Wicked Sexy

Numbers had always made sense to her. She was an actuary, which meant she turned risks into something you could calculate. In her world, loss was a formula and all you had to do was hold enough assets in reserve to offset those losses. Daeg lived in a different world, by different rules. Where she calculated risks, he took them.

Her eyes narrowed. “I didn’t know you were counting.”

Counting implied caring, and he’d never cared about her.

* * *

DAEG HADN’T COUNTED. Not every minute. But he thought about her more than he should have. He’d wanted to come back here to Discovery and finish what they’d started. He’d wanted to push that cupcake of a gown down her body. Touch her. Learn every lovely inch of her, inside and out.

She’d been too young.

She was a woman now. No longer a girl. She’d have had lovers. He captured her hand in his, entwining her pale, slim fingers with his. He noticed she didn’t have a ring.

“You’re not married.” Thank God. There were rules even he wouldn’t break. His lovers had been women who were only looking for the same thing he was. Casual, fun affairs featuring hot sex with a side of companionship. He liked waking up next to someone in bed and he wouldn’t rule out settling down eventually. Someday. At some point in the future when his body gave out and he couldn’t make the cut to be a rescue swimmer. But that wasn’t today.

“That’s none of your concern.” Anger flashed in her eyes. She tugged on his hand. “It doesn’t matter.”

For a long beat, he hung on. She was strong, but he was stronger. “It does.”

“To me, maybe.” She shrugged. “But whether or not I’m married doesn’t mean a thing to you, Daeg Ross.”

She was right. Whether she was married or not shouldn’t matter to him. But the lack of a husband, a boyfriend, someone who had claimed her for his own and whose claim she had welcomed—that would mean she was available. His body went on alert, adrenaline pumping through him like it did before he made a jump. She didn’t have to be off-limits. He could pursue her, kiss her, touch her.

He could strip off that cute bikini of hers and bury himself deep inside her.

He could make the biggest mistake of his life.

The words came out of his mouth, anyhow. “You’re back for the summer?”

“I’m out at Sweet Moon.” He knew the place. Her grandparents had run it for years, booking romantic cabins with four-posters and fireplaces. It was the kind of place a man took a special woman.

He’d never spent the night there.

“Important occasion?” He kept his voice deliberately light.

She shook her head. “Not anymore,” she replied, giving him a wry smile. “But my grandparents reserved a cabin for me, so here I am.”

“His loss,” he growled, and her eyes widened as if he was some kind of mind reader, because he’d put two and two together and come up with the correct answer. “Whoever he was, he messed up.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said quickly, making it clear she had no intention of giving him the details about what had brought her here alone to Discovery Island. “It’s over. Water under the bridge. Things happen.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “But maybe I can make it up to you? What about ice cream?” he asked. He definitely needed to work on his social skills. “I may not have been back here in years,” he coaxed, “but I still remember how good the ice cream is.”

She eyed him cautiously, her brown eyes examining him. He didn’t know what she saw, but it must have been something good because she nodded and a slow smile lit up her face. “I can let you do that.” She paused, toying with the strap of her tote bag.

He gestured toward the ice cream shack at the far end of the beach and started walking. The muscles in his knee knotted, putting a hitch in his gait.

“You okay?” Dani’s expression was all worry.

“Leg’s fine.” He wasn’t fielding questions, not today, so he returned the conversation, what there was of it, back on her. “We need to worry about you. First thing you do when you hit the beach? You lose the sandals.” Stopping, he pointed at her sandy flip-flops, holding out his hand. “You can’t be comfortable in those things. Let me carry them.”

She hesitated, clearly not sure if she wanted to hand over her shoes or jam them into her bag, sand and all. When she looked down at her feet, as if she’d forgotten what she was wearing, his gaze followed hers. The nail polish on her toes was perfect—more proof this was her first day on the beach.

Leaning in closer, he caught a whiff of coconut-scented sunscreen.

“You haven’t been on the island long, have you?”

“A week. What gave it away?”

The pristine beach tote and the perfect polish were his first clues. “No tan lines,” he said.

