Paddle, paddle, paddle, pop. Paddle, paddle, paddle, pop. The mantra ran through Esme’s head and each time she got to the pop, her body wanted to jump up as easily as Santiago had. Paddle, paddle, paddle, pop! And she was up, standing and a bit wobbly on her feet, but standing.
“I’m doing it. Saint, I did it. I’m standing up. I’m surfing.”
“Standing, yes. Surfing, maybe in a day or so. You look amazing.”
Esme couldn’t hold the excitement inside. She tilted her head and saw that Santiago had a silly grin on his face, too. She reached her hand toward him, ready to lie back down and then she was under the water, holding her breath.
Esme pumped her arms, but didn’t move. She pumped harder and air burst from her mouth. She tried to stop the exhalation, but instead inhaled, choking on the briny water. The harder she pumped her arms the tighter her ankle tether became until her left leg was pulled in one direction and her body pulled in another, but she couldn’t stop struggling against whatever held her below the surface.
And then Santiago was there. Esme couldn’t stop her mouth from opening, trying to thank him for coming in after her, but only succeeded in choking on more salt water. Santiago tugged on the tether until her ankle released and Esme hurtled toward the surface. Her head cleared the water and she gasped in a breath of fresh air. She forgot to keep her arms and legs moving, though, and immediately fell below the surface.
This time, Santiago was there and pulled her to the surface, holding her tight in his arms while she coughed up seawater, gasped in fresh air, and coughed some more. Esme coughed for what felt like hours until her chest stopped burning and her nose felt cleared of mucus and water. Santiago’s arms clamped across her chest as he floated with her until she calmed.
“Stay on your back,” he instructed and then swam her to the surfboards, still bobbing on the surface a few yards away. He pushed her chest and arms across the front and then pushed her hips and legs until she lay lengthwise on the board.
Esme drew in a long breath and turned her head, feeling like the biggest idiot on the Bay of Banderas. Santiago’s skin stretched taught across his cheekbones, fading his summer tan. He ran his hand over her hair time and again, murmuring nonsense words. Finally she pulled away.
“Esmerelda, I—”
She waved at him, not wanting to hear him apologize for her clumsy fall into the water. Instead, she tried to lighten the moment. “I think—” She cleared her raspy throat. “I’m ready for that bath now, Saint. How about we paddle back in?”
*
A few hours later, with the moon high on the eastern horizon and her hair blowing in the cool night air, Esme turned her head at a noise on the terrace. Santiago, standing back, giving her space. So far he’d run a bath, made her tea, and stayed at least an arm’s length away from her the entire time. She wished he would stop. She wasn’t a porcelain doll who would break if he spoke or an uptight heiress who would blame him for her own clumsiness.
“If you keep avoiding me, Santiago Cruz, I’m going to tell Jack to come up with some kind of heinous garden clearing project in the morning.”
“I just wanted to make sure you were okay.” He stepped into the light and at her motion sat in the chaise next to her.
“I’m fine. I inhaled half the bay, but that was my own foolishness. I panicked, and I’m sorry I scared you.”
“I’m sorry I forced you to try surfing.”
“Oh, stop it. I’m the one who begged you to teach me, and that fall could just as easily have happened in three feet of water instead of ten. Then I’d have a bruised backside instead of wounded pride. I’m fine. You were right there with me.” She reached across the space and took his hand. “I promise you, I’m fine. And I still want to learn that paddle, paddle, pop thing—this time without adding a plop at the end.”
He smiled and Esme’s heart gave a shudder. This time she ignored the warning bells in her head and climbed from her chair to his, pressing her body as close to Santiago as she could get.
“This quiet, it isn’t about my fall, is it?” She waited but he didn’t speak, didn’t look at her. “It’s about your crash in Tahiti. How you felt when you were trapped under the water.”
A heavy breath tore from his lungs and he buried his hand in her hair. “When you went under, I laughed. You looked so comical, kind of like Gumby on a surfboard.”
