Pulling Alonzo away from the festivities was proving to be an endeavor all on its own. It was also one Jill suspected given the playful nature of her friend. What she hadn't expected was the absolute reluctance from David who was currently dancing in a circle of strangers.
"Grab him," Carlos had called into her ear around the music earlier.
David was only a few circles away from Alonzo and the carefree stretch of the previously tortured man was another reflection that Jill found herself staring at while she stood as the only motionless one in the crowd.
This had always been the reason she had gravitated to music; no matter what role she carried or what was expected of her, music had always been an outlet.
All of these men bore the scars of what had been done to them. They had seen their comrades, brothers, fathers, and friends killed mercilessly in front of them and in their time healing in the last week, Jill had watched as they leaned on one another, spoke about it into the quietness of the night, and decided to live regardless.
These men may never forget what had been done to them or others, but they wouldn't let their enemies win in their minds.
When David spotted her a few feet away, Jill could see the glassy reflection of alcohol in his gaze, but as her eyes traveled around his face at the absolute delight he allowed her to see. David lifted a hand toward her as if he was asking her to step up a platform. His shimmying form swayed as he stepped in beat and invited her—plead with her in his eyes to let him have that trust.
Jill reached forward and clasped her hand around David's and when his fingers closed around hers, she could see the emotion shift in his eyes when he pulled her forward into the dance.
Even in his stupor, David wasn't foolish enough to overstep his bounds. He didn't wrap himself around her, or even allow his hand to settle on her waist as the other pairs were doing. David was a man enjoying himself but the glances he kept throwing over her shoulder had Jill glancing back to view Carlos standing there watching with a smile across his features.
Pedro, who was beside him, was bobbing his head with a hand cupped around his mouth while he yelled something to a passing stranger. Alonzo, who also danced along Carlos' side now appeared younger than he ever had.
Alex sat at Carlos's feet; his back leaned against her lover's knees while his head dipped down toward his chest.
Knowing they would need to get going to find their hotel, Jill turned her attention back to David and with the bonds forged in war and the trust found in communities, Jill Valentine twirled David on his feet.
The result had the normally reserved man throwing his head back to laugh and laugh.
The music and celebration in Ayacucho, Peru continued to play for the rest of the night.
Unsurprisingly, most of the hotels in the immediate area were already booked due to the local festival. The six of them had to walk further than the markets to finally find one that had rooms left for the night. As luck would have it, the hotel had only two rooms left. Alex, Pedro, Alonzo, and David would be sharing one room, while Carlos and Jill would get the second.
"That's not fair," Alonzo called up to his older brother while he helped carry Alex along with David.
"Looking forward to snuggling with me after all?" Carlos glanced back at his brother from over his shoulder while they made their way through the plaza style patio area that housed the multiple hotel buildings. The stacked villas around the complex were mostly dark but a few people were passing with large smiles on their faces.
Alonzo muttered darkly as the four of them steered toward the numbered building on their keyring.
Carlos slid victorious fingers through Jill's before he led her past the dimly lit closed up shops for tourists.
"You know," Jill bid, looking up toward his side profile. "I can help with funding. I didn't just come out here unprepared."
"We're going to pretend you didn't just say that." Carlos glanced down at her and raised a brow.
"They actually paid me to be some big damn hero, Oliveira. It's just going to sit in my account until the IRS decides to tax the hell out of me every year for not being on a payroll anymore," she provided evenly. "That being said, I have eaten your food, used your medical supplies, and stayed within your home for the last week. You could stop pretending you're old fashioned and let me treat a few things."
"Hmmm," he seemed to ponder for a moment before he pulled the door open to their building and jerked his head for her to enter first. "I'll consider it."
The Sumaq Wari Hotel was bathed in warm browns, beiges, and cream-colored tones in the hall leading down to each room. Floral scents of flowers followed Jill while she traced the numbers on each door with her eyes before she stopped at the one near the end of the corridor. Sliding the key into the lock, she heard Carlos' steps stop behind her before she pushed the door open.
The hotel room was a simple set up of a bed against a wooden panel wall with a doorway that led into a bathroom beside the headboard. French styled doors on the opposite side of the room lead out onto a small balcony that overlooked the plaza they had just crossed. As simple as the set up was, Jill felt elation at the sight of the king-size bed.
She decided then she wouldn't miss modern technology as much as she may have thought. However, the invention of the bed had been a gift she'd never underestimate.
