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"Pilot."
Isabella didn't look up as he approached, but she recognized the sound of Amado's loping walk, the scent of the cologne that had settled around her during the meeting. She was leaning against the wall overlooking the sea, drink in her hand, watching the waves beneath her surge and ebb, burnished bright in the colors of sunset.
"I would have thought," Amado said, settling at her side, "that you would have been out of here the first chance you got."
She gave him a withering look. "He doesn't own this place. This is Benjamín's property. I can be here as long as I like." Amado gave a significant glance to the soldiers still patrolling above them. Isabella bristled. "He doesn't scare me," she said flatly.
He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. "He should," he said. "He should scare all of us."
She frowned at him. "Are you scared?"
"Not yet."
"What are you still doing here?" she interrogated him in return.
He shrugged. "Haven't left," he said mildly, as if she hadn't just seen him deep in intense conversation with Palma and Acosta, who were still huddled together in a far corner. "We probably will soon. You?"
"Maybe," she said just as carelessly, "I was just waiting for someone to offer me a ride." A faint tease edged the words as she let a glimmer of the harmless flirting that had passed between them for years show through beneath her irritation.
He grinned at her. "A pilot, perhaps?"
"Something like that." She sighed, losing interest in the game nearly as soon as she had started it. "I'm meeting with Benjamín in the morning," she admitted. She glared in the direction of the patio where the bosses had met. "I'm not the only one dissatisfied with how everything went today." She eyed Amado. "What about you?" she asked. "He put your uncle in jail."
He took a sip of his drink, eyes on the sunset, carefully impassive. "He did," he said. "He also got the military to work for us."
"'Us.' You know there's no 'us' when it comes to him."
Amado looked out at the sea with something unfathomably complicated in his eyes. "Yeah," he said eventually. "I know." He turned to look at her seriously. "I believe in what he's doing, Isabella. I don't have to like how he does it."
"'What he's doing,'" she repeated derisively. "What is he doing? What is there to believe in? Everything he does, he does to give himself more power."
Amado lifted a shoulder in a shrug. "You have to admit," he said, "there's been a lot less killing between the plazas since all this started."
"Sure," she muttered darkly, thinking of Falcón. "Because he's been the one doing the killing."
He frowned, gesturing toward the patio in the distance. "Look at that meeting today," he insisted. "Imagine all those men sitting down together for a conversation like that without any bloodshed years ago, before Félix did what he's done. It never would have happened."
"Those men weren't the ones in charge then," Isabella pointed out.
"Acosta was," Amado pointed out. "The Arellanos were."
"The Arellanos." Isabella spat.
Amado grinned. "And yet here you are. Waiting to meet with Benjamín."
She gave him a hard look. "Do you even know," she asked, crossing to a nearby couch and settling down into it, "how Miguel Ángel made the deal with Cali?"
Amado shrugged. He followed, taking the chair across from her and stretching out his legs. "I'm more interested in logistics," he said. "I try to stay out of the business."
She gave him a withering look. "It’s all business, Amado."
"My job is to get things from one place to another," he said. "Cali is Miguel's problem."
"They’re only his problem because I convinced them to be," Isabella said bitterly.
He looked at her with sudden interest. "Yeah?" he asked.
"They wanted to know what he could offer them that Falcón couldn't. It was the fact that I had worked with Falcón that convinced them that he had the infrastructure to move more than Falcón could ever dream of." She let out a low amused breath. "Basically, what he has to offer is you. You and your planes. That deal exists because of me, and because of you. He has almost nothing to do with it." She set her empty glass aside. "And now, who knows if they'll even decide he's worth the risk anymore, with this DEA mess."
Amado frowned. "Neto went to jail so that would blow over," he pointed out. "So it wouldn't come back on the rest of us."
Isabella looked at him steadily. "You don't really believe that, do you?"
He looked at his own empty glass, twirling it between his long fingers, looking conflicted. "No," he said finally, leaning forward into her space to place it beside hers with a clink. "I don't." He sat back, looking troubled. Isabella stayed quiet, allowing him a moment to come to a decision about what he wanted to say. "I went to see him," he said eventually. "My uncle." His voice was low, confidential. "He told me something. I don't know if it's true."
She leaned closer, catching the way his eyes flickered helplessly down to her breasts at the movement. She tilted her head in a question.
