by Jill Shalvis
She actually thought she was trying to save him. If the situation weren’t so deadly, Cole might have thought some of this was funny. But she was turning into a Popsicle before his very eyes, and so was he. “Listen, just relax—”
“H-hang on to m-me,” she said, and . . . dunked him again.
For the love of God. “Stop trying to save me,” he told her. “I’m begging you.”
Her hair was in her face, behind the strands plastered to her skin, her eyes widened. “Oh my God. You’re trying to commit suicide.”
“What? No.” The situation was ridiculous, and he was frustrated and effing cold, but damn, it was hard not to be charmed by the fact that she was trying to save him, even as she was going down for the count herself. “I’m trying to keep you from killing me.”
The flashback of the rig fire long gone, Cole tread water to keep them afloat as he assessed their options. There were two.
Shore. Or boat.
They were at the stern of the boat, much closer to the swimming platform than to the shore. And in any case, there was no way his “rescuer” could swim the distance. Though Cole was a world-class swimmer himself, he was already frozen to the bone, and so was she. They needed out of the water . . . fast.
With a few strokes, he got them to the stern of the boat, where he hoisted his bungling rescuer up to the platform, pulling himself up after her.
She lay right where he’d dumped her, gulping in air, that long, dark hair everywhere. Leaning over her, he shoved the wet strands from her face to better see her, and realized with a jolt that he recognized her. She lived in one of the warehouse apartments across from where Lucky Harbor Charters was housed.
Her name was Olivia Something-or-Another.
All he knew about her was that she hung out with Sam’s fiancée, Becca, ran some sort of shop downtown, dressed in a way that said both “hands off” and “hot mama,” and he’d caught her watching him and the guys surfing on more than one occasion.
“Y-y-you’re bleeding,” she said from flat on her back, staring up at him.
Cole brought his fingers to the sting on his temple and, perfect, his fingers indeed came away red with his own blood. Just a cut, no less than he deserved after that stupid stunt of shocking the shit out of himself with the wiring, and then tumbling into the water. “I’m fine.” It was her he was worried about. Her jeans and sweater were plastered to her. She was missing a boot. And she was shivering violently enough to rattle the teeth right out of her head. “You’re not fine,” he said.
“Just c-c—cold.”
No shit. “What the hell were you thinking?” he asked, “jumping in after me like that?”
Her eyes flashed open, and he discovered they were the exact same color as her hair—deep, dark chocolate. Not melted chocolate, though. Straight up, burn-the-hair-off-your-tongue black, iced coffee.
“I was th-th-thinking you were d-d-drowning!” she said through chattering teeth.
Cole shook his head. “I didn’t almost drown until you jumped on top of me.” But arguing with her would get them nowhere, and maybe dead. “Come on, the plan is to get you home and warmed up.” Rising to his feet, he reached down and pulled her up with him, holding onto her when she wobbled. “Are you—”
“I’m f-f-fine,” she said, and stepped back to look down at herself. “I l-l-lost my favorite b-b-boot rescuing y-y-you.”
She called that a rescue? “Can you even swim?”
“Y-y-yes!” She crossed her arms over herself. “A l-l-little bit.”
He stared at her in disbelief. “A little bit? Seriously? You risked your life on that?”
“You were in t-t-trouble!”
Right. They could argue that later. “Time to get you home, Super Girl.”
“B-b-but my b-b-boot!”
“We’ll rescue the boot later.”
“We w-w-will?”
No. Her boot was DOA—dead on arrival. “Later,” he said again, and grabbing her hand, pulled her across the platform, through the stern. He needed to get her off the boat.
She dug her heels in, one bare, one booted.
“What?” he asked.
Still shivering wildly, she looked at him with misery. “I d-d-dropped my ph-ph-phone on the dock.”
“Okay, we’ll grab it.”
“Y-y—yes, but I d-d-didn’t drop my keys.”
“That’s good,” he said, wondering if she’d hit her head.
“Y-y-you don’t get it. I t-t-think I lost my k-k-keys in the w-w-water.”
Well shit. No keys, no getting her inside her place. This wasn’t good. Nor was her color. She was waxen, pale. They couldn’t delay getting her out of the elements and warm. “Okay, Plan B,” he said. “We warm you here on the boat.” Again he started to tug her along, wanting her inside and below deck, but she stumbled against him like her limbs weren’t working.
Plan C, he thought grimly, and swung her up into his arms.
She clutched at him. “N-n-not necessary—”
Ignoring her, he got them both into the small galley, where he set her down on the bench at the table. Keeping his hands on her arms, he crouched in front of her to look into her eyes. “You still with me? You okay?”
“Y-y-y—” Giving up, she dropped her head to his chest.
