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One moment it feels like a miracle to swim this way and the next minute the water turns an unnatural shade of black and I struggle to see where I am pummeling forward at an unnatural speed.
This isn’t a force of nature. This is some sort of magic. The water flashes bright colors—beams of light shooting toward me.
Oh fuck. Maybe this isn’t diving toward a destiny so much as plunging toward my death. Seaweed curls around, tangling me in a web. A white light envelops me—it’s like I’m trapped in an orb deep in the sea. For a moment I’m safe, but then, in a flash, the light is gone and the water pulls at me, tighter and tighter. My body spins out of control.
The water moves in a whirlpool and I’m caught in the center.
I can grab at nothing. The only thing surrounding me is the vastness of the ocean moving at a harrowing speed. It came with such a force, it feels like it was aimed right at me.
When I followed the seal, I was exhilarated. I felt like I was making a choice for myself like I was brave.
But now I’m scared.
Now I realize I’m nothing but a fool.
This is it. This is the end.
I scream with anger, my story can’t end here; not like this. My voice is shrill and full of fury, in a way I’ve never heard before. It pierces the sea and the water tightens around me, the vortex growing smaller and my vision blurred.
Then, just when I feel like this is the end... something grabs hold of me, my body is caught. I scream as I’m pulled from the water, caught in a net. I’m dragged from the whirlpool, and lifted from the depths.
As I break through the water, I grip the net with my hands, knowing that whatever happens next, I’m no longer waiting for my life to begin.
Tonight, it has.
3
Kai
We didn’t have a choice in the matter. Our boat moved against our will, responding to a call we had no choice but to answer.
We threw out our net and saved her.
She coughs and sputters, waterlogged and gasping for air.
And when she lands—utterly naked and absolutely divine—she begins swearing like a sailor. That gets Crew grinning from the get-go. And me rolling my eyes. This guy is going to be the death of me, I swear.
He may be a member of our elite sailing team preparing for an around the world race, but he’s got no manners. Crew likes his woman dirty—and so when this woman is brought aboard spouting off What the actual fuck, it’s obvious that he’s immediately drawn to her; not picking up on the fact she practically died out there.
“Easy, boy,” I say, eyebrows raised, already doubting Crew’s intention. We couldn’t be more different. He’s from the school of hard knocks. Me? I’m Ivy League, born and raised. “She nearly drowned.”
“She’s alive now,” Crew says with a cocky ass smile. Her skin is bare, and her nipples tight, and her breasts full. The curve of her body is a wave I want to ride.
“And she can hear you,” she groans, rolling from the net and onto the slick deck of the sailboat. She pulls her knees to her chest, hiding the most exposed parts of her body from us.
We’re all drawn to this woman before us. Crew, Eric, West, and I can’t look away. We may be our own men, but right now, I’d lay down my life for this stranger.
But she doesn’t feel like a stranger. It feels like she’s supposed to be here.
Her call echoes inside of me.
We had dropped anchor for the night, but next thing we knew, all four of us heard her call and we moved with speed and intent.
Toward this spot.
For the last few weeks we’d been looking for something we couldn’t name.
And now we’ve found her.
I may have studied law, but this defies all logic and reason.
She has me transfixed. Hell, she had us caught under her spell even before we arrived.
And as I look around at my shipmates, I realize I’m not in that trance alone.
Her long legs are sun-kissed, her lips are full, her hair a salty tangle of soft pink waves. Damn, she’s more than a woman needing rescue; she’s a woman come to save me.
Before I can act on my impulse though, Eric, being the gentleman he is, kneels before her, and takes her hand in his. “Hey, little mermaid, I think you got lost at sea.”
His words are smooth, and the thing is, though, with Eric, it isn’t a false front. He’s constant, like a faithful dog. Always by your side.
And right now, his calming voice seems to stir something inside this woman because she sits up, rolls her shoulders as if sore--as she surely is from that thrashing about at sea--and looks up at all four of us, like she’s seeing humans for the first time in her life.
