TheFugitivesSexyBrother (13 page)

Slowly, Javier tipped his head back, revealing the ugly scar
that snaked across his throat.

“You showed me that before,” Emily said, but anxiety in her
voice belied her words.

“Let me tell you where it came from,” Javier said. “When I
was seventeen, a few of Sergio’s guys came to pick me up from high school. I
knew better than to go with them, but let’s say they were…persuasive. They
wanted me to call my brother and help them set up a trap for him. I refused.
They kept me there for hours, threatening me.” Despite the horror of the
memory, a wave of pride rose in his chest. “They kept trying to use my phone to
get Fernando’s private number, but couldn’t figure out how to access it.”

“They gave you that scar. When you were just a kid.”

“If you think seventeen is a kid.”

“I do.”

“Well, then, yes. When they realized I wasn’t going to give
them anything, they cut me here, took a picture and blasted it to everyone who
might know Fernando. I thought I was going to die.”

Emily’s dark honey skin had turned pale. “Why
didn’t
you
die? After a cut like that, you wouldn’t have had long.”

“Even then, I was thinking through scenarios, protecting us.
After what happened to our sister—”

“Your sister?”

“Not yet.” Javier took a deep breath, his guts twisting. “I
can’t talk about that yet. For now, let’s just say it had occurred to me that
someone might try to get to my brother by hurting me. I’d hacked my phone so it
would send a message to him in response to certain strange behavior. Like
someone repeatedly trying to access it without success.”

“So they’d tipped him off before they hurt you.”

“Exactly.” He glanced down at his hands. They gripped each
other so tightly that the tiny scars on his knuckles stood out lividly. Javier
relaxed them with a mental effort. “He and a whole army of guys were already on
the way. Luckily, they’d almost made it to where Sergio’s people had me.”

“And then what?”

It was Javier’s turn to shrug. “A lot of people died that
day. I don’t really remember. I couldn’t move much by that point, and my memory
of the whole thing is weird.” He shuddered. He remembered the event as a series
of bloody images. He shoved them out of his mind whenever they presented
themselves. “It’s why he trusts me. I didn’t give him up then. He knows there’s
nothing in the world that could make me betray him. I’ve been tried and
tested.”

Emily didn’t seem impressed. She bit her lip. “It sounds
like everyone involved should have been arrested.”

Javier gave a bitter laugh. “For a lady who works so close
to the criminal justice system, you don’t understand much about how it works.”

“I know how it’s
supposed
to work.”

“Well, there are entire parts of town where it doesn’t work
the way it’s supposed to work. They care more about deporting illegals than
about arresting people who hurt children.”

“You’re not talking about what happened to you.”

Javier clenched his jaw to prevent it from chattering. “No.
I’m not.”

“Your sister.”

He could not meet her eyes. “Her name was Sabi.”

“That’s why it bothered you so much when I told you what
Fernando is accused of.”

“If he did it…I’ll never forgive him.”

He heard her move toward him but he still didn’t look at
her. He couldn’t stand to see pity. He expected a gentle touch and steeled
himself. He didn’t want to take this out on Emily.

Instead of her hand, a manila folder touched his skin. He
brought up his head, startled. “What’s that?”

The expression on Emily’s face wasn’t at all what he
expected. She stared steadily down at him, her lips arranged in a thin,
determined line. Despite her delicate features, the set of her jaw made her
face hard. “It’s Fernando’s file. The charges. The arrest warrant. The evidence
the prosecutor presented that convinced the judge to issue the warrant. You
might want to take a look.” She nudged him with the file until he took it from
her. “It’s also got some other information about what Fernando’s been up to.
Other people he’s hurt. Maybe not kids, but people. He’s no saint, Javier. I
know he’s your brother, but how much can you lie to yourself? Do you want to have
any part of an activity that kills people? Any people? Even if it’s not all
cute little girls?”

