead, deliberating while he goes into his back pocket for the packet of nicotine gum and pops one loose. As he's chewing on it and admiring how your perfume entwines with the fresh smell your car's little air freshener's scent thanks to the air conditioning keeping the interior cool under the rising heat of the early morning sun, you reach for the radio and turn the soft salsa down further before clearing your throat.

"So…since all we have is plenty of time to kill, I figure now is a decent time to tell you about what's been bothering me," you offer cautiously, sparing him a sidelong glance as you get in the cruising lane.

Javi perks up at that and stretches out his legs, pushing his sleeves up to his elbows before he crosses his arms casually. "We don't have to if you don't want to, querida," he assures, brown eyes gentle as they regard your pensive expression.

"Well, to be honest, I don't want to tell you at all, but I promised, so I'd rather do it now before we get home," you sincerely retort and let out a sigh when his gaze sharpens at that. "First off…you were right. Something happened at work that made me feel the need to expedite the linkup here. Missing the deadline for it would've set us back for a launch with stateside, but they're not setup completely either, so it wouldn't have been too detrimental. I just want everything on our end to be ready," you pause, shaking your head when you realize you're rambling. "Anyway…Crosby told me weeks ago that CIA wanted to be included in the pilot. The night you'd gone to Curaçao, Stechner came into my office and gave me a list of resources from his team he wanted to be on boarded into the pilot."

You can feel Javi wind up with anger, his jaw working to testily chew his gum while he says nothing as his shoulders square up and his forearms flex from how tightly he's crossing his arms over his chest now.

Taking a cleansing breath, you tell him objectively, "When we looked into his list, the bulk of them had no business being part of the pilot. So, I told him as much, accepted only two of his people, and thought that was that—"

"You told him…personally?" Javi asks guardedly, pausing in his chewing to stare at you, brown eyes simmering with disgruntlement.

Pressing your lips together, you internally grumble at yourself. You need to admit it now…

"Yes. He's an ass and he doesn't have a deputy or normal meeting hours, so I sprung up on him the way he had to me when you'd gotten rotated out. I got word he was leaving his office late, so I got in the elevator and accosted him with my decision," you tell Javi honestly, and when you see his shoulders wind back, you charm, "The look on his beady-eyed face, and how sour he was when I left with the last word was worth the minute ride down with the prick—"

"Was all this before or after he'd tried to fuck with you by saying I was flirting up Jurado's wife?" Javi asks in an even, albeit, gruff rumble as he grumpily rolls down the window to chuck his spent gum out before rolling it back up.

Steeling yourself, you dampen your lips before answering again.

"He'd pulled that stunt after giving me the list of his resources he wanted for the pilot. And I proverbially took him down a peg the night you were gone on the San Jardín raid," you explain, glancing over to gauge his temper while still concentrating on the flow of traffic ahead and around you. His shoulders are still squared, but he's trying to quell his annoyance. When he huffs and cups his hand in order to absently scrub his fingers over his moustache and lips in an attempt to shed his testy energy, you sigh, deciding you need to just come out with it. "Everything that happened with Francesca?" you announce, and focus your gaze straight ahead, as you finally tell him matter-of-factly, "I can't prove it, but he as much as admitted to being responsible for the anonymous flagging of her visa when he came into my office end of day after I'd come back from dropping her off—"

The entire time you'd been detailing what had happened, Javi had tried to rein in the bubbling fury that began to fill him. He even tried to do the little coping mechanism for deescalating the wave of frustration you'd told him you use in order not to lose your patience or temper on him. Count to ten. But, when you got into telling him about Stechner retaliating against you by maliciously torpedoing your intern's visa? Well, Javi only made it to the count of 'two' before the fury snapped loose and had his chest puffing out as he whirled on you.

"What?" he barks, and you feel a little chill skitter down your spine as you betray a glance over and see how pissed he is. His eyes are blazing as he contumely fumes, "He was responsible for that, and he went to your office to rub it in, and you didn't tell me?!"

"I-I didn't because I knew you'd get irate," you defend and tear your eyes away to focus on the road while following up quickly with, "It has nothing to do with you, and I wanted to keep it that way—"

Javier feels impotent rage roil in him, curling his fists as he wars with the impulse to lash out, and settles for snarling, "Nothing to do with me?! That fucking piece of shit wouldn't be targeting you at all if it wasn't for his obsession with fucking me over!" He grinds the heel of his palm into his forehead and curls his fist in to press it furiously against his mouth as he lets out a wordless huff. He runs his hand in frustration through his hair, before he slaps his other hand down onto his knee as he rails, "I'm going to kill him. I will track him down and destroy him and everyone else who fucking slithers around doing his fucking dirty work—"

You let out a forlorn sigh, and Javi's angry glare snaps over to you.

His rancor immediately clears when he sees how sad you are.

Your eyes are trained ahead, attention on autopilot while you've turned your gaze within in order to combat the weary upset that threatens to pour out of you. Javi feels instant guilt and shame for reacting so volatilely, after the tumultuous few days you've had.

He says your name in a soft whisper before reaching his hand to squeeze your shoulder solemnly as he hitches thickly, "—I-I'm such a fucking asshole…I'm sorry, mi amor. I understand why you didn't tell me," he pauses when you take your hand from the steering wheel to longingly clasp it over his and nod vigorously to let him know you hear him, but can't risk looking at him. Not with how tears are burning to spring over in your eyes.

You're not upset because he blew his stack. After all, you'd expected his reaction to be vehement and bellowing. No, you're really upset because of the overwhelming feeling that swam back to you in the moment, and your own guilt for not telling him the heavier stuff. How you suspected Stechner capable of sabotage, both professionally with the system you're managing and your standing at the embassy, and personally. That for a split-second, you thought the man capable of being a silent participant in your kidnapping, which is something you know would send Javier over the edge into nuclear destruction. He'd go scorched earth on the man, regardless of the personal fallout it would cause him, and you will not be responsible for triggering that.

"I just," your voice cracks, so you banish the sadness – burying it deep down, and shift in your seat busily as you return your hand to the steering wheel and clear your throat. "I can't prove a thing, Javi. And having you go ballistic? Letting you rip that bastard's head off only to get yourself kicked out of the country, or worse…I just couldn't abide that. Not after everything," you tell him resolutely and look at him now, eyes glossy with unshed tears as you dab the back of your hand to your nose before taking a fluttering breath and staring back at the road as you susurrate, "I can't lose you again."