“Not okay,” he muttered, and stroked a hand down the back of her head and along her trembling frame.
Truth was, he wasn’t much better off than she was. His head was still bleeding, and his shoulder was throbbing. He had nothing on her, though. She was violently trembling against him. Easing her back, he got busy. First he cranked the heater, then he opened their linens storage box, pulling out towels and blankets, which he tossed to a stack at her side. “Okay,” he said. “Strip.”
Olivia’s head jerked up, and her dark eyes met Cole’s. “Wh—wh-what?”
Not good, he thought. She wasn’t tracking. “Your clothes are keeping you cold,” he explained as gently as he could. “So you gotta lose ’em. Towel dry and then we’ll wrap you in blankets.” He kicked off his boots and pulled off his water-laden sweatshirt, which hit the deck like a fifty-pound weight. “I’ve got spare clothes here. I’ll get you something to wear.” His T-shirt went next. Another thunk.
Not moving, she stared at his chest. “You’re c-c-crazy if you think I’m g-g-going to s-s-strip—”
“That,” he said, “or I call nine-one-one. Non-negotiable, Olivia.”
She blinked. “You kn-kn-know my name?”
“Yeah. You’re the woman who watches me and the guys surf while pretending to talk to Becca. Get moving, Super Girl.”
“I d-d-don’t watch,” she said, her gaze still lingering on his chest.
He had to laugh. “Okay, fine. You don’t watch us.” And he was the Tooth Fairy.
“And I’m f-f-fine,” she said with a shiver that nearly threw her off the bench.
“You’re blue, is what you are. You could pass for a Smurf.”
She flashed those dark eyes at him. Clearly she had plenty on her mind, but was shaking too hard to let him have it. Lucky him.
“Look,” he said. “I’ll close my eyes, okay? And it’s not like we’re going to do the stupid chick flick thing where we have to get into bed together to warm each other up.”
“G-g-good, cuz if y-y-you tried it, you’d be w-w-walking funny t-t-tomorrow.”
If she could toss out threats like that, she probably wasn’t in immediate danger of dying from hypothermia. But caution and safety first, as he’d learned the hard way over the years, and he hadn’t gained all of his vast experience from being careless or stupid. “You’re still shaking badly,” he said. He grabbed a huge beach towel and shook it out, holding it up between them.
Instead of jumping up to follow his unspoken command, she narrowed her eyes.
But she wasn’t the only one who could play tough-as-hell. “Strip,” he said again, losing the gentle voice, going with the one he’d used as chief positioning operator and nav
igator, directing crews on the rigs for seven years. “Or I’ll do it for you.”
In truth, this was an empty, hollow threat, but the Boss Voice got through to her and she stood up, glaring at him before ducking behind the towel.
There was some movement, some rustling, which he took as good signs. “We’ll get you dry,” he said, staring up at the ceiling to avoid catching a peek at her. “And then I’ll find you a pair of sweats, and help you break into your place since you lost your keys trying to kill me—er, save me.”
Her head reappeared for the sole purpose of delivering a pretty impressive eye roll, then she vanished behind the towel again. When he heard the heavy, wet thud of her clothes hitting the floor, he leaned forward and wrapped the towel around her body the best he could. His fingers inadvertently brushed the soft, wet skin of her shoulders and back, and he had to force himself not to think about the fact that she’d dropped her sweater and jeans. Since he was about to do the strip routine himself, he didn’t want to be sporting wood while he was at it. “Dry off,” he said, and stepped back from her.
She nodded but didn’t move.
“Olivia?” he asked.
Her face was a mask of misery. “M-m-my arms won’t w-w-work.”
Shit. He quickly and gently pushed her back down to the bench, sat at her side, and began to pile blankets over the top of them both.
“W-what are you d-doing?”
“Sharing my body heat,” he said.
“I c-c-can’t feel any h-h-heat.”
“You will.” Beneath the blankets, he reached for the towel she still had wrapped around her. “Don’t freak,” he warned. “I’m just going to remove the wet towel and pull you into me.”
She opened her mouth, but using her sluggishness to his benefit, Cole quickly stripped the towel away from her, equally quickly wrapping his arms around her, pulling her into him as two things happened simultaneously. One, she squeaked. Probably trying to formulate her next threat.
And two—holy shit—he realized she was completely, totally, one-hundred-percent naked beneath the layer of blankets.
And pissed. “Y-y-your jeans!” she gasped. “T-t-they’re c-c-cold!”
“Sorry, but I’m trying to do the right thing here,” he said through clenched teeth. Jesus. He couldn’t see a thing below her neck, but he could sure as hell feel her. His hands were on her hip and low on her back respectively, not touching anything he shouldn’t be, but damn she was soft, and at the feel of her, his brain clicked off. Just completely flatlined.
