Javier (Alpha Heroes #12)

Chapter Seventeen

Javier

From my place stretched out on a lounger overlooking the lake, I pretended to read a sports magazine. Wearing my swimsuit and a rash guard, I tried to play the part of tourist, making an effort to look relaxed and aloof. Instead, all my senses were homed in on Missy, who sat on the other side of the stone deck at the edge of one of the resort’s natural thermal pools talking to her new “friends.”

Turning a page I hadn’t read, I inhaled a calming breath and let it out. I’d pretty much lost my wits yesterday when Pedro had texted me to report she had company. I stalked into the main pool like an entitled caveman and discovered she was having fun with the Frenchmen. The latter only ramped up my fury. The way I’d acted had been impulsive, compulsive, and out of line.

I’d paid for my mistake.

All day yesterday, last night, and this morning, I’d suffered Missy’s silence. I couldn’t blame her. I was having a hard time sticking to my self-imposed hard limits. Peeking over the magazine, I surveyed the woman yet again. If I hadn’t been charged with her protection, I might’ve labeled myself a stalker. I had security all around her, but since my mission was her, my presence here was legit.

At least that’s what I kept telling myself.

Sporting a smile that lit up her whole face, she swirled her feet in the warm waters, wearing the same minuscule bikini that drove me fucking insane. She looked so goddamn sexy that, anytime now, my blue balls were gonna burst. The gods gave me a break when my cell vibrated, interrupting my most recent list of all the things I was gonna do to and with Missy if I ever got my hands on her body again.

I forced my eyes away from Missy, slid the burner out of my front pocket, and glanced at it. King’s alias flashed on the screen. An encrypted text popped up.

Intel incoming , the message said. Secure channel. Ten mikes .

With a little luck, good news was coming my way, just in time to save me—and Missy—from… well… me.

My gaze returned to her. Engaged in animated conversation with her friends, she looked like she was having fun. Her friends were immersed in the water to their armpits, adoring her with their eyes and fully invested in making her laugh. I wished we could trade places. I wanted to be the one making her giggle like that.

Missy’s new hairstyle gave her a chic vibe that added to her natural beauty. Steam rose from the thermal spring and wafted from her skin in mellow clouds that reminded me how hot she was. The sight turned up the sexual burner that kept my dick on call and my blood at a constant simmer.

Yeah, King better have good news for me.

I’d taken a thorough second look into the Frenchmen, digging into their lives until they had no secrets from me. I’d scoured their backgrounds, looking for anything that could potentially—even distantly—flag them as threats to Missy so I could justify removing them from her life and getting them out of the resort. But no such luck. The fuckers were squeaky clean.

When blond Pierre casually settled his hand on her bare thigh, the pressure at the top of my skull spiked so hard I wondered if steam gushed out of my ears. This wasn’t a mellow kind of steam. It was violence in its raw form. It oozed from my pores and curled my hands into fists.

Fucking douche .

The sight was more than I could bear and it ignited my already short fuse. I ground my jaw and repressed an urge to march out to the hot spring, smash the men’s faces, throw Missy over my shoulders, and lock her in the suite. But I’d promised her I wouldn’t spoil her fun. I had to live by that promise.

Trapping a growl in my throat, I stalked out of my overwatch position. With a yank, I straightened the casual, touristy backpack I carried around the resort to hide my laptop and weapons. The magazine crumpled in my grip. I found Pedro standing at the top of the stone stairs leading to the thermal pool.

“I’ll be back soon,” I told the man. “Keep your eye on her at all times. Text me if anything changes. Text me also if those two get grabby again.”

“ Sí, se?or ,” the guard replied and then, “Sorry, se?or .”

Fuck . Even the guard could tell I was fucking miserable.

I marched to Allen’s office and requested to use his space for a few minutes. It had the best reception in the hotel and the privacy I needed. The resort’s chief of security understood my request and disappeared, closing the door behind him.

I pulled out my laptop, set it up on Allen’s desk, and logged into a secure website. King must’ve found a way to secure his end of the comms. While I activated my encryption program, I dared hope he had good news for me. Maybe we were a go on our exfil. Perhaps today would be the last day I’d spend following Missy around the resort, lusting for her like an elk bull in rut.