Javi feels gutted. His heart wrings in his chest at how much this has weighed you down. How you'd felt compelled to bear the burden of it and had been clearly suffering the stress and worry, just to keep him shielded from it. He wants so badly to take it all away – to make everything right and unmarred by the toxicity of being constantly antagonized by the surreptitious spitefulness that comes with his job. To be your shield, and protect you from the likes of Stechner and everyone else who would try to do you harm, just to get to him. But right now? He just wants to make you smile. To cheer you up and smoothen over the fracas he'd almost allowed to roil things between you both.

Determinedly, Javi forces himself to shove all that away and gaze over at you while you silently concentrate on driving.

"Alright, fine…I won't kill him, then."

You blink, snapping your gaze comically at him to make sure you heard his huffy deadpan correctly, and when he just shoots you a surly little pout as he crosses his arms crankily, you laugh. Despite how macabre the joke is, you can't help dissolve into a giggle fit before reaching your hand over to playfully grip his shoulder and shove at it before squeezing his deltoid cheekily. He betrays a little smirk, relieved to have coaxed your mirth out, so he leans over and kisses your cheek before grunting at your soft scent and deciding to shower relentlessly silly kisses across your jaw.

"No distractions!" you giggle and swat him playfully away. "¡Me vas a hacer chocar!"

Javi laughs at how impishly harried your voice got when you exclaimed 'You're going to make me crash!' before worrying your bottom lip between your teeth in order to stifle the beaming smile threatening to crest your features.

The turbulent tension of before is long gone now, and once Javi puts the radio up and pats your thigh affectionately, you interlace your fingers in his and fall into an easy banter while you cruise down the highway.

You both chat about the upcoming wedding, the plans you're already making for where you both can stay – "I am not going to want to behave and sleep in separate rooms!" – and you lament about some of the errands you hadn't gotten a chance to run.

"Well, what's left?" Javi asks musingly and settles back into his seat to get more comfortable.

"I got to get a blue dress, shoes, book the hotel—" you list off as you merrily drive, unaware how fondly Javi's stare is as he watches you count off on your fingers without removing your hands from the steering wheel. "Oh! And do you need a suit?" you suddenly exclaim and glance over at him, blinking prettily as you catch him staring.

He can't help use your cute pause to drawl, "I have to get all dolled up for you and the in-laws?"

The heat that flares in your core and tingles delight into your womb makes it hard for you to scoff sarcastically as you shake your head at him. "I mean…yeah!" When he snickers, you shoot him a haughty look. "Well, what did you wear at your cousin's wedding?" you ask with a wry smile.

"A flannel shirt and jeans," Javi tells you simply and interlaces his fingers in order to prop his hands casually behind his head and the seat's headrest. You hum and press your lips together while nodding conciliatorily at him, as if that's so quaint you can't find words for it. "What?" he goadingly asks, eyes smoldering with teasing humor when you shoot him a flirty leer.

"You do know I'm going to dig into your closet and pick something out for you, right?" you end up countering sassily. "No flannel, or 'fuck me' jeans for you—"

"Oh, is that a fact?" Javi snickers and squints his eyes at you when you nod primly. "Tan pinche chingona…fine, I'll let you pick out my outfit," he chuckles, wryly rubbing at the back of his neck with one hand and bringing the other to tap at his lips dubiously before purring, "Can I pick out what you'll wear under your dress, then?"

Your hearty laugh is vivacious, and Javi feels like the sun is shining over him at how effervescently your guffaw bubbles out of you before dissolving into the silly little giggles and endearing sigh he loves so much.

The carefree comfort between you is like this – sweet and enchanting – throughout the first half of the drive, and when you make the first pit stop several hours later, you both make the best of the time by using the facilities before picking up snacks from the food stands that skirt the roadway leading into the gas station you stopped to fill your tank at. You buy a half-dozen empanadas from one kiosk and smile when you turn to see Javi's wandered over to the fruit stand and is chatting up the nice woman behind the counter while he picks out some naranjas, toronjas, and granadillas.

Something behind your breastbone aches at the sudden thought of how worried and terrified he'd looked when you'd seen him across the way at the bus station's mezzanine, and the guilt floods you anew. You've put him through so much, and part of you seethes at you for it. He's willing to risk everything that matters to him for you and your safety. You don't deserve it—

"Mmm, these are gonna be good for later." Javi's loping over to you with the bag of fruit in hand, eyes crinkling from his smile as he sees you holding the big paper sack packed with the delicious beef-filled fritters. "Pick up something to drink from the next kiosko, then get back on the road?" is his rumble as he puts his arm around your shoulders and leads the way to the next stand.

You smile and nod, leaning into him sidelong. "You sure you wanna drive the next half? I'm still good to stay at the wheel—"

"You are, but it's my turn," he jibes charmingly and kisses the top of your hairline before nudging you playfully to go on and peruse the offerings for beverages to-go that will keep for the next four hours of the drive.

With the food haul, the couple of cold sodas, and Javi adjusting the driver's seat back to accommodate his height, you both get back in the car and resume the second leg of your drive to the capital. While Javi drives, you fill the time chatting away, and while he tells you the story of how he'd spent one stakeout with Steve and Carrillo on the side of the road next to a fruit stand, you hold up an empanada so he can take healthy bites. You feed him sips from the soda too and goofily pick crumbs out of his moustache for him, grinning when he scoffs comically at you and twists his lips out of your reach with a silly grunt.

Four empanadas and a shared soda between you later, and you're making good time en route to Bogotá. You're enjoying this little road trip with Javi, relishing the intimacy and comfort you'd gone a week without while also clinging to the intense feeling of calm you feel when you're together now.

So, when a very familiar song comes over the radio and makes you feel an illogical bout of melancholy, Javi notices how quiet you get, and as the lyrics of the Vicente Fernández song play out, he spares a covert glance at you and sees your gaze get faraway like it does when your mind is taking you somewhere else.

It's a song about a father who goes from wanting a son to getting a daughter, and having to deal with the disappointment of that. But as time passes, his adoration makes him realize how much he loves his pretty daughter, and how he chides himself ever having wished for a boy in the first place. Not with how completely devoted and fulfilled he feels now. When the song gets to a particular section, you recede into the seat and your gaze gets glossy.

