Riptide (13 page)

The boat was a hive of activity, and it was easy enough to inquire from the guy polishing the glass on the elevator where she’d find everyone. Near the dive platform on the aft deck. Good. She’d have a chance to see just what it was that Nick wasn’t willing to share. Bria settled her sunglasses on her nose as she stepped out onto the deck, and almost knocked over the freckled guy with her heavy purse as he was walking over to the nearby cooler for a drink. “Sorry. Miles, right?”

“Yes, ma’am.” She shook her head when he offered her the soda he’d just dug out of the ice. He was wearing blue-and-green board shorts and had a wet towel slung around his neck. Big globs of white sunscreen streaked his entire face and body, but he was as red as a boiled lobster despite the SPF protection.

“Are you— Did he— You seem okay.”

“I’m fine. Really,” she assured him when he gave her a worried frown.

“Perfect timing then,” he told her, his smile shyly inviting.

“For breakfast I hope,” she said, returning his smile as her tummy rumbled.

“Nah. To see what Olav and me brought to the surface just now. It’s the most amazing— Come on. You have to see this.” Endearingly oblivious that he still had zinc oxide on his fingers, he grabbed her hand and hauled her along in his wake.

All the divers were clustered around something on the table, but the only man Bria saw was Nick. Like the others, he wore a swim suit—black—and was bare-chested. And delicious looking. Her pulse picked up the thudding rhythm of some sort of machine nearby. He was like a giant magnet. Her body felt charged, drawn toward his muscled strength, and it took everything she had to keep her mind firmly in line.

No touching. None.

Fire
.
Hot
.

He glanced up as she approached, his chilly blue gaze going from her face down to her hand clasped in Miles’s.

Conversation subsided.

One look at Nick and Miles let go as if her hand had suddenly burst into flames. He was certainly red enough for contact burns, but his embarrassment wasn’t nearly as intense as her annoyance at Nick, who raised one supercilious eyebrow.

“After last night…” he trailed off suggestively, his voice husky and intimate despite their surroundings. He walked—stalked—over to her, leaving three feet of deck between them. Crowding into her personal space.

Instead of backing up, Bria lifted her chin and met his gaze through her dark glasses.

God, was he going to kiss her again? Here, in front of his men? After she’d told him no?

Looking up at him, she held her breath. He was close, but he didn’t touch her. “I thought,” he said, lowering his voice so that it sounded even more intimate, “I told you to stay put and wait for me.”

It was a neat trick to imply that they’d spent the whole night in each other’s arms instead of just a few minutes followed by an autocratic and emphatic order to, “Keep your ass in here until I come for you.”

Miles sidled away, his ears glowing redder.

She tilted her head to meet Nick’s eyes, dead on. Fearless. “Nobody stopped me.”

“I thought your good sense would do that.”

Did he sound … annoyed? Bria wanted to grab his wrist and take his pulse to be sure. “I don’t like being confined,” she told him, forcing her steady gaze to lock on his. Not that he could see her eyes hidden behind the dark lenses.

But since she was 98 percent sure that Nick could read minds as well as leap tall buildings, all while annoying the hell out of her, and almost making her climax with a kiss, she was pretty sure he could see the expression in her eyes just fine.

“Didn’t bother you last night,” he said, just loudly enough to carry.

He might as well tattoo MINE on her forehead. She shot him an under-her-lashes naughty look, and leaned in close, spreading her zinc oxide sticky fingers on his muscular chest. Then murmured in a stage whisper, “Are those mink-lined handcuffs always attached to your bedpost,
tesoro
?”

“No.” He moved forward to brush her lower lip with his thumb. His casual touch set up a blaze of chain lightning throughout Bria’s entire body. “Those were just for you.” He paused, a fraction, and added with more silken heat in his tone—his eyes—than she could handle, “
Bella
.”

“Okay, you two.” Mikhail slapped a beefy hand on Nick’s shoulder, breaking the odd spell that made Bria feel as though she and Nick were the only two people on the boat. Hell, the entire freakin’ ocean. “Give us a break. We’re all celibate here.”

Just like that, the heat she thought she’d read in Nick’s eyes was gone. Switched off like a light.

