Wicked Sexy

by Anne Marsh

  Rick shook his head and popped the trunk. “It is. Dani’s my fiancée.”

  “Not yet.”

  “She will be.” Rick lifted out an expensive leather duffel bag. “Look. I wrecked my first chance with her. I’m not blowing my second. If I were you, I’d move along now. I’m going to go see if Dani will let me check in. You might want to think about checking out.”

  Gritting his teeth, he watched Rick stroll away. This was his second chance and he was blowing it, he realized. He and Dani had shared a really hot night of sex, but had there been anything more? And was he really thinking that he wanted more?

  Get in. Get out. Save the day and ride off into the sunset.

  That was who he was.

  What he’d spent a lifetime training to do.

  Except now he wasn’t so sure he wanted to go. And that meant he had no idea what to do next, because sticking around wasn’t something he was good at, or even familiar with.

  14

  “I NEED A plan of attack.”

  Tag didn’t look up from his laptop when Daeg slammed into the dive shop, just waved Daeg toward an empty spot on the counter. “Take a seat. The doctor will be right in.”

  Daeg shoved aside a pile of salty wet suits. “You should rinse those, hang them up,” he observed.

  “Feel free.” Cal shot him a wide grin. “Partner.”

  Right. He’d been happy to volunteer the cash when Cal and Tag had come to him with the idea for Deep Dive. Cash was easy. He had plenty squirreled away and he’d always lived simply. And he had a gut feeling that Deep Dive was going to be a success. He’d never intended for his involvement with the business to go much beyond a check and the occasional helping hand.

  “So.” Tag slowly closed the lid of the laptop. “You got something that needs discussing?”

  “Yeah.” He hesitated. How did women spend so much time discussing their relationships? He’d rather have done a reverse two and a half somersault out the chopper door. And into shark-infested waters. Uh-huh, that definitely sounded easier.

  “Let me help you out here.” Cal approached the counter. “You’ve finally woken up to the fact that Dani Andrews just might be a keeper. Unfortunately for you, soldier, you’re a little slow on the uptake, not sure how to handle the unfamiliar terrain and you’ve got incoming.”

  Tag grinned. Again. Daeg decided punching his friend in the jaw probably wouldn’t be helpful. Even if it would be satisfying. “I heard her ex was back in town,” Tag volunteered.

  “That’s true.” Daeg spoke, surprised no one could hear his teeth grinding.

  “He’s good-looking, well-off and comes bearing gifts of jewelry,” Cal added cheerfully. “Which means he’s definitely ahead of you in the game. He’s serious and he’s playing for keeps.”

  Tag eyed Cal. “How do you know all this?”

  “Sisters,” Cal replied. “Sisters who have girlfriends. And cousins. A man can learn a lot if he listens. I told you to come by my house and meet everyone.”

  “Enemy intel.” Tag whistled. “Clever.”

  Cal replied and the two men bantered back and forth for a few minutes. Then both turned their attention back to Daeg, who still didn’t know what he should do.

  “You started a thing with Dani Andrews,” Cal stated.

  “She’s not a thing.” He cared about her unconditionally, but she was her own person. He respected that.

  “Good.” Cal smiled. “Because, like I said, this Rick Lane is playing for keeps. He’s got a shared past with Dani, he’s come ready to grovel and he’s got that ring. He’s made it clear he’s sticking around to see it through.”

  “He won’t stay here on the island.” Daeg was sure of that. He recognized a “get in and get out” mission when he saw one.

  “True.” Tag eyed Daeg. “Question is, what are your plans?”

  “Are you re-upping?” Cal asked.

  “I was planning on it.”

  “Sure.” Cal had a seat and propped his feet up on the desk. “That was last week, though. We’re inquiring about this week’s agenda, aren’t we, Tag?”

  “We are.”

  “Are you planning on sticking around, or do you still ship out at the end of the month?”

  He hadn’t signed the paperwork. If he wanted, he could let the clock run out on his R & R. He could stay, become full time at Deep Dive. Maybe pop over to the mainland and see Dani. He tested that thought and it wasn’t as terrifying as he’d expected. He didn’t want to spend every minute of every day he had left parked on Discovery Island, but he didn’t feel the need to hightail it back to the military right this second. Huh. That was interesting right there.

  “He’s thinking about sticking,” Cal observed.

  “I am.” He said it, and thinking about it got easier. This was Dani. Somehow, sticking near her and by her wasn’t scary at all. He didn’t feel the need to get up and go when he was with her. On the contrary, he wanted to hunker down some and stay put because he couldn’t imagine being happier with anyone, anyplace. She made him feel things he hadn’t known he wanted or missed.

  Hell.

  “So next question.” Tag steepled his fingers. “And I’ll ask this one, Cal, so you owe me. Particularly if our boy here hauls off and hits me. Is this just about the sex and having hot summer fun, or does sticking around also imply a longer relationship?”

  “You want to discuss my sex life?” Daeg asked. A rhetorical question only, because he wasn’t going there. Some things stayed between him and Dani.

