Chapter Text
It took him a month to send her the phone with his number stored in it.
It takes another two months for her to use it.
By the time she does, she’s talked herself out of it half a million times. She doesn’t think he’ll answer. She isn’t even sure what she’ll say if he does. The time they’d spent together had been so fast, their connection burned like a sparkler in her memory: bright and brilliant, but over just as quickly. Only a few hours that had managed to change her life. There are times she can’t even be sure it had happened at all.
Only it must have happened, because she’s staring at his name in the phone he’d given her and she’s pressing the little green button before she can talk herself out of it again.
“Hi.”
He answers on the second ring. The sound of his voice crashes into her with a force that might have knocked her over if she’d been standing. Every last second she’d spent with him before comes rushing back in vibrant detail and she’s suddenly desperate to see him again. She clears her throat. “Hi.”
“Are you okay?”
The question surprises her for a moment before she realizes that’s probably how he starts all his conversations. The three months that have passed haven’t changed his position on the top of INTERPOL’s most-wanted list. “Yeah, I’m good,” she says before she bites back a smile. “I’m—uh—I’m looking at the ocean, actually.”
Three blocks from the little cottage she’s renting, the road crumbles into sand and scrub grass and the line of papelillo trees part like a curtain for the sparkling blue-green water.
She thinks she hears him smile back. “Which one?”
“The Pacific.”
“That’s a good one.”
She wants to ask where he is, what he’s doing, if he’s okay. But she doesn’t think he’ll be able to answer any of those questions, at least not over the phone. Her fingers twirl her hair nervously, trying to summon her courage to ask for what she wants. “It’s beautiful,” she agrees softly. “Wish you could see it.”
There’s only a slight pause. “I could…if you wanted me to.”
It’s all she wants. She wants to see him again, to feel his lips on hers and his arms around her again; to give him a place to feel safe for a minute, to not have to worry about glancing over his shoulder every second. Out loud—afraid that admitting all of that about a man she hardly knew would sound exactly as insane as it is—she says, “I’d like that.”
“Okay then,” he says, as if him coming to see her is going to be as easy as picking up a gallon of milk on the way home from work. “Might take me a few days, but I’ll be there.”
She frowns. “Don’t you need to know where there is before you go promising something like that?”
“No, I got it,” he says smoothly. “There’s a tracking device in the phone I gave you,” he said before she can ask how. “I didn’t want to turn it on without your permission though,” he goes on, neutralizing her indignation at the idea of him keeping tabs on her without her knowledge. “So…if it’s okay with you…” he adds slowly, sounding hesitant again.
“Oh,” she coughs again. “Yeah. You can—track me—I guess?” Whatever, she wants to say. As long as I get to see you again.
He lets out a soft chuckle. “One-time thing,” he promised.
“I hope not,” she blurts before she can stop herself.
There’s another pause from Steve’s end of the line, and she’s sure he’s smiling this time. That soft, shy smile she hasn’t been able to stop thinking about. “I’ll see you in a few days, Darcy.”
At his request, she destroys the phone as soon as she gets home. As soon as it’s in pieces, she wishes she hadn’t. What if he didn’t know where she was? What if something went wrong with his tech and his coordinates were off and he couldn’t find her? How long was a few days? How long until she should start worrying? What if something happened to him on his way to see her? How would she even know?
The questions keep her tossing and turning and wishing she had a distraction to fill her days. But she has nothing to do until September, when she starts her job as a technology coordinator at the nearby private high school. She’d been worried her slow, choppy Spanish might be too much of a deterrent to finding work in Mazatlán, Mexico, but she’d lucked out. The man who hired her assured her that his students had been in English immersion programs their whole lives; he’d been sweet enough to promise that her Spanish would improve the longer she stayed in town. “The students will forget you’re a gringa in no time,” he’d laughed. He had kind eyes, thick silver hair, and a welcoming demeanor that reminded her a little of her grandfather.
He’d also put her on payroll already so she would have a little to live on while she waited for the school year to begin. Enough to pay her rent, fill her refrigerator, and start decorating her little one-bedroom apartment. It had come furnished with the basics, but it’s taken a month of trips to the weekend markets, little touches here and there, for it to finally start to feel like hers.
But it’s not enough to keep her busy. Occupied, yes. But not busy. Not busy enough to distract her from the questions she can’t get answered, from the way she’s feeling—some mix of anxiety and excitement—at the prospect of seeing Steve again. The worries she can’t share with anyone else. The fear that she’d put him in danger by calling him.
