by Cindy Dees
She looked around the salon in panic and on a hunch raced for the built-in sofa under a picture window. A yank at the seat cushion and, sure enough, it lifted to reveal a storage compartment. She shoved aside a pile of blankets, climbed inside and was encased in stuffy blackness. Feet and voices came into the salon. But they were muffled enough that she couldn’t tell if they belonged to good guys or bad guys.
Frankly, she didn’t care. She wanted no part of this fight whatsoever. She just wanted to curl up and jam her fists over her ears until it all went away.
* * *
Aiden ducked back around the corner just in time to avoid a barrage of bullets flying out of the engine room. “Hold your fire!” he shouted. “It’s me. Aiden McKay.”
“Cease fire!” someone bellowed.
He poked his head around the corner cautiously, prepared to yank back again fast. But this time no rain of bullets peppered the wall above his head. He moved forward into the engine room quickly. Someone pressed an assault rifle into his hand and he slung the shoulder strap over his head.
“Is that your formal combat attire?” someone asked drily.
He grimaced and started to make a snappy retort, but incoming gunfire silenced him. Apparently, he was just in time for a breakout from the engine room because the chief engineer, coincidentally a senior Special Forces man, hand signaled for them to move out.
For once, Steig’s obsession with good order and discipline paid off. They’d practiced this drill a dozen times and every crew member knew exactly what to do. Aiden counted his position in line. Number five. Which meant his field of fire would be to the extreme left and high. He pointed his weapon in that direction as they burst into the first stateroom to clear it. Cabin by cabin they cleared the deck, leaving men behind to ensure this deck stayed cleared and no pirates snuck in behind them to hide.
“How’s the fight going?” he asked the chief engineer during a break in the action while they waited on instructions from Steig on the bridge as to where to go next. Coordination was vital in a fight like this with multiple skirmishes in separate locations.
“Rough. Bastards are numerous and well armed.”
“Do we have any prisoners?”
“They’re fighting to the death.”
Since when did pirates do that? Aiden frowned. The plan had been to capture a few of the pirates and lean on them for information. The more they knew about the pirates’ organization, tactics and logistics, the easier it would be to take them down. But if the pirates were dying rather than surrendering, that could be a problem.
Steig’s voice crackled over the radio, ordering their team to secure the mid-decks while his men cleared the topside. Aiden was just spinning into a tiny bathroom and clearing the empty shower when a shout went up outside. He poked his head out cautiously.
The chief engineer was grinning. “They just bugged out. Pirate vessel’s retreating at a high rate of speed.”
“Tell Steig I got the tracker set on that boat. We don’t have to follow right away. Let them get out of visual range.”
Roving teams of crewmen started clearing the yacht room by room. There was no way they were allowing a single pirate to stow away aboard the Nymph and sabotage it later. The six bodies of the dead pirates would be given a funeral at sea later, when the ship was fully secured.
The crew debriefing after the attack would be very interesting, indeed. Who in the hell had those men been, and who had trained and armed them? He’d lay odds they were no ordinary pirates. Or worse, they were a sign of times to come when pirates got a substantial upgrade in gear and training.
Aiden hurried toward Sunny’s cabin to give her the all clear. She must be scared out of her mind. He reached her door and knocked on it gently. “Sunny? It’s Aiden. You can come out now. We’re safe and the pirates are gone.”
Nothing. He waited for a few seconds and knocked a little louder. Still nothing. Panic blossomed in his gut along with a sick certainty that she hadn’t obeyed his order to come down here and lock herself in.
He checked the door handle. Unlocked. Swearing forcefully, he barged into her room. Empty. He was going to kill her when he found her. Assuming the pirates hadn’t found her first and—
Oh, God. Snatched her.
He raced out of the cabin, shouting for Steig. He tore onto the bridge, panting. Thankfully, every hand that reached for a sidearm recognized him in time not to blow his head off. “Sunny’s not in her cabin,” he announced. “Has anyone seen her?”
“I assumed she was with Gemma in the panic room,” Steig answered grimly. “When was the last time you saw her?”
“In the salon.”
One of the sailors piped up. “We found a pirate in the salon. Dead from a head wound. Looked like blunt trauma.”
Christ. His worst nightmare come true. A civilian, a woman he was responsible for, hell, a woman he was interested in and attracted to, made a victim because she’d been too close to him. This was exactly why he never got close to other people! Guys in the superhero business couldn’t afford any personal attachments.
Had the pirates seized her to use as a hostage? To ensure a safe getaway? What would they do to her after they were clear of the Nymph? With every new question, his gut twisted a little tighter. This was his fault. He’d gone back to his old ways, been wining and dining the hot chick instead of doing his job and watching out for pirates. When would he learn? Women and work—at least his work—did not mix. Ever.
Sick with worry, he listened as Steig gave terse orders over the ship’s public address system. All hands were to stop what they were doing and search for Sunny.
“How come we didn’t find her when we were hunting for pirate stowaways?” Aiden demanded.
“We’re not finished clearing the ship yet,” Steig replied. “Maybe she’ll still turn up.” But the Swede didn’t sound convinced.
