Pressing his forehead to mine, Andrew closed his eyes and exhaled. “Yes. We should.” He squeezed my nipple again, withdrawing a moan from me. “I need maybe an hour to map our route. And then I’ll thank you properly.”
While Andrew began working on GPS coordinates, I used Photoshop to alter the two photos I had taken earlier of Augustine’s sketches, first making lines bolder and more defined, and then stacking them and making the top layer sixty percent translucent. For the second time that day, my heart skipped a beat. It wasn’t a layout of a floor plan as we’d originally assumed. On the screen, I had a rectangle made out of an irregular network of paths. A labyrinth of some sort. It wasn’t as uniform or complicated as a maze—it didn’t have concentric repeating patterns—but it did have a continuous path with few smaller paths that branched out with a squiggle or a letter at the end. It was hard to understand what these symbols meant, even after I’d adjusted the brightness of the picture.
“Andrew, look at this,” I said, stretching my arm out with my iPhone. “Do you know what this could be?”
Andrew took my phone and examined it, his eyebrows pulled together. “I don’t…” He made a surprised sound. “It’s a passage… But the image looks incomplete.” He handed it back to me.
I rubbed my eyes, exhaustion having slowly distorted my vision, and looked at the image again, noticing that in some places the lines had gaps. “You might be right. Where did you get these outlines?”
“Carlos.”
“Damn. It would be foolish of us to ask him if he knows anything about them or if he could locate the other piece of the image.”
Andrew nodded. “No need to bring Richards’s attention to whatever this is. For all we know, it could be the path to the Asiento de Padua cargo in the palace’s basement.”
I gave myself another ten minutes to study the image before I left Andrew on the floor to figure out tomorrow’s journey, and went to the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth before climbing into his bed, wearing absolutely nothing—not being distracting at all. Closer to ten, someone—William—slid condoms under the door. Andrew took it as a clue he was done working. He closed his journal, plugged in the iPad to charge, went to the bathroom, took out his contacts, and brushed his teeth. He stripped off his clothes, plucked the long row of silver packets off the floor, and before I knew it, he was lording over me, the hardness of his erection pressing between my thighs.
“Do we know our next chess move?” I asked.
“Yes.” His mouth was next to my ear, his hot breaths sending ripples of lust down my skin.
“And you’re not tired?” I wholeheartedly hoped he would say no. I was spent but didn’t want to pass on another treat of Andrew’s body.
“No.” He nuzzled my neck, then his lips traveled from my jaw to my neck. “But you will be in the morning.” And then he pressed his entire length into me.
ChapterTwenty-Six
Speculating that we would be spending possibly two nights—but hopefully just one—in the jungle, Andrew and I had bought extra supplies, and I took the opportunity to pick up trousers and a long-sleeved shirt. That morning, before the sun bloomed on the horizon while the last dying stars held to the sky, we loaded our car and left the hotel, driving north. We drove two hours past the Erizo at Las Loma retreat and the opposite way from the waterfall until we found a good place to abandon our Jeep and start our hike.
We were on our fifth hour prowling through the dense rainforest and still had another to go. The jungle’s complicated depth seemed more impenetrable the deeper we immersed ourselves. My heavy breathing mixed with the constant bird calls and hoots and monkey screeching and thrashing above our heads. Sweat ran down my temples, my neck, and between my boobs. My leg muscles ached, and the backpack somehow felt as though it weighed ten times more than it had when we’d started. Even if I wanted to whine and ask to take a short break, I didn’t. Thank goodness William was back at the hotel resting his ankle. He’d been desperate to come with us to find the treasure but in his state he wouldn’t have made it the first fifteen minutes. To make William feel he was still part of the treasure hunt, Andrew had entrusted him with the safety of the book we’d located in the San Antonio church and the box with all its contents we’d found at Erizo.
“We should be able to reach the ruins before dusk.” Andrew held my hand and helped me across a fallen tree. My right foot slipped off the trunk, and I stumbled. A thorny branch caught my sleeve, ripping the fabric and biting through my skin.
“Shit.” A wave of pain coursed through my left arm, and my body slammed forward into Andrew’s.
Losing his footing, he staggered backward and fell. His hat flew off his head, and I landed on top of him, my forehead crashing into his. Stars flew out from the corner of my eyes, and temporary light-headedness threw me into a fog of confusion.
Andrew grunted and cursed under his breath.
“Son of a gun, that hurt,” I mumbled, rising on my elbows and blinking at him.
“You okay?” he asked, smoothing hairs off my sticky forehead. “We might both have concussions now.” He chuckled.
I rubbed my thumb over a red spot above his right eyebrow. “Good thing I didn’t knock out any of your pretty teeth.”
“Will you still love me if I was missing a few teeth?” he asked, now running his fingers over the probably red bump on my forehead.
My heart gave an aching jab against my breastbone at his wordswill you still love me, and that caught me off guard. Fucking hell. This was maddening. This feeling. This thing that Andrew did to me. I knew he meant it as a joke—of course, he did, and I needed to joke backyes, I will. But would it be a joke?
This was silly. This wasn’t love at first sight. I didn’t believe in that.
Or maybe it was.
Well, not exactly at first sight. It was love from the third day. Or was it on the fourth day? Shoot, I couldn’t remember when I’d fallen for Andrew. Without a parachute.
Andrew’s smile dropped, and his eyebrows pulled together in deep concern. “What’s wrong? Are you going to throw up?”
Nice.Apparently I looked nauseated when I was thinking about being in love with him.
