4. Dangerous Chemistry
dangerous chemistry
Scarlett
T he anger seething inside me isn't healthy. I know this. But I just don't know what to do about it. How to deal with it.
He was dead. Now he's alive. And he fucking abandoned me. And I just don't know how to have a conversation with him about it. That's not us. It's not me. It's not him. We don't talk about that shit. We shared a little bit about our pasts, but we were both pretty reticent to get too deep.
But things feel different now. He's different. So am I, but he seems like he's better as a person than he used to be, whereas I feel like I went backward. Which also pisses me off.
He knows me, though. He knows I need time and silence, so he keeps his mouth shut and lets me drive. Miles and minutes become hours. I'm no longer seething, but I feel uneasy. Confused. Bothered. Annoyed. Frustrated. Scared.
I hate being scared. I’ve always hated it. It makes me feel weak and pathetic, like the lost little girl who had to cross Central America by herself on foot.
I push that away—I can't go there, even in the confines of my own skull. I've never told anyone that—not all of it. I told my recruiter some of it. Sol knows some of it. No one knows all of it.
A hot knot burns in my throat, bubbles upward, and becomes a question I can't seem to hold inside. "Why do you hate your father?"
He glances at me, surprised by the question. "Um, well? He was a fucking bastard, mainly. He was a perfectionist. Nothing was ever good enough. Nothing I did, nothing my brothers ever did, nothing my mother ever did, none of it was ever good enough. And he was a drunk. A mean, vicious, abusive drunk. I took the brunt of it. Missed weeks of school because he'd broken ribs. Left me black and blue. Black eyes, broken nose. He wasn’t just abusive, he was…" I shake my head. "I don't know the word. Vicious. Absolutely without mercy. A drunk, abusive perfectionist. Richer than god. Powerful. No one could do anything to stop him. And my mother…fuck, she was weak. So weak. She let him do whatever he wanted to us as long as he didn't do it to her. So I joined clubs and did sports just to stay away as long as possible. Studied in the library till they kicked me out. Anything to not go home. Si and Sax were the same. So, I guess the short answer is I hated my father because he was an evil, soulless piece of shit and a monster."
"I guess that makes sense of how you can take so much pain," I say.
He nods. "I lived in pain every moment of every day my whole life until I left for college. I was so used to being in pain that I didn't know what to do with myself at Harvard. I sought out fights. Worked out so intensely I could barely move because I didn't know what to do without pain."
"How'd you get recruited?"
He eyes me, speculative. I can see him wondering why I'm asking so many questions all of a sudden. But he's smart enough not to call me out. He just goes with it instead.
"I mean, how I landed on a recruiter's radar, I don't know. Test scores, maybe? I don't know. They didn't tell me. There was a career fair, and there was a table with a couple of suits behind it. I chatted with them for a while, but it never really went anywhere. And then one afternoon, I was in the law library studying, and the same two suits sat down and started talking to me. Pitching a career in the CIA. Told me I should show up at a specific address at a specific time if I wanted something more exciting than briefs and precedent. Something more meaningful. Make a real impact on the world and the security of the United States."
"You showed up," I say.
"Yes, I did. I picked law because it was sort of…expected, I guess. My father was a lawyer, my grandfather was a lawyer, my great-grandfather, all my male relatives going back to the Revolutionary War. Every single one of my forefathers all had their law degrees from fucking Harvard. It was expected that I would follow tradition. And I went with it because it meant getting away from my father. But when those two agents spun this pitch to me about a life of action and service, it sounded…interesting. A fuck of a lot better than doing what was expected of me because of stupid goddamn tradition. Fuck that. So I went to the Farm and became an agent. Didn't take long before Chad poached me from analytics and put me in training for wet twork. Turns out I had a hell of a talent for it, and I never looked back."
I tense, expecting the return question, but to my surprise, he just looks at me expectantly.
"What?" I ask.
A shrug. "Just waiting for the next question."
"You'll answer it?"
"I'll answer any question you ask, Scarlett."
"But?"
"But nothing. I don't expect you to answer the same questions. I admit I'd love to ask, but I know you better than that."