“What’s left to be searched?” Aiden demanded.
“The upper decks.”
“I’m on it. Starting in the salon. I’ll see if I can find some hint there of what happened to her.”
He barreled into the same room where they’d been having a romantic dinner only an hour ago. It was impossible to miss the pool of blood, broken glass and the overwhelming smell of lemon vodka. Clearly, there’d been a fight by the bar. She’d put up a hell of a struggle if the damage was any indication. He spied bullet holes in the ceiling and his heart dropped to his feet. But then he registered that it looked like an uninterrupted trail of holes, as if the fusillade of bullets hadn’t hit anyone in its track across the room.
He worked his way outward from the bar, methodically searching for clues. It was nearly impossible to go slowly, to be thorough. But he dared not miss anything important in his panic. He’d almost finished searching the room when he got to the banquet-style sofa under one of the big windows. He lifted it and leaped back with a shout of surprise. The lid banged shut on whoever was hiding inside.
He grabbed for the pistol at his hip, yanking it clear just as the sofa seat raised up again.
“Jeez, Aiden, did you have to slam the seat down on me like that? You almost broke my nose.”
He jerked his weapon up and away from Sunny and holstered it, sagging in relief. “You scared the living hell out of me, woman.”
“Are the pirates gone?”
“Yes. The ship’s being cleared as we speak. What happened in here?” He glanced over at the stains by the bar.
“I, umm, clobbered a pirate.”
“You killed him.”
“Really? I just hit him as hard as I could.”
“With what?”
“A bottle. Vodka, I think.”
“Effective.” He might be speaking calmly, but his heart was pounding a mile a minute. His legs shockingly shaky, he walked to the intercom and pressed
the button. “I found Sunny, Steig. She was hiding in the salon. She’s all right.”
A tinny “thank God” came back over the speaker.
He turned back to her. “Would you care to explain why you didn’t do as I told you and go to your cabin?”
“I tried to. Really. But a pirate was in the hall and then someone shot him and I backed in here. Then I heard someone coming and hid behind the bar and he had bad boots and I knew he was a pirate and I hit him with my bottle and I didn’t know what to do and...”
He pressed his fingers gently over her mouth to stop her babbling, which was becoming more hysterical by the second. “It’s over. You’re safe. The pirates are gone.”
And that was all it took. For the third time that day, she sobbed in his arms. They were starting to make a habit of this. At least this time he wasn’t wearing a shirt for her to ruin with her running makeup. He had to admit it wasn’t all bad having a soft, sexy, sweet-
smelling female nestled in his arms as if he was a conquering hero who could defend her from the entire world.
“I was so scared,” she whispered. “And I was so worried about you—” She broke off and took a step back to glare up at him. “What in the world were you doing, jumping overboard like that? You could’ve been killed!” She smacked him across the upper arm with enough force to sting.
“Oww! I was doing my job, thank you very much. I planted a radio tracking device on the pirate vessel so we can track it.”
“You did what?” Her voice rose in growing outrage and she whacked him a second time. “Don’t you ever do anything that dangerous again, Aiden McKay!”
She opened her mouth to berate him some more, but being an efficient man, he took the most expedient route to silencing her and kissed her.
And all of that fiery fury sparking and crackling on her skin was suddenly turned on him. Except in an instant it transformed to fiery passion that burned him alive. Suddenly, her body was pressed against his, her arms twined around his neck, her fingers tangled in his hair the same way their tongues tangled together.
He should stop this. Right now. Panic erupted in his head, but somehow it got all tangled up with his panic from earlier, and then his relief that she was alive and unharmed overwhelmed everything else in his head.
How his arms got around her, how he dragged her up against him even tighter, how his thigh rode between hers, he had no idea. The moves came back to him more naturally than he could believe. It was so easy to slip his fingers under her shoulder straps. To slip them off her shoulders. To taste the smooth flesh exposed there.
Man, it had been so long. Craving for this most basic human contact rolled through him like a tidal wave, drowning the tiny voice in his head warning him not to go here, that this would end in disaster, that people would get hurt.
Who was he kidding? This was who he was. He’d been a ladies’ man his entire life, and no empty promise to himself that he was done with women was going to change that. A lifetime’s worth of habits wasn’t going to change on some whim that he should turn over a new leaf.
He backed her up against the wall, and hands were everywhere. Hers, his. Clothes fell away from warm satin skin. His mouth was on her flesh, her mouth on his. It was a mad, chaotic rush of long-denied craving breaking free, until it dawned on him abruptly that they were naked and on the floor and about to consummate their very young relationship.
At long last, the voice inside his head shouted at him loudly enough to be heard. It screamed at him to stop this madness. He froze. It was impossible to ignore the press of her breasts against his chest or the sleek softness of her belly against his, but he tried. “Uhh, Sunny. This is happening pretty fast. We should cool it. I don’t want to rush you.”
“Rush, dammit!” she panted.