  “Not particularly.” Tag shrugged and looked over at Cal. “But if I’m playing doctor here, you might want to play along. If it’s just hot sex, then no worries. You do your thing, she does hers, and it doesn’t matter how she feels about Rick Lane, because sooner or later, your thing will end and you’ll go your separate ways.”

  He didn’t want her going anywhere that wasn’t with him.

  Cal studied his face as if it were a topographical map and he was scanning for wreckage. “Okay. So you want to play to win, right?”

  “Absolutely.” That was a no-brainer.

  “Then you’ve got to woo her, seduce her. There’s your plan of attack,” Cal said.

  “Give her all that stuff women like,” Tag added. “Not shopping and not ring boxes, but words. And romantic dates. Show her how you feel, although telling would be better.”

  Cal nodded like everything was settled. “Good luck, soldier.”

  “Yeah.” He cleared his throat, bumped fists with both men. “Thanks.”

  That thanks stood for everything. Thankfully, for his buddies, he didn’t have to spell out his feelings like he was going to have to do for Dani.

  He didn’t know what her ex was really doing on the island—maybe the man had an ulterior motive he’d kept private—but whatever was going on, Daeg knew he didn’t like it. So that meant he had himself a new mission: seduction. And not just seduction, but seduction of her heart.

  Dani had started off wanting passion and wanting it temporarily. He thought he’d wanted the same thing. Happily ever after scared him...but he was brave and knew how to put aside his fears and go for what he truly wanted. Who knew that love worked the same way? He was determined to convince Dani to take a chance on him—just as soon as he’d made himself that chance.

  And then comes the hard part.

  The part that scared him more than any other mission he’d ever led.

  Three words.

  I. Love. You.

  All he had to do was open his mouth and say what he was feeling. He knew what was going to happen, however, when he looked at her. He’d get that tumbling, free-falling sensation somewhere near his heart and he’d forget the plan. He’d want to stand there and just look at her because she made him forget everything else
apart from touching her.

  Loving her.

  Then he’d be kissing her and the words would still be bottled up inside him, where they didn’t do her any good.

  He’d just have to steel himself to tell her that he loved her. There was nowhere he didn’t dive. No site too remote, too dangerous. He always went in. No hesitation. So he was going to do this.

  These were three words, words he meant, and even better than the motto he’d lived by for so long. This wasn’t so others may live. This was so Dani could live. With or without him, although he was hoping desperately that she’d choose with.

  15

  THE CUPIDS WERE crushed, one more casualty of the week’s storm that no amount of glue could fix. Dani took stock of the damage from Sweet Moon’s front porch. She’d never liked the cutesy statues, but her grandparents had collected them over fifty-plus years of marriage. The carnage wasn’t going to make them happy.

  Two hours later, she had a backache, three full bags of broken pottery pieces and a date with the Dumpster at the end of the driveway. She lugged her trash bags along the walkway, hoisted them inside the metal bin, then eyed the lawn. She’d barely made a dent in the devastation. With a sigh, she straightened up—and slammed straight into a hard, male chest.

  Two strong, sun-bronzed arms closed around her, steadying her.

  Daeg.

  She turned in his arms, breathed him in for a moment. He looked weary. Weary, but good. His eyes smiled at her, the sun lighting her hero man up from behind. She had to stop herself from reaching for him, because she’d missed him and he’d come back. Sort of. Something inside her melted and she smiled back.

  “Did Deep Dive give you time off for good behavior?” she asked.

  The rush of excitement wasn’t only due to the scare he’d given her; no, a traitorous part of her—a very feminine part—drank him in and appreciated their closeness. His sexy smile really set her off, so what if she wanted to wrap her arms around him and pull him down into a kiss?

  He let her go and lifted a chain saw off the ground. “I was coming by to see what needed to be done to the grounds. You’ve got a tree mostly down there.”

  So he apparently had one more stop on his to-do list, because he was pointing toward an oak that was probably older than her grandparents. The tree leaned at a crazy angle, resting on the roof of a vacant cabin. A roof she’d already written off as unsalvageable.

  “And?”

  “And I’m going to see what I can do here.”

  “You run out of jobs in town?” She instantly regretted sounding so snippy. It was too late, though, because the words were out there.

  “You don’t want the help, tell me to get lost.” Calmly ignoring how she’d spoken to him, he walked back and forth in front of the cabin, eyeballing the tree. She had a feeling the offer was made out of courtesy only. He’d decided he was fixing this, and that was that.

  “Be my guest.” She gestured toward the chaos. “Have at it.”

  “You up for helping?” She shouldn’t rise to the challenge in his eyes, but she really liked him, and that was trouble right there. Despite his outer tough-guy image, he was as deliciously soft as the marshmallows he’d roasted for her that night in her cabin. He was a good man at heart.

  She was in real trouble here.

  “You bet,” she said, because of course she had to accept his challenge, and she had to think about something other than sex with Daeg.

  He grinned. “You ever use a chain saw before?”

  Without waiting for her answer, he produced a pair of safety glasses and leather work gloves. “The new tools of your trade.”

  His big hands carefully adjusted the strap over her head, tucking a loose strand of hair back into her ponytail.

  “No,” she said. “Teach me.”

