Her Sworn Enemy (Men of the Zodiac)

by Theresa Meyers

  Her pulse picked up. What had she decided? The tattoo had to be a sign, didn’t it? Why else would she have dreamed of it? And while she had no illusions about Tuck staying for anything other than the short term while they worked together, should that completely keep her from enjoying herself? Make a decision, girl.

  “How about you follow me, and I’ll show you my answer.”

  Chapter Nine

  Tucker was hoping with every fiber of his being that Bella intended to tell him yes, she had changed her mind. Even better would be if she said that what they’d started outside her aunt’s house in the French Quarter was only the beginning.

  She held his hand lightly, her fingers entwined in his as they went single file down the narrow corridors of the ship, past the polished teak paneling and doors with gleaming brass handles to where both his and her berths were located. Bella put her hand on the doorknob to her cabin.

  “Do you mind if we go to mine instead?” he asked.

  She turned, eyeing him. “Any particular reason?”

  He hesitated. What he wanted to say was the bed was bigger, but until he knew for certain that was what she wanted, he decided it would be smarter to keep that to himself. “Bigger cabin?”

  Bella nodded, giving him a teasing grin. “Why is it always about size with you guys? Fine. Your room then.”

  He went ahead one door down and opened the door for her. As she passed by him into the room her fresh scent of citrus and sugar teased him, making his mouth water and his dick hard. He’d tasted it on her skin in the darkened alley and craved more. In all honesty, waiting for her to finish her preliminary work with the cannon and keeping himself out of the conservation lab for several hours had been torture. His brain was fixated on remembering the feeling of her beneath his hands, the smooth texture of her skin along the waistline of her shorts, and the soft, supple feel of her mouth. Damn, he wanted more. Now. But that wasn’t up to him.

  He shut the door behind them, his whole focus sharpening, zeroing in on her. It was the thousand little details about her that etched into his brain: the small, damp curls of wispy dark hair against her neck, the way the shade of her lips changed from darker pink at the edges to a paler pink where they were fullest, the way the second button on her shirt strained a bit as she sat on the edge of his bed and leaned back on her hands. He thought about popping all those buttons off with his teeth, one by one, then helping himself to what lay beneath.

  He crossed his arms, first to keep himself from just spreading her out on the bed, and second because he wanted her to know she was in control. He wouldn’t make a move until she asked him to. Not this time.

  “So dinner at your aunt’s house was…eye-opening,” he said, trying to give her the opening to decide which way the conversation and the evening ahead of them would roll.

  Bella’s sexy full lips twitched. “Is that what you’d call it? Frankly, I was way more interested in what happened after we left, weren’t you?”

  Oh, hell yeah. His temperature spiked up a notch. His fingers itched to touch her, but it was still not a green light.

  “Which part was your favorite?”

  She stood up from the bed and walked over to him, her eyes sultry, lids lowered in a come-get-me look that made his dick throb. She stepped closer, her smooth index finger touching his lips. “Everything from here,” she said, caressing his bottom lip and then slowly moving it down his chin and throat, her hand sliding down his chest and stomach until she hit the bulge in his pants and cupped him firmly, “to here.”

  He groaned at the sensation. Green light, go.

  Tuck scooped her up in his arms pulling her into him. There was no preamble to the searing kiss, no tentative buildup. When Bella unleashed herself, she was an unexpected firestorm. He hadn’t realized how much she’d been holding back or that it would take his breath away.

  They pulled off clothing as quickly as they could, still kissing, until she was left in just her bra and panties. Pulling off his shorts and ripping off his shirt had taken him a fraction of the time she’d spent unbuttoning her shirt. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and with a hop wrapped her long, silky legs around his waist, her hot, damp panties pressed against his raging hard-on. He ground against the heat. Bella let her head fall back, deep sounds of pleasure resonating from within her. “Yes. More of that,” she said, her voice husky as she rolled her hips, pressing against him.

