Love Bites: A Sugar City Novella (Entangled Bliss)

by Ophelia London

  “You’re thinking this could be like a favorite pub for sharks? A mating ground?”

  “Dunno. But it’s certainly worth finding out, don’t you think?”

  “Have you ever seen two sharks doing…?” She shrugged. “You know.”

  “It’s extremely rare.” His accent had grown heavy as he leaned forward, his arm brushing hers. Goose bumps broke out across her skin. “But who knows. Maybe, if we play just the right mood music, you and I will get lucky, Sharona Blaire.”

  Was he talking about shark reproduction…or human? And…was he flirting? Earlier, he’d gone cold and hostile when she’d tried to apologize. The man was a ball of contradiction. A very sexy, very nice-smelling contradiction.

  “Well.” She swallowed, staring into his eyes. “I’m all for getting lucky.”

  Chapter Four

  It was like a spell was broken the second Pax called his name from across the boat, shaking him awake. He hadn’t meant to talk about sex—marine or not—with Sharona. Since the second they’d met, she brought out the cheesy singles bar in him. They’d been on the boat for an hour and he’d already imagined kissing her a million different ways and on a million parts of her body.

  If he didn’t keep his head in the game, today would go to shit.

  “Yeah, Pax. What is it?” he asked, after breathing out a long exhale and stepping away from the tantalizing bait at his side.

  “Got our first sighting. They’re faint but…”

  Jeff sent one glance Sharona’s way then strode to where Pax stood by the side, pointing toward the water.

  “See.”

  “I’ll be damned,” he said, catching a quick sight of the telltale black triangle along the horizon. “How far?”

  “Kilometer and a half, I’d wager.”

  “Close enough.” Jeff felt a healthy shot of adrenaline in his blood. “Manny!” he called toward the helm. “Drop anchor.”

  “You got it,” Manny returned. The noises of the engines cut.

  “What’s happening?” Sharona was suddenly at his side, looking a little pale, a little green, too. Was she seasick already? “Why are we stopping?”

  “That’s why.” Pax was pointing dead ahead.

  Sharona squinted into the sun, shading her eyes like a sun visor. “I don’t see anything.”

  Jeff moved to stand behind her, rested his hands on top of her shoulders, and lowered his face so their cheeks touched. “There,” he said, moving her to angle in the correct direction. He could tell she was holding her breath, because he both heard and felt when she finally inhaled and her breath hitched. It had hitched in exactly the same way last night after she’d first kissed him.

  At the memory, he dropped his hands, stepped back, and cleared his throat. “See it now?”

  She nodded but didn’t look at him. “Um, yeah. The black fin?”

  “It’s coming this way,” Pax said. “Lemme check the database to see if it’s one of—yep.” He gestured at the computer screen. “Jeff, mate, she’s one of our females.”

  Jeff grinned, another boost of adrenaline hitting. “Which one?”

  Pax consulted the screen for a moment. “Matilda.”

  “Waltzing Matilda.” Jeff remembered this one. She wasn’t the largest female he’d ever tagged, but man was she feisty. He dug feisty—in sharks and in women. He tried not to recall the sexy way Sharona had pulled him into that first kiss last night. Talk about aggressive. “You got her on the monitor, Pax?” he forced himself to say.

  “Sure do,” Pax replied. “Here she comes.”

  Sharona made quick notes about the three unopened boxes outside the helm and a small recycling receptacle that looked like it had never been used. She’d ask about those later because, due to the sudden excitement of the crew—the sighting of Waltzing Matilda was huge news. From what she’d read about the purpose of this research trip, they were retrieving information from tags.

  But what kind of tag? And would she be able to get a look at one? More importantly, how the hell did they plan on getting something off the dorsal fin of a moving great white shark? Flashes of that scene from Jaws when the shark ate half a fishing boat and all of Robert Shaw popped into her mind. But that was only a movie, right?

  This was way above her pay grade.

