Page 109 of South of Justice

TWO MONTHS LATER

Lucía stood under the shower,steam curling around her, warm water streaming over her skin. Her burns were healing well, though she knew she’d carry the scars from each blister for the rest of her life. The gunshot wound on her shoulder wasn’t fully healed yet, the skin still fleshy and red.

It felt like the first time she’d truly felt safe in years.

Ryan had an equally raw scar on his upper thigh, but that’s not where her eyes were as he stepped into the shower beside her. She trailed her hand down his chest, over the rippling muscle, enjoying the way his body responded. Then she reached between his legs, hand closing around him, feeling him harden even more in her hand. “Good morning,” she murmured.

He moved under the stream, forcing her back against the cool tile.

The heat of his body met hers, his chest pressing to her breasts, his breath warm against her neck. “Yeah,” he whispered. “It is.”

Her fingers slid over his forearm, tracing the scars, the rough skin, the ropy muscles beneath. When she tilted her head back, he took her mouth, slow at first, tasting her like she was adelicacy he couldn’t get enough of. Then the kiss grew deeper, hungrier. His hands gripped her hips, and he spun her around. The swollen tip of his cock pressed into the small of her back, where her scarred skin was still so sensitive.

Her palms pressed against the wet tiles as his arms circled her waist, tightening, pulling her closer. His lips found the curve of her shoulder, planting a line of kisses up her neck to her earlobe. She moaned, her eyes drifting closed. He positioned her hips where he wanted them, them with one hand braced on the shower wall above her shoulder, he pushed into her with a groan. His other hand slid around her hip and down between her legs, teasing her clit until she gasped. His own breathing grew ragged as he started to glide in and out of her, slowly at first, but harder and deeper as she relaxed around him.

The water drummed steadily, the sound wrapping them in a cocoon. Every other sensation faded until the only thing she could feel was his hands and his cock, and the building pleasure that spread from where he touched her and where he filled her.

His other hand sliding up between her breasts, palm slick and hot against her skin. He bit gently at her shoulder. “You’re mine now, Lucía,” he growled. “No one else’s. Just mine.”

Lucía gasped, her back arching. His fingers circled her clit again, more insistently now, driving her closer.

“God, Ryan—don’t stop?—”

He thrust again, harder this time, and she nearly lost her footing. He caught her, held her tight against him, his chest slick against her back.

“Let go, sweetheart,” he whispered. “I’ve got you.”

And she did. Her whole body tightened, her vision going white at the edges as she came with a soundless cry, shaking beneath him. She clutched his forearm where it circled her waist, nails digging in. She could feel every inch of him, every beat of his pulse.

When she started to come down, he pulled her back against his chest and groaned, his thrusts slowing, deepening, then shuddering to stillness as he came inside her, hand splayed flat over her ribs.

They stayed like that for a moment, locked together beneath the spray. His forehead pressed to the back of her neck. Her eyes closed. The world outside the glass door didn’t matter.

Only the sound of their breathing. The hush of water. The warmth of his arms. And the truth that, finally, they’d made it out.

Lucía lay on her stomach across the bed, cheek pressed to a cool patch of linen. Salt air drifted through the open balcony doors. They’d been in this little hotel on the Pacific coast for twelve days. Before that, a tiny rented room in a town called El Cántaro. They never stayed anywhere long. That was the only rule.

The place wasn’t fancy, their budget was limited to what remained in Lucía’s crypto wallets. But it still felt more like a home than any of the dingy dives she’d lived in for the past nine years. And she knew it had nothing to do with the décor.

On the nightstand beside her, Ryan’s burner phone buzzed once then went still. She ignored it.

Instead, she scrolled slowly through the newsfeed on her own cracked screen, thumb tracing the same motion she’d made a thousand times in the past weeks. Another headline. Another quote from a man in a suit denying everything. Another face pixelated in shame. Somewhere between the corruption charges and the abrupt resignations, she’d stopped saving the links.

The ledger had detonated like she’d hoped. Spread like burning oil across dry land. But fire didn’t always clean. Sometimes it just scarred things beyond recognition.

She set the phone down.

Her thighs still bore the faint, ridged outlines of the chair frame. The scars on her wrists were deep, and she’d lost some sensitivity along her left calf, and her shoulder ached when she lifted anything heavier than a wine bottle.

Ryan sat on the bed behind her, his weight shifting the mattress. One hand slid up her bare spine and rested between her shoulder blades. She felt the heat of him, the steadiness.

Noah was back in the States now. Safe. Ryan had arranged it quietly, a phone call to a woman back in the States, with an assurance of no questions and no police. Two days later, Noah stepped into his grandmother’s arms on the side of a sun-bleached highway. Ryan and Lucía had driven away before the old woman could even look over her shoulder.

She turned over, studying Ryan’s face. She reached up, brushed a wet strand of hair off his temple. He leaned into her touch.

Lucía pressed her forehead to his collarbone. “You hungry?”

“A little.”