I frown. "Maybe you don't. Not anymore."
"So if I asked why you hate brothels so much…"
"Figured it was obvious."
"Sure, I can make some pretty safe assumptions. Doesn't mean I don't want to hear the whole truth from your lips. You don't have to tell me. I've never asked because it's obvious you won't answer. But I want to know."
Bile burns in my throat at the prospect of discussing that. "Ask something else. Something…easier."
"Is Scarlett Luisa Gutierrez your real name?"
I laugh. "No. I mean, it's not the name I was born with. It's legally my name now, though." I sigh. "I was born Maria Consuela Rodriguez in a little village on the Pacific, in Panama, on the wrong side of the Darién Gap."
"Maria, huh?" He looks at me as if trying to pin that name on me.
I shake my head. “Nope. I haven't been Maria Rodriguez for almost twenty years."
"That long? I thought the CIA picked your new name or something."
I shake my head again. "No, I did. Maria Rodriguez died a long, long time ago. She died in the Darién Gap. She died in a roach-infested whorehouse in Sonora fucking Mexico. She was sixteen when she died. She was killed by degrees, one john at a time."
"I remember you telling me you left home at eighteen," he says.
"I entered the US at eighteen. My father left for the US when I was twelve. He sent money back regularly for three years or so, and then it stopped. When it stopped, my mother couldn't feed us anymore. Not in the village." I swallow hard. This is fucking hard to talk about. "She tried to bring us to a bigger town, but…" I trail off with a growl, my eyes burning and my throat closed off.
"Scar, babe…"
"You wanna know? Then shut the fuck up and let me talk."
He looks at me expectantly, one hand trailing out the window. Ahead, the jungle opens up and thins out, promising something like civilization not too far away.
"My brother got sick the third day. I don't fuckin' know what it was. Dengue, something like that. He got a fever, and then he was just fuckin' dead. My sister got it. Mom got it. They all died within a week. I never got it, no idea why. I couldn't do shit but watch them die. I couldn’t bury them. I couldn't go home. I was fifteen and alone. So I left them where they were and started walking. Hooked up with a group trying to get to the US. We crossed the Gap together."
"Jesus, Scar."
"The stories of the people I traveled with were all a lot like mine, if not worse. The fucking cartels, man. My anger started there, hearing the horror stories of what those families were running away from. I got sick halfway across the Gap, and…Luisa, she nursed me to health. I took her name as my middle name when I changed it. She was a second mother to me. Took care of me. Taught me shit. Self-defense. How to deal with assholes who think they can take what they want from me. How to stand up for myself. She was a small, quiet woman, but she didn’t take any shit from anyone."
"What happened to her?" he asks.
"Died. Costa Rica. A gang caught us. They killed the men we were with and tried to take the women and children. Luisa fought them off. She killed four of them before they put her down. She…" I choke, try again. "She told me to run. She bought me time to get away."
"Sounds like a real badass." His voice is soft with understanding.
"She was. I think about her almost every day."
He lets the silence extend as we trundle down a long shallow slope—a village appears in the distance. Hopefully we can find some food and gasoline. A bed would be nice, but I won't hold my breath.
"So you were on your own again, then?" he asks.
“Yeah," I answer. “Hiked, hitched rides, whatever. Through Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and most of Mexico."
"By yourself…at fifteen years old?"
"Yep." I shrug. "Did what I had to. Stole, begged, fought, did odd jobs. Washed clothing for a bowl of rice. Cleaned a house for a spot to sleep out of the rain. Stayed away from men. And I fucking walked. Got lost a lot."
"Jesus, Scar," he murmurs again. "And then you ended up in a brothel in Sonora."
"Hitched a ride with the wrong person. This old guy. Figured because he was, like, a hundred years old he was safe. He fucking wasn't. He delivered me right to a fucking cartel boss. They beat me senseless, raped the shit out of me, and put me to work. If I didn't work, they beat the shit out of me. They liked to fill hoses with sand and hit my stomach and thighs. I became a favorite of this one guy. Cartel money guy. He came to fuck me three, four times a week. I pretended to like it—to like him because then he was nice to me. He'd bring me food. Pain pills. Sometimes, he'd bring clothing. Pretty stuff that he wanted me to wear, but still."