  “Whatever the lady wants.” Her boldness freed him to return the favor. He kissed down the silky length of her neck, enjoying the sugar and spice that cloaked her skin. His hands kneaded over her supple body, the round, firm curves of her ass fitting perfectly in his palms. With his fingers he pulled aside her panties, letting the hard length of him slide against the slick, wet heat she offered and tried hard not to let go. She bucked, rubbing herself against him until she panted and arched. His knees shook.

  “Please tell me somewhere in this room you have a condom.”

  He laughed and carried her to the bed, every muscle shaking with need. God, if there was an award for restraint, he’d fucking earned it. “One condom coming right up.”

  He pulled out a packet from the dresser, and Bella snatched it from his hand, ripped it open, and grabbed hold of him, sliding the condom over him as she licked a path down his stomach. His breath hissed between his teeth. Baseball. Football. Hell, he’d think about soccer. Just hold it together. Let her set the pace, even if it killed him.

  The heated scent of her was driving him wild, but the sight of her skin sheened with sweat, eyes fevered with desire, and the touch of her hand pulling him forward and into her blew his world apart. There was no holding back. Her fingernails raked his skin, and Bella cried out, panting.

  They collapsed on the bed together, both sweating and breathing hard like they’d finished a marathon. “Worth waiting for?” he asked as he traced the curve of her cheek and smoothed back the damp curls around the edges of her face.

  “Oh, yeah. Definitely.” She smiled and deep down something in his chest hitched making it hard to breathe. Bella wasn’t exquisite; she was extraordinary.

  For all his flirtations, he wasn’t one to bed an endless stream of women like some of his college buddies. They said his standards were too high for something he never intended to keep. He liked to think he was being selective, but nothing had prepared him for Belladonna Dupré in all her naked, wanton glory.

  She rolled, putting her arm over his stomach and laying her cheek against his chest, her body soft and languid against his. For a moment everything felt right in the world. For a moment he was content.

  A knock at the door woke them.

  Toneau’s voice sounded muffled through the door. “Captain, we’ve found a debris field.”

  Bella had never seen a man move so fast in all her life. Tucker launched out of the bed and yanked on a pair of shorts before opening the door a crack. She appreciated the fact that he blocked the view of the crewman on the other side of the door.

  “I’ll be there in two minutes,” he said, then shut the door and turned to face her. “Can you be ready—”

  She beat him to the question and was already buttoning her shirt over her bra.

  The corner of his mouth tilted into a grin. “I like a woman who can dress, and undress, at the speed of light. It’s a handy skill.”

  She swept her hair up into a crazy bun on her head and threw an elastic band around it to hold it in place. She cocked her hip to one side and gave him a sassy look. “I’ve got lots of hidden skills you’ve yet to discover.”

  “Let’s test that theory.” He moved across the room, gathering her up in his arms, and lifted her off the floor. Bella wrapped her bare legs around his waist, and he kissed her like he hadn’t seen her in days, his fingers trailing down her spine and cupping her bottom.

  Bella broke off their kiss, breathing hard. He was ready to go and so was she, but he’d put a deadline on them. “You told Toneau two minutes. That was four minutes ago. We’d bet
ter go.”

  He released her enough to slide down the length of him, and her body was all too aware of the perfect hard-on he had ready to go as she swept down and over it. Deep at the V of her legs her body contracted and pulsed.

  “This isn’t over.” He cupped his hand around the base of her head and kissed her thoroughly.

  “I’ll hold you to that.” Bella yanked on a pair of shorts, practically pointless since her panties were soaking wet, but then the crew didn’t need to see her in her underwear.

  They headed down the hall, and Tuck held out his hand toward the stairs. “Ladies first.”

  “You’re only saying that so you can look at my ass as we go up the stairs.”

  He grinned. “You know me so well.”

  Just to tease him she put an extra swing to her hips as she climbed the stairs and heard him growl behind her. Their affair might be short-lived, but what it had in intensity sure as hell made up for duration. She’d savor every moment and store them up.