  Once the anchor dropped, the big ship slowed, then stopped, rocking back and forth. Sharona’s stomach rolled with the waves, and she gripped the railing, trying to steady both her legs and stomach. She was not about to miss seeing her first shark in the wild because she was blowing chunks overboard.

  “Look!” one of the crew shouted.

  Everyone rushed to the other side, staring out at the distance. She glanced at Jeff, who was also at the railing. As she gingerly crossed the deck like a newborn colt, she wondered if it would be totally inappropriate to ask Jeff to point her in the right direction again.

  Yeah, that had been very nice, the way he’d slid in, his strong, solid body taking up the space behind her, the touch of his cheek against hers, his big hands on her shoulders. Her thoughts had instantly drifted to their moments outside the elevator, those same hands wandering up the inside of her dress.

  “Here she comes—whoa!” Jeff was obviously keeping his mind on work, which was what Sharona should’ve been doing, too.

  Why was this man such a distraction?

  With careful steps, she moved down the side of the ship, sliding in beside two deckhands, who were paying no attention to her, but at something in the water twenty feet out. One of the other guys threw something overboard. Whatever it was sank but it was attached to an orange buoy.

  Buoys… Dozens of those were on her audit list. But now was not the time to consult the database. If she accidentally dropped her iPad in the water, Garry would make her pay for it. She let go of the railing long enough to make sure the bag holding her tablet was strapped securely across her shoulder, then she shaded her eyes and gazed out to sea in the same direction as the others.

  She could make out only the fin, which was moving toward the boat at a pretty fast clip. It was hard to see anything below the surface, but after a few seconds, her focus adjusted. At first she thought it was a shadow overhead, of something huge…like a small airplane? But then she noticed the aerodynamic head, then…about mile behind that…the tail.

  The damn thing had to be fifteen feet long. And coming straight at them like a torpedo.

  All she heard was the excited exclamations of the guys on either side of her at the railing. All she felt was a confused kind of heavy buzz inside her head. All she saw were teeth.

  The analytical part of her brain understood that the boat wasn’t suddenly rocking on top of the waves, but that the momentum and wake of the two-ton animal breaking surface, then veering away, gave the sensation of rocking up and down…and up and down…up and down. Or maybe she was rocking. Either way, it was a perfect storm.

  With one hand, she grabbed her stomach, then grasped the railing with her other hand, only halfway aware of the string of curse words flying from her mouth. Many of which her Navy SEAL brother would be proud of.

  She shut her eyes, hoping to calm the internal tidal wave of nausea, and bent forward to lay her forehead on the railing, groaning aloud. Through the haze of queasiness, she didn’t realize she was hanging onto the railing with a death grip until she was being pried away.

  “Don’t touch me,” she tried to say.

  “Hey.” She heard a soft voice but didn’t know where it was coming from. “Let go.” Someone was peeling her fingers off the railing, then she felt an arm around her as she was being pulled from the edge. Without thinking, she leaned in and clung to the front of the shirt, allowing her wobbly legs to be half dragged away.

  Within a few steps of walking into the cooling breeze, she felt better, though her head still hammered hard behind her ears. The next thing she knew, the bright sunlight was shaded and she was propped against a wall.

  “You’re safe.”

  She blin
ked once, then forced her gaze to focus on the pair of intense blue eyes staring back at her, brows arched in concern.

  Jeff reached out and pressed his palm to her cheek. “Just breathe,” he said, soothingly, running a thumb across her skin. “Hey…there you are.” A corner of his mouth pulled back into a real smile, the first she’d seen on him today. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” she said after a swallow, noting the quiver in her voice. Her head was still pretty fuzzy, too. “What was that?”

  “I think you were going into shock.” He tilted his head like he was examining her from another angle. “Still might be, I’m afraid.”

  “It’s not shock. It’s my…” She didn’t speak the word but pressed a hand against her stomach in pantomime.

  “Your first time seeing a shark breech? Wasn’t she a beaut?”