  That was just one more thing she liked about Daeg. You either knew how to do something or you learned. Can’t didn’t seem to be in his vocabulary. It was that simple.

  “This is your kickback zone.” He pointed to the front tip of the serrated chain. “You don’t use this part to cut, okay? You do, and the blade is going to come back at you. Not good.”

  She nodded, and he stepped up behind her, his arms coming around her. Heat sizzled through her that had nothing to do with the summer day and everything to do with the man. One night had definitely not been enough.

  “Get a good grip here and make sure you’ve got your thumb wrapped all the way around the handle.”

  His hands positioned hers, strong and confident on the chain saw’s grip. It was so not fair that he was so sexy when he was teaching her something. Not when this lesson was supposed to be about safety. Concentrating would be good.

  “How are you fixed for shoes?” He eyed her feet, but she was smart enough to be wearing her sturdy, sensible boots. They’d survived the storm...well, just barely.

  “I’ll do.”

  He pointed to some smaller trees scattered over the drive. “Let’s start you on these. Begin at the bottom and move to the top. Branches first and then the trunk.”

  He coached her through it, watching carefully as she made her first cuts. To her surprise, they worked well together. As she limbed the smaller trees, he moved the pieces to the side of the road. The more she cut, the more space he gave her, letting her decide where and how to tackle the branches.

  “You got it,” he said eventually. He stepped back and watched her chop another set of branches. “You’re ready to go pro.”

  Forty minutes later, they’d cleared the main area and Daeg was eyeing the leaning tree again. The heat had his T-shirt sticking to him, clinging to his powerful shoulders like a second skin. When he threw a rope around the tree, the muscles in his arms bunched and she wanted to reach out and caress all that hard steel. She also needed to get her head examined. He hadn’t shown any interest in making their night in the cabin a repeat, let alone continue with their plan for a summer’s worth of nights.

  She should ask him. She was scared.

  She focused her attention on the rope instead. “What’s that for?”

  “I’m going to make sure the tree lands somewhere other than inside the cabin. Unless you want to put in a new skylight?”

  Okay. She was on board with that. She started her cut on the right side of the trunk, facing into the lean, and worked the blade slow and steady under his careful supervision. Soon there was nothing but the whine of the chain saw chewing through the wood and the soft rain of flying chips.

  When she stopped and repositioned the chain saw, Daeg nodded approvingly. “There you go. We’re going to cut her into a V, okay?”

  “Got it.” She concentrated on making the second cut. Working with Daeg shouldn’t have been so easy. They both preferred giving orders, but this felt comfortable, an easy give-and-take that, strangely, had nothing to do with how they’d spent the night of the storm. She liked him, she realized. The blade had almost made it through the tree.

  Her ex had been coming round the motel, pushing hard to get back together, but she’d resisted. Rick was fundamentally a decent man who had made one terrible mistake. Still, she now understood how he wasn’t right for her. There was none of this easy camaraderie or trust. So she just wanted to...

  Hang on to Daeg. And find a way to make this work.

  Hmm...whatever this was. Sex. Romance. A combination of the two. As her eyes met Daeg’s over the chain saw, she could calculate the odds just fine—and they were low. Maybe too low? She dismissed that; he was worth the risk. She should try a closer, more hands-on approach with him.

  In fact, she wanted to try for a relationship with Daeg.

  “Daeg—” she said, and his gaze met hers.

  The whine of the chain saw changed abruptly, the blade biting through the remaining wood, and the trunk started to go.
Out of time, she backed up, like he’d instructed her, as he pulled hard on the rope. The tree was either heavier than he’d estimated, however, or something else had given, because the tree surged forward, dragging Daeg behind it.

  * * *

  THE TREE MUST have had a core of lead because nothing could have prepared him for the sudden jerk and forward lunge.

  The trunk toppled over. The muscles in Daeg’s arms bulged as he fought the pull and burn of the unexpected weight. He dug in his heels, but the tree was still going, threatening to do his shoulders some serious harm.

  No way he’d let go now.

  No way to drop it safely.

  His mind was racing as he thought of scenarios to shift the weight left or right, anywhere but have it go straight through the roof, but he was fresh out of options. And then there was movement beside him. Dani.

  “Get clear,” he roared. He didn’t want her in any danger.

  “You have to let go!” she screamed. No. He didn’t let go. Ever. No, he held on as the trunk went down slowly, dropping loudly through the roof. His boots were almost on the front porch and his chest was heaving, the muscles in his arms and calves shrieking in protest. As the trunk became stationary again, the weight jerked the last of the rope through his palms, burning them even through his work gloves.

  A rumbling moan came from inside the damaged cabin as the tree tore its way through to the floor. He wrapped an arm around Dani’s waist and led her away. The only thing left to save here was her, because the cabin was now a total loss.

  Not part of the plan.

  “Oh, no. That was insane.” She sounded shocked and disbelieving. Yeah. He’d made a huge mess, and all in the name of helping her. He’d be lucky if she didn’t toss him clear off the property now. His chest was still heaving, his muscles still trembling. The drop was too much, too fast; he should have known better.

  “I’m sorry, Dani.” He pulled off the gloves, slapping them on his thigh to shake free the splinters. “I owe you a roof.”