After a few additional clicks, King’s face showed up on the screen.

“Hey,” he said. “To avoid detection, I gotta make this quick. See the timer running at the bottom of your screen?”

“Got it.” I gave him a thumbs up. “Are we getting out today?”

“No, bro.” He seemed to sense my internal deflation. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” I concealed my impatience but only barely. “What’s the status on the nuns?”

“I’ve delivered them to the convent, but I gotta stick around.”

“Why?”

“I’ve detected suspicious patterns of surveillance around the place.”

My red flags went up. “You’ve got mercs on you?”

“Scouts, maybe.” King shrugged his wide shoulders. “The police are on alert, but I can’t leave the nuns at the convent without protection, and I can’t make a run your way if there’s a risk I could lead Snake and his mercs to you and Missy.”

I gave a curt nod. “Agree.”

“Omega’s set on no comms,” King reported. “We’re on radio silence protocol, but I managed to smuggle the evidence you got from the mercs to Mina. She processed it and came up with a few useful bits. She delivered her latest intel report using a video game we both play.”

“Smart lady.” Our spectacular cyber-wizard was Tracker Team’s top asset. “And?”

“I’ve got the dirt on your boy Snake,” King announced.

“At last, something interesting.” He had my undivided attention. “Go.”

“Real name, Wilbur Bekker,” King reported with his usual efficiency. “Born in South Africa. His IQ is impressive. Trained with the French Foreign Legion. He’s highly skilled and experienced. Did well, worked himself up the ranks until he got kicked out for massacring civilians.”

“Always the case with narcissist killers who pretend to be soldiers.” I eyed the countdown. “Keep rolling.”

“He worked for Bruckner for a while,” King said. “Remember the assholes?”

“How could I forget?” I rolled my eyes. “Brutal outfit. Genocidal mercenary group. Based out of Russia, but their field of action is the world. We’ve fought them several times before.”

“Yeah, those assholes,” King continued. “Bekker got all tattooed and shit when he worked for Bruckner. We think the Russians funneled him into the NWO. Our intel suggests he’s a new favorite of Li, who, as you well know, is the main agent for the NWO.”

“I remember Xao Li from our last mission.” The memory fueled the violence building inside me. “You got a solid connection?”

“Mina does,” King said. “She reversed engineered the financial ties from Bekker to Bruckner, to Li. Turns out that Li uses Bruckner to staff the NWO’s also brutal ranks.”

“It figures.” Mina always got her verifications right. “What else do we know about Li?”

“Not much,” K-man said. “No pics. Lots of security. Dagger’s on him. It’s possible he goes by several names. But I do have more on Bekker.”

“Tell me.”

“He’s obsessed with reptiles,” King said, fingering through the report on his screen.

“Yeah, no shit. He’s got them tattooed all over his body. Tell me something new.”

“Omega sent assets to sniff out the details on the ground,” King said. “Snake’s father, Bekker Senior, was a reptile catcher who amassed a large collection of venomous species in his house. Senior was a violent alcoholic. He wasn’t exactly father-of-the-year material, but he and his son shared a fascination for reptiles. He died when Junior turned eighteen.”

“How?”

“A massive python escaped its cage. Senior was found strangled to death in his bed and half eaten.”

“What a shitty way to go.” I shook my head. “Foul play?”

“I’d say so.” King allowed for a sarcastic scoff. “We got a hold of the coroner’s report. The man’s alcohol levels were astronomical. Traces of a cocktail of sleeping meds were also found in his blood. Estimated time of death was a week from discovery. His gardener found the body. Wilbur Bekker had left for boot camp five days before. You do the math.”

“Fuck the fucker.” I scrubbed my face. “He killed his own father?”

“And according to his maternal aunt, he killed his mother as well.”

I drew back. “How?”

“Mother died of a snake bite when Junior was ten,” King said. “The aunt reported the kid experimented with his father’s poisonous snakes on all kinds of creatures—mice, dogs, cats, pigs. She said the kid had a sick fascination with the venoms’ effects, you know, necrotic tissue, respiratory arrest, bleed outs, the works.”