"Sixteen."
I nod. "You know damn well that that isn't unusual, Sol. I was one of the older girls there, actually."
"Fucking disgusting."
“No shit. That's why I hate that shit. I got no problem if someone chooses sex work. As long as they choose it. But I know first fucking hand that most of the time, it ain’t voluntary. It's drugs. It's desperation. They're forced into it. Trapped in it. I wasn't a whore, Sol. I was a sex slave."
"I understand."
“No, you fucking don't."
He shoots me a look I can't decipher. "You know what I mean, Scar."
I growl. "Yeah, I do. Sorry, I just—"
"Don't apologize. I know I can't ever know what you went through, what it was like."
"Just like I'll never know what it was like to be brutalized by my own father."
“You ever find out what happened to him?" he asks. “Your father, I mean.”
I nod. “He was murdered by some white trash thugs in El Paso. I hunted them down and killed them after I was recruited by the Company."
“How'd that happen, anyway?”
I sigh. "That's a story for another time. I can only handle so much talking about the past." I point ahead of us. "’Sides, we're here."
"Wherever the hell here even is," he mutters.
"Does it matter?" I say. "I have some cash. I can probably get us food and fuel. Maybe even a shower and a bed."
It's a tiny place, a collection of huts and some old crumbling buildings. Folks come out and stare, muttering to each other.
I park in front of a general store sort of place advertising beer and cigarettes. "Stay here, gringo."
"You know someone here is an informant, right?" he says.
"No shit. I was a field agent before I got into wet work." I gesture around us. "I specialized in turning informants in places exactly like this."
He frowns at me. "There's a fucking lot I don't know about you, isn't there?"
"More than you do know about me, Sol." I point at him. "I'm serious about my old name. You never mention it again—to me, or anyone else, ever."
He holds up both hands. "I got it, Scar."
I leave my rifle in the SUV, but I still look exactly like what I am: a soldier who got lost in the jungle. I'm filthy, smelly, armed to the teeth, scarred, and immensely cranky.
I fucking hate talking about my past. But for some stupid fucking reason, Solomon's resurrection is bringing it out of me. Along with a lot of other shit I don’t know how to handle.
Like attraction and arousal—I’ve been so shut down lately that I haven't even wanted sex for months. I haven't so much as diddled my bean in weeks. Too exhausted, lonely, and pissed off. Just…existentially lost.
And now he's alive and close to me and all I want to do is put my hands on him, my mouth, my body. I want to ride him like I used to. I want him to eat me out for hours like he used to. Fuck, I just want him.
But I'm too angry to let that happen.
Confusing as hell is what it is.
I saunter into the general store, fishing my wet bag out of my cargo pants pocket—it's a waterproof bag with rolls of cash in various currencies, a passport, and a burner satphone in case of extreme emergencies. I peel a few Colombian bills out of the bag and an American $20. The shopkeeper watches me do this with beady, greedy eyes. He's middle-aged, shirtless in the sweltering, humid heat.
There's a small glass-front fridge containing bottles of water, beer, and soda. I put two bottles of water on the counter and shop for food. I find some decent options—not a hot meal, but better than old protein bars that probably spent weeks in a pocket.
When I approach the counter, the shopkeeper addresses me in Spanish.
"I know that truck," he says, not looking at me.
"Probably," I agree. "I borrowed it."
"They will not like that."
"Probably not." I meet his eyes. "Tell them we were here. Tell them anything. It doesn’t matter."
He nods. "You need something else?"
"Fuel. Somewhere safe to sleep. A hot meal." I let him see the $20. "There's more. But if you try to take it, you'll die. Slowly."
He's not fazed by the threat. "I can get you gasoline. I will bring you to my wife. She will cook for you. Best food you ever eat.”
"We don't want to cause trouble for you."
He shrugs. "We hate them. They're no good. They think they can do whatever they want. They can go fuck themselves."
I grin. "I like that answer. You do not need to lie if they ask you questions about us. Tell them what they want to know. It won't make a difference."