  “You could say that.” Her pulse was thrumming behind her ears so she closed her eyes, trying to stop the imagined rocking of the heavy boat. Seasickness is all in your mind, she inwardly chanted. Give it a second and it’ll pass.

  Jeff shifted his weight, and she felt his thumbs stroke across her cheeks. “Sharona, it’s okay. You’re in a ship surrounded by eight hundred tons of steel.”

  Please don’t talk about the boat…

  “Matilda is in the water. Outside. You’re safe.”

  She opened her eyes and looked at him. Why was he explaining that to her? Yes, she had a normal fear of sharks, completely illogical and unfounded, of course, fueled by bad movies on the SyFy channel with fake blood and guts and…

  Not good.

  Inadvertently, she clamped her eyes shut and jolted in a full-body shudder. It was like she was being choked from the inside; oxygen couldn’t reach her lungs like it should. But at least she wasn’t nauseous anymore.

  Jeff’s body moved closer, both hands cradling her cheeks. “You’re moaning again.” His voice was lower and closer than before. “Stay with me.” She felt his breath fanning her face, soft like a breeze off the ocean, such a nice, gentle breeze.

  The next second, his lips crashed against hers.

  If there had been air in her lungs, she wouldn’t have known what to do with it. He kissed her fiercely, making her head spin wilder than a whirlpool, knocking every last puff of breath from her body. His hands slid down the sides of her neck and she swayed back, only to find she was being steadied by the steel wall of the helm.

  At the first break in their kiss, she sucked in an audible gulp of air, then grabbed the front of his shirt, pulling him in. As one of his hands cradled the back of her head, the other pressed into the small of her back. Her heart pounded, faster even than when she’d seen Matilda in the flesh.

  Jeff pulled back, but only to move to her jaw, his mouth trailing to her ear, sending sizzles of pleasure up and down her spine. She released her grip on his shirt to slip her arms around him, palming the hard muscles along the way. His breath tickled her ear as he rested his lips on her hairline. Traces of last night’s cologne and today’s sunshine on his skin awakened a new hunger. She arched toward him, needing to be closer, needing his lips on hers like she needed air.

  “Good. You’re breathing again.”

  “Again?” she whispered, lifting up on her toes.

  When Jeff moved his face away, her skin felt cold, missing the sunny warmth that accompanied him. She peeled her eyelids apart, focusing on his blue eyes. They weren’t watching her with that intense concern anymore. He actually looked…cocky. That Han Solo crooked grin.

  “You’d stopped for a minute,” he explained. “Before.”

  Her heart was racing too fast now; she didn’t understand what he meant. Stopped? Why had she stopped breathing? And what did that have to do with him stopping in the middle of their kiss? Was he trying to get back at her for last night?

  “You appear to be breathing fine now,” he added. Humor colored his thick, sex-on-a-stick accent. “Though, maybe a little…heavier than normal.”

  Heat rose to her cheeks when she noticed how loud and jagged her breathing was.

  “Sorry,” he said, moving back another few inches. “I thought you could use a shock to the system. You were losing it there for a minute.”

  And the hits keep on coming.

  “You thought I was about to faint?” she asked, wishing she were at the bottom of the Pacific.

  “As I just explained, you weren’t breathing, so—”

  “And that was your idea of mouth to mouth?” She lifted an eyebrow. “Do you do that every time a member of your crew is about to pass out?”

  Jeff laughed, and let his arms drop to his sides. “I’m no MD, but I’ve always been good at…thinking on my feet.” The way his eyes flashed to her mouth made her blush all over again. “Did you call Natalie?”

  “What?”

  “Last night, you mentioned…” He paused to lower his voice. “You said it was your best friend’s birthday and you were reminding yourself to call her.” He tilted his head. “Though you were also confused about the time difference, afraid you’d missed her birthday.”

  A gush of warmth washed over her. Of all the things they’d talked about last night, this was what he remembered. It was one of the things she’d liked about him—he listened, he was thoughtful. So many of the good-looking men she’d met lately skipped over honing that personality trait.

