I Can’t Let You Go 32

::THIRTY TWO::

I called Alvarez once we got back to the motel, kissing Jeanette softly before she padded over to the bathroom to get cleaned up. She’s singing to herself again, almost so quiet I can’t hear her. “Sorry, it’s late Alvarez.” It’s about seven o’clock now, I would have called sooner but didn’t want to bother him in the middle of dinner.

“I was starting to worry about you, Vetter.” He’s laughing as he says it, closing a door behind him as he walks through the house, so his family won’t hear the conversation. We talk for a little bit, I ask him about the kids and Adriana, and I try not to gush too much when he asks about Jeanette. Her head peeks around the corner of the bathroom, hairbrush in hand, grinning at me at the mention of her name before disappearing again.

“That Torres kid, I think he’s going to be all right. Holloway said the kid did some messing around on the internet and found out who the reporter is, at the University. Wouldn’t give up his sources. Holloway said the kid has steel balls, went toe to toe with him.” I don’t know why but it made me think of Jeanette, locked inside the backroom at the bookstore, shouting at Dan to let her out. I can’t imagine what she would have said to Holloway if given half the chance, but I’m betting Holloway would have figured she had steel balls too.

“Wouldn’t it be safer if Holloway teamed up with Torres to protect that reporter? If Torres could find him, I’m betting he’s not the only one.” Brubaker had no qualms about killing people, and had his own son killed, just to keep his secrets. I can’t see a reporter being too troubling for him. Jeanette toes the bathroom door shut. I guess she could hear the tone of my voice, struggling to keep to a whisper, and wanted to give me some privacy. I hate keeping anything from her, but I’ll never make that mistake again, ever.

Alvarez caught my quiet tone, and stopped me from saying anything else. “I know you can’t talk, Vetter, I’m out on the porch here getting rained on as it is.” He won’t talk in the house either. I let him finish. “I guess Brubaker tried to exert some pressure on Douglas to rein in Torres. Douglas LIED, Vetter. He said it was out of his hands, when we both know it’s not. I’m starting to think Douglas is going to let Torres really run with this, that maybe Douglas isn’t as dirty as Brubaker, or hell, even we, thought.”

If Douglas was going to let Brubaker take the fall, I wonder when the DEA would step in, fully. Right now they had a rookie on the case, but would it stay Torres’ case, once, if, Brubaker was investigated? I didn’t care about the ‘career’ anymore, but to a young kid like Torres, being tied in with a case like this could make his career, it would be a shame for him to lose it. “How do we help Torres?”

I can almost see that wise grin on the other side of the phone, that I’ve asked the right questions. “He’s already paired up with Holloway, so he’s got whatever information we have, and Holloway will see to it that he gets it. He’s onto the reporter, and once Torres knows that he can trust Holloway with it, they can both keep that reporter safe.” Alvarez lets out a ragged sigh, I can almost see him running his hand over his ponytail, something he does when he gets tense, before he continues. “I was thinking about setting him up with Vega’s man at some point, but I’m not sure about it, it might be cleaner to set him up with Holloway instead of Torres. This thing’s going to get ugly, and I’d like to keep an eye on the middle, to see where the trouble starts to come from.”

My feet come down hard on the floor, and I’m pacing back and forth in front of the foot of the bed. It makes me nervous that he’s getting in this deep. “You’re staying out of it Alvarez.” It wasn’t a question, and I’m not asking.

“I’m staying out, Vetter. I just want to make sure I have an eye on things so I’ll know which way to jump when it goes off. With Holloway I have the police covered. With Torres I have the DEA and the reporter covered. If I set up Holloway with Vega’s man, I have that angle covered. All that’s left is Brubaker. I’m not sure how his CIA assassins will jump, but I think after Brubaker killed Bishop, they might not be so quick on the draw when he calls.”