Aside from her obvious delight from their sleeping opportunities and beyond, Jill was struck with a disquieted feeling of unfamiliarity. Already she was missing the village.
"What's wrong?" Carlos had stepped up beside her and was studying the minute expression she had allowed to show for just the briefest moment. "Not up to your usual standards?"
"No," she ignored the wariness in his tone for the moment. "It's not that."
Jill suspected there may be an obvious impression of her he may feel he was not able to provide in certain aspects of his village or in the lifestyle he currently led. In truth, Jill had spent more time on the move than she ever had in her apartment, and it was a reality she didn't know if he understood quite yet.
Apartments were empty where she came from. Apartments like the one she paid for in Texas held pictures of family who were no longer around, and they held spaces for guests she never found herself inviting.
There hadn't been anyone to invite any more.
"You ever miss the military?" Forest Speyer had asked her once back in 1998 before the events of Bravo's downed helicopter.
Forest had been a marksman for the S.T.A.R.S. Bravo Team and was also in charge of the S.T.A.R.S. team's vehicle and weapon maintenance. He had been in the United States Army a few years before her and was known for the cut and dry way he approached dialog and his relationships.
He had also been the first friend Jill had made when she had decided to join the S.T.A.R.S.
Not one to make friends easily, Forest hadn't let Jill escape her occupation without demanding to know what lay beneath the calm exterior she had displayed at the first debriefing meetings with the two teams. He had invited Jill out to J's Bar for one weekend of shenanigans and Jill had fully prepared to not attend while she sat in her still packed up apartment on Ennerdale Street.
When Forest had shown up at her door with that cocky smile, Jill hadn't known what to expect. What came of it was a friendship between two former military dogs, and the lingering respect that was built from two lonely people in a city they hadn't originally grown-up in.
Forest became a regular in her apartment and he particularly favored cards while drinking Jill's good stock of brandy that had been hidden in her possessions for years. Her father had been a purveyor of only the finest brandies and the collection had become hers when he had been put into prison.
"Sometimes," Jill had answered Forest's question while she studied the cards in her hand over her little Formica table in the kitchen. "Time is brief on this earth, and it often feels disjointed from everything else. There's something about struggling with someone else that makes everything slow down."
Forest had squinted at her over his own hand of cards and glanced down toward her half-drunk cup on the table.
"Fuck, you're depressing when you drink, Valentine," Forest uttered with a smack of his lips from the alcohol.
"Is it making you want to quit?" she asked with a small smirk, not folding while she upped her bluff with the shittiest hand she'd ever had the pleasure of drawing.
"Not me," he simpered with his own bluff rising to hers. "I'm full of joy, girl." Forest proceeded to show her his hand.
"God—fucking—damn it, Speyer," she cursed at his royal flush.
When Jill had found Forest Speyer on that balcony at the Spencer Mansion, she had thought of that memory as she did now. She heard his words as clear as they ever were, but it wasn't until she saw his crow pecked body did she realize how important he had become to her in such a short amount of time.
"I saw a friend fall in battle once," Forest suddenly said before he took a swig of his drink, finishing it entirely before he continued, "Bordin—I think his first name was Jimmy—but Bordin was too cozy of a last name to ever call him anything else." Forest had paused when he considered the past. His fingers were slowly turning his empty glass before them. "Bordin was caught in a trench with continuous gunfire whizzing over his head. I asked my lieutenant if I could go out into the "no man's land" between the trenches to bring him back."
Jill had stood before Speyer's torn form as the distant caws of the birds taunted her very being while she remembered—while she decided to never forget.
"The lieutenant didn't think the risk was worth it. Bordin was wounded and there'd be no getting him out before our secondary unit could flank in time. I often find sound advice to be boring and I decided to go to Bordin anyway." Forest had given her a grin, but even then Jill could see the grief behind it.
She didn't interrupt when he continued, "I made it to the trench, hoisted him onto my shoulder, and I did manage to bring him back to our company's trench. Bordin was dead by the time I had made it back. The lieutenant had given me a look as if to validate his previous claims. I was wounded from a stray bullet at that point, but it didn't matter, and do you know why?"
Jill had kneeled on that mansion balcony and touched her best friend's knee. There was no carrying Forest back; he was already long gone, but she did manage to take the dog tags from his neck before his body reanimated in death.
