by L. A. Fiore
I stopped at the bakery on the way home for a cup of coffee. As soon as I opened the door, the owner smiled wide.
“Twice in one day.”
“Your coffee is the best.”
“That’s because I brew it every hour. Warren was in a little while ago. He was looking for you.”
“Really. Did he say what he wanted?”
“No, only that if I saw you to let you know he needs to talk to you.”
“I’ll stop by now.”
He bagged up a few donuts. “For Warren.”
“You’re a softie.”
“Don’t let it get out.”
I walked down the street to Warren’s bench, but he wasn’t there. I couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t sitting on that bench. I looked around for him for almost a half an hour before I left the donuts with his sketchpad and started for home. Zoe called as I was just reaching my house.
“He dressed up like Captain Kirk and our date was watching hours of Star Trek, the original series. Hours. When he asked me to be his Aurora, I fucking left. Seriously, is it me? Is the universe playing a sick joke on me?”
“Who was this?”
“Another one from that site. I’m not using that site anymore.”
“I think that’s a good idea.”
“Oh, hey. When did Decker get back?”
“He’s not.”
“Are you sure? I could have sworn I saw him around the wharf earlier.”
“No, he called the other day, they’re still on that dive.”
“My mistake. Well, I’m going home, getting a bottle of wine and a pint of ice cream and watching Fifty Shades. Now that is a character a man can emulate on a date with me. I should get some nipple clamps and a butt plug. That will spice up my dating life.”
“Thank you for that visual, now I’m seeing the Captain Kirk wannabe clamping your...I’m hanging up.”
“My work here is done.”
I disconnected on a laugh. The woman was seriously a clown.
“He not only commissioned Juan Lopez to make the necklace, we’re pretty certain he was in possession of it when the ship went down. The records are old and faded, but it’s looking like he had it for the return voyage.” Mr. Tuttleman and his contacts were a little scary. They were like a secret society, a modern day Knights Templar when it came to antiquities. I looked forward to his calls.
“And we know through Alejandro’s own words that the temples were something he wanted to see. So he journeys farther west to see the temples, but how does he learn of Juan Lopez?” I asked.
“I don’t know, but another interesting fact is that Juan Lopez died shortly after Alejandro came for the necklace.”
“Died or murdered?”
“It was ruled accidental, but considering what befell Alejandro one has to wonder.”
“How do you know all of this? Seriously, it’s scary the information you have at your fingertips.”
“The world functioned for a long time before the Internet. Secrets were kept and battles were coordinated and waged. Plots to overthrow empires were hashed and carried out. Some of us are more of the old school mindset when it comes to knowledge, and have kept to the old ways. It might take us a bit longer to find the answers, but we have access to information that will never find its way on the web.”
“You’re the Knights Templar, aren’t you?”
“I’ll keep digging on the link between Juan and Alejandro.”
He didn’t confirm it, but he didn’t deny the Templar claim either. I wondered. I let it pass though and said, “Thank you, you’ve been invaluable.”
“Are you kidding? I love mysteries and this one ends in a treasure.”
He had the biggest, brownest eyes, but I wasn’t going to be swayed by a handsome face. This was one staring competition I intended to win. A swish of his tail, a nod of his head and a whinny and I knew I had him.
“Excuse me, are you ready? There are others waiting.”
Turning my focus on the young woman who was about as warm as an ice cube, I had to resist the urge to stick my tongue out at her. “Yes, I’m ready. We just needed a moment to bond.”
She rolled her eyes at me and didn’t even bother trying to hide it. Like she hadn’t experienced nervous riders before, as if I pioneered the hesitant rider. Bitch. Her co-worker was nicer, a big guy with strong arms who heaved me up onto the horse’s back while Eye Roller started her spiel, the same one she probably recited dozens of times a day.
“These horses are trained and very mild-mannered. Keep your hands on the reins and let the horse do the rest.”
This was going to be a piece of cake despite the fact that my ribs were about to crack and split through my chest due to the intense pounding of my heart. I was being reckless, daring. I had hoped to be daring with Noah. Even though he had inquired about my daring adventure, he wasn’t here.
Grabbing the reins, I attempted to calm down since I had read once that animals could sense your fear. It wasn’t a smooth start, but then his gait evened out as we slowly meandered along the white sand beach.
There were no bathers on this stretch of the beach; intentional I was sure so the horses didn’t get freaked. And it added to the tranquility of the ride having the beach mostly to myself.
We were instructed that the horses would turn back on their own, but as we approached the marker that Eye Roller had indicated was the turning around point, my horse gave no indication of turning around.
“Hey horse, we’re supposed to turn back.”
