Chapter 15 #2
His attention snaps to me, and I hold his gaze without flinching. The girl who cried on his shoulder and let him shape her career, is gone. The woman standing in this kitchen has been shot at, betrayed, and hunted, and she's still here. He needs to see that.
"Nobody else can do this. The cartel is looking for me specifically.
Alvarez has already confirmed my face to them.
If anyone else walks into that bar, they'll know it's a setup and they'll disappear.
I'm the only bait they'll believe." I keep my voice level, professional.
"This is the fastest path to the cartel's operational center, and every day we wait is another day Harlan destroys evidence and Alvarez digs deeper underground. "
"There are other options, Raven. We can build the case through surveillance and signals intelligence. Cipher can trace their communications. We can be patient."
"Patient." The word comes out sharp despite my effort to stay controlled.
"Four ranchers are dead. Probably more. The pipeline is active and moving weapons across state lines.
Harlan is committing murders and covering them from inside the sheriff's office.
And every asset you've had watching this operation for years hasn't been able to locate the cartel's coordination point.
" I lean forward. "I can get it in one afternoon. "
The coffee maker clicks off with a soft pop, and the kitchen goes silent. Outside, a bird calls from the cedar break.
Uncle Robert exhales through his nose, a long, slow breath that carries the weight of every decision he's made about my life since I was nineteen.
"If I agree to this," he says finally, and the concession is audible in every syllable, "I stay in Fredericksburg for the duration.
I coordinate directly with the federal response team, and the moment you have the location, we bring in everything I've got.
FBI. US Marshals. Texas Rangers. This ends with arrests and prosecutions, not a firefight in the Hill Country. "
"Agreed," Jesse says.
"And Jesse." Uncle Robert's voice drops to something quieter, more personal. "If anything happens to her, there is no place on this earth where you'll be safe from me."
The threat is delivered without heat or bluster. A simple statement of fact from a man who has spent decades making people disappear, and the sincerity of it pulls the oxygen from the room.
Jesse meets his gaze without wavering. "It won't come to that."
The moment stretches, pulls taut, and Uncle Robert nods once. The tension doesn't break into warmth. It settles into the professional chill of men who've reached an accord they don't entirely trust.
They spend the next hour at the island, going over the operational plan in granular detail.
Uncle Robert asks questions with the precision of a man who has directed covert operations for forty years, probing each layer for weakness.
Jesse answers without defensiveness, adjusting parameters where the input improves the plan and holding firm where it doesn't.
I sit between them, contributing where I can, watching two men who've shaped my life negotiate the terms of my survival. Uncle Robert keeps glancing at me with an expression I can't fully read, as if he's trying to reconcile the niece he trained with the woman beside the man he once commanded.
When they finalize the contact protocol, Uncle Robert straightens from the island and turns to me.
"Walk me out."
I follow him onto the porch. The landscape stretches all around us, indifferent to the war being planned inside its borders.
Uncle Robert stops at the edge of the steps and turns to face me. For a moment, the mask drops. Not entirely, but enough that I can see the fear underneath.
"You love him." It's not a question.
I don't answer immediately. The word feels too simple for what exists between Jesse and me, too clean for something built on shared trauma. But Uncle Robert isn't asking for nuance. He's asking for the truth.
"Yes."
He nods, and his posture shifts, as if he's letting go of a weight he's carried since the night he made the deal that put me on that plane. "He's a good man, Raven. Dangerous, but solid where it counts."
"I know."
"Your Uncle Martin would have approved." The words come out rough, uncharacteristically emotional. "He saw something in Jesse before anyone else did. That night, when everything fell apart, Martin trusted him with the only thing that mattered."
My throat tightens. Uncle Martin's name still carries a particular ache. Hearing it from Uncle Robert on this porch, with the cedar break rustling behind us, makes the world feel very small.
"Be smart tomorrow," Uncle Robert says. "Be careful. And come home."
He walks to his car without looking back, and the engine turns over and carries him down the gravel drive toward town. I watch until the dust settles and the sound fades, then go back inside.
Jesse is still at the island, but he's stopped working.
He's watching the doorway I just walked through, and the look on his face is one I recognize but have rarely seen directed at me.
Possession and satisfaction, stark and unashamed.
The expression of a man who just confirmed what he already knew but needed to hear anyway.
"How much of that did you catch?" I ask.
"Enough." His voice is quiet.
I cross the kitchen to where he's standing and press my hands flat against his chest. His heartbeat is steady under my palms, the rhythm of someone who has trained himself to stay calm under any circumstances. But the muscle beneath my fingers is taut, coiled with everything he's holding back.
"When this is over," I look up at him, "I don't want to plan or strategize or run contingencies. I just want you."
His hand comes up to cup my face, his thumb tracing the line of my cheekbone with a gentleness that's startling from a man whose hands have done what his have done.
The calluses on his fingertips catch against my skin, and the contrast between his capacity for violence and this careful tenderness makes my breath hitch.
"Then you have me," he says.
