With Roses Come Thorns

Dallas had left the Lear jet where he'd park it and headed to the parking lot where he'd pick up the jeep and take it back to his bungalow. Mac greeted him at the hanger, and both of them knew well enough to whisper.

"Did you get the plans," Mac asked.

Dallas nodded.

"I put them in the wheel axel," he said, "So when you do your post flight check, you'll find them there."

Mac smiled, and then gave him some forms to fill out to file with the tower. Dallas got into his car and drove down the winding road, with only himself for company as usual. The ocean breeze hit his face, the day's heat still clinging to it. Stars filled the sky and the sliver of a pale moon. He reached his bungalow which was 200 feet away from the edge of the most crystal blue ocean he had ever seen in his life.

Rodrigo had picked himself quite a paradise for this latest hideaway.

After parking the jeep, he walked to his bungalow and turned on the ceiling fan before even stepping inside. He flipped on the light and there she stood in front of him.

"Reese?"

She moved closer to him and wrapped her arms around him, holding him close to her. He lowered his mouth on hers and kissed her hard, while she threaded her fingers through his hair. Her hair smelled like lilac, intermingling with his aftershave.

Her hands moved close enough to the front of his pants and unsnapped them, trying to pull them down. He finished that for her and his briefs too while still kissing her, then his hands moved towards her dress, riding it up her thighs, gripping her hips covered with the bunched up fabric. No romance, no foreplay, just with one goal in mind.

She backed up eagerly against a wall and he tugged her panties down her legs before she jumped up on him, wrapping her legs tightly around him. He shoved her hard against the wall even before thrusting inside her pussy, his penetration made her cry out. She held onto him as he moved inside of her, over and over until…

Dallas woke up in a deep sweat, his cock rock hard, not the state he wanted to be in at all. But the dream…it had seemed so damn real. He had felt the softness of her skin as he held her. But no it couldn't be because they weren't the people they'd been back then and everything had changed since they had closed out that case.

Since those nights they had been lovers, she had climbed into the bed of the man that they had been hired to help bust. So the woman he had known no longer existed, just the woman who had betrayed him and almost the assignment itself. Oh, the entrapment allegations probably wouldn't hold up in court but they had complicated the situation and if they'd gotten out, they would have smeared the reputation of the agency that had contracted with them.

The media would have had a field day with the tale of the female operative who had gotten down and dirty, seduced by one of the worst traffickers in the trade. He wonder what role he would be cast to play, the straight man to her Mata Hari perhaps?

But then again, he hadn't been entirely innocent either because he had shacked up with her while they were supposed to be undercover.

Well they had been under covers more than once when one wrong move or even a look could have gotten them both killed. But that made it more exciting, the fact that if they'd been caught fucking one another, it could have been their last moment…if it hadn't been the danger factor would they have ever hooked up?

Sure they had been best friends and business partners but what had happened between them during that assignment had been unreal. It could never survive the harsh light of the world they returned to after their job had been done. The operation hadn't ended the way it had been planned but it had ended.

He sighed as he shifted in his bed, naked except for a sheet wrapped around him. His date with Clover had been fun but nothing serious. She seemed like a nice woman with no small degree of sex appeal but he had his work cut out for him keeping Reese from Rodrigo's crosshairs. He had to focus on that.

After getting some sleep, and that meant not dreaming about a past that would never be revisited.

She lay back on the bed, her slip of a dress hiked up to her waist. Her heart beat quickly and she felt exposed, in an unfamiliar bed. He stood above her casually undoing his cuffs, before slipping his shirt off of his massive shoulders. All those years fighting underground where men had died and been buried at sea, had honed out a killer who wore Armani like a pampered millionaire.

"You're so beautiful," he said, reaching for the snap on his pants and lowering them and his briefs.

His cock, she had already known it to be thick enough to feel like it had ripped her open that first time. But her pussy felt slickened, enough so he could glide inside of her, just as he wanted while she watched.