I didn’t really expect him to answer, but I now found myself in a position of not knowing how to get the animal to go in the direction I wanted. What made it worse was we were going so slowly that I could have crawled faster, but he was a big horse so the idea of sliding off his back terrified me.
I had seen in the movies people digging their knees into the animal, but that just earned me an annoyed nicker. He seemed to be on a mission. Maybe he had a date and I was going with him whether I liked it or not.
“Horse, if you could just stop so I could get off, I’ll distract Eye Roller and you can go wherever you want.”
We were reaching the edge of the beach. He wasn’t turning around and I just sat there like an idiot because I didn’t know the first thing about riding a horse. I could see it now, the news coverage: Clueless local goes on unwanted horse guided tour of paradise. I almost wanted to throw myself off the horse to spare myself the humiliation later.
“A little help!” I shouldn’t have needed to shout for help. Eye Roller and her co-worker should have been paying attention, but neither was coming to my aid. Note to self, learn how to ride a horse before getting on the back of one again.
A patch of some kind of plant caught the attention of my wayward guide and while he stopped to munch on it, I was getting off. Before I could make my move, two strong hands wrapped around my waist and lifted me with ease. I slid down a hard body that I had had the pleasure of feeling before. Once my feet hit the sand, my eyes lifted to a pair of gray ones. Giddy was how I felt staring up at him because it was like fairy dust had been sprinkled on me making my wishes come true. Seeing him again was definitely a wish I had made.
“I have never before seen anyone ride a horse quite like that.” His face was completely unreadable but his eyes were laughing. I eyed him from head to toe because he was dressed in a black tank and board shorts. His muscled arms were works of art, especially the one with the tattoo. It wasn’t just on his forearm, the black tribal work moved up his arm and shoulder. Exquisite. And then I went truly batshit crazy because I allowed my eyes to linger a moment longer on what I wanted to say was his flat stomach, but my gaze was fixed on a spot lower.
He cleared his throat to pull my attention from his cock. Mortifying. I didn’t just lift my gaze to his. No, I moved it slowly up his body while imagining him naked. When I finally reached his face, he knew exactly what I was thinking because the sexiest little smile touched his lips.
“Do you like what you see?”
I did like what I saw, a lot.
His voice pitched even deeper. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
“It’s definitely a yes.” My cheeks burned.
He was gracious when he moved the conversation along, but his next words almost had me passing out and not a graceful swoon either but a backwards drop with the grace of a bull in a china shop. Although the Myth Busters busted that myth, a bull was actually quite graceful in a china shop. Not important.
“Come with me.” He wasn’t asking, but he struck me as a man who was used to getting what he wanted.
I waited exactly four point three seconds before I replied, “Yes.”
“But you have to do everything.”
It felt like fire burning just under my skin at the possibilities. “That is a huge gamble.”
“You want to live a little, right?”
I did and more specifically I wanted to do so with him. My heart was racing thinking about what he had planned and yet I trusted him. I didn’t know why because he had done nothing to earn my trust. “Okay.”
Eye Roller appeared and while she inquired after me, though I had the sense she wouldn’t have cared if the horse and I both dropped off the face of the earth, her eyes were on Noah. I couldn’t truly fault her for staring because he was beautiful.
While Eye Roller practically threw herself at him, he didn’t seem to notice. His attention was only on me. I wanted to get lost in the moment, but that was a little hard with Eye Roller dry humping Noah’s leg. She looked like one of those little dogs that latches onto a leg and just goes to town. Noah responded to her in much the same way a person getting dry humped by a small dog would, he was trying to ignore her.
He leaned into me, his lips brushing against my ear. “Ready?”
We were establishing a pattern, one I happened to really like, me going off with him. I didn’t even need to think about it. “Absolutely.”
We were out on a glass bottom boat. Schools of brightly colored fish swam past, an occasional skate and eel. There were coral reefs and anemones where little fish peeked out from the protection they offered. Not what I was expecting, but I had a feeling he was working up to the other stuff.
Turning my gaze from the wonder of undersea life, I looked over at Noah who was leaning against the side of the boat, his arms crossed over his chest. I expected to see him watching the fish too, but his focus was on me. I had heard of men giving women long, heated studies up and down the body. I never had anyone do it to me until him. Every inch of my body felt the heat of his gaze before he eventually returned his eyes to mine. “This place suits you.”
It was just four words and yet my body responded as if he had just spent the past hour doing what he so subtly alluded to. The boat jerked hard and I lost my balance. Before I pitched over the side, strong arms came around me. He felt good and he smelled good, like the sea and something spicier. I didn’t realize his lips were so close to my ear until he whispered, “Don’t worry, I won’t bite.”
I might.
