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gothcsz · 7 days ago

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part nine of the neighbors series. i just had to write this... it was too good of a thought to keep just in my head! javier going back to helena after you rightfully tell him to get lost for standing you up. he's not into it but decides to fuck her anyways?! this man and his unhealthy coping mechanism: sex. smh. this takes place after part seven 🖤

javier peña x f!reader. ~1.5k word count. spanish heavy (translated), s m u t, honestly javi just comes with his own warning at this point, angst (as always)

Javier winces as the door to your apartment shuts in his face, the sound echoing louder than it should in the quiet hallway. He stands there for a long moment, his heart lodged firmly in his throat as guilt churns in his stomach.

He’d known, from the moment you opened the door in that beautiful dress, that he’d made a colossal mistake. He’s not sure how the fuck he’s going to make things right between you.

He sighs deeply, dragging a hand down his face before pinching the bridge of his nose. The way you masked the hurt he caused with dismissiveness and a sharp, cutting comment before turning him away somehow stung worse than if you’d just yelled at him.

His feet feel heavy as he trudges back to his apartment, the guilt following him like a shadow.

When he opens the door, Helena is there, sprawled comfortably on his couch with her legs crossed and a glass of whiskey in hand. She looks up, a playful smile tugging at her lips as she watches him close the door behind him with a slow, almost reluctant motion.

“Eso fue rápido,” (That was fast) she comments, “¿Todo bien?” (Everything okay?) she tilts her head slightly, her gaze curious but not overly concerned.

Javier stands at the threshold of his sunken living room, his shoulders sagging with the weight of his thoughts. He doesn’t answer immediately, too busy replaying the image of you in his mind.

She sets the glass down and stands, closing the distance between them.“Puedo ver el conflicto en tus ojos, Javi. ¿Tu vecina te gritó o que?” (I can see the conflict in your eyes, Javi. Did your neighbor bitch at you or something?) she teases, resting her hands on his shoulders before letting her fingers curl into the soft curls at the nape of his neck.

Her touch pulls him out of his thoughts momentarily. “No,” he replies, his tone low, “Pero me porte como un culero y me siento mal por como la trate.” (But I acted like an asshole and I feel bad about how I treated her)

She raises an eyebrow, her lips quirking into an amused smile. “You’re an asshole to everyone,” she says lightly, brushing a kiss along his jaw.

He scoffs, his frown deepening. “¿Qué? No hagas ese ruido—sabes que tengo razón.” (What? Don’t make that noise—you know I’m right) she chimes in as she continues with her affectionate touches.

Normally, he’d lean into it, let her distract him the way she always does. But tonight, it feels hollow, like a cheap salve for a wound cut too deep.

She notices his hesitance, pausing as she cups his face in her hands. “Nunca he visto a nadie tan interesado en lo que hace su vecina. Should I be worried about her?” (I’ve never seen anyone so into what his neighbor is doing) she’s half-teasing as her gaze searches his face for an answer, but Javier avoids it, the hesitation clear in his brown eyes even as he tries to shrug it off.

“No,” he attempts to be nonchalant with his reply, “Solamente tengo ojos para ti, hermosa.” (I only have eyes for you, beautiful) His hand slips down to grip her ass, trying to redirect the moment, trying to bury the ache of guilt beneath something physical.

She narrows her eyes slightly, skeptical but willing to let it slide. “No mientas, Javier,” (Don’t lie) she murmurs. “Tengo suficiente de eso con todos los hombres en mi vida.” (I get enough of that from all the other men in my life)

Instead of responding, he leans in and kisses her, rough and insistent. She doesn’t push for more answers, letting him take what he needs, but she doesn’t miss the edge of hindrance in his touch.

“Si necesitas hablar de algo, sabes que aquí estoy,” (If you need to talk about something, you know I’m here) she says softly, more serious now as their lips brush together.

“Me ayudas más cuando no hablas,” (You help me more when you don't talk) he mutters before pulling her closer. She nips at his bottom lip, and it’s enough to spark the familiar lust between them.

Urgent touches, clothes discarded in a trail to the couch, and soon they’re a tangled mess with a throw blanket lazily thrown over their bodies.

She sinks down onto him, her lips on his neck as she whispers dirty encouragements against his skin.

It feels good—sex with Helena always does—but it’s different tonight.

No matter how tightly he shuts his eyes, no matter how hard he digs his fingers into her hips to ground himself, his mind keeps drifting back to you. To the way your lips trembled just slightly before you masked it, to the look in your eyes when you told him to ‘have fun vetting his lead.’

“Javi…” Helena’s airy moan pulls him back briefly, the clench of her around him sending a spark up his spine. He leans in to kiss her, messy and urgent, but it’s not to deepen their connection—it’s to keep her quiet.

The last thing he wants is for you to hear this, for you to know just how badly he’s handled things tonight.

Large hands move around to knead at her ass, guiding her movements, but his touch lacks its usual fervor.

The thought of you fills every corner of his mind even as he tries to lose himself in her. Your excitement that day by the fountain, the shy smile as you invited him out, and the way that smile disappeared the moment you saw him walk in with Helena.

And when her orgasm begins to crest and she’s shuddering around him, he barely notices, too consumed by the ache in his chest that no amount of physical release can fix.

She notices. She always does. Her rhythm falters slightly as she leans closer, her lips skimming his ear. “Pareces distraído.” (You seem distracted)

“Estoy bien,” (I’m fine) he growls, “Sigue moviéndote así.” (Just keep moving like that)

For the sake of not ruining this moment, she says nothing else, though he can feel the slight hesitation in her movements before she settles back into the pace he’s been guiding her toward.

Her breath hitches, her fingers tangling in his hair as she rides him, and he leans his head back against the couch, letting his eyes fall shut again.

It still doesn’t help.

Helena’s nails rake lightly down his chest, and he shivers, but it’s not desire that ripples through him—it’s frustration. With himself. With this situation. With the way he’s here, with a beautiful woman in his lap, and all he can think about is how badly he’s screwed things up with you.

Even as he drives her to her peak, there’s no satisfaction in it for him. His body is moving on autopilot, chasing a release that feels more like an obligation than a need.

When he finally comes, her name is the last thing on his mind. Yours, however, lingers at the tip of his tongue, threatening to lash out.

He bites it back, swallowing hard as she digs her nails into the skin of his shoulders, a guttural groan muffled against her neck, his hands clutching her ass like she’s the only thing tethering him to this moment of fleeting pleasure.

The instant it’s over, he feels heavier than before, the guilt settling back over him like a dense fog that refuses to lift.

Helena collapses against his chest, her breath warm and uneven against his neck. She’s still for a few seconds, and then she lifts her head, her dark eyes searching his face.

“¿Seguro que estás bien?” (Are you sure you’re okay?) she asks softly, concern threading through her voice.

Javier exhales sharply, avoiding her gaze as he gently shifts her off of him. “Estoy bien,” (I’m fine) he repeats for what feels like the millionth time, his words clipped. He stands, grabbing his discarded jeans from the floor and pulling them on hastily.

She watches him in silence, wrapping the blanket around her naked form, unspoken questions hanging in the air. He can feel her studying him, trying to piece together the puzzle of his distraction, but he doesn’t have the energy to reassure her. Not tonight.

He grabs the carton of cigarettes and lighter from the coffee table, his movements practiced, almost automatic. The flick of the lighter illuminates his face briefly before the glow fades, the cigarette catching with a faint crackle. He takes a deep drag, smoke filling his lungs before he exhales, watching it swirl toward the ceiling.

“¿Te vas a quedar?” (Are you staying?)

She doesn’t answer right away, licking her lips. “No. Tengo otros planes.” (No. I have other plans)

Relief floods through him, and for the first time since they started hooking up, he’s okay with her walking out the door. He nods, tapping ash into the tray on the table.

“Bueno entonces, cuidate. Here,” (Well then, take care) holding the cigarette between his lips, he fishes his leather wallet from the back pocket of his jeans. He pulls out a wad of cash, walking over and holding it out to her.

Her eyes drop to the money, her expression tightening. “Javi, ya te he dicho como me siento con esto.” (Javi, I’ve already told you how I feel about this)

“¿Qué?” He shrugs, speaking around the cigarette between his teeth. “Te estoy pagando como lo hacen todos los demás.” (What? I’m paying you like everyone else does)

“No eres como los demás.” (You’re not like the others)

They lock eyes, the tension between them heavy and tangible. His exasperation simmers, then bubbles over. He tosses the money onto the coffee table with a thud.

“Entonces no lo tomes. Me vale madre.” (Then don’t take it. I don’t give a damn)

Helena stands, redressing and stepping into her heels. Javier finishes his cigarette with slow drags as she collects her things. She swipes the cash on her way out, crumpling it in her fist.

“¿Ves lo que te dije? Eres un culero con todos.” (See what I told you? You’re an asshole to everyone)

He doesn’t flinch but his jaw flexes, a muscle ticking as he watches her brush past him, her heels clicking against the hardwood floor.

She stops at the door, one hand resting on the knob as she glances back at him. “No sé qué está pasando entre tú y tu vecina, pero necesitas arreglarlo porque odio cuando actúas así.” (I don’t know what's going on between you and your neighbor, but you need to straighten it out because I hate it when you act like this)

With that, she unlocks the door and leaves, leaving him standing there in his living room, now feeling worse than he did before and he has no one to blame but himself.

He stares at the spot where she stood, the remnants of her perfume lingering faintly in the air. He doesn’t move for a long moment, caught in the crossroads of her parting words.

Finally, he curses under his breath and heads to the bathroom. The cool tile beneath his feet as he flips on the light, the hum of the fluorescent bulb filling the room. He leans over the sink, gripping the porcelain edges so tightly—his knuckles go white.

The faucet sputters to life with a twist of his wrist, and he splashes cold water onto his face, droplets streaking down his cheeks and dripping onto his bare chest. It does nothing to clear the haze in his head.

When he looks up into the mirror, the man staring back at him looks just as wrecked as he feels.

This isn’t sustainable and he knows it. He can’t keep making a mess of every little thing in his life, can’t keep masking his despair with sex, whiskey, and cigarettes.

But knowing is one thing. Doing is another.

started a tag list for my works here, so if you're interested— pls check it out 🖤

🏷️ : @almostempty . @persephone-girl . @magneticecstasy . @thundermartini . @pepperstories . @greenwitchfromthewoods . @almostfoxglove . @maiyart . @pedrohoe04 . @natalieispunk . @thewisesalmon . @bitchesuntitled . @puddles221b . @swankyorange . @bbyanarchist . @thottiewinemom . @heyhihello-4771 . @danaehldy . @sunflowerfive . @libre-sol . @harriedandharassed . @untamedheart81 . @moel-jiller . @honeyedmiller . @alexxavicry . @oldenoughtoknowbettersstuff . @almodovarispunk . @southernbe . @readingiskeepingmegoing . @pedrito-is-punk7 . @mrs-hardy-hunnam-butler . @la-vie-est-une-fleur29 . @lover-of-books-and-tea . @mysterious-moonstruck-musings . @pigeonmama . @piercethevic03 . @phry-k . @larascorneroftheworld . @marisemonteiroo . @samanthajonees . @yellowbrickyeti . @bambisweethearts . @whiskeyneat-coffeeblack . @picketniffler . @itwasntimethatdidit40 . @94namkooksworld . @prose-before-hoes . @dontlookatme121 . @cherrysugarx . @half-moon16 . @dinanabuu . @sunshinefive . @angiewatson .

#javier pena fanfic #javier peña fanfic #javier peña fic #javier pena fic #javier pena x reader #javier pena x you #javier pena narcos #javier peña narcos #javier peña fanfiction #javier peña x reader #javier peña x you #javier pena fanfiction

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almostfoxglove · 23 days ago

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have Javier and reader ever talked about his relations when he was in Columbia? them being best friends and all. did she laugh it off? did she understand? I'm curious ☺️

HI SWEETHEART this made my day when I got it. I'm so sorry it took a while to answer but I hope you don't mind that I got a little carried away with this one... everything's weird and bad right now so I'm gonna post this and try to get some sleep - I hope you're taking care of yourself <3 thank you soso much for sending this ask, seriously it means the world. ily!! here's some tenderness for you.

javier confesses about colombia

an I'LL CARRY YOU drabble

Explicit (18+) | Javier Peña x f!reader | drabble 1.1k words CW: Allusion to canon-typical violence & trauma and two idiots being sickeningly in love.