She still goes to the beach to watch the sunset every night. The dark orange and bright pink bounces off the clouds and settles her mind for a few minutes, and when the water turns purple in the falling light, she feels like she can breathe again.
That’s where he finds her, four nights after she destroys her phone. She thought it might be weird—at the very least awkward—to see him again, but it isn’t. As soon as she sees his silhouette outlined against the shore, it’s like he’s always been there. Like he belongs there, in that little town with her, sitting at her kitchen table, laughing at her dumb jokes and stories about the people she’d encountered between Texas and Mexico, taking up just the right amount of room so that her little cottage doesn’t feel quite so empty.
“I’m a terrible host,” she says mildly after she’s glanced at the clock. She sucks a drop of lime juice from her thumb as the wedge she’d shoved down the neck of her beer bottle fizzes in the golden liquid. “I didn’t even ask—are you hungry? Can I make you something?”
Steve shakes his head. His hair is longer than it had been the last time she saw him. Blonder at the roots too, as if he’d colored it once and then decided to grow it out. “No,” he assures her, his fingers drumming absently on his own beer bottle. “I’m good, thanks.”
It’s late. Later than she’d thought, closer to midnight. The conversation had been just easy enough that she’d forgotten she doesn’t know anything about his arrangements other than he had to be in Guadalajara in seventy-two hours. She has no idea how he’d gotten to her. Where he’d been coming from. Where he was staying.
“Will you stay here?” she blurts out the question before she even realizes it. Darcy resists the urge to clap her hand over her eyes in embarrassment. She’d meant to ask her questions in the right order. Is everyone on your team okay? How did you get here? Do you have somewhere to stay—
Steve blinks and looks almost shy for a moment. “Here?” he repeats with a quick glance around the living and dining room.
She nods and forces herself to backtrack. “If you don’t have…” she coughs. “I mean, if you’re already set up somewhere else—”
But he’s shaking his head again. “No, I’m…uh. Here is…good.”
She smiles. “You sure?” she asks, unable to resist the urge to tease him a little. “You don’t sound sold on the idea.”
The way his ears turn pink doesn’t quite fit the image of the hardened fugitive the government wanted the world to believe he was. “No, I am,” he admits. “I just didn’t want to presume.”
Darcy reaches over and touches his arm. “Then I’m glad I asked,” she says quietly. “I want you to stay, Steve.” Her teeth press down into her bottom lip when he lifts his eyes to hers again. “I, um,” she pauses and laughs lightly at herself. “I missed you.”
But if Steve thinks her confession is stupid or crazy or the ramblings of a girl with a dangerously strong crush, nothing in his face reflects that. His other hand comes up to curl around hers, his thumb stroking her palm slowly. “I missed you too.”
A voice in the back of her mind is telling her should say something else, something that would diffuse the sudden tension. But her voice is caught somewhere in her throat that’s run dry and when she opens her mouth to try to speak, Steve leans forward, canceling the space between them, and kisses her.
Darcy’s been thinking about the kiss they’d shared inside the T-rex, just before dawn. She’s been telling herself it wasn’t as good as she remembered; that loneliness and time had colored the memory into something to keep her warm at night. But this kiss is exactly as good as she remembers. Better, even, because she’s sure it’s not going to be the only one she’ll ever have.
Steve’s hand is warm and calloused as it comes up to hold her face gently, as though she’s something delicate he doesn’t want to break. His lips are softer than she expects, and they fit against hers in a kiss that’s slow and hungry and somehow hesitant—like he’s expecting her to pull away at any second.
Only she doesn’t pull away first. He does, staring at her in the dull light from the kitchen, close enough to count his impossibly long eyelashes and catch the flecks of green in his blue eyes. She’s breathing more heavily than she wants to and she knows she should stay where she is and suggest they go slow. Talk more. Get to know each other. Do something other than running headfirst off this beautiful cliff, hoping something catches her on the way down.
But then her hands are reaching for his face, combing into his hair, pulling his lips back to hers. And he’s dragging her out of her chair and onto his lap, his short nails raking over her thighs before his palms flatten over her back, pulling her harder against him. His tongue slips between her lips as desire pools like liquid fire in her belly and she can already feel his erection straining between their layers of clothing. She lets out a soft moan around his tongue, rewarding him with another when his hands move between them to squeeze her breasts.