I snorted. “That doesn’t sound morbid.”

“Beyond that, the black mamba that bit Bekker’s mother just happened to be Snake’s childhood pet,” King added. “That’s why the aunt thinks he killed his mother.”

“Holy shit.” Bekker had been a twisted SOB early on. “Did she report this to the police?”

“At the time, Bekker Senior prevented her from filing a report,” King replied. “His wife had filed for divorce. Who knows, he might’ve even taught the kid how to do the deed. The aunt reports that Bekker Senior said that if she called the police on his son, she might find an adder in her purse and die like her sister.”

“I get that Bekker Senior kept his son out of jail, but how did Bekker Junior not go to jail for killing his father?”

“We think Wilbur Bekker had connections in the justice system. He bribed the authorities and got out of the country. He never returned and charges were never filed.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic.” I huffed. “We’re dealing with a high IQ psychopath and serial murderer, trained by an elite force, financed by one of the world’s most dangerous organizations, who’s obsessed with venomous reptiles.”

“In a nutshell,” King returned.

“Sounds peachy.” I shook my head.

“We’re running out of time,” King warned. “You need to be careful, bro.”

“So do you, man.” I tracked the last seconds in the countdown. “Keep the nuns safe. Watch your six, K-man.”

“Will do,” he said as the timer alarmed. “King out.”

The screen went black. I erased my history and turned off the laptop. It struck me that King had stuck out his neck and risked his safety to deliver vital information to me.

Since my arrival to Tracker Team, he and I had often been at odds. I had no doubt the straight arrow thought I was a hothead, a player, and a prick, which I was. And yet at the end of this conversation, he’d sounded as if he cared for more than Missy and the mission.

He’d almost sounded as if he cared for me.

***

Missy

I woke up gasping in the middle of the night. I’d had a dream, and it left me reeling. I remembered a snake—a king cobra, to be more specific—with its hood flared and its fangs dripping with venom. My heart still pounded in my chest and my mouth was dry as a desert, but I reminded myself that cobras were not endemic to the Americas.

My nightmare had probably been born out of the conversation I’d had with Javier earlier today, before I went out to dinner with Pierre and Gerard for the second night in a row. Javier had sat me down to brief me on Wilbur Bekker, aka Snake. Speaking in his detached soldier tone, Javier had shared gruesome details about the merc’s past.

It was the stuff of nightmares, and since Javier insisted I needed to know my enemy, my mind ruminated on it for the rest of the day. Another fun night with Pierre and Gerard had not succeeded at scrubbing the images that formed in my mind, which explained why I was wide awake in the middle of the night, recalling the cobra tattooed on Bekker’s face with uncanny clarity.

Not a portent, not a prediction. It was just my imagination going wild. The last thing I remembered from the dream was a voice echoing in my head. It’s up to you , the voice had said.

Unable to go back to sleep, I got up, grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge, and downed half of it in one gulp. On my way back to my bed, I couldn’t resist taking a peek outside. Javier slept on the deck. The hammock couldn’t be nearly as posh and comfortable as the big bed I enjoyed for myself. By now, his spine had to be feeling the bend.

But hey, it was his choice. It spoke loads about his attitude toward me that he chose to spend his nights crammed into the colorful hammock. It looked like an over-stuffed tamale with him in it.

I was about to go back to my bed when I heard a noise outside. I cracked open the glass sliders and caught some garbled words. Pushing apart the screen doors, I stepped out and approached the hammock. The light of the moon illuminated the deck. Javier thrashed within the fabric. Listening carefully, I made out a few of his mumbles.

I’m fine. His face twisted in a grimace of pain. Get out of here, now!

The urgency came through in his voice. I inched closer. Beneath his lids, his eyes were moving back and forth.

REM stage?

His chest heaved, his arms stretched rigidly at his sides, and his hands fisted. It was as if he was fighting to inhale, suffocating in his own breath. A catch convulsed his throat. It sounded a lot like a sob.

“No, no, he can’t be dead,” he rasped . “Not him.”