“Gumby?”
He gathered her close. “Hot Gumby. But then you didn’t come back up.” He squeezed his hand in her hair as if he needed the contact to make sure she was still in his arms. “You may have panicked in the water, but I panicked above it. I couldn’t see you, not even when I went into the water at first. You were just gone and then the bubbles hit my elbow and I knew you were down there, below me. Dios, I died a little because I thought those air bubbles were your last breath.”
“But they weren’t. That was just my panic. I couldn’t move my leg and it made the water feel like a cramped hole in the ground. Then I made it worse by breathing in instead of holding my breath.”
“Esmerelda, I am sorry. I shouldn’t have taken you so deep into the bay. I—”
“Stop. Just stop. I could have said no, I could have just paddled my board back to the beach. I didn’t. I’m the one who stood up when I should have stayed prone on the board.” She rose a bit, placing small kisses along his jaw. “I’m fine, my Saint. Perfectly fine.”
Slowly, Esme rose from the chaise, took Santiago’s hand, and pulled him to his feet. “Now, you promised me a bath. I’m here to collect.”
“You’ve already had your bath. You should go to bed, get some rest.”
“I don’t need rest.” She rose up on tiptoe to press her lips against his. “I just need you.”
“We shouldn’t, Es. . .”
“You dragged me skydiving and surfing. Two of the most dangerous things I’ve ever done, and now you won’t let me take a simple bath? Nothing can happen to me in two feet of water.”
“Want to bet?”
His lips curled against hers and Esme’s heart finally relaxed. They were going to be okay. The tension that had dogged them since that meeting with Velazquez wouldn’t return. Santiago was pulling out of whatever funk her fall had placed him in; everything was fine. She hurried to the bathroom, Santiago close on her heels, turned on the taps, and waited while the tub filled.
Santiago untied the sash at her waist but he didn’t push the fabric aside. Instead, he held the tail of the sash in one hand, using it to trace the peaks of her breasts under the dragon-printed silk. Esme gasped as her nipples tightened against the material, begging for his touch. She was powerless to move, caught and held tight in the intensity of his gaze until he finally dropped the sash to dive his hands beneath her robe.
His thumb captured one nipple, pinching it against his index finger, as his mouth found the other and sucked it into his mouth. The feel of wet satin against hot skin was the most erotic thing Esme had ever felt, and it only made her want more. She pressed her body more fully against him, wanting more than the touch of his mouth and hands on her body. Reaching between them, she took his hardness into her hand, squeezing gently.
Together, they stepped back and into the bath as water sloshed over the sides of the claw-foot tub. Esme grasped the hem of Santiago’s plain white tee shirt and pulled until it was over his head and flying across the room. She pulled him down, loving the heat of his erection pressed against her belly. It wasn’t enough. This was going too slow. Esme clawed at his shorts, desperate to remove the barrier between them and Santiago groaned.
The satin robe pulled against her skin, heavy in the water, and even that inanimate touch was a brand to her skin. Santiago stood long enough to step out of his shorts before kneeling before her in the warm, bubbly water.
“Esmerelda,” he said fiercely, with his hands on either side of her face. “My Esmerelda.” And then he plunged into her. Esme wrapped her legs around his hips, pulling him more deeply into her, trying to fill
her body with him.
Santiago pumped into her slowly, but Esme matched him stroke for stroke and soon they were moving at a pace that left her breathless.
She raked her fingernails over his chest. When her short nails contacted his hard nipples, Santiago sucked in a breath. He reached between then to press against her hard nub and the room exploded. Moonbeams caught on the tiny soap bubbles, turning them into diamonds and then, as the wave of her orgasm caught her and pulled her under, the world went black until all she could hear, all she could feel, was Santiago.
