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Chapter Nine
Alex shut the door to her car as quietly as possible, but with a restored Thunderbird from the fifties, it still reverberated across camp like a Top Gun flyby every time she did it. Two owls sharing a bare cedar branch took off toward the water as Alex clicked the flashlight app on her phone to illuminate the trail to the staff cabins. A twig cracked underfoot, and she kicked it away, breathing in the sharp ash scent of woodsmoke that drifted in from the campfire bowl.
The conversation she’d had with Sam and Murphy felt like a physical weight on her shoulders. They’d been worried about her safety, but that was the last thing on her mind. She knew enough about sex trafficking operations to know that they were alarmingly sophisticated, and there was a lot riding on getting this undercover role right. The one thing she had on her side was the secret: the one thing that no one yet knew about her that might make all the difference when the rubber actually met the road.
Alex smiled as she rounded the corner and saw Lily through the window, perched on the top bunk with her laptop in front of her. She watched from outside of the cabin as Lily stared at the screen, her face illuminated by the blue light. She started to type several times, then stopped and looked to the ceiling, rubbing her temples with her fingertips.
Alex opened the door quietly and stepped in, tossing her jacket onto the turntable.
“Am I going to be disturbing your writing if I come in and take a shower?”
Lily smiled, shaking out her hands and closing her computer. “There’s no writing to disturb. I’ve been sitting here for two hours, and I officially have less now than I started with.” She sighed, the tension visible in her neck and shoulders. “It’s like my mind is hiding the words from me.”
Alex opened the door again, framing the endless expanse of dark lake water glittering with reflected starlight. The moon hung heavy and low over the island in the distance, the tree line at the edge shadowed like a distant mountain range.
“Well, I find most of my answers at the island.” Alex unbuttoned her overshirt and hung it on the top post of the bunk bed. “Have you looked there?”
Alex watched as Lily’s eyes follow the lean lines of her body down to the khaki shorts slung low at her hips. Alex gathered her white ribbed tank in her hand and pulled it over her head, leaving her in just a spare white sports bra.
“Ready?”
Lily slid off the bunk and followed Alex outside, where she took off her T-shirt and dropped it on the chairs beside the door. “The question is, are you ready?”
“Oh, come on.” Alex laughed, trying not to all-out stare at Lily’s bra, if you could even call it that. “That’s not even in the same league.”
It was the exact color of her skin, with narrow ribbon straps and a sheer mesh fabric just a touch more transparent than glass. Alex took a second to drink in the graceful angles of her collarbone and perfect rosy nipples before she reluctantly dragged herself back to reality.
“You’re expecting me to remember how to swim when you look like that?”
Lily tossed a wink over her shoulder and dove into the dark water, emerging a second later with a perfect freestyle stroke. Alex waded in and swam after her, thankful for the silent reprieve of the water around her. It gave her a few more minutes to stop thinking about what she’d just gotten herself into and shift her mind back into the present.
She reached the island well before Lily and settled herself on the sand, digging her toes into a drift that still held the heat of the sun. The full moon bathed the water in a silver glaze, brushing a floating gray heron’s wings with dusky light before it disappeared into the tree line to watch from afar. A warm breeze ruffled through her hair like a lover before it floated back out to the water, and the scent of cooling earth drifted by in layers from the grove of trees and wildflowers behind her.
Lily finally reached the island and walked up onto the sand, water glossing every dip and curve of her body. Her nipples were tense and dark, and it was all Alex could do not to peel that sheer bra from her body and toss it back into the lake. Lily sat down beside her on the sandbar and lay back, unfolding onto the soft surface as water streamed down her body and disappeared into the warm sand. Alex followed suit, bracing herself on her elbow, close enough to feel the heat coming off Lily’s body like steam.
“So,” Alex said, silently memorizing every curve of Lily’s breasts as she spoke. “Why were the words not coming today?”
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p; “I don’t know.” Lily gazed up at the inky sky for a moment before she shook her head. “Actually, I take that back. I do know. It’s just too soon. There isn’t space in my head yet for stories to take shape.” She sighed. “It’s like trying to carve a path through a room crammed with people.”
Alex nodded, running a hand through her wet hair. “What does that feel like, when the words do come?”
“It feels like walking through a movie I’m creating minute by minute.” Lily closed her eyes. “It’s…magic. And that’s what I’m missing.” She paused, drawing in a long, slow breath. “There has to be space for the magic.”
Alex sank down on her back beside Lily so they were both looking at the same stars.
Lily turned to her, her pale blue eyes a metallic pewter in the moonlight. “Did you always want to be a dance instructor?”
Alex laughed at that, and from the scuffle coming from the darkness, it startled whatever was lurking just beyond the tree line.
“No, I guess you could say I sort of fell into it by accident. It keeps me connected to Cuba, and I guess I’ve needed that. My normal life is usually pretty intense.”
“I believe that. You have an intensity I felt before we’d finished our first whiskey. It must come from somewhere.” Lily leaned up on her arm and trailed a wet fingertip from the base of Alex’s neck to her abs.
Alex closed her eyes, soaking in the delicate sensuality of her touch as Lily leaned in and followed the same path with the warmth of her tongue. Alex’s fingers tangled hard into Lily’s damp hair as she traced the outline of Alex’s nipple through the sheer fabric of her sports bra, then finally shifted it to the side, holding the warmth of her breath over Alex’s skin for a few long seconds before she pulled her tense nipple into her mouth, stroking it with in an insistent rhythm.
“Jesus.” Alex hesitated as Lily scraped her nipple lightly with her teeth. “Christ.”
