Hot as Hell (Deep Six 0.5)(18)

So close…

The memory of the kiss he’d stolen right before he hopped overboard from her father’s yacht blazed through his brain. Soft lips. Sweet breath. An eager tongue that stroked his until—

Oh, eh! Was that his heart beating a rhythm to do a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade proud? Were those his ears buzzing? Was the idiot in his pants swelling with the memory? To his dismay, the answer was yes to all questions.

Funny how he could remain cool as the proverbial cucumber when he was forced to assemble an M4 in the dark under heavy fire. But put him within spitting distance of one miniscule, sassy-mouthed Texas-tornado-of-a-blond and he turned into a total chump.

Madison “Maddy” Powers…

Even her name was enough to have butterflies fluttering drunkenly inside his stomach.

Reaching for the glass of water near his hand, he took two big gulps, hoping to drown the mothersuckers. Then he cocked his head, listening, when the slamming of the screen door was followed by the echo of voices and the clickety-clack of scrabbling dog claws.

“Everyone has catnip. That certain something that drives them wild. That one specific thing they just can’t get enough of.” Alexandra “Alex” Merriweather’s words drifted into the kitchen from the living room.

“Are you still talking?” Mason McCarthy’s voice sounded like a bass drum following Alex’s squeaky soprano.

“Mine is Sex and the City,” Alex admitted, ignoring Mason’s question. “My field of study requires that my nose be buried in books all day long. So when I relax I want mindless, wanton entertainment. I want Sarah Jessica Parker and her gal pals. I want boobs and booze and boinking.”

Boinking?

Despite the drunken—and now sodden—butterflies in his stomach, Bran felt a grin tugging at his lips. Alex had only been part of their crew for ten short weeks, but she’d wiggled her way beneath their skins. Kinda like a damned chigger. In no time, they’d grown to love her like a kid sister.

“I have the first season downloaded onto a thumb drive,” she continued. “If Bran didn’t get the satellite dish working, what do you say to watching a Sex and the City marathon with me?”

“No,” Mason replied, never one to use ten words when one worked just fine.

“Why not?” There was definite pique in Alex’s tone.

“Because I have robust mental health and I don’t want that to f*ckin’ change.” Mason was a Southside Boston boy, so his speech—when he actually spoke—tended to be liberally sprinkled with f-bombs.

“Oh, ha-ha. Very funny,” Alex said just as Mason appeared in the doorway.

Mason wasn’t a tall man, topping out at only 5'11". But what he lacked vertically, he made up for horizontally. With hulking shoulders and massive arms, he looked less like the SEAL he was—they might have officially snapped their final salutes to the Navy, but once a SEAL, always a SEAL—and more like he should be guarding the gates of hell. Slobbering and panting noisily near his feet was Meat, the English bulldog that followed Mason around like a fat, furry, excessively wrinkly shadow.

Bran wasn’t sure why, but he slammed the lid of the laptop and felt color rise in his cheeks. Mason glanced at the computer, then at Bran, lifting a brow. To Bran’s relief, Mason said nothing.

He couldn’t say the same for Alex. Standing next to Mason, she looked diminutive—diminutive and about twelve years old, thanks to her riotous mop of curly red hair and the sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose. The first words out of her mouth were, “I take it you got the satellite dish up and running.” The next words out of her mouth were, “So, are you catching up on your daily dose of porn or what?”

Daily dose of… Bran choked.

“No judgment here.” Alex held up her hands. “Just…” She glanced around the kitchen, wrinkling her nose. “Not where we eat, okay?”

Bran shook his head and gave her a long-suffering look. “It wasn’t porn.”

Alex’s expression telegraphed her disbelief. “What else would make you slam the lid on that thing like you were trying to keep a barrel full of snakes from popping out of the screen?” Her green eyes flashed behind the lenses of her tortoiseshell glasses.

Uh-oh. Bran knew that look. He didn’t like it one bit. “Don’t do it,” he warned.

“Do what?” She blinked innocently.

“Whatever it is you’re contemplating that’s likely to piss me off.”

“Oh.” Alex nodded sagely. Then, proving she wasn’t the least bit scared of him—and that she had the reflexes of a ninja—she snatched the laptop from him, dancing out of his reach when he tried to lunge over the kitchen table to retrieve it.

“Ah, ah, ah!” She cackled like she was auditioning for the part of Cruella de Vil while turning her back on him and holding the laptop away.

“Fungule, Alex!” he cursed. The New Jersey Italian boy came out in him when he got worked up.

“You know the rules.” She tsked. “We have to share.”

Wayfarer Island was a remote spot of land between Cuba and Key West. It was officially owned by the U.S. government, but for the last century or so it had been leased to LT’s family—LT being Bran and Mason’s former commanding officer, the one who had invited them to join him on his hunt for the legendary ghost galleon when they bugged out of the Navy.