  But not Blue Eyes from the bar last night.

  Not Jeff Cruz, the guy standing in front of her now. The guy who’d kissed her completely breathless once, then kissed her again so she could breathe.

  “I haven’t called Nat,” she admitted, allowing a tiny part of her brain to feel guilty about that, while the rest of her brain was doing its best to keep her hands from tearing off Jeff’s T-shirt so she could get a look at that firm chest she’d been pressed against. “When we get back tonight, I will. Thanks for the reminder.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said, lifting a smile that made her toes curl. “Let me grab you some water. Don’t move.” His big, capable hands—that had been holding her face just moments ago—gently swayed her so her back rested against the wall. Then he disappeared around a corner. She was glad she had the wall to rest against; otherwise, she was quite sure her knees would buckle to the floor.

  Medicinal or not, in her whole life she’d never been kissed like that.

  Despite the obvious complications of their jobs and her craptastic split with Garry and the small fact that Dr. Great White Han Solo Jeff Cruz could be such an ass…she wanted him to kiss her like that again.

  Chapter Five

  “Damn it, Cruz,” Jeff muttered under his breath. “Cool the hell off.”

  He needed a stiff drink before he dared return to Sharona. What a line: I’m no MD, but… Rubbish! He’d fantasized about kissing her ever since she’d climbed the ladder.

  Logic screamed that he should keep away from her for the rest of the day—he’d tried, but when he’d heard the swearing, saw how paper-pale she’d turned the second Matilda sailed under the ship, the instinct to protect her took over.

  He opened the galley fridge and pulled out a water.

  Though he hadn’t planned on kissing her as a health precaution, she truly did look on the brink of passing out. Hadn’t he read somewhere that it’s good to distract the thoughts of a person who is about to go into shock?

  Maybe it was a screwed up move, and he wouldn’t have let the kiss continue if Sharona hadn’t responded the way she had. She’d seemed surprised at first, much as Jeff had been surprised when she’d grabbed him at the pub.

  He leaned a shoulder against the wall, smiling at the memory. Bloody hell, that had been sexy. The mere recall made his internal temperature climb higher than the Great Victoria Desert in summer. Last night had been about the rush of no-strings sex, but seeing her today turned logic on its head. Now, he imagined reaching out to hold her hand, to listen to her talk about her friends, to take her on dates. To bring her home.

  But none of that could be. Even if they
could figure out a way for a research scientist and a not-for-profit auditor to be together, her home wasn’t his home and Jeff could never do the long-distance thing…despite how much he wanted to bolt to her and finish that kiss.

  He’d meant his kiss to be therapeutic, the kinder equivalency of a slap. But, he liked kissing Sharona Blaire, a lot—he never wanted to stop. He loved the touch of her soft skin and the way she’d held on so tightly like she truly needed him. He hadn’t felt needed in ages. Most of the women he’d been with made it clear they didn’t need anybody. Including his ex-wife. Which had been only one of their problems.

  Maybe it was his macho instinct, but if Jeff ever did fall in love again, he wanted a woman who needed him as much as she loved him. Could he ever find that?

  He quickly drained his own bottle of water and grabbed another for Sharona. When he rounded the corner toward the companionway, she was standing right where he’d left her. Almost like she was waiting for them to pick up where they left off.

  Jeff couldn’t force his brain to think of anything he’d rather do than roughly pin that gorgeous body against the wall then take his sweet time.

  If only…

  “Here,” he said, handing her the water.

  “Thank you.” She placed the iced-down bottle to her cheek. Cooling herself off. Jeff swallowed, staring at her dark eyes, her perfect, flushing skin.

  “You’re supposed to drink it,” he said. “I’m a non-MD, remember?”

  Sharona exhaled a breathy laugh, then twisted off the cap and took a deep drink, her full, lips puckering. He’d never been so jealous of a water bottle.

  “Thanks,” she said after a few deep breaths. “Again, for your…um, help.”

  He couldn’t help smiling, rubbing the back of his neck. “No worries.”