Chapter 11
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
JUNE
“I’m claustrophobic.”
I never explain why, and I’m not about to start now. It’s been years, but I still sleep with the blinds open and the window cracked.
I still can’t stand to shower.
Or walk too far into the closet. I took the door off the hinges as soon as I moved in.
My breathing shallows, chest rising and falling too fast. Silence stretches, heavy with the need to explain. The memories surface, bubbling up, waiting to explode off my tongue.
The heat of the closet. The shadow of the fan making the light flicker until I thought I’d go crazy. The ropes digging into my wrists.
The burns lasting for weeks, though the fear’s lasted much longer.
The worst part was not knowing. Wondering if this would be the day they finally killed me. If I would ever be rescued. If anyone even cared I was gone.
If my father even knew I was missing.
It felt like months.
It was only six days.
Placing a hand on my side, Dean eases me onto the boat’s seat and I sink onto it, clutching his forearm for balance. A cold sweat breaks over my skin, despite the heat of the night.
Dean’s gone from my side, and I try to breathe normally, try to exist in this moment. I’m not trapped. I tip my chin up, looking at the stars in the clear night sky.
The engine dies before a splash signals Dean casting the anchor overboard. The boat lurches delicately as the anchor catches the murky bottom.
His eyes meet mine, dark and full of understanding.
Without a word, he hands a fresh water bottle to me.
I take it, tipping it and savoring the cool, clean water on my tongue, like it can wash away the bad memories.
Only then do I register that Dean’s brought the cushions from the cuddy cabin, spreading them across the deck in a snug, makeshift pallet. I settle myself down on one, giving up.
He tosses the lone blanket over me. It’s somewhat musty but soft, and his hand brushes my side as he tucks it around me.
The cushions squeak slightly as he lies down next to me.
The sound of him counting down from one hundred quietly, over and over, soothes me. Settles me. Until exhaustion claims me.
I wake at some point, as fingers of early morning pink across the horizon. I re-adjust, slinging the blanket aside, too warm.
A little too late, it hits me. The warmth curling through me isn’t thanks to the barely rising sun.
It’s thanks to Dean.
His strong, warm body cocoons mine. A muscled arm’s tossed over my torso, his fingertips lightly grazing my wrist.
I can’t quite bring myself to move away.
Eventually, the rhythm of his breathing and the sound of water against the hull lulls me back to sleep.
The sun sears across the horizon as I attempt to scramble up from the deck. The light fleece blanket tangles around my ankles, and I struggle for a moment before sinking against the rails.
I passed the heck out. My head throbs, and I wince as I remember the tequila.
The tequila definitely remembers me.
The rest of last night crashes over me and I sag, tired all over again.
“You’re up.” The deep pitch of Dean’s voice rolls across the boat, and I spin on my heel, ignoring the heat spreading through my stomach.
“Did we cuddle?” I blurt out.
He cocks his head, white, even teeth glowing against dark stubble as he throws a half-smile at me. “If we did, it was probably just for warmth.”
“Right,” I echo.
It’s already hot, and it takes a lot of energy not to smile at his easy joke, but I manage it.
Don’t want him to get the wrong idea and think I liked cuddling him, or let him know I slept better with him around me than I have in a long time.
“Good morning,” he says, and dang if that stubble doesn’t make him look even more delicious.
“Hi.” My voice is husky. Huskier than it should be.
Dean’s eyes crinkle at the corners, his grin growing.
“How you feeling?” he asks, tilting his head.
“Fine. Wonderful. Never been better in my life. Love spilling all my trauma to a stranger after having my house blown up.”
He arches an eyebrow, one hand gripping the hardtop roof of the cuddy cabin, the other arm cradling something against his chest. His bare chest.
Unf.
My throat bobs. A dull ache pounds against the back of my eyes. I close them briefly, pressing my palms against my eyelids.
“You sure? You don’t look so good.” The arm holding the roof flexes, and I try not to notice.
“A little hungover." I shrug. "Tired. Just girlie things girlies do after a normal night out.”
“Girlie things,” he repeats with a snort.
I grunt. I can’t decide if I am mad at him or myself or maybe even at my dad.
I immediately bury the thought in guilt.