"He said…" Amado leaned back into his chair, rubbing a hand across his face. "He said there was more to the thing with the agent than we know." He looked at Isabella, expression faintly haunted. "He says something happened in that house. He and Rafa were the only ones of our people who knew. Them and Azul. Neto thinks that's why Miguel put them away. It's not the only reason, especially for Rafa, but…whatever happened, he didn't want them around to talk about it."
Isabella sat back, mind whirling. "He didn't tell you what it was?"
"None of it made any sense," Amado said. "l knew Miguel thought it would be a reckless move to kill the guy. I couldn't see why he would have changed his mind." He looked seriously at Isabella. "Neto won't tell me details. I think he doesn't want Miguel to think I know too much. But what else could it be?" He sighed. "He didn't make the call to have that agent killed."
"Which means he's not in charge anymore," Isabella said, eagerness creeping into her voice.
Amado lifted an eyebrow. "Or he wasn't, for a while." He raised a hand to gesture at the soldiers above them. "Seems like things have changed since then."
"Maybe," she said speculatively. "Maybe not."
He gave her a hard look. "I didn't tell you this so you'd go running to Benjamín Arellano with it," he warned.
She snorted. "I'm not here to offer him anything," she assured him. "If I'm going to get in bed with one of the snakes in that meeting, it's not going to be him." She knew exactly what she was doing by wording it that way, and saw Amado respond as she had intended, straightening a little, his throat convulsing in a tight swallow. "I've earned my part of Tijuana," she continued. "I'm not here to beg for Benjamín to give it to me. I want to know what his next move is, so I can get ahead of it."
Amado nodded, seemingly satisfied with that answer. He gave her a smile that may have looked lazy to anyone who hadn't learned how calculating he was under the facade. "Good luck."
She smirked at him. "I almost think you mean that."
He made a face. "I'm in favor of anything that makes life harder for those motherfuckers."
She laughed. "How long would Juárez have lasted in the alliance if Félix and his army hadn't swept in to save the day?"
He chuckled. "Probably not long," he admitted. He gave her a lopsided smile. "Like you said, there are some people I'm not willing to get in bed with."
She knew it was a joke, but there was also a vulnerable wistfulness to the curve of his smile that spoke of something deeper, something that she had suspected for a long time. There was a deference and intimacy to his interactions with Miguel that had always felt a little too intense for men who were only business associates.
She chanced a matching smile. "Not interested in getting on your knees for a new master?" she asked, a little meanly.
She expected him to bite back, but to her surprise, the smile didn't fade. "Not that one," he said mildly. She watched his eyes scan frankly down her throat to her chest before sliding back up in a slow arc that she could practically feel as if it were his fingers, or perhaps his tongue. "I could be persuaded. By the right person."
Maybe she had intended it right from the moment she had greeted him by the edge of the patio. Maybe she hadn't intended it at all.
Either way, in what felt like moments, she was sprawled back onto her bed, tight pants discarded somewhere between them and the door of her room, legs draped over Amado's shoulders as he devoured her with a sensuous focus that she should have expected, but that still made her breath catch in her chest.
She looked down her body at him and found his eyes open and intent on her, heavy lidded and hazy with desire as he worked her over thoroughly with his mouth. She imagined this was a view that Miguel Ángel knew well, Amado between his legs, mouth full of cock, expression full of helpless adoration.
This, finally, was something she could take from him.
She raked her fingers into Amado's hair, pulling fiercely, drawing out a vibrating moan against her pussy that had it clenching tight around the fingers that curved deep inside of her. She dug her nails into his scalp, dragged him against her clit, rolled her hips up until she was fucking his face and his hand, using him with a carelessness that made him close his eyes and go even more pliant beneath her hands, letting out another eager moan.
God, Miguel had fucked him up.
"You were made for this, weren't you?" she demanded of him. "Fuck your planes, fuck your logistics. You were meant to be on your knees, giving someone exactly what they want from you, letting them use you, letting them hurt you." She twisted her hand viciously in his hair and felt his whole body spasm between her legs. "Don't you dare come before I let you," she warned him. "I have plans for that dick of yours. It's not yours at all tonight, it's mine, and so is the rest of you." He shuddered, mouth going sloppy and uncoordinated in his frantic need to please her.
Something about him losing control like that was indescribably compelling. She let her head drop back to the bed as she rolled her hips in a demanding rhythm against him, fucking onto his fingers until she felt her body going tight with the edge of release.
