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He shook his head, sketching his thumb along her damp lips. She nipped his thumb. Not gently. And not playfully.
Her eyes sparked as she opened her mouth and swiped his hand away. “I am such an idiot. Silly ol’ me thought we had some kind of special connection.”
She shoved to her feet and dusted sand off her legs.
“Darcy, I’m not saying never. I’m just questioning the timing.”
“Oh, great. I can hardly think straight and you’re able to strategize a schedule for consummation. Nice to know I really sent your hormones into overload, Doc.”
He’d hurt her pride. But if he took her here, now when she didn’t have a clue who he was…
No. She deserved better.
Darcy yanked her dive vest up from the sand. “I’m so sorry for what you’ve been through, Max, but I can’t let you play mind games with me. I am fed up with people telling me what’s right andwrongfor me. I wish you would quit being so protective.”
Indignation radiated from her. Sparked through her. She was so hot. And gorgeous. And actually making some sense.
She spun on him, blazing anger and jabbing a finger his way. “And don’t even toss the birth control protection excuse at me. Because it’s not like you plan to follow through even if we swam straight back to a quick-mart.”
“Besides, I have a birth control implant. Are you clean, of diseases, I mean?”
Following her conversational twists was giving him whiplash. “Yeah, but—”
“Me, too. Obviously.” She jammed her arms through the vest one at a time. “Yeah, yeah, I know. You’re wondering what a virgin needs with implanted birth control. Apparently, I don’t need it today.”
“Hold on. Let’s just—”
“I got it for combat.” She plowed over his words as if he hadn’t spoken. “I pray I never get shot down, but just in case, I thought I should protect myself. All of which I would have told you if you hadn’t needed to retreat after today’s ‘interlude’ as fast as humanly possible.”
Her warrior spirit shone through. She was magnificent when angry, and he wanted to kiss her all over again. But his lack of control had already caused enough damage for one day. He deserved her rant.
Darcy whipped her weight belt off the sand and began securing it around her waist. “Not all captors are sticklers about following the Geneva Convention on treatment of prisoners. It won’t protect me from diseases, but at least I won’t risk ending up pregnant.”
Whoa. What was going on? He struggled to follow the conversation shifting faster than riptides.
Max sorted through her words while she jerked on the rest of her gear with angry hands. She’d never shared her kidnapping experience with him, but he heard the reverberating implications all the same. He tried to focus on the wordvirgin.She hadn’t been raped during the kidnapping. He hadn’t wanted to consider that might be one of the holes in her file, but knew too well what those kinds of monsters could and would do even to a thirteen-year-old.
A thirteen-year-old who would have known the possibility existed for every torturous day of captivity. The fear had no doubt left its mark on her.
Max reached for her, needed to hold her and protect her from a lot more than he’d ever dreamed. A dolphin clicked in the background. Not one of his so he ignored it along with reasonable thoughts. “Darcy, okay, you’re right. Let’s talk now.”
“I’m throughtalkingto you, Max Keagan.” She batted his hands away. “I’m through letting you flip my world. I want my life under control again.”
Slipping on her mask, she backed into the lapping tide. His emotions churned like the water kicking up behind her as she charged into the ocean, disappearing into a wave back toward their bobbing boat. He yanked his gear from the sand. She did not need to be out there alone for even a minute. With no dive partner underwater….
Underwater.
The wreckage.
With a buried cable alongside.
The search pattern unfolded in his mind. Clarified…
Why hadn’t he considered it before? Just because conventional technology indicated the tap would be on the cable didn’t mean it had to be so. What if there was a pulse-detecting instrument close by? Concealed. Very possibly inside the wreckage where they’d been circling, stirring heaven only knew what kinds of warnings.
Max shrugged into the rest of his gear. Double time. Checked his knife strapped to his thigh. His feet pounded sand as he tightened, cinched, ran, fins last, then plunged into the surf.
He had to haul Darcy safely back to base pronto so he could start a comprehensive search. He would make sure Crusty checked on her.