"It was worth it. When my superior asked why I thought so, it was because Bordin was still alive when I made it to him and do you know what Bordin said to me, Valentine?" Forest's eyes were burning in the pale light of her sparsely decorated home. "Bordin smiled when he saw me. With his last breath, he said, 'Forest…I knew you'd come.'"
Jill had lifted her gun on the estate of the Spencer Mansion, and with his dog tags gripped in the hands she had strangled around her firearm, she knew she had failed to come for her only friend, but she wouldn't fail him in death.
Even now she could hear the dog tags clinking against the gun she used to put Forest Speyer down.
Presently, while she stood beside Carlos Oliveira, she had begun to speak this all aloud without even realizing it.
Carlos' eyes were a physical thing she could feel on her face.
Jill had never told anyone that—never dared to speak of the many failures that seemed to start with that terrible incident in July of 1998. Never wanted to acknowledge how even after escaping Raccoon, she'd always be trapped there. Her home had always remained dark because home wasn't a place for her. It was always people and she had been tired of failing them.
In 2006, when she plummeted toward the ground with Albert Wesker in her arms, Jill had accepted her death in a freefall. She wouldn't fail someone else again. The truth was, Jill didn't know what home was anymore.
She turned her gaze to Carlos and realized that may not be true anymore.
"I don't care about where I stay, Carlos," Jill whispered, finally turning her gaze back to his; violet eyes were conveying the sordid history that lived in each part of her memories. "I've never cared about it. I could live outside for the rest of my life if it meant I could keep you and everything you bring. I could live anywhere if it meant David trusted me enough to ask me to dance with him. If it meant Alonzo knew I'd back him up anytime he needed help…"
"I—" Carlos was wrapping his hand around her wrist and cutting her off when he pulled her against him.
"I'm sorry," he said softly into the top of her head while he held her. "I'm sorry—I didn't think, I just—" Carlos let out a breath and Jill could feel his head shake back and forth while he tried to gather whatever thoughts were cycling. "You can keep all of us, Jill. Hell, I think we all throw ourselves at you anyway just hoping you'll stay. I want you to see this place as your home. I want you to be happy here, but I want you to have what you deserve."
Jill pulled back first and stared up into the brown eyes that had cradled her for years. His hands were slipping up her arms to gently cup her face.
"What I deserve…I think you believe in me more than I do, Carlos," she whispered while leaning her face into one of his hands.
"You'll catch up," he responded with his thumbs pressing beneath her chin.
When Carlos stepped back, he was gently guiding her toward the bathroom with him. His hands were pulling her clothes from her body while he undressed her slowly and never took his eyes from the scarred form that revealed itself under the fluorescent lighting of the bathroom.
When he undressed next, Jill caught the faint scars that lined his own bronze skin. She hadn't paid much attention before or maybe she just hadn't been looking. While she considered the thought with her hands skimming the long one he had on his right hip, Jill understood she hadn't noticed them because every time she beheld Carlos it had been more than just his skin, his looks, or anything else.
He had been right.
People were so much more than what had been done to them.
When they stood in the shower and ran their hands along one another, Jill found herself crying when he pressed his palm over the ugly scar on her chest—the very one that had been her constant reminder of what she wasn't anymore.
A prisoner. A failure.
He pressed his palm there and said nothing as he watched her cry and accept who she wanted to be.
It was just after 11:00 p.m. when Carlos and Jill finally stepped out of the shower. The steam was pooling into the main sleeping room when she pulled the door open and finished wrapping the towel around her frame. Her wandering thoughts had her making a list for the items they would need to purchase tomorrow before the departure. One of the items being the bed Carlos had promised.
Their bags had been stacked haphazardly near the door, but Jill was suddenly too tired to even consider sorting through it. With a heavy sit on the bed, she let out a soft laugh while she stared out through one of the French doors across from the bed.
Wet strands of her blonde hair were curling along her collar bone when Jill tossed off her towel and climbed under the covers. A hysterical laugh bubbled out of her lips when her spine straightened on the softer-than-life bed below her.
With no ill feelings towards their current situation, Jill considered she hadn't slept on a completely flat surface in well over a week now.
The lights in the main room hadn't been turned on when the pair of them came in so the only light source poured out from the bathroom door beside the bed. Jill blinked when the light dimmed, and Carlos' form stepped up toward her side of the bed.
"I take it the bed meets your standards, Supercop," Carlos had his towel wrapped around his hips while he used a secondary towel to dry the curly strands atop his head.