Javier did not open the file. She’d just handed him
everything he’d spent his life ignoring about his brother. He flexed the
fingers of his left hand, shaking his head at his scarred knuckles. “You know,
when I healed up after that cut, I took up boxing for a while. I think I just
wanted to hit something, a lot. I could beat the hell out of a bag for hours.
Still do sometimes. But I figured out pretty fast that I didn’t want to hit
people. First time I tried a bout, I just stood there and took it. Fernando
couldn’t understand what came over me.”

“What does that mean, Javier?” She gave no quarter with
either her expression or her posture.

He blinked up at Emily. He’d never told Terri half this
much, but she’d melted with sympathy if he so much as hinted at it. False
sympathy, maybe, since she hadn’t seemed to care where his money came from. His
lips twisted. “You’re not making this easy.”

“I’m not trying to.” Now she touched him, her hand firm on
his shoulder. She squatted down beside him without releasing her grip. “I
understand you’re very loyal to your brother. I respect that. Truly. But I also
think that, at this point, the best thing for Fernando is for me to find him
and take him to Guy. He’s likely to get killed by that rival gang if I don’t.
And to be perfectly honest, he deserves to be tried and possibly punished for
his crimes. I can see you want to be a good man, Javier. You’ve told yourself
for a while that you can love your brother and take care of him and just keep
yourself away from the bad things he does. But if you’re really a good man, it
means you know when it’s time to take a stand. I’m saying that time has come,
and it’s the best thing for everybody.”

Javier swallowed hard. He wanted her to stop talking, but
she would not.

“Guy’s a good man. He believes in the system, and he
believes in people getting fair treatment. He can help Fernando if he gets the
chance. He wouldn’t have taken him on as a client if he didn’t think he had
integrity.”

Javier dropped his head into his hands. “Why did he run? If
he was innocent, why would he?”

“Maybe he wasn’t innocent,” Emily said mercilessly.

Javier put his hand over the one she’d placed on his arm. He
took a deep breath and peeled her fingers off him. “Don’t pretend you feel
sorry for me.”

She did not take her hand back. She laced her fingers
through his instead, and he allowed it. “I do feel sorry for you. Obviously,
you’ve had a hard life and this is an awful situation. I’m not going to pretend
this is anything less.” She squeezed his hand. “I also know you’re a grown man,
and I know you can handle this. You can do the right thing. We need to find
your brother, for a lot of reasons. I’m asking for whatever you can give me.”

Javier’s chest felt tight. The hand she held wanted to
shake, and it took everything he had to hold it steady for her. She’d made a
lot more sense than he wanted to admit. In the short time he’d known her, she’d
already inspired him to reexamine his life, to reconsider how he used his
skills. He didn’t know how much more of this he could take. He shook his head.
“No one’s going to find him,” Javier said. “I’ve made sure he’s safe. He’s run
away, so that means he’s done with the stuff in this file. Can’t we just leave
it be? It’s over.”

Emily didn’t move a muscle, but he felt her disagreement as
surely as if she’d slapped him. She let the moment stretch until Javier could
barely stand it. Then she finally spoke in a low, urgent voice. “Do you really
think it’s fair for him to get away clean? If he really hurt a little girl?”

“Damn it, Emily.” He ripped himself away from her and
stalked across the room.

“Give me some sort of lead, Javier.”

He leaned his head against her door again. He didn’t know if
he wanted to get out or stay in forever. For a wild moment, he wished he were
someone else. He needed to give her something—she’d convinced him that it was
the right thing—but he still couldn’t stomach the idea of betraying Fernando.
“Carolina Mendes,” he muttered.

“What?”

He spelled the name for her. “I’m not giving you any of my
technical secrets, but I suppose it’s possible someone else might have seen him
with her. You might find someone else who would give you that name—maybe it
didn’t have to come from me.” He cleared his throat. The compromise he’d made
with himself felt pathetic, but he clung to it. “I think he’s in love with her.
He knows better than to contact her, but maybe she knows something.”

“Thank you, Javier.”

He whirled toward her. “Don’t thank me, damn it. Don’t ever
thank me for something like that. I didn’t give you that name to earn your
gratitude.”

She eased herself to her feet. “I understand.”

