Surf and Surprises

Sunday morning, Magda was at the line waiting her turn to catch the next wave when a warm voice beside her sent a shiver down her spine.

“Ms. Onassis, what a surprise.”

She had left the house at the crack of dawn because she’d known the waves at this particular beach were going to be incredible this morning. Word had gotten out and when she’d gotten here as the sun came up there had easily been twenty people on the beach. She desperately had needed the distraction and the reason for it was now standing beside her. Curse her luck.

She cast a sideways glance to the man beside her. “Mr. Winter, I’ve never seen you here before.”

“Nor I you,” he shrugged at the coincidence. “I come here fairly frequently.”

“I don’t come as often but one of the guys sent me a text to let me know the surf was up here.” The last thing she wanted was him thinking she knew he would be here. She was more than miffed she would likely never come back. Her strange attraction to the man since they’d had their meeting the week before was making her stupid. She’d had more wet dreams than she’d had in her life including the second one she’d had after falling back to sleep last night. She shuffled down the line as the next few paddlers waded into the water and began pushing their boards out.

“Well, I’ll call this a fortuitous opportunity.”

“Why?”

She saw his lips curl in a smile at her blunt question.

“I feel we got off on the wrong foot last week. Your team has been dealing with my VP of operations and it was the first time I got to hear your pitch in person. You were very quiet while your compatriots spoke.”

“Yup,” she nodded as she watched one of the guys come to the shore. Dirk? Drake? She couldn’t remember.

“Mags!” he yelled, “looking fine! When are you giving me your number?”

She made a face and looked to the sky. “Not today. I don’t see the pigs up there.”

“Someday they’ll fly Mags and you’ll have to eat your words!” he laughed as he moved to the end of the line.

“Playing hard to get?”

She shot the Paul Newman lookalike at her side a sideways glare, “it’s not a game, Mr. Winter. I am hard to get. My life is busy and complex and I don’t have time for dudes who live in their van, don’t have a job, and don’t have goals.” She was talking to him far more than most and he was grating on her nerves. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m up.”

“Same,” he winked blatantly at her before looking her up and down.

His filthy innuendo was not lost on her and his throaty chuckle followed her to the water’s edge. She paddled as if her life depended on it to get away from him. The crash of the surf, the roar of the waves and the shouts of excitement of the fellow surfers who had paddled out with her to get the next wave, had her blood singing with excitement.

“Here it comes and it’s a good one!” one of the girls called out as Magda rose from her knees onto the board.

She rode the wave all the way to the shore, the saltiness of the spray coating her skin. The sun was coming up now as she turned to watch the next group coming in on the next wave. There was ordered chaos in surfing. You took turns. You didn’t purposefully cut anyone off. You were respectful of not overcrowding the wave. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the six-foot-tall man with the lithe frame who was watching the waves and chatting animatedly with another man out on the water.

Ares Winter was a damn good-looking man with blue eyes so sharp and bright if she squinted hard enough, she could probably see them from the shore. They were like starlight. The thought from her dream haunted her. His hair, a mix of salt and peppered black and white giving him a distinguished air most his age didn’t have. He was tanned as if he spent a lot of time out of doors and the way he rode his board on the wave told her he was well practiced at what he did. She had a feeling the man rarely failed at anything.

She knew she was staring at him but allowed herself the guilty pleasure before removing her leash and walking the board back to her car. She’d done enough daydreaming for one day. This week was one of planning and preparation. They’d spent so many nights sneaking onto the Laskaris compound she was exhausted from being up far past her bedtime.

Dimi was planning to make her ex-husband insanely furious. Personally, Magda thought she was crazy. Dimi was married to the biggest jerk this side of the Pacific and the only thing worse than him was the mob boss Dimi called her father. In her shoes and with her computer hacking skills, Magda would have faked her death and lived the rest of her life on an exotic beach never to be heard from again. But her friend wanted the ability to live her life how she saw fit and it included being able to come and go anywhere she wanted with her parents’ blessing. Magda knew her family were dangerous and ruthless. Dimi herself could be a tad frightening but there was nobody who made her feel safer. Except when she was doing something stupid which could get them all killed. Magda would easily admit she felt Dimi’s latest plot could end up putting them on a mobster’s hitlist.

