The very real possibility of that happening had his lunch threatening to make a gross reappearance.
“Anamaría. Alejandro.” Her father’s tone managed to convey both interest and warning.
Alejandro ducked his head in respect.
“This is a nice surprise, Papi,” Anamaría said.
Nice was not the word Alejandro would have used, but he wisely kept quiet as Anamaría stretched onto her toes to give her papi a cheek kiss.
The Navarro patriarch might have aged in the past twelve years, his hair now more salt than pepper, but the steely gravity in his voice had not rusted over time. The tall, broad-shouldered physique he had passed along to his sons remained equally as intimidating as Alejandro remembered. The older man’s piercing eagle eyes that missed almost nothing on and off the job might have a few more lines arcing around them, but they were still sharp. The authoritative yet calm demeanor that had served him well as a Watch Commander with the city’s fire department and with a houseful of rambunctious kids like his own hadn’t changed either.
Whereas Alejandro’s father’s booming voice could silence a room, one stern look from José Ramón Navarro put a quick halt to any misbehavior. The man exuded patience, respect, and a take-no-shit attitude with the perfect balance of compassion. The type of parent whose quiet disapproval weighed more heavily on you than the blustery outbursts Alejandro’s father preferred. Señor Navarro listened when you talked, but never refrained from telling you the hard truth.
Right now, his stoic expression warned of the hard truth that Alejandro better not be doing anything to hurt the man’s precious Princesa again.
“I was wondering when we would get around to seeing each other, Alejandro. Welcome home.”
“Gracias,” Alejandro answered, feeling every bit the same inexperienced teen anxious to earn Señor Navarro’s approval that he’d been the last time the two men had seen each other.
Anamaría’s dad shifted his gaze to his daughter. “¿Todo bien aquí?”
“Sí, all good. Alejandro actually saved my first AllFit shoot this morning when the photographer from Miami couldn’t make it.” She twisted her torso to send Alejandro a frazzled, I-can’t-believe-this look reminiscent of the time they’d gotten caught sneaking off her papi’s boat in her backyard after curfew.
“Happy to help,” Alejandro said.
Her crazy-eyed look relaxed before she turned back to her dad.
“The others wanted Cuban food, so we brought them here,” she explained. “We’re on our way out now.”
“Muy bien.” Señor Navarro pressed his back against the wall, making room for Anamaría and Alejandro to pass by. “¿Llama a tu mamá, okay?”
“Yes, I’ll call her this afternoon.” The adolescent moodiness his request that she touch base with her mom used to elicit when they were teens had matured into adult acceptance of the inevitable. “Although I’m sure Ale’s mom has already texted Mami and filled her in on our lunch here.”
Señor Navarro’s laugh loosened some of the tension knotting Alejandro’s neck at running into him. As they drew even, Señor Navarro stuck out his hand to shake, his firm grip tightening enough to snare Alejandro’s attention.
He braced himself for the condemnation, at the very least the censure, he expected from the man who was one of his father’s closest friends, not to mention for the way Alejandro had hurt the older man’s daughter.
Instead, he found empathy on Señor Navarro’s age-lined face and in his sharp eyes.
“Your familia has missed you, Ale.” He sandwiched Alejandro’s hand in between both of his. “I always try to remember the advice my father gave me once. A man’s pride in his work is important, unless it leads to his downfall. Perhaps my papi’s words will help you, at some point.”
“Gracias,” Alejandro replied.
He tried to consider the lesson and how he could apply it to his life. But with his father having just thrown his offer of financial assistance back in his face, he had a hard time not applying the excessive-pride lesson to his papi. Probably not the message Señor Navarro expected him to gather from the advice.
“Con cuidado.” Her dad’s grip tightened. He slid his gaze to his daughter, waiting by the side door, nibbling her bottom lip nervously.
Be careful. But what Alejandro assumed the older man really meant was: Don’t hurt her.
Señor Navarro didn’t have to worry. Alejandro would dive off another waterfall and bust up his other leg before knowingly hurting Anamaría again. If he had his way, he’d leave here after the July exhibit with the two of them amicably wishing each other well, supportive of their separate dreams. From a distance.
“Understood,” he answered, relieved when the hard line of Señor Navarro’s lips relaxed, and he released his hold on Alejandro’s hand.
Anamaría waved good-bye once more as she held the door open for Alejandro. Without a word, he step-swung passed her and out into the hot afternoon.
Once they were outside, Anamaría stopped about halfway down the sand-dusted sidewalk, halting him with an insistent “Wait!”
“What now?” he complained.
Practically everything he’d been avoiding since his return had already happened in the couple of hours they’d spent at Miranda’s.
“Smell that?” She sucked in an audible breath.
He frowned. His gaze scanned the parking lot as he took a whiff of air. Onions, peppers, fried food . . . a sulfury-salty hint of the nearby ocean. Nothing out of the ordinary.
“It’s the smell of freedom from parental oversight!” she exclaimed.
Arms spread at her sides, face tipped toward the sun with a wide smile, she took another deep breath that raised her chest, calling his attention to the swell of her breasts above the seam of her exercise bra. Head back, she exposed the smooth column of her throat. The desire to press his face to her supple skin and breathe in her scent and taste her delectable lips nearly knocked him to his knees.
Crap, less than two minutes ago and no more than thirty feet away from here, her father had flat-out laid down the law: Hands off.
And here Alejandro stood, already thinking about tracing his tongue along the hollow at the base of her throat, drawing a wet trail to her cleavage . . . lower.
Burying himself inside her luscious body.
He tried shaking off the carnal images that had only been wishful thinking when he was miles away, alone in his room or his tent or his town house. Thoughts that inevitably led to his cock responding in ways he couldn’t control. Or hide.
“Come on!” Her cry snapped him out of his delusional state to find her sashaying toward her Pilot, her seductive hips swaying from side to side with her quick steps. “Hurry up! I feel like, if we don’t get out of here soon, my mom might show up next!”
He laughed because he’d had a similar thought inside but hadn’t divulged it. A remnant of when they were kids, complaining about their parents, mostly their moms, having eyes and ears all over the island.
This new place in their relationship might still be tenuous and fresh, and he’d have to figure out how to squelch his libidinous thoughts about her, but he planned on enjoying their time together for as long as he was here.