It’s too hot, suddenly. The air in the kitchen sweltering as she tries to rid herself of as much as she can without getting up. She breaks away from his lips, panting, and pulls her light sweater and the tank top beneath it up and over her head. Without ceremony, she reaches behind her to unclasp her bra, Steve’s fingers slipping beneath the straps to slide it down her arms and toss it aside before she can do it herself. His lips and hands return with fervor, palms and fingertips skating over every inch of newly revealed flesh while he presses open-mouthed kisses to her neck and throat and collarbones, slowly working his way down her body.
She arches back into the table when his lips seal around her nipple, his fingers playing gently with the other while he sucks and flicks one hardened peak with his tongue. He switches sides and Darcy’s nails slide back into his hair, wanting to keep him there as long as possible. Her thighs are squeezing his hips, clenching on nothing when she feels his hands drift down her sides to the button of her shorts.
His eyes are dark when he raises them to hers and she feels herself nodding quickly, desperate for him to keep undressing her. She’s about to pull away, force herself to stand up and shimmy out of the rest of her clothes, but Steve grabs hold of her hips and pushes her up, sliding her back against the table until he’s standing over her and all she has to do is lift her hips and she’s completely naked beneath him.
When he bends down to kiss her, it’s slow and languid and she’s panting eagerly, pawing at his clothes while he strokes his tongue against hers like they have all the time in the world. He brushes her hands away when she tries to undress him, and his fingers trail lightly, teasingly down her body. Over her collarbones and around each stiffened nipple before sliding down her belly and stopping just below her navel.
She whines and her hips buck off the table. Steve pulls back from her kiss with a soft smile. “You’re cute when you’re impatient,” he says, his voice a hushed whisper, close to her lips. “But we don’t have to rush right now,” he goes on as she closes her eyes and tries to steady her breathing. His lips brush hers again softly. “Will it kill you if I take my time?”
Her throat bobs when she swallows, trying to catch her breath. He’s close enough to kiss again when she opens her eyes and Darcy’s convinced she’s never been this close to anyone more beautiful in her life. Since he won’t let her attack his buttons or belt buckle, she settles for raking her hands up into his hair again while she pulls him down for another kiss. “Just don’t tease me,” she says finally when they part.
Steve shakes his head, his nose brushing hers. “I won’t,” he says like a promise. She believes him. His lips slide into another half-smile. “Unless you ask me to.”
“Not right now,” she breathes, feeling a little less like she might shatter under the weight of the tension between them.
When Steve touches her again, he doesn’t linger on her lips. He trails light, barely-there kisses along her neck and down her chest. He sucks a nipple between his lips again and she arches into him with a hiss of satisfaction when she feels a graze of his teeth. He repeats on the other side, but just as she’s about to wrap her legs around him and demand he keep doing that, his kisses return soft and light to the valley between her breasts and continue down her stomach.
She hears him shove the chair back the moment before he gets to his knees and wraps his arms around her thighs, holding her open, spreading her fully. There’s no hiding how badly she wants him, how fucking desperate he’s made her in just a few minutes, even if she wanted to. His big, rough hands hold her hips down and his eyes lock with hers for a long, charged moment.
She can feel his breath hot against her until his eyes close and she feels his tongue slide into her and every thought in her head short-circuits.
He circles her clit only once before he pulls back and glances back up at her. “Tell me what you like,” he says, kissing her belly, just below her navel.
It takes her a moment to realize he’d making a request. “I…” her mouth gapes uselessly.
Steve kisses her again. “All I know is that you don’t want to me to tease you,” he scrapes short nails along her skin and a chill runs down her spine. “I want you to tell me what you like,” he says and waits another moment before drops his head when she doesn’t say anything. He flattens his tongue against her, and her fingers go into his hair, the only sound she can make is a moan she desperately tries to muffle between her lips. She feels him moan against her when her nails scrape his scalp and he circles her clit again.
“I like that; keep doing that,” she breathes finally, finding her voice again. Steve hums in appreciation and it sends another buzz of pleasure through her limbs. Her head drops back when he dips into her again—his tongue is hot and wet and she forces herself to focus on the ceiling and not listen to the pornographic sounds he’s dragging from her throat.
She almost screams when he stops abruptly and turns his head to drop a kiss at her inner thigh. “What else?” he asks, almost passing for innocent despite the fact that his beard is wet with her arousal. His teeth scrape her skin as he releases his hold on one of her legs. She can feel the tips of two thick fingers at her entrance. Steve nips at her thigh again when she squirms. “What else do you want, Darcy?”