She began tugging her wet suit off after tossing her board against her car. Lost in her thoughts she didn’t hear the patter of wet feet on the boardwalk approaching.

“Leaving already?”

“I’ve been here since six. It’s ten now.”

“Too bad, I was hoping we could catch a wave together.”

“Sorry Mr. Winter. I have plans today.”

“Do they involve your boyfriend?”

She made a face. “I don’t have a boyfriend.”

“Want one?”

She paused in stepping out of her wet suit and realized she’d walked right into it. She bent down and shook out her suit not missing the way his eyes raked her in the bikini she had on under the black neoprene. “Mr. Winter, you, and I could quite possibly become business associates. Whatever this flirty thing you’re doing with me is, it’s not going to work.”

“Why not?” He stepped closer to her trapping her against the board she had rested against the car. “I know you like me, Magda. I saw the way you kept glancing at me during our meeting when you thought nobody was looking. You were tense and nervous. You,” he reached a thumb out and touched her bottom lip, “kept licking right here. I found myself wondering if you were imagining what I taste like.”

She was out of her league. MIT had not prepared her for bold brash men with sexual confidence like he had.

“Wrong, Mr. Winter,” she cleared her throat and met his eyes. “I had an incredible coffee before going to the meeting and all I could think of the entire time I was in the meeting was how delicious it was and how much I wanted one more sip of it. Not everything is about you,” she patted his chest and side stepped him, rounding to the back of her car and lifting the hatchback. She tried to be unaffected as he watched her cover up.

“We should have dinner. You. Me. Fancy restaurant. Good wine. Better sex.”

“Wow, straight to sex from dinner?”

He let his eyes linger on her legs. “Tell me Magda, we met four days ago. How many times have you dreamed of me since?”

She scrunched up her nose as if deep in thought and patted her finger against her chin, “um,” she started moving her fingers as if counting and then met his gaze directly, “not once.” She lied. “In fact, the only thing I’ve been dreaming of is cold hard cash once our business is concluded. Once I have the money in my bank, I’ll be ready to move onto my next project.”

“Can I be your next project?”

“Sorry, Mr. Winter,” she started to respond but he cut her off.

“Ares, call me Ares.”

“Nah, I’ll stick with Mr. Winter. We are business associates. Not friends.”

“I don’t want to be your friend, Magda. I want to be your lover.”

“Yeah, I don’t need one of those right now.”

“You already told me you don’t have a boyfriend. Do you have a man you fuck with?”

She threw her hands up, “what is your problem? I came here to surf, not be sexually harassed. Go away.”

He blinked at the pitch to her tone, “Magda. I apologize. I thought we were being flirty.”

“Me shooting you down was flirty?”

“I misinterpreted your signals.”

“There were no signals to misinterpret,” she lied as she realized he had read her perfectly well. She had been ogling him at the meeting but clearly not as discretely as she had thought she had been.

“My apologies Ms. Onassis,” he gave her a nod and then started to walk away.

He was about three steps away from her when he turned back and looked at her, “curiously, Ms. Onassis, if you could humor me. When you were tasting your coffee on your lips, while casting me furtive glances and not checking out my pecs,” he ran his hand over his perfect chest, “were you perhaps thinking you would like to share the taste of the coffee that was still on your tongue?”

She knew her eyes were the size of pie plates as he winked at her and as he ran his hand down the front of his chest down to where his suit molded below his hips to exquisite perfection, he snapped his fingers right in front of his junk. She pulled her eyes away and pursed her lips frustrated he had played her so well.

His laugh was mocking, “for the record, I would love to share an entire cup of coffee with you, but only if I can drink it straight from your lips.” He reached a long arm out and pushed her hair off her shoulder, “you’re gorgeous Magda Onassis. When you’re ready, you call me and I’ll come running.”