His fingers threaded through my hair, my head tilting into his hand all on its own. He moved my hair from my neck so he could brush his lips over the spot just under my ear that caused chills to shoot down my arms—a definite erogenous zone for me. He followed that seductive little kiss with a lick from my shoulder to my earlobe where he bit me hard enough to cause pain. My entire body started to throb. Nemo and all his friends had their little faces pressed up against the glass watching the show.
“I lied.” My brain was not functioning at all so I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about then he added, “I will bite.”
“I don’t know about this.” After our moment on the boat I would have done anything he asked, but this…I wasn’t sure about this.
“You want to be daring.”
“Yes, but this is...”
“You’re missing out. It feels so good.”
My head jerked to him, his words were so ridiculous I laughed. He looked adorable, not a word I would equate with him.
“Until you fall to your death.”
“Not going to happen.”
“I did say I would do everything.”
He reached for my hand and dragged me down the pier. “You won’t regret it.”
Looking at the boat and the reality that in a few short minutes I would be flying above the water, I tried to go the other way. Noah’s hand tightened around mine then he stopped walking and turned to me. “Are you afraid of heights?”
“Define afraid? Wanting to hurl and scream like a lunatic, then yes I am afraid of heights.”
“We don’t have to…”
“No. Being daring includes doing what scares you. Besides, what’s the worst that could happen? The line snaps and some odd air current pulls us out of the earth’s atmosphere. I mean how often does that happen?” A grin pulled at his lips. “Seriously, how often does that happen?”
“Never that I’ve heard of.” He squeezed my hand. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
My back was pressed to Noah’s chest. His arms were wrapped around my waist and even being terrified, I felt safe. We motored out to the starting point. I was so nervous my mouth had gone dry, like Hooper’s had in Jaws.
Noah pressed his lips to my ear. “Are you still nervous?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve got you. And if you scream, I won’t think less of you.”
He was teasing me and I appreciated the effort even through the fear. “I’m freaking out a little, but I won’t make a scene. I’m nothing if not disciplined.”
I screamed like a child throwing a tantrum.
My stomach was in my throat and my body was numb with fear as the sail caught the wind and we were pulled high above the sea. Strong arms squeezed me tight. His soft voice penetrated my terrified wail. “Look, Willow.”
“I can’t.”
“Open your eyes, baby.”
Even terrified, that endearment penetrated. It took effort, but I managed to peel my eyes open and my breath caught when I did. The water was so clear you could see the reefs and fish, the snorkelers and swimmers. The bright blue sky was cloudless and the island from this far up looked exactly like what it was, paradise.
“Worth it?” Noah asked.
“It’s…magnificent.”
“Are you still nervous?”
“Yes, but what a view.”
“Look.” He pointed to the cruise ship bringing in hordes of tourists. The cove that was only missing the masts of a clipper ship, the lagoon I took the kids to snorkel. It was beautiful.
“Our time is up. They’re going to lower us, we’ll unhook and drop into the water. You good?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Here were go.”
And then we were falling. The water was so clear that I took a moment to look around before I started up. Noah was at my side as soon as I broke the surface.
“Not so bad, right?”
“Amazing.”
The boat circled back for us.
“We’re not done,” Noah announced.
“We’re not?”
He flashed me a smile “Not by a long shot.”
The wreck just appeared, an old warship or rather the skeleton of the ship forever resting at the bottom of the ocean. Almost two hundred years ago it had lost its battle with the sea and as the world above changed, this piece of the past stayed frozen in time. The stories it could tell. Barnacles had encrusted the wooden hull, debris from both the wreck and the scavenge crew littered the ocean floor around the ship. A ray swam along the bottom, circling the wreck as brightly colored fish darted in and out of the dark caverns created by the holes that had one time held cannons. Noah took me diving. It was hands down the best activity of the day. He was good too; comfortable in the water. It was clear he had spent significant time underwater. Strange that he wouldn’t have mentioned that when I told him I dove. He gestured for me to stay before he swam
closer to the wreck. He pulled the knife from his scabbard he had fastened to his thigh and started digging into the sand; it billowed a bit around him as he dug. He wasn’t at it very long before he swam back to me. He reached for my hand and in my palm he placed the treasure he had just unearthed from the sand—a fragment of a china teacup. My eyes jerked to his face because in this setting, with this man, it felt a lot like that moment in Cancun at the cenote with Kace. Coincidence most likely, but what if?
He reached for my hand again and pointed up. Slowly we ascended.
I yanked out the regulator as soon as we broke the surface and pulled off my facemask. “Are you sure we’ve never met before?”
“Yes.”
I was disappointed, even knowing I was being fanciful, but I moved the conversation along. “Why didn’t you mention you were a diver?”
