Vortex (Cutter Cay)

by Cherry Adair

  “La Daniela was long gone when the storm came up, and then the pirates attacked Nuestra Señora de Garza, San Isidro, and Conde del Mar. The story goes that my great-great-uncle was pressed into service, and when the storm hit, driving La Daniela against the rocky reef, he and another sailor jumped ship and somehow made it to shore.”

  She rubbed between Dog’s ears, and the animal groaned his pleasure.

  Crap. He was jealous of his dog.

  “The two men made it back with the biggest piece of the treasure they could carry,” she continued. “The emerald. Apparently the other guy was a woodworker, and he carved the map. He died. I suspect my distant great-great-uncle got his hands on it and returned to scoop up the rest of the treasure that nobody knew about. But when he went out in his fishing boat the water was too deep, and he couldn’t get to it. The story was passed on. Of course, we never believed it for a second.”

  “We?”

  “My mother’s side of the family going back several generations. La Daniela’s treasure has always been a bone of contention in my family. Sort of the line in the sand between the good guys and the bad,” she added wryly as her attention, strangely, returned to the television. Some Kennedyesque DC politician spouting something with utmost sincerity, tears in his eyes.

  Logan returned his attention to her. “Were you behind the guy who sold me the bowl?”

  She shook her head, then gave him a worried frown. “No. I was an unwitting participant because my cousins couldn’t get you to turn around.”

  “Turn around?”

  She was distracted by the news, which was always the same crap. Logan clicked it off and the screen went dark, plunging the room into the amber glow of the one lamp by the window. She blinked at him like a sleepwalker.

  “Do these cousins have names?”

  “Look,” she said earnestly. “I don’t want you to report them to the authorities. They haven’t done anything—yet, and hopefully you can do a better job than I did of dissuading them from swooping in and stealing you blind.”

  A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw. “Names?”

  She let out a breath. “Piero, Angel, and Hugo—” she hesitated, and he encouraged her with a hard look. “Apaza.”

  At least it wasn’t Rydell Case. Logan committed the names to memory. “They the ones who hit you and tossed you overboard?”

  “They told me we were coming out to your ship to tell you about the bowl. Once we left the harbor, we had … a difference of opinion.”

  He felt a sudden fury churn up inside him, and said savagely, “Your life vest was improperly fastened.”

  She gave him an unhappy look. “I’m fortunate they put one on me at all.”

  “Yeah. Fortunate. Why has no one bagged the treasure already? They’ve had the map for hundreds of years. Surely someone in all that time must’ve had the smarts and wherewithal to dive for it?”

  “You’d think so, wouldn’t you? Apparently, at the time of the wreck no one had the capability of diving so deep. That’s why they carved the map out of the emerald, so that they’d never forget the location. It was no use knowing where if they didn’t have the technology to get at it. Then the emerald seems to have disappeared for a century or two. I suppose it’s possible that their branch of the family—like mine—thought it was all a big myth.”

  “Why didn’t these cousins dive themselves?”

  “They couldn’t afford the equipment, not to mention, they had no idea how to go about a salvage of this magnitude,” she said dryly. “Plus it’s so much easier to let you do the all work and go to the expense. They plan to stroll on board and grab it after you’re done.”

  “So, that’s been the plan all along? I go south, find the treasure, then the Three Stooges swoop in and relieve me of it?”

  “Apparently. I’m really, really sorry.” She looked sincere, But that could be part and parcel of the whole con. “I tried reason and threats. But they’ve waited all their lives to retrieve the treasure.”

  “Unfortunately,” his voice was cold, “they’re shit out of luck, since I claimed the treasure as my own a year ago and did it all legally. They should’ve thought of that. The papers are signed and sealed, and as official as death.”

  She gave a small two-shoulder shrug. “They think they have a right to take it.”

  “It’s a popular misconception held by several people in my line of work. Their thinking is erroneous.”

  Her fingers flexed, digging into Dog’s ruff. “What are you going to do?”

