* * * *
It had taken Anna a full day to come up with a reasonable excuse to head out to the sub where Joshua and Caleb were and another day to work up the nerve and arrange to have a paddler delivered that she could use. She certainly couldn’t swim out!
She’d toyed with the idea for a while of simply ordering it and paddling around as if she was going about some task related to her research and then ‘accidentally’
stumbling upon the sub. She’d finally discarded that idea, though. She didn’t think she could actually carry it off convincingly. It was better, she decided, to approach them boldly with the excuse of bearing gifts to show her appreciation and relieve the tedium of stale food.
There was one problem she hadn’t been able to resolve satisfactorily. She thought arriving with gifts for them would work well enough from their standpoint, but she didn’t think it was a good idea to head out in broad daylight and give away their watch post. If she had to sneak out after dark, though, and anybody else did see her—like her neighbors—she needed a ready excuse for why she’d taken the notion to paddle around at sea in the middle of the night. Collecting specimens for research might work if she did it during the day. Nobody really knew what it was that she was researching, but she couldn’t make it
not
look suspicious that she’d decided to go out at night to do it.
Since she hadn’t been able to come up with anything that sounded the least bit believable to her, she’d finally decided that she would be careful not to be seen instead.
She’d ordered a dark blue paddler—which had taken a while to find since most of them were canary yellow, apparently. It was the color of the sub, though, and that was virtually invisible in the dark unless one knew it was there and searched for it. That should also make the paddler hard to see. To top that off, she’d found dark clothing and a dark knit cap to stuff her hair into. Her hair was closer to brown than blond to her mind, but she was afraid it might still be light enough to reflect moonlight.
She supposed it would’ve been safer to venture out before the moon rose or after it set in the sense of greater exposure, but she was afraid she might lose her way in the dark.
She was a bundle of nerves when she carried her goodies out and carefully them, but her need to see Caleb, even if it was just a few minutes, overrode her anxieties about being seen and her cowardice in approaching men in general that she was attracted to, and him in particular.
She couldn’t relax. Even the effort of paddling and trying to guide the damned boat, which wasn’t nearly as easy as she’d thought it would be, failed to wear down her tension. In point of fact, the closer she came, the tighter the knot in her stomach.
Doubts surfaced about halfway between her house and her goal. Maybe she was just putting way too much into Caleb’s interest in her? Maybe he wasn’t actually interested in her at all and he’d just been horny and decided she would be an easy mark since she’d practically swooned when he’d kissed her the first time? It didn’t help that she’d thought so at the time. Just because she’d convinced herself since then that it might be more or that he might at least be interested enough to repeat the experience, it didn’t necessarily follow that he would be.
Maybe he’d be pissed off at her obvious pursuit? She didn’t know a hell of a lot about men, granted, but even she knew they preferred to be the hunter. They didn’t like pushy women. Most of them didn’t seem to, anyway. She’d always thought that was probably at least one of the reasons Chance had come after her—aside from the fact that she was one of the very few he hadn’t already nailed! Women hung all over him and openly chased him—except her. It had aroused the hunter in him once he’d finally noticed her and realized she wasn’t disinterested.
She considered turning back at least twice. If she did, she could always make up an excuse for paddling around in the ocean in the middle of the night. She’d just gone out for a little exercise, or fresh air.
He didn’t know it wasn’t something she’d ever done before.
She’d spent half the day cooking, though, damn it!
Well! All being timid about men had ever gotten her was being ignored! She’d thought up a perfectly reasonable excuse to see him. All she had to do was have enough backbone to carry it through. She could just give him and Joshua the goodies she’d cooked for them and leave.
Girding herself, she paddled up to the sub and stopped, trying to decide whether to simply wait and see if they’d come out or if she should try to maneuver around to the hatch at the back and knock. It was dark inside, though, and it occurred to her to wonder if they were asleep or maybe just hadn’t noticed her? After agonizing over it for a few minutes, she finally got up and leaned over the edge of the paddler to peer inside through the porthole. Unfortunately, it was lighter outside than inside and she couldn’t see a damned thing. She cupped her hands around her face to block out the light.
The discovery that there was a man standing just on the other side of the glass sent a jolt through her that paled beside the discovery that it was Simon. Uh oh! Busted!
She jumped instinctively, which was all it took to completely overset her balance when combined with the wet glass she was leaning on. She made several futile efforts to catch herself and then went into the water head first.
Simon rolled his eyes. “Use the escape tube and go get her … and move that paddler around to the back so it isn’t so damned noticeable! Better yet, give it a shove toward the city. One of us can take her back.”
By the time Anna had managed to surface again and shove her wet hair out of her eyes, she was dismayed to see that the damned paddler was cruising back toward the city without her. How it had managed to get so far away so fast when she’d nearly pedaled herself to death to get it out there was a mystery to her!