“I found rations.” His eyes, despite the rising sun pinkening the sky all around them, remain fixed on me. Hungry. “There were some tiny toothbrushes in there, too.”
“Oh?”
“Food should help. I bet you have a killer headache today.” The distance between us shrinks, and Dean hands me a wrapped granola bar and a warm Gatorade. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Eyeing the makeshift pallet still on the cockpit deck, heat and embarrassment rush through me.
“About how I slept better than ever with you wrapped around me?” I ask awkwardly. Does he really want to talk about that?
Why?
“Uh, I actually meant about your dad. Or the claustrophobia thing.” Dean shifts, distinctly uncomfortable.
“I, uh,” I fumble with the Gatorade until he takes it, easily twisting the cap off, stepping even closer. Close enough I can feel the heat from his skin. “I didn’t need help with that.”
“Uh-huh.” He squints down, his eyes assessing. “Just thought I’d be nice,” he says, holding the bottle out like a peace offering.
“Oh.”
No doubt my brain is short-circuiting from the amount of gorgeous man flesh right in front of me. Golden skin, rippling six-pack, a light sheen of sweat only serving to further highlight a deep vee of muscles that are probably illegal somewhere.
I will not look lower than his face, I will not look lower than his face.
I am a paragon of hungover virtue.
I mentally pat myself on the back.
“Drink up. You look a little intense.” He grins, and I manage not to choke on the Gatorade.
Last night’s adrenaline must still be making me loopy. Is adrenaline also a sex hormone? Does it make people horny?
Sounds plausible.
I drink. And drink. In fact, I finish the bottle. Dean picks up the cushions one by one, securing them under his arm before putting each back with fastidious care.
He’s taking care of me.
Feeding me, calming me down last night, being a gentleman.
Certainly a better partner than most of the men I’ve woken up to.
My lips twist to the side as I consider it. Sure, he wasn’t really able to get up and just leave my bed… seeing as how we’re on a boat in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico.
Still. Gratitude wells, a deep-seated wave of emotion nearly overwhelming me.
The bar must be in hell. I snort.
When he bends over, though, showing off his spectacular government-issue butt, I decide the bar has been decidedly raised.
I refocus all my attention on keeping the granola bar from disintegrating before I can eat it.
Not nearly as fun, but definitely safer.
“June, if you want to talk about it…” The cushions click back into place on the bench seat.
“It meant nothing, probably just an involuntary reaction,” I snap, then wince, not meaning it to come out so rudely. Especially when he has been nothing but nice this morning. There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell I’m going to talk about how we may or may not have been cuddling.
For warmth!
“Your panic attack seemed pretty serious. But yeah. I guess that’s normal for a civilian after what we went through last night.” He scratches his stubble with a free hand before ducking back into the cuddy cabin with the rest of the cushions and blanket.
Okayyyy.
He didn’t want to talk about how we woke up entwined, or that I was staring at his half-naked body like he was a piece of meat and I was a starving dinosaur.
“I’m going to brush my teeth.” I start to stamp around him, but he performs some kind of magic trick and the tiny toothpaste and travel brush appear in his hand. Scowling, I grab it from him.
“Thanks.” I bite the word off, and he snorts in amusement.
“There was a tiny bottle of shaving cream and a razor too, but I wasn’t sure if you wanted to shave your beard or talk about last night.”
I scoff at him. “Rude.”
It’s easier to call him rude than admit what it is we’re dancing around.
Talk about it? Talk about that I wanted to make out with him last night until I lost all self-control? Or about the fact that he even might just be a nice guy when I sort-of want to hate him for calling my father a criminal?
I give my teeth the most aggressive teeth brushing they’ve ever hand, delicately taking the proffered water bottle from Dean to swish and spit.
“Don’t look at me,” I tell him, then spit overboard.
“I wouldn’t dream of it, princess,” he drawls back.
Sure enough, a quick glance tells me he’s turned his back to me. He is nice.
I should be nice back. I set the toiletries down on top of the control panel and stare at his broad back, before finally making up my mind to call a truce.
“How’s your shoulder?” I look down to where he’s still putting things away in the cabin.
