by Zoe Chant
Amber slipped her hand into his as they walked, and he gratefully kept it; there was something satisfying about having even that tiny amount of contact between them.
The buffet had been replenished and freshened since they'd last been there. Both of them took heaping tacos that bore only a passing resemblance to their American cousins, and ate them with relish and mess, licking their fingers and plates with laughter.
Amber took a glass of wine with her second plate. “I'm on vacation,” she said defiantly.
“Don't have to defend yourself to me!” Tony chuckled. He took a beer, and they lingered over their drinks until the waitstaff began to set the tables for dinner and the sun began its journey to setting over the water.
“I haven't been to the beach yet,” Amber said as they left the dining hall and paused at an intersection of the paths. Something in her voice suggested to Tony that she wasn't really interested in a walk.
“You aren't missing much,” Tony said off-handedly. “Lots of sand, some crabs, maybe a dead fish.”
Amber's eyes sparkled back at him. “I'm sure you have a much better idea?”
“There's a fine view of the sunset from my cottage porch,” he purred at her.
They didn't watch much of the sunset, kissing on his porch and caressing slowly under each others' robes. There was no rush this time, no pending engagement, no pressing urgency.
They simply made love, fingers sliding over silky skin, and tangling in hair. They kissed until his lips felt heavy and abused, tickled, and explored each other. He worshiped her soft breasts with fingers and mouth, and thought he could not possibly run his hands over the place where her hips met her waist enough times to memorize it.
Touching the back of her neck made her shiver with desire and he spent some time sweeping her hair out of the way so that he could properly kiss it.
Clothing was unnecessary; nudity was easy and casual and perfect.
When their lovemaking finally rose to a fevered pitch, he lay her down on the bed like she was the goddess that he knew she was, and kissed her as he entered her. She was slick and ready, and her hips rose up to meet him.
They coupled on the bed, on the chair, on the couch, leaning over the ottoman ... every position he had ever imagined and several others that he hadn't, and he loved her in every orientation.
It didn't matter if he was breathing in her feathery dark hair, or caressing her arms, or holding her hips as he thrust into her, it was all magical, musical, and deeply mystical.
When he finally came, after bringing her to heights of pleasure several times, he felt like it was the emotional and physical completion he hadn't known he was seeking for his entire life.
***
A sharp rap on the door woke him.
Disoriented, Tony sat upright in bed, grasping at empty covers in the space where Amber had been. Sunlight spilled around the corners of the curtains, and he could see in the light that her clothing was gone; there was no trace of her anywhere. He rolled out of bed and staggered out of the bedroom as the knocking was repeated, more impatiently than before.
“I'm coming,” he roared, and he nearly paused for the bathrobe before deciding that it served whoever it was right to meet them naked at the door.
Scarlet, dressed in a perfectly crisp linen skirt suit, looked entirely unfazed by his nudity.
Of course, Tony decided with chagrin. She did run a clothing-optional resort, after all. He, on the other hand, would have appreciated having a layer of clothing to give him some shreds of dignity. He settled for a dark scowl, crossing his big arms at her. “What do you want?”
“It's not what I want,” Scarlet said, all business. “It's what you've been hounding me for all week.” She thrust a file folder at him, all but forcing it into his hands. “I've cleared your background,” she said, no hint of apology in her voice for her earlier obstruction.
“About time,” Tony said gruffly, recognizing his own lack of graciousness. He opened the file folder to flip briefly through a stack of xeroxed forms, one for each of the missing shifters. He suspiciously wondered if Scarlet had purposefully delayed long enough to falsify the information she was giving him; there was something secretive about the woman that he couldn't quite put his finger on.
“You're welcome,” Scarlet said coldly, and she turned on her heel and stalked away.
Tony shut the door behind her a little harder than he meant to, and crossed the room to the desk. He tapped a finger on the file folder, then looked through the open door to the bedroom with a furrow in his brow.