“Being pale is an occupational hazard. I work in an office. It increases my risk of dying from heart disease because I’m too sedentary, but decreases my risk of contracting skin cancer. At least the sun is a controllable risk.”

“Wow.” That was a first.

“Too much?” She made a face. “My day job is as an actuary. I only moonlight as a beachcomber.”

She toed off the shoes, shaking loose a small avalanche of sand. He captured the flip-flops, which looked ridiculously feminine in his hand.

She looked over at him. “You have any other suggestions for me?”

Did he ever. Indecent suggestions a decent man would never say out loud.

Because he wasn’t looking for a happily ever after. Getting serious and marriage weren’t something he’d ruled out for himself in the future—the very, very distant future. As it was now, he was away for months at a time on missions he couldn’t discuss. So Others May Live. That was the rescue swimmer’s motto, but it made commitment difficult.

And since he didn’t do forever, he shouldn’t be looking at Dani Andrews and wondering if she’d taste as good as she had the last time he’d kissed her.

Trouble.

She’d taste like trouble.

She was too sweet, too innocent even all these years later. She’d never faced real danger, never experienced the missions he had. That made him fiercely glad. She was safe because he’d done his job, and he’d keep her that way, no matter how badly he wanted to kiss her now that he had her close again. The breeze from the coming storm tumbled her hair around her face and shoulders.

He needed to let her go. He needed to wrap up this conversation and walk away. Again. Instead, he took a step closer, brushing up against her with his body. He was close enough to feel the heat radiating from her. “First storm of the summer’s arriving soon,” he said, brushing her arm briefly because he couldn’t take being this close and not touching her.

When a really violent storm blew in, the hotels opened up their conference rooms, ballrooms, whatever, putting down mattresses and offering bottled water for the locals. Sometimes the safest course of action was to put a kind of wall between yourself and any incoming storm. That could work for any number of things, he reminded himself.

She scanned the horizon. There were still several boats out on the bay. “It doesn’t look too bad. All those boats—they still stay here and ride out the storm?”

“Depends.” He pointed to a slim aluminum shell bobbing up and down just a few yards offshore. “Right there you’ve got your basic panga-type boat—aluminum sides, no cover, fifty horsepower motor.” He shrugged. “Not bad for a casual fishing trip inside a harbor or near shore, but nothing I’d want to trust my life to out on the open water. A bad storm’s going to toss one of those right up on the beach here if the owner doesn’t yank it out first. Then you’ve got your bigger boats.” He touched her shoulder lightly, directing her attention to a handful of larger vessels anchored farther away. “If the mooring’s good, those boats might ride it out. Bumpy as hell, but as long as they don’t get hit by debris, they’ll still be there in the morning. Then,” he said, smiling wide, “you’ve got your biggest boats.”

“Biggest?” She laughed, and he tried to ignore the urge to lean in and kiss her.

“Yeah, biggest. As in my boat’s the biggest. Perfect for your average midlife crisis or deep-sea fishing. Those guys hire the likes of me to pull the boat and get her under cover. Or, if they’re too cheap to pull the boat before the storm hits, they hire me after the fact to go salvage the pieces. You like sailing?”

She pursed her lips. “No. I don’t really care for the water much. Are they safe?”

“Enough.” He pushed the memories back. “I’ve pulled more than one captain out of the water.”

When she tilted her head, the question was clear in her eyes, so he continued. “With spec ops,” he explained. “After I left here, I did a couple tours with a helicopter sea-combat squadron as a rescue swimmer. We worked the Middle East and then Guam. I was the guy who jumped out of the chopper.” Was. He could still go back. He’d only been here three days and it wasn’t too late to re-up if he got his leg in fighting condition.

“It takes a brave person to do something like that.” She glanced at him up and down. He’d like to think she lingered on the good bits, but he wasn’t going to kid himself. “Are you all right?” she asked finally.

“Never better. This is just a little R & R.” The first day of spec ops training, he’d learned the “I am all right” signal. If you weren’t all right, you were off the job because otherwise you were a liability to the team. As long as a man could stay in the water, he was okay. He could keep on getting the job done.

He eyeballed their destination. The ice cream shack was coming up fast. Too fast.

