In Too Deep (5 page)

"I don't need to remove my top—my arms stick out the sides, in case you haven't noticed."

"Honey, I've noticed everything about you, up to, and including, this little mole right here." He brushed a finger under her right ear, and the small hairs all over her body stood to attention.

Tally discovered there were other ways to drown. And she was going under for the second time.

Chapter Three

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The injury to the back of her arm was long and raw; several stitches had pulled out, probably while she'd been swimming for her life. Blood seeped slowly from the four-inch gash on her pale olive skin.

Michael held her gently by the elbow as he inspected the wound. "The salt water did a good job, but some of the stitches should be replaced. Is there a doctor on Paradise?"

"I don't think so."

For a plain little thing she was profoundly sensual. Except for her wounds, her skin was clear and creamy, eminently touchable. Tousled, damp, black hair framed her face. Guileless blue eyes watched him with misplaced trust. The longer he held her gaze, the faster the pulse at the base of her throat throbbed.

Michael felt a twinge of admiration for her as she maintained eye contact. Unable to resist, he brushed a thumb over the soft skin of her inner elbow. Her long, black lashes fluttered, and she drew in a sweet, sharp breath at the contact but she didn't look away. The rush of lust he felt was a surprise. He'd felt nothing in nearly a year.

Perfect.

Not only would she make a powerful weapon to use against Church, seducing her would be a pleasure. Michael abruptly released her. He wasn't interested in
feeling
. He'd smile and say the right things. He'd play to her emotions until those big blue eyes of hers shone with anticipation… and then he'd lower the boom without a qualm.

All he had to do was remember another time and another set of trusting blue eyes.

There'd be no deviation from his chosen path. In the end, Tally Church Cruise would be just another casualty of war.

"I have some butterfly bandages in my first-aid kit. Should do the job."

Her lashes dropped as she inspected a scratch on her thigh. "Great. Thanks."

About to rise, Michael glanced down at her legs. "Jesus," he muttered, noticing the abrasions there for the first time. "What the hell happened to you? Were you in some sort of accident?"

"Several," Tally admitted wryly, blue eyes ironic as he gently touched her leg.

The secret, Michael warned himself, was to gentle her to his touch without getting sucked in to the sensual haze himself. He could do that. All he had to do was ignore how soft, how sweet, how… shit. He rose. "Stay put. I'll get the first-aid supplies."

"I'll be right here."

He paused, unable to resist brushing her cheek with one finger. "Try not to damage any other body parts while I'm gone."

Tally smiled. "I'll do my best, Captain. Will you be gone long?"

"All the way to the galley and back."

"Six whole feet? I'll try to restrain my party instincts in your absence."

"Are you a party girl?" he asked from the galley.

She chuckled. "Hardly."

Her husky laugh went right through him. Michael shot up a mental block. The woman was Trevor Church's daughter. A means to an end. Nothing more. "Do you always sing when you're scared?"

"It's a lot easier and more convenient to sing than to lug around a cello."

His lips twitched. "Can you play the cello?"

"Not as well as I sing," she said with a smile. "And it sure beats screaming."

He smiled, because her unfortunate singing voice was pretty damn close to screaming. "Yeah, I'm sure it does." He returned with a small first-aid box and crouched at her feet.

"I can do tha—" He looked up at the same time, and she jabbed him in the eyebrow with her outstretched hand.

She jerked back. "
Caray
! I am
so
sorry…"

He glanced up, angling his head because she was on his blind side. "Honey, I only have one eye as it is. Want to just sit still and let me take care of this?"

"Sorry." She sighed. "I can't believe how clumsy I've been lately. I used to have perfect balance. I even learned how to walk a tightrope once. Of course, I was only seven at the time."

The scrapes on her knees were several weeks old and didn't require much attention. Michael made busywork as he listened. "Not something every kid learns," he murmured, dabbing on the antiseptic both of them pretended was needed. "Did you want to run away and join a circus?"

"Nope." She smiled. "My mother and I stayed outside Paris for about a year. One of the other boarders was an acrobat. He gave me lessons in his spare time."

