Bass thought he could jerry-rig to run the water pump. And they found a toolbox. Armed with a hammer and pocket full of nails, Cole scrounged under the house for pieces of scrap lumber that he hauled up to the porch and nailed across the windows. They weren’t as good as sheets of thick plywood, but they were better than nothing. The boards would break the worst of the wind pummeling the glass and should catch large pieces of flying debris.
He and Bass stumbled inside an hour later, wet, cold and exhausted. Construction in hurricane-force winds turned out to be strenuous stuff.
Ashe and Nissa had been busy inside, as well. They’d hauled in a big pile of firewood from the porch and stacked it beside the wood-burning stove, in which they had started a fire. Baked beans were heating in a pot atop it, and the sound of running water came from the bathroom, where Ashe poked his head out to announce that they should have enough water for several days. He’d also filled a dozen empty moonshine jugs he’d found with water for flushing the toilet.
As they pulled chairs around the wood-burning stove to warm and dry themselves, Nissa asked in a small voice, “Are we going to be safe here?”
She looked fearfully at Cole for an answer, and he replied, “This old place is sturdier than it looks. Jessamine won’t be its first hurricane.” He forced himself to give Nissa a smile in hopes that it would encourage her. “We’ll be fine. And even if something unexpected does happen, we’re SEALs. We take problems as they come and deal with them.”
They’d battened down the hatches in the nick of time, for within the next half hour, the winds outside rose from a roar to a howl and then to an ominous scream. The entire structure shook alarmingly, but it held.
For now.
Nissa crawled into the only bed in the cabin at the unanimous insistence of the guys. They assured her they were perfectly comfortable sleeping on the floor. Cole set up a watch rotation for himself and his men, and then he urged her to get some sleep before the storm got bad.
This wasn’t bad? The walls shivered every time a big gust hit, and she shivered right along with the tiny cabin. The glass in the windows rattled, and she flinched every time something hit the boards nailed over them, sure that this was the time the window was going to shatter and let in the full fury of the storm.
What had she gotten herself into, volunteering for this insane mission? It wasn’t supposed to be like this at all! She was supposed to hang out with some super hot Navy SEALS and catch a notorious bad guy, thereby advancing her career, which was rapidly threatening to die of boredom in a beige cubicle. Although, she had gotten the super hot SEAL part of the deal. All of the men with her were extremely easy on the eye. But the one she couldn’t look away from was their leader.
Cole Perriman was totally hunkalicious. She’d tried really hard not to fantasize about crawling all over that spectacular physique and keep her mind on business, but it had been rough listening to the inbriefing he’d given her and his two guys. She kept getting distracted by how big and rugged he was, but how he had movie-star looks, too. He was a perfect blend of raw masculinity and sheer beauty.
Her friends back at Langley wouldn’t believe she got to work with him. She vowed before she headed back to Virginia to get a few pictures of him to show to the girls around the watercooler...and maybe to fantasize over when she returned to her bland, dull, colorless life.
The wind got so loud it hurt her ears, and it was relentless, moaning and roaring like nothing she’d ever heard before. She finally resorted to pulling the covers up over her head in a futile effort to block out the noise. And maybe she was also hiding like she had as a little girl, when monsters had come calling in the dark of her bedroom at night. She always had been a giant thunder-chicken.
As exhaustion overtook her body, her thoughts drifted, replaying the horror of the past twelve hours: sailing into the teeth of a hurricane, the nightmare climb aboard the Anna Belle, the frantic search for shelter as Jessamine roared ashore. She’d been so certain she was going to die a watery death, drowned at best and bashed to pieces by the stormy sea at worst.
When she finally fell asleep, it was no surprise she dreamed of water. Except in her dream, the ocean was not black and angry...
The sea was brilliant turquoise, light and warm and lazy, and she swam below the surface easily, breathing water. She swayed gently as surf rolled past overhead, untouched by the cheerfully churning surface of the sea.
Her hair drifted in pale wisps around her, and she was startled to realize she was naked. The sea caressed her body lovingly, and she felt safe. At home down here.
She became aware of a large shape moving toward her, knifing forward with strong strokes of humanoid arms. She started to backpedal in alarm, but as the man drew near, she recognized his beautiful, chiseled face and stilled. Cole.
He stopped before her, righting himself until he floated vertical, as naked as she in this underwater dream world. He smiled at her and the temperature of the water around her rocketed up. She looked down and was captivated by his body, more spectacular than she’d imagined in her waking state. His skin was smooth and supple, the musculature rippling beneath it nothing short of spectacular. The man was sculpted like a god. Poseidon would be the correct one, she supposed, given that they were underwater.
His long legs kicked lazily, the deeply-cut muscles of his thighs powerful even underwater. And those abs. Washboard stomachs like that should not be legal. They were certified lethal weapons. Fascinated, she stared at his torso, her underwater breathing coming fast and shallow as her gaze followed the V-line of his obliques downward to the dark curls and his manly parts, which were impressive even at rest.
If possible, her breathing accelerated even more, sounding loud inside her head. The current nudged her toward underwater deity Cole and she let it carry her close enough to feel the heat of him radiating to touch her skin. Everywhere his warmth caressed her, she burned for him.
His silvery blue gaze captured hers, igniting with desire as he stared at her. Suddenly, the water around them was boiling hot, and he willed her even closer to him. Their feet and knees tangled together as they treaded water, only inches separating them now. Each accidental bump sent her pulse a notch higher until her heartbeat pounded like a drum in her ears.
Her belly tied in knots by the intensity of his stare, she looked away, her gaze drifting to his mile-wide shoulders and the bulging wreaths of muscle tapering to powerful arms. His right hand moved forward slowly toward her free-floating breast, giving her plenty of time to splash away from it. But she only watched with breathless anticipation as his big, tanned hand approached her pale flesh, visibly quivering with desire. She needed him to touch her like she needed to draw her next watery breath.
His fingers were strong, his palms heavily calloused. A warrior’s hands. Capable hands. Hands that knew how to kill and—oh, my—hands that knew how to give pleasure. His thumb rubbed across her taut nipple as he cupped her weightless breast, kneading it gently. Her back arched as she strained toward him, desperate for more of his drugging touch. Every inch of her body ached to be his. To be taken by him. Claimed and possessed by him.
He must have read her thoughts for, all of a sudden, he surged against her, his legs entwining with hers, his erection pressing into her belly as hot and hard as a branding iron. His left arm captured her waist, his other hand still making magic on her breast.
Her left hand traced the lean indent of his waist, and slid around to his back, tracing the deep ridge
