Hell or High Water (Deep Six #1)(66)
“Down uncuffing the rest of the crew and getting them some water. What’s the plan now?”
A strange silence descended over the room, and then Leo glanced at Olivia. “With the Wayfarer and all our gear gone, there’s no way we can dive down and retrieve…” He let his sentence dangle, flicking Maddy and the captain a look. “The jig is up. We have to mark this one in the L column.”
“Uh…we have dive equipment,” Maddy offered, ignoring the little voice in her head that was screaming, What the hell are you doin’? Just stay calm, stay quiet, and get yourself out of this as quickly as you can! Calm she figured she could handle. The quiet part was never something she’d been good at. “Wet suits and tanks, buoyancy compensators and—”
“We need special deep-dive gear,” Leo cut in. “The bottom is two hundred feet down.”
“Right. So you’d want tanks with oxygen, helium, and nitrogen. Trimix, yeah? And a special high-performance regulator?” What the blue blazes do you think you’re doin’? She felt all eyes in the room land on her. “What? My oldest brother is a diver. And he wanted to go down on a wreck that was past the 130-foot mark, so he got certified. All his gear is on board and—”
“Maddy,” Mr. Swoon-Worthy said, and she glanced up to see him smiling at her. She nearly ass-planted at the sight. Because if he was swoon-worthy before, now he was panty-melting. She’d never seen a man quite so handsome. It should be outlawed.
“What?” she asked, unconsciously licking her lips.
“Anybody ever tell you that big brass balls and a loud mouth are sexy as hell when they’re combined with deep-dive equipment?”
She snorted, the sound not at all ladylike. “Nope,” she told him, a wry smirk kicking up the corners of her mouth. What the heckfire was wrong with her? Nothing about this situation should make her smile. But here she was, grinning like a loon. “You’d be the first.”
Chapter Fourteen
3:37 p.m.…
“Have they found it yet?” Leo asked, closing the refrigerator door and leaning against it.
Olivia propped her hip on the counter in the yacht’s galley. Unlike the one on Wayfarer-I, this floating kitchen had all the bells and whistles. Stainless-steel countertops, rich teakwood cabinets, and a wine refrigerator stocked to the gills with expensive vintages. Fancy. But she preferred the salvage boat’s galley. Probably because it reminded her of Leo. No frills, no frippery, a little rough around the edges, but completely, one hundred percent dependable. Practical. Unfortunately, thanks to her, that galley was now sitting at the bottom of the Straits.
Guilt and regret had pretty much become her constant companions since Syria. And when you added in the steaming pile of shit that this day had become? Yeah, she might need to come up with some pet names for the twin emotions soon.
“No.” She shook her head. “But it’s not for lack of trying. Everyone except the engineer and the deckhand, who I suspect are in their cabins slathering themselves in aloe, is on the bridge with eyes on the depth reader and the fish-finder sonar.”
“That can’t be fun,” Leo said, twisting off the cap on a bottle of Fiji water.
“Well, it’s not nearly as high-tech as the equipment on your ship, but since we know approximately where to search, the gear on board should be enough to do the job.”
“I meant bein’ up on the bridge. You know, what with the near-headless terrorist and all.”
“Oh. Yeah.” There was that. “Maddy put a sheet over him and another over most of the mess.” The woman was like a shaken soda can, fizzing with energy and vitality. “So it’s not as bad as it was. But, still…” She shuddered.
“You’re not very good around dead bodies, are you?” He took a swig of water, his tan throat working over the liquid. She wanted to stop talking about corpses and walk over there to run her tongue over his pulse point, feel the life in him thrumming hot and heavy against her lips. He would welcome it, she knew. More than welcome it. He’d probably make that low, growly noise in the back of his throat, the one that was both a supplication and a warning. But to do that would be the coward’s way out.
She crossed her arms, not sure if the gesture was one of self-defense or more because the interior of the yacht was air-conditioned and the cool air against her damp clothes raised goose bumps. “Is anyone good around dead bodies?” she asked.
He shrugged one huge, bare shoulder. He didn’t seem to notice the chill. Probably because he’d already changed out of his soaking clothes and donned a wet suit. Or partially donned a wet suit. He was only really wearing the lower half. The upper half was unzipped and rolled down around his trim waist, the neoprene arms dangling beside his thickly muscled thighs. That meant his mile-wide chest with its smattering of burnished blond hair was on display. Maddy had called him a golden god. Olivia couldn’t refute her. All that tan skin, all those gleaming muscles, all that health and breadth and height did make him seem almost ethereal. Too perfect to be mortal.
But then there were his scars…
Add one more to the list. He’d hurriedly pulled the edges of the torn flesh on his right shoulder together with a half-dozen butterfly bandages. But no amount of suturing would keep it from leaving one whopper of a mark above his big, colorful Navy SEAL Budweiser tattoo. And besides revealing that he was, indeed, corporeal, all the evidence on his body of past injuries spoke rather loudly of the life he’d led. A life of fighting and violence. A life of killing.