Si un día se casa mi niña vestida de

blanco armiño recordare que soñaba con

que al nacer fuera un niño,

por eso rezo y le pido al señor del gran poder

que el hombre que se la lleve la sepa siempre querer...

You're a little hesitant when you turn the music down on the radio after you snap back and shove the swirling sentiments the song stirred up in you down deep to be ignored. With a sigh, you absently shift in your seat and fuss with the seatbelt, hoping you can clear the lump in your throat without him noticing.

"I know this is going to annoy you, but…are you going to reach out to your father and let him know what happened?" Javier asks, hands so tight on the steering wheel that his bared forearms flex. He shoots you a tentative glance when you scoff.

"Absolutely not!" you snipe and cross your arms over your chest testily. "I already wish 'Buela had not witnessed me getting grabbed and in her panic, called you. But if she hadn't had your number, and had been relegated to calling him?! That would've been bedlam. There's no point telling him at all, ever," is your tirade before you hiss, "Shit. I have to remember to tell her not to mention anything of the sort if she ends up talking to him—"

So much for asking her what she thinks about wanting to meet her father, is Javier's laconic thought as he stares ahead at the road. Clearing his throat, he attempts neutrally, "I mean, what would he have done that would've been different than the average civilian—?"

"My father is not a civilian," you interrupt and shake your head before staring out the passenger window. "I honestly don't know how far he'd bend shit to get what he wants in a situation like that, but I never want to find out…."

"…You make him sound like a regular Admiral Nimitz," Javi drawls aloofly.

Your lips twitch from the scowl into an impressed lopsided smirk, always feeling a little fire of desire spring up in you when Javier shows how fucking smart, witty, or learned he is on the most random things. "I wish. Anyway, it's not something I think I should be advertising at all. I'm not going to even mention it to anyone else—"

"So, if your grandmother hadn't been there and called me, would you have ever told me about it?" Javi posits suddenly, and you can tell he's trying his best to keep his tone even, but his chest puffs out with tension. His eyes flare chestnut from the way the sunlight's glare catches across the windshield and glints in his gaze, full lips pressing together tightly when he clenches his jaw.

You lean sidelong into the door and pivot to attempt to look at him head on so you can read his reaction before he even knows he's betraying his feelings about your answer as you declare, "If I could've gotten snatched and returned the exact same way without involving anyone else? No. I wouldn't have told anybody." Javi lets out a pent up exhale and glowers, but says nothing, so you sigh and appeal, "They said they knew who my father was and were very aware he was not someone they could cross without dealing with major retribution. I was in no real danger…so, if I could spare anyone else the stress and terror of dealing with that, I damn well would've, Javier."

Grunting crossly, he chews on the inside of his cheek, and stews for a quiet beat. You sigh and shift back to settle more comfortably in the seat as you prop your arm against the window panel and cup your cheek to stare out at the passing cars and scenery.

"I understand why you would…but, I'm glad it didn't happen that way," Javi remarks tersely after a heavy silence. When you look over at him, surprised, he adds resolutely, "If the shoe was on the other foot, though? You'd rain holy hell down on me. But it's not, so, as soon as we get home, I'm going to make it crystal clear to you how much I fucking love you. And how I never want you to feel like you have to think that way about anything again."

Your eyes blaze with wonder when he glances haughtily over at you. He makes a mueca at you then, twisting his lips comically and squinting his soulful eyes impishly at you. With an effervescent laugh, you lean over to kiss his cheek when he feigns a sulky snit as he turns back to watch the road.

"Alright, stud. I get the point!" you chuckle and affectionately kiss the side of his neck before sitting back in your seat with a fawning sigh. "Tan chulo," is your silly lilt as you cheekily reach your hand to caress along the length of his thigh.

When said hand creeps further up and slips along the inseam of his thigh to glide across and brush over the crotch of his jeans, Javi sucks a breath in and growls huskily, "Now who's gonna make us crash. Behave, atrevida!"

You laugh enchantingly and cease your teasing to primly turn the radio up a bit and go back to relaxing and chatting together.

The serenity of feeling so settled in the moment with him, even after skirting such a turbulent topic, has you feeling appeased and indulged – so, you lean into it contently.

Javier feels just as settled, and when a comfortable silence eventually fills the space, he's content to let it rein. Especially when he catches glimpses of you slowly dozing off in the passenger seat. Your hand's propped against the window panel to act as a cushion for your temple, and the hum of the car driving along had lulled you to sleep, until you drowsily tucked your arms against your chest and rolled your head back against the headrest to get more comfortable.

While you sleep, Javi can't help let his mind wander back over to the whirlwind of events that had occurred the last few days. He'd sensed your hesitance earlier, and once his incensed anger had cleared enough for him to think analytically, his mind had deduced a few things. Firstly, there was more to the Stechner thing. Why did he think so? Because he sensed you had held back more to the story. As he takes the exit to head towards the capital, he can't help fixate on all the scenarios that could be bad enough reasons for you to omit more details from him. Was it work-related? Could he be fucking with something her department's handling—?

He then remembers what you'd said to Trujillo, and his blood runs cold.

"I want to be able to document the incident happened if and when I need proof of this being a retaliatory attack on me, personally. In case this isn't just the Cali cartel trying to leverage me to get to him."

Javi glances tensely over at your sleeping form, feeling that knot of worry tangle up in his chest. "I can't prove a thing, Javi…"

The more he thinks about it, the deeper the well of his anger and guilt gets. He could kill Stechner, and if he saw the man again in any capacity? Well, he just might be swayed by his smarmy smile to rearrange his face, but if any of these horrible theories he's come up with pan out to be true?

You shouldn't be thinking like this. You got jack-shit on the fucker. Anything you do will just blowback on her…

Brooding deeply now, Javi concentrates on navigating the route into the city to head down to your apartment. The orange rind-like glow of dusk is already dissolving into the horizon line behind the mountains, so he drives into early twilight towards your neighborhood and manages to find a spot on the corner next to your apartment complex. Once he's parked and turned off the engine, he looks over and ends up just gazing fondly at you, admiring how soft your countenance is in slumber like this with the soft purple-pink aura of sundown illuminating you.

Reaching his hand over to delicately brush his fingertips along your cheek before combing your rogue strands of hair back from your face to be tucked behind your ear, Javi murmurs, "We're home, corazón."

