Page 9 of Twin Deception

I reached the stool at the bar without any more incidents and plopped down, my gaze glued to the screen.

You look like a fucking treat I’ve got no business wanting.

“There you are.”

I flinched at a woman’s voice. Ripping my attention from my phone again, I glance at the blonde who’d taken the seat next to mine.Oh, yeah. You.

She leaned over. One elbow rested on the polished bar, and it pulled off a magic trick of an illusion. Her arm pushed her tits together, somehow showing even more smooth skin than before. Tipping toward me, she flashed me as much as she could in public. Reaching out to stroke her finger along my forearm as Ilay it on the bar, she lowered her gaze and tried to pull off a sex kittenish, demure look.

“I missed you.”

And I…

I nodded. “Uh-huh.”

I dismissed her, not in the mood to tell her no thanks. My interest evaporated. All I wanted was to peer at the picture of the woman I was supposed to kill.

I left, totally hooked on the image of the raven-haired young woman. As I walked out of the bar and strolled outside to the busy sidewalk alive with the tourist-driven nightlife, I scrolled down further, reading the bare-bones of her information.

Twenty-three. Birthday the fifth of April.

I grinned. That wasmybirthdate. “How about that? We’re birthday buddies.”

It was a stupid, nonsensical thing to notice or care about, but it caught my attention.

I scrolled past her identifiable facts, wishing I could get a feel for her short height in person and see what she’d reach to against me. Wondering how her weight would feel flush to mine, how those full tits would fit in my hands and?—

“Goddammit.” I rubbed my hand over my face, bewildered by how filthy my thoughts ran with just one look at her. Leaning my butt against the exterior brick wall of the resort, I settled in to skim over more and more about the woman I was suddenly very curious about.

Never before had a target turned me on like this.

And never before had a simple, single image of a woman captivated me so thoroughly like this.

What the hell…I wondered what kind of a spell was falling over me that my curiosity would be this piqued. At first sight. On the spot.

Isabel Flores… I can’t wait to find you.

4

ISABEL

The few blocks that I checked out last night seemed so different in the daylight. I hadn’t gotten a drink after all, too intimidated by the crowds of people in the bars, clubs, and touristy venues. Sometimes, it felt good to slip into a mob of people, anonymous and untraceable among many. There was a strange sense of community in jam-packed places like that. A reminder that within the diversity of ages, genders, shapes, and sizes, we were, at the core, all the same. When we were six feet under, we would all look identical, but in life, we had the color and vibrance of our uniqueness to merge and mesh and blend into something that was never static, never stable.

Always changing.

That was how I liked my life, never stationary or locked in an immobile situation. The resistance to putting down roots made the most sense for my lifestyle, and it was what I was most comfortable with.

However, sometimes, the opposite hit me. On rare occasions, I was swept away with an indescribable sense of being lost, some weird version of homesickness.

It was what dragged on me this morning, but like every other time I felt this loss, this sensation of not fitting in anywhere when I preferred a more nomadic and versatile life, I assumed it was loneliness.

I walked along a sidewalk, mindlessly taking in the local scene. Palm trees offered some shade, but it wasn’t that hot, anyway. It was a mild, pleasant day that didn’t make me sweat and prevented me from a chill. But that matched my mood, too. Ifeltmild, almost apathetic and disinterested in the usual old sight-seeing that I was attempting to get excited for.

I wasn’t feeling the vacation vibe. I wasn’t smiling and content with the conviction that I was living my life to the fullest.

If I were being honest with myself, I’d admit that I wanted to just go home.

Pausing at a storefront window, I roved my gaze over the odds and ends of locally made jewelry. It looked identical to the gimmicky stuff that was for sale at damn near every “local” shop or boutique.

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