While There Is Hope Ch 08

More than two years earlier

Ashley threw her head back and forced it deep into the pillows. That feeling of first penetration never got old, especially with him, with Gabriel. But she knew there was something else, a frisson, a thrill. She had always had a thing for bad boys, but never as bad as this. Their pubic bones made contact, and again she gasped at both the depth and the pressure. His lips and teeth were on her exposed neck and -- as always -- the heat built in her fevered body so rapidly.

The first orgasm hit Ashley almost immediately, quicker and harder than with any other guy. He pounded her urgently, almost ferociously, and the second was only minutes later. Ashely held on for dear life as Gabriel upped his tempo even further, driven by the crazy, feral passion he had developed for her. And the third, and most intense, climax flooded her senses as a groaning, grunting Gabriel also flooded her viscera.

It was sex like Ashley had never experienced before. And it was more, she knew that she was also falling for him. Against her better judgement, against her academic background for fuck's sake, but falling for Gabriel nevertheless. Falling for the ultimate in bad boys.

Ashely lay in her bed, the bright Mexican sun flowing through the chiffon drapes, the noise of Gabriel showering filtering into the room. She lay and she self-analyzed. It was her pattern, driven by an active and inquisitive brain. What was so attractive about him? Well his looks for one, he carried off Latin brooding perfectly. His body for another. Ashley felt a thrill thinking about just how good one part of Gabriel's anatomy felt inside her. He was rich, of course, rich beyond her comprehension. And he treated her so well, like the princess she had wanted to be from childhood.

But Ashley knew that was not all. She knew that Gabriel didn't treat others so well. In their interviews, he'd spoken about what he had done, the blood on his hands. He'd sounded proud, or was he just trying to impress the gringo professor? And Ashley had been horrified, but... if she was honest, not only horrified. There was something elemental about a man whose everyday was about life and death, something real. Maybe she had just read way too much Hemingway. Whatever the reason, Gabriel was like a drug to her. Which, she reflected ironically, was kind of appropriate.

And Ashley couldn't claim innocence, she understood full well what her lover did. Understood it better than anyone not actually involved in the work. It was her speciality. She'd written her doctoral thesis on the organized crime syndicates of Mexico, the Cartels in common parlance. She'd dared to seek audiences with the drug lords, maybe even gained the respect of some. She was an acknowledged expert in the field. And she had focused her research particularly on the Emilia Cartel, the third largest. Which is how she had come to interview Gabriel Aguilar. Which was how she had ended up in his bed.

Gabriel returned, he didn't bother with a towel. His bearing was one of supreme confidence in his appearance. Concealing a smile, Ashley thought that he probably had a nasty case of narcissism, but with that sculpted body, maybe it was understandable. Already she began to feel interest rise in her again, as she thought about his toned muscles gripping her tightly. But Gabriel clearly had other things on his mind. He sat heavily on the bed, and thumped his hands onto his thighs with a heartfelt and exasperated, "mierda."

Ashley feared the worst "What is it, did I do something wrong?"

Gabriel turned to look at Ashley, he ran his hand slowly around her left breast. She dipped her chin in mock shyness, but still shivered at his touch. It felt like he was demonstrating his ownership, and she liked the feeling. The feeling of being his. Looking ahead again, Gabriel spoke. "No tu, mi cariño. Not you."

"Then what, Gabriel?"

"It's not women's business." Anger was never far from the surface with Gabriel.

Ashley tried to be soothing. "But I'm not just any woman, am I? We'd never have met if that was true. You can talk to me."

Gabriel considered and then nodded. "You spoke to Barrera, El Gallo as he likes to be called."

"Yeah, the leader of the Cartel" Gabriel winced at Ashley's use of phrase.

Noticing his obvious ire, Ashley proceeded carefully. "He speaks very highly of you, calls you his second son."

Her caution had not been enough, Gabriel stood and exploded. "Second! Second! The issue is his first son, pinche gilipollas!"

Ashley also stood and put her arms around her lover. "You can tell me, you can tell me anything."

Gabriel closed his eyes and clenched his fists in extreme frustration. "Nothing I do will ever be enough. No service. No display of loyalty. I will always be second. And then, in time, I will have to bow to him, que cabrón. Me, kneel to him."

Ashley caressed the agitated Gabriel. It didn't seem to calm him. She decided that a more direct approach might be better. She moved in front of her lover and knelt, looking up at his beautiful face. "We are smart, my angel, and there are two of us, we can figure this out. But, for now, let me relax you."

Ashley reached forward and steered the swelling Gabriel towards her face, and then into her welcoming mouth. As she moved her head back and forth, the seed of an idea began to form in her consciousness. Yes, that could work, it really could fucking work.

Ashley didn't want to share her suggestion with Gabriel prematurely. Nothing was more likely to receive a dismissive "idea femenina" than a weakly thought out plan. It had to be water-tight. And, smiling to herself, she knew just the right time to introduce it.

A week or so had passed and Ashley had written down notes, considered them critically, and plugged the more obvious gaps. Maybe not everything was perfect, but it was something she thought that they could work on together, iron out the details, turn it into something actionable. She was ready. She was ready in more way than one.

