Breathless Encounter: Breathless EncounterThe Dark Side of Night

by Cindy Dees

  The girl. Unconscious and drifting down toward the depths. Angling deeper, he came up underneath her, catching her slender body in his arms and kicking mightily toward the light above. Four minutes.

  He swore mentally. If she’d been down here four minutes, she could be very close to brain death. He stopped kicking to plaster his mouth against hers tightly. Angling her head down so he was directly below her, he blew into her mouth enough to clear the water out. Then, he exhaled hard into the air pocket he’d created, forcing air into her lungs. Underwater mouth-to-mouth wasn’t exactly the ideal way to prevent drowning, but he couldn’t just hold her in his arms and let her die!

  He closed her mouth with one hand, while his free arm went around her once more. He resumed kicking hard toward the surface and air.

  After sacrificing his own oxygen reserves to the girl, he actually began to feel the burn of it in his muscles. Thankfully, his body was extraordinarily efficient at processing oxygen. Although he was getting close to his limit, he had enough gas left in the tank to save the girl.

  They burst up out of the depths, and he took a long, gasping breath. He looked around frantically for something big and flat and buoyant, and spotted a portion of the destroyed boat’s hull not far away. Pinching her nose shut, he breathed another lungful of air into the girl’s mouth. Then he dragged her over to the hull and quickly up onto the makeshift raft. He clambered onto his knees beside her and commenced CPR.

  “Come on,” he growled. “Don’t you die on me.”

  He’d been compressing her chest for about thirty seconds when, without warning, she threw up a bunch of seawater. He rolled her over onto her side fast. She coughed and more water came out of her mouth. She drew in a rasping breath and coughed some more.

  At least she was alive.

  Steig had obviously seen him surface with the girl because the Sea Nymph was making painstakingly slow progress through the debris field toward them. Several of the crewmen were leaning down over the prow with long poles in the water, shoving debris aside as the yacht crawled forward. When the yacht pulled alongside, the crew lowered a backboard to him on a pair of ropes, and Aiden horsed it underneath the unconscious girl.

  He was huffing hard by the time he got her strapped onto it. He swore. Not now. But he should have known. He’d just spent a long time underwater and then surfaced and exerted himself hard. That wasn’t how his gift worked. Now he got to pay the price of it. As the crew hoisted the girl upward, his chest tightened until it felt like a massive anvil was parked on top of him. He lay down on the makeshift raft.

  Inhale slowly. Exhale fully. Relax. Don’t freak out. His nebulizer was just a few yards away aboard the Sea Nymph. He’d be fine in a few minutes. But in the meantime, he got to endure the mother of all asthma attacks.

  He vaguely heard voices shouting from above.

  “Aiden’s down!”

  “...send a man to him...”

  “...help him up the ladder...”

  “...don’t think he’ll make it...”

  And then all was darkness and silence around him.

  * * *

  He dreamed of a mermaid with warm brown hair streaked honey-blond. Her tanned skin was dewy and flawless, her eyes a golden-green hazel that matched the sensuous warmth of her voice. Her lips were bee-stung and rosy, her body slender but juicy enough to promise sinful delights. Her aquatic lower half was covered in golden-green scales that glittered exactly the color of her eyes.

  She hovered easily in the water before him, her elegant tail fin waving just enough to hold her position. She reached for him with a dazzling smile, her slender arms beckoning him into her eternal embrace. She was the sea. And he loved it—her—more than earthbound life itself. He swam forward, surrendering himself to her.

  Her arms closed around him with surprising strength, and she turned, kicking with controlled violence, shooting them downward toward the inky depths of the abyss. His lungs felt strangely tight, and the clock in his head ticked past six minutes. Seven. Eight was about his normal limit.

  Nine minutes. Ten.

  If she didn’t turn around pretty soon, his beautiful mermaid was going to kill him!

  He struggled in her embrace trying to tear free. But she was too strong. Completely disinterested in his silent pleas to let him go. Down, down she went with him. The pressure was too much. Every cell in his body screamed for relief. For air. He thrashed violently. He had to break free or die!