I tiptoed closer to him. He wore his sweats and nothing else. Shame burned my face when I paused. I couldn’t help but admire his muscular chest and the six-pack etched on his flat stomach.

Ogling again , I scolded myself. He was in distress and here I was, feasting my greedy little eyes on him.

I dragged my stare to his knuckles. They paled under the pressure of his grip. His jaw clenched, and I spotted a single tear escaping from the corner of his eye and getting lost in the line of his hair somewhere behind his ear. He rasped a low moan that broke my heart and disturbed the night’s eerie silence. It was as if the jungle understood his sorrows and commiserated with his grief.

“I don’t fucking remember,” he muttered angrily. “I don’t know.”

He was having a nightmare. A bad one. Worse than the one I’d just had.

Nightmares were nasty dreams that spoiled one’s rest and tortured one’s mind. Sometimes they were memories. Other times, they were agony without meaning. Mine had been particularly weird lately and even more scary since some of them had come true. I wished someone had cut them short before I woke up with a scream caught in my throat, my heart racing, and my pulse swishing in my ears.

Waking him up would be a mercy.

“Javier?” I whispered, stepping up to the hammock.

His head thrashed from side to side. Sweat gleamed on his forehead, and a flash of clenched teeth told me his nightmare was only getting worse.

“Javier,” I said a little louder.

“No, it can’t be,” he murmured between tight lips. “He’s not dead. He’s not!”

How sad. He must’ve lost someone very dear to him. I couldn’t abandon him to suffer his loss again.

“Javi, please, wake up.” I reached out and shook his shoulder.

He moved so fast I didn’t see it coming. With superhuman reflexes, he gripped my wrist, a brutal vice. At the same time, he shot out of the hammock, twisted my arm behind my back, and spun me until I was trapped with my back smashed to his front. I had no time to cry out. He wrenched my face to one side. A knife flashed at my throat.

I almost fainted from the fright, but I braced my knees and kept my wits about me.

“Javi?” I heaved, staying very still in his grip. “It’s me. Missy. Remember me?”

“ Missy ?” He croaked, his voice nearly unrecognizable and his grip unyielding.

“Let me go.” I evened out my voice. “You were having a nightmare.”

“ Nightmare ?” he repeated and this time his voice didn’t sound so foreign.

“It’s me, Missy.” I inhaled cautiously, keenly aware of the blade flirting with my skin. “Remember me?”

“ Angel ?” The blade retreated from my throat and his grip relented.

I staggered forward, tripped over my own feet, and fell on the deck. My knees took the brunt of the tumble, but it was my pride that took the biggest hit. Memories of my father’s rages returned to haunt me.

No , I pushed the memories away. No more Mousy Missy . I wasn’t going to allow Father to define the new me. My pulse banged against my ribs, but anger pushed me out of my state of shock.

“What’s wrong with you?” I turned around and sat on my shins, glaring up at the man. “I was trying to do you a favor.”

He stood there for several seconds staring down at me, his naked chest rising and falling all too quickly, his eyes wide and haunted. “A favor?” he finally mumbled.

“You were having a nightmare,” I explained yet again. “You were thrashing and moaning, and—”

“I almost killed you.” He shifted his stare from me, to the knife he still held in his hand, and back to me, before he clenched his jaw. “Don’t you know any better?”

“I thought that maybe I could help—”

“You do not sneak up on a sleeping soldier—”

“I didn’t sneak up—”

“You’re reckless.” A muscle feathered in his squared jaw. “You know that?”

“I was trying to help,” I shot back.

“Up.” He put his knife away, stalked to me, and lifting me as if I were but a rag doll, stood me up on my feet. “There. That’s better. What the hell were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t thinking so much,” I admitted. “I was feeling your pain and I couldn’t stand to see you so upset, so—”

“You put your life at risk and almost forced me to kill you for no reason at all?”

“No,” I said, and then, “yes, I guess.”

“Missy…” He ambled to the railing, rubbed his forehead, and raked his fingers through his hair. “Never approach me when I’m having a nightmare. I can’t be responsible for my actions if you startle me. Are we clear?”

“I’m sorry if I startled you,” I said. “It was never my intention.”

