The kraken withdrew into the depths of his mind.Yeah. I thought so.
“We figure out where we are, and then we figure out how to get somewhere else,” he said out loud. “Sounds close enough to a plan for me.”
“When I write up my report, I’ll make it sound like we thought things through slightly more than that.” Carol grinned up at him.
And the world stopped spinning.
The whole time she’d been rescuing Maggie, Carol had kept her face averted. Looking at Maggie, or the sky, or the water, but never at him. But now her face was upturned to his, like a flower seeking out the sun, and he was caught. A moth to her flame, again.
She was still stuck in her shift. Her eyes were the glossy black of wet stone. Shark’s eyes, the eyes of something looming out of the murk when you’ve dived too deep and too far from the shore to escape. A shiver of anticipation raced across his skin.
And that was before he saw her teeth. Razor-sharp and triangular, gleaming in a grin that was brighter than the sun. What would it be like to feel those teeth sliding over his skin,hidden behind soft lips or bared, dangerous and tantalizing and all for him?
He’d never wanted anyone so badly. He wanted to fall at her feet. Bury his face between her legs. Swim with her into the dark and the deep, too far from shore.
“Carol,” he began, with no idea how to go on, his voice a hollow, broken husk.
And her smile faltered.
10
Carol
This couldn’t be happening.
She’d slept in his arms. Touched his mind with hers and felt the touch of his mind in return. She knew what his telepathic voice felt like, the warmth of its upper currents and the strength and softness weaving beneath. She knew the shape of him outlined in rain and lightning, half-lit by the struggling beam of a flashlight. She knew the way his chest moved when he breathed. The firmness of the muscles underneath his ripped shirt. The scent of his skin.
She knew that he was her mate.
All those tiny intimacies, and she’d never seen him clearly until now.
He was like a god. Like he was made for this wild place, the crag of broken rock behind him, the whisper of the sea at their feet, the sky stretching huge and distant overhead. His brown skin glowed in the sunlight. Damp hair hung in black tendrils over his broad shoulders. For a moment, something with a sheen like abalone glimmered across his eyes—then they were humanagain, perfectly normal brown eyes except for the intensity with which he was focusing on her.
She shivered, and her eyes dropped. His shirt was still damp, clinging to a chest that… had she seriously spent the whole night cuddled up tothatchest?
She felt lightheaded.
Her lips were dry. Salt-cracked and parched, and holy crap, she’d never realized thatthirstywasn’t just a euphemism before. She wanted to quench herself on him. She licked her lips, careful not to cut her tongue on her teeth.
Her teeth.
Shit.
She’d been standing here smiling like an idiot, and he’d seen—
He stepped closer. His warm, brown,humaneyes searched hers.
“Are you all right?”
She looked away, tongue stumbling over words she didn’t know how to say. “I’m sorry—I didn’t—”
“Dumb question.” Gravel crunched underfoot, and then he was beside her, raising one hand to gently touch her shoulder. “We almost died. Part of me still can’t believe we survived last night, and now…”
His gaze went to the calm ocean.
“It’s like it never happened,” Carol finished for him, feeling faint. He wastouchingher. He’d seen her eyes, and her teeth, and he’d come up and touched her like they didn’t mean anything.
“Pree-ee,” Maggie insisted, and Moss snorted.