The little voice in his brain swore violently. She was supposed to call a halt to this. Then he’d have an excuse to back away from the abyss. To keep his flimsy promises to himself. She wasn’t supposed to cling to him as if she couldn’t get enough of him or have that sexy little catch in her breath.
Holding her was like hugging a volcano. She burned him alive. All the carefully constructed ice in his soul just melted away before the force of her sex appeal. He tried in desperation, “It’s not gentlemanly to take advantage of you after you’ve had such a scare—”
“Distract me.”
Apparently, that hadn’t been the right argument to use with her. She tugged his head close and kissed him until his toes curled and all thoughts of behaving himself evaporated in the white heat of her passion. In fact, all thought evaporated. What remained was blinding lust pounding through him until he thought he’d explode.
He jolted when her hand grasped him, guiding him into the core of the volcano. No! Oh, no. Oh, yes. Sensations he hadn’t allowed himself to feel in years burst across his brain in a fiery inferno. How had he ever turned his back on this? What in the hell had he been thinking? The pleasure was so intense as to be almost painful.
And Sunny...she was warm and soft and wild, pulling him inside her being with an abandon that was nothing short of miraculous. In short, she was everything he wished for in a woman and more.
He tried to hold back. He really did. But she surged impatiently beneath him, her legs wrapping around his hips and urging him onward. And then she laughed. Not in amusement, but in pure, unadulterated joy. He was completely seduced by her carefree exultation. She threw herself into making love with as much passion as she did everything else. But then, why should that surprise him?
Even he couldn’t ignore the magic between them. The way their bodies fit together perfectly. The delicious slide of flesh on sweaty flesh. The way the incoherent sounds she was making drove him out of his mind. The way her fingernails raked across his back in sharp, pleasant counterpoint to the massive pleasure she gave him.
Something broke within him. That wall of restraint, of distance from the human race, that he’d built so carefully over the past two years crashed down around him in a spectacular implosion. He reached desperately for its tattered remnants, but it was gone. Just...gone. What else was he to do? He gave himself over to Sunny completely.
They found a rhythm quickly and drove each other closer and closer to oblivion. It might be raw lust spurred on by sheer relief at being alive, but it was powerful stuff. She stripped away all his civilization, all his polished manners, all his polite detachment. He rode the wave building between them, losing himself in it, letting it carry him away from himself completely. It was a glorious journey, made sweeter by the vague knowledge that there would be a high price to pay for this moment of weakness.
Sunny’s breath caught and her eyes glazed over.
She gasped. Paused. Gasped again, and then let out a long, shuddering moan that sent him right over the edge. He relished every moment of their epic climax, memorizing it, hoarding it for all the long, lonely nights to come.
They collapsed together, spent.
His mind was one-hundred-percent, completely, totally blown. In all the wild years, all the wild partying, all the wild women, he’d never experienced anything that came even remotely close to that. To her.
He was able to savor the moment for a few more seconds before reality reared its ugly head and began to jaw at him. He braced himself for an onslaught of guilt he fully deserved.
Even in the worst of his wild days, at his most drunk and most debauched, he’d never, ever had wild monkey sex with women who expected anything more than that from him. He’d always made the rules of engagement crystal clear well before said monkey sex commenced—a little fun, a lot of pleasure, no commitments, no second dates. And yet, tonight, he’d blown off his most sacred tenet without a moment’s thought.
He also didn’t jump nice girls like Sunny on a living room floor where someone might walk in on them at any second. “I’m sorry,” he muttered. “T
hat was thoughtless and selfish of me.”
“You mean having fantastic sex?” she asked, sounding confused.
“No. I mean doing it here. Now. Like this. It was all wrong.”
“What’s wrong with this?” She still sounded confused. “I thought it was darned near perfect.”
“Yes, but...on the floor? In the salon? When you’re all upset and frightened?” He shook his head. “It was my mistake. I take the blame.”
She pushed on his shoulders and he rolled away from her. Sitting up, he reached for her nearest clothes and passed them to her in silence. She snatched them out of his hands and yanked them on.
Her anger he understood. It made much more sense than that sleepy, delirious smile she’d been sporting a minute ago. He’d be furious, too, if he’d been in her position.
“You’re a jerk,” she declared.
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” He wasn’t about to pick a fight with her when he was so clearly in the wrong.
She stood and marched over to the door in magnificent fury while he continued to sit on the floor, one arm propped on his upraised knee. She opened the door, pausing to look over her shoulder. “The hell of it is you don’t even know what I’m talking about!”
He frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“God, you’re a colossal jerk.” And on that note, her nose went up in the air and she stormed out of the salon to destinations unknown.
He was worse than a colossal jerk. He was a fraud. He’d spent years telling himself how noble and pure he’d become. How he was a superhero in more than just his ability to swim like a fish. That he’d embraced the nobler ideals of selflessness and service to mankind. And it was all a crock. The first beautiful, passionate woman that came along, he fell on her like a horny beast and had his way with her. It didn’t make one bit of difference that she’d been willing and seemed to enjoy herself. Even if she didn’t know it, he’d betrayed her as badly as he’d betrayed himself.