You never push back on anything but his blame.

headcanons and full drabble below the cut!

in ICY, javi leaves to colombia (the first time) at twenty-eight (seen in part II). between that moment and when he returns aged thirty-six (seen in part I), they have no contact because her phone number changes, so when he calls her right after leaving (seen in dark heart), he thinks she's icing him out for good. *sobs gently*

we know he disappears again at the end of part I and doesn't return until he comes home for good at the end of part II. between those two meetings, they also have no contact - so his girl doesn't hear a thing about colombia (and by extension, all his sexual escapades), though she follows the news.

in the year after his return (all of part III) I don't think much of what happened down there comes up. javi's traumatized, still acclimating to civilian life while his girl's engaged *sobs harder*, and I imagine he's scared to admit his role in all the death and violence. if / when she asks, I think he keeps it pretty vague and chooses not to talk about the women he was involved with (they aren't together yet, after all)

POST-FINALE HOWEVER, javi tells her pretty much everything in little chunks at a time, including about all the women he slept with and what he knows of what became of them (I imagine the helena story is an especially tearful / difficult retelling, but it's important to him that she knows the truth). he's pretty terrified it'll scare her off, but I think we know her better than that.

here's a peek at what I imagine part of that conversation looked like <3

It’s the middle of the night and he’s not yet buying it, still has that little wrinkle above his nose that folds when he scowls cutting deep into his brow. Propped against the wall in his little twin bed, when you insist Javier’s dark eyes dodge yours and fall to the hands that knot themselves in his lap, anxious. But anxious is fine—just means he’s talking. Cutting off slabs of those missing years like meat from a bone for you to carry.

You’re grateful to be given anything at all. You know how deep trust like this really goes, unseen but branching. Mycelium underground.

You never push back on anything but his blame.

“Baby,” you say softly, and his jaw ticks as the word melts him a touch.

His chin might flicker briefly like his body longs to cry, but if it does he wrestles it back before meeting you with dark, helpless eyes. “You don’t know,” he says, no cruelty in it. His voice not much more solid than a whisper and slaughtered red by guilt.

“Know you though,” you say.

The sigh that cuts out of him could shatter you. Javier turns to stretch out length-wise on the bed, his socked feet hanging off the end. You moved in weeks ago but haven’t gotten around to upgrading to a bigger mattress and part of you believes—though you’d never say it—that he’s waiting to get through all this first. Like the hurt of him needs to be here to do it: in the bed where you both once were small, held. So you allow it, take turns groaning in the daylight hours about your backs and hips and necks, and at night you hold each other ‘cause you have to, to fit in this little thing. Not that you wouldn’t, anyway. Not that either of you know how to sleep without the weight of the other’s body anymore.

You always did sleep best beside him.

When he’s settled, you slip down to lie against him, propped up on one elbow with your torso folded over his and one arm draped across his hips. Javier sighs, pleased by the weight of you, and closes his eyes.

“Was different there,” he says, after a long moment. “M’different now.”

Outside the crickets are rioting again, ribbiting their threaded symphony. You push the hair back from his face—more pewter than ever but so familiar in its waves and curls—and watch the twitching of his face, all the microscopic ways he wrestles with some unnamed memory.

You give him his time. All this patient, open air until he swallows and starts to say, “Didn’t do right—”

It isn’t that his voice cracks, just that it stops all at once like someone’s lifted the needle off a record. Though you don’t know precisely what he’s trying to say, you sense its jagged outline. Can feel the memory slicing him anytime he speaks. Below you, Javier clears his throat. “Didn’t do right by them.”

Deep breath, then you push.

“Did you hurt them,” you ask, your voice quiet but solid, firm.

Though his brows fold low, his eyes stay closed. Swallows again. “No,” he says.

“Did you touch them without their consent,” you go on. “Do anything they didn’t want.”

“No,” Javier replies.

“Were you cruel?”

He shifts, uneasy. Mutters back a weak and whispered, “No.” Sometimes he has trouble with this one and stumbles over the answer, but tonight he’s got it right.

You know all this, of course. You’re not asking for you because you already know the answers—know him, whether he wants to admit it right now or not. Doesn’t matter that he’s different now; so are you. So is everybody. Tragedy doesn’t let a goddamn thing stay the same. And while you’ve always known you’ll never see nor fathom the whole, vicious picture—what living down there through years of violence laid ghost and seed beneath his skin—there’s not a bone in your body that believes him malicious.

At first he worried, but you don’t care about the bodies he lost himself in. All the women he held and had. Sort of surprised you too, but you didn’t learn of them until after you’d found each other again, for good this time, and so what was there to be afraid of? That there’d been, in the worst of his agony, warm hands and welcome bodies?

No, you don’t care. Doesn’t matter the number.

You’re glad that at least for small, clustered minutes, he wasn’t always alone.

“Did you try?” you ask. This is the big one, the one you know hurts most for him to hear. “To help them.”

In the turquoise cover of early night, Javier’s face crumples in. Forehead canyoned by lines, his eyes swallowed by miserable, crinkled Vs. You see no glossy tears slip loose but they must be in there, hidden under his lashes when for so long he holds his breath like he can’t trust his own lungs or own mind. While you wait, you lay one palm in the center of his chest and the shimmer of moonlight winks off your hand, reflected in the flat face of a garnet, making silver of red and pearl. It feels, for the moment it’s bright, a little like having his mother back. Like you can feel her in the room, holding him with you.

Javier’s heart hammers beneath your touch, then his hand bolts up to cover yours as if to keep you there. As if you’d ever pull away. “I—”

You press down gently, give him your warmth, your weight, and his hand tightens in kind.

“I wanted to,” he croaks.

“Did you try?”

And it breaks him, chokes him. One wet sound punches out of his chest but he’s tough, soft bits and all. Something in him’s always just known how to hold on. How to take it, for better or worse. But it’s for the better here, you’re certain. Because he won’t survive believing himself evil—you see that clearly, illuminated like a streetlamp casting gold over a night-dark road. If he doesn’t see that he tried, doesn’t let himself feel it, one of these days the guilt will kill him.

It’s just the one ragged breath, then he pebbles apart perfectly still. Steady, you leaden your weight on his sternum, press down a little harder, and Javier grips your hand with greater need. All his warring goes on quietly, invisible in all but his head.

“M’right here,” you tell him gently.

He nods, his eyes still shut. His breaths slow and agonizing.

“Right here,” you say.

Together you wait for the spell to pass, for the storm to clear, until finally the clouds part over him and he sucks one longer, deeper breath, dragging all the room’s air into his lungs. There it is, there he is, solidifying under your palm. Seaming back together, stained glass made new.

“I tried,” Javier breathes.

His face unfurls and the deep lines once carved with a knife fall smooth. The wrinkles stay of course, all the evidence of his life, but they’re softer now. You trace the crows feet at the corner of his eyes with your thumb and find his skin hot and damp.

“I know you did, baby,” you whisper to him. “You tried.”

Suddenly his arms fly up and crush you to his chest—so startled, you yelp and can’t help but chuckle as his grip tightens and tightens. You let him squeeze you, your arms trapped under his, and hum softly when you feel his nose against your hair. Carefully he inhales, then slow he exhales: something he’s picked up in his sessions, attended twice a month. Which is how you know that although he’s fallen silent, he’s busy in his mind reminding himself of frivolities. All the tiny bits he must have missed in those long, distant years he spent away from you, believing you hated him.

You imagine cut grass and July sunshine, beer bottles ice cold on the porch with his pop,

and rolling cigarettes in the bed of the pickup at sixteen, laughing at the sour clouds choking out of you when you couldn’t hold your smoke,

and birthday parties,

and your hand, at every age, in his.

He knows better now, that you never hated him and never could. Knows too that you’ve loved him all the years he’s loved you and will all the years you have left.

Eventually you feel the air shift as he comes home into his body. With his chest smushed tight against the shell of your ear, you’re half asleep, adrift in the deep throb of his pulse. You feel his mustache, the graze of his lips, and the quiet murmur of his voice calling you another name. New, these last weeks. It still surprises you, the sweetness of mi amor on his tongue, in his mouth.

“Get some sleep,” Javier murmurs as his arms go slack around you without pulling away.

“Only if you do,” you mumble in reply, eyes feathering open just long enough to catch the last of the sky’s deep blue. Then they’re closed again. Everything is warm and black.

“M’right behind you,” he says, and soon you’re both asleep.

dividers by @saradika-graphics <3 tag list below!

@pedritosgfreal @thundermartini @guiltyasdave @jolapeno @reluctanthalfwayoptimism

@myownwholewildworld @sunnytuliptime @indiegirlunited @anoverwhelmingdin @pedrospatch

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@whiskeyneat-coffeeblack @missladym1981 @ro-nahime-things @helenanell

#javier pena fanfiction #javier peña fanfic #javier pena x reader #javier pena x you #javier pena narcos #javier peña #javier peña x reader #javier peña fanfiction #javier peña x you #javier peña smut #narcos fanfic #narcos fanfiction #almostfoxglove #myfics #drabble: javiconfession #series: illcarryyou #asks #freya speaks

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kirsteng42 · 2 years ago

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These scenes are so sexy! It is 1 example that I think the coloured gifs are better just because of the beautiful lighting and JP’s golden glow….black and white is normally better…

PEDRO PASCAL as Javier Peña in Narcos S01E02

#Javier pena #narcos #s1 ep2 #javi and helena #god I love this man #pedro pascal characters

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wardenparker · 5 months ago

Text

Bones Full of Words, ch 1

Javier Peña x plus size reader Co-written with @absurdthirst

“He pleaded so much that he lost his voice. His bones began to fill with words.” ― Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Javier Peña had no way of knowing for certain the American journalist he sometimes sees sniffing around the embassy for her stories is also getting information about the narcos from the same girls that he is. After Helena is brutalized by sicarios, it is that same journalist who comes to take her away and look after her -- giving Javi reason to pause and reconsider his opinion of the woman he had previously not considered as anything more than eye candy.

He has no idea that once she has walked fully into his life, he will be battling with himself over whether or not he should stop her from walking out it of again.

Rating: E for Explicit! 18+ Word Count: 8.8k Warnings: *Blanket warnings for this series: sex work, time period appropriate sexism, alcohol, food/eating, talk of weight or size, fatphobia (sometimes internalized and sometimes not)* Nudity, body positivity, talk of oral sex, discussion of/evidence of abuse from a sexual partner, physical abuse of sex workers, groping, fingering, vaginal sex, unprotected sex, rough sex. Summary: Two Americans are both regular customers of the local brothels in Bogotá, which is a tie that will bring their fates together in ways they could never expect. Notes: For this series, please note that reader is American and speaks fluent Spanish! There is no indication of how she knows the language, whether or not it relates to her background, or anything specific like that. In order to make the story flow as best as humanly possible, it is written entirely in English (the writers' first language) but most of the time the characters are speaking in Spanish with each other. That is simply the nature of the beast with this exciting story to come, and we hope you enjoy!

Bogotá, Colombia 1987

Prostitution is the oldest profession in the world. Removed from the skills that took the cavemen beyond the hunter/gatherer roles that had prevailed during the ends of the last Ice Age and had allowed less nomadic lifestyles. Farming and growing crops had become possible and their limited technology had slowly advanced from rocks and sticks to weapons and electricity. Still, selling sex was the same. Except instead of food or hides in exchange for a warm cunt, it was cash and sometimes information.

Who knows if things are any more or less complicated now than they used to be. Or if things haven't basically stayed the same on an emotional level as the whole world has changed around its oldest profession. Whether the women and men who make their hard-earned living providing pleasure, solace, and distraction even waste their time thinking about how things used to be. It isn't what you talk about with them, anyway. Coming to Medellín's brothels isn't something you do for philosophy or soul searching. You, like so many other customers, are here because you need something. And, like so many others, it seems like the thing you came for is not what the workers here know you actually need. Coming to these women for information had turned into some very real friendships over the course of the few months you have been in Colombia, though that was never your intention for coming to see Freckles and Vanessa in the beginning.

Vanessa stands in front of the mirror, her back to you, long black hair cascading down her back to her bare ass. Plumping her lips, she reapplies the dark pink lipstick that compliments her tawny skin. Dark eyes flickering over to you as you lay in the bed, just as naked. She smirks slightly and goes back to her task. “You never try out any of the men here.” She observes. “Why?”

"Women are better at eating pussy," you reply through a haze of smoke, enjoying the ritual of a post-orgasm cigarette. It's a pithy reply, but telling her the truth feels too vulnerable. Or maybe it's too vulnerable and too dirty. It's probably both.

She snorts. “Then you haven’t met the right kind of men.” She turns around, her nudity something that she’s completely unashamed of, especially with someone that she had just fucked. “One of my favorite pussy eaters will be here later.”

"I hope I'm on that list, too." The grin you flash her is playful, not serious in the least, although you do hope she doesn't dread seeing you come through the door as a customer. Just because you like to chat afterward and have occasionally spent time together outside of these walls doesn't mean you're at the top of her client list.

“Favorite male pussy eater.” She clarifies, walking over to you and leaning down to press her newly colored lips to yours and steal a puff of your cigarette. “Surprisingly attentive. But you are my favorite customer overall.”

"You flatter me." Careful not to smudge her lipstick, you shift slightly on the bed to offer her a place to lounge if she wants to. Vanessa is one of the only people you don't mind laying around entirely naked with – she's been upfront with you about her love of plump women and made you feel very beautiful along with it.