It bothered him that Amber was gone. It was deeply unsettling that she had been able to leave without waking him, and it gave him pangs of worry that she had wanted to.
Maybe she had just gotten hungry, and hadn't wanted to wake him? It was mid-morning, maybe she was generally an early riser. Tony tried to find some peace in the idea, and failed to.
As much as he wanted to immediately go find her, he decided instead to get dressed, and get back to the job at hand.
He had work to do.
Chapter Thirteen
The sunrise, peeking in through the gaps in the curtains, had pried Amber's eyes open, and she crept out of Tony's cottage using all the cat-silent skills she'd honed as a teenager. Tony barely stirred as she dressed herself, and she carefully latched the front door behind her, smiling to remember how it had gaped open while they made enthusiastic love their first night.
She had certainly taken her intention to have fun seriously. Her smile felt brittle, as she remembered that her time here would end altogether too soon, and she'd be saying goodbye to the big, charming man who had captured her heart.
The walk to her cottage felt impossibly steep and lonely.
She put on a clean pair of shorts and a plain babydoll t-shirt that flattered her curves but wasn't as revealing as the shirt of the previous night, and finished the look with a pair of low wedge sandals. She paused to look at her reflection, and grimaced at herself. Her long dark hair and slightly dusky skin could have been anything–Hispanic, perhaps, or Middle Eastern. Someone had once told her she looked Native American, and another had suggested east Indian. Her brown eyes were strangely light, and her cheekbones not quite right for any specific nationality. Her diminutive height suggested Asian, but the shape of her eyes did not.
Maybe South American, like her animal form? Amber pushed the idea away. She certainly wasn't going to figure out her origins here, as she had half-hoped she might. She didn't look like any of the Costa Ricans she had met, and no one had ever heard of an Andean mountain cat shifter.
Her stomach reminded her that dinner had been very early the previous night, before a great deal of activity.
A sign at the dining hall door reminded visitors that clothing was required for establishments serving hot food, and there was a rack of bathrobes, in case someone was caught by surprise.
“Oh, you must be new! Welcome, Honey! We are so happy to have you here! I'm Breck, and I'm here to make sure you have a lovely breakfast.”
The server who greeted her as she walked in was as gregarious as the gardener had been chilly, but was every bit as gorgeous, leaving Amber to wonder if one of Scarlet's employment requirements was time spent modeling for GQ. He was tall and well-muscled, with a graceful slink as he walked her to a table on the porch. “Chef has something special on deck for breakfast this morning,” Breck promised suggestively, winking at Amber as he pulled out the chair for her, and then unexpectedly spread a napkin in her lap.
“Chef,” it turned out, was a distinguished older man who cared enough about his clientele to come out and check with her halfway through the exquisite meal.
“I've never had souffle before,” Amber confessed to him. “And until today, I would have not guessed that I like artichokes.”
Chef looked ridiculously pleased. “The secret is fresh eggs and good cream,” he said proudly. “The bacon crumbles don't hurt anything,” he added conspiratorially.
A
mber indulged in a second plate, with a side of fresh fruit pieces and another cup of strong, dark coffee.
Her table gave her a wonderful view of the dining area, and she people-watched shamelessly, enjoying the way that Breck doted on his customers, and how friendly and cheerful the other guests were.
One woman in particular Amber had to keep herself from staring at–she had clearly been there some time and knew all of the staff by name. She held herself like a queen, confident and assured as she directed her breakfast. She was gorgeous, with loose, waist-long, brunette hair and flawless makeup, and she was also the largest woman that Amber had ever seen. She honestly wasn't sure how the woman's chair held her up, and half-expected it to crumple beneath her at one dramatic gesture of her hand.
“That's Magnolia,” Breck told her, refilling her coffee. “Isn't she just a dish? She's one of our long-term residents and we all just adore her.”
Shamed to be caught staring, Amber quickly finished off her plate and drank the last of her coffee.