You begin to stir, eyes fluttering tiredly as you grunt and groggily sit up from your slumped posture in the seat. "Oh man, I'm sorry for passing out," you say around a yawn and take your seatbelt off as you look over at him and smile dreamily when you realize he's looming over the center console, so you're able to lean in quick and steal a peck from his lips. "Did I snore or drool?"

"Pfft, no, but at one point you made a grumpy face, and I wished I had that camera so I could've memorialized how cute you looked," he teases and cups your cheek before kissing you on the lips after you snicker.

Collecting your things, you and Javi exit the car after he's popped the glove box open to secure his gun and tuck it into the back of his jean's waistband. He grabs for your suitcase and his duffle after opening the trunk's hatch, while you retrieve your purse and the trash from all the snacks, as well as the bag of fruit he purchased. Once you've locked the car, you stroll side-by-side across the sidewalk and through the courtyard towards the stairs to your apartment. Javi affectionately encircles your waist with his arm in other to squeeze your hip as you climb the stairs to the second floor. You smile and playfully shoulder past him to get to your door first so you can retrieve your keys and unlock it, and as you're opening the door, you hear a little meow as the black cat ambles up the steps, seemingly having followed you both once you'd entered the area.

"Well, look who it is," you greet as you crouch to pet her head. "You'll have to ask the grumpy man if you can come in for the night," is your silly musing to the black cat as you stand and hold the door open for Javi.

The feline bumps her head against his ankle and rubs up against him. Javi blows a raspberry and grunts, "Sure, fine, as if I have a say."

You grin deviously and make a kissy sound to the cat, and she excitedly saunters through the door before you follow her in and tow Javi over the threshold by his belt buckle.

Having fed the cat and left her a little bundle to sleep in in the living room, you both leave the fruit on the kitchen island and head into the bedroom, where you intend to unpack to start on laundry. While he sets his firearm on the dresser, though, Javi convinces you to leave it in the luggage and just take it over to his place tomorrow to do the chore more conveniently there. Agreeing to do just that, you set both bags aside as he sits on the bed to remove his boots. Sparing him a teasing smile, you kick off your flats and run to grab the phone from the charging base mounted on the wall by the kitchen so you can dial your grandmother and let her know you made it home. She insists that you pass the phone to Javi, so you do and grin when he greets her warmly and chats with her, assuring her you were well behaved on the long drive cooped up together.

"—Don't worry. I'll take good care of her," he charms and shoots you a tongue-in-cheek look as you huff, yank your shirt off, and toss it at him daringly. He affectionately sends his love and tells her he's looking forward to spending another weekend with the whole family before he multitasks leering at you as you remove your jeans and stare alluringly at him while he says his goodbyes.

After you wish her a goodnight and promise to check in with her the next day, you end the call and toss the phone onto the nightstand. "I want you. I've needed you inside me for days, so get out of your clothes, come shower with me, and then all I want for the rest of the night is you," is your sultry murmur as you remove your bra, then your panties.

Javi is more than happy to oblige.

After he strips out of his well-worn clothes for the day, you hop in the shower together and end up rushing through the routine in order to catch up on lost time in bed.

You don't even bother pretending you're going to get into something to sleep in. Oh no. You instead shed your towel and stand before him in the nude after you shake out your hair from being up in a bun for the quick shower.

Javi takes you in, soulful eyes becoming smoldering pools of want as he discards his own towel and pulls you close. He encircles you with his arms and kisses you with the yearning he's bottled up for a week.

The soft breeze coming through your windows and past the curtains caresses your bodies as he takes you to bed, laying you over the cool bedding before settling between your thighs in order to kiss a worshipful path down your warm skin. When he brushes open-mouth kisses along your inner thigh after he stretches out on his belly and shifted his shoulders in order to spread your legs far apart, Javi rumbles, "I missed you. Don't think I can be without you like that ever again," before nuzzling a kiss into your mound.

Overcome, your breath hitches in your chest, and you tremble with need as you murmur, "You weren't without me, hermoso. Now quit being silly," and run your fingers through the top of his hair. He hums and resists coming back up to you to instead rest his forehead against your womb so he can bask in the comfort of your scent and warm skin for a moment before he adjusts your legs to hook around his shoulders as he nuzzles into your yearning cunt.

This feeling of being his? The blissful acceptance of belonging to him like this and trusting him completely spins you up into a dizzying pleasure just as fast as his tongue licking into you does.

It's exactly the same feeling for him. So, Javi eats you out with gusto, but the undercurrent of his desperation is palpable in the way he groans into your flesh and how his fingers work you over into a fierce climax. He's needed this for days, and the daunting anxiety of having come so close to losing you is something he suddenly has to shed by reveling in you. In making you come apart and proving to himself that you're his and will forever be safe with him.

You're in the throes of it, thighs clamping around his head and heels digging in behind his shoulders while your back arches off the bed and your fingers twist into the covers, core radiating with pleasure as Javi curls his fingers up and sucks hard on your clit to make you come again. You whimper out and shiver from the aftershocks of it, and Javi lifts his head from his worship to watch your breasts rise and fall from your shallow panting. He admires the flush of your features, and his cock throbs against the flat of his belly and the cotton of the covers when you open your eyes to heavy lids and stare dreamily down at him.

"Come here, mi rey," you susurrate and beckon for him. Javi is on his knees and hitching up between your thighs in order to loom over you before he's even registered the action. You smile sultrily and caress his features, doting and sensual as you lean up to kiss along his jaw to murmur in his ear, "You know you don't have to worry, right? I'm here. We're together, and nothing bad happened—"

He exhales and stubbornly hums at that before he rests his forehead against yours. As you wrap your arms around him and pull him close, Javi relaxes into you and admits, "I know, querida. I just…it just spun up in me."

Gaze becoming gentle, you kiss him softly on the lips before pulling back and snickering, "And I'm still all over you, mi beyaquito."

He laughs and showily scrubs the back of his hand across his mouth and chin before playfully kissing you all over until you giggle and try to roll him off of you, only to end up fooling around. When he secures your wriggling arms to be in his grasp, he pins your wrists down and gloatingly shows off in triumph by rubbing his hard cock against your tingling pussy. You hum and lick your lips as you arch your pelvis up and watch Javi's coffee-brewed eyes get dark with lust. He's forever aroused by your eager sensuality and effortless grace in making him feel so desired, so all whimsy flints away to be replaced with feral need.