“How about you? Is this trip all pleasure?” he asked, because he didn’t want to be done talking with her and couldn’t explain why. Stepping up to the order window, he bought two cones. The place only had the one flavor—chocolate and vanilla twisted together in a little cone. Her fingers grazed his as he handed her the napkin-wrapped cone, brushing aside her thanks for the cone before dropping a large bill into the tip jar.

“I had a vacation planned.” She looked down and fiddled with the tie on her bikini. “But now I’m helping my grandparents out, so business as well as pleasure. They’re on a cruise celebrating their fiftieth and I’m holding down the fort while they’re away. They were going to hire a temp from an agency, but I was here so...why not do it myself?”

“You’re walking on the beach.” He grinned at her. “The summer’s not a total loss.”

He headed back toward the water’s edge and she went with him.

She swiped at the ice cream, and now he knew why the ice cream shack had stayed in business for so long. That tongue of hers catching the creamy treat had him imagining carnal acts he had no business imagining. He wanted to wind his fingers in her hair and coax her down on the erection straining his jeans. Instead, he took a desperate bite of his own cone, welcoming the cold.

* * *

HER SEXY SPECIAL ops soldier was all rough and tumble. Blunt. Big and hard and tough. Odds were, he was also honorable, straight to the core. A man like him not only had rules—he kept to them. He was temptation personified—and Dani was a woman on a diet.

No more men for her.

After all, she’d already lost one fiancé. No, scratch that. You lost library books and socks and house keys. You lost those things because you couldn’t remember where you’d left them. As for her ex, she knew precisely where he was. Back in San Francisco with his new girlfriend.

Discovery Island was stunning at sunset, only a short distance away from the California mainland and surrounded by all that blue water. A beach walk with this man had seemed safe enough. Besides, who didn’t accept an offer of ice cream? The vanilla-and-chocolate sweetness was better than any orgasm she’d ever had, anyhow.

The chances of having a satisfying orgasm had gone down to nil when her fiancé had ditched her, although she was certain the chances hadn’t been that good before. She checked on the man keeping pace with her and reminded herself that she didn’t do casual sex. Not to mention her ex-boyfriend’s remark that having sex with her was far too predictable.

She took another bite of her ice cream cone.

Making cones with the soft-serve machine had been wonderfully precise, three twists of chocolate and vanilla, then the flick to finish the cone off. Exactly three point five ounces. She’d weighed her first cones, just to make sure, but she’d been a pro almost from the start. From the hard pull of the handle to start the flow to the sugary cardboard taste of the cone that was always soggy by the time she reached the bottom, she’d known what to expect.

Predictable.

The man eating up the sand in long, restless strides next to her was anything but predictable, however. Which made him perfect.

A burst of orange and yellow shot over their heads. The wind was strong enough that the beach ball was really flying. From the accompanying protest right before the ball hit the water with a sharp smack, the ball’s owner hadn’t expected it to go airborne quite so far or so fast. Small feet sprinted toward the surf, kicking up sand before the child came to a screeching halt at the water’s edge. He must have been told not to go in alone.

Her flip-flops hit the sand as Daeg shoved his cone into her hand. There was good-natured laughter in his voice as he pulled off his faded T-shirt. “I think we need a rescue here.”

The sight of that shirt coming off woke something inside her. The thin cotton had clung to some pretty impressive muscles, but bare chested he was spectacular, all thick ridges of muscles and sun-bronzed skin. He sported a handful of scars, including a long one that wrapped around his chest beneath two pairs of dog tags.

Still grinning, he plunged into the chilly water, jeans and all.

He dived effortlessly after the ball. Waterborne, the limp vanished and all she could see was the power of that body as he skimmed the waves.

“He your boyfriend?” The child by her side leaned into her, watching Daeg pop up to the surface, shaking water from his face as he snagged the ball.

“No.” That whole sworn-off-men thing.

“Why not?” Out of the mouths of babes.

Waist deep in the water, Daeg lobbed the ball back one-handed. The boy caught it, calling out his thanks as he scampered down the beach.

“Gallant,” she called. How many men did she know who would have been willing to soak themselves to the bone to rescue a child’s ball?