We’re both quiet for a second. We would be anyway, even if we were in the car together, letting the ramifications settle in. “Brubaker must be getting jumpy, Alvarez. Douglas isn’t doing what he’s told to do, and, from what you’ve read out about those articles, he has to know that what was in his safe is now in some reporters hands.”

“We had a couple of shootouts between groups of drug dealers, and a few more overdoses, but it’s been contained.” Alvarez’s voice is thoughtful, as he runs down the lists of those involved in the shootouts. It’s definitely Vega against Brubaker, using soldiers, drug dealers, to fight a war neither is ready to fight, if only for their own reasons. Vega won’t do so openly because he wants to destroy Brubaker first, but why Brubaker won’t fight openly is even more interesting. He may not know if he has backing or not. He’s got to be wondering about Douglas, and after having Bishop killed, I’d bet he’s wondering about if he can really trust the two assassins he has left.

“You’ll call me, Alvarez, if you need me, you’ll call?” I had stopped pacing, holding the bridge of my nose. My voice sounded quiet even to me. If he had asked me to come back I would have done it in a heartbeat, even if I had to drive the whole way.

His answer is as quiet as my question, the both of us separated by too much distance. “If it gets too much, I’ll call. I’ll get Adriana and the kids out, and I’ll call. But I’m staying back on this one, Vetter, I swear it.” We both kid around for a few minutes as we say goodbye, to diffuse the tension, the air still heavily laden with feeling.

Jeanette must have been waiting for the click, as she opened the bathroom door just after I put the phone down. Her face is serious, and hard, enough so that it made me worry. “Jeanette….” Her finger touches my lip to silence me and her eyes hold mine, her gaze intent, her focus relentless.

“I know that you don’t want me to know, Sean, and I know why.” Her finger presses, just the tiniest bit as I move to speak. “But should we be going back? Does Alvarez need you to go back?”

It wasn’t at all what I expected her to say. I had expected anger, at being kept in the dark, at having to end a beautiful vacation. Anger at a lot of things I guess. Living with Stacy I had scuttled a lot of plans, and it had always resulted in a fight, maybe not so much a fight as her being terribly angry with me, and letting me know it. I had seen Jeanette’s temper before, and she wasn’t angry, this was something else. Intensity would be the clearest word to use. Hard resolve. But no anger, and that surprised me. She would go, she would put all of this aside, if I had to go back. “Alvarez and his family are safe Jeanette, I give you my word.”

She slumps a little, exhaling as though she had been holding her breath this whole time. Her finger rested on the corner of my lip for a moment before her arms wrapped around my neck and she hugged me hard, harder than I would have thought possible given her size. I hugged her back, feeling her tremble slightly beneath my hands, stroking over her hair until she stilled again. “Are you safe too, Sean?” Her lips brushed against my chest as she spoke, her words whispered against my chest as if in silent prayer.

“There was a time I would have thrown myself in the midst of something like this Jeanette, but that time is gone.” I can feel the lump forming in my throat as I hold her. “I’ll never put my work first. You’ll always come first. I’ll never leave you alone, Jeanette.” All those times when it could have easily been me that got shot, leaving Stacy a widow, to feel what I felt. I was talking to Jeanette but I could have been talking to Stacy too, and it was something that had been crying out to be said for so long, too long. I loved Stacy, but I took her for granted, I took her just being there for granted, like she would never be gone. I hadn’t said a lot of the things I should have said and I didn’t do half the things I should have done.

I loved her so deeply that it blinded me to the fact that I was being a poor husband, a selfish husband. That I put my work first and took myself away from her long before she was taken from me, and there’s nothing I can do to fix that, it’s too late to change it. But there is this, holding Jeanette and knowing how fragile, how beautiful a thing love is. I’ll put nothing else first, and I won’t get hurt and leave her side, because I know how badly it would hurt her to be left alone again. “I’ll never leave you alone. I’ll never let you go.” Hoarse with emotion, I held her, and we stood like that at the foot of the bed until we both stopped trembling.