*
A long time later, his body wrapped around Esme and with only a light sheet covering them, Santiago stared over her head and out the window. Her breathing was soft and even so he knew she slept. He couldn’t. Instead of sleep, when Santiago closed his eyes he saw Esme standing on the surfboard and then losing her balance. Then, just before she disappeared below the surface, he saw panic in her eyes.
It was his fault. As Eduardo always said, Santiago acted impulsively first and thought about the consequences later. This time, the consequence could have been Esme’s life. What had he been thinking? To take someone as precious as she up in a plane, to encourage her to throw herself off a hundred-foot-high platform with only a thin wire to keep her safe? And then surfing in the bay in the late afternoon with not enough sunlight to see clearly beneath the surface? He had been worse than stupid. As unfeeling as his father had always been to Magdalena.
Pulling his arm from under Esme’s shoulders, Santiago left the bed and crept to the dresser. He opened his wallet and sat on a settee to look out the terrace doors. Esme’s profile in the picture seared his soul, caused him to catch his breath.
Santiago Cruz would not treat his Esme with a combination of indifference and obsession to the point that she lost herself. He pushed the picture back into the wallet and returned to bed. She shifted as he slid one arm beneath her. Esme sighed, the soft breath tickling his upper arm, and snuggled more securely against him, tightening the band around his heart. Waiting until she settled down, Santiago vowed to be more careful around her. He would stick with their deal, but no more surfing or skydiving. No more danger. She wanted relaxation? That was exactly what he would give her.
And that meant, starting tomorrow, it was time to reinforce his emotional walls.
Chapter Ten
“Saint! We don’t need you on the board any longer.” The photographer’s voice boomed across the white sand beach, over the gentle surf, and screeched straight into the migraine building behind Santiago’s temples. “We’re going to do a few out of the water shots and then we’ll try for the wedding pics.” Leo waved him in and Santiago started paddling the board back to shore. “Where is this partner of yours? I’d like to get her thoughts on a few things.”
Where was she, indeed? Santiago twisted around to look up at the villa, annoyed that Esme had yet to appear and at the same time glad that he’d avoided her so far this morning.
The sun hadn’t yet cracked the eastern sky when he’d left her warm bed, knowing that the first step in putting distance between them was not waking up in the same bed together. He’d run five miles along the beach, showered, and dressed before going to the kitchen for cold cereal. Esme wasn’t there, which was strange. She always ate cold cereal in the morning. Captain Crunch was her favorite. By the time the crew arrived, she was behind the desk in one of her Don’t Notice Me suits, but she hadn’t followed them to the beach for the shoot. It was enough to make him crazy.
For the past five days she’d dressed in sundresses or shorts. No proper suits, no ponytails. Was this because of the accident yesterday? He knew taking her surfing had screwed everything up, but it also brought a lot into perspective, at least for him. So what was she doing?
White walls gleamed in the hot morning sunlight, crystal clear windows gleamed and greenery created a lush effect. But no Esmerelda. He glanced at his diving watch. Pushing eleven o’clock. Her insistence on morning office hours sounded in his mind for the fiftieth time and he swore. She couldn’t drop the incessant filing of papers—a pastime he hated but that wasn’t even necessary at this point—for a few hours to oversee their new ad campaign photo shoot? The woman needed to go back to business school if that was the way she planned to run Casa Constance after he was gone.
Three hours into the shoot, he called a stop and surveyed the beach. A litter of surfing pals and anonymous models on one side, a tent filled with stylists, photographer, and assistants on the other. He sighed. This should have been a fun morning. A way for Esmerelda to see that working was done on beaches as well as offices, and here she was hiding away. He should just go up and drag her down her, but it was more important that she come to him.
Santiago shook off that thought. This wasn’t about her on the job training. It wasn’t about Esmerelda following him around like a lost puppy dog. Face it, he wanted her opinion on the shots. He glanced through the last ten frames, every single one featuring his face. Paddling through rolling waves, lying on his back in the sun, pushing the surfboard below the surface so just the crown peeked out of the water. Women all over the world would love them and men would want to get their girls on the hot sand of the private Casa Constance beach. Personally, he would rather one of his buddies be featured but he was the most recognizable of the people gathered on the beach, having been in the public eye since he was a child.