When he presses into you, it's familiar but new after the week apart and the turbulent close call. You both feel tethered to one another like you never have before, and when his cock is buried to the hilt inside you, something blossoms in your chest and makes you open completely to him. Your whimper is breathy and yearning, body pulsing with pleasure as Javi pivots his hips into an angle that brushes fiery tingles across your core.

Javi makes love to you, not frenzied or wanton as you both had felt desperate for while rushing through the shower earlier, but the passion of it dials you both into this new something, and he feels filled up with it just as much as you're now coming undone by it. His kisses pull at your heartstrings, and when his hands unclasp your wrists in order to shift your legs up in order to hook your ankles to his shoulders, your possessive touch charges him like a livewire gone to sparks before he rocks out and back into you with a gruff groan.

This new angle turns you into rubber, leaving you only able to grip his triceps and dig your heels for purchase over his broad shoulders while Javi starts to pound into you, hitting dead-center into that nested cluster of hypersensitive nerves that melt you down into clay.

He feels your legs tremble against him and your cunt ripple around his cock as your cries grow to a fever pitch of overwhelmed excess just as you wail, "Oh my god—oh my god! Javi—!" and orgasm on a sobbed whine, gushing your climax against his apex as he pistons through your aftershocks and prolongs the nerve-quaking euphoria that washes over you.

Javier watched your features dissolve into ecstasy as you came, and it was the most glorious high he could feel, knowing that he made you feel like that. But when you opened your eyes and gazed up at him with glossy wonder and damp lashes, with your plush lips parted and beckoning him, he lost it, growling, "Te adoro, mi amor. No te merezco—"

"You do, you do, Javi. I love you. Eres el amor de mi vida," you declare on a fluttering moan and grip his forearms to anchor yourself up to shower frenetic kisses over his flushed features as he gasps and fucks you faster, chasing the fire in his belly as it untangles and snaps pleasure free from his apex.

He comes when your pussy clamps around him at the same time as you mewl and climax again, sobbing while you cling desperately to him and ride out the sensation of his hips grinding flush against you before he empties his bliss into your quivering sheath, cock swelling and erupting with deep surges of cum. His voice cracks on the groan of your name, and the wrecked contentment that etches his blushed-over, handsome features is yet another kind of bliss for you that warms your heart and brings you delighted peace.

Javi shakily pivots your legs to drape over the bend of his arms as he shifts backwards enough to maneuver so he can collapse over you without pinning your limbs into uncomfortable or awkward positions. Your legs stretch askew while you catch your breath and breathe in his warm, heady scent, skin scalding now that your post-coital forms are pressed against each other. Dimly, you manage to loop your arms drunkenly around to rub your hands along the smooth, sweaty planes of his back as you turn your face into his neck and nuzzle him with a soft sigh.

He grunts a spent, sated sound and shifts so he can sit up enough to kiss the heated skin across your cheek and brush his lips over yours tenderly before he rests his forehead to yours and just basks in the moment with you.

When the blissful high dissipates and you're both keenly aware of how sweaty and sticky you are, Javi nudges an affectionate kiss just below your ear before he props himself up and pulls out of your fluttering heat. You gasp at the sensation of losing his thick fill and feeling his cum leak messily out of your tingling cunt, and he groans at the sight as it crests that fierce feral pride in him. With a sweet trail of kisses from your tummy, over your breasts, and finally to your lips, Javi gets off the bed to retrieve a damp washcloth from the bathroom and returns to give you gentle aftercare, being mindful of how tender and sore you are as he glides the cool material over your delicate flesh.

Flipping it over and tending to himself, he heads back to dispose of the sullied washcloth, and a few minutes later, comes back with a bowl filled with slices of oranges and toronja for you to both share. You scoff amusedly and maneuver up to lounge on your side as he hands you the bowl and flops next to you onto the bed.

"Figured we can have the granadillas tomorrow," he rumbles and sucks on an orange wedge lewdly as he winks at you.

You laugh and pluck a gajo de toronja up from the bowl before popping it into your mouth and humming at the succulent citrus dancing on your tongue. "Mmm, yeah those are so sloppy to eat. And a bit sour," you muse as you stretch out like a sated tigress after one hell of a tussle.

"They are. I must've eaten eight of those while we were on that stakeout at the makeshift road stand," Javi chuckles and shifts down into the pillows with you, moves the bowl aside onto the nightstand before he plucks a small wedge of toronja up to teasingly trail a track of juice along the curve of your shoulder, and leans over to lick it up. "Yummy, que rica—"

With a flirty swat at his chest, you shove him onto his back and drape yourself over his torso in order to hold your mouth open in unspoken command that he feed you the piece of fruit. Javi does, dark eyes smoldering as he watches you purse your lips around the piece, but not bite into it. Instead, you slink up against him and offer to feed it to him from your lips. His grunt is gravelly but enticed as he accepts it, biting off a half while you take the other. The taste of your mouths now is warm citrus, and before long, you make love again.

This time, it's sensual and tender, and when you both reach release together, you're too enraptured by the blissful serenity of being tangled up like this in bed to want to be apart for even a few moments. So, you curl into each other and sleep, content and lulled by the comfort of being together in each other's arms once again.

At some point, though, Javi wakes up and carefully shifts out of bed to gently pull the covers back and tuck you under before he goes to the bathroom. He's just lifted the toilet seat and taken the position to pee when he jolts at the feeling of the cat weaving affectionately around his ankles. Huffing, he relieves himself and flushes, shooing the cat out so he can set the seat back down and wash his hands quickly.

The clock in the living room reads that it's late at night, so he grunts and goes over to the sink, grabbing a granadilla on the way and cracks it open so he can slurp up the gooey contents of the fruit's pulpy seeds and not make a mess. He chases the snack with a glass of cold water, chugging it greedily before exhaling contentedly and leaving it in the sink while he tosses the fruit's shell and skin into the trash. Grabbing another glass, he fills it with cold water and turns to head back to the bedroom, and spots the eerie glow of the cat's eyes as she peers at him from the chair she's just hopped onto and settled back down to sleep. Shaking his head, he walks down the hall to return to the bedroom.

It takes him a moment to realize that you've been tossing and turning in bed without him. But once he's set the glass onto the nightstand on your side of the bed, though, he hears you shift and make a little mewl in your sleep. Hurriedly, he rounds the bed to slide under the covers next to you and lies still, hoping it was just your unconscious stirring you up because you were suddenly alone.