“Are we okay, Jeanette?” We were both still for a while, standing at the foot of the bed holding each other while the tension left the room. My hand threaded through her hair; she had brushed it until it shone a deep chocolate black down the middle of her back. She says nothing, just nuzzles against my neck giving the tiniest of nods. “Stay just like this, ‘Nette. Don’t move.”

I played with her hair, letting it run through my fingers when I tucked it behind her ear. Down to the very ends of her hair before letting the tress of it go, to fall against her breast. She stayed perfectly still, her fingers troubling the hem of her shirt when I lit the candles by the bed, and shut off the lights, casting the room in an amber glow. I pulled off the motel bedspread and threw it on the couch behind her. Taking the beautiful red bedspread out of the bag, making sure all the pins were gone, and throwing it over the bed.

She watched me the entire time, not saying a word, even her hands stopped fidgeting. “Let me.” That flicker of heat had danced in her eyes when I was done with the bed, and if I didn’t stop her she would have undressed and probably pounced on me. As it is she’s not quite still anymore, a restless energy right under the surface of her skin that translates as heat.

She shivers when I move her hair off the back of her neck, letting the tips of my fingers trail along the soft hairs there. Her skin turns to gooseflesh in their wake, as though she was so hot that my touch felt cool against her skin. I kissed the nape of her neck, feeling her shudder under the touch, her breath a soft gasp. I let my lips pull at those soft hairs, her pulse quickening against the hand still at her throat. Tracing the tip of my tongue down the curve of her neck, nipping her gently at the sensitive skin where her neck met her shoulder.

Relaxing into the touch, she rests against my chest as I kiss and nip at her neck and along her shoulder. Her hands drop to her sides when I run my fingertips down her arms, paying attention to the small bowl of the inside of her elbow. Sending shivers up her arms, her body tensing and her fingers splayed out, as if by electric charge. Her neck arches, seeming to take forever, a soft low moan escaping as she exposes her throat to me.

Our hands touch, my fingers spread over hers, swallowing her hands in mine. Mine. The charged spark as our rings touch again, fleeting, before I slip my hands under the hem of her shirt. Her belly tightens when I tickle her, skimming the sides of her belly with my fingers, catching the hem of her shirt and raising it as I move up over her breasts. She moves soundlessly, lifting her arms and letting me pull her shirt off over her head to toss it onto the couch, her arms floating down to her sides again.

I trace the outer shell of her ear, taking her hair with it and moving it to the other side of her neck, never losing contact with her skin, her hair nearly an afterthought. Kissing a trail down her neck to nip and suck on her other shoulder, my hand tickling across the nape of her neck. I’m torturing myself and I can only imagine what I’m doing to Jeanette, whose breath is quick already.

Like the touch of a feather, I let the back of a nail draw a line down her spine, from her nape to the back of her bra. She takes in one short breath before I start, holding it, her entire back curving into the touch, breathing again only when I unhook her bra. Sliding the straps down her shoulders I catch it before it falls to the floor and throw it on the couch with her shirt.

My hand only stops shaking when I touch her, that same featherlight touch following the curve of her spine to the back of her skirt, slung low across her hips. I let it pool at her ankles, the zipper undone, falling to my knees behind her to let my hand take the slow route down her hips that her clothes wouldn’t. Lingering over the tiny silver stretchmarks, nearly faded now, low on her waist. Emily, little pieces of Emily that she carries with her. I kiss the marks softly, catching her panties with my thumbs when I slide my hands down her hips, taking them with me. She leans against me for balance lifting one foot and then the other, letting me take her shoes off, the throwing the rest of her clothes on the couch.