As Gabriel kissed Ashley's neck, his hands working to remove her clothes, she sighed and moaned, but also knew that it was time. "Baby, you know that thing we talked about?"

He didn't initially register Ashley's intent, simply grunting and continuing to unbutton her dress. She persevered. "You know, the thing you wanted that I said I wasn't so sure about."

This got his attention. "¿Sodomía?"

"Si, sodomía, mi ángel." Ashley's Spanish was still rudimentary, but she was doing her best.

A grin spread across Gabriel's chiseled face. Ashley's motivations weren't solely Machiavellian. She'd tried with a grad school boyfriend. It had been uncomfortable, verging on painful, and she had aborted the experiment. But now she wanted to give herself unreservedly to Gabriel, and she knew it was expected of anyone aspiring to be 'his woman.'

Despite a growing curiosity, morphing into yearning, Ashley also had more pressing things on her mind. "I want you, mi querido, I want you like that, but can I ask you something first?"

Gabriel's surging desire was palpable, Ashley wondered whether she had miscalculated, but he controlled himself, clearly with some effort. "What is it, hermosa?"

Ashley had planned this conversation, she'd even rehearsed it, but her heart was in her mouth as she spoke. "I feel for you. Your frustration at the... the work... situation." She tried to be neutral, oblique even, not wanting to provoke his anger.

Gabriel nodded, now tight lipped, but still outwardly calm. Ashley ventured more. "I know I don't understand all of the dynamics, how could I? But it struck me that your problems would be less if Barrera's son was... not around."

Ashley sensed Gabriel tensing and quickly clarified. "I don't mean like that, but maybe... out of the picture. Maybe... incarcerated?"

"¿Encarcelado?"

"Si, encarcelado. In a US jail. Wouldn't that help? El Gallo would lean on you, yes? Your status would be more clear. Clear to everyone."

Gabriel's brow furrowed, Ashley worried that she was pushing too hard, but he needed to hear this. She stroked his cheek. "And... and then. Maybe in time. Well... only one man would stand between you and what you so richly deserve. And what is one man after all?"

She'd said it, and now she was terrified. Gabriel was not a temperate man and Ashley feared the back of his hand across her face, or worse. He pondered and she hoped that the logic of what she had told him would overcome his hesitation to act, overcome the fear that she could see in him. When the smile returned to Gabriel's face, Ashley knew that all was well.

"I see, mi chica inteligente, but how?"

And so she told him how. His smile grew broader. "Let us work out the details together, OK? But, mi puta linda, you said that you wanted something else."

Ashley quivered at the term Gabriel had used for her. She removed her remaining clothes and got onto the bed on all fours. Resting her right cheek against the covers, she reached back with both hands and parted herself, ready for Gabriel to take what he wanted. As she felt his firm pressure against her tightness, Ashley smiled, her objective achieved. And then he was inside her and it was impossible to think of anything else.

Ashley's insight had its genesis in thinking about her own situation, her favorite subject for sure. Of course the college had paid for her fact-finding trip, but she should have taken a return flight weeks ago. When she met Gabriel her job, and even communication with the outside world, had seemed unimportant. She had cut herself off, with nothing in mind beyond focusing on the carnal, but this very isolation now presented an opportunity.

In her academic work, Ashley had also extensively interviewed US law enforcement, the DEA, the FBI, border police departments. The most striking impression she had formed was how desperately they all wanted to win. And not just win, but to be seen to win. Victories were sustaining, they were good for the soul, and for the budget. The right story, told the right way, should have them all eating out of her hand. And Ashley knew how to tell a story, few US citizens were as well-informed on the subject as she.

At its heart, her idea was simple. Turn her extended Mexico sojourn into a traumatic kidnapping and miraculous escape. Tell the authorities the horrors she had witnessed, the leading role of El Gallo's son in them and -- based on her own interview with him -- the crucial fact that the younger Barrera would be in El Paso on business next month. Maybe some officer might think it all too good to be true, but Ashley knew the overwhelming organizational desire for War on Drugs success stories. And she also knew that she could be convincing as both an expert witness and an eyewitness.

It would be a sacrifice, she would be in danger, but it was also a way to show Gabriel her loyalty, to show him her love. With Barrera's son gone, Gabriel would become the undisputed right hand man, and also El Gallo's anointed successor. It was Gabriel's dream and she could be the one to make it happen. She could give him that gift.

Next it would be up to Gabriel to wait for the right opportunity, one which he could seize to gain unquestioned supremacy. Then, for Ashley, a return to Mexico, knowing she was now untouchable, as the mistress, and maybe one day wife, of one of the most powerful men in the country.

They would have to be apart, but the plan would give Gabriel what he wanted. And it would surely give Ashley his gratitude. What she was doing was for them, for their future together.

Gabriel had been careful to keep his assignations with Ashley a secret. She had been housed at a remote property. At the same house the pair now refined what had become their joint plan.

