Her Sworn Enemy (Men of the Zodiac)

by Theresa Meyers

  “You’ve snorkeled, right?”

  She nodded. Snorkeling was easier. Simple. Minimal commitment. Bella frowned. Maybe she had as many issues with commitment as Tuck did. But then she’d never met a man she could rely on before to not eventually hurt her somehow.

  “Same difference. Use your mouthpiece, only big thing is you keep breathing with it instead of going to the surface, and you always dive with a buddy. How’d you get out of knowing how to dive if you were studying underwater archeology?”

  “I studied maritime archeology and history and rely on big, burly guys like you to do the grunt work and bring everything to the surface,” she replied.

  “Grunt work. You greatly underestimate my value, Doctor Dupré.”

  She glanced down at the broad expanse of his bronzed chest and the muscles covered with taunt skin. Tuck could have been a work of art. She traced down his chest with her finger, enjoying the ripple and flex of his muscles in response to her touch. “Oh, I don’t underestimate,” she said with just a hint of seduction. “I like to mess with you.”

  The blue in his eyes grew bright with arousal. “You can’t properly call yourself a scientist in underwater archeology until you’ve at least been on a dive. Take off your lab apron, and get in a swimsuit. I’ve got Toneau prepping our equipment now.” A sexy, slow smile spread across his lips. He nodded his head and raised his eyebrows twice in a quick bump. “We’re going down.”

  It felt like he was issuing her a challenge. Fine. She’d accept. She’d snorkeled dozens of times and had gone diving a couple of times. How hard could it be?

  “You’re on.” She untied her lab apron and set it aside. “You going to be okay on your own for an afternoon, Rory?”

  “He’ll be fine,” Tuck answered. “Right, Rory?”

  “No problem, Cap.”

  Tuck winked at him, and Bella wedged past him and headed toward her cabin to change.

  A half hour later she was on deck, stuffed into a neoprene wetsuit, a weight belt, a buoyancy compensator vest with tanks strapped to her, fins, a mask and snorkel, and a regulator all in place. “I didn’t remember there was so much extra equipment,” she muttered.

  “Don’t worry. You’ll do fine.” Tuck had been giving her a quick, mini-diving class, explaining all the equipment and adjusting it to fit her properly. Every time his hand had brushed her bare skin, she had to repress a shiver of yearning for him to strip it all off her and carry her back to his cabin. An afternoon spent in bed seemed like a lot better form of rest and relaxation to her than diving, but Tuck assured her it would be an experience she’d never forget. All her diving until now had been in the deep end of a pool or shallow lake. Three dives in all, and only to pass a required class.

  “I’m going in first, so I’ll be in the water in case you need anything. Remember foot out, step off, hold your mask, keep breathing,” Tuck said.

  Bella nodded then watched his every move as he stepped effortlessly out over the water and splashed down, bobbing back up to the surface.

  “Go for it, Bella!”

  She pressed her mask to her face with one hand and clamped her lips around the hard plastic of the regulator as she lifted one finned foot out over the edge of the boat over open water and stepped out. The cool water hit her in a rush. She kicked up twice and bobbed up to the surface, making sure to tip her head back so her wet hair wouldn’t obscure her mask.

  The first big difference she noticed was the gentle ebb and swell of the ocean waves. That hadn’t been a factor in either the pool or the lake. The current wasn’t too strong, but she could feel the gentle tug and pull of it as the water moved around her. He made the diver signal for okay, and she responded back with the same signal then motioned for ready to dive. She double-checked her regulator, breathing in. The familiar Darth Vader-like sound assured her everything was working fine, and she plunged beneath the waves.

  Sunlight streamed down in white and gold ribbons from above, constantly rippling like they were in a breeze as the pale blue of the water surrounded her. It seemed endless, stretching out in all directions simultaneously. The bright yellow bottom of the Discovery bobbed on the surface, her only connection to the world above. Tuck was already swimming away. She let her arms float back to her sides and kicked hard, letting her fins do the work as she followed him down.

  Exhilaration had bumped up her heart rate, which would mean a shorter dive if she sucked up the air in her tank too quickly. Consciously, Bella slowed down her breathing. She wanted to extract every minute she could out of the dive with Tuck.