She lays down and passes the filtered Marlboro back to you. It’s nice to have the American cigarettes when you are here. She sighs softly. “La Quica was here a few days ago.” She tells you quietly, her fingers finding the meat of your thigh and she caresses it gently.

"In a mood, or feeling cocky?" You ask, running the fingers of your free hand through her hair. She likes the soothing motion and it helps you think. Whenever La Quica comes by he either crows like a cartoon bird or he broods and ends up scaring the shit out of some of the girls.

“Freckles is…recovering.” She admits, her jaw tense and teeth clenched together. “Which is going to put Javier in a mood when he finds out.”

"Javier's your other pussy eater?" The gentle question comes with filing away the information that you should go and check on Freckles before you leave today.

She hums in agreement and sighs, flipping onto her side and watching her fingers as they move over your skin. “He’s another American. DEA.”

The way you have to put decided effort into not tensing or physically reacting to this information in any way leaves your blood feeling like ice. While you might not spend the majority of your day-to-day at the American Embassy, you surely spend enough time there gathering quotes and following leads to know who Javier the American DEA agent is. Swallowing down the information and filing it away for later, you stub out the butt of your cigarette and bend your leg to give Vanessa something to lean against. "Oh yeah? Another American?" You force some amusement into your voice and smirk at her teasingly. "I think you might have a type, Nessa."

“You pay more.” She teases back, smirking as she slides her hand up to cup your cunt. “Of course I like Americans.”

"Clever," you tease, rolling your eyes at her like she's told a joke instead of making an incredibly practical decision.

Laughing, her hand drifts up to your breast. “Don’t be offended.” She huffs. “I like you a lot more than most of the people who pay for my time.”

"I'm not offended," you tell her honestly. "It's good decision making if nothing else." The threat of an incoming casual acquaintance does make you think twice about hanging around though, and you glance at your watch on the nightstand before leaning over to kiss her again. "You're more than just my favorite fuck, Nessa," you assure her with a wink. "You're also my friend, and I'm not going to begrudge you the chance to make as much money as you can off whoever walks through that door."

She can tell you are ready to get dressed. There’s an impatience to most Americans when they are restless. An undercurrent to their tone, even in Spanish. You and Javier are very much alike in that way, which is ironic.

Sitting up, you pause for a moment before leaning back again to look her in the eyes. “Is Freckles okay? Really?” La Quica can be…well, violent is being generous. And the sicarios tend to view working girls as punching bags as much as anything else.

“She will be.” Vanessa promises, sitting up and climbing off the bed again. “Helena is looking after her. The girls are all pitching in to pay for anything she needs.”

That makes you frown, and you reach for your purse. Pulling out double the money you would usually pay and handing it to Vanessa, you shake your head when she sighs softly in reticence. "Take it," you insist, still holding out the bills. "The least I can do is contribute to the funds."

“You don’t need to do that.” She reluctantly takes it after you refuse to take half of it back. “I’ll give it to Freckles.” She promises.

“If I knew a doctor or a nurse I could trust, I’d bring them in and foot the bill myself.” Not having that resource when they clearly need it needles at you, but there is quite nothing you can do about it in this moment. “If she ends up needing more, or needing a doctor, will you promise to tell me?” Even if Vanessa promises there is only a fifty or so percent chance she’ll actually do it, but your concern stands.

“I will.” Vanessa sighs as she puts the cash away in a drawer. It’s dangerous to leave money out when another client could come in. Especially American dollars. “We took her to the clinic the nuns run. They need nurses but it was better than no one.”

“Good.” You’re swift to dress — a basic personal uniform of panties, bra, jeans, and a blouse never needing much fuss. It does get you a few odd looks when you go around the embassy in denim but to most of the employees there you’re that journalist already anyway. “Is it okay if I come around again in a few days to check on my favorite girls?” If La Quica got physical there was a reason for his anger. Some of the other girls might be next, and if that happens you want to know.

“You never need to ask if you can come by.” Vanessa turns and sends you a sultry smirk and a wink. Even though the sex is nothing more than a business transaction, she enjoys spending time with you. Plus there were interesting conversations with the girls about the two Americans that visit this brothel.

"I don't want you guys to start dreading my appearance." It's easy to brush it off with a wink and a smile. You both do it. Freckles does it. Helena does it. You've met a million men in your life who do it. A wink and a smile lets everything slide off your back – until the middle of the night when every awful though comes back to haunt you. But for now you grab your purse and lean over to give Vanessa one more kiss before she lights another cigarette. "See you later, Nessa."

“Later, love.” Her relationship with you is complicated and easy. You fuck, you talk, you go about your day. The fact that she knows more about you than you know about yourself is a non-issue right now. “You should go on a date.” She calls out with a laugh. “You’re too pretty to pay all the time.”

"Easier said than done, gorgeous!" You call back, and wave once before turning down the hallway that leads to the front door.

Taking a drag off her cigarette, she smiles as she blows out the smoke at the ceiling. If you only knew how alike you were to your soulmate, you would hate it.

******

The sun has set while you've been inside. Going to see Vanessa was a spur of the moment decision after a lead on a story didn't pan out and you had decided that fucking away your frustration was the way to go. Now, as you slip out the front door of the brothel and out of the gate to where you parked your junker of a car up the street, Bogotá is starting to take on its second life. There will be plenty of noise and people dancing the night away at the restaurant two floors under your apartment, and the white noise of an active city will lull you to sleep tonight just like it has for your whole life.

Javier Peña steps out of his Jeep, pulling at his belt slightly from where the jeans don’t sit quite right and shakes his hand as he walks towards the brothel. Feeling jittery and slightly needy as he steps in the familiar path. Helena couldn’t come to him for some reason, busy with her kid or something, so he had decided to take her up on her suggestion to visit Vanessa. She is a good time as well and normally had information to sell. The woman walking towards him looks familiar, but he can’t place where he’s seen her, striding by confidently with her purse firmly in hand. She doesn’t even spare him a glance but he can’t help but twist his head around and watch the curvy ass bounce past him tauntingly, making his cock twitch in his jeans as he imagines what it would be like to push inside her. Fuck. He needs to get laid.

"Hey, Javi." One of the newer girls is milling around in the front room when he comes in, but new or otherwise, all the girls have heard about the American DEA agent with deep pockets and a taste for their company. They're also always told that he has favorites, but every one of the new girls thinks they could be his new favorite if they just try.

“Hey…” he scrounges for her name. “Rita.” He sends her an easy smile and looks around to see if he can spot Vanessa. Rita is pretty, but he’s certain that Helena pointed him towards Vanessa for a reason. “‘Nessa with a client or she available?” He asks, looking back at the other girl with an assessing look. She’s a little young for him, but she’s pretty.

Rita's smile droops instantly, and she huffs as she turns to move behind the bar that they keep stocked in the front room. "Her last customer just left," she tells Javi, and points toward Vanessa's room.

“Thanks.” He nods at her, aware that she’s pouty that he’s not letting her take him to her room, but he doesn’t dwell on it as he walks down the hall towards the brightly painted door. This brothel is nicer than some, almost elegant. Shuffling slightly, he wishes he had a cigarette as he knocks.

"Come in!" Vanessa hasn't bothered to get dressed since you left, just thrown on a thin robe and tidied up the bed to sprawl out on it for a while until Javi comes by.

Javi quickly opens the door, eyes immediately drinking in the casual pose and skimpy clothing and hums in approval. “Vanessa.”

"Javier." She purrs his name happily, shifting on the bed to turn subtly in his direction but also so she can watch his eyes drag down to her cunt as she spreads her legs. He looks hungry today. "Come all the way in, handsome."

The door is kicked closed behind him and he’s not wearing a jacket, so it’s one less thing to shuck as he starts to undress. Obviously Vanessa knows why he’s here, but her cunt is slick with arousal and he wonders if she was playing with herself before he showed up.

Hungry. She was right. Vanessa pushes up onto her knees on the mattress and tangles her fingers in Javi's shirt. It pulls him closer but also helps him undress faster, which is something he clearly needs tonight. "Did you miss me that much, baby?" She hums, running her other palm along his chest as soon as his skin is bared.

He almost rolls his eyes at the endearment, but he doesn’t. He knows some men like their egos stroked, but he would rather she pay attention to his cock. Leaning forward, he answers her with a kiss, hot and urgent as his hands peel the robe off her lithe body. Suddenly thinking about the rounded curves on the woman he had passed coming in.

Alright. No need for verbal foreplay this time. Vanessa checks that effort off the list and haul Javi into her bed. He'll fuck first and talk later if he even needs to talk at all, so she pushes him down on his back and works open his jeans to have his cock in her hands as fast as he needs it.

The girls here always give him what he needs and he breaks away from her lips to start kissing down her chest to take a nipple into his mouth. He loves sex, losing himself in it and finding that it blocks out the doubt, the worry. The guilt. It’s forgotten as he chases that bliss that settles into his bones after an orgasm.

His jeans go, tossed on the floor without a second thought just like his shirt, and Vanessa doesn’t care about it either. Javi never wears underwear so it’s always directly to the point — his cock in her mouth and down her throat, fingers wrapped around the base until he grunts and twitches on her tongue. That’s when he pulls her off and gets her on her hands and knees instead, fucking the life and sense out of her as he tries to block out whatever demons follow so closely at his heels that he has been running from them every day for years without gaining any ground. In other moods, he’ll take his time or have her different ways. But when he’s hungry like this it’s always animalistic and needy. With Javi, she and Freckles and Helena don’t have to fake their noises. Or their orgasms. But they do have to fake nonchalance about his life. They know far more than he realizes.

His fingers slide between the folds of her sex and he groans. “So wet.” He quickly coats them in the slick and pushes two thick fingers deep inside her, loving way her breath catches in her throat. “I know it’s not for me.” He hums, flicking his tongue over her nipple. “But I’m going to use it.”

“She always gets wet for you, Javi.” Vanessa promises him, and that isn’t bluster. Some of their clients require more than a fair share of lube just to make things palatable. Javi? Not at all. He might be paying but he’s still giving pleasure while he takes it.

He snorts, smirking slightly at the curve of her breast as he pumps his fingers in and out of her. “Have you cum today?” He wants to know so he can make sure that if she’s hadn’t, he would make her cum more than once.

“T—twice.” His long fingers reach deeper inside her than yours had and Vanessa’s head tips back on a moan so he can hear her loud and clear.

“Hmmmm.” Javier isn’t jealous, he has no reason or right to be. She isn’t his. “Good, sweetheart. Then you can cum for me and then I won’t feel bad about putting your legs up on my shoulders and making you soak your bed.”

She doesn’t doubt that he could do it. He’s made Freckles cum so hard her vision whited out, and Helena had told them the story of a time she had gone to his place for a marathon session when he was particularly frustrated about something to do with work. She doesn’t doubt him, but she’s also not asking for any miracles. “Whatever you want to do,” she reminds him, voice strained just a touch from the angle her head is tipped back at.

He knows that’s how the game is played, but he doesn’t particularly like when his partners don’t enjoy themselves. “Good girl.” He murmurs, taking advantage of her head being pressed back into the pillow as he works her cunt on his fingers. His kisses have a little bit of teeth to them. Not enough to mark, but scrapes to hear her moan when he drags his teeth over her pulse. “Your cunt feels so good around my fingers, beautiful.”

“It’ll feel even better around your cock,” she reminds him, sighing happily with the next thrust of his hand and wrapping her own back around his hard on.

“I know it will.” He growls, working her on his fingers as he feels the need start to build in his body. Waiting will make it even more relaxing when he finally cums. Pouring out his frustrations and fears into the willing body of this beautiful woman and quieting the doubts that rattle around in his head.

Javier Peña fucks, and paid or otherwise, everyone who had ever gone to bed with him know this. The only emotions he is consciously pouring out areas the frustrations of the day and a desperate need to feel, so the woman in his arms is always going to feel him just as deeply as he feels his frustrations. Vanessa’s hips jerk against his palm, writhing with the tempo of his ministrations, until she gladly throws her head back to keen his name for at least the first time tonight.

He loves women. Their smell, their sounds, the way they tremble under a touch that is making them quiver in pleasure. “Cum for me.” He still thinks about that other woman, the thicker woman from the street. Wondering if she had been here. He pushes that thought away when Vanessa clenches down around his fingers again. “That’s it.”

"Fuck, Javi." She'll give him the satisfaction of seeing her all sprawled out and panting for him for a few seconds before she moves again. It isn't hard, after all. The two clients she's had today are her favorites for a reason.

His wet fingers caress her hip before he’s turning her onto her stomach and pulling her to her knees. “Beautiful.” He groans, bending down to kiss along her back.

"And now you've got this pretty pussy dripping all over again," she purrs, looking back at him over her shoulder.

His cock lines up easily and he snaps his hips forward to buried himself deep, knowing she can take it. “Fuck.” He hisses, loving how her cunt squeezes him tight. “Fuck.”