Still laughing, Jill squinted up at him and uttered, "Your hair is so curly when it's wet."
Carlos paused with the towel lowering as he watched her laugh.
"Is that jealousy I hear, Jill?" Carlos leaned back slightly to toss the secondary towel back into the bathroom and it gave Jill a lovely view of the defined stomach that flexed with the natural movement. "'Cause if it is, I can promise you it's going to look worse in the morning."
"Poor, sweet, Carlos," Jill sat up and pressed the sheet to her chest before she leaned out and hooked her pointer finger into the towel at his hips and slowly reeled him in. "Perfect in every way except for his terrible bedhead."
Even in the dim room, Jill could see when his eyes sparkled with a whole new line of thought.
"You goin' to sleep naked, Jill?" He pulled her hand away from the towel and placed his hands on the edge of her side of the bed.
Sensing an opportunity, Jill pulled back and crawled backwards toward his side of the bed. The blankets were falling from her body, and she could have sworn Carlos cocked his head like a predator at the amount of skin that was available to him again.
Carlos hadn't initiated anything in their shower and in truth, with how emotional she had felt, Jill was grateful for that. After holding her close and finishing their thorough scrubs, he placed sweet kisses to her shoulders while they finished up.
Now was an entirely different situation.
"You know what I like about this bed?" Carlos placed a knee on the mattress and somehow his towel was still held together on his hips.
"I could think of a few reasons," Jill wet her lips while she watched him crawl closer to her closed knees.
"Yeah," he breathed with a hand curling under one of her knees. He pulled her back toward him with ease. "I'm sure you could, but no, my reason? These beds are made to sleep four. Meaning, you can sleep either way you want on it."
Dark eyes were pinning her to the bed while Jill let out a harsh breath at the whisper-soft fingers he trailed from her knee and up to her thigh. When he reached mid-thigh, his fingers pushed her legs apart to make room for him.
Terry cloth was lowering down with the erection she could feel beginning to grow between his legs when he lowered his hips to hers. Balancing on his elbows, Carlos brought his face close to hers while a slow smile pulled at his features.
"We could still keep the couch," Jill offered in a voice that came out much higher than she intended. "But not for sleeping."
"Mmm," Carlos hummed before his nose touched the side of her cheek and lowered with his mouth to sensitive skin at her neck. "I did say I didn't negotiate with terrorists earlier, but I do like your reasons."
With her legs lifting from the bed, she curled them around Carlos' waist to pull him closer before her hand was lifting to twist around one of the wet curls that hung beside his ear.
Carlos paused and glanced back over his shoulder to view her shapely leg draped across his hips. Something resembling a low rumble vibrated from his chest before he was reaching back to draw his fingers up the side of her thigh.
"I don't think I'll ever get tired of this," he said then before he pulled his head back towards her. He beheld her with a different sort of look crossing his features.
"Of what?" Jill felt her nipples hardening under his stare. "Sex?"
"Probably that too," he said slowly before the hand left her thigh and reached over to run his knuckles up her chest and back up toward her jaw. His thumb and pointer finger captured her chin and pulled her face fully up to his. "But I don't think I'm ever going to get tired of you, Jill. You know that, don't you?"
Much like she had in the shower, Jill was struck again by the growing realizations she was steadily making about her life. This time though, instead of tracing her misery to the past, she was finding ways to follow her joys into the future.
"I have an idea," she finally responded when she wound her fingers around his wrist.
"This isn't something I just want for a while," Carlos continued watching her with that otherworldly gaze. "I want to come home to you. I want to find you in my village playing with the children of my people, sitting near a campfire laughing with my brother, teaching my men how to defend themselves, you name it." He leaned closer and tasted her lips with a gentle bite that followed. "I want whatever future that has you being mine, Jill."
"Didn't I already tell you I was?" Jill was responding to his kiss and was speaking in between the sliding skin of their mouths. "Did I not make myself clear when I vowed myself to you, told you I loved you, and placed that hat on my head for all to see?"
The hand she still had at his wrist jostled slightly when he released her face and caught her hand. His fingers gave a slight tug at the bracelet he had purchased for her earlier in the day.
"So, you did." Carlos dropped her hand and settled himself between her legs before capturing her mouth fully.
Heat was flaring through Jill's already flushed skin from the shower while the man above her owned her very mouth with the most maddeningly slow kisses. Minutes passed by while Jill burned hotter and hotter.