"More," she demanded, "harder," and the words were barely from her lips before he was curling his fingers inside of her, drawing them out to plunge them forcefully back in, striking deep and perfect. She came against his lips, clenching down hard on his hand, feeling his tongue go soft against her to let her grind out her climax for what felt like an endless wave of ragged thrusts.
She shoved him away when she was done, oversensitive, thighs twitching around his head. He curled a hand against one of them, still holding it in place over his shoulder, rubbing his thumb in an idle pattern and turning to press a slick kiss against her skin, stubble scraping pleasantly. He kissed slowly up one leg and then the other, until her body had calmed enough to begin craving the touch of his mouth again. At the faint shifting of her hips toward him, he turned to lick his way back up to her clit.
"Greedy, aren't you?" she asked. Truthfully, she felt greedy herself, tempted to close her legs around his head and take him like that again and again. Instead, she reached to drag his face away from her by his hair, dropping her feet to the floor as she sat up. She tipped his head back to enjoy the sight of him bent between her legs, mouth pink and glistening, eyes unfocused, dick trapped uncomfortably hard against the fabric of his pants. She skimmed a foot up his thigh just to see his lips drop open, to hear the strangled moan he let out as she stopped just short of touching the straining bulge in his pants. "Get up here," she told him, dragging him upward.
He stumbled to his feet, barely getting them under him before dropping onto the bed beside her. He curled onto his side, waiting, looking up at her with an expression that was somehow far too soft for whatever this was between them. Her fingers darted out to catch his jaw, tilt his face up toward her. She could tell he was expecting a kiss, so instead she brushed a thumb across his lips before fucking it into his mouth, feeling his tongue curl against it effortlessly, his mouth closing around it in delicious suction.
"I'm not done with this," she told him, and nodded toward the head of the bed in command.
He sucked her thumb for another few moments before letting it slip from his lips in a sinful display of what he had to offer. He stripped off his shirt as he shifted up the bed to settle himself against the pillows, dropping it to the floor. She considered doing the same, but she had seen the way he looked at her tits in this shirt, so instead she crawled up his body and arched down over his face, allowing him to lift his head and bury himself into them.
The kisses he pressed to her skin were soft and reverent, but his stubble gave an edge to the feeling as he nuzzled against her. He might have been content to stay there like that endlessly, face clasped to her chest, kissing lazily, but she felt her impatience getting the better of her, body craving his mouth on her nipples, so she eased one tit free of her neckline, feeling him let out a low groan as he turned eagerly to take it in his mouth, the heat of his tongue and sharp pressure of his teeth going straight to her clit.
She moaned, grinding down onto his chest, seeking what friction she could get. He reached to touch her, but she caught him around the wrist, pinning his hand down to the bed where he let it go limp in her grasp.
She retrieved her hand eventually to strip her shirt off so he could go at her other tit, and when she looked down, she found that he had curled both hands compliantly into the sheets, clinging to them as he licked and bit and sucked at her chest, each motion sending a new streak of pleasure right through her body to where she was pressed hot and slick against him, grinding herself off on nothing but the plane of his skin beneath the rasp of his hair.
She could feel his hips shifting, his body arching to try to get some kind of friction, but she was too far from his cock to allow it, and anyway, she found that she enjoyed him like this, intent on servicing her through the haze of his own desperation for contact.
He let out a low groan of disappointment when she finally drew away, but his eyes sharpened in eagerness as she crawled upwards, kneeling over him and barely giving him a moment to breathe before grinding her pussy down onto his face, already soaked and flushed from riding his body. She braced herself on the headboard with one hand and reached the other blindly back to clutch at his wrist, dragging his fingers up to pinch at her nipple. His other hand reached readily to tug at the other, which left her hands free to clutch at his head, digging her nails into his skin until she could feel the rumbling sound he let out resonating through her body.
It was overwhelming, the heat of his mouth against her, the vibration of his voice, both of her nipples stinging with the sharp pleasure of his fingers clamping down on them and releasing, repeating in a maddening rhythm. She wanted to ride the edge forever, but found herself too overstimulated too soon, coming against his tongue in a shuddering rush of sensation.
She kept her hand in his hair as she climbed off of him, kneeling by his side and arching his neck back with her grip, leaving him vulnerable before her. She leaned in to press a hot kiss to his throat, enjoying the sound that tore from him at the touch of her lips. She kissed like he had, lazy and trailing, until she reached the curve of his shoulder. There, she drove her teeth into him in a bite that made his body thrash against her.