He shrugs, nods. "Let me lock up. I'll show you the way."
"My friend is American."
He nods again. "I can see. He cannot be worse than them."
"He’s running from them. We killed several of them."
He grins at this. "Good. Kill more. They are evil. They are not working for us, despite what they say on the radio. The government is no better."
"This isn't political for us. We just want to get out of here."
He shrugs. "Everything is political. Especially when an American like that is involved." He juts his chin at Solomon, visible in the SUV, through the store windows.
I wish I could deny the truth of what he's saying, but I can't. So I just nod. "I will be out front. Thank you."
"Five minutes."
A couple hours later, our bellies are full of home cooked rice, beans, and pork. Best food I’ve had in a long time. His wife is a plump, pretty woman who bustles about her microscopic kitchen with frenetic energy, whipping up a feast like it's nothing. Solomon is fluent in Spanish, to their surprise, and they give us more context for the activities of the group that had Sol.
They're what I assumed—a breakaway faction of the now-defunct FARC. They're extremists, terrorists with designs on pulling a coup and taking over Colombia and turning it communist. Or something like that—the politics of it are complicated, and honestly, I don't give a fuck. None of that explains why they had Sol, and Jose and Anna can't answer that any more than I can. They tell us that there is suspicion that the group is getting outside funding and resources, but no one knows from who or how. They control a large swath of territory around the border, which explains why they had a camp inside Brazil—Colombian forces can't get to them there, not easily and not legally.
Once we've eaten, José, our host, and the shopkeeper, says he'll make a trip to get gas for us while we shower and get some rest. I give him a handful of Colombian Pesos and the $20 bill and tell him to get any other supplies he thinks we may need.
He agrees and trundles away in a rattling old white compact Toyota pickup spewing purple-white fumes, several red gas cans tied down in the bed.
He had us park our stolen SUV in the back behind his house, surrounded by a variety of broken-down cars in varying states of disrepair. He gave us a ripped blue tarp for us to cover it with, and then it was just another hulk in a backyard filled with ruined hulks just like it.
The shower is a makeshift thing outside, with an eight-foot-high fence around it for privacy, the water heated by a squealing old boiler run by a gas generator.
Anna shows me how to work the shower, with instructions to turn off the generator and boiler when we were both done, and with a warning that the little boiler only has enough hot water for maybe ten minutes. And then she leaves, claiming to have errands to run.
Sol gets the generator and boiler going. "You first."
"Sol, I—"
He gives me his patented don't-fuck-with-me glare. "Scarla, get in the damn shower. You crossed who knows how many kilometers of jungle for my ass. You're taking the first fucking shower."
I know when not to argue with him. "Fine. Thank you."
He leaves, heading outside to sit on a wobbly old blue plastic outdoor chair with a cigarette.
It feels weird to peel my clothes off—I've been wearing them so long they're stiff. Once I'm naked, I use the antique washboard and the bar of homemade soap to scrub my clothes under cold water, rinsing them thoroughly. Only then do I turn on the hot water and scrub myself clean. It's tempting to soak under the spray until my muscles loosen up, but I resist. Sol has been through hell and deserves a hot shower as much as I do.
There are a handful of tattered old towels in a stack just inside from the outdoor shower, and I dry off and wrap it around my torso—it's a tiny little towel not much bigger than a hand towel, so it doesn’t quite cover me. Fortunately, we're alone, and our hosts live outside the little village at the top of a hill—by local standards, José and Anna are quite rich.
I exit the shower, wearing a pair of flip-flops I found. "Sol, your turn."
I'm used to co-ed showers with my male teammates, so I don't even think about the fact that the towel doesn’t close in front of my yoo-hoo, or cover my boobs. Also, it's Sol. He knows every inch of me… very well.
Which is why I'm not prepared for the way he looks at me: like he's a man on the brink of starvation, and I’m a steak fresh off the grill.
"Goddammit, Scarlett." He takes a last drag from the cigarette, crushes it under his bootheel, and then rises to his feet.