Unfortunately, exhaustion was also a factor after their long day, the dancing she had done, and the alcohol she had imbibed in. For a moment, Jill felt herself drifting away while Carlos sucked on the skin of her neck.
"Carlos," she whispered, opening her eyes. "I'm sorry—I'm fading a little. I—"
Carlos lifted his head and the grin he gave her was wolfish while he considered her tired display.
"Truth be told," he murmured. "I am wide awake, but that doesn't mean you can't rest." Carlos gave her one last kiss before he pulled his torso up and grabbed her hips.
With a soft sound at the back of her throat, Jill was blinking when Carlos righted her on the bed and helped her to lay appropriately against her pillow.
With the whip of the towel from his own hips, Carlos stayed between her thighs when he pulled the blankets over them both.
An upwards crawl found Carlos placing his mouth against her skin that led toward her ear before he said, "How about I put you to sleep, Supercop?"
"What about you?" she murmured with regret in her tone.
"I'm a patient man and I have the rest of our lives," Carlos nipped her ear lobe and smiled into her skin when her body jerked under his. "Let me make you feel good." He pressed himself harder into her center and Jill sucked in her breath. "Would you like that, Jill?"
"Yes," Jill uttered, reaching for his shoulders.
Carlos was crawling down her body next, his hot mouth and bearded face leaving trails that left gooseflesh all over her body. Teeth were nipping at the hip bone that poked from her skin when Jill gasped and twined a hand in his curly, damp hair.
The lips that drifted around her inner thighs were causing sighs to come from Jill's mouth when she found herself slipping into a near dream state. She couldn't remember when she had felt so relaxed last. When his mouth laid over her center and drew a tongue slowly up her slit, Jill felt herself walking a line of the waking world.
He was being so completely tender about his ministrations when he closed his lips around her folds and gave soft pulls. With a tilt to his head and that tongue dragging maddingly slow up the length of her, Jill was awake once more when his lips closed gently around her clit. Alternating between sucking and swirling his mouth in tight circles, Jill was finally moaning out. Her hands were reaching in the semi-dark for his hair as that heat flared through her body.
When one of his thick fingers dragged its way down and entered her slowly, Jill was almost embarrassed how quickly she came after he curled the finger inside her.
With his hair trapped in her fingers, she opened her eyes and looked down at him as waves of pleasure wracked her body. Dark, almost black, eyes held her in place, as he watched her come above him.
Carlos had asked her to look at him when she came. Each time she had done it, there was something darker that would cross his features. Something not entirely Carlos but utterly welcome when it created a tightness in his expression that Jill could only ever interpret as hunger. Every time he did it, she felt as if he was devouring every portion of her submission.
Her breaths were coming in quick pants when she fell backwards in the bed. Expecting him to crawl up toward her, Jill was surprised when his mouth moved away from her overstimulated clit and lowered to replace the finger he had inside her previously with his tongue.
And he didn't stop.
In utter bliss, Jill Valentine was falling asleep while the man she loved continued to slowly lap at the engorged flesh of her. She would periodically wake up when he shifted but she would jerk awake when she was suddenly waking into another explosive orgasm that he managed to coax out of her over time.
"Carlos—" Jill gasped into the dark room. The orgasm rocked through her, and her words turned into a half-grasped plea toward where he still lay.
For hours, Carlos refused to move and would sweetly bring her to a crest before she would wake with a gasp. Even in her dreams, Jill was moaning while he would pant hot breaths onto her clit and remain a gentle steady presence at her skin.
At some point in the night, Jill wasn't sure of the time anymore, but with her next waking drag into consciousness her back arched with the snap of her spine. Carlos' strong hands were curled up and holding the tops of her thighs as he dragged out her next splitting climax that had her whole body shaking.
Far from any other need but the one that had sent her to reach out to Trent, the one that had her boarding a plane, and the one that found her traversing through a foreign country—Jill was pushing up in the bed and her hands were reaching for him, for the man she couldn't seem to stop touching.
"Come here," her voice was hoarse from the sleep she had managed to get but it was mixed with a yearning so intense that she didn't even recognize the sound that came from her. "Please, come here."
Carlos was lifting and guiding himself upwards with her pull to his chin. His much larger body inclined into hers when Jill brought his swollen mouth to hers.
She could only taste herself when she ravaged his mouth and the effect only seemed to turn her on more while she acknowledged the empty feeling between her legs.