“Sit for me, ‘Nette.” Her hand stays on my shoulder when she turns, her touch as light as mine. She had pulled her bottom lip in to nibble it at some point as I undressed her, as if she wasn’t sexy enough. I kneel between her thighs when she sits on the edge of the bed. She’s beautiful and all I can see is her eyes, that swirling eddy of desire and intensity that could pull you under, lost in her. A slow blink, a flutter of black lashes that seems to take forever as I watch, our lips nearly touching as we breathe each others breath for a long moment. A kiss far more gentle than our our emotions should allow, fleeting and soft, before kissing her throat, leaving a wet trail.

Her hands rest just behind her hips, bracing herself when I move lower, cupping her breasts. My thumbs skating over her dark nipples for a moment as if I’m having a hard time choosing between the two. Her hips shift in a small fidgeting movement against my belly, her knees spreading in invitation as she watches me. Her damp heat makes it hard to think and her breasts are nearly forgotten, my thumbs tracing patterns there of their own volition. I’m not in charge anymore. I never was.

My hand touches the slick wet spot she’s left against my tee shirt as I pull it over my head, fascinated by it momentarily. A finger glides over it one last time as it cools before dropping my shirt on the floor. My breath stutters when I press against her skin again, the soft give of her inner thighs, the powerful chord of muscle running just underneath the skin, the wet velvet feel between her legs. My head fills with a high pitched buzz, a white noise blocking out everything else but the feel of Jeanette, the smell of her. The taste of her.

The faint salt taste of her sweat, leaving my own taste against her skin in trails of wet kisses that turn to licking and sucking before I’ve even realized I’ve reached down to kiss her. As if I had no other choice, pulled in by her gravity. The delicate scent at her aureole, a smell I could never describe in words, a scent that’s just her, and one made only for me. Arousal. Her nipples harden under my tongue as I suckle and pull at them with lips and teeth and tongue.

Burying my face between her breasts, licking a line down her belly, pushing her to lie back on the bed as I move lower. Her hair lies in ripples against the bed, her skin seeming more pale and delicate against the deep red blanket beneath her. Every nerve ending jangles in an electric pulse through my body as I watch her body flung back on the bed, her arms outstretched. Too much, it’s too much to take in all at once, and I close my eyes, resting my lips against her belly.

Blind, I’ve gone blind, closing my eyes and being led by scent, by instinct. Nuzzling through her curls to the already hard nub beneath her hood. Her back arches in anticipation before I touch her and she fights to keep herself still, her breath in short needy pants. My hand curls over her hip to hold her as her body trembles, a shudder when I lap over her clitoris. The muscles in her thighs jump when I increase the pressure, to suckle and pull at the little bud until she’s gasping and nearly screaming.

She had hummed before, the vibration of it had burst like a white phosphorous flare in my head, blotting out all thought and making me feel like I was dying, like I couldn’t even breathe. I suckled hard on her clitoris and returned the favour, humming against her most sensitive skin, the deepest sound I could manage with my mouth full. Her entire body tensed, growing more rigid as I continued. Her breath stuttered in short sharp inhales as her back arched under my hand. If I wasn’t holding her she would have bucked me off. I’m out of breath, and take another, a deep one, the hum more forceful against her skin, feeling her splinter beneath me. The scream is ripped from her, as if something she had no choice over. Her hips strain against me. I don’t need to see her toes to know they’re curled almost painfully. Her second scream sends a gush of heat and wet against my chin and throat, she’s coming hard enough to spray. I had heard that was possible I’ve just never been this close.

Her hips pull back from me as she sobs out one last strangled cry. Her thigh muscles spasm as she tries to push back. I remember the intensity, where you want it to stop and never stop at the same time. Too much. I remember watching her get off, when she reversed directions, pressing her hood back down, so I press gently, my whole hand pressing, until she’s still against me. The arch in her back flattening as she comes back to herself again.

