“What’s that?”
She grabbed his big shoulders and went up on tiptoe. “This,” she said before slamming her mouth over the top of his.
She didn’t stop there. She took advantage of his slack-jawed surprise by sliding her tongue between his teeth. His breath was hot and sweet, just like she remembered. His lips masculine and firm. She remembered that, too. Her own lips tingled at the contact, every single nerve endingzingingwith approval.
Bran stiffened against her. Just went ahead and did his best impression of a two-by-four.Hello, Mr. Wood!But the act only lasted a second. Because his rigidity morphed into a subtle quiver. Which, in turn, became…Whoa, Nelly!The sound that emanated from the back of his throat couldn’t be described as anything other than a low growl. And suddenly, his arms were around her, crushing her to him.
Somehow, without her knowing exactly how, their roles reversed. Just like that, she was no longer the aggressor. He was. And, oh, she’d never enjoyed being aggressed—Is that even a word?—so much in her life. His warm, wet tongue plunged into her mouth, invading and plundering like a marauder of old, a real-life pirate come to whisk her away with his dark eyes and even darker desires.
Over the past few months, she’d thought maybe she’d exaggerated the mastery he’d displayed during that one brief kiss they’d shared aboard her father’s yacht. Thought maybe the shock and adrenaline of the day had somehow skewed her perception of his skill.
Huh-uh. No siree.
Bran was the most accomplished kisser she’d ever had the privilege of kissing. It was all perfectly timed licks and sucks and nips. She could have gone on making love to his amazing mouth forever, but her pesky conscience tapped her on the shoulder and reminded her that it was her responsibility…nay…herdutyto go save those girls.
Tick-tock, sister, it said.
She pushed out of Bran’s embrace and rolled in her lips, savoring the taste of him. If she weren’t mistaken, at some point during their exchange a puppeteer had connected strings to her knees and was now tugging on those strings, making her legs shiver and quake.
Bran breathed like he’d run a race. His pulse beat a rapid tattoo in the side of his neck. And his eyes were hot and fierce on her face.
Then, as if all of that weren’t delightful enough, he did something completely wonderful. He reached down and adjusted himself, drawing her eye to the rather impressive package housed behind the fly of his cargo shorts. There was no denying her effect on him.And hello, Mr.WOOD!
She couldn’t help herself. She donned a cheeky grin. “Andthatwas for tellin’ Rick we were just pen pals.”
* * *
7:59 p.m.…
“Seven feet down and about three feet wide the whole way,” Mason said, wiping the seawater from his eyes.
“Tight squeeze,” Bran murmured, bobbing gently in the bath-warm waters of the moat. Their journey across the beach had been miraculously uneventful. Well…as uneventful as it could be considering he’d been recovering from that mind-blowing kiss Maddy had laid on him. The woman knew how to prove a point, that was for sure.
And, damnit! That makes me like her even more.
It was officially official—when it came to Madison Powers, he was one sorry SOB. Completely incapable of controlling himself. Which was the whole mothersucking problem, wasn’t it? Little did she know it, but her stunt behind that bush provedhispoint too.
“But not too tight a squeeze,” Mason added. “The problem might be the distance.”
“Tough, eh?” Bran asked.
“Not for me.” Mason shook his head, water droplets flying from the ends of his wet hair. “And definitely not for you. But I don’t know about her.” He jerked his chin toward Maddy, who was dog-paddling in the water beside them.
“We could do a couple of time tests on her lung capacity,” Bran suggested.
Mason shook his head. “I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling like our luck has got to be running out.” Together they glanced up at the embrasures in the brick facade above them. The black holes were empty of the masked menandtheir weapons. But how long would that last?
“This conversation is weirder than a three-dollar bill,” Maddy declared quietly.
The turban he’d tied around her head had come undone on the swim through the moat. She was now wearing his tank top like a wedding veil, the neck hole wrapped around her forehead and the rest of it trailing down her neck and back to float atop the gently lapping water. The light was dimmer here in the shadow of the fort, but there was still enough illumination to show that the dried blood spatter that had stained her cheeks and forehead was washed away, leaving her skin clean and clear.
Beautiful,he thought. What hesaidwas, “Mason thinks you might not be able to hold your breath long enough to make the swim through the crack in the foundation and up into the cistern.”
“I’ll have you know I’m the Powers Pool Party Breath-Holding Champ,” she declared, water dripping from the tips of her long, inky lashes. For a platinum blond, Maddy had surprisingly dark eyebrows and eyelashes. It made Bran wonder if she was a natural towhead or if her Marilyn Monroe tresses came out of a bottle.
There’s one way to find out, the voice in his head whispered. He studiously ignored it. Mostly because it was a jackass. But also because he knew that nothing lay down that particular path but trouble.
“I can make twenty feet, no problem,” she asserted. “So let’s do this thing already. This moat is startin’ to give me the heebie-jeebies. Did y’all know when they used the fort as a prison in the eighteen hundreds, someone kept a ten-foot shark in here?”