  She pulled in a deeper breath than she intended. All along these past few weeks she’d been savoring every moment with him, always the ticking clock in the back of her mind knowing that no matter how good they were together, the end was coming faster and faster like a bullet train. Emotionally, she was tied to the damn train tracks and going to get run over if she didn’t keep at least part of her heart to herself. But for now, in this moment, it was all worth it.

  The sense of freedom was amazing, like being a fish herself. For a moment she let her neutral buoyancy allow her to hover in the water and the gentle sway of the current rock her. It was so damn relaxing. She could understand why he loved it so much. It fit him. And he fit her. And who knew, maybe fate was fickle enough to let it all work out. How, she had no idea. That was still a mystery. She kicked off again, trailing behind Tuck.

  Spadefish, flat and thin like giant black and silver striped angelfish, meandered in a glinting cloud in the water, some of them chasing after the bubbles that rose from them in a trail as they dove deeper. They seemed serene, until something changed. An instant later the school moved in perfect synchronization as they darted and disappeared to avoid perceived threats in the water.

  She heard their threat before she saw it, the clicks and high-pitched whistles of a pod of dolphins streaking through the water above them. Their supple, smooth bodies undulated as they swam, sometimes brushing against one another, other times breaking the surface. Bella tugged on Tucker’s BC vest and pointed up at the dolphins. He winked at her and gave her a thumbs-up. This was probably the coolest thing she’d done in years, definitely the kind of stuff that made a guy date-worthy. So was this a date? In a twisted kind of way, she supposed it was. After all, it was just the two of them in this watery wonderland.

  It was hard to tell which direction they were swimming down here without a sun in the sky to guide her to east and west. There was only light up above and dark down below. She knew the area they were in was deep, but not as deep as it could have been. They were on a shelf of sorts, where the wreck had landed, but the deep water was close by.

  The farther down they went the darker it grew. Less light could penetrate from the surface, and she swam close enough to Tuck to make sure she could reach out and touch him at all times.

  Tucker flicked on his flashlight and tapped her arm, pointing to the light clipped to her BC vest. She unhooked it and flipped her light on, too. The beam cut through the darkness, and she could see more sea life, corals, some thin and fragile like leafless bushes, others shorter and thick, like tentacles from an octopus, a few feather-like, seemed to sprout from the mix of sand and stony outcroppings at the bottom of the ocean. Colorful sea stars, orange, red, and purple of different shapes and sizes, and a variety of fish meandered through the coral, on a search for food. It was beautiful, like being in the tank of tropical fish rather than just looking at it.

  Tuck grasped her hand, his fingers interlacing with hers. He squeezed her hand, and her heart swelled. Being down here like this with him made her feel as though it were only the two of them in the world. Together they swam, hand in hand, using their fins alone to propel them slowly over the alien landscape. Tuck squeezed her hand twice and pointed at a small red octopus moving through the coral. She nodded, and he swam closer to it to investigate. Personally, she had no interest in getting up close with something that squishy.

  Tuck moved the beam of his light so
that the edge of the halo lit up the octopus, but it moved quickly, too quickly, and into the brilliant center beam of the flashlight. It jetted upward in a red streak and almost collided with her as it darted past her and into the dark water beyond.

  Bella sucked in a startled breath only to find water entering her mouth instead of air. While her instinct was to cough, she fought it, spitting the water out instead and trying desperately to hold on to the air she had left in her burning lungs. She waved frantically at Tuck, but he was turned away and didn’t see her. She kicked quickly until he was within reach then rapped hard on his tank.

  He spun around, eyes growing wide behind his mask the minute he saw her lift up her faulty regulator and her panicked motions at her throat. He yanked his regulator from his mouth, blowing out a slow stream of steady bubbles as he handed it to her and reached for the back-up regulator he carried on his tank. Blessed air flooded her lungs as she inhaled.

  He motioned to the surface, and she nodded. There was nothing more they could do down here now. They would have to both use his tank on their way to the surface. Halfway up they stopped for a decompression break, and Tuck checked the gauge to see just how much air they had left. He frowned, and then motioned upward.