It was solved when Ian surfaced almost directly in front of her. Startled, she leapt away instinctively. He caught her arms, halting her retreat, drawing her closer, close enough their bodies brushed and bumped lightly together with the current.
“Hello, beautiful,” he drawled. “What brings you out here?”
Anna blinked at him, trying to remember the lie she’d practiced. His face was dark and shadowy. She could see just well enough to detect the gleam of amusement in his eyes and the faintly sardonic curve of his lips, though, and it occurred to her, forcefully if belatedly, that it didn’t sound nearly as convincing to her now as it had before she’d left her house.
“I was just … uh … tired of being cooped up and … uh … thought I’d paddle around the city a little before I went to bed … so I could sleep better.”
The faint smile broadened to a toothy, and slightly feral, grin. “Well, as long as you’ve blown our cover anyway, you might as well come in and say hello to Simon.
He’s anxious for a chat.”
Dismay filled her. “Oh … well, I think I should do that another time. Why don’t you just tell him hello for me? My paddler drifted away and it’s a rental. I need to go after it.”
“I’ll catch it for you … later,” he murmured soothingly, guiding her around the sub.
“Yes … but it really is late! I hadn’t realized it was so late! I should get back.”
“Hold your breath.”
Anna’s eyes widened. She made a frantic grab for him. “Oh! Ian, don’t! I can’t hold my breath very long!”
He dragged her close. “That’s alright, baby. I’ll breathe for you,” he murmured, threading his fingers through her hair and bringing her mouth to his. When she opened her mouth to receive, though, she got more than she bargained for. Ian thrust his tongue into her mouth, throwing her into a state of complete disorder and leaving her wide open to her primal urges. His taste and scent reached right inside of her, leaving molten heat in its wake, sending her mind into a dark, dizzying spiral so that she melted weakly against him.
He broke the kiss. “Whatever you do,” he murmured huskily before he enfolded her lips with his again, “don’t breathe through your nose.”
The words had barely registered, barely begun to be interpreted by her sluggish mind when she felt him drag her beneath the surface. For a split second, panic threatened to tear a hole in the heated cocoon he’d wrapped her in, and then she felt his free hand gliding along her back, fitting her more tightly against his length so that she could feel his body undulating against her. She countered his movements more by instinct than design, felt something brush against her shoulders and then her hips. She was hardly aware that they’d stopped moving until she felt the water receding and Ian’s weight began to bear down on her.
The sucking sound of a seal being broken jolted her enough, though, to make her pull away.
Simon, she discovered, was staring into the tube-like thing they were lying in, his expression tight.
“Did she breathe better with your tongue down her throat?” he asked sardonically.
Ian shrugged, glancing from Simon to meet her gaze. “I don’t know, but it gave her something to think about besides drowning.”
Discomfort wafted through Anna and she felt her cheeks heat. She couldn’t think of anything to say, though. She still hadn’t come up with anything when Simon had helped her out of the tube and into the sub.
“Did you get lost?” Simon asked finally.
Anna felt her face growing redder, but she doggedly repeated the lie she’d told Ian. “I was out for air and a little exercise. What in the world are you two doing here?” she added on inspiration. “I thought this sort of looked like the sub Joshua and Caleb brought me home in. Is it yours?”
Simon exchanged a look with Ian.
“So this is a nightly thing for you?” he persisted, sarcasm lacing his voice.
“Oh! Not nightly, no. But occasionally I like to get out.”
“I’ll go get the rental,” Ian said dryly.
Traitor! She glared at him, but it was a wasted effort since he’d swung himself back into the tube. “So I rent a paddler occasionally. I have to collect seawater for my project, you know.”
“And the water out here is different than the water at the edge of your yard, of course!”
“Well, of course it is!” Anna snapped, knowing the entire tale was sinking, but determined to maintain it. “Contaminates from the city, you know!”
“I don’t suppose it occurred to you that it might scare away anybody that could be watching you?”
Anna gaped at him guiltily. “Well, that wouldn’t be a bad thing would it?”
“Except that they’d just wait for us to leave and come back,” he said dryly.
That was unnerving
and dismaying, particularly since she realized she’d also just blown her lie. She struggled for a few moments to come up with something to say that would cover the mistake and couldn’t. “Well … it is late and it’s dark. The boat’s dark and I’m wearing dark clothes. I doubt anybody saw me.”
“
We
saw you,” Simon said grimly.
“You did?” she asked in dismay, wondering if he’d seen her loading the boat. He didn’t leave her in doubt long.
“Yes, we did—when you were loading the boat with whatever it was you were heading out here with.”
Anna blinked at him, searching her mind a little frantically. “I wasn’t coming here,” she emphasized, pointing down at the floor. “I was just out for a little fresh air and exercise. Really!”