He doesn't know that you're tumbling from a dream world of running through an empty, echoing terminal while shouting his name down into a miasma of anxiety that has you set adrift before you're tugged under. You're scared and thrashing up through the inky blackness towards the circle of light above the surface. You're struggling to get away from the darkness, panicking that it will pull you under, when you're suddenly squinting at the brightness of the sun that refracts across your face.

You blink and struggle to make your vision stop swimming, but realize you're no longer being towed under, so you sit up and realize you're in motion.

The scene sharpens, coming into focus, as you feel suddenly trapped behind your dreaming gaze. You look around, recognizing the backseat of the Cadillac, but are confused by why you're riding in the back. Your palms feel cold and like they're cupping a glass bottle sweating condensation while the soda fizzles and swirls crisply in you ears. But when you reach your hands up, the kola bottle is gone, and you realize your wrists are bound together with a zip-tie.

The panic of before zings across your psyche as you jolt and try to clamber away from the sinking feeling at your back. But then, just as you're convinced you need to reach out to the front passengers for help, you peer over the leather back of the front seats to find them empty. Gaping out through the windshield, you see you're on the winding mountain road, careening down the curve and towards the metal guardrail with the tropically lush valley just beyond it.

Before you can activate your paralyzed mind into action or dive to reach for the steering wheel, the Cadillac smashes through the barrier, and you feel yourself start to plummet down towards oblivion—

Javier realizes you're dreaming when your legs spasm under the blanket and your hands grip the pillow as you whimper distressed little noises, so he rolls onto his side to loop his arm around your waist and gently pull you into his chest. It's then, as you're plummeting in your dream, that you startle awake with a scared gasp and rile against him for a split second before his soft, hushed, "It's ok, cariño. You were just dreaming. I've got you," anchors you to desperately wrap your arms around him and cling for dear life as you bury your face in his neck and try to center yourself.

He feels how you're trembling, so he holds you tight and soothingly nuzzles kisses to the parts of you he can reach with how wound up and curled into him you now are. Worried and eager to pacify your panic while his sadness tangles up in his chest with how upset you are from the dream, Javi finds himself cooing gently, "You're safe, querida. I have you. I'm not going to let you go..."

At his words, and when your heart keeps racing and wringing with the anxiety of your dream, you get choked up by the sob that catches in your throat and steals your breath, and before you can help it, you're softly weeping – utterly overwhelmed with some frustrated sense of grief that's swept up your fear in it's eye and left you clinging to the bone-splitting relief you feel at being in Javi's arms.

Soothingly, he comforts you, rubbing your back and letting you tuck yourself protectively against him to be rocked in his embrace while he murmurs to you, 'I love you, preciosa – it was just a bad dream – it's alright – I'll protect you, mi amor—'

While you let his voice and gentle words unfurl the relief to overtake the upset of your dream, you mechanically wipe the back of your palm over your tear-streaked cheeks and across your sniffling nose before you force yourself to take a fortifying inhalation of breath and let it loose. Javi's lips brush the top of your head, and you reassure him you're all right now by caressing the side of his neck and nuzzling into his clavicle.

You start to truly settle down and regain your breath, willing your composure to wash over you as your mind is lulled into calm by Javi's gentle, velvety baritone husk of, "It's ok not to be ok. I'm here for you, querida."

It was the salve to the wound you didn't know you needed, hearing him say that while holding you to him with such care.

When you finally relax and dissolve into him, you brush worshipful kisses over his jaw, throat and collarbones before you tuck your head under his chin and let out a shaky, relieved sigh.

Soothingly, Javi brushes his hand through your hair and feels relief settle in his chest when you go soft in his arms and doze off in his embrace.

He wonders what your nightmare was about, but after everything that's happened, he decides he won't pry or bring it up at all, unless you need to confide and work through it; to get it out and processed. He feels something jostle the corner of the bed and makes out the dark shadow-like silhouette of the cat as she saunters up to almost empathically drape herself over the bend of your legs tucked under the covers and start purring sibilantly until she tuckers herself out – and lulls him to sleep too.

When he next wakes, it's a little before dawn, and he finds that in your slumber, you've both ended up spooning. You're nestled against him with the arm he's wrapped around your waist pinned to your side from your hand having interlaced your fingers with his. Your womb is warm and supple against his palm, and the skin at the back of your neck is cool as he presses his lips there covetously before stretching his legs a bit and finding that the little black cat was tucked in the crook made by the backs of his knees.

He can't help soundlessly exhale his snicker past his lips as he settles back down and closes his eyes, thinking amusedly to himself that he's sandwiched by two nimble little vixens. The silly thought has a pleased tickle fluttering in his chest as he dozes back off.

You wake up a while later, right before the alarm was set to go off. Javi's soft purring snore is at the back of your neck, and you smile as you nimbly shuffle away, biting your lip to stifle making a sound from how your aching legs, thighs and hips resist you. As you shift to the side of the bed so you can reach for the clock and turn off the alarm before it blares, you smile at the glass of water Javi set out for you. It looks inviting, so you take it and drink with gusto, draining the glass until your thirst is quenched. You've just set it back down and attempted to shuffle back under the covers when the cat bolts up and peers over at you from the other side of Javi.

She lets out a long yawn and vaults over his legs, and Javi grumbles in his sleep and rolls over. You shush the feline and lie back down – trying to not wince at how your sore muscles throb in protest – while you pat the spot between you and Javi for her to come settle down in. She does merrily and lets you pet her until she starts to purr and lowers her head to rest on her stretched out front legs. As you pet her rhythmically, you stare at Javi's back, watching as it broadens and eases with his relaxed breathing. It calms you, and you end up shutting your eyes for what you thought would be a few moments, but then end up drowsily stirring suddenly by the cat meowing imploringly.

"Hmmph, fuck, alright. I'm awake," Javier's cranky grumble wakes you completely to turning your head on the pillow and watching as the cat climbs him before he huffs and nudges her off him onto the bed, where she mewls impatiently. "What?" is his grumpy question to the cat.

Sleepily, you pull yourself up into a lounging position to bury the yawn you let loose into the back of your hand as you answer for the feline, "She wants to go out," before looking over at the clock and frowning. "Mmph, we slept later than we should. We still need to get your car from the airport," is your sigh. Javi grunts and sits up to wring his hands tiredly across his face, which annoys the cat to meow admonishingly for his attention. "Alright, just wait a sec, señorita. Let me get some clothes on and I'll let you out—" you begin to assure the cat as you sit up completely and shuffle to the side of the bed.

