by Cherry Adair
She frowned. “With what?”
“Getting the wet suit off; it can be tricky.”
“Sure.” Wet suit or body armor, nothing would protect her from his heated gaze. He reached between her breasts and tugged down the zipper. A wash of cool air hit her damp skin. She shivered. But it wasn’t the cold that made her skin pebble, and turned her nipples painfully hard.
The deliberate brush of his fingers sent a delicious shiver through her. He helped her remove the mask from where she’d shoved it on top of her head, turned to place it neatly in the plastic tub of fresh rinse water. He then slid his warm hands against her cool skin inside her suit to peel it off her shoulders. Every touch sent an erotic message down her nerve endings. Her body was having a party, as everything came alive and surged with heat.
“I still have—”
He peeled her suit down just below her breasts, then carefully readjusted the top of her bikini to cover her, blocking her body from view from above. She gave the crown of his dark head a speaking look, which he missed completely, because he was looking down and gliding his cupped hand inside the flimsy red fabric almost covering her breast, shifting not the fabric, but the weight of her breast.
“Plenty more to try out,” she added, getting breathless. “Fluffy’s going to love one of them.”
“Or just be happy to be called to dinner,” Logan teased, running his thumb over her distended nipple. “And you are not calling any dog of mine Fluffy.”
Daniela’s feet were planted firmly on the deck, but her upper body swayed toward him as if drawn by a powerful magnet. Her nipples peaked and a different moisture pooled between her legs. She wanted him to touch her, but he stayed where he was, a couple feet of rain-washed deck between them. She wanted him. Now.
“Ho—how about Killer?”
Logan finished adjusting her top, then dropped his hand, shifting away a few inches, locking his eyes with hers.
She licked her dry lips, tasting salty seawater, and saw his eyes flare as they tracked the movement. “Rocky?”
His eyes, dark with knowledge, met hers as he hooked his thumbs into his wet suit and slowly peeled it the rest of the way, the backs of his hands brushing hers as he tugged it down his strongly muscled legs, hairy, and shiny with moisture, over his feet. “Ready for a hot shower?”
“Would you mind helping me get this off? It seems to be stuck r-i-gh-t here.” She pointed to her hip.
Eyes level with the hard throbbing pulse at the base of his throat, she was surprised that the rain spattering their bodies and trickling down their faces and hair wasn’t turning to steam. She pressed her open hand over his heart, feeling the hard thump-thump-thump that matched the timpani of her own.
“Tricky suckers to get off. Takes practice. No time to get it off now.” He grabbed her hand and started tugging her toward the ladder. “We have to hurry.”
“Why? Does someone else want to wear i—” She let out a little scream of surprise as he put his hand under her butt and boosted her halfway up the ladder. “Okay. Okay. I’m moving.”
Daniela didn’t doubt for a moment that he’d catch her if she tumbled backward, but she curled her fingers around the rail and hauled herself up on deck in record time, even hampered by the wet suit dangling around her hips.
She wasn’t steady on her feet yet, when Logan grabbed her about the waist and hustled her inside. Through the common room, up two flights of stairs, he pulled her along as if there were a three-alarm fire. Her heart beat so fast she couldn’t hear their wet feet slapping against the teak floors. “Logan, slow down—what on eart—”
Her back thumped against a closed door, as he pressed her hips between his erection and the wood at her back. His fingers speared into her hair, the small pain turning her on even more. He shoved the bikini bra up, his large hands urgent on her sensitized skin. Her breasts were cupped in warm, hard male hands that knew what they were doing.
“Ahh,” she sighed as he kissed her ravenously.
His fingers gripped her ass, pulling her up onto her toes so his hardness fit perfectly. She fought to get a hand between their bodies to fumble with the waistband of his trunks. Wrong angle; his body was too close. She whimpered and tried to tug them down, wanting the prize hidden behind the thin fabric.
“Everyone knows what we ran up here to do.” She bit his chin, then lifted her face. Sweat and rain dewed her skin, and it felt as though she was on fire from the inside out. Her skin burned. Her entire body vibrated. She needed to feel his hard hot length buried inside her to the hilt. She had to have his mouth, his hands, his—anything, everything, on her naked breasts. Now. Now. Now.