“Right,” she almost laughed at his comment. Gorgeous. Nobody had ever called her gorgeous. Even her own mother said she was plain.

He cocked his head sideways and studied her, “day or night. Rain or shine. You call me. I’m coming for you.” He stepped closer bridging the gap. “Can I kiss you?”

“Can you what?” she was certain her eyes were hanging out of her sockets, cursing herself as she immediately stepped into him.

His lips touched hers before she could formulate another thought and she was immediately gripping his shoulders as he kissed her mouth softly. No tongue. Just a sweet, gentle kiss before he stepped back, clicked his tongue and whispered, “wow.”

Then without further ado, he stepped back, winked at her, and turned, “Have a good day beautiful.” He sang out to her as he lifted one hand over his head as he walked away.

She tied her board to the roof racks and then got into the car and dialed out to Dimi, her fingers trembling on the steering wheel.

“Hey my pretty, what’s up?”

“Guess who I ran into at the beach?”

“Who?”

“Ares Winter. He’s showed up in the line. I have been to the beach countless times and have never seen him.” She curled her fists around her steering wheel. “He propositioned me.”

“Like eighteen hundreds Pride and Prejudice proposition.” Dimi put on a fake English accent, “my darling Magda would you do the honor of sucking my cock for the sale of your app?”

She giggled at Dimi’s teasing, “no. He flirted. Said he wanted to take me out and I reminded him we were business associates. Then he said he knew I was checking him out at the meeting. Asked me how many times I’ve dreamed of him since.” She omitted the kiss.

“Ooh, cocky bastard,” Dimi snorted. “Did you agree to go out with him?”

“No!” she squealed, “he asked me to dinner and sex! What the fuck, Dimi. Who talks like this? He’s too bold.”

“Can I say I was right in thinking he wanted to bang you?”

“Why did I call you? I should have called Sienna. She would have been far more supportive.”

“She wasn’t there to see you two pretending not to eye fuck each other in a meeting where we discussed a billion-dollar deal.”

“I didn’t eye fuck him.”

“You didn’t not eye fuck him,” Dimi teased. “Come on Mags. Live a little. You’ve been so uptight since the whole Mark fiasco.”

“He had a wife.”

“Yup.”

“And two kids.”

“Yup.”

“And another girlfriend.”

“True.”

“The only reason I didn’t get the same humiliation the poor girl got in the coffee shop was I was there by accident.”

“Also, true.”

“He deserved having his wife dump scalding hot coffee over his dick in public.”

“He also deserved having his girlfriend dump her coffee over his dick and then offer to buy his wife a new one. I still say you should have joined in.”

“No thanks. It was humiliating enough to know I was going to go away for a romantic weekend with a married man. I was carrying the Victoria Secret bag with all the lingerie I’d picked out when I stopped in the shop for the coffee.” She felt her cheeks blushing with the memory. “God Dimi, I’m so shitty at reading men, I stupidly fell head over heels with a married man and missed every sign. If I hadn’t happened upon the scene I did, I would never have known. I’d probably still be a side chick.”

Dimi grunted, “true. You are pretty gullible.”

“At least Ares Winter is blunt. He straight out said he wants to me.” Magda sighed as she leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes. “Dimi, I feel like a horny teenager.”

Dimi laughed. “I have to go walk Jinx. Darya is doing a session today so I’m laying low until we have to back and do more recon tonight.”

“We’re going to get killed. Miklos is going to catch us lurking on his property and shoot us all in the heads.”

“He can’t kill me. I’m his boss’ daughter.”

“He can kill me,” she opined. “If he does, do me a favor and clear my browser history so my mom doesn’t see it.”

“Why? What’s on it?”

“Copious amounts of porn involving men who look like Paul Newman and Ares Winter. It’s been a hard week.”

As Dimi’s roar of laughter filled her car, she joined in and the stress of being out of her element washed away. With luck, she could get through the rest of this business venture without caving into her overactive libido.