He scrubbed his eyes. “Apology accepted.”

“Well, good, thank you, but…”

“But what?” he asked, his body humming with impatience.

“You owe me an apology as well.” I straightened to my full height. “I was trying to help, and you scared the living daylights out of me. It’s not my fault that you’ve got hyperactive reflexes and can kill someone in your sleep.”

That did it. He looked mortified now.

“I’m so sorry.” He stepped up to me, and taking my hand, examined my wrist. “Did I hurt you?”

The wince twisting his face made me go easy on him. “It wasn’t too bad.”

The concern flashing in his eyes softened my heart and satisfied the part of me that needed to stand up for myself. It also went a long way to differentiate his reactions from those of my father.

Regret glimmered in Javier’s gaze. His reaction tonight had been instinctive, automatic, a reflex. Whereas Father’s actions had always been deliberate and calculated to deliver the most hurt. Father had always gloated after crushing my self-esteem. He’d then deny his actions and accused me of being a scaredy cat, a wimpy girl, and a worthless, snotty brat.

Javier had done none of this. He looked embarrassed and repentant. He’d taken responsibility for his reaction. Most importantly, Javier did something Father never could. He recognized his mistakes and wasn’t afraid of apologizing.

My heart softened and my breaths came easy.

He kept a hold of my hand, rubbing the red marks on my wrists very lightly, sending prickles of pleasure to tease me, awakening my every nerve ending to the fact that he was within kissing range.

Then he did the sweetest thing. He lifted my wrist to his lips and kissed my hand softly in apology. “Please, Angel, forgive me.”

“I understand,” I murmured. “You were upset.”

I fought not to melt beneath his pleading gaze and the touch of his mouth, but I couldn’t avoid the internal meltdown that liquefied the space between my legs. The warmth of his mouth rippled through me for a while after he released my hand.

Suppressing a sigh, I held on to my wits and studied his guarded face. “Do you have nightmares often?”

“No.” He grimaced. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Is it the same one?”

He nodded reluctantly.

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

“No.” He stalked to the veranda.

Ambling slowly, I followed him and came to stand next to him, not too close, as to not cramp his space.

“Sometimes, I have nightmares, too,” I offered, keeping my eyes forward, as if speaking to the night. “I was awake when I heard you because I had one tonight.”

The weight of his stare fell on me. When I glanced at him, his eyes gleamed with concern. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine now, but it was scary.”

I stared at the shadow of the volcano, brown rising against obsidian black and surrounded by stars that reminded me of home, of my sisters.

“When I was a little girl and I had nightmares, Thena used to wake me up.” I don’t know why I needed to share that memory with him, but I did. “She always consoled me. She used to say that talking about one’s dreams was helpful.”

“Goddess has always been our consoler-in-chief.” A rueful grin enlivened his features. “Your sister is very wise.” He put his hand over my shoulder and gathered me to his side. “What was tonight’s nightmare about?”

“I… um… I dreamed about a cobra,” I stammered as his touch unleashed a buzz that dropped from my shoulders, through my core, and down to my toes. Mindwipe . I had to make a huge effort to remember my words. “It looked like the one on Bekker’s forehead.”

“Ah, what a shithead I am.” He slapped his forehead. “ I put those images in your head.”

“Maybe.” I shrugged. “But sometimes…”

“Go on.”

“Sometimes, my dreams come true.” I tossed another glance at him, expecting him to break out into a snort or make fun of me.

He looked down at me and lifted his eyebrows. “How so?”

Okay, so he didn’t look like he was making fun of me right now.

“Um…” I cleared my throat. “I once dreamed that a beam in the roof fell down in the middle of class and killed two of our kids. When I woke up, I climbed on the roof and checked all the beams. Sure enough. One was badly cracked. We replaced it before it broke.”

He opened his mouth and closed it. “That’s…”

“Wacky?” I offered. “Freaky? Bizarre?”

“I was gonna say interesting.” He studied my profile. “Have other dreams ever happened, you know, in real life?”

“Yes, a few times.” It happened with you , I didn’t remind him. “I dreamed of the soldiers burning the orphanage before it happened. It’s why we evacuated before they came.”