“Don’t give a damn.” Logan’s mouth crushed down on hers again, his tongue a hot spear. She met it with her own, a duel that both won. He shifted to change the angle of her head, and she wound one leg around his, to get closer contact. A small, reptilian part of her brain, the part used for self-preservation, reminded her that they were standing in the hallway outside his cabin and she was still half in and half out of a wet suit. Any minute some security guy or a crew member was going to get an eyeful of her bare breasts, as Logan had somehow managed to maintain his hold, kiss her, and yank her bikini top off. Devilishly clever man, Logan Cutter.
The euphoria she’d felt under the water increased tenfold with Logan’s touch, coursing through her body, making her feel invincible. She used the wall at her back for leverage and practically climbed his body, her legs spread around his narrow waist. Winding her arms around his neck, she pressed her aching breasts hard against his chest. The bulk of the half-on, half-off wet suit clumped around her waist. “Clothes! Off. Now!”
The hand in her hair left and she heard a vaguely familiar ding right before the door opened behind her, causing them to practically fall into the room. Still kissing her, he walked her inside, then kicked the door closed, shutting them into the cool dimness.
He crowded her until her back slammed against the wall just inside the door. Daniela slid down his body, both hands going to his shorts, dragging the fabric down his legs. She pressed her way back up his body, kissing everything in her path until she got back to his lips. She kissed him with everything she had, using one bare foot to push his shorts the rest of the way to the floor.
His hands skimmed the wet suit farther down her hips, then went to the ties at her hips. “Too damn slow!” she urged, trying to strip her wet suit off while one hand was in his hair, and her mouth was making love to his. Between them, they seemed to have too many limbs as they tangled and clashed, each trying to perform the same tasks. A giggle burst up through her chest, and she had to tear her mouth from under his to laugh and breathe at the same time.
“Five hundred men know exactly what we’re doing in here right now,” she told him breathlessly as he walked her backward toward the bed.
“And every one of them is jealous.” He scooped her up in his arms. Laughing, Daniela wrapped her arms around his neck for the short trek across the cabin. The wet suit hung off one ankle, and her bikini bottom was undone only on one side. Her laughter died away. On fire for him, she pulled his head down and gave him a full-on French kiss guaranteed to blow his mind.
It was like a boomerang as a bonfire of lust and need burst through her. She was barely aware of being dropped onto the mattress, and then Logan was there between her spread thighs. She pulled his head down to kiss him. His hand closed around her breast.
Heat licked her skin, and desire liquefied her insides. She was on fire for him.
His tongue pushed into her mouth, and she met it with her own, welcoming, hungry for more.
Even as his mouth came down on hers, he was caressing her breast. He pushed his knee high up against the juncture of her thighs and she whimpered with need.
His mouth silenced her as he crushed his lips on hers. His tongue swept into her mouth, hot and slick, greedy. Fingers raking through his hair, Daniela kissed him back. He tasted of coffee, he tasted of lust. He tasted of desire.
His large hands slid around her hips to cup her ass, pulling her tightly against him. He was hard, and long, and her body jerked in response.
As she framed his face with her hands, they devoured each other. She felt the rough tug as the damp fabric of her bikini bottom was slowly threaded from between her legs.
His hand skimmed down her body, savoring the silky texture of her skin, shaping his hand to the curves and indentations that flowed from one to the other, the swell of her breasts to the flat of her stomach, the flare of her hips, the notch between her legs.
She moaned softly, rubbing her nose back and forth in his chest hair. He nudged her face up, taking her mouth like a pirate plundering a treasure ship. No holds barred. Winner takes all.
Logan flexed his hips and surged inside her. Arching her back, she gave a soundless cry. His arms bracketed her shoulders, his biceps and triceps bulging as he hammered his hips in a pounding rhythm that had her heartbeat manic, and her head thrashing on the pillow. Her hips came up in counterpoint to meet his every thrust.