  Logan leaned forward, elbows on his knees. Casual enough, but it brought him closer to her. “Talk to my lawyers, then go find the treasure. Your cousins and I will iron out the details first, however.”

  Her eyes widened a fraction. “You’re going to make a deal with them? I hate to sound un-family-like, but these guys are crooks.”

  Logan couldn’t help but grin. Exactly what did she think he’d been doing as a treasure hunter and salvage operator, paperwork? Danger didn’t scare him. “Thanks for the heads-up.”

  “No, seriously. My side of the family hasn’t spoken to their side of the family in over thirty years. I’d never even met these guys until a week ago. If there’s an easy way for them to do something, believe me, they’ll take the low road. These are not nice people.”

  Logan pinned her with an unwavering gaze. “And you think I am?”

  Five

  He had a smile like a shark. How had he pulled the story out of her when all he’d done was sit there, watching her like a lazy, blue-eyed predator? A smart woman would dive overboard and start swimming back to Lima. But a smart woman was damned if she’d run from a man ever again.

  She’d made her line in the sand. Logan Cutter’s ship just happened to be straddling it.

  His seductive superpower was his unwavering disregard for bullshit. Unlike her ex, Victor, who oozed fake charm and faux emotion, Logan let her know exactly how he felt. If what she read in his eyes was true, then Cutter still thought she was a big fat liar, and he made no pretense otherwise.

  Daniela felt bad enough about the situation already. His look just summed up what she’d been feeling since she’d been pulled from the sea. Guilt. The great motivator. Father Morgan would be so proud. No wonder she’d leaked her story like a broken faucet.

  Victor had his own methods of persuasion. Humiliation. Cold mockery. Disdain. Cutter’s stillness was just another form of coercion. The ding to her conscience came from the fact that she was still lying by omission. But one step at a time.

  “How dangerous are these guys?” His even tone suggested he wasn’t particularly concerned. There was a lot of him, and most of it was a lot naked since he was only wearing loose-fitting gray shorts.

  His skin gleamed like smooth bronze in the far-too-intimate lamplight. His dark hair was a bit shaggy and looked as if a woman had spent a happy hour or two running her fingers through it. And if she allowed herself to go down the—Holy crap, look at the man’s rock-hard six-pack, and the crisp dark hair on his pecs, and …

  Mouth dry, Daniela dragged her gaze up his flat belly, passed his pecs, and moved up the strong, tanned column of his throat. Her gaze landed on a pair of inquiring cobalt eyes. Really, the man was a whole other kind of lethal. He should be forced to wear sunglasses. And a shirt.

  “I don’t know,” she said slowly, willing her galloping heartbeat to slow down before she passed out. “They’re petty criminals. Certainly they’re lazy and greedy. They struck me while I slept and threw me overboard, so I suspect that, yeah, they might be more violent than I gave them credit for.”

  No wonder her mother always crossed herself when she mentioned her older sister Jimena and her husband, who was in prison more than he was out. And her mother had never met her three nephews either. Even Lady Clairol wouldn’t be able to prevent her from turning gray then. Be safe, Mom. Please be safe.

  Daniela’s speech was slower than usual, because while she was talking, she was thinking, God.
She’d stood up to the world’s most devious, terrifying intimidator, and Cutter, without lifting a finger, or making a threat, had managed to get her to spill her guts without even trying.

  “I certainly don’t trust them. That said, I don’t know them.” At all. She’d met the Three Stooges a week ago. And what she’d seen of them she didn’t like. Liked them even less for hitting her and tossing her into the ocean. It was a mixed blessing that she’d been in flat-out panic mode from the moment she’d hit the water. To say she had an aversion to having her face in water was the understatement of the century. Daniela masked a full-body shudder by stroking both hands down Dog’s back.

  “You don’t consider them violent?” he asked incredulously. “They struck you hard enough to almost kill you, and dumped you overboard like yesterday’s garbage.” Strangely, he sounded furious. Or as furious as a cold-blooded shark could sound.