  Both of them knew if they didn’t stay long enough at this depth to decompress, they risked getting the flood of expanded gas bubbles in their bloodstream that divers called the bends. But since they were sharing the air that was left in his tank, getting back to the surface was a top priority, even if it meant they had to wait it out in the recompression chamber afterward.

  They moved toward the light, but not fast enough. Bella took a drag of air off his regulator and instead of getting lungful, got only a sip. Tuck registered her panic and pulled her with him as he lunged toward the surface. They broke through the surface. Bella gasped as they hit the air and for a second floated, her head leaning back on her BC vest so she could suck in great gulps of air. She was lightheaded, and her body ached.

  “Fire up the chamber!” Tuck yelled at the crew as he pulled her over to the metal ladder that hung down over the edge of the ship into the water. Her muscles were trembling, her skin itching, and she was so dizzy she could barely stay upright. Tuck put a hand at her lower back to help her as she climbed up. She thought Tuck was no better, but he kept making sure she was okay.

  “Keep going, Bella. We’ve got to get into the recompression chamber ASAP.” Not easy to do when her legs felt as reliable and wobbly as soft-set gelatin.

  The minute she sprawled out on the deck, Toneau and Barclay started stripping gear off her and Tucker, pulling the heavy tanks and BC vests from their backs and helping them up.

  She tried and fumbled with the zipper to her wetsuit.

  Tuck grabbed her hand. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve got it.” He quickly and efficiently peeled her out of the wet neoprene, his hands cold as they skimmed her flesh, and then pulled off his suit as well.

  Both of them were given towels, dry clothes, and bottles of water before they were placed in the cylindrical recompression chamber. It was stark white inside, with one fold down bunk against one wall and a series of fold-down chairs along the other. Clear and black tubing hung suspended from the arched metal ceiling and connected to face masks with elastic on them like those found in airplanes.

  The door clunked into place. “Are you feeling dizzy still?” Tuck asked. He pulled down the fold-away bed from the wall and yanked back the blue utility blanket and white sheet and placed a towel down for her.

  She nodded and swayed a bit as she sat down on the bed, her ears popping as the pressure in the room increased. “Put your mask on and lie down,” he said. After about ten minutes of breathing the oxygen, the fuzziness in her brain receded.

  “What happened?” Her words were muffled by the mask.

  Tuck sat next to her and shrugged. “We came up too fast.”

  “Never had the bends before.”

  “That’s good.” His words were muffled, too, his nose and mouth covered, but she could see his eyes. Those cool, clear blue eyes that made her feel relaxed. Even after just ten minutes on the oxygen, she felt better.

  “So we’re stuck in here?”

  “For the time being.” A gleam in his eye told her exactly the direction his thoughts had taken. “This is going to work out better than I expected,” he said.

  “Better than you expected? We’re stuck in a decompression tank while we could be bringing up and cataloging things from the Rapid.”

  “Well, yeah. The upside is, the crew will keep that part going. And usually you’re stuck in here by yourself, or with another guy. But,” he said, as he hung a towel over the view portal of the chamber, “being forced to be alone, in here, with you for hours, when we’ve got nothing but a bunk, now that’s hardly an inconvenience. More like a perfect opportunity.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Better.”

  He pulled off his oxygen mask and hers, and curled up beside her on the bed, wrapping her in his arms. “You’re cold. If we huddle together, we’ll warm up faster.”

  As she ran her fingers gingerly across the shadow of stubble on his chin, and along the smooth edge of his mouth, he exhaled and kissed her fingertips, and Bella realized how delicate the balance of life was.

  Tuck had sacrificed his air supply to ensure they both made it to the surface. He’d saved her. Deep within her, the last innermost wall she’d kept around her heart crumbled. Those weren’t the actions of a man who’d leave you to fend for yourself with a broken heart. He’d done something for her no other man in her life had ever done—he’d risked his very life for her. If that wasn’t love, even without the words, she didn’t know what was. She knew one thing for certain—she could trust Tuck. He’d do anything for her, including risk himself. And that changed everything.