Not so long as to be painful, but long enough and thick enough to make her feel incredibly feel, Vanessa rolls her hips back to him and lowers herself onto her elbows to brace herself against whatever pace he decides to set. "Feels so fucking good, baby." She loves not having to lie or perform, the time she spends with Javi is much more desirable for it.

He gives her a moment, knowing that he is girthy enough to need to adjust to him. It doesn’t matter how many men she fucks daily. He groans and twitches inside her. “So good, sweetheart.” He hums. “So good.”

Vanessa lets him set the pace once she's adjusted to the feel of him inside her, rocking back into his hips and letting out an encouraging moan. If Javi needs to relieve his stress, she will happily help him with that. He doesn’t start out full tilt. Letting the pace build until the slap of his hips against her ass is just as loud as his grunts, her muffled cries. Every thrust a release for him and making him pull back quicker. Losing himself in her body.

The rhythm of their bodies and creak of the shaking bed weave a kind of hypnotic trance for both of them, letting them dissolve into animalistic sounds of greed and need without any need for traditional vocabulary. It's the perfect escape from thought – something everyone needs at least once in a while. Only the smell of sex and sweat and the sound of fucking fills their senses as Javi and Vanessa work to fuck each other breathless.

His fingers dig into her hips, holding her steady as he plows into her. Watching her ass bounce and shake from the force of his thrusts. It’s not going to last too much longer from the way his body is start to prime itself and he hunches over her, sliding fingers to her clit to rub that sensitive little nub.

Vanessa's panting picks up, her back bowed and her cheek against the crumpled blankets while he moves over her at an increasingly frantic pace. He's close and she wants him to take everything he needs on the way.

“Fuck.” Javi hisses, gritting his teeth to hold back. “Come on, Vanessa, give me one more.” He begs. “Cum for me.”

She's close enough that his next thrust pushes a groan out of her along with a whimper of assent, and if he were the kind of man who was into that she would be calling him Papí and begging him to let her cum. Javi has never been much for permissions or honorifics, though. There's an honesty to the fierocity that he fucks with that Vanessa appreciates.

“Fuck, that’s it, cum. Cum!” He growls, pulling her upright and holding her against his body as his thrusts sharply into her.

The force of his thrusts and the change in angle pushes her over the edge with a rapturous cry, and Vanessa clings to his arm to make sure she doesn't fall over as he chases his own orgasm with unyielding thrusts. The gush of her cunt makes him moan in her ear. Eyes closing in bliss as he gives in to the needs of his body and thrusts deep a final time. Pouring hot waves of himself into her body as he wrings himself dry.

"Fuck, Jav." Vanessa laughs, her legs wobbling as he hangs onto her and keeps them both upright. It just a minute they'll tip over and end up sharing a cigarette sprawled out on her bed, which makes it the second time today that she'll have done that with a client.

“You’ll have to give me a minute if you want to go again.” Javier pants in her ear, smirking and kissing her lobe gently to make up for the marks of his teeth that were made while he was cumming. He tends to bite unconsciously but always soothes it away.

"Take your time." She chuckles, stretching luxuriously as they both plop down on the mattress to catch their breath.

He chuckles and pats her hip as he eases out of her. Sighing in satisfaction and staring up at the ceiling.

There is enough routine here – enough knowledge of each other – that Vanessa reaches over to the nightstand and pulls out a cigarette and her lighter, savoring the first drag herself before handing it over to Javi. If he wants to talk he will, and he almost always does. But sometimes he enjoys a few minutes to just think of nothing, so she won't take that from him.

The cigarette is gladly accepted, breathed into his lungs and he lets the nicotine spreads through his system and mellows him even more. “I didn’t see Freckles or Helena.” He observes quietly.

"Freckles is...resting." Enigmatic replies don't go far with Javi, Vanessa knows that, but since she knows he's going to be angry she hopes that he'll just accept it for once. Highly unlikely, of course, but a girl can hope.

He catches the hesitation and he braces himself for the answer to the question that he will ask. “Who?” He asks simply, knowing she will understand what he means.

Vanessa sighs, pinching her eyes shut and wishing she hadn't said anything. "La Quica."

Javier tenses, his hand that had been stroking her thigh freezes. “Bad?”

"She'll be okay." She will. At least that isn't a lie or simply wishful thinking. Freckles will be fine. But right now she doesn't look it.

Javi turns his head and his eyes bore into hers, gauging the truth in them. “What set him off?” He asks, sitting up and reaching for his pants.

"He was too drunk to keep it up and he blamed it on her." It's not as though he was the first client to have that problem by any means, or the first to be angry about it, or the first to take it out on the girl he had hired. La Quica just has a particular ability to always take things too far. "It's not like it's a new problem around here."

He knows that. The girls have a dangerous job and some of the unfortunate ones had paid the highest price when their client got too angry, or vicious. He clenches his jaw as he pulls out his wallet and pulls out several folded hundred-dollar bills. “Give this to her.” He tells Vanessa, twisting around to hand her the money.

"Javi..." She shakes her head, it being the second time today that she's been offered far too much money to help Freckles by someone who technically owes the girls nothing.

“Take it.” He waves it towards her again. It will all be expensed out anyway. Why not let some of Uncle Sam’s money go where it can actually help for once? She reluctantly takes it and Javi relaxes slightly. “My partner’s wife is a nurse.” He offers. “I could bring Freckles to her.” From what he’s seen from Steve Murphy, he would never let his pretty little wife near a brothel, but he could have her come to his apartment.

"Between you and–" Vanessa shuts her mouth and shakes her head again, but tucks the bills away in the same drawer where she put your donation to Freckles' well being. "We have enough to pay." She tells him, grateful that he would offer regardless. "It doesn't have to be a charity case."

“It’s not charity.” Javier steps into his jeans and pulls them up over his hips, tucking his cock away. The idea of another round was killed by the grim realities of the professions they work in. He wonders who she had been about to say, but figures it might be another regular. “You also need to put some away for when this isn’t an option.”

"What do Americans call it?" She looks up at him as he dresses and wishes the relaxed bubble of post-orgasm relaxation hadn't been popped so abruptly. "A rainy day fund?"

“Slush fund.” Javi huffs in amusement, turning towards her and deciding to sit back down and leans in to kiss her.

"That's it." The returned kiss is soothing. Appreciative. And slightly amused. "I knew I had heard something like that." From her other American regular customer. And what an irony that is.

“You should relax the rest of the night.” Javi murmurs, stealing one last kiss before he pulls away again. Needing to get dressed and see Carillo.

"I'll try." It's nice of him to suggest it, but she does have to work if someone shows up for her. That's how the job works.

Once he’s dressed, gun reattached to his hip, Javi reaches out and pinches her chin softly. “Be good.” He murmurs, winking at her before he turns around to walk out of her room.

"Never." Vanessa calls back, shaking her head a little as he strolls out into the hall and settling back on her bed. She'll clean up and then go and check on Freckles, but she's going to allow herself a second to breathe first.

Javi’s easy smile slips into a frown as he steps out of the brothel. The dim lap light makes him look even more forbidding as he pulls out a cigarette and lights it up. Taking a drag as he looks around the deserted street and then marches towards his jeep with the determined gait of a man on a mission.

******

A bare five minute later, Vanessa taps lightly on Freckles' door, the four rhythmic knocks letting the girls inside know it's one of them and not a customer. Helena opens the door a crack with worry in her eyes, but relaxes the second she sees Vanessa in her robe. "You've had a busy day," she observes, stepping back to let the other woman in and shutting the door tight behind her.

“Both of our favorite customers.” She snorts and walks towards the bed. Freckles looks horrible, her face still swollen and the bruises garish on her normally beautiful features. She sits down and takes her friend’s hand. “They both are upset you are ‘ill’.” She tells the other girl.

"Javi must be pissed if you told him the truth," Freckles observes, resting amongst her pillows and grateful for the respite of a few days to heal. Yesterday even talking was excruciating.

“I think that’s an understatement.” Vanessa murmurs, pulling the money out of her pocket and pressing it into Freckles’ hand. “Both of them were angry, but Javier left before round two.”

"That's furious in Javi terms." Helena leans over, inspecting the bills, and bites her lips when she looks back at Vanessa. "Both of them?" She asks, seeing the amount there.

She nods, shaking her head with a small chuckle. “So goddamn alike it’s almost comical.”

"Have they ever even met?" They haven't that Helena can remember, but it's not as though she keeps close tabs on either of them.

“Not that I know of.” She shrugs. “I honestly don’t know if they want to meet.” All three women have heard their views on soulmates.

"What if we want them to meet?" Freckles sips a glass of water and laughs at the very thought of it. "Can you imagine? Running into each other here of all places?"

The other two women laugh, knowing that each of you would be defensive for different reasons. “They might have seen each other on the street.” Vanessa admits. “She left right before Javi got here.”

"Does she even like men?" It had astonished Helena the first time she'd seen the matching marks for herself, but the fact of soulmates is pretty undeniable when it's right in front of her nose. "She always sees one of the three of us. I don't think I've ever even heard her talk about a man."

“She said that women are better pussy eaters, so I assume she has some male reference.” Vanessa laughs. “I don’t know for sure though.”

"And she's absolutely not wrong." Helena steals a drink of Freckles' water and lays back with Vanessa on her other side. "At least she won't be disappointed in her soulmate if they ever end up in bed together."

“I love the days Javi wants to go down on me.” Vanessa agrees. “Normally he wants me to ride after too.”

"You've got a thumbprint bruise blooming on your hip, baby." Helena observes with a tilt of her head. "Was he already worked up when he came in? He normally doesn't get rough otherwise."

“A little.” She admits with a grin. “It was more of a work up to that fast and furious pace that makes you squeal.”

"I almost hope that man never leaves the country." As much as she is trying to work things out and get away herself, Helena still has her doubts that it will pan out. In the meantime? She is very much appreciative of the few clients like Javi they have in their lives.

“I know, he has you come over to his apartment.” Vanessa nudges the other woman’s foot playfully. “Is it messy?”

“No messier than he is here.” Helena shrugs. Once, on a night that has become a very fun story that she keeps for just herself and her closest friends, Javi had actually made her squirt. That was messy.

“So….a little rough around the edges but mostly contained.” Freckles hums. “He’s probably the one man I could see falling for. As stupid as that is.”

“We’d all be in a hell of a lot of trouble if we let ourselves think like that,” Helena points out, despite having had the same thought more times than she cares to admit.

“I know, which is why I don’t let myself think like that unless things are really bad.” Right now, things are bad for her, so it’s a nice little escape.

“You dream all you want right now, honey.” Vanessa urges, soothing one hand over Freckles’ thigh in gentle strokes. “While I’m thinking of it…” she looks between the other girls. “Javi’s partner’s wife is a nurse. Said we can bring you to her to get you checked out. I honestly don’t think it’s a bad idea.”

“Is it that bad?” Freckles ask, having been afraid to look in the mirror at the damage.

“I think you’ll heal just fine, sweetheart,” Vanessa assures her, her soothing hand doubling down on gentle gestures. “But she might be able to help with pain. Or getting it to settle down and heal faster. And…nicer.” They work in a job where their beauty is an asset, and it would not be the first time that a customer’s brutality left one of the girls without that particular asset, making it harder for her to work.

“Hopefully she’s not a bitch.” Freckles sigh, resigned to the fact that it would be a good idea. “Or think we are fucking her husband.”

“I don’t think he would have suggested it if he thought she would be a bitch to us,” Helena points out, though it might be wishful thinking.

“He doesn’t tolerate much shit.” Vanessa adds, wishing she had some alcohol to help them relax.

Helena nods, knowing that’s true, and adds: “And if she turns out to be a cunt? We’ll leave.”

“I will call him.” Helena offers, shooting them both a smile. “And maybe he will want me to stay after.” She jokes.

“Maybe.” Vanessa smiles, knowing that Helena is attached and that some of the girls suspect Javi might even be a little attached to her. Mostly the whispers are jealous, but Vanessa tries not to be.

Freckles hums and when she twists to get comfortable, she groans in pain. “I— if you think it’s alright.” She concedes softly.

“You should rest, honey.” Vanessa coos softly. “Helena will call Javi and find out when we can take you to the nurse. We’ll get you better in no time.”

Nodding, the injured woman closes her eyes and sighs softly, trying to relax.

******

It's past dark when you get home, the nightlife of Bogotá coming alive around you as the city pours out onto the streets to celebrate the night of another day. The club on the ground floor of your building has just opened for the night, and you slip past the bouncer with a friendly wave to have a drink and say hello before heading upstairs to solitude for the night. You do have work to do, but it's nice to at least see Inez and soak up a little of the atmosphere before it gets too busy. The crowds won't be out in earnest for another few hours.

Before you even sit down at the bar, there is a drink in front of you. Inez smiling at you as she leans back to grab her rag and wipe up a little of the condensation from another patron’s beer bottle. “Surprised to see you here.” She hums.

“I was feeling social.” Is your excuse, but it’s more like you know you’re probably going to be hunched over your typewriter for a while and you wanted something nice before resigning yourself to that fate. “Besides. You make the best Coco Loco in Bogotá, why would I miss out on that?”