She had a moment of hesitation as she left the dining hall–an odd expectation that she ought to be somewhere, doing something, and she wasn't sure what that was.
“You're on vacation,” she reminded herself. Most of her wanted to scamper straight back to Tony's cottage and see if he was as much fun to wake up as he'd been to go to sleep with. But she didn't want to appear too desperate or clingy. Just a vacation fling, she told herself firmly. She turned her sandaled feet past the pool towards the beach.
The winding stone paths led her to one edge of a long crescent beach, bright sand edged with emerald green shrubbery on one side and sapphire blue ocean on the other. She passed a cottage being renovated by two shirtless men who lent support to her theory about Scarlet's employment practices. She smirked to compare them in her mind to Tony's gorgeous physique, then scolded herself for thinking about him again.
The beach had a collection of comfortable chairs, and a small open structure that held a tiny bar (with no bartender in sight), piles of fluffy towels, and an array of sunscreen bottles. There were even a few pairs of sunglasses in miscellaneous sizes, in plastic bags to imply sterility. There were sturdy umbrellas, spaced along the beach. At the far end of the beach was a dock, where a single sailboat was moored.
But what made Amber stop and stare, gape-mouthed, was the lifeguard. Curled around the guard tower was a dragon, as big and real as life, gleaming green and gold in the early sun. She might have guessed it was some crazy jeweled sculpture, but it swiveled a long mobile face towards her, and blinked curiously at her twice before returning its gaze to the ocean, where a few people were splashing on body boards.
A dragon!
She had heard rumors of mythical shifters, but hadn't expected to ever meet one, and now that she was faced with one, she couldn't do more than stare in shock. She felt foolish for feeling special for being a rare cat shifter.
After a long moment, she gathered up a towel and chair, and found a spot near the end of the beach, where the sand curved around towards the head rocks so she could surreptitiously watch the dragon while still facing the water.
She closed her eyes, drinking in the feeling of sunlight on her skin, and tried to relax to the mesmerizing sound of the waves and the wind in the jungle leaves.
She was unsurprised to open her eyes and find Tony, wearing only shorts, walking over the sand towards her, his own chair and towel tucked under his arm. The leap that her heart gave in her chest was both thrilling and unwelcome.
How many times was she going to have to remind herself that this was not a real relationship? The thrill of desire that went through her body at the sight of his muscled arms and strong legs was to be expected, but she needed to keep her emotions in check, and she was doing an utterly miserable job at that.
“You left,” Tony said accusingly, when he was standing right next to her. Clearly, she had violated some expectation of courtesy, in his mind.
Amber attempted to play it cool.
“I needed breakfast,” she said offhandedly. “I was starving! And you know, no predation, so I figured I'd better head to the dining hall.”
Tony set up the chair close enough to her that their armrests touched.
With anyone else, it would have been a ridiculous infringement of personal space, but she had a crazy hunger to keep him as close as possible, and she loved being able to brush her arm against his. He captured her hand in his own as he settled down beside her, and Amber felt irrationally like she was coming home.
The beach, which had been lovely and peaceful before he came, reached a new level of nirvana.
“Was breakfast good?” Tony asked, tipping his head back so he could smile across at her.
Amber licked her lips in memory. “Exquisite!” she said enthusiastically. “You missed a treat.”
“Alas,” Tony said, with mock tragedy.
“Chef should be in a restaurant in New York City that you can't get reservations at for a week,” Amber said, pretending she knew anything about high-end restaurants. “Scarlet has done an impressive job staffing this place.”
She felt Tony's hand stiffen under her fingers.
“You don't like her, do you,” she guessed, before she could stop herself. None of your business, stupid, she told herself.
“I don't trust her,” Tony said. “She's been ... obstructionist.”
Amber tipped down her sunglasses and looked at him. “You're not really here for vacation,” she said suspiciously.
Tony squirmed.
“I'm sorry,” Amber said swiftly, loosening the grip of her hand so he could pull free if he wanted. “You don't have to tell me. It can be just a vacation if you want.”
