Wicked Sexy(8)

Dani looked skeptical. He was fairly certain she was running scenarios in her head, counting the

possible outcomes and risks. He knew that sharing a second cone would be more than a quick, sweet treat.

The question was, did she?

“Going for ice cream counts as a date. Are we dating? Because I was under the distinct impression that

we’d already covered that—and ruled it out.”

“It would be fun,” he countered. “Take a chance. Jump on in.”

“Do you like doing it?” Her teeth worried the full lower lip. “Jumping?”

“Sometimes jumping is the only way to get the job done.” It had never occurred to him to not jump.

“That’s a hard way to live.”

Nothing worth doing came easy, and he always loved a challenge. He had a feeling the woman sharing

the beach with him understood that—she just found her challenges somewhere else.

She continued. “So what happens if—when—you jump in and you can’t pull the other person out?”

The memory flickered to life. He’d already had his backside hoisted into the chopper and the mission

had been a routine rescue. He and Lars had put the survivor in the basket and sent him up. Daeg had gone next because of the hit he’d taken in the water, making him incapable of a climb he’d done hundreds of

times before.

And then the ocean had sucked Lars under as their spotter barked curses and directions to Tag. Too

late. Lars had disappeared beneath the tsunami’s deadly debris-filled water. Cal had signaled he was going back in and dived. Dived and dived again, until Cal hadn’t had the air in his tank to keep going. The

chopper, too, had been dangerously low on fuel.

They’d all given up and flown away. Knowing Daeg had left a man behind, who wouldn’t be coming

home, crushed him.

Hell. No.

He forced his eyes open. Having Dani in his sights was better than rehashing the past, and he wasn’t

going there again. Not today. Instead, he stood up, holding out a hand to tug her up. She hesitated, then accepted it, wrapping her fingers around his.

He glanced down to where they were temporarily joined and damn if he didn’t find that small bit of

contact sexier than any of the dates he’d had in recent years. She was trusting him not to let go.

“Rescues don’t always succeed,” he admitted when the silence stretched out between them for too long.

“When I got this souvenir for my leg, that was one of those times everything went wrong. I jumped with a partner and we got the survivor in the basket.”

Her fingers tightened on his, but she didn’t move.

“No swimmer gets in the basket before the survivor.” Flashbacks aside, he’d replayed that afternoon a

hundred times in his head. “That was the one thing that went right. We were in the Indian Ocean, got there fourteen hours after a tsunami hit. The water was a mess, still churning with destroyed boats and other crafts, but we’d set the basket down where she seemed clear.”

“But the water wasn’t clear?”

“Not even close.” The current had picked up, that first bump against his legs a nauseating wake-up call.

He hadn’t known if he’d struck something, or a living and breathing something that would surface and take a chunk out of him. “The circumstances made it impossible to see. A piece of some kind of strong metal

fence tore through my leg and there I was, bleeding all over the place. My partner signaled for the basket, put me in and I got out alive. Less than a minute later, he went under.”

The tsunami had wrecked a number of coastlines. All that mud and churn. Torn-up wood, dead animals

and cars. Stuff that had once been a part of people’s lives, but was loose in a deadly flood. Shock had had him good by the time he’d reached the bird’s floor.

He hadn’t realized until much later that the pilot had been circling and circling, searching for the missing swimmer until there’d been no more fuel and therefore no more time.

“Surgery followed by eight weeks of rehab back in Japan, then shipped stateside. I’ll be fine by the end of summer. Strong again.”

“And then you go back.”

“Yeah. I think so.” No, he was certain. The rest of his team was waiting for him and, as soon as he

could pull his own weight, he’d be there. Right now, though, he was a liability. He hated that truth, but he couldn’t shake it. He wouldn’t be helpful to anyone in the field, not with his leg the way it was. And never mind his head.

He was done examining his head, he decided, and what had gone wrong that day. The expression on

Dani’s face was all caring. He didn’t want her pity.