He stomps past me and into the shower; I hear the water turn on and the sounds of him scrubbing his clothes clean.
Still reacting and not thinking, I follow him into the shower, perplexed and annoyed by his reaction.
"What the hell was that about?" I demand, coming around the corner.
Where I'm confronted by the sight of a naked Solomon. His ass is sculpted from marble, a taut round bubble of solid rock, with thick, hairy, powerful thighs, a broad back and wide shoulders rippling with muscle. If anything, I'd say he's even bigger than he was when he was an active operator.
He doesn’t turn around, scrubbing his fingers over his scalp aggressively. "What was what, Scar?"
"You, just now." I drop my voice into a rough growl. “'Goddammit, Scarlett.'"
He rakes his hands over his scalp and then rubs his face. Part of me desperately wants him to turn around, and the other half that's more concerned with self-preservation is screaming at me to turn around and run away.
Too late. He turns around.
Fuck.
Yeah, he's way bigger, heavily muscled and brawny. Hard, anvil-like pecs, block-like abs chiseled from the same marble as his ass. Thick, veiny arms. Jesus, he's even hotter now than he ever was.
The only thing that hasn't changed is that big, fat, beautiful cock. It dangles heavily, swaying with his movement. Dripping shower water.
"Scarla." I wrench my eyes up to his.
"What?"
He takes half a step toward me, hands at his sides, green eyes burning. "You should leave. For your own sake."
"Don't tell me what to do," I whisper, knowing he's right, and why he's saying it.
He shakes his head with a sniff of mocking laughter. "You don't want to play this game with me, honey." His voice is low, rough. "We have a whole fucking lot to talk about before this happens."
"Nothing is happening," I say, my gaze drawn once again to his cock.
"Scar." He takes another step. "You remember how it was with us."
"How was it with us, Sol?" I ask in a stupid, stupid, tempting, teasing, idiotic whisper.
Another step, and now he's too close, towering over me, naked and wet and huge and fucking glorious.
"Room full of goddamn nitro, babe. One wrong move and…" he lets his eyes rake over the parts of me that are exposed: the seam of my pussy, my abs, and a hint of inner boob. "Don't fucking tempt me."
"Sol…" I back up a step. "You don't get to be angry at me. I didn’t fucking abandon you."
"But you don't get to prance around mostly naked and not expect me to react how you know fully goddamn well how I'm gonna react to seeing you like that. When have I ever been able to keep my hands to myself around you, Scar? Hmmm?"
"I'm not being a tease. I just don't wanna put on wet clothes yet."
"So go somewhere else. Stay away from me." he prowls closer, once again towering over me. This time, he lifts a hand, traces a fingertip down my scar just like he used to. And just like then, I melt under his touch. "Goddammit, Scarlett," he says again, this time in a reverent whisper.
"Don't call me Scarlett," I mutter.
"Why? You chose the name."
“You don't get to call me that." I choke on the next words, but they won't stay in my throat. “Not yet."
His eyes fix on mine, and I see a boiling inferno of emotions in his gaze. Too much. Too intense. Too messy. Most of all, I see desire. Need. His cock is responding to my proximity the way it always does: unfurling. Thickening.
No, no, no.
I could never resist him. Never.
I’m not ready for this.
"You'd better fucking run, Scar," he growls under his breath. "Don't tempt me. Last warning."
“I’m not doing anything."
"Don't fucking have to."
I also can't back down from a challenge. Run—stay. There's no winning.
He touches the tip of my chin with his thumb, tugging my lip down. Brushes that thumb over my lips.
Trails his index finger down my throat. Over my breastbone. Into the fold, keeping my towel in place. I can't breathe. I need his touch like I need my next breath—
With a guttural snarl, he whips around and stomps over under the steaming spray. Ignores me, brusquely scrubbing his body with the soap.
"Go, Scar," he murmurs. "While you still can. We both know you're not ready for that."
Trembling worse than I do with the post-gunfight shakes, I leave the outdoor shower and hide inside.
What the fuck is wrong with me? What was that?
Our physical chemistry is stronger than ever. But just as clearly, I'm seriously fucked up about Solomon Cabot.