“I’m sorry.” It was just that she was . . . extraordinary. And for the first time in his life, he wasn’t certain what to do with someone.
“While you’re laughing, you’d better not put one cut in my wet suit. You already broke my radio. Get. Off. Me.” She enunciated each word. “You weigh a ton.”
He’d been careful with the knife. His body was shaking from cold, but he’d kept his hands steady. It was an insult for her to think that he might accidently nick her wet suit. And she should have been worried about him cutting her throat. He let his breath out and knew his strength was waning. He had to make a decision. Life or death. He had no doubt he could manipulate a woman—he had more weapons in his arsenal than guns—but he was weak and that made him vulnerable.
A little reluctantly, he removed the knife from her throat and eased his weight from her. The moment she was free, the woman flung herself onto her back and sat, pushing backward with her heels to put distance between them. Overheated, she tore off her wet suit top, uncaring that she was exposing soft skin to his startled gaze. She dragged a sweatshirt from behind her and yanked it over her head.
They stared at one another across the deck. The moment their eyes met again, his heart contracted. She had the blackest eyes he’d ever seen, turbulent—stormy—a dark, fierce velvet that appeared almost as liquid as the sea itself. She looked like a wild thing, moody and beautiful and out of reach.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
That was a good question. Who exactly was he? He had many names. Many faces. People who saw him rarely survived. Damn, he was tired. He brushed at his face and his hand came away smeared with blood. What should he tell her? He needed her now. Needed an ally, a place to hide, to recuperate. What would appeal most to a woman like her? And that was the problem: it was difficult to get a handle on her.
He read people easily. It was a gift of birth, of training, of years of experience. But she was difficult. She fought with the fury of the devil, was obviously a free soul out here on the sea and had the most direct stare he’d ever seen on anyone. He hunched his shoulders to make himself look smaller and less intimidating and wiped at his face again, deliberately smearing more blood.
“You look like hell,” she observed. “I can’t call the coast guard because you ripped out my VHF. I’m going to have to get you to shore as fast as possible.”
He held up his hand. “No. I can’t be seen.” He forced a trembling note into his voice. “I think someone’s trying to kill me.”
“That’s a shocker,” she said, sarcasm dripping from her voice.
It wasn’t exactly the reaction he was going for. And people thought
he
was a social nightmare. Where was all the womanly concern and sympathy? She was looking at him with dark, stormy eyes that still said she wanted to kick the crap out of him. She wasn’t the most forgiving woman he’d ever run across. He tried a tentative smile.
“I can’t blame you for being upset. I was disoriented. I think I was just in survival mode.” That much was the truth. “I didn’t really understand what was going on. I thought you had attacked me.”
She took a breath and nodded, accepting his explanation. He had the feeling he would have to stick close to the truth with her. And what the hell was the truth? He didn’t know anymore. He found himself rubbing his temple and wincing when he touched the raw, jagged edges of a wound.
“I can’t remember what happened. Do you know?” That sounded pathetic enough to touch even a skeptic. And he was beginning to really like her face, that pixie face with the incredible bone structure. She hadn’t taken her enormous eyes off of him, almost hadn’t blinked. She looked at him like he was a tiger crouched on the deck of her boat, ready to attack at any moment. She hadn’t exactly relaxed.
Her eyes were too big for her face and were heavily fringed with black lashes. Her hair was thick and a little wild, with ragged edges making her look even more like a pixie. Her chin was stubborn, her mouth generous. She regarded him with suspicion, but he could see she might just have an Achilles’ heel—a soft spot for someone in trouble.
“A rogue wave knocked me off the boat. I found you in the water, but I have no idea where you came from. There’s a shelf down about thirty feet and you were being slammed into that. The fault line runs along there and I managed to snag you before you dropped off it.” She poured cold water onto a clean rag and handed it to him, keeping her hands in sight and her movements slow. Then she handed him a glass. “Drink this.”
He took the tumbler from her, his fingers brushing hers. His heart jumped. Raced. His breath hitched. He frowned as he took his time drinking the contents. He didn’t have reactions to women—not real reactions. Not like that. Not unexpected and for no reason. His body was freezing. It felt as if he’d been beaten with several two-by-fours over and over. It wasn’t as if he needed sexual relief. So why the hell would he react to her touch? He didn’t like puzzles. And he sure as hell didn’t like things he couldn’t explain.
“Your name.” It wasn’t a question this time.
He ran his fingers through his wet hair and kept his expression as blank as possible. He frowned as if trying to remember. What to use? He needed something as close to the truth as possible. There was just something about her that raised a red flag. Like maybe she was one of those rare people who sensed lies. And he was damned good at lying—he didn’t know any other way of life. “Lev. I think it’s Lev. I can’t remember much.”
“Are you a criminal? A smuggler?”
He frowned and rubbed at the blood with the wet cloth. “I don’t know.”
Her expression didn’t change much. Her lips compressed and some of the storm in her eyes dissipated. He’d been right not to deny the accusation. She was more comfortable with his lack of knowledge than if he’d denied being a criminal. He obviously wasn’t a fisherman. He was armed and he looked dangerous, even as battered as he was. She wasn’t going to buy an innocent act.
“Do you know how you got out here? I didn’t see any other boats before or after the wave hit.”
He looked her straight in the eye and allowed a touch of fear in his gaze. “I don’t know. My mind is a blank. I can’t remember what happened to me or who I am. But every time I think about going to the authorities, I get this very bad feeling.” That was a calculated risk. She was alone on a fishing boat out in the ocean. A maverick. A loner. One who didn’t frighten easily. She probably had an aversion to authority and police and questions. It was a connection between them, small, but at last he’d found one. He could find more.
“You need a doctor. What the hell am I going to do with you?”