He swept her up into his arms and dashed for the water.

“If you don’t want ice cream, you should at least have that swim you came here for.”

He tossed her gently, and all that control and sleek elegance vanished as she broke the surface of the

water and then shot back up with a loud shriek, arms flailing. He let her call out while he dived in and got his arms around her, steadying her. Yeah. This was a lot better than pity.

She quickly shoved away from him, slogging toward the shore.

“Next time,” she hollered back, “I’ll opt for the ice cream.”

Her use of next time was good, but at heart she was still a play-it-safe girl, while he—well, he wanted to get this going. See where their attraction could take them.

“You’re sitting on the sidelines and thinking the water might be cold,” he called. “Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t. But you’re never going to know until you’re all in. Testing the water won’t help, not really. That’s not enough to tell you anything at all.”

She made it to the sand and turned around, hands on hips. She didn’t seem happy, but she’d stopped

muttering. And she was still talking to him. “You’re telling me to jump.”

“You got it.” He turned over onto his back, floating. “I am.”

“And when I’m in and it’s cold? What then?” she challenged.

“You won’t be cold, princess. I promise you that.”





THE SWEET MOON cabins were the perfect scene for a seduction.

Unfortunately, Dani was alone, when every honeymoon with hot, raunchy sex she’d ever fantasized had

required two people. She flipped on all the lights when she reached her cabin because the hundred watts killed the romantic mood. To kill it even more, she shed the bikini, dropping the swimsuit on the floor and grabbed her thick, terry robe.

Feeling dry, finally, and a lot more comfortable, Dani had a serious look at the cabin’s main room. It

was truly pretty, sporting an enormous four-poster bed draped in swathes of white tulle. White candles of all sizes had been artfully arranged by the bedside and over the mantel of the fireplace, giving the air an exotic scent.

She wanted to shove the candles into the closet, but she’d done that yesterday and housekeeping had

simply replaced them. She couldn’t catch a break.

Grabbing the night’s complimentary bottle of champagne and the plate of chocolate-covered

strawberries, she cracked the bottle open and settled in. Outside the sky was starting to cloud over again.

At least her appetite wasn’t shot. Sure, she was on her own, but at least she hadn’t gone through with

the ceremony and married Rick. It would have been the biggest mistake of her life. Still, she couldn’t get Daeg’s face out of her mind. He’d changed, but she shouldn’t have been surprised. She had changed, too.

No longer was she the naive girl who’d once chased him down that beach ten years ago.

Her thoughts returned to her hot navy man. Daeg seemed harder, more serious. He tried to act the part,

but his carefree attitude had all but disappeared. Whatever he’d seen and done during his military career,

he’d brought those experiences back with him.

He would have come back here with her.

She revisited their kiss on the beach, replayed the scene in her head.

The question was: Should she go for it? Followed by: Could she? A fling with Daeg Ross, of all men?

Hooking up with Daeg Ross would certainly prove to herself that her ex-fiancé’s claims were all hot air.

In truth, she wasn’t going to have sex just to make a point. That was a bonus. No, if—when—she went to

bed with Daeg Ross, it would be because she wanted to.

Because she really wondered what she’d missed out on all those years ago, and she liked how she felt

around him. She was different. Somehow more. More alive, more real, more herself. Those were all good things. He made her want to take chances, which was also very different.

But she liked it.

A lot.

Too bad she was such a chicken. She refilled her champagne glass and snuggled deeper into the

luxurious bed. What she actually needed was to get on with her life. But she’d start with Daeg. She needed to take the plunge. He was right about that.

Where to start?

Grabbing a pad of legal paper, she sketched columns rapidly and added headings. Action. Reaction. His action. Her reaction. For a moment she felt foolish, but she was alone and it wasn’t as if anyone would ever see her list of potential seduction setups. She eyed the fireplace. She could always burn the pad if it came to it.

That fireplace was a good start. She could easily imagine curling up in front of it with Daeg. What