An embellishment occurred to Ashley, a further way to help from afar. Both Ashely's kidnap and her unrivaled knowledge could make her valuable to US law enforcement. Maybe she could engineer a way to suggest helping her country by providing advice and intelligence. Advice that could undermine El Gallo, raise questions about his judgement and leadership, and pave the way for Gabriel's take over. And... while she was ostensibly helping, Gabriel -- who said he owned people in US law enforcement -- could be feeding her useful information and misinformation in equal measure.

But key to this aspect would be to emphasize Ashley's importance and to provide her with an apparently unshakable motivation to help the authorities. It was Gabriel who came up with the idea of a staged and failed abduction. Something that would establish Ashley's credentials and value beyond any doubt.

A few months later

As Ashley lay in the main bedroom of the Witness Security safe house, she reflected just how easy it had all been. The US officials had swallowed her bait unquestioningly, like a shoal of starving catfish. Of course, it had helped the state in which she had been discovered, just north of the border. Battered, bruised, blood-stained, two teeth missing, an orbital fracture, to say nothing of signs of a more intimate assault. The injuries had been convincing for the simple reason that they were real.

It had been Ashley's idea, another layer of authenticity, maybe even an insurance policy. She had asked Gabriel to do it. She had enumerated the reasons. One, security, who else could they trust? Two, Ashley could credibly claim that no one bar El Gallo or his son could instruct Gabriel to do what she had in mind. Three, it would put distance between Ashley and Gabriel, men didn't normally rape their co-conspirators. But Ashley knew there was a fourth reason. There was no one else to whom she would so willingly submit. The thought of how far she would go for Gabriel scared Ashley.

He saw the sense in what Ashley said, but even a man of Gabriel's reputation and history had hesitated. Ashley had convinced him it was necessary and he finally assented. And, once he had thrown the first blow, once he had drawn blood, the animal in him took over and Ashley had finally to beg for him to stop.

Then it was phase two, which she said must be just as realistic. The police doctor had to attest to real trauma, it had to be Gabriel's DNA, in her and on her. After he had done what was necessary, Ashley made herself vomit over her clothes, yet more evidence to be cataloged. Through the ordeal, she had told herself that no woman had ever loved a man so much, it brought her some comfort in the midst of so much pain. She said the same during the two hour journey in a stiflingly hot car trunk, and when Gabriel unceremoniously threw her on to the side of the road, all in the interests of verisimilitude.

Ashley heard a sound next to her. Hope had stirred in her sleep and mumbled some indistinct words. Hope had been a stroke of luck, the daughter of a US Marshal, that was leverage to be banked for future use. And it wasn't as if Ashley didn't enjoy other women. Still, closing her eyes, it was Gabriel's anatomy that swam into her view. Ashley slid a hand across her stomach and between her legs as memories flooded her mind. And then she moved down, touching her lower opening, remembering Gabriel filling it.

Ashely opened her eyes. Her lover wasn't here, and a girl has needs. She ran her finger-tips down Hope's naked spine and was rewarded by the Deputy waking, springing up, and pinning her charge to the bed. Hope kissed Ashley and, as she worked her way downwards, Ashley reflected that cunnilingus was not really Gabriel's thing. Strong men took, women -- women like her, and like Hope -- gave. But Hope's giving was entertaining enough... for now at least. And it was only two days until they came.

They? As Hope began to distract her unbearably, Ashley fleetingly thought about the men who would come, los prescindibles, as Gabriel had called them. She expected that Hope and her partner would deal with them easily enough, Gabriel was not sending his elite. But they had nevertheless agreed a back up plan. One which had involved Gabriel teaching her how to hold a gun, how to fire a gun, how to take a man's life.

For now, such thoughts were flooded out by the fervor of Hope's tongue. Ashley lay back and focused on her own pleasure to the exclusion of all other things. To focus on Sexy Cop, the pet name she had given to her stopgap lover, and which Hope had accepted with gleeful giggles.

The best laid plans seldom go smoothly, but this had been a total shit show. Ashley wondered whether her clever idea of keeping Hope occupied had been that wise. She stood for a second, gun in hand, thoughts racing.

In that second, the enormity of what she had done hit her, nearly as hard as the slug she had just put in the second of Gabriel's expendables. Lying to the US Government on behalf of a drug runner was one thing, taking a human life was quite another. It was... it was... empowering. Intoxicating. Addictive. It made Ashley feel closer to him, more like him, more like a fucking God! She felt herself trembling, not in fear or horror, but in barely suppressed excitement.

And it was good... the whole fucking shit show was good. The dead Marshal. The injury to Hope. It all hung together. It was a tableau that would be remembered, talked about. This was going to work, despite the rather different scenario that had played out.

Hope! Ashley needed to keep her alive, she needed a witness. She smiled internally at her use of the word.

It had felt like a long second. Writers talk about time standing still at moments of heightened emotion, it had been that way. But a second was all that Ashley would allow herself, there was a role to be played and a wound to be treated. She cast the gun aside as if it was red hot. Adopting what she thought would be a suitably shocked expression and a suitably broken tone of voice, she spoke.

"I picked it up, Hope. Did I do good? But you're bleeding. And Eric..."

To be continued...