He takes my hand and leads me to the bedroom, and the walk feels different from every other time. No urgency driving us. No adrenaline or anger. Just his hand warm around mine and the quiet click of the bedroom door closing behind us.
The light filters through the curtains in soft amber bands, painting the room in shades that make everything look gentler than it is.
Jesse turns to face me, and instead of reaching for my clothes or pulling me against him, he just looks at me.
The way he did that first morning on the porch when I asked if he'd thought about me during Shadowland.
He pulls my shirt over my head and unhooks my bra in the same motion, tossing both aside before his hands close over my breasts. His thumbs drag across my nipples, slow and deliberate, and the sound I make earns a low, satisfied noise from deep in his throat.
"Take mine off." The words land somewhere between request and command.
I reach for the hem of his shirt and push it over his head. My palms find his torso, tracing the scarred terrain of his ribs, and when my fingers brush a raised white line on his rib, his breath catches. I lean in and press my mouth to it. His hand fists in my hair, tilting my head back.
"What do you need?"
"Tell me this is real." The vulnerability in my own voice catches me off guard. "Tell me that when this is over, when Harlan is in handcuffs and Alvarez is behind bars, you'll still be here."
His grip tightens, holding me so I have no choice but to meet his eyes. "You're mine. That doesn't change."
Then his mouth comes down on mine, and whatever softness was in it lasts about ten seconds before he takes over completely.
He walks me backward to the bed and pulls my jeans and underwear down my legs, then steps back long enough to strip off his own boots and jeans before following me down.
His weight settles over me with the authority of a man who has decided exactly what he wants and intends to take it.
He pins my wrists above my head. "Keep them there. "
His mouth works down my throat, my collarbone, the curve of my breast, teeth grazing each spot before his tongue soothes it.
By the time he reaches my stomach I'm already arching off the bed, and when he hooks my thighs over his shoulders and puts his mouth on me, the sound I make is nothing resembling dignified.
He doesn't rush. He takes his time with a thoroughness that borders on punishment, his tongue working slow, steady circles while two fingers curl inside me.
Every time I get close he eases off just enough to drag it out further.
My hands stay where he put them, fingers twisted in the pillow, thighs trembling against his shoulders.
"Jesse." His name tears out of me, half plea, half warning.
"I know." His voice vibrates against my skin. "Ask me nicely."
"Please." The word comes out wrecked. "Jesse, please."
He gives me what I asked for. His tongue relentless, his fingers driving deep. The orgasm breaks over me in a long, shuddering wave that pulls a cry from my throat loud enough to echo off the cabin walls.
He lifts his head while I'm still trembling, his pale eyes dark and satisfied in the fading light, and the look on his face is as close to undone as I've ever seen him.
I reach for him and pull him up. He comes willingly, his mouth finding mine so I can taste myself on his tongue. My hand wraps around his cock, and the groan he gives me is low and raw, his hips driving forward into my grip.
"Inside me." I stroke him slowly, deliberately. "Now."
He takes my wrist and pins it to the mattress, shifting his weight until he's settled between my thighs. "Look at me."
His gaze locks onto mine and holds there as he pushes inside, slow and deep and absolute, not stopping until he's fully seated and I'm gasping beneath him. He stays still for a moment, his jaw clenched, his eyes never leaving mine.
"This is real." His voice is low and certain. "All of it."
Then he starts to move, and whatever thought I had left dissolves.
His pace is measured, thorough, each stroke hitting deep, his cock filling me completely.
He watches my face the whole time, reading every shift in my expression the way he reads terrain.
When he changes his angle and I gasp his name, he does it again.
And again. Until I'm clawing at his shoulders and begging him for more.
My legs wrap around his waist and he groans, dropping his forehead to mine, his pace going rougher, less controlled. His hand slides between us and finds my clit, and the combined sensation tears a broken cry from my throat as the second orgasm builds fast and savage.
"Give it to me." The command is quiet and absolute against my mouth. "Right now."
The orgasm crashes through me, violent and consuming, my body clenching around him so hard that his rhythm stutters and breaks. He follows me over with my name on his lips, his whole frame shuddering as he spills inside me, his arms pulling me hard against him.
He doesn't move for a long time afterward. Neither do I. Then he rolls onto his back and pulls me with him, settling me against his side with my head on his chest. His heartbeat slows under my ear, his breath evening out against my hair, and the room settles into quiet around us.
"Tomorrow," I say into the dark.
His arm tightens around my waist. One word that carries the weight of everything we've built and everything we stand to lose. I’ll walk into town and let the cartel find me. The plan goes into motion and there are no second chances.
But tonight, lying in the dark with Jesse Hollister's heartbeat steady against my spine, I'm not afraid. I'm not angry. I'm not running calculations or rehearsing contingencies.
I'm just here. With him. And for the first time since El Paso, that's enough.
His breathing evens out behind me, slow and deep, and I let the rhythm of it pull me toward sleep. My hand finds his where it rests against my stomach, and I lace our fingers together. His grip tightens in response, even in sleep.
My eyes close. The cabin settles around us, quiet and watchful.
Tomorrow.