Her hands were everywhere; she couldn't seem to bring him close enough. Love was buried in the very essence of her bones and in the spaces of consciousness before the higher level of thinking resumed, Jill Valentine surrendered to the very primitive and base version of herself that wanted.
On the bed, Carlos was sitting back on his knees while Jill climbed onto his lap and coveted the very expression living on his face as Carlos' breathing began to deepen.
"Need you right now—" Jill mumbled with her teeth pulling at his lower lip. "—I need you forever, Carlos. I—"
Jill broke off when his fingers wrapped around her hips and dug into her lower back. With a lift, Jill let out a strangled breath when he slid into her with ease.
Carlos groaned low when Jill pressed her knees into the bed around his hips and pushed him back into the rumpled comforter that he had tossed off earlier. He pulled his feet up and placed them flat on the mattress as he fell back and succumbed to the force of nature that was now above him.
Blonde strands of still-drying hair were a curtain around Carlos' face while Jill stole his very breath and rode him until the sounds pouring out of him were matching the intensity that rocked through her. Undulating her hips, she wasn't chasing her orgasm as much as she was peering into the madness of Carlos' own impending release.
Starving eyes took in his expression when she pulled her head back to watch his mouth fall open to swallow the oxygen she had been depriving him of. Carlos seemed to quake under her intense study and Jill felt a vicious quirk of her lips pull back over her teeth.
Reaching out, she gripped his chin while she placed a hand beside his head on the mattress. Leaning in, she gently nipped at his mouth while she held his eyes.
"Come for me," she ordered into his lips. "I want to see you absolutely break, Oliveira." Her tongue licked his shuttering lips. "Break apart for me because you are mine. Always mine. From the moment I met you, you were mine."
Jill felt his quakes turn into tremors and the hands he still had on her hips turned bruising as he thrusted upwards, his hips nearly coming off the bed. The sound he made transformed from a groan to a near shout.
"F-fuck!" he managed to choke out.
Violet eyes ate up the open-mouthed reverence in his expression when Carlos broke a part beneath her. His feet were digging into the bed behind her, and Jill could feel the shift while she noted the muscles in his stomach that were flexing beneath her simultaneously.
When Carlos' body finally came to rest, he was tilting his head up towards hers once more and the smile he gave her then had Jill absolutely beaming back at him.
"I've always been yours," he rasped while his hands transferred from her hips, along her spine before they slid to hold her face to his.
The kiss they shared was as long as the night and Carlos rolled her off so that they lay side by side, facing one another. Sleep came fast and deep for Jill but before she fell, she whispered, "I love you so much, Carlos."
"Love you too, Jill," he murmured while he pulled her flush to his chest and then they were both gone.
True to his word, Carlos' freshly washed and dried hair was a mess of springy curls that vaulted away harshly from Jill's finger when she woke up in the morning and couldn't stop herself from reaching out for it.
Carlos' slack face twitched once when she let out a stifled giggle. When one dark brown eye cracked open and focused on her smiling face, his lips were pulling into a sweet morning grin before he was closing his one eye once more and humming low.
"Goin' to figure out how to make you look at me like that every morning," he slurred out before he rolled on his back.
"Breakfast is a tried-and-true way to do that." Jill laid a kiss against his shoulder before she began to roll away.
His arm caught her, and Jill let out an unbecoming sound as he yanked her back into his chest while he rolled too.
"And where are you going?" he rumbled with his deep voice settling beneath her skin.
"Most important meal of the day, Carlos," Jill turned her head over her shoulder toward him and found herself beaming again at his mop of hair. "Seriously, I need to know how we keep you like this."
"If you start sabotaging my careful haircare products I will hide your favorite magnum, Jill."
Jill feigned a gasp, "That's sacrilege." She fully rolled back into him. "Matter of fact, Mr. Oliveira," she was sitting up and draping herself over his still prone form. "'Grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, namely, any of the following acts against persons or property protected under the provisions of the relevant Geneva Convention—"
Carlos was beginning to laugh at her bravado-lined tone.
"Extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly—"
"Uh huh," he purred watching her begin to sputter. "It is easier to start a war than to end it, isn't it, Supercop? Trust me when I tell you that I still know how to win mine."
"Actions," Jill countered, feeling a streak of victory when his focus dropped down to her lips. "Not words, Carlos."
Carlos sprung up, captured her twisting form, and yanked her back into bed while she began to laugh. She only stopped laughing when his lips sealed over hers and their love making continued to bring in the morning of a new day.