"Don't," he breathed out, the word tumbling from his lips seemingly without thought.
She loosened her grip and drew back, reaching to smooth a thumb over the mark she'd left, pressing down on it to watch the way his eyelashes fluttered at the sensation.
"You don't like this?" she asked him, able to feel the answer in the tense arousal humming through his body.
"I…" His eyes were dark and intense on her. "I do," he admitted. "But…"
She sat back in her heels, taking her hand back. She could hear annoyance tinting her voice as she said, "He doesn't own you, Amado."
His silence in response to that was more eloquent than anything he could have said.
"Fine," she snapped. "No marks." She shot a hand out to close her fingers around a nipple, pinching hard. He arched and flailed beneath her, letting out a bitten off gasp. "But you do want me to hurt you, don't you?" she demanded. She reached to pin his hip to the bed as he thrust helplessly in his pants, digging her nails into his side, not hard enough to break the skin, but hard enough for him to feel the sharp danger of her grasp. "You want to feel like I could take you apart if I wanted to. I could rip you to pieces and leave nothing left for him."
Amado groaned, a flush rising from his chest to his throat. She twisted his nipple viciously, leaning down to bite at the other one, feeling his whole body stringing tight beneath her at the delicious pain of her touch. When she pulled away to sit back on her heels and look down at him, he looked utterly ruined, body overheated, face still shimmering with the slickness she had left there. His pants were too dark to show if he was leaking, but his dick was arching up within them, full and desperate.
She reached for his belt and felt a tremble roll through his body at her touch. She smirked at him, feeling more powerful than she had in a long time. "You’re going to come as soon as I touch you, aren't you?"
"No," he said defensively. She quirked an eyebrow at him, undoing his belt and letting her fingers tease lightly over his trapped cock as she went for his fly. He groaned, darting out a hand to catch her around the wrist. "Maybe…" he said, voice coming out mildly strangled, "maybe you should let me do that, though."
She laughed, reaching out a finger to trace a line down the length of him once more, making him shiver, but she didn't actually want him getting off before she'd had a chance to ride him, so she backed off and let him kick away his own pants, leaving him sprawled out bare in front of her.
She settled herself between his legs, and felt him looking down his body at her curiously. His cock was more or less what she had expected from the curve of it within his pants, thick and long and looking like it would satisfy her thoroughly. She felt her body throb with the craving to feel it inside of her, but first…
She closed a hand around one of his knees, rolling his leg slightly until the sensitive inside of his thigh was bared to her. His curious gaze snapped into shock and almost immediately became an open mouthed gasp of pleasure as she brought her hand down in a hard smack against his skin.
His cock leapt with interest, his head dropping back so he was no longer looking at her, which she took as explicit permission to continue. She slapped him again, and again, eventually turning to bare the other thigh as well and give it the same treatment. Before long, his cock was flushed and leaking, twitching and heavy against his stomach.
"Isabella," he finally choked out, reaching down to grasp at her. "Please."
Part of her wanted to deny him, but her body was beginning to make demands of its own, the tension in her winding tighter and tighter with each sound he let out as she smacked him, with the feeling of his body tensing in helpless arousal around her. She needed to fuck him. So instead of teasing any more, she gestured to the headboard.
"Sit up," she demanded. He shoved the pillows around a little before leaning back against the wall, reaching for her. She went willingly, settling her legs on either side of him and lowering herself to grind her soaking wet pussy along the length of his cock.
He swore extravagantly, hair flopping into his eyes as he glared at her. She laughed brightly, bracing a hand on his shoulder and reaching to close her other hand around his cock. She teased the head against her opening for just long enough that a low growl began to rise in his throat. As she rolled her hips down to take him inside in a smooth motion, she reached to pinch one of his nipples, sending a sharp spark of pain through him along with the pleasure.
His hips leapt involuntarily, driving deeper inside her. He murmured an apology, but she ignored it, sinking down until he was seated fully inside her, her clit grinding against his body. He was thick, but she took him easily, guided by the slickness of her arousal and the lingering openness of the climaxes he'd drawn from her with his mouth.
His arms wrapped around her back, and she let him hold her close, even though the motion felt a little too tender, a little too personal. She began to rock in his lap, slow at first, his head ducking to press kisses to her chest as she rose up, but she could feel the long tease catching up to both of them, his body tense beneath her, her own muscles fluttering around him with each thrust.
