My magic had flared tonight—really flared, for the first time in months. The wind had shifted, and I’dfeltit, not as a spectator but as a participant. Something was coming. And if—if—there was a way to fan that spark into something bigger, somethingstrong enough to protect my beach and my turtles and my tournament from whatever was rolling toward Crescent Cove…
Would it be so crazy?
I thought about the stranger’s laugh. His clearly rakish smile. The heat that had rolled off him in waves—no, not waves. Currents. Deep, dangerous, pulling at things better left alone. And how underneath that spark, my magic had pulled the same way it did with stranded sea stars and tangled seagulls. A pull toward someone hurt who needed help.
“No,” I said to the ceiling. “Absolutely not.”
The ceiling didn’t answer.
But somewhere in the back of my mind, in the place where my sad little magic lived and occasionally sputtered to life, a new feeling hummed.
I told it to shut up and went to sleep.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Chase
A horrible knocking wokeme from a fantastic dream about warm, strong thighs wrapped around my head that I didn’t want to leave.
Not just because of the sex—although that had been amazing—but because of where we had been. Somewhere calm and warm, the sound of the ocean close and steady, and the feeling of a place that didn’t need anything from me. I hadn’t wanted to wake up from that part. I lay there for a moment, trying to hold on to the edges of it, and it dissolved like dreams always do. I was left with an industrial-detergent pillowcase, the smell of the Atlantic in my hair, and the ache of a man who had been sleeping in motels for three years.
But her soft smile lingered in my mind.
Selena Torres.
Most people thought the best part of being a professional athlete was the women who practically threw themselves at you.
It was.
But ever since Marcus’ accident…
Women came with the territory—competitions, appearances, the whole celebrity machine—and for a long time they’d been a reliable way to spend an evening without having to be Chase Perez. I could be El Tiburón. El Tiburón was easy. El Tiburónwas charming and uncomplicated and woke up alone without it meaning anything, and then he got on the next flight.
That was the system. The system worked.
I hadn’t even fucked this girl, and she was haunting my dreams, somehow underneath the system, and I didn’t know what to do with that. So I lay there and told myself I was just horny, even as the taste of her blood and the spark between our fingers lingered.
I rolled onto my back. The ceiling had a popcorn texture, so I knew my agent had cheaped out on my motel. Outside, gulls were going at it. Inside, my body felt like I’d run it through a wood chipper and asked it to come out the other side ready for cardio.
Tiger shark muscles did not love being asked to remember how to be human muscles directly after swimming nearly four hundred miles.
I’d known that going in. I’d done it anyway. Because Chase Perez always did things the hard way.
Chase Perez was an idiot.
The door blew open.
“WAKE UP, EL TIBURÓN.”
I groaned. “Out.”
“Diego brought breakfast.”
“Out.”
A weight landed on the bed, then another one, and then an elbow was in my ribs, and a knee was somewhere it had no business being.
I cracked an eye.
