They rode for a couple of miles in silence. Then Samantha said, "Look, I wasn't sent to interfere with your operation down here. I was only sent to cover you in case of trouble. That's all. So you needn't worry whether I will mess up whatever it is that you are doing. I'll just be gathering intelligence so I can cover your back."
His eyebrows shot up and he looked at her pointedly, "Oh, you can cover me any day," he drawled, his eyes raking up and down her body and then focusing back on the road.
Samantha groaned in disgust. "I am NOT interested in you in that way and just because I am female does not mean that you have to make some kind of move on me," she snapped.
His lips curled into a smile and he kept looking forward. "Someone doesn't like to be reminded that they are a woman," he said matter-of-factly.
"It has nothing to do with that," she spat out at him. It was true that she had been treated differently on many occasions by the men at the CIA because she was a woman and that fact did annoy her but she wasn't going to let him think so.
They drove the rest of the way to her hotel in silence. He threw his sunglasses on the dash of the car and looked over at her. She was surprised to see that he had the most beautiful chocolate brown eyes. Her breath caught in her throat.
"Let's go," he said to her. They got out and she checked in to the hotel. They made their way to her room. When they got to the door, Samantha asked, "When should I meet up with you again? I have some things to take care of today and…"
He cut her off, "Aren't you going to invite me in? he asked with a playful smile on his lips.
"No!...I mean, why would I? I have to settle in and then I'll…call you…OK? " she stammered.
"OK, Sugarbutt. Call me," he said as he walked away from her door.
Samantha entered the room and shut the door behind her and leaned back against it. Why was she letting that man get to her, she asked herself. I mean, sure, he was good looking, but that personality, ugh. He was your typical macho, arrogant, ego driven male type. The kind she didn't like. Her ex-boyfriend had been like that and she was never going to be involved with another man like that again.
She needed to get supplies and some tourist clothing for this assignment. She had been sent to Mexico so quickly that she didn't even have time to pack, being pulled into her boss's office at the CIA and told she was leaving in the next couple of hours.
She opened the file on Agent Sands again and studied it. He had a fairly long and successful career with the CIA but the file didn't tell her everything. She had heard the rumors that he was, well, psycho as someone had put it. That he would kill whoever he thought he needed to without a second thought and though he had always managed to successfully complete his missions, there were often more dead bodies than were expected in the end, some of them friendlies.
Rumor was that he was sent to Mexico to get him as far away from the CIA as possible and keep him out of their hair, so to speak. Whenever he was back at headquarters he riled up the bosses so badly that they were ready to kill him. She smiled to herself. She could see that as a possibility after meeting him.
Her best friend, Jennifer, at the CIA had also told her to watch out for him. He had a reputation with the ladies as being a man who would use a girl and spit her out like used chewing gum. He had broken the hearts of many of the girls back at headquarters.
Good thing for the warning, she thought, because he certainly was a good looking and persuasive guy. She could see how a woman could fall for him. She tried not the think about that. She was here to do her assignment and would deal with him on a professional basis.
She put the file down and left her room in search of the things she needed to start her assignment. After a couple of hours she had managed to find what she needed and she headed back to her hotel room to change.
She pulled her thick wavy auburn hair up into a long ponytail and looked at herself in the mirror. She was a pretty girl with pale skin, green eyes and a turned up nose. But she was too cutesy looking, almost pixieish, to be taken seriously, she thought. To top it off she was too well endowed for her slender 5'5" frame. That annoyed her. She wanted people to look at her with respect but instead people always seemed to stare at her breasts instead of her face or laugh at her when she was serious, as if it seemed out of character.
She frowned at herself and put on some fresh makeup and her favorite perfume. She called Sands to meet with her in half an hour. It was getting late in the day and they could talk some more about what intelligence she had and then call it a day, starting her assignment seriously tomorrow. She was tired from the long trip anyway and wanted to go to bed early.
She threw on a white tourist t-shirt she had just bought along with a pair of khaki shorts and jeweled sandals and made her way down to meet with Sands.
He drove up in his car and pushed her door open. She got in and they started to drive. He looked over at her attire and nodded approvingly. "I like the shirt," he said, a smile playing on his lips. She looked down and realized that she had put on a t-shirt that read, "Mexico is for Lovers." She cursed herself silently for the stupidity of that choice given Sands penchant for joking with her.
"Yes, well I needed to look like a tourist, didn't I?", she said trying to keep her cool. He was not going to win by getting her annoyed, she decided firmly.
"Definitely," he laughed, "and you certainly do. Except…"
"Except what?" she asked pointedly.
"Except, you need the lover part," he drawled and looked at her t-shirt again and then up at her eyes seductively.
She sighed loudly, "Sands are you always going to be like this?"
"Can you dig it?" he smiled at her.
She groaned and fell silent as they drove to a restaurant he had picked for their meeting. She was glad because she was starving and needed to eat.