“You shouldn’t.” She snorts, watching as you pick up the glass and take a sip. She likes the hum of approval you give and when your drink is already halfway down, she pours the rest of the drink from the mixer into the glass. “What have you been up to today?”

“Work. Mostly.” Even your stop to see Vanessa could technically be considered work since you learned a bit about the tone of what’s going on with the sicarios lately. “I have to write something up to send to my editor.”

“They can’t expect you to come down, spend a week and have the story of the year, can they?” Inez snorts, not sure why Americans are so interested in Colombia. She enjoys you being here, but it’s strange to think of how involved they are with her country.

“I need at least a few inches to prove it’s worth the expense of bankrolling me down here.” After about a month in the country you’ve only managed to send back copies of your notes and drafts of actual article inches. You’re working at it, but the story down here is so much larger than you thought that it’s taking time to get all the puzzle pieces together.

“Have you given any thought to my idea?” She asks, certain you have already dismissed it.

“Actually, I did.” Inez had been the one to suggest that the working girls of the city might have far more information than some others because of braggarts with wagging tongues. And she was very right. “They’ve been my best source so far, so thank you for that. Most of my running around the past few days has been following up on things they told me.” You’ve also been a paying customer since the suggestion was put to you, but your neighbor doesn’t necessarily need to know that. Inez has been a good friend but if you didn’t live across the hall from her she probably wouldn’t have given you a second thought, which is fine.

“Good.” She smirks slightly and shrugs. “They are a good group of girls. Just have some shitty luck.”

“Everybody has shitty luck sometimes. Nobody deserves to get judged for it.” You shrug a little, enjoying the alcoholic bite of the coconut cocktail. “Or judged for what their job is. And those girls get plenty of bullshit. I promise you, they’re not getting any grief from me.”

Another customer comes up to the bar, so Inez quickly shifts over to them, a bright smile and quick smatter of small talk to hopefully get better tips.

There isn’t much business yet, which is normal, but you take a few minutes to survey the early arrivals. There is a group of women that comes twice every week without fail — coworkers, a group between three or even six of them who come to each dinner and stay until the party picks up. You’ve figured out from eavesdropping and the types of clothes they arrive in that their office closes just as the club opens. A pair of men that you’ve seen before files in after them. They’ve been here twice before but tonight they look far more excited than the previous visits. Good for them, you think, smiling to yourself when you see their hands brush and fingers twine momentarily as they sit down in a booth.

The man who just sat two stools down from you at the bar is new. Or at least new to you. Inez bats her eyelashes and flirts, making an art of mixing his drink and gets a large bill handed to her in return. She winks as she walks away, back in your direction.

Sliding to a stop in front of you, she turns her head to make sure the man is occupied with the mirror over the bar that gives him a sweeping view of the place. “CIA.” She murmurs quietly, motioning over to him.

“Seriously?” You’ve seen them around the embassy but not often enough or close up enough that you would recognize one of them out in the wild. Clearly.

“Mmmmhmmmm.” She glances over at him again. “Maybe I should introduce you? Or you think you can manage that yourself?”

Glancing to your side again, you consider what better or worse end might come from that kind of thing and hum to yourself quietly. "If nobody shows up for him before his next round," you murmur to Inez, swirling the watery remains of your own drink. "Put the next one on my tab and tell him I sent it. We'll see if that gets him talking."

She smirks and nods. “You are a smart girl.” She promises before looking past you to take the ticket from on of the waitresses that work the booths.

"I do my best," you sigh as she walks away, but sometimes it really feels like your best just isn't enough.

The club starts to fill up, the music gradually increasing until it’s a thumping rhythm showcasing the hottest dance music. Bodies start to move, but the man next to you just watches the mirror.

“Waiting for someone?” It’s a risk. Chatting someone up at a bar is always a risk. But considering you know what he does, you’re going to switch to English and how he feels infatuated to talk to you just by virtue of being a compatriot.

It’s always intriguing to hear English, so he turns to look at you. Knowing that he recognizes you from somewhere around the Embassy. “Not really.” He admits, taking another sip of his drink and glancing at your left hand. “You?”

“Not really.” It’s a crap shoot with men, you’ve found. Whether they’re bothered by the fact that you’re not a stick or willing to go for any old cunt they think they can fuck. Women tend to have more appreciation for a plush figure. Thankfully this CIA agent only seems concerned with the lack of ring on your left hand. Well, that’s fine. “Have I seen you around somewhere?” You ask, turning a little on your stool to be facing him. The fact that you know the answer already doesn’t matter.

“Don’t know, where have you been hanging out?” He asks, catching the cute bartender’s eye and motioning for another round of drinks for you and him.

“I went by the American embassy last week.” Trying to make it seem like nothing so he doesn’t put his walls up in front of a journalist, you shrug and just say, “Paper work” as an excuse.

“Gotcha.” He doesn’t offer up what he does, despite some throwing it around like a badge of honor, he prefers to be low key. “Are you visiting?”

"Trying to find myself," is your enigmatic answer, though it is technically about ninety percent a lie. That wistful, dreamy part of you that read Gabriel García Márquez novels and fantasized about finding love with exotic sunsets in the background in still hoping you might be able to scrounge some truth about yourself out of this assignment. But really? It's work. "You?"

“Work.” He answers simply, nodding towards Inez as she sets two new glasses down in front of you both and grins. “Decided to see what the night life is like here.”

"This place stays busy until all hours of the night. Party music and people dancing, shouting, all of it." Still not quite sure what might get this stalwart CIA agent to crack even a little, to give you anything, you mentally shrug and decide to go for the old standby. The expression on his face wonders how you could know what this place is like – if you're a regular maybe, or just like to haunt the bar here. So you offer, "I rent an apartment upstairs."

“Really?” His interest perks, like a dog that’s caught a scent. He reaches for his drink and sends you a smile. “What’s that like? I bet it’s…noisy.”

"It can be." Bingo. Hooked the fish, you think, prouder of yourself than you probably ought to be. "But sometimes I like to make just as much noise."

“Doubt anyone down here could hear that.” He glances back up at the mirror. “Can you see the bar from up there?”

"You can see the street." It's an odd question, but you don't fight it. "From my living room windows, I mean. The door to get upstairs...and my bedroom...those don't face the street." He's sniffing around for something from you, too. You can feel it. But you're just not sure what.

He nods and leans back to look at you. Assessing you. “So no one can really see you come and go.” He hums. “That’s smart. Safe. A pretty woman like you needs to take precautions.”

Something in his tone doesn't sound entirely sincere, but since you're not either, you're not going to hold it against him. "I'm a city girl," you assure him with a demure smile, pretending like you're hiding being flustered behind your drink as you take a sip. "I know how to look out for myself."

“That’s good.” He sends you a confident smirk. “I’m Alex.” He offers, leaning close. “What’s your name?”

You tell him, though he’ll probably end up calling a condescending ‘sweetheart’ if anything at all, and decide to lean a little closer just to put an edge in the flirtation. He isn’t bad looking, after all, or rude. He hasn’t been misogynistic to you tonight or haughty. He just seems quite bland overall, which isn’t a sin even if it does make something in the back of your mind dread the idea of seeing your soulmate’s scars on him when his shirt comes off later. The tattoo on his thigh. Your own scars marking memories that your soulmate would have felt but never shared.

Nope. Stop thinking about shit like that. Soulmates are for saps.

“That’s a beautiful name.” He admits, taking another sip of his drink and repeats it. “Do you want to talk somewhere a little quieter?” He asks suggestively.

“I think I know a place.” Pointedly looking up to the ceiling, you slip the strap of your purse onto your shoulder and slide gracefully off of your stool. Inez has been keeping one eye on you, and you give her a subtle nod to promise her that everything is okay as your new friend Alex shifts onto his own feet.

Alex pulls out his wallet and puts down the money for the drinks and a hearty tip. Wanting to make sure that the bartender stays warm to him. This club is important and he needs to be welcomed.

"Have a good night." Inez calls you by name, wanting there to be no mistake that if anything even vaguely out of the ordinary happens to you or around you, she will know and she will know who is responsible.

"Night," you call back, allowing yourself to be lead out of the club, though you know you'll have to lead the way from there.

“Have you been here long?” Alex asks as you lead him towards the stairs to your apartment. It’s ingenious to say the least and he’s glad he had sat at the bar tonight rather than a booth.

"About a month." The charming smile on your lips as you head up the stairs around the tight corner of the club's back hall is girlish. Smitten. And a put on. You're still wondering if he's going to spill the fac that he's CIA or if you're going to have to hope he talks in his sleep. "It's not a lot of space, but I'm just one girl." One girl who typically has all of her work spread out on nearly every surface in the apartment. Thank god you went on frustration-induced cleaning bender yesterday.

“I don’t like having a lot of space if it’s just me.” Alex admits, looking around the small little hallways for any type of security. “More to clean.”

“That’s true, I guess. Smaller is easier.” As you lead the way up the stairs, a large caramel-colored lump on the top of the stairs starts to growl menacingly and lift its sizable head. Teeth bare at the sight of a man behind you, but you hustle up the stairs and coo gently to the enormous mastiff in a sweet voice. “Hey Chi-Chi. How’s my girl?” Immediately the dog stands, bumping her head into the hand you’ve reached out toward her and snuggling into you for pets. She is a living security system that really loves snuggles.

“Yours?” Alex stopped at the first growl, watching warily as the size of the dog is revealed. She’s obviously a big breed and doesn’t take kindly to strangers.

“My landlady,” you explain, still coping at the enormous dog in a mix of English and Spanish that she is obviously used to and enjoys. “There are a few single women in this building, so she taught her dog to sleep on the stairs and guard us. Didn’t she, Chi-Chi baby?” It’s a good system, and you smother the dog’s large head in kisses one more time before coming back down a few stairs and bringing Alex forward by the hand. “She hates men.” Is your casual addition to the thought as you lead him down a short hallway.

“All the time?” He asks, looking behind him at the dog as he expects her to attack him. “Or just those she doesn’t know?”

“If you come around more than once, I’ll teach her to like you.” Something tells you to very much doubt it, but you just try to toss him a semi-charming smile while you dig in your purse for the key to your apartment.

“Well I guess it all depends on how tonight goes, hmm?” He asks, stepping closer and grabbing hold of your thick hips. “If you invite me back.”

“I guess you better impress me.” When your fingers close around your keys at the same time his find your hips, you look back over your shoulder and find a little smirk curling in the corner of your mouth. “Good start.”

He chuckles as you open the door, shuffling in behind you and he nudges it closed with his foot. “Then let’s see where we go from here.”

Inside the door, you drop your purse and keys on the side table, flip the lock on the door so you won’t be disturbed, and finally turn around in Alex’s arms to let your fingers trail through the hair on the back of his neck. “Let’s see,” you agree, already feeling his shoulders drop as he bends down to press his lips to yours. No pre-destined bullshit or obligation in sight, the fact that he isn’t your soulmate speaks to you. Your life. Your choice. And tonight the choice is him.

______

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milla-frenchy · 5 months ago

Text

And all that could have been

1k4 | Javier Peña x fem reader | ao3 | Masterlist

Summary: the memories of you don’t leave Javi, reminding him of his past mistakes

Warnings: 18+ mdni. Angst, piv, creampie, mentions of SA (not by Javi), no age specified. Pics for the mood only, reader has no specific physical descriptions. Writer chose not to use all warnings

a/n: this is for @janaispunk 1500 kisses challenge 🥳 Prompt was "last kiss/Javi p"

Thank you @toxicanonymity for the spanish translation 🖤 @aurorawritestoescape for beta-ing 💕 @morallyinept for your amazing Javi character database and dialogue 🌻 @saradika-graphics for the dividers 🙏

The title and some sentences said by Javi are from And all that could have been by Nine inch nails

Javi was at his apartment with Helena. She was a hooker and one of his informers, but she meant more than that. He cared about her, and they saw each other regularly at his place.

“¿Qué harás este fin de semana?” (what are you doing this weekend?), he asked her.

“Iré a Medellín” (I’m going to Medellin)

“Bueno, tendré que buscarme otra” (I guess I’ll have to find another girl)

“Buena suerte con eso. Todas nos vamos a Medellín” (good luck with that. We’re all going to Medellin)

His heart sank and worry crept into him. Sensing a very familiar feeling, which had never left him since last year.

“¿Helena? ¿De quién es esta fiesta?” (whose party is it?)

Anxiety took over him, past events playing over and over in his head. Haunting him. And he thought about what happened a year ago. What happened to you.

You didn't plan for any of that. Neither Javi nor you did.

At first, he was a client almost like the others, except that he worked for the DEA, and bit by bit he asked you for information on the sicarios. He always treated you right, never made you feel uncomfortable. You had other clients and you weren’t the only hooker he used to fuck.

