Page 22 of Her Reluctant Hero
Christ, what a player.
She waved in Alex’s direction and the chief nodded. Isabella leaned forward and kissed the man’s cheek before she turned and approached Alex with a smirk replacing that gorgeous smile.
“What the hell was that?” he demanded.
“Vicente regrets that he doesn’t have enough food to send with us, but we’re welcome to join his family for breakfast. Unfortunately, that won’t be for a couple of hours, so he said we are more than welcome to use their facilities before breakfast.”
“Their facilities,” he repeated, beating down his disgust that she was able to charm the man when he wasn’t able to reason with him.
“A waterfall,” she said, a tinge of rapture in her voice as she pulled her hair free of its ponytail. “It will feel so good to be clean again.”
Alex checked out the river before he let Isabella go in. Just what he needed was to pick a bunch of leeches off her naked body. But calling it a waterfall was a little grand. It was no more than a steady flow of water over rocks into a clear pool surrounded by low plants—no place for predators to hide. She was safe enough.
From the moment he said so, she started stripping, and he turned, intending to go into the village.
He stopped at the edge, realizing he had no allies there. Not that it was out of the ordinary—US soldiers weren’t welcome many places. He should be relieved not to have to worry about Isabella. He could leave her here. Once he had his supplies, he could haul ass to meet the rest of his team and get the hell out of this country.
Except the DEA wanted Isabella for questioning, and they’d just send him back in for her.
For a drug lord’s whore.
Not for the first time, he wished he could see Rebecca, touch her, kiss her, take comfort in her innocence. He loved how calm he felt with her, not the tension he experienced every moment with Bella. Too much time had passed since he’d seen her and he needed the normalcy he felt with her again.
Figuring Isabella must be close to done bathing and needing to make sure she was safe, he headed back to the waterfall.
Isabella stood beneath the flow of water, her profile to him, her arms lifted to thread through her hair as the water pounded her body. She was bare-breasted, wearing only a tiny pair of pink panties. And she was humming.
Christ have mercy, she was the most gorgeous creature he’d ever seen.
She turned, opening her eyes, looking right at him as if she’d felt him watching her. She didn’t cover herself, only watched him watch her.
“Are you coming in?” she called at last.
Why the fuck not? He was filthy, sweat dried on his skin beneath layers of more sweat. He was hot and he was horny—the cool water should take care of both those issues.
He sat to unlace his boots, then stuffed his socks in them to prevent any fun surprises like snakes. He stood and stripped down to his skivvies. What the hell—he stripped those off too.
The goddess was staring. Let her look.
He stood and inspected the clear depths, too shallow to dive. So he took two steps back and cannonballed in, drawing his legs up and giving a whoop.
The pool swallowed him, cold and clear, washing away the past two days. His ass hit the bottom hard and he pushed to his feet, letting the water sluice over him. He whipped the droplets out of his face and still the goddess stared.
“Like what you see?” he challenged.
She did. She really did. His body was hard, sculpted, and there was something appealing about the dog tags resting against his bare chest.
The water came to his ribs, but it was so clear she could see down to his— And it was very impressive.
What would it be like to be with a young virile man instead of one who needed tricks to get off?
No, she couldn’t even think like that. Shepard served one purpose and one only—to get her home.
Besides, he hated her.
“Aren’t you going cover yourself up?” he asked snidely.
“Why?” she asked, determined not to let him make her feel bad about her body. “You interrupted my bath.”