Javier paced her shabby living room, had been pacing for
hours. The moment he’d given that damned name to Emily, he’d known he wouldn’t
sleep. He felt restless. He could sit at her computer and spend the rest of the
day coding to calm himself, but he didn’t want to drown himself that way.
Emily’s hands on his hips stilled him.

He jumped. He hadn’t noticed her coming up behind him.

“Tell me about Sabi,” she said, the words breath with barely
any voice.

The walls that remained within him threatened to tumble
down. He let her pull him to a sitting position on the floor. “What do you want
to know?”

“What was she like?”

“I don’t know how much I remember.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

Javier sighed. He’d avoided the subject for so long that it
took a moment to summon any details. “She had this doll she used to carry. A
stuffed dragon, I think. It started out with gold eyes, but she hugged it so
much that the buttons on her shirt scratched all the color off. She loved to
brush her teeth. She did it after every meal, but also for fun, and she always
wanted me to brush my teeth with her.” He smiled despite himself. “She also
liked for me to braid her hair, because no one else would. I got pretty good
after a while.”

“Yeah?” Emily rested one hand at the base of his spine as if
she were holding him up.

“Oh yeah. I looked online and found all kinds. French.
Three-strand, four-strand, five-strand, upside-down. I did her hair every
morning and sometimes we’d play around with braids for hours on a Saturday
afternoon. She had really thick, long hair. Kind of like yours, except black.”
The lump in Javier’s throat made it impossible to speak.

Emily lifted one of Javier’s hands in hers and guided it to
her hair. He almost couldn’t bear to touch it, but she held him firmly in place
until he gripped a thick hunk of it. “I’ve never even heard of a five-strand braid,”
she said. “Why don’t you give me one now? Do you still remember how?” She
scooted around to sit cross-legged in front of him.

Javier swallowed hard but it only moved the knot down to his
chest. “Why?”

“Because it’s okay to remember her.”

Javier’s muscle memory activated before he’d fully agreed to
Emily’s plan. He finger-combed her hair, enjoying the way the soft, silky
strands stroked across his skin. He cleared his throat and made an effort to
regain control of the situation. “You’re not my sister.”

“Believe me, I’m not confused about that. But I can tell you
my daddy taught me to play golf and then take you to the driving range on a
date, right?”

Javier made a face. “Fernando likes golf. It makes him feel
like a legitimate businessman.”

“I think it does the same for my father.”

“Is he not?” Her conversation began to draw him in. He liked
the idea of taking the focus off his family and learning more about her.

“Oh I guess he is. He makes a lot of money working in
finance, anyway. But he lives in Newport, not New York City, and he’s going to
retire with a million dollars, not five million dollars. That kind of thing. I
don’t know how you get satisfaction, ever, when you think like that.”

Javier wove her dark-blonde hair into a complex pattern,
taking plenty of opportunities to caress the sides of her neck and the spots
behind her ears. “Retire with a million dollars, huh? Is that because he’s too
stingy to buy his daughter a new couch?”

She leaned into his touch. Javier moved closer, adjusting
his position so she wound up seated between his legs. Emily sighed. “He’d buy
me a new couch and anything else I wanted if I’d quit being a bounty hunter. As
long as I do this work, though, I get nothing from him.”

“Knowing you even a little, I figure his methods have
backfired in a pretty big way.”

“Don’t get me wrong. I’ve wanted to be a bounty hunter for
as long as I can remember. I’ve worked damn hard for this. I wouldn’t give it
up easily, no matter what. But honestly? After the way he’s been about it, I’d
live on the street before I quit.”

“That’s my girl,” Javier said, pulling her even closer.

“
Your
girl?”

He held his half-finished braid in place with one hand while
he wrapped the other arm around her waist. He kissed her hair. “If you’re
willing.”

She twisted in his direction. He had to react quickly to
keep from losing the work he’d done on her hair. “What are you talking about?”

“Didn’t you say no more fighting this thing between us?”
Javier coaxed her back into place. Now the pattern he formed in her hair seemed
like a way of holding her to him. “I don’t know if you understand how deeply
you’ve affected me. I can’t go back to the life I had before. Whether you stay
beside me or not, I’m going to be a new man because of you.”