  “Wake up, Aiden. For God’s sake, quit flailing around! We just got your breathing settled back down.”

  Disoriented, he opened his eyes. Bright lights blinded him and he squinted against the painful glare. Something plastic descended to cover his mouth and nose, and he sucked in the aerosolized bronchodilator medication desperately.

  The pressure in his lungs eased. His panic receded. Exhausted mentally and physically, he sagged back against the pillows. Memory returned. “The girl?” he rasped.

  The ship’s medical corpsman answered, “Alive. You got to her in time. Gemma doesn’t think she suffered any brain damage, but we won’t know until she wakes up. Gem’s got her sedated and on antibiotics.”

  Aiden relaxed. Dr. Gemma Jones was the best. He took belated note of his surroundings and recognized one of the yacht’s cabins. As he recalled, it was outfitted with two twin beds. He turned his head on the pillow and spied the occupant of the other bed. He lurched.

  His mermaid.

  Except she was pale against the white sheets, her glorious hair dry and spread out across the pillow like honey-streaked silk. Her eyes—if they were the golden-hazel of his dream—were closed, her breathing light and slow.

  He took the nebulizer off his face and sat up, swinging his legs carefully over the side of the bed. He felt as if he’d gone a few rounds in a boxing ring against the Champ...and lost.

  He stood long enough to shift his weight to the edge of the girl’s bed. He couldn’t resist running his fingers through the soft strands of her hair. “Who are you?” he murmured. “What were you doing out on the open sea by yourself?”

  Her eyelids fluttered slightly.

  “Can you hear me?” he said more urgently. “Can you open your eyes?”

  Her eyelids fluttered again and then opened. They were his mermaid’s eyes. Except right now they were confused. Frightened.

  He spoke gently. “You’re safe. You’re aboard the Sea Nymph. I rescued you when your boat sank.”

  The girl frowned. “Water,” she croaked. “Dark. Cold. Dying.”

  His recent nightmare of nearly drowning vivid in his mind, he didn’t have to ask what she meant. “I dived for you and pulled you out,” he explained.

  Her gaze filled with tears and her hand slid across the sheet to touch his. He jolted at the touch of human flesh against his. It had been so long. So very long...

  She whispered hoarsely, “Thank you.”

  “Sleep now. You need rest.”

  “Be here? When I...”

  As her eyes drifted closed he answered low, his voice rough, “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

  * * *

  Sunny drifted in a white world that was safe and warm and blessedly bright. And always her rescuer was there with her. Anytime she opened her eyes, his was the only face she saw before she drifted, comforted, back into her cocoon. But eventually the demands of her body began to intrude. Thirst. Hunger. An ache in her chest and raw soreness in her throat.

  She opened her eyes. The small, mahogany-paneled room was familiar as if she’d seen it before, but she had no memory of it. She turned her head and spied another bed. With a person in it. More specifically, a man. The one who’d saved her from a watery death, apparently. A bronze and godlike hunk of a man with muscular arms and a sculpted chest above the white blanket. Wavy blond hair with the electric shine
of a frequent swimmer fell back from a strong face. He wasn’t exactly

  beautiful—his face was more about character and strength—but it was a compelling face nonetheless.

  She lifted her own blanket and looked down. Whose tank top and shorts was she wearing? At least she was decent. Startled at how wobbly she was, she climbed out of bed. How did she get here? She cast back for details, but it was foggy.

  And then a piece came back to her. Something big and black bearing down on her. The shock of cold. And then darkness. Abruptly, she remembered the terror. Suddenly, she was in the water again, panicked, unsure of up or down, knowing that her time was running out and that she desperately wanted to live. She stumbled toward the door, bumping into the sleeping man’s bed, but not caring in her panic. She had to get out of here! Outside. Into the open air. Sunlight.

  The man’s eyes opened. He asked sharply, “What’s wrong?”

  “Have to get out,” she gasped. “Claustrophobic...”