You got to know him and trust him as the weeks passed, as he also seemed to, until you realized that he was no longer fucking anyone but you. You used to see him in his apartment more and more often, and less and less at the brothel. When his cock was buried in your core and his eyes looked with yours, his gaze was different. Soft and caring.

One night at his place he lit a cigarette and was smoking it by the window. Looking thoughtfully at the city lights as you were lying in bed, naked, admiring all of him. The muscles of his back, his shoulders, his tanned skin.

When he sat on the bed, his thigh against yours, his hand caressed your stomach which was gradually returning to normal breathing.

“¿Por qué no paras?” (Why don’t you stop?), he asked.

It wasn't exactly jealousy or possessiveness, more of a concern. You both knew what that implied. You had always been careful not to talk about those feelings you both felt. Scared that it would complicate everything.

He used to try to make you stay at his apartment longer and longer, but of course you always had to return to the brothel. To make some money. To have sex with the men you hated and who disgusted you. Trying to make it bearable you were thinking of something else. You were thinking of Javi.

“Renuncia a tu trabajo” (quit your job),” he finally asked one day.

“No puedo, Javi” (I can’t, Javi)

The more weeks and months with Javi passed, the less you could bear to go back to the brothel. But what other choices did you have? Tears threatened to roll down your cheeks and you batted your eyelashes to try to hold them back.

“You could stay here, with me. You don’t need to go back.”

“You know I can’t. They would find me, and God knows what they would do to me.”

“I’ll protect you. You know I would never let anything happen to you.”

You hugged him as the tears fell, unable to hold them back any longer. You wanted to quit your job and stay with him, but it was impossible. They made sure to let you know what happened to the girls who tried to leave.

“Necesito sentirte dentro. Porfa, Javi.” (I need to feel you inside me, Javi. Please.)

He caressed your cheek and wiped your tears like only he knew how to do. He kissed you with his warm, luscious, caring lips. Soft and delicate. When he lay between your legs you wrapped them around his waist to feel him deeper. His nose brushed against yours, and he kissed your forehead. Your hips were leading a perfect slow dance. He rubbed himself against you in the way he was sure would make you cum. His eyes fixed on yours. The eyes of a man in love, and you started to cry again.

“Don’t cry, hermosa (beautiful). I’ll take care of you and you’ll never have to go back there. Do you trust me?”

You trusted him. With all your heart. You wiped your tears and took his cheeks in your hands.

“I do, Javi.”

He leaned towards you and kissed you, until you came on his shaft, your pussy squeezing him perfectly and making him moan, and you felt his jolts at each rope of cum, painting your walls.

You didn't go back, he took you to a safe house. He exfiltrated you.

And for several days, you only saw Javi.

That evening you laughed and the atmosphere was as light as a summer breeze. You looked at each other smiling like teenagers, and he kissed your hands. Then he held you tight against him. You felt safe and free.

Later that night, as your hips rolled while riding him, you leaned into him and said, “dame un beso” (give me a kiss).

He caressed your cheek as your hands ran through his hair and you kissed. You needed to feel him more. Deeper. You moved away from him and got on all fours, looking over your shoulder as his hands caressed your hips. He slipped into you, in one slow, deep thrust. No one had ever brushed your walls the way he did. Without brutality, without clumsiness, without impatience, without hurting you. Just in a perfect way, like he always knew what to do. Stroking your clit when you needed it, until you came on his cock. His torso enveloped your back and he kissed your skin, before quickly thrusting in to claim you, grunting.

You just knew that you belonged to each other, in the healthiest, most beautiful way.

In the early morning, he kissed your forehead and lightly stroked your cheek to not wake you up, and left for the office.

In the afternoon, you heard a knock on the door, and thought Javi had forgotten his keys. Your hand grabbed the handle of the white door and you opened it without taking the time to think.

It wasn't Javi.

In the late afternoon, his colleagues told him that a hooker had been killed by sicarios. His heart sank and he almost puked, as if his gut instinctively knew who he would find there. When they lifted the sheet, he fell to his knees on the ground.

Your mutilated and bruised body lying on its back left no doubt about what you had suffered. What they had done to you.

He went back to his apartment and drank until he couldn't remember his name.

A few days later, he visited your grave and placed white flowers on it.

He thought about how he had kissed your forehead that morning. Not knowing that it would have been the last kiss he had ever given you.

“In my nothing, you meant everything to me”, he murmured.

When the memories finally faded, he realized Helena had already left his apartment.

During the following days he had been organizing surveillance in Medellin, with Carillo and Steve. Taking photos, watching the Sicarios arriving one by one at the hotel.

Hours passed without news of Helena, and worry tightened his heart. He couldn't relive that. He was consumed with anxiety.

When he finally found her, he shot the man who was abusing her. Rushed to cover her bruised body. He failed once again, even though he arrived in time for Helena, he wasn’t able to prevent what had happened to her.

He thought of you, not a day he had not. He thought of all that could have been.

When he visited your grave, and saw that only his last faded bouquet was there, he couldn't hold back his tears.

“I can still feel you, even so far away” he breathed. “I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry…”

And he chose to let his anger consume him, rather than letting the tears flow. On his knees in the cemetery, he screamed. He was clenching his fists so hard that his knuckles were white.

He would dedicate his life to bringing them all down. Even if it meant falling with them. But one thing was sure: Gacha would fall before him.

***********

Comments and reblogs are greatly appreciated ❤️

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Thank you for reading 🙏

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loliwrites · 10 months ago

Text

August: Nice Girls Don't Stay For Breakfast

part one of fountain of sorrow

⇢ pairing: javier peña x f!reader ⇢ rating: explicit, 18+, minors dni ⇢ chapter warnings/tags: set between s2 & s3, early/mid ‘90s, single mother!reader [child won’t play a massive role], canon compliant gun violence [starts with a snippet from s1e7], mention of canon compliant violence against women [javi remembers helena], terrible exes, mention of past relationship abuse [nothing specific or graphic], creepy guys [not javi], sassy chucho, alcohol consumption, brief SMUT, car sex, unprotected p in v sex, post-sex photos, cigarettes [are bad for you], javi’s gonna make a good girl dad, female reader, no physical description other than a height difference, protective!javi, no use of y/n. ⇢ word count: 7.3k (woof, sorry. there was a lot of exposition to get out) ⇢ series masterlist ⇢ a/n: switching pov’s in this one. very excited to share this series with y’all & would love to know what you think about it! as always, i’ve done my best to tag the warnings, let me know if you think i’ve missed one.

Two shots. One right after the other. That’s all it took before he managed to get his first shot off. Well, that and the sound of lead whizzing by his head. Clear and present threats to his life trying to break skin and shatter bone. In another lifetime maybe he’d have been a little faster. A little quicker to the trigger. When out on raids like this, he wasn’t sure why his finger wasn’t perpetually in a half pulled position anyway. What use was it trying to take these guys alive? They shot first and asked questions second. Why didn’t he? If they had no qualms killing a DEA agent, why’d he take precautions to save that of a sicario?

These are fanciful thoughts. Ones you can only think about after the fact. Ones only after you’ve almost had your life ended, when your adrenaline has played its role – when you’re no longer running through the streets of Medellín, praying that when you round the corner, some guy with a .38 isn’t going to clock you in the head. Bullseye.

Those are thoughts that have to come later because running after a guy nicknamed ‘Sure Shot’ doesn’t instill one with a whole lot of confidence that he’s going to get out of this alive. Hell, maybe it’s lucky Poison fired the first two shots through the window. Maybe it was fate that he’d had those couple seconds to shoot back and make a run for it before Sure Shot lifted his handgun.

Not that anything that followed was lucky.

Murphy had gone after Poison. He’d run after Sure Shot, who, while on the run, seemed to disregard his nickname and the fact that he had a weapon in his hands. Before they’d separated too much, he could hear shots ringing off and knew Murphy wasn’t having the same experience with Poison. Rather unfortunately, the streets were crowded with people going about their daily lives, put right in the middle of the action through no fault of their own other than the misfortune of their geography. They were making it hard for him to keep pace. And should things go even more amiss, they would become collateral damage.

He rolled his ankle once while propelling himself over a wall. When he landed, he knew he fucked up. Not as spry and nimble as he used to be. And surely not as much as the man he was chasing. But they were leaving the crowds. Dodging the busy streets and trading them in for back alleys which left them virtually alone. That was when it really all went to hell. He’d gotten Sure Shot pinned in his crosshairs. One could call it a perfect sting operation as Sure Shot slid his gun over. But if there had been one thing Javier Peña had learned being in Colombia, it was that he should never count on being lucky, especially when it came to anything Pablo Escobar related. Because money spoke, but it spoke louder in the slums.

And the child that had arrived pointing a handgun at him, demanding Sure Shot be let go? Sometimes twenty dollars looked too damn good. And to a child who’d been exposed to cartel violence for the entirety of his life; being handed a gun with the money was like a dream come true. They weren’t playing cowboys and indians. They were playing policía y sicarios.

Up until that point, the worst thing he ever had to do was point his government issued sidearm at that child. He didn’t know it at the time, but that would eventually lose its place on his growing list of ‘worst things he’d done’. He couldn’t even blame the kid who was only acting in favor of a hero, so he added it to the list of reasons to hate Escobar.

Javi blinked. He was no longer in Bogotá or Medellín, but in Laredo, Texas. His hometown. Gone were the days of chasing someone down and being shot at, for now at least. Now his days consisted of helping his dad out on the ranch or DEA desk work. That was the one perk to Laredo. It sat right up against the US, Mexico border with an international airport a stone's throw away on the Mexico side, in Nuevo Laredo. It was just the right place for a DEA field office to set up and watch drugs try to enter the US. But it was also the place Javi had run from. The first chance he got, despite conversations with his father about how he could run but he might not like what he found. Truth was, he didn’t. The world outside Laredo was… pretty terrible. But he never regretted leaving. There had been some remorse there for what had happened with Lorraine, but never regret.

Javier closed his mouth and swallowed. It had run dry in his moment of blacking out. Honestly, he was shocked he hadn’t gotten into a car wreck. He rested his arm on the car door and drummed his fingers against the hot metal. It had spent the better half of the day baking in the sun while he sat at border watch. Now it’d bake a little longer while he helped fix a fence on his dad’s ranch.

He glanced out his window, squinting despite the sunglasses over his eyes and had to do a quick double take. You gotta be kidding me. Going along the sidewalk, arms swinging haphazardly, a little girl walked all by herself. She couldn’t have been more than six. Pigtails bounced with each step she took. Little Mary Jane shoes buckled over white socks, a navy blue and white checkered dress. She looked entirely out of place in the horribly country town. An innocent little creature in a world full of wolves. And as Javi continued to watch her, slowing down to accommodate for a red light but also to keep in line with her, he saw the wolves start to come out. The little girl remained oblivious to all of it, as a child who doesn’t know the world is full of evil would. A stark contrast to a lot of the children in Colombia.

Though she was able to continue on her way without notice of the world around her, Javi couldn’t. Not as she passed a group of boys on bikes – probably only a few years older than her – and how they tugged on her pigtails when she walked by. She waved her hands at them, brushing them out of her ringlets, the permanent smile not leaving her face for a second. The boys followed her for a few steps after she passed, probably thinking she’d pay them some attention if they teased her loud enough. But the moment they were behind her and no longer in her line of vision, it was like she had forgotten they’d ever been alive. Not once did she turn around to them, and finding this game now boring, the boys turned back and pedaled away. But those boys were the least of her worries. Sure, the boys were annoying but they proved to be no real threat. Kids didn’t carry guns here like they did in Medellín. At least, Javi didn’t think they did.

There was, however, a real threat. Or one Javi perceived to be a real threat. He doubted the little angel realized she was walking through a potential lion’s den. Now fully stopped at the red light, he kept his focus squarely on her. He didn’t want to think too hard about how useless he was while actually in his car, but regardless, he continued to watch. She skipped past a group of three men. Using the profiling skills the DEA had drilled into him, he figured these guys were around his age, though a little worse for wear. Each had a cigarette hanging from their lips and beer bellies hanging from beneath shirts. And every single one watched the little girl pass by. The conversation the men had been having stopped almost immediately, and gave way to what could best be described as ogling. Only once did one of the men manage to tear his eyes away to glance up and down the street. As if fully realizing this little angel was indeed alone they all started to chuckle.

The red light had thwarted the little girl’s advance. She reached up on tip toes and pressed her tiny fingers against the metal pedestrian button. Traffic in front of her and the group of men behind her, she was trapped in the middle. Javi almost thought he’d just continue on his way. That girl’s parents had made the decision to let their child walk alone. Prey to the world. And he had responsibilities to get through. His dad would tear him a new one if he was late. The fence had to be fixed by nightfall to keep coyotes from killing the chickens. He really thought he’d go on his way.

But they whistled at her.

And though not in the way Javi had been guilty of doing to a hooker or two, but in a way of trying to get her attention in lieu of candy. They whistled at her. And he prayed she’d continue to ignore the world around her. For just a second more.