She’s clenching on nothing and practically sobs in relief when he returns to her throbbing clit. “Put your fingers inside me,” she says around a sharp inhale. He complies before the words are out of her mouth and he sucks on her clit, his fingers move hard and fast until she’s panting, and her back is bowing off the table. Her hands are in his hair again, afraid he’ll pull away again, but he doesn’t. Not until she comes so hard stars burst behind her eyes and she’s reduced to a boneless, laughing mess around his fingers.
When he finally relents, she can hardly see straight, but she watches him pull his shirt off, wiping at his mouth before he drops it to the floor with her clothes and hovers over her, a half-smile on his face. She pulls him in for a kiss, relishing the taste of herself that she finds on his lips. “What do you want, Steve?” she asks softly, when she lets him go.
Her thumb drifts over his plush bottom lip and he kisses it before he says. “I wanna fuck you on this table.”
Darcy can’t help the giggle that escapes her lips. She feels drunk and silly and more relaxed than she’s been in months. “Okay,” she says immediately and reaches for his belt. It’s a struggle to sit up and she feels a wave of dizziness when she finally can. But then Steve is kissing her again and he’s letting her unbuckle his belt while he pulls a condom from his pocket before she can even ask. Her hands are the greedy ones now and she’s slipping them beneath his pants and boxer-briefs to stroke his cock. She swallows the groans he’s trying to suppress when she wraps her hand around him, pumping slowly before she can’t wait anymore and shoves his remaining layers down his legs for him to kick aside.
She waits for him to roll the condom on before she flips over and lets Steve push her down flat. His hands tangle in her hair, pulling on it and making her groan before he drags his fingers down her spine and grips her hips again. She feels him at her entrance and she hisses with satisfaction when he sinks in with a few shallow thrusts before finally he’s fully seated inside her.
“Fuck,” she grinds the word through her teeth and feels Steve loosen his grip. “No, keep going,” she insists, shaking her head. “You just feel so fucking good.”
She thinks she hears him smile before he bends forward, driving his cock deeper with a soft groan and places a kiss between her shoulder blades. “So do you,” he murmurs against her skin. Then he takes hold of her hips again and straightens, pulling out halfway before he thrusts again and starts moving faster. His pace is quick, his hips snap against hers while his fingers dig into her skin, pulling her back against him, dragging his cock just right to make her cry out in pleasure.
It’s a jolt when he pushes her legs further apart and finds her clit again. Darcy lets out something that sounds like a whimper when he matches the pressure of his fingers with how hard he’s slamming into her. Her second orgasm has her digging her nails into the sides of the table, holding on while he fucks her through it.
She can do little more than make a sound of confusion when he stops and pulls out, leaving her feeling stretched and empty for a moment before she realizes his hands are under her and he’s turning her over onto her back. He pulls her legs up, resting her ankles on his shoulders as he slides back in with a sound of relief. His cheeks are flushed, and his hair is disheveled from where she’s had her hands in it. He looks wrecked as he takes hold of her and resumes his pace. She prefers this view, she decides, too wrung out with pleasure to do more than watch him fuck her. She watches the planes of his stomach crunch and his chest rise and fall when he speeds up. It’s not too long before his rhythm falters and his hips jerk hard against her one more time before he slows and rocks gently into her as his cock throbs and spills into the condom.
She makes another sound when he pulls out again to get rid of the condom and she’s still not feeling entirely coherent by the time he returns. Luckily, she doesn’t have to say much because Steve scoops her up like she weighs nothing before she can make herself sit upright. He kisses her gently—much more gently than she’d expect from a man who just bent her over her kitchen table and fucked her senseless—and when he smiles, it’s soft again. Almost shy. “Where’s your bedroom?”
“Hallway,” she points vaguely toward the back of the house. “Door on the right.”
Her room is a mess because she didn’t think she’d be having company. Steve doesn’t seem to mind. He sets her down and returns to the kitchen to collect their clothes while she cleans herself up in the bathroom. By the time she comes out, he’s pulling back her sheets and blankets and there’s a glass of water on her bedside table. “Thank you,” she says, collapsing into the covers.
He climbs in beside her and she waits until he’s turned off the lights before she cuddles into him. It should be weird, she thinks drowsily, as his arms go around her. It should be weird and awkward falling asleep with a stranger, but it isn’t. Her head fits beneath his chin and she can hear his steady heartbeat beneath her ear. She falls asleep too fast, hoping he’ll still be there when she wakes up.