  He jumped out of bed quickly. Holy cow, he was tall. Even more imposing upright than he’d been in bed. He put a hand on her back and whisked her toward the door. A dim, narrow hallway beyond was no comfort, but the man moved down it swiftly, his big hand propelling her forward.

  Up a short flight of steps, and then they were outside. Blessed sky, big and open and blue and bright, opened up above her. She breathed deeply as her pounding heart slowly returned to normal. She became aware of her surroundings and got her first good look at the vessel she was on. Good grief. This yacht was huge.

  “Who are you?” she asked her rescuer. “Whose yacht is this?”

  “I’m Aiden McKay. And the Sea Nymph belongs to a friend of mine. I’m borrowing it for a little deep-sea fishing expedition.”

  “What are you fishing for...Moby Dick?”

  He smiled briefly, and his face transformed from striking to mesmerizing. Wow. “Apparently, I’m fishing for mermaids.” He paused and then blurted, “What’s your name?”

  “Sunny. Sunny Jordan.”

  He nodded awkwardly. “How is it that ship ran over your boat last night? Was it an accident?”

  She stumbled as last night’s terror rolled over her and she managed to practically fall into him. She didn’t plan it, honest. But all of a sudden, she was plastered against his chest as his surprised arms came up to catch her. He froze and went statue stiff. It was like cuddling up to the Rock of Gibraltar.

  “Are you going to, umm, faint?” he mumbled.

  “I never faint,” she retorted indignantly. But her whole indignation vibe was ruined by the quaver in her voice and trembling of her knees.

  His arms tightened fractionally as if to say he had her now and she was safe. She snuggled deeper into his rigid, but somehow comforting, embrace.

  A sobbing breath escaped her.

  “Who was on that ship?” he persisted. “Did you get a good look at it?”

  She glanced up at him and he was staring fixedly over her head at a distant point on the horizon. He looked acutely uncomfortable. And yet, his arms stayed wrapped around her.

  “The ship was all black. And so big. It came at me so fast….” She shuddered.

  He repeated more urgently, “Was it an accident?”

  The answer scared her almost more than being run down in the first place. Almost more than nearly drowning. She whispered hoarsely, “I don’t think so.”

  He drew back to stare down at her. “Who are you? Why would someone try to kill you?”

  Chapter 2

  Aiden waited expectantly for the woman to answer, but instead she merely shivered in his arms. “Who wants to hurt you?” he insisted.

  Eventually, she sighed and relaxed, her slender body shifting against his and making his chest tighten—but pleasantly. Far too belatedly, dismay flowed through him. He knew better than to indulge himself like this. He’d sworn off women. Changed his ways. Turned over a new leaf...and apparently been lying to himself like a big dog that he’d actually changed.

  “I’m a filmmaker,” she announced as if that answered everything. “I was collecting footage for a documentary on the commercial deep-sea fishing industry.”

  An uncomplimentary portrayal, no doubt. But uncomplimentary enough to kill her over? He frowned. He didn’t recall seeing the giant cranes used for deploying and hoisting fishing nets protruding from the silhouette of the vessel that had sunk her boat. “Are you sure it was fishermen who ran you down?”

  “I’m not sure of anything except my boat is gone, and I’m really glad you came along when you did and saved my life.”

  So was he.

  The moment threatened to become intimate as a sexual charge started to build between them. He was desperate to lean into it, to lose himself in the feeling he knew so well. But he wasn’t that guy anymore. He didn’t party his way into the bed of every hot chick he laid eyes on. He had a purpose now. Focus. At long last, he had some self-respect. Still. This particular hot chick felt pretty fantastic in his arms—

  A voice intruded from behind him. “I see my patients are up and about.”

  He stepped back hastily from the girl. Whether he was more chagrined at the interruption or abjectly relieved by it, he couldn’t say. “Hey, Doc,” he mumbled.

  “Aiden. How’s your breathing?”

  “Fine.” An awkward silence descended. It had been a long time since he’d had need for social niceties, but he roused his rusty skills to mutter, “Sunny, this is Doctor Gemma Jones. Gem, meet Sunny.”

  The two women nodded at one another. “How’re you feeling today?” Gemma asked Sunny.