“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath. Javi tore his eyes away from her long enough to look over his right shoulder, make sure he was in the clear, and then broke a few traffic laws to get to the curb. He threw his car in park, mumbled another profanity to himself, and got out of his car. Even breaking a few more laws to cross the street as the light turned green. But he had to get to her. Maybe to the public, he looked no better than the guys who had whistled at her. But he knew himself. He trusted himself a helluva lot more than he trusted those guys. So dodging traffic, he ran to her side of the street as the men advanced toward her. Despite the light now showing the little walking man, giving her the right of way, she didn’t move from the curb. Just stared at the street as Javi approached, “muñequita!”

The sound of his voice was enough to get the men to pivot on their heels and walk away from her. Javi was glad about that. He didn’t want to try to go up against three beer bellies. But the sound of his voice hadn’t been enough to get her attention. He tried again, now stepping up onto the curb beside her, “muñequita.”

Finally she looked at him. Hands clasped in front of her, head tilted back, and big, brown, soulful eyes looked up into his. The smile still on her face. Painfully unaware of the world around her. “Muñequita, where’re you going all by yourself?”

“Home,” she lifted one hand and pointed straight ahead.

Javi looked in the direction of her hand, finding that the light had already turned red again. He reached past her and hit the metal button again. “Where’s your mom?”

“She’s working!” the little voice chirped. High-pitched and very clear. Obviously, strange man, mommy is working.

“What about your dad? Where’s he?”

She shrugged, “I don’t know.”

Javi pursed his lips and nodded. He must’ve been out of the picture. Surely wasn’t the first deadbeat dad in the world. Javier crouched down, wincing, and rested his forearms on his knees, letting his hands dangle in front of him. “It’s not safe for you to be out here by yourself, muñequita. Can I drive you home?”

The little girl shook her head but the smile remained, “mommy said not to get in stranger’s cars.”

“That’s right. Your mommy’s very smart.” He looked back at the streetlight. It had turned green for them again. “Can I walk you home, then?”

She nodded enthusiastically, probably just happy to have a ‘friend’ along for the walk that she could muse too. So Javi stepped off the curb and started crossing the street. But when he looked down to ask her if she knew her address, he found that she wasn’t beside him. He glanced back over his shoulder and found her standing on the edge of the curb. Her arm outstretched. Her delicate little hand opening and closing in his direction. Help, help, help. He took a breath and lowered his head sheepishly, he should’ve known, and made the few steps back to her. With his hand held open, she slotted hers in it and jumped off the curb with flair, skipping along to keep up with him.

It melted his heart. This sweet, little creature. A Lamb of God. And though she wasn’t pointing a gun at his face, she reminded him a lot of that little Colombian boy in Medellín. That boy had been given a gun and left alone. Sent to do the work of a drug lord who was far too willing to sacrifice a child’s life as long as it wasn’t his own. And this one… what was to become of this angelita left alone? If the crimes he’d seen committed against children in Colombia hadn’t been bad enough, the crimes he witnessed against women had been. At that moment, looking down at the little girl, Javier only thought of Helena. He wondered where she was. Where she ended up. Had she gotten to America? Had it been kind to her?

❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖

Javi knocked on the front door and took a step back. He glanced down at the little girl, her hand still firmly gripping his. She hadn’t let go of it since they crossed the street. It also wasn’t the only thing she didn’t stop doing on the rest of the walk. She hadn’t stopped talking. About the clouds, every dog they passed, her school friends and their first grade-sized drama. He’d learned she was five and a quarter and one of the youngest in her class. Her favorite color was purple. And she liked her scooter because she was afraid of her bike.

And above all, she did not seem concerned that there was no answer at her house. Javi knocked again, but the girl pulled her hand out of his and ran back down the porch step, down the small paved path, and cut across to the lawn. Javi immediately turned and went after her, taking a couple steps in her direction before he slowed down when he saw what she had set out to do. Crouched down, singing to herself, she plucked a flower from the grass and came skipping back to him.

“Look!” She thrust the tiny flower in his direction.

He glanced at it, shifting his focus between the little, yellow flower and her. “Wow,” he feigned excitement.

She tugged on his hand again, “‘s a buttercup! Sit, I want to see if you’re good!”

Javi took a deep breath and looked around the neighborhood, wondering if anyone had seen him arrive with her. If they were suspicious as to what some random man was doing with a little child that wasn’t his. But she tugged on his hand again so he sat on the step and she curled in closer to him, resting her free hand on his leg.

“See!” She held the flower beneath her chin, “‘f’it glows lellow, that means you’re good!” She grinned and got impossibly closer to him. “Is it lellow?”

He ducked his head and spotted a faint colorful glow on her chin. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that the sun was reflecting it. “Yeah, it’s yellow,”

“I’m good!” She shrieked and reached her hand towards Javi’s face, “lemme see if it’s lellow for you,”

Javier stretched his neck, raising his chin to give her access to the spot she needed for her experiment. There was a little pause, the petals brushing against the bottom of his chin as she inspected it. His eyes locked on her, watching.

“It is!”

She yanked her hand away and Javi lowered his chin, a new, wide grin spread across his face. “I’m good?” he asked, looping his arm around her back when she flung the flower away and scooted in closer to him.

The little girl nodded and opened her mouth to say something else but her attention was quickly diverted when a set of tires crackled along the gravel driveway. She hopped to her feet excitedly, but stayed planted beside Javier, her hand clutching his leg to steady herself.

❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖

Panic set in at the sight of an unknown man sitting, waiting at your house. The panic turned heart-stopping when you saw that that unknown man had his arm wrapped around your young daughter. Worse, he seemed to be smiling… beaming… at her. As if he’d found the greatest of prizes. Though his smile did vanish upon the sound of your tires crunching along the gravel driveway.

And the way you exited your car? With speed you didn’t know was in you. The story you’d heard about a mama bear instinct kicking in, in times of crisis had never exposed itself as fiercely as it did in this moment. It had only come in shades of gray before. Now it was full on technicolor. You were seeing it in living color and it felt as though you’d been removed from your body, floating above it all, getting a bird’s eye view. The way this man stood clutching onto your daughter’s hand, and the way she hesitated to obey your command to get away from him in order to give him a hug around the leg. A bitterness rose in your throat and only slightly settled when she finally bounded toward you. Still from your bird’s eye view, it was as if you watched yourself inspect her for harm done but found none. And temporarily satisfied, you suggested she carry on to the backyard. A gated safe haven and more importantly, far, far away from the strange, mustached man, staring at you both.

She obliged, as she always did. She was an angel. And after your ex – her father – all but split at the pregnancy announcement, an angel was exactly what you needed. The expectation was never that you’d become a single parent, but you figured it was a better option than sticking around with that deadbeat. Which, as you approached the stranger on your porch, made you wonder… where was that deadbeat? It was his day to pick her up from school.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” You spat, now in killing distance if you so pleased to do to this guy. “So help me, I will cut off your dick and balls, put it on a pike, and march it through town! She’s five for fuck’s sake!”

Javi to his credit, not particularly known for his abundant patience, didn’t yell back. Didn’t fly off the handle in a fit of anger. Didn’t even let his expression show the slightest hint of sorrow. In fact, he had a smile on his face. And if that didn’t piss you the hell off even more.

“Is this your thing? You follow a little girl home, scoop her up, and poof! She vanishes. You fuck right off.”

Smile still plastered on his face, clearly finding some form of enjoyment from this spectacle you were putting on. But when the rampage simmered down, awaiting an answer, he lifted his hand, palm turned upward in an invitation to embrace yours, and grinned a little wider, “Javier Peña, DEA.”

You scoffed, staring his hand down and crossing your arms over your chest, “you think it’s better that you’re a cop? One bad apple…”

He rested his hands on his hips, “technically a Fed. For drug enforcement. And as far as I know, she didn’t have any coke-laced lollipops on her.”

You opened your mouth for another smart response, anything to show that you had the upper hand here. Concerning your kin. On your property. But Javi took a step forward, effectively forcing you back off the singular porch step, and there he stood towering over you, on the high ground. Though he would’ve towered over you anyway, even had you been on equal footing.

“If I were a cop, I’d be lecturin’ you about how it’s irresponsible to let your child walk home alone. And worse that she’s only five, as you so generously pointed out. You don’t need to be worryin’ about me, you need to be worryin’ about the fuckin’ group of men whistling at her. Tryna get her attention.” He stepped off the porch, now on even ground with you, and just as suspected, he towered over you. Broad shoulders straining against a button-down cotton shirt, square jaw and strong nose to boot. “You don’t have to believe this, but I’m the best thing that could’ve walked into your daughter’s life today. ‘cause in my line of work, I have seen kids go poof. And for the little girls, they’re lucky if they go poof. It’s usually a helluva lot better than the alternative,”

Despite the height difference, you stepped closer, coming face to chest. Doing your best threatening glare. “If I see you around my daughter again, I will parade your severed penis around town like it’s a fourth of July float. Do not fucking try me, Javier Peña,”

It wasn’t until you let yourself inside the house and slammed the door behind you, that the smile returned to Javi’s face and he crossed through the front yard to get back to the sidewalk. While talk about one’s severed penis was rarely a reason to smile, it was one of the least violent things that he’d been threatened with and he figured that sort of punishment was far better than the kind that he’d watched Los Pepes commit in Colombia. And, yes, the cause had been just – in the effort to take down Pablo Escobar. But he knew the ease with which Los Pepes murdered sicarios in Medellín would one day be turned against him. They would have found a justification for his murder. And that, mixed with the fact that what he was doing was definitely illegal, was the reason he was back in Laredo. And the reason he’d been able to keep the muñequita safe today.

❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖

He knew he wouldn’t make it to Chucho’s ranch before sundown. No chance. And his dad, also not particularly known for his patience (at least where it concerned his son), wasn’t bound to be too pleased about his son’s absence today. Hopefully he’d managed to fix the fence without him.

Javier’s suspicions proved to be correct when he pulled up his father’s long, dirt driveway and came upon the main house just as Chucho and his longtime ranch hand, Pancho, were stepping out the front door. For the second time that day, Javi found himself murmuring, “fuck,” beneath his breath.

Headlights illuminated the two older gentlemen, who still donned their boots, cowboy hats, and dusty jeans from their laborious day. Javi threw the car in park nearly before he hit the brakes, surely stripping the gears, and hopped out of the cab, ready to plead his case.

Chucho held up his hand. The wrinkles etched deep in his skin after decades of hard work in the sun. “No mames!” He shook his head and muttered to himself, “pinche naco. You owe Pancho a couple beers.” The elder Peña rounded to the driver side of his truck with Pancho letting himself into the passenger side. But before he fully entered the cab, Chucho looked back at Javi with a shout, “meet us at the Tack Room!”

The Tack Room. One of a handful of watering holes in town that boasted a kitschy barn theme. But it had the distinction of being the only one that was actually in an old barn. It had been transformed into the bar in Chucho’s young adulthood, and it had been his go-to place ever since Javier could remember. It was nothing fancy. Just a small town dive. Truly a place for locals though it wasn’t as if Laredo had much tourist appeal. Drinks were cheap. Domestic beers hovered around a buck. The food was greasy. Perfect for soaking up the alcohol already consumed and making patrons believe they could tolerate more. To Chucho it was home away from home, and to Javier, it was the place he’d gotten hooked on cigarettes. And places like it had been the reason he’d been so keen on leaving town as soon as he could. In a town as small as this, the local dives harbored three types of people:

The townsfolk who gossiped and got into everyone’s business.

The rancheros who never thought about leaving town.

And the deadbeats who never even tried.

And he’d gone to school with a lot of those in column number three. It was the bubble. People settled down here with jobs that barely paid the bills. They got married and started families. Those kids grew up, and never having the care, ambition, or opportunity to venture outside of southern Texas, stayed put. They fell in line with the work they’d watched their parents do and eventually started having babies of their own. And the cycle continued. All Javier knew was he had to get the hell out of there. So he did… despite the lump of guilt in his stomach about leaving his aging father behind. And when leaving brought him all the way to Colombia, Javi never thought he’d step foot in The Tack Room ever again.

It never failed to smell like sweat, burnt oil, and sawdust. A unique odor that all but singed his nose hairs and left him thinking his sense of smell would forever be compromised. The taste of Tecate didn’t even help. Not even the second one they were all on.

“Did you get the fence up, dad?” Javier asked, side-eyeing the girls at the next table over. If they weren’t old classmates or old girlfriends, he’d have a chance at warming up his bed tonight. They both looked like strangers to him. He could take his pick… or perhaps get both.

“No thanks to you, pendejo.”

“Alright, pop,” He took another sip from his pint glass. “I said I was sorry. I got held up, what do you want from me?”

Chucho lifted his cowboy hat off his head and smoothed out his hair before placing the hat back on. “Don’t think askin’ my son to stick to his word is too much. Instead Pancho has to help and his back’s–” Chucho interrupted himself. Then, looking past his son, and with a tone that dripped soft saccharine, “hola, chiquita!”

“Hola, Chucho!”

