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Not crazy. Desperate.
Swimming below the surface, I kept my movements calm and my finning fluid to avoid attracting predators. Clandestine approaches to target via water had been the bread and butter of my early days with the Teams, and my muscles stretched with the comfort of memory. Being underwater came naturally. More than that, operating in the field again kicked my endorphins up to a very happy high. Something I desperately needed after the past few months. Unfortunately the invigoration of pulling on my old work clothes didn’t last more than seven hundred meters. The slightest change in pressure from being underwater caused translucent lightning bolts to squiggle in my periphery. Shit.
Diving after too many concussions was risky, but I hadn’t expected an aural migraine from such shallow water. I wrenched my jaw to relieve the pressure. Nothing. Frustrated, I scrunched my eyes a few times. The images refused to clear. Sometimes clenching my eyelids tight for twenty seconds helped. I squeezed them and started counting.
One, two, three…
On seventeen, something thick as an arm brushed slickly across my cheek. Snake? I thrashed like I’d just taken a spider web to the face. Before my awkward motions caught a croc’s attention, I swiftly swam forward, only to get hard punch cold-cocked in the throat. I jerked backward, choking out a panting gasp while trying to be mindful enough to not lose my mouthpiece. I moved off again. This time the asshole squeezed round my throat. I thrashed, grabbing for my knife as I went to hacking. With each slash, I feared my blade would slip off and cut through my own flesh.
Managing to get a solid cleave, I started sawing. As fast as my heart was racing and as eager as I was to be free of the slime-coated bastard, I had to be careful not to slit my own throat or my equipment. Finally I spun free.
I’d expected blood and body parts to chum the waters. But as I sucked in oxygen, I realized the giant constrictor I thought I’d killed had been nothing but a looping vine. I suppose that was the good news. A chopped-up anaconda would’ve attracted more predators than my no-holds-barred wrestling match already had to have. Still, it was way past time to get off the X.
The bad news was I’d managed to swirl up a storm of particles in the water, clouding it completely. Any referencing signal from the landscape had vanished. Foliage and downed logs could’ve come from above or below. With the rebreather there were no oxygen bubbles to rise to the surface and help me regain my bearings.
The spot behind my right ear pounded. Electric red sparks flashed in my periphery. My blood pressure spiked. My forehead tightened. My mouth tasted like it was full of sand, and I’d tasted a lot of sand in my life—from Coronado to Qatar. But this shit tasted just like Fallujah sand. Fuck. So not what I wanted the last thing I tasted to be.
If I was going to pass out and die, I wanted the taste of Aziza’s plump lips on my tongue.
I spun up the memory of that beautiful pout of hers, the one she’d flash when she was irritated at me. And I always irritated her just so I could see it.
Six seconds into our virtual convo, I realized that pout of hers was flush with color and extremely shiny. Zee wasn’t a makeup kind of woman, didn’t have time. Or need, in my opinion. No, it wasn’t makeup making those lips of hers look like she was trying to signal a rescue plane. They’d been swollen up and stained from having been kissed all night.
I wrenched my suddenly tight neck. No. Couldn’t be. She didn’t have time for that either.
Thank God.
Besides, any man with half a brain was too intimidated by her connection to OZ to make any sort of serious move. Which was fine by me. Neither of us needed the distraction.
Sixty seconds in, her top lip was legit looking like a duckbill and turning the color of strawberry pulp. “You okay, Presh?”
“Yeah, fine. Why?”
“I think you’ve got something on your lip.” I ran the tip of my tongue along my upper lip to show her where.
Her eyes widened. I had an impressive tongue, or so I’d been told.
“You’re looking a little flushed.”
She tried to hide her mouth, all casual like, behind her hand. Those slender fingers of hers couldn’t do a damn thing. Her lips were ballooning at an alarming rate.
“Sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine.” She ducked her head, but the shiny curtain of black hair she hid behind wasn’t able to cover her typically even-toned, olive skin before it fired in a peach blush.
I couldn’t help my smile. And I certainly couldn’t help imagining bringing her whole body to blush like that.
“Not a little peaked?” I flicked my eyes down to my own heated reaction. “I know I’ve been feeling peaked myself lately.”
“I…I…I gotta go!”
I chuckled as she scrambled to cut our session off. In her haste the video didn’t disconnect, and I caught the best view of her gorgeous round butt in short-shorts as she hustled from her bed to the bathroom. Despite losing sight of her, I could hear her frantically splashing water. My lips stretched in a grin as I eavesdropped on her grumbling, cursing, and wailing. “Great, Zee. Try to attract a guy with lip plumper and end up having to jam an EpiPen in your thigh!”
Attract a guy?
My neck stiffened enough to require muscle relaxers.
What guy!