  “Okay, I guess. My throat feels awful.”

  “It’ll clear up in a few days.” The doctor added, “If you’ve got a little time later, I’d like to run some simple neurological tests on you.”

  Sunny answered, “Give me a shout-out whenever you want to do it.”

  “How about now, then?” Gemma responded briskly.

  Aiden scowled at the interruption of their time together. He was making good progress—

  He cut off that train of thought sharply. He did not progress with seducing women anymore, dammit.

  Gemma announced, “I’ll get my bag and be back in a few minutes.”

  The doctor’s departure was apparently the cue for the ship’s captain to make an appearance. Aiden sighed. It was a plot to keep him from having any time alone with Sunny. Or more likely, they’d come to enjoy watching him squirm. It wasn’t often these days he interacted with women for this long. “Sunny, this is Captain Steig Carlson.”

  “As in the ship’s captain?” she asked, eyeing the big blond Swede a little too appreciatively for Aiden’s taste.

  Steig smiled and held out his hand to her. “That’s right, Miss Jordan.”

  “Call me Sunny.”

  “Only if you’ll call me Steig.”

  Aiden managed not to roll his eyes, but it was a close thing. “So, Steig. I assume you tracked the ship that wiped out Sunny’s boat?”

  “We followed it until it rounded an island and we lost radar contact. By the time we passed the headland, it had blended in with the other traffic in the shipping lanes. I can tell you one thing, though. It was fast. We had to push the throttles wide open just to maintain the gap between us.”

  The Sea Nymph could run at thirty knots if she had to. And the other ship had been able to match that speed? Modern whaling ships could move that fast, but not too many other fishing vessels could do it. “Any idea who she was?” he asked.

  Steig shook his head regretfully. “We never got visual on her again after we picked you and Sunny out of the water.”

  “Did it look like a fishing boat to you?” Aiden asked.

  “No. Wrong rigging for fishing. It looked more like—” the Swede frowned “—I’m not
sure what. Research vessel, maybe.”

  Aiden and Steig traded grim looks. They were both thinking the same thing. A surveillance ship of some kind. Why would some foreign government have it in for a lone, independent filmmaker? They both looked over at the woman leaning on the rail, eyes closed, face turned up to the sunshine. Who was she? And what in the hell had she really been doing out here?

  Aiden asked in sudden recollection, “Sunny, what was in that bag you were clutching when I dragged you up to the surface?”

  She frowned, then her eyes lit up. “Did my camera bag make it aboard with me?”

  Aiden had no idea. He’d passed out shortly after resuscitating her. Steig answered, however. “Yes, it did.”

  “Where is it?” she asked eagerly.

  The captain was prevented from answering by the arrival of Doctor Jones to test Sunny’s brain function. Gemma shooed Aiden and Steig away with a promise to return their shiny new toy to them later.

  As Sunny threw a startled glance in his direction, Aiden scowled at Gemma. The doctor had the social skills of an amoeba sometimes.

  A sailor called for Steig to return to the bridge, and Aiden made his way belowdecks. It was a simple

  matter—track down the cabin where Sunny’s clothes, laundered and pressed, had been hung in a closet. Sure enough, her bag sat on the floor beneath the hangers. Steig’s crew was nothing if not efficient.

  He should leave the bag alone. Let the poor girl have her privacy. The new Aiden didn’t pull stunts like this. And yet, he pulled the waterproof sack out of her closet. He needed to know if the reason she’d nearly been killed was something she’d recorded, right?

  Armed with that thin logic, he dumped the contents of the bag onto her bed. A few dog-eared family photos. Cell phone. Wallet. A flash drive. An impressive array of high-tech camera gear, including memory cards for her digital movie camera. Dozens of them.

  He loaded a random card into her camera and pushed the play button. The footage had been taken underwater. A school of dolphins was circling, playing with the cameraperson—presumably Sunny. Shafts of sunlight streamed down into the sea and various fish darted in and out of the light. It made him want to take off his clothes and dive overboard right now. But then, his longing for the water was never far from him.