Before she could say a word, he kissed her and delved his tongue into her mouth. It wasn’t long before he had his wish, and reproof was the farthest thing from what was on her mind.
Epilogue
Two weeks later in Bogotá, Colombia
Sabrina lay next to Jorge on top of a flat roof, looking through her binoculars at a dilapidated house two blocks down the hill. She was waiting for a signal, but the tall plant was still standing straight up. She lowered her binoculars. “How are they still not ready?”
He gently rammed her shoulder with his. “Give them some time. Not everyone is as punctual as you are.”
“There is nothing wrong with being punctual. But this is my first time working with Cam and Marco, and so far I’m not understanding their ‘don’t fuck with us’ reputation.”
Jorge chuckled. “Just don’t say that within hearing. According to Santos, Marco can do some crazy shit with his elemental powers, and from what I’ve heard, Cam isn’t far behind, even without taking her latent ability into account.”
She handed Jorge the binoculars, and he took his turn watching for the plant to be flipped on its side and covered with a white sheet. She studied his face. “Are you upset that you can’t be down there with them?”
Jorge kept looking through the binoculars. “No.”
“Jorge.”
He sighed and looked at her. “Yes, it would be awesome if my shadow-shifting abilities had come back and I could sneak in to help save more lives, but I have other skills, too. Besides, that means I get to watch your back, my little human.”
She clasped her hands in front of her. “Thank goodness I have my big, strong Feiru boyfriend to look after me.” She rolled her eyes. “I came here as a favor to you, so how about you stop belittling my skills and go back to watching that damn plant.”
But Jorge just continued to stare at her. She rubbed a hand over her cheek and said, “What? Do I have something on my face?”
He gave a lazy smile. “No, I just realized something.”
“What? Did we forget to do something for the take-down?”
He shook his head and traced a finger down her cheek. “No, it just hit me how much I love you.”
Her heart skipped a beat. She stared at him a second before glancing quickly to the building with the plant. She could just barely make out the shape—it was still standing up. She looked back at him. “You decided to tell me this now?”
He shrugged. “It seemed as good a time as any other.”
Sabrina had fallen for him early, but had decided not tell him how she felt until he was ready. To say that Jorge was at high-risk for running was an understatement. The man was still working through his nightmares as well as still trying to display non-sarcastic emotions to anyone other than her.
But in all of her hopes and dreams of this moment, she hadn’t imagined him saying he loved her while lying on a roof of a broken down building, waiting for the signal to help take down the Colombian arm of the Federation League.
Of course, his do-it-in-the-moment approach was just one of the many things she loved about him.
She grabbed his chin, turned his face toward hers, and kissed him gently. “I love you too, but if you think I’m going to reward you with sex right now, then you’re sadly mistaken.”
He grinned. “I’ll take your rain check. It gives me another reason not to screw this up.”
She gave him one more kiss and then turned his head back toward their target. “Good. Then go back to watching the plant.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She shook her head. She might love him, but there were still times when he tried her patience. Of course, she wouldn’t have it any other way. The last two weeks had been healing not just for him, but for her as well. Each day she seemed to realize more and more of who she was, and a large part of that was thanks to the man next to her.
“Sabrina, there’s the signal. Move into position.”
Her mind switched into work mode and she crawled over to the modified sniper rifle already loaded and ready for her. She gently moved behind it, peered through the scope and said, “Ready.”
She couldn’t see him, but she knew Jorge was giving the “We’re ready here” signal.
Sabrina had practiced for hours over the last week to brush up on her rifle training from her rookie days as a Feiru Liaison officer, but she still took in a few slow, deep breaths to calm her nerves. This was her first real mission for her new DEFEND/Feiru Liaison office position. This needed to go well, or it could damage the fragile partnership.