The mattress yielded as she felt him move across the bed, towards her. She bit her lip, as he started kissing her neck, while positioning himself back between her thighs, nudging them apart.

He rutted against her, his thrust sending his cock deep inside of her and she opened her thighs further to him. He whispered into her ear as she grabbed him to pull him closer to her, to make him move faster, his musk wafting in her face until he came.

Inside her head, she thought of someone else.

Reese woke up and saw that the sun would be rising in an hour so she got out of bed, reached for her robe and walked to the kitchen to make breakfast. She had been dreaming before she had awakened, about Rodrigo.

On nights she dreamed about Dallas, she woke up elated a moment before she remembered she was supposed to hate him. But with Rodrigo, there was no such moment.

When she woke up from her dreams about him, she felt dirty. She felt as if she had been stained so deeply inside her, nothing could remove it. Dallas despised her for what she had done and an investigation had arisen from it once Rodrigo's lawyer had made his complaint. But she was done explaining herself to anyone, certainly Dallas. What had happened with Rodrigo had nothing to do with how she had felt about Dallas and what it had been like during their interludes.

Making love with him had kept her going during the assignment when the rest of the time she felt so isolated and always needing to be on her toes. Especially with a man as volatile as Rodrigo who could be kind one moment and ordering the execution of someone who betrayed him the next.

She had been assigned to be Rodrigo's newest assistant after he and tortured and murdered the last one and her operative contact. At first she had thought he'd be extra careful before trusting her and there had been a brief period…but soon enough he had been treating her as a member of his loyal team. Only…she closed her eyes when she thought about that part of working for him.

The part that had gotten her into his bed.

No, she had put that episode behind her and she had moved on, which was one reason why she had driven all the way up here, leaving L.A. behind her. She had slid into her new role here easily enough, leaving the past behind her and focusing only on each day at a time.

Until Dallas had decided to come up here looking for her.

She knew that he wouldn't leave to go back to L.A. unless she came with him which was never going to happen. But although she didn't admit it, the thought of Rodrigo out there trying to find her scared her. If he did find her…that made it hard to sleep at night. So maybe having him around not too close but close enough to act if Rodrigo did appear wasn't such a bad thing.

But he'd have to keep his distance from her if he tried to keep rubbing in the fact that she had slept with Rodrigo. He didn't have his facts straight but at this point, she didn't feel like talking about it. Living with it had been hard enough but she had pushed everything in her past away.

She would keep doing that and she would make that clear to Dallas.

Rodrigo called in one of his guards to deal with some merchandise lying in the floor of his suite. Violet lay there, her face bruised, on her side, unconscious.

It had been quite a busy night for her but he was finished. The guard walked in, taking a look at her and then looking at him.

"What do you want me to do with her?"

Rodrigo stroked his jaw.

"Put her on the next plane down to Brazil," he said, "She'll do nicely there in one of the brothels."

"She looks out of it."

Rodrigo shrugged.

"Does it really matter," he said, "All she's got to do is lie on her back and she'll be open for business."

The guard called a second guard in and they bent over her, but when they saw the bruises around her wrists and the track marks they looked up at Rodrigo.

When they saw the expression on his face, they kept their thoughts to themselves.

"She'll be out of here by the end of the day."

Rodrigo nodded.

"Good…any reports coming in on that tramp, Reese her name is."

"Nothing…though we're expecting a call from one of the men."

"The one near San Francisco right," Rodrigo asked.

The guard nodded.

"Yeah…he might have a trail," he said, "A guy at a motel said he saw a woman looked like her several months ago."

Rodrigo had gotten a lot of tips but not much so far in terms of panning out. It just irritated him.

"Contact me the moment he reports," he said, "I want to talk with him directly."

"We'll do that," the guard said, "We'll take care of her now."

Rodrigo stared down dispassionately while they picked up Violet and carried her away, before he walked through his open French doors out onto his balcony.

Where he'd sit with a magnificent view of the ocean in front of him thinking of his plans for the woman who betrayed him when he caught up with her.