“Ven acá! Come meet my boy,”

❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖

The day hadn’t been great to say the least. No day in Laredo was great but thanks to a deadbeat baby daddy and an even deader-beat judge, it was where you were holed up. Traded in San Antonio for it and cursed yourself everyday. As far as you could tell, there wasn’t any getting out of Laredo. Not for you. Not for any of the townies you’d come to recognize. Everyone just stayed put. The reason as to why hadn’t yet revealed itself. There wasn’t anything great in Laredo.

Well maybe that wasn’t entirely true.

A deadbeat baby daddy for an ex was the reason you were here but without him you wouldn’t have had actual sunshine for a daughter. How she ended up like that while being genetically half of him, you’d never know. But if having chosen a different guy meant you’d never had her, it’s a mistake you would’ve made over and over and over again. She was just about the greatest thing ever planted on God’s green earth.

And your job wasn’t so bad. Your first job, at least. There was some sort of cruel irony that job number one was as a clerk in the same courthouse where that deadbeat judge had told you it’d be “beneficial for the girl to grow up around her father”. He obviously didn’t know, or care to learn, just how terrible that guy was. Truthfully anyone – literally anyone – would be better off not being around him. But clerking was a job nonetheless. One with a steady schedule and pay. Easy to plan life around. Not like the second job.

Very few good arguments could be made for The Tack Room. And even less for being a bartender there. Originally you thought a small town bar only full of locals meant that everyone would treat you kindly. But you learned people were pretty much dicks anywhere you went in the world. See, a small town bar full of locals meant that the patrons started to get a little too comfortable. And since no respectable woman would be caught dead drinking at The Tack Room, it meant the place was full with large, aggressively masculine men, who’d spent the day working in the sun or bumming it on the couch while their woman brought everything to the table. And those large, aggressively masculine men, when given liquid courage, started to think they were God’s gift to humanity. Glorified machines to move their penises from one room to another. A normal shift meant being catcalled, grabbed, hugged, or pinched more times than you had fingers. The other girls blushed and cowered and took that behavior. They were raised here – worse, they’d known some of the older men who were now pinching their asses, as children.

Not you. You could thank your deadbeat ex for that. No man was ever going to lay a hand on you like that again.

“Hola chiquita!” The soundwaves drifted in your direction, wrapping the sing-song lilt around your atmosphere, and settling warm in your chest.

Actually, there was one good thing about The Tack Room. Chucho Peña. A quiet, aging gentleman from a bygone era; he was an unforeseen light. He’d liked you since the day he met you a year or so back, here at the bar. First shift, carrying a tray of empty beer bottles, Pepe Hernandez (that asshole) grabbed you by the back pocket of your jeans, pulled you back into him until you were seated in his lap and while he thought he was hung like a horse, you realized he was working with a chode. You told him as such – something mean and cutting since he’d already been rude with you – and instead of quietly nursing his bruised ego, he cocked a fist back and tried to take a swing.

Another thing to thank your deadbeat ex for. He taught you that fists were fast but your reflexes could be faster. You dropped the tray, beer bottles crashing to the sawdust floor, and dodged his hand. He may’ve missed but you never did. Landed one punch straight to his nose. With the commotion, you could hear your boss rumbling, coming out from the kitchen to see what the matter was. And before you knew it your little unforeseen light, Chucho Peña, was beside you. He nudged you out of the way and stood over Pepe.

Your eyes widened at Chucho, but your boss arrived at the scene you’d created but Chucho was taking credit for. He wanted to holler and cuss someone out. Crack some skulls for causing a ruckus. But finding Chucho (who, you’d later found out, had given your now boss his first ranching job as a teenager), your boss backed down and kicked Pepe out.

That first night, Chucho had given you his classic Peña wink and introduced himself. He didn’t like men around acting like fools and making his beer taste bad. But he liked you. Liked your grit. Your guts. And maybe because he knew you could rip him apart, he always treated you extra nice. To make up for the fact that no one else did.

“Hola, Chucho!” You yelled back over the noise of the bar.

“Ven acá! Come meet my boy,”

You handed your purse to the bartendress behind the already crowded bar and got an apron from her in return. Wrapped it around your waist and tied it tightly around your waist on your way over to the table Chucho and Pancho were sitting at. Chucho had mentioned his son only a couple times in passing. You got the sense it was a sensitive subject and never cared to pry too much.

But this son… your blood ran cold at the sight of him. Dark brown hair, dark brown eyes, clean shaven save for the mustache…

❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖

Out of all the faces he imagined coming up to the table per his father’s offering, he never guessed it’d be you. And that fact made a little chuckle erupt from his throat when he held out his hand for an introduction you didn’t need.

“Hey, chiquita,” he smirked, all charm and nerve. Even more pleased with himself when you shoved your hand into his and told him your actual name.

But less pleased after you practically ignored him after that. Only spent a couple minutes making small talk with Chucho, trying to remain polite despite wanting to get the fuck away from his son. Maybe one day you’d fill the elder Peña in on how his son was caught with a five year old.

After you politely excused yourself from the table so you could get to work, and Javier realized he’d been practically silent the entire time, he glanced at his dad and found him gearing up for a ribbing.

“Didn’t you used to have game with the ladies?” Chucho grinned and took a sip of his beer.

“She’s not my type,” Javi grumbled.

“Ah ha. You mean she’d take a bit of work,” Chucho nodded, easing his cowboy hat back out of his eyes. “Son, it’s the women like that, that you gotta hold on to,”

Javi shook his head absently, trying to write off his dad’s comments. But he still spent the rest of the night glancing back at the bar every now and again to get a glimpse of you. He wondered how much “work” it’d take him until you bent for him just like every other woman. To his dismay, you didn’t come back to the table the rest of the night. Instead, another waitress made the rounds and filled up the beers. She didn’t seem to have any problem with him. She’d be an easy one to get. But his dad’s words rang in his ears, and despite the waitress putting in a mighty effort to get his attention, he just kept looking back at you.

Until about midnight when he needed to close out. That waitress had stopped coming around when Chucho and Pancho left and she realized she wasn’t going to get any attention from him. He stood from the table and wandered over to the bar, pulling his leather billfold out of his wallet. Foot propped up on the kick step beneath the bar, and forearms on the wood bar top, he smiled when you made eye contact with him, practically forced to help him.

“Closing out?” you asked, noncommittally.

He nodded affirmatively, waiting until you were back in front of him with the printed tab before he asked, “who’s watchin’ your kid now?”

And you could deck him. Really could. Put some serious thought into it. But he seemed to catch on that his little joke wasn’t too funny.

“Sorry,” he bowed and slid his credit card over to you.

You ran his card, taking deep breaths so that when you turned around to face him, you wouldn’t be seeing complete red. It worked just a bit, and when you turned to hand the bill back to him, you only saw shades of dark pink. “Chucho never mentioned his son was DEA. Sounds like a lie,”

Javier smiled again. While he slid his credit card back into his wallet, he simultaneously slid out the badge that got him into the local office. Presenting it to you and adding the same blank expression on his face as his picture on the badge, he figured you believed him.

“She talked about you all day,” you shook your head and ran a towel over the bar to wipe away lingering condensation. It gave you something to do other than get lost in his eyes. “The buttercups told her you were good,”

“Not sure who taught her that, but buttercups aren’t very good judges of character,”

“I did,”

He pressed his lips together and leaned a little closer to the bar. “Well, they’re not. But they didn’t lie,”

You nodded, relenting. “Then I guess I should thank you. And apologize for that stuff about severing your penis and marching it through town,”

“Trust me, I’m sure you’re not the only woman in Laredo interested in separating me from my penis,”

“It does some damage, doesn’t it?”

A flush worked its way up to Javi’s cheeks and he laughed softly. He figured he’d let that one go without response. Your brain could imagine for itself what kind of damage he could do.

“I’m off in a half hour. If you stick around, I can show you how sorry I am,”

❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖ ❖

Maybe this not so great day was turning around. That’s the only explanation you could think of as to why you were currently seated on Javi’s lap in the passenger seat of your car, knees planted on either side of his waist, pressing against the coarse seat fabric. Tight t-shirt pushed up as far as it would go with your arms still in the sleeves. High enough for your breasts to be exposed; lace bra hiding the last bit of skin you had to offer. His hands had a crushing hold on your hips, rocking your body along his length. He was perpetually bottomed out, the lack of space giving no chance for reprieve. You brought one hand to the back of his neck while the other flung up and pressed against the roof of the car, trying to keep yourself down despite your body involuntarily inching away from him. Not that the confines of the space, or his grip on you, would let you get too far.

“C’mon, give it to me,” he growled with a labored breath.

A moan ripped through your chest and throat. Thighs quivered around Javi’s hips, which he undoubtedly felt because a chuckle rumbled past his lips and into the space between you both. You lowered your head, looking down into his eyes which were already boring into your soul.

“Already?”

“Shut up, Peña,”

He snapped his hips upward, where the head of his cock pressed against your cervix, searching for entry into a depth your body couldn’t accommodate. But entry wasn’t the ultimate goal, it was just to prove to you that he could. So he wrapped one arm around you, keeping you pinned to him where every movement of your body on his created friction against your clit.

“Javi, querida. It’s Javi,”

Your head lolled forward and tucked into his neck. His scent overwhelmed your senses. Despite you being on top of him, he seemed to be everywhere. His body encompassed yours like a weighted blanket. Arms snaked around you to keep you close, as if you had any intention of furthering yourself from the pleasure he was giving you. “Javi,” his name lingered on your lips, singing two syllables that had never sounded so sweet. “I’m gonna come,” you gasped into his neck, closing your mouth and suckling gently on his skin.

He smiled and licked his lips, trying to focus on the feeling of your mouth on his neck. Anything to not give in to the feeling of your anatomy squeezing him within an inch of his life. He didn’t need you to tell him you were close; he could tell. “I feel it. Feel you pulling me deeper,” he lowered his head closer to your ear, his arm doing most of the work to keep your body in its steady rhythm, thrusting along him. “Go on, soak me. Give me your best,”

“Javi, Javi,” you panted. Then quickly, your head was pulled away from his neck. Both his hands cupped around your cheeks, forcing you to look down into his heads.

You tried to lose the eye contact by squeezing your eyes shut, but Javi shook you to attention. “Let me see those eyes when you come all over me,”

Eyes snapped open, pleading. Eyebrows furrowed and mouth slack. Javi lifted his hips to meet the shifting of your body and that’s when you went rigid. Hands curling into fists and shaking. Your body jerked on top of him, an otherworldly cry erupting through you. He held on tight, leaning over and biting into your shoulder as you continued to tremble through your high. The breath hitched in your throat and it took a few seconds before a new deep lungful air entered your body. By that point, Javier was flexing and shaking beneath you.

“Where–shit–”

He knew you heard him too late. No doubt the throbbing of the pulse in your ears had blocked off the rest of the world. Unable to hear anything over the sound of your own blood pumping through your veins and the shattered cry coming out of your throat. So that by the time you did hear his question, it was too late. And Javi, just as he wasn’t known for his patience, also wasn’t known for his restraint – and yet somehow had the presence of mind and the wherewithal to physically lift you off his member just seconds before he came with a groan; thick spend coating his stomach.

You stared at it, watching the droplets create a line down toward the base of his cock, slaves to gravity. Only when he wrapped a large paw over your thigh and gave it a squeeze, did you blink and look back into his eyes.

“Good?” He asked in the same moment you leaned forward, finding himself face first in your breasts, “hello,” he smirked against your skin and bit into the fleshy mounds.

You squealed, searching blindly in the backseat with your hand before your fingertips found what they’d be looking for. And pulling back, with your free hand latching onto Javi’s hair and giving it a playful tug, you produced a Polaroid camera.

“‘S’that for?” he cocked his head to the side.

But you didn’t answer him. Just quickly held it up to your eye, peered through the viewfinder and snapped the photo.

“Hey!” He snatched the photo away as it printed, currently just a gray square, waiting for the final image to appear. “What is this? Blackmail? You take pictures of all your conquests,”

You laughed and grabbed the photo right back, placing it in your bra and lowering your shirt. “You’re not that special, Peña,”

Leaning back while still on his lap to create more distance for the camera, you held it back up to your eye and inspected the frame. This time his face didn’t make the cut, but his chest, down to his stomach still donning his come with his member laid back against it did. Along with your bare thighs straddling him, one of his hands still had real estate on your skin. You snapped that picture, too, and flipped it over to its blank side. With a pen in the center console courtesy of The Tack Room, you wrote your number and handed the picture to Javi. He was out of your car before the thing had even finished developing. And in the darkness of the parking lot, he wouldn’t have been able to see the image even if it had been. A cigarette was in his mouth by the time you peeled out of the lot, and his nerves were settling with the overhead lights in his car flicking on. That was when he saw just what you’d snapped the second time. Two bodies. Anonymous. His cock rested limp against his stomach. Your legs secured around his hips. And a phone number on the back with the instruction, call me, Peña.

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