"Have you used this unusual talent since?"

She grinned, blue eyes filled with amusement. "There's not much call for acrobatics in my line of work."

"Which is?" There was a fresh scratch on the back of her slender ankle. "Does this hurt?"

"No—yes, a bit. I'm a translator."

Michael applied antiseptic to the cut, then smoothed on an unnecessary Band-Aid. Her calf muscles were long and firm and led his gaze to her thighs, and beyond that to…
Knock off this shit, Lieutenant
. "Do much traveling?"

"Not if I can help it." Her voice was dry as she shifted to allow the cat to step onto her bare legs. Green eyes stared at Michael unblinkingly, as if the animal were saying, "See? I'm where
you
want to be." The cat draped himself over Tally's thighs with a put-upon sigh.

"I'm the proverbial homebody," Tally said, stroking Lucky's dense, black fur.

A homebody who got blown off yachts, was covered in scrapes and bruises, and whose father just happened to be the meanest, most sadistic son of a bitch Michael had encountered. And in his occupation—
former
occupation—he'd run into the worst.

"Where's home?" he asked, realizing that he'd been cupping the back of her calf while listening to her. He stroked his thumb rhythmically across the sweet curve at the back of her knee and watched with satisfaction as her eyes hazed.

It took a moment for her to answer. "Chicago. What about you?"

"You're sitting in it."

A nomad. Tally mentally shook herself out of a sensual fog and almost sighed. It figured. The first man she'd been attracted to in years was just passing through.

She relaxed against the thickly padded seat while Michael inspected her legs for injury, his breath warm on her shin. The feel of his slightly calloused hands on her skin was more arousing than it was soothing, but if he felt the same way he was much better at hiding it than she was.

"This poor cat doesn't look too lucky to me," she said dreamily, enjoying the sensation of the cat's silky fur beneath her palm. Loving the feel of Michael's hands stroking
her
, Tally almost purred more loudly than the cat.

"Are you kidding? He'd just used up his ninth life when I ran across him in a back alley in Hong Kong."

And what, Tally mused, had Michael Wright been doing in a back alley in Hong Kong? "Not literally, I hope?"

"Nah." Tally heard the smile in his voice. "Didn't bother him that he was cornered by the biggest, ugliest mutt in creation. He maneuvered just fine on three legs. Once we'd shown the dog who was boss, Lucky followed me back to the
Nemesis
. Been on board ever since."

"Ah. I love a happy ending."

"Not a lot of those around."

"No, I guess not. But it's nice to believe in them. Arnaud and Lu could've used one." She ran her fingernails over the cat's head, across his back, and to the tip of his tail. The cat arched under her hand. "Thanks for rescuing me and giving me a shot at finding a happier ending than they got."

"No thanks necessary. It's the law of the sea."

"Is that anything like the code of the West?"

His grin revealed even, white teeth. "Sort of. Speaking of the sea, what brings you all the way to Tahiti? Vacation?"

"First in three years," Tally admitted, trying not to wince at the icy sting on a particularly raw spot on her left leg.

He glanced up. "You're a workaholic?"

"No. Well, maybe." She really, really needed to do something about her boring social life when she got back. Work had become a replacement for the family she so desperately wanted. How pathetic was that? "I enjoy my job, and usually let the employees with families take the best vacation weeks. Don't get me wrong—I'm not completely altruistic, really. It's just that when vacation time comes, I'm not that enthusiastic about going anywhere. I usually end up staying home and fiddling about in my garden. I can do that weekends, so why take off weeks and weeks?"

"And this time?"

She smiled. "My father sent the ticket and invited me to come for a visit."

"Are you close?"

"Not really," Tally said wistfully. "He left when I was five. We've never had an opportunity to connect, but maybe we can now that I'm an adult."

"Parents divorced?"

"Never married. My stepdad adopted me when he and Bev, my mother, married years later." God, Tally thought, not for the first time, she'd used up so much time yearning for her "real" father that she'd wasted what should've been wonderful years with the man who'd treated her as his own.