But it was more than heat, more than raw lust between them, making her heart rage. Every touch of his hands, every press of him against her made her feel treasured beyond words. Made her feel safe. And no man had given her that gift before.
If this is what Logan meant by diving, she’d gladly dive every morning, noon, and night to be in his arms.
Fifteen
Two nights later, Logan untangled his body from Daniela’s, missing her warmth as he left the bed. After making love, he’d insisted she dress. She had donned shorts and a tank top, and fallen face-first back onto the sex-rumpled sheets. Asleep before her head hit the pillow.
His body was well satiated, but his mind buzzed with details. How to keep her safe, how to protect the treasure as well as his crew.
With Wes awake and on guard in Daniela’s cabin next door to his, a man on the balcony outside, and two men posted outside his door, Logan had stolen half an hour to himself while Daniela pretended to sleep. Maybe without him there to distract her, that would become a reality. She was strung tighter than a bow.
He locked the door behind him, jogged to the top deck for midnight tai chi. The moon hung high in the sky, surrounded by twinkling stars. The sound of the waves slapping against the hull was more comforting than the dozens of strangers occupying his boat, but even the waves held an angry undercurrent.
Slower breaths calmed his racing mind as he performed the tai chi forms by rote, concentrating on the steady beat of his heart and feeling the stretch of his muscles as he moved. The teak deck beneath his bare feet retained a hint of the sun’s warmth, physically grounding him so he could sort out his chaotic thoughts. It had been forty-eight hours since the counterterrorists had arrived. Forty-eight hours since his world was turned upside down, and yet the moon still shone, the ocean gently rocked his ship, the men slept and ate and dove as if nothing had actually changed at all.
It went against the grain to unearth the treasure he’d been anticipating, and then leave it where it was, a hundred and fifty feet under the ocean. But with the next days or weeks of uncertainty, he didn’t want to add a boatload of a haul, valued in multimillions of dollars, into the mix of potential craziness. It was safer where it had been for four hundred years. Things were complicated enough without having the treasure on board.
He agreed with Wright’s strategy. Bringing the senator’s people on board rather than going after them would confine them, making corralling and neutralizing them easier. Yeah. He got that intellectually. But he’d much rather go to where the bastards were holed up and take them out. Now. At least that way he’d have a say in the when and the where.
If Stamps’s men were thwarted, the senator would get desperate enough to launch a more personal offensive.
Now it was a waiting game.
Logan didn’t like waiting. But he was damned good at it. He’d had enough practice over the years. Waiting for his father to come home. Waiting for his brothers to grow up. Waiting for a woman like Daniela who tilted his well-ordered world sideways.
So he waited.
But not with his usual sangfroid.
Moonlight tai chi usually brought his mind and body peace, but tonight the precise, languid movements didn’t bring him what he sought. A Glock lay incongruously beside the towel he’d tossed over the table. Breathing in again, striving to block the negative, he closed his eyes as he identified each separate smell on the still night air.
The scent of ozone, of brine, of the men patrolling the decks around him like shadows, of gun oil. Barbecued bass they’d enjoyed for dinner. But it was the spicy musky fragrance of Daniela clinging to his hair and skin that overrode everything else.
The air was muggy and close, sticky against his bare legs and chest. The ocean looked and sounded as irritable as he felt, the whitecaps’ agitation captured by the lights from the ship.
Sea Wolf was crawling with security. The men he’d hired, and the T-FLAC operatives who never seemed to rest. Stamps hadn’t made a move for forty-eight hours, but none of them had let their guard down for a minute, and the tension could be felt like a heavy, electrical net over all their activities.
The fast-moving clouds rolled in, blocking the moonlight and the stars, but there was plenty of illumination. Lights on board, interior and exterior, burned 24/7. No shadows. Nowhere to hide.
The ship wasn’t quiet. The usual noises were somewhat obliterated by the sound of booted footfalls on the decks and corridors as security patrolled. There was barely an inch of space on board not occupied by a heavily armed professional. The senator was now campaigning in Colorado. According to Derek Wright, the senator’s hired thugs were holed up in a cheap hotel in Punta de Bombon, a town five hundred miles south of Lima, and a mere seventy miles from where the Sea Wolf lay at anchor.
