She was peering into the rust-pocked mirror behind the rows of bottles, reapplying bloodred lipstick from a tube she kept behind the counter. Although her back was to him, Omair could just make out part of her reflection, and while her right hand was applying color to her full lips, her left hand was sliding what looked like a scrap of white paper into her bra.
His pulse kicked. This was it. His sign had finally come, and it had gone straight down that decidedly
off-limits cleavage. He’d misread Liliana. She was not simply looking to sleep her way up the cartel ladder—she was a pivotal player, and Omair was convinced the time and place of weapons exchange was written on that piece of paper. He needed to get his hands on that note, stat, before she passed it on to someone else.
Seducing the barmaid had just become part of his mission.
* * *
From her view in the mirror Faith saw the tall, dark man rise from his chair in the far corner of the cantina. She quickly capped her lipstick and smoothed her dress over her hips before turning to offer him a big, warm smile. But her pulse quickened at the look of predatory intent in his oil-black eyes, the sense of purpose in the set of his jaw.
The jukebox had gone silent and the bar was empty. She reminded herself the bottles were weapons if she needed them—she’d once killed a man with a jagged shard of broken glass. She’d do it again if she had to. But in spite of her trepidation, a sharp, sensual awareness spiked into her system. She allowed her gaze to dip over him as he neared.
His jeans were faded in places that made a woman think of sin. The sleeves of his denim shirt were rolled up over darkly tanned, muscled forearms, and the shirt hung open to his waist, exposing washboard abs. His hair was black as pitch, his eyes hooded. His nose was aquiline, his features aggressive.
Part of Faith’s assignment in Tagua was to identify key cartel players. She’d learned this man who’d been watching her from the dark corner of the bar for the last two months went by the name of Santiago Cabrero, and that he worked as a driver and laborer for a nearby cacao plantation. But he was not part of the Tagua cartel, and thus not part of her mission. Faith figured he was on the run, hiding some dark past, possibly a transgression of the law in some faraway place. Why else would someone choose to come to a place like this?
Faith could relate to keeping secrets—her whole life was one carefully constructed lie upon another, one alias after the next. She’d been faking it so long now she was beginning to forget who Faith Sinclair really was, deep down inside.
But irrespective of what dark secret Santiago might be harboring, his nightly vigil from the table in the corner had become Faith’s sensual pleasure, a way to while away the long, humid hours behind the bar as she waited for notice of the hit. She’d begun to watch the clock each evening, anticipating his arrival. And he’d begun to invade her dreams as she tossed and turned nights under the mosquito netting in her bed upstairs. But he’d never made a move.
Until now.
Santiago splayed his hands on the counter, leaned forward, his obsidian eyes boring into her. Faith felt her cheeks heat as he seemed to pull her into his dark aura. At the same time she became acutely aware of all the exits, of escape.
“Another espresso?” she said quietly, in the local Spanish dialect, as always, cognizant of the bug the cantina owner had placed under the bar counter on behalf of the cartel. The listening device was the reason her contact had delivered the time and place of her hit via paper and not words.
“Tequila,” he said.
A stillness went through Faith.
Santiago never drank alcohol—at least not in her bar.
“You celebrating something tonight?” she asked calmly, her pulse hammering as she reached for a bottle on the shelf behind her.
“No.” He jerked his head toward a higher-end brand along the shelf. “Not that bottle—the other one.”