  “I think we’d both warm up considerably faster if we got out of our wet swimsuits,” she said.

  “Doctor’s orders?”

  She could feel a slow, sassy smile lift up the edge of her mouth and nodded. He took her hands in his and pulled her up from the damp towel she’d been lying on.

  “Then we shouldn’t waste any time. I’d hate for you to catch a cold on my watch because I didn’t follow the doctor’s instructions.” He yanked off his swim trunks in one fluid motion, and they landed on the floor with a wet slap. He looked down and kissed her, his mouth warm and hungry against hers as his hands trailed around her ribs, then slipped around her back. His clever fingers quickly untied the strings of her bikini top at her back and her neck, and it fell away. The heat of his hand against her breast replaced the cool air that brushed over her now bare skin. He cupped it, cradling it in the palm of his hand as the broad pad of this thumb teased the tip, turning it hard despite the warmth he offered her. Bella groaned as his tongue matched the stroking sensation of his fingers, while the silky, hot length of his penis pressed against her belly. Slick heat spread between her folds in response.

  “You’ve done great so far, but I think you can do better,” she said. At her waist, the fingers of his other hand flexed, kneading her skin, then slipped loose the bikini ties at her hips, slipping the scrap of wet cloth away from her. Despite being naked against him, she wasn’t cold any longer. Her skin was flushed, and the sensation of his bare body against hers was more than enough to warm them both.

  “Anything else?” he teased. Bella lifted up on her toes and arched against him, and he responded to her demand. Then his hand lowered, the heel of his palm pressing against her mons in slow circles as his fingers slid through the damp seam and dipped inside, teasing her. She opened herself to him, wrapping one leg over his hip, rubbing herself against the hard shaft, but keeping herself at enough of an angle that he didn’t enter her.

  He shuddered. “No fair,” he said.

  “Who said I play fair?” she whispered back. She pulled away from him for a moment, then touched herself with the palm of her hand and fingers until she was wet wit
h her own juices. She grabbed hold of his hard length with her wet hands, and he flexed at her touch and let out a slow hiss of breath between his teeth. She stroked the silk over steel. Tuck closed his eyes, his head falling back.

  “You know there’ll be payback.” His penis jumped again in her hand, throbbing in response to her, and she gave a throaty laugh.

  “I’m counting on it.”

  Tuck lowered himself, bringing his face even with her belly, then bent lower, his rough cheek brushing against the tender backside of her knees as his hands cupped her bottom and kneaded. His hot kisses trailed upward higher and higher along the inside of her thigh, making her stomach quiver and her head light. Bella leaned back against the bunk for stability. Her knees were growing far too wobbly to hold her up all by themselves.

  He placed his hands behind her knees and pulled forward, forcing her to rest her weight on him. Tuck lifted her until her back lay flat on the bunk and her thighs were splayed across his shoulders. He lightly nipped the inside of her tender thigh.

  “Hey!”

  He gave her a wicked grin. “Payback.”

  “You won’t win,” she said, her voice husky.

  He lifted one dark brow, his blue eyes almost getting lost as the pupils dilated and grew bigger. “Watch me.”

  He kissed and nibbled at the most tender parts of her, driving her mad, making her squirm as the need for release coiled tighter and tighter within her. She almost came undone the instant his warm slick tongue slid between her swollen folds and expertly flicked the little nub. He caressed her with his hands, undid her with his mouth until her head thrashed, her damp hair sticking to her cheek.

  “Uncle,” she said, between pants.

  “What?”

  “Uncle. You win. You’ve proven your point. Now, before I fall apart, I want to feel you inside me.”

  He rose, his body glistening with sweat, every muscle rigid as if he were about to explode and held it all together through sheer force of will. He pulled her up from the bunk and lifted her, pressing himself fully into her. Bella cried out in pleasure and wrapped her legs around his hips and her arms around his neck for support. He kissed her deeply, even as he moved within her, and the rhythm increased, propelling them to the edge of the abyss. Bella tangled her fingers in his hair, desperate to hold on as the tension within her spun out of control. Never had she felt a release this fully, body, mind, and soul entwined with a man.