I sit back on my heels to finish undressing, the ache of being so painfully hard making me moan aloud. “Move up, beautiful.” Kneeling between her thighs I nudge her further up the bed, my painful erection momentarily forgotten as I lean down to kiss her. Crouched over her, kissing her tears first before brushing against her lips gently. Her kiss is forceful and demanding, her hands slipping along my jaw to pull me closer to her. Our tongues tangle over each other, her moan a muffled deep purr of need and desire. Her inner thigh muscles, still trembling, pull up higher against my waist and her hips arch up until her wet silken skin presses against me.

We’re both panting hard as our kiss breaks, as it began with a soft brush of lips. I rest her thigh against the crook of my elbow, pinning her beneath me. Entry is slow, a fight I have with myself, just an inch or so. Her internal muscles flutter and pull at me, the only movement she can manage, pinned as she is. We both moan at withdrawal, just the very tip pressed against her slick entrance. “…please….” , her moan turns to a whimper, begging, the sound of her nearly making me come. Not yet.

I lean back to catch her other thigh with my elbow, stilling any movement at all she could have made. Her thighs rest nearly flush against my chest as I crouch over her, resting just at her entrance, moving barely against her. I watch her for a moment, her dark eyes nearly black with desire, her wet lips parted slightly as she pants in time with me. Her throat is a pink flush that spreads over her chest, her dark nipples hard and erect. My eyes follow the faint line of pink down her belly until it fades. Further to her soaked nest of curls, finally resting on where we are connected.

Braced on my arms I watch as I sink deeper, disappearing within her halfway. Her moan sharpens and recedes into another whimper, of frustration this time, as I withdraw again. Her slipperiness coats me and I watch, fascinated, as the low amber light from the candles reflects from the slick surface when I finish pulling back. A slow glide to the bottom this time, so deep, my own nest of curls pressed hard to hers. Our growls mirror each other at the bottom, hers higher than mine. Our eyes flicker open to watch each other, mere inches separating our noses, here at the bottom.

I push back on my arms, changing the angle within her when I withdraw again, pressed hard against her upperside. Torturous and slow, taking as long as I can to pull across the spot deep within her that will push her over the edge, keeping pressure on it as long as I can. Pinned as she is, all her movement is focused internally, her muscles clenching and pulling at me, as another low animal scream is pulled from her.

The sound of her makes me shudder with want, pulling another low growl from me as I sink within her again. “…ah fuck…Jeanette….” Her cries grow sharper, and louder, that wild animal scream that electrifies every nerve ending and sets a fire in my belly. I press deeper with every thrust, our bodies moving in perfect time with each other, our cries nearly matched, her every scream pulling a stifled roar from me.

I had pushed her ruthlessly over the edge before, and she did the same to me now, when she screamed my name. Not just once but over and over, as her fingernails dug into my arms, and that wild animal within her took over. My hips snapped hard into her and I let her thighs loose, needing to touch her and be closer to her. Her legs wrapped around my waist and the moment she was free to move, her hips bucked up to me. An undulating wave that drove us together harder with every thrust, driving us faster and faster towards the inevitable end.

Every nerve ending on fire, the sound of her screaming beneath me is one of the sexiest things I’ve ever heard, screaming my name. My whole body tightens, every muscle and sinew, as if even the cells of my body were pulling within themselves for an inevitable explosion. All I can hear is her voice, and the pounding of her pulse, my face buried in her neck. Release is nearly painful, making me shout against the skin of her throat before I can muffle it. She’s coming with me, her own hips bucking uncontrolled into mine. Her breath hitches before the inevitable flash flood of tears which are over as soon as they begin.

Braced on my elbows and still buried deep within her, I kiss over her tears, already drying. Murmuring ‘I love you’ almost against her skin with every kiss until we can both breathe again, until we can both kiss again. A deep, and very passionate kiss, until neither of us could breathe anymore.

“I love you, Sean.” Her voice is shaky and her hands tremble against my shoulders. I nuzzle over her, my breath fanning over her sweat slicked skin, kissing her ears. “I will love you forever, Jeanette.”

Forever.

copyright © 2006 xxxevilgrinxxx

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