Her already pale cheeks went chalk white, but she unzipped her oversized purse and held it wide. “Stuff as many as you can inside.”
He didn’t hesitate, transferring eight bottles into her bag, and handing her two more, which she slid into the pockets of her pants.
“We’ll get you up through the exit,” he told her. “Once you’re outside, stay seated on the body of the plane. You might slide off if you try to stand. Doc, come help me.” He motioned with his chin toward his partner, who was last in line. “The ladies are going to need a boost.”
Just as he’d feared, the sea had started seeping into the plane. The ocean completely covered the tops of his flip-flops, and he could feel the warm water nipping at his ankles.
She’s going under.
He acknowledged the small pang in the center of his chest. His Otter was going under, but she’d held together until the bitter end.
She saved us.
“On my way.” Doc slipped past Mia, who stood on the arm of one seat while steadying herself against the headrest of another. When she swallowed, he saw her pulse fluttering in her throat. His gaze jumped to her eyes and...just as he’d thought. Her pupils had gone pinpoint.
“Breathe,” he told her as Doc pulled even with him and nodded that he was prepared to hoist the lawyer out of the aircraft.
“I thought I was.” Mia blew out a shuddering breath.
“Nope.” Romeo shook his head before turning his attention to Cami. “You ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” was her shaky response.
She stood on the last row of seats. This allowed her to poke her head and shoulders out of the plane. Romeo and Doc each grabbed a linen-clad leg.
“On three,” Romeo called, and started the countdown.
Together, he and Doc tossed Cami through the opening in a flutter of perfume and cream fabric.
“Whoa. Shit!” Doc said as a larger than average wave lifted the aircraft high, its metal skin groaning with the motion.
“Hang on!” Romeo yelled to Cami, bracing himself against the rear bulkhead.
Doc managed to hook an arm around the headrest nearest him, but Mia tumbled over the last row of seats. Doc made a valiant grab for her, but missed, and she landed in Romeo’s outstretched arms.
He reeled her in and held her close, feeling her heart beating a rapid tattoo against his chest.
Once again, he was reminded of coming awake that morning. Of her spread atop him. And in that split second between sleep and wakefulness, he’d felt a sense of... He couldn’t put a name to it. It was like peace and longing and lust all balled into one. And when she’d rolled off him, he’d wanted so badly to pull her back. To bury his nose in her sweet-smelling hair.
But something had held him back.
The same something that stopped him from burying his nose in her hair now.
She only thought of him as a friend. And even if that wasn’t true, even if the longing look he sometimes thought he saw in her eyes was therealtruth, he wasn’t the kind of man to give her what she wanted. And so it was best if he kept his hands—and his nose—to himself.
As soon as the rogue wave moved on and the plane resumed its gentle rise and fall, he cupped her shoulder and gently pressed her away. Every cell in his body cried out with unhappiness, straining toward her like the hand on a compass strains toward due north. But he covered up what he knew was the pained look on his face by asking, “You okay?”
Her delectable mouth pursed into a bow when she briskly nodded. “I’m fine. Thanks for the save.”
Any day, every day, he could have told her, but didn’t.
Instead, he touched a gentle fingertip to the scratch on her chin—he wasn’t sure why, maybe to keep himself from touching those fascinating lips of hers. Then he jerked his gaze away from her lioness eyes because he’d started drowning in them—he was always drowning in them—and called overhead, “Cami! You still with us?”
There was a muffledthumpas the lawyer adjusted herself on the skin of the plane. A second later, her wide-eyed face appeared in the empty hatchway.
“Holy cannoli.” Her shaking voice matched the trembling hand she pressed to her forehead. “What do you guys say to getting out of that plane before another one of those waves rolls by?”
“That’s the plan,” he told her and pulled the first aid kit off the wall. Handing it up to her, he instructed, “Hold on to this, will you?” Then he turned to Mia. “You ready?”