His fingers tentatively touch the bandaged wound. “I’m sore, but not bad. You did a good job patching it up.”
“Oh. That’s good.”
“Why? You worried about me, Legarde?”
“Dr. Legarde. And no. Maybe… Professional curiosity.”
“I didn’t realize PhDs had professional medical curiosity.”
“Okay fine, I was a little worried,” I grumble, out of sorts. Why is he so good at getting under my skin?
He grins over his shoulder at me.
I scrub a hand over my face, forgetting about the granola wrapper still in my hand. Dumping crumbs down my shirt.
Incredibly rude of him to be gorgeous and nice.
Selfish.
Simply thinking about it made my head hurt worse. The start of a killer hangover, thanks to Charlie’s margarita obsession?—
Holy hell. Charlie.
“Do you think Charlie is okay?” I blurt out, too loud. “They wouldn’t have gone after her, would they?”
“She’s fine,” Dean says, sounding completely sure of himself.
“How do you know?” I squint at him.
A beat of silence passes, and a muscle in his temple twitches. “Pierce would have made sure of it.”
Something about his tone bothers me.
A sudden vibration distracts me, and I blink a few times before my eyes dart to my watch.
“The bilge pump.” I scramble to the driver’s seat, flipping the bilge switch. Fresh relief courses through me at the whine of the mechanism starting up. Thank goodness the boat’s battery hasn’t died, otherwise we’d be floundering in deep water.
Under the sea.
Flounder.
And we’re about to be searching for crab. Might even encounter a seagull. All I need now is red hair and a seashell bra.
“Mermaid tails and coconut shells.” I slap my hand over my mouth as a hysterical high-pitched laugh trickles out of my mouth.
Breathing slowly, I finally regain control of myself, and the gravity of the situation truly hits me.
This is so bad.
Endless water sparkles around the boat, equally endless blue sky stretches overhead. And it’s just the two of us, on this very old boat, hunted by Russian smugglers.
All of this is so very bad.
“What is with that?” Dean re-appears, the cabin door slamming shut behind him.
“With what? Like you don’t laugh hysterically at sudden vivid visions of yourself as a princess thanks to stress and a slight hangover? Sure, sure.”
“No.” He raises his eyebrows. “Why don’t you cuss? Though I’m open to discuss your imaginary roleplay.”
“Oh. That.”
“Yes, that, though discussing roleplay isn’t off the table, is it?”
“I’m going to choose to ignore that,” I tell him.
“If that’s what you want, princess.”
I start to tell him to not call me that, but it’s better than babe, so I switch tracks at the last minute.
“Cursing is unprofessional.” I stand up taller, trying to command professionalism, as though I can manually override my now dirty off-the-shoulder dress, and beneath it, a very professional bikini doubling as underwear.
Multi-functional.
“I don’t know about that,” he grins at me. “I’ve heard some pretty creative ones in my line of work.”
He nods at the captain’s chair, and I toss the empty granola wrapper in a small bucket and sit down. “Where are the crab traps?”
“Where’s my gun? I noticed it was missing this morning.”
“Back under the seat. Why, you think you need it? Still don’t trust me, princess?”
There’s a witty retort on the tip of my tongue, but I really look at him, taking my time. His face is handsome enough to set off alarms, his body a weapon in its own right, a fact I know all too well after holding it close as we ran from…
My mind struggles, the previous day’s events crashing over me.
If he is telling the truth, my father was involved with the smugglers.
My heart hurts at the logical possibility that he might be right. That my father worked for the Russians.
I closed my eyes .
So the question remains, can I trust Dean?
Can I afford not to?
“We need to get the anchor up.” It wasn’t an answer, but it would have to be enough.
“Aye-aye, princess.” He winks, a slow grin spreading across his face. That treacherous dimple appears again.
Climbing up and over the bow, his broad back bunches as he wrenches the anchor free from the sea floor. Mud and muck drips off it, and he dips it in the water until it comes back clean, carefully stowing it back in the compartment.
Water droplets cling to his skin, and the whole show probably burns off the rest of my hangover.
Watching Dean Evans competently work around the boat is better than any espresso I’ve ever had, and I am fully awake now.
Yikes.
I am also in so much fudging trouble.