“No.”
“Your shoulders are laughing.”
“Keep scanning for sharks,” he insists. “That part is very helpful.”
“And when I spot one before it attacks, you’ll be thankful.”
“That, I can accept.”
His hair is wet against my cheek. The back of his neck is warm from the sun, and the whole situation is, beneath the terror, the most absurdly lovely piggyback ride I have ever received. I tell my heart to calm down for reasons unrelated to the shark. His body is huge against mine, and I love being attached to him.
We reach the boat, and I scramble up the ladder so fast I nearly catch my knee on the side. Then I’m on the deck, dripping, grabbing my towel, and wrapping it around myself like armor. North comes up behind me with the easy movements of someone who has done this thousands of times.
“There he is,” I say, pointing at the water off the stern. “He was following us.”
A small gray shape is cutting through the blue below, a thin line of white along the fins catching the light. Just moving past the boat.
“He was heading in this direction anyway.”
I bark out a fake laugh. “North, that shark smelled food.”
“He’s approximately the length of your leg, and he is swimming past our boat because he likes this stretch of reef.”
The shark, as if on cue, curves and moves back toward the coral without any apparent interest in us whatsoever. I stand there gripping my towel and watching until it disappears into the dark blue.
Then I start laughing at how crazy I’d been behaving over a freaking small shark. I need to stop watching those B-grade shark movies.
“That’s hero work there, by the way,” I say. “You didn’t even hesitate to carry me to safety. And I felt like a sea otter.”
“A sea otter?” he gasps.
“They carry their babies on their chests. I know it wasn’t anatomically accurate. I was in distress, so I used the first ocean mammal that came to mind?—”
“You’ve promoted me from Alpha to sea otter.”
“You’ve earned it.” I grin at him.
He shakes his head, smiling now, and turns toward the small barbecue mounted on the side of the boat.
“This sea otter,” he says, “is going to make you lunch before you come up with more metaphors. I have some fresh mahi-mahi fish.”
“Oh, delicious. Yes, please. What can I do to help?”
“Just relax.”
So I crash down onto the cushioned bench running along the other side of the boat and pull my knees up. “You’re dangerous. You can’t just be a competent, ocean-rescuing man who also plans a full lunch.”
He glances over. “Why not?”
“Because people like me have limits, and you’re testing every single one of mine.”
He laughs, standing there in nothing but his shorts, water still sliding down his back in slow trails. Heat curls low and deep through me from just staring at him. It would be easier if he were less capable or absurdly male. Instead, he looks like every dangerous thought I’ve had about him since meeting him.
And worse than that is the feeling underneath it. Wanting not just him but everything he offers. The terrifying little ache of imagining what it would be like if he were mine for real, not for a day, not for a moment, but long enough to stop bracing for the end of it.
He works at the grill as I dry off slowly in the sun, the boat rocking gently under us. He pulls a glass container of marinated fish from the cooler. Then a lime, which he halves. A small plastic tub of salad is next, which he must have made this morning while I was sleeping. Flatbread wrapped in foil.
The other two boats that had been on the far side of the sandbank are gone now, engines fading somewhere past the horizon. It’s only us out here, rocking on the boat, the low, rhythmichissof fish meeting the hot grill, and the occasional cry of a bird somewhere very far up.