Oh, she wish he hadn’t done that. Because now Bria was determined to see it banked again, just to prove her point.

Chapter 7

“I’ll take you back down to our cabin,” Nick told her.

Oh, no way.
Her
rules. “That’s sweet of you, honey,” she said cheerfully, giving his white-streaked pecs a friendly pat. It was a mistake touching him because it affected her more than it did him. Bria retracted her hand as casually as she could manage. “But Miles wants to show me what he and Olav salvaged this morning.”

The men stared at the back of Nick’s head for so long, she wondered if he could feel their gazes drilling into his cold, alien mind.

His lip twitched. Or was it a trick of the light? “Fine.”

The men cleared a space so she could see what everyone was so excited about. The simple waterlogged wooden box, about the size of a modern-day briefcase, wasn’t impressive, to say the least. It looked as though bugs had been feasting on it for a long, long time. Was it filled with priceless jewelry? A fortune in gold? Seaweed?

It could be anything. Curious, and swept up in the mystery and intrigue of one little box, Bria asked eagerly, “Can you open it? What’s inside?”

Olav removed the top of the box with care. “It’s a medical chest, probably owned by the physician on board the
El Puerto
. Six centuries old, and see here?” He pointed. “This is a bleeding cup. This here is a surgery hook. Amazing, ya?”

“Wow,” she breathed. “Incredible.” Hyperaware of his every move, she knew without turning that Nick had come up right behind her. She felt the heat of his half-naked body radiating all the way down her back, and his energy force field enveloped her, causing her heart to pound and her palms to sweat. Being annoyed by him was exhilarating, she thought with a smile that—if he could see it—was sure to annoy him.

“The most fascinating thing is here, in my opinion,” Miles said, his face even more flushed, not from the sun but in excitement. “We think these small boxwood and tin containers contain tablets of some sort.”

Bria glanced up in surprise. They were awfully small. “Stone writing tablets?” Amazing, considering they’d been living on the seafloor and buried beneath the water for six hundred years.

“No,” Mikhail told her, his grin splitting ear to ear. “We think pills. Medicine of some sort, that would’ve been dissolved in water or wine to treat any number of complaints.”

“Or melted and applied directly to the skin,” Miles added.

“Maybe both,” Olav offered. “The containers are sealed well, so the tablets should be dry.”

“Open one so we can see,” Bria suggested, enraptured with the idea of six-hundred-year-old medicine.

“No.” Nick splayed his hand on her hip and leaned in over her shoulder so his breath fanned her cheek. “The entire medical kit is an archeological coup. This find is too unique and valuable to contaminate by exposing the contents to air.”

Disappointment filled her. A split second before the heat of his hand at her hip speared through her belly. Her blood. Her girl parts sat up and took notice, and did a hopeful, happy dance.

Fire
.

“We’ll preserve everything as is and send it to our lab for analysis,” he continued, talking now to his team over her head. “Brian will need a microscopic amount for the FTIR machine to identify all the organic compounds. He’ll do advanced DNA analysis and whatever other tests are required to get the full picture. Until then?” His breath stirred tendrils of her hair at her temple as he tilted his head a fraction, this time to look down at her profile. It took everything she had to remain still. Not turn her head and see if he was close enough to kiss. “Sorry. We wait.”

Bria let out a sigh of disappointment as Nick straightened, circling around her to run his hands over the small case. She had to remember the end game, here. No matter how intriguing, how was an old suitcase of pills going to bring in any cash? “Will you sell it? It seems like a lot of work for very little reward.”

All eyes swiveled from the case to her, but it was Nick—of course—who read her freaking mind. His eyes cool as the ocean water they’d dragged the box from, he said, “It’s not always all about money, Your Highness.”

“Do you dive?” Stan asked eagerly, vying for her attention and oblivious to the undercurrents. Maybe she was the only one who was aware of them, Bria thought, glancing around.

“I could take you down to se—”

“The princess has things to do belowdecks,” Nick cut in, his tone brooking no argument. “Maybe ano—”

“I do,” she said, cutting
him
off with enormous satisfaction. She bestowed a thousand-watt smile on Stan. “And I’d love to see the wreck.”

