Aiden texted Papa everything was very beautiful, luxurious, and quiet here, and then pocketed his phone and went to check on Melene.
Melene’s door was slightly ajar. He crept close and leaned his head to the side, hoping to hear all was well with her without actually intruding on her privacy. Teasing her came very naturally to him. He had to keep up some boundaries and insulate his heart from the exotic and charitable beauty. It had been torture to step back rather than kiss her last night. All too soon, this assignment would be done, and he wanted to make sure they both walked away with positive feelings and no heart issues.
He heard soft, even breathing. Good. She was still sleeping soundly as she had throughout the night. She needed some rest and recuperation after all the stress of escaping from and having a bounty put on her head by General Phillip, and how miserable she’d been on the different ships, subs, and boats. Poor thing. She’d been so sweet, innocent, and fragilely beautiful as he’d taken care of her while she was sick. He cared deeply for Melene. As his assignment and a friend from home. That’s how he had to compartmentalize it.
He needed some time to work out and get himself ready to be fun and teasing but keep his distance. With Melene being so … Melene, that was going to be extremely rough.
There wasn’t a ton of space and no home gym equipment. He wished he dared take Melene to the gym on the property, but Phillip was well-connected and wealthy. From what Papa’s contacts had reported, his million-dollar offer and photos of Melene were being circulated around the globe. A few years ago, there were many places they could’ve hidden and the locals would’ve never known there was a bounty on his assignment’s head. Now it seemed internet access was as common as rice consumption. He’d seen mothers in the Philippines holding their babies while living on top of a cardboard box, gripping a cell phone as tightly as they did their own children. It was insane, and it made it harder to hide in plain sight.
He set up a circuit of pushups, pullups, tricep dips, planks, burpees, lunges, jump squats, and jumping jacks. After an hour, he was sweating profusely in the tropical air, even in the shade of the thick trees surrounding the pool, and he still had his shirt on. It was silly, but he’d loved teasing with Melene last night about the tattoo over his heart. He wanted to have some significant reveal of both of his covered tattoos, not just have her see them and that was that.
His buddies would chortle if they knew he was planning tattoo reveals to a beautiful woman. Aiden was hit on by many women wherever they went, as were most of his friends and teammates. The tough, unreachable special ops men seemed to be ultra-appealing to a lot of women.
Sometimes he and his buddies had time to take a pretty girl out to dinner, but usually not. A few of their team had developed long-term relationships with women near their home base in Little Rock, Virginia. Aiden had never found a woman he wanted to go on more than a few dates with and he also hated the idea of leaving some lady pining for him and waiting on his return, or worse, broken emotionally if he never returned. It wasn’t fair to her, and it could mess with his ability to stay detached and focused on each mission.
Jace’s wife had been broken emotionally, and he hadn’t even died. He’d gone home one day to find his father-in-law waiting to inform him they’d admitted Charisse to a hospital that specialized in body image issues. She had extreme anorexia and the root of her disorder was trying to be perfect physically so her husband would someday choose her over his missions. Charisse sent him divorce papers the day she was released from the hospital. Aiden had been there as Jace signed the papers. He told him he loved Charisse and he wanted her happy and healthy. He’d never chosen her over his missions and that was all she’d wanted. Aiden didn’t want to ever have to make that heart-wrenching choice and still saw the pain in his friend’s eyes far too often.
A couple of the other guys had also gone through divorces, coming home to find their wife cheating. Only one of their teammates, Riley, was married. From what the rest of them observed, it was rough on him and on his wife of only two years to be apart so often. Aiden tried not to join in the speculation of if the couple would last. The special ops divorce rate was last reported to him at eighty percent. Not the most encouraging number.
He forced all worries of relationships, marriage, and divorce from his mind. Where had that even come from? Maybe it was his family getting bitten by the love bug. His hilarious twin brother Thor was getting married in … was it three days or four? He sadly knew he wouldn’t make it, so he hadn’t firmed the date in his mind and let himself bemoan missing the most important date of one of the most important people in his life. No matter how much time they spent apart, he and Thor were inseparably connected.
His strong but silent brother Greer and rock-steady sweetheart of a sister Esther had recently found the love of their lives. His parents, aunt and uncle and grandparents all had wonderful marriages, or had as Granny had passed a long while ago.
Marriage was great. For people who could settle down. Aiden definitely wasn’t in that population sector. He imagined he’d be a SEAL until Papa requested him to come home permanently to protect the Delta secret, the Navy forced him out because of injury, or he got killed. Being alone hadn’t bothered him much. Until the past few days of being around Melene. Even as sick as she’d been, he’d felt drawn to her, wanted to take care of and protect her, and had been impressed with how little she’d complained and how sweet and grateful she’d been.
Hurrying back into the house, he downed a water bottle and took a shower. He dressed in a T-shirt and hybrid shorts that would be comfortable in the water or out, strapping back on his Glock 19 and pocketing his knife and phone. Hopefully Melene was open to spending a lot of time in the water. He didn’t know what else they’d do here holed up in their private oasis. He’d have to stay vigilant watching the cameras, sensors, and for any signs of danger or someone snooping around, but he thought it would be all right if they went back down to that private beach. With his high-tech phone and waterproof gun, they could swim and mess around in the water to get some energy out.
Notmess around, mess around.
He wandered back into the bathroom to brush his short hair and put on some deodorant. By mess around, he was thinking he could launch her into the air or she could try to dunk him, not kissing for long periods of time in only swimsuits.
Wow. Was the air conditioning even working in this place?
He checked the app on his phone that Papa had sent. It was set at seventy. That was a reasonable temperature. Maybe even cool for a house. Dang.
He paced his bedroom, needing to be calm and ready to face the day with Melene before he went into the main area. He had to make a solid plan of what else he and Melene could do that did not involve kissing or hugging or … He’d teased her about being on their honeymoon. If they were really on their honeymoon, he could imagine this would be paradise, but he … could not let his mind go to marriage or honeymoons.
He turned the air down to sixty-eight. Hopefully that wouldn’t be too cold for Melene.
So what would they do? Play cards? Watch movies? Swap stories? Swap saliva? Good crap. She wasn’t even awake and already his mind was wandering.
He knew what downtime was, and sometimes he even experienced it, but his team usually tried to maximize even wait time with training, exercise, research, and strategizing. Jace was an incredible leader and a crazy hard worker.
Aiden walked back out into the main area … and stopped in his tracks. His jaw slackened and his body was instantly warm.
Melene was in the swimming pool. There weren’t inside sensors and alerts to movement as that would be annoying and like crying wolf, but he should’ve checked the cameras to prepare himself for this. She was distracting him, which was just another reason he shouldn’t get involved.
Her back was to him. She was jumping around, punching her arms up and down, then running in place, then flinging her body side to side. He assumed it was some sort of … jazzercise in a swimming pool, with no music. It was adorable and far too appealing.
He’d seen many women in swimming suits. He hadn’t seen Melene in one since one of her friends had organized swim lessons in his family’s lake. She’d looked good then but hadn’t developed fully into a woman. The suit she had on now was a pale pink one piece that showed off her smooth, dark skin and her incredible shape to perfection.
She turned in a circle in her jumping, punching, and dancing state and stopped with her arms in the air, staring at him. Slowly lowering her arms, she backed into the side of the infinity pool.
“No, don’t stop,” he begged.
The patio door was shut, so she couldn’t hear him. He hurried to the glass door, slid it open, and strode out. “Please don’t stop,” he said. “That was adorable.”
Melene shook her head. “I can’t believe you saw that. I’ve been puking all over the place for days, I was stinky and ugly last night, and now you catch me doing water aerobics. How awkward am I?”