“I’m n-n-naked,” she snapped.
And oh, how well he knew it. He was pretty sure her nipples were boring holes in his chest. Just thinking about it had him warming up considerably. In fact, he might be starting to sweat. It’d been a while, but he was pretty sure he remembered nipples being one of his favorite parts of a woman’s body—
She gave him a shove.
“Sorry,” he said. “But you don’t want me to go away. I’m the one making you warm.”
“N-n-not what I m-m-mean,” she said. “Y-y-you have to be n-n-naked, too!”
He stared at her. “That’s a really bad idea.”
“You w-w-want me to f-f-freak out?” she asked. “No? Then s-s-strip, Donovan.”
Bossy thing, wasn’t she.
“N-n-now,” she added, eyes sparking.
Yeah, bossy. And he liked it. “Whatever you say.” Still covered by the blankets, he shucked out of his jeans—feeling more than just a twinge of pain in his shoulder now, something he ignored—and kicked the material away. “Better?”
“Are y-y-you . . . smiling?” she asked in disbelief.
He didn’t even try to hide it. “A beautiful woman just ordered me to strip,” he said. “But not because she wants my body. It’s funny, so yeah, I’m smiling.”
“Oh, p-p-please,” she scoffed, and surprised the hell out of him by leaning in and carefully dabbing at the cut on his temple with the edge of a towel. “I’ve s-s-seen you and your p-p-partners,” she said, eyeing the cut, and apparently deciding he was going to live. “You’re all l-l-listed on Lucky Harbor’s Facebook p-p-page as the hottest bachelors in t-t-town,” she said in a tone that didn’t suggest she was all that impressed by the dubious title. “I know you’ve got to have game.”
Seemed he wasn’t the only one warming up—her teeth were rattling less and less.
“You could probably turn a woman’s head with a single crook of your finger,” she muttered, rolling the towel to get to a clean spot to dab against his temple.
He didn’t just smile now, he out-and-out laughed.
“What’s so funny now?”
“I was the runt all the way through high school. Small and skinny, and sickly, too, ending up in the hospital annually for strep and pneumonia. I’m not used to, nor will I ever expect to be able to, ‘crook my finger’ at a woman.” Luckily, in his senior year, he’d finally had his tonsils removed, and the next year he’d grown eight full inches and gained fifty pounds of muscle, which had come in handy when he’d been working on the oil rigs. Unfortunately, there hadn’t been a lot of women on those rigs.
In fact, there’d been a total of three.
Given the odds—eighty-five guys to three women—Cole had done pretty well for himself, considering. But that was then.
He, Sam, and Tanner had come back to Lucky Harbor after the rig fire, having lost Gil—and nearly Tanner as well.
And in the time since losing his best friend, and then his father last year as well, he hadn’t had much game at all.
Correction. He’d had no game. “If I could turn a woman’s head that easily,” he said, “you’d be doing something other than dabbing the cut on my forehead.”
She went still for a beat, her eyes wide on his. He had no idea what was in her head, but he knew what was in his—the soft, curvy body practically in his lap.
And he nearly choked when she lifted the blanket and took a good, long peek at him. “What the hell—”
She raised her gaze to his. “You left your underwear on.”
“Because you’d have screamed your head off if I’d stripped naked,” he said.
“But you told me to, and I did.”
“I didn’t say strip everything,” he said. “It never occurred to me that you’d lose the undies, cute as they are.”
They both stared at the black lace lying innocuously on the floor. She flushed and lifted her chin. “Well, there’s only one thing to do now,” she said.
“What?”
“You have to do the same as I did.”
“Excuse me?” he asked.
“Drop the boxers.”
He stared at her. “Tell me the truth. You hit your head too, right?”
“No. And I’m not kidding,” she said, jabbing him in the chest with a finger. “Lose ’em, or a freak-out of epic proportions will commence in three. Two. One—”
“Jesus, hang on.” He worked at shedding his boxers, doing his best to keep covered by the blanket. “I can’t believe you looked after I promised to not look at you—”
“Yes, well, one of us isn’t a gentleman now, are we?” she asked.
A short laugh escaped him, which he cut off when she—holy shit—lifted the blanket and peeked again.
Grabbing the blankets like a virgin at a frat sleepover, he swore. “Jesus, woman!”
“Just making sure,” she said.
“Sure of what?”
Looking pretty damn pleased with herself, she laughed.
And damn, she had a smile on her. Mischievous and full of secrets, but still. “Okay,” he said with a reluctant smile. “I like that look on your face much better than the abject misery you were wearing, but didn’t anyone ever tell you not to look at a naked man and laugh?”
She just laughed again, the sound soft and musical and yet somehow both sexy and sweet at the same time.
