The Espionage Effect(27)
“No!” I barked out a little too forcefully.
He chuckled and wrapped an arm around my shoulder. “Then let’s get some food into you.”
And even though I knew he meant actual food, I remained fascinated by how readily my body reacted to his voice, his touch, and how my mind seemed to inject innuendo into his words.
Oblivious to my mild distress, he led us toward the open breezeway, through the courtyard gardens, and into the indoor space where I’d literally run into him the prior afternoon.
I paused in midstride, below the chandelier, causing him to stop beside me.
His brows furrowed as he scanned the perimeter, instantly threat-assessing. “Something wrong?”
“No.” I shot him a deadpan look. “This spot familiar at all?” Was it coincidence that we’d collided practically twenty-four hours prior?
He shrugged and tugged me forward. “Busy spot. Never know who you’ll bump into.”
I scoffed at his blasé tone. But my exasperation got cut short when the hostess greeted us, then immediately led us outside to be seated.
Down beside the sand, we found a table shaded by a large market umbrella. I ordered the duck tacos with tamarind sauce and a house-brewed beer. He held up his index and middle finger toward our food server. “Dos.”
“So what do you think of our silver stretch of paradise?”
He phrased the question as if he belonged here. And yet even with his dark past and darker secrets, he blended well, a secret operative mingling with guests amid blatant commercialism. But then, the commercialism had carved its way into existence from a tenacious ancient jungle filled with deadly creatures. Only the sparsest glimpse of bright light made it through, barely touching the surface.
My heart twisted at the horrific loss he’d suffered—how it mirrored my own. And how, just like the enduring, carefully crafted oasis around us, we’d survived in spite of our unforgiving world.
He and I fit better than any tourist.
I raised my beer bottle, then lightly clinked his. “Feels like I’ve finally come home.”
The late lunch stretched into an early dinner. Our two initial beer bottles had already been cleared. The delicious sweet and salty tamarind duck tacos we’d ordered had been devoured. The sun had just set behind us while we talked about random unimportant things like his love for soccer and my addiction to volleyball.
“The sports are similar in some ways.” Alec poured more chilled Pellegrino into our glasses, causing my pulverized lime to dance around in the fizzing liquid.
“True.” I lifted my glass while peering at him over the rim, musing about how Anna and I had once ogled him from our chaise lounges as we played our “how many margaritas” game. My answer then had been none. And even though my stomach fluttered with nervous excitement, stone-cold sober remained my answer.
He relaxed back into his chair and stretched out his long legs, crossing them at the ankles. “No holding the ball,” he supplied as his gaze met mine.
“Hitting only allowed with arms and hands…”
“Feet and shins, in soccer,” he countered, tilting his head. “Player count is different though. Eleven are on the field.”
I gave a conceding nod. “Six on the court.”
“Doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about a field or court though, each player is independent, and yet one.” He lifted his water and took a few swallows.
I nodded, catching his uplifting gaze. “Part of a team, yet playing to an individual strength.”
Like spies. I suddenly wondered how much communication Alec and his fellow operatives had with one another.
We’d been talking about two different sports, but our gazes kept colliding and holding for longer and longer seconds, as if a deeper meaning lay hidden beneath our observations. And our respective interest in sports was the third area of discussion on the heels of two minefield topics: religion and politics. The former, neither of us had any strong beliefs about. The latter, no faith in the current regimes, in either the US or globally.
I brushed my hand against the side of his, for the fourth deliberate time. When he glided the backs of his fingers up underneath my palm, I curled my fingers down between his, entwining them. “Want to take a walk down the beach? There’s a path that leads back to my room.”
“Other than up a coconut tree?” he teased.
I huffed out a laugh as he stared at me with one dark eyebrow arched. Then he picked up that black bag of his and pressed a gentle hand to my lower back, guiding me down the two steps and onto the cool white sand. I kicked off my sandals, then bent to scoop the leather straps into two fingers before we continued on toward the water.
A quiet comfort settled between us that I hadn’t expected. For a man who’d been shot at and had a mission to complete for some clandestine global agency, he appeared remarkably calm. Maybe his laid-back demeanor when he was off duty balanced out the adrenaline-pumping occasions when speed and skill became the only thing standing between life and death.
Without further conversation, we headed straight to the edge of the shoreline. He positioned himself on the water side, just beyond reach of the foaming waves as they repeatedly stretched toward us. Then he switched his bag to his opposite hand and wove his fingers together with mine.
Hand in hand we walked, a perfect silence wrapping around us as night gradually began to cloak the world. The purplish gray of twilight gave way to deepening charcoal hues by the time we made it to the far side of the resort. We angled toward the sports palapa across the private beach area below our room. Where Anna and I had spotted him standing at the water’s edge with his scuba gear. When she’d insisted he should be my Latin lover. Tonight, he would be.