“Cold,” he countered, wading toward the shore. “We rescuers jump in first and think next. Occupational hazard.”

This was it.

This was her second chance.

The denim was molded to his powerful thighs as he left the surf. Wet, those jeans left nothing to the imagination—and boy, was she imagining things now. Starting with that sexy trickle down his chest as the water sluiced off him. Despite the June weather, the water was cold. His nipples were hard, tight nubs, and her mouth went dry. The look in his eyes was pure heat, though—and he was looking right at her. Stormy eyes. Dark green and framed by those ridiculously long lashes, still damp from his swim.

She could do this. Before she could second-guess herself, she carefully tucked his half-eaten cone on the ground beside his shirt and stepped into his body, sliding her arms up around his neck. The sensation of her skin meeting his was an icy shock.

“Nice rescue, sailor.”

Try as she might, she couldn’t spot any hesitation in him as he lowered his head to hers. The beach was almost empty now, the place all theirs. His eyes watched her until she wanted those lashes to drift shut, wanted him to lose himself in her. What if he didn’t desire her or she didn’t do this right? She shoved the hurtful memories of her ex’s accusations to a remote corner of her mind. Chances were, this could be different.

Better.

Then he groaned, not from pain, but from pleasure. His arms came up around her waist and back, one large hand resting on the back of her neck. Who knew that innocent touch could set her on fire so fast? “You’re killing me, you know that? I want you right now and we haven’t even finished our walk yet.”

Sweet relief and even sweeter arousal shot through her. She’d never been naughty, exactly, but now she tilted her head back as if she’d been born to flirt, trusting the weight of her head to that hand. Deliberately, she smiled, really slow. She could do this. Was doing this. “Kiss me,” she whispered. “Kiss me right now.”

He smiled, and as he leaned in she forgot to breathe. Every inch of her was focused on the man holding her, bringing her mouth toward his mouth. His kiss. The pleasure was all consuming. She hadn’t known she could feel this way.

His mouth found the edge of her jaw, a soft brush of skin on skin. Was he waiting for her to do something? Tempting. His lips pressed a wicked pattern of kisses along her neck. She wasn’t sure what he wanted, but she knew she wanted to give it to him.

“Don’t tease,” she murmured. Her eyes drifted shut, closing against the last fiery rays of the setting sun.

“Not for too long,” he promised, and then his mouth found hers. Oh, this man knew how to kiss. His lips covered hers, exploring and tasting with every lick and stroke. His hand angled her head backward until she opened up for him and his tongue stroked inside her mouth.

Skin to skin, as they were, there was no missing that thick erection. But Daeg was taking his time. Her soldier was being a gentleman. She appreciated that, but she also wanted him, his heat and his strength. She wanted more than just his kisses.

His tongue dipped deeper, teasing her. The moan slipped from her throat before she could stop it. The raw, unfamiliar sound was shocking to her. She was losing this battle. The weakness in her legs warned her she had to stop before this went too far. But he felt so good.

Her soldier didn’t look bored—no, he looked 100 percent aroused.

Hungry.

For her.

* * *

DAEG HAD DIVED beneath icebergs and into plane wreckage where sharks were circling, but none of those missions had ever given him the adrenaline rush he felt when Dani licked the last bit of ice cream off her lips and proceeded to kiss the hell out of him. He was shocked—happily so—but he was also navy search and rescue to the bone. So he hadn’t thought—he’d reacted and kissed her right back.

And in the ten years since he’d last seen her, held her, Ms. Andrews had mastered the art of kissing. She was intense. Passionate. She didn’t give him her tongue right away. All that heat, right there, but she made him work for it, work for her. Coaxing. She wasn’t shy. She just knew what she liked now—and she hadn’t made up her mind about him.

He was going to make all her dreams come true.

When she slipped her hands from around his neck, he ignored the disappointment and the urge to keep her close.

“I need to go. I can’t—” she said, clearly at a loss for words. Good to know he wasn’t the only one that kiss of theirs had rattled.