He wasn’t the only one too wired to sleep. His dive team had decided after dinner that they’d move a couple of hundred bins holding small artifacts and coins down to the storeroom in the hold.
It wasn’t necessary, just busywork. But the hope was that it would tire them out, giving them something else to think about.
Logan executed a Chen Four step, then paused as a thump broke the stillness of the night. He nodded in greeting to one of the security guys as he passed by on patrol, then went to the rail to peer down as he yelled, “Guys? Need a hand?”
“We’re good.” The voice was distorted, probably from the weight of the bin being carried.
“Be with you in ten,” he shouted back at the sound of another thump.
Jed had gotten rid of the Sea Witch. Logan hadn’t had a chance to talk to him in the general organized chaos that had ensued yesterday. Quadrupling the people on board made it a logistical feat to ensure that everyone had a place to get some shut-eye. Meals had to be served around the clock to accommodate this many people. Hipolito was in his element, and was busy enough to welcome Daniela’s assistance, killing two birds with one stone.
As he moved, Logan observed the lights from some of the distant ships. There was no way to keep everyone away. The second it had been sent out over the radio by one of the observers that Sea Wolf had found La Daniela, and that they’d already discovered a wealth of jewelry and artifacts, people had come from all over to see. There were perhaps half a dozen boats adhering to the one-mile limit, who just wanted to observe, and get a glimpse of the treasure.
Several of the T-FLAC operatives had taken the tender and gone out to interrogate every one. Most, just day-trippers curious about the process, had hightailed it out of there, not wanting trouble. A couple of boats, potential pirates Logan suspected, lingered. The extra security ensured they stayed away at the legal one-mile limit.
“Logan!”
“Be there in a minute,” he yelled back. The voice had come from the lower deck where the guys were handing up the bins from the dive platform. He heard a muffled groan, and grinned. Those bins weighed upward of fifty pounds, and moving them was a bitch, no mat
ter what the value of their contents. He had a warm willing woman waiting for him in his cabin. But he’d give the guys a hand for an hour.
Sticking the gun in his waistband at the small of his back, he wiped his face with a towel, and jogged to the stairs heading to the next deck, passing two more black-clad operatives as he took the outside stairs three at a time.
“Okay,” he shouted as he hit the lower deck where his guys were. “Serious muscle has arrived. Step aside, my man.”
A sweep of his gaze stopped Logan in his tracks.
A man’s legs protruded from the open slider exiting the common room. “Shit!” Logan ran.
First thought, the worst. Stamps’s men had somehow managed to sneak aboard. But since that was highly unlikely, considering how many good guys patrolled the ship, and how well lit everything was, his next thought was heart attack. Light from inside shone on Galt’s bald head. Damn. He started to crouch beside him, then saw the shiny red blood on his friend’s face and head.
“Behind you!” Cooper yelled, tearing around the corner at a dead run, two shadowy figures behind him. Without pausing, he thrust out his hand and vaulted over the rail into the water. The kid hit the water with a loud splash. Smart move.
Logan swung around, narrowly missing being hit in the face as a burly guy in a wet suit swung an air tank two-fisted at his head. He hadn’t seen him, just felt the rush of displaced air.
Putting his head down, Logan rammed into the bad guy’s soft gut, felt the blunt force shimmy down his spine. They both grunted on impact. The heavy dive tank clattered to the deck, then rolled, hitting the rail with a resounding clang that was almost lost in the cacophony surrounding them.
Now Logan heard the sound of gunshots and the grunts and exclamations of men in hand-to-hand combat.
Gasping, the guy countered, swinging his beefy arm in a tight arc. Light reflected off the short blade of the knife clutched in his fist as the glint jerked up toward Logan’s unprotected belly. He danced back, felt the white-hot streak as the tip skimmed his ribs. Adrenaline wiped out any pain. Slamming his forearm on the man’s wrist, he enjoyed the sound of bone cracking, and the guy’s scream of agony. The knife wheeled out of his grip and clattered as it skittered across the deck.