  They’d made love again three more times during the night, and each time Tuck had shot her to the stars and back, making her feel both well-pleasured and adored, then let her fall asleep against him. She hadn’t felt so safe, so loved in a long time. It’s an illusion, she reminded herself. Enjoy it while it lasts.

  She and Tuck crowded into the bridge with the other eager crew to look at the ROV findings. The images the transponders had help capture showed clearly the outline of a debris bed that look like it extended for several hundred feet, as if an object had been dragged across the sea floor littering it as it went.

  “Look at the glass!” Bella pointed to the bottles, scattered hodgepodge in the deep sediment, but clearly visible and many still intact. “That has to be a merchant ship.”

  “Don’t get your hopes up,” Tuck said. “It may not be the Rapid.”

  “Even if it isn’t, it’s still a hell of a find,” Williams said, excitement in his voice as he pulled on the length of his beard.

  “Is the ROV ready to start removing sediment so we can really see what we’ve got here?” Tuck asked.

  “Aye, cap. We’ve also got it fitted with the basket already,” Toneau said.

  Tuck grinned. “Then what are we waiting for? Daylight’s burning. Let’s get some things up here for Doc to look at.” He pulled her close, hugging her to his side.

  Deep down the fluttery sensation in her stomach told her this had to be the Rapid. Excitement and expectation bubbled through her veins like fine champagne. Life couldn’t get any better that this.

  For the next five days, the ROV trolled the debris field using the six-inch diameter Venturi hose to vacuum sediment off the finds and filter them into compartmentalized baskets attached to the back of it.

  One after another the baskets came up, full to the brim with dozens of small items, buttons and grape shot, coins and spoons. Each larger artifact was carefully lifted with the ROV’s flexible rubber limpets and placed in a numbered recovery basket, its position systematically documented by Barclay, Scott, Williams, and Reeves who logged data and kept the machines moving. Each of the recovery baskets was sealed into protected multiplex units for their voyage to the surface, and Bella stood in awe as they began to stack up.

  She and Guereaux were working for as long as they could each day, photographing and documenting each piece before they received first-aid conservation and were stabilized enough to be put into temporary storage for transportation to her lab at Fontanel & Company where the bulk of the restoration would happen over the next few years. There was simply too much to be able to do a full restoration on each piece.

  The good news was the stamping on the cannon confirmed it was from the Rapid. The bad news was, it made Bella all the more anxious. Where was the hull? Where was the crystal ball?

  On the afternoon of day six, the phone in the lab rang. Bella pulled off her gloves and wiped the beads of perspiration from her forehead with the back of her hand. She felt like she hadn’t seen the sun or Tuck in days, even though they shared their meals together every night, sometimes with the crew and sometimes without, and always slept in each other’s arms.

  “Conservation lab, this is the doc,” she answered.

  “You’re going to want to come up to the bridge to see this,” Tuck said. The energy in his voice pulsated through the phone line.

  “I’m really slammed, are you—”

  “Bella, get up here. We’ve found the Rapid!”

  Bella dropped everything. “Rory, they found it! They found it!” She hugged him around the neck and sprinted out of the lab, taking the stairs on all three levels two at a time so she could reach the bridge faster.

  There on the screen in glorious color, like watching one of the Jacques Cousteau documentaries she’d seen as a kid on the Discovery Channel was the hulk of a ship, blackened ribs arching gracefully over the hull of remains. Barclay maneuvered the ROV slowly, recording all of it.

  Bella inhaled with awe and delight. “Look! You can see the copper sheeting that wrapped the base of it,” she said, bouncing up on her toes. “I can’t believe it! We found it, we actually found it!” She spun around and grabbed Tuck in a fierce hug and kissed him hard on the mouth, not giving a damn if the crew knew or not. It was a moment to celebrate, and she could think of no one else she’d want to share it with than him.

  Toneau called down to the kitchen for champagne, and Williams broke out a store of cigars he’d been saving for such an occasion.