  “Well, yeah. You have a point there,” she said tightly. He’d need more than sexy feet and impossibly blue X-ray eyes to get her real motivation out of her. But talking about her cousins was better than telling him why she’d hooked up with them in the first place.

  Three words.

  Senator. Victor. Stamps.

  She had just about had a coronary seeing his handsome, oh-so-sincere-politician’s face on the big screen right before the commercial break, with the crawl that he had an important announcement to make. The press might think he was about to announce his bid for the presidency. But Victor was smarter than that. He knew how powerful anticipation was. He wasn’t going to declare for two more weeks.

  No, he was going to say something about her.

  They’d give him a sound bite, and probably flash her photograph up beside him, as he wept crocodile tears for his missing fiancée. Thank God Cutter had turned off the TV in the nick of time.

  Daniela felt as though she’d had the most narrow of escapes. Surreptitiously, she wiped her sweaty palm on Dog’s thick fur. He lifted his head and licked her wrist. Foolish tears stung her eyes. She looked up just in time to see the muscle jump in Logan’s jaw.

  Midnight-blue eyes watched her unblinkingly, as he drawled, “We’ll see just how petty they are when I contact the cops in Lima.”

  She found she couldn’t look away from those startlingly blue, suddenly predatory eyes. A shiver of apprehension or anticipation skittered through her. Of course he’d contact the authorities. Except Daniela didn’t want anyone to know she was involved, however marginally. “Of course you’ll do as you like. But since you haven’t even headed out to the site, or found anything yet, why not wait a while?” She kept her suggestion casual.

  “I’m sure they won’t do anything until they see you’ve salvaged the treasure. That could take weeks or months, right?”

  “Sometimes years.” Absently, he rubbed a hand across his chest.

  Daniela flexed her fingers, almost feeling the damp glide and the crispness of the hair there, as if it were her hand touching him instead of his own. Dog lifted his head, and she realized she’d fisted her fingers in his fur. She stroked an apologetic hand down his back, and he put his head back on her curled legs with a sigh.

  “Since I presume their intent wasn’t to kill you,” Logan said, “aren’t they expecting you to contact them?”

  “No.” Daniela wanted to go back up to her cabin. Her life was fraught with complications already, and her hyperawareness of Cutter wasn’t helping. It was as though he was sucking all the air out of the room, making it hard for her to breathe, or swallow, or think rationally.

  A hell of a time for pheromones to kick in.

  Another minute or two to finish the conversation she’d started, five minutes tops, and she’d excuse herself. “These guys aren’t the brightest. I presume they’ll follow you to the location and skulk while you do all the work.”

  Even in the muted lighting, his eyes were an impossible shade of cobalt, and disconcertingly direct, making Daniela want to fidget. She stroked Dog. One of them might as well feel soothed, because she sure as hell wasn’t anything close. She felt wired, and so jumpy, she wanted to have hot, wild s—Wanted to go for a long hard run.

  “I suspect you’re right.” Cutter showed not an iota of the tension she was feeling. He was as relaxed as a big cat on sunny tree branch in the savannah. He looked as though he was settled for the duration, but Daniela didn’t want to sit there in the far-too-intimate semidarkness with him. His hot gaze felt as tangible as warm honey on her face, her throat, her chest …

  Her breasts felt heavy, and she was insanely aware of him. His contemplation was as possessive as if he was running his hands all over her, and that look filled her with an aching, nameless longing.

  No, not nameless at all.

  Inappropriate. Inconvenient. Wrong time, definitely wrong place.

  Her body wasn’t getting the memo.

  He smelled … hot. Salty. His skin was still sheened with the sweat he’d worked up doing whatever he’d been doing out on the dark deck earlier. Dear God. It should be illegal, if not immoral, for a guy to look as mouthwatering as Logan Cutter did. She could barely catch her breath. Everything about him tantalized and aroused her senses.

  Easy.

  Get up.

  Walk out.

  Now.

