Going Dark Read online

  She grinned—a little too happily to his mind—and started rattling off every bleeding-heart, save-the-whales type of organization he could think of and some he’d never heard of.

  But he held up his hand when she got to the political ones. “Stop. I can’t take it anymore. You had me at that last one.” He gave a dramatic shudder.

  “They do a lot of important things—”

  “Annie?”

  She paused to look up at him. The brim of his hat had kept most of the rain off her face, but one or two drops had caught in her lashes. Her eyes were gorgeous—especially when they were sparkling with amusement. “I’ll keep the jacket if you promise to stop.”

  She smiled as if that had been her intention all along. “Deal.” It was her turn to look at him sideways. “Let me guess. . . .”

  He grinned. She didn’t even need to say it. “Cold, dead hands, baby.” He sobered. “‘Baby’ in the nonmisogynistic sense of the word.”

  “Obviously,” she deadpanned back at him. “Although I’m surprised that they teach that word in caveman school.”

  He gave a sharp bark of laughter. He’d never met a woman who gave him shit the way she did. “Yeah, it was in the words-over-four-letters class, right between Dragging by the Hair 101 and Patriarchal Society 200.”

  She threw back her head and laughed, which stopped his jesting cold. It was replaced by a hard bolt of lust. Lust that despite the weather and their precarious situation made him hot and about a half second away from pulling her into his arms and putting his mouth on that very tempting, creamy-looking throat. Which would be a really bad idea.

  That he could lose focus in a situation like this, even for a moment, was disconcerting enough to snap him back to attention. Situational awareness on an op was something he’d never lost sight of before.

  He didn’t like it.

  Having no idea of the effect she’d just had on him, she lifted her head to meet his gaze, still smiling. “Let me guess. You excelled in all your subjects?”

  “Enough to teach you a few things if you are interested.”

  “I think I’ll pass,” she said dryly.

  “You don’t know what you are missing.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I can guess.”

  He wondered if they were talking about the same thing. If they were, she had no fucking idea. “Let me know if you want a rain check.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  He had to force himself to look away. She was so beautiful he was getting distracted again.

  He lasted about a mile. That was the point when the drops of mist turned into full-fledged rain. Sexist pig or not, he wasn’t going to sit here with a coat on that was keeping him dry while she got soaked.

  He thought about pulling her into his lap and not giving her a chance to argue, but as that might be seen as coming a little too close to the pig part of the equation, he decided to take a more subtle route. There was a first time for everything. “I need you to help me with something.”

  She sat up. “Of course. Anything.”

  “I can’t keep the compass steady, hold the map, and steer the boat with the waves like this.”

  “What do you need me to do?”

  He scooted back a little on the seat. “Come sit here.” Said the spider to the fly. He motioned in front of him. “You can hold the map and the compass where I can see it, while I steer.”

  She frowned as if wondering whether she should be suspicious.

  As MacDonald would say, smart lass.

  Dean had to slow the speed, and it took a little jostling, but a few minutes later she was tucked against his chest, and his coat was discreetly pulled around her, shielding her from most of the rain.

  There was one big problem—a problem that was getting bigger and bigger by the moment. The plastic seat in front of the helm could be adjusted, but not enough to give their bodies any space between them. Which essentially meant that her back was pressed against his chest, her head was tucked under his chin, and her firm, perfectly curved ass was nestled right into his crotch, and with every bump of the boat, that very incredible bottom was slamming against him. His dick—the brainless, too-long-ignored idiot that it was—was taking notice and standing hard at attention. Emphasis on hard.

  There was too much of him and too little between them, namely a couple of layers of denim, for her not to notice.

  She tried to sit stiffly for a while, keeping as much distance between them as possible. But as the weather grew worse, and the waves higher, it became impossible. She gave up, sinking into him fully.

  It took everything he had not to groan. But she felt good. Really good. Body-on-fire, skin-too-tight, every-instinct-flared good.

  For the next half hour, he had to fight to keep them on course while struggling to ignore the havoc the motion and rhythm of the boat were wreaking on his control.

  The warmth and softness of her body didn’t help. Nor did the fact that she smelled incredible. Perfume? Shampoo? He didn’t know, but it was feminine, sweet, and made him want to bury his face in her neck and hair.

  He was almost glad when the weather got worse and required his full attention.

  Almost.

  Twelve

  They were getting pummeled by rain that was coming down in proverbial sheets with no intention of stopping, white-topped waves that were climbing higher by the minute, and sharp gusts of wind that blew it all together in great geysers of water leaping and spraying all around them.

  Clearly this was the wrong time to think about how good Dan felt behind her or how close his arm was to her breast or that the erection hard against her bottom was every bit as impressive as it had felt in her hand. Yet despite the tumult swirling around her, the flush of desire—all right, lust—was hitting her hard. He was turning her on. Big-time.

  In the cocoon of his coat and body heat, she was warm and soft and inexplicably relaxed for a castaway at sea in a leaky boat in a monsoon. Well, maybe the storm wasn’t quite that bad, but it was definitely not the time to be thinking about sex. Really raunchy sex. Really hot sex. Sex like what she’d only imagined.

  But if the sensations turning her liquid every time her bottom rode up against him were any indication, she’d definitely been missing out in the doggy-style category. She could too easily imagine him bending her forward against the wheel, lifting her hips to him, and sinking that thick column inside her. And the thrusts. She could definitely imagine the thrusts. Every time the boat lurched over a wave and came down hard, she felt the slam of him behind her, sending a reverberation of need through her bones. She was hot and achy and more turned on than she’d ever been in her life. Which given their circumstances was pure crazy sauce.

  Maybe she was imagining it all a little too well, because as they rode over the next wave, and the motion carried her hips back, she might have arched her back a little and made a sound that was suspiciously like a moan.

  He stiffened behind her, growing so taut the muscles in his chest and arms seemed to turn to steel. Hello, Mr. Six-Pack—or Eight-Pack. Unless she wanted to turn around and count them—which she kind of did—the exact number of rigid bands would remain a mystery. Her back felt even hotter—like sitting in front of a furnace that had just been stoked. Which admittedly she might have just done.

  What was she doing? Grinding against a guy she barely knew like a teenager when they were in danger of disappearing under the next wave or sinking in a deflated boat?

  Cheeks aflame with mortified heat, she tried to pull away, but he caught her with one of those rock-hard arms and pulled her back in tight. “Don’t. I want you right here.”

  His voice so close to her ear sent shivers down her spine. Sure, that was it. It wasn’t the sensual promise in his words. He was feeling it, too. He liked it. He wanted her.

  Was that what she wanted? Sex with a stranger? Even if he