  Tuck went to help get glasses, and Toneau followed. Toneau pulled him aside in the corridor. “Cap, you know I’m not one to pry into your personal business, but what are you and the doc up to?”

  “I thought you said you aren’t one to pry.”

  Toneau shook his head. “I know, but something’s changed between you and her. Everyone can see it in the way she looks at you and the way you two touch one another when you think no one’s looking. Problem is on a ship this size someone is always looking. And that kiss wasn’t just a kiss of excitement over finding the ship.”

  “What if the doc and I have an understanding? How’s that anyone’s business?”

  “It ain’t. Not exactly, except you got us all under a no-fraternization rule. We look up to you for that, and a man can’t lead what he don’t follow.”

  Tuck ignored the twist in his stomach. Deep down he knew sleeping with Bella was asking for trouble, but they’d both gone into it knowing this was only for the short term—no promises, no expectations. So what was the harm in that? Sure, she’d like it to be more, she’d made that clear, but she knew not to expect it. The problem was she deserved more. Hell, she deserved better than him. She deserved a man who would put her up on a pedestal and believe she was the greatest thing that had ever happened to him, and he just wasn’t that guy. He couldn’t be, not if he wanted to rectify his past and be more than the man his father was.

  “You want me to talk to the crew?”

  Toneau smirked. “That’d be one hell of a meeting.” He shook his head. “No, word will get around quick enough if you let key people know that you and the doc have decided to be an item. It’s the hiding it that they won’t understand. Feels like you’re telling them to do one thing but not following it yourself. Now if you change the rules we all go by, then fine, no harm.”

  Tuck nodded and put his hand on Toneau’s shoulder. “You’re a good man.”

  The problem was, Tuck thought morosely, was he a good man?

  Now that they’d found the wreck, the countdown clock on his relationship had started ticking. And while he admired Bella and had never met anyone like her, the tendrils of a romantic relationship were still too binding for his taste. Oh, he was tempted. Hell, yeah he was tempted, but years of seeing what being in an uncertain relationship had done to his mother still kept him latched on to the one thing he knew to be true. In the long-term, relationships that hooked into your heart and kept you tethered were ones that destroyed you, no matter how in love you thought you might be. />
  Chapter Ten

  “You need to take a break.” Tuck stood at the entrance to the conservation lab, his arms crossed, tanned torso bare, looking terribly…distracting. It took a moment for her brain to reengage and actually process what he said, instead of staring at him and enjoying the view.

  The sound of Rory opening a multiplex container to bring out another basket of items recovered from the Rapid snapped her out of her daze. Within a day of positively identifying the cannon, they had started working the site, and the amount they brought up was staggering. Days had started to blend together as she worked sixteen-hour shifts. “Do you see all these containers? How on earth can I take a break? Half of this isn’t even photographed or cataloged yet.”

  He sighed and shook his head at her overdramatic tone. “You need to get out of this lab for a little bit. You and Rory have been working non-stop for a month. If you don’t get some sun and a little R&R soon, you’re gonna snap.”

  “I am not!” She looked over at Rory. “I’m fine. We’re fine, aren’t we?”

  Rory refused to make eye contact with her and shook his head, too. “I’m not the boss, Doc. If the captain thinks you need a break, he’s probably right.”

  Tuck stepped into the lab, getting close enough she could almost taste the sea spray on his skin. “All work and no play makes Bella—”

  She stopped him with a finger on his lips. “There’s plenty of play, and you know it,” she said low enough for only him to hear.

  The corner of his mouth lifted in a sexy, knowing smile, and he kissed her finger. “Doesn’t mean you don’t need to get out of here for a break.”

  “Like what?”

  “Come dive with me.”

  “Dive?” She wasn’t sure she remembered how. During one of her courses she’d been required to try it a few times, but not enough to become certified in it or to do it as a sport. Basically, she’d learned the science behind it, gotten wet a few times, and left it at that.