But Tony squeezed her back. “I'm part of a top secret government agency, and I'm here as part of an investigation.”
Amber blinked at him, but somehow wasn't as surprised as she thought she ought to be. “What are you investigating?” she asked.
Tony seemed to relax a little, the beach chair groaning a little as he settled. “Shifters have been going missing from this resort in particular for the past several years–sometimes they vanish on their way here, sometimes after they've checked out. One was mysteriously lost at sea during their stay, no body found. It's all been going on about as long as Scarlet has been here. There's some thought that another government entity was poaching potential agents, but I think something more sinister is happening; the missing people don't all fit the profile.”
“And you think Scarlet might have something to do with it?” The idea was chilling. More chilling, “And there's a government agency that knows about shifters? As in, the American government?”
“It's more like a ... an ... x-file agency,” Tony floundered. “That happens to know about shifters. We deal with all sorts of weird cases, but they aren't all shifters.”
Amber glanced down the beach at the dragon who was still attentively watching the swimmers “Is there a ... registry?”
Amber was sitting up in her chair now, all attention and no part relaxation. “Are they worried about ... I don't know, an uprising, or a shifter revolution? Should we worry about being on a list?” Bad movie plots flitted through her head.
“Nothing like that.” Tony shook his head with confidence. “Most shifters are peaceful and perfectly legal. We only deal with the criminal elements, and our records aren't public.”
“Ooo,” Amber couldn't help saying. “Criminal elements! You're like a James Bond superspy, aren't you!”
“But with a lot more paperwork and a lot less flying burning helicopters and disarming bombs,” Tony laughed.
Amber laughed, then sobered and bit her lip. “You said you have records,” Amber said, not sure how to proceed.
Tony was not oblivious to her train of thought, following her line of questioning to its logical conclusion. “You want to know if there are more like you. Maybe your parents.”
“I'm sure it's not as important as shifters disappearing today,” Amber sai
d, heart in her mouth. She gave a dry laugh. “And I have to hope they aren't on the wrong side of the law.” But if they were, would that explain why they gave her up?
The combination of the idea, and Tony's intoxicating closeness, made her feel dizzy and unsettled. Just a vacation fling, she wanted to scream at herself.
“I can check,” Tony said, making circles on the back of her hand with his thumb. “I will. If we've got any information, I'll find it for you.”
Amber let the air out of her lungs all at once, not realizing that she had been holding her breath. “I'd appreciate that,” she confessed in a small voice.
“It doesn't matter to me,” he told her gruffly. “Where you're from, who your parents are. I don't give a damn.” He looked at her so intensely, his brown eyes warm and direct. “I know who you are, and you're beautiful.”
Amber blinked at him, overwhelmed. She could no more doubt him than doubt the air she was breathing, but it made no sense. Tony's eyes were full of promises, not empty flattery–promises of love and life together. She tried to remember that this was a vacation fling, but could only see the warmth in his eyes and remember the way they had kissed and made love, and wonder if it could possibly be something more.
I don't get happy endings, she reminded herself fiercely. Too many times she had longed for stability, for family, only to have it ripped away.
Amber couldn't make sense of the emotion swirling in her chest. “I have to go!” she said loudly, in terror and confusion, and she scrambled backwards out of her chair, tipping it over. She fled over the sand, stumbling and staggering over the uneven surface ungracefully.
“Amber, wait … !” Tony said behind her and Amber ran faster.
The dragon lifeguard turned in alarm, hearing their commotion, but didn't uncurl itself from the lifeguard chair.
She made it back to the dining hall faster than she expected, badly winded by the uphill sprint, and she leaned against the stone wall panting.
“Amber!” It wasn't Tony, but Amber's alarm was no less. Jimmy was putting a cellphone in his pocket. “Your timing is perfect,” he said with a big smile. “I was just organizing a tour of Mr Big's estate gardens for a few of the guests. Wouldn't you like to join us?”