Nick slid a restraining arm across her shoulders. “After our calisthenics last night,” he said suggestively, dangerously smooth, “maybe you should lie down. Or soak in the hot tub before doing anything strenuous.” His touch ignited sparklers of prickly heat on her bare skin.

She raised her chin. “So sweet of you to worry, schnookums.” She didn’t appreciate his innuendos, but she could hold her own. And then some. “Swimming will be a lot less…” She gave him a meaningful sideways glance from beneath her lashes. “Let’s say exerting, than going back to your cabin. A swim is just what the doctor ordered to keep my muscles limber.”

His eyes flashed blue warning.

She upped her smile. Just for him. “Stan and I won’t be long. Will we, Stan?”

He shot her a big grin in return, his bald head catching the sunlight so it looked as though he was wearing a metal beanie. Bria had always had a soft spot for guys who shaved their heads. Marv, her bodyguard, had shaved his head for as long as she’d known him.

“I’d like to go with you. Won’t take more than an hour,” Miles promised.

“I’ll run down and change,” she all but purred as she saw a small muscle flex at the corner of Nick’s mouth. Finally. A reaction.

Good.

Toying with Nick was like prodding a tiger with a stick, then pulling its tail when it turned around snarling. Scary, but God, something about needling him was exciting as hell.

His fingers tightened at her shoulder. “I’ll go down with you, then.”

Whoa, no way. “That’s sweet,” she said quickly, brightly, intentionally misunderstanding. “But Stan asked first.”

“To my cabin.” His lips curved into a knowing slant. “To change.”

Even worse! The whole point of this was to get away from him. “I can find my own wa—”

His fingers dug into the ball of her shoulder, and his forearm was a yoke across her neck as he lowered his mouth to her ear to add in a carrying murmur, “I don’t want you out of my sight. Darling.”

She gave up, keenly aware of the number of eyes drilling holes in their little performance. She gritted her teeth through her smile. “Then let’s go.”

There was a certain amount of safety in numbers, but she wasn’t being given a choice. Short of diving in her dress—not likely—she had to either go with him to change now for a few precious moments out of his reach, or forfeit diving at all.

Fine. She shot an all-encompassing smile at the group. “Thanks for showing me your treasure, guys. I’ll be back in a flash, don’t do anything fun without me.”

Nick’s pace didn’t shorten, and he didn’t let her go, forcing her to move faster as they went through the sunroom, sliding the door closed behind them. Basim and Khoi were cleaning, one pushing a vacuum cleaner, the other polishing chrome and glass. Nick shifted his grip from her shoulder to the back of her neck under her hair, propelling her across the large room with silent determination.

“Don’t,” he warned in a harsh undertone as she tried to break free, his fingers tense at her nape as they stepped into the elevator.

“I’m perfectly capable of walking on my own,” Bria told him, her temper and—oh, yes! sexual awareness—simmering on a low rolling boil. She could handle him just fine. One hand tied behind her back. She just didn’t want to.

Okay. That wasn’t strictly true, she acknowledged. She didn’t quite know how to handle a man who kept his emotions under such tight control. The real problem, she realized uncomfortably, was that she didn’t know how to handle a man like Nick Cutter. A man who refused to be handled.

She grabbed his strong wrist. “You’re hurting me,” she told him tightly. His implacable hold didn’t hurt at all. Not even a little, a nifty trick, because despite the pain-free grasp of his long fingers she couldn’t break free.

And he knew it. “No, I’m not.”

“I don’t need to be restrained. And I don’t need assistance to walk.” She tried to peel his fingers up one by one. He used his other hand to dislodge her effort.

“Someone made an attempt on your life six hours ago,” he reminded her, shoving her gently through the curved glass door as soon as it slid open. Her wedge sandals wobbled precariously, and she obeyed his unyielding directions rather than let him drag her out onto the upper deck level where his office and suite were located. He would too.

“You said you’d find him,” she began, and clicked her teeth together as he spoke over her.

“That someone is now dead himself.”

Bria’s steps faltered, and goose bumps of buried fears roughed her skin as the game she was flirting with became deadly serious. “He’s dead?”

“We have video from our surveillance cameras. He was thrown overboard an hour after he attacked you.” Nick met her gaze, implacable as ever. “So instead of fighting me, how about we do things my way and keep you alive?”