“Dani...” he whispered, tracing her bottom lip gently with his finger. He wanted to kiss her again, and then he wanted to do more. Wanted to take her somewhere and make love to her until he couldn’t remember who he was or what he was doing here. That was a good plan, he decided, tightening his arm around her. An excellent plan, in fact. As a general rule, he didn’t take a woman to bed after a first kiss, but this was different, the exception.

“No,” she said and stepped away from him. His arm dropped to his sides.

Before he could say anything—or worse, not say anything—she began walking down the beach.

He let her go, but much to his surprise, he could still feel her, sense her presence. It was as if their kiss had branded him. And the taste of her. Sweet heat and all woman.

But what about her nerves?

Someone or something had spooked her badly. Recently. He’d like to fix whatever problems she had, smooth away the furrow she got right there in the center of her forehead as she stared at him. As if she was trying to figure out how she’d ended up in his arms, kissing the hell out of him.

He could have told her he didn’t know, either.

But he was sure he wanted it to happen again. He wasn’t done kissing her. Not by half. She’d given him a starting point and now he wanted more.

And he wasn’t waiting another ten years to get it.

3

DAEG PARKED THE motorcycle outside Deep Dive. He wasn’t in the mood for whatever his boys would dish up tonight. Cal and Tag had watched him go after the blonde on the beach. They’d see him come back soaking wet, and they’d demand details he didn’t feel like sharing. And that was the kicker, wasn’t it? What should have been a simple walk on the beach and a summertime flirtation had morphed into one of the sexiest moments of his life.

He couldn’t get over seeing Dani Andrews again after all this time.

She was even more gorgeous today. Back then, she’d been just a girl, no matter how mature she’d pretended to be, all long hair and longer legs. Those big, brown eyes filled with hopes and dreams. When he’d met her on the beach that night, he’d picked her up and dusted her off—metaphorically speaking. Part of him had wanted to go after the guy that had hurt her feelings. Another part of him, though... That was the part that had done the kissing. The same part of him that had shown up again today.

He should leave her alone.

Problem was, she was sweeter than sweet and no doubt far too nice for a guy like him. She was exactly what he was not—all white picket fence and happily ever after. Meanwhile, he’d be leaving Discovery Island—again—in a few weeks, and that was nowhere near enough time for a woman like Dani.

And yet he didn’t want to leave her alone. Not this time.

As he crossed the wooden porch, the weathered boards creaked beneath his boots. The door opened fast and silent when he got a palm on it and pushed. Sure enough, Cal was waiting for him, feet propped up on the counter. The familiar smell of Neoprene and dampness filled the air. The front part of the building was dedicated to the diver training portion of Deep Dive’s agenda, holding racks of wet suits, tanks and weights. Whatever was needed to swim in the ocean, Deep Dive had it in spades.

“You all done with the blonde?” Cal eyed the wet jeans but, good man, he kept the observation to himself.

Daeg rummaged in his duffel and came up with a change of clothes. He had to smile, remembering that walk on the beach. “She’s finished with me.”

“Bad luck.”

“True enough.” Ignoring the commiserating grin, Daeg headed for Deep Dive’s command center before Cal could get the next question out of his mouth. Sometimes a tactical retreat was the only way to go.

The steel-and-concrete-reinforced interior room was the heart and soul of Deep Dive’s operations. With bad weather inbound, today’s focus was on maintaining situational awareness, but that would switch to command and control when the storm hit. A floor-to-ceiling monitor displayed weather and radar maps, tracking both inbound and outbound vessels and weather. Cal had been granted permission to link into the local coast guard command center for incident notification and infrared cameras posted strategically around the island delivering real-time information about conditions on the ground.

Surrounded by a bank of computers and monitors, Tag’s fingers flew across the keyboard as the man fed data into the geographic information system that would map the approaching storm and identify problem areas in Discovery Island’s sector. That was Tag. He’d catalog every weather front, every current and navigation chart. The ocean held no surprises for Tag.

“You got a room booked for me?” While he waited for an answer, he shucked his wet denim and pulled on the dry pair of jeans.

Tag nodded and pushed away from the desk. The chair wheels rolled over the cement floor with a squall of protest.

“You sure you don’t want to stay put in Cal’s spare room?”