His heart pounded. She stayed silent so long he worried he’d
said too much. Then she gave a long exhale, and her shoulders dropped. “Make me
surrender to you, Javier.”

“I don’t need you to surrender, Emily. I don’t have to prove
I’ve got the upper hand. I just want what you’re willing to give.”

“I know. But I want to surrender. Make me. Please.”

“Lead me to a rubber band I can use to tie this braid up.”
Emily rolled smoothly to her feet without using her hands. Javier kept hold of
her hair and followed her up, moving a little more slowly. She took them to the
desk, where she produced a sticky rubber band. Javier shook his head. “You’re
obviously not the kind of woman who spends a bunch of money taking care of
herself.”

“Do I look like I have a bunch of money to spend?”

“You make me wish I could take care of that for you.”

“I would never accept it.”

“I know. But you just asked me to make you surrender.” He
snapped the rubber band onto the bottom of her braid. He tugged it once
playfully, then took her by the shoulders and turned her to face him. “Get on
your knees, Emily.”

She bit her lip. Her wrinkled forehead and restless fingers
revealed the battle that must be taking place inside her. Javier folded his
arms across his chest, consciously mimicking the posture she had taken earlier
with him.

“Are you going to make me?” Emily said finally.

“You want me to grab you and force you to your knees?” He
called the idea into question by raising an eyebrow. “That’s not going to work
for either of us. If I make you surrender with your body but not with your
heart, what good is that? I’m just going to stand here and wait until you
figure out what you want.”

Emily stared at him, her eyes naked with shock and
vulnerability. This time, Javier was the one who could gaze at her implacably.

“You told me just a minute ago that you want to surrender,
Emily. Were you lying to me?”

“No, I just need—”

“To get on your knees if that’s what you want.”

“Matthew would have fought me for it.” She looked like she
regretted the words as soon as she said them. Javier could have taken them the
wrong way, but he decided not to.

“I’m not Matthew. Do you wish I was?”

She shook her head, then slowly sank to her knees. The sight
of her obeying him, willingly giving herself to him, turned Javier on more than
he could ever have expected. He watched her, imagining he could hold her with
his gaze alone. He stepped closer and rested the palm of his head on the top of
her head, emphasizing the difference in height.

“Good girl,” Javier said. “Now tell me what else you think
about when you want me to make you surrender. What does that mean?”

She trembled so violently he could feel it through her thick
hair. Javier waited. When Emily finally spoke, her voice came out higher than
normal. She sounded younger. “I want you to make me stop fighting so I can
relax. I want to feel like you’re taking care of me. I want to feel like you’re
strong enough to hold me up.”

Javier inhaled, a plan forming in his mind. After feeling
off balance every time he encountered her, it pleased him to see his way clear to
giving her what she needed. “Good,” he said aloud. “Now listen to me. I can be
as strong as you need me to be, but I’m not going to force it or fight you for
it. We can play like we did with the spanking, but I don’t want to be in a
battle of wills all the time. You’re going to have to decide if you trust me,
and you’re going to have to be honest about what you want from me. Can you do
that?”

Emily nodded slowly and a thrill of arousal passed through
Javier from head to toe.

“Good. Now stand up and take off your clothes.”

He saw her shiver but she got to her feet without hesitation
and faced him. All traces of shyness faded. She met his eyes while bold fingers
removed the conservative pantsuit she had been wearing. Javier stood back,
restraining the urge to touch her immediately. He wanted to enjoy the
revelation of her bare body.

Powerful, lean muscle shaped Emily’s every limb. Javier’s
eyes traced the thick curves of her calves, the compact line of her ass, the
muscle that rippled over her slim stomach. He grew painfully hard before she
even stripped down to her bra and panties. Her every gesture increased the
pressure in his groin even further.

She dropped her clothes in a pile along the wall and stood
proudly before him, her long, thick braid concealing her large left nipple.

“Have you fantasized about me?” Javier asked.