Triumph swept through him. His teeth were chattering now, and he could feel the edges of his brain fuzzing over. He held on to consciousness grimly. “Thanks for pulling me out of the water.” He touched his chest as if it hurt. “You did CPR.”
She scowled at him. “I used the regulator.”
It seemed important to her to let him know she had not touched her lips to his, no matter how tempting the thought might be. And—strangely—he found it tempting. She had a very attractive mouth and he mentally kicked himself for noticing.
Never
allow emotions to come into play. His life was at stake. She was . . . expendable. A stranger. She meant nothing.
He attempted a small smile, although his face seemed frozen. “From the feel of my chest, the CPR was vigorous.”
“I’m not good at anything medical.”
He allowed his gaze to slide over her. She was too thin. He doubted if anyone would call her beautiful—but she had a certain wild appeal, smelling of sea and salt and wet suit. “However you managed it, thank you.” She seemed too fragile to have pulled him on board by sheer strength, so she was resourceful and tenacious. Admiration for her snaked inside of him and settled somewhere he didn’t want to think about.
She held up her hand. “Don’t try to stab me. I’m just getting you a blanket.”
Lev noticed she’d used the word
try
. She still thought she was the one in control. He watched her every movement carefully through half-closed eyes. It didn’t matter that he was in bad shape. He was alert and coiled, ready to spring should she make one wrong move. She was trapped on deck with a dangerous predator—and she moved as if she knew it, keeping her hands in sight as she pulled a blanket out of the locker for him—yet he knew she didn’t accept the knowledge. She obviously didn’t want to get too close so she tossed the blanket to him.
Lev didn’t disabuse her of the notion that she was safe—out of his reach. He could be on her in a second and he knew just about every way there was to kill someone. He sighed as he wrapped the blanket around himself, still shivering uncontrollably. “Thanks,” he murmured again. He was injured more severely than he’d first guessed because she was definitely getting under his skin. He had the feeling he was just as uncomfortable with her as she was with him.
“Look. You have a concussion, and if you’ve lost memory, it’s severe. You were really battered against the reef before I could get to you. I have to get you help. We can’t just stay out here.”
“I’m not going to die,” he reassured her. “Can you recover your bags?”
She blinked. Shocked. He’d definitely shocked her. “My bags?”
“With your catch. You said you dumped your catch in order to rescue me.”
She waved that aside. “You need help. That comes first. I’ll come back out and see if I can recover them later.”
She looked down at the water and for the first time he could read her expression. There was longing. Need. Not for her lost catch, but for something else. His mind, as clunky as it was, as shadowy and hazy, began to form an idea that left him a little shocked. An element? Could this woman be element bound? Where there was one bound to an element, there were at least three others. He’d read about such a thing but had never run across it. It was a miracle of nature. But there was that look on her face, almost loving, certainly in need.
“Have you always lived your life by the sea?”
She shrugged. “I don’t like being far from the water. And it’s how I make my living.”
It seemed impossible to just stumble accidently over something that had the potential for tremendous power. A key to one of the elements. Water. He shook his head and instantly his vision blurred, reminding him he was probably hallucinating anyway. He looked her straight in the eye again. “I’m not going to a hospital. I can’t afford too many questions, not when I have no answers. Just get me back to shore and I’ll find my way.”
Rikki scowled, turning away from him, trying to think when those intense eyes had her more than a little rattled. His eyes were a piercing blue, like the sea itself. He was gorgeous. She didn’t get close to men who were gorgeous. She judged his height to be over six feet. Wide shoulders, a thick, muscular chest, narrow hips; he was all muscle. The man was a walking mythology statue—a poster child for women’s fantasies. His face was all hard angles and planes. He looked tough and she had no doubt that he was. He was shivering continually.
Cursing under her breath, she knew she couldn’t just leave him. “You know you could have a blood clot. You hit pretty hard.”
“I’ll be fine.” He settled deeper into the blanket, and long lashes veiled his blue eyes, giving her some relief. “Go get your catch. I’m not going to a hospital, so it doesn’t matter where we are or how long it takes us to get back to the harbor.”
Rikki studied his face. He could take the boat while she was down searching for the nets, but it seemed silly not to just kill her and throw her overboard. She was very tempted to try to recover her catch. She couldn’t afford the loss of the urchins or her gear. Selfish or not, it was how she made a living and the farm needed cash coming in.
“Take the keys with you if you’re worried,” he said, without opening his eyes.
“I can rig a motor,” she said, “so I’m guessing you can as well.”
He opened his eyes and looked straight into hers with that penetrating stare that shook her. Ocean blue, his eyes held no real emotion. None. Flat and as cold as the deepest sea. Yet they were brilliant, like two sapphires mesmerizing her. She shook herself. Or like a cobra. He was her catch, fair and square, no matter how difficult he was to handle. She’d been the one to pull him out of the sea—and that made him hers.
“Do whatever you feel comfortable doing, but truthfully, I’ll need you to get me out of here. I don’t have a clue where I am or which direction I would go to get back to the harbor.”
She studied his face. He wasn’t exactly lying, but he wasn’t telling the truth. He had no doubt that he would find his way to shore—and neither did she. He was a resourceful man.
“Drink some more water. This won’t take long,” she said, making up her mind. She was going to take him at his word. If the boat started up, she might be able to “dance” the water right over the top of him and spill him right back into the sea.
Lev watched as she poured hot engine water inside her wet suit top and then stripped off her sweatshirt and pulled on her vest with a diver’s immodesty. He couldn’t help but think she didn’t notice him as a man, more like a catch she’d pulled from the sea. A part of him was a little disgruntled over that, while another part wanted to smile. She was very focused once she decided on a course of action. She reached for her gear, hurriedly shrugging into her bailout tank.