But before you can swing your legs out and over, Javi caresses your back as he rumbles, "Lie back. I'll let her out."

Before you can protest, Javi's bound out of bed and grabbed for his gray sweatpants, slipped them on, and snapped his fingers at the cat for her to follow him. She perks up and happily follows, galloping off the bed and down the hall to be right on his heels as he gets to the front door, unlocks it, and cracks it open enough for her to hurry out. Grunting, he shuts and locks up, yawning into the back of his forearm as he trudges back into the bedroom. Instead of finding you cozy in the bed still, you've just slipped into your silky robe and tossed your hair to fan down your back.

Flopping onto the bed sidelong, he watches your shoulders relax when you let out a sigh and turn to peer over your shoulder at him. Your eyes are pensive, but bright, stirring him to sit up and swing his legs over to the side of the bed in order to sit next to you. He's formulated what he wants to say – planning to assure you that you don't have to talk about last night. That everything is all right, and you both can just put it behind you—

You pivot to straddle his lap in order to wrap your arms around his shoulders, hugging him tight. Javi returns the hug, but is disarmed.

"When you say that you don't deserve me? I need you to know that's not true. If anything, I feel like I don't deserve you," you suddenly confide.

It floors him, but he finds he has no words, so he squeezes you lovingly and nuzzles your shoulder. "You…you always make me feel safe, and are always putting up with me, risking yourself…protecting me. I just…I don't know how to be that for you. I want to make you feel exactly how you make me feel," is your charged whisper, emotion cracking your voice as you pour your heart out to him. You want to tell him that when he held you last night, you'd found peace and known you wouldn't be able to find that ever again outside of his arms. But, you don't. Instead, you decide to sum it up differently.

"You're the love of my life. I need you to know that, Javi."

When you say this, you lean back to gaze into his handsome features, and feel overcome with how open and awed his soulfully crinkled brown eyes are, lips soft and parted in wonder. As if what you've said is unlike anything he's ever heard, let alone been told.

He cups your cheek then, fingertips brushing your skin as he composes himself to find the answer he feels imperatively he needs to convey to you in order to emphasize how fulfilled he feels in this moment with you.

"I know," he blurts, and then feels ridiculously flustered as he scoffs, "Fuck, no, that wasn't what I was going to say. I meant—I wanted to say," he pauses when your expression softens into a dazzling smile and your eyes crest with affection. "You make me feel like I'm fucking worthy, querida. Don't ever think you don't do the same for me." Your eyes soften, and Javi feels compelled to kiss you with the longing and amorous pride you've stoked in him before he rests his forehead against yours and murmurs, "I love you so much. All I want is to be with you, and I need you to know that."

You laugh, nodding affectionately as you kiss him indulgently, nuzzling his neck when he pulls you into an adoring hug.

Feeling settled and at peace, you both get on with your morning routine. You shower, have a quickie against the tiled wall under the warm water, rinse off the post-coital debauchery and soap, then hustle to get ready so you can grab your things and head down to your car. Javi tosses the bags with the laundry for doing at his place later into the backseat, and hops in while you store the bag with the remaining fruit behind the driver's seat.

He snags an orange out of the bag and proceeds to peel it with his dexterous thumbs, separating it into two halves before shooting you an affectionate, albeit smug look as he holds them up and drawls, "Eres mi media naranja, preciosa."

You can't help the silly and beaming smile you shoot his way. "Oh my god, you're such a dork for saying that! What a line—"

"It's a good one because it's true," he puckishly rumbles and winks, smirking when you scoff sardonically at him. "You love it," is his confident purr as he keeps peeling the orange, easily separating the quarters and removing the wedges before sharing one with you.

Taking the wedge, you shoot him a flirty glance before purring, "Yes, I suppose I do, mi cari��ito," and then savoring the citrus treat with a hum of delight, relishing how his brown eyes light up at the novel, sweet endearment.

It's an effortlessly romantic way to spend the morning in traffic together.

Once you've dropped him off at the spot where he parked his car at the airport, you wait for him to get in and pull out so you can both drive on to the embassy. You manage to arrive and park at different ends of the underground garage, and take the elevator up together. The citrus scent that clings to both your fingers is the only giveaway that you and Javi are anything but professional. And while you're alone as you both ride up together, you and Javi had agreed to be very careful at work – lest you give more petty and vindictive ammunition for the likes of the CIA station chief to exploit.

"Coffee date later?" you propose flirtatiously in a cool murmur, smiling when he hums in temptation next to you. "I can bring them up to your office, using finishing our status report as an excuse for popping in," is your cajoling lilt, winking at him.

Javi nods just as the elevator arrives at your floor. "Sound like a plan, directora."

You have to check yourself in not giving into the impulse of leaning in for a kiss when the door slides open. Quelling the desire, you saunter off the elevator on your kitten heels and offer him a musing, "Buen día, Agente Peña."

He internally groans, wishing he could've kissed you, and hits the button to close the elevator doors.

Your morning is hectic, but pleasant, as you catch up on things and meet with Ellis. He peppers you with questions about your week off, and you give him the light version – having spoken with Javi prior and decided that you both would keep everything that happened in Medellín private.

It's easy to put it behind you and pretend it had been some strange event involving some other version of you. So, you do, and continue on with your day, and by the time your coffee date time rolls around, you take two cups of freshly-brewed deliciousness up to the DEA's department and greet Stoddard warmly as you pass his desk and enter when Javi waves you in while he wraps up a call. You hand him a cup and sit across from him as he hangs up the phone and huffs.

"Bad news?" you ask before sipping from your cup.

"Just my guys giving me an update from Cali," he mutters before taking a sip and sighing contentedly as the caffeine gives him pep. "All caught up yet?"

"Pretty much. The linkups are running smoothly, and stateside might actually get their half of the work done end of week," you remark affably and give him the latest scoop on his team you got from Ellis. "—By the way," you muse and lower your voice as you confide, "So, he had that talking to with Devon while I was out. Turns out there might be some sparks flying for real between him and, Noreen, was it?"

"Shit, really?" Javier chuckles and leans into his desk chair. "Well, if that's the case, they both gotta go up to HR and disclose that, right?" is his smug drawl as he quirks his brows derisively at you, in silent suggestion of, 'Like you and I will, eventually?'

