How many kisses were there?
“For the love of god, Andrew. Read the damn paragraph out loud. In English.”
“No.”
“Why not? It’s their first kiss.”
His eyes drifted around the room, then fixed on my face. “It’s not their first kiss. He talks about thefirsttime he kissed herthere.”
He sat still, holding my gaze, then lowered his chin a little, his gaze landing on my skirt, somewhere in the proximity of where my thighs touched.
Ah, crap, I couldn’t just drop it.
I gasped and slapped my palm over my mouth. And then I giggled. Yep. That was me when I was embarrassed.
“Just for the record,” I said, waving my hands in front of me, “I was not kissed like that in ninth grade.”
Andrew chuckled, holding my gaze. “I figured.”
I wiped tears from under my eyes. “I’m curious now, what else did he write there? Is it in poetic prose or pure porn?”
Andrew slid the sheets back into the folder. He swallowed. “Augustine doesn’t go into details.”
He stared at me, his startling eyes dark and heavy as if he was pinning me underneath him right here on this floor, on these old letters. If I were standing, my knees would buckle. Thirty years from now I might not remember all the details of a sexy stranger who dragged me to Colombia, but the way he looked at me right now would stay with me forever.
Heat surged from my toes to the top of my head as my imagination plummeted into the dangerous territory of Andrew nudging my knees apart, running his tongue up my thigh, his lips gently sucking on my swollen center, his face smug with wetness around his mouth, his hair disheveled by my fingers. My nipples began to harden to sensitive peaks.
“All right,” Andrew said, breaking my daydream.I’m a wreck.He gave me a questioning look. “Where did you go?”
“Nowhere,” I said, my voice embarrassedly thick. I needed a cold shower.
“We have another mention of the waterfall,” Andrew continued, his pupils dilated. I had the distinct sensation that he was trying to keep himself from leaping like a wild animal at me. I wouldn’t stop him. “The place where they got married. If he stopped construction on the palace, he most likely didn’t move the loot from its original location.”
Right. We were back to the business.Concentrate.
“And the note said one trunk arrived from Ángel Hermosa. Does this mean there are more trunks left?” I picked up his iPad and google searched waterfalls in Colombia. Too many results came up, we couldn’t possibly check all of them. Well, we could, but it would take us weeks. We could narrow the list down by this sketch. “So far everything Augustine has drawn has been a missing piece of the puzzle. It only makes sense to go there. The question is, do we know wherethereis?”
“Let me call Carlos.” Andrew pulled out his phone, tapped the screen a few times, and mouthedOne sec. He got up and strode over to the window.
While Andrew was on the phone, I continued browsing beautiful waterfalls in Colombia. None of them looked like the one from the sketch. They were all too popular. Curious tourists or locals would have discovered the lost treasure by now.
“I was wrong.” Andrew dropped next to me. “Cascada de Belleza Escondida is the place where they got married. Ángel Hermosa must be another location.”
“And did other things.” A teasing smile danced across my face.
“Right.” Without meeting my eyes, he opened the maps app on the iPad, and without typing the name of the place swiped his finger across the Colombia map. “It’s about a two-hour drive from here.” He zoomed in on a blue dot. “Once we get there, it won’t be a short jaunt.”
“So far, this journey hasn’t been for the faint of heart. How bad is it?”
“Four-mile hike through the jungle, mostly uphill.”
“Of course.” I rolled my eyes. “Round trip?”
He shook his head.
“Are you serious? Can we hire some horses or donkeys?”
Andrew’s gaze perused down my body, his lips curved in a private smile. “You’ll need to buy hiking-appropriate clothes and shoes. In the morning, you and William can take a car into town while I take care of a few things.”