"What better place to connect than an island paradise. No distractions. Sea and surf. Sounds ideal."

"I hope so. And not a moment too soon, either. I swear I've become my own worst enemy in the last couple of months. My boss almost forced me onto the plane. He claimed I'd better leave town before I got run over by a bus." She smiled.

"A run-in with a bus did all this?" Michael motioned with the pink stained cotton at her scrapes and bruises. His slightly too long hair had dried, and she noticed how the sun had bleached the shaggy ends. She resisted the urge to touch. His hair. His bare shoulders. His face.

"Thank God, no buses involved. This one"—Tally pointed at her left knee—"was when I tripped
up
the stairs going to the El. This one when I bumped into some guy in the dark and wound up tumbling down the stairs at the movie theater. You'd think I'd just learned to walk. If I wasn't falling over my own feet, it was near misses with falling flower pots and eating the wrong mushrooms at the deli."

She wasn't intrinsically clumsy. Although over the last few weeks she'd begun to wonder if she had some sort of hex following her, because she'd suddenly become accident-prone.

Three years without a vacation was too long. This break in her routine was way overdue. Of course having the boat blow up could hardly be attributed to exhaustion and the need for a vacation. By surviving, Tally reckoned she'd broken the jinx.

Unfortunately, close proximity to this man made all her nerves and muscles jump to attention like a hormone-driven adolescent. Since she'd never experienced anything like it, she was as fascinated as she was perplexed. Was there such a thing as survivor's lust?

"Sounds dire."

"It isn't. I just need a long, relaxing vacation, and where better than Paradise?"

"The ideal place to relax," he agreed. "Turn around a bit so I can get at the scratch on your arm."

Tally let out a little shriek as the antiseptic bit into the open wound.

"Sorry," Michael said gruffly, then blew on the sting. Tally almost melted into the cushions. "This is healing fine. A little seepage where the stitches were pulled. The butterfly bandages are tucked into the left side there." He nodded at the first-aid box sitting open on the table. "Hand me one, will you?"

Tally sorted through the contents with her fingertip until she found the bandages. "From what I've heard, Paradise isn't that big. What does your father do way out here? I imagine he's not old enough to be retired… or is he?"

Tally pulled the paper off the bandage and held it stuck on the end of her finger until he was ready. "No. He's a boat broker. Buys and sells luxury craft."

"They say the prices they sell those boats for are sheer piracy." He took the adhesive strip and applied it gently to her arm. His hair brushed against her chin as he bent over her. The masculine smell of him made her heart beat faster.

Lordie Miss Claudie, she had it bad. Tally smiled. "I guess so. He's not going to be happy about the
Serendipity
going kaplooie, I bet."

He nudged her bare foot, and an electrical charge shot up Tally's leg. She jerked out of his way and bumped her knee on the underside of the table. Her elbow connected with her still full coffee mug. Hot liquid spilled over the table and dripped onto the floor.

"Easy."

Right
. Her cheeks felt hot. "Let me get a rag—"

"Stay put."

"Do you have any stain remover?"

He glanced up and gave her a wry look. "You know, I meant to ask Martha Stewart for some the last time she dropped by, but—"

"Fine. Liquid detergent should work. Shall I—"

"It's only a carpet."

"If you use regular soap, it'll make the stain permanent, or at lea—"

"Relax, okay? What were you and your friend doing away from harbor just before a typhoon?"

"We weren't aware there was going to be a typhoon. Trust me, if I had known, no one could've pried me from dry land."

"At least this'll give you something to talk about when you get back home, right? What I did on my Tahitian vacation…"

"Or, how to survive a yacht explosion and live to tell about it," Tally said dryly. "Same goes for you, I suppose. Where were you headed before the storm broke?"

"Sailing around the world to see what I can see. I'd planned to stop at Paradise to replenish supplies and take on fresh water." He shrugged. "Hadn't considered staying any longer than a couple of hours, but now it looks like I'll need to make time to have some repairs done, and to order a new mast before continuing." He ran a finger lightly over her abraded knee, and Tally sucked in a sharp breath as a shot of pure lust traveled up her leg.