  She’d told him about the cousins. Warned him. Told the truth—that bit of it anyway. Time to remove herself from temptation. She yawned, not totally faked, and stretched out her legs slowly, dislodging Dog, who groaned and cast her a reproachful look as he found himself on his feet between the sofa and the coffee table. Daniela slid her feet to the floor, and stood.

  Ow! Ow! Ow! Her feet had gone to sleep, and the rush of blood to them felt like thousands of pins and needles stabbing her skin. Logan’s gaze drifted up her body to rest on her face. Slightly light-headed from lack of oxygen, she wiggled her toes to get back some feeling. “It’s been a long day. I’m going to turn in.”

  She kept her voice cheerful, determined to escape without giving anything else away. “Thanks for the hospitality. I’m sure you want Poseidon to stay with you. Night.”

  “Poseidon?”

  She looked at the dog. The dog looked back. Daniela sighed as she kept wiggling her toes. She didn’t trust in her ability to walk away in any sort of dignified manner while her feet were still numb. “Yeah. I see he’s not crazy about that name either.”

  “He has a name.” Logan’s lips twitched ever so slightly. Possibly a trick of the light. But his amusement, or her demandable imagination of it, brushed like a cat’s tongue across her nerve endings. Amused or not, tension pulsed in the air between them.

  “Dog is not a name.” Her voice sounded soft and breathless She cleared her throat. “If his name was Cat that would be a—”

  With all the dignity of a clown getting out of a clown car, she toppled over Dog as she shuffled on numb feet, trying to make a graceful exit.

  She was at least three feet away from Cutter, who lounged at the other end of the sofa, but when she fell, somehow she landed hard against his chest, her hands splayed on his flat belly, her legs sprawled between his.

  Hot skin. Engulfed by sizzling sensations.

  A predatory gleam sparked in his eyes. Tilting her chin up with his fingertip, he watched her from beneath lowered lids and murmured, “Well, hello, Annie Ross.”

  Daniela blinked as his lips descended. “Who?”

  * * *

  Her lips were slightly puckered, and petal soft as Logan brushed her mouth with his. He moved his lips over hers in a slow, lingering exploration. When he swept his tongue into the warm cavern of her mouth he tasted chocolate, and something elusively sexy that aroused him as if they’d been having foreplay for hours.

  He felt the galloping of a heartbeat against his chest, and wasn’t sure if the heavy, rapid beat was hers or his own. He threaded his fingers through the silky strands of her dark hair, tilting his head for better access. She canted her head the other way as she swept her slick warm tong
ue over his, giving no quarter and expecting none in return.

  Her cool fingers flexed against his belly, ratcheting up his heat. Logan wanted to twist their bodies so she lay beneath him along the length of the sofa, but a tiny part of his reptilian brain that could still function, remembered, despite her response now, the way she’d retreated from him in the cabin the night before.

  That small show of nerves could be anything. He didn’t know her well enough to know what might be a hot button, but he didn’t want to spook her. Not now when her body molded against his, soft where he was hard, smooth where he was rough. Her touch sparked fire on his skin and sent arcs of heat racing through his veins.

  Careful not to scare her, he kept his body relaxed, no matter how hard, literally, it was not to take control of the situation.

  He savored the soft shape of her mouth with a sweep of his tongue, enjoying the silky glide of hers as she explored. He drank her in, caressed her mouth when he wanted to caress her body. Logan disciplined himself to keep his hands in the luxuriant fall of her hair. It was a lesson in restraint, but he shook with it.

  It took several rapid heartbeats before he realized she was no longer engaged, and that she was trying to break free, her body stiffening in resistance. Logan immediately untangled his fingers from her hair, lifted his hands as she sputtered, “Mfft!” and jerked her head away.

  She rolled off him so quickly that he had to shoot out a steadying hand to prevent her from crashing into Dog, or the coffee table behind her. She held up her hand, and he dropped his as she scrambled to her feet beside him.

  Expression closed, she was breathing as if she’d just run a marathon, but far from the heavy breathing of passion, he suspected it was panic. He frowned. He didn’t take her for a woman who’d back off from anything, including passion. And it had been that for several minutes.