If it was his face that would bring more guests and increase the going rate, he’d damn well use it.
“Over here, Saint. I want you coming out of the water and we’ll have Teena positioned so that she’s half in and half out of the surf. You’re going to walk toward her like she is the only thing you see.”
Santiago’s vision for the advertising campaign was less high-profile and more centered on the villa, but without his partner around, he had to go with his gut.
Sex sold and they had a limited amount of time to impress whoever Constance had lined up to make the final decision. Why not appeal to the baser feelings of the wealthy public to fill a few rooms? A few rooms for which those trust fund babies would pay dearly.
“Sex sells. . . and it sells so well,” Teena said, running her hands over his pecs and growling low in her throat. In another lifetime, a pre-Esme lifetime, Santiago would have taken Teena’s advances and run with them. A nice dinner, a nice time in bed, and a quick kiss off to get her out of his hair. But nothing about Teena’s spray-tanned skin, blondest-of-blondes hair, skinny legs, or nonexistent breasts appealed to him. It was all Esme’s fault. “Leo what if, as I’m lying in the sand, Santiago straddles me. Like the conquering hero.” She winked at Santiago suggestively, making it clear he could conquer her anytime he wanted—on camera or off. Great, another groupie.
Just then he heard the gasp. Esmerelda. This was not the time for her to grace the photo shoot with her presence. She was three hours too late to object to. . . Maldito! She had every right to object, just as he could have objected if he really wanted Casa Constance to be a long-term vacation destination and not some hot spot that would soon fade from the public eye.
But of course he didn’t want Casa to exist for a long time, not the way Esme did. He wanted to keep it away from his father and short-term, high-paying guests were the best way to achieve that goal. To keep the resort for a few more months and then. . .
What? Convince Magdalena to leave? He would have as much luck convincing the sun to rise in the West. No, he needed to focus on keeping Casa out of Eduardo's slimy hands.
Santiago shut down his thoughts, looked into Esme’s blazing gaze, and took his place in the waves, determined to finish the shoot. Esmerelda could have melted him on the spot with the anger shooting from her emerald gaze. If she wanted to win, she would have been down here in the sand with the rest of them. She might not agree with the shoot, but then she had ignored it most of the morning. He focused on the model at his feet.
“You’re turning Casa Constance into a. . . a. . . I don’t even know what to call th
is.” She flung her hand out to encompass the beach, the tent filled with workers and the scantily clad model at Santiago’s feet.
“We’ve been shooting for three hours-“
“So that photographer has three hours of sex footage for our ‘different’ advertising campaign? What are we going for here, Saint? A footloose resort for sexual experimentation?”
“Good grief, it’s just an ad campaign,” said Teena from her position on the sand. “This isn’t rocket science. We dropped everything to get to Puerto Vallarta for Santiago. Sex sells. Sex makes people take impulse vacations and great sex helps them remember your name after they’re back home. Get over yourself, Martha, and get with the program.”
Santiago waved his hand to stop Teena. Her words were only making things worse. Esme crossed her arms over her chest and set her jaw mutinously. Time to calm her down.
“We have plenty of shots, your precious villa won’t be scandalized, but we need a full campaign, Esme. Pictures for ads, pictures to go in high-end vacation magazines, pictures for the new website, for the travel planning sites. We need more than three shots of empty beaches and guest rooms.”
Maldito, he hated sounding like a boss—like his father—and she was pushing him straight into Eduardo’s shoes. She should have been here all morning, but no. Paperwork—busy work, if he was asked—always came first for Esmerelda Quinn. “If you’d been here you could have voiced your opinion, but since you’ve avoided the beach for the last three hours, you really don’t have a say at this point. Why don’t you scamper back up the hill and finish whatever mindless report you’ve been working on?”
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