“Yes.” Now that they’d entered the scene, Emily’s voice had
resumed its usual confidence. He liked that she answered with one brazen word.

“Show me what you’ve thought about.” She cocked her head in
confusion and took a step closer but he stopped her with a lifted hand. “Touch
yourself the way you’ve thought about me touching you.”

Her wide blue eyes blinked once, then Emily backed against
the wall and ran her hands down her sides. She gripped her hips firmly, hard
enough to whiten the skin around her fingers. Emily whirled, her body moving
with a deadly sort of grace that he imagined she’d learned from drilling
martial arts moves. She pressed herself face forward against the wall, then arched
her back so her ass edged toward him. She slipped one hand between herself and
the wall, taking hold of her left nipple. Her other hand reached around behind
her and spread herself open.

Javier groaned aloud. The image her gestures created
overwhelmed him. “Freeze,” he said. “Don’t move.” She obeyed. He approached and
reverently touched her bare skin, running fingers up between her thighs and
along the planes of her cheekbones. Gently, he pulled her hands aside and took
hold of her soft nipple himself. He felt between her legs and found her
dripping wet. He leaned close to her ear. “Where did you leave those condoms?”
he murmured.

“In the bag on the couch.” Her voice came out measured but
he heard the restraint coiled there. To tease her, Javier found her clit and
stroked over it, his fingers moving from side to side.

“Should I go get them?”

“What the hell do you think?” Emily snapped, then laughed.
“The downstairs neighbors are about to get their ceiling flooded, Javier.”

“Because you’re that wet for me?”

She sighed. “Yeah.”

“So you want me to get the condoms?”

She let out a frustrated growl that made him chuckle.

“I think I want you to come for me first.”

“It’s hard for me to come standing up.”

“Then we’re going to be here for a long time, aren’t we?” He
lowered his lips to her neck.

“Oh my God, Javier. What the hell is this?”

He nibbled and sucked her neck, flicked her nipple and toyed
with her clit. “Surrender, Emily.” She sighed and moaned a little. He couldn’t
resist teasing her a little more. “Remember, any time you don’t like it, you
can just throw me to the floor and drive your knee into my rib cage.”

“You are evil!” Emily laughed, gasping against the wall. She
curled one hand into a fist. “How am I supposed to come if you’re making me
crack up like this?”

“I don’t know,” Javier said, his voice as innocent as he
could make it. He released her nipple and trailed his fingertips as lightly as
he could over her ribs.

Emily shrieked and twisted in his arms. “You really
are
going to end up on the floor!”

“You sure?” He redoubled his efforts on her clit, stroking
her with several fingers at once, each one moving at a slightly different pace.
Emily half-laughed and half-moaned, squirming in his grasp ever more violently.

His tickling hand returned to caressing, but he’d sensitized
her so much by then that she continued to react as if he poked her. Javier
slipped his fingers inside her, curling them to catch her inner walls.

Emily exhaled from deep in her chest and her body went
stiff. Javier tightened his arms around her, letting her know that he could
hold her up. “Surrender,” he repeated, and held her with all his strength as
she clenched around his fingers.

She went limp in his arms while he whispered encouragement.
The feeling of this powerful woman trusting her weight to him stirred him
beyond simple desire. Javier savored the moment as Emily recovered her breath,
burying his face in her hair.

“Javier,” Emily said. “Get the condoms, please. Now.”

He laughed and kissed her cheek. He scooped her up into his arms,
pleased she felt so light and small despite her deadly abilities. He carried
her to the couch and leaned over to clear it, shifting her weight to his left
arm while he moved items out of the way with his right.

He set her down and found the condoms. “Put it on me,” he
said, handing her the foil-wrapped package.

Emily groaned. “I have no dexterity whatsoever right now.”

Javier raised an eyebrow, and one corner of her mouth
quirked up. She tore the package open, then gripped his cock. Her fingers felt
perfect around him, firm and cool against his hard heat. She shaped her thumb
and forefinger into a ring and slipped it over the head of his shaft, twisting
gently against the underside of the ridge.