She grabbed his hair again, yanking his face away from her tits, tilting it back so she could pull hard, sink her nails in deep somewhere that Félix would never see. Amado's hips rose to meet hers at the sensation, seemingly incapable of not fucking into her as his body reacted to the pain and the force of her grip, controlling him, demanding of him.
"Please," he gasped, eyes closed, head tilted into her touch. She leaned in to kiss his throat, scraping it with her teeth, too light to leave marks, but just enough bite for him to feel the danger of her.
"Yes," she whispered against his skin. "Now, Amado." She came to the feeling of him losing control beneath her, his hips surging up into her, body rolling against her clit in helpless trembling thrusts.
He clutched her close as he came, sinking his fingers into her hair, holding her against his neck in a silent plea that she responded to by sinking her teeth into the same spot where she had marked him before, drawing a hitched cry from his lips as he spilled deep inside her.
He collapsed back against the headboard, arms still around her so she found herself curled against his chest in an unexpectedly intimate embrace. She let herself stay there for only a moment, feeling him twitching and softening inside her, before she carefully lifted her hips to let him slide from her body, leaving her feeling sated and messy. He pressed a kiss to the side of her head and let her go. She knelt on the bed beside him, trying to compose herself, feeling uncharacteristically rumpled.
He tilted his head back, looking her over with sleepily hooded eyes and a satisfied smirk. "Got that ride after all," he said dryly.
She didn't want to reward that with a laugh, but she felt one escaping her lips anyway. She reached out to smack him lightly on the chest, which he allowed, but caught her wrist before she could pull it back, stroking a thumb along the inside of it, drawing a shiver from her. He looked at her hand contemplatively for a long moment before letting his eyes dart back up to hers.
"Thanks," he said simply, letting her go. She took her hand back, unexpectedly flustered.
"You're better at this than I thought you'd be," she said lightly.
He chuckled roughly. "I've had some practice." He reached to press two of his fingers to the bite mark she'd left against his shoulder. "I think I'm going to have to button up a little more than usual for a few days," he said with a wry smile.
She shrugged carelessly. "Don't," she suggested.
The smile remained, turning wistful. He didn't respond.
They could pretend all they wanted, but they both knew he wasn't hers.
He stretched as he stood, dressing efficiently in what looked like an expected routine for him, removing himself from bed as soon as he was no longer of use. He paused when he was clothed, kneeling one leg against the edge of the bed beside her, looking down at her.
He reached out to curl his fingers against her jaw, tilting her face up toward him. It was the opposite of everything else that had passed between them, his body towering above her, darkly clothed, while she knelt on the bed, still bare, his touch dictating her movement.
Amado leaned down to press a kiss against her lips - the first one they had shared - brief and passionate. She kissed him back, reaching up to curl her hand around the back of his neck and scrape her nails down the sensitive skin there beneath the fall of his hair, reminding him of exactly where the power lay between them.
He was breathing out a laugh against her lips as he pulled away, eyes dark with renewing desire. She planted a hand against his chest and shoved him toward the door.
"Go," she told him. "Before you do something we both regret."
He gave her a sideways smile. "I don't think I could regret anything about this," he told her, but he went obediently, crossing to the door and pausing there to look back at her. "Good luck with Benjamín," he offered.
"Good luck with Miguel Ángel," she shot back.
He chuckled. "I think we'll all need that." He stood there for a moment, eyes traveling across her body as if memorizing her. She made no effort to cover up, meeting his gaze steadily when it reached her face again.
"I hope you get what you're looking for," he said, apparently earnestly.
She smirked at him. "I will," she said. "One way or another."
"I don't doubt it." He held out his hands in offer. "If you ever need the services of a pilot…"
"I know who to call," she replied.
He raised a hand in a faintly silly wave that felt utterly out of place contrasted against the sleek darkness of his exterior, and then he was gone, the door clicking shut behind him.
She stood and crossed to the window, drawing back the curtains and standing before the glass still fully bare, staring out into the dark swell of the sea beneath her. There was a concept beginning to take shape just at the edges of her mind, a strategy with more promise than any of the many others she had envisioned.
Her connections and charm, Amado's planes and logistics. The underlying forces behind the building of an empire.
Perhaps, she mused, eyes on the reflection of the moon against the darkened waves below, there could be a future awaiting them that could combine their formidable talents. A future without unwanted alliances, without limitations.
A future, most importantly, without Miguel Ángel.