Going Dark Read online

  Suddenly the realization hit her. That was probably the point. He’d made himself appealing to her. Oh God—she’d been honeypotted! How completely humiliating. Admittedly she didn’t have that much experience with men—she’d had a couple of long-term boyfriends over the years—but she didn’t want to think of herself as being so gullible. Or worse, desperate.

  Annie didn’t think she needed a man to “complete” herself, by any means, but had she unconsciously been worried? She wanted a family. A companion. Children. Here she was, twenty-six years old, finishing up grad school, and she hadn’t had a serious date since her last boyfriend . . . two years ago. She winced, realizing how long it had been.

  Had it made her a little too eager? Too willing to ignore things that didn’t seem quite right?

  No, she’d been perfectly happy before Julien came along. There was plenty of time for everything else.

  But she couldn’t deny that it had been exciting, having someone like Julien romancing her.

  Annie had begun to fear that they would never rest as they’d planned when Jean Paul finally stood up. “We should all try to get some sleep. We’ve a long night ahead of us.”

  “What time are we due to arrive?” Claude asked.

  “Just before dark,” Jean Paul said. “Around ten.”

  In other words she had about six hours.

  “We should be in the water no later than two a.m.,” Jean Paul added. He looked meaningfully at Julien. “I trust that will give you enough time to make sure everything is ready?”

  Julien nodded with an anxious look in her direction. Apparently she was “everything.”

  After going below, Claude and Jean Paul went into the room on the right; she and Julien went into the one across the hall on the left. As soon as Julien shut the door behind them, he tried to broach the subject. “I need to talk to you about tonight.”

  It was small comfort that he looked as if he wanted to throw up.

  She forced a smile to her face. “Can it wait until after we get some rest? I’m suddenly exhausted.”

  He heaved a heavy sigh of relief like a man who’d just been given a stay of execution. “We are supposed to meet Jean Paul and Claude at ten, so I’ll set the alarm for nine.”

  “Sounds good.”

  He thought he would only need one hour to convince her? Did he think her so malleable? She was even more insulted, which under the circumstances was ridiculous. Must be some kind of gallows humor.

  Annie was glad for the single berths, as she didn’t have to get into bed with him. She doubted her acting abilities would go far enough to prevent her from cringing if he tried to touch her.

  Wrapping the wool blanket around her shoulders, she turned toward the wall and curled up to wait.

  It didn’t take long. The dark, windowless room, the gentle lull of the ship, and the three glasses of wine soon put him in a nap-time coma.

  But she forced herself to listen to his steady breathing for nearly an hour before slipping out of bed to go in search of the captain.

  • • •

  Normally Dean liked the time alone at the helm, staring for hours out the window, watching the mesmerizing roll of the ocean that stretched as far as the eye could see.

  It was relaxing. Normally. But today there wasn’t anywhere to hide from his thoughts, and his daytime fantasies were anything but relaxing. They had his body primed in a way it hadn’t been in a long time. Not even the soothing croon of Adele’s latest was helping.

  When the clouds thickened into gray mist, darkening the skies with a burgeoning storm, it only grew worse. The walls seemed to be closing in on him.

  He needed to get some air.

  He stood up and reached for the door just as it flew open.

  Annie ran straight into his arms. At least it seemed that way at the time. But maybe it was just because he’d been thinking about her for most of the afternoon, and quite a few of those thoughts involved her showing up here, falling into his arms, and christening the wheelhouse for the rest of the day.

  He’d never had sex at the helm, but he’d been imagining all kinds of creative ways to give it a try.

  Reflexively his arms came around her to pull her in close. The feel of those spectacular breasts crushed against his chest and her hips pressing against the part of him that was stiff and throbbing released a little of the pressure he’d been holding in with a groan.

  The sound startled her, cutting off whatever she’d been about to say. Instead her eyes locked on his.

  Through the haze of lust he realized something was wrong, but he couldn’t seem to see beyond her eyes—they were such an incredible shade of green—her smooth and creamy cocoa-butter skin, and her really soft-looking mouth. A mouth that was red and ripe and gently parted as if waiting to be kissed.

  The urge rose inside him, powerful and overwhelming. He didn’t think anything could stop him from lowering his head and putting his mouth on hers.

  “Capt—” she started. “Dan.” The sound of the false name sounded so wrong coming from her it brought him harshly back to reality.

  He let her go and stepped back.

  Christ, what the hell was that?

  “I . . . I . . .” She blinked a few times—as if clearing her head (he knew the feeling), and then seemed to remember what she’d wanted to say. “I need to talk to you.”

  Furious at himself for how he’d reacted, and how easily he’d jumped to the wrong conclusion about why she was here, he found his response a little harsher than he intended. After he turned down the music, he said, “So talk.”

  “Adele?”

  Yeah, he liked Adele—so shoot him. Despite what most of his friends thought, there were more than two types of music: country and western.

  Putting aside her surprise at his musical taste, she launched into what had brought her. “We have to do something. They are planning . . . Oh God, I don’t know what they are planning, but it isn’t good.”

  Anger and embarrassment took a backseat when he realized how upset she was, but he was having a hard time following her. “Slow down, take a breath, and tell me what happened.”

  His voice seemed to calm her. She looked up at him almost gratefully, nodded, and took that deep breath before continuing. “I wasn’t completely honest with you about what we were planning to do. It wasn’t just a dive or to make a film.”

  He finished for her. “You are going to try to board the drillship and stage some kind of sit-in.”

  She didn’t seem all that surprised that he’d guessed. “That’s what I thought, but then you gave me that look, and I heard Julien and Jean Paul talking about something, and I decided to become a superspy—more like Pandora actually.”

  She was losing him again. What look? He had no idea what she was talking about, but whatever the hell it was, it was serious. “Just tell me what the problem is, Annie. I assume you aren’t just now realizing how out-of-your-mind dangerous it is to board a ship in the middle of the ocean or that you would be arrested.”

  She gave him a glare that would have curdled milk. “Of course I knew that, but those were risks I was willing to take if it meant someone would finally listen to what we were saying and put an end to the exploratory drilling.”

  “So your little illegal publicity stunt is okay because you have good intentions? A pirate isn’t a pirate as long as he has convictions—is that it?”

  “Pirate?” She looked horrified by the comparison. But that was exactly what they would be doing. “We aren’t hurting anyone.”

  “What about all the time and resources that go into getting you off that damned boat safely? Not to mention the men who risk their lives to do so. I hate to break it to you, but causing problems and putting others in danger isn’t the way to convince people to see your side.”

  “I . . . God, why are we arguing about this? That is