“That’s also why you were so shaken when you asked to borrow my binoculars,” he realized. “Am I right?”

“Yes.” I sighed. “It’s inexplicable.”

“So.” He narrowed his stare on me and squeezed my shoulders. “When you said you dreamed about me before, did you mean it?”

Holy Mother, help me . There was a question I had to avoid. I didn’t want to discuss my X-rated dreams with the subject of my runaway lust. He’d probably think I was desperate for his attention. Which could be true, despite my best efforts to ignore the way my cells sang like a celestial choir when he was near.

“Let’s not talk about my dreams anymore.” My pride and dignity came to my rescue, just as Thena promised. “Let’s talk about your dreams, the nightmare you had tonight.”

The line between his eyes deepened. “Sorry, can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Both, I suppose.”

“You could try.” He looked so upset that I ran my hand up and down his arm. “You told someone to get away, and then you denied that someone else was dead. It sounded awful.”

“It was.” He looked away. “It always is.”

“Was it something that happened when you were on active duty?” I asked. “Did you lose someone dear?”

He nodded, but not a word made it through the straight line of his tightly pressed lips. His forearms bulged as he tightened his grip on the wooden rail.

“I’m a good listener,” I offered softly.

“You’re more than a good listener.” He gazed down on my hand. “You’re a good everything.”

“A compliment from you?” I smiled in an attempt to lift his mood. “How unexpected.”

“If I could, I would compliment you more often,” he rumbled.

“Why can’t you?”

“I told you.” He pressed his lips together again and said nothing more.

“Javi?”

“Don’t say my name like that.” He withdrew his hand from mine and wrapped his fingers around the banister instead.

“Like how?”

“So sweetly that no man in his right mind could resist it.”

“Huh.” A small flame of hope flickered in my core. I was curious, but I wasn’t sure. “Why can’t I say your name sweetly?”

“It makes me feel things I can’t feel.”

“Like what?”

He braced his feet apart and crossed his arms. “Not gonna talk about that.”

“Or your dreams.”

“Or my dreams,” he agreed, all too readily. “Go to sleep, Missy.”

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I’m fine.”

He clasped his hands behind his back and faced off with the jungle’s darkness. I contemplated his profile for a moment. His eyes fixed ahead, and his nostrils, flaring with the controlled breaths that lifted his naked chest. I also spotted the doubt glimmering in his eyes, his hesitation, and his need. He looked so sad and kind of… spooked?

“Look at me.” Very gently, I cupped his chin and rubbed my fingertips over the bristled growth of his whiskers. “I know I’m your job and you don’t want to get personal with me, but if you need a friend, I can be that for you. You can trust me. With anything.”

Our eyes locked. An exchange of deep emotions filled my chest and lifted my heart before they slammed down to my core and pooled at the back of my sex, electrifying me from head to toe. If I had any restraint, it went out the window, along with my pride and dignity.

A kiss. I needed a kiss. I had to kiss him.

I lifted on the tip of my toes, and bracing my hands on his bare chest, brushed my lips softly against his.

A roar rumbled in his throat right before he seized my mouth, devoured my lips, and wiped all nightmares from my mind. It wasn’t me kissing him. It was the other way around. His hands caressed me with the same voracity that propelled his mouth. My knees, the whole of me, trembled in his arms. My need was so keen it was painful. The space between my legs felt as though it had turned into a sodden sponge.

“I don’t understand,” I whispered between desperate kisses. “Why do I want you so much?”

He held me tighter, and clamping down on his teeth, lifted his face to the sky, looking torn. “You sons of bitches,” he muttered. “I’m trying over here. Why the fuck are you doing this to me? To hell with all of you.”

I might’ve asked what he meant, but he lifted me up and deposited me sidewise in the hammock. One edge of the weave cradled my head and back while my legs spilled over the opposite side. When I tried to push off, he stopped me. My thoroughly kissed lips slacked as he lifted my hips without effort and slid my panties down my legs.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I can’t take and I don’t got much to give.” He went to his knees. “But this, this I can give you.” He met my eyes, his gaze burning with amber fire. “Yes?”