Simon was still studying her in patent disbelief when Ian emerged from the tube again. “Got it.”
“Got what?” Anna asked uneasily.
Ian opened the thermal carrier up and looked over the contents. “Looks like dinner. You hungry, Simon?”
Anna smiled weakly. “Oh! Help yourselves! I brought plenty .... I thought I might get hungry.”
“Anna!” Simon growled.
Anna sent him a wide-eyed look of innocence—or tried. When she discovered he was advancing on her purposefully, panic replaced that effort. She encountered the wall of the sub the moment she backed up, though. “Alright!” she said testily. “I thought I saw it out here … the sub … and I’d asked Caleb and Joshua to keep an eye on me in case my father came back. So, I figured I’d just fix a little something for them as a gift, you know? Appreciation?”
He tilted his head, studying her speculatively. “So, you expected to find Caleb and Joshua?”
“No! No,” she said quickly, worried by that time that she was going to get them in trouble. “But, I’d asked Caleb and when I saw the sub I figured he’d sent someone and I just thought I’d show my appreciation.”
He planted a hand on the wall beside her head when she started trying to ease to one side to escape. “So … show me.”
Anna gaped up at him blankly. “Show you?” she gasped weakly, watching in petrified fascination as his face moved closer and closer. She thought for a moment her heart was going to beat her to death. She felt weak and dizzy and torn between panic and …. Her lips tingled as his breath brushed them. Doubts ricocheted through her mind, the certainty that he was testing her or playing a trick on her. He hated her. He didn’t want to kiss her. He was trying to make a fool out of her!
Too late! She was way ahead of him!
Somehow, despite her doubts and her certainty that he was just trying to unsettle her, though, she discovered she simply couldn’t resist lifting her lips just a tiny bit and touching them to his. For a handful of almost painful heartbeats neither of them moved and then she ran her tongue over her dry lower lip, brushing it along his as she did.
She heard him swallow. He hesitated and then eased away from her.
Anna stared at him blankly as he turned away, trying to get her runaway heart under control, trying to grasp what had just happened—hadn’t happened. Hurt and anger flooded her abruptly in almost equal measure as she stared at his retreating back, bringing her to the verge of tears, which only unsettled her more.
Ian, she saw when it finally occurred to her that she’d let him make a complete fool out of her, was watching her. She looked away, glanced around the small sub in search of a place to hide and finally moved to the nearest porthole to stare out and try to compose herself. It was a battle, she realized fairly quickly, that she couldn’t win. She was too upset, in too much turmoil. She’d crossed the boundary of self-control. All she could hope for was to keep from spiraling completely out of control. A knot the size of her fist seemed to have formed in her throat. She swallowed convulsively a couple of times and finally cleared her throat, trying to dislodge it so she could speak. “I should be getting back,” she said shakily. “I was … I was just going to deliver some treats anyway.
I’m sure I’m in the way and I really need to get back.”
“I took the paddler back to your place,” Ian said.
Anna sent him a look of dismay.
“I’ll take her,” Simon said, his voice sounding strange even to her in her current state.
“No!” She hadn’t meant to shout, but she was desperate to escape him. She knew she couldn’t hang on to her self-control long enough to get back. All she wanted was to get out of the sub as fast as she could. “I can swim. It isn’t that far.”
Ian set his food aside. “I’ll take her.”
She wanted to argue with him, as well, but as desperate as she was to be alone, she really didn’t think she could swim so far without help. Fortunately, he took control and ushered her into the tube. He didn’t try to kiss her again, thankfully. She pushed free of him as soon they surfaced and struck off toward the city.
He didn’t try to stop her or to help until she’d thoroughly exhausted herself and paused to tread water and catch her breath. He caught her against his side then and carried her the remainder of the way, helping her onto the edge of the platform. It took all she could do to gain her feet. She didn’t thank him or even look back, although it rattled through her mind that she should have, that she should have mouthed all sorts of polite platitudes, to try to save face if nothing else and salve her wounded pride.
It was a relief to get back inside her home, her safe harbor. Shivering from the cold, she pushed away from the door and locked it and then rushed around her house checking it a little mindlessly to assure herself she was alone. She almost made it to her room before she broke down. She’d thought she’d actually mastered the urge, but it crashed back over her unexpectedly, drawing a harsh sob from her that hurt her throat.
She clamped a hand over her mouth, trying to stem the tide but it was hopeless at that point. She was sobbing so hard by the time she reached her bathroom and closed the door that she could hardly catch her breath. The hot water in her shower chased the chill from her fairly quickly, but it took a lot longer to calm her.
She was so exhausted by the time she got out of the shower, she could hardly stand long enough to dry off. Dragging herself to the bed, thankfully too exhausted even to think anymore, she collapsed face first on the mattress, dropping to sleep almost instantly.