The instant he hit the water, his muscles contracted, shrinking away from the shock of the cold. When he surfaced, it was to find Chelsea bobbing next to him. The wonderfully willful woman must have waited a full half-second before following him into the drink.
She was always trying to prove herself. It made him absolutely crazy. The risks she took? The shit she volunteered for?
This entire mission, for instance? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
Then again, she’d demonstrated just how capable she was time and again, so maybehewas the one with the problem. Still, he couldn’t help growling at her. “What happened to me going first?”
“B-best just to get it over w-w-with,” she chattered. Her dusky-pink lips were already tinged with blue.
“Stubborn, confounding woman,” he groused, motioning for Rusty to toss down the remaining waterproof bag.
Chelsea began stroking toward the others, but not before saying, “Oh, sh-shove a sock in it, Werewolf of London.”
If his face hadn’t been frozen, he would have smiled. There had been awkwardness between them after their conversation in the belly of Rusty’s boat. But her words gave him hope that it was a passing phase.
Wasting no time, he tied the line attached to the float bag around his chest and swam after Chelsea. Instead of focusing on how cold he was, on how much he hurt, he turned his mind back to the catamaran’s hold, to the flame Chelsea had become in his arms. Her passion had burned so hot, so bright that she had set something inside him ablaze. The fire burned still, slowly turning to ash all his fears of the future and the great unknown it held, all his reasons for not agreeing to her terms.
Chapter 18
Chelsea was in… What was the word she was looking for? Oh, right. Hell. She was in hell.
But unlike what she’d been led to believe, hell wasn’t a fiery pit filled with the shrieks of the damned. Oh no. It was thirty yards of frigid water. It was waves that lapped icily over her head and tried to grind her against the massive pilings. It was muscles that ached with effort, fingers and toes that had frozen solid. It was the inability to cry out when her shoulder raked against a clump of barnacles attached to a piling and her soaked sweater—along with the tender flesh beneath—tore free.
They were all struggling to fight the wave action beneath the giant shadow of the Folkestone Harbor Arm. So even if she had had the breath to exclaim or curse—which shedidn’t—she wouldn’t have. She couldn’t draw attention to herself. She knew that the second she did, Dagan would turn his efforts toward helping her. Considering he was already dragging what looked like a bazillion pounds of gear behind him, she reckoned the only person he needed to worry about helping was himself.
In a far, distant corner of her mind she registered that Rusty had engaged the catamaran’s engines and was piloting the boat back to open water. She had a vague sense of Dagan beside her. Was he shortening his strokes to keep pace with her? She couldn’t be sure. Her brain felt fuzzy, like someone had glued cotton around the inside curve of her skull.
“J-just a little f-farther,” Dagan said, spitting water from his mouth when a wave washed over his face.
She couldn’t respond. Her jaw was locked tight. Her arms and legs were completely numb, yet they continued to move. It was a miracle.
“That’s it.” Dagan’s teeth chattered. “You d-did it. Now, p-put your feet down.”
Blearily, she looked over to see his shoulders shedding water in sheets. The collar of his woolen sweater hung down to the middle of his chest, and the drooping neckline revealed the upper bulges of his pectoral muscles as well as a dark smattering of hair. Even without her glasses, she could see just how amazingly well put together he was. A man in his prime. Fit as a fiddle and wholly, unabashedly virile.
She was lost in admiring him, grateful for anything that took her mind off her misery, when he said her name.
“Wh-what?” Her teeth chattered so fast she reminded herself of a woodpecker. The shadow of the harbor arm lent the whole scene a time-slip feel. How long had she been swimming? Minutes? Hours? Had it been days?
“P-put your f-feet down,” he said again.
The words made no more sense the second time than they had the first. She frowned dully.
“Damnit, Ch-Chels.” He palmed her shoulders and dragged her half out of the water. “Put your feet down. You can touch.”
She could? Had she really made it? Could it possibly be true?
Straightening her legs, she was amazed to find that it was. But the minute her feet touched the rocky bottom, she cried out in pain. Her frozen soles sent agony slicing through the bones of her feet, up her shins, and straight into her knees. They buckled.
She thought she heard Dagan curse. But between the sting in her torn shoulder and the pounding ache in her feet, it was hard to concentrate. Then, before she could make another attempt at standing, she was lifted out of the water and pulled tight against Dagan’s broad chest. Icy water sluiced off her in all directions, and she could feel the immense power of Dagan’s thighs displacing waves as he surged through the surf.
The salty smell of sea life was overwhelmed by the scent of his shampoo. Beneath that was the unmistakable aroma of strong, healthy man.
She knew she should tell him to put her down. But she was so cold, and he was so warm. Of their own volition, her arms wrapped around his neck, and the words she heard tumbling from her frozen lips were “Y-you’re ridiculously s-sexy. You know that, r-right?”
His jaw was clenched against the cold, but when he glanced down at her, there was unmistakable heat in his eyes. “Th-that’s a different tune than the one you w-were singing earlier.”
“I blame the c-cold.” She attempted a grin, but feared it probably looked more like a grimace. Her shoulder was starting to bark at her like a rabid dog. “Words are b-bypassing my brain on the way t-to my m-mouth.”
