Page 111 of Pieces of Ash
“I want to fuck you, Ash,” he murmurs, biting on my earlobe.
“Then finish your story,” I say, a thrill shooting through me from the combination of his dirty mouth and sharp teeth.
“Okay. So, there I am in Cartagena, the youngest agent by far. I’ve never been out of the country. Hell, I’ve only been an agent for two months. Honestly, I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing.” He huffs out a breath. “There’s no field office in Cartagena—the only one in Colombia is in Bogotá—so we check into the hotel and meet the security detail, mostly made up of Marines assigned to the veep’s visit. We go over the agenda in the hotel conference room, but the meeting breaks up by eight. I assume we’re all going to get a good night’s sleep, but one of the Marines is old friends with Javi, and they start talking about this club we need to go to.
“And I realize that we’reallgoing. And hell, I’m twenty-one, and the women there were crazy beautiful, and sure, yeah, I was up for some liquor and dancing. Why not?
“We get to the club, and it’s dark and loud, and the whiskey starts flowing. I’m hammered two hours later, and I see Javi and this other agent, Mark, talking to these two girls at a table. Then I notice there’s one more woman at the table, but her eyes are down. She’s dressed like the other two, but she’s not talking, not touching her drink. And you know—god, I was so stupid—I thought she looked young. I thought she looked…lost.
“Javi waves me over, so I sidle up next to this girl, using my high school Spanish…”
I clear my throat, surprised by the sharp surge of jealousy I experience. “Feel free to skim over the details of this part…”
He chuckles softly. “I didn’t sleep with her.”
“Oh,” I sigh, feeling relieved.
“But I wanted to.”
“Exactlythe sort of detail you’re welcome to skim over,” I say.
“I hang out with the guys for a while, but I’m looking at her, and she’s stealing glances at me, and fuck, but here I am. I’m a goddamned Secret Service agent, and I’ll be guarding the VP tomorrow while he tours Cartagena. I’m on top of the world. I’ve made it. I’m thinking, if this goes well, it could fast-track my whole career. I’d be a legend. And this girl was so pretty, I just…I just…”
“What?” I whisper.
“I never even saw it coming,” he says. “Talk about stupid.”
“Not stupid,” I insist, grabbing his forearm and pulling it across my chest. I rest my fingers on the wiry hairs that dot his skin. “Inexperienced. Maybe cocky. But not stupid.”
“You haven’t heard the rest.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I say. “Whatever it is, it won’t change the fact that you shouldn’t have been in that situation. You weren’t ready. Whatever happened wasn’t your fault alone.”
“Hmm,” he hums. “You might think differently when I finish. My superiors sure did.”
I know I won’t, but I don’t say so.
“So, the six of us are walking back to the hotel, with Magdalena and I bringing up the rear, and I realize that the other two girls are prostitutes negotiating their price for the night. I look down at Magdalena and notice her wiping at her eyes, and I tell her that I don’t expect anything of her. I tell Javi and Mark to go ahead, that we’ll see them at the hotel in a little bit, and Magdalena and I sit down on a bench. She’s still crying, talking to me in Spanish, and I make out that her father is sick. She doesn’t want to be aputa, a whore. She tells me that this is her first night out, and she’s terrified. I tell her she’s not aputa. She hasn’t done anything yet. She’s crying about medicine and her father, and I ask her how much money she needs. Shetells me that a hundred dollars will buy the medicine her father needs, and I have that in US dollars, but I have it back in my hotel room safe. I tell her that I’ll give her the money, she doesn’t have to do anything to earn it. I just want to help her. And so we start walking back to the hotel.”
“You were just going to give her the money?”
“For one hundred dollars, I thought I could save his life,” Julian explains. “My dad…I mean, my dad had died the year before, and I would’ve done anything to save him. I couldn’t say no to her.”
“Julian,” I murmur, holding his arm tightly, knowing that this is the sort of man I am falling in love with. One who gives selflessly, who’s blinded by the need to protect others, even at the expense of his own safety, and the tenderness I feel for him is…overwhelming.
“Pretty stupid, huh?”
“Not stupid,” I insist, turning in his arms to look at him. “Not at all.” I lean up and press my lips to his. “You’re the best man I’ve ever known.”
He kisses me back, his tongue swiping against mine, his lips hot and hungry. My towel slips a little, and my breasts, now warm and dry, press against his bare chest, and I sigh from the contact. I want him to finish talking. I want to go back to bed. I want him to fuck me like he suggested a few minutes ago.
“Finish up,” I say, though I think I know where this story is going. It explains why he didn’t want me here, why he fought against his initial feelings for me. Once upon a time, a woman who appeared vulnerable and in trouble was his Achilles’ heel.
“We got back to my room, and I opened the safe while she poured us two drinks. That should have been my clue. That should have told me that something was off. A girl like her? Who claimed shewasn’ta prostitute? Why was she suddenly making drinks? Making herself comfortable in my room? The girl Ithoughtshe was wouldn’t have made me a drink. She would have waited for me in the hallway, thanked me for the money, and left as soon as she had it. But I was still a little drunk…and maybe part of me even hoped that by helping her so gallantly, there’d be something in it for me.”
“Was there?” I ask.
“No.” He looks down at me, shaking his head. “I remember giving her the money and throwing back the drink. She suggested we sit on the bed and talk. All I heard was the wordbed. After that…I can’t remember anything. Still. To this day.”