You purse your lips with amusement and shrug aloofly. "They should, but I think we'd end up having to get pulled in to be made aware of it…which we already are, but still. I'm not going to force the issue. Technically there's no conflict, or inappropriate disparity in power dynamics between them—"

"But they should disclose it if it's getting serious," Javi counters, drinking from his cup as his coffee-brewed eyes squint at you.

"Well, if you're going to insist on it, then I'll have to as well," you retort and cross your legs so you can place the cup to rest on your pencil-skirt-clad thigh as you swish it languidly and eye him thoughtfully.

"Hmm, let's play it by ear, then," Javi muses, smiling when you both shoot each other dueling knowing looks, before his phone rings again, forcing him to reluctantly sit up to grab for it as he states, "I gotta take this," then lowers his voice to murmur, "See you at home later?"

Nodding, you purr, "I'll be there, doing laundry," and bounce your brows, which makes him snicker and shake his head while you stand and offer him a wave as you strut out of his office onto your next meeting.

He watches you go, and makes a mental note to do a stop upstairs to the HR department as he answers the phone and gets more tedious reports.

One you've returned to your floor and walked across the workspace towards your office, you are internally beaming with all the things you're looking forward to doing the rest of the week in preparation for the wedding. You feel light and hopeful, and can't help succumb to some of the giddy glee that fizzles up in your chest as you picture being able to pounce on Javi later tonight, when you walk into your office and halt dead in your tracks.

On your desk is an inconspicuous-yet-totally-out-of-place bottle of Postobón.

The cold anxiety that curls in your chest and makes you fidget as you coax your mind back from the precipice of recollecting the kidnapping, the dream, and the terror that had zipped into your bloodstream at the barrage of sense-memory recall, is daunting, and you only manage it as you go on autopilot. You feel yourself walk into the office, shut the door, and approach the desk, staring at the bottle of Colombian kola that's the same flavor as the one your captor – Navegante – had given you to drink while you'd been blindfolded and sat in the back of the car he and the other two Cali-affiliated men had abducted you into.

It's only when your frenzied gaze focuses in on the bottle more keenly that you notice the yellow sticky note attached to the bottle's front label. Picking it up and reading the message without removing the note, you feel ice fill your veins.

HOPE YOU HAD A NICE TRIP. NO HARD FEELINGS.

You absorb that. Letting the message echo in your mind, and the more you repeat it, the more it takes on the voice of Bill Stechner – the way you think he'd enunciate it with that smarmy, conceit-filled tenor of his. And then something that had been left to flounder in the recesses of your thoughts springs up into the forefront of your methodically angry mind.

"No need to worry. We know who your father is thanks to your buddy…"

With cold calm, you sit at your desk, retrieve your purse, and sift into a slip pocket for the card you'd tucked away.

After you make the call, you open your bottom desk drawer and place the glass soda bottle onto its side over a stack of empty folders before you shut it and sit back to recline in thought.

Analyzing and strategizing your options, you resolve on the one you believe will net the desired result, and bring you the most satisfaction, before you retrieve Francesca's laptop from the opposite drawer and begin doing some painstaking work.

Work that – if successful – will make it possible for you to keep a promise you've made to yourself and Javi.

No hard feelings. No. No feelings at all.

The endeavor is one you will keep close to the vest, intent on resolving things once and for all, putting it into motion and biding your time for the right moment.

Said moment won't come soon enough for you, but when it comes, it will be at a time you find yourself reevaluating everything that ever mattered to you, and deciding on an unexpected path forward that will redefine the planned course of your life.

________________

Read Chapter 34: Worthy

Spanish-English Glossary:

El guapo descarado = The handsome cad

Huevos pericos = Colombian breakfast dish of scrambled eggs with scallions, onions, peppers, and tomatoes

Cafetera = Coffee kettle

Harinas = Flours

Abuela/'Buela = Grandmother; short for 'Grandma'

Lindita = little cutie; pretty little girl

Buenos días = Good morning

Suavón = Smooth talker; Smooth guy

Mijo = short for "mi hijo", a term of endearment akin to "my son/sonny"

Malvadito/malvadita = Wicked little boy; wicked little girl

Preciosa = Gorgeous; precious

Jodón = Pain in the ass (male)

Bravita= Tough girl; feisty girl

Mija = Short for mi hija, aka my daughter; my girl

Comadre = Endearment showing familiarity with a same-aged woman; Godmother; Sister-in-law

Buñuelos = Cheesy fritters; doughy puffs

Anillo = Ring

Querida = Affectionate term for a female, akin to expressing one's want and desire

Viandas = Root vegetables

Fincas = Rural properties; grow plots

Cariño = Darling/sweetheart

Mi amor = My love

Mi corazón = My heart; affectionate term to signify how deeply you love someone

Hermosa/hermoso = beautiful (female); beautiful (male)

Prima = Cousin (female)

Ándale, gatita = Go on/Hop to it, little kitten

Atrevido/Atrevida = Daring man/Daring woman

Cristo amado = Christ beloved

Burlona = Joker (female)

Gruñón = Grumpy man

Galán = handsome man

Canela = Cinnamon

Mi niña = My girl; sweetie

¡Me vas a hacer chocar! = You're going to make me crash!'

Tan pinche chingona = Such a fucking badass lady

Naranjas = Oranges

Toronjas = Grapefruits

Granadillas = Similar to passion fruit

Si un día se casa mi niña vestida de, blanco armiño recordare que soñaba con, que al nacer fuera un niño, por eso rezo y le pido al señor del gran poder, que el hombre que se la lleve la sepa siempre querer... = If one day my girl gets married in a ermine white dress, I'll remember that I dreamed to have a boy, so I'll ask the Lord and pray for, that the man that takes her away always loves her...

Mueca = Making a face; silly grimace

Tan chulo = Such a sweet little cutie (male)

Mi rey = My king

Mi beyaquito = My little naughty perv

Te adoro, mi amor. No te merezco = I adore you, my love. I don't deserve you

Eres el amor de mi vida = You're the love of my life

Que rica = How delicious [you are] (female)

Señorita = little lady

Eres mi media naranja, preciosa = You're my other half, sweetheart

Mi cariñito = My sweet little darling

Directora = Director (female)

Buen día, Agente Peña = Good day, Agent Peña

The song